Abstract
Stephen Sonnenberg on Sidney Phillips: Paul Gray’s Narrowing Scope
Summary
In this communication, the author responds to Sidney Phillips’s recent assessment of the theory and technique of Paul Gray. The author identifies himself as one who worked with Gray as supervisee and training analysand. He summarizes Phillips’s assessment of Gray, offers personal reflections on his experience with Gray, and comments on what he believes will be Gray’s lasting legacy. Throughout the essay, the author agrees with Phillips’s speculation that assessing Gray only through his writings gives an incomplete picture of his clinical work.
Introduction
On page 152 of his recent assessment of Paul Gray’s work, Sidney Phillips (2006) writes “Here is a place where Gray’s writing—as opposed to his in-person views with colleagues or supervisees—may obscure from his readership his actual broad understanding of the mind.” Then, on page 166, Phillips adds “Gray’s writing style endangers his psychoanalytic legacy. Goldberger (1996) hints at just such a difficulty: ‘They [Gray’s important ideas about technique] needed detailed elaboration because someone not fortunate enough to have discussed analytic material with him in person might find it difficult to grasp fully the effect of his perspective on analytic work’ (p. xiv; emphasis added).” I could not agree more with what Phillips is pointing out: to appreciate what Gray stood for, one is immeasurably advantaged if one had direct contact with him. I also believe that Phillips delicately hints at something of great importance for the advancement of psychoanalysis: that if the field is to advance, especially in an era when much of what we do involves treating future colleagues, we must all overcome the taboo that to speak of our training experiences is dangerous and somehow unscientific.
I had extensive contact with Paul Gray during my training at the Baltimore-District of Columbia Institute for Psychoanalysis. He was my supervisor, and eventually my training analyst. While I also must add my awareness that this experience in no way privileges me to speak for others who had extensive contact with Gray, I do believe that I can say with confidence that Sidney Phillips got it right in his article “Paul Gray’s Narrowing Scope: A ‘Developmental Lag’ In His Theory and Technique” (2006).
First, I shall summarize what I, reading from my particular perspective, took away from Phillips’s contribution. Then, I shall offer some personal reflections on my experience of Gray in the roles through which I encountered him. I shall conclude with a comment on what I believe are Gray’s most important contributions.
A Personal Summary of Phillips’s Critique of Paul Gray
Phillips notes that Gray was a one-person analyst, who focused on the role of the unconscious ego. Gray believed that there was a technical developmental lag among analysts: as a group, we failed to appreciate the role of the unconscious ego, in particular, the defenses, in the creation of neurotic discomfort. He advocated a technique in which the analyst, working at the surface, listened for breaks in the analysand’s associations, and at that point neutrally commented on those moments, asking the analysand to figure out what sort of danger might exist that caused the break. Gray, as much as he could, would exclude transference observations from those interventions, and would leave as much space as he possibly could for the analysand to figure out what was going on in his or her mind to necessitate the obstruction of what would have otherwise become actualized in the spoken word. Gray also attempted to avoid penetrating the barrier between consciousness and unconsciousness, while making the kind of intervention described. Gray believed that this basic approach allowed the analysand to work without the persuasion or suggestion of the analyst, without the support of the analyst’s authority, and that this would assure the analysand that he or she might develop, as much as possible, an independent capacity to look inward and regulate the workings of his or her mind. This, Gray believed, would be the lasting benefit of a psychoanalytic experience.
Phillips notes that Gray’s views of analytic authority, the use of transference interpretation, the significance of the internalization of the analyst, the importance of analyzing aggression versus sexuality, and the nature of consciousness and unconsciousness differ from his. He convincingly explains that Gray ignored the existence of transference, especially transference to the analyst, as the encouraging, permissive, approving parent of a young child, when he encouraged his analysands to examine the breaks in their associations. He emphasizes, then, that Gray’s wish to avoid a transference cure ignored the extent to which he was engaging in just such a two-person, transference-countertransference dialectic. In sum, Phillips illuminates the way Gray underestimated the degree to which he inevitably possessed analytic authority, and the influence of that authority, in the minds of those with whom he interacted in all aspects of his endeavors as a clinical and teaching psychoanalyst.
Similarly, Phillips indicates that Gray was naïve in his failure to recognize the importance of the internalization of the analyst as a crucial component of the psychoanalytic process. Phillips believes that the internalization of the analyst has important benefits for the analysand, and that developmentally that internalization must be the focus for interpretation and analysis, and painful, authentic mourning, during the termination phase. He notes that Gray’s technique did not seem to recognize the importance of such a termination process. A related issue is that Phillips takes exception to Gray’s position that aggression is a more important subject for investigation than sexuality, in the most thorough and deeply probing clinical psychoanalysis. This relates to Gray’s view that analysands turning aggression against themselves is a central and demanding clinical challenge, and that it should take precedence over the analysis of libidinal issues. Phillips also notes, in this regard, that Gray believed that this was particularly true in the analysis of those aspiring to become psychoanalysts. Here, one thrust of his contribution suggests that Phillips would believe that analysis of candidates presents a clinical picture no different from analysis of others.
Finally, Phillips asserts that Gray’s view of the nature of consciousness is static, undialectical. He contrasts this with his view that there is no such thing as consciousness without unconsciousness, and vice versa, and that what might be conscious for the analyst at a particular moment might be unconscious for the analysand. Building on this, he tells us that Gray’s belief that he avoided penetrating the barrier separating consciousness and unconsciousness when he intervened is once again naïve.
I am aware that there are other important points that Phillips made in his article, but I choose to emphasize those about which I have written, because those are the points that touch me in the most personal way.
A Personal Experience of Gray as Supervisor and Analyst
I shall now offer a perspective on Phillips’s account of Gray’s work, which reflects even more specifically my own experience. As I previously indicated, I believe Phillips got it right.
When I teach Gray to my students, I always tell them that Gray was my analyst, and that he writes about doing analysis in a way which completely conforms to how he actually performed with me in the consulting room. He listened at the surface, he did not intervene in ways that suggested what he thought might be going on unconsciously in me, he pointed out breaks in my associations and invited me to comment on what advantage there might be for me in stopping the flow of my associations when I did. I add that during my entire experience with Gray as my training analyst, I recall not a single transference interpretation. He never sought to investigate with me what I felt about his authority, or his benevolent permissiveness. He never seemed aware of the extent to which he was internalized by me. He also privileged aggression over sexuality, working with me on the way I turned aggression against myself. There is no question in my mind that the analyst Phillips describes, based on his reading of Gray, is accurate as far as my experience of him is concerned. And there is also no question that Phillips is correct when he wonders if there are dimensions to Gray that do not come across in his written work, or at least in the written work he has emphasized.
Here, I wish to digress for a moment, and relate two recent personal experiences concerning Gray. The first took place during the summer of 2005. I had just given the North American plenary at the Meeting of International Psychoanalytical Association Training Analysts, held in conjunction with the 44th Congress of the IPA, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In that presentation, I had described a very unusual psychoanalytic supervision, during which, for a period of several months, I met with the candidate twice each week, once to focus on the analysand, and once to focus on the candidate’s difficulties in working with the analysand. This second meeting each week was, in many ways, a form of brief psychotherapy (Sonnenberg 2005a). I might add that my paper was very well received. After the plenary session was over, I stood with several colleagues who had known and worked with Gray, and who knew that I had worked with him as my training analyst. One said, “Paul is rolling over in his grave right now.” I responded that I thought that he would be very proud of me, had he been present at the meeting.
The second recent experience was at the January 2006 Annual Meeting of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, in Boston. I was a first-time participant at that meeting, and a friend of mine introduced me to many of the founders of the organization. That friend, on one occasion, said, “Steve was analyzed by Paul Gray, and he survived.” I responded that Gray was a very kind and generous man, a really nice guy, and that he had been very helpful to me. Survival had not been a challenge.
I relate these experiences because I think that Paul Gray as a teacher, clinician, and person runs the risk of being unappreciated and misunderstood, sometimes even by those who worked with him. In his 1973 paper, “Psychoanalytic Technique and the Ego’s Capacity for Viewing Intrapsychic Activity,” Gray emphasized that in the best case the goal of psychoanalysis was the promotion of self-analytic capability in the analysand (Gray 1973). Those who know my work are aware that I actively advocate for that position, and that I have done so by describing in a series of papers how that practice is a central part of my professional and personal life (Sonnenberg 1990, 1991, 1993a, 1993b, 1995). I see my own life and work as clear evidence that my analysis with Paul Gray was successful.
At this point, then, it is timely to point out another way Sidney Phillips hit the nail on the head. In his discussion of the importance of the internalization of the analyst, and the kind of mourning process that allows the male analysand to terminate successfully, he suggested that Gray’s technical perspective was inadequate. This was so, he noted, because Gray was unappreciative of the importance of the combination of internalization of the analyst, of the role of sexual feelings versus aggressive ones, and of the transference. While I have stated agreement on all those issues, here, in my experience, self-analysis trumps this shortcoming in Gray’s technique. It is true that when my work with Gray ended I had not gone through the kind of negative oedipal resolution, based on a powerful experience of mourning, of which Phillips writes. I had not fully explored the transference, with all the joys and disappointments that were a part of it, as the analysis came to a close. I had not mourned in a powerful way, with aggression, sexuality, hate, and love fully explored, of which Phillips writes. Yet I was able to do that subsequently, in my self-analysis, and eventually write about a derivative self-analytic experience related to it, and how useful that was in my clinical work (Sonnenberg 1995).
It is also important to note that Gray was a one-person psychoanalyst, and he did not give himself his due by failing to recognize that he was, in a very personal way, a very kind and generous man, and a nice guy. He was a very nice guy. He was not able to realize that these personal qualities helped to make him the outstanding clinician that he was. From my experience, I can bear witness that his kindness and generosity came across when I interacted with him, and that made what we did together possible.
Finally, I will add one vignette from my work with Gray as my supervisor. This took place before he was my analyst (he was my second training analyst). I have previously related this experience (1990, p. 457), and here I shall elaborate on it. I was reporting a dream of my analysand, and Gray asked me to associate to it. Suddenly, I realized that in the dream there was a veiled reference to me, and I said that to Gray. He smiled broadly and said, “You never let me down,” and then encouraged me to use that knowledge with my analysand. He was not telling me that I should make a wild interpretation, or even a deep interpretation, but he was telling me that I should use my own ability to penetrate the barrier between what is conscious and unconscious in me and another person, in a two-person analytic situation, in which I was capable of good resonance. He was telling me to use what I learned from such inner associations of my own to help my analysand expand his awareness of what was going on inside his head. And, as a future analytic educator myself, he was telling me that whatever his style was, he recognized that mine was different from his, and he wanted me to use my talents in the unique way of which I was capable. He was also telling me to have the same respect for the uniqueness of my students in the future.
Paul Gray’s Legacy
In a paper entitled “Taking Responsibility: Jim McLaughlin and the Paradigm Shift in Psychoanalysis in the United States,” which I presented at a conference entitled “Generativity: Honoring the Contributions of James T. McLaughlin, M.D.,” in October 2005 I suggested that the major change in psychoanalysis as it is practiced and taught in the United States today is that we have moved away from a dominant culture of shame (Sonnenberg 2005b). In that paper, I also made the point that this shame-based analytic culture reflected the fact that in Paul Gray’s generation of analysts, the analysis of the superego was inadequate, creating that culture of shame. I added that one of Gray’s most important contributions to our field is that he has taught us ways to perform superego analysis more effectively.
I cannot argue with Sidney Phillips that, in his writing style, Paul Gray was in some way shaming. Gray, among his peers, is to me an example of a man who worked hard not to be that way, but given his generation, it was inevitable that he had his blind spots and his own developmental lags. I also believe that his emphasis on aggression in his work with candidates may have been a reflection of his awareness that the training environment of that era was one that engendered enormous aggression among analytic students towards their training institutions, and encouraged them to turn their aggression on themselves. Perhaps it would have been more courageous for Gray to speak out openly against such abuses, but to my knowledge none among his peers did so, and I can understand that in the lonely world of clinical analysis such an action would have resulted in a kind of isolation that would have been intolerable to him. I do believe, though, that Gray understood more about this aspect of psychoanalytic culture than appears in his writings.
As I near the end of this appreciative commentary, I wish to convey what I think will, and will not, over time, be Gray’s enduring legacy. I do not think it will be close process monitoring or attention. I believe that will remain as one way of analytic listening, in a pluralistic two-person psychoanalytic world. I think it will be important, but not as important as two other things we have learned from Gray. I have already hinted at what I think they are: (1) the importance and possibilities for thorough analysis of the superego, including superego precursors, and (2) the development in the analysand of the capacity for self-analysis. The former is critical if psychoanalysis is to grow, because since so much psychoanalysis is practiced on future analysts, it is critical that they be empowered to conduct themselves in a way that does not engender shame in them, in their colleagues, in their students, and in their analysands. The second is critical if psychoanalysis is to meet its potential as a creative art and science. In my view, it is self-analytic capacity, which allows us to think independently, and to generate new models for practice and scientific validation of what we do.
Now, I will express an appreciative note as regards the contribution of Sidney Phillips. In choosing to write about Paul Gray, so soon after his death, he has taken on an awesome challenge. That I believe he has met it in superb fashion should be clear from this response to his effort. It is also important for me to say that Phillips’s emphasis on aspects of Gray’s technique other than the goal of self-analysis is more than understandable. It is easy to lose focus on that one point when immersed in the body of Gray’s work.
In closing, it is important to state explicitly that I realize that others who knew Paul Gray well might judge my account of his technique idiosyncratic. As a self-analyzing analyst, some might even conclude that it is self-serving. Others might believe that my experience with Gray was a matter of timing. I worked with him in the 1970s, which is relatively early in the evolution of his ideas. I have a different take on this. I believe Paul Gray, by his nature, was a man who was able to look at an analysand and make a sound judgment about how best to help that individual. I believe he got me right, and worked with me according to the basic principles of his evolving technique. That conclusion is consistent with how much of my experience with Gray conforms to what Phillips has observed about his technique. What I am able to add to Phillips’s take on Gray, again consistent with Phillips’s speculations about what is lost if one has only Gray’s writings as a source, is that within Gray’s technique there was room for the exercise of flexibility and clinical judgment, by a man not only guided by dogma, but also by his humanity.