Abstract
This book, a major project undertaken by the American Psychoanalytic Association, is a revised edition of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, edited by Burness E. Moore and Bernard D. Fine (1990; third edition). The first edition, published in 1967 and revised in 1968, was also edited by Moore and Fine. A version of the current editors’ introduction to the volume was published in JAPA as “Psychoanalytic Lexicography: Notes from Two ‘Harmless Drudges’” (Samberg and Auchincloss 2010).
This volume consists of a thirteen-page introduction plus an alphabetical listing (encyclopedia style) of contemporary terms from a variety of theoretical perspectives in use in psychoanalytic discourse. The list of editorial board members, editorial assistants, committee chairs, and contributors reflects the range of theoretical perspectives today current in psychoanalysis. The sheer extensiveness of the list reflects the Herculean nature of the task the editors faced as they put together this volume. “This book,” they state, “represents the concerted efforts of a small army of people who devoted endless hours to its construction” (p. vii).
I would add that this small army certainly would not have succeeded without the efforts of its two generals, to whom we must tip our hats in gratitude. I had not previously read the version of their introduction that was published in JAPA, so reading it here for the first time was an intellectual delight; this essay should be required reading for every psychoanalytic student, regardless of experience or orientation.
The introduction is divided into several sections covering the history of lexicography, the history of psychoanalytic lexicography, the problem of psychoanalytic language, the problem of theoretical pluralism, and methodology. The editors provide us a fascinating history of lexicography (i.e., dictionary-making) dating back to the mid-third millennium
In trying to maintain this necessary balance among a variety of points of view, the editors write that their “most fundamental challenge” was “that the object of our study, the mind and the meeting of the minds, can be known only by putting words to observations and inferences. It is inevitable that observation and inference bear the imprint of theory, and that our relationship to theory is itself subject to the vicissitudes of unconscious processes. The concatenation of subjectivities involved in these processes presents a formidable challenge to any analyst trying to think cogently and critically about inferences and theories and how best to apply them to our work. The recent explosion of theoretical pluralism is a manifestation of that challenge but does not address the nature of that challenge itself ” (p. xviii).
In describing their point of view, the editors reveal what I would describe as their inner turmoil, trying to remain both true to their convictions and as fair and as objective as possible to the perspectives of others in the field. The editors define their perspective as “ego psychology or modern structural theory, with an admixture of object relations theory, self psychology, and developmental psychoanalysis inspired by the ideal of empirical validation for psychoanalytic terms and concepts, enlivened by relational points of view, sobered by the postmodern critique of the certainty of knowledge, and tempered by realism about the impossibility of finding clear and objective referents for terms and concepts pertaining to the mind” (p. xiv).
They maintain that their introduction represents their attempt to produce “coherent” definitions while “representing this dizzying collection of perspectives.” As a matter of fact, these sixty-seven words to describe their theoretical perspective, which I quote above, seem to represent the breadth of contemporary American psychoanalysis, excluding Jungian and Lacanian perspectives, which are defined in the body of Terms and Concepts, and humanistic and existential psychoanalysis, which are not.
Do the innumerable numbers of terms noted by the editors represent a strength or a weakness of our field? Are there underlying principles that unify these perspectives as parts of a single field? Or do these varying perspectives represent two or more independent fields?
The editors describe various approaches to the problem of psychoanalytic language: (1) systematize the language used to describe mental experience; (2) find ways to empirically verify inferences made about the mind and the clinical situation; (3) devise new language that more accurately describes the phenomena; and (4), the postmodern solution, challenge all such efforts (p. xviii).
Because of the lack of consensus in the field regarding psychoanalytic theory and language, the editors methodically chose contributors from a variety of perspectives with the goal of tolerating “a difficult tension in which we have tried to offer the dictionary as a safe, pluralistic institution where analysts from many schools of thought and many points of view can find a voice . . .” (p. xxii).
Given the rancorous debates that have marked psychoanalytic history going back to Freud, and given the subsequent balkanization of the field, including the development of theory-driven compendiums, the editors are to be commended for contributing to our progress with what might be called a volume of comparative psychoanalysis. This volume can be the prototype of a unified effort by psychoanalysts from many different perspectives to systematically compare and contrast similarities and differences among differing points of view. Are different terms traditionally used by groups essentially synonyms, or do they reflect “genuine” scientific distinctions? The comprehensive nature of this volume may be an aid to those trying to determine the nature of therapeutic factors common to the great variety of psychotherapies and psychoanalytic schools. Most practicing psychoanalysts believe that their way of working with a patient is the best way for that particular patient, consciously or unconsciously tailoring their interventions as they see fit. Yet how many psychoanalysts think there may be common factors underlying the therapeutic principles in the various forms of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy?
Many years ago the psychologist Saul Rosenzweig (1936), who died in 2004 at the age of ninety-seven, put forward the Dodo Bird Hypothesis, named after the character in Alice in Wonderland who announces after a race that “everyone has won and all must have prizes.” Rosenzweig claimed that a variety of psychotherapies had demonstrated equivalent effects. This hypothesis has been advanced, often in less colorful language, many times over.
To my mind, it is invaluable to have collected in one place the many terms used by psychoanalysts in describing how they attempt to help their patients. These terms, as listed in the book, include not only Therapeutic action and Therapeutic alliance (or Working alliance) but also Corrective emotional experience, Clarification, Close process attention, Confrontation, Implicit relational knowing, and Interpretation. This volume can contribute to the comparative study of these concepts by psychoanalysts of different orientations, including ego psychoanalysts, interpersonal psychoanalysts, object relations psychoanalysts, relational psychoanalysts, and self psychologists, all of whom are represented in the book.
Although the editors of the volume note that their intended audience is as broad as possible, they stress that their principal “imagined” audience consists of students of psychoanalysis trying to understand “our” literature. Do the editors accomplish this goal? How can we evaluate this worthy aim, and how can we improve this product as new knowledge is developed and as errors are discovered and in need of correction? Obviously, only in time will we be able to accurately judge the utility of this volume.
It does seem to me, however, that the book can contribute to the integration of psychoanalysis with the contemporary scientific and intellectual world. Many today study not only the nature of brain functioning but the environment’s effect on it, and on the expression of genes. The scope of contemporary psychoanalysis represented in this volume can help students and scholars in understanding the interface of psychoanalysis with cognitive psychology, linguistics and language (Bucci 2000), affective neuroscience (Panksepp 1998), and systematic empirical work (Hoffman 2009). As Eric Kandel has noted, “Psychoanalysis is, in the best sense, a part of biology; it is part of the analysis of mental processes, and these functions must have their foundation in the physical brain. Conversely, those aspects of biology that aspire to contribute to the science of the human mind must take the insights of psychoanalysis into consideration” (Kandel, Olds, and Glick 1999, p. 666).
Throughout the volume are found references to a variety of ideas about empirical process research. These are embedded in the discussions of psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic process, analyzability, and primary and secondary process. Other empirical work is also acknowledged: the neurophysiology of dreams is covered in the section on dreams, and the manualization of psychodynamic therapies is discussed in the section on psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Thus, this volume is posed to contribute to the integration of clinical approaches with systematic empirical approaches (Hoffman 2009). Unfortunately, however, most contemporary students of psychoanalysis privilege clinically derived ideas over systematically and experimentally derived ideas (Preter, Algus, and Hoffman 2012). It may be that psychoanalysis, unlike the other healing professions, which value systematic empirical studies, continues to be influenced by Freud’s original distrust of studies other than those of clinical psychoanalysis. This distrust was noted by Rosenzweig in 1997, in recalling his correspondence with Freud regarding his experimental studies of psychoanalytic ideas in the 1930s: “On two separate occasions (1934 and 1937), first in gothic script and then in English, Freud made a similar negative response to any attempts to explore psychoanalytic theory by laboratory methods. This exchange clearly underscored Freud’s distrust of, if not opposition to, experimental approaches to the validation of his clinically derived concepts. Freud consistently believed that the clinical validation of his theories, which were based originally and continuously on his self-analysis, left little to be desired from other sources of support” (p. 571).
Clearly the volume can be a venue for the integration of psychoanalytic ideas with other fields. As new knowledge influences psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic ideas influence other areas of knowledge, how can the volume be modified to incorporate these changes in a timely manner? For example, there is an ever growing body of knowledge concerning sex and gender, the body, pregnancy, the impact of the pregnant body on the psyches of men and women (including the pregnant analyst), parenting, and parent-infant treatment. One important modification the editors have made was labeling one of their entries Infantile genital phase, noting that “the renaming of this phase from ‘phallic’ to ‘infantile’ genital phase represents a rejection of Freud’s phallocentric theory of psychosexual development, which asserts that the penis is the principal object of sexual interest for children of both sexes . . .” (p. 111).
This correction, based on clinical and theoretical advances, of a discarded theory and its replacement with a new concept give us a clue about how to prevent this volume from becoming an historical relic. Can APsaA create a web edition of the volume similar to the American Psychiatric Association’s web edition of DSM-5, where updates and corrections can be regularly posted (Hoffman 2014)? Such an endeavor would make this volume a living document.
The editors and the contributors to this volume deserve our applause and deep appreciation for a scientific project that has just begun. Indeed, the completion of this volume can be seen as a commencement.