Madness, Badness and Immaturity: Some Conceptual Issues in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy

Contrasting pairs of terms, for example, 'mergedness' and 'separateness,' play an organizing role in many versions of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. These pairs are meant to define two contrasts: between maturity and immaturity, and between psychic health and psychopathology. It is argued that this is too much weight for any terminology to bear. However, it follows not that we should abandon the terminology, but seek a proper understanding of what it means. It is argued that the contrast these terminologies primarily define is an ethical one, and the ideals of human relatedness they embody is compared to similar ideals in Aristotle, Iris Murdoch, and Kant. Along the way the paper attacks the claim that certain kinds of psychopathology are common to normal infants and ill adults.