Neurotic Being and Erotic Time: Philosophic Reflections on Hans Loewald's Contributions to Psychoanalysis

This essay considers Hans Loewald's critique of Freud, which centers on the conflict between static and fluid visions—a conflict that arises in the psychoanalytic conception of reality but also in the mirroring of the analyst, in the development of the ego, and in the evolution of the psychic structures as a whole. In exploring the shortcomings of the static, Loewald directs our attention to what should be the central inquiry of psychoanalysis. It is not merely possible for psychoanalysis to conceptualize reality for itself but in fact necessary and intrinsic to its nature and goals. Psychoanalysis is uniquely capable of thinking about reality in a way that acknowledges and requires that which cannot be translated into more mature ego-reality experience. In Freud's work on telepathy and the uncanny we see that psychoanalytic theory, practice, and the ensuing conception of reality, must integrate more primitive ego-reality experience. This integration must be dynamic, in Loewald's terminology, without limiting itself to the kind of 'neurotic' explanation that distances psychoanalysis from the subject that it must always transform and disturb.