The Future of Psychoanalysis

11. What Constitutes Progress in Psychoanalysis?

The disposition and activity of our and every age is to apprehend the science that exists, to make it our own, and, just in that process, to develop it further and to raise it to a higher level. By making it our own we make out of it something our own, different from what it was before. . . . Every philosophy, precisely because it is the exposition of one particular stage of development, belongs to its own time and is caught in that time’s restriction. —Hegel (1833, 10–11, 49) Some of the pertinent concepts of Hegel are relevant to the study of both the phenomenology and history of the development of psychoanalysis. Hegel’s investigation is called “phenomenology” because it attempts to stand back with as few preconceptions as possible and let the manifestations of the development of self-consciousness, as he thought of it, show progress toward the Absolute Spirit (or Mind, depending on how one translates his use of Geist) becoming conscious of itself. Similarly, it is possible to let the development of psychoanalysis appear and show whatever way contemporary pluralistic psychoanalysis has come into being. Our current uncertainty is in contrast to Hegel’s philosophy, for he was convinced that there was an inevitable dialectical development of consciousness towards the achievement of absolute eternal Truth. Our uncertainty then raises the question of whether or not the changes that have taken place in our field over the last fifty years really represent an approach to the truth or whether they simply represent a lateral movement , or even whether theory matters at all. A psychoanalyst’s opinion about the answer to this question will have a profound effect in determining whether or not he or she maintains and follows one or the other of the multiplicity of 197 11 What Constitutes Progress in Psychoanalysis? contemporary changes and theories on the assumption they represent progress in the technique and practice of psychoanalysis. The method of phenomenology (see chapter 4) hopes to get directly to what Husserl (1970) called the lived world, in contrast to abstractions, theories , and postulated agencies. One attempts to stand back and with as few preconceptions as possible observe the historical development of a subject such as psychoanalysis, allowing the manifestations of this development to appear before the person attempting phenomenological investigation. When one applies phenomenological study to the history and development of psychoanalysis , one finds that the current situation of a plurality of theories and orientations takes on a different coloration and tells something about our clinical ignorance regarding the whole psychoanalytic process. Hegel tried albeit tendentiously to introduce this phenomenological approach in his study of the development of human consciousness.This chapter selects and refers to some of the salient points made by Hegel in his philosophy that have pertinence to the phenomenology of the history and development of psychoanalysis. It will apply these points to the field of psychoanalysis in an effort to learn more about the confusing plurality in the field and to question the viability of the entire subject. Also the views of the well-known continental psychoanalyst Andre Green (2000, 2005a, 2005b) must be considered. Green maintains that the polite compromises in the field today, the attempt to accept and even endorse the massive pluralism in theory and practice that exists, constitutes “a pretense of tolerance, search for willynilly common sharings that are not very convincing and appear as life jackets to avoid sinking” (2005a, 126). Green claims this pretense and search for willy-nilly common sharings that are not very convincing prevents the collapse of the entire field. He does not explain how it prevents this collapse.This would imply that, in extreme contrast to Hegel’s belief in the inevitable development of consciousness to higher and higher levels of truth, the whole process of development leading to contemporary pluralistic psychoanalysis does not represent progress. It is instead for the purpose of preventing the extinction of the discipline by finding room for everybody. HEGEL’S THOUGHT Presented here are a few basic concepts of Hegel’s thought, only those that might be found to be pertinent to an examination of the phenomenology of the development of psychoanalysis.1 A centerpiece of his thinking is that there exists really ultimately only one system of philosophy, not a plurality of isolated systems, and this system extends from the Greeks all the way through historical development culminating in the thought of Hegel! Thus for Hegel, 198 The Future of Psychoanalysis [18.222.67...