In Memory of Harold Searles: 1918–2015

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Notes

¹ Of course, we should keep in mind that the word schizophrenia was used more loosely even in the 1970s when Searles told this story than it is used today. It may be that what he remembers would today be thought of as a transient adjustment disorder or borderline state rather than a transient psychotic episode. On the other hand, Searles was in fact an expert on schizophrenia, and he asserted that what he experienced was close to a schizophrenic break. It is beyond the scope of this introduction to examine in depth Searles’s approach to both the cause and treatment of what he designated “schizophrenia,” but it is worth noting that his approach would be critiqued today for his neglect of possible biological contributions to etiology and of the impact of later antipsychotic medications in helping some patients cope with their illness.

² Melanie Klein’s earlier use of projective identification referred to unconscious fantasy, rather than a behavioral interactional event.

³ Although by citing the publication date of this first paper as 1978–1979, the reader misses that Searles had developed these ideas in the late 1940s and is thus one of the initial pioneers of the use of countertransference.

⁴ When Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) wrote that classic text, they did not include a discussion of Searles’s work, despite mentioning his powerful critique of Edith Jacobson’s ego psychological take on identity. However, Mitchell did invite Searles to be a part of the first editorial board for Psychoanalytic Dialogues a few years later. In fact, Mitchell was quite expert in and inspired by Searles’s contributions. Searles told Mitchell how disappointed, hurt, and angry he had been to be omitted from the book, believing he had made significant contributions in the area of object relations, and in the end Searles refused to serve on the editorial board.Mitchell (personal communication, 1990) told one of us (Aron) this was one of the most painful occurrences of his professional life and strongly regretted hurting Searles in this way. After struggling to understand how this omission came to be, considering how important Searles’s work was to Mitchell’s development, Mitchell’s best explanation was that Greenberg and Mitchell had organized their book in terms of “schools of thought” and did not see Searles’s contributions as representative of or confined to a particular “school.” Later, Greenberg would also tell Aron that he viewed Searles as more a clinical contributor than a theorist on the level of grand systems discussed in the book. And so it seems that in this founding work of relational theory, Searles’s work fell through the cracks.

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Notes on contributors

Lewis Aron

Lewis Aron, Ph.D., is the Director of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He has served as President of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psychological Association; founding President of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; co-founder and co-chair of the Sándor Ferenczi Center at the New School for Social Research; and was one of the founders, and is an Associate Editor, of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and series editor (with Adrienne Harris) of the Relational Perspectives Book Series, Routledge.

Amy Lieberman

Amy Lieberman, LCSW, is a Faculty Member and Supervisor at the Training Institute for Mental Health program in Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. She is in private practice in New York City.