On Multiple Epistemologies in Theory and Practice: A Response to Jon Mills’s “Challenging Relational Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Postmodernism and Analyst Self-disclosure”

Abstract

Mills’s critique of relational psychoanalysis is pivotal in reintroducing issues of truth into psychoanalytic theory but does not allow us the full benefit of the many insightful criticisms of traditional psychoanalytic claims. A way forward may be found by admitting multiple epistemologies into analytic discourse and unveiling the domains within which each epistemology may allow us to determine whether a statement or a belief is true or false.

Keywords:

• epistemology
• multiplicity
• psychoanalysis
• psychotherapy
• truth

Notes

¹ Each of the specified truths are embedded in certain epistemic premises. Thus, the correspondent truth reflects a realistic epistemology that allows the comparison of statements and facts. The ideal truth is embedded in an objective-idealistic epistemology that posits the existence of ideal, mind-independent forms. Alongside these two essentialist truths, subjective idealistic epistemology is home to the subjective and intersubjective truths. Coherent truth exists in both objective and subjective idealistic epistemologies. The pragmatic truth exists within the experiential realm and the confines of perceived external reality. For a detailed discussion of these issues, see Yadlin-Gadot (2016, 2017a, 2017b).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shlomit Yadlin-Gadot

Shlomit Yadlin-Gadot, PhD, is a practicing clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst and member of the Tel-Aviv Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. She teaches at the Bar-Ilan University doctoral program “Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics” and at Tel-Aviv University in the General Studies program. She writes and lectures on the interface of philosophy and psychoanalysis. Her book Truth Matters: Theory and Practice in Psychoanalysis published by Brill came out May 2016. She lives and practices in Ramat-Hasharon, Israel.