Where are we going, where have we been?

Abstract

This editor’s introduction maps out the author’s reflections on the past trajectory of Psychoanalytic Perspectives while also charting out potential directions for its future. She reviews some of the influences that have helped shape the current context of contemporary psychoanalysis, and elucidates the dilemma facing the current Relational psychoanalytic moment, as she sees it. Relational psychoanalysts have been walking a tightrope, squeezed by the perils of the twin pitfalls of relativism and dogma, and the author advocates for more clarity and dialogue around the central ethics and beliefs that hold this theoretical perspective together to create a coherent Relational psychoanalytic identity.

Keywords:

• relational psychoanalytic identity
• contemporary relational psychoanalysis
• relativism and constructivism in relational theory
• Stephen Mitchell
• psychoanalytic theory.

It is with a sense of great humility that I write this introduction as the new Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Perspectives. I am honored to be taking on this position, and grateful to the Board of Directors of NIP; to Kenneth Frank and Clemens Loew, original founders of NIP and this journal; executive editor Hillary Grill; senior editors Rachel Altstein and Karen Perlman; and all of the other members of the journal staff, whose work is a true labor of love. I would also like to especially thank Steven Kuchuck for his mentorship and encouragement, and for his faith in me as I enter into my new position. He has guided and overseen tremendous growth at the journal over the last 10 years, shaping our mission, consolidating our identity as a Relational¹ psychoanalytic journal, and engaging us in the most contemporary dialogue of the moment. Steve has led the journal staff with remarkable vision, creativity, and insight and has made his mark on the field of psychoanalysis in the process. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from Steve as I have grown into the role of Editor-in-Chief, and hope to carry on his mission, for us to challenge ourselves to move ever more centrally into, and to think ever more deeply about, the theory and practice of contemporary psychoanalysis.

***

I first came to psychoanalysis by way of its literature, when I fortuitously picked Totem and Taboo off the bookshelf just as I was beginning to contemplate a change in my career. Freud’s (1918) ideas about the basic primal nature of the human psyche enthralled me from the start; I hooked in powerfully to the ideas that we could have a shared human mythology that unconsciously guides our lives; that we have internal motivations that are out of our awareness; and that there is uncharted meaning concealed in the world of fantasy. Since then, I have been on a quest to find out more about the mysterious world of the human psyche, using the field of psychoanalysis as my primary guide. Throughout analytic training in Relational psychoanalysis and in the years since, my passion for the theory and practice of psychoanalysis has only deepened. I am a true lover of comparative theory: the ways different models fit together and diverge, their historical lineages, the ever-changing lines that divide different schools, and especially their valiant attempts to approximate and frame the forces that drive human behavior.

Of special interest—especially now, as I reflect on the past trajectory of Psychoanalytic Perspectives while also imagining its future—is our psychoanalytic heritage, and the socio-historical context that has brought us to the current moment in the field. Relational psychoanalysis is an omnivorous and variegated theory, one that has swallowed up concepts whole as it has grown, absorbing ideas from different therapeutic schools and modalities but also from outside spheres such as philosophy, cultural studies, social theory, politics, neuroscience, and the arts and humanities. There is a tremendous integrative engine behind the basic premises of Relational analysis that potentiates openness to different aspects of the field, creating space for enriching comparative and critical use of theory. As Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) outlined it, the relational perspective was meant to reclassify the ways that psychologically meaningful phenomena, viewed through almost any theoretical perspective, may be defined as originating in relationship rather than in endogenous biological impulses. This new lens brought together the worlds of Interpersonal psychoanalysis and British object relations; the intersubjectivity theory that grew out of self-psychology; feminist, queer, and social constructivist theories; and hermeneutics (Mitchell & Aron, 1999), to create a paradigm shift in the world of psychoanalysis. Moving out of a positivist frame has allowed relational psychoanalysts the freedom to locate ourselves using eclectic hybrid theoretical models that feel more sculpted to the needs of each unique analytic pair rather than insisting upon an adherence to an unyielding intellectual frame. In addition, the constructivist perspective has enabled us to take a more holistic view of the landscape of the field, and to think critically about the ways our theories do and do not interact with one another: what we choose to take in and what we choose to leave outside of the lines that keep defining and redefining Relational psychoanalysis.

One of the most profound insights of Relational psychoanalysis has been the essentially embedded, bi-directional nature of the analytic encounter (Mitchell, 1993; 2000); this frame highlights our shared and mutual vulnerabilities, the frailty of personhood, and the ubiquitous need for relationship at our most basic core. The focus on the shared naked subjectivity of the analytic relationship brings us into contact with our imperfections and mortality but also has the power to connect us to each other in ways that feel meaningful, vitalizing, and reparative. In addition, with the acknowledgment of the impact of relationality on human development (Mitchell, 2000), space has been made in psychoanalysis for the exploration of a wider, more complex range of intersubjective and social experiences. Our theory has now expanded to include more of the external influences that shape us, such as culture (e.g. Dimen, 2011; Guralnik & Simeon, 2010; Harris, 2012; Rozmarin, 2011), race and ethnicity (e.g. Harris, 2012; Suchet, 2004, 2007; White, 2007), the social meanings of gender and sexuality (e.g. Corbett, 1996; Goldner, 1991; Harris, 2005), political affiliations (Aibel, 2018; Samuels, 2004), historical trauma (e.g. Boulanger, 2008; Salberg & Grand, 2017), and immigration status (Boulanger, 2008; Csillag, 2017; Khouri, 2012; Rozmarin, 2017). The expansion of our scope augments our understanding of the ways multi-faceted identities develop and intersect with one another, and allows us to know our patients and ourselves in deeper, more complex ways. In this manner, the umbrella of relational psychoanalysis has continued to broaden to encompass the interstices of human identity and relationship in exciting and generative ways that speak to the multi-dimensional nature of a modern sensibility.

Now that Relational theory has coalesced into an established school of its own, with its own institutions, publications, and professional organizations, we face the challenge of how to maintain our common identity without allowing it to tip into oversimplification and/or reified standards. Indeed, though still flexible in many ways, in order to maintain our institutions, some conventionality has been necessary (and has naturally evolved) to stabilize the lines that define us. As with any tradition, there is a danger that this convention may leave us in communication with one another about many diverse topics, but with a pat dialogue that is narrowly defined and at times even politically motivated. As we become more established, how can we avoid becoming entrenched in our own perspective? We are still on a path toward integration, and there is tremendous benefit in this process; but with few exceptions (e.g., Druck, 2018; Ferro & Civitarese, 2013; Mills, 2017), we are in conversation with ourselves rather than with voices from outside of our immediate circles, and can thus end up with simplified, caricatured views of other theoretical approaches. Our understanding of ideas from outside of our normative spheres is often filtered by relational psychoanalysts, through the language of relational psychoanalysis, and consequently only shows us the utility of aspects of theories that align with ours, while often leaving out dissent or difference that might stretch our understandings in new directions. How can we continue to complicate the relational narrative (and/or dialogue), which might ironically be on a path to becoming too insular?

As others have suggested, perhaps a post-relational turn (Schwartz Cooney, 2017) is underway—one that can tolerate difference in a way that brings in diverse voices that have until now been excluded from mainstream Relational literature. We must be in dialogue with those who hail from outside of our established theoretical purview, in order to keep expanding our frontiers and enriching our theories. We have much work to do on bringing in diverse points of view outside of the conventionally accepted Euro-centric, hetero-normative, and gender binary language that psychoanalysis has historically employed (Eng & Han, 2000; Hansbury, 2011; Hart, 2017; Holmes, 2017; Saketopoulou, 2011, 2014; Stoute, 2017; Stoute & Slevin, 2017). In addition, I believe that part of our project must also include bringing back theories that we abandoned as our perimeters were defined: theories labeled one-person and/or positivist, such as Freudian and more classical object-relational and self-psychological schools of thought that were dismissed whole cloth and excluded from our dialogue, but may now have something new to offer us. Theorists who have been banished from the mainstream dialogue in the past, such as Ferenczi and Jung, have slowly been rescued and brought back into our contemporary psychoanalytic discourse, and perhaps there is work to be done in bringing in and accepting additional older and more current exiled voices and excluded topics of inquiry. In this way, the second relational turn may constitute a turning outward toward the new and a looking back toward the old and disowned—a turn that is dialectical in nature (L. Schaupp, personal communication), encompassing both an integrative turn toward contemporary thinking and a return to the old theories that are part of our lineage, and keep developing over time (e.g., Amir, 2008; Eshel, 2013; Fosshage, 2003; Lemma, 2014; Levine, 2012; Sopher, 2018).

As I assume the position of Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Perspectives, I would like us to do more to bridge the divide between Relational and other schools of psychoanalysis by inviting people from outside of our perspective to tell us how they think and what they know. It would benefit us tremendously to learn more about the trends and topics other models are currently contemplating, to understand why, and to think deeply about how this does or does not fit in with the current Relational ethos. As part of the mission to continue to locate ourselves within the landscape of contemporary psychoanalysis as a whole, I would also like this journal to encourage intergenerational dialogue between new and established voices, and to expand and deepen the discourse between relational psychoanalysis and other schools of thought.

***

In addition to broadening our discourse, I believe we can also work to deepen our understanding of Relational psychoanalysis itself by looking inward and drilling down to locate and define more of our fundamental beliefs. From my perspective, we are at critical juncture in the history of the relational movement. The first generation of relational psychoanalysts—those who trained in classical institutes, and moved in an act of rebellion to oppose the classical, positivist, one-person models of the therapeutic relationship in favor of the relational perspective—have been among the most prominent psychoanalytic voices of a generation. Their ideas have revolutionized the field, ushering in the key notions of mutuality (Aron, 1996); multiplicity (Bromberg, 1993, 1994; Davies, 1998; Mitchell, 1993); enactment and dissociation (Bass, 2003; Benjamin, 1990; Black, 2003; Bromberg, 1998, 2006; Davies, 1996; Stern, 2010); constructivism (Aron, 1992; Hoffman, 1991); recognition and the intersubjective third (Benjamin, 1990), and the dialectical (Hoffman, 1998) and dialogic (Pizer, 1996; Slavin & Kriegman, 1998) models of psychoanalytic process.

As Davies (2018) notes, the first generation of relational analysts can be thought of us a group of analytic immigrants, leaving the home countries of their initial, more classical trainings and analyses to embrace a new philosophy and culture of psychoanalysis. But if the first generation of relational analysts are immigrants, we in the second generation are their analytic offspring, and, as often happens, looking to consolidate an identity that was originally derived out of reaction to the status quo. The second generation of relational psychoanalysts—those who have trained in primarily relational schools, and so who are not and have never been in dialogue with classical psychoanalysis—face a new dilemma. Where the first generation asserted their voices in staking out new territory and laying claim to areas of theory that were ripe for change, the second generation is charged with carrying on the tradition in a manner that is more structural, in order to preserve a sense of tradition in the passing of knowledge from generation to generation. This requires that we as a group know what we stand for, are able to stand firmly in our beliefs and communicate in a shared language, all the while maintaining an intelligible psychoanalytic lineage that started with Freud and has been branching in myriad new directions ever since. No easy task, but a vital one, and one I believe we must continue to articulate and refine.

We have been walking a tightrope, squeezed by the perils of the twin pitfalls of relativism and dogma, and in some ways, this balancing act has inhibited our abilities to develop a more affirmative claim on a distinct Relational heritage. Ironically, the dilemma we are facing grows out of the position delineated by Mitchell (1993) as he started the movement that would change our dialogue; his commitment to avoiding fundamentalism of any kind, and to dismantling the hegemonic model of psychoanalysis may have inadvertently left us at sea, afraid to speak with confidence about what we do and don’t believe. Mitchell’s was a necessary step in the growth of the field, but also makes the circumscription and dissemination of a unique theory more challenging. Tellingly, many analytic candidates in their last years of study at Relational institutes lack the capacity to articulate the central tenets of Relational psychoanalysis (Davies, 2018). This is a potentially alarming indicator of our future viability in the field over generations.

There are thus two issues facing us, as I see them. On the one hand, as mentioned above, I feel that certain relational ideas have become too rigid, leading to the exclusion or oversimplification of other theories whose ideas could enrich the tapestry of our central concepts. On the other, in our openness and our unyielding dedication to the principle of uncertainty, we at times run the risk becoming too diffuse, and thereby losing our hold on what feels meaningful about our unique theory. Personally, I find myself feeling hungry for more from my psychoanalytic community—more clarity, more dialogue around what binds us together as a group, more ways of holding ourselves within a grounded Relational theory—and I think many in my generation share these same desires. One of my priorities is to develop a forum for deep inquiry into our central ethics and beliefs, so that we can provide a space for excavating and expanding the notions of what it means to claim the mantle of Relational psychoanalyst.

Because of the privileging of uncertainty as one of the central tenets of Relational theory, it seems to me that we have become hesitant to share with certainty what we know, and hesitant to agree or disagree with one another with conviction about what constitutes our shared Relational identity. The theories we house are varied, but more pointedly, so are their basic value systems and notions about what is reparative in the analytic relationship. Relational thought has been heavily influenced by both Object Relational and Interpersonal psychoanalysis, and there has been great creative benefit to melding these unique models that so complement and conflict with each other. But these differences also have the power to disband our loose assemblage, and thus press us to excavate more of the core beliefs that tether us to one another. Various camps within the Relational world clash around emphasis on the intrapsychic versus the intersubjective; the tilt toward developmental structures versus process-oriented phenomena (Mitchell, 1984); or the need for holding versus the importance of mutual authentic engagement (Bass, 1996; Slochower, 1996). Are the values of uncertainty (Davies, 2018), asymmetric mutuality (Aron, 1991), and authentic engagement between like subjects (Benjamin, 1988) powerful enough principles to create a theoretical umbrella for opposing models of therapeutic action? Is there a benefit to holding the threads of our lineage together, to proclaim which voices to include and which to exclude from our theoretical canon, or a benefit to even having a canon at all? What is the utility in maintaining one all-inclusive theoretical umbrella, even when those underneath it come from directly opposing theoretical vantage points (see, for example, the discussion between Grossmark & Hirsch, 2018)?

Every analyst maintains a curative fantasy (Ornstein, 1995), deeply held conscious and unconscious beliefs about the nature of cure upon which chosen theories and methods are based. We all have individual, private, often unconscious theories based on early experiences, about the ways to heal ourselves and others (Khan, 1974; Sandler, 1983), but we also have shared collective fantasies about cure that tie different schools of psychoanalysis together. These shared foundational myths constitute universally held convictions that contribute to the rationales behind common ideologies, practice guidelines and languages for how to think and speak about therapeutic action. Curative fantasies run deeper than intellectual understandings of psychoanalysis, binding people together in natural groupings with similar belief systems, usually undergirded by shared, common, early affective experiences.

Are there ties that bind relational psychoanalysts together with connections that are more emotionally profound than the intellectual theories that define us? Is there a curative fantasy that links us together in deep, unconscious ways that transcend intellectual ideologies? What beliefs unify a unique Relational identity? What would we need to create a consolidated Relational theory?

***

I would like to pose these questions as an invitation for an ongoing dialogue, and as potential aspirations for future directions of this journal. My first issue as editor attempts to get us thinking about these ideas through the inclusion of voices from both inside and outside the Relational world. We start out with a return to the fundamental project of psychoanalysis, our rootedness in practice, with an extended clinical vignette by the esteemed analyst Danielle Knafo. The case she presents is raw in its honesty, calling to mind Freud’s Eros and Thanatos, the ways sex and death can become fused and intertwined, and the difficulties this can bring in life and in treatment. The absence of theoretical formulation affords the reader an opportunity to enter the analytic room in its rawness and vulnerability, to generate her own creative associations to the material, and to wonder about the meanings communicated through and received by each of the participants in the clinical narrative. This clinical piece is framed by Dianne Elise, who focuses on themes of gender, sexuality and the maternal erotic, and Robert Grossmark, who discusses the case in terms of the limits of psychoanalysis and the impact a sense of “too-muchness” can have on the analytic relationship. The discussions are rounded out with a response by Knafo that addresses the reasons we choose to write about our clinical experiences, and what it might mean to have an “incomplete” psychoanalytic treatment—both for the patient and the analyst.

This grouping is followed by a paper by Alessandra Lemma, an internationally renowned author who writes here about the aesthetic link in the transference. Her frame of early object relations conceives of the physical environment of the consulting room and the analyst’s presence as the “body of hope” which can bring the patient back to an experience of an embodied self. She is followed by Dana Amir, another international voice who bridges many theoretical schools, defying categorization. She extends her thinking about the uses of language to write about latent and manifest levels of narrative in families who have been touched by intergenerational trauma. The theoretical frame through which she explores the concept of blank mourning comes from outside of our Relational canon, and in the process stretches our understanding of the ways we can fail to witness our patients’ traumas. We return to the interweaving of Eros and Thanatos as Julie Gerhardt invites us—also drawing on the concept of blank mourning—into her touching experiences during and after the loss of her husband to terminal illness. Through sharing her personal reflections, she tells the story of how she came to theorize a state of devastation, a separate category of loss that inhibits the capacity for psychic work; her personal experiences are framed by concepts from both inside and outside of relational literature to generate a novel understanding of the process of mourning. Gerhardt’s is followed by a piece by Jean Petrucelli, an Interpersonal analyst, who unpacks the process of packing, linking this to experiences of desire, and the anticipation of future self- and bodily-states.

The issue is rounded out by Jill Choder-Goldman’s Global Perspectives interview with Greek psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Grigoris Vaslamatzis, and a review of Jill Bresler and Karen Starr’s Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: An Evolving Integration, by Dana Charatan. Part of the unique voice of Perspectives includes providing the platform for creative expression in a variety of styles and forms, and we will continue to include literary works in the form of short personal memoirs and other creative compositions in our Private Lives and Creative Literary Arts sections in subsequent issues.

Issues forthcoming later this year will continue to take a holistic view of the field, reflecting on who we feel we are and who we might become as a group. One way we will do this is by looking at the reasons contemporary psychoanalysts chooses to address the topics we do, and how and why we communicate with each other about them. To that end, our next issue focuses on the psychoanalytic meanings of writing, and what it means to write psychoanalytically. Articles will analyze the writing process itself, the types of clinical stories we choose to tell, and the methodologies we utilize in the telling of them. The third issue will be filled with more voices from within and without, addressing topics of race, the cultural signifiers of disowned identities, intersectional enactment, integration with modalities outside of the scope of traditional psychoanalysis, and relational theorizing on mourning and mortality.

All of the articles presented in this year’s volume of Psychoanalytic Perspectives encompass old and new voices, different and exciting formats for presenting clinical and theoretical work, and topics that are diverse and of the moment. It is my hope that they will engage us in a vitalizing discussion about the future of contemporary psychoanalysis. I am committed to this journal’s tradition of remaining open to ourselves and each other, and to continuing to build a sense of connection and community among us.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Amy Schwartz Cooney, PhD, for her incisive comments, and Karen Perlman, PhD, LP, for her insightful revisions of and contributions to earlier drafts of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rachel Sopher

Rachel Sopher, LCSW is Board Director, Faculty and Supervisor, National Institute for the Psychotherapies; and Faculty, Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. She is Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Perspectives and maintains a private practice in New York City.

Notes

¹ Throughout this introduction, I will use “capital R” Relational to connote the New York School or North American Relational psychoanalysis, as first defined by Mitchell (1988), and “small r” relational to connote the umbrella perspective tying together many disparate schools that have been influenced by and become defined by perspectival philosophy (See Kuchuck & Sopher, 2017).