Reflections On Some Current Controversies In Psychoanalysis

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Abstract
Recently published reports about completed analyses conducted by competent students with expert supervision permit us to compare two contrasting clinical traditions within psychoanalysis, that proposed by Heinz Kohut over the past decade and a conservative point of view sharply focused on elucidation of derivatives of the infantile neurosis. Analytic treatment based on each set of these theoretical assumptions will achieve valuable results--very different in kind in each instance. On the other hand, elucidation of oedipal conflicts without working through their developmental antecedents leaves patients with a variety of adaptive deficits and severe subjective discomforts. Kohut's clinical system produces important improvements in tension regulation and in reorganizing behavior in a more coherent manner, but it neglects a variety of other issues stemming from the less archaic sectors of the personality. Theoretical inferences derived from observations made in the course of such incomplete analyses fail to carry scientific conviction.

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