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How do theoretical differences impact the analyst's interpretive function?

In the 1997 Karen Horney Memorial Lecture, Otto Kernberg takes on this question. Kernberg persuasively argues that a convergence has occurred among contemporary Freudian, Kleinian, and Independent schools toward the revitalization of what the author regards as “mainstream” psychoanalysis. Kernberg finds that his own theoretical vision, which organizes ego psychological, object relations, drive theory, and affect theory, has been integrated into this supraordinate theoretical position. In its emphasis on drive theory and, most importantly, on its striving after technical neutrality, this perspective is distinguished from another new confluence of theoretical traditions, namely, the self-psychological, contemporary interpersonal (which we may take to include relational), and culturalist. This constellation of theories emphasizes emotional attunement, intersubjectivity, and a putatively egalitarian conception of the analytic relationship. Kernberg richly details the implications of all these points of view leading him to propose a critique of this latter confluence of theoretical perspectives.

In the course of his tightly argued critique, Kernberg usefully responds to the nature of the psychoanalytic interpretation: How scientific or objective can it be? Updating Fenichel's position on interpretation through emphasis on contemporary affect theory, Kernberg supports the view that analytic interpretations can be regarded as possessing a legitimate objectivity.

We recall that elsewhere (e.g., Modell, 1984; Ghent, 1989) the classical tradition had been regarded as a heavy-handed “one-person psychology” by those tending toward the interpersonalist/intersubjectivist/self-psychological tradition. They prefer their own “two-person psychology.” Trumping this argument, Kernberg counters that the reflective function of the analyst matters so much as to deserve our counting it as a figurative third party, now