The Nature of Interpretation: Intersubjectivity and the Third Position

Sidney and Esther Fine (1990) concluded their study of four psychoanalytic perspectives with a reconfirmation of the differences between ego psychological (what they called “classical”), Kohutian, Kleinian, and Kernberg approaches, and the question, “What differences do these differences make? That is a question for future researchers to answer.”

I intend to explore the gradual development of a new psychoanalytic mainstream through the convergence of the technical approaches of ego psychology, the British schools, and my own work, and a parallel-evolving convergence of Kohutian and interpersonal analytic approaches toward an overall intersubjectivist-object relational approach. In what follows, I shall compare these two overall directions of contemporary psychoanalysis and spell out my own position regarding the effects of these contrasting approaches to interpretation.

Until ten years ago, listening to presentations at the British Psychoanalytic Society, it was quite easy to differentiate the viewpoints of the contemporary Freudian, Kleinian, and independent groups. Today, this is becoming increasingly difficult. As rapprochement among the ego psychological, independent, and Kleinian traditions has developed, changes in the mainstream of psychoanalytic technique have evolved, I believe, in the following areas (Kernberg, 1993):