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Muriel Dimen, Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychology at New York University's Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, situated Freud's “‘Wild’ Analysis” essay in its historical time and place of psychoanalysis and, more specifically, with regard to the themes of power and conflict. Dimen suggested that Freud's “‘Wild’ Analysis” emerged amid a time of great competition within the field of psychoanalysis, when he asserted his theory of psychosexuality in response to Alfred Adler's theory of masculine protest. Dimen shared with her audience that this article is just one strike Freud used against his enemies, those whose views opposed his, during this time. Yet, she also indicated that Freud targeted himself as well, needing “also to manage the wildness of his own theoretical and clinical practices.” In doing so, she suggested, he sought stability and control within the overwhelming domains of sex and technique.
Dimen claimed that Freud's approaches to describing sexuality and technique were reductionist and formulaic in nature, impervious to all that remains unknown within psychoanalytic treatment. In “‘Wild’ Analysis,” Freud instructed his readers that psychic suffering arises from conflict and that useful interpretations depend on skill and time (i.e., time for the repressed material to near consciousness and time for transference to take hold). However, Dimen stated that Freud left us in question with regard to how one assesses the appropriate timing for interventions and, she added, with regard to how one interacts with his patient in the interim. Freud suggested that psychoanalysis cannot be learned from scholarly text, but must be acquired through engagement in a personal process of sacrifice “at the feet of ‘accomplished professionals,’” thereby asserting his own power within psychoanalysis. Dimen argued that Freud's influential article misses the mark in its failure to present a perspective for all that is “unknown” in psychoanalysis and, as