The Developmental Psychology of the Self and the Changing World View of Psychoanalysis

Transformations in psychoanalysis and developmental psychology have produced a new psychoanalytic viewpoint in the past two decades. Tracking these large-scale shifts provides useful perspectives on current psychoanalytic controversies. In this chapter we show how the changing view of what constitutes adequate psychological explanation affects psychoanalytic work on many levels. We explore both what is achieved through these shifts and the problems they raise. We adopt a broad perspective, viewing the field from a distance, as it were, so that gross features of the landscape stand out. Some significant discriminations may be lost and strange bedfellows sometimes created; but the reward of a broad overview is a clearer picture of the development of our field and a clarification of controversies.

This exploration leads to the conclusion that many contemporary psychoanalytic controversies originate primarily in the worldviews of the disputants. We argue that much psychoanalytic debate arises from differences in worldviews, and we try to make these worldviews explicit so that discussions can move forward.

Our point of view is internal to psychoanalysis and developmental psychology. Partly because our task is already large, we have not addressed the important and closely related philosophical explorations into the nature of meaning, self, and evidence except as they have directly influenced psychoanalytic thinking. However, we are well aware that the hermeneutic turn in philosophy and the similar shift in psychology are intimately related.