Psychic Change in Psychoanalysis

Dr. Charles Brenner, the Chairman, noted the broad potential of the chosen topic and the intention of the panel to discuss change in many senses: as a philosophic concept, leading to considerations of the relation between psychoanalysis and physical science; as oscillation about a baseline of forward progress during clinical analysis, leading to recommendations concerning interpretation and technique; as alteration of psychic conflicts; and in relation to problems in devising methods for assessment of psychic changes resulting from the psychoanalytic process. The panel had previously decided not to read extended prepared papers, but rather to make brief opening statements, to be expanded as appropriate in the course of the discussion.

Robert Michels traced the origin of concepts of change outside of and long before psychoanalysis. These concepts have influenced and perhaps constricted psychoanalytic thinking about change within analysis. Psychoanalysis, so far as it is a method of treatment, is concerned with change, with having an impact upon patients treated, despite some concern about the appropriateness for analysts of a focus on change during treatment. Aristotle distinguished four types of change: in quantity, in place, in quality, and change in which nothing persists, which he called "generation and corruption." The last type was viewed as instantaneous, in contrast to the first three—forms of motion—which took place over time. Change, for Aristotle, implied a potential that became actualized rather than a continuous series of shifting actualities. In modern scientific thought, all change came to be seen as motion, with the