Two Theories or One? or None?

Psychoanalytic theory and metatheory have been judged by the authors cited in this essay and found wanting. The degree of culpability is still at issue. The relevance and usefulness of metapsychology—the metatheory of psychoanalysis—is challenged. Metapsychology is condemned as anachronistic, biological, and inappropriately causal (in the mode of the natural sciences) in contrast to what some of these authors would consider a more appropriate teleological approach. Various arguments condemn metapsychology as a historical artifact, a primitive archaic expression of psychopathology, more liable to misuse than it is worth, and riddled with internal discrepancies and disagreements with observable data. In addition, it is condemned as an empty jargon lacking explanatory power. It is argued that psychoanalytic data have been forced into a metapsychological frame of reference despite its lack of relevance or validity. The cry is for reform, but the reformers cannot agree on what constitutes virtue, let alone how to achieve it.

Two authors undertake the task of proposing new approaches which would eliminate these alleged abuses. George Klein defines a teleological theory organized around the concept of "self" and the necessity for maintaining "self-continuity" and "self-unity." Roy Schafer proposes a methodology whereby systematic psychoanalytic discourse is limited almost entirely to the description of "action" as characterized by verbs and adverbs. These two approaches are discussed and contrasted, and the relevance of the psychoanalytic situation to theory is subjected to scrutiny.