American Psychoanalysis in the New Millennium

In the not too distant past, terms such as “American psychoanalysis,” “British psychoanalysis,” and “French psychoanalysis” had reasonably clear referents. When one spoke of the “American” perspective on psychoanalytic ideas, classical notions of intrapsychic conflict, compromise formation, the tripartite structural theory, and defense analysis immediately jumped to mind. The state of affairs as we enter the second century of psychoanalysis is not nearly as clear-cut. There is no longer a “party line” in American psychoanalysis, and there is little question that intellectual discourse has been greatly enhanced by the arrival on the American scene of pluralism in psychoanalytic theory.

The origins of this diversity can be traced to a number of influences. The interpersonalists, who have been developing their thinking over a period of several decades now, largely outside the mainstream of American psychoanalysis, are certainly one factor. The movement toward psychoanalytic work with seriously disturbed patients is another. The so-called widening scope was instrumental in introducing the ideas of Melanie Klein and British Independents such as Winnicott to American clinicians. I can vividly remember Jock Sutherland during his regular visits to the Menninger Clinic in the 1970s and 1980s consulting on seriously disturbed patients and observing, “You have to enter darkest ‘Melanie-sia’ to treat this patient.” Where once Kleinian ideas were downright “un-American,” we now witness marvelous teachers from the other side of the Atlantic making regular trips to our professional meetings and institutes to teach American analysts contemporary views of Kleinian theory and technique.

Similarly, in the context of our frustration with the treatment of narcissistic patients, Kohut's theory and technique emerged and was elaborated into self psychology. This psychoanalytic school grew in the post-Kohut years, with some clinicians developing sophisticated views