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In a book that is largely original and has many virtues, Jeffrey Rubin sets his sights on analyzing the profession and the culture of psychoanalysis. He possesses a strong affinity, indeed a passion, for psychoanalytic perspectives of most all stripes, for at their best he views them all as profoundly liberating, for patients and practitioners alike. He argues convincingly, however, that like psychoanalytic patients, psychoanalysis as a profession and those who practice it have not reached their potentials because of a pervasive conflict between the anxiety of seeing and facing novelty, in contrast with holding on to what is known, safe, and comfortable. He points to what he sees as a major contradiction between a liberating theory devoted to seeing the truth at all costs and a psychoanalytic culture that is often intolerant, dogmatic, and blind—thus, “the blindness of the seeing I.” Rubin asserts that psychoanalysis has always been hindered by the idealization of charismatic individuals, a tendency that leaves the profession vulnerable to the inevitable psychopathology of those leaders. He summarizes aspects of the life and work of Freud, Winnicott, and Kohut and speculates how their unresolved personal conflicts are evident in what he considers the limitations of their theories. These theoretical blind spots, he argues, are then perpetuated by those who treat their theoretical fathers as religious figures, what Rubin calls “ancestor worship.” It follows logically that psychoanalytic theories then stagnate as hidden religions, promoting idolatry, deference to authority, and intolerance toward competing theoretical ideas. He cites the tragedy of Ferenczi's fall from grace as one egregious example of what can happen to creative deviants within a strong theoretical culture.
As critical as Rubin is of the culture of psychoanalysis, he loves the potential he sees in psychoanalysis, particularly the basic spirit of