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Smith begins his brilliant discussion by reminding us of Wallerstein's observation that all of us psychoanalysts share a common ground of certain assumptions about the human mind and its functioning. And while the bulk of his essay highlights our differences with each other so as to elucidate and illuminate what we actually do in our clinical work with our analysands, Smith ends on the theme of the commonality of all of us “fishing in the same waters,” even though we sound so different from each other.
Why do we sound so different from each other when we really talk about closely related ideas, and what does this mean? Much depends on the questions that we are trying to answer. When we are attempting to clarify our basic principles and processes we often use different words, almost different languages, to label ideas and concepts that are essentially alike. For example, whether I call a fear motivated by the need not to know something a defensive negation, a denial, a disavowal, a disowning, a renunciation, an abjuration, or a repression, the meaning of all these words is approximately the same when used in the context of a psychoanalytic view of dynamic mental events. As an innovative theoretician describing some new insights, of course, I might well be disposed to cover up my insecurity over their acceptance or rejection by asserting my ideas via a new and special word with a clearly spelled out definition and an absoluteness that does not permit synonyms. Are any of us really free of succumbing, at least occasionally, to a linguistic declaration of our greatness that helps us hide some secret conviction of really being flawed? How else can we impress our colleagues, and, especially our selfs, in the Common Room? No wonder there are various schools of psychoanalysis that often treat each other as if they were enemies. Narcissism? ‘Nuff said.
Another source of conceptual fuzziness comes from the use of metaphors. The mature Freud (1926) knew this very well, but reali