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Organized psychoanalysis is fortunate that we have trained colleagues whose backgrounds enable them to view our field from outside the box. Psychoanalysis is enhanced by colleagues who are able to apply a fresh perspective to our field, to help us question what we take for granted. Unfortunately some of us still object to training academics to practice psychoanalysis. I have learned a great deal, even about psychoanalysis, from colleagues proficient in both our field and an academic discipline. As chair of the Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Psychoanalysis and Literary Criticism and as a member of the Committee on Research and Special Training of the American Psychoanalytic Association, I have appreciated the opportunity to work with them. I am therefore delighted with Jonathan Lear's exploration of how conversation can change a person's mind. Lear, a practicing psychoanalyst, is John U. Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago.
What I like best is Lear's approach of raising questions rather than offering answers. In fact, continuing to raise questions, eschewing the false certainty of final answers, is offered as the path toward becoming a human being, philosopher, reader, scientist, or psychoanalyst. Lear's project here is to engage his psychoanalytic reader in ongoing self-inquiry