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It is a truth universally acknowledged that we now practice psychoanalysis in a context of multiple, even competing theories, with a multiplicity of attendant techniques. A recent APsaA panel (Zimmer 2017) explored this fact, offering several possible resolutions for practicing analysts to consider: choose one theory and stick with it (Blass 2017); allow multiple perspectives to add nuance to one's personal core theory (Cooper 2017); incorporate aspects of different perspectives as one's personal core theory continues to evolve (LaFarge 2017).
It is difficult to imagine an analyst being trained in America today who has not been exposed to multiple theoretical perspectives; or to believe that an analyst, thus educated and having undergone a personal analysis, would not have developed a preference among approaches to treatment—in other words, a personal core theory of mind, including its developmental needs and the analyst's potential role in facilitating a patient's growth.
In his clinical plenary Sidney Phillips presents us a detailed example of how one analyst works with techniques from different theoretical perspectives. Phillips's moving account describes his decision to shift, during the course of an ongoing analysis, from his chosen personal core theory of object relations, with its technique of interpretation and overcoming resistance, to an alternative approach—self psychological empathic responsiveness. Phillips presents this change in technique as a needed preparatory phase in the treatment, hopefully enabling the engagement he had originally sought with the patient as two individuals in a self and object relationship.
The relevance of understanding the basis on which we make our clinical decisions is, arguably, even more critical to our work today than it was for Freud, who continued to ponder questions of evidence until the end of his life. When he set forth the beginnings of our discipline, he presented a single technique. Clinical decisions depended on whe