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The importance of theory in the life of a practicing psychoanalyst is obvious to anyone who has navigated psychoanalytic training or studied the dynamics of analytic institutes. In the United States most candidates are trained in institutes where a dominant theoretical position can be identified even when there is an attempt to teach comparative theories. No matter how much effort is made to ensure that candidates are exposed to all the major competing theories, most institutes are dedicated to preserving an approach to theory that favors a particular school. The conviction that one theory is more successful than another appears to develop despite the fact that no studies have proven the superiority of any particular theoretical school. Different theories have distinct views of psychological development and its failures that in turn result in radically different approaches to psychoanalytic treatment. It is clear that training in an institute oriented toward classical ego psychology, contemporary conflict theory, self psychology, or Kleinian, Bionian, or relational theory is likely to result in analysts who follow that theory in organizing their clinical work.
Despite the partisan nature of competing theoretical schools of psychoanalysis, there has been a tendency among some psychoanalysts to adopt a position that allows the use of multiple theories, shifting from one perspective to another, depending on aspects of the chosen theory that suit a particular patient at a particular moment in the analysis. Some analysts applaud this blending of theories as a practical solution to competition in the marketplace of ideas; they report being able to apply seemingly incompatible theories, with beneficial results, to the analyses they conduct. Opposing such a position are orthodox members, of various persuasions, who believe that their theory can be properly applied only in its