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How do I usefully discuss these three thoughtful and illuminating contributions on the central, if increasingly questionable, concept of neutrality in psychoanalysis? I proceed from an attitude of respect and admiration toward each of my distinguished colleagues, Glen Gabbard, Dorothy Holmes, and Stephen Portuges, regarding their contributions to psychoanalytic thought overall, and regarding what they have offered for our consideration of this matter of neutrality at the present moment in the intertwined evolution of psychoanalysis and society.
It is incumbent on citizens and psychoanalytic thinkers concerned about the humanity-subverting forces of repression and oppression, whenever and wherever present, intrapsychically or interpersonally,1 to scrutinize aspects of psychoanalytic thought that may harbor discriminatory dynamics, including those that involve the valuing of one category of personhood over others. Psychoanalysts, trained to notice the ways their patients may be unconsciously subverting themselves (problems of
The word interpersonally is used here to refer to the entire range of forms of human relatedness, from the dyadic to those constituted by groups, organizations, and social systems small and large. I intend to include in the category of the interpersonal those categories of systemic human relatedness that are often referred to as “structural,” as in structural racism or sexism, for example.
Training and Supervising Analyst, William Alanson White Institute for Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology; faculty, Psychology Department, Mt. Sinai Morningside/West; guest faculty, New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
Paper presented to plenary panel “Neutrality as a ‘White Lie,’” American Psychoanalytic Association, February 14, 2021.
Invited paper received February 28, 2022; accepted March 7, 2022.
conflict), or the ways in which they may be being coercively subverted by others (problems of interpersonal trauma), ideally seek to uncover sources of oppres