Editor's Introduction

In an otherwise critical review of Stanley Kurtz's (1992) book on childrearing practices in India, I have praised his elucidation of the tedious impasse between anthropology and psychoanalysis (Akhtar, 1997). Kurtz deftly portrays the tension between their respective vantage points. Anthropology studies man in the context of his external realities. Psychoanalysis, ever skeptical of “reality,” looks at the unconscious mental processes that form the underbelly of human functioning. The anthropologist observes behavior from outside, using a macroscopic lens. The psychoanalyst sees things from the inside, using a microscopic lens. Cultural and religious myths fascinate the anthropologist. Familial and personal myths intrigue the psychoanalyst. Kurtz believes that the two perspectives have comparable merit in informing us about human behavior and its motivations. In his view, both perspectives are equal in their potential for revealing what goes on in the greased pulleys and tracks of the machine we call the human mind.

This perspective is not shared by everyone. Kovel (1981), for instance, believes that the internally focused perspective of psychoanalysis leads to a considerable loss of data regarding actual aspects of an individual's life while interest in the latter takes attention away from the pertinent uconscious process. In his view, this is the result of the divorce between internal and external worlds, characteristically witnessed in industrialized nations. Kovel suggests that the two perspectives can not be reconciled. The tenacious reluctance of psychoanalysts to embrace empirical research regarding their clinical work is, at least in part, a testimony to this perspective.

The contrast between the viewpoints of Kurtz (1992) and Kovel (1981)—and their predecessors on the two sides of this debate—comes through unmistakably in the two book reviews presented in this issue. The first book is The Cultural Contradiction of Motherhood by Sharon Hays, Professor of Sociol