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Currently, Psychoanalysis is facing unprecedented criticism from within and without. Time and again it has been declared dead by the critics. “Freud Bashing” (Gelfand, 1992, pp. xi-xii) has become a popular blood sport. There is an industry thriving on this enterprise, keeping the profession on the defensive. Continuing success of drugs in the treatment of mental disorders and dependence upon evidence-based outcomes and cost-effectiveness are posing significant challenges to the viability of psychoanalysis, challenging its credibility and relevance to our time. Paul Gray writes, “the recent discovery of documents relating to Freud and his circles, plus the measured release of others by the Freud estate has provided a steadily expanding body of evidence about the man and his works. Some of the initial reassessments are unsettling” (Paul Gray, 1993, p. 49). He further notes that Freud's defenders argue that his personal life is not relevant to his theories and practices, although Freud claimed that his development of the analytic method began with his analysis of himself. The champions of psychoanalysis claim that it is constantly revised and hence alive and vibrant. Both sides carry the debate to extremes.
Drawing upon his experience as a psychoanalytic clinician, teacher, and supervisor, Rubin offers in this book an alternative perspective. He ambitiously undertakes an analysis of psychoanalysis, aiming for a balanced and profound understanding that will result in a psychoanalysis that has greater relevance for our time. In the preface of his book Rubin writes: “Psychoanalysts are all too frequently overinvested in accepted theory and resistant to creative thinking. The institutions of psychoanalysis are also plagued by disturbing politics and insulated from fertile contact with allied humanities and social service disciplines. Most importantly, psychoanalytic theory and practice exhibit insufficient conceptual and methodological self awareness”