Reply to Stolorow and Atwood

Stolorow and Atwood begin their critique of my discussion of their work with the claim that “[Carveth] contrasts his own practice of dialectical thinking, which he regards as ‘a mark of mature mental functioning’., with the intellectually inferior monistic and dualistic modes of thought that he believes are characteristic of self psychology and intersubjectivity theory” (p. 255). Later they claim that examples of dialectical elements in their own earlier work that I neglected to mention “significantly weaken his claim that his theorizing reflects a greater maturity of mental functioning that does ours” (p. 257)

I must admit it never occured to me that anyone would interpret me as claiming that my thinking is consistently dialectical and mature and therefore superior to the regressive modes of thought that I criticize in the work of others. For I take it for granted—as anyone influenced by Kleinian theory would—that I have not succeeded in permanently inhabiting the depressive position, but that my thinking alternates, like that of every other human being, between the depressive and paranoid-schizoid positions and, hence, at times regresses from dialectics into dualism and even monism. I would have been gratified if in their reply Stolorow and Atwood had been able to point out such regressions in my work (I am certain they exist), for this would have assisted me in overcoming them. This, I believe, is what we need to do for one another.

Stolorow and Atwood label my claim that dialectical thinking is essentially allied to the depressive position as “an unfortunate lapse into Kleinian reductionism” (p. 255). But labels are not arguments They not only fail to define what they mean by “Kleinian reduction-ism,” but fail to explain in what way my claim fits such a (missing) definition. There is something worrying about this type of “argument