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This book is a magnificent failure: a valiant attempt to shore up psychoanalytic theories, to embrace them all, and to encourage the hope that all of our theorists have been, and are, on the right track.
Pine has forgotten that all theories, scientific or otherwise, are only theories, and eventually spring leaks. Typically, a theory's leaks are patched and repaired, and auxiliary theories are devised, in order to hold things together. Weighed down by this mass of horrible ideological superstructures, the whole theoretical mess eventually collapses and a new theory takes its place. Pine doesn't know, or doesn't care about, this story from the philosophy of science, probably because he hopes it isn't happening to psychoanalysis.
When theories get overburdened like this, it is sometimes good for us, and in the case of psychoanalysis, the solution to our current problems, although embarrassing, may not be as complicated as we fear. I'll have a few words to say about this later.
I'll begin my argument by quoting Pine. In chapter 4, he states that the psychoanalytic situation is “an inherently unequal relationship” (89). On the same page, he bolsters that statement by quoting Jacob Arlow, who says that in psychoanalysis one must “[bare] one's secrets in an unbalanced, unequal situation.” Why in the world would two eminent contributors say such a thing? I know that certain thoughtless complainers believe that psychoanalysts ruthlessly wield power, especially over women, but surely we analysts don't share in the patient's illusion of our great power. I know that some writers say that we should permit our patients to idealize us, but that does not mean that we really believe that such ideal powers are actually present.
As far as I can tell, there is no discrepancy in power when two people contract to work together. The analyst's expertise does not constitute power, any more than the patient's ability to pay hard money for his treatment constitutes power. That the analyst is an e