Understanding Dissidence and Controversy in the History of Psychoanalysis edited by Martin Bergmann New York:  Other Press, 2004,  396 pp.

The Psychoanalytic Research and Development Fund, Inc. sponsored a New York City symposium for Bergmann's ninetieth birthday in February 2003. There were twelve major participants, all internationally known psychoanalysts, who brought their own theories and biases to the presentations, but under Bergmann's congenial chairing, they seem to have put petty differences aside and were in remarkable agreement about many of the mainstream issues debated in psychoanalysis today.

The focus of the seminar was dissidence, and the personalities and theoretical changes associated with dissidence during and since Freud's time. To discuss dissidence, one has to define and try to agree on just what constitutes Freud's basic concepts. In this book, Bergmann contributes the opening essay on “Rethinking Dissidence and Change in the History of Psychoanalysis,” which is followed by contributions from Green, Kernberg, Kris, and Blum. Strange, for me, was the inclusion of Scharff to represent the British object relations point of view.

The book is divided into three parts: introductory essay, participant papers on the theme, and floor discussion. The main issues were the obvious chestnuts. Is libido pleasure-seeking or object-seeking? Most agreed the answer is that libido shows both characteristics rather than only one. Does mainstream metapsychology include interpersonal and intersubjective psychoanalytic concepts? Most writers felt that interpersonal and environmental manipulations