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In a libidinal relational spirit, these three papers propose a reparative, integrative approach to the history of psychoanalytic ideas. As each author reminds us, this is a history that has been marked by much destructive discord. Yet none of them suggests that our differences can or should be erased. As Reyna Hernández-Tubert observes, the “differences between us can only be identified, made explicit, acknowledged, and accepted, but never eliminated. This generates a dialectical tension in our community, which cannot be solved, but with which we can live” (emphasis added).
It is in this context that Hernández-Tubert outlines the psychoanalytic stance governing the integrative and reparative spirit of all three presentations. She begins with the troubled concept of psychoanalytic neutrality, which she carefully distinguishes from any claim to axiological impartiality, pseudo-objectivity, or emotional non-involvement. Reyna means neutrality in the sense of struggling to transcend the temptation to collude with a patient's defensive need to suppress or avoid one side of a conflict in order “to prevent the suffering generated by the conflict.” She suggests that this intersubjective form of neutrality also applies to the public discourse of psychoanalysis: if we are to avoid the self-amputation of pathological splitting and projection, we need to embrace our differences in full recognition of conflicting sides: this is essential for the enrichment of psychoanalytic thought.
In affirming that psychoanalysis is rooted in certain values, our three panelists remind us that these values can never be asserted flatly; they always emerge in a dialectical and/or dialogical relationship of open-ended inquiry and love of truth, a “free-floating conversation” that presupposes