One Theory or More

PIONEERS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS, AS IN ANY FIELD of scientific inquiry, are few and far between. In fact our science may still be too young for us to determine who the significant leaders are since it is often only in retrospect that one can assess the meaningful contributions in the history of a science. So many of the seemingly great chemists and physicists of their time have faded into obscurity that it will be little surprise to our future historians to note that the many, to us, meaningful figures of today will have contributed little of lasting significance to our science of psychoanalysis. Erich Fromm was undoubtedly a pioneer and only the future will reveal if his contributions will continue to take hold on our minds as the edges of psychoanalysis are further explored. This essay will be directed toward examining some facets of the reception of new ideas before history can make a more reasonable assessment.

One of the very great difficulties in the establishment of new ideas in the field of psychoanalysis, perhaps moreso than in other scientific pursuits such as physics and mathematics is the heritage of our ideas from one man, Sigmund Freud, and a form of trusteeship of his ideas that seems to carry on from generation to generation. Trustees are usually assigned the role of guardianship and at times they feel a necessity to decide issues of truth or falsehood in terms of the reigning ideas. I have been particularly interested recently in the impact of the new ideas of self psychology on the overall field of psychoanalysis, and I have often been struck by the wave of responses which these new ideas have evoked. Although some of these responses are quite challenging and provocative, a number of them seem to fail to meet the minimum demands for scientific theory and inquiry. The most recent one that struck me was a statement in a book review in a psychoanalytic journal (Gediman 1980) which said that Heinz Kohut's ideas were incorrect. I