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THE IMPETUS FOR SELECTION OF THE THEME, "Psychoanalysis and Truth: Current Issues, " was the excitement and controversy currently being aroused by the introduction into psychoanalysis of constructivist ideas about the nature of knowledge (Barratt, 1984) ; (Loch, 1977) ; (Ricoeur, 1977) ; (Schafer, 1983) ; (Spence, 1982) ; (Steele, 1979) ; (Viderman, 1979). As it is used here, constructivism is a label for a broad movement in the contemporary thought of many fields, a movement based on
… the growing awareness that any so-called reality is—in the most immediate and concrete sense—the construction of those who believe they have discovered and investigated it. In other words, what is found is an invention whose inventor is unaware of his act of invention, who considers it as something that exists independently of him … (Watzlawick, 1984, p. 10).
Controversy during the discussions of the papers centered on the conflict between essentialism (belief that knowledge must