Credo—The Dialectics of One-Person and Two-Person Psychologies1

FOR MANY YEARS I HAVE TRIED to persuade psychoanalytic candidates embarking on a course on psychoanalytic theory to commit to writing as much as they could articulate about the theoretical beliefs they thought they held and practiced by; and then at the conclusion of the course to repeat the exercise. The task proved daunting. This paper represents my own effort at articulating the beliefs (and uncertainties) that currently form the matrix of my own psychoanalytic thinking and practice. The paper has two goals, as reflected in its double title. The first, Credo, has as its focus the inevitability that every analyst theorizes, indeed thinks and practices on the basis of a belief system or credo. The second part of the title both points to the vehicle for containing and organizing the expression of this particular author's credo, and at the same time represents a study in its own right: the question of a one-person versus a two-person psychology.

I believe, credo, sounds cognitive, as if it were a close cousin to I think, and in practice the words are often used interchangeably. In fact, however, the word believe, stemming from the Indo-European root leubh, is much closer in origin to words like love or beloved, words meaning to hold dear, to trust, to have faith in, and to libido, Latin for desire.

In our field where hard facts are hard to come by, beliefs are often transacted as if they were facts. Belief plays an immensely important role in psychoanalysis but it is seldom spoken about. Usually