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I thank Dr. Itzkowitz for his thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion of my paper. Focusing on the concepts of coparticipant inquiry and the personal self, he adroitly surveys various facets of these two concepts and situates them in the history of psychoanalytic ideas, particularly in terms of their development within the Sullivanian and Frommian interpersonal traditions in psychoanalysis. Dr. Itzkowitz poses some important and interesting questions. To give his questions, many of which touch upon current controversies in psychoanalysis, the consideration they merit would require another paper, perhaps more.
So, in this reply, I briefly review Dr. Itzkowitz's most pressing questions and leave the others for another time. Before considering Dr. Itzkowitz's thoughts on coparticipant inquiry and the concept of the personal self, I would like to comment briefly on the seminal role of the Frommian and Sullivanian traditions in the evolution of coparticipant psychoanalysis. As I discuss elsewhere (Fiscalini, 2004; see the preface and chapter 3) and Dr. Itzkowitz elaborates in his discussion, coparticipant inquiry represents, in part, an integration of these contrasting analytic perspectives, incorporating Sullivan's (1940) operational focus on social adaptation and the consensual and communal in human relations and Fromm's (1947) individualistic emphasis on core-to-core relatedness, immediate experience, and personal encounter in the therapeutic situation.
Ironically enough, the Frommian analytic perspective, though important in the development of coparticipant inquiry, seems to have waned in its influence in contemporary interpersonal psychoanalysis, while Sullivan's star continues to shine brightly. Thus the humanistic or existentially oriented writings of such interpersonal theorists as Rollo May, Leslie Farber, Ernst Schachtel, or Erwin Singer, among others, are relatively neglected. This fading of focal interest in existential and experiential humanistic