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Review of The Organizational Life of Psychoanalysis by Kenneth Eisold. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. 262 pp.
Kenneth Eisold's present volume is an outstanding contribution to the analysis of the critical situation of psychoanalytic profession, education, institutional functioning, and, last but not least, psychoanalytic science at this time. Employing a psychoanalytic approach to organizational analysis, Eisold combines the exploration of unconscious conflicts and “social defenses” of psychoanalytic societies with his expertise in the analysis of group processes and the vicissitudes of organizational leadership.
The book presents an original and thought-provoking analysis of the interaction of scientific, political, and cultural challenges to psychoanalysis, on the one hand, and the internal conflicts of psychoanalytic institutions, on the other. The early history of the psychoanalytic “movement,” the early rivalries and splits, are meticulously described and analyzed in terms of the dynamics of the personality of Freud and the early group of his followers. This analysis is followed up with the history of major splits of various groups and subgroups of the psychoanalytic community, and Eisold carefully outlines the dynamics involved in these struggles in objective, nonpartisan ways. The inherent uncertainties of the psychoanalytic encounter, the lack of empirical evidence supporting major theoretical assertions and facilitating resolution of contradictory hypotheses, the conflict between adhesion to
the traditions of a self-sustaining movement and the integration into medical and academic structures, the “silo” enclosure of the self-perpetuating “tripartite” educational system, all are considered in a meticulous, concerned description.
The author convincingly states that psychoanalyses is in crisis, a slow but progressive weakening of its overall positions in the 21st century. Eisold is confident that its essential contributions to human knowledge will persist and