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“The earth is round and flat at the same time. This is obvious. That it is round appears indisputable; that it is flat is our common experience, also indisputable. The globe does not supersede the map; the map does not distort the globe.” - Jeanette Winterson
When one commits to the study of psychoanalytic theory, either in a self-directed mode or in an institutional setting, one inevitably encounters a theoretical divide, one that pressures us to choose, round or flat. The choice may be felt as conscious lived experience. Or the deciding may present as a default, nothing more than the inevitability of one's sensibilities and worldview. Our choosing attempts to answer a fundamental question, “What motivates humans?”. And our psychoanalytic answer is constrained by a binary, “Drives versus objects, which is it?”. Our answer to this question has considerable implications for our psychoanalytic identity and affiliation, as we are ostensibly making a statement about the extent of our loyalty to Freud.
One might comfortably ally with a drive-based model, perhaps even a model that makes room for a contemporary Freudian view of intersubjectivity and object-relations, but still preserves the primacy of the drives. Or one may follow the contemporary psychoanalytic credo that drive theory is “anachronistic”, as Stephen Mitchell termed it, and ultimately lacks utility. Perhaps in an effort to convince ourselves that we have escaped drive theory's hegemonic force, we choose to relegate it to the landfill of archaic psychoanalytic ideas that are deemed regrettable. Of course, in a spirit of pluralism one might also embrace aspects of differing theories on either side of the divide and declare, “I find something useful in each theory!” I can attest to the temporary helpfulness of this declaration and mindset. It has served me well in circumventing the entrenched divide that has polarized our field. But pluralism has never settled the chafe of this binarizing split for me. Ultimatel