Sentence First: A Response to Burston and Nelson

“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day. “No, no!” said the Queen. “Sentence first—verdict afterwards.” “Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly. “The idea of having the sentence first!”

Congratulations to Dan and Cary for their masterful contribution, which strikes at the heart of the issues in the current, very difficult debate on the nature and future of psychoanalysis, especially in the US.

I agree with them that Critical Social Justice Theory and psychoanalysis are incompatible at their hearts. They speak to opposing modes of thinking: traditional psychoanalysis focuses on our agency, importantly including our unconscious wishes and choices, as well how we deal with what is done to us and what we do to others. Psychoanalysis at its best questions everything, including itself. It tries to take nothing for granted and inquires into any underlying assumptions. Relevant approaches focus on subjectivity, negative capability, unknowing, scepticism, experience, questioning, searching, and open-ended investigation. Questioning is at the heart of psychoanalysis in challenging certainties in oneself and others. In contrast, CRJT embodies closed system thinking with a ‘sentence first—verdict afterwards’ mentality.

It is, first, important to define psychoanalysis. Freud defined psychoanalysis as having a number of aspects:

Psycho-Analysis is the name (1) of a procedure for the investigation of mental processes which are almost inaccessible in any other way, (2) of a method (based upon that investigation) for the treatment of neurotic disorders and (3) of a collection of psychological information obtained along those lines, which is gradually being accumulated into a new scientific discipline' (Freud, 1923, p. 235). It is important to note that the emphasis is on the method of investigation and secondarily on the body of knowledge or the therapy. In fact, Freud was concerned th