A Discussion of the Paper by Myron Eichler on 'The Psychoanalytic Treatment of an Hysterical Character with Special Emphasis on Problems of Aggression'

The opportunity to discuss Dr Eichler's paper (this issue) gives me both pleasure and satisfaction for several reasons. The first of these is the clarity with which the author has expressed his thoughts, showing a solid knowledge of psychoanalytical theory. Another satisfying point is that the paper under discussion affords us an excellent example of how analysis is practised differently in different parts of the world. The predominant orientation in South America, as is well known, is Kleinian and while I do not consider myself a Kleinian, I nevertheless feel that I have not remained totally immune to that particular current. Accepting that no science can flourish outside its own culture, it is interesting to observe how the same science—psychoanalysis in this case—develops diversely in distinct areas of the same culture. However, since no two patients drawn from any culture are alike, and since the same holds true for us analysts, it follows that my remarks will reveal a highly personal view of Dr Eichler's paper.

In order to make my comments more readily understandable, I should like to state that the dominant outlook in current psychology and psychopathology strikes me as being of the utmost importance. I am referring to the conceptualization of the human being as a whole in permanent relationship to the other; a view to which Freud made a fundamental contribution, but one to which M. Klein and Fairbairn gave undeniable depth in their emphasis on object relations. Mention must also be made of a similar vision in thinkers alien to the field of psychoanalysis, more precisely those philosophers who revived F. Brentano's notion of intentionality; I refer, of course, to Husserl's epistemological and Heidegger's ontological contributions.

The details of all these authors' vision are far less important than the view considered as a whole, in the sense of releasing ourselves from an intrapsychic psychology in order to treat man as a being who is open to the world.