Robert Langs on 'Modes of Cure'

DEAR SIR,

I am writing to you in response to the letter of Gertrude and Rubin Blanck regarding my paper on modes of cure. In developing a contribution that takes issue with important segments of present day psychoanalytical listening and formulating, I was indeed quite concerned as to how my efforts would be received. Nonetheless I was hopeful that my challenge would spark much needed thought and clinical debate. I hoped too that as psychoanalysts, the discussion that might ensue would be basically empirical, definitive, and specific, rather than personal and with efforts to malign my character and intentions.

Some years ago, when I began my extensive studies of the listening process and therapeutic interaction, I too assumed as do the Blancks, that every analyst makes consistent use of the concept of unconscious communication between the patient and analyst in his or her daily work. A study of the psychoanalytic literature however, including the work of these two authors, proved empirically that such an assumption is unfortunately quite unfounded. I discovered as well in many psychoanalysts—including the Blancks—an apparent split between their theoretical thinking and beliefs, and their actual clinical efforts. It was observations of this kind that prompted the particular paper under discussion.

As many readers know, the present article follows upon an extensive body of writings, in which I made use of my own clinical and supervisory observations to document my formulations. The present paper is an attempt to re-examine aspects of psychoanalytic technique in light of the findings that were developed through these clinical investigations. The effort by the Blancks to question my motives and capacities as a clinical observer and reader ignores this work and the dedication to psychoanalysis reflected therein. It cannot serve the field of psychoanalysis to attempt to dismiss new and serious findings without comprehending their scientific basis and responding acc