The Intersubjective Approach

Dear Mr Tuckett,

Early in his critical review of our (1987) book, Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective Approach, Meyers (1990) declares, 'The authors are convinced of the superiority of the intersubjective viewpoint and have written a forthrightly polemical work in defence of it' (p. 178). We wish to make clear that our primary aim in writing the book was not to argue for the superiority of the intersubjective viewpoint; it was rather to call attention to the failure to investigate fully the impact of the observer on the observed in psychoanalysis, and to examine as well the implications of this neglect for our science. In so doing, we outlined an approach that, while retaining a fidelity to the psychoanalytic method of investigation, differs in essential ways from the more familiar ideas embraced by the dominant psychoanalytic schools with respect to motivation, psychopathology, psychic conflict and its relationship to developmental deficit, and, especially, the nature of the therapeutic process.

Meyers' review provides us with the opportunity to clarify certain aspects of our viewpoint that are frequently misunderstood. He feels, for example, that an 'unresolvable paradox' pervades our work because, on one hand, we claim that all psychoanalytic understanding develops from dialogue between the personal, subjective worlds of analyst and patient, while, on the other hand, we offer numerous clinical generalizations throughout the book. Meyers sees this as a paradox because he mistakenly equates our position with an injunction that the analyst must not have any theoretical ideas or beliefs of his own, a notion that would be entirely at variance with our view of the psychoanalytic situation as an intersubjective system to which the psychological organizations of both analyst and patient contribute. What we do assert, in a passage quoted by Meyers, is that the analyst's theoretical framework should not be elevated to the status of objective fact. Any analys