Response

Dear Sirs,

By perpetuating an equivocation on the phrase ‘irreducible subjectivity’, Owen Renik has sought to cast our critique as a series of arguments built on misrepresentations that, therefore, miss their target. On the contrary, by distinguishing between claims that the analyst's subjectivity is ineliminable and claims that it is irreducible, we have sought to avoid equivocations and evaluate the philosophical plausibility of Renik's arguments.

Once this distinction is made, we argue, it becomes clear that claims of ineliminability are really rather mundane (though important) observations about the nature and possibility of objectivity, whereas claims of irreducibility must be claims about the potential for changing and reducing the impact of the analyst's individual psychology on the analytic situation. This is not a misrepresentation but a necessary clarification.

We suffer no further confusion concerning Renik's own view that the way in which the impact of the analyst's subjectivity can be reduced is through ‘empowering’ the patient. We simply disagree on this point, because the burden of our argument is that, both philosophically and practically, the analyst is in a position to meaningfully monitor, evaluate and (within important limits) control the impact of his/her own unconscious influences within analysis. The analyst does occupy an authoritative position within the asymmetrical space of traditional analysis, and nothing in Renik's response addresses our substantive arguments as to why this authority is possible, valuable and deserved.