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Dear Sirs,
I appreciate Jeff Golland's endorsement of my ‘“macro” level’ analysis of the difference between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. It is a pleasure to be seen as offering a useful commentary. But I do feel that it is necessary to add that, as a result of my analysis, the terms ‘psychoanalysis’ and ‘psychotherapy’ no longer seem available to us as they were. For me, they represent historical and political entities, not clinical ones.
To be sure, I have no quarrel with the approach Golland advocates. There are many clinical differences that can be usefully distinguished, and I have no inherent quarrels with many of them. But the point for me is that these clinical differences are interesting and useful in their own ways. They do not warrant the use of the term ‘psychoanalysis’ as opposed to ‘psychotherapy.’ Perhaps one might well make the argument that one or the other is superior in certain circumstances or for particular ends. But I do think that we have to put the old polarities behind us. We can no longer take for granted the inherent superiority of any therapeutic technique and privilege it as ‘psychoanalysis.’ We are, each in his or her own way, ‘psychotherapists.’