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Dear Editors,
I agree with Emanuel Berman's claim that at present there exists much dialogue between analytic approaches within the literature; that no “stifling” of thought is taking place in this regard. However, this claim is irrelevant to my paper which is concerned with the absence of a dialogue of another kind, a dialogue over the essential nature of what constitutes psychoanalysis, what it is and what it is not. It this kind of dialogue that Berman does not want us to engage in, apparently preferring to regard psychoanalysis as inclusive of all possible definitions offered by those who consider themselves psychoanalysts. Berman acknowledges that there is a question of whether very “divergent schools could maintain their broader joint psychoanalytic identity and affiliation”, but he does not wish us to think about what defines this identity and it's precisely here that thought is indeed stifled.
Very strangely, Berman goes on to selectively ascribe to me some of the positions that I bring as examples in my paper, and on this basis he attacks what he presents as my own views on the definition of psychoanalysis and my not being “truthful” in professing to have concealed them. He speaks of my “empathic failure” in not recognizing that there is an issue of identity at stake (actually a central point of my paper) and he refers to my “hostility” to a range of theories. However, the paper does not in any way address my own views on how psychoanalysis should be defined. This is because, as I make very clear, the issue at hand is not my views, nor is it about hostility or affection for certain theories. It is rather about whether one may say of some theories or approaches that they are not psychoanalytical.
Berman's argument that there may be terrible consequences to defining psychoanalysis in a way that would exclude some approaches, as may be seen from the examples of the potential exclusion of Melanie Klein's approach in London and the exclusion of non-medical analysts