The thought of Hans W. Loewald

If Hans Loewald will be remembered, it will not be because of a new theory he contributed, nor because of a scientific discovery, but because of the wisdom that pervades his writing. For that reason, I do not think he will ever be fashionable; but I suspect that through the generations he will continue to attract certain readers. To appreciate Loewald requires patience and playfulness (traits that come in handy as a psychoanalyst): a willingness to live with the unfamiliar thought of another, to allow it take root in one's own psyche, to return to it after some time and see how it now looks, from the changed perspective that has become one's own. Consider this passage from Psychoanalytic theory and the psychoanalytic process:

It also needs to be said that the love of truth is no less a passion because it desires truth rather than some less elevated end. In our field the love of truth cannot be isolated from the passion for truth to ourselves and truth in human relationships. In other fields, too, the scientist is filled with love for his object precisely in his most creative and ‘dispassionate’ moments. Scientific detachment in its genuine form, far from excluding love, is based on it. In our work it can be truly said that in our best moments of dispassionate and objective analyzing we love our object, the patient, more than at any other time and are compassionate with his whole being.

In our field scientific spirit and care for the object certainly are not opposites; they flow from the same source. It is impossible to love the truth of psychic reality, to be moved by this love as Freud was in his lifework, and not to love and care for the object whose truth we want to discover. All great scientists, I believe, are moved by this passion. Our object, being what it is, is the other in ourselves and ourself in the others. To discover truth about the patient is always discovering it with him and for him as well as for ourselves and about ourselves