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Gedo's book is written from the side of the Big Battalions; that is, he assumes the merits of an orthodox view of the history of psychoanalysis, even though what is acceptable to those traditionalists has always varied from one decade to the next. Since I do not subscribe to the central beliefs of Gedo's wing of psychoanalytic thinking, my reaction to his book is critical. However, I did not sit down to read it with any ideological preconceptions in mind and, therefore, I think that the issues that arise in challenging his theses extend beyond the confines of the book itself and merit consideration in as dispassionate a manner as possible.
It is striking how Gedo repeatedly invokes with favor what he calls the “mainstream” in psychoanalysis, and how even more often he cites instances of what he chooses to call “dissidence.” To Gedo a so-called dissident is hardly someone to be admired or emulated. Yet usually politically authoritarian regimes stigmatize dissent. Gedo seems to think he adequately distinguishes his own approach from that of the Catholic Church by his disclaiming any need in psychoanalysis for the proscription of heresy.
I believe that in a democratic community of ideas any majority thrives on conformity. It does not seem to occur to Gedo that his very attention to instances of “dissidence” implies that a nonconformist in this field is by definition someone with ideas; otherwise logic would entail that he pay attention to scrutinizing the work of those he calls “conservatives.” Gedo never subjects such conservatism to any kind of critical attention, nor examines some of the damage it has done. Gedo rightly bemoans those instances of “civil wars,” marked by “the repeated threat of psychoanalysis' fragmenting into hostile factions heatedly defending ideological partis pris.” Yet Gedo does not realize that it is partly the pressures of conformism, and the lack of openmindedness usually found elsewhere in the human sciences, that breeds the disputatious fact