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Psychoanalysts are living in interesting times. The bad news is that our profession, after nearly a century, is dying in this country. Perhaps it is already dead. Recent surveys of the number of patients in analysis have indicated a huge decline. Freudian theory is no longer given the benefit of the doubt in public discussions. Demands for evidence and for theoretical consistency mount up. Psychoanalysts who have been thinking and writing about Freud's shortcomings for many years, however, are no better off than their more orthodox colleagues. What will happen now?
Evolutionary theory provides a clear-enough, if unpleasant, answer. Psychoanalysis as traditionally constituted cannot compete intellectually in the contemporary world. Yet psychoanalysts have good reason to believe that what they do is of great help to many patients. They need a better theory, one that explains how they help in terms that make sense to a public now much more sophisticated about science. The old claim that only those who have been analyzed can understand analysis no longer satisfies.
Freud's method of interpretation, although modified in many ways over the years, still provides a solid foundation for psychoanalytic technique. The same cannot be said for Freudian theory, which relies on scientific models now 100 years out of date. Many analysts cling to the mistaken idea that their clinical theory derives its authority from traditional Freudian metapsychology, however. The truth is that Freudian metapsychology has been an albatross hanging around the necks of psychoanalytic clinicians.
The good news (or the silver lining) is that the current crisis creates a needed opportunity for psychoanalysis with innovative ideas to get a hearing from formerly complacent colleagues. As with any mass extinction, the individuals able to adapt to the new circumstances will survive and repopulate the newly opened environmental niche. Wilma Bucci will certainly be one of the survivors. Her new book, Psychoanal