How Theory Affects Technique

In their paper Arnold and Arlene Richards presented a brief psychoanalytic clinical illustration as conducted from an ego psychological vantage point. For purposes of deciphering the impact of theory on technique, they have presented most schematically the central constructs of ego psychological (modern conflict theory is their term), self psychological, relational and intersubjective, and Kleinian orientations. They set out for themselves a most valuable, if not Herculean task, to be unrealistically accomplished within a 40-page paper. A more realistic and far more scholarly approach, resulting in fewer straw men, would have entailed having representatives of each orientation present their theories and address detailed clinical material (as was done, for example, in our book on dreams [Fosshage and Loew, 1987] and in two issues of the Psychoanalytic Inquiry, the Martin Silverman [1987] clinical material and my own [1990]). Their thesis, however, is undeniably clear: modern conflict theory supports a comprehensive understanding of analysands and of the analytic process; other approaches, particularly the self psychological and relational and intersubjective, as they see it, affects technique negatively when these approaches deviate from the “common ground.”

A number of problems emerge immediately in approaching this material. First, every analytic dyad is unique. While analytic theory and technical guidelines inform every analysis, the mutually shaping interaction of two subjectivities creates a unique encounter that, indeed, cannot be replicated. Thus, the scientific method the Richards are espousing is seriously hampered, requiring us to hobble along with far less “objectivity” than the original philosophers of positivistic science had surmised. Second, any genuine attempt to understand an analytic process requires entering, as best as one can, into the intersubjective experience of analysand and analyst through tracking