Editors' Introduction

Psychoanalysis enters its second century in a state of turmoil, the ultimate resolution of which is by no means clear. Theories of “Psychoanalysis” proliferate in epidemic quantity generated, it seems to us, more by cultural, economic, and social pressures than by scientific inquiry. Psychoanalytic technique, dealing as it does with the most difficult and delicate of human relationships, has fared no better. We are now witnessing an intense struggle between those who would ease the strain of the psychoanalytic situation under the banners of democracy, of “fairness,” “humanity,” “reciprocity,” versus those who oppose these developments as ultimately corrosive in that they dissolve the core, distinctive elements of the psychoanalytic relationship into the “simple human” elements present in all relationships.

Dr. Leo Rangell, to whose work this issue is devoted, throughout his long career has never hesitated to speak out on the analytic controversies of the time. In Dr. Rangell's view, and in the view of many experienced analysts who have lived astride the changing times, most if not all of the new theories stand as pars pro toto in relation to the old. An element of the old theory is reworked, extended, perhaps creatively elaborated into something actually new. But instead of finding its proper place in the existing theoretical framework, the new element is inflated into a Major New Theory, often at the expense of the old, which is unnecessarily submerged or even deleted.

Today Dr. Rangell stands in clarion opposition to current trends that are content to regard psychoanalysts as practicing one technique stemming from multiple alternative theories, one theory being regarded as authentic as the next. Instead Dr. Rangell proposes a Unitary Theory, according to which there is but one “total, composite psychoanalytic theory,” a cumulative and coherent system containing all contributions and discoveries that have proven by consensus to be enduring and valid. From this total