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In Philadelphia, as elsewhere, Dr. Brenner's place as the dean of American psychoanalysis is assured. In a recent disagreement here about the content of an overview course on modern psychoanalysis, one group argued for the inclusion of more conflict theory. The other group argued that this was not necessary because conflict theory was the basis of everything that was taught and the standard by which others were measured. Whichever approach wins, there is no danger to conflict theory or its corollary, ego psychology. Freud had designated Heinz Hartmann as the explicator of the ego, but it was Dr. Brenner who gave us an ego psychology with a human face.
Tonight's paper has the purpose of assuring the scientific status of psychoanalysis in the face of the current pluralism. For that purpose, it argues for a single theory of the mind. Dr. Brenner makes the significant point that if there are multiple theories explaining the same phenomenon, and none can be disproved, the scientific status of any of them is lowered. The theory of conflict and compromise has served us well as a unifying model. I can easily see other valid theories such as object relations to be subsumed under it. After all, there is normal conflict between parent and child, and there is pathological conflict. And of course there is pathological internal and normal internal conflict. The same can be said about compromise formation.
There is no argument that compromise and conflict theory is a unifying theory. But Dr. Brenner argues it so vigorously that I miss