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One of the problems that face all those involved in psychotherapeutic work with patients is that they tend to accept as given certain theoretical assumptions on which their techniques are based, and sometimes these are not even formulated. It is easy to see how this can happen as psychotherapeutic techniques, and more particularly if they have produced good results, so easily become part of oneself.
I therefore welcome the opportunity to take part in this conversazione* because it has made me try to look at what I and other psychoanalysts do, from the standpoint of colleagues with whom I may not always have agreed in the past.
I regret that there are not more opportunities for a dialogue between us, as we are all engaged in exploring problems of the human psyche and in attempting to relieve or cure human pain and mental suffering. In fact, Jungians and Freudians, according to popular stereotypes, are often placed on opposite poles of a dichotomy. I will not attempt to describe these stereotypes, but what has struck me in the course of the reading I have done, in order to write this paper, is that with the enlarging of our professional and cultural frames of reference, some points of dissension between Freud and Jung now look very different in the light of our current knowledge and experience.
But, as well as inheriting the advantages of the courageous discoveries of a former generation, we can also find ourselves beset with problems arising from the limitations of their personal frames of reference and those of the professional mode of thought appropriate to a previous era, but not necessarily relevant to our present current of professional thought and practice.
I am reminded of an anecdote about an Indian holy man. He would sit