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In psychoanalysis some debates have acquired the status of landmark events, having determined the direction of the history of psychoanalysis. Among those I would count the debate on Ferenczi’s active technique and the debate on Wilheim Reich’s character analysis (see Bergmann and Hartman, 1976, parts 6 and 7). The Marienbad Symposium in 1936 seems also to belong to this category. There, for the first time, ego psychologists under the leadership of Otto Fenichel confronted the older generations of psychoanalysts. The best known of these debates, long kept secret but now available, are the controversial discussions between Melanie Klein and her circle, and Anna Freud and her followers (King and Steiner, 1991). To these well known examples, I suggest that we should add the London debate between Leo Rangell—supported by Anna Freud—and André Green, which took place in 1975.
The programme committee of the 29th Psychoanalytic Congress asked for two contrasting pre-published papers to serve as the basis for the plenary session, ‘On Changes in Psychoanalytic Practice and Experience: Theoretical, Technical and Social Implications’. The psychoanalysts chosen were André Green and Leo Rangell. Anna Freud opened the discussion with her paper ‘Changes in psychoanalytic practice and experience’ (A. Freud, 1976). Shengold and McLaughlin summarised the debate. With the benefit of hindsight of over twenty years, I propose to examine the issues and what they can teach us about the dynamic forces that, largely unbeknownst to us, shape the history of psychoanalysis. Since these papers are easily available, my review will be brief, highlighting only what is significant for my purposes.
Rangell was asked to present the ‘classical view’ about changes in psychoanalysis. Of the three structures (superego, ego and id), the superego is, in Rangell’s view, the most susceptible to outside influences. The id has probably not changed at all since the birth of psychoanalysis. The ego occupies an int