Meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

DISCUSSION: Dr. Jerome Ennis noted that Dr. Harrison subjected an important part of Mahler's developmental theory to the same critical scrutiny that other recent psychoanalytic revisions have received. Dr. Harrison concluded that Mahler's merger ideas are erroneous and give rise to even worse technical applications. He prefers Freud's idea of primary narcissism to Mahler's original merger for conceptualizing psychic origins. But both concepts are conceptually and methodologically problematic. Both provide the basis for theories of pathogenesis which define a fixation point (primary narcissism or original merger) that is seen as regressively revived and unconsciously sought after in later life. Such an emphasis is a subtle, paradoxical shift away from psychoanalytic genetics, which is an epigenetic theory that describes a series of new formations and successive transformations. The emphasis on origins blurs developmental stages and the associated complexity of psychopathology. This is one manifestation of a "preoedipalizing" trend in current psychoanalytic theory and practice, with its emphasis on deficit rather than on psychic conflict. Psychoanalytic workers in child development have seriously questioned the possibility of recovering early developmental data in adult analysis or even in child analysis. Dr. Ennis agreed with Theodore Shapiro's doubts about the validity of the search for an ever earlier anlage of later derivatives. Finally, although Dr. Harrison claimed that his emphasis on primary narcissism is more congruent with current neonate research than is Mahler's original merger concept, Dr. Ennis