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When psychoanalysts write histories of psychoanalysis, they bring certain welcome assets to such a risky venture. The psychoanalyst/historian is a practitioner of the discipline under study, and so has firsthand knowledge of its fundamentals and nuances. The walk has been walked. But liabilities abound too. The analyst's temperament, training, and theoretical orientation will inevitably influence the history that is written. We need not lament such influences—given human nature and the limitations of our minds, they are unavoidable. Nonetheless, we need to be constantly vigilant lest influence turn history into triumphalism and description into polemic. Of course, similar caveats apply to psychoanalysts who review such histories. Just as the author's particular background partly shapes the history that is written, so the reviewer's background partly shapes the critique that is offered— including this one. There is no path into total objectivity. There is, of course, a valuable postmodern warning here, but it is a warning that itself contains certain dangers.
Before I turn to just such an intellectual history, namely, Kohut, Loewald, and the Postmoderns: A Comparative Study of Self and Relationship, perhaps some definitions (admittedly simplified) of the terms “modern” and “postmodern” will be useful in helping us understand Judith