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We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
It was thus that T. S. Eliot once reflected on the state of knowledge and knowing. Leo Rangell might well agree—or at least he might wish it were always so.
In his new book, The Road to Unity in Psychoanalytic Theory— part memoir, part historical review, and part apologia—Rangell takes us on a whirlwind tour of the history of psychoanalysis as seen through the eyes of one of its seminal contributors. His hypothesis is that psychoanalysis has lost its way in a forest of ideas, not so much because of external or internal (organizational) factors, but because of theoretical pluralism that fails to recognize and build from the trunk of the psychoanalytic tree—the Freudian theory of the mind. He argues that psychoanalysis, if it is to survive and be restored to its previously esteemed and inspirational position in the world, must distill and/or further develop a total, unitary theory. Without this, he warns, psychoanalysis could fragment into oblivion.
This short and engaging book begins with a reminiscence of the halcyon days when psychoanalytic candidates and faculty lingered after scientific meetings to discuss the nascent world of analytic theory and practice. For many years, there was—more or less—one theory, with many applications to and implications for practice.