Reply to Bergman and Foster

PERHAPS AS A CONSEQUENCE of the concentration of psychoanalytic practitioners in private practice, we have been slow to build bridges between our rich theoretical and technical discussions and the social and political discussions in which many of us are also engaged, sometimes deeply and passionately. I am grateful to Psychoanalytic Dialogues for sponsoring this integrative effort, which I have found fascinating and stimulating. I am also grateful to RoseMarie Peréz Foster and Anni Bergman for their valuable contributions to this conversation, which I hope will continue and expand.

In responding to the commentaries, I would like to focus on a few of the many important points that they raise. I first address the question that Bergman raises in her title: do we have to choose between ego psychological and object relational approaches? I argue that we do have to choose and that Bergman herself, despite her integrative intention and effort, makes such a choice in her way of thinking about, and working with, the patients she discusses. Next, I consider some of the consequences of the theoretical choices that I believe we inevitably, and more or less explicitly, make. Finally, in addressing Peréz Foster's commentary, I note that she and I found a compatibility between our social and political views and our psychoanalytic theoretical learnings. I elaborate on some of the implications with respect to a very knotty question: on what basis do we establish our theoretical commitments in psychoanalysis?

Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) state that theoretical models in psychoanalysis are comprehensive, that both “drive/structure” and “relational/structure” models can find a place for all mental phenomena within the conceptual network established by each. Thus, ego psychologists can find a place for object relations within their model, while object relationists can find a place in their model for ego functions. This ability to assimilate all phenomena within one's theoretical