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Thirty-six years have passed since I first heard and then read this seminal paper—and now, upon re-reading it, I experience it as if it has emerged from a time capsule of the late 1980s. Aron possessed deep, broad knowledge of psychoanalytic theory, which, combined with his adventurous sensibilities, produced novel and influential work. Throughout his endeavors, he was aware of the sociopolitical contexts in which he practiced and, as is evident in this paper, he captured the cultural and clinical forces that gave form and impetus to the “relational turn” that forever altered the practice of psychoanalysis.
The excitement and promise of Aron’s work deeply informed my own intellectual and clinical pursuits and, most importantly, laid the groundwork for a clinical interaction that changed the trajectory of a patient’s analysis and her life. In what follows, I first review Aron’s paper with the intent of shedding the light of time on the concepts he was exploring four decades ago. Second, I offer my application of Aron’s thesis as it emerged in the middle of a lengthy psychoanalysis.
In this paper, Aron approached his overarching project to further the exploration of psychoanalysis as an intersubjective process by reaching first toward “feminist thought and infancy research.” This oblique entry into explicating the impact of the analyst’s presence as a person captures Aron’s ambitious and wide-ranging scholarly method; he brought to bear the scientific and social contexts that should inform our clinical practice. In particular, he placed in service the emerging view of development as constituting an intricate dance between two subjects who, in the best of circumstances, choreograph the initiation and response to each other’s moves in a way that yields harmonious movement. Parenting, from this perspective, is more than an act of provision of the child’s needs. Rather, optimal development must always involve a constructive interplay between the needs (and wishes) of both p