Discussion of Warren G. Bennis's Article, A Psychoanalytic Inquiry into the “Two Cultures” Dilemma

Dr. Bennis' hypothesis is premised on a Freudian theory of sexuality the era of which he does not make explicit. His references to other disciplines do not clarify this issue. The psychoanalytic citations are to Freud with only one to Nunberg (1961) whose orientation is not post-Freudian, suggesting that Dr. Bennis' theoretical viewpoint reflects an earlier era. With developments in ego psychology, the significance not only of sexuality but also of the id are greatly altered. In fact, Apfelbaum1 says ego psychology supersedes rather than supplements id analysis. The earlier oversimplified theories of genetic development, hence of sexuality and of libidinal stages, were radically changed by Anna Freud's newer ideas on development in Normality and Pathology in Childhood.2

As I read the post-Freudian evolution in theory it approximates toward neo-Freudian thinking. We might analogize human spontaneity and growth to ego and obstructions to their manifestions to id. In 1917 Horney3 had postulated spontaneous growth as primary and neurosis as secondary to blockages of growth. “Freudians, mostly under the label of ego psychology,” wrote Munroe in 1955, “are just beginning to give proper theoretical weight to concepts which Horney has been shouting from the housetops for twenty years.”4 Tarachow said, “The contribution which Karen Horney made to Freudian psychoanalysis was to stimulate interest in ego psychological problems.”5 “Deviant movements,” write Kanzer and Blum, “now tend to show wide areas of