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In her book, The Journey, (26) Lillian Smith portrays man's perpetual struggle to be a whole person. She writes of his ambivalence and his persistent efforts to wall off what he hates of himself. She describes how these unwanted emotions and beliefs return in his dealings with his fellow-man as envy, jealousy, bickering, pettiness, prejudice, hate, power struggles, temptations and striving to become like the hated oppressors, thus perpetuating inner and external tyranny and encouraging rejection of parts of the self.
The consequence is an increase in structure. Cliques form; divisions develop along a spectrum, into ruler-ruled, oppressor-oppressed, with varying degrees of dehumanization. Crediting Freud and others for her insights, she optimistically states:
“Now for the first time we are beginning to bring together the fragments: to bind childhood to the rest of our life so that reason can control it and thus reduce the anxiety which dictators, inside and outside us, exploit so lushly; to tie body to mind to feelings to fantasies to belief; to relate power to humility, and responsibility to honor to freedom; to keep tenderness and truth close together.”
This statement describes an ideal which psychoanalysts are trying to accomplish for their patients, and through their training analyses, for themselves. But in professional relationships between analysts and in psychoanalytic groups, these goals continue to elude us. It is my thesis that both areas reflect a return of the repressed. Rangell (23, 24) provides cogent overviews of these facts.
Why have we failed? Where have we failed? Do we contribute to perpetuating rather than to resolving such problems? Have we less insight individually and collectively than we should? If so, why?
Psychoanalysis as an investigative and educational process is dedicated to examination, to candid questioning and seeking answers, rather than dealing in polemic exchange, exhorting for improvement and stressing
ideals. No other group of stu