Discussion of Angel Garma's Article, Group Rivalry Between Analysts and Its Influence on Candidates in Training

Dr. Garma has described with cogent clinical illustrations what can happen when allegiance to ideology displaces or is substituted for a scientific attitude toward the content and purpose of theory. I use “ideology” here in its iconic, politicosocial sense rather than its scientific meaning as the study of ideas. All theory is a collection of ideas, and its purpose is to offer clarifying explanations that make the data of observation more understandable. The purpose of theory remains the same over a period of time, but the content inevitably changes as new information becomes available and understanding of relationships between phenomena is expanded. Dr. Garma has highlighted the arrest of scientific development which can occur when the iconic presentation of an idea or an experience becomes the only means of explaining a phenomenon. This attitude tends to put a halo of legitimacy around a theoretical construct that immediately pulls it out of the field of science and into the world of rules and regulations which are used to maintain group power and prestige rather than a free spirit of scientific investigation.

The issue of what is “legitimate” theory is not confined to the “Melanesians.” It is an issue which tends to creep into every scientific and professional field at some stage in its development. This tendency is perhaps more prevalent and persisting among analysts than in other scientific disciplines, because of the inherently intimate personal ties between one generation of analysts and the next. The nature of analytic training supports a kind of group structure in which the training analyst is granted a subjective

loyalty which can prevent personal individuation and scientific objectivity.

Loyalty conflicts based on problems of dependency and identification that recapitulate the parental quarrels of a patient's childhood are part of the daily work of an analyst. These conflicts are part of normal development and should not concern us as such. What should c