Epilogue

When, in 1954, the journal of the american psychoanalytic association brought together what Wallerstein calls “the ferment” and the “rival camps” evoked by Alexander's innovative concept of the corrective emotional experience, Alexander could open his essay by staing, “Concerning the essential nature of the treatment there seems to be little disagreement among psychoanalysts today” (1954, p. 685). Did he really mean this or was he just putting a good face on a bad situation? This statement has puzzled me because what I thought I saw when I came to Chicago in 1955 was disagreement intense enough to be followed shortly by Alexander's move to the West Coast.

“The Corrective Emotional Experience Revisited” promised to be a theme that would bring into the open the differences and the similarities with which psychoanalysts of diverse theoretical persuasions from within the English-speaking world approach their clinical task of conducting psychoanalytic treatment today. We had hoped that a fresh look at old disputes might bring out more clearly how different psychoanalytic theoretical conceptualizations translate into controversially different clinical technical recommendations. Though the heat of the controversies of the 40s and 50s indeed seems mostly to have dissipated, one can hardly claim to find a general acceptance of Alexander's ideas among contemporary psychoanalysts. To be sure, all of our contributors agree on the essential importance of an analysand's emotional experience of the relationship with the analyst. With equal unanimity