Epilogue

Over the past 40 years, psychoanalysis in this country has experienced three major developments: ego psychology, theories of object relations based on attachment, and self psychology. The latter posit first principles that oppose those of classical theory. Each attempts to explain the influence of infantile sexuality and pleasure seeking as secondary to attachment and object seeking or to a superordinate self. Each claims comprehensiveness and effectiveness. Classical theory, as it developed into ego psychology has, in turn, attempted to expand existing ideas and incorporate contributions of object relations and self psychology. In this epilogue we use this attempt at constructing an all-inclusive, clinically oriented, psychoanalytic psychology as a point of reference for evaluating theories that use a multimodel approach.

As the title states, the aim of this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry is to illuminate the possibilities and dangers in the clinical use of multiple models. We have chosen the work of Fred Pine and John Gedo to ground the discussion because they represent the two most developed multimodel approaches, which challenge the all-encompassing use of any one of the other schools of thought. Gedo has an overarching theory of mental functioning, development, pathogenesis, and technique. Pine has a clinical strategy that suggests but does not yet formalize a general theory of mind. Both have woven together divergent points of view into a system of integrated models.