Response to Dr. Wallerstein: Part 2

I welcome the continuing discussion. Although Bob Wallerstein and I have indeed been close and allied colleagues on major theoretical subjects throughout the years, I feel it worthwhile to pursue the current division to as much depth as possible. The differences represent not only a point of departure between two active individuals, but also a divide in the analytic world. I hope it can be widely helpful to expose and not to obscure these.

While we are discussing Wallerstein's role in the current theoretical diversity, I am glad he agrees that the present state of pluralism is more divisive than creative.

I will take up the issues not by the number, but by the concepts. What needs the most clarification is a subtle combination of various levels of Wallerstein's contributions to the question of “one or many” theories. The issues of concern are what he actually presented at the crucial Montreal Congress, what the audience came away with from what he said, what Wallerstein's own personal opinions were on that occasion, what they are now, what they were before the Congress, his current version of the future, and the reasoning behind his varied views. I aver that there are obscurities and inconsistencies that need to be clarified. There are also differences as to what our differences are.

The first issue in which (this commentary) claims that our two views are “radically different” is about his view that every new theory “purports to be a complete metapsychology,” both in its explanatory reach and in treating the gamut of psychopathology. We do indeed have different outlooks on this overall question, but in a much more complex and layered form than a simple holding of opposite opinions. I do not feel that each theory “purports” to be complete, or that any of the alternative theories are complete and self-contained. On the contrary, I hold that, in general, each alternative theory retains, or borrows, most of the main psychoanalytic edifice, to which each then adheres its ow