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One of the most fruitful—and agreeable—developments in psychoanalysis over the past two decades has been the manner in which theoretical and technical departures from the mainstream have been received by analysts who have little or no appetite for the newer concepts. Even though debates over these contributions have, on occasion, been acrimonious, there have been no moves to neutralize or remove the mavericks; nor have the latter generally been secessionists. The consequence of this open ambience has been that innovators have been given the opportunity to be heard and to influence conventional thinking. At the very least this has enhanced the possibilities for a dialectic process in which “establishment” thinking and the putative breakers of new ground have been able to establish a dialogue.
Such a give-and-take is hardly innovative; it is the stuff from which intellectual growth and change have generally arisen. Unfortunately, such a process has not always characterized profound differences of opinion in psychoanalytic organizations: the last 75 years have been punctuated by numerous schisms. Undoubtedly some of these were inevitable, given the wide conceptual distance separating the protagonists. Others, however, may not necessarily have evolved in such a fashion; psychoanalysis as a whole might have benefited from the continued confrontation of the new and the old.
Schafer represents a good illustration of this trend toward greater fore-bearance. Although his critiques of metapsychology, his proposals for an “action language,” and his conceptualization of the analytic process as a narrative have not been generally accepted by psychoanalysts, an exchange of ideas continues. The Analytic Attitude is hardly exempt from these theoretical views; indeed they are pervasive. But it would be a misreading of the book to regard it uniquely as a platform from which Schafer can once again advance his ideas. The Analytic Attitude does, in fact, serve that purpose. However, in th