NPAP Scientific Workshop

On November 11, 1988, the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis offered the psychoanalytic community the opportunity to hear Harold Blum and Leo Stone engage in a discussion concerning the contemporary psychoanalytic situation. Aptly borrowing the phrase from Dr. Stone's classic work, The Psychoanalytic Situation, the scientific workshop was designed to consider the psychoanalytic situation not only between analy-sand and psychoanalyst in the treatment room, but the broader considerations of the vicissitudes of the psychoanalytic viewpoint in the world and among its practitioners. In particular, discussion focused on the impact of the multiplicity of theoretical lines that have evolved since Freud formulated his basic drive theory.

Charlotte Schwartz, moderator, described the two participants as pillars of the psychoanalytic community who have contributed elasticity of thought, grace, humor, and humanness in their writings. She explained that each would speak generally on the topic and then would engage in dialogue evolving from a series of questions she had prepared.

Dr. Blum spoke first, describing the contemporary psychoanalytic situation as a “period of confusion, diffusion, challenge, and opportunity,” in which the community is struggling with a broadly heterogeneous, competing, and contradictory array of theories. He commented that the ascendant force in worldwide psychoanalytic thought is not Freudian, but Kleinian. He then identified nine current controversies, elucidating each with trenchant clarity.

1. Emphasis on present encounter versus reconstruction of the past. Should treatment focus on the transference only in its most immediate manifestation, the interaction in the treatment room, or should it focus on the transference as a tool for genetic reconstruction? Does understanding of the patient's childhood retain importance?

2. Analysis of oedipal versus preoedipal issues. Ar