The Dual Impact of Freud's Death and Freud's Death Instinct Theory on the History of Psychoanalysis

This paper is submitted for public consideration with a feeling that it is both important and likely to arouse controversy. Additionally, I have a feeling of “belatedness”; the topic I discuss should have been discussed much earlier at some international congress, and, more importantly, the failure to do so has handicapped the development of psychoanalysis. What I am suggesting is that we submit the psychoanalytic movement and some important aspects of its history to psychoanalytic scrutiny.

We often hear it said that one of the striking features that determined both the nature and the history of psychoanalysis is the fact that it was created and built by one man. To my knowledge we have never asked ourselves to examine the implications of this fact. It may even be that this has the status of a taboo subject. One is tempted to cite the many contributions of other creative analysts to our field to deny this fact. One of the unexpected consequences may be that no leader was permitted to emerge as the next spokesperson for psychoanalysis as a whole, and if a significant contender arises he or she can only be of equal significance to Freud for a limited number of followers who then form a school named after that leader: Kleinians, Lacanians, and Kohutians come to mind. Those who do not follow have a tendency to blame the new leader for creating controversies and disturbing the unity of psychoanalysis. One can speak of a certain historical irony that it was Freud who discovered the significance of the Oedipus