2 Can This Be Psychoanalysis?

I have entitled my chapter “Can This Be Psychoanalysis?” for it seems to me that this question is being asked by both friend and foe, by the sophisticated critic and by the uniformed blusterer—all that changes is the affective tone in which the question is put.

To make a very large subject manageable, I subdivided it into three parts: first, criticism based on fear or misunderstanding of self psychology, which can be safely disregarded; second, questions about the theoretical implications of self psychology that should be addressed seriously, and laid to rest; and third, critical questions that self psychologists should be asking themselves, the answers to which will determine whether or not psychoanalysis will finally be able to learn from history, and what the future holds for psychoanalysis as a science.

The most numerous of the criticisms directed against self psychology on the level of practice leave us at a loss to recognize any similarity between the perversions of psychoanalytic technique imputed to us and what we actually do. London (1985) has presented a collection of these misconceptions culled from the psychoanalytic literature. What is claimed, essentially, is that self psychology is a retreat from analysis to a form of psychotherapy, an evasion of resistance as opposed to its interpretation and working through. At the time of London's presentation I wrote a detailed “Critique of the Critics” (unpublished) and I will not now repeat that here, for I do not think we need to concern ourselves with this first group of critics. In the long run, such attempts to discredit Kohut and likeminded analysts will have no significant effect. The struggle within the establishment to keep analysis free of Kohut's influence has already been lost. I have no doubt that just as id psychology gave way to ego psychology, in 20 years or so the selfobject theory of motivation or “self psychology” will be synonymous with psychoanalysis.