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PSP 18:129-147 (2002)

Chapter 9 Thinking Dynamically in Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice: A Review of Intersubjectivity Theory

Authors: Gabriel S. Trop MA, Melanie L. Burke L.C.S.W., Jeffrey L. Trop MD

Abstract

The history of psychoanalytic thought bears witness to a continual attempt to define the field of psychoanalytic inquiry, at times breaking free of the trap of metapsychological reification and at other times succumbing to the urge to build a metapsychological system in order to better articulate the methodology or horizon of investigation of psychoanalysis. George Klein (1969) describes these issues in depth. He notes that classical psychoanalysis had been burdened by the inclusion of an untenable neurological theory in the admixture of Freud's clinical theory with concepts of psychic energy and structure. In his review of what he regards as Freud's two theories of sexuality, he states the following:

There is reason to believe that the psychoanalytic conception of sexuality exists in two versions. The first I will call the clinical theory because
Portions of this paper appeared previously in Constructivism in the Human Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1999, pp. 202-223, and are reprinted by permission of Dr. Michael Mahoney, editor.
Page 129
it is the one that actually guides clinical work. It centers on the properties peculiar to sexuality, upon the values and meanings associated with sensual experiences in the motivational history of a person. … The second version, which I will call the drive discharge theory, translates this psychological conception into the quasi-physiological terms of a model of energic force that “seeks” discharge. … I wish here to make the two versions explicit by contrasting them. When they are so contrasted we can see that they are on different logical planes; that they are not reducible to one another; that they require different data for confirmation; and that they are, in critical ways, inconsistent with each other [pp. 15, 16].

The central problem, as Klein frames it, is the disjunction between psychoanalytic theory and practice; in practice, psychoanalysts have tended to focus on the importance of contextual material in order to pinpoint psychological

PSP 18:129-147 (2002)

Chapter 9 Thinking Dynamically in Psychoanalytic Theory and Practice: A Review of Intersubjectivity Theory

Authors: Gabriel S. Trop MA, Melanie L. Burke L.C.S.W., Jeffrey L. Trop MD

Abstract

There is reason to believe that the psychoanalytic conception of sexuality exists in two versions. The first I will call the clinical theory because
Portions of this paper appeared previously in Constructivism in the Human Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1999, pp. 202-223, and are reprinted by permission of Dr. Michael Mahoney, editor.
Page 129
it is the one that actually guides clinical work. It centers on the properties peculiar to sexuality, upon the values and meanings associated with sensual experiences in the motivational history of a person. … The second version, which I will call the drive discharge theory, translates this psychological conception into the quasi-physiological terms of a model of energic force that “seeks” discharge. … I wish here to make the two versions explicit by contrasting them. When they are so contrasted we can see that they are on different logical planes; that they are not reducible to one another; that they require different data for confirmation; and that they are, in critical ways, inconsistent with each other [pp. 15, 16].