On the Problem of Integration in the theory of Psychoanalysis*

Contemporary psychoanalytic literature and the discussions that take place in international psychoanalytic congresses are exhibiting an increasing tendency which is most clearly in evidence when clinical cases are in question. This tendency lays stress on the non-verbal contents of the interaction between the analysand and the analyst dealing with varieties of shades of affect. As a result, a change has taken place in the conception of psychoanalytic technique. The past, the history of childhood, and the explanation structured on these is of lesser interest to the new technique which puts its emphasis on the here-and-now situation. In these discussions, observation of the analysand's material from some theoretical viewpoint or as a reconstruction of the past is often doomed a dated technique. The touchstone of the psychoanalyst's clinical skill is considered to be in how well he grasps the meaning of the here-and-now situation.

A similar tendency is evident in writings concerning psychoanalytic theory: the striving to bring the psychoanalytic theory to closer immediacy with clinical experience. On many points, the paradigms Sigmund Freud laid out as the foundation for psychoanalysis have been questioned. The theory of drives, the concept of psychic energy, and the whole of metapsychology have been the target of severe critique. The suggestion has been made that the communication theory, the information theory, the affect theory, or the theory of object relations, for example, should be adopted to replace these in re-organizing the whole psychoanalytic data of observation. There are signs of a certain kind of romantic inclination, according to which psychoanalytic theory is not even possible. It is a psychoanalytic experience, unique and personal, that is in question, and should