PLURALISM IN CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYSIS: THEORY AND PRACTICE

Articles

PLURALISM IN CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYSIS:THEORY AND PRACTICE

Jean White

abstract As this paper was originally delivered as the British Journal of Psycho-therapy Annual Lecture, I have retained the spoken tone of the original. In contem-porary physics, cosmology and philosophy, there is now a recognition that no singleparadigm or theory can represent reality and growing credence in the idea thatlearning is advanced more rapidly through a pluralistic model.This paper argues thatthe same applies to psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic psychotherapies. Itexplores the value given to the recognition of difference in contemporary Indepen-dent, Lacanian and post-Kleinian thought and the psychopathology attributedto single vision, and argues for the urgent need to engage in constructive cross-paradigmatic discussion.

Key words: diversity, dialogue, ideological fundamentalism, intersubjectivity,symbolic castration, multiple vertices.

Firstly I’d like to say that I’m very pleased to be given the opportunity tospeak to you today. We do now have an opportunity to think about thewealth of diversity in psychoanalytic theory as an asset, a precious resourcethat is invaluable not only to psychotherapeutic effectiveness, but also tofinding a constructive way through the splitting and factionalism that havedogged psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic psychotherapies since theirinception. One of the several reasons I wrote my book was to demonstrateexactly how each of the contemporary Independent, Lacanian and post-Kleinian approaches has cardinal strengths, which can only be ignored,disowned or dissociated at perilous cost to the internal resources of psycho-analysis as a form of therapy and as a movement (White 2006).

As most of you will be aware, there are many different meanings and usesof the word, pluralism, historically and at present. I won’t waste your time bytrawling through all of them. Suffice to say that I’m not going to focus onpluralism as a form of competition between rivalrous interest groups as it issometimes used in a political sense (this is closer to the way AndrewSamuels (1989) uses the term in The Plural Psyche). I think the level of

jean white is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, supervisor and lecturer in privatepractice in London. She is the author of Generation: Preoccupations and Conflicts inContemporary Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2006). Address for correspondence: Flat5, 77 Sunnyside Road, London N19 3SL. [[email protected]]

138

© The authorJournal compilation © 2008 BAP and Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,

Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

mailto:[email protected]

rivalry within psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic psychotherapies hasbecome destructive. So instead I will focus on some other primary meaningsof the term pluralism.

In contemporary science – physics and cosmology, in particular – somescientists concur that the world in all its manifestations is far too complex tobe represented by any one system or paradigm devised by man (for example,Ribeiro & Videira 1998). Even when they don’t use the word pluralism itself,many physicists and cosmologists take the attitude that there is so muchremaining to be learnt and to be discovered that changes of perspective arealways welcome. Even a self-confessed Platonist like Roger Penrose (2004)makes this explicit. Within contemporary philosophy, the idea that any over-arching narrative or metatheory could lay claim either to objective know-ledge or representation of reality was debunked by Lyotard (1979) andmany other postmodernist theorists. Within the relativistic theory of philo-sophical explanations (Nozick 1981), synthesis of forms of explanation isseen as reductionism. What applies to the cosmos and to philosophicalsystems of thought is, of course, equally relevant to the human psyche. Iargue in my book that it is not only philosophically naïve but omnipotent tothink that any one paradigm or system of thought can make a claim to truth,correctness or overall representation of reality in either psychic or externalform (White 2006).

Some contemporary scientists recognize not only the necessity but alsothe value of the pluralistic nature of the scientific process, arguing that thisis the most salient factor in its growth of learning (Colodny 1965). I argue inmy book that the tension and dialectic between the systematic and themultiple and ambiguous in contemporary Independent, post-Kleinian andLacanian thought sustains the possibility of fresh advances in psychoanalytictheory (White 2006). Many eminent psychoanalytic theorists, includingAndré Green (1986, 2005), Adam Phillips (1993), Christopher Bollas (2007)and Jacques Lacan (1964), have emphasized the importance of diversity inpsychoanalytic theory as long as dissent can be used in the service ofdialogue and not in a factional or paranoid way.

Psychoanalytic pluralism can be seen not just as an intellectual but also asa clinical tool. The opening up of different perspectives, or in Bion’s (1970)term ‘multiple vertices’, on the same issue or problem can constitute in itselfa therapeutic instrument of great impact. The ability to change one’s per-spective in either therapist or patient or both can afford one way out of thetransferential and countertransferential gridlocks which are the relationalmanifestation of deep internal stasis and pathology. Also, of course, theability to think pluralistically, without enforced synthesis, is one of the mostpotent weapons against ideological fundamentalism and its most dangerousclinical equivalent, certainty. Patients have been failed far more oftenthrough their therapist thinking they were right than through flagrant mal-practice. Different patients need and elicit different responses from us in

JEAN WHITE 139

ways that go far beyond any embroilment in transference and countertrans-ference entanglements. I’ll talk about how this might come about a littlelater in the lecture.

In his most recent book, The Freudian Moment, published this year,Christopher Bollas (2007) argues that psychoanalytic pluralism constitutesthe use of theory in the service of the life instincts. He thinks too manypsychoanalytic movements today practise ‘intellectual genocide’, that is tosay, significant ideas cease to be used as signifiers and instead becomethings-in-themselves in a type of clan warfare (ibid. p. 4). He argues thattheories are views. Each theory sees something the other theories don’t seeand so to rely on one theory is like thinking that you can rely on one of thesenses alone. He thinks that, if a plurality of theories resides in the psycho-analyst’s preconscious, the appropriate or most relevant one can be acti-vated when it is needed. In this way, a psychoanalyst with a plurality oftheoretical resources has more perceptual capacity than one with singlevision and can therefore work more effectively with each individualanalysand (ibid. p. 5). He says: ‘For me, it is not a question of whether one isa pluralist or not. The question is whether one is a pluralist or a totalitarian’(ibid. p. 7). He even goes so far as to claim that patients are more commun-icative to psychoanalysts with a pluralistic perspective because more of theirassociative material is available to be heard!

Bollas seems to be suggesting here that it is now impossible to separatetaking a pluralist position from practising psychoanalysis in an ethical andeffective way. Most contemporary psychoanalytic theorists haven’t quite gotthat far yet, but (and it’s a very big but) what contemporary theorists fromthe Independent, Lacanian and post-Kleinian schools do stress is the cen-trality of the capacity to recognize and metabolize difference for psychicgrowth to take place, and that is what I will focus on.

I’m now going to take a look at how the value of the recognition ofdifference has been theorized in contemporary Independent, Lacanian andpost-Kleinian thought. Later I’ll talk about the psychopathology attributedto single vision within each of these three contemporary psychoanalyticapproaches. I’ll also consider the implications of all this for clinical work andfor the future development of the psychoanalytic psychotherapies.

The extent to which Winnicott, Lacan and Bion changed the psychoana-lytic paradigm (or psychoanalytic paradigms) is not yet widely recognized.Each in their diverse ways introduced a process model of mind, whichimplicitly underscored people’s differences and the fact that each indi-vidual’s growth takes place on a unique trajectory. These new processmodels of mind also allow for psychic development to take place through-out life in a potentially limitless way with no predetermined end-point.Sadly, it’s not the purpose of this lecture to focus on those developments.However, these new theories of psychic growth do also go some way toaccount for why a plurality of theories is necessary, so I’m going to draw

140 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(2)

from some of them without giving you anything remotely resembling acomplete account.

As an integral part of the paradigm shifts and the new theories of mindintroduced by Winnicott, Lacan and Bion, a reconsideration of the status ofdifference and alterity in the evolution of mind has come about. The recog-nition of otherness is now not only valued as a means to identification, thatis to say to become a psychic ‘object’, but to become a truly different andseparate other, that is to say another subject with another subjectivity orperspective, capable of jolting cherished assumptions and preconceptionsinto radical new configurations. Intrapsychic theory is still central, of course,but it now exists (at least in contemporary Independent theory) in a dialec-tical tension with intersubjectivity, or the capacity to recognize difference inanother’s perspective. As Jessica Benjamin says, intersubjectivity comple-ments the subject/object dynamic of classical psychoanalytic theory with asubject/subject or subject/other dialectic: ‘Where objects were, subjects mustbe’ (Benjamin 1998, p. xii).

The roots of this theory lie in Winnicott’s (1969) reconsideration of benignaggression as essential to separation and individuation. Winnicott thoughtthat the primary powerful urge to self-realization was the basis of aggres-sion; it is part of the life force and like that which is needed for a chick tobreak out of an egg. In infant life, it is an aspect of motility and a part ofprimitive ruthless love. According to Winnicott, aggression only becomespathological or turns destructive against the self and/or others in response toprivation, impingement, tantalization, abuse or other forms of disturbance ofthe ordinarily good enough maternal preoccupation, holding and resiliencesmall people need (Winnicott 1950). In his paper, ‘The use of an object andrelating through identifications’ (Winnicott 1969), he theorized that, througha mother’s survival of her small child’s aggression, the baby comes to experi-ence her as a more separate person beyond the bounds of his omnipotence.If she neither capitulates, retaliates nor withdraws, through her survivalalone, the baby will experience ‘a feeling of real’ and a joyful sense that thereis another person out there, who has not been destroyed, to be discovered.

This newly termed process of ‘object usage’ represents an alternative,supplementary route to the Kleinian depressive position and Winnicott’sown ‘stage of concern’ towards the discovery of otherness and differenceand hence also towards triangulation and symbol formation. As it results inan alive, energized experience for the subject and the delightful possibilitiesinherent in this discovery, it is a joy-based theory of development, as con-trasted with the guilt-laden depressive position (Eigen 1981). Both are nec-essary but they serve different purposes.The ‘use of an object’ can be seen asa more integrative, wholling experience in that it involves an incorporationof aggression as opposed to the subtle dissociation required for depressiveprocesses, where aggression may be implicitly consigned as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’.The use of an object offers internal freedom as well as greater separateness

JEAN WHITE 141

and has been developed as a concept in several forms in contemporaryIndependent theory, specifically in some new theories of intersubjectivity.

In Jessica Benjamin’s (1995) account, it is critical that the mother can befound to be an interestingly different person with a mind of her own, asopposed to any prescriptive version of ‘good enough’ mothering. The dis-covery of difference is now not dependent on the intervention of an actualthird, so oedipal dynamics can be revised in a way that leaves the childfreer to both identify with and desire both parents in complex and shiftingconfigurations (ibid.). Thomas Ogden’s (1994, 1997) model of intersubjec-tivity is completely different. He incorporates Winnicott’s ‘use of an object’and emphasizes the aggressive component in interrelating, but he focuseson the analytic relationship as a transitional third: in other words, the newforms of consciousness and unconsciousness generated in the dynamicinterplay of subjectivities in the analytic encounter. Ogden’s intersubjec-tivity decentres subjectivity and relocates it in a constantly evolving matrixof relationships with others. As he says: ‘The intersubjective and the indi-vidually subjective each create, negate and preserve each other’ (Ogden1997, p. 64). Christopher Bollas also continually re-emphasizes the central-ity of benign aggression in some forms of object usage, and claims that acapacity to live creatively is based on the ability to use life itself as anobject (Bollas 1997).

Benjamin’s argument that the capacity to recognize the mother as asubjective other is a critical stage in infant development which implies thatrelating to difference becomes necessary for psychic development through-out life and within the analytic relationship. Intersubjectivity privileges themoment of mutual recognition, that there is a completely other point of viewto be discovered, as a crucial leap forward in development. Without thebracing re-integrative charge of drive-related aggression, we might havemore of a tendency to become cocooned in a chimera of projective mecha-nisms, without sufficiently robust contact with and recognition of externalreality.With it, the negotiation of external reality becomes part of the growthprocess (White 2006). This has profound implications for the psychoanalyticprocess to include, as developmentally significant, the recognition of differ-ence in areas such as race and racialization, gender, class and culture as wellas, of course, making it essential that the therapist doesn’t become enmeshedin monolithic theoretical assumptions. Benjamin’s theory implicitly fore-grounds the intersubjective moment, the awakening shock of difference andparticularly the difference of another’s subjectivity, to become one of themost mutative forces of the psychoanalytic encounter (Benjamin 1995).

I’ll give you two very brief examples of intersubjective moments – onefrom the therapist’s perspective and one from the patient’s – as it is one ofmy contentions that intersubjective moments can facilitate and/or be facili-tated by shifts in theoretical perspective. The first comes from my work witha young Afro-Caribbean man, who had been in an extremely delusional


state during the first few years of his 11-year therapy. He thought his troubleswere caused by an enemy planet which had shot a black egg into his insides.In the transference, I was seen as an intergalactic enemy from outer space,who had to be managed with military tactics of interrogation and disorien-tation, culled (he later told me) from a German war manual, and variousviolent threats against my person (White 1989, 2006).

Needless to say, I was frightened of him but, at one point in the middle ofall this, it dawned on me that I was all the more frightened of him because hewas black. I realized that I was participating in a very widespread psycho-social mechanism of projecting rage and disturbance into black people.When I withdrew my projections, this patient’s disturbance subsided consid-erably, and in the transference I became merely a conservative governmentagent sent to spy on him (White 1989, 2006). Up to the point I describe I hadworked with this young man using primarily Kleinian and post-Kleiniantheory, as I often do with very disturbed people. However, if I hadn’t readHarold Searles’s two seminal papers, ‘The schizophrenic’s vulnerability tothe therapist’s unconscious processes’ (Searles 1958) and ‘The effort to drivethe other person crazy: an element in the aetiology and psychotherapy ofschizophrenia’ (Searles 1959), I doubt that this intersubjective momentwould have been possible.

My second example comes from the therapy of a young woman I call Ruthwhose mother had been killed in a car crash when she was 16 and who wasstill enmeshed in a rebellious relationship with her. My patient internalizedher ambivalent relationship with her mother as a form of self-attack andpersecution (as described in Freud’s (1917) ‘Mourning and melancholia’), aninternal constellation which would sometimes be turned on me. At thisparticular point in her therapy, she was furious with me because I was notable to change one of her session times to one she felt would be moreconvenient for her. She berated me continually and at great length for myalleged failure to give her what she needed, claiming that it meant she couldnot use her therapy properly (White 2006).

Then she brought a dream: she had gone to the theatre with a friend, butthey had not been given the seats they wanted and she was concerned thatthey would not be able to see the play properly. She went to complain butwas told they could not change their seats. They returned to their originalseats and, as the play started, she realized that she could see perfectly clearly.A very complex, intricate white pyramid rose on the stage. ‘Oh’, I said rathercheekily, ‘My name’s White’.

Ruth’s aggressive collision with my reality, combined with my non-retaliation and non-collapse, enabled her to see her therapy in a dramaticallydifferent way, of which she could make far more robust use. This momentwas also part of a shift from a complaining and blaming stance, to one inwhich she could begin to take more responsibility for herself and be moreconfidently assertive in discerning and following her own desires and needs

JEAN WHITE 143

(White 2006). I think this example also shows how an intersubjectivemoment serves a different purpose from a depressive one. Ruth continued tobe a lively, healthily difficult, feisty young woman, some of which might havebeen dampened down if she had needed to feel guiltier about her attacks onher therapy. But also, if I hadn’t read Winnicott and Jessica Benjamin buthad stuck to my Freudian model, which was also of course profoundlyhelpful, I would probably have been more actively interpretive of Ruth’sattacks and her intersubjective moment could have been lost. I’m comingback to Ruth at a later point in the lecture.

Intersubjective moments have also been conceived of by Neville Syming-ton (1983) as ‘acts of freedom’. He describes his shift of perspective with apatient he calls ‘poor little Miss M’ as a disentangling from a superego-basedcountertransferential enmeshment. It is, of course, arguable that, with two orideally more theoretical perspectives available to the therapist (I would sayunconsciously rather than preconsciously, as I think that they have to havebeen completely digested to be put to clinical use with unconscious creativ-ity), intersubjective moments on the therapist’s part can become somewhatmore available and so more tools are on hand for disentangling oneself fromcountertransferential enmeshments.

However, intersubjective processes have another primary role in psycho-therapy and psychic growth.Thomas Ogden emphasizes the aliveness aspectof Winnicott’s ‘use of an object’, which Winnicott called ‘a feeling of real’(Winnicott 1956, p. 304). Ogden claims:

I believe that every form of psychopathology represents a specific limitation ofthe individual’s capacity to be fully alive as a human being. The goal of analysisfrom this point of view is therefore larger than the resolution of unconsciousintrapsychic conflict, the diminution of symptomatology, the enhancement ofreflective subjectivity and self-understanding, and the increase of one’s sense ofpersonal agency. Although one’s sense of being alive is intimately intertwinedwith each of the above-mentioned capacities, I believe that the experience ofaliveness is a quality that is superordinate to these capacities and must beconsidered as an aspect of the analytic experience in its own terms. (Ogden 1997,p. 26)

The recognition of difference, then, is necessary to the experience of becom-ing and being alive, and has a powerfully energizing capacity.

The recognition and metabolization of difference and alterity are alsointrinsic to the fabric of Lacanian theory and to some post-Kleinian theoryfollowing Bion’s new theory of mind. Lacan distinguished between twoforms of otherness: the big Other (capital O – le grand Autre) and the littleother (small o – objet petit a). At the beginning of life, he thought, a baby ispsychologically born into the desire and language of le grand Autre, the bigOther, which ultimately stands for the symbolic system (White 2006). ThisOther usually coincides with a (m)Other, whose unconscious desire for herchild is determined by her own and her family history, and also by the social


and historical sets of meanings she was born into (Van Haute 2002). We aredependent on this discourse of the big Other as a system of signifiers.Without it, we cannot exist as subjects, but the subject never coincides withthe Other except in psychosis. This big Other does also designate radicalalterity insofar as it cannot be assimilated through identification (Evans1996).This Other is always other, including in the form of the unconscious inLacanian theory.

For the human subject to enter the symbolic order (without which nosubjectivity is possible), she must be able to begin to relate to the Other ina way which is different from the imaginary function of the ego.The realm ofgenerating experience which Lacan described as ‘imaginary’ (image-inary)derives from the mirror stage. Lacan said that the uncoordinated infant,‘... sunk in his motor incapacity and nursling dependence’, misrecognizeshimself ‘in a flutter of jubilant activity’ as whole and ideal (Lacan 1949, p. 2).Although this is a necessary structuring moment of subjectivity, it is primi-tive, rudimentary and illusory. The misrecognition (méconnaissance) consti-tutes an identification, the ‘Ideal-I’, which forms the basis of the ego, animaginary illusory narcissistic structure. The goal of Lacanian analysis isnever, then, the strengthening of the ego, which Lacan saw as a barrier toaccess to the unconscious and an impediment to further discovery. He said:‘The ego is the sum of the identifications of the subject ... like the superim-position of various coats borrowed from what I would call the bric-à-brac ofits props department’ (Lacan 1954–55, p. 155).

In Lacanian terms, therefore, relating to difference through an acceptanceof one’s own lack and incompleteness (symbolic castration in Lacanianterms) is the sine qua non of subjectification, which is only possible in thesymbolic realm. Objet petit a, the little other, which Lacan insisted should notbe translated in order to maintain its algebraic status (Sheridan 1977), refersto the lack introduced through the process of separation from the big Otheror to an unconscious fantasy designed to meliorate lack in neurotic struc-tures (White 2006). It does not designate any form of internalized objectrepresentation. Objet a constitutes a powerful motivating and structuringforce in human relationships and is an indispensable aspect of Lacanianconceptions of transference. The fantasy constituting the internal relation-ship to objet a, the little other, (the fundamental fantasy in Lacanian terms),is imaginary (or pre-symbolic) and must be traversed in analysis for desireto be liberated, or ‘dialectized’ in Lacanian terms, and for the journey ofsubjectivity to continue (Lacan 1964). The liberation of desire through its‘dialectization’ means that it is potentially continually in motion. Desire is aperpetual question or quest: it never seeks satisfaction; it seeks its owncontinuance and furtherance (Fink 1997). We can never be complete orfulfilled in Lacanian theory – we are always internally divided and lacking,but desirousness and openness keep us alive and growing. There arepowerful echoes of intersubjectivity in this theory.

JEAN WHITE 145

Le grand Autre, the big Other, therefore, constitutes otherness in symbolicform, whilst objet petit a, the little other, represents otherness in imaginaryform in Lacanian theory. After 1964, Lacan also located radical alterity inthe ‘real’, which should never be confused with reality.The ‘real’ in Lacanianterms connotes that which has not been subject to symbolization or any formof organizing representation, and is therefore literally impossible to know(Lacan 1964). It can be compared with Bion’s ‘O’, which I’m coming on toshortly. Lacan cited Aristotle’s concept of tuche, or an encounter with thereal, which, in Lacanian terms, disrupts the automaton of the signifying chain(ibid.). Indeed it is a central plank of the Lacanian psychoanalytic processthat organized meaning needs to be broken up through puns, jokes and playon words as well as being reconstituted in the symbolic realm (White 2006).Both Bollas (1995) and Bion (1962) also contend that a dual movement isnecessary: dispersal and the breaking up of narrative cohesion are indispens-able to unconscious psychic creativity, as well as the re-symbolization ofthe new insights gained through this process. Here, yet again, a plurality oftheories can serve as a clinical resource.

Luce Irigaray (1974) used Lacanian theory to reveal the bases of psycho-analytic theory in a masculine imaginary. Her argument for the acknow-ledgement of sexual difference in analysis and in society as a way out of animplicit and unexamined monosexual culture can also be applied in socialand racial arenas, where Lacanian theory is already widely used in post-colonial theory within cultural studies (Bhabha 1994; Lane 1998). It canequally be applied to the necessity of recognizing theoretical difference. Alltheories are partial and incomplete and can only be built in the symbolicrealm in which the acceptance of lack and incompleteness are indispensablepreconditions. The use of one theoretical viewpoint alone runs the risk ofre-constituting theory in the imaginary realm, a psychotic process inLacanian theory. I’ll come back to this.

I’m now going to take a very brief look at how Bion’s views support theseinsights from a totally different metapsychological perspective. Like Lacan,Bion thought that a constant quest towards the unknown, new and not yetevolved was the basis of human evolution (Bion 1965, 1970). Using a com-pletely new, process-based model of mind, Bion theorized the beginning ofsymbolic functioning as the tolerance of frustration and raw experience,which may then be transformed into a sensual image that can be dreamed(Bion 1962). This represents the first stage of the metabolization of rawexperience through alpha function, and requires further tolerance of frus-tration and the unknown so that the initial rudimentary sensual images canbecome subject to further transformation until they can be processed intothought (ibid.). Intolerance of frustration or the unknown or emotion resultsin the evacuation of raw experience in the form of beta elements throughprojective identification in many different forms – and that way, put verysimply, illness and disturbance lie (White 2006).


As an intrinsic part of the process of thought, Bion (1965) posited acontinual movement in the mind between the paranoid/schizoid and depres-sive positions. Only through a temporary and partial regression to the rela-tive chaos of the paranoid/schizoid position can a new idea emerge. It is alsocrucial to this process that what Bion termed a change in vertex or perspec-tive can be opened on the same issue or possibility. The capacity to holddifferent perspectives in mind for Bion, like some contemporary scientists,was a powerful means of reality-testing (Bion 1965, 1970).

In his later work, Bion (1965, 1970) theorized unknown, raw unmetabol-ized experience as ‘O’, a concept that bears many affinities with but isobviously not identical to the Lacanian ‘real’. The apprehension of ‘O’, theunknown, new and not yet evolved in human experience, and the ultimateform of otherness in Bion’s theory, becomes the most sophisticated accom-plishment of the human mind. In this theory, therefore, the ability to tolerate,relate to and process difference is a sine qua non, a fundamental buildingblock.

So if confrontations with otherness and difference are now seen as routesto growth, how does this relate to the issue of psychoanalytic pluralism? Thecontemporary developments I’ve touched on here, which I discuss far morefully in my book, explode any lingering notions of ‘normal’ (i.e. ideal) statesto be achieved through psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The more complexarenas of subjectivity generated by this render a version of human nature inconstant flux and also clear the way for further vitalizing advances in thefuture, if we can learn through difference.They also open the psychoanalyticprocess into a dynamic interchange between two engaged subjects in whichnew and unexpected configurations and developments may emerge (White2006).

Importantly, they also impact on the issue and the future of psychoanalytictheory itself. As I have said, it would be philosophically naïve and omnipo-tent in the extreme to attempt to synthesize paradigms as diverse as thecontemporary Independent, Lacanian and post-Kleinian approaches, andsomething crucial would be lost in such an endeavour. Even though thereare striking correspondences in some areas of these theories, which un-fortunately are not within my remit to explore today, these theories inthemselves account for why an attempt at synthesis would be dangerousnonsense. In Lacanian terms, such an attempt would be ‘imaginary’ – basedon the illusion that reality could be brought under the domain of one’s ownnarcissistic image and a refusal of the motivating lack necessary to desire,getting going in life, learning and creating meaning. In Independent theory,such a project would be seen as a preference for remaining cocooned inprojective/introjective mechanisms and a refusal of the bracing developmen-tal shock of a confrontation with external difference. In Bion’s terms, itwould be psychotic: the incapacity to engage with ‘multiple vertices’, or theability to view the same issue from different perspectives, results in a delu-

JEAN WHITE 147

sional single-mindedness and certainty. Within Lacanian theory, an attemptto construct a metatheory is also psychotic: Lacan’s dictum ‘... there is noOther of the Other’ (Lacan 1960, p. 344) (big Other we’re talking abouthere) refers to the absolute necessity of accepting one’s own lack in anyauthentic engagement with symbolic meaning (White 2006).

I argue for theoretical pluralism, not eclecticism. It is not only impossiblebut dangerously misleading to mix and match concepts that originated indifferent paradigms. The espousal of theoretical pluralism would involveeach individual psychotherapist selecting from the paradigms that she findsmost germane to her work with each unique patient. Different patients mayeven need and elicit different forms of response as they progress in theirtherapy: in my experience, it is extremely rare that any one patient fits neatlyinto one psychoanalytic perspective for the duration of their treatment.

So, as I hope I have already demonstrated, an ability to change perspectiveis critical.To return to Ruth for a minute, at the beginning of her therapy shewas locked into a vicious circle of self-attack which I described earlier as anexample of Freud’s (1917) ‘Mourning and melancholia’. It was only as hertherapy progressed that I realized there was a deeper underlying issue onwhich the Lacanian view of a hysterical neurotic structure provided greaterillumination. As soon as one of Ruth’s problems was resolved, anotherappeared. She frequently tried to conduct her sessions in question andanswer form, apparently assuming that I was a fount of information abouther! This profound unconscious dependence on a fantasy other needed to betraversed, in Lacanian terms, before Ruth could begin to find her own desire,take more responsibility for herself and so explore new possibilities in life(White 2006).

The concept of pluralism therefore, I contend, offers a way into the futurefor psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic psychotherapies, and one thatoffers unprecedented possibilities for mutual respect, co-operation andlearning. If pluralistic thinking and the ability to adjust or fine-tune one’sperspective according to the needs of the patient were to be thought of asindissoluble from the process of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and theoret-ical certainty were to be recognized as pathological, imagine how differentthe psychoanalytic world would be! Imagine what it would be like if thevarious schools of psychoanalytic thought were engaged in a process oftrying to learn from each other!

That such an idea seems preposterous at the moment is an indication ofthe extent to which psychoanalytic organizations have, perhaps unwittingly,become stuck in destructive, omnipotent and imaginary processes them-selves. In The Freudian Moment, Bollas (2007) suggests that the Freudianparadigm emerged at a time when it had become possible to kill tens ofthousands of people through mass armaments and the human race had thecapacity to extinguish itself. We know from the work of Menzies Lyth (1988,1989) and others that organizations tend to incorporate and replicate the


very dynamics they set out to address. Therefore if Bollas is right, it wouldmake sense that the psychoanalytic world in all its manifestations shouldprove to be especially vulnerable to internecine warfare, and that we need tobe aware of this danger and find more constructive ways to deal with it.

In his paper about the current state of mythical pluralism in the psycho-analytic world, André Green (2005) claims that he has never heard aproductive dialogue taking place between two authors who subscribe todifferent theories. This is in fact an overstatement but only a very slight one(see, for example, Burgoyne & Sullivan 1997). Green argues:

To the extent that pluralism does not exist, we need to begin to create it, whichmeans instituting genuine communication between the currents of thinking andencouraging in-depth discussion of the principles underlying the main theoret-ical standpoints governing contemporary psychoanalysis. (Green 2005, p. 631)

I hope that my book will make a contribution towards this long overdueendeavour. The various journals, including the BJP, are also in an excellentposition to facilitate discussion between the different psychoanalytic para-digms and in-depth comparisons of differing clinical approaches withinpsychoanalytic and psychodynamic praxis.

References

Benjamin, J. (1995) Like Subjects Love Objects: Essays on Recognition and SexualDifference. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Benjamin, J. (1998) Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psycho-analysis. London: Routledge.

Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.Bion, W.R. (1962) Learning from Experience. London: Karnac.Bion, W.R. (1965) Transformations. London: Karnac.Bion, W.R. (1970) Attention and Interpretation. London: Karnac.Bollas, C. (1995) Cracking Up: The Work of Unconscious Experience. London:

Routledge.Bollas, C. (1997) Interview with Anthony Molino. In A. Molino (ed.), Freely Associ-

ated. London: Free Association Books.Bollas, C. (2007) The Freudian Moment. London: Karnac.Burgoyne, B. & Sullivan, M. (eds.) (1997) The Klein–Lacan Dialogues. London:

Rebus Press.Colodny, R. (ed.) (1965) Beyond the Edge of Certainty: Essays in Contemporary

Science and Philosophy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Eigen, M. (1981) The area of faith in Winnicott, Lacan and Bion. In A. Phillips (ed.),

The Electrified Tightrope. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.Evans, D. (1996) An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London:

Routledge.Fink, B. (1997) A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and

Technique. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Freud, S. (1917) Mourning and melancholia. In S. Freud, On Murder, Mourning and

Melancholia. London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2005, pp. 203–18.Green, A. (1986) On Private Madness. London: Karnac.Green, A. (2005) The illusion of Common Ground and mythical pluralism. Interna-

tional Journal of Psychoanalysis 86: 627–32.

JEAN WHITE 149

Irigaray, L. (1974) Speculum of the Other Woman. New York: Cornell UniversityPress.

Lacan, J. (1949) The mirror stage as formative of the I as revealed in psychoanalyticexperience. In J. Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection. London: Routledge Classics, 2001, pp.1–8.

Lacan, J. (1954–55) The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in Freud’sTheory and the Technique of Psychoanalysis. New York: Norton.

Lacan, J. (1960) The subversion of the subject and the dialectic of desire in theFreudian unconscious. In J. Lacan, Ecrits:A Selection. London: Routledge Classics,2001, pp. 323–60.

Lacan, J. (1964) The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis [Seminar XI].London: Karnac.

Lane, C. (ed.) (1998) The Psychoanalysis of Race. New York: Columbia UniversityPress.

Lyotard, J-F. (1979) The Postmodern Condition. Manchester: Manchester UniversityPress.

Menzies Lyth, I. (1988) Containing Anxiety in Institutions. London: Free AssociationBooks.

Menzies Lyth, I. (1989) The Dynamics of the Social. London: Free Association Books.Nozick, R. (1981) Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press.Ogden, T.H. (1994) Subjects of Analysis. London: Karnac.Ogden, T.H. (1997) Reverie and Interpretation: Sensing Something Human. London:

Karnac.Penrose, R. (2004) The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Physical Universe.

London: BCA.Phillips, A. (1993) On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored. London: Faber and Faber.Ribeiro, M.B. & Videira, A.A.P. (1998) Dogmatism and theoretical pluralism in

modern cosmology. Apeiron 5: 227–34.Samuels, A. (1989) The Plural Psyche: Personality, Morality and the Father. London:

Routledge.Searles, H.F. (1958) The schizophrenic’s vulnerability to the therapist’s unconscious

processes. In H.F. Searles, Collected Papers on Schizophrenia and Related Subjects,pp. 192–215. London: Maresfield, 1965.

Searles, H.F. (1959) The effort to drive the other person crazy: an element in theaetiology and psychotherapy of schizophrenia. In H.F. Searles, Collected Papers onSchizophrenia and Related Subjects, pp. 254–83. London: Maresfield, 1965.

Sheridan, A. (1977) Translator’s note. In J. Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection. London:Routledge Classics.

Symington, N. (1983) The analyst’s act of freedom as agent of therapeutic change. InG. Kohon (ed.), The British School of Psychoanalysis: The Independent Tradition.London: Free Association Books.

Van Haute, P. (2002) Against Adaptation: Lacan’s ‘Subversion’ of the Subject. NewYork: Other Press.

White, J. (1989) Racism and psychosis: whose madness is it anyway? Paper presentedat ‘Psychoanalysis and the Public Sphere’, University of East London.

White, J. (2006) Generation: Preoccupations and Conflicts in Contemporary Psycho-analysis. London: Routledge.

Winnicott, D.W. (1950) Aggression in relation to emotional development. In D.W.Winnicott, Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis, pp. 204–18. London: Hogarth,1975.

Winnicott, D.W. (1956) Primary maternal preoccupation. In D.W. Winnicott,Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis, pp. 300–5. London: Hogarth, 1975.

Winnicott, D.W. (1969) The use of an object and relating through identifications. InD.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality, pp. 101–11. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.


Documents

PLURALISM IN CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYSIS: THEORY AND PRACTICE