Beyond Postmodernism

New Dimensions in Clinical Theory and Practice

Roger Frie, Donna Orange

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317723493
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Beyond Postmodernism identifies ways in which psychoanalysis has moved beyond the postmodern debate and discusses how this can be applied to contemporary practice.

Roger Frie and Donna Orange bring together many of the leading authoritieson psychoanalytic theory and practiceto provide a broad scope of psychoanalytic viewpoints and perspectives on the growing interdisciplinary discoursebetweenpsychoanalysis, continental philosophy, social theory and philosophy of mind. Divided into two parts, Psychoanalytic Encounters with Postmodernism and Psychoanalysis Beyond Postmodernism, this book:

• elaborates and clarifies aspects of the postmodern turn in psychoanalysis
• furthers an interdisciplinary perspective on clinical theory and practice
• contributes to new understandings of theory and practice beyond postmodernism.

• 
  
  

Beyond Postmodernism: New Dimensions in Clinical Theory and Practice provides a fresh perspective on the relationship between psychoanalysis and postmodernism and raises new issues for the future. It will be of interest to practicing psychoanalysts and psychologists as well as students interested in psychoanalysis, postmodernism and philosophy.

Part I
Psychoanalytic encounters with postmodernism

Chapter 1
Postmodern influences on contemporary psychoanalysis

Morris N. Eagle

What is postmodernism?

The purpose of this chapter is to critically evaluate the influence of postmodern views on psychoanalytic theorizing. Postmodern is a fuzzy category and for some not a meaningful one. So, any discussion of postmodern influences should begin with an attempt at clarifying what one means by ‘‘postmodernism’’. A useful characterization of the term is given by Jon Snyder in his translation of Vattimo’s (1985) The End of Modernity. He writes: ‘‘There is a widely shared sense that Western ways of seeing, knowing, and representing have irreversibly altered in recent times’’ (1985: vi). These alterations include the following: the view that supposed truths are no less subjective values than any other beliefs or opinions; the project ‘‘to unmask all systems of reason as systems of persuasion, and to show that logic – the very basis of rational thought – is in fact only a kind of rhetoric’’ (1985: xxii); the contention ‘‘that all distinctions between truth and falsehood must be dissolved’’ (1985: xii); the reduction of truth to value or a particular perspective, the ‘‘infinite interpretability of reality’’ (1985: xxi); and the assertion that both in science and in art the choice of a paradigm is ‘‘ultimately made on the basis of persuasive power’’ and rhetoric rather than through demonstration of the truth of the matter.

I would also include in the general category of postmodern the kind of neopragmatist views of Rorty (1991) who writes:

The tradition in Western culture which centers around the notion of the search for truth, a tradition which runs from the Greek philosophers through the Enlightenment, is the clearest example of the attempt to find a sense of one’s existence by turning away from solidarity to objectivity. The idea of truth as something to be pursued for its own sake, not because it will be good for oneself, or for one’s real or imagined community, is the central theme of this tradition.

(Rorty 1991: 21)

Rorty makes clear his belief that we should turn away from the Enlightenment tradition of valuing objectivity and return to the pursuit of solidarity. And it is the rejection of this Enlightenment tradition that is one of the central features of postmodernism.

As one can see from the material cited from both Snyder and Rorty, postmodernism is to be most sharply contrasted with what John Searle refers to as the ‘‘Enlightenment Vision’’ (Searle 1998: 10). Closely linked to this vision are a set of what Searle calls ‘‘default positions’’ that have come under attack, particularly postmodernist attack. In the present context, the most relevant of these are, first, the assumption that ‘‘there is a real world that exists independently of us, independently of our experiences, our thoughts, our language’’; and second, that ‘‘our statements are typically true or false depending on whether they correspond to how things are, that is, to facts in the world’’. It is precisely these basic assumptions, along with some others, that, according to Snyder, have come to be ‘‘irreversibly altered in recent times’’. The challenges to and attacks on these default positions, as Searle notes, have been variously ‘‘called social construction-ism, pragmatism, deconstructionism, relativism, and postmodernism’’.

Psychoanalysis and the “Enlightenment Vision”

How are postmodern influences expressed in the context of psychoanalytic theorizing? One can begin addressing this question by noting that the different expressions of postmodern influences on psychoanalysis have in common a rejection of certain central features of classical theory that are embedded in the ‘‘Enlightenment Vision’’. The clearest expression of this is found in the classical idea that lifting repression and making the unconscious conscious, that is, expanding conscious awareness and gaining self-knowledge, are liberating and curative. From the moment that Freud introduced the ‘‘cornerstone’’ concept of repression as the primary pathogen of hysteria and the lifting of repression as the primary goal of treatment, psychoanalysis joined the ‘‘Enlightenment Vision’’. Knowing oneself was now viewed not only as a Socratic virtue, but also as a clinical necessity if one was to be cured.

The conviction that the truth shall set ye free was embodied in the conceptualization of insight, self-knowledge, and self-awareness as the primary curative factors in psychoanalysis. Despite their criticisms of psychoanalysis, figures such as Perls (e.g. 1973), the father of Gestalt therapy, Beck et al. (e.g. 1979), the father of cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) (both of whom began their professional life as psychoanalysts), and Rogers (e.g. 1951, 1961), the father of non-directive therapy nevertheless continued to emphasize the therapeutic value of expanded awareness and self-knowledge. For a long time, this conviction held and permeated the culture. For example, it was not that long ago that an eminent and influential philosopher like Habermas could hail psychoanalysis as a liberating discipline that could overcome and ‘‘dissolve’’ the repetition compulsion through lifting repression and the therapeutic ‘‘power of reflection’’ (Habermas 1971: 271). In short, these critics continued to subscribe to the Enlightenment project.

This conviction and the unanimity regarding the therapeutic value of awareness and self-knowledge began to crumble some time ago. As noted by Eagle et al. (2001), the contemporary disillusionment with the traditional Enlightenment ideas that making the unconscious conscious, acquiring insight, and learning truths about oneself are crucial to therapeutic change has been recruited to a general postmodernist stance. The dethroning of insight and self-knowledge and replacing them with the primacy of corrective emotional experiences, the therapeutic relationship, co-constructed coherent narratives, and so on as curative factors do not, in themselves, constitute a postmodernist stance. There is nothing postmodern about the straightforward empirical claim that insight, self-knowledge, and learning truths about oneself may not be as effective as was thought and may, indeed, be less effective than other factors. (Of course, as an empirical claim, this would need to be established, not merely asserted.)

However, what may have begun as an informal empirical claim, for those described as espousing the ‘‘new view’’ (Eagle et al. 2001), became transformed into a philosophical position which seemed to rule out the very possibility of discovering truths about the mind. For example, as Mitchell put it, ‘‘there are no clearly discernible processes corresponding to the phrase ‘in the patient’s mind’ for either the patient or the analyst to be right or wrong about’’ (Mitchell 1998: 16). He also writes: ‘‘An individual mind is an oxymoron’’ (Mitchell 2000: 57); ‘‘the basic unity of study is not the individual as a separate entity . . . but an interactional field’’ (Mitchell 1998: 3). He also questions the ‘‘traditional claims to analytic knowledge and authority [which] presupposed that the central dynamics relevant to the analytic process are preorganized in the patient’s mind’’ (Mitchell 1998: 18, original italics).

If the individual mind is an oxymoron; if the individual’s central dynamics are not preorganized, but rather co-constructed in the analytic situation; if there no clearly discernible processes in the patient’s mind to be right or wrong about, it would surely make little sense to posit uncovering or discovering truths about one’s mind, acquiring self-knowledge and insight, and expanding awareness as therapeutic goals. Instead, the process goals of psychoanalytic treatment now became retellings of one’s life (Schafer 1992), persuasive narratives labelled ‘‘narrative truth’’ (Spence 1980), new meanings to be constructed or co-constructed (Mitchell 1998), new perspectives to be taken (Renik 1998), and in one extreme but perhaps the most frank expression of postmodern influences, beautifully wrought ‘‘aesthetic fictions’’ to be formulated (Geha 1984; see also Eagle’s 1984 critique of Geha’s position). Furthermore, we are told, the analyst cannot escape his or her ‘‘irreducible subjectivity’’ (Renik 1993).

I want to emphasize again that the issue is not whether new perspectives, meaning-making, retellings, persuasive narratives, and so on are more therapeutically effective than insight, awareness, and self-knowledge. They may or may not be and whether they are or not is an empirical question. The point rather that I want to note here is the parallel between the supposed impossibility of discovering truths about the patient’s mind and the emphasis instead on such goals as constructing coherent and persuasive narratives and new meaning systems in the psychoanalytic context and the general postmodern position noted at the beginning of this chapter which argues against any essential distinction between supposed truths and persuasive power and rhetoric. The presumed impossibility of the analyst’s escape from his or her subjectivity (Renik 1993, 1998) is paralleled by the postmodern insistence that supposed truths are no less subjective values than any other beliefs or opinions. Thus, the issue here is that the very possibility of learning truths about oneself – or the analyst learning truths about the patient – or acquiring self-knowledge seems to be ruled out by a conception of mind that bears the influences of a postmodern philosophical position.

Characteristic of the postmodern turn in psychoanalysis is the transformation of legitimate criticism into radical and, in my view, untenable philosophical positions. Thus, as we have seen, legitimate questions regarding the therapeutic efficacy of insight and self-knowledge are transformed into claims that there are no truths about the mind to be learned or discovered. One sees a similar pattern with regard to legitimate criticism in other areas. For example, as noted by Eagle et al. (2001), the ‘‘new view’’ theorists have justifiably argued against the naive and sometimes arrogant belief that, by virtue of his or her theoretical knowledge and training, the analyst has virtually infallible access to the Truth about the patient’s mind. They have also, quite rightly, rejected what at times has seemed to be the implicit claim of classical theory that there is a singular canonical interpretation of the patient’s material. However, it is one thing to reject the claims of infallible access to the truth and another thing to reject altogether the possibility that one can reliably infer certain truths about the patient’s mind. It is one thing to reject the idea of a singular canonical interpretation; it is another thing to dissolve all distinctions among interpretations and to do away with Freud’s concern that interpretations ‘‘tally with what is real (in the patient)’’ (Freud 1916–1917: 452). It is one thing to recognize the difficulty and uncertainty of inferences about the patients’ unconscious mental contents and processes; it is another thing to argue that one ‘‘interpretively constructs’’ another’s mind (Mitchell 1998: 16), that is, that one’s interpretations, in effect, constitute the other’s mind.

A recognition of the untenability of the blank screen model and of certain conceptions of analytic neutrality has become transformed into the claim that the patient–analyst interaction constitutes and organizes the patient’s mind, as if there were no stable organization prior to and independent of these interactions. Or, to put it another way, the legitimate idea that the analyst constantly emits cues that may influence the patient’s state of mind is radically extended and transformed into the proposition that the analytic interaction totally organizes the patient’s mind. For example, Mitchell’s (1998: 18) rejection of the ‘‘traditional claims . . . that the central dynamics relevant to the analytic process are preorganized in the patient’s mind’’ has led Meissner to comment that

It seems odd . . . that one would think of the patient, as he enters the consulting room for the first time, as without a history entirely of his own, without a developmental background, without a psychology and personality that he has acquired and developed in the course of a lifetime, all accomplished before he had any contact with the analyst.

(Meissner 1998: 422)

Mitchell has tried to clarify his position by stating that he is arguing against ‘‘the assumption that there is a static organization to mind that manifests itself whole cloth across experiences’’ (Mitchell 2000: 155, original italics). He thinks of the mind, he goes on to say, ‘‘as preexisting but not preorganized’’ and refers to Ogden’s (1997) description of

the internal object relationship . . . [as a] fluid set of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that is continually in movement and is always susceptible to being shaped and restructured as it is newly experienced in the context of each new unconscious intersubjective relationship.

(quoted in Mitchell 2000: 155, original italics)

To the extent that I understand the distinction between ‘‘preexisting’’ and ‘‘preorganized’’ – and I confess that this distinction makes little sense to me – and the passage from Ogden he refers to (and I am not at all sure that I really understand that either), I read Mitchell as arguing against the idea of a static organization of mind which he associates with traditional theory (e.g. with such concepts as core dynamic conflicts and the timelessness of certain unconscious infantile wishes). What he proposes instead, citing Ogden, is a conception of the mind that is fluid, ‘‘continually in movement,’’ and shaped by each new intersubjective relationship, or perhaps one should say, by the unconscious meanings given to each new intersubjective relationship.

Postmodernism and relational psychoanalysis

We see here a marriage between postmodernism and the interactional– relational turn in psychoanalysis. The two are not inherently linked, but have become linked in some of the contemporary literature. One can take the eminently reasonable position, as, for example, Gill (1982, 1994) does, that the analyst cannot be – nor is there virtue in trying to be – a blank screen nor a fully obj...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: coherence or fragmentation? Modernism, postmodernism, and the search for continuity
• PART I Psychoanalytic encounters with postmodernism
• PART II Psychoanalysis beyond postmodernism
• Postscript: from postmodern skepticism to the search for psychoanalytic understanding
• Index