Debating Relational Psychoanalysis

Jon Mills and his Critics

Jon Mills

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000068030
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Physiological Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In Debating Relational Psychoanalysis, Jon Mills provides an historical record of the debates that had taken place for nearly two decades on his critique of the relational school, including responses from his critics.

Since he initiated his critique, relational psychoanalysis has become an international phenomenon with proponents worldwide. This book hopes that further dialogue may not only lead to conciliation, but more optimistically, that relational theory may be inspired to improve upon its theoretical edifice, both conceptually and clinically, as well as develop technical parameters to praxis that help guide and train new clinicians to sharpen their own theoretical orientation and therapeutic efficacy. Because of the public exchanges in writing and at professional symposiums, these debates have historical significance in the development of the psychoanalytic movement as a whole simply due to their contentiousness and proclivity to question cherished assumptions, both old and new. In presenting this collection of his work, and those responses of his critics, Mills argues that psychoanalysis may only advance through critique and creative refinement, and this requires a deconstructive praxis within the relational school itself.

Debating Relational Psychoanalysis will be of interest to psychoanalysts of all orientations, psychotherapists, mental health workers, psychoanalytic historians, philosophical psychologists, and the broad disciplines of humanistic, phenomenological, existential, and analytical psychology.

1

A critique of relational psychoanalysis

Jon Mills

Abstract: Psychoanalysis today is largely a psychology of consciousness: post- and neo-Freudians form a marginalized community within North America in comparison to contemporary relational and intersubjective theorists who emphasize the phenomenology of lived conscious experience, dyadic attachments, affective attunement, social construction, and mutual recognition over the role of insight and interpretation. Despite the rich historical terrain of theoretical variation and advance, many contemporary approaches have displaced the primacy of the unconscious. Notwithstanding the theoretical hairsplitting that historically occurs across the psychoanalytic domain, we are beginning to see with increasing force and clarity what Mitchell and Aron (1999) refer to as the emergence of a new tradition, namely, relational psychoanalysis. Having its edifice in early object relations theory, the British middle school and American interpersonal traditions, and self psychology, relationality is billed as “a distinctly new tradition” (Mitchell & Aron, 1999, p. x). What is being labeled as the American middle group of psychoanalysis (Spezzano, 1997), relational and intersubjective theory have taken center stage. It may be argued, however, that contemporary relational and intersubjective perspectives have failed to be properly critiqued from within their own school of discourse. The scope of this article is largely preoccupied with tracing the (a) philosophical underpinnings of contemporary relational theory, (b) its theoretical relation to traditional psychoanalytic thought, (c) clinical implications for therapeutic practice, and (d) its intersection with points of consilience that emerge from these traditions.

Relational psychoanalysis is an American phenomenon, with a politically powerful and advantageous group of members advocating for conceptual and technical reform. Relational trends are not so prevalent in other parts of the world where one can readily observe the strong presence of Freud throughout Europe and abroad, Klein in England and South America, Lacan in France and Argentina, Jung in Switzerland, the Independents in Britain, Kohut in the Midwestern United States, and the Interpersonalists in the East, among others. Despite such secularity and pluralism, relational thinking is slowly gaining mainstream ascendency. Perhaps this is due in part to the following factors: (a) In the United States there is an increasing volume of psychoanalytically trained psychologists who graduate from and teach at many progressive contemporary training institutes and postdoctoral programs, thus exerting a powerful conceptual influence on the next generation of analysts who are psychologically rather than medically trained;1 (b) There has been a magnitude of books that have embraced the relational turn and are financially supported by independent publishing houses that lie beyond the confines of academe, thus wielding strong political identifications; (c) There has been a proliferation of articles and periodicals that have emerged from the relational tradition and hence favor relational concepts in theory and practice; and (d) Several identified relational analysts or those friendly to relational concepts are on the editorial boards of practically every respectable peer refereed psychoanalytic journal in the world, thus insuring a presence and a voice. Politics aside, it becomes easy to appreciate the force, value, and loci of the relational turn:

1.Relational psychoanalysis has opened a permissible space for comparative psychoanalysis by challenging fortified traditions ossified in dogma, such as orthodox conceptions of the classical frame, neutrality, abstinence, resistance, transference, and the admonition against analyst self-disclosure.

2.Relational perspectives have had a profound impact on the way we have come to conceptualize the therapeutic encounter, and specifically the role of the analyst in technique and practice. The relational turn has forged a clearing for honest discourse on what we actually do, think, and feel in our analytic work, thus breaking the silence and secrecy of what actually transpires in the consulting room. Relational approaches advocate for a more natural, humane, and genuine manner of how the analyst engages the patient rather than cultivating a distant intellectual attitude or clinical methodology whereby the analyst is sometimes reputed to appear as a cold, staid, antiseptic or emotionless machine. Relational analysts are more revelatory, interactive, and inclined to disclose accounts of their own experience in professional space (e.g., in session, publications, and conference presentations), enlist and solicit perceptions from the patient about their own subjective comportment, and generally acknowledge how a patient’s responsiveness and demeanor is triggered by the purported attitudes, sensibility, and behavior of the analyst. The direct and candid reflections on countertransference reactions, therapeutic impasse, the role of affect, intimacy, and the patient’s experience of the analyst are revolutionary ideas that have redirected the compass of therapeutic progress away from the uniform goals of interpretation and insight to a proper holistic focus on psychoanalysis as process.

3.The relational turn has displaced traditional epistemological views of the analyst’s authority and unadulterated access to knowledge, as well as the objectivist principles they rest upon. By closely examining the dialogic interactions and meaning constructions that emerge within the consulting room, relational psychoanalysis has largely embraced the hermeneutic postmodern tradition of questioning the validity of absolute truth claims to knowledge, objective certainty, and positivist science. Meaning, insight, and conventions of interpretation are largely seen as materializing from within the unique contexts and contingencies of interpersonal participation in social events, dialogical discourse, dialectical interaction, mutual negotiation, dyadic creativity, and reciprocally generated co-constructions anchored in an intersubjective process. This redirective shift from uncritically accepting metaphysical realism and independent, objective truth claims to reclaiming the centrality of subjectivity within the parameters of relational exchange has allowed for a reconceptualization of psychoanalytic doctrine and the therapeutic encounter.

No small feat indeed. But with so many relational publications largely dominating the American psychoanalytic scene, we have yet to see relational psychoanalysis undergo a proper conceptual critique from within its own frame of reference. With the exception of Jay Greenberg (2001) who has recently turned a critical eye toward some of the technical practices conducted within the relational community today, most of the criticism comes from those outside the relational movement (Frank, 1998a, b; Silverman, 2000; Eagle, Wolitzky, & Wakefield, 2001; Josephs, 2001; Eagle, 2003; Lothane, 2003; Masling, 2003). In order to prosper and advance, it becomes important for any discipline to evaluate its theoretical and methodological propositions from within its own evolving framework rather than insulate itself from criticism due to threat or cherished group loyalties. It is in the spirit of advance that I offer this critique as a psychoanalyst and academically trained philosopher who works clinically as a relational analyst. Because the relational movement has become such a progressive and indispensable presence within the history of the psychoanalytic terrain, it deserves our serious attention, along with a rigorous evaluation of the philosophical foundations on which it stands. I do not intend to polemically abrogate nor undermine the value of relationality in theory and practice, but only to draw increasing concern to specific theoretical conundrums that may be ameliorated without abandoning the spirit of critical, constructive dialogue necessary for psychoanalysis to continue to thrive and sophisticate its conceptual practices. Admittedly, I will ruffle some feathers of those overly-identified with the relational movement. But it is my hope that through such crucial dialogue psychoanalysis can avail itself to further understanding.

Key tenets of the relational model

I should warn the reader up front that I am not attempting to critique every theorist who is identified with the relational turn, which is neither desirable nor practical for our purposes, a subject matter that could easily fill entire volumes. Instead I hope to approximate many key tenets of relational thinking that could be reasonably said to represent many analysts’ views on what relationality represents to the field. To prepare our discussion, we need to form a working definition of precisely what constitutes the relational platform. This potentially becomes problematic given that each analyst identified with this movement privileges certain conceptual and technical assumptions over those of others, a phenomenon all analysts are not likely to dispute. However, despite specific contentions or divergences, relational analysts maintain a shared overarching emphasis on the centrality of relatedness. This shared emphasis on therapeutic relatedness has become the centerpiece of contemporary psychoanalysis to the point that some relationalists boast to have achieved a “paradigm shift” in the field.2 On the face of things, this claim may sound palpably absurd to some analysts because the relational tradition hardly has a unified theory let alone a consensual body of knowledge properly attributed to a paradigm. Nevertheless, for our purposes, it becomes important to delineate and clarify what most relational analysts typically agree upon. Where points of difference, disagreement, and controversy exist, they tend not to cancel out certain fundamental theoretical assumptions governing relational discourse. Let us examine three main philosophical tenets of the relational school.

The primacy of relatedness

When Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) inaugurated the relational turn by privileging relatedness with other human beings as the central motive behind mental life, they displaced Freud’s drive model in one stroke of the pen. Although Greenberg (1991) later tried to fashion a theoretical bridge between drive theory and a relational model, he still remained largely critical. Mitchell (1988, 2000), however, had continued to steadfastly position relationality in antithetical juxtaposition to Freud’s metapsychology until his untimely death. From his early work, Mitchell (1988) states that the relational model is “an alternative perspective which considers relations with others, not drives, as the basic stuff of mental life” (p. 2, italics added), thus declaring the cardinal premise of all relational theorists. Greenberg (1991) makes this point more forcefully: the relational model is “based on the radical rejection of drive in favor of a view that all motivation unfolds from our personal experience of exchanges with others” (p. vii, italics added). The centrality of interactions with others, forming relationships, interpersonally mediated experience, human attachment, the impact of others on psychic development, reciprocal dyadic communication, contextually based social influence, and the recognition of competing subjectivities seem to be universal theoretical postulates underscoring the relational perspective. These are very reasonable and sound assertions, and we would be hard pressed to find anyone prepared to discredit these elemental facts. The main issue here is these propositions are nothing new: relational theory is merely stating the obvious. These are simple reflections on the inherent needs, strivings, developmental trajectories, and behavioral tendencies propelling human motivation, a point Freud made explicit throughout his theoretical corpus, which became further emphasized more significantly by early object relations theorists through to contemporary self psychologists. Every aspect of conscious life is predicated on human relatedness by the simple fact that we are thrown into a social ontology as evinced by our participation in family interaction, communal living, social custom, ethnic affiliation, local and state politics, national governance, and common linguistic practices that by definition cannot be refuted nor annulled by virtue of our embodied and cultural facticity, a thesis thoroughly advanced by Heidegger (1927), originally dating back to antiquity. But what is unique to the relational turn is a philosophy based on antithesis and refutation: namely, the abnegation of the drives.

Intersubjective ontology

Relational psychoanalysis privileges intersubjectivity over subjectivity...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Author
• Introduction: (Re)visioning relational psychoanalysis
• 1. A critique of relational psychoanalysis
• 2. Contextualizing is not nullifying: Reply to Mills
• 3. Assertions of therapeutic excess: A reply to Mills
• 4. “Neither fish nor flesh”: Commentary on Jon Mills
• 5. A response to my critics
• 6. Conundrums: A critique of contemporary psychoanalysis: Interview on New Books in Psychoanalysis
• 7. Fine-tuning problems in relational psychoanalysis: New directions in theory and praxis
• 8. Introduction to the relational approach and its critics: A conference with Dr. Jon Mills
• 9. Challenging relational psychoanalysis: A critique of postmodernism and analyst self-disclosure
• 10. Straw men, stereotypes and constructive dialogue: A response to Mills’ criticism of the relational approach
• 11. On multiple epistemologies in theory and practice: A response to Jon Mills’ critique of the postmodern turn in relational psychoanalysis
• 12. Relational psychoanalysis and the concepts of truth and meaning: Response to Jon Mills
• 13. Projective identification and relatedness: A Kleinian perspective
• 14. Psychoanalysis and postmodernism: A response to Dr. Jon Mills’ “Challenging relational psychoanalysis: A critique of postmodernism and analyst self-disclosure”
• 15. Relational psychoanalysis out of context: Response to Jon Mills
• 16. Challenging relational psychoanalysis: A reply to my critics
• Index