A Dialogue with Irwin Hoffman on constructivism and phenomenology

Tullio Carere-Comes, editor

Editor's note. The dialogue between Hoffman and me began insidethe JAPA Online Faculty Seminar in which Luyten, Blatt and Corvelyn's 2006 paper " Minding the Gap Between Positivism and Hermeneutics in Psychoanalytic Research", Japa 4, 2, was discussed from September 15 to October 16, 2007. All contributions can be read in the JPN Archive, where one can also find a rich summary of the discussion by its moderator, Robert White. In fact, what happened inside the Seminar between Hoffman and me could hardly be called a dialogue – a clash could be a more proper word. The true dialogue developed back-channel, after the conclusion of the Seminar. The first part of this document begins with two substantial Hoffman's contributions to the JAPA Seminar, on which I drew for my comment of October 9. On October 13 came Hoffman lively rebuttal of my comment, followed by my reply the day after, and the final, conciliatory Hoffman's comment. The second part includes the dialogue proper that developed between us from October 20 to November 4.

First part: The exchange inside the JAPA Seminar

Irwin Hoffman, September 20, 2007

This is a commentary that I began to write after reading the paper and that I continued to work on, largely without, I’m afraid, incorporating the ideas offered by others in this online discussion or the authors’ responses to them. I hope people will forgive that, although I realize, just sampling and skimming, that a lot has been said that bears on my comments. It was just too much to take on. I did read an early comment by Bonnie Litowitz. I agree with her that there is a bias in this paper, despite the authors’ interest in being evenhanded, that is heavily on the neopositivist side. There are many indications of this bias beginning with the fact that the attacks on the scientific standing of psychoanalysis are all thought to be addressed only by systematic empirical research (pp. 575-576). In other words, the premises of the critics are, in effect, accepted. There is no suggestion that a counter to the critics might actually come from within the hermeneutic/constructivist (I will use those terms interchangeably) tradition and the hermeneutically minded sector of the psychoanalytic community.

As some of you may know, I had the honor of giving a keynote address at the January 2007 meeting in NYC of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Maybe some of you were there. That talk was entitled “Doublethinking our way to scientific legitimacy: The desiccation of human experience.” What I’m going to say here is in some respects further developed in that paper. If I ever get it together to submit it, I think it will be published eventually in JAPA.

Here I would like to make a few points in relation to several ideas in the essay we are discussing without trying to put it all together. They are a few patches of a quilt that stands in need of more patches as well as integration. But to do all of that would require a whole essay and I just can’t take that on at this moment. But I do hope that a sense of the “whole” might emerge from what I convey and that others might be able to contribute more “parts” and, perhaps, even more integration.

So here are a few points. Maybe I will add more later on. I will numberthem for the convenience of others who might want to post comments on one or another of these ideas.

1) As noted above, Luyten et al. assume that responses to the critiques of psychoanalysis as science must come from, and, indeed, have come from the carrying out of systematic empirical research (e.g. pp. 575-576). That assumption implies acceptance of the premises of those critiques. There are no suggestions as to how hermeneutically minded thinkers might respond, which I would imagine would entail questioning those premises.

2)Luyten et al. write:

“Popper’s distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification is extremely relevant, because it continues to influence the debate on the scientific status of psychoanalysis (see, e.g., Edelson 1984). The context of discovery refers to the origin of scientific ideas. But according to Popper, ideas or hypotheses become scientific only when they are put to the test (laid open to falsification) and not refuted. This latter process Popper called the context of justification. And indeed, as Fonagy (2003) has recently argued, it seems that psychoanalysis is rich in “discoveries,” but has lagged far behind in the justification of these ideas. To be more precise, psychoanalysts have long considered their typical way of testing psychoanalytic hypotheses—i.e., by the in-depth, interpretive study of individual cases—sufficient ground for justification. Yet, as we will argue in greater detail below, it has become clear that the traditional case study method cannot suffice to justify psychoanalytic ideas because, among other reasons, it usually looks only for confirming evidence.” (p. 577)

This classification of scientific activity leaves out what I would call the “context of construction,” or the “context of coconstruction “ of meaning and of ways of being in the world. From a constructivist point of view, as I think of it, human experience is ambiguous, which means that it is open to multiple interpretations. That does not mean, however, that “anything goes,” that any interpretation is as good as any other. Such a conclusion reflects a misunderstanding of the implications of ambiguity. I like to consider the Rorschach test where the number of percepts that are considered to be “good form” responses in that they are in keeping with the features of the ambiguous inkblot is infinite. At the same time, critical thinking with respect to “validity” has its place since the number of percepts that would qualify as “poor form” responses is also infinite. So on the one hand, one can make judgments as to the “fit” of responses with the objective features of the stimulus.

On the other hand, choosing which among the infinite set of good form responses one considers “better” or “healthier” or “preferable” might well invoke considerations other than validity, such as moral and aesthetic considerations. When the analyst and analysand collaborate in a way that leads to their thinking about something in the patient’s experience and adaptation in a certain way, or to their being together in a certain way, they are cocreating something. The idea that what is then called for is “justification,” in the sense that Popper and these authors think of it, misrepresents the nature of the whole enterprise. Something very different is called for in deciding whether what the analyst and the analysand have cocreated is good or not, or “good enough” or not. It might be something like deciding whether a certain cultural practice is good for human beings or not, or better than some other cultural practice or not. In this context we have a miniculture generated by two people.

I appreciate the fact that Luyten et al. eventually question the assumption that case studies can only be hypothesis generating, although I do not believe they are raising questions about the exclusive relevance of these categories.

3) Because of what I’ve called the “consequential uniqueness” of each individual and each dyad, the kind of “advance” in knowledge that is relevant is heightened awareness of possibilities to consider. Such heightened awareness might be thought of in terms of the development of “sensibility” which in turn provides the basis for creative participation. The aim might be to add wisdom to what Donald Schön (The Reflective Practitioner, 1983) calls “reflection in action” which Schön contrasts with “technical rationality,” the application of allegedly objective “knowledge” in a relatively mechanical way, an approach that Schön claims governs a wide range of types of professional practice, all of which, Schön argues, are predominantly positivist. Luyten et al. Say “the divide between two cultures in psychoanalysis also reflects in some cases a tension between idiographic and nomothetic approaches toward science, with the former approach interested mainly in understanding individuals and their particular, idiosyncratic history, beliefs, and behaviors, the latter being focused on discovering lawful regularities across individuals.” (p. 580)

I do not believe that this formulation of the alternatives allows for the kind of “learning” that I’m talking about. Heightened sensibility entails the kind of growth-through-experience to which case studies can make an enormous contribution. In fact, I would argue that so-called “hypothesis testing” research in our field generally accomplishes no more than that, or should accomplish no more than that. It is “hypothesis testing” only inside the logic of the particular study with its particular methodology. It does not yield “findings” that can simply be applied in a new clinical situation. In that sense, case studies contribute as much if not more than systematic empirical research to “progress” in the field.When research findings are privileged so that they are given the “authority” to dictate how certain patients with one or another trait or symptom should be treated, we slide into technical rationality, a mode of practice that does violence to the complexity and consequential uniqueness of our patients, of the two-person encounter in which we are engaged, and of specific moments within that two person encounter.

4) Advances in knowledge in the form of “heightened sensibility” are promoted by ongoing dialogue and debate. Authors like Habermas, Taylor, and Gadamer give us a great deal to think about regarding such debate and how it works. I believe we need to educate ourselves more about that process. I notice the call from Corbett Williams for reading Gadamer followed by an unequivocal statement by Zvi Lothane that the hermeneutic point of view is incompatible with psychoanalysis, to which, he feels the method of free association is essential. I’m not sure I understand what about it is incompatible with hermeneutics, but I have challenged traditional views of free association (“The myths of free association” IJP 2006) which I guess establishes, in Zvi’s book, that I am not a psychoanalyst. I’m not sure of that though because in my writing on the subject I am challenging certain ways in which it has been defined and used, which I argue, subtract too much from the patient’s agency and from his or her responsibility for the course of the work and for the quality of the analytic relationship. I am encouraging salvaging the concept but with different connnoations.

4) With regard to consequential uniqueness, it’s noteworthy that an obvious shortcoming of systematic empirical research is that such research invariably does not control for who the therapist is. One could argue that that shortcoming, by itself, overrides the strengths of such studies as compared with case studies in terms of generalizability of findings. To underestimate the importance of that “variable” is to “essentialize” behaviors (“interventions”) as though they have meaning that is independent of the context of the person who is engaging in them. As soon as the “meaning” of behavior is understood to be contextual, one has to know more about the people involved and the moment of their interaction. What one can know of “context” is always limited. As I’ve said elsewhere, one of the contexts in which a therapist works is always the context of ignorance of contexts.

I appreciate that Syd Blatt states, in keeping with a growing consensu, “in my judgment psychotherapy is a complex interpersonal process between patient and therapist and the major portion of the variance determining outcome are the characteristics of the patient and of the therapist and their ability to establish an effective therapeutic relationship.” Case studies offer an especially powerful method for developing a sense of how such relationships can work. The specific details and nuances of particular interactions are essential for the kind of learning that entails development of “sensibility.” One also gets a sense of the “whole” of an analytic process that is greater than the sum of its parts. The increment in “knowledge” is a subtle one that informs in nonspecific ways, in ways that cannot be predicted, one’s work in new, unique clinical encounters where the therapist’s individuality and creativity are enriched by what has been absorbed from the clinical reports of others as well as by the therapist’s own previous experiences. Maybe I’m not expressing that well, but I think we need to meet the challenge of trying to conceptualize exactly how case studies, or more generally, any particular clinical experience advances understanding and possibilities for therapeutic action. We have to get beyond the dichotomy of “generalizable” findings, on the one hand, and idiographic understanding that cannot be generalized on the other.

5)Luyten et al. write:

“As Westen (2002) has aptly pointed out,when we seek treatment for cancer, we do not expect that the doctortells us a “story” that makes sense to him or the patient. We expect thatthe doctor will identify the processes underlying the manifest symptomsand will use empirically tested and supported forms of treatment. At the least, this process involves hypotheses that can be put to the testand proven false, using systematic methods of investigation.”

I discussed Westen’s comparison of treatment of leukemia and treatment of “cancers of the soul” in my keynote address. There I said “Westen’s position on the comparability of treatment of leukemia and treatment of ‘cancers of the soul,’ an unfortunate medical metaphor if ever there was one, betrays a serious misunderstanding of the underlying epistemological issues.” That these authors read Westen in such a totally uncritical way on this matter betrays the extent of their positivist bias. Westen’s perspective reflects no understanding of the implications of the ambiguity of human experience, no recognition of the special value of openness to multiple perspectives on experience, no appreciation of the moral factors involved in choosing one perspective or another regarding the meaning of what is going on, no recognition of the moral factors involved in selectively realizing potentials for ways of being, now and in the future, no tolerance of the existential uncertainty and anxiety that emerges inevitably from the overcoming of denial of the realities of experience and of the human condition. It’s this view that these authors regard as “apt,” as what we should embrace as our guide. It’s alarming to me that authors who say they are dedicated to seeing the value of both the positivist and the hermeneutic points of view can be so blind, at least intermittently, to the weaknesses of the first and to the strengths of the second. I very much appreciate the statements in the paper that reflect much more balance and respect for both “cultures.” But I feel that greater sympathy with the positivist side is repeatedly in evidence.

6) When you think in terms of construction of meaning you open the door to critical thinking about the way any cultural practice is organized. The whole paradigm of diagnosis and prescription, for example, is then open to critical reflection as to what it reflects in the wider culture, the power relations that it fosters and perpetuates, etc. Alleged “symptoms” of individuals can then be understood partly in terms of what they might “say” about the cultural surround. The identified “patient” then becomes a messenger calling attention to a malady that might pertain to the environment to which he or she is trying to adapt. So our work as analysts then becomes deeply political, whether wittingly or unwittingly. The medical model, even subtle disclaimed variants of it, discourages such critical thinking. (see Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, 1993.

7)Luyten et al. write

“It is a central assumption of this paper that each of these positionsregarding research in psychoanalysis requires careful evaluation. Oneof the main reasons for the gap between the two cultures is that neitheris sufficiently familiar with the assumptions and beliefs of the other. Often they seem not even interested in getting to know each other”

I would agree, although I think the alleged benefits of the positivist perspective are more well known and familiar to most of us than those of the hermeneutic perspective. I would say this article is a good example of an effort at “integration” from authors who seem to know much more about the positivist than they know about the hermeneutic point of view. With respect to the latter their understanding seems to be that this is the view that embraces a totally uncritical pluralism in which “anything goes,” the view that honors uniqueness to the point of not allowing for any kind of generalization from one case to another or one moment to another, the view that uncritically accepts the biases of the reporting analyst without regard for how they affect the data that are gathered and reported, etc. None of the considerations that I’ve referred to above seems to be included in their “take” on the postmodern, hermeneutic, constructivist “culture.” I’ve been reading a book by Bradley Lewis entitled Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry: The Birth of Postpsychiatry. (University of Michigan Press, 2006). I highly recommend it. Luyten et al. call primarily for greater familiarity with relevant

empirical research as though the hermeneutic side is already “covered” by case-centered traditional training. I think that is simply not true. Actually, I believe that most of our case-centered training tends to be positivist. My own work over the years and the work of many others has been oriented towards challenging that bias in psychoanalysis and towards the promoting of an alternative constructivist viewpoint. That’s a struggle that was going on long before, and independently of, attention to the role of systematic empirical research.

Irwin Hoffman, October 7, 2007

I want to thank all those who took the trouble to read and comment on my long posting of 9-26-07, “Reflections from a constructivist point of view.” This will be another long one I’m afraid. I am going to quote, and put in upper case, several pieces of commentary and respond to each excerpt. There is an order effect in that it became too lengthy after just a few, so I had to stop despite not responding to several postings including those by Eric Gillett. I hope some of my remarks are directly or indirectly applicable to some of the points in Eric’s and others’ postings. For the most part, I am not commenting on the more sympathetic responses such as those from Henry Friedman, which I deeply appreciate. I’ve received several expressions of support and agreement in email sent to me privately. That’s become a familiar pattern in my experience in various online discussions on this topic, a pattern that I do not fully understand.

PATRICK LUYTEN

“I THINK RESEARCH - INCLUDING RESEARCH THAT HAS BEEN DISCUSSED IN THIS POST -DOES INCLUDE THE THERAPIST, THUS CONTRADICTING HOFFMAN’S ARGUMENTS THAT “IT’S NOTEWORTHY THAT AN OBVIOUS SHORTCOMING OF SYSTEMATIC EMPIRICAL RESEARCH IS THAT SUCH RESEARCH INVARIABLY DOES NOT CONTROL FOR WHO THE THERAPIST IS”. THE WORK OF SID BLATT AND ROLF SANELL ARE ONLY TWO EXAMPLES, THE VANDERBILT II STUDY IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE

Well, I don’t doubt that I’d learn something from looking into these studies. However, I do find it hard to imagine how they would address the point that I’m making. I’m questioning the way generalizations can be made from a study to any particular therapist’s work with a particular patient at a particular moment. I am saying, to make it very concrete, the study does not control for the fact that I, specifically, for example, am not the therapist studied (just as my patient is not the patient studied and the moment of the encounter is not the moment studied). Because of the “consequential uniqueness” of the people involved and of the moment I am not called upon to learn and “apply ” anything that emerges from any empirical study in any way that is different from or greater than what I would learn and apply from a case study or from my own previous clinical experience. That is not to say that I cannot learn anything from an empirical study. On the contrary, I am arguing that it can contribute to my SENSIBILITY as a therapist, which I am defining as my sense of the possibilities that are worthy of my consideration and that are informing my creative adaptation from moment to moment. In this respect I think what Tullio Carere had to say was quite to the point. Any behavior or trait has different meanings depending on the context and the context includes who the participants are and what the moment entails.

“I AGREE TO SOME EXTENT [WITH HOFFMAN ON WESTEN], AND I SURMISE THAT DREW WESTEN WOULD TOO, AS HOFFMAN RIGHTLY POINTS OUT THAT THE DANGER THAT THREATENS THE ESSENCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IS THAT PSYCHOTHERAPY IS REDUCED TO A TECHNIQUE. HOWEVER, TO DENY THAT THERE IS NO SIMILARITY AT ALL BETWEEN PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT AND THE TREATMENT OF ORGANIC DISEASES SEEMS TO BE EQUALLY WRONG: NOT ONLY BECAUSE THERE IS A BIOLOGICAL COMPONENT IN MOST FORMS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY BECAUSE THERE ARE BY DEFINITION MANY SIMILARITIES FOR MOST PATIENTS.”

First, I’m not aware of any indication from Westen to the effect that he would repudiate any implication of his comparison of leukemia and emotional difficulties. In fact, he spells out exactly what he finds objectionable about what he identifies (and, by the way, ridicules) as the “postmodern” position, which is openness to multiple interpretations of a person’s difficulties. So, in effect, he is encouraging us to seek the one correct diagnosis and the associated correct treatment for a person’s psychological problems. That I would say is the spirit of positivism to which the spirit of hermeneutics is opposed. Patrick, if you and your coauthors disagree with that aspect of what Westen is saying why do you not say so in your paper? Instead you simply call the comparison “apt.” Is there any wonder as to why I might find that your paper leans well to the positivist side of the cultural divide that you identify? I think also that it might be worth considering that the concern that many researchers have about psychoanalytic clinical-theoretical “authorities” having too much influence on psychoanalytic practice should also be directed at the power of certain research oriented “authorities” who seem to be beyond criticism from any quarter, even, it seems to me, when they assert opinions that are outrageous.

Regarding the “similarities” and the “biological component” of “most forms of psychopathology” perhaps that is one place where the issue is joined. I do not think those similarities and biological components are generally great enough to override the consequential uniqueness of each encounter and the necessity, therefore, for ongoing self-expressive creativity in the process. Those similarities ARE enough, however, to generate an enhancement of one’s sense of possibilities to consider, to add to the wisdom that informs one’s work. The relationship between the accumulation of knowledge from one’s own experience, from the experience of others, and from empirical studies, on the one hand, and creative adaptation on the other, may be hard to fully understand and conceptualize, but it’s important not to run from the element of mystery that it entails. Anything that involves human willing and creating is somewhat mysterious I think and is not uncommonly something people try to escape (cf. Fromm, Escape from Freedom). To have the responsibility to improvise and create is a lot harder to embrace than the responsibility to know and apply a “ treatment of choice.”

“IN MANY WAYS, ALL THE FACTORS THAT HOFFMAN ENUMERATES COME SECOND FOR MOST PATIENTS. OR AS A FAMOUS GERMAN AUTHOR SAID: “ERST DAS FRESSEN, UND DANN DIE MORAL,” WHICH CAN BE LOOSELY TRANSLATED AS: “FIRST FOOD, AND THEN MORALITY,” AND APPLIED TO PATIENTS: “FIRST SOME RELIEF, THEN WE CAN TALK ABOUT OTHER THINGS”

This is another place where the issues are joined. It’s much too much to get into here. In my keynote address at the American Psychoanalytic Association I offered some practical illustrations of moral-political consciousness as it can affect clinical work. I will be giving a version of that paper at the NPAP meeting in New York this Friday (October 12). Suffice to say here that I believe we have a choice to make as to the nature of psychoanalysis. Is it going to be a critical (yes moral) discipline that leads and educates and inspires, or a conformist discipline that accepts and perpetuates the “ crystallizations of culture” (Susan Bordo) that are hardened into such practice organizing documents as our Diagnostic Statistical Manuals and our new, highly touted Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual? Endorsing the institutionalized separation of “food” and “morality” is an especially unfortunate ideological choice in our times. It’s a separation that I feel we should try to resist as much as we can.

But short of political consciousness in any obvious way we have the simple reality of psychological conflict which is so central to any psychoanalytic perspective. If we take both sides of a person’s conflict seriously we are often confronted with moral dilemmas. The line between neurotic suffering and normal human misery is much more blurry than Freud’s formulation of the aim of psychoanalysis would suggest. Here’s an “association”: As between “ civilization and its discontents,” which side are you on?

SID BLATT

“WE VERY MUCH AGREE WITH HOFFMAN, IN FACT THAT POINT IS ONE OF THE CENTRAL CONCLUSIONS OF OUR PAPER—TO TRY TO APPRECIATE THE UNIQUE AND IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS OF BOTH APPROACHES.. BUT ANOTHER CENTRAL CONCLUSION OF OUR PAPER IS THAT THOUGHTFUL AND CONSTRUCTIVE APPROACH TO THESE ISSUES MUST INCLUDE OBSERVATIONS FROM BOTH PERSPECTIVES—FROM THE IDEOGRAPHIC AND THE EXPERIMENTAL OR NOMOTHETIC. EACH APPROACH CAN MAKE IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE COMPLEX INTERPER ONAL PROCESSES INVOLVED IN THE PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC AND PSYCHOANALYTIC PROCESS.”

I would be more pleased about your “agreement” if I didn’t find many aspects of your perspective as conveyed in your paper to be at odds with it. My comments on Patrick’s statements above reflect some of those points of rather strong disagreement. The complementarity of the two modes of inquiry certainly, from my perspective, would not place case studies and clinical experience under the rubric of the “context of discovery” and systematic empirical studies under the rubric of the “context of justification” for all the reasons I’ ve stated here and in my original posting. That kind of complementarity is

not acceptable to me and would not, or should not, I think, be acceptable to anyone with a hermeneutic point of view. It’s a complementarity that is hierarchically organized with respect to “scientific” standing and your endorsement of it contributes to alienation not to rapprochement between the two cultures. I know you go so far as to resist the idea that case studies are worthless with respect to testing hypotheses. After listing their limitations you put it this way: “But does this mean that clinical data and the case study

method are COMPLETELY WORTHLESS in testing psychoanalytic h potheses? Many, even within the psychoanalytic community, believe this is so. We believe, however, that this conclusion is SOMEWHAT PREMATURE” (my caps for emphasis). I appreciate the resistance but your statement still conveys a very strong bias to say the least. But beyond that and more to the point, I think those categories, context of discovery and context of justification, are both suited to a positivist not to a hermeneutic paradigm and to a one person not a two person perspective on the process. As I said in my first posting it would be useful to consider a “ context of coconstruction of meaning” with all that that implies. Perhaps the complementary context would be something like the “context of action and commitment” with the implication that one has to make choices in the analytic process and in life despite epistemological uncertainty (not knowing for sure what is true) and existential uncertainty (not knowing for sure what is good).

PAOLO MIGONE

“IRWIN, YOU SAY THAT “FROM A CONSTRUCTIVIST POINT OF VIEW, AS I THINK OF IT, HUMAN EXPERIENCE IS AMBIGUOUS”. BUT THE CONCEPT OF “AMBIGUITY” HAS A MEANING ONLY IF WE BELIEVE IN “NON-AMBIGUITY”, AND, AS FAR AS I UNDERSTAND, YOUR APPROACH DOES NOT INCLUDE CONCEPTS SUCH AS NON-AMBIGUITY, TRUTH, OBJECTIVE REALITY ETC., SINCE EVERYTHING IS (CO)CONSTRUCTED (FOR EXAMPLE, THERE IS NO “OBJECTIVE DIAGNOSIS” OF A PATIENT, THERE ARE NO “OBJECTIVE DATA” OF AN EMPIRICAL RESEARCH, ETC.). HENCE, IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE TERM “AMBIGUOUS” IN NOT APPROPRIATE IN YOUR CONCEPTUALIZATION. BUT YOU ARE AWARE OF THAT, IN FACT YOU SEEM TO GIVE THE TERM “AMBIGUITY” A DIFFERENT MEANING, WHEN YOU EXPLAIN THAT THE FACT THAT HUMAN EXPERIENCE IS AMBIGUOUS “MEANS THAT IT IS OPEN TO MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS”. AS YOU BETTER EXPLAIN, “THAT DOES NOT MEAN, HOWEVER, THAT ‘ANYTHING GOES,’ THAT ANY INTERPRETATION IS AS GOOD AS ANY OTHER”, AND YOU REFER TO THE RORSCHACH TEST AS A GOOD EXAMPLE.” “I THINK THAT, HAVING CLARIFIED THE DIFFERENT MEANING THAT YOU GIVE THE TERM AMBIGUITY, ALL OF US AGREE ON THIS POINT. THERE ARE MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS THAT WE CAN GIVE TO A SET OF DATA, BUT, AS YOU RIGHTLY SAY, THESE INTERPRETATIONS ARE NOT INFINITE, THEY ARE WITHIN A SPECIFIC RANGE”

Paolo I wish you would read (or reread) what I’ve written about ambiguity as well as unambiguous facts (see for example, pp. 20-26 in Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process). Ambiguity is not the same as amorphousness and there is plenty that can be said about truth and objective reality in the context of ambiguity. It’s objectively true, for example, that on card 3 of the Rorschach if we said it was a picture of two people playing on drums we would be distorting reality because the truth is that that is ONE very reasonable way to see it or interpret it but there are many others. It’s the idea that there is one truth that applies that is positivist and often the positivist view is not objectively valid. I mean it’s just flat out wrong. I would say that even the idea that only a finite set of interpretations would apply is wrong because the implication of “ambiguity” is always that there are infinite possibilities. Your assertion that “There are multiple interpretations that we can give to a set of data, but, as you [Irwin] rightly say, these interpretations are not infinite, they are within a specific range” is incorrect. I didn’t say that and would never say that. “Within a specific range” does not mean “not infinite.” There are infinite numerical values between the numbers 5 and 6 but that excludes all other numerical values. There are infinite even numbers but that excludes all the odd numbers. And there are infinite percepts that are in keeping with the features of the inkblot but that excludes all those (an infinite number) that are “off the wall.” Maybe it would be better to say “infinite” but not “unlimited.”

You say I do not seem to espouse a radical hermeneutic position and I don’t to the extent that that implies a radical relativism, the denial of any “ reality” “out there” and the sense that “anything goes.” But the alternative is not “positivism” as I see it but the position I’ve called “dialectical constructivism.” I sometimes say “critical constructivism.” I’ve stopped using the term “social constructivism” because to some that implies that there is no reality independent of what emerges from consensus. At the same time I do not agree with the following:

“WE ALL KNOW THAT WE NEVER SEE THE TRUE OR OBJECTIVE REALITY, WE ALWAYS SEE WHAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO SEE ACCORDING TO OUR SENSES, OUR TRANSFERENCE, ETC. THIS WAS DISCOVERED NOT BY FREUD, BUT BY KANT, AS WE ALL KNOW, AND THE MOST CONVINCED POSITIVISTS AGREE ON THAT.”

Objects don’t exist outside of contexts. Objects have potentials that are realized in various contexts and not others. They always have potentials that are not realized at all because the context for that potential has not yet appeared. Maybe it’s a physical object that has not been exposed to a certain temperature, or other chemical, or velocity, or some other condition. The properties of an object are all of its realized and unrealized potentials which are infinite but not unlimited, to use the language I proposed above. What we experience of an object could be said to be the set of properties of the object that amount to potentials realized in the context of interaction with us, human beings with human minds and human sensory equipment, and so on. Again the object doesn’t have any “properties” that are not emergent in one or another context and we humans could be thought of as one of the contexts for such emergence. Now take human experience itself as the “object” and apply all that I just said. It is loaded with potentials that will be realized or not depending on the context including the cultural and the moment to moment social context. Experience encompasses fertile ground for seedings that have not yet occurred and that may never occur and therefore will never be known in the form of anything that one can identify (like a plant growing). All that is complicated, in my view, by the fact of human agency which makes the context highly influential but not totally decisive or determinative. The wild card is the factor of the human will, a “primary cause” in the chain of events as Rank put it.

SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

I cannot cover everyone’s comments on my posting in this one reply. I’m sure it’s burdensome already to many to have such a long commentary to contend with. I think what I’ve said addresses some of the points raised by Eric Gillett, but maybe I’ll respond to his comments in a separate posting. I will try also to get hold of Horst Kaechele’s and Helmut Thomae’s essay on this topic. Yes please send it to me if you can Horst.

I want to emphasize in conclusion here once again that I do not see the important divide in the field to be organized around the differences emerging from a debate between the clinical-theoretical community and the systematic research community. For many years my own struggle has been against the positivism that prevails within psychoanalytic clinical theorizing and practice. It’s a positivism that is conducive to authoritarianism. Ironically, I suspect that some of the motivation that stirs people who are passionate about the value of systematic empirical research is the same as the motivation that has stirred my own critical thinking about psychoanalytic theory. Of course my work with Merton Gill to which Paolo Migone alludes reflects that common ground.

I believe however that the privileging of systematic empirical research is misguided and lends itself to the relocation of positivist authority now justified, mistakenly, as scientifically grounded authority. I also think that the hermeneutic/constructivist point of view is not one with which many analysts are well read and well versed. I think that many people who are “ hermeneutically inclined” as I believe, for example, Irina Panteleeva might be, are not actually conceptually “armed” enough to fully appreciate the legitimate grounds for their aversion to reading, assimilating, or being influenced by systematic empirical research. So instead they end up feeling vaguely guilty about it and comply with the pathologizing of their disinterest, calling it “ paranoid-schizoid” and the like. It’s become commonplace to suggest that fear of anything that might challenge clinicians’ ways of working is at play in their reluctance to take serious interest in the methods and findings of empirical research. An example of encouragement from the “science” side for such pathologizing is a “study” by Schachter and Luborsky (IJP, 1998, pp. 965-969) entitled “Who’s afraid of psychoanalytic research?” On the basis of incredibly flimsy evidence from a survey they conducted they conclude, with the aid of extraordinary speculative leaps, that people who have conviction about their ways of working are likely to eschew reading empirical studies because they are just too threatened by them. I have written a 5 page mini essay on that study that I had to omit from my plenary in NY because of lack of time. I think it’s an egregious example of use of the mantle of “science” to justify and support a particular, highly biased professional-political agenda.

To conclude with a view that is not very PC in the climate of this discussion, I am not especially enthused about the prospects of “integration.” I don’ t think a constructivist/hermeneutic point of view for psychoanalysis is compatible with a positivist point of view. I think empirical studies can be respected and used WITHIN a constructivist framework, but that doesn’t change the overall paradigm to a “mixture” of constructivism and positivism. A constructivist point of view is actually more open to consideration of the findings of research because it is less doctrinaire than a traditional (positivist) view as to what psychoanalysis should be and how it should look. Sensibilities can be enriched by knowledge of research and specific methods can be entertained collaboratively by analyst and analysand to address some specific symptoms. An analyst might try such methods himself or herself (see the work of Paul Wachtel) or refer the patient for the relevant treatment. Some familiarity with what various studies show about what works for what symptom might be useful for that purpose. But the psychoanalytic agenda is much broader than that since it is engaged with the whole person and the quality and direction of that person ’s life. Familiarity with empirical research has its place, but for me what is far more urgent and central would be joining with other people who share a hermeneutic or constructivist point of view to try to read relevant literature and to develop our understanding more fully of our position and its implications. Bradley Lewis calls for a whole new “field” which he calls “cultural studies in psychiatry.” I think we need something like that—“cultural studies in psychoanalysis” perhaps—in order to learn and to gain some standing and some power. A correlate would be promotion of such studies in our analytic training programs. The addition of study of systematic empirical research does not complement a hermeneutic perspective with a positivist research oriented perspective. It “complements” a clinical positivist perspective with a research oriented positivist perspective and leaves a hermeneutic perspective out, pretty much altogether. What you end up with is positivism squared.

Tullio Carere, October 9, 2007

Some have noticed, as Hoffman himself did, that my ideas on the hermeneutic quality of the psychoanalytic relationship are very much the same as his. We both see it as basically contextual, ambiguous, co-creative and co-constructive. I also very much agree with his emphasis on the patient’s agency and responsible contribution to the process, in a way that goes beyond the current relational paradigm. Furthermore, my consonance with him goes over hermeneutics, to a broad dialectical attitude that aims at correcting the many dichotomies and one-sidednesses of the field—particularly in regard to the polarities spontaneity/ritual and personal/technical interaction. But right here, on the dialectical ground, I begin to miss something. I would have expected a more dialectical attitude about the one-person/two-person polarity, instead of a plain bias for the two-person. In his 2006 IJPA paper (The myths of free association) he quotes Bollas’ 2002 booklet “Free association”: “The analyst is left with Freudian faith: a belief that if one gets rid of oneself (and all of one’s theories) and surrenders to one’s own emotional experiences, then eventually the patient’s unconscious thought will reveal itself”. I am a little surprised that Hoffman does not mention here the even more radical Bion’s stance of “freedom from memory and desire”. Anyway, Hoffman criticizes Bollas’ “Freudian faith” with the Macalpine argument that the standard Freudian stance does not merely create the conditions for spontaneous self-expression through free association, but amounts instead to a form of deprivation with powerful influence on the patient’s experience. A more balanced position would be that the Freudian stance can indeed be experienced by the patient as a form of deprivation, but not necessarily so. The analyst can, and in my view should, dialectically oscillate between a position of deep personal involvement, that allows for the patient to have vital relational experiences, and one of self-effacement, well described by Bollas’ and Bion’s formulas. The latter position is not easy to obtain, and must be established “as a permanent, durable and continuous discipline” (Bion, Cogitations, 1970-1992). Only to the extent that such discipline (only implicit in Freud but made explicit by Bion) has been established, is one free from the opacities that obstruct intuition. The more the analyst can approximate this freedom, “the more confidently can he discount the origin of his observations as due to the ‘personal equation’” (Bion, ibid.). To the extent that intuition is cleared from its opacities, by means of a special discipline that phenomenology calls epoche’ and Bion calls freedom from memory and desire, one gets to the basics of lived experience – or, in Husserl’s terms, one returns to the things themselves.

The dialectic between a hermeneutical and a phenomenological position extends far beyond the specific theme of free association: one can see its necessity against the danger of transforming the hermeneutic approach into some form of cultural costructionism, in which any idea of objective truth—and therefore of science—disappears. One can take any feature of the analytic process described by Hoffman, for instance the unconscious wisdom guiding many enactments. A positivist could ask: how do you know that such thing as an unconscious wisdom exists, in the first place? How do you expect us to believe your description, if it is nothing but a construction of yours, a beautiful story that you and your patients tell to each other? Or do you claim that it is not just one of your infinite stories, but a truthful description of what really happens in the process? In this case, what is your evidence? Do you have anything better than an ordinary anecdotal evidence? Empirical research is there just for investigating the objective validity of the subjective experience of the analysts. If you reject empirical research as a way of giving scientific status to psychoanalysis, how do you hope to overcome the level of merely subjective experience?

That level can be overcome either in an empirical, or in a phenomenological direction, or in both. But once the basically contextual, ambiguous, co-creative and co-constructive nature of the psychoanalytic process has been realized, one also realizes that empirical research (that needs repeatable and measurable data) cannot be of much help here. Instead, one can easily observe a number of recurrent regularities in the however ambiguous and unpredictable psychoanalytic process. The phenomenological approach is the method for the rigorous study of those regularities. Given Hoffman’s hermeneutic and dialectical orientation, I would have expected a special, or rather central, consideration for the hermeneutic/phenomenological dialectic. I miss it in an otherwise wonderful work.

Irwin Hoffman, October 13, 2007

It’s probably too late. But I’ve been writing when I could. I’m out of town (in NYC) But thought it might still be worth a try. I’d agree with Tullio Carere that it’s important to try to sustain a sense of a dialectic of one person and two person perspectives on experience. Sometimes in the context of debate there is a tendency to overcorrect. In my own writing I’ve tried to be consistent about holding on the the sense of the dialectic (see, for example, Ritual and Spontaneity, end of chapter 5), but sometimes I could lose it momentarily.

I do not, however, recognize that dialectic in what Carere describes both in his original posting and in his more recent one. He quotes from my “Myths of free association” paper (IJP 2006), particularly the critique of Bollas: “ [Hoffman] quotes Bollas’ 2002 booklet ‘Free association’: ‘The analyst is left with Freudian faith: a belief that if one gets rid of oneself (and all of one’s theories) and surrenders to one’s own emotional experiences, then eventually the patient’s unconscious thought will reveal itself.’ I am a little surprised that Hoffman does not mention here the even more radical Bion’s stance of ‘freedom from memory and desire’. Anyway, Hoffman criticizes Bollas’ ‘Freudian faith’ with the Macalpine argument that the standard Freudian stance does not merely create the conditions for spontaneous self-expression through free association, but amounts instead to a form of deprivation with powerful influence on the patient’s experience. A more balanced position would be that the Freudian stance can indeed be experienced by the patient as a form of deprivation, but not necessarily so. The analyst can, and in my view should, dialectically oscillate between a position of deep personal involvement, that allows for the patient to have vital relational experiences, and one of self-effacement, well described by Bollas’ and Bion’s formulas.”

I’m not criticizing Bollas with the “Macalpine argument,” in the sense that her specific view on the analyst’s influence is necessarily correct. I do think it’s one plausible way that a patient may experience a relatively silent analyst who actually has the intention of inducing regression by depriving the patient of an object relationship. Nevertheless, in the “Myths” paper, after stating Macalpine’s view I wrote “More to the point from relational-constructivist point of view, the mistake to which both Kris’s and Bollas’s views lend themselves is an overly confident sense on the part of analysts that they can know their intentions as well as what they are accomplishing. What is denied here is, first, the fundamental and irreducible ambiguity of the analyst’s behavior, as well as the fundamental ambiguity of the patient’s communications and the consequent amenability of both to innumerable plausible interpretations (of which Macalpine’s is one).” Racker and Macalpine bring home the general principle that free association does not go on in an interpersonal vacuum. There is always some influence that creates a context for those associations and that colors their content.

The notion that one can “get rid of oneself and all of one’s theories” seems to me to be impossible on its face. I don’t see that position as “one person,” or “two person” or as a dialectic of one person and two person. It seems to me that it is more apt to call it a “NO PERSON” point of view. Even to set it up as an ideal seems undesirable to me because impossible ideals lend themselves to the cultivation of the illusion that they have been achieved. And once that illusion takes the form of conviction it does very likely lead to dogmatic, authoritarian attitudes. That little “booklet” by Bollas on free association has remarkable examples of that kind of thinking. The author feels he is illustrating the “attunement” of his uconscious with that of the patient as mediated by free associaton and evenly hovering attention, and with those “tools” he offers what to me seem like extraordinarily far-fetched speculations as to the latent meanings of the patient’s flow of associations. But it’s not so much the contents of Bollas’s interpretations that are the issue even though they often seem preposterous to me. What is more disturbing is the fact that there is no indication from Bollas that his own subjectivity is playing any role at all in the ideas he comes up with. There is no “maybe,” no “I think,” no “one possible meaning might be,” nothing. The author’s ideas about the associations are presented simply as “the truth.” I don’t agree with Carere that Bollas offers us a good description of a stance that is either possible or that is good to have as an ideal. In my paper “The intimate authority of the psychoanalyst’s presence” (chapter 3 in the book) I wrote: “Aspiring to walk on water and striving to be able to do that are bound to interfere with learning to swim.” The idea that one can rid oneself of any subjective bias and apprehend the “true” nature of the object, that’s positivism at it’s most dangerous worst. It doesn’t even meet the standards of what Eric Gillett has in mind, I believe, which is what I’ve called “open-minded positivism” (which I would imagine Eric would regard as a redundancy). But I would add here in response to Eric’s question, that open minded positivism is open to the possibility of being “wrong.” That is not the kind of openess that irreducible ambiguity calls for, or certainly not the only kind. Ambiguity entails infinite possibility, so that one has to make choices that involve existential uncertainty which is not reducible to uncertainty about what is true or not true in the sense of “fitting” reality well or not.

With all that Carere and I have in common, we certainly part company when he calls for theory free “observation.” I don’t think I’m alone in the belief that that’s not possible. It may be possible that an array of “theories, and other sources of bias can affect observation rather than some unitary perspective that colors everything in a systematic way, but I don’t think we can look at an object without looking through a lens. In this regard I am in agreement with James Phillips who said in his recent posting debating with Zvi Lothan : “I think our disagreement may be that you [Lothane] think it is possible to listen without preconceptions and be led purely by the associations, and that I would argue (of course with Gadamer looking over my shoulder) that listening without preconceptions is inconceivable.” But that’s not reason for despair about our ability to know, because lenses bring out facets of reality that would not be observable without them. Of course they also leave other facets in the dark. Which lenses we choose to go by, to live by, is decided by very complex processes including ongoing critical judgment and “dialogue.” Science cannot arbitrate among multiple plausible perspectives. Other moral, political, pragmatic, and aesthetic considerations affect the outcome of the competition among points of view and ways of being. How this process moves, how and in what sense some kind of knowledge develops over time, is precisely the question that I feel I and others should become more knowledgeable about through study and discussion of relevant literature. This debate will continue of course outside of this forum. I appreciate the opportunity to express my views and to be exposed to those of others and want to thank the creators of the forum, the panelists, and all those who participated.

Tullio Carere, October 14, 2007

I had already bowed out, but I can’t resist getting back after reading Irwin Hoffman’s last post. After pointing up the “fundamental and irreducible ambiguity of the analyst’s behavior”, he firmly states his belief that a theory-free observation is not only impossible, but even to set it up as an ideal seems undesirable, “because impossible ideals lend themselves to the cultivation of the illusion that they have been achieved”. Finally he declares that “the idea that one can rid oneself of any subjective bias and apprehend the ‘true’ nature of the object, that’s positivism at it’s most dangerous worst.”

My question is: How does Hoffman know that the ambiguity of the analyst’s behavior is “fundamental and irreducible”? His statement sounds very definitive and non ambiguous. He speaks as one who knows, beyond any reasonable doubt, the true nature of the analyst’s behavior. But is such a claim not “positivism at it’s most dangerous worst”? Yes, I agree: that’s a form of positivism, maybe a dangerous one. Inside the constructivist belief one can see a robust positivism in disguise (just as one can often see in empirical research a form of hermeneutics in disguise).

No one—certainly not me—stated that the no-person position can be definitively or absolutely attained. Only dogmatic people believe that truth can be the definitive property of a human being. This is not to say that we cannot strive to direct our gaze on “the things themselves” (Gadamer quoting Heidegger, in Truth and Method, p. 266-7), bracketing off all “arbitrary fancy” and “habits of thought”, anything that does not speak to us from “the things themselves”. In a genuine (neither empirical nor constructivist) form of hermeneutics there always is a phenomenological kern. There is a time-honored tradition, from Plato to Husserl, from Freud to Bion, that one can (and must) bracket off, suspend, neutralize all subjective interference, all ‘memory and desire’, all theoretical lenses in order to devote as much as possible one’s attention to “the things themselves”. Of course this suspension can never be perfect: it can only be a “permanent, durable and continuous discipline” (Bion). Besides, in the case of the analytic relationship, the “thing itself” can be the relationship itself (in the two-person perspective). This means that the analyst must direct his attention to whatever happens in the relationship, moment by moment—yet always paying attention as much as possible to the process, not to their theories of the process.

This is also not to mean that theories are useless. To the contrary (sorry again, I repeat myself once more) I believe that the analyst should have many theories in their quiver, because they can be useful, maybe necessary for a preliminary understanding of the phenomena. But then they should also be able to suspend or step back from them all, in order to assess which of them, if any, can illuminate which part of the phenomenon at hand, and above all to look at things with fresh (as fresh as possible) eyes. Finally, the hermeneutic-phenomenological dialectic means at least that in the understanding of things we alternate between a discoursive-interpretive and an intuitive-contemplative attitude. This is what Aristotle called the noetic-dianoetic dialectic (but he warned that the intuitive-noetic was paramount, the discoursive-dianoetic being just auxiliary).

Irwin Hoffman, October 15, 2007

I’ve given a lot of thought to many of the points raised by Tullio Carere. I won’t go into my thoughts on the issues here but can only hope that he an others might take a look, for example, at my Reply to Reviews of Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 11(3):469–497, 2001) especially the section called “The place of universal principles and of facts in dialectical constructivism” (pp. 485-488). I know it might be too late even to send out this brief note and will understand if the moderators choose not to or are simply unable to as we come to the close of the discussion.

Second part: The private exchange after the conclusion of the JAPA Seminar.

Tullio Carere, October 20, 2007

Dear Irwin,

in your "Reply to Reviews" you write:

The tenets of the point of view I am calling dialectical constructivism have, I am claiming, the status of universal principles. I think the only choices available to me in that regard are to admit it, to "risk" it, as Slavin says, quoting Fuss, or to deny it for sake of alleged consistency. The only way to achieve such internal consistency is by formulating principles that allow for the possibility of objective, universal truths.

You admit that your (as any form of) constructivism must rely on some tenets that have the status of universal principles--otherwise your constructivism would be nothing but a construction of yours, and any pretence that what you are saying is true would fall into nothing. Ok. But unless you have received those universal principles from some divine revelation, you are bound to answer the question: which is the foundation, origin or justification of the principles that you deem universal? To this question, I see two types of answers. First: the observation, provided that it is rigorous and disciplined enough, and to the extent that it is dialogically tested and improved, has in itself (i.e in the capacity of the mind to know and understand things) its own justification--this is what Aristotle, Husserl and Freud, among many others, thought. Second: the observation is necessary and sufficient in the context of discovery, not in that of justification: the observation can only produce hypotheses that must be empirically tested. In both cases, constructivism is not enough to itself, unless it posits its tenets as schibboleth or dogmas.

Constructivism (or hermeneutics, as I prefer to say) is bound to forge an alliance with a non-constructivist (non-hermeneutic) approach--the empirical or the phenomenological, unless you see a third possibility. But the choice of the ally has significant consequences. The empirical ally says that he is the only one who can justify our observations. It means that Freud's Junktim is lost, and we must depend completely on empirical research for the validation of our observations. The phenomenological ally is much more friendly: it does not try to dominate the hermeneutic partner, but offers instead a dialectical partnership. Thanks to this dialectic the research can return in the hands of the therapists, and the autonomy of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy would have a solid base (though of course it remains to demonstrate that on this base psychotherapists are capable to build something deserving the name of science: this is the real challenge, as I see it).

This is what I meant in my post to the JPN of October 10. My question is: in case you reject both allies, how do you justify the universality or objective truth of your principles?

I very much hope that we shall be able to have a serene exchange on these matters.

Irwin, October 27, 2007

Dear Tullio,

Here are a few brief comments in reply to your note regarding the foundation for universal truths etc. Can the discussion be "serene"? I doubt it but I also do not think you mean to say "serene." Maybe civil. But I cannot "pull punches" as they say if some of my arguments seem harsh.

I want to say right away that I don't feel any obligation to line up my thinking with any known philosopher or philosophy. I've never done that. I just try to think things through myself and wherever it lands it lands in terms of common ground with known philosophers. My impression over and over again has been that the philosophers people suggest I consider have some point of overlap with my thinking but I still have major differences with them.

Of your two justifications for considering a principle to have universal truth value of course I'd choose your first: "the observation, provided that it is rigorous and disciplined enough, and to the extent that it is dialogically tested and improved, has in itself (i.e in the capacity of the mind to know and understand things) its own justification." I'm not sure I'd use the word "observation." Maybe "idea."

I've thought of writing an essay entitled "The self-evident and the preposterous." It's not necessary or perhaps even possible to prove or disprove either one, yet it is patently obvious that the self-evident is true and the preposterous is false.

Yes I have to claim universal truth value for the principles of "dialectical constructivism" or I fall into incoherence. That's what McGowan has in mind when he writes "it is very difficult to describe the conditions that allow for differences and novelties themselves without relying on transcendental claims about this or that being the way that humans interact in the world" (p. 487 in Reply to Reviews).

But I would want to keep such claims down to a minimum. Certain minimal "assumptions" to me are self-evidently true, for example that experience taken as a whole in any moment is ambiguous. But I am not willing to allow that to open the door to the claim that specific meanings that I attribute to what someone is saying are "the" objectively true latent meanings. That's the kind of thing Bollas does in that little booklet. If his epistemology encourages that, there has got to be something wrong with his epistemology. To me that is self-evident. The belief that you can actually get a theory-free (and I trust that means, more generally, a preconception-free) tracking of what goes on in a psychoanalytic session is self-evidently wrong. If there is some kind of logic that leads to the conclusion that such a thing must be possible (beginning, for example, with my granting universal truth value to the assumptions of dialectical constructivism and continuing with claims about internal consistency) then there is something wrong with the logic because the conclusion is self-evidently false. It's like Zeno's paradox. We know there is motion. If there is a logic that proves that there is none there's something wrong with the logic. That is absolutely certain.

What Bollas does in that little booklet on free association is outrageous and dangerous. If Husserl's phenomenology supports the legitimacy of those kinds of truth claims so much the worse for Husserl's phenomenology. The claim that one can "get rid of oneself" and of all of one's theories as one listens to a person speaking and infers unconscious meanings is so preposterous it just boggles the mind. And free association along with evenly hovering attention yield that kind of subjectivity-transcending access to the truth??? Is that Zvi Lothane's view too?? Does one really have to mount "arguments" against such a preposterous claim? Is my grandmother's spirit floating above my head in the form of the soul of a dead elephant that speaks English fluently and is now controlling everything I say and write? If I say "that's ridiculous" am I really obliged to answer the question "how do I know?" I'm sorry but the things that Bollas asserts strike me as of that order. And the idea that one could "observe" the events of a session in a manner that gets at what is going on without being influenced by all the categories one has in one's mind for organizing experience including theoretical categories is, from my point of view, I'm afraid, of the same order. Language alone shapes and reduces everything in particular ways. Doesn't Lacan teach us that? Maybe I differ with Lacan because I would say that language realizes certain potentials of reality at the expense of others, rather than that language misrepresents what is real. But I'd have to study Lacan on that issue to be more certain about that.

I don't know exactly what "ally" hermeneutics requires if any. I want to know what Gadamer would say about that. But I doubt that it's the whole package that any one particularphilosopher offers because that would probably come with "baggage" that I'd want to discard. By the way Husserl isn't the sole phenomenologist is he, even if he's considered the "father" of it? What about Merleau-Ponty? Others?

I like the idea of dialogue and debate among competing perspectives resulting in the evolution of theory and practice over time. I wish I had the time to read Gadamer, Taylor, Habermas on how that process works. Also Foucault. I wish I were 30 years younger right now. But time constraints being what they are, I feel I must just apply common sense and my own critical thinking as best I can, even if sometimes I will be less informed by relevant literature than would be optimal. I do know that a high priority for me is fighting systems of thought that can serve as disguised forms of social-political control. I think "science" in the narrow sense is very amenable to being used in that way. And from what you have said, Husserl's phenomenology lends itself to the same kind of use.

Tullio, October 27, 2007

Dear Irwin,

thank you for your reply. I agree, "civil" is more appropriate than "serene" as an adjective for a discussion like this. I wouldn't pull punches either.

As for the "obligation to line up my thinking with any known philosopher or philosophy", I've never done that either. If I quote Husserl or Gadamer, Freud or Bion, it is not because of any sort of cultural obligation or allegiance--I see myself as a totally free thinker--but because we don't live in a philosophical vacuum and we don't have to reinvent the wheel again and again. At the very least, a position held by one of these thinkers should deserve our attention and not be dismissed as preposterous without further consideration.

For instance you say: "The belief that you can actually get a theory-free (and I trust that means, more generally, a preconception-free) tracking of what goes on in a psychoanalytic session is self-evidently wrong." Is it? Consider the following consequence of your "self-evident" truth: if we cannot get a theory-free tracking of what goes on in a psychoanalytic session, it follows that our tracking is always and insuperably theory-laden--in other words, we are indoctrinating our patients all the time. At the most, we can negotiate our theoretical "truths" with the ones of our patients--and a negotiation is not a dialogue, it is a matter of power, not of truth.

Theory freedom does not mean absence of theories. Let me reiterate what I said before: "I believe that the analyst should have many theories in their quiver, because they can be useful, maybe necessary for a preliminary understanding of the phenomena. But then they should also be able to suspend or step back from them all, in order to assess which of them, if any, can illuminate which part of the phenomenon at hand, and above all to look at things with fresh (as fresh as possible) eyes." Theory-freedom means: i. freedom to use any theory, independently of any allegiance; ii. freedom to suspend any theory--to the extent that one can tolerate to stay in a theoretical vacuum, a condition of not knowing (Keats' "negative capability")--in order to compare different theories from a position of theoretical neutrality (which is to me, by the way, the pre-condition of any scientific, i.e. unbiased, enterprise); iii. freedom to look at things with fresh eyes--which is the pre-condition for any unmapped or uncharted existential journey.

Of course, one who believes that he or she has attained a perfect theory-freedom, and therefore enjoys the ultimate contemplation of truth, is quite ready for the lunatic asylum. Our theory-freedom can only be at most relative--hence the insuperable necessity of dialogue and confrontation. But a relative theory-freedom is not a non-existent theory-freedom. It is the same as for all other sorts of freedom. In a modern democracy we are not perfectly free, but we are much freer than in a theocratic regime. In all fields we try to approximate freedom, wisdom, love as much as we can, though we know very well, unless we are insane, that we'll never be totally free, wise, or loving.

Irwin, October 29, 2007

I INTERPOLATED SOME COMMENTS IN UPPER CASE

You wrote:

I AGREE. BUT MY IMPRESSION IS THAT THE "GREAT PHILOSOPHERS" CAN GET AWAY WITH A LOT OF ASSERTIONS THAT WOULD NOT BE RESPECTED COMING FROM MOST OF US WHO DON'T HAVE THE REQUISITE REPUTATIONS. I DON'T MEAN THE PHILOSPHERS' VIEWS ARE NOT CHALLENGED OR CRITICIZED BUT I DO THINK THEY ARE OFTEN ACCORDED A CERTAIN LEGITIMACY ON THE BASIS OF THE REVERED NATURE OF THE SOURCE ALONE MORE THAN THEIR MERIT. JUST AN IMPRESSION.

I DO NOT THINK THAT "THEORY LADEN" MEANS WE ARE "INDOCTRINATING OUR PATIENTS." I'M NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE SHARP DISTINCTION YOU ARE DRAWING BETWEEN DIALOGUE AND "NEGOTIATION," BUT MY OWN SENSE OF WHAT I DO IS VERY MUCH IN THE ORDER OF DIALOGUE. I HAVE IDEAS BUT I AM ALSO VERY INTERESTED IN WHAT MY PATIENTS' THINK OF THEM AND IN THEIR OWN IDEAS. AND I THINK I CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE IN WHICH PATIENTS ARE LIKELY TO FEEL THAT THEIR THINKING IS VERY MUCH RESPECTED. SURE, SOMETIMES I MAY WANT TO TRY TO PERSUADE SOMEONE OF SOMETHING, BRINGING EVIDENCE TO BEAR TO MAKE A POINT, ETC. BUT I DOUBT THAT ANYONE IS CONVINCED UNLESS THEY SEE THE MERIT OF THE ARGUMENT, AND I WOULD WORK HARD TO HELP THEM ARTICULATE ANY MISGIVINGS. I THINK IF YOU CONSIDER SOME OF THE THEMES OF MY WRITING IT MIGHT ADD TO YOUR OWN SENSE OF THE LIKELIHOOD THAT MY RESPECT FOR THE PATIENT'S VIEWS IS GREATER THAN THE NORM. AND IT'S NOT IN THE FORM OF THE CONDESCENDING POSITIVIST EXCESSES OF SELF PSYCHOLOGY THAT ARE STUCK ON "EMPATHIC" AUTOMATIC PILOT, BUT IS MUCH MORE AUTHENTICALLY DIALOGICAL. WHAT MAKES FOR HEALTHY DIALOGUE IS A WHOLE SUBJECT IN ITSELF ISN'T IT? HABERMAS FOR EXAMPLE HAS A LOT TO SAY ABOUT THAT, DOESN'T HE? ACTUALLY I'VE WRITTEN A LOT ABOUT INSITITUTIONALIZED DISRESPECT FOR PATIENTS AS CONTRIBUTING AGENTS IN THE PROCESS. CONSIDER "PATIENT AS INTERPRETER OF THE ANALYST'S EXPERIENCE," AND "THE MYTHS OF FREE ASSOCIATION." BUT THEORETICAL MEANING SATURATES THE CONVERSATION AND THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF BOTH PARTICIPANTS. YES ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO STOP TO SAY "MAYBE WE SHOULD THINK ABOUT THIS IN ANOTHER WAY." I'D AGREE WITH THAT BUT THAT WOULDN'T REQUIRE THAT THE "OTHER WAY" BE THEORY FREE. YOU KNOW IF YOU MEAN "THEORY COMMITMENT FREE" I THINK WE'D BE CLOSER. I MEAN COMMITMENT TO ONE PARTICULAR THEORETICAL POSITION WOULD BE UNFORTUNATE.

I AM NOT AS COMFORTABLE WITH THE WORD "TRUTH" AS YOU SEEM TO BE IN THIS CONTEXT. AS I'VE SAID I'M NOT AVERSE TO CRITICAL THINKING THAT INCLUDES CONSIDERATIONS OF TRUTH BUT THE PROJECT IS ALSO ONE OF CHOOSING WAYS OF THINKING AND WAYS OF BEING ON OTHER GROUNDS: MORAL, PRAGMATIC, AESTHETIC GROUNDS. I THINK THAT'S WHAT CAN AND SHOULD EVOLVE AS A FUNCTION OF DIALOGUE OVER TIME. AND THAT'S WHY I DON'T THINK THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH A PATIENT CHOOSING AN ANALYST WHO SHARES A CERTAIN PHILOSOPHY, A CERTAIN WAY OF THINKING, EVEN A CERTAIN THEORETICAL POINT OF VIEW. THE DATA ARE GOING TO BE OPEN ENOUGH TO MULTIPLE INTERPRETATIONS SO THAT DECIDING AMONG THEM WILL OFTEN BE A MATTER OF VALUES NOT OF VALIDITY.

I DON'T LIKE ALL THE LANGUAGE IN THE ABOVE BUT I WONDER WHETHER THE FOLLOWING WHICH IS A PARAGRAPH IN THE INTRODUCTION TO MY BOOK REFLECTS SOME (NOT ALL) OF THE SPIRIT OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.

"What I hope comes through in these pages is my own sense of struggle to find a way to be with patients that gives them the greatest opportunity, despite the odds, to make better lives for themselves. There is respect here for a variety of theoretical perspectives regarding motivation and development, in effect, a kind of critical pluralism. With that openness comes a special kind of uncertainty as to what stance on the part of the analyst is optimal for any particular analytic dyad at any particular moment. But pluralism and a conviction about the value of uncertainty are very definitively, themselves, key aspects of a point of view about the analytic process that I am developing and advocating in this book. To say that a range of perspectives may apply to a particular situation or experience is itself a supraordinate perspective and none of the specific perspectives that it allegedly encompasses is considered its equal in terms of general truth value. Each specific perspective, moreover, is modified by its interaction with the others and by its relocation within the broader dialectical framework that I am proposing. That framework has its own implications for a theory of development (made explicit especially in chapters 8-10). Most prominently, however, what this meta-view encourages is a certain kind of analytic attitude, one that has a subtle but pervasive effect on the analyst's experience and behavior including such things as his or her demeanor and tone of voice. Thus, in a particular analytic encounter, the attitude may well affect, not only what the analyst says, but his or her entire manner of relating to the patient." (pp. xxxi-xxxii)

Of course, one who believes that he or she has attained a perfect theory-freedom, and therefore enjoys the ultimate contemplation of truth, is quite ready for the lunatic asylum.

THERE ARE SUBTLETIES INVOLVED IN THIS. AFTER ALL, WE WON'T FIND ANYONE IN OUR ANALYTIC COMMUNITY WHO WILL GO THAT FAR (OR VERY FEW ANYWAY). BUT MANY ARE TOO FAR IN THAT DIRECTION. IT'S A CONTINUUM. SOMETIMES I SAY MANY PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORISTS AND PRACTITIONERS ARE "OVERLY CONFIDENT" ABOUT WHAT THEY FEEL THEY KNOW ABOUT THEMSELVES, ABOUT THEIR PATIENTS, ABOUT THE INTERACTION. I HAVE THAT IN PRINT SOMEWHERE. "OVERLY CONFIDENT" CREATES A CERTAIN KIND OF CLIMATE. I THINK YOUR SENSE OF WHAT PHENOMENOLOGY OFFERS IS CONDUCIVE TO SUCH OVERCONFIDENCE INSTEAD OF COMBATTING IT. MAYBE ULTIMATELY ONE HAS TO SEE WHAT KINDS OF ANALYTIC CLIMATES ARE CREATED AS YOU OR I OR ANYONE DESCRIBES HIS OR HER CLINICAL EXPERIENCE TO SEE WHAT DIFFERENCE OUR WAYS OF TALKING ABOUT OUR EPISTEMOLOGICAL PREFERENCES MAKE.

Our theory-freedom can only be at most relative--hence the insuperable necessity of dialogue and confrontation. But a relative theory-freedom is not a non-existent theory-freedom. It is the same as for all other sorts of freedom. In a modern democracy we are not perfectly free, but we are much freer than in a theocratic regime. YES PROBABLY. ALTHOUGH FOUCAULT HAS SOMETHING TO SAY I THINK ABOUT THAT. In all fields we try to approximate freedom, wisdom, love as much as we can, though we know very well, unless we are insane, that we'll never be totally free, wise, or loving.

Would you put the above considerations in the same folder with your grandmother's spirit floating above your head in the form of the soul of a dead elephant that speaks English fluently and is now controlling everything you say and write? I'M GLAD YOU FOUND A WAY TO BRING THAT LOVELY CONSIDERATION INTO YOUR STATEMENT :) If not, maybe our dialogue deserves a continuation. YES, OK. I WOULD SAY SO. BUT I DO NEED A "TIME OUT" RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I'M JUST SWAMPED WITH WORKTHAT IS OVERDUE.

Tullio, November 4, 2007

Dear Irwin,

just a few words to tell you that I am very satisfied with the result we have reached so far. I understand that you are swamped with work that is overdue, so I don't expect a continuation of our dialogue right now. Maybe in the future.

My satisfaction depends on the way you have clarified your position: a meta-view, a supraordinate perspective that allows for pluralism and the conviction of the value of uncertainty. This is the key point to me: unless a meta-subject, capable of a meta-view, wakes up and becomes operative, one remains stuck at the level of the ordinary, empirical subject. It is not clear to me how you combine your meta-position with your constructivism--unless it is precisely the phenomenologic-hermeneutic dialectic that I am advocating. It seems to me that with your meta-view you are a phenomenologist in disguise--like Freud, like Bion. But a fully deployed dialectic might require a more articulated development of the meta-view. A meta-perspective can also be called meta-theoretical, which means that one stands on a plane supraordinate to the one of ordinary theories. A meta-theory is qualitatively different from ordinary, empirical theories. It corresponds to the Greek "theoria", of which I wrote in a contribution to the JPN discussion (I apologize for the self-quotation):

The Greek theoria is a mode "of being present in self-forgetfulness, and to be a spectator consists in giving oneself in self-forgetfulness to what one is watching. Here self-forgetfulness is anything but a privative condition, for it arises from devoting one's full attention to the matter at hand, and this is the spectator's own positive accomplishment" (Gadamer, Truth and method, p.126). "Our starting point is that verbally constituted experience of the world expresses not what is present-at-hand, that which is calculated or measured, but what exists, what man recognizes as existent and significant. The process of understanding practiced in the moral sciences can recognize itself in this--and not in the methodological ideal of rational construction that dominates modern mathematically based natural science" ( p.456). One can see in phenomenological observation or in Bion's attitude of listening without memory and desire the modern heirs of the Greek theoria. To avoid confusion between the two meanings of the word, one can call meta-theory what one sees thanks to the bracketing of all theories (in the ordinary meaning of the word). The 'validation' of metatheories happens not through measurements and experiments but through dialogue and confrontation among observers who are capable of and willing to suspend their idiosyncratic theories, in a spirit of "self-forgetfulness". This is what theory-neutrality properly means to me. In my view only a research based on this theory-neutrality can bridge the gap between clinicians and researchers. I can't see how a research based on measurement and statistics can ever bridge the gap that it has itself created.

Best wishes, and many thanks for the dialogue so far.