De-Idealizing Relational Theory: A Critique from Within

255 Pages·2018·3.842 MB·English

by  Lewis Aron, Sue Grand, Joyce Anne Slochower

De-Idealizing
Relational Theory
Self-examination and self-critique: for psychoanalytic patients, this is the
conduit to growth. Yet within the field, psychoanalysts haven’t sufficiently
utilized their own methodology or subjected their own preferred approaches
to systematic and critical self-examination. Across theoretical divides,
psychoanalytic writers and clinicians have too often responded to criticism
with defensiveness rather than reflectivity.
De-Idealizing Relational Theoryattempts to rectify this for the relational
field. This book is a first in the history of psychoanalysis; it takes internal
dissension and difference seriously rather than defensively. Rather than
saying that the other’s reading of relational theory is wrong, distorted, or
a misrepresentation, this book is interested in querying how theory lends
itself to such characterizations. How have psychoanalysts participated in
conveying this portrayal to their critics? Might this dissension illuminate
blind-spot(s) and highlight new areas of growth?
It’s a challenge to engage in psychoanalytic self-critique. To do so
requires that we move beyond our own assumptions and deeply held beliefs
about what moves the treatment process and how we can best function
within it. To step aside from ourselves, to question the assumed, to take the
critiques of others seriously, demands more than an absence of defensive -
ness. It requires that we step into the shoes of the psychoanalytic Other
and suspend not only our theories, but our emotional investment in them.
There are a range of ways in which our authors took up that challenge.
Some revisited the assumptions that underlay early relational think ing
and expanded their sources (Greenberg & Aron). Some took up specific
aspects of relational technique and unpacked their roots and evolution
(Mark, Cooper). Some offered an expanded view of what constitutes rela-
tional theory and technique (Seligman, Corbett, Grossmark). Some more
directly critiqued aspects of relational theory and technique (Berman,
Stern). And some took on a broader critique of relational theory or technique
(Layton, Slochower).
Unsurprisingly, no single essay examined the totality of relational think-
ing, its theoretical and clinical implications. This task would be herculean
both practically and psychologically. We’re all invested in aspects of
what we think and what we do; at best, we examine some, but never all
of our assumptions and ideas. We recognize, retrospectively, how very
challenging a task this was; it asked writers to engage in what we might
think of as a self-analysis of the countertransference. Taken together these
essays represent a significant effort at self-critique and we are enormously
proud of it.
Each chapter critically assesses and examines aspects of relational
theory and technique, considers its current state and its relations to other
psychoanalytic approaches. De-Idealizing Relational Theory will appeal
to all relational psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.
Lewis Aron, Ph.D., ABPP is the director of the New York Univers-
ity Postdoct oral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He is
the author and editor of numerous articles and books on psychotherapy
and psychoanalysis and well known for his study and reading groups
around the world. His most recent book, co-authored with Galit Atlas,
is the Routledge title Dramatic Dialogue: Contemporary Clinical Prac-
tice.
Sue Grand, Ph.D.,is faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psycho -
therapy and Psychoanalysis. She is the author of The Reproduction of Evil:
A Clinic al and Cultural Perspectiveand The Hero in the Mirror, and has
co-edited two books on the trans-generational transmission of trauma. She
practices in NYC and in Teaneck, NJ.
Joyce Slochower, Ph.D., ABPP is Professor Emerita at Hunter College
and the Graduate Center, the City University of New York. She is on
the faculty of the New York University Postdoctoral Program, the
Steven Mitchell Center, the National Training Program of NIP, the Phila-
delphia Center for Relational Studies, and the Psychoanalytic Institute of
Northern California in San Francisco. She is the author of Holding and
Psycho analysis and Psycho analytic Collisions. Second editions of both
books were released in 2014. She is in private practice in New York City,
where she sees individuals and couples, and runs supervision and study
groups.
RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVES BOOK SERIES
LEWIS ARON, ADRIENNE HARRIS,
STEVEN KUCHUCK & EYAL ROZMARIN
Series Editor
The Relational Perspectives Book Series (RPBS) publishes books that grow out
of or contribute to the relational tradition in contemporary psychoanalysis. The
term relational psychoanalysis was first used by Greenberg and Mitchell1 to
bridge the traditions of interpersonal relations, as developed within interpersonal
psychoanalysis and object relations, as developed within contemporary British
theory. But, under the seminal work of the late Stephen A. Mitchell, the term
relational psychoanalysisgrew and began to accrue to itself many other influences
and developments. Various tributaries—interpersonal psychoanalysis, object
relations theory, self psychology, empirical infancy research, and elements of
contemporary Freudian and Kleinian thought—flow into this tradition, which
understands relational configurations between self and others, both real and
fantasied, as the primary subject of psychoanalytic investigation.
We refer to the relational tradition, rather than to a relational school, to high -
light that we are identifying a trend, a tendency within contemporary psycho-
analysis, not a more formally organized or coherent school or system of beliefs.
Our use of the term relational signifies a dimension of theory and practice that
has become salient across the wide spectrum of contemporary psychoanalysis.
Now under the editorial supervision of Lewis Aron, Adrienne Harris, Steven
Kuchuck and Eyal Rozmarin, the Relational Perspectives Book Series originated
in 1990 under the editorial eye of the late Stephen A. Mitchell. Mitchell was the
most prolific and influential of the originators of the relational tradition. Committed
to dialogue among psychoanalysts, he abhorred the authoritarianism that dictated
adherence to a rigid set of beliefs or technical restrictions. He championed open
discussion, comparative and integrative approaches, and promoted new voices
across the generations.
Included in the Relational Perspectives Book Series are authors and works that
come from within the relational tradition, extend and develop that tradition, as
well as works that critique relational approaches or compare and contrast it with
alternative points of view. The series includes our most distinguished senior
psychoanalysts, along with younger contributors who bring fresh vision. A full
list of titles in this series is available at https://www.routledge.com/mentalhealth/
series/LEARPBS
1 Greenberg, J. & Mitchell, S. (1983). Object relations in psychoanalytic theory. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University
De-Idealizing
Relational Theory
A Critique From Within
Edited by
Lewis Aron, Sue Grand,
and Joyce Slochower
First published 2018
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Lewis Aron, Sue Grand, and
Joyce Slochower; individual chapters, the contributors.
The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Aron, Lewis, editor. | Grand, Sue, editor. | Slochower, Joyce
Anne, 1950–editor.
Title: De-idealizing relational theory : a critique from within / edited by
Lewis Aron, Sue Grand, and Joyce A. Slochower.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. |
Series: Relational perspectives book series | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017060368 (print) | LCCN 2018002926 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781315113623 (Master) | ISBN 9781351625593 (Web PDF) |
ISBN 9781351625586 ( ePub) | ISBN 9781351625579 (Mobipocket/Kindle) |
ISBN 9781138080157 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138080164
(pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Object relations (Psychoanalysis) | Interpersonal relations. |
Psychoanalysis.
Classification: LCC BF175.5.O24 (ebook) | LCC BF175.5.O24 D42 2018
(print) | DDC 150.19/5—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/
2017060368
ISBN: 978-1-138-08015-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-08016-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-11362-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman and Gill Sans
by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
Contents
Author biographies ix
Acknowledgements xii
Introduction 1
LEWIS ARON, SUE GRAND, AND JOYCE SLOCHOWER
1. Going too far: relational heroines and relational
excess 8
JOYCE SLOCHOWER
2. The emergence of the relational tradition:
Lewis Aron interviews Jay Greenberg 35
JAY GREENBERG AND LEWIS ARON
3. Relational psychoanalysis and its discontents 63
EMANUEL BERMAN
4. Forms of equality in relational psychoanalysis 80
DAVID MARK
5. Needed analytic relationships and the disproportionate
relational focus on enactments 102
STEVEN STERN
6. Inaction and puzzlement as interaction: keeping
attention in mind 132
STEPHEN SELIGMAN
viii Contents
7. The analyst’s private space: spontaneity, ritual,
psychotherapeutic action, and self-care 150
KEN CORBETT
8. The unobtrusive relational analyst and psychoanalytic
companioning 167
ROBERT GROSSMARK
9. The things we carry: finding/creating the object and
the analyst’s self-reflective participation 191
STEVEN H. COOPER
10. Relational theory in socio-historical context:
implications for technique 209
LYNNE LAYTON
Index 235
Author biographies
Lewis Aron, Ph.D., ABPP is the director of the New York University
Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He has served
as president of the Division of Psychoanalysis (39) of the American Psy -
chological Association; founding president of the International Association
for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy (IARPP); founding
president of the Division of Psychologist-Psychoanalysts of the New York
State Psychological Association. He is the cofounder and co-chair of the
Sándor Ferenczi Center at the New School for Social Research; professor,
Interd isciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel. He was one of the founders
of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and is the series co-editor of the Relational
Perspectives book series (Routledge). He is the editor and author of numer -
ous clinical and scholarly journal articles and books, including A Meeting
of Minds, and most recently, with Galit Atlas, Dramatic Dialogue: Contem-
porary Clinical Practice. He is widely known for his study/reading groups
in NYC and online.
Sue Grand, Ph.D.,is faculty and supervisor at the NYU Postdoctoral pro -
gram in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis; faculty, the trauma program
at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies; faculty, the Mitchell
Center for Relational Psychoanalysis, and fellow at the Institute for
Psychology and the Other. She is an associated editor of Psychoanalytic
Dialogues and Psychoanalysis Culture and Society. She is the author
of: The Reproduction of Evil: A Clinical and Cultural Perspective and
The Hero in the Mirror: From Fear to Fortitude. She is the co-editor, with
Jill Salberg of The Wounds of History: Repair and Resilience in the