Is There a Theory of psychoanalysis:

There is an Arabic saying that goes: There is no good in you if you do not say it (the truth), and there is no good in us if we do not listen.

This post is about truth that I am sure of its validity, as I am also very sure of its failure to interest- if not even be disregarded- by most analysts (listeners). The reason is that it is not limited to one definite aspect of psychoanalysis that psychoanalyst could differ about in degrees; it is regarding the very essence of what we all make out of psychoanalysis and the nature of our profession. To make it more concise I will put the issue of this posting in the form of a question: is what we have now in our literature and call the theory (ies) of psychoanalysis- whatever we agree or disagree with it- has to do with the subject matter of analysis(the human subject), or is it about the different and varied stances we take from  psychoanalysing the subject? The prototype answer is that we have ‘knowledge’ about the subject, and we also learn the techniques of applying it in his treatment, and those two aspects combined become psychoanalysis, whatever the knowledge or the training are. We should not ignore or deny that we chose our answer to this particular question depending on the overt or covert intention of the person asking: is he critical or supportive of contemporary psychoanalysis. I am aware of most the variations of answers to this question because we actually do not have a definite or a quasi-definite distinction between what we call theory and practice.

The question still remains unanswered: which is psychoanalysis and which is just the application of psychoanalysis. We used to have a simple formula for practicing psychoanalysis: free association, transference interpretation, reconstruction. But since Empathy was introduced as a factor in therapy, and the distinction between intrapsychical versus interpersonal distinguished three types of psychoanalysis we have become the proud owners of a muddled field of psychoanalysis. This muddled situation is rooted in the origin of psychoanalysis. Freud’s valiant endeavour to pursue the French finding of the splitting or the duality of consciousness he created through practicing hypnosis a unique situation which still effects psychoanalysis.  He was making his own discoveries that were very original, and there were no words to describe or define. He had to improvise a new vocabulary for his findings using everyday language. He was not yet aware or concerned about the distinction between theory and practice, so his vocabulary derived from daily speech, was supposed to signify his conception of what he was noticing clinically. For instance, terms like repressed or conversion bordered the line between the common and the technical. Thus, the vocabulary used in building our literature makes the distinction between the knowledge of the subject matter of analysis and the expertise about practicing this knowledge in psychotherapy very difficult attain (Latin solved the problem for medicine).

Freud opened the ‘Pandora’s box’ and realised that every discovery leads to another or to a more sophisticated meaning of the term. He was not really equipped to improvise a vocabulary (and a semi-language) because of his fast understanding of his findings (the repressed is not repressed but disguised within consciousness). Projection is a phenomenon (mechanism) of identifying someone by certain qualities which analytic work reveals their unconscious pressure on the subject’s own identity. In other words, the most of what we call ‘theory’ is merely common expression of the psychoanalytic findings. Thus, the unexperienced analyst would keep revealing to the patient his projective identification to no avail. Even if the patient finally could notice the analyst’s finding no analysis, still no analysis has been done unless the formation of projection is revealed is revealed to the patient, and mostly through its working within the transference. The reason for that distinction is that applying a descriptive concept as an explanatory term would not dislodge the symptom from repetition compulsion. This process is neither a theory nor a technique: it is the outcome of work of interpreting the patient’s speech to reveal to the patient his objection to the presence of those projected qualities in himself.

In the period after 1915 Freud started to revise his findings (concepts) shedding off old fixed links between signifiers and signified in the vocabulary he improvised. Just as an example: the wrongly named “papers on metapsychology” revised the concept of repression completely (primary and proper), He also eliminated totally any gesture that we deal with drives (instincts) and made Trieb a flexible base of psychical endeavours. He introduced the real meaning of ‘unconscious’ by distinguishing the systemic unconscious as the real unconscious, This dissection made possible for him to talk latter about the non repressed unconscious.

Our question now has to be: what is the nature of the psychoanalytic vocabulary? Is it descriptive or explanatory? Freud’s earlier works were justifiably descriptive. His insights, intuitions, and his genius made him turn the descriptive terms into an explanatory legacy of the human subject. His explanatory concept and remarks were getting more and more about the subject as individual and person, and also in his other capacities. There was no theory of practice because the subject matter of practice is specific to the subject (each patient). In other words: if we know the nature of the human subject (the way he unconsciously creates his identity) and we also know how the conscious material he delivers is weaved with that unconscious that creates his identity we could then make the act of interpreting a practice of psychotherapy.

 we should not rush to consider the explanatory terms, like identification or negation, terms of theoretical importance. A psychoanalytic theory has to be in regard to the subject matter, which is the subject (the patient). The rest of the psychoanalytic terminology looks to most analysts as a theory of practice when it is merely issues, we encounter when we do proper analysis of the subject. Every psychoanalytic session is a repetition of the discovery of psychoanalysis itself.  We start with a subject alienated in his false unconscious identity (the pre-psychoanalysis dogma about the human subject), and we gradually do what Freud did; listen, interpret and gradually reconstruct the patient story (give the details a comprehensive framework (a theory). We learn more about the subject from our experiences with the subjects we treat.

Freud modifications of his views regarding early findings indicated a fundamental shift in psychoanalysis, not just the significations of the vocabulary. The best example is his papers on technique: which came a couple of years before the metapsychology papers. The most intriguing about those recommendations is that they related to what makes analysis possible to do and avoid mishandling transference resistance.  Basically, Freud recommendations are about avoiding sliding into the futility of a real relationship with the patient. The fact that Freud was the worst violators of his recommendations suggests (to me) that he realised what makes psychoanalysis fail and recommended avoiding them.

Thus, answering the question of what is the nature of the psychoanalytic vocabulary is extremely important because as I mentioned in a previous posting, some analysts use the conceptual framework of their literature of choice as the theory of doing the analytic work. The psychoanalytic vocabulary, or the literature of psychoanalysis that is available to us is a mixture of descriptive terms that we usually differ (conflict) in giving it one meaning like projective identification, and of terms that explain findings like after- effect which to understand it we need to keep in mind both the concepts of transference and the none existence of a sense of time in the systemic unconscious. Therefore, analysts should not mislead themselves by believing that the literature is, or comprises, the theory of their discipline. There are very few works that could be considered theories of the subject (Erickson, Kohut, Anna Freud, Lacan, Klein!, Matte-Blanco, …). However, there is no theory of practice; only recommendations that should apply the same way in practicing any of those theoretical modalities.