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Chapter Two Part Two – Methodology - Page 53
The journey, of learning and understanding begun by Freud concludes today, with
the intuitive learning from the moment-to-moment interaction of two partners
interacting, and struggling to know about that interaction. The knowledge we seek
now is the immediacy of the analytic moment, the configuration of projections and
introjections that make up both the communication and also the defensiveness in
the analytic setting. (2002, p. 9)
It is not difficult to find the roots of contemporary psychotherapy in a variety of archaic
spiritual and clinical practices and traditions. In the last fifteen decades (since the birth
of Freud in 1856), the epistemology underlying psychotherapy has undergone a series of
revolutions. This has many similarities to (although some differences from) patterns of
change in the other social science disciplines. In the case of psychoanalysis as an early
and profoundly influential psychotherapy, Freud (1905b/1960) included both modern
and post-modern elements in his theorising, and also moved through a range of
paradigms as his interests progressed and deepened. Pine (1990), in his work entitled
‘Drive, Ego, Object, Self’, offers one view of this progression, which makes sense of
the traditions which have grown from the punctuations of this sequence. Within the
broader field of social science, writers such as Lincoln and Denzin (1994) have argued
for a series of moments as punctuations, marking the transition between the former
dominance of one paradigm and the emerging significance of another.
Although we ignore our biological heritage at our peril, we can no longer. However, an
early scientism, aimed at recognition by the (primarily medical) establishment, arguably
led Freud to over-emphasise the scientific basis of psychoanalysis and to downplay the
relational aspects. Similarly, one can argue that a wish to ease the task and to get at
underlying intra-psychic structures led Freud to de-emphasise the importance of real
relationships with significant others and their role in the experience and resolution of
personal as well as interpersonal difficulties. Freud can be seen as having left it to his
successors to focus on these aspects (Benjamin, 1990; Fairbairn, 1952; Guntrip, 1971;