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A Brief History of Relational Psychoanalysis

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 5 months ago

Although relational psychoanalysis has only really gained significant acceptance and legitimacy in the later half of the 20th century, the earliest contributors come right out of Freud’s inner circle. Sandor Ferenzi’s concept of mutual analysis and Otto Rank’s theory regarding the self within a relational context (Aron, 1996) can both be understood as forerunners to contemporary relational psychoanalysis. The idea’s put forth by Ferenzi and Rank, while not systematic alternatives to Freud’s theories, were significant in that they opened a door to the possibilities of a relational orientation to psychoanalysis.

Despite her initial effort to stay true to the drive theory of her analyst and mentor, Melanie Klein can be understood as the key transitional figure between Freud’s drive model and the relational model (Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983). Maintaining a commitment to the drive model, Klein greatly extended the role of unconscious fantasy in the infant’s internalized efforts to cope with drive fueled aggression and libidinal impulses. But to a much greater degree than Freud, Klein’s system of drive regulation became a complex mix of phantasy and “real” object relations. However, her writing fails to articulate, in a consistent way, the process in which relations with “real” objects are incorporated into and shape the child’s psychic structure. One could argue that Klein’s greatest impact on the yet to emerge relational psychoanalysis resulted from her shifting the focus of critical attention away from the oedipal child to the pre-oedipal infant who is now the object of so much attention in contemporary relational psychoanalysis.

W.R.D. Fairbairn, and his interpreter and promulgator, Harry Guntrip articulated a psychoanalytic theory which challenged the basic assumptions and principles of Freudian metapsychology. Using Kleinian terminology, but changing the meanings, Fairbairn reinterpreted Freud’s libido theory and introduced a motivational system based not on pleasure seeking but on object seeking. As a result of this shift in his understanding of motivation Fairbairn was convinced that it was disturbances in relations with others, not conflicts over pleasure seeking impulses, that gives rise to psychopathology (Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983). He moved away from Klein by suggesting that internal objects were established by the child in order to manage failures of real external objects. Fairbairn also envisioned an entirely new developmental system designed around the child’s increasing ability to manage the journey from infantile dependence to a fully developed and adult; “mature dependence.” Unlike Klein, who started the movement toward relational psychoanalysis, Fairbairn was able to reject the Freudian drive structure and take a more definitive step toward an alternative understanding of human psychology and the practice of psychoanalysis.

D.W. Winnicott, originally a pediatrician, seemed initially to be protective of the formulations of Freud and Klein, and yet shifted his attention to the conditions that support or interfere with the child’s awareness of himself as a separate person. This self-integrating task was seen by Winnicott as dependent on the good enough mother providing a holding environment where the child is contained and experienced. Like Fairbairn, Winnicott’s theorizing ultimately led him to offer psychoanalytic formulations that provided an alternative theory founded on the relational.

Other important contributors to a growing relational psychoanalysis included Jacques Lacan, one of the earliest psychoanalytic writers to attend to the bidirectional influence between the analyst and the analysand. Also working largely within a traditional drive-based psychoanalytic model, Hans Loewald’s (1960 ) writings suggested that “neutrality” could include the analyst’s love for the individual and so could be thought of as a “positive neutrality” that would provide the patient with a loving new object.

Heinz Kohut (1971, 1977, & 1984) and followers Ernest Wolf, Paul and Anna Ornstein, and Marian Tolpin developed what Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) call a mixed model: part drive structural model and part relational structure model. Despite his refusal to renounce drive theory, Kohut’s belief that relatedness to others is essential for psychological survival places his “Self Psychology” firmly within “relational” orientation to psychoanalytic theory. His selfobject concept, his understanding that selfobject deficiencies or failures result in “self disorders,” and the primacy of empathy as a both a developmental need and as the foundation of psychoanalytic treatment make Kohut one of the more significant figures in the early history of the relational movement.

Harry Stack Sullivan, and his followers Erich Fromm, Karen Horney, Clara Thompson, and Frieda Fromm Reichmann defined a set of psychoanalytic theories and techniques based on the conviction that classical drive theory was fundamentally misguided regarding human motivation. These writers based conviction on the strong belief that Freudian theory underestimates the impact of the larger social and cultural on development on personality development and psychopathology (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983). The “Interpersonal Psychoanalysis” they created has had a signifcant, even foundational, impact on contemporary relational psychoanalysis.

Important early contributions to relational psychoanalysis also came from Margaret Mahler, Michael Balint, Joseph Sandler, Edith Jacobson, Erik Erickson, Harold Searles, and John Bowlby. The work of these early thinkers still inspire and guide contemporary theorists to explore psychoanalysis from a relational perspective. Although it would be impossible to fully list all of the contemporary psychoanalytic writers and the contributions that populate this movement, some of the most influential contemporary contributors include; Thomas Ogden, Otto Kernberg, Christopher Bollas, Leon Wurmser, Stephen Mitchell, Jay Greenberg, Emmanuel Ghent, Beatrice Beebe, Mary Main, Mary Ainsworth, Howard Bacal, James Fosshage, Jessica Benjamin, Frank Lachmann, Andrew Morrison, Donna Orange, Joseph Lichtenberg, Evelyn Schwaber, Estelle Shane, Morton Shane, Lewis Aron, Robert Stolorow, Daniel Stern, Bernard Brandshaft, Malcom Slavin, Marian Tolpin, Philip Bromberg, Donnel Stern, George Atwood, Sidney Blatt, Judith Teicholz, Peter Fonagy, Mary Target, Irwin Hoffman, Owen Renick, Adrienne Harris, Alan Sroufe, Muriel Dimen, and Karen Maroda.

The above list of contemporary psychoanalytic writers and theorists which is far from complete, represents a hugely productive and robust field of analysts and theoreticians that are working hard to explore new directions for psychoanalysis in a relational key. This work generates a richly expressive language that, because of the sheer volume of published writings, would be nearly impossible for any one person, no matter how well read, to have a comprehensive, definitional, and comparative understanding of all the relevant terms and concepts. This wikipedia has been created to provide a platform for the creation of an encylopedia of terms and concepts, developed in the last century, which has been used to articulate what has come to be called relational psychoanalysis.