IPA Jounal Club with Salman Akhtar

There exists a conceptual bifurcation at the core of psychoanalysis. It has been viewed from differing vantage points and portrayed as subsuming various dichotomies (oedipal-preoedipal, conflict-deficit, one person-two person, classic-romantic, and so on). While each such conceptual pair has its own heuristic accompaniments, these dichotomies share a profoundly important element. They have divergent effects upon the analyst’s mode of listening and the nature of his or her interventions. These and other related technical implications are the topic of this paper. With the help of three clinical vignettes and by coalescing the isolated voices of many distinguished theoreticians, the author attempts to elucidate and heal this split.

This paper proposes three levels of increasingly sophisticated resolution of the technical divergence resulting from this schism. The paper recommends an informed oscillation between the two polarities of psychoanalytic technique, an oscillation that must remain in consonance with the patient’s shifting ego organization. The paper concludes by highlighting the developmental bases for the proposed technical conceptualizations.

The Akhtar paper can be downloaded at this link:

https://ipa.informz.net/IPA/data/images/SchismSynthesis2000.pdf