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International Forum of Psychoanalysis

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Psychoanalysts without a Specific Professional

Identity: A Utopian Dream?
a
Helmut Thomä Prof. Dr. med
a
Leipzig, Germany
b
Funkenburgstr. 14, DE‐04105, Leipzig, Germany E-mail:
Published online: 04 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Helmut Thomä Prof. Dr. med (2004) Psychoanalysts without a Specific Professional Identity: A Utopian
Dream?, International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 13:4, 213-236, DOI: 10.1080/08037060410004746

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 Int Forum Psychoanal 13:(213±236), 2004

Psychoanalysts without a Specific Professional Identity:

A Utopian Dream?1
Helmut Thomä, Leipzig, Germany

Thomä H. Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity: A utopian dream? Int Forum
Psychoanal 2004;13:213–236. Stockholm. ISSN 0803-706X.
The subject matter of identity belongs to the orthodox psychoanalytic movement. For about the
last 15 years, the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA) has successfully tried to facilitate
research and to promote projects. If the resistance of influential analysts against empirical
investigation decreases further, “psychoanalytic movement” and its unfavourable concomitants will
Downloaded by [The University of British Columbia] at 12:33 14 October 2014

be a thing of the past. The development to a scientific community will no longer be hampered by
controversies over professional identity.
The psychosocial dimension and its normative implications put the concept of identity into
question. Instead the author suggests that we speak of a psychoanalytic attitude. This professional
self is closely connected to the personal self. It is however, necessary to separate the method from
the person. For a long time the genealogy of the training analyst determined the membership in
the ever-growing family of psychoanalysts. There have been black sheep right from the beginning.
Dissidents, therefore, belong to the history of Psychoanalysis. The official acceptance of pluralism
within the IPA invites comparisons between the various schools according to scientific criteria.
The methodology of modern psychoanalytic process and outcome research provides principles for
writing treatment reports. Group identities in their dogmatic aspects are detrimental for the future
of psychoanalysis. The message of the paper is to express the hope that a critical eclecticism might
replace psychoanalytic schools.
Key words: identity, orthodoxy, psychoanalytic movement, research, therapy
Helmut Thomä, Prof. Dr. med, Funkenburgstr. 14 DE-04105 Leipzig, Germany Tel.: E-mail:
thomaeleipzig@aol.com

In Freud’s lifetime, identity problems were un-
known to psychoanalysts. The subject index in
Fenichel’s encyclopedic book (1), for example,
includes many entries on identification but none on
identity. Professional problems used to be dis-
cussed without reference to identity. Today, there
are no scientists nor any professional group – other
than psychoanalysts – that consider method-
ological or theoretical changes a threat to their
common identity (2–4).
The question is: Can there be a future without a
professional psychoanalytical identity?
The title I chose for this paper is irritating for
analysts because the professional feeling, thinking
and acting of analysts is tied to their personal
identity. The psychoanalytical method is closely
linked to the person. At the same time, analysts
need to be able to distance themselves critically
from their method. If you understand an em-
pathic analyst to be a psychotherapist who has
1
To the memory of Alexander Mitscherlich.
epistemologically founded and effective knowl-
edge and is able to show that s/he can apply this
knowledge to the respective patient, there were no
identity problems. In his book The Analytic
Attitude (5), R. Schafer called this “the profes-
sional second self”, this second self is clearly
distinct from the personal self without constituting
a separate identity. It definitely includes more than
professional abilities and knowledge; however, it
is the normative implications of identity that raise
questions about the applicability of the term. If
identity were equated with the special qualities of
the second self, I would have seen no need to write
this paper.
The aim of psychoanalytical training is hard to
determine. In one’s final examinations, one is not
only tested on professional knowledge and quali-
fications. From the beginning of their career until
the very end analysts are under close scrutiny,
which is experienced as a test of the person without
knowing what is examined. The personal tests,
which extend from the application for training to

 2004 Taylor & Francis. ISSN 0803-706X DOI: 10.1080/08037060410004746

 214 H. Thomä
appointment as training analyst, are a lot more
strenuous than all other professional examinations.
Insisting on a special professional identity also has
a lot do to with a feeling of pride after having gone
through all kinds of anxieties, especially the fear of
a potential psychosocial setback during the train-
ing. Those anxieties contribute to the fact that only
very few of the 750 associate members of the
German Psychoanalytic Association (DPV) pre-
sent papers to become full members of the
association. Similarily, a survey by Cabaniss et al.
(6) among candidates of US American institutes
detected all kind of insecurities due to an avoidable
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lack of factual information. Most candidates did
not know the criteria that where used for their
evaluation.
Even though I know what it feels like to have
overcome those life-long, professional anxieties, I
am making a plea that they be minimized without
incurring reactive and self-satisfied attributions of
a special identity. Psychoanalytic institutes there-
fore need to disclose the criteria they apply to
the various examinations. If the inclusion into
or the exclusion from professional organizations
becomes based on such criteria (cf. analytical
attitude), group identities will become less
important. Professional thinking and acting are,
of course, linked to the personal self but still need
to be distinguished from the individual person and
his characteristics.
I do not fail to recognize the significance of
personal characteristics during the therapy. It is
indeed difficult for our patients to “identify with
the analyst’s functions” (7) and to respect our
privacy. They are unwilling to accept that we act in
a professional role. Patients usually do not know of
role theory, the stage allegory nor of Wittgen-
stein’s “language games” and the different ways of
living that are being expressed in them. They
instead tend to debase role-plays and consider
them to be fake. We want them to see that the
analytical situation “offers more degrees of free-
dom than life” (Ulm Textbook, vol. 1:120) (8).2
Following Schopenhauer, Mead and Habermas we
made use of the stage model in both volumes of
the Ulm Textbook to understand the analytical
relationship. Among other things it is stated that “it
2
I quote from the English Edition (1985/1987) and will speak of the
Ulm Textbook (UT vol. 1 or 2 (8)) whenever I refer to the two books
written by Thomä & Kächele.
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
is exactly the limitations of the psychoanalytical
situation that open up new possibilities for the
patient to explore roles that had been enacted only
inadequately until then” (8 vol. 1:120). Since
desire seeks real satisfaction, a special kind of
tension arises. Both participants contribute to
regulate this tension.
Other than our patients, the professional orga-
nizations should be able to distinguish between
personal identity and professional attitude. This
differentiation enables analysts to discuss the
psychoanalytical method with regard to theory,
and separately form the person and its character.
Those considerations explain both the extent and
the structure of the paper. I have divided the paper
into four parts. My personal experiences serve as
the basis for my attempted generalizations.
On the Historical Dimension of the
Psychoanalytic Problem of Identity
Jewish psychoanalysts who had to flee from
Europe encountered a new and unknown culture.
Erik H. Erikson (9, 10) was introduced to the
US-American social psychology and the pragmatic
philosophy of George Herbert Mead by personal
experience. It was he who introduced the term
“Identity” to psychoanalysis. S. Freud spoke of “a
clear sense of inner identity” only once, when
referring to his deeply-rooted connection to Jewry
(11:52). His elaborations on the “identity of
perception” in “Draft of a Psychology” (12) are
on a different level. His description of how the
“body image” comes about as a result of interac-
tions corresponds with modern discoveries about
the development of infants.
Forty years ago, M. Gitelson (13) titled his fare-
well speech as president of the American Psycho-
analytic Association “On the Identity Crisis in
American Psychoanalysis”. Even before that, in
1958, on a panel in connection with Erikson’s
concept of psychosocial identity, many psycho-
analysts discussed “problems of identity” (14). It
was in 1976 that the IPA invited psychoanalysts
from around the world to the Haslemere-
Symposium on “Identity of the Psychoanalyst”.
E. Joseph & D. Widlöcher (15) subsequently
published contributions to that conference.
We are facing a paradox: The unexpected spread
of psychoanalysis within dynamic psychiatry led to
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
fears within the psychoanalytical community that
psychoanalysis was going to be watered down.
Also, psychoanalysts began to fear losing their
(professional) identity. Half a century later the
paradoxical situation has become even more acute:
Today there is not a single psychotherapeutic trend
or school that does not tacitly include at least one
psychoanalytical aspect into their theory or prac-
tice. Freud’s work has found its way into intellec-
tual history. The English poet W.H. Auden wrote
that Sigmund Freud had become no longer a theory
but “a whole climate of opinion”. A recently
published book, edited by Ann Casement (16), has
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the intriguing title “Who owns Psychoanalysis?”.
An unanimous answer might be expected. I quote
the answers of three authors. Ahumada gives a
quick answer: “Nobody.” And continues “a second
one might read: those who can benefit from it. A
likely third response would be: those who master
it. An unlikely fourth answer, everybody, is all too
relevant.” (17:61–62) Hinshelwood (18) reflects on
the difference of ownership of material things and
ideas. And Roudinesco states briefly:
“As a discipline, psychoanalysis belongs to no one:
to no state, to no country, to no institution. And while
professional societies appear to wish to represent it
exclusively, for the most part it overflows from the
framework that attempts to constrain it. In a way,
psychoanalysis belongs to humankind’s legacy, as in
fact do other disciplines born at the same time, such
as sociology or anthropology.” (19:178)
It was only fifty years ago that psychoanalysis
seemed to be located in the IPA only (founded in
1910) without any identity problems. Today there
are psychotherapists throughout the world who call
themselves psychoanalysts without being under the
auspices of the IPA. Interestingly enough, within
the IPA, many different languages are spoken and
incompatible theories are considered true heirs of
Freud. Wallerstein’s attempts (20–22) to find
similarities between the different psychoanalytical
schools on the clinical level have been rightly
criticized (23–27). Fonagy (28) considers the term
“pluralism” euphemistic because it conceals the
actual “fragmentation”.
The current crisis of psychoanalysis differs from
all previous ones. Now, the IPA is threatened in its
core, because the IPA was founded with the
sole purpose of representing the psychoanalytic
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 215
movement (29) and to guard it against ‘wild’
psychoanalysis. As Freud wrote:
Neither I myself nor my friends and co-workers find
it agreeable to claim a monopoly in this way in the
use of a medical technique. But in face of the dangers
to patients and to the cause of psycho-analysis which
are inherent in the practice that is to be foreseen of a
‘wild’ psycho-analysis, we have had no other choice.
In the spring of 1910 we founded an International
Psycho-Analytical Association, to which its mem-
bers declare their adherence by the publication of
their names, in order to be able to repudiate
responsibility for what is done by those who do not
belong to us and yet call their medical procedure
‘psycho-analysis’ (1910k, 30:226).
When R. Schafer wrote about ‘wild analysis’ 75
years later (31), the situation had changed com-
pletely, pluralism and incompatibilities were
growing within the IPA. Schafer investigated the
systems of Melanie Klein, Heinz Kohut and
Merton Gill. Of course nobody would regard the
three theories and their considerable merits as
‘wild’ psychoanalysis. Schafer suggested to re-
place ‘wild’ by ‘comparative’ psychoanalysis as
his method of investigation and made the follow-
ing pertinent comment: “One must acknowledge
the fundamental propositions one has accepted as
true before beginning a critique of wildness. This
acknowledgement is required because there can be
no theory-free and method-free vantage point from
which to assess in some absolute manner compet-
ing approaches and the often diverse phenomena to
which they give rise or which they require to be
emphasized. All too often in our field, debate has
been conducted simply on the basis of unqualified
assertions concerning “the facts” or the “correct
method.” This kind of debate or pseudo debate is
incapable of resolving controversy . . .” (31:277)
Now we all face the fundamental problem that
“comparative psychoanalysis” makes it absolutely
necessary to have criteria which make comparisons
possible and valuable. It is not enough to look from
within the perspective of each system. And we do
not have a guardian to guard the custodian of true
psychoanalysis anymore!
It is encouraging to see that there is greater
tolerance within the IPA, which means that
members who think differently are no longer
excluded from the organization. For many years
now those people have not been called dissidents
anymore. Groups that have been excluded in the
 216 H. Thomä
past are to come back now and in the future. One
example among many is the German Psycho-
analytic Society (DPG) that was re-admitted into
the IPA very late (32, 33). Groups have been
dismissed from the IPA for a variety of reasons and
for some the exclusion dates back generations. The
return of the old DPG, which had been dissolved
during the Third Reich, was postponed at the first
IPA-Congress after the war (in Zurich in 1949)
because of the neopsychoanalytic deviations of
H. Schultz-Hencke. He refused to leave the DPG.
The DPV, an orthodox group with only seven
members, which was founded in 1950, was
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admitted into the IPA in 1951. Today the DPV
has about 1000 members. The spread of psycho-
analysis in Germany is remarkable. It had many
mothers and fathers: The umbrella organization of
all analytic therapists in Germany, the German
Society for Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Psycho-
somatic and Depth Psychology (DPGT) had a total
of 3051 members on October 15, 2002. 1158 of
them are not at the same time members of the
above mentioned two analytic associations. Most
of these unattached DGPT members still consider
themselves psychoanalysts.
In the US “lay analysts” were not included into
the American Psychoanalytic Association (ApsaA)
due to its professional politics. That’s why they
could not become members of the IPA either. The
ApsaA has claimed absolute sovereignty since
1938, which was de facto, granted at the 1949 IPA-
Congress. Clinical psychologists continued to be
excluded from the training in the ApsaA. Most
European “lay analysts” (e.g. Reik) who had to flee
to the US were not admitted into the ApsaA. It is
well known that it was Reik who had been
supported in his fight against Vienna health
authorities by Freud’s paper on lay analysis (34).
The “Division of Psychoanalysis” (Division 39) in
the American Psychological Association even-
tually founded the “Group for the Advancement
of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis in Psycho-
logy” (GAPPP). Their aim was to collect donations
for a model trial that was to take three years from
March 1, 1985. Four plaintiffs, representing US
American “lay analysts”, sued the ApsaA, the IPA
and two ApsaA institutes in New York for
violations of the Anti-Trust-Law.
The recently published complete documentation
of the case that is also known as “the lawsuit” pro-
vides new insights into the controversy (35–39).
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
Former presidents of the ApsaA and IPA,
R. Simons and R. Wallerstein, are convinced that
without the far-sighted settlement the ApsaA
would have been destroyed, which in turn would
have had disastrous effects on the IPA. In the
aftermath of the trial the ApsaA gave up their
monopoly on psychoanalytic training that de facto
excluded clinical psychologists and academically
trained social workers from their institutes. Since
the settlement, six training institutes and their
mainly psychologically trained members have
been recognized by the IPA. The underlying dissent
that had been around for more than half a century
prior to the “lawsuit” has been a lot more than a
disagreement between different schools.
Today a fundamental problem becomes evident.
Instead of applying reliable qualitative criteria
when evaluating candidates, mainly quantitative
factors are being used. This is the case because the
former proves to be more difficult. Unfortunately,
the IPA is so inflexible that the respected William-
Alanson-White-Institute and its members were not
accepted only because they had refused to adopt
the obligatory frequency of training analysis
sessions, i.e. four times a week. Today more
flexibility is accepted; since standards have been
changed from four sessions per week “minimal” to
four sessions “optimal” out of considerations for
countries in South-America.
Throughout the world psychotherapists are
being trained outside the IPA and work as psycho-
analysts, but cannot become members of the IPA
due to formal reasons. Sixteen out of the 51 DGPT
institutes, for example, have no formal ties to the
IPA. Their candidates and members are in a
situation similar to former US American lay
analysts. In my opinion everything should be done
for psychotherapists, who consider themselves
analysts, to be granted membership of the IPA.
Generally, functions and structures of the IPA
are outdated in the contemporary globalized world.
It is anachronistic to think that the headquarters of
the IPA in London and numerous commissions can
control psychoanalytic training and practice
throughout the world. Institutionalized psycho-
analysis is about to become a scientific community.
This development presupposes trusting Freud’s
ideas and their power. Fundamental reforms in the
direction of “representative democracy” need to
accompany the globalization of psychoanalysis.
This way, elections could be facilitated, for
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
example. Financial savings could contribute to the
development of psychoanalysis globally.
It is no coincidence that the issue of identity
becomes important again in an era of globalization
(40–42). In the view of various psychoanalytic
schools and trends inside and outside the IPA, there
is no point in discussing differences with regard to
the proper identity. Contemporary conflicts should
be negotiated between and inside the different
schools within the IPA. Comparing different kinds
of psychoanalysis, one has to evaluate both the
validity of theories and the effectiveness of
therapies3. The competition with all kinds of
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psychotherapies is not only a challenge for one
but also for many psychoanalyses. It seems as if the
discussion focuses on the thoughts and actions of
single analysts; the psychoanalytic school the
analyst adheres to only serves as a rough point of
reference.
In a contribution to the Haslemere-Conference, I
spoke of double identifications with the work and
its creator that every psychoanalyst needs to go
through (43). On the one hand, this refers to the
analysts, their idea of self and their affiliation to a
professional group. In addition, conflicts between
personal and professional self are of importance at
this point. Among other things, the personal
identities come into being by identifying with
human idols and objects of intellectual history.
Consequently, one can speak of a crisis of identity
within psychoanalysis.
In defining psychoanalysis, one usually makes
use of both the narrow and broad definition Freud
offered. According to the broad definition, one
only needs to recognize the existence of transfer-
ence and resistance as basic experiences no matter
which conclusions are being drawn (44:33).4 It was
only later on that the idea of unconscious pro-
cesses, a certain view of sexuality and the Oedipus
complex were to constitute the core of psycho-
analysis (48:223). The question is: does our
personal and professional identity and self-esteem
depend on the fact that we all make the same or
similar observations as Sigmund Freud did, and
3
Thomä H. (2004): Comparative psychoanalysis on the basis of a
new form of treatment. Report, unv. Vortrag, IPV-Kongress New
Orleans, 2004.
4
M. Boss (45), for example, referred to those concepts and remained
a member of the IPA even though his Daseinsanalyse constitutes a
“dissident” school whose adherents have no access to the IPA (cf. 46,
as well as the chapter on “Existential Analysis and Anorexia
Nervosa” in Thomä, 47).”
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 217
that we share a number of basic assumptions. If this
were the case, there would be no change. Psycho-
analysis would have been one and the same for
some 100 years. Klauber quotes from Joseph’s
contribution at the Haslemere conference: “. . .
The underlying theory is accepted as well estab-
lished and subject to minimal change, immutable
and scientific.” (49:44). In Klauber’s words: “. . .
as dead”. The effects of continuous identification,
i.e. the idea of becoming more and more like
somebody else, raises the question as to when poor
analysts actually become themselves. Klauber
voices the concerns of many young analysts when
admitting that for some years he had practiced with
a false analytic self. To quote:
“In some measure. . .struggling with a dying lan-
guage, since Freud’s language, though a superb and
still necessary construction, is his language, and to
combine discipleship with originality is a very hard
task. . . . This process of identification and introjec-
tion must have started with Freud’s pupils and has
been continued with particular strength in respect of
other great teachers. Perhaps our stultification of
thought comes partly from the fact that, along the
lines that Freud described in his paper “On Tran-
sience” (1916a), and again in “Mourning and
Melancholia” (1917c), we have never been able to
come to terms with his death – nor, as a consequence,
to assess the measure of transience which his ideas
must share with all other scientific, philosophical,
and religious ideas. This may lead to psychoanalytic
rigidity and lifelessness, or to revolt. We are tempted
to preserve Freudian ideas in desiccated form,
scotomizing the richness of human modes of ex-
perience. It is because of the gradual realization that
we do this, in which we have been helped by the
originality of several great teachers, that we can
no longer rely on our identifications with Freud”
(46, 47).
For historical reasons German analysts are con-
fronted with the tension Klauber described in a
special way. To give an idea of those specific
problems it might be useful to take a closer look at
my professional curriculum. How I became a
member of the professional community is typical
for a group of young West German academics of
the first and second post-war generation. Since
we currently live with our history looking back
and forth in time and because I draw general
conclusions about the future of psychoanalysis,
this brief autobiography will move in different
temporalities.
 218 H. Thomä
Fateful Coincidences: Excursus on My
Professional Career
The ancestors of my father’s old-established
family in Stuttgart had been pious winegrowers
back to my great grandparents’ generation. Selling
and building houses on their vineyards the family
grew wealthier and managed to climb the social
ladder. In the spring of 1939, at the age of 18 I
applied for a career as medical officer. I was
accepted and subsequently drafted at the start of
the war. As a Wehrmacht soldier I was fortunately
able – or rather had to – study medicine from the
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end of 1940 despite the war. I was indeed very
lucky on a variety of occasions throughout my
professional career. After ten semesters I finished
my university studies in Berlin before the war
ended. In February 1945 I received the doctorate in
medicine at the University of Tuebingen. During
my surgical and internist basic training at a
denominational hospital in Stuttgart, I was espe-
cially interested in psychological aspects of phys-
ical diseases. I was given the advice to become a
psychiatrist because of this interest and started the
necessary training at the Municipal Psychiatric
Hospital in Stuttgart. Dr. W. Gundert, who was the
hospital’s head at that time, considered himself a
psychoanalyst after having undergone therapy in
Vienna in the 1930s.
After trying relaxation techniques I experimen-
ted with hypno-analysis. I will never forget the
experiences I made when healing hysterical
paralysis and a hypno-analysis of a generalized
pruritus that completely disappeared. I first en-
countered the mysterious phantom pain with an
invalid who lost one arm in the war. After some
operations at his stump he was leucotomized. He
now suffered from cerebral lesions, which reduced
his intellectual capacity. This impaired his uni-
versity studies so much that he committed suicide.
After those early experiences I do not under-
stand how one could possibly doubt the existence
and importance of dynamic unconscious processes
and their meaning for human life. Even though
delivering proof of causal connections between the
manifest phenomenon and its unconscious deter-
minants remains difficult.
It was a happy coincidence that I unknowingly
became a member of the professional family. This
has clear similarities to what Pollak called an
“atavistic tribal identity” (4:1286). After World
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
War II the IPA had only one West German
member. Dr. Felix Schottländer in Stuttgart had
his training analysis with a member of Freud’s
inner circle in Vienna. Due to personal difficulties I
consulted him and underwent a very short ana-
lytical psychotherapy. I did not know that Schott-
länder was a member of the IPA.
There was another lucky coincidence. On
recommendation of Felix Schottländer I was able
to work with the West German founder of a
university-based psychoanalysis, Alexander
Mitscherlich, in Heidelberg from May 1, 1950
until I became the chairman of the Department for
Psychotherapy at the University of Ulm (1967)5.
Mitscherlich was a self-made psychoanalyst. With-
out this “second founding figure” (50:99) of the
West German DPV and Mitscherlich’s efforts to
institutionalize psychoanalysis in academia, its
growth and reputation would not have been possible
for many years, if at all. It was this short self-
experience in combination with additional intensive
training at the Psychosomatic University Hospital
in Heidelberg that led to my membership in the
IPA via the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute in 19576.
The first and second post-war generation of
German analysts underwent only short training
analyses with rather inexperienced analysts. A
decision had to be taken: We could either have
rejected a large number of applicants or else asked
young colleagues who had just finished their own
short analyses to teach the candidates. As president
of the DPV (1968–72)7 I recommended the latter. I
made this suggestion because in spite of short
training analyses many of those colleagues were,
and still are, regarded as good clinicians.
Later I proposed that training institutes should
have the right to request a didactic training analysis
for professional reasons (51). I did not at all
propose a limitation of the training analysis to last
5
Jaspers’ polemics against pschoanalysis, and the psychiatrist Kurt
Schneider’s resistance to the founding of a department of psy-
chotherapy outside his house, as a compromise an independent
psychosomatic department was founded. This department was
led by Alexander Mitscherlich under the patronage of Viktor von
Weizsäcker and financially backed by the Rockefeller Foundation.
6
If I had stayed in Stuttgart I would have probably become a member
of the Psychoanalytic Institute “Stuttgarter Group”, which belongs to
the 16 DGPT institutes that are not affiliated with the IPA.
7
I was the first West German president after C. Müller-Braun-
schweig, G. Scheunert und H.-E. Richter from Berlin. Seven of the
13 presidents so far have been directly related to Alexander
Mitscherlich. Beland was the only DPV president from Berlin after
Richter.
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
only 200 to 300 hours. Such a “misunderstanding”8
could be expected and in retrospect I regret that I
suggested this compromise. I thought it was
legitimate for training institutes – due to the
special professional requirements – to insist on
an analytic self-experience, but not as a kind of
decreed therapy. If one understands training
analysis to be a therapy – as most analysts do –
the psychoanalytic rules regarding frequency and
duration must be applied. Today, I see the need for
fundamental reform of psychoanalytic training. I
would like the candidates to decide about issues
regarding their analysis – which is to be an
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absolutely private matter – from beginning to
end. Training analyses of any length would thus
no longer be an issue. Training analysts would no
longer be allowed to report how many sessions
candidates had undergone and after how many
sessions they consider the analysis to end. Only a
rigorous solution can secure the therapeutic quality
and prevent candidates from being pathologized.
The evaluation of candidates professional quality
would no longer be tied to the judgements about
their personality and its modification in therapy. It
is insufficient to abolish the unethical reporting
system that clearly violates the analyst’s duty to
maintain confidentiality. The discretion is abso-
lutely necessary to protect the therapeutic space
that training analyses have not had so far.
Back to my beginnings: Looking into old
manuscripts, I find that I was very insecure and
that, like most of the first generation of German
analysts, I read extensively in Freud’s work. While
dealing with Viktor von Weizsäcker’s anthropo-
logical medicine I began to see the importance
of psychoanalysis as a method to understand
psychosomatic disorders. I rejected the symbolic
interpretations of somatic diseases that Viktor von
Weizsäcker and his co-workers suggested. I was
8
Indeed we plead to restore the original Eitingon-Freud German
University model of unity of teaching, research and treatment which
was the basis of the Berlin Institute. It degenerated to the tripartite
system of personal analysis, seminars and supervision, as Balint (52;
53) shortly after the second world war has criticesed. Wallerstein
(54:175) called it the „hallowed tripartite model“ of training analysis,
course work, and supervision (cf. 55). Amati-Mehler, (see 56:148),
ascribed to Thomä and Kächele, that we proposed “eliminating the
personal analysis except for a very brief experience” and “she added
that the empirical research at the centre of this model is not what
most psychoanalysts think of as psychoanalytic research”. In order to
make such ‘misunderstandings’ more difficult we gave up the
suggested compromise altogether. With regard to our understanding
of psychoanalytic research we refer to our publications and our
agreement with Kernberg’s position discussed below (p. 20).
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 219
also cautious about Franz Alexander’s hypothesis
of specificity that Mitscherlich had brought to
Germany from a trip to the US. Mitscherlich
suggested investigating this hypothesis with the
help of a “systematic case history” that he had
developed (cf. 57, 58). My first publication (59)
exemplified Mitscherlich’s hypothesis of “repres-
sion in two phases”.
As graduate of a humanistic high school I had
only little knowledge of English. Access to
contemporary psychoanalytic literature was thus
extremely restricted. Not being able to speak the
lingua franca of our time was a considerable
impediment. After finishing my psychiatric train-
ing I decided to no longer wait for favorable
coincidences but instead applied for a stay in the
US. F.C. Redlich as chair of the Psychiatric
Institute at Yale made this stay possible.
As a Fulbright-scholar I spent a year at the Yale
Psychiatric Institute (1955 and 1956). I had the
good fortune to work with Th. Lidz and his
colleagues on the psychoanalytic family research
of schizophrenics. This was also the year of
Freud’s 100th birthday. Mitscherlich, Horkheimer
and Adorno organized several lectures at the
universities in Frankfurt and Heidelberg. They
invited well-known foreign psychoanalysts as
guest speakers. In his autobiography Mitscherlich
writes: “This centenary marked a new era. The
celebration in Frankfurt was attended by the
president of the German Republic Theodor Heuss,
Prime minister of Hessen, August Zinn, many
scholars and others interested in the issue. Psycho-
analysis has since then gained ground in the public
opinion in the German Republic.” (60:189).
This had positive consequences for us as
autodidacts. Well-known Jewish analysts who
were forced to emigrate came to hold lectures
and seminars in Heidelberg. Later on, when the
training center for psychoanalysis, the later Sig-
mund-Freud-Institute (1964) was founded, they
also came to other places in West Germany. For a
variety of reasons I only name Paula Heimann at
this point. Her professional curriculum exemplifies
what it means to revoke one’s group identity. Her
balanced critique of Kleinian technique had a
lasting influence on me. The history of the
reception of M. Klein’s theory was only fragmen-
tarily presented by Hinz (61). Klein’s work was not
recognized in Heidelberg as late as his presentation
might suggest. M. Mitscherlich-Nielsen introduced
 220 H. Thomä
us to the Kleinian understanding of transference in
1954 after her first stay in London. I remember
vividly how she harshly criticized my traditional
understanding of transference in a technical semi-
nar. It is not for me to decide if she actually
“[supported] Kleinian positions” as Loch sug-
gested (62:225). Today it is almost forgotten that
P. Heimann (63) emphasized the need to test the
diagnostic value of counter-transference. She put
her former understanding of counter-transference
as “creation of the patient” into perspective.
With a monograph on Anorexia Nervosa (47) I
qualified as university lecturer and at my special
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request received the venia legendi (habilitation) for
psychosomatic medicine and psychoanalysis in
1961. The classification of anorexia nervosa was
controversially discussed in German psychiatry
and internal medicine at the time. I was able to
show how significant the psychoanalytic method
was when trying to demonstrate psychogenetic
connections.
With a scholarship by the US American Foun-
dations’ Fund for Research in Psychiatry I did
post-graduate work in London for one year in
1962. My analysis with Michael Balint, my
participation at lectures of the London Psycho-
analytic Institute, at courses of the Tavistock
Clinic and the Hampstead Clinic provided a variety
of possibilities for positive identification. After this
analysis I felt comfortable conducting training
analysis in Heidelberg and later on in Ulm. My
scientific orientation was not least influenced by
negative impressions: I will never forget a case
presentation on a Wednesday evening at the
London Psychoanalytic Institute. A Kleinian
analyst talked about the treatment of a Colitis-
ulcerosa-patient. He interpreted physical processes
symbolically, drawing on Klein’s ideas. I had
already rejected such ideas in discussions with co-
workers of Viktor von Weizsäcker in Heidelberg.
Looking back at how I grew into the interna-
tional psychoanalytic community I can let former
works of mine guide me. In 1986 I wrote the
following on the insecurity of German psycho-
analysts up to the present:
It is their dilemma that – though on an unconscious
level – they have to identify with the thoughts of a
man whose sisters and fellow Jewish citizens were
murdered by Germans. German psychoanalysts can-
not develop their professional identity by criticizing
the founding father’s theory and practice in the usual
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
way because this could touch the unconscious
identification with those people who persecuted
Freud . . . and the Jewish people. We thus find
variations between servile orthodoxy and reactions
against it” (32:60–1).
Already in my publication on Schultz-Hencke’s
neopsychoanalyis (32:76) I wrote about the effects
which the persecution of Jewish psychoanalysts
had on the guilt-feelings of their “aryan col-
leagues”. Schultz-Hencke, at the IPA Congress in
1949, did not even mention the expulsion of Jewish
psychoanalysts. At the time I was unaware in how
far representative members of the DPV had been
entangled with the Nazi regime. It was even later
that I understood the different attitudes that
colleagues from West Germany and from West
Berlin had towards the history of psychoanalysis in
our country (64).
Like many others in my generation, I experi-
enced the problem of guilt with great intensity. A
qualitatively new dimension was added to my
personal experience of guilt during my post
graduate year at Yale in 1955/56. Encountering
Jewish refugees at the department I was personally
confronted with victims of the Shoah: The Hun-
garian Jew Thomas Detré had lost his whole family
at a concentration camp. I only learned much later
that Raphael Moses’ mother tongue was German.
Only after the problem of my having been a fellow
traveler (Mitläufer) was brought into the open
could a friendship with John Kafka develop. It was
the first post-war generation of German analysts
who intensely experienced the entanglements of
our history. I do not understand why the year of
1977 is still considered the starting point of
German psychoanalysts’ “coming to terms with
the past”, since that was the year in which the
majority of participants at the IPA Congress in
Jerusalem rejected Berlin as the city for the
following IPA congress (50, 64).
Psychoanalytic Orthodoxy, Training
Analysis and the Problems of School-related
Identities
The founder of psychoanalysis must have been
more interested in the immortality of his ideas than
in their passing. The “psychoanalytic movement”
ensured orthodoxy by introducing a training
system that had the training analysis at the center
(65). With the help of this analysis, Freud’s
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
successors meant to create a stable and objective
observational instrument. The training analysts’
genealogy goes back to its founding father. It was
through the training analysis that a professional
unity with Freud was to be created. Ferenczi
believed that since analysts had followed this rule
their individual personalities had lost importance.
According to Balint, Ferenczi called this perfection
reached by the training analysis
. . . the second fundamental rule of psycho-analysis,
the rule by which anyone who wishes to undertake
analysis must first be analyzed himself. Since the
establishment of that rule the importance of the
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personal element introduced by the analyst has been
more and more dwindling away. Anyone who has
been thoroughly analyzed and has gained complete
knowledge and control of the inevitable weaknesses
and peculiarities of his own character will inevitably
come to the same objective conclusions in the
observation and treatment of the same psychological
raw material and will consequently adopt the same
tactical and technical methods in dealing with it. I
have the definite impression that, since the introduc-
tion of the second fundamental rule, differences in
analytic technique are tending to disappear (53:283).
In his evaluation of the psychoanalytic training
system Balint, (52, 53) realized that Ferenczi had
correctly predicted the consequences of a “super-
therapy”. However, he had done so without
thinking of the possibility that the actual develop-
ment might lead to a number of different school-
related “supertherapies” that compete with each
other and contribute to a renewed Babylonian
confusion of tongues. As can be seen in the works
of Target (66) and Thomä (67), analysts have
repeatedly pointed to the necessity of extensive
reforms, though without much success. Especially
Balint (1948:52) complained that Anglo-American
institutes did not take up the Freud-Eitingon-
Model of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute. The
unity of research, teaching and treatment in the
social application of the method was lost (cf. 68,
69). This loss led to scientific stagnation and other
harmful consequences that were bemoaned for
decades. Kernberg’s “concerned critique” (70) that
he voiced as president of IPA, did not have any
consequences. It was the psychiatrist, neuro-
biologist and Nobel Laureate Kandel, an admirer
of Freud’s work, who blamed the outdated training
system for the crisis of psychoanalysis. He
demanded a contemporary form of the Flexner
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 221
report for psychoanalytic institutes (71:521)9.
Similarly, the new editor of the Journal of the
Apsa, A Levy (72) introduced a section on
education in the journal by stating: “I am con-
vinced of the need to overhaul an antiquated
psychoanalytic educational system . . . Our current
model in North America is largely uninspiring,
uninviting, prohibitively expensive, frequently
infantilizing and rife with conflict of interest
among participants; not surprisingly, it fails to
attract the students we want.” (70:8)
Contemporary psychoanalysis is dominated by a
different, even opposite ideal with regard to the
aims of the training analysis: it is no longer the
purified model of a kind of “immaculate percep-
tion” with the aim of reproducing a uniform
objectivity. The self-reflection of the future analyst
is to reach down to the deepest anxieties and thus
enable counter-transference that in turn helps
analysts to perceive the psychotic core of their
patients. This post-Kleinian paradigm plays an
important role within the IPA. I don’t agree with its
assumptions. It goes back to Freud’s “telephone
metaphor” and to Reik’s “Third Ear” (73). They
both assume that there is a reliable intersubjective
communication from one unconscious to the other.
How far this “sixth sense” reaches will be subject
of controversial debate within neuroscience for
some time to come (74).
The post-Kleinian school’s amplification of the
role of projective identification turned counter-
transference into a reliable cognitive instrument.
All kinds of epistemological problems that were
important with regard to identifying dynamic
unconscious processes could thus be put aside.
The patient’s unconscious fantasies were thought
to be understood directly with the help of counter-
transference as Beland believes (75:74): “the
patient’s unconscious defense structures are only
recognized by the analyst’s self-recognition” (my
emphasis).
Eissler (76) sarcastically commented on this
new way of cleaning the mirror. My own personal
experiences also refute the assumption that one can
understand patients’ craziness only if one had
found one’s own “psychotic core” during the
9
At the beginning of the 20th century Abraham Flexner conducted
research into medical training in the US. His recommendations
in 1910 abolished the training institutes that registered doctors
operated. Medicine was instead accomodated in universites and thus
enabled medicine’s rise in the US.
 222 H. Thomä
training analysis. This is no sound reasoning. It is
highly improbable that candidates are all seriously
ill and that the above mentioned kind of purifica-
tion is a necessary presupposition for working as
an analyst, as the following remark of Amati-
Mehler seems to imply. In a panel about “Re-
assessment of psychoanalytical education: Con-
troversies and changes” (rep. Zimmer), she is
reported to have said: “An adequate training
analysis, she asserted, should explore the candi-
date’s psychotic levels, so as to develop the
capacity of candidates to work clinically with the
counter-transferences that are central to clinical
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work with very ill patients.” (56:148). An average
Kleinian training analysis takes much more than
1000 hours and therefore lasts over a long period of
time. Psychoanalytic training within the DPV,
from the start of training analysis through final
exams, takes about seven years. This has been the
case for some years now. Making the training
analysis completely private would not affect the
duration of the training; but the secret center of the
training-program, i.e. the candidate’s therapy (no
longer subject to any dependence on external
regulations), would thus lose its significance.
Simultaneously, the training analyst’s nimbus
would disappear. Psychoanalytic institutes would
be fundamentally restructured. Freedom of re-
search and teaching would be substitute for the
powerful institutional structures that especially
Bernfeld (1962:77) complained about. Instructors
and candidates would have to prove their profes-
sional qualities against agreed upon criteria. It is
indeed a tragedy, that in spite of widespread
discontent and the passing of resolutions, cries
for reform have not lead to restoring the ideal
Eitingon-Freud model.
Psychoanalysts, whose professional career is
exclusively determined by the training institute,
develop a different attitude towards identity than
do their colleagues within academia. Beland offers
two examples of how group identities function in
ecclesiastical history:
Religious groups, churches, parties are especially
keen on preserving their identities. Psychoanalytic
associations have been compared to those groups
right from the start, especially because they are very
similar when it comes to group identity. It took
psychoanalytic associations quite some effort to
defend against repeated suspicions of constituting a
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
group with a shared weltanschauung instead of a
scientific association. (2:36)
In contrast to my assumptions, Beland considers
psychoanalytic identity to be necessary in view of
the difficulties analysts encounter when trying to
prove the existence of unconscious psychological
processes. His main thesis therefore is: “The
purpose of a psychoanalytic identity would thus
be to create and sustain evidence of unconscious
processes . . .” (2:48, original emphasis).
I regret the fact that there are analysts who need
their group identity in order to weaken the “defense
against the dynamic unconscious” (2:65). If there
were no “unconscious ego defense”, Beland
furthermore mentions “our identity as analysts
would be so banal and unproblematic a topic, just
like with physicists or geographers” (2:56). In my
opinion, the topic would become even more
important if it lost its connection to identity. In
this case it would become more obvious that the
analyst’s personal identity, his experience of life
and especially his “latent anthropology” (78), are
closely linked to his professional standing. This
again is tied to the inevitable subjectivity and
therefore to nearly all practical and scientific
problems that no other professional group has to
solve. The “personal equation” (cf. 79:110) that
constitutes a significant part of the above men-
tioned alloy can and should be differentiated from
personalized psychoanalytic theory.
Exchanging experiences within the professional
community is essential for the ongoing education
of analysts. Analysts should not, however, feel the
need to be supported by being attributed a special
identity, not least out of consideration for their
patients. The respective group identity defines how
unconscious processes are to be understood. It also
implies certain assumptions with regard to content
about “unconscious fantasies”, for example, and
thus complicates open discussion (cf. Lyon, 2003
80). I therefore consider identities that are being
awarded by schools even more harmful than
Beland did: Group identities are in fact highly
resistant to change. It is exactly this aspect of
identity that has dominated psychoanalysis
throughout history and often has prevailed against
better judgement.
Maybe we can be more optimistic about the
future because group identities do lose their power.
Most analysts are eclectics (81). Only recently
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
Zwiebel very appropriately said (82:1138) that:
“The up-to-date analyst is neither Freudian, Klei-
nian nor Bionian. He instead “integrates” those
models in the clinical situation according to his
patient’s special problems, his own possibilities
and boundaries and the unique and current analytic
situation.” A new “mainstream psychoanalytic
technique” (83:58, 22) seems to be developing in
the Anglo-American language area. One can only
hope that eclectics pick the most plausible parts of
the current psychoanalytic theories. Eclectics are
thus not “all things to all men” – a phrase used by,
or of, Tom Wesley, the founder of British
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“Methodism” – but those are bad cooks who mix
any components just as they like without first
tasting the ingredients and, secondly, without
checking if they actually fit into the menu.
Eclectistic approaches thus pose a great challenge
to analysts. The combined elements not only have
to go well with each other but more importantly
they need to be effectively integrated by the
patient.
In the course of the years, I became an analyst
who was not attached to any school and tried to
open my practice to critical evaluation by col-
leagues and scholars of other fields. This attitude
inevitably led to tensions with important represen-
tatives of those “pure” schools that are being very
much personalized in our field. One then becomes
a personal opponent and a persona non grata.
A study by Fonagy (28:19) helped to clarify my
thoughts some more. He wrote:
Sensing the logical weakness of our position, we
have tended to raise the status of “clinical theories”
to laws and have claimed to explain the patient’s
behavior by using something akin to Hempel’s
(1965) “Covering [Law] Model” . . . In fact, most
clinical laws are only probabilistic (Ruben 1993),
and therefore they only allow inductive, statistical
explanations rather than deductive, nomological
ones.”
Every single case is therefore potentially different,
which in turn illustrates the necessity of case-
studies but also exemplifies the well-known
problems of generalizations. Formally evaluating
treatment reports goes way beyond the heuristic
function of clinical descriptions that generate
hypotheses and then statistically prove correlations
(84, 85). It is obvious that results from one case
study can only be applied to similar cases.
Presuming that all analysts think causally and
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 223
search for explanations to understand their pa-
tients, the dividing line is not between an under-
standing of psychoanalysis as either hermeneutic
art or empirical science. Instead, there are differ-
ences in the attitudes towards causality: in practice
only statements of probability, inductive and
statistical explanations are possible; normological
conclusions are impossible (86). If one accepts that
(unconscious) processes serve as reasons, then
“causality of destiny” (that Habermas took over
from Hegel) is a central issue within psycho-
analysis.
Benjamin Rubinstein (87) stands out among the
few analysts who have drawn practical conclusions
from the probabilistic nature of all psychodynamic
statements apart from merely phenomenological
descriptions. It is no coincidence that this co-
worker of Rapaport is hardly known among
analysts. Rubinstein’s simple but worrying mes-
sage is the following: Psychodynamic statements
are hypotheses that need to be proven and may
potentially be false. It would be an ominous sign, if
Strenger’s opinion is true, that Rubinstein’s work
is outdated. In his review Strenger describes the
hermeneutic turn of psychoanalysis, which “com-
pletely dropped the talk about unconscious
processes, the activation of defenses, the transform-
ation of object-representation as objectifiable
mental events” (88:1046). Against this Rubinstein
showed in careful analysis throughout his work,
how standard clinical interventions presuppose
theoretical laws. If, for example, the analyst
interprets the patient’s unconscious sexual mo-
tives..some assumptions are made “that their very
unconsciousness is causally effective . . . that
making them conscious changes something . . .
and that this change will have an impact on the
patient’s functioning in life.” (88:1046). I agree
with the two points Strenger made in his review:
“The methodology that he (Rubinstein) favours is
used in systematic efforts to investigate the process
and outcome of psychoanalytic therapy, but by and
large Rubinstein’s concerns are far removed from
the mainstream of current psychoanalytic thinking
and writing.” (88:1048)
I refer to Rubinstein’s work and Strenger’s
review extensively for two reasons: I am not just
a partisan of Rubinstein, but I believe that, in
spite of the so called new hermeneutic paradigm
of psychoanalysis, all analytic therapists share
fundamental principles implied in Freud’s and in
 224 H. Thomä
Rubinstein’s work, even if they are not aware of
them. Extreme subjectivism and constructivism
can only conceal our dependence on causal
thinking and the need for objectives, even if we
fail to comprehend the whole of intersubjective
communication. My emphasis on the relational,
intersubjective character of the psychoanalytic
method is compatible with attempts to objectify
change-processes. Indeed, it is necessary for a
therapeutic discipline to investigate the interaction
objectively. Therefore I share the positions of
many authors against pure intersubjectivism. To
name only a few: Ahumada (89), Dunn (90),
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Gabbard (91), Friedman and Natterson (92),
Levine & Friedman (93), Louw & Pitman (2001
94), Paniagua (1987:95) and Smith (1999:96). This
incomplete list clearly demonstrates the relevance
of the topic in modern psychoanalysis. As I am
only an amateur in epistemological questions, I
rely on the judgment of scholars trained both in
philosophy and in psychoanalysis like Hanly (97)
and Cavell (98, 99). From a recent exchange of
opinions between Cavell (100) and Friedman (101)
I quote:
. . . scientists and philosophers have not at all
abandoned the ideas of justification and of knowl-
edge; all they have abandoned is the notion of
certainty or indubitability, as anything other than
a subjective state of human beings. Belief is a
subjective state; but knowledge, though a state of
subject, is not a nearly subjective state. The feeling of
conviction or of certainty is also a subjective state;
but to say that one knows is to make a claim, a claim
that what one says one knows is in fact true. Of
course we sometimes feel very certain of what we
believe. But that sense of certainty is a merely psy-
chological fact about us. ‘Certainty,’ Wittgenstein
(1972) wrote, ‘is as it were a tone of voice in which
one declares how things are but one does not infer
from the tone of voice that one is justified’ (6e).
(Cavell 2002, 100:320)
By making the hermeneutic turn, which is simul-
taneously a move towards extreme subjectivity,
contemporary psychoanalysis avoids fundamental
issues, which belong to Freud’s legacy. He could
only inadequately or even not at all validate many
of his discoveries. The famous so-called Achensee-
Question on suggestion by Fliess (cf. Meehl 102)
worried him deeply just about 100 years ago.
Freud’s explanations of suggestion (103:104)
were unsatisfactory (104). Today we are better
able to solve this problem and can refute the
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
condemnation of clinical research by Grünbaum
(105, 106) with good reasons. There is no
uncontaminated data within the humanities. That’s
why Grünbaum misrepresents the methodological
problems of psychoanalysis, given that there can
be no uncontaminated data in a human science.
The psychoanalytic system of rules was accord-
ingly unable to “switch off” the disturbing influ-
ence of the observer in order to achieve objectivity
(Swaan’s “Null Situation”; 107). Grünbaum and
Freud – to use Strenger’s words (108:106) – share
the same scientific ideal, i.e. the “purity of data”.
Freud recoiled from fully introducing the subject
into medical practice, and thus from facing the
consequent scientific problems. Throughout his
life he was torn between an understanding of
psychoanalysis as science and as therapy. It seems
to have escaped Grünbaum’s notice that his
discussion of the placebo concept (106) can even
be turned to advantage for psychoanalytic therapy.
Grünbaum introduced a general model of therapy
and connected “characteristic” and “incidental”
factors to target symptoms. This model can be
applied to psychoanalytic therapy.
Although it might sound grotesque: Grünbaum’s
disapproval of the possibility of psychoanalytic
clinical research goes back to the misconception,
that human communication should allow “double
blind experiments”. Actually we should rather
focus on elevating our knowledge about intersub-
jective, mutual influences to the highest scientific
level possible. In other words: By empirical studies
of audio-recorded psychoanalytic dialogues all
kind of contamination can be detected. Their
contribution to change processes are in the centre
of clinical research.
At this point I would like to stress, that Freud
brought about a scientific revolution. Psychoanal-
ysis overcame the dichotomy of Geistes- and
Naturwissenschaften between “understanding”
and “explaining” (cf. 109–114). Even von Wright
(115:141) – L. Wittgenstein’s successor – recently
spoke of “understanding explanations”. The “sce-
nic understanding” promoted by Argelander (116)
and Lorenzer (117) also encompasses both ex-
planatory and causal hypotheses. The juxtaposition
of empirical and conceptual research is ‘unrealis-
tic’. I agree with Kernberg:
. . . the discussion about the conflicts between
‘empirical’ and ‘conceptual’ research in psycho-
analysis is unrealistic in the sense that conceptual
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
research, hermeneutic research, naturalistic research,
and empirical research are not contradictory to one
another but strengthen and complement one another,
and all should be fostered in a broad effort to develop
the psychoanalytic basis for psychoanalytic science
and for psychoanalytic education. (118:119)
The creation of two committees, one for concep-
tual, the other on empirical research under the roof
of the IPA might be a diplomatic step to alleviate
tension about the appropriate scientific methods for
psychoanalysis. In fact, as psychoanalytic thera-
pists, we are confronted with the same simple
questions of process and outcome research. When I
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refer to research in this article I have Kernberg’s
position in mind.
In contemporary psychoanalytic interaction re-
search it becomes possible to distinguish various
forms of suggestion and different reactions by the
patient. Whether the interpretations tally with the
unconscious “expectations” (119:399, 120:470) of
the patient also needs to be objectified by
independent commentators. That psychoanalysis
has only recently become capable of empirically
dealing with the problem of suggestion is one of
these unfavorable concomitants of having a psy-
choanalytic orthodoxy represented in the psycho-
analytic movement to which I referred above in the
Summary. Its initially useful function changed to
the very opposite about half a century ago.
Psychoanalysis as Science: Eclecticism vs.
Dogmatism
Since 1950 I have worked full-time at academic
institutions. I have long entertained doubts about
whether or not I was able to live up to the practical
and scientific requirements that academic analysts
are confronted with. Because of my insecurity –
which was a consequence of my insufficient
knowledge – I strictly adhered to the psycho-
analytic treatment rules. I was a taciturn analyst
that gave all questions back to the patient.
After a postgraduate year in London and after
starting a research project on the validation of
psychoanalytic interpretations in the early 60’s, I
felt more and more at home in the field. It was the
successful establishment of the Ulm Psychoanaly-
tic Institute (1967) in close cooperation with the
Department for Psychotherapy that helped me
to overcome my insecurity. The efforts to
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 225
scientifically ground psychoanalysis was intensi-
fied and helped to increase my self-esteem. It was
already in 1968 that L. Rosenkötter and myself
presented a project based on tape-recorded analysis
at a DPV-conference that P. Heimann attended.
We had caught up with international standards
by 1985. It was then that Dahl, Kächele and I
(1988:121) organized a widely recognized
research conference in Ulm, shortly before the
Hamburg IPA-Congress. The IPA president A.
Limentani had mixed feelings about this confer-
ence and ordered that reference to the conference
in Ulm had to be deleted from the IPA congress
programme (personal information by Volker
Friedrich, member of the local organizational
committee).
After I had sufficient knowledge of the clinical
use of psychoanalysis, I tried to gain an overview
over the whole psychoanalytic literature. Over the
years I applied the psychoanalytic method to a
broad nosological spectrum. I consider myself to
be a practising member of a “science-based
profession” (122).
My professional career was very much influ-
enced by the cosmopolitan founder of an academic
psychoanalysis in Germany, Alexander Mitscher-
lich. He was a generous head and as he said of
himself: “. . . I was never a psychoanalyst, who
concentrated on psychoanalytic treatment and the
exegesis of Freuds work ‘talmudic’ ” Mitscherlich
agreed with Kohut in that he was able to give his
best “in general and as a synthesizer and not in the
work on scientific details” (60:317, my translation ).
He left the latter – which was very much in my own
interest – to his colleagues. I very early had a
feeling that with those scientific details one would
be confronted with the greatest unsolved problems
of psychoanalysis, and of intellectual history.
Inspired by Horst Kächele, research groups on
special questions funded by the German Research
Society (DFG) were organized in Ulm. This team-
work provided the basis for the two-volume Ulm
textbook. Systematic process and outcome research
cannot be done single-handedly (123). It is indeed
unfortunate that the unique possibilities of a
practicing analyst are not fully realized. If analysts’
treatment reports – for their applications as
associate and full members in the DPV and in the
IPA – took Freud’s Junktim-thesis regarding
therapeutic change seriously, psychoanalysis
would be already on the way to a new genre of
 226 H. Thomä
case histories. Spence (124:298) and A.E. Meyer
(125) have unsuccessfully pleaded for such treat-
ment reports for some time now. It was 20 years
ago that Eagle stated: “It seems to me ironic that
psychoanalytic writers attempt to employ clinical
data for just about every purpose but the one for
which they are most appropriate – an evaluation and
understanding of therapeutic change” (126:163).
The situation has changed insignificantly since
then. Gabbard & Westen, for example, write: “we
(should) attempt to move from arguing about the
therapeutic action of psychoanalysis to demon-
strating and refining it” (127:338). In this sense it
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has been mainly argued since Strachey’s (128)
very influential publication on the “mutative
interpretation”.
The vast differences between Klauber (129) and
Rosenfeld (130) in respect of Strachey’s seminal
contribution were not further investigated on
clinical grounds. Therefore it is still an open
question, which of the many therapeutic factors
leading to change are more or less essential. Most
psychoanalytic publications are vignettes that
exemplify hypothetical ideas of the author. The
regular feature “The Analyst at Work” of the
Journal (131) gives a valuable impression of the
daily work of psychoanalysts – and not more. Such
mini-vignettes have led to an enormous amount of
individual hypotheses. Buchholz & Reiter (132)
analyzed clinical case studies in psychoanalytic
journals over a five year period. The most common
form they found was five lines of report that
contained only a minimum of information.
Research and interdisciplinary dialogue are
paramount for university teachers. This also means
that analysts within academia cannot commit
themselves to a never-changing identity. In addi-
tion, it is a mystification to construct an identity
from certain methodological aspects, e.g. evenly-
hovering attention. Thoughtful silence or empathic
listening are not actually decisive. At one point or
the other, the free-floating attention comes to an
end, namely when the analyst chooses an inter-
vention. I agree with what John Wisdom – a
philosopher close to the Kleinian school – stated in
1970: “It seems clear, that a clinician cannot
handle research into clinical hypothesis without
having his area demarcated from the rest. More
importantly, a psychoanalyst who wishes to test
his theories empirically, . . ., cannot begin his
work, until the morass of theory, ontology, and
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
Weltanschauung has been “processed” by philos-
ophy of science.” (133:360–61). Kächele and I
(134) attempted this clarification when we started
working together. To use Wisdom’s words (135),
as a scientifically-minded analyst one has to test
interpretations, i.e. treat them as hypotheses. One
does not become popular if one asks uncomfor-
table questions. That’s why we should not deny the
tensions that exist between teachers at psycho-
analytic institutes and university lecturers (136).
Analysts within academia are respected represen-
tatives to the outside world, but they play only a
minor role in the professional hierarchy.
Finally, I want to fill the fictional role of a
critical eclectic who has ideally integrated all the
valuable therapeutic aspects of the different
schools. I will ask this alter ego which approaches
– despite all the credit they each deserve – do not,
for intrinsic reasons, live up to the ideal of a
scientifically-based psychoanalysis. Whether or
not prominent representatives have tried their best
to validate their thoughts and actions, or have at
least presented convincing case histories to clini-
cians from different schools, will be the decisive
criterion. The Kleinian school is furthest away
from this ideal. In spite of some developments and
their original merits, Kernberg’s (137) well-
balanced evaluation of the work of representative
Kleinian analysts is still valid. Britton (138), for
example, agrees with H. Segal (139:125) that M.
Klein has introduced a homogeneous and compre-
hensive theory of mental development and its
pathology with her concept of paranoid-schizo-
phrenic and depressive position. According to the
Kleinian approach those positions re-appear all
throughout life. There are no empirical studies, and
the so-called concept research by Dreher (140) is
not taken into account either. The “strict, unten-
dentious psychoanalysis” became the most impor-
tant reference-point for the group-identity of
dogmatic Kleinians. To make this point very clear:
I do not say that any Kleinian or any analyst of
other schools is practising in a dogmatic fashion.
Strictly speaking, every single analyst’s work has
to be evaluated independently from his member-
ship to a school. But generalizations, while by
necessity reductive, make comparisons possible.
Dogmatism might be quite unevenly distributed
among British, South American or German
Kleinians. Strangely enough, Melanie Klein her-
self was not a representative of the contemporary
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
Kleinian’s major trade mark, namely the meaning
of counter transference as a projection of the
patient. I quote from Bott Spillius (1988:141):
Melanie Klein’s view is illustrated in the now
classic story “about a young analyst who told her
he felt confused and therefore interpreted to his
patient that the patient had projected confusion into
him, to which she replied, ‘No, dear, you are
confused’, meaning that the analyst had not
understood his patient’s material and was inter-
preting his own lack of understanding as if it had
been caused by the patient’s projection.” (142:10).
And Paula Heimann (143) did not speak as a
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Kleinian in her seminal brief lecture about the new
look of countertransference; she refers neither to
projective identification nor to Melanie Klein. In
fact, the mother of Kleinianism was quite opposed
to that presentation of her pupil. The dogmatic
reduction of countertransference to the projective
identification of the patient is a rather late
occurrence and especially prominent among true
(or would-be) German Kleinians. The intersubjec-
tive understanding of the counter transference is
one thing, and is rightly declared by Gabbard (144)
to be a common denominator of modern psycho-
analysis. Its reduction to projective identification is
quite another matter, and from my point of view a
misleading one. It seems, that German analysts, for
some reason, are especially prone to follow that
misleading path. The limited space of this paper
does not allow me to support my concern through
clinical examples.
To go back to the problem of strict, untenden-
tious analysis, that was Freud scientific ideal: He
worried that the therapy could destroy the science
(149:254). There are at least three ambiguous
statements in his work: Firstly, in the paper on
“Der kleine Hans” (Little Hans) (119:104) he said:
“For a psychoanalysis is not an impartial scientific
investigation, but a therapeutic measure. Its
essence is not to prove anything, but merely to
alter something. “I would like to comment: To alter
something and to describe the alterations is
essential for the proof. Secondly, the Budapest
speech ends with the sentence . . .” whatever form
this psychotherapy for the people may take,
whatever the elements out of which it is com-
pounded, its most effective and most important
ingredients will assuredly remain those borrowed
from strict and untendentious psycho-analysis”
(146:168). If one, thirdly, adds a statement from
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 227
a letter to Ferenczi (20.04.1919), the situation
becomes even more complex. In that letter Freud
writes: “We are and remain without a bias except
to do research and to help.” (quoted in Grubrich-
Simitis; 147.) I agree with Grubrich-Simitis10
that this translation inevitably tones down the
German original: “Wir sind und bleiben tendenz-
los, bis auf das eine: zu erforschen und zu helfen”
(my emphasis).
Those ambiguities indicate Freud’s uncertainty
about his function as a therapist versus being a
scientist. The psychoanalytic movement made
aimlessness a part of the “Shibboleth” of strict
analysis; i.e. the matter is a question of life or
death. It is no coincidence that Freud used
the Hebrew word “Shibboleth” when he dealt
with the question who belongs to our movement
and our cause (29:101, 148:239). In the Old
Testament this word was used as an identification
mark and it were those who were unable to
pronounce this word correctly who were lost
(Judges, 12:5ff.).
This unsolved paradox has had remarkably
negative consequences for psychoanalysis as both
therapy and science. Analysts who have identified
with this paradox, deceived themselves and their
patients without knowing. It has not been recog-
nized for decades how destructive this self-decep-
tion has been. This was possible because strict and
pure psychoanalysis was considered the imaginary
crown of professional identity. It was the coura-
geous former IPA president J. Sandler together
with A.U. Dreher who eventually realized: “those
who believe that the aim of the psychoanalytic
method is no more and no less than to analyze are
deceiving themselves and (. . .) all analysts are
affected in their work by therapeutic aims, whether
they know it or not” (149:1).
Freud followed the scientific ideal of his time.
His discoveries did not fit in with it, though. His
scientific psychoanalysis was like a king without
land: the concept of a pure analysis sat enthroned
for decades without having any basis in clinical
experience.
The psychoanalytic method as a therapeutic
intervention does not work if it has no direction.
There is no intrinsic conflict between treatment-
and healing-, on the one hand, and “just analyzing”
10
I would like to thank Frau Ilse Grubrich-Simitis for a personal
communication about that translation.
 228 H. Thomä
on the other, which is sometimes also called
“aimlessness” as Bott Spillius (150:1; my trans-
lation) assumes. This fictional conflict only be-
comes reality with those analysts who practice
self-deceptively, assuming that analyzing is an
end in itself. Analysts influence their patients
even in the “evenly-hovering attention”. Conflicts
inside the analyst can play a role only when
choosing between different forms of intervention.
I think that Freud’s recommendation asks analysts
to continuously free themselves from theoretical
prejudices, for the sake of their patients. (146:190)
I understand Bion’s postulate of “no memory and
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desire” in the same manner. Bion, however, has not
only required mystical contemplation but also left
pseudo-mathematical formulae that now influence
the hermetic thinking of many post-Kleinian
analysts. No other analyst has moved back and
forth between such extremes.
As becomes obvious from a panel on the “goals
of psychoanalysis” that Bartlett (151) reported on,
the Kleinian school seems to be the only one that
still sticks to the idea of non-directionality, paying
only lip-service to Sandler’s and Dreher’s critique.
Bott Spillius, for example, emphasizes that the
conflict between a “strict and pure psychoanalysis”
that follows the slogan of “just analyzing”, cannot
be eliminated. To get closer to Bion’s ideal of “no
memory and no desire” Bott Spillius recommends
becoming aware of one’s aims to be able to
effectively ignore them. Most Kleinian analysts –
with the exception of J. Steiner – are said to be
opposed to the conceptual discussion of goals
because they think that the aim of analysis is just
analyzing “that in turn leads to “non-specified
aims”. The leading idea is thus that aims come
about all by themselves, i.e. by strict analysis in the
Kleinian “here and now”.
The basis of Kleinian, seemingly aimless,
analyzing is, in fact, the assumption of a “Uni-
versalpsychopathogenese”11 (27). It amounts to the
following description of Willick “They never make
much of a distinction between schizophrenia,
paranoid personality, schizoid personality, and
other severe character disorders; rather, these
conditions are all lumped together as examples of
11
It is possible to form such a monstrous compound in German. It
means ‘uniform pathogenesis’ and implies using the same causal
elements to explain very many phenomena.
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
the failure to adequately overcome the paranoid-
schizoid position.” (152:34) It is assumed that
analyzing – which for typical Kleinians equates
with only interpreting – quasi – automatically
brings about all kinds of changes (“non-specified
aims”) in the context of the two ‘positions’ of early
childhood. Something important is being ignored
here, though. It is not taken into account that this
kind of analyzing implies causal connections that
still need to be proven. The diversity of psycho-
pathological phenomena and their unconscious
background are evened out. Kernberg (137) criti-
cized this neglect of psychopathological variations,
but without having any effect on the school’s
dogmatic propositions.
Kleinian analyzing cannot be legitimized by the
mere claim of being the via regia to the earliest and
deepest processes of unconscious feeling and
thinking. Instead, proof is needed that current
symptoms vanish after their unconscious condi-
tions have been altered. All patients are suffering
people who cannot rid themselves of some kind of
compulsive repetition simply by conscious efforts.
Reducing current suffering to the two positions in
early childhood is the focus of Kleinian treatment;
and is thus anything but free from intentions and
aims. Their analyzing rests on the assumption that
the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions
reappear constantly throughout life (138, 153)
Corresponding interpretations have been going on
for years. This monotony, without a change in the
climate of the therapeutic relationship, is charac-
teristic for orthodox Kleinian analysis as stated by
Kernberg (137). Transference is understood to be
mere repetition, just as if the “inner objects” had no
links to the present. An important publication by
Riesenberg-Malcolm has a telling title: “Interpre-
tation: the past in the present”. To quote: “the
analyst understands the patient’s present relation-
ship to him as a function of the past. Therefore his
understanding of the present is the understanding
of the patient’s past as alive and actual.” (154:75).
It remains unclear, however, what kind of new
experiences within the “helping relationship”
(155) could lead the way out of the total
transference. Or, to use some of Bion’s formulas:
How does the analyst transform beta-elements into
alpha-elements so that the patient’s (destructive)
unconscious fantasies can be digested or metabo-
lized? The valuable Kleinian extension of the under-
standing of transference to the “total situation” has
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
become “totalistic” itself. With this term I (27)
designate a one-dimensional technique that seems
to know nothing except interpretations of transfer-
ence and therefore neglects the therapeutic essen-
tial elements of a “new beginning”. The mutative
power cannot be found in an understanding of
transference as repetition but in a corrective
experience with a “new object” (156) that is a
subject. (my emphasis) Psychoanalysis is on its
way to an inter-subjective, relational theory and
practice that Mitchell (157) has paradigmatically
described, taking into account theories of object
relations derived from Fairbairn, Loewald and
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Sullivan. Trevarthen’s (158) assumption of “pri-
mary intersubjectivity” casts a new light on
projective identification: The genuine unit of
‘Me-and-You’ replaces thinking of projection
as being from inside to outside. From the point
of view of the “theory of mind”, projection is
part of primary intersubjectivity, expressed by
mutual identification between mother and child.
Pathological projective identification is based
on a fundamental process which is a ‘primary
given’ in human development, and it becomes
pathological only as a result of the splitting
especially at moments of separation between
‘Me and You’.
If my arguments are convincing, one must
wonder why experienced colleagues adhere to
theories that have not yet proved their therapeutic
value. My answer is as follows: It is group
identities that stand in the way of better judgment.
School-bound ways of thinking prevent adherents
from taking into account contrary opinions. Often
contrary opinions are treated as if they were
somehow equivalent but just expressed differently.
Riesenberg-Malcolm, for example, declared Gill’s
(159) understanding of transference as analogous
to the Kleinian theory. In fact, Gill’s proposition
about the “here and now” is contradictory to the
Kleinian assumption. He criticized it in connection
with Segal’s (1962:160) and Heimann’s (161)
papers at the panel “Curative Factors in Psycho-
analysis” of the IPA Congress in Edinburgh.
Recently Birksted-Breen considered “the ‘here
and now’ mode of interpretation (as) a characteris-
tic of the ‘British School’, because it cuts across all
three groups.” (162:1502) King (163) sharply
critizises this British common ground. The differ-
ences boil down to fundamental issues: Kleinian
dogmatism implies a kind of a reduction of
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 229
transference to projective identification and its
perpetual repetition. Overcoming Freud’s mistak-
en idea of the “timelessness of the unconscious”, as
Birksted-Breen (162) indicates, could diminish
Kleinian dogmatism; but the Freudian concept of
Nachträglichkeit confronts all schools with prob-
lems of temporality and causality. (Thomä &
Cheshire 1991 164).12
The shortage of comprehensive case reports
of analytic treatments is complained about by
representatives of the Kleinian school and
by benevolent critics (141, 165). Rather less
benevolently Willick has recently written
(152:34)13: “It came as somewhat of a surprise to
me, therefore, when I found myself unable to find a
single well-documented case of schizophrenia in
the work of Klein, Winnicott, Fairbairn, Bion, or
Guntrip. Only Rosenfeld seems to have actually
treated patients with this disorder. (Kernberg, who
has carefully studied the British object relations
theorists, has confirmed my observation in a
personal communication.) Many of their cases
seem to be of schizoid personalities or severe
character disorders.” There is a huge gap between,
on the one hand, the often elaborate, micro-
analytic descriptions of dialogues that especially
take into account transference and counter-trans-
ference and, on the other, their stereotypically
reductive explanations based on the two positions
in early childhood. The problem of reconstruction
– shared by all schools – looms especially large
when it comes to this Kleinian universal pathogen-
esis. Given certain scientific aspects one has to
say, that therapeutic effectiveness can be the result
of factors other than the particular content of
12
Thomä H. Zeitlosigkeit und Vergänglichkeit (in) der Psycho-
analyse. Unveröffentlichter Vortrag bei der Jahrestagung der
Deutschen Psychoanalytischen Gesellschaft (DPG) in Regensburg,
2000.
13
The topic of Willick’s paper was recently in the centre of a
controversy between Lucas (166) and Michels (167) and between
Willick (168), Frattaroli (169), Robbins (170) and Gottdiener (171).
As I had professional experiences with psychotic patients only for 4
years my competence in this area is very limited. I still feel capable of
evaluating arguments. Lucas does not invalidate the quoted statement
of Willick. He replies only that Bion had seen schizophrenic patients
analytically, something that Willick had not denied. Insofar well
documented cases by representative Kleinians are still missing.
Lucas completely neglects Willick’s critique about Searles’ use of
the countertransference in the analysis of schizophrenics. On the
contrary, he states without any further ado: “If dreams are the royal
road to the unconscious in neurosis, then the countertransference is
the ‘via regia’ to understanding in psychosis (Rosenfeld, 1992).” It
will be no surprise that I agree with Michels’ well-balanced reply to
Lucas.
 230 H. Thomä
interpretations. The success of Kleinian therapies
could be due to the fact that – in view of basic
human wickedness (known to the theologians as
‘original sin’) – it might be extremely relieving for
patients to integrate split-off parts of the self with
the help of an empathic analyst. It is indisputable
that splitting play an important pathogenic role for
a large group of patients, and that it is impossible to
improve the patient’s situation without working
through destructive fantasies in the ‘here-and-now’
of the relationship.
Many questions need further investigation. With
regard to the negative consequences of group
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identities I discuss Beland’s (172)14 article about
“Validation in the Clinical Process”, since it refers
to the author’s axiomatic commitments.
Beland’s publication opens with the strange
sentence that the history of psychoanalysis was
the history of its validation. The “controversial
discussions” (175) between the groups surrounding
Anna Freud and Melanie Klein are declared only a
few pages later to be discussions of validation. As a
matter of fact, none of the two parties was able to
critically distance themselves from their own
theory and practice, as would have been necessary
in order to be able to carry out a scientific
discussion about validation and to tolerate different
approaches. Until today, Melanie Klein and her
contemporary followers still award an axiomatic
position to the death drive hypothesis (176–179). If
they had conducted concept research, Kleinian
analysts would have had to stop deducing destruc-
tiveness from the death drive hypothesis long ago.
The need to explore the relation between the self-
psychological term “narcissist rage” (180:121) and
destructiveness should be just as obvious. From
that point of view, destructiveness could be looked
upon as an omnipotent idea of self-preservation
(181–83).
At the memorable 1971 IPA-Congress in Vienna
14
For personal reasons I would have preferred to illustrate the
influence of school-related identities on the problems of validation by
reference to some other Kleinian analysts as prominent as H. Beland.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find a German or Anglo-American
author who has produced an equally subtle and comprehensive
description of therapeutic dialogues in which transference and
counter-transference were stressed so much. Since Beland has also
writen on the functions of psychoanalytic identity and the future of
our field, he is more closely linked to the topic of this paper than
anyone else. Following our controversy on psychoanalytic training,
and especially on the status of the training analysis, we are advocates
of opposite opinions (51, 173; 174). We disagree on a matter close to
our hearts. Still, our controversy arises from genuine problems.
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
– which was dedicated to the subject of aggression
– Anna Freud (184) convincingly argued that
aggression lacked all the features that are usually
attributed to a drive. At the same time, she warned
analysts not to deduct psychological processes
from biological assumptions like the death drive.
With reference to Eissler she nevertheless stuck to
the death drive hypothesis. Eissler, however, does
not argue psychoanalytically or even biologically,
but instead relies upon the unique speculations
of Rudolf Ehrenberg (185) in his historic book
about the “Irreversibility of the Elemental Process
of Life”.
Back to the “controversial discussions”: Anna
Freud and her adherents consider the Kleinian
developments to be a deviation. Reading Glover’s
(186) “Examination of the Klein System of Child
Psychology” anew, I realized how often the author
accuses Kleinian analysts of deviation. He
presented a list of deviations and ended it with
a critique of the Kleinian theory of unconscious
(i.e. ‘phantasy’).
The “controversial discussions” were far
removed from any kind of validation. Instead, the
campaign was a tremendous effort to solve
differences of opinions the traditional way, namely
by excluding the deviating party. Glover backed
the wrong horse and left the British Psychoanalytic
Society. (187) If E. Jones had had his way, Glover
could not have been admitted into the (neutral)
Swiss Psychoanalytic Society, and would have lost
his membership in the IPA.
Sure enough, something has been proven right in
the “controversial discussions”: It seems that the
sentence by Frederick the Great also holds true for
the war of words: “God is always on the side of the
biggest battalions”. After Anna Freud was unable
to exclude Melanie Klein from the IPA, she gave in
and a compromise was achieved. Otherwise,
M. Klein would have lost her IPA membership
(as Horney and Schultz-Hencke did de facto later
on). For much to long was the history of psycho-
analysis dominated by a “policy of exclusion”
(188, 189).
Let me hazard guess as to why Beland could
have thought that the “controversial discussions”
were about validation. I think it is due to the fact
that he assigns excessive importance to finding a
consensus and to supervision within a group. The
idea that seminar groups reflect the patient’s
problem has become popular in the Kleinian
 Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
School (cf. 190:63). It is assumed that the patient’s
projection is carried on into the group via the
reporting analyst. Independently of the Kleinian
School, a similar idea had developed at the
Sigmund-Freud-Institute in the context of
H. Argelander’s theory on “scenic understanding”
in the 1960s. In a personal note Argelander
(October 2003) reaffirmed my impression that the
major problem with the above idea is how reliable
the reflections of the patient’s unconscious pro-
cesses via the therapist are. This topic is of utmost
importance. It affects the examination of ideas
no matter where they originate, whether from
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supervision, technical seminars, or elsewhere. It
is easy to say that the perception of counter-
transference needs to be proven during the treat-
ment, and yet, as far as I can see, there is a lack of
criteria that would permit reliable proof. Those
transformations only seem to work if the analysts
involved all belong to the same school! If not,
dissent usually is the result, as both Pulver (191)
and Fosshage (192) have shown.
Beland hardly mentions falsification and dissent.
He does not question any of the positions that the
Kleinian School endorses; and, in addition, authors
who have dealt with the consensus problem, nor
does he refer to any clinical discussions that have
considered pluralistic and other incompatibilies.
The topic of this article and the allocated space
do not allow me to review Beland’s case report
from an eclectic perspective, but I still want to say
a few words about his last sentence. Freud’s
Junktim-Thesis (193:380, 145:293) is regarded
by him as an “extraordinary scientific pheno-
menon”. I want to object. The “Junktim of healing
and researching” can be fulfilled only if the
“beneficial effects” of therapies can be proven
scientifically. From Beland’s detailed description
of transference and counter-transference, it does
not become clear where exactly he locates the
“beneficial effect”. After a five-year Kleinian
analysis the patient in question still seems to suffer
from a transference psychosis that, according to
Beland, started shortly after her treatment began!
The author again remains within the system,
without pointing to Balint’s (194:180) and Hei-
mann’s (161) opinions on how analysts influence
the appearance of regression. His Kleinian identity
and allegiance seem to exclude other opinions.
The South American Kleinian, and former IPA
president, Etchegoyen (195) regards regression as
Psychoanalysts without a specific professional identity 231
a pathological incident within the patient neglect-
ing and does not make any links to the therapeutic
interaction. Britton (138) refers to Balint’s
(194:172) “vicious circle of regression” but
without doing the most important point justice.
Balint understood malign regression to be a
consequence of the analyst’s behavior and inter-
pretations and therefore harshly criticized Kleinian
interpretations.
One is left to wonder why Kleinian psycho-
analysis remains so fascinating. My short answer is
the following: Through the paranoid-schizoid and
depressive positions which it proclaims, the school
offers a uniform pathogenesis. It purports to have
access to the patient’s unconscious fantasies with
the help of one’s own counter-transference, as
brought about by projective identification. It
claims to have reliable and valid access to the
patient’s unconscious. This system secures
an enviably safe identity if all doubts have
disappeared.
Conclusion: The psychoanalytic movement that
conferred or withdrew identity has outlived itself
since the “controversial discussions”. The future
belongs to self-critical psychoanalysts who do not
moan about the “impossible profession” they have
to pursue and also to those who no longer comfort
themselves with a doctrinaire identity bestowed
upon them.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to my English colleague Neil
Cheshire (Clinical Psychologist) for his helpful
comment on an earlier draft of this paper, which
not only made it read better in English, but also
improved the content in some places. I take this
opportunity to record my appreciation of a working
partnership and personal friendship that goes back
nearly three decades now. It included joint projects
both in my former department at the University of
Ulm and also as Rockefeller Foundations Scholars
at Belaggio in Italy (196, 197).
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 236 H. Thomä
Summaries in German and Spanish
Thomä H. Psychoanalytiker ohne berufliche Identität
Das Thema der Identität der Psychoanalyse gehört
in den Bereich der von Natur aus orthodoxen psycho-
analytischen Bewegung. Seit etwa 15 Jahren, wird in der
Internationalen Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung (IPV)
erfolgreich versucht, wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen
der Boden zu ebenen und Projekte zu fördern. Solle sich der
Widerstand einflussreicher Analytiker gegen die empirische
Forschung weiter abschwächen, werden die psychoanaly-
tische Bewegung und ihre ungünstigen Begleiterscheinungen
der Vergangenheit angehören. Je selbstkritischer Analytiker
praktisch handeln, desto normaler wird ihr Beruf werden. Die
Entwicklung zu einer “scientific community” wird dann nicht
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mehr durch Kontroversen über die Identität erschwert
werden.
Die normativen Implikationen die mit der Verleihung
einer besondere Identität einhergehen, machen den Begriff
fragwürdig. Stattdessen empfiehlt der Autor, von „psycho-
analytischer Haltung“ zu sprechen. Dieses berufliche Selbst
geht mit dem persönlichen Selbst eine enge Verbindung ein,
kann und muss aber von der Person des Analytikers
unterschieden werden.
Die Genealogie der Lehranalytiker bestimmte lange Zeit
die Zugehörigkeit zur immer größer werdenden Familie der
Psychoanalytiker. Lange Zeit wurden familiäre Konflikte
durch Ausschluss aus der IPV erledigt. Die Dissidenz gehörte
zur Geschichte der Psychoanalyse. Mir der offiziellen
Anerkennung des Pluralismus innerhalb der IPV werden
Vergleiche zwischen den Schulen nach wissenschaftlichen
Kriterien unerlässlich. Die moderne Verlaufs- und Ergebnis-
forschung enthält Gesichtspunkte, die auch für die klinische
Darstellung von Behandlungsberichten vorbildlich werden
könnte.
Int Forum Psychoanal 13, 2004
Thomä H. Psicoanalistas sin una identidad especifica: Un
sueño utópico?
La cuestión principal de la identidad pertenece al movi-
miento psicoanalı́tico ortodoxo. Al menos los últimos 15
años bajo la presidencia de J. Sandler, la Sociedad
Psicoanalı́tica Internacional(IPA) ha tratado con éxito de
facilitar la investigación y promoción de proyectos. Si la
resistencia de analistas influyentes contra la investigación
empı́rica decrece más, el “movimiento psicoanalı́tico” y sus
desfavorables concomitancias serán cosa del pasado. El
desarrollo de una comunidad cientı́fica no se verá perturbada
por controversias en cuanto a la identidad profesional. La
cuestión de la identidad fue dominada por la idea del llamado
psicoanálisis estricto y no tendencioso. Nunca existió ni pudo
materializarse, fue una ficción. La dimensión psicosocial y
sus implicaciones normativas cuestionan el concepto de
identidad, en cambio es recomendable hablar de la actitud
psicoanalı́tica, que debe probar su valor terapéutico. Este
segundo (profesional) self está frecuentemente conectado con
el primer (personal)self. Es necesario y posible separar el
método de la persona para objetivar cambios en el paciente a
pesar de que ocurran en un intersubjetivo espacio relacional.
Durante muchos años Freud definió lo que es el psicoanálisis
y quien se llama a si mismo psicoanalista. Más adelante el
movimiento psicoanalı́tico y el sistema de la formación
institucionalizada realizaron este rol. El análisis de forma-
ción habı́a sido siempre el centro de todos los curriculums.
La genealogı́a del analista docente determinó la calidad de
miembro en la siempre creciente familia. Habı́a habido
ovejas negras desde el principio. Los disidentes, por tanto,
pertenecen a la historia del psicoanálisis. La aceptación
oficial del pluralismo entre la IPA invita a comparar entre las
diferentes escuelas de acuerdo con el criterio cientı́fico. La
metodologı́a del proceso psicoanalı́tico moderno y el
resultado en la investigación proveen principios para escribir
los informes de los tratamientos. Las identidades de grupo en
sus aspectos dogmáticos son perjudiciales para el futuro del
psicoanálisis, como ejemplo se discute el fundamentalismo
Kleiniano. El mensaje de este trabajo es expresar la
esperanza de que un eclecticismo critico que puede devolver
a su sitio las escuchas psicoanalı́ticas.