Leo Rangell - My Life in Theory

This book is about the theory of psychoanalysis as I have studied it, practiced it, and participated in its development for more than half of the century of its existence. It is difficult to encompass a lifetime of engagement with such a complex phenomenon as psychoanalytic theory. The challenges intrinsic to that task are apparent in the succession of titles I considered during my work on this book. Ultimately the story that unfolded was a composite of all of them.

A Unified Theory of Psychoanalysis. This refers to the fact that I espouse one unified theory of psychoanalysis, and that I differ in this from the pluralistic approach of many analysts today. I consider the current multiplicity of theories to be at the heart of the decline of psychoanalysis as an inspirational intellectual discipline, if not of its pragmatic and sociologic problems.

Splits and Comings Together came to mind as a subtitle while I was describing the experiences and travails of the psychoanalytic body during its long organizational life. Psychopathology can affect groups as well as individuals, and groups of psychoanalysts are not immune. The outcome of group psychopathology in our field has been recurrent splitsand related phenomena too, I would add now, having observed recently that the rapprochements and reunions now taking place may share the same determinants as the divisions that they purport to heal.

A major premise of this book is that there is a reciprocal relationship between two styles of theory progression: the scientific method, which Freud extended beyond the physical to the life of the mind, and the subjective and interpersonal factors that influence individuals and groups. In this history I will elaborate the workings of the subjective along with the objective because these are little acknowledged when the course of analytic theory is discussed. But I do not intend by that to diminish the role of the objective observer. The coexistence of these two styles, one objective and aiming at science, and the other subjective and fueled by affect, is an example of the general principle that a new discovery or thesis does not exclude or displace a valid older one. The violation of this principle incurs many difficulties.

My Life in Theory. This has been the unswerving choice for title of all who read early versions of the manuscript. It highlights an important point. This is a record of the development of theory as I have felt it in my own life. I describe its progress and regress as I saw it, the ways that I feel I have influenced its course, and my experiences of the roles of others. In sixty yearsmore than half of the psychoanalytic centuryof discussion and debate about theory, I have come to know firsthand almost all of the major contributors of this period. I have viewed their influences, positive and negative, with interest, and I want to report here what I have seen. In doing so, I must accept the inhibitions imposed by ethics and the law when it comes to recording the behavior of individuals. This is an unavoidable complication. The need for discretion exists in contrapuntal tension with the need for a real record of the interactions among the people who have shaped this significant intellectual discipline.

Sixty Years as a Psychoanalyst. Some of my readers have emphasized this length of time, but not I. I would as soon forget it! The number, moreover, may mean nothing. When someone said to Freud that a dwarf sitting on the shoulders of a giant can see further than the giant, Freud replied, Yes, unless he is blind. I once estimated that I have listened to some 175,000 hours of free associations. But if the tools of my listening are deficient or inaccurate, it might as well be zero.

Ideas and People. This potential subtitle addresses the fact that people shape ideas; we are influential not only in enhancing ideas and their application, but also in diminishing their meaning and value. I mean to chronicle the ways that psychoanalytic groups, as assemblages of people, have worked sometimes to support, but also sometimes to inhibit, the optimum development of theory. My discussion of people includes the roles of individuals as I have observed them, directly during my own professional life and indirectly before that.

The Decline, and a Path for the Return of, the Theory of Psychoanalysis came to me toward the end. This is the primary message of this expositionthat the theory of psychoanalysis has been fragmented and is in a state of decline, and that revival requires reunification into one total composite theory, which I will discuss and describe. But this quite definitive sentence contained too much for a title; it did not capture my readers or induce them to go on. A more succinct phrase was desired by all.

My Life in Theory, then, and for the subtitle its goala single theory. Should I call it a unified or a unitary theory? Unified seemed to imply that several complete theories exist that must be fused. Unitary seemed to fit better, as it did fifty and thirty-five years ago when I wrote of combining Freuds two partial theories of anxiety into one unitary one.

But I am speaking not only of theory, but of psychoanalysis in all its aspects. So, after a process of compromises and choicesthe matter of choice is an underattended aspect of theory that I will discussthe title of the book became My Life in Theory: Toward a Unitary Psychoanalysis.

This remained the title until almost the moment of closing. The practical publishing people then asked for a final change: eliminate the subtitle, in the service of streamlining and appeal. So be it. Whatever the book has to say can come under that, My Life in Theory.

My wish is that this running account of my professional journey, including as it does all the thoughts and ongoing conflicts intrinsic to the subject, may conjure up in the readers mind the interrelationships of the paths that have converged in the second half-century of our exciting and challenging field.