Pluralism and Disciplined Pluralism in Psychoanalysis

This paper looks at the application of pluralism (a concept developed to understand American politics in the 1950s) to psychoanalysis. The argument is that pluralism in psychoanalysis has allowed important differences to be ignored and technical and scientific issues to be treated as political issues – resolved by respectful governance and democracy rather than discussion of data and the construction of an uncompelled consensus. The pluralism we have (which is termed “anything goes”) may have been necessary to preserve psychoanalysis and manage very difficult emotions between colleagues in the aftermath of Freud’s death and later. But it is now a serious impediment to the sustainability of what we are doing – leading to governance arrangements across the profession which are often manifestly proving unable to protect the specificity of psychoanalysis and training. To counteract these developments, the author calls for “Disciplined Pluralism” and offers ways forward, based on recognizing the emotional challenges and specifically psychoanalytic research projects, that allow debate with evidence and specifically psychoanalytic training with transparent standards.