Announcing a New Karnac Journal
ATTACHMENT: New Directions in Psychotherapy and Relational Psychoanalysis. Editor Joseph Schwartz
Most readers will be familiar with Thomas Kuhn's concept of the paradigm shift. Introduced in the 1960s, Kuhn was concerned to correct the common misconception that science proceeds smoothly and uneventfully from observation to theory and back to observation with nary a hair raised along the way. Kuhn knew better.
A former theoretical physicist himself, he knew about the bitter disputes that had torn physics and many of its most famous practitioners apart during the rise of atomic physics from 1900-1920. Ludwig Boltzmann, co-author with Joseph Stefan, Freud's teacher of physics at the University of Vienna, committed suicide in 1907 because of the attacks on his invention of statistical mechanics. This bitter dispute prompted Max Planck, himself a pioneer of the new atomic physics, to observe in 1947 that a new theory does not triumph because it convinces its opponents. Rather it triumphs simply because a new generation grows up with it and gets used to it.
Similarly David Hilbert, who created the mathematical framework for the new atomic physics, suffered a severe psychotic break in 1910, committing himself to a sanatorium, And famously and tragically Paul Ehrenfest, Einstein's best friend and one of the originators of the new physics, suffered severe depression, feeling he was not intelligent enough to understand the mathematics of the new atomic physics. In 1933, he went to the Professor Watering Institute in Amsterdam where his son Wassik, a child with Down's syndrome, was being treated, shot the child and then himself.
Paradigm shifts are non-trivial affairs. They involve pain, struggle and suffering on the part of all the major players. In issue 1 of ATTACHMENT celebrating the centenary of John Bowlby's birth, Richard Bowlby describes the pain his father experienced at the continual rejection of attachment theory by the British psychoanalytic establishment of the 1950s. As Peter Fonagy observes in the same issue: "You know the only way Melanie Klein and Anna Freud were ever united was in their hatred of Bowlby".
Psychoanalysis has been going through a painful paradigm shift from drive theory to attachment and relational theories that has taken a half century to complete. These are some of the markers sign-posting the road we are on are (From Editorial, ATTACHMENT, issue 1):
Washington, 1936: William Alanson White on separation anxiety as basic:
...when the individual is separated as it were from those whom he loves or upon whom he is dependent or to whom he looks for guidance, then there develops the separation anxiety which is at the bottom of neuroses and psychoses (White, 1936: p.127)
London, 1940: Bowlby enters the lists on the centrality of separation anxiety:
If it became a tradition that small children were never subjected to complete or prolonged separation from their parents in the same way that regular sleep and orange juice have become nursery traditions, I believe that many cases of neurotic character development would be avoided (Holmes,1993 p.21).
London, 1942: Marjorie Brierley frames the paradigm conflict:
One way of stating the problem before us is to ask the question: Is a theory of mental development in terms of infant object relationships compatible with theory in terms of instinct vicissitudes? (King and Steiner, 1991; 18 February 1942)
London, 1946: Fairbairn's first principle of relational psychoanalysis:
...the general proposition [is] that libido is not primarily pleasure seeking but object seeking. The clinical material on which this proposition is based may be summarised in the protesting cry of a patient to this effect - 'You're always talking about my wanting this or that desire satisfied; but what I really want is a father' (Fairbairn, 1946; p.137).
London, 1956: Winnicott reformulates Klein relationally:
The 'good breast' is not a thing. It is a name given to a technique. It is the name given to the presentation of the breast (or bottle) to the infant, a most delicate affair and one which can only be done well enough at the beginning if the mother is in a most curious state of sensitivity which I for the time-being call the State of Primary Maternal Preoccupation. Unless she can identify very closely with the infant at the beginning she cannot have a good breast because just having the thing means nothing whatever to the infant (Newman, 1995; p.182)
London, 1962. Guntrip summarises his relational perspective:
Psychodynamic theory is an independent discipline whose subject matter is the personal motivated life of human beings in their mutual relationships. Any attempt to construct such a psychological science on the pattern of physiological thinking involves a depersonalisation and falsification of the subject matter (Guntrip, 1962; p.75)
London, 1974. Anna Freud acknowledges the passing of drive theory:
Psychoanalysis is above all a drive psychology. But for some reason people do not want to have that. (Young-Bruehl, 1988)
The journal ATTACHMENT is part of the still continuing paradigm shift from a one person to a two and many person psychology. ATTACHMENT is an international journal inviting colleagues from every orientation consistent with our values who would like to contribute to the development of clinical work within the attachment/relational paradigm in psychotherapy, counseling and relational psychoanalysis to send us their ideas or queries for contributions. Our values for clinical work are:
* We believe that mental distress has its origin in failed or inadequate attachment relationships in early life and is best treated in the context of a long-term human relationship.
* Attachment relationships are shaped in a social world that includes poverty, discrimination and social inequality. The effects of the social world are a necessary part of the therapy.
* Psychotherapy should be available to all, and from the attachment perspective, especially those discriminated against or described as 'unsuitable' for therapy.
* Psychotherapy needs to be provided with respect, warmth, openness, a readiness to interact and relate, and free from discrimination of any kind.
* Those who have been silenced about their experiences and survival strategies need to have their reality acknowledged and not pathologised.
ATTACHMENT is a professional journal, not an academic journal. We encourage a wide range of contributions, from reviews to clinical reports to personal memoirs to theoretical arguments. Footnotes are not necessarily required. For subscribers, we believe the journal offers leading edge articles for clinicians working relationally with their clients and up-to-date briefings on latest developments in neuroscience relevant to psychotherapy and counseling; it is an international journal with contributions from colleagues from different countries and cultures. We feel the time is right to bring out a journal that promotes attachment and inclusivity, that exists to serve our common project of advancing the development of what is now clearly the paradigm of choice for humane effective psychotherapy and counseling.
Joseph Schwartz
April 2007
josephschwartz@blueyonder.co.uk
