PANY Special Event
Thursday, December 8, 2005, 8:30 pm
School of Medicine Faculty Dining Room
New York University Medical Center
530 First Avenue, New York, NY

An Analysis of the Course of Psychoanalysis:
For One Theory, Many Treatments

Leo Rangell, MD
Honorary President, International Psychoanalytical Association

Moderator: Theodore J. Jacobs, MD

Summary

Psychoanalysis started out as a unitary theory to encompass desperate observable phenomena. Since then, psychoanalytic theory has progressed by two routes, a continuously evolving cumulative theory and the parallel creation of alternative theoretical systems. Various fallacies and flaws have played a part in these developments. The current state of pluralism, in the author’s view, has resulted in a theoretical fragmentation that reduced the power and inspiration intrinsic to a unified, coherent theory. The course and background for this uneven development is described and the case for a unitary composite theory of psychoanalysis is presented.