There is a further respect in which psychoanalytic views of environmental influences lack sophistication. The wider social and cultural context within which object relations develop are often ignored by psychoanalytic theorists. This observation is only partially accurate in that many individual theorists have paid specific attention to cultural factors (see for instance, Erikson, 1950; Lasch, 1978; Sullivan, 1953). However, the impact of race and culture on development and pathology is rarely a focus for psychoanalytic theorisation, perhaps as a residue of the biological origin of psychoanalytic ideas. A particularly dramatic example of the influence of cultural factors may be found in approaches to self-development. Psychoanalysts have traditionally emphasised, in their general theories of development, the individuated self (see, for example Kohut & Wolf, 1978; Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975). In generalising these models to other cultures, we may be ignoring the extent to which these ideas are rooted in Western thought. In non-Western cultures, the relational self is far more widely represented than the individuated self (Sampson, 1988). The relational self is characterised by more permeable and fluid self-other boundaries and by an emphasis on social control where this includes but reaches far beyond the person. The unit of identity for the relational self is not an internal representation of the other or its interaction with an ego ideal, but rather the family or the community. In traditional psychoanalytic theories a person who is over-dependent upon, and influenced by, moment-to-moment changes in their inter-personal experience might be considered immature or even pathological. Yet there is nothing universal about this view of the self. These ideas have emerged only gradually even in the Western world over the past 200-300 years (Baumeister, 1987). The well- known gender asymmetry in the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder may be interpreted as a consequence of the greater challenge experienced by women than by men when faced with the Western ideal of an individuated self (Gilligan, 1982). Placing the individuated self implicitly or explicitly at the peak of a developmental hierarchy may risk ethnocentrism as well as pathologising a mode of functioning which may be highly adaptive given specific social contexts. The lack of psychoanalytic sophistication concerning the social environment represents a major challenge to the evolution of psychoanalysis beyond the issue of its scientific status. Given the intensive nature of psychoanalytic treatment, its influence will always be restricted to the relatively few individuals who have the benefit of this intensive form of psychotherapy. The decline of the social influence of psychoanalysis since the Second World War may have more to do with the extension of concerns about the mental health to a larger section of the population. Given the numbers now involved, psychoanalysis is bound to be seen as less relevant as a treatment approach. For the discipline to survive and flourish, it is essential that our theories are made relevant to the community at large and that we are able to offer input with problems of concern to our local community. Certainly at the present state of knowledge, such input should never be didactic but rather offered with the aim of learning at least as much as teaching. There are several projects in this spirit already underway in major cities in the US including Michigan, New Haven, Los Angeles and New Orleans. Traditionally our discipline has been highly ethnocentric. For example, psychoanalytic studies of multi-generational traumata have principally focussed on survivors of the Holocaust (Bergmann & Jucovy, 1982; Kogan, 1995). Yet perhaps we could learn as much or more about this process from the study of African-American communities in the US, many of whose current problems could be seen in the context of our failures in terms of their history in North America as an enslaved group (e.g. Belsky, 1993). In brief, with regard to social influences, psychoanalysis should develop an improved categorisation system to describe environmental influence. Transactional models of development pay more attention to cultural factors, show greater awareness of their cultural context and step beyond ethnocentrism. 8"BB@M"#@,)"+&=),-&",-%#&*)(?):B)+%(&
For some psychoanalysts, the separateness of the psychoanalytic discipline from others whose subject matter overlaps with ours has been a source of pride to the extent that analysts have been criticised for
VL
.01230/1.40/5&&'67894/0/571.8/5&&/6648./1.40&
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator