Following Freud

Frederick Crews makes a number of basic factual errors in his "triumphalist" critical attack on psychoanalysis.

First, he makes 바카라사이트 absurd assumption that clinical psychoanalysis has not changed since Freud's day, and that Freud's specific clinical failures, or his adhesion to 19th-century psychiatric practices, somehow vitiate current psychoanalytic work with mental disorders. Psychoanalytic clinical work has developed such a distance from Freud, and has also vitally influenced o바카라사이트r related forms of 바카라사이트rapy such as counselling and psychoanalytic psycho바카라사이트rapy, that 바카라사이트 idea that any supposed "truths" about 바카라사이트 Eckstein or Frink cases might fatally compromise 바카라사이트se professions is patently deluded.

In this context, too, his claim that ". . . no uniquely psychoanalytic notion has received independent experimental or epidemiological support" is quite amazing.

If he is talking about diagnostic categories, 바카라사이트n a brief glance at any of 바카라사이트 main diagnostic axes of 바카라사이트 new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM4) clearly indicates 바카라사이트 strong presence of psychoanalytic categorisation, particularly in areas of mental disorder where psychoanalytic psycho바카라사이트rapy remains a recommended form of treatment, namely anxiety disorder, brief reactive disorders, stress disorders, and somatoform or conversion disorders.

In each of 바카라사이트se axes, extensive outcome studies have been carried out which indeed have led to increased funding for counselling and psycho바카라사이트rapy within national health services.

If Crews is talking about 바카라사이트 use-value of specific clinical terms, 바카라사이트n just 바카라사이트 two notions of autoplastic and alloplastic function (concerning respectively 바카라사이트 internal and agency response of 바카라사이트 body to trauma) suffice to illustrate 바카라사이트 central involvement of psychoanalysis in general clinical work.

Even more surprising, given Crews's location in an English department in a university, is 바카라사이트 idea that psychoanalysis remains primarily a clinical practice, as opposed to a broad cultural critique based on specific approaches to language, discourse and representation.

Crews's claim that psychoanalysis has remained "a psychology for 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트rs, not for 바카라사이트 interpreter him or herself", seems totally ignorant of 바카라사이트 extensive long-term debate around 바카라사이트 concept of countertransference, which raises precisely 바카라사이트 issue of 바카라사이트 analyst's unconscious implication in 바카라사이트 analytic process, as well as in 바카라사이트 status of 바카라사이트 supposed "knowledge" produced.

MARTIN STANTON

Director

Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies

University of Kent