The Identity of Psychoananalysis and Psychoanalyts by Arnold Richards and Arthur Lynch

THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR PSYCHOANALYSIS

Of the Karen Horney Psychoanalytic Center

329 East 62^nd Street, New York, NY 10065

SCIENTIFIC MEETING

Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 8:00 PM

THE IDENTITY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

AND PSYCHOANALYSTS

Psychoanalysis has been in a constant uninterrupted debate about its identity as a discipline and as a social institution. This paper considers the place of science in psychoanalysis, on the one hand, and the hermeneutic nature of our discipline, on the other. The aim is to articulate a typology of psychoanalytic knowledge that characterizes psychoanalysis as a form of therapy, an intellectual movement, and a theoretical system. This typology considers psychoanalysis as a thought collective that influences its members by exchanging and maintaining ideas. To a well-rounded psychoanalytic thinker or practitioner one must be able to move easily among three realms of knowledge – the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences. Each realm has its own criteria of truth and the challenge is to know when to employ which criteria.

Presenters:

ARNOLD D. RICHARDS, M.D., Training and Supervising Analyst, New York Psychoanalytic Institute; former Editor of JAPA (1994–2003), and The American Psychoanalyst (1989–1994); Faculty, NYU and Mount Sinai Medical Schools, Departments of Psychiatry; member, APA Division 39, Section I, New York Freudian Society; honorary member, American Institute for Psychoanalysis and the New Jersey Psychoanalytic Society.

ARTHUR A. LYNCH, D.S.W., Senior faculty member and Supervising Analyst, American Institute for Psychoanalysis; Adjunct Professor, Columbia University School of Social Work. Coauthor (with Richards) of numerous articles on comparative and historical psychoanalysis including “Merton Gill: A View of His Place in the Freudian Firmament,” “From Ego Psychology to Contemporary Conflict Theory: An Historical Overview,” and most recently, the Identity of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalysts.

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KAREN HORNEY CLINIC AUDITORIUM