What is the difference among neoanalytic writers and relativistic ones?

What might be considered a very basic philosophical difference among the neoanalytic writers is whether they are objective positivist thinkers (as was Freud) versus relativistic, constructivist ones. Freud was very interested in promoting psychoanalysis as a natural science operating on some objectively real material and discovering laws of nature. In this view, the analyst was the scientist charged with accurately interpreting client material and was thus an expert source who knew the right and wrong for the client. There was a clear and consistent truth, rooted in physical reality (for Freud, neuroanatomy,

although he could never demonstrate this). Some of the descendents of

Freud tend to take this approach, but current analysts, particularly the relational and self theorists, for example, are more constructivist in philosophy. Simply put: they view "reality" as inseparable from the observer-one person's truth may not be the same as another's. "Reality" in the therapeutic relationship is constructed by client and counselor; prompting the notion of the two-person psychology, which emphasizes the roles of the client and counselor in therapeutic events. This demise of the totally objective therapist/observer arose from the revolution of thought in the so-called "hard" sciences

spurred by Einstein's relativity theory, quantum physics, and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle that eventually trickled into the Social Sciences, and then into psychoanalytic thought (Curtis & Hirsch, 2003).

Neoanalytic approaches do not add any new techniques beyond what have been already described by Freud. They do discuss new ways of viewing the effects of classical technique, and most emphasize the relationship between the therapist and client as curative in and of itself (beyond the effect of insight gained via transference interpretation). Therefore, the techniques sections in this chapter are brief and focus on how the traditional techniques of free association, dream analysis, and interpretation are used in the service of the approach described. Most analysts practicing today draw on one or more of the various analytic strains, and perhaps all of them (Karon&Widner, 1995). In this chapter, I will present four major variants of neoanalytic thought: Ego Psychology (EP),Object Relations (OR), Self Psychology (SP) and Relational Psychoanalysis (RP). Although this delineation of these general orientations seems logical to me, you should be aware that there is controversy about how to divide up current psychoanalytic thought into camps. For example, some see Kohut, whom I separate out from the others, as an OR theorist, whereas others would characterize his approach as relational. Only a deeper study than I can provide would allow you to fully understand these arguments. Lest I neglect one other important theoretical offshoot of psychoanalysis, a summary of the views of Carl Jung, one of the earliest of Freud's followers.