Psychoanalysis : Perspectives on Thought Collectives

In Volume 2 of the selected papers of Arnold D. Richards’ psychoanalytic contributions, his writings are infused with the notion that the impact of social dimensions is ubiquitous throughout the history and development of psychoanalysis. Each of the five sections of this volume bears witness to the manner in which thought collectives have contributed to and shaped the nature of psychoanalytic theory. Drawing from of the work of Ludwig Fleck, in Chapter 1, we see the application of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) as applied to the creation and social transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge. In Chapter 2, Richards turns his attention to the creation of the Freudian thought collective. Chapter 3 informs a perspective on a professional organization and expands the SSK lens as it applies to the trials and troubles of a U.S. psychoanalytic thought collective. Chapter 4 offers a perspective on pluralism, paradigms and politics. The volume concludes with a chapter on the application of SSK to the internal and external organizational dynamics of the operation and management of a professional journal.

In APsaA, there was no organizational support or precedent for cooperation among thought collectives. Richards began to envision a role for JAPA, after the delinkages and the lawsuit, of promoting a higher level of integration, rather than possible fragmentation and implosion. Like Fleck, Richards feels that intellectual competition is important for encouraging scientific progress, and that ideas are transformed as they circulate through different thought collectives. This brought him to the question: “How can a journal strengthen and nurture its thought collective?” This remains an urgent problem in the field’s history of fragmentation and schism. Richards affirms that the health of a science depends on free communication within it and its benefits to the world depends largely on its communication beyond its own borders. Volume 2 of the selected papers of Arnold D. Richards closes as it opens. Throughout this his work, he applies the broader bio-psycho- socio/cultural approach of psychoanalytic theory. This approach is not an eclectic common ground perspective, nor even an attempt to structure a total composite psychoanalytic theory. Instead, Richards addresses the social dimensions upon which psychoanalysis was found, built and grew to its modern form. Drawing from of the work of Ludwig Fleck by applying key constructs from the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK), he continuously bears witness to the manner in which “thought collectives” have contributed to and shaped the nature, organization and findings of psychoanalytic theory through history.

These lively and thought provoking papers by Arnold Richards highlight a number of themes which will be relevant to the student of psychoanalysis, whether clinician, academic, or member of the educated lay public. Richards wears his learning lightly, educating without being pedantic, and spicing up his prose by engaging in a number of significant polemics, particularly against the psychoanalytic establishment. He is adept at illuminating how the concepts of Bildung and Fleck’s ideas about thought collectives and styles frame the history of psychoanalysis and provide a context for an inquiry into its scientific sociology of knowledge. Reading his papers on Freud
and Brill and the historical and cultural role of Jewishness, including ambivalence about Jewish identity, is to encounter texts rich in clinical insight and historical understanding. There are penetrating studies into the fascinating and troubled history of the relationship of psychoanalysis and Marxism. Richards himself exemplifies a contemporary and vital role of Bildung. He has a profound education grounded in the classics (including the classics of different schools of psychoanalysis). He has a well -developed cultivated sensibility, marked by intellectual curiosity, multiple life experiences, and an open-minded attitude toward learning and rethinking old
pieties. While he demonstrates a broad character formation, one that places great importance of the cultivation of the inner world, he also embraces an attitude of pluralism, a critique of exclusionary politics, and the affirmation of the continuous exchange of differing perspectives. 
—David James Fisher, Ph.D., psychoanalyst and European cultural historian, Training & Supervising Analyst,
Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Senior Faculty Member, New Center for Psycho-analysis. Author
of Bettelheim: Living and Dying; Cultural Theory and Psychoanalytic Tradition; and Romain Rolland and the
Politics of Intellectual Engagement

Dr. Arnold Richards says that psychoanalysis is in crisis. Few people have such inside knowledge and insight into it as he does. Arnold Richards delineates well the institutional practice that have kept psychoanalysis insulated and promoted infighting. He illuminates the ideological and epistemological challenges that continue to face psychoanalysis. As editor of the psychoanalytic association’s journal, he found ways to open up the field
to a broader array of distinguished contributors. His expanding the horizons of the journal is reflective of a man who is always doing the same for himself. He continually is learning from experience and is intellectually alive. Readers of this volume will invariably find their own viewpoints broadening and that they are learning in unexpected ways. In the quest for psychoanalytic selfunderstanding, Arnold Richards is an indispensable guide.
—Ken Fuchsman, President International Psychohistorical Association