ABSTRACT
In 1998 the author attended a conference in conjunction with an exhibition organized by the US Library of Congress called, "Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture." The conference was a remarkable event with presentations by psychoanalysts, historians, anthropologists, writers, artists, and Freudian critics. During the conference, Judith Chused, a psychoanalyst, questioned why it was that psychoanalysts become so deeply invested in one theoretical model over another. Chused spoke of how psychoanalysts and psychotherapists then become overly identified with a particular theoretical model early in their careers as a way of managing their own anxieties and uncertainty. She suggested that therapists often cannot afford to question what they have been taught, to give up the psychological security provided by their familiar and favored theory, and differentiate from teachers and mentors they have idealized and who had often served them well in their own personal development.
