ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the introduction and exploration of another dimension of the concept of a psychoanalytic field. The theory and clinical application of the three models of psychoanalytic field theory have been discussed, compared, and critiqued. The internal struggles of psychoanalysis evolved at a time during which long-term dynamic treatment processes were falling out of favor on some continents, in light of the availability of new chemical medications and short-term behavioral modalities. Models of the mind increasingly began to be subsumed under brain science research. These trends – together with the fact that, in many geographical areas, psychoanalytic training and research have primarily been conducted in free-standing psychoanalytic institutes, outside university and other research centers – have further deepened the isolation of psychoanalysis from the natural and health sciences. Emotional experience, including the kind of bi-personal experience that occurs within a psychoanalytic process, also may afford gestalt shifts.
