Introduction

This chapter explores some of what came before psychoanalytic field theories and contributed to their germination across several continents, approximately concurrently and relatively independently. For psychoanalysis, some of the implications of postmodernism include doubt about the potential extent of historical or genetic reconstruction. More generally, postmodern thought prompts questions about the concept of reconstruction in psychoanalytic processes. The postmodern trend helped usher in what was already underway, namely, an emphasis on language, narration, exchange, and dialogue in psychoanalytic process. K. Lewin brought mathematical structuring to psychological concepts and developed a new form of geometry, the hodological space. Willy Baranger and Madeleine Baranger based their psychoanalytic theory on Lewin's field concept, integrated versions of the observer effect that had infiltrated general scientific awareness in this period, and offered a reformulation of the structural model. In contemporary psychoanalysis, there are multiple psychoanalytic field theories, each stemming from the work of Lewin.