ABSTRACT
Jon Mills’ “Challenging Relational Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Postmodernism and Analyst Self-Disclosure” criticizes relational psychoanalysis for basing itself on postmodern thought. My paper offers a critique of Mills’ critique. I start with noting that Mills supplies only vague, imprecise, and overgeneralized paraphrases of postmodern notions and does not directly address textual examples of postmodern philosophy. Some of the elements Mills finds faulty in postmodernism and, by proxy, in relational psychoanalysis are elements that are rather central to psychoanalytic thought itself. In the second part of my paper, I address the closing off of psychoanalysis from the humanities and argue that psychoanalysis should renew its links with the humanities and seek dialog with them. I end by urging psychoanalysis to explore and reestablish its affinity not only with the humanities in general but with the critical ethos of the humanities, an ethos that questions given identities and destabilizes structures, not unlike what analysts do in their clinics.
