ABSTRACT
Jon Mills' critique vitalizes the conversation, sharpens our theories, prompts further debate and dialogue, and invites counter-critique and further analysis. This chapter offers the reader a reflection on these theoretical constructs that continue to need revision, conversation, thoughtfulness, and thoroughness in order to continue to advance our field. It also offers a sustained series of arguments to systematically evaluate the philosophical premises that justify relational theory and to give some form, coherency, and voice to a plurality of ideas within relational psychoanalysis. Relational psychoanalysis privileges intersubjectivity over subjectivity and objectivity, although most theorists would generally concede that their position does not refute the existence of individual subjects nor the external objective world. Unlike Mitchell, Freud was deeply engaged in the problem of nature, hence the empirical and speculative investigation of our embodiment. The conception of psychoanalysis as a science was as much a criticism of Freud's time as it is today.
