ABSTRACT
Since the beginning of psychoanalysis a search for common ground has been impeded by the tyranny of words. Adherence to theories centering on constructs like dual drives, oedipal conflicts, tripartite model, defense interpretation, projective identification, selfobject, and separationindividuation have been used as litmus tests for adherents – a form of entrapment by allegiance. For example, one group drawn to field theory emphasizes a listening perspective based on reverie and aims to dream the dream for the patient or for patient and analyst to dream the dream together. Another group treats dreaming and the dream in a traditional manner, tracking day residue, past experiences, and current associations in order to reveal the implicit and explicit meanings represented in the dream. Is field theory more or less associated with perspectives that are more poetic and exquisitely sensitive to unconscious mentation? As compared to reverie-centered listening, others propose sensing into or empathy. here the immediate goal is to apprehend the state of mind of the analysand, her perspective, affects, intentions, and goals as she experiences them – a surface-down approach. Another perspective emphasizes neither the dream as dreamed together nor the message apprehended via empathy but a constant search for what is not in the message as revealed – that is, what the narrative is designed to avoid, hide, protectively obscure. So analysts who might espouse field theory might see the work as dreaming deep together, or going from the surface down, or deeply resonating and attuning. One group describes sensing meanings and inferring intentions from what is communicatively accessible, another by drawing inferences
about conflicts involving mechanisms of defense and dissociation. Are we describing different styles that all field theories recognize or are we describing different field theories with no essential commonality?
