ABSTRACT
This chapter socially contextualizes schools of psychoanalysis and speaks to the question of what might characterize a U.S. version of psychoanalysis. The chapter reflects anecdotally on how European analysts, social critics, and some of my personal acquaintances experience Americans as superficial in relationships and “too nice” in the clinic. It then sketches out the strengths and limitations of what I perceived to be, in the U.S., a less tragic vision of humans and of psychoanalysis than the visions that predominate in other parts of the world.
