ABSTRACT
This chapter, the conclusion of the book, summarizes and extends the author’s efforts to develop an ethical psychoanalysis, applying the foregoing explorations to arrive at a reformulation of the psychoanalytic project itself. Despite their dramatic differences from one another, both classical and relational approaches have historically framed psychoanalysis in terms of the exploration of non-conscious processes, inadvertently leading to a devaluation of more “practically oriented” dimensions of human experience. Employing insights from psychoanalytic ethics, the author proposes a definition of psychoanalysis as centering on the dialectic between consciousness and unconsciousness. On this view, psychoanalysis is marked by the clinician’s deep appreciation of the irresolvable dialectic between conscious experience and unconscious process, and a foundational commitment to using this dialectic technically—with patients, in the analytic relationship, and in ourselves—as the main vehicle for therapeutic change. By making our theories more answerable and accountable to the practically oriented experiences explored in the book—consciousness, behavior, altruism, dignity, freedom, the drive towards progress and change, the connection between ethics and psychological health—we will move towards a more down-to-earth and inclusive psychoanalytic vision, thus expanding the reach of psychoanalysis to a wider range of clinicians and patients.
