Critique of concepts and therapy in the action language approach to psychoanalysis
Meissner, W.W.
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 60(Pt 3): 291-310
1979
ISSN/ISBN: 0020-7578 PMID: 533732 Document Number: 143346
Critical evaluation is made of the attempts to reformulate basic psychoanalytic concepts in terms of a theory of action language. The criticism focuses on issues of the scientific status of psychoanalytic knowledge, the role of experience as the basis of psychoanalytic knowledge, the role of metaphor in the formulation of psychoanalytic theory (focusing particularly on the issue of anthropomorphism and the forms of acceptable metaphor in the theory), and the problem of levels of abstraction in theoretical conceptualization. Particular issues in the action language approach, which are challenged from a more traditional process-oriented psychoanalytic perspective, are the notion of action; the status of the human mind; the specific formulations and conceptualizations of drives and motives, conflicts, resistance, affects and internalization; the nature of the concepts of self and identity. The critique developed in these areas is then utilized as the basis for assessment of clinical implications, particularly their application in specific psychoanalytic contexts.