These lively and thought provoking papers by Arnold Richards
highlight a number of themes which will be relevant to the student
of psychoanalysis, whether clinician, academic, or member of the
educated lay public. Richards wears his learning lightly, educating
without being pedantic, and spicing up his prose by engaging in a
number of significant polemics, particularly against the
psychoanalytic establishment. He is adept at illuminating how the
concepts of Bildung and Fleck's ideas about thought collectives and
styles frame the history of psychoanalysis and provide a context
for an inquiry into its scientific sociology of knowledge. Reading
his papers on Freud
and Brill and the historical and cultural role of Jewishness,
including ambivalence about Jewish identity, is to encounter texts
rich in clinical insight and historical understanding. There are
penetrating studies into the fascinating and troubled history of
the relationship of psychoanalysis and Marxism. Richards himself
exemplifies a contemporary and vital role of Bildung. He has a
profound education grounded in the classics (including the classics
of different schools of psychoanalysis). He has a well -developed
cultivated sensibility, marked by intellectual curiosity, multiple
life experiences, and an open-minded attitude toward learning and
rethinking old
pieties. While he demonstrates a broad character formation, one
that places great importance of the cultivation of the inner world,
he also embraces an attitude of pluralism, a critique of
exclusionary politics, and the affirmation of the continuous
exchange of differing perspectives.
--David James Fisher, Ph.D., psychoanalyst and European cultural
historian, Training & Supervising Analyst,
Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis; Senior Faculty Member,
New Center for Psycho-analysis. Author
of Bettelheim: Living and Dying; Cultural Theory and Psychoanalytic
Tradition; and Romain Rolland and the
Politics of Intellectual EngagementDr. Arnold Richards says that
psychoanalysis is in crisis. Few people have such inside knowledge
and insight into it as he does. Arnold Richards delineates well the
institutional practice that have kept psychoanalysis insulated and
promoted infighting. He illuminates the ideological and
epistemological challenges that continue to face psychoanalysis. As
editor of the psychoanalytic association's journal, he found ways
to open up the field
to a broader array of distinguished contributors. His expanding the
horizons of the journal is reflective of a man who is always doing
the same for himself. He continually is learning from experience
and is intellectually alive. Readers of this volume will invariably
find their own viewpoints broadening and that they are learning in
unexpected ways. In the quest for psychoanalytic selfunderstanding,
Arnold Richards is an indispensable guide.
--Ken Fuchsman, President International Psychohistorical
Association
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