In Division 39, the relational perspective is everywhere: in the APA journal, the newsletter, and the annual conference. The annual conference, usually sponsored by a local contemporary psychoanalytic institute, is dominated year after year by relational, intersubjective, interpersonal, and postmodern perspectives. Most paper and panel presentations cover the same topics and have the same presenters over and over. The invited presenters and panelists are largely relational in orientation, and the more traditional psychoanalytic camps have been so marginalized that one would be lucky to see the words Freud or unconscious in any presentation titles. Because the contemporary institutes that host the annual conferences control the conference agenda, Freudian approaches, object relations theories, and ego-psychological positions are barely represented. Even self psychology and the interpersonal school have been annexed by relational perspectives to the point that most visible distinctions have vanished. And because contemporary paradigms within the past three decades have gradually fallen in love with the language of philosophy, it becomes equally confusing to know what—if any—distinctions exist within contemporary perspectives.
Mills, Jon. Conundrums: A Critique of Contemporary Psychoanalysis (pp. 140-141). Taylor and Francis. 2012, Kindle edition.
