Copyrighted Material. For use only by UPENN. Reproduction prohibited. Usage subject to PEP terms & conditions (see terms.pep-web.org). !e International Journal of Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90:1299–1317 doi: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00204.x Technique and final cause in psychoanalysis: Four ways of looking at one moment Jonathan Lear University of Chicago – Committee on Social Thought, 1130 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA –
[email protected] (Final version accepted 3 July 2009) This paper argues that if one considers just a single clinical moment there may be no principled way to choose among different approaches to psychoanalytic tech- nique. One must in addition take into account what Aristotle called the final cause of psychoanalysis, which this paper argues is freedom. However, freedom is itself an open-ended concept with many aspects that need to be explored and developed from a psychoanalytic perspective. This paper considers one analytic moment from the perspectives of the techniques of Paul Gray, Hans Loewald, the contemporary Kleinians and Jacques Lacan. It argues that, if we are to evaluate these tech- niques, we must take into account the different conceptions of freedom they are trying to facilitate. Keywords: applied analysis, ethics, freedom, interpretation, psychoanalytic education, research, technique, transference Introduction This paper is motivated by two questions which arise at opposite ends of a spectrum. At the experience-near end of a practicing psychoanalyst at work in the midst of an analytic hour, my question is: Why should I do one thing rather than another? What, if anything, grounds my choice about how to conceptualize and act in a significant moment in analysis? At the other end of the spectrum, my question is: What is psychoanalysis for? I do not have answers to either of these two questions.