Reflections on Truth, Tradition, and the Psychoanalytic

Tradition of Truth

Hanna Segal

American Imago, Volume 63, Number 3, Fall 2006, pp. 283-292 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/aim.2006.0035

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/205470

Access provided at 30 Mar 2019 11:45 GMT from Guilford College

 Hanna Segal 283

Hanna Segal

Reflections on Truth, Tradition, and the

Psychoanalytic Tradition of Truth
Truth and tradition—it’s a challenging and very broad
subject to discuss.
I think I would like to start by trying to define those terms
and the way I am going to use them. First, the definition of
“truth.” I think we have to discriminate between Truth (with a
capital T) and truth (with a lower case t). Truth is based on a
delusion that we have, or were given by higher powers, some
immutable knowledge, not to be questioned. This leads to tyr-
anny and the destruction of any different point of view and all
progress. One could describe it as a religious state of mind, which
attacks the scientific search for truth (lower case). However, this
“religious” state of mind is not only external to the scientific
world, but, consciously or unconsciously, it interferes with the
development of science itself. Theories are then accepted as
dogma rather than subjected to ongoing inquiry.
But beyond the question of the state of mind associated
with truth, it may be seen that truth itself refers to “what is.”
This is the prevalent philosophical thinking on this matter. For
instance, there is a stone on the path—that is a fact. There are
trees growing—these are facts that are true, and the trees and
stones were there before there were humans on the planet. They
existed irrespective of the existence of an observer. But the sci-
entist, of course, wants to know more than that. Why are some
stones blue or red, soft or hard? What are trees made of? Why
do they grow? Etc. Such investigations demand new techniques.
New techniques of observation reveal new facts, and new facts
in turn may dictate new techniques. And both the techniques
and the apparently discovered facts have to be validated. Of-
ten the microscopic view alters our view of the macroscopic.
For example, a new problem arose when subatomic research
revealed that in the subatomic realm the rules that applied to

American Imago, Vol. 63, No. 3, 283–292. © 2006 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

283
284 Reflections on Truth and Tradition

the microscopic realm don’t hold. At best, science allows us to

describe probabilities.
When we focus on the application of technique to the dis-
covery of truth, we must be aware that the presence of the ob-
server impacts the field of study. Not only does his very presence
alter the field of observation, as exemplified by Heisenberg’s
principle of uncertainty, but the paradigms in the mind of the
observer shape what can be seen by him. There is no “truly
objective” state of mind with which the observer simply stud-
ies “what is” through the application of his techniques (Kuhn
1962). The paradigms in the mind of the observer are based
on previous theories and knowledge, and in a desirable state
of things they would be flexible and open to correction. Often
a paradigm is extended and enriched. At other times, it has
to be completely rejected, as, for instance, with the paradigm
that the earth is flat and the sun moves around it. On the other
hand, no further chemical investigation, however minute, has
ever affected the Periodic Table. I think such paradigms are an
essential aspect of what we call “tradition.”
These definitions of truth and tradition apply to the
mental sciences as well, and specifically to psychoanalysis. The
kind of truth that concerns psychoanalysis is truth regarding
psychic reality, regarding the functioning of the mind and its
unconscious roots. Of course, Freud did not “discover” the un-
conscious—many poets, writers, and philosophers before him
had profound insights and described very precisely the depths
and complexity of human nature. But he laid the foundations
and parameters of the study of this dimension of the mind as
a scientific endeavor. I think, therefore, that it is of interest to
examine his endeavor to discover truth against the background
of the philosophy of science and of mind that I have described
here.
There are obvious ascertainable truths—things that within
any given culture are known through common sense. For in-
stance, everybody can see that X is angry or excessively jealous.
The researcher will want to know more. What provokes the
anger? Why is A so prone to anger and B almost incapable of
it? Why is C insanely jealous? Etc. To find out, we need a tech-
nique of observation, and both the technique and the newly
discovered facts have to be substantiated.
 Hanna Segal 285

I said that Freud laid the foundation of the study of the

mind as a scientific endeavor. He limited the field of observa-
tion and took into account the fact that the field of observation
is altered by the presence of the observer. He set parameters
and established a setting similar to a laboratory, defining the
conditions under which the investigation can be pursued with
particular attention to the relationship between the patient and
the observing analyst and to how the process of the analysis af-
fects the analysand. In those conditions, he studied the mind
and described its structure and function. He elaborated a tech-
nique: an interplay between free association and interpretation.
He quickly realized that the very fact of the observer’s altering
the field is of crucial importance, and within those parameters
he developed his model of the mind.
I think that this model of the mind is the basic paradigm
of psychoanalytic work. We do not come to the patient with
an empty mind. We always have in our mind a tentative model
of psychic functioning and ideas regarding how it can be un-
derstood and modified. That model we carry is internalized
through our own analytic experience and clinical work. But this
paradigm, the model of the mind, must be flexible.
At this point, another essential aspect of the term “tradition”
needs to be mentioned, one that is perhaps more uniquely psy-
choanalytic. In addition to accumulated and internalized knowl-
edge contained in the notion of paradigm, tradition also refers
to the kinds of knowledge that are relevant and meaningful
within a given discourse. Here I am referring to the boundaries
of paradigms that may be considered psychoanalytic in nature.
In my view, psychoanalytic paradigms or models of the mind
are specifically concerned with psychic reality—the truth of the
mind and its relationship to unconscious processes. Moreover,
the method that they provide to get access to these processes
and modify them is based on understanding and interpreta-
tion, i.e., on truth. In other words, integral to psychoanalytic
tradition is an aim and method focused on the search for the
truth of the mind, which in turn is founded on the idea that
attaining such truth is in itself therapeutic.
Clearly, scientific inquiry may lead to the discovery of truth
about a variety of mental processes and a variety of ways of
modifying them, and, of course, there is an interaction between
286 Reflections on Truth and Tradition

psychoanalysis and other fields of inquiry that needs to be ad-

dressed. But this would merit another paper. Here my focus is
on truth and tradition as it affects psychoanalysis, which offers
a clinical approach that I consider to be still the spearhead of
the field of mental health. Within this context, tradition, in the
sense of the boundaries of psychoanalytic concern, sets limits
on the flexibility of the paradigms that may be developed within
the field of psychoanalysis.
Freud was always very flexible about the content of his para-
digms. In his lifetime, he shifted from his first model —a fairly
simple division between the conscious and the unconscious—to
the structural model that I think remains the basic model un-
derlying contemporary psychoanalysis. The latter is graphically
represented by Freud’s picture of the pyramid. That model
includes function and structure—a structure formed by the
processes of projection and introjection—and their interplay. It
shows, for instance, how the forces of the id are projected into
an internal object that becomes the superego. This model brings
the innovation that there is a particular structure in our internal
world and that part of the ego itself is also unconscious.
That basic model was challenged by the discovery of a new
technique, namely, the play technique developed by Melanie
Klein. The analysis of small children revealed that the superego
is not the only internal object. It revealed a whole phantasy
world of various objects, some of them part-objects, with com-
plex interrelationships. The superego itself, it appeared, had
much earlier roots than Freud assumed and has a long history
of development. Klein observed that small children express
themselves primarily in play, and therefore she decided to carry
out their analysis in a playroom, providing a limited amount
of playing material.
However, with all these important developments in tech-
nique she kept to Freud’s parameters, in particular the setting,
including protection from outside interference, regularity of
the length and frequency of the sessions, and proceeding by
interpretation free of advice or educational aims. Those she saw
as intrusions into the analytic field. In this sense, she retained a
strictly psychoanalytic state of mind aimed at grasping the truth
of psychic reality and making it available to the patient.
 Hanna Segal 287

What Klein learned from her innovative work with children

enabled her to see the development of the later phases described
by Freud in a different light. It brought an alteration in the
Freud model, not doing away with it but putting it, as it were,
under a stronger microscope. This allowed for an enriched and
broader understanding of the mind, culminating in what may
perhaps be referred to as a “revolution” in Kuhn’s sense of the
term. At the same time, however, Freud’s basic concern with
the psychoanalytic attainment of truth was retained.
Klein’s developments may be summarized as follows: at the
beginning of life the infant lives in what she called the paranoid-
schizoid position in which he splits his objects into an ideal and
a persecuted one. This position is dominated by processes of
projection and introjection in which the infant projects part of
himself into the object and splits both the object and the ego
into a good and persecutory object and self.
As reality testing progresses and both self and object be-
come more integrated, the state of mind shifts from an oscil-
lation between blissful and hellish to a real perception of the
object and a greater awareness of his own bad impulses. This
opens up a whole new set of feelings as the infant recognizes
his own hostile impulses both as omnipotent and as destroying
the good and needed object. This brings with it a new acces-
sion of guilt, loss, and capacity for mourning, and it mobilizes
reparative feelings aimed at restoring a good internal object.
These reparative impulses then re-create what was destroyed
and are the basis of creativity.
Throughout a lifetime, there are constant fluctuations be-
tween the two positions. The shift between them is, according
to Klein, a shift between psychotic and nonpsychotic modes of
functioning. The superego has its roots in the paranoid-schizoid
position, but its character alters in the depressive position when
projections are partly withdrawn. The severity of the superego
is determined by the hostile projections. Klein speaks of fluc-
tuation and contends that the depressive position is never fully
worked through. It is the structure of one mind with fluctuating
changes. If the depressive position is felt to be too painful, a
series of defenses is set in motion that brings about a regression
to the paranoid-schizoid position.
288 Reflections on Truth and Tradition

It may be seen that this model does not contradict Freud’s

pyramid, but rather highlights additional dimensions of it. But
Klein’s discoveries also provided a conceptual tool for the analy-
sis of psychotics, and this in turn produced a further shift in the
model. The clinical experience now included the pathology in
the paranoid-schizoid position itself. This was due mainly to a
more detailed and deeper understanding of Klein’s concept of
projective identification, and it led to the differentiation between
concrete and more truly symbolic forms of representation. This
eventually resulted in a formulation of mental functioning and
structure in a slightly different way.
At the time of these developments, there was another trend
emerging in child analysis, introduced by Anna Freud (who at
the time contended that children under the age of seven could
not be analyzed). She insisted on the necessity of educating as
well as analyzing, and she and her followers considered Klein’s
innovations to be “heretical,” since they introduced changes
in Freud’s technique and models of the mind. These differ-
ences came to a head in what is known as the “Controversial
Discussions” in the British Psycho-Analytical Society, described
in detail in The Freud-Klein Controversies 1941–1945 (King and
Steiner 1991). In my view, despite differences there existed a
shared ground of psychoanalytic concern with attaining and
furthering the truth regarding psychic reality that held the dif-
ferent groups together. I suspect that this was supported by the
fact that both Melanie Klein and Anna Freud were primarily
motivated by a concern with the well-being of psychoanalysis
rather than by personal ambition.
After those discussions, the British Society had a curriculum
in which both trends were taught. Some parts of the curriculum
were joint and some, mainly technical, were taught separately.
The balance was kept by what was then called the Middle Group.
In further developments, the Middle Group, which changed
its name to the Independents, also established a new model
of the mind, deriving from Ferenczi and developed by Balint,
Winnicott, and, later in the United States, by Kohut. The fun-
damental difference between this model and those of Freud,
Klein, and their followers lay not in the fact that it took into
account new clinical evidence, but rather in the kinds of uses
that it made of clinical evidence. A new concern emerged that
 Hanna Segal 289

focused on various notions of cure and change that did not rest
on attaining truth and that considered the personal influences
of the analyst—e.g., his support, advice, and comfort—to be
integral to the analytic process. Here the changes in technique
were of a kind that made them essentially nonanalytic. They
went against the psychoanalytic effort to bring about change
through the search for truth. For when the analyst actively takes
upon himself the parental role, he invites the patient to live in
a lie. This in turn promotes concrete functioning rather than
symbolization and psychic growth.
In this context, I consider Bion’s work to be a continua-
tion of the model of the mind developed by Freud and Klein.
According to Bion, at the beginning of life the infant projects
into the maternal breast inchoate elements of experience that
he calls Beta elements, and the mother’s unconscious receiving
and responding to those projections in an understanding way
converts them into Alpha elements. He called this the Alpha
Function, and this is a function that the infant introjects. From
the beginning of life, this is a continuous process in which there
are parallel developments—the Beta elements remain concrete,
producing what he calls a Beta barrier. The Alpha elements
become elements of symbolism and the basis of thought and
creativity and further development. In the depths of the uncon-
scious, there is a constant transformation of Beta into Alpha
function. In that model, what Freud called fixation points are
split off Beta elements. These transformations come to a peak
in the depressive position. In Bion’s model, the Freud and Klein
models are not overthrown but modified. Not only are many
of their insights and discoveries regarding the functioning of
the mind retained, but more importantly the basic concern
to discover these truths of mental functioning remains at the
heart of his work.
This continuity from Freud, through Klein, to Bion is re-
flected in the evolution of their models of therapeutic action in
analysis. In Freud’s first model, the focus was directed towards
lifting repression. In later Freud and in Klein, the emphasis
shifts to the analysis of the internal world as lived in the trans-
ference. In Bion’s model, the interplay between transference
and countertransference comes more to the fore. Here we see
an important process of development regarding how psychic
290 Reflections on Truth and Tradition

reality may be discerned and grasped. Freud originally viewed

the transference as a resistance to the analysis. Later he under-
stood it as the main tool of psychoanalysis. A similar change
occurred in relation to countertransference. Freud considered
countertransference phenomena only as an expression of the
analyst’s pathology. Understanding the power and concrete-
ness of projective identifications, the later generations realized
that countertransference gives us invaluable information about
the patient’s unconscious, and we have to watch the interplay
between the patient’s projections and our own reactions. We
extended Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty and the role of
the observer. It is not only that the presence of the observer
alters the field, but the impact of the field alters the observer’s
mind.
I chose to present in some detail the Freud/Klein/Bion
model because in all my experience I have found it to be the
most useful. However, it should be emphasized that implicit in
my notion of usefulness is awareness of the analytic aim and
method of truth. These three models are, in my view, most
clearly directed towards this aim and method. I think that they
are always at the back of my mind, making me more perceptive
to different kinds and levels of processes that exist in mental life.
They promote awareness of unexpected Beta elements as well
as an ability to see them more openly in the psychotic, and as
the patient progresses I can find myself functioning on a level
much nearer to that described by Freud and open to the kinds
of truth that he discloses.
When I speak of the Freud/Klein/Bion model, I must add
that I do not include in that Bion’s later work on transforma-
tions in O and becoming O, which have to do with a kind of
immediate union with what Bion refers to as the “thing-in-itself.”
This seems to me very mystical—a sudden illumination coming
from some unnameable O. It sounds too much like a transcen-
dental Truth, and therefore on two accounts is incongruent
with the Freud/Klein/Bion model to which I adhere: it stands
opposed both to the scientific perspective of psychoanalysis
that I have been describing, which relies on knowledge gained
through the gradual accumulation of clinical evidence, and to
the fundamental aim of psychoanalysis to bring about change
through gradually coming to know and withstand truth. Rather
 Hanna Segal 291

than speak of truth in terms of “illumination,” I prefer to use

as guidance something Bion, Rosenfeld, and I formulated: that
psychoanalysis shares the world-view of science, which has as
its aim to see life “as it is,” and that what is peculiar to psycho-
analysis is that in its scientific endeavor, in its steady pursuit of
truth, it is in itself restorative.
I stressed at the beginning that any reexamination or
overthrowing or change of the model requires validation, and
that mental sciences, like physical science, require a constant
evaluation. In the mental sciences, this task is harder because
the “facts” that are discovered are immaterial facts. They can
be observed, but cannot be weighed or measured. I think our
evaluation and testing ground is clinical experience. When I
speak of clinical experience, in this case I mean not only the
actual work in the consulting room, which is basic, but also the
supervision, seminars, group work, and, in particular, contact
and interchange with people working with other models by
means of which experiences can be examined and compared.
Through such encounters, we can validate or reject our hy-
potheses regarding the functioning of the mind. And through
such encounters we can also further elucidate the basic aims
and methods of psychoanalysis that define the analytic field, the
nature of its hypotheses, and their therapeutic value that distin-
guish it from other therapies and fields of scientific inquiry.
To come back to the terms of “truth” and “tradition,” what
I have been suggesting here is that we should always keep an
open mind about our models and be willing to expand and
modify them in the light of new evidence, new facts. If we fail
to do so, we submit to the tyranny of the past rather than to
truth. But at the same time, new truths, new facts, will have to be
considered against the background of our existing models, the
knowledge that has already been accumulated and formulated
in the available paradigms. These should be replaced only after
a serious and careful process of examination and validation. A
rebellious attitude towards our models—anything new is bet-
ter—is also tyranny of the past.
Here we see the contribution of tradition to the gradual
development of psychoanalytic thinking. Tradition also sets
limits in that it defines the object of our study and the nature
of the change towards which we aim in psychoanalysis. As I have
292 Reflections on Truth and Tradition

stressed, psychoanalysis is concerned with the mind, but specifi-

cally with psychic reality, with unconscious facets of the mind
and the discovery of the truth about them; it is concerned with
change, but specifically with change that occurs through truth
and the development of the capacity to withstand it. When we
come to modify our models, we will be guided by their contri-
bution to these concerns, to this search for truth that lies at
the heart of the psychoanalytic tradition. In my own experience
and evaluation, I see no need to reject the basic parameters of
setting and the psychoanalytic interaction in the transference
from the clinical model of Freud/Klein/Bion that is, in my
opinion, the one that leads to further progress towards the
truth for which psychoanalysis strives.
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References
King, Pearl, and Riccardo Steiner, eds. 1991. The Freud-Klein Controversies 1941–1945.
London: Routledge.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.