I want to thank Andrew for his willingness to engage in a dialogue.  When I was
writing my book on the problem of orthodox rigidity in psychoanalysis, John Gedo
gave me permission to quote the following from his letter of 12/9/87: "There is
room for improvement (as in the Soviet Union?) but the obstacle to 'perestroika'
is a matter of inertia.  Let us, by all means, thunder against abuses--but we
can only damage the cause of reform if we accuse individuals of ill-will,
dereliction of duty, or other sins."  John Gedo is extemely well informed on the
resistance to new ideas in psychoanalysis, and his metaphor of the Soviet Union
is well chosen.  It supports my "fear of retaliation hypothesis" as a major
factor contributing to the well-documented (see my Letter to the Editor, 1992,
JAPA 1232-5) inhibition of scientific debate in pychoanalysis.  It is remarkable
that the threat to cherished career goals can result in something like a
totalitarian state maintained in the midst of a democratic society.  Andrew
claims, "The analytic community did not criticize Masson at the stage at which
he was still reading his papers around in the community not out of any
suppression of desire to or other unwillingness to criticize, but because many
analysts openly admired what he was writing!"  This does not square with Janet
Malcolm's description of events prior to the publicity Masson obtained from the
New York Times.  Nor does Andrew's explanation account for ignoring Milton
Klein's very scholarly 1980 paper.  It is a sad commentary on psychoanalysis
that the help of the New York Times must be enlisted to make scholarly debate
possible.  It seems obvious that analysts were initially unable to answer
Masson's charges, not from lack of personal experience and knowledge, but
because doing so would violate a long-established taboo on open discussion of
this issue.  I am not really concerned whether it was Freud's fault.  Andrew
says of Masson, "Later, when he published his whole story in Assault ... and it
became clear how bad his work had been, the community was not remotely shy about
trying to pin his hide to the wall."  In this statement Andrew directly
challenges my thesis that analysts are afraid to discuss new heretical ideas and
will do so only if such ideas form the basis for a new school (e.g. Kohut) which
cannot be ignored by the establishment.  However, Andrew offers no explanation
for the documented failure of analysts to discuss Milton Klein's papers on this
issue or the failure of analysts to discuss the new ideas proposed by eminent
analysts referred to in my 1992 Letter to the Editor.  I look forward to reading
Person, E. and Klar, H. 1994. Establishing Trauma: The difficulty distinguishing
between memories and fantasies. JAPA 42/4 1055-80 and hope Andrew will read
Simon's (1992 JAPA 955-988) detailed history of the incest issue.  Simon says,
"There is a split, at the least a conflicted mixture of opinions and feelings,
within psychoanalysis on how the real world and internal world of the person,
the patient, interact" which confirms Andrew's point on the relevance of psychic
reality to this issue. Simon concludes, "We are at risk for error not only in
regard to incest, but in regard to many other areas of psychoanalysis because,
as a field, we have still not implemented basic procedures for establishing
reliability and validity in those areas where they are attainable."  I have a
question that I hope Andrew will try to answer: From the statement that when "it
became clear how bad his work had been, the community was not remotely shy about
trying to pin his hide to the wall" can I logically infer that "the community"
is unable to discover any flaws in my ideas?  Is Andrew claiming that
psychoanalysts are only willing to discuss "bad work"?  If so, how are new and
better ideas ever to succeed in finding a place in psychoanalysis?
Eric Gillett, M.D.   [log in to unmask]