General Psychoanalytic Field Theory: Its Structure and Applications to Psychoanalytic Perspectives

Abstract

This article provides a survey and discussion of several field concepts in use in current psychoanalytic theory and practice. These kinds of fields and related psychoanalytic concepts are relational, interpersonal, and intersubjective fields- self-object matrixes; concepts of thirdness; the analytic situation as described by Donnet (2001); the fields implicit in Faimberg's (2005) listening to listening; and the fields described by the Barangers (M. Baranger and Baranger, 2008). Psychoanalytic perspectives that operate without explicit use of fields are described as employing them implicitly. As can be seen from this list, there is not only a multiperspectival, but also an international emergent psychoanalytic concept to be found in fields. This article also develops a generalized notion of psychoanalytic field. Existing forms of fields are shown to be special cases of general psychoanalytic fields. The generalized psychoanalytic field structure forges links between psychoanalytic perspectives. In this way, a nonpositivistic, nonreductionist structure is created that can situate all perspectives within general field theory. General field theory reverses the common belief that psychoanalytic perspectives have run amok in the tower of Babel. Instead, it opens up the potential for viewing psychoanalytic perspectives as in a common boat, ever being constructed at sea, as are other scientific pursuits.