Psychoanalysis: Perspectives on Thought Collectives

In Volume 2 of the selected papers of Arnold D. Richards psychoanalytic contributions his writings are infused with the notion that the impact of social dimensions is ubiquitous throughout the history and development of psychoanalysis. Each of the five sections of this volume bears witness to the manner in which thought collectives have contributed to and shaped the nature of psychoanalytic theory. Drawing from of the work of Ludwig Fleck in Chapter 1 we see the application of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) as applied to the creation and social transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge. In Chapter 2 Richards turns his attention to the creation of the Freudian thought collective. Chapter 3 informs a perspective on a professional organization and expands the SSK lens as it applies to the trials and troubles of a U.S. psychoanalytic thought collective. Chapter 4 offers a perspective on pluralism paradigms and politics. The volume concludes with a chapter on the application of SSK to the internal and external organizational dynamics of the operation and management of a professional journal.In APsaA there was no organizational support or precedent for cooperation among thought collectives. Richards began to envision a role for JAPA after the delinkages and the lawsuit of promoting a higher level of integration rather than possible fragmentation and implosion. Like Fleck Richards feels that intellectual competition is important for encouraging scientific progress and that ideas are transformed as they circulate through different thought collectives. This brought him to the question: How can a journal strengthen and nurture its thought collective? This remains an urgent problem in the fields history of fragmentation and schism. Richards affirms that the health of a science depends on free communication within it and its benefits to the world depends largely on its communication beyond its own borders. Volume 2 of the selected papers of Arnold D. Richards closes as it opens. Throughout this his work he applies the broader bio-psycho- socio/cultural approach of psychoanalytic theory. This approach is not an eclectic common ground perspective nor even an attempt to structure a total composite psychoanalytic theory. Instead Richards addresses the social dimensions upon which psychoanalysis was found built and grew to its modern form. Drawing from of the work of Ludwig Fleck by applying key constructs from the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) he continuously bears witness to the manner in which thought collectives have contributed to and shaped the nature organization and findings of psychoanalytic theory through history.