Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 35:142–154, 2015

Copyright © Melvin Bornstein, Joseph Lichtenberg, Donald Silver

ISSN: 0735-1690 print/1940-9133 online
DOI: 10.1080/07351690.2014.974403

My Psychoanalytic Journey

Joan Coderch, M.D.

In this article I describe the evolution of my psychoanalytic thought and my current perspective of
psychoanalysis, after almost a half century of professional practice. For the most part, three ideas
have guided this evolution: (1) considering the patient’s mind as the major source of knowledge;
(2) my firm belief that the patient–analyst dialogue, taken from the Gadamerian point of view, is the
best way to have access to the patient’s mind and also to that of the analyst himself; and (3) the
notion that the mind constitutes an open, dynamic, and nonlinear system in constant interaction with
the environment that surrounds it. In my writings, I have tried to show that the therapeutic action in
the psychoanalytic process is formed by the therapist–patient interaction. I also propose that psycho-
analysis must endeavor to be a social therapy, even as it treats individuals, and go beyond what is
purely instinctual so as to emphasize what is particular to human beings and sets us apart from the
other animal species.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

I was born in 1930 in the province of Barcelona, and I’ve lived and worked in Barcelona my whole
life. My date of birth is a clear indication that I lived through the upheaval of the prewar stages
of the Spanish Civil War, of wartime itself, and of the aftermath of the war. These circumstances
are quite possibly the cause of a tendency in me toward skepticism. I am unwilling to believe too
quickly what I read or am told, and I am inclined to form my own opinions. Following the Civil
War, I was a victim—which is the best way I can put it—of the rigid education that was typical
of the initial stages of the Franco regime. Once I had completed secondary school, I began my
medical degree at the Central University of Barcelona.
While working toward my medical degree, I began as a volunteer psychiatrist at the Hospital
Clinic of Barcelona (a university hospital, and the only teaching hospital in existence in
all of Catalonia at the time). There, for the first time, I encountered the difficulties that
psychoanalysis—and, frequently, the psychoanalysts themselves—was up against here. I started
reading with great enthusiasm a highly valued treatise on psychiatry called El Nuevo Tratado
de Enfermedades Mentales (The New Treatise on Mental Illness; Bumke, 1946), the author of
which, Professor Oswald Bumke of the University of Munich, was considered one the most pres-
tigious authorities of his day. I consider this treatise to be an excellent work that provided me
with a solid knowledge of psychopathology that stood me in good stead. The book, however, had

Joan Coderch, M.D., is a member of the Spanish Psychoanalytical Society and emeritus Professor at University
Ramon Llull in Barcelona.
 MY PSYCHOANALYTIC JOURNEY 143

been edited during the Nazi regime, which is why the conclusive statement in the prologue read:
“Everything referring to psychoanalysis has been eliminated” (p. 5). Although, at the time, I had
yet to read Freud, I had the impression, from reading works for the general public, that behind
that magic word psychoanalysis there lay the study and profound knowledge of the human mind,
of character and personality traits, as well as a warm and welcoming way of listening to and
understanding the patient as a unique individual. This is what I found so appealing in working
with patients, and what led me to psychiatry. But when I read that bold sentence in the prologue
of Bumke´s treatise, I felt pain and disappointment. Nevertheless, I have the fondest memories of
his book because of what it taught me.
The monumental Patología General (General Pathology) written by the great German philoso-
pher and declared enemy of Nazism, Karl Jaspers (1955), a physician himself, was also
fundamental in my psychiatric training. But it wasn’t until I completed my medical degree and
was finally freed from the obligatory university courses and exams that I began to read and study
Freud.

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH PSYCHOANALYSIS

When I graduated from medical school in 1954, and for many years afterward in Spain, training
for physicians in the different specialties was not officially regulated. Physicians received training
in their chosen area of specialization by volunteering in the different departments of city hospitals
and working side-by-side with the recognized specialists in their field of interest. Thus, I began to
work in the department of psychiatry at the medical school of the University of Barcelona, then
chaired by Professor R. Sarró.
The general atmosphere in the department was of great interest for psychoanalysis, as was
even Prof. Sarró himself, who spoke fluent German. He had traveled in his youth to Vienna to
meet Freud and, following Freud´s advice, had had a short analysis with Helene Deutsch. Prof.
Sarró was at once very much inclined toward psychoanalysis and very critical of it. He used often
to say that the best of Freud was the early Freud, the author of the clinical cases, and not the later
Freud of meta-psychology. I don’t think that any of us knew what he meant by this. It was only
afterward that I understood his warning: The early Freud was the Freud of the theory of trauma
and of A Project for a Scientific Psychology (Freud, 1895), who was in contact with external
reality and with neurobiology.
Because bookstores were not well-stocked in psychoanalysis at that time, one also heard about
(but could not read) many other analysts such as Franz Alexander, notable for his Psiquiatría
Dinámica (Dynamic Psychiatry; 1957), Karen Horney, Harry Stack Sullivan, Erich Fromm,
Sandor Lorand, Sandor Ferenczi, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Stekel, and Michael Balint,
among others. The understanding of mental disorders in the department was totally psycho-
dynamic, and psychotherapy was considered the method of treatment, at least in theory. One
could say that the atmosphere was completely psychoanalytical without there actually being
a psychoanalyst amongst us. I cannot recall now the actual year, but there was, at some
point, a conference devoted to the discussion of Professor López Ibor’s book La Agonía del
Psicoanálisis (The Agony of Psychoanalysis; 1951). Prof. López Ibor was, at that time, the chair
of psychiatry at the University of Madrid. In 1958, the department organized the International
Conference on Psychotherapy that was held in the central building of the University of Barcelona.
144 JOAN CODERCH

Psychiatrists of notable prestige such as Minkowsky and Franz Alexander attended, as well as the
renowned psychotherapists Victor Frankl and Jacob L. Moreno, the latter creator of psychodrama.
Psychodrama enjoyed wide acceptance among us, and we applied it especially to the treatment
of alcoholism, which became, so to speak, the specialty at the department of psychiatry. It goes
almost without saying that the sessions of psychodrama always smacked of a psychodynamic
orientation.
In the meantime, although I felt a desire to begin my psychoanalytic training at the Sociedad
Luso Española de Psicoanálisis (The Portuguese-Spanish Society of Psychoanalysis),1 founded
in 1960, I had to postpone the satisfaction of my desires, due, to a great extent, to the economic
difficulties that the extraordinary expense of a long, personal analysis, course work, and supervi-
sion of the control analyses, which were all required to become an associate member, imposed.
In addition, I had married Nuria, a classmate of mine, in 1959, and I was already a father, with
all of the demands on my time and finances that being a husband and father involved. My dedi-
cation to psychiatry, in which I was now immersed, also made similar demands on me because,
after years of working mornings with no pay, I had achieved, through examination, the place of
adjunct professor of the department. I was then paid an insignificant salary that did not justify
my great devotion. Work on my doctoral thesis for the degree of Doctor in Medicine, which
I took in 1964, also contributed to my delay in beginning psychoanalytic training. On the other
hand, after achieving the place of adjunct professor, it was my ambition to continue my university
career, and I consequently put all of my efforts into the field of psychiatry. Later on, however,
when I was already in psychoanalytic training, Prof. Sarró retired, and was succeeded in the
department by a self-declared enemy of psychoanalysis and staunch supporter of the so-called
biological psychiatry. The hostility shown toward the psychodynamic attitude, or even psycho-
logical positions, made my staying on in the department impossible, and I resigned from my
position and gave up my university career. At a later date, I picked it up again at the Institut Vidal
i Barraquer, a part of the Ramon Llull University of Barcelona where I am, at present, a professor
emeritus.

MY ADMISSION AS A CANDIDATE

At the age of 36, a bit later than I would have liked, I finally began my personal analysis
with a training analyst, and was admitted as a candidate to the Institute of Psychoanalysis of
Barcelona, the training entity belonging to the aforementioned Portuguese-Spanish Society of
Psychoanalysis. The rules of this Society stipulated, however, that candidates could not attend the
seminars given on theory until two years of training analysis had been completed, and only with
the authorization of the training committee, which was made up exclusively of training members.
Candidates were not authorized to attend the Society´s scientific meetings until the training com-
mittee had authorized the candidate to begin his or her training cases under the supervision of
a training member. These analyses were called then control cases, a term that clearly shows the

1 Lateron, when I became a candidate, the Portuguese-Spanish Society of Psychanalysis split up and became the
Sociedad Española de Psicoanálisis or SEP (The Spanish Society of Psychoanalysis) in Barcelona, the Asociación
Psicoanalítica de Madrid or APM (The Psychoanalytic Association of Madrid) in Madrid, and the Sociedad Portuguesa
de Psicoanálisis (The Portuguese Society of Psychoanalysis) in Lisbon.
 MY PSYCHOANALYTIC JOURNEY 145

kind of training available at that time. Therefore, for two years the only contact that the candidate
had with the society was with his or her analyst.
When I was authorized to begin the seminars on theory, I began interacting with four or five
candidates, as well as with the analysts that directed the seminars. The other candidates were
approximately in the same stage of training as I was. This experience, as well as the readings
for the seminars, deeply disappointed me. My excitement about psychoanalysis had to do, and
still has to do today, with personal contact, that which in plain language I call “interest for that
which is human.” I think everyone understands this, but it is so exceedingly difficult to limit
it to a precise definition that I think it must be put into the category of the inexpressible. The
teachings that were given at the Society were totally and exclusively pertinent to the Kleinian
school of psychoanalysis in the strictest and most rigid sense of the word, and I was, from the
beginning, dissatisfied with this. In this Society, now the Spanish Psychoanalytic Society (SEP),
psychoanalysis and Kleinian theory were entirely and absolutely identified, and other approaches
and authors not belonging to the Kleinian school had no place there. I had the impression that,
according to this model, the human mind is a collection of drives, both hostile and libidinal,
that move around fused together or split off from one another, as well as powerful defenses that
are in play against these drives, all of which brings about intrapsychic conflict. Thus, all mental
disturbance is the result of this conflict and the patient is led entirely by these drives, defenses,
and conflicts with no personal freedom or ability to make decisions. External reality is not taken
into account, but is merely the stage where these drives are projected and discharged, and where
conflicts and symptoms are manifested. The work of the analyst, from this perspective, resides in
discovering and pointing out the patient’s hostile drives, rivalry, envy, and desire to impede the
help being offered. Given that the other candidates with whom I attended seminars seemed to be
in agreement with this perspective—although much later I found out that this was not, in fact,
so—and given that I did not find answers to my doubts, questionings, and bewilderment in my
personal analysis, I decided that the only option that remained for me was to learn as much as
I could about the theory I was being taught to be in the best possible position to form my own
opinion, and always with the hope of being able to encounter in this theory what, for the time
being, was elusive to me. In hindsight, I realize that, caught in my doubts, I often attempted to
persuade myself that my own limitations and pathology were responsible for my inability to iden-
tify with a theory with which no one else seemed to take issue. Furthermore, I encountered what I
could call a small circle of sympathetic supporters of psychoanalysis, made up of psychologists,
psychotherapists, and social workers who were deeply influenced by the authority and prestige of
this Society, which was part of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA), and so shared
those tenets.
At the time, now in the mid-1970s, there were no specialized journals, and bookstores were
not supplied with books dealing with psychoanalysis. I also did not have the money to buy
these books, even if they had been available. My first book, Psiquiatría Dinámica (Dynamic
Psychiatry; Coderch, 1975), was the result of my efforts at intellectual assimilation, and was
published shortly after I was admitted as an associate member to the Spanish Society and while
still in analysis. I refer to this book shortly.
I must also clarify that, with the passing of time, my gradual but progressive show of disagree-
ment with the Kleinian model was never an obstacle to my promotion to directive and training
positions within the SEP, where I was president from 1998 to 2000. I am grateful to everyone
146 JOAN CODERCH

who made that possible, and by making this statement publicly I honor both truth and the Spanish
saying, “Courtesy does not run contrary to courage.”

MY EVOLVING THOUGHTS REGARDING PSYCHOANALYSIS

Having described the circumstances surrounding my embarking upon a psychoanalytic career, I

think it is now time for me to focus more closely on my reflection of what has been the evolv-
ing process of my thoughts regarding psychoanalysis. Three guiding ideas have determined this
development. The first is my conviction that the mind of the patient is the best book an analyst has
to learn from, a conviction that has, nevertheless, not prevented me from devoting as much time
as possible to study. The second refers to my faith in dialogue, and here I follow Gadamer (1975,
Wahrheit und Methode), whose ideas I have applied to the analytic situation with the conviction
that the truth will emerge first in the patient–analyst dialogue before it issues from the interpreta-
tions that an analyst makes about a patient. The third has to do with my effort to transform every
analysis into a parallel self-analysis, following the old axiom that when an analyst cures a patient,
he cures himself.
I believe that my development as a psychoanalyst is clearly reflected in the six volumes that
I have published to date. I have never chosen the subjects of my books out of an interest for a
particular theme, but rather something, which would be long and complicated for me to describe
here, has always led me to try to concretize in my books a global perspective of psychoanalysis
that has, at different times in my lifetime, taken hold of my mind. On the other hand, and unlike
my books, the articles I have published in professional journals or nonprofessional publications
and communications I have delivered at conferences have been my response to the circumstances
at hand, and my interest for a particular subject. As many of my readers have pointed out to me,
the sequential reading of my books shows very clearly how my thoughts have evolved on the
subject of psychoanalysis and, for this reason, I recount what led me to write each and every one
of these books. In sum, my books are the expression of the development of my psychoanalytic
thinking.
I have just referred to my first book Psiquiatría Dinámica (Coderch, 1975). I wrote this book
when still a candidate and still in analysis. It was published shortly after I had been admitted
to the SEP as an associate member. I submerged myself, as I said, in the study of Kleinian the-
ory, linking it with the classical authors of psychoanalysis and with psychopathology seen from
the psychiatric perspective that I had become involved in during my psychiatric training, and in
my preparation to follow up on a university career as professor of psychiatry. I wrote this book
motivated by a desire to teach. At that time, in my university position I wanted the students of
psychiatry in the medical schools to have access to a text that would provide them with a psy-
chodynamic understanding of mental disorders, in addition to the classical psychopathology they
were being taught. Given that I left the university for the reasons I have mentioned, and consid-
ering that the official teaching of psychiatry did not take into account psychoanalytic thought, I
did not accomplish my purpose. On the other hand, in the now newly appearing departments of
psychology, my book was well received, and not only in Barcelona, but throughout Spain.
Following my immersion in Kleinian theory that the writing of Psiquiatría Dinámica
(Coderch, 1975) necessitated, my dissatisfaction increased slowly but steadily, albeit with the
inevitable doubts and hesitations that my official, totally Kleinian training had probably given
 MY PSYCHOANALYTIC JOURNEY 147

me. My attention and my concern were called especially to two points. One was the insistence
with which not only the SEP. but also psychoanalysis as it was taught throughout the world,
instructed candidates to avoid curing patients and, instead, to concern themselves only with ana-
lyzing them, with the expectation that this would be enough to remove their symptoms and
modify their personalities, thus warning them of the negative consequences of what has been
called furor curandis. The other referred to the evident situation of a broad demand for psy-
chological help by many different people and the young psychologists and psychiatrists without
sufficient training.
As concerns the first point, my clinical experience showed me the undeniable reality that
patients seek treatment to free themselves of their suffering, and not to get to know themselves
better through insight, and with that aim they spend their time and money. Consequently, due to
ethical imperatives, psychoanalysis has to be therapeutic first, and investigative only secondarily.
Nevertheless, in the field of psychoanalysis the concept of psychoanalysis as a form of investiga-
tion of the mind has always dominated and a desire to cure has always been seen as pertaining
to psychotherapy. This was what influenced me to write a manual about psychotherapeutic tech-
nique. My second point links in with my thoughts regarding the disproportion between available
analysts in Spain and the growing number of people in need of psychological help. This all crys-
tallized in the publication, in 1987, of my Teoría y Técnica de la Psicoterapia Psicoanalítica
(The Theory and Technique of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy; Coderch, 1987).
I have spoken sufficiently of my critical attitud towards the Kleinian approach in which I
myself was trained, which was grounded in my growing clinical experience, as well as in my
reflections and readings of scholarly works belonging to other approaches. At that time, however,
I had yet to sufficiently develop a well-structured and coherent theory and technique that could
become the spinal column of the book that I had just written. Nevertheless, two ideas had taken
root in my mind. One of these ideas was the conception of the patient–analyst relationship as
the basic therapeutic agent, far above the interpretation and the expected insight. My other idea,
linked with the first, was my conviction of the importance of external relationships in the forming
of the human mind and in modifications made to the mind. For that reason, I went in search
of a way of articulating these ideas with a theoretical argument that was sufficiently consistent
to support them and that, at the same time, would be found acceptable along general lines by
mainstream psychoanalysis. I chose the paper written by James Strachey (1934) on the vicious
neurotic circle and the mutative interpretation as my own basis. Strachey´s ideas were useful to
me in that they enabled me to offer my readers a theory and therapeutic technique that were
not fundamentally new, but in which my own ideas entered into play. Strachey describes the
neurotic vicious circle as the patient’s continual projection into the analyst of the archaic object,
followed by the introjection of the analyst transformed into that object, and this followed by a
new projection and new introjection and thus the vicious circle is invariably perpetuated. The
analyst´s interpretation, however, allows the patient to distinguish between the archaic object that
is projected. Following this there is a new projection of the archaic object, but now modified by
the interpretation. A new projection and a new interpretation allow the patient to differentiate the
therapist from the archaic object that has been projected, with the result being a new modification
of this object in the patient’s mind. This occurs successively until the neurotic vicious circle is
dissolved and the analyst has been introjected as a benevolent superego in substitution of the
patient’s primitive and cruel archaic object. This paper offers a reading that has not been taken
into account by mainstream psychoanalysis. This reading is based on two elements. The first is
148 JOAN CODERCH

that, according to Strachey, if the patient, in his communication, displaces an instinctual derivative
directed at the archaic object onto the analyst, this is because of the analyst´s tolerant attitude.
The second element is that, according again to Strachey, if the patient is able to differentiate the
analyst from the cruel and persecutory archaic object that he projects onto him, it is also thanks to
this image of tolerance and benevolence that the analyst offers. Strachey, on the other hand, does
not make reference to the fact that the interpretation be more or less accurate, from a semantic
point of view. It is to this differentiation between archaic object and the analyst that Strachey
attributes the greatest mutative” i.e., therapeutic, value. It is, therefore, clear that for Strachey
the style in which the analyst relates is what allows introjection of the good object and change.
It is true that Strachey also points out the danger that the patient identify the analyst with the
idealized good object, but one may legitimately deduce from the general idea that his paper gives
that this danger can be largely overcome by the attitude and analytic interpretation that separate
the former from the latter. It seems to me that, in this paper, Strachey clearly adopts a relational
position, and is, consequently, an author who grants great importance to the actual relationship.
In my book, I think that, despite apparently remaining within classical parameters, I was able to
consolidate the two basic ideas I referred to earlier: the relationship as the basic therapeutic agent
and the role of the analyst as a figure in external reality. I now refer to my present point of view
concerning the unending discussion concerning interpretation versus relationship.
For generations of analysts, interpretation has always been taken to be almost the only thera-
peutic instrument at the analyst´s disposal. Discussions concerning clinical cases presented have
always been focused predominantly on interpretations being adequate or not—that is, on whether
or not interpretations have centered on the internal world of the patient. Listening to analysts or
reading their papers, I became increasingly struck by how the word interpretation had taken on
a quasi-magical meaning, on the one hand, yet, on the other, it had an almost incomprehensi-
ble quality, of something almost ethereal and defying description and definition. Reading and
listening to discussions, it seemed to me that everything could be taken care of by interpreting.
Dialogues between psychoanalysts about clinical material have always focused predominantly
on what should be interpreted of the clinical material being presented. All incidents occurring in
the analysis must always be resolved through interpretation. This interpretative fever contrasts,
in my view, with the scarcity of papers, to say nothing of books, on the exclusive subject of the
theory of interpretation. My experience told me that, most notably among nonpsychoanalytically
trained psychotherapists, the ignorance regarding the concept of interpretation, its philosophical,
psychological, and linguistic fundaments, its place in history, its role in psychoanalytic therapy,
and the dangers it presents, was really exceptional. I also found it strange that any psychoanalytic
movement that proposed conferring greater importance to the patient–analyst relationship raised
serious alarm and warnings regarding the risks this proposition involved. Does this suppose that
all interpretations given by analysts throughout the world are true, correctly formulated, and
correctly timed—that is to say, interpretations that risk nothing? I believe that an erroneous inter-
pretation offered as entirely unquestionable could cause much more damage than an excessively
conventional and familiar analytic dialogue. In addition to this, there were several other reasons
that made me decide to write a book concerned with the psychoanalytic interpretation. One of
those was my wish to come to the rescue of extra-transference interpretations that at the time
were considered a waste of time and even harmful. My second reason was to show what I call
“the second function of the interpretation.” My third reason was finally to defend the analysand´s
freedom to do what he wishes with the interpretation. This was something that it seemed to
 MY PSYCHOANALYTIC JOURNEY 149

me nobody had thought about. These motivations impelled me forward to the publication in
1995 of La Interpretación en Psicoanálisis. Fundamentos y Teoría de la Técnica (Interpretation
in Psychoanalysis. The Fundament and Theory of Technique; Coderch, 1995). I now attempt to
more explicitly state what these three motivations are.
As far as the first point is concerned—the theoretical and technical validity of extra-
transference interpretations—I briefly expound upon only a few of the many ideas I have on this
subject, and which I bring to light. Extra-transference interpretations focus on the unconscious
fantasies that the analysand experiments in his relationship to people and to situations pertaining
to his external reality, and have nothing to do with offering advice, giving orders, or meddling in
the patient’s life. Transference must be considered universal and nonspecific to the analytic situa-
tion. Therefore, extra-transference interpretations must be understood as alternative transference
interpretations in which the analyst makes no explicit reference to himself. Transference in anal-
ysis, as in all human relationships, does not arise out of nothing, but rather it emerges from facts
that belong to the reality of human dealings. To think that the immensely complex internal world
of the patient, with all of its conflicts, anxieties, defenses, and experiences, will all appear in
the relationship with the analyst is an utterly unsustainable idealization of the analytic situation.
From this perspective, I felt it to be paramount to stress the need to interpret the fantasies, which
are stimulated by the relationships that the patient has with people in his external environment.
I also wanted to give forewarning of the risks of focusing exclusively on the transference directed
at the analyst. At this time in my life, with many years of professional activity behind me, I have
had the opportunity of seeing, on different occasions, patients who had no other memory of their
long analyses than that of endless and futile efforts to agree with their analyst, with no sense of
having reaped any benefit from their analytic experience.
Another of the ideas that I intended to express in my book concerns what I call the second
function of interpretation, a function that I considered even at the time to be more important than
the cognitive explanation. The second function of interpretation stems from the message that the
analyst transmits implicitly to the patient: I am listening to you. I am trying to understand you.
I speak to you with the idea of helping you. I am confident that you will be able to understand
me and use what I say. I believe that you are capable of improvement if you take what I tell you
seriously. I am interested in you, and so on. It surprised me to see that psychoanalytic papers
emphasized and discussed exclusively the semantic content of an interpretation, although more
recently this has begun to change.
Another one of the basic issues that I wanted to raise in my book was the patient’s free-
dom, as a human being, to deal with his analyst’s interpretations or with any other life situation.
I went into this subject in a manner far too lengthy and complex for me to do more here than just
make mention of it. For years I had been opposed to the widespread idea that, if the analyst’s
interpretations corresponded with the patient’s internal reality and were properly formulated
and well-timed, then the patient would experience mental change, and that if this change is not
achieved it is because the patient’s resistances prevent change. That is to say, from this view-
point, one supposes that the sole cause for the interpretation being refused, and for the change
the analyst would expect not taking place, is the patient’s pathology, with no allowance made for
the patient’s personal freedom. If one endorses this viewpoint then, paradoxically, one finds that
the very treatment—psychoanalysis—that was meant to make the patient free has eliminated the
patient’s freedom of choice and of thought, constraining him to the mental changes imposed upon
him by the analyst’s interpretations. This leads to the concept of mental determinism that I fought
150 JOAN CODERCH

against. The theses of Popper, expounded upon magnificently in his book The Open Universe: An
Argument for Indeterminism (1956), corroborates my ideas. Unfortunately, the staunch support-
ers of the belief that a good-enough interpretation brings about the mental change that the analyst
expects have neither been moved by Popper nor by my modest reasoning.
I have not shared in the tenets, concepts, theories, and techniques of the so-called traditional or
mainstream psychoanalysis (ego-psychology, strict Freudianism, the Kleinian or French school
of psychoanalysis) now since the closing years of the last century. This position of mine, in which
I feel firmly installed, is, I believe, the fruit of my long clinical experience, my personal reflection,
and my intense dedication to the study of the psychoanalytic literature. Well-aware of my age at
the beginning of the new century I felt that I should not delay the public expression of all of
my ideas regarding the theory and practice of psychoanalysis any longer, even knowing that they
would not be well received in the official psychoanalytic circles that reign in Barcelona and in
Spain. For that reason, my last three books have been published in closer succession than the
three preceding volumes.
In 2001, I published La Relación Paciente–Terapeuta (The Patient–Therapist Relationship;
Coderch, 2001). In this book, I discussed the repercussions of contemporary culture and sci-
ence on psychoanalytic thought in an attempt to weaken the blinkered and isolating attitude
of “everything is intrapsychic” that, in imitation of the Cartesian mind that rules it, psycho-
analysis imposed upon itself when it abandoned the theory of trauma in the now distant 1897,
with the adoption of the so-called endogenous fantasies that bear no relation to external real-
ity and have henceforth ruled psychoanalysis. In this book, I simultaneously emphasized the
fact that psychoanalysis is not the study of the individual psychology of the patient but, rather,
the psychology of the intersubjective field constituted by the encounter between two differently
organized subjectivities. I also proclaimed the decisive role of the new experience in a relation-
ship as a therapeutic agent. There is also another point that I was interested in pointing out in this
book. I have observed that in psychoanalytic literature, whether in the Spanish-speaking or in
the Anglo-Saxon world, no reference is made to the interesting developments in linguistics and
in the philosophy of language. In French psychoanalysis, Lacan’s (1953) structuralism was an
exception. He thought that the unconscious was structured like a language. I have never believed
this to be of aid in understanding the communication between patient and analyst, nor of help
in understanding the human mind. I think that time has shown me to be right. It is obvious that
structuralism, as a trend, faded out rapidly. Language is the human capacity that analysts make
use of, and it would appear that they have been using it as a guaranteed instrument of which
they need not know the fundamental characteristics. That’s why I thought it an absolute neces-
sity to present the ideas of authors such as John L. Austin (1962) and John Searle (1969), who
are of special interest to me because they represent the confirmation and the spreading of my
ideas regarding the second function of the interpretation of which I have just spoken. The phi-
losophy of language has shown, without a doubt, that words and propositions are acts. They are
acts of speech and, consequently, patient and analyst are acting uninterruptedly on one another.
There is also something else that helps one to understand the dynamics of the analytic situation
and which had found no place previously in psychoanalytic literature. It is present in the fact
that all propositions have a double structure: the propositional-constative element (also called the
semantic referential contents), of a theoretical representative character, and the performative ele-
ment (also called the pragmatic communicative contents). The propositional element designates
a state of things in reality, whereas the performative element shows the intentions of the speaker
 MY PSYCHOANALYTIC JOURNEY 151

who perceives things, notifies us, shows interest or lack of interest, expresses concern for or
indifference towards the other, show us the subjects that are of his interest, and so on. By use
of the former, every time the analyst speaks he explains to the patient the understanding he has
of his mind, and of the intersubjective field that has been created between the two. But through
the latter, he makes known his own personal style of expression, be it conscious or unconscious,
the type of relationship that he establishes, his way of understanding, his choice of some points
amongst everything that has been communicated to him, his warm or distant attitude, his state
of mind revealed through prosody, his degree of personal involvement or indifference, and (why
doubt it?) the psychoanalytic theories he uses in his work, all of which absolutely all patients can
perfectly perceive after just the first few months of beginning treatment. In the face of all of this
knowledge that analysts at present possess, what is left of the classical sentencing that analysis is
only talking, and that all acts are forbidden and the analyst only interprets what the patient com-
municates to him? I don’t think that this holds true anymore, even though mainstream analysis
insists on denying it. In my book I attempted to at least make my disciples and supervisees aware
of this.
The wish to foster dialogue between the different schools of psychoanalysis, on the one
hand, and dialogue between psychoanalysis and science, on the other, was the basic reason that
I published my fifth book, Pluralidad y Diálogo en Psicoanálisis (Plurality and Dialogue in
Psychoanalysis; Coderch, 2006). In this book, I expounded upon the undeniable reality that there
is no psychoanalysis but, rather, many psychoanalyses, which is, in my view, highly beneficial
for the study of the human mind and the freedom of thought. I also attempted to show interdisci-
plinary links between psychoanalysis, the philosophy of language, the theory of communication,
neuroscience, cognitive science, and scientific thinking in general. I furthermore attempted with
this book to satisfy the peremptory need to define the phenomenon of transference in accordance
with present knowledge, especially as concerns the existence of the procedural, nonrepressed
unconscious; the theory of communication; and procedural memory. In accord with these ideas,
I am pronouncedly opposed to the concept of transference as the exclusive repetition of the fan-
tasies experienced with the early objects of infancy. For me, “transference is the manner in which
the analysand organizes his experience of the analytic situation in accordance with the total num-
ber of past experiences he has had, whether conscious or unconscious, and independently of
whether or not the unconscious experiences proceed from the repressed unconscious or proceed
from the procedural nonrepressed unconscious” (Coderch, 2006, p. 179). The so-called therapeu-
tic alliance stems from an attitude of cooperation that can, in no circumstance, be seen separately
from the relationship as a whole.
In my sixth book, La Práctica de la Psicoterapia Relacional. El Modelo Interactivo en el
Campo del Psicoanálisis (The Practice of Relational Psychotherapy: The Interactive Model in the
Field of Psychoanalysis; Coderch, 2010), I spoke about the theoretical and practical fundaments
of psychotherapy and relational psychoanalysis.
In my seventh, and latest, book, La Práctica de la Psicoterapia Relacional II: Realidad,
Interacción y Cambio Psíquico (The Practice of Relational Psychoptherapy II: Reality,
Interaction and Psychic Change; Coderch, 2012), I reflected upon the need for a dialogue
between psychoanalysis and anthropology. As concerns the aims of psychic change, modify-
ing in my own way the Freudian axiom “where the id was there shall ego be” (Freud, 1923), I
stated that the aim of psychic change must be “where the most primitive and least evolved traits
152 JOAN CODERCH

of human mind once were must now be the most essential and elevated humanity—that which
separates man from pure animality” (2012, p. 202).

MY PRESENT DAY THOUGHTS

I believe that the development of my current thinking regarding psychoanalysis has been suf-
ficiently described now through my review of the reasons that led me to write my books and
what I wanted to show in them. Currently, what primarily motivates me is my conviction that
psychoanalysis cannot be an insignificant appendage of the sciences, whether human or natural-
empirical sciences, but that psychoanalysis also cannot sustain itself in concepts, hypotheses, and
theories which run contrary to culture, the sciences and facts and objectively demonstrated reali-
ties. Not taking this principle into account has caused psychoanalysis to lose the prestige it once
enjoyed, now sadly relegated to the contemporary social, cultural, and scientific context. I believe
that relational psychoanalysis is the result of the convergence of three factors that are related and
sustain each other: (1) the legacy left by the clinical experience of Ferenczi, Sullivan, Fairbairn,
Winnicott, Balint, Loewald, Kohut, Mitchell, and others; (2) the outcome of the contributions
psychoanalysis received from neuroscience, the cognitive sciences, the general theory of sys-
tems, linguistics, the philosophy of language, and anthropology; and (3) the comprehensive and
flexible recognition of anxieties, needs, and demands that predominate in the multicultural world
of today. The traditional interpretation versus the experience-of-relationship dispute is lacking in
meaning for me, given that all interpretations are an act of relatedness, and this is how the patient
experiences it, independently of its content.

A BRIEF PERSPECTIVE ON THE TEACHING OF PSYCHOANALYSIS IN SPAIN

A panoramic view of the situation of psychoanalysis in Spain offers very different perspectives
depending on where one directs one’sgaze. The almost absolute rejection in official circles and
on the part of the administration contrasts with the interest shown by specific segments of the
population such as psychologists, teachers, social workers, educators, and writers, as well as
some of the media. Consequently, events such as conferences, colloquia, round tables, etc., held
in nonofficial teaching institutions enjoy high attendance.
As far as the teaching of psychoanalysis is concerned, I think that one must distinguish
between the teaching guidelines of the IPA, which follows of course IPA norms, and the teaching
that is given in non-IPA centers and institutions. In Spain there are two psychoanalytic mem-
ber societies of the IPA that developed from the split that took place in the Portuguese-Spanish
Psychoanalytic Society. The oldest is the SEP, a direct descendent of the Portuguese-Spanish
Psychoanalytic Society. At a later date, a group of analysts living in Madrid decided to separate
from the SEP and became the APM. The SEP expanded to include now the Andalusia Group
(Seville), whereas the APM is now in Valencia and Bilbao
The analysts of the APM are, in my opinion a more varied group. Members of the ego psy-
chology, Kleinian, French, and Lacanian schools live side by side there. I am not familiar enough
with the APM to say more.
 MY PSYCHOANALYTIC JOURNEY 153

I believe that the training available in Spain under the auspices of the IPA suffers from
conservativism, idealization, rigidity, and a lack of curiosity about more modern approaches in
psychoanalysis, excepting rare occasions. I believe that there has been a lack, as I said earlier, of
interdisciplinary dialogue and openness to society in general.
Outside of the IPA, psychoanalysis in Spain is represented by random and disjointed groups
and associations. I think that the biggest group with the broadest nationwide diffusion is the
Spanish Section of the International Association of Psychoanalysis and Relational Psychotherapy
(IARPP). The Spanish section was founded only recently, but shows rapid growth and activity.
Annually, a national meeting is held, and in June and July of 2011 the 9th Annual Conference of
the IARPP was held in Madrid. In general, as its name indicates, this group brings together psy-
choanalysts and psychotherapists interested in abandoning the traditional Cartesian perspective of
the mind. What unites them is, on one hand, their interest in intersubjectivity and in the patient–
analyst interaction as the therapeutic agent, and, on the other hand, an opening up to external
reality and to an interdisciplinary dialogue. The Spanish section of the IARPP is not merely an
association of analysts and therapists. They also offer training to interested professionals.
There is yet another level of training in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy that is offered
in some university centers of private institutions such as, for example the Vidal i Barraquer
Institute in Barcelona, affiliated with the Ramon Llull University and the Catalan Association
of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

THE GOALS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

In conclusion, I add one more thing to what I have to say about the path that I think psychoanalysis
should follow to regain possession of its former prestige. I have already said that, theoretically and
in practice, I support the relational-interactive model and interdisciplinary dialogue. The meta-
psychology built on the model of science in Freud´s time is, nowadays, completely obsolete.
Drive theory has no more scientific basis. Psychic energy, thought to transport drives that can
be bound, come unbound, or remain free, does not exist. The nervous system is a processor of
information and is not a system directed at reducing tensions, and in psychoanalysis nowadays
the understanding of motivations has been displaced from drives to affects.
I believe that I should say something else regarding the aims and goals of psychoanalysis.
My understanding is that the aims of psychoanalysis have remained modest. Indeed, the capacity
to work, love, and enjoy life; the eradication of intrapsychic conflict; greater personal freedom;
the internalization of the functions of the analyst; the establishment of good relationships between
the self and the internal objects; etc. all of these aims are entirely desirable and legitimate. But
also, if we look closely, they are notably hedonist in character, and directed toward helping the
analysand to live more comfortably and more in peace with himself. I find missing in all of
this—and here I am speaking about psychoanalysis for professionals who will be transmitting
psychoanalysis and attempting to make an impact on culture and on society—a reference to what
are the essential values of humanity: the values that lie beyond the biological component that
we share with other living creatures. I cannot extend myself on this point, but in summary I am
speaking about essentially human values such as solidarity, compassion, social justice, altruism,
the ability to make sacrifices for the good of others, sincerity, love of the truth, of beauty and
of art. I do not think it is acceptable that a professional reach the end of an analysis of ten
154 JOAN CODERCH

or twelve years without these questions ever having been raised in the analytic dialogue. The
psychoanalysis of a professional must aspire to bringing the analysand close to his excellence as
a person so that psychoanalytic thought can exercise a therapeutic role for the whole of society.
I cannot extend myself more on this point, but I believe that the reader will perfectly understand
what I am referring to when I speak about the essentially human values that separate us from
pure animalism by ending this article with the marvelous words of Immanuel Kant in the last
paragraph of The Critique of Practical Reason (1788):
Two things fill the soul with always renewed and increasing wonder and admiration the oftener and
more deeply one’s thought is occupied with them: the starry sky above and the moral law within me.

REFERENCES

Alexander, F. (1957), Dynamic Psychiatry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Austin, J. (1962), How to Do Things With Words. Oxford, UK: Claredon Press.
Bumke, O. (1946), Nuevo Tratado de Enfermedades Mentales. Barcelona: Seix-Editor.
Coderch, J. (1975), Psiquiatría Dinámica. Barcelona: Herder.
—————. (1987), Teoría y Técnica de la Psicoterapia Psicoanalítica. Barcelona: Herder.
—————. (1995), La Interpretación en Psicoanálisis. Fundamentos y Teoría de la Técnica. Barcelona: Herder.
—————. (2001), La Relación Paciente–Terapeuta. Barcelona: Institut Vidal i Barraquer – Paidós.
—————. (2006), Pluralidad y Diálogo en Psicoanálisis. Barcelona: Herder.
—————. (2010), La práctica de la Psicoterapia Relacional. El Modelo Interactivo en el Campo del Psicoanálisis.
Madrid: Ágora Relacional.
—————. (2012), Realidad, Interacción y Cambio Psíquico. La Práctica de la Psicoterapia Relacional II. Madrid:
Ágora Relacional.
Freud, S. (1895), Proyecto Para una Psicología Científica [Project for a scientific psychology]. In: Obras Completas,
Buenos Aires: Amorrortu Editores (1978–1982), vol. 1.
—————. (1923), The ego and the id. Standard Edition, 19. London: Hogarth Press, 1961.
Gadamer, H.-G. (1975), Wahrheit und Methode [Truth and Method]. Tübingen: Mohr Verlag.
Jaspers, K. (1955), Psicopatología General. Buenos Aires: A. Bini i Cia.
Kant, I. (1788), The Critique of Practical Reason, trans. T. K. Abbott. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004.
Lacan, J. (1953), El Seminario. Los Escritos Técnicos de Freud [The Seminar: The Technical Writings of Freud].
Barcelona: Paidós, 1975.
López Ibor, J. J. (1951), La Agonía del Psicoanálisis. Madrid: Espasa Calpe.
Popper, K. (1956), El Universo Abierto [The Open Universe. An Argument for Indeterminism]. Madrid: Tecnos.
Searle, J. (1969), Speech Acts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Strachey, J. (1934), The nature of the therapeutic function of psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psychoanalysis,
15: 127–159.

C. Balmes 317, 1o-2a

Barcelona 08006, Spain
2897jcs@comb.cat
Copyright of Psychoanalytic Inquiry is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content
may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright
holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.