Commentary: Reflections On the Ways Pragmatic Philosophy and Interpersonal Psychoanalysis are “Related”

Where we come from impacts where we go—our origins orient our perspective. So by way of introduction, I would like to describe my intellectual “family of origin.” I am a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst trained at the William Alanson White Institute (WAWI). The White Institute was founded by the progenitors of the interpersonal psychoanalytic movement—Harry Stack Sullivan, Clara Thompson, Freida Fromm-Reichmann, and Erich Fromm. It is historically considered the center of interpersonal thinking. The White Institute is also analytic home to many of those who went on to become pioneers in relational psychoanalysis. The complex distinction between the interpersonal and relational perspectives is beyond the scope of this chapter, but the White Institute is a key contributor to the historical and contemporary ideas on which the authors of this volume comment (Ehrenberg, 2006; Frankel, 1998; Mitchell, 1999). My teachers and supervisors at White taught me to appreciate and take pride in the diversity of perspectives that exist within the interpersonal school—a sort of antidogmatic dogmatism. Thus, I won’t pretend to represent an “official” interpersonal stance (if such a thing exists). The ideas I express are my own although based on my experience as shaped by my training at White. In describing myself and one part of my interpersonal history (that of my training), I am also attempting to begin my comments by emphasizing a crucial aspect of interpersonal thinking—an attention to the details of the interpersonal particular.