Epistemology and Psychoanalysis: A Fruitful Relationship

Abstract

Bowlby may be viewed as one of the strongest exponents of the alternative psychoanalytic approach initiated by Ferenczi. His most important contributions are, on a theoretical level, to have potentially placed psychoanalysis onto a firm evolutionary basis, and, at a practical level, to have generated an enormous amount of empirical research. The main traits he shares with Ferenczi are independence of mind and the stress on a loving relationship in normal development and on real-life traumatic events in psychopathology. The similarities between them seem to be due to a convergence, or at the most to an indirect influence of Ferenczi, due to Bowlby's associations with Melanie Klein and the British Middle Group. As regards the specific issue of real-life experience, although Bowlby acknowledges Ferenczi's priority, he seems to have arrived at this concept independently.