I have thought more about Chris's statement: "I can't imagine what I could have
written to make you think I undervalue  psychoanalytic theory. I think you have
misunderstood, because I certainly do not have a 'negative attitude' to theory.
I have studied hard in my reading and discussion of the work of Freud, Klein,
Bion and others, and my supervision with Dr Segal certainly included
consideration of relevant theory."  Perhaps he misunderstood what I intended to
convey in referring to what seems to me his lack of interest in theory. I did
not mean he doesn't "value" it but that he doesn't appear to be interested in
theoretical debate. From my perspective, theories are attempts to answer
specific questions. An "interest" in theory from my view is an expressed concern
over the truth of competing answers. I don't recall Chris raising any such issue
in his contributions. In his last message he mentions a number of theorists
whose writings he values, but he doesn't mention points upon which they
disagreed which deserve scientific debate. The case of Mr. T which he so
beautifully described in one of his messages seems to me to raise theoretical
issues that were never fully explored in the resulting discussion. I found
Chris's further discussion of the case posted (by Eric Karas) in his last
message quite interesting and helpful. I am not sure at this point to what
extent Chris or other listmembers are interested in pursuing these issues since
Chris has left the list.

I also believe Chris's point about discussing theory apart from a clinical case
deserves discussion. As stated previously, many theoretical questions are
exemplified by so many clinical cases that it is not clear why it should be
useful to take up limited space describing the details of one example.
Eric Gillett, M.D.  [log in to unmask]