From the Words of My Mouth: Tradition in Psychotherapy - Tapa dura

"Tradition" often conjures up ideas of conservatism and dogmatism, yet all that is radical, new or creative can only arise out of what has gone before. The contributors to this book, themselves practising therapists or teachers, are concerned to explore what the idea of tradition means in the practice of psychotherapy. They investigate how knowledge, understanding and skills are passed from one generation to the next, asking themselves questions such as "when I work with patients or teach students, in whose name do I speak?". The writers respond in a number of different ways - by wondering how a "culture" of psychoanalytic thinking can be passed on from teachers to students or by considering how Freud's relationship to his Jewish heritage affected his creation of psychoanalysis or by examining the idea of tradition in the thought of Freud, Jung and Winnicott or by arguing that psychotherapy is best thought of as a version of "scepticism".