Wild analysis.

Abstract

Contemporary debates over psychoanalytic theory and practice warrant a reconsideration of the concept of wild analysis. Freud's initial formulation of the problem, subsequent developments in the Freudian conventions, and the work of Melanie Klein, Kohut, and Gill are compared in order to bring out different conceptions of interpretation that is wild, sound, or too tame. These different conceptions are system-bound. Moral implications of Klein's, Kohut's, and Gill's critiques and alternative systems are taken up.