Loewald, Language, and Psychoanalysis: An Appreciation and A Critique

After elaborating the distinction between clinical theory and metapsychology in psychoanalysis, this essay turns to the work of Hans Loewald. Whereas Loewald’s importing of the existential themes of Heidegger’s Being and Time is a significant contribution to psychoanalytic clinical theory, he leaves the metapsychological language of Freud’s dual instinct theory essentially untouched.