PSYCHOANALYSIS

In Volume 2 of the selected papers of Arnold D. Richards&rsquo, psychoanalytic contributions, his writings are infused with the notion that the impact of social dimensions is ubiquitous throughout the history and development of psychoanalysis. Each of the five sections of this volume bears witness to the manner in which thought collectives have contributed to and shaped the nature of psychoanalytic theory. Drawing from of the work of Ludwig Fleck, in Chapter 1, we see the application of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge (SSK) as applied to the creation and social transmission of psychoanalytic knowledge. In Chapter 2, Richards turns his attention to the creation of the Freudian thought collective. Chapter 3 informs a perspective on a professional organization and expands the SSK lens as it applies to the trials and troubles of a U.S. psychoanalytic thought collective. Chapter 4 offers a perspective on pluralism, paradigms and politics. The volume concludes with a chapter on the application of SSK to the internal and external organizational dynamics of the operation and management of a professional journal.In APsaA, there was no organizational support or precedent for cooperation among thought collectives. Richards began to envision a role for JAPA, after the delinkages and the lawsuit, of promoting a higher level of integration, rather than possible fragmentation and implosion. Like Fleck, Richards feels that intellectual competition is important for encouraging scientific progress, and that ideas are transformed as they circulate through different thought collectives. This brought him to the question