How U~iversalIs Psychoanalysis?

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dictum 'There is no such thing as a baby,'heaning that a baby cannot exist

without a mothering person."imultaneously, he develops a theory of transi-
tional objects (e.g., a security blanker) and transitional phenomena &at de-
tails the internalization of the mothering person, which allows the young
child to be separate and alone at times withouc experiencing a devastating
loneliness. This is anolher central value in individualism. Cansitional objects
are not nearly so much in evidence in Asian societies, where there is far more
symbiotic mothering and emotional enmeshment within the extended family
and less sense of a scparate individualistic self.7

Psychoanalysis and Asian Cultures

Given this kind of cultural baggage of individualism along with its assump-
tions of universalism, how has psychoanalysis approached understanding
tkrosc from radically diflerent cultures such as Asian ones? And what kinds
of problems are engendered by the use of a theory and therapy so steeped in
individualism? 1Co answer tttese quesrions, one would d o well to borrow a
leaf from anthropology, which has had decades of experience in investigating
different cultures. Anthropologists have interpreted these other cultures in
three essential ways, each with its own underlying premises: evolutionism,
universalism, and relativism.8 All three approaches are equally relevant ro
the small but increasing number of psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic an-
thropologists who themselves have worked in radically different cultures,
and also to psychoanatysts in the United States working with paricnts from
significantly t o radically different cultures. The theoretical dilemmas in-
volved in each of these three orientations will become readily apparent when
we consider the psychoanalyeic approach to Asian cultures, and they will
have to be resolved if a viable theoretical perspective is to emerge.
Evolutionism as applied to psychoanalysis posits definitive norms for
what healthy human nature should be and how it develops in contrast ro
psychopathology. These norms, which invariably constitute a contemporary
normative model of the Northern European/North American individual-
ized self as f o r m u l s d in currL.nt psychoanalytic theory, are assumed to bc
universal and superior. Hence others from cultures significantly or radically
different who do not measure up to this universal normative model are seen
as exhibiting inferior psycl~ologicaldevelopment or psYchupathofogy.
An example of the pitfalls of an evolutionist view of human nature is eas-
ily seen in Sudhir KLtkar's psychoanttlyt-;~work on Indians-a work that un-
fortunately undermines his many perceptive obsemtiorrs.%akar well rec-
ognizes that the Indians' psychological makeup is modally different from
that of Westerners, but he holds to the basic premise of evolutionism-that
&c theory of human nature in psychomaly~isis universally normative. By
subscribing to this normative approach, he invariably assesses Indian per-