The receptive mind. Too closed? Too open? Psychoanalytic reflections.

This paper is an expansion of a contribution to a Round Table on 'The Closed Mind', given at the last International Psychoanalytic Congress in Chicago, Illinois. Approaching the subject as an analyst rather than as an advocate, the author broadened the scope of the discussion to span from a mind too closed to one that may be too open, in fact the positives as well as the negatives of each position. Each can be adaptive as well as overdone. An analyst should have the capacity to embrace and contain valid new concepts, as well as the discriminatory ability to consider and reject others not valid or enduring or eligible to advance the field. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]