BOOK SECTION

PSYCHOANALYSIS,

SCIENTIFIC RIETHOD, i ROBERT

WAELLIER,
PH.D.

AND PHILOSOPHY

A Symposium on this subject was held at New York University under the
chairmanship of Sidney Hook, on Rfarch 28-29, 1958, and the proceedings are
now available in book form. Most of the participants in the Symposium were
philosophers, while a few came from psychology, sociology, and other dis-
ciplines. Psychoanalysis was represented by Heinz Hartmann, Lawrence
Kubie, Abram Kardiner, and Jacob Arlow.
T h e Symposium was opened with a paper by Hartmann on Psycho-
analysis As a Scientific Theory in which the subject was treated in general
terms and special attention was given to metapsychology. Hartmanns paper
deserves careful discussion by psychoanalysts, but most of the participants
in the Symposium could neither know nor appreciate the nature of the experi-
ence upon which his remarks were based.
Kubie enumerated the difficulties which stand in the way of exact formu-
lations in psychoanalysis; these range from exclusive dependence on auditory
data to the questionable justification for inevitable quantitative pictures of
mental life, or to the difficulty of measuring these alleged quantities. Against
these liabilities Kubie placed the assets of the analytic situation and of the
rule of free associations.
Arlow, whose contribution came later in the proceedings, had by that
time discovered that familiarity with the elements of the psychoanalytic
method could not be taken for granted; his approach was therefore simpler
and more didactic. He tried to show that psychoanalysis is not an esoteric

PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC M E T H O D , A N D PHILOSOPHY. A Sym.

posium edited by Sidney Hook. New York: New York University Press, 1959;
xiv + 3f0 pp., S5.00.

617
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cult but that psychoanalytic therapy is a meticulously painstaking investiga-

tion into human mental processes.
Kardiner developed his thesis, already presented by him o n other
occasions, that the social scientists exclude man from their operational frame
of reference while the Freudians go about complacently with the conviction
that they d o not need concern themselves with the cultural environment, or
settling for the lip service that, of course, the environment must be taken into
account, when the fact is that there is no technique for so doing. From him
we also hear that Anna Freud rediscovered the adaptive devices described
by her father in 1900, but which since that time had enjoyed a position that
was extraterritorial to the theory. Freud. so Kardiner thinks, grappled with
[the) problem-bequeathed to him by Adler-for many years a n d did not
succeed, viz., the problem of developing a theory including both the environ-
ment a n d the human unit. Freud did not succeed because he could not
tear himself away from the triumphs of the libido theory. H e therefore left
a libido psychology a n d a n ego psychology. T h i s is a n incredibly confusing
situation.
Thus, Freudian psychology is i n a kind of solipsistic prison from which
Kardiner has shown the way out. A sociologist, Ernest van d e n Haag (New
York University), elegantly discharged the task of putting things straight
again. His paper is a model of lucid analysis.

1Kardiners paper contains more misunderstandings of Freuds position than

are dealt with by van den Haag. Kardiner writes: Psychoanalysis is responsible for
the fiction, promulgated largely by Freud, that culture is predominantly restrictive;
the reverse is true. It is predominantly directive. Freud never suggested that culture
is predominantly restrictive; it is difficult to think of a proposition more alien
to the feeling of a man who, as Victor von Weitsaecker puts it, was so firmly rooted
in the soil of high intellectual culture and civil order (16, p. 65). It is true that in
Freuds writings the restrictive aspect of culture is more amply discussed than the
directive aspect; but that is due to the fact that Freuds writings deal mostly with
psycho pa tho lo^, i.e., with maladjustments rather than with successful adjustments.
\$henever Freud speaks of the situation as a whole, his words leave no room for
Kardiners interpretation, as when he says about the process of evolution of cul-
ture: We owe to that process the best of what we have become as well as a good
part of what we suffer from (6, p. 286).
.
In another passage, Kardiner states: . . the latency period was looked upon
as a recapitulation of the ice age. Nowadays, one does not regard underivriting
Lamarck as an excusable or amusing foible. Freud never suggested that the
latency period is a recapitulation of the ice age-whatever that may mean. IVhat
he did suggest was that the bichronid onset of sexuality and the long delay of
sexual maturation which it implied-an exclusive trait of the human species-
might have developed during the glaaal period. It is true that Freud saw such
possible development in Lamarckian terms, i.e., through acquired characteristics
being transmitted by inheritance, but this point is not important because the
hypothesis can just as well be expressed in terms of mutations and natural selection.
In general, the fact that Freud believed in the inheritance of acquired char-
acteristics (as did everybody else in the second half of the nineteenth century.
including Chnrles Damin), a fact at prescnt often mentioned as an argument
against Freud and against psychoanalysis, is not relevant for an evaluation of

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC AIETIIOD, PHILOSOPHY 619

In the further proceedings, Morris Lazerowitz (Department of Philosophy,

Smith College) attempted a kind of pathoanalysis of two philosophers, Spinoza
and Bradley, trying to infer from their philosophical theories the unconscious
processes i n the minds of their founders. Such attempts are, of course, neces-
s,arily conjectural. In this case, they brought forth the most vigorous protests
from most of Professor Lazerowitz's colleagues, a n d a defense from =me.
Various views, mostly antagonistic to psychoanalysis-some violently 50"-
were voiccd in the discussion. Near the end, John Hospers (Department of
Philosophy, Brooklyn College) replied to some .of the most glaring misunder-
standings of psychoanalysis.
T h i s Symposium offers us a n opportunity to discuss some of the problems
a t stake, such as: what are the essentials of psychoanalysis as distinguished from
minor points of little relevance? Arc psychoanalytic interpretations a n d
theories unproved speculations? Are psychoanalytic concepts based on circular
reasoning?

T h e Essentials of Ps)'choanalysis

It is well known that Newton casually

allowed God a hand in the solar sys-
tem to repair certain irregularities that
h e thought cumulative. Among people
who know little else about Newton.
this is, indeed, altogether too well
known, considering what a trivial
point i t was, a n d how irrelevant for
the structure of his physics.
-CIrmLEs COULSTON GILLISPIE
T h e Edge of Objectivity, p. 145
In speaking of psychoanalysis or Freudian doctrine, one can distinguish be-
tween different parts which have different degrees of relevance. First, there
are the data of observation. The psychoanalyst learns many facts about his
patient which other people, as a rule, will not get to know. Among them are
facts of conscious life which people are not eager to relate to others, not

psychosnalysis because no important psychoanalytic theory or hypothesis depends

on this assumption.
I t is also interesting to note that Kardiner. like many others, takcs extremely
dichotomous positions in the psychological and the evolutionist aspects of the
ancient nature-nurture controversy. In psychology. he attacks Freud for allegedly
having attributed to the environment a merely inhibiting instead of a directive
role; in the theory of evolution, on the other hand, he attacks Freud for having
attributed to the environment a directive role instead of the merely elective one
that twentieth-century geneticists are allowing for.
2Two samples may show the tone: (1) . . philosophy transcends [psychoanal-
..
I'.

ysis] as the ocean transcends a dishpan. ."-Donald C. IYilliams (Department of

Philosophy, Hamard University). (2) ". . . Freudian doctrine . . . provides a lan-
guage to say silly things in an impressive way. . ."-Charles Frankel (Department
of Philosophy, Columbia University).

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even to psychological interviewers, or about which they do not care to tell

the truth, or the whole truth, o r of which they do not usually think but
which will occur to them and which they will relate in the psychoanalytic
interview because of its peculiar climate mixed of relaxation and discipline,
of intimacy and personal aloofness. To this, one must add the things which
are not conscious or preconscious but can send derivatives into consciousness
under the conditions of the psychoanalytic situation. T h e psychoanalyst
learns not only about all such data but also about the configurations in which
they appear. All these form what may be called the level of observation.
These data are then made the subject of interpretation regarding their
interconnections and their relationships with other behavior or conscious
content. This is the level of clinical interpretation.
From groups of data and their interpretations, generalizations have been
made, leading to statements regarding a particular type such as, e.g., a sex,
an age group, a psychopathological symptom, a mental or emotional disease,
a character type, the impact of a particular family constellation, or of any
particular experience, and the like. This is the level of clinical generalizations.
T h e clinical interpretations permit the formulation of certain theoretical
concepts whidi are either implicit in the interpretations or to whidi the
interpretations may lead, such as repression, defense, return of the repressed,
regression, etc. This is the level of clinical theory.
Beyond the clinical concepts there is, without sharp boundaries, a more
abstract kind of concept such as cathexis, psychic energy, Eros, death instinct.
Here we reach the level of metapsychology.
Finally. Freud, like other thinkers, had his own philosophy, his way of
looking at the world, and he was more articulate than many in expressing it.
His philosophy was, in the main, the philosophy of positivism, and a faith in
the possibility of human betterment through Reason-a faith which in his
later life, in consequence of his psychoanalytic experience, became greatly
qualified though not altogether abandoned. This may be called the level of
Freuds philosophy.
These levels are not of equal importance for psychoanalysis. T h e first
two, the data of observation and the clinical interpretations, are entirely indis-
pensable, not only for the practice of psychoanalysis but for any degree of
understanding of it. Clinical generalizations follow at close range. Clinical
theory is necessary too, though perhaps not in the same degree. A person
may understand a situation, symptom, or dream with little knowledge of
clinical theory, and while this would certainly not be enough for a prac-
ticing analyst, one would yet have to recognize that such a person has a
considerable measure of understanding of psychoanalysis.
hfetapsychology, however, is far less necessary, and some of the best
analysts I have known knew next to nothing about it. These are the kinds
of hypotheses about which Freud said that they are not the bottom but the
top of the whole structure [of science], and they can be replaced and dis-
carded without damaging it (4, p. 77).

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PSYCIIOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC METHOD, PHILOSOPIIY 62 1

Freud's philosophy is largely a matter of his time and has little bearing
on psychoanalysis. Interpretations and theories can be accepted by men who
hold entirely different philosophies; at most, they might request an occasional
change in the choice of words.
I do not see what difference it makes for the understanding or the skill
of a psychoanalyst whether he is an atheist like Freud and believes that the
reality which is accessible to our senses is the only reality that exists, or at
least the only reality that matters for us, or believes that beyond the world
with which we are in contact through our senses there are other realities
which may yet be important for our destiny. Neither position can be proved;
which one we hold is largely a matter of temperament. T h e first position is
taken by those who feel that one should not believe what one cannot prove
and should be resigned to living with ignorance; the latter position is pre-
ferred by those who feel that a decision about absolute values is implicit i n
the conduct of our lives, that anything absolute points toward transcending
realities, and that we may as well recognize in thinking what we cannot help
taking for granted i n our actions. I n Kantian language, the first group follows
the counsel of pure, the second that of practical, Reason.
Similarly, I do not see why it should make much difference whether or
not a psychoanalyst believes in progress-its possibility or its inevitability-
through Reason. Those who do will still have to acknowledge the fact that
the enlargement of consciousness through psychoanalysis is not therapeutically
effectivein all pathological conditions, and in certain instances may even be
harmful, and those who do not believe in it will have to acknowledge that
enlargement of consciousness is the royal road of treatment in the classical
psychoneuroses.
T h e degree to which these various layers in psychoanalytic writings are
known to the outside world are in inverse ratio to their relevance for psycho-
analysis. Outsiders often know something about Freud's philosophical writ-
ings-his ideas about religion, about the scientific view of the world, or about
civilization and morality in general. This is due to the fact that Freud's
philosophical writings deal with matters that are familiar to the general
reader and do not require for their understanding any experience to which
the outsider is not privy.
Next, the outsider will often know something about the speculative con-
cepts on the fringes of psychoanalytic theory-about Eros and Thanatos,
about psychic energies, about the difference between free and bound energy.
These concepts, different from Freud's philosophical thought. do refer to
psychoanalytic experience and derive from it their claims for acceptance: they
can therefore not be properly judged without a knowledge of this basis. But
i t is possible to take them as merely referring to common experience. and
in this sense they can be discussed, albeit inadequately, without special psy-
choanalytic knowledge.
There is much less general knowledge of clinical theory. Some of its terms

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622 BOOK SECXION

--like instinct, repression. defense, sublimation-are generally known b u t

almost always misundcrstood.3
Finally, the outsider knows next to nothing about psychoanalytic in-
terpretations as they are actually given by competent analysts, or has a com-
pletely distorted picture of them. And hc has no knoivledgc whatsoever of the
psychoanalytic data; as a rule, h e does not quite believe that the psycho-
analysts have a substantial body of data of tlicir own. H e suspccts that psydio-
analytic interpretations a n d theories are based o n nothing more than the
kind of facts that are available to everybody.
Understandably enough, the critic of psychoanalysis is inclined to discuss
those matters with d i i c h he has a measure of acquaintance, such as Freuds
philosophy or the more abstract concepts of theory, a n d to shun the discus-
sion of observations in analysis and their interpretation. I would recommend
to psychoanalysts who enter into a discussion of psychoanalysis with outsiders
that they should urge the discussion to concentrate on psychoanalytic data
and their interpretation rather than on theoretical matters: a simple neurotic
symptom, c.g., its interpretation, the facts which have led to this interpreta-
tion, a n d the consequences of communicating it to a patient.4 T h e critic
should b e asked to state where, in his vicw, the conclusions of the psycho-
analyst are unwarranted, a n d what alternative explanations he could suggest.
Such discussion could b e fruitful. T h e opponent of psychoanalysis will prob-
ably steer away as soon as possible from the data with which h e is not familiar
a n d return to generalities about which i t is easier to sermonize. T h e psycho-
analyst cannot prevent this from happening, b u t he can make i t somewhat
less easy for his opponent.
T h e Ugly Duckling
Perhaps there is always a danger that
i t will impoverish inquiry to elevate
the logic of existing science into pre-
cepts of method.
-CIIARLES COULSTON GILLISPIE
T h e Edge of Objectivity, p. 218
T h e r e was much discussion whether psychoanalysis could be called scientific
or whether i t was a candidate for future scientific status with something like
3 For a list of the most common misunderstandings of psychoanalytic concepts,
see JVaelder (14, p. 252ff.).
4 1 must confess, however, that my own esperience in this matter is not too
encouraging. I once tried to prescnt such an example in great detail-a neurotic
symptom in a three-year-old child which was treated in slafu nascendi by the
analyst mother; evcry step was reported and the rationale of every interpretation
was discussed in the light of possible alternate interpretations (11, Chapter VI).
Although this piece was published in German in 1936. and in English in 1937, and
countless articles about the arbitrariness of psychoanalytic interpretations have been
written in the meantime. not a single author, to my knowledge, has taken the pains
to deal with this presentation and to do what one should espect in science: either
to show the flaws in the argument or else to accept its conclusions.

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC AIETHOD, PIiILOSOPHy 623

a learners permit-a protoscience-or xrhether it \$,as like limore

nology, chiropractic Or Christian Science (Sidney Hook, Department of

Philosophy. New York University). Several speakers felt that psychoanalytic
theories were sufficiently ambiguous So that any kind of experience could be
taken as confirming them and that psychoanalysts had not supplied adequate
evidence for their theories wherever they are unambiguous. The first kind
of criticism will be taken up later in these pages.
T h e cvidence that psychoanalysts are asked to supply should consist of
experiments or adequate statistics, undertaken on the material of sense per-
ceptions; no allowance is being made for the kind of reasoning that lye all
apply in historical matters, or for the data of introspection or empathy. The
condemnation of psychoanalysis for the failure to apply such evidence ranged
from the fairly urbane indictment by Ernest Nagel (Department of Philoso-
phy, Columbia university) that the verdict is not proven, to consider-
ably less urbane statements like that by AIicliael Scriven (Department of
Philosophy, Swarthmore College): As a set of hypotheses [psychoanalysis]
was a great achievement fifty years ago; as no more than a set of hypotheses
it is a great disgrace today. This contributor seemed to advocate legal or
other action against the practice of psychoanalysis; after pointing out that
experimental design in this area is difficult but far from . . impossible .
he stated that we have the resources, the need and the absolute moral
obligation to execute such cxperimcnts before encouraging or condoning the
further practice of psychoanalysis (italics mine).
Against verbal assault of this kind, the defenders of psychoanalysis took
two positions: they either tried to point out that evidence of the kind re-
quested by the critics did, in fact, exist, but was very complex and therefore
difficult to present to the public in full: or they argued that psychoanalysis
was still a young science; when given more time, such evidence would
eventually be forthcoming.
Before entering into consideration of this issue, a digression on exactitude
in science may be permitted5 T h e so-called exact sciences, particularly physics
and chemistry, have been able to make quantitative predictions of a high
degree of accuracy, and this intellectual achievement-apart from any ques
tion of practical application-has rightly been the marvel of the modern
world. It means no diminution for the genius of the great men who built
the edifice of the exact sciences to reflect on the conditions which have made
this exactness possible. It seems to me that there are four conditions pre-
requisite for such exactness:
1. I n order to be able to provide exact proof, the events which we study
must be contemporary; they must happen riglit here and now, and they
must be repeated over and over again, either spontaneously like the move-
ments of the stars, or they must be capable of being repeated at will. IVhen-
5The following argument is substantially the same t h a t I presented a t the
Pancl on Validation of Psychoanalytic Theory, held at the Midwinter hleeting
of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 1954 (2. p. 493).

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624 BOOK SECTION

ever the object of our study lies in the past-of the universe as in cosmology,
of the earth as in geology, of animal life as in palaeontology, of human events
as in archaeology and history, of a n individual life as in the rules of evidence
in a case of law-the direct evidence cannot be supplied. All that we have
is some form of indirect, or circumstantial, evidence.
I n the natural sciences, the theory of evolution through natural selection
is a case in point. It is generally looked upon as a scientific theory, and as
one of the major scientific achievements of modern time. Yet, direct evidence
can only be said to exist for very small evolutionary changes due to the dif-
ferential survival of micromutations; eg., the change from a strain of rabbits
that is almost always killed by myxomatosis to a strain that is fairly resistant
to it; or the daily dianges of micro-organisms in response to the introduction
of antibiotics. But there is, of course, no such evidence for macromutations
and megamutations with which the theory of evolution stands and falls.
Charles Singer, the great historian of science, once commented on this
situation as follows: Evolution is perhaps unique among major scientific
theories in that the appeal for its acceptance is not that there is any evidence
for it but that any other proposed interpretation of the data is wholly in-
credible (10, p. 487).
But is evolution really unique in this respect? On what else do we base
our belief that there lived, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,
a seafarer named Christopher Columbus who wanted to find a IVestern sea
route to the Jndies, was commissioned for his journey by Ferdinand of Ara-
gon and Isabella of Castile, and discovered America in the process? All this
rests on reports of various kinds, and reports can be mistaken or mendacious;
no reproduction of the events is possible. But we accept these reports as true
in their main outline-after having subjected them to exacting criticism
according to what the historians call the historic method-because it is
enormously unlikely that so many reports from different and apparently
independent sources should fit so well together unless they all derived from
the same real events; i n short, we accept the story of Columbus because any
other proposed interpretation of the data is wholly incredible. T h e same is
true when the criminal investigator tries to reconstruct a crime on the basis
of confessions, testimony of witnesses, o r circumstantial evidence, o r a com-
bination of them; we are satisfied that this reconstruction is correct when
any alternate interpretation is utterly incredible.
This consideration is also the basis for the deciphering of a x r i p t - o r
indeed for the very assumption that certain frequently recurrent designs on
stone, or clay, or parchment are characters of a script and not, eg., mere
decorations-for the deciphering of an enemy code, or the reconstruction of
an ancient, forgotten language. These are all historical interpretations be-
cause what is reconstructed is the meaning of a sign for those who put i t
there, or how an andent people spoke. There is no complete evidence that
this was so; we cannot conjure it up and listen. I t might all be a delusion,
a vast edifice of interlocking errors-except for the fact that the reconstruc-

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC AIETIIOD, PIIILOSOPIIY 625

tions fit a n enormous mass of data from many sources and that the proba-
bility of this all being a matter of coincidence is so infinitesimal as to be
negligible.
This was the consideration on which Bleuler, nearly half a century ago,
based his defense of psychoanalysis, and it is not without interest to note fiat
not one speaker in this Symposium referred to Bleulers book (1). I t was also
in view of this consideration that Alfred Stanton said, in the Panel on this
subject, held at the American Psychoanalytic Association meeting in 1934,
that the psychoanalytic method is closer to the deciphering of the hieroglyphs
than to laboratory investigations.
T o sum it up: what Singer considered a unique feature of the theory
of evolution-viz., that the appeal for its acceptance rests on the fact that
any othcr explanation of the data is wholly incredible-is true of all histori-
cal statements, and the thcory of evolution falls into this category because it
is an attempt to reconstruct the past of living organisms, hence a historical
theory.
Yet, we cannot do without statements about the past: it is unimaginable
what our lives would be like if we would no longer consider any statements
about the past as trustworthy. Our lives would become wholly unlivable, and
I have tried on another occasion to shorr that all statements in the exact
sciences depend at some point on the possibility of making accurate assump-
tions about the past (14, p. 16ff.).
2. I n order to be able to make esact statements about cause-effect rela-
tionships, it is necessary that the variables of a subject be loosely coupled
(15, p. 1256), so that it is possible to study the effect of a single variable
alone, o r at least to study.not more than two or three variables at a time.
JVhere the variables are very Closely coupled, so that whenever one variable
changes, a host of others change simultaneously, conclusive evidence as to
cause and effect is very difficult to come by, as is the case in all biological
sciences.
3. Then there is a special case of this factor which deserves special
attention. It must be possible to assume that the subject matter under study
does not significantly change during the investigation, i.e., that nature is
holding still long enough for the examination to be finished. If this is not
the case, we are faced with a new unknown in our material.
This condition is not always mct in the study of living organisms; e.g.. a
virus may change its virulence quickly. I n our own field, the living patient
before us is changing constantly. The psychoneuroses seem to have changed
since the early days of psychoanalysis, with simple and rather transparent
cases of grande hystirie retreating from sophisticated urban quarters and
being reported from backwaters only; and, in general, with repression, the
simple form of defense, giving way to more complicated mechanisms.
This point is of particular importance whenever evidence would re-
quire very time-consuming research. Not only may programs of this kind

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626 BOOK SECTION

be impractical, they may be theoretically unsound because we have no right

to assume that the world does not evolve in the meantime.
4. Finally, very exact answers to questions can often be given if the
subjects with which we deal are very small in relation to ourselves and to all
things that matter to us. I n that case, what we care about practically is not
what happens to these small individual units but merely what happens to
large aggregates of them. I n this case, probability considerations may give us
all the information we need.
All these conditions prevail in physics and chemistry, and they con-
tribute to making these disciplines as admirably exact as they are. They do
not exist in many other disciplines, particularly not in the biological and
social sciences. T h e physicist deals only with contemporary, reproducible
events. There are questions which can be asked about the past of a physical
system--e.g., the past of the surface of the earth-but the disciplines that ask
such questions are no longer called physics. T h e physicist keeps his record of
exactitude clean simply by relegating such questions to other disciplines.
T h e coupling of variables in the subject matter of physics is happily
loose. And the possibility of historical change can be neglected in inanimate
nature; the laws of gravitation and the gravitational constant are apparently
the same today as they were at the time of Ptolemy. If inanimate things
should change their characteristics at all, there is every reason to assume that
the change is too slow to be noticeable in historical time. As has already been
pointed out, this assumption cannot be made for living matter.
Finally, those events in which we have a practical stake involve large
agglomerations of particles, and statistical treatment is therefore adequate for
our needs. I n the latter respect, the exactitude of physics as compared with
that of other disciplines rests again not on the actual power of foresight but
on the nature of the questions asked. Physics shows up so much better than,
say, medicine, because simpler questions are presented to it.
Let us consider a person who has survived a heart attack. IVorried rela-
tives ask the physician how long the patient can be expected to live. T h e
physician will often reply that he cannot tell, that the patients life expectancy
is shorter than that of unamicted persons of the same age, but that this is
a statistical, or probability, statement which allows no simple conclusions for
an individual case; this particular patient may die soon or may live for
another twenty years or even more. Thereupon, the patients relatives may
leave the doctors office, thinking that medicine is not yet a n exact science;
in fact, the doctor may have said that much apologetically himself.
Yet the doctor has actually predicted as much as the physicist if we
compare, as we must, individual units with individual units, and populations
with populations. Had the physicist been asked what will happen to a n indi-
vidual electron within a small period of timc-e.g., whether it will go to a .
higher or lower energy level within the atom, capturing or emitting a ray-
he could not have answered. If the electron could feel and think, it might
be disappointed by the physicists failure to answer what it wished to know;

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC METHOD, PHILOSOPHY 627

perhaps it would not think much of physics as a science. And if, on the other
hand, we do not ask about individual human beings and their prognosis but
merely about the destiny of large populations-as is actually the case, e.g., in
epidemiology or insurance medicine-the answers that can be given are often
quite exact.
It is, of course, different with the matters with which psychoanalysis
deals. Our subject matter lies partly in the past-the life history of a person.
Even when we deal with contemporary events it is often a matter of deal-
ing with the recent past-e.g., an anxiety attack just before the hour, a dream
of last night, a family quarrel over the week end-and in this sense historical.
All variables are closely interrelated; we have no chance of observing the
change of one without the simultaneous change of many others. Our subject
is clianging while we are working with him, is maturing or declining, and is
assimilating experience in the process of living. We are definitely interested
in an individual and his destiny and not content with statistical answers.
For all these reasons, the prospects of exactness are not too good.
I n their efforts to justify psychoanalysis in terms of the standards of the
exact sciences, psychoanalysts often make claims for the possibility of pre-
diction in psychoanalysis which do not seem well founded to me. For example,
Arloiv gave as an instance of prediction his experience with a patient whose
meticulously detailed answers to questions in the initial interview permitted
him to predict that certain other characteristics, such as monetary acquisi-
tiveness and a particular emphasis on cleanliness, would also be present. This
is certainly true, but it is not the kind of prediction that those who consider
prediction the touchstone of science have in mind. For what Arlow has done
was to infer from the observation of certain symptoms of the obsessive-com-
pulsivc character the existence of other traits of this type. I t is the same as
if a doctor made a diagnosis on the basis of some symptoms and now felt
certain that other, as yet unobserved, symptoms of the disease would be there,
too. Ex zrngue leonern-you can tell the lion from the claw; if the hunter
in the jungle sees a lions paw through the foliage, he can predict that the
lions body will be there, too. But what we mean by prediction in science
is more than that: it is not only that certain features always occur together,
so that from the existence of some we can infer the existence of others, but
that we are able to foresee future changes of the situation: or, in medical
language, that we have prognosis and not merely diagnosis.
The power of prediction, in this sense, is actually not very great in
psychoanalysis and is not likely ever to become very great, for reasons which
were pointed out by Freud (3, p. 167):G our ignorance of the quantitative
factor which makes it impossiblc to predict the outcome in the case of conflict.
I suggested on an earlier occasion (12) that behavior can bc predicted in
either of the following extreme conditions: if it is wholly or predominantly
determined by unconscious drives and primitive mechanisms, with little or
GSee also Anna Freud (3), and my discussion of her paper (13).

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G28 BOOK SECTION

no influence from reality factors (as. eg., the possibility of predicting that a
paranoiac who has been hospitalized will soon include the hospital staff in
his paranoid system); or, on the contrary, if behavior is wholly or predomi-
nantly determined by the requirements of the situation with little or no
influence from other sources (as, c.g., the possibility of predicting that a man
will endorse his pay check before, or when, presenting it to his bank for
deposit). In both cases, there has been a diminution in the number of
effective variables. TVithout such diminution, it is alleged, prediction is not
feasible. This formulation is equivalent with the implications of Freuds above-
mentioned views.
I have discussed at some length the advantages that are enjoyed by
physics and chemistry. But not all the advantages are on one side, nor all
the disadvantages on the other. There is another aspect of the matter, which
has not yet been touched upon. T h e kind of evidence that I have so far
considered and that psychoanalysis has been asked by its critics to supply is
exclusively outside evidence, i.e., evidence of the kind required for statements
about atoms and molecules and physical matters in general. It overlooks the
fact that we have one source of knowledge about psychic events that is com-
pletely lacking in matters of the physical world, viz., introspection and its
equivalent in the observation of other human beings, which, for the pur-
poses of this discussion, I propose to call ernpathy.7
It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to prove by mere outside evidence
even so simple a statement as this: John is deeply in love with hlary. I t is
desperately difficult to find clear criteria to distinguish deep love from more
shallow relationships, or from make-believe, or self-deception. But is it really
necessary? Are introspection and empathy not sources of information too,
not infallible, to be sure, but not negligible either? And if the very tight
coupling of many variables and the fact that we are vitally interested not
only in the statistical behavior of large aggregates but in the behavior of
individual entities-if these conditions are disadvantages in our discipline
as compared with physics and chemistry, one must hold against them the great
advantage, not enjoyed by the latter sciences, that we know much about our
subject through introspection and empathy, a source not open to the physi-
cist or the chemist.
T h e story of the ugly duckling is well known. Other ducks called him
ugly and looked down on him until it turned out that .he was not a misfit
of a duckling but a specimen of another. beautiful kind of bird, a swan.
Psychoanalysis, largely, though by no means entirely, a matter of introspec-
tion and empathy, is treated as though it were a purely physicalistic dis-

7 1 am, of course, aware of the fact that there are various theories about the
nature and origin of o u r knowledge about the inner life of another person: it would
lead far afield to try to discuss the merits of these various theories at this point,
and I am using the term emputhy merely to indicate the insight into the thou,
without prejudice with regard to any theory of how it is brought about.

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC AIETIIOD, PHILOSOPHY 629

cipline, and scolded and berated for its deficiencies as such. It is time to
understand that the ugly duckling is not a duckling at all.
T h e interpretations offered by the psychoanalyst to his patient point
out inner connections that can be fully experienced. Of course, any indi-
vidual interpretation that is suggested in the course of an analysis may or
may not be correct; the paticnt may or may not accept it, and his acceptance
or rejection may be caused by realistic estimates or by emotional prejudices.
But as analysis proceeds, mistaken interpretations will gradually wither aivay,
inaccurate or incomplete interpretations will gradually be amended or com-
pleted, and emotional prejudices of the patient will gradually be overcome.
I n a successful analysis, the pzitient eventually becomes aware of the pre-
viously unconscious elements in his neurosis: he can fully feel and experi-
ence how his neurotic symptoms grew out of the conflicts of which he is now
conscious; and he can fully feel and experience how facing u p to these con-
flicts dispels the symptoms and, as Freud put it, transforms neurotic suffering
into everyday misery; and how flinching will bring the symptoms back again.
There are patients who, at a late stage of their analysis or after its termina-
tion, can virtually make and unmake their previous symptoms a t will.
These conditions are obviously dificult to envisage for those who have
never experienced them, either in themselves or in the close observation of
others; hence the clamor for a proof that would be convincing for fhern,
too, without experience of this kind.
T h e speakers in the Symposium, as laymen in general, talked of cure
of a neurosis in the sense in which a n attack of common cold is cured: all
symptoms of the disease disappear. There are cures of this kind in psycho-
analysis, particularly in the case of those who can work out a completely
satisfactory solution of their conflicts. But in many instances, cure is not
a completely stable equilibrium; it needs eternal vigilance, like freedom. T h e
new equilibrium is more like that of a high Gothic structure, needing con-
stant repair, than like that of a Roman basilica. T h e symptoms will recur or
threaten to recur, but the patient has learned to deal with them through
self-analysis.
A person of great intelligence and sound judgment, with little formal
schooling, who had undergone analytic treatment for a psychoneurosis (anx-
iety hysteria) m o t e about eight months after termination of his analysis:
.
It is not easy adjusting to independence. . . However, with a great deal
of effort, I have been able to arrive at a degree of self-honesty that eliminates
the anxiety I occasionally feel threatened by. This is a beautiful account
of the situation; symptoms threaten again. but this graduate of analysis is
able each time to solve them by self-analysis, so that the threatening symptoms
are dissipated again.
IVhenever a psychoanalyst is satisfied that he has untied the Gordian
knot of a neurosis and has correctly understood its dynamics and its psycho-
genesis, his confidence is based on two kinds of data. one of outside observa-
tion of events, the other of the patients self-observation. T h e first is the experi-

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630 BOOK SECTION

ence. repeated countless times during thc workingthrough period of the

analysis and again countless times during the pcrsons later life, that this par-
ticular interpretation, or set of interpretations, and no other, can dispel the
symptoms when they reappear, that they alone are the key that opens the lock;
because particularly in the inore serious neurosis of long standing, successful
analytic therapy often does not bring about an ideal cure in the sense of
our utopian dcsires, a traceless disappearance of disturbances without any
price to be paid for it, but rather the ability to conqucr them and to maintain
a good, though contrived rather than stable, balance by vigilance and effort.
Then, as is well described in the above-quoted words of a former patient,
there is an inncr experience; what had been unconscious can now be con-
sciously felt. To be sure, it is not always immediately available but can be
felt if a real effort is made.
I t is interesting and noteworthy that the only practitioner of an exact
science who participated in this Symposium, the physicist Percy JV. Bridg-
man (Harvard University), was also the only one among the nonanalytic
speakers who had a clear realization of the role of inner experience in psy-
choanalysis. . . . some of thc features, he said in a very brief but meaty
comment, which distinguish psychoanalysis from other disciplines can be
explained by the prominent role that introspection plays. This role is funda-
mental, because without the introspectional report that the analyst is able
to draw from the patient some of the basic concepts of the analyst are merely
.
verbal constructs. . .
I t has been my experience of several decades that the kind of opposition
to psychoanalysis which was voiced in this Symposium comes more often
from the philosophers of science than from scientists who have themselves
done research work in one of the exact sciences (14, p. 6ff.). I n part, this is
due to the fact that the scientists are more aware of the uncertainties in their
own field than outsiders, as a rule, are. But it is also comforting to see that
practicing scientists often have the imagination to realize, from a great dis-
tance, the nature of the problems in another field.

Heads Z Win, Tails You Lose

Several speakers in this Symposium contended that psychoanalytic theory is 50

vague and ambiguous that whatever the facts may be, the psychoanalyst can
always, by some twist, claim them as a corroboration of his theory.
These ideas about psychoanalysis seem to be based partly on the concept
of overcompensation, or reaction formation, and partly on the concept of
rcsistance. Since it is possible, according to psychoanalytic theory, that a
reaction formation against an instinctual drive has taken place-eg., solici-
tude for every living creaturc as a reaction formation against cruelty-the
analyst can now. so our critics think, attribute both aggressiveness and kind-
ness to the aggressive drives, the former as a direct expression, the latter as
an overcompensation, and claim that his theory of aggressive drives is cor-

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC METHOD, PHILOSOPHY 63 1

roborated if he meets with savagery or if he meets with kindness-in fact

by any kind of behavior.
Since the idea of compensation is not limited to psychoanalysis, this
argument is rather widely applicable. There is, for example, the theory of
immunity, according to which an organism that has gone through a n infec-
tious disease thereby often acquires immunity against it. Applying the a r p -
ment of our critics, we might say that this is circular reasoning, too; for if a
person falls ill, one can attribute it to invasion by a parasitic organism, and
if he does not fall ill, one can attribute it to immunity acquired in conse-
quence of such an invasion. If this is not the same argument, I wish to be
shown the difference. The critic, in both instances, attach a grotesque dis-
tortion of what the theory in question actually says.
I n quite the same way, these critics seem to think, the psychoanalyst
emluates the response of his patient to his interpretations. If the patient
accepts the interpretations offered by his analyst, the analyst will consider
them thereby proved; if the patient rejects them, the analyst will take this
as resistance and will in turn claim that the resistance proves his interpreta-
tions to be correct. Life is thus very simple for an analyst: his ground rules
are: heads I win, tails you lose.
#I , #Tt hine argument
ho
probably stems from Freuds statement that there is no
the unconscious; it is, of course, spurious. It is not true that in
psychoanalysis, both acceptance and rejection of an interpretation are taken
as corroborations. On the contrary, neither the acceptance nor the rejection
of an interpretation by the patient indicates that the interpretation is or is
not correct. Freud expressed himself on this point without any ambiguity,
and since the myth of self-serving circular reasoning has a tenacious life, a
full quotation of Freuds statement on this point may be made.8
A plain Yes from a patient is by no means unambiguous. It can
indeed signify that he recognizes the correctness of the construction that
has been presented to him: but it can also be meaningless, or can even
deserve to be described as hypocritical, since it may be convenient for
his resistance to make use of an assent in such circumstances in order to
prolong the concealment of a truth that has not been discovered. T h e
Yes has no value unless it is followed by indirect confirmations, unless
the patient, immediately after his Yes, produces new memories which
complete and extend the construction. Only in such an event do we
consider that the Yes has dealt completely with the subject under
discussion.
A No from a person in analysis is no more unambiguous than a
Yes, and is indeed of even less value. I n some rare cases i t turns out
to be the expression of a legitimate dissent. Far more frequently i t
expresses a resistance which may have been evoked by the subject-matter
of the construction that has been put fonvard but which may just as
easily have arisen from some other factor in the complex analytic situa-
8 The quoted statement deals with constructions, i.e.. historical interpretations
with a considerable element of mnjectural restoration of lacunae of memory: but
the words apply just as well to all kinds of interpretation.

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632 BOOK SECIION

tion. Thus, a patients No is no evidence of the correctness of a con-

struction, though it is perfectly compatible with it [7, p. 364f.l.
Sidney Hook contributed a new ornament to the old argument. His
point of departure was the proposition that in empirical science as different
from dogmatic revelation, it must be possible to state, for every hypothesis,
what kind of observations would, if they were made, disprove the hypothesis.
This proposition is, of course, undiallengeable. For instance, we be-
lieve that procreation in mammals depends on the fertilization of the egg
by the sperm; but a clearly established case of parthenogenesis would show
that the sperm is not an absolutely necessary condition and the statement
would have to be discarded or qualified. Since every empirical theory is based
on a set of observations ( A ) , the observation of ( n o d ) would disprove the
theory. It does not matter how unlikely (non-A) may be; all that matters is
that it is thinkable; if no set of observations is thinkable that would disprove
a proposition, what we have is not a scientific theory but a prejudice or a
paranoid system.
By this test, psychoanalytic theories can easily qualify as empirical
theories. In any individual analysis, the hypotheses which are formed in earlier
stages of the analysis are often disproved and almost always modified in the
further courses of events as more and more facts become known. General
theories that have been distilled from countless theories about individual
cases could all be disproved by the appearance of appropriate material: e.g.,
the theory that repression, or an equivalent mechanism, is a conditio sine
qua non of psychoneurosis would be disproved by presenting a case of hys-
teria, phobia, or obsessional neurosis in which, as far as can be determined,
all inner conflicts have never ceased to be fully accessible to consciousness
and no repression of any part or aspect of them can be detected.
T h e new version of the old argument is Sidney Hooks attempt, un-
successfully pursued for thirty years, to test the empirical basis of psycho-
analysis in the case of the theory of the oedipus complex. Suspecting all along
that it was really a case of a priori dogmatism, Hook asked a number of
psychoanalysts to describe what kind of evidence they were prepared to
accept which would lead them to declare in any specific case that a child
did not have an oedipus complex. Unfortunately, the way the question
was put did not make it sufficiently clear what Professor Hook was after and
so it led to nothing.
What Hook had in mind with his question was to determine whether a
basic psychoanalytic theory was based on empirical data or was a dogma (or,
perhaps, to show it u p as a dogma); and since he obviously believes that there
is a psychoanalytic theory according to which all children have an oedipus
complex, he asked his question as quoted. But this is a quite inaccurate
account of the psychoanalytic position. JVhat psychoanalytic theory actually
claims is that, in a developmental scheme, the oedipus complex belongs to
the highest and latest stage of childhood sexuality. Developmental schemes

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC METHOD, PHILOSOPHY 633

are ideal types of development (Idealtypen--hfax Iveber); i.e., it is not im-

plied that all individuals must go through all stages. Thus there may be
individuals who do not reach the highest stage of development, i.e., indi-
viduals whose development is abortive. That, in turn, implies, not that there
is no individual that has not reached the oedipus complex, but rather that
any such individual will be severely retarded in other characteristics of his
development as well, sexual, social, and intellectual.
T h e prospect of arriving at mutual understanding in such a conversa-
tion is at best not too promising; there is always a difficulty of communication
between philosophers interested in the logical structure of a theory and
scholars o r clinicians interested in facts and probable facts. TVhen the philoso-
pher asks: are conditions thinkable that would disprove )'our theories? the
clinician is likely to hear: is there any reasonable chance that such conditions
will be encountered?
To this difficulty was now added a further source of misunderstanding,
because, as Professor Hook's question was worded, it was not clear that the
issue at stake was the logical structure of psychoanalytic theory-whether
empirically based or donmatically revealed-rather than the material correct-
ness of the theory of the oedipus complex or the range of the oedipus com-
plex-whether or not well proved, whether or not ubiquitous.
If anybody wishes to examine the empirical character of psychoanalytic
theory in this area, he may choose to examine the theory regarding the develop-
mental implications of the oedipus complex; in this case he may ask psycho-
analysts the following question: is it thinkable to you that a person could be
found who had not gone through a n oedipus complex in his childhood and
had yet grown into a fairly normal adult, sexually, socially, and intellectually?
Put this way, the interviewed psychoanalyst would probably reply that he did
not care risking a penny on that chance, but that it was, of course, capable of
being imagined.
Absence of any oedipus complex in childhood would mean one of these
things: either (a) genital sensations and fantasies were entirely absent; or (b)
if present, they were completely objectless, autoerotic; or (c) if attached to
objects, they were never directed to parents or other persons who took care
of the child but were directed exclusively to the child's contemporaries (or,
it may be mentioned for the sake of completeness of alternatives, to children
still younger). These are the three logical possibilities of a child's not having
an oedipus complex. As evidence that this was the case, I am prepared to
accept the say-so of a competent child analyst (I can supply a list of persons
acceptable to me)s who has had the child under constant analytic observation

0 IVe cannot, of course. acccpt as expert testimony statements made by persons

who have no training in the field, who do not know the techniques of how to get
children to express themselves, and do not know how to be alert to signs and how
to evaluate them; just as cardiologists will not accept as valid diagnosis the state-
ments about a patient's condition made by his medically untrained friends on the
basis of usual observation in social situations. It would not seem necessary to em-

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634 BOOK SECTION

and who reports that no signs of genital impulses or fantasies directed toward
those taking care of the child could be detected. I would, of course, attach
less weight to the report that something has not been found than to reports
that it has been; the fact that no organic cause of a pathological condition
can be detected in extensive clinical and laboratory investigations is significant
but not conclusive proof that such organic causes do not exist. One would
therefore have to have the report on more than one case before wondering
too much about it.

Two Gems
IVhat has been reported so far is not entirely new in the history of the aca-
demic reactions to psychoanalysis. But some views were put forth in the
Symposium that were new to me.
I n the past, psychoanalytic ideas have been denounced as untrue or un-
proved; they have even been called a clear case of a paranoid system. But in
all such criticism, the existence of a psychoanalytic theory, however unfounded,
erroneous, or abstruse, was nevertheless recognized. However, in the present
Symposium, one speaker declared that there was no content a t all in psycho-
analytic theory but that its statements were meaningless verbiage, a mere
matter of linguistic redundancy. It was Donald C . IVilliams who made this
discovery:
T h e fault [of psychoanalysis] is not that its terms are metaphorical,
nor that they are abstract, nor that their objects are unobservable, nor
even that, like phlogiston, they happen to have no object-all these
may be healthy traits of live science and philosophy. T h e fault is that
they are not intended to sfand for any actual entities at all, but for such
powers, potentialities, principles, virtues, essences, or entelechies as IVil-
liam James called contentless entities and as Comte relegated to the
.
metaphysical stage of thought. . . T h e psychoanalytic explanation
either of behavior or of consciousness by impulses. repressions, traumas,
complexes, compulsions, ids, libidos, and the play of mental forces,
rather than by imaginable neural or spiritual realities, is like the apocry-
phal Scholastics e x p h a t i o n of a clocks behauior by an essence of
horadicify rather than by wheels and springs. Since the sole real content
of this sort of theoretic conception is exhausted in the evidence that
provoked its formulation. it explains the behavioral or conscious events
only, a t best, by summarizing them .. .
[italics mine].
Critical examination of the content and the implications of scientific con-
cepts is an important thing and the investigation of linguistic pitfalls is a
part of it. If Professor IVilliams had aimed his criticism at some concepts of
ego psychology-those of ego functions-he may have scored a point because
these concepts of functions are at least potentially teleological, like homeo-

phasize the obvious were it not for the fact that one of the members of this Sym-
posium boldly declared that an unprejudiced observation of the behavior of chil-
dren who are not judged idiotic ..
. will show that the oedipal phase is far from
being universal.

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PSYCHOANALYSIS, SCIENTIFIC METHOD. PHILOSOPHY 635

stasis. If one were to take them as explanatory rather than desaiptive and
were. for example, to think that creativity can be explained by attributing it
to the ego, or that delusions can be explained as being due to the breakdown
of the function of reality testing, he would do something analogous to
Aristotles explanation of maturation of animal and plant as the realization of
an inherent form, or entelechy. and would thus take a tautological formula-
tion for a n explanation (14, p. 171). But neither Freud nor any of his major
disciples have, to my knowledge, ever been guilty of such a practice.10
But Professor IVilliams does not just aim a t the pitfalls of teleological
concepts in ego psychology. H e seems to think that all psychoanalytic concepts,
such as libido and repression, have no content and are purely scholastic, and
he includes in his condemnation even an old medical term (trauma) and a n
old psychiatric term (compulsion), apparently assuming that they are psycho-
analytic inventions. Thus, the interpretation of a slip as expression of an
inner tendency that interfered with the conscious intent, or the interpretation
of a neurotic symptom as the outcome of a dilemma, are, for IVilliams, not
the suggestion, correct or incorrect, of seal connections, but have merely
explained the behavioral or conscious events by summarizing them. . ..
Since the school of logical positivism-the so-called Vienna Circle-has
long specialized in debunking scientific theories as tautological, it is interest-
ing to note that the representative of this school of thought in the Symposium,
Philipp Frank (Institute for the Unity of Science), originally a physicist, felt
that he could give psychoanalysis a clean bill of health on this account. IVliile
he did not attempt to pass jud,mcnt on the substantive correctness of psycho-
analytic theories-an attitude of restraint not universal at this meeting-lie
emphasized that he saw no reason why they should not be recognized as
examples of legitimate scientific conceptualization.
Any attempt to deal with all the misunderstandings and distortions of
psychoanalysis shown by some of the speakers a t this Symposium would need
a volume in itself. But one more example may be permitted.
Ernest Nagel pointed out that psychoanalysis sees all behavior as moti-
vated, and since not all behavior is consciously motivated, the theory intro-
duces unconscious motives: these unconscious motives, wishes, drives, urges
and intentions must be regarded as psychic or mental processes. On the
other hand, Nagel points out, these unconscious mental processes are really
different from conscious motives; e.g., unconscious wishes may be directed
toward a dead person while conscious wishes are not. Here Professor Nagel
finds a contradiction in the theory; on the one hand, unconscious wishes are
10 Tautological statements of this kind can, however, occasionally be found in
the psychoanalytic literature when ego functions are discussed. \Ve read in a recent
article on scientific creativity: Decompensation occurred when the ego was unable
to subject id impulses to binding by higher ego systems (9, p. 423). Since com-
pensation, in the sense in which the word is here used, would presumably have to
be defined as the binding oE id impulses by higher ego systems, or in similar
terms, it is difficult to see how the statement could be anything but tautological.

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636 BOOK SECTION

believed to be psychic forces, hence like conscious ones; on tlie otlier hand,
they are not like them because they may desire what we consciously do not:
. .. there is an important failure of analogy between conscious motives and
unconscious mental processes, so that it is only by a radical shift in the
customary meanings of such words as motive and wish that Freudian theory
can be said to offer a n explanation of human conduct in terms of motivations
and wisli-fulfillments. I n short, since psychoanalysis claims that one can
unconsciously wish things that a sane mind recognizes as impossible of ful-
fillment, it follows, according to Nagel, that Freuds unconscious is not a
psychic thing at all.
T h e problem that proved so disturbing to Professor Nagel seems easy
enough to solve. T h e unconscious as seen by Freud is a psychic phenomenon;
true, our concept of what is psychic does stem from our conscious experience,
but it need not simply be identical with it; not evety characteiisfic of adult
conscious life need necessarily enter into our concept of what is psychic.
Some of these characteristics may be considered to be accidental rather than
essential, and the high degree of integration and reality adjustment of our
adult thinking is one of those accidentals. The definition which I have sug-
gested on another occasion (14, p. 75) might take c x e of this difficulty:
Freuds basic discovery was that of a n effective unconscious psychic life, the
contents of which are not fundamentally different from those of consciousness,
though closer to the infantile than the adult mind-not fundarnenfully dif-
ferent, but not necessarily identical.
By his difficulty of accepting the unconscious as something psychic be-
cause it does not show all the characteristics of the conscious mind of an
adult at its most highly integrated, Professor Nagel has deprived himself of
the possibility of understanding the fundamental point of psychoanalytic
therapy, namely, the fact that psychoanalytic therapy is based on this very
difference between the conscious and the unconscious mind-the contents
of the former being in contact with each other, including the perceptions of
the outside world, while the contents of the latter are isolated. Repression,
which makes psychic content unconscious, thereby also protects it from the
wear and tear of life. and the forces of adjustment begin to work again as
soon as repression has been lifted and the unconscious content has entered
consciousness.
T o me, experiences such as these highlight the greatness of Freud. For,
if it is so immeasurably difficult for men of wide learning to understand
Freuds ideas sixty years after he presented them to the world, how difficult
must it have been to conceive them for the first time?

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Submitted December, I960

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