University of Virginia Library

THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC DILEMMA

Unfortunately, the psycho-analyst, if he applies the current conceptions of symbolism, may well doubt whether the reconstitution has gone far enough, and whether all the stimulus-ideas, or all the wish-factors have been found. This is because he does not make it a rule to check up his guesses as to meaning, by specific investigations of the settings-of-ideas, by auscultating the so-called "fringe of thought," or by laying out crucial tests for his own hypothesis in the given case. Such methods, which belong no less to general psychopathology than to the reconstitutive method, do not leave one free to argue from analogy; a privilege which most psycho-analysts enjoy, and have been known to abuse, as Freud and Jung themselves have done.

It follows that one might properly expect the psychoanalyst to dwell especially upon the seemingly phallic "symbols" in the Scratch-Reflex dream, which could be made out in the geometrical features of the microscope and cover-glass. He would thus, as I have shown, be led to unearth a sexual motive—which might be a mare's nest. This searching for sexual symbolism on a purely a priori basis, when no evidence internal or external, and no real clues to a sex idea exist, may become a mere obsession, a habit of interpretation which is not scientific at all. Unable to distinguish the subconscious operation of a non-sexual context, from that of the more familiar sexual context, the interpreter is at the mercy of superficial resemblances between the properties of the dream-objects and those of the well-known sexual symbols. The ambiguity which has resulted from this condition of affairs, maintains the Psychoanalytic Dilemma: that of not knowing when to stop in apperceiving sexual allusions. Indeed, it is part of the

interpretative policy of psycho-analysts not to exclude sexual meanings, in case of doubt; but rather to take the sexual sense for granted.

How far this policy has been carried may perhaps be suggested by the following instance: A well-known physiological psychologist, attempting to show the absurdity of extreme sexual interpretations, remarked to a well-known psycho-analyst that even the geometry of Euclid would, according to the methods under criticism, be open to the imputation of sexual motive. To this the psycho-analyst replied that he did not feel at all sure that Euclid might not have been inspired to write his Geometry by the sexual ideas which men have, from time immemorial, embodied in circles and triangles and diameters.—This instance, be it said, implies no criticism of Psycho-analysis beyond the fact that its conception of symbols in dreams and elsewhere is transcendental and historical rather than truly psychological as it purports to be; a state of opinion which the use of the reconstitutive method is calculated to correct.

The difference between the psycho-analytic methods and the reconstitutive method, in a given case, is that the former assume the validity of sexual symbolism unless it can positively be proved absent, which is rarely attempted; whereas, the reconstitutive method assumes no symbolism and no meaning to be present in the mind of the dreamer except as the probability can be demonstrated by specific investigations and inferences as to the interplay of cuesand contexts or apperception-masses. Moreover, a special technique is used to study the "fringe."[1]

Reverting for a moment to the sexual interpretations of the Scratch-Reflex dream that I manufactured by applying the Freudian ready-made symbolism, and, again, by imitating the constructive fancy of Jung; they must both be judged as having no merit beyond, perhaps, that of coinciding with inherent probabilities in the premises. That is, what they purport to reveal might be made out of whole cloth to fit almost any unmarried man, barring a few individual adaptations, to suit the known circumstances of the dreamer. As these interpretations stand, they do not fit the psychogenesis of the dream. They are rank confabulations

on my part; yet they appear to hold water, psychoanalytically.

Enough has been said to suggest, I think, that while Dr. Freud may be honored as the father of dream analysis, with Dr. Jung as its foster-father, yet, to neither of these gentlemen of psycho-analytic fame should be conceded the right to bring up the "child!" That is a task for the psychologist, because he can afford to go deeper into normal processes than has so far been possible in psycho-analytic practice. But he must take pains to employ those scientific methods which comport the rigorous application of logic even to the vagaries of dreams, and the rejection of the argument from mere authority. Of such methods, the exemplars are to be found only among those writers who today are worthily carrying forward the mechanistic traditions originated by Descartes. In so far as psycho-analysts depart from these traditions and, relying on the authority of their leaders, follow them into metaphysical speculations about the Libido, and transcendental notions of symbolism, they are wandering on ground full of pitfalls to common sense.