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At the outset I wish to state clearly that the ideas expressed in this paper are my personal views. Certain parts of this paper are, of necessity, brief. They need further elaboration. However, I feel that enough has been presented to indicate the pertinence and connections of these ideas with the main thesis. Incomplete as I realize this paper is, I felt it would be worthwhile to present it in this preliminary way. It could be a stimulus to further thinking on this topic, which I feel has considerable import for the future of psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis is moving in the direction of becoming more scientific. It is doing so because it has been, and is being, guided by the scientific spirit. Its investigations are being carried on more and more according to the scientific methods requisite to its inquiries.
Psychoanalysis is theory, therapy, a body of knowledge and a method of research. It has been evolving in all these regards since it was founded by Freud. There is an assumption, rigidly adhered to and often unconscious, that there is “the psychoanalysis.” This implies a final definition and that psychoanalysis which deviates from this definition is not psychoanalysis.
The history of psychoanalysis is an invalidation of this assumption. “Each generation criticizes the unconscious assumptions made by its parents. It may assent to them, but it brings them out in the open” (Whitehead). This paper is an attempt to bring out in the open a number of assumptions regarding psychoanalysis and relevant to it. They will be evaluated in the light of the history of psychoanalysis and of some of the premises of Western thought. Some old assumptions will be examined in the context of unitary process thinking.
Freud's psychoanalysis was based on a theory of mind and, specifically, of sick mind. His was a therapy of sick mind seen through the vicissitudes of the sexual instinct with the goal of adjustment. Society was the fixed coordinate in hi