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During a discussion at a recent meeting of the Candidates’ Association of the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, the question spontaneously arose, “What do we mean by psychoanalysis, anyhow?” Any attempt to respond requires an examination of premises, and when we deal with premises, we have passed the boundaries of science and entered into that which is fundamental to it. Our premises are based upon our observations, but our observations are always made by us, and it is impossible, ultimately, to separate the seer from the seen. This is a paraphrase of Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, perhaps the greatest contribution to modern physics. It holds equally in the field of psychology. You cannot divorce data from the observer noting them. And to every observation we make—that is, to the raw, sensory data we take in—we bring our own selves, our needs, values, inhibitions, qualities, sensitivities, and, last but not least, our anxieties.1 The admixture of all these with the data gives us our perceptions. From these perceptions, whether we are aware of it or not, we evolve our premises.
Premises, which presume perceptions, and ends or goals—what we are out after—have a relationship that is important here. Our premises determine our goals. Likewise, our goals determine our premises. To illustrate simply: if a therapist feels that marriage, in and of itself, is a “good thing” and a touchstone of maturity, he will be influenced by this premise to help his patients to this goal. Just so, if the therapist feels for himself that his life is vitiated by his being unmarried, this leads to the premise “marriage is what will eradicate the emptiness I feel, and it will do the same for others.”
Further, ends and premises share in the fact that neither can be argued. Means are arguable, but premises and ends are not. Premises, or how we see it to begin with, and ends, what we are out after, are of the nature of feeling-opinion, not logic. Logic proceeds once a premise has been