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At the present time, many analysts are questioning whether the events and experiences which occur during psychoanalysis are explainable on the basis of logical, scientifically verifiable principles. Involved are such questions as whether psychoanalysis is a science or an art; whether intuition or extrasensory perception play a role in the understanding of the patient's and analyst's mutual communications; and the nature of the emotional interaction between patient and physician. Even more to the core of the matter is the question of the nature of intrapsychic function: Do our currently held concepts and psychological explanatory principles adequately account for all, or even for much, of the phenomena of human experience?
This book raises these questions implicitly by focusing on “the vast continuum of more or less diffuse referential processes that operate at the margin of awareness and come to the edge of focal attention rather than being divulged through logical formulations of the conscious mind … such as dreams, daydreams, extrasensory perception, insight, creative inspiration, hunches, etc.” These processes would certainly have been traditionally included within the unconscious or preconscious. These authors are hesitant about using these classical concepts, which they replace by prelogical experiences. This reviewer is in agreement with this attitude, since he has long felt the term “unconscious” to be outmoded and in need of thorough revision.
Certainly much has been written, both within and without the orthodox framework, about unconscious functions, such as wit, slips of the tongue, dreaming, symbolism, and transference. But these have been rather scattered, piecemeal observations, more in the spirit of attempting to broaden previously held Freudian concepts to include new observations. And while this approach has greatly increased our knowledge of such phenomena, up to a certain point, it has limited further understanding beyond that point. The emphasis has