Letters to the Editor

To the Editor:

I find a wide variety of subject matter offered to the readers of The American Journal of Psychoanalysis. However, in reviewing the Cumulative Index and many of the past issues of the Journal, I note to my surprise few articles where clinical cases are presented to illustrate a particular theoretical proposition. There is also a conspicuous dearth of papers dealing with research in the psychoanalytic field which seems to point to a general lack of interest in such an important area of our work. I like to think of psychoanalysis not only as an art, but also as a science based on reason and facts.

It is my wish to arouse readers' awareness of these gaps. Noting them, perhaps they will be interested in offering material that includes more clinical and research data. I believe that such data are an integral part of any theory if that theory is to be strengthened.

Leonel Urcuyo, M.D.

To the Editor:

I have read Dr. Tershakovec's splendid paper on “Pseudo-Activism - A Relatively New Neurotic Adaptation” (American Journal of Psychoanalysis Vol. 33: 151-161, No. 2, 1973). I have wondered for many years why more of our clan (psychiatrists-psychoanalysts) have not written on this fascinating subject because so many of us (relatively!) are or have been on the fringe of political groups, or are children of political activists. I can guess at multiple reasons, but have lacked “motivation” for, I suppose, some of the same reasons which others have who possess more profound family roots or situational forces than myself to write on this complex subject. Someday a paper or two or even a monograph will be written on this subject.

Dr. Tershakovec is to be congratulated upon doing this essentially taboo topic (up to this date) so very well.

Henry W. Brosin, M.D.

To the Editor:

I have found the article “Self-Esteem, Dignity and the Sense of Being” a veritable mine of information and concept. I think I share with the author the conviction that present-day man is a prisoner of his u