The Psychoanalytic Theory of Thinking1

In opening the panel Leo Rangell pointed out that of the three major expressions of derivatives of the instinctual drives in man, namely, action, affect and thought, the last had been relatively neglected in psychoanalysis. Because of our focus on intrapsychic conflict the content of thought and bizarre disturbances of the thinking process have commanded our attention. The ordinary processes of thought, in their normal development and functional operation, deserve equal consideration. The timeliness of such consideration arises out of the expansion of psychoanalysis into a system of general psychology. In this development, the link with academic psychology must be established and the findings of allied fields assimilated. Furthermore, clinical and experimental work within psychoanalysis (for example, Fisher's experiments on imagery and Rosen's studies of highly gifted abstract thinkers—to illustrate from some of the earlier contributions of members of the panel) are indications of the rising interest in the subject of thought. Finally, Rangell pointed out, our era is an age of remarkable forward movement of human knowledge and power—an era dominated by the threat and promise of a great potential to mankind released by the power of human thinking.

The contribution by Samuel A. Guttman and Paul Sloane entitled "The Development of Freud's Theory of Thinking" served to set the stage for the panel. Fundamentally, these authors emphasized how Freud derived his concepts of thought from considerations of discharge of excitation. Whether he expressed it in terms of the nervous system as in the "Project for a Scientific Psychology" or in terms of the psychic systems as he did in The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud considered the main feature which characterized the totality of mental functioning to be the tendency to keep the level of excitation as low or as constant as possible. Accumulation of excitation caused unpleasure or pain. Discharge of this tension, as, for