Scientific Activities of the American Psychoanalytic Association—An Inquiry

WHEN THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL of the American Psychoanalytic Association established an Ad Hoc Committee on Scientific Activities whose task it was to survey the current state of psychoanalytic scientific activities in the U.S.A. and, in particular, to assess the role played by the Association with regard to them, the extent of the field of inquiry of this body seemed on first sight to be not only broad but ill-defined. What motivated the creation of the Committee, however—and what motivated most of the members of the Committee—was the specific concern that all was not well with present-day scientific research in the field of psychoanalysis, in particular that there was a lack of original contributions, i.e., of genuine accretions to our knowledge. A drying up of the stream of newly gained psychoanalytic insights was, moreover, considered to be an ominous sign with regard to the survival of psychoanalysis, more silently and insidiously threatening than the noisy internal disagreements about secondary issues among analysts, or the attacks and the ridicule which are still leveled against psychoanalysis from the outside.