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WHAT FOLLOWS DOES NOT claim to measure up to the standards of scientific rigor or conceptual precision. In the fluidity and ambiguity of thought and style, this presentation is perhaps all too much affected by its subject matter.
Most of us, whether engaged solely in psychoanalytic practice or engaged also in psychoanalytic research and theory-building, stress the scientific aspects and potentialities of our discipline. Freud did so, and he rejected the suggestion that there might be something nonscientific or unscientific, something resembling art, about psychoanalysis. In the recent past there has been much emphasis on psychoanalysis as a basic science, or as the foundation for or as part of a general psychology. It has been claimed that this constitutes the lasting value of psychoanalysis, and doubts have been expressed, even within the ranks of psychoanalysts themselves, with regard to its viability as a form of psychotherapy. I myself have no doubt about its therapeutic value and potentialities, although I do question whether we can expect general or ready recognition of its therapeutic worth and effects—given the anti-individualistic tendencies and simplistic behavior-modification trends in our culture.