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December 23, 1985
In a recent editorial, Theodore Shapiro (This Journal, 33:5-9) discussed Adolf Grünbaum's book, The Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984), in which this author raised certain questions about the foundations of psychoanalytic theory. Shapiro urged psychoanalysts to consider Grünbaum's critique an opportunity for discussion and clarification. This letter is a response to Shapiro's suggestion. It will deal in particular with Grünbaum's question about the empirical basis for the concept of repression.
Grünbaum states that the repression concept is not grounded in observation. Those observations of the patient which the analyst assumes support the repression concept may be misleading because they may be completely explained by the patient's compliance to the analyst. Just how the analyst may be misled by his observations will be illustrated by the following schematic presentation of an analyst-patient interaction which according to Grünbaum may be typical. (1) The analyst, reasoning from his theory, tells the patient either directly or indirectly that he is repressing certain kinds of mental contents; (2) the patient takes the analyst's interpretations as suggestions to experience these contents, and he compliantly produces