1971: Psychiatry at a Time of Crisis, II. Cogitations

Part I was delivered to the British Psychological Society in 1947.1 I do not remember what I said, and I do not suppose that anyone has even heard of it; so everyone, including myself, can be said to start more or less fair. Even with regard to language there are similar advantages and disadvantages because I propose to use English – my English – which you do not know, and you use your English, which I don't know. There are similarities however; so there is liable to be a prejudice on both sides that when you use, or I use, what appears to be the same word, our different memories will lead both parties to think they understand each other. In this respect both parties suffer from memory; and since you probably want to understand, and I want to make myself understood, both parties also suffer from desire. I propose, therefore, to make the best of a bad job by illustrating what I want to communicate, and to do this by using your presence and mine as a source of illustrations of what I wish to communicate.

What has been called, ‘a scientific meeting’, I propose to call, ‘a group’. I consider that the group is composed of an aggregation of ‘individuals’. These two statements are what I shall call ‘definitory hypotheses’. About these two definitory hypotheses there can be no argument; they are merely definitions. Anyone is free to use other terms.

The title I have chosen has undertones and overtones. I was there when I gave the first paper, but others who were not there are now participating in an experience that goes back to something of which they cannot be aware because they were not there; they are entering into an experience that is, so to speak, the ‘second chapter’.

To illustrate this in group terms, I am going to use a verbal formulation of a visual imagination. For this I use archaeology, about

which I know virtually nothing. The visual image, in contrast to the definitory hypothesis, may be regarded as a preconception or prejudice, an