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We owe the expression of the concept of rationalization to Ernest Jones, to whom this special number of the JOURNAL is dedicated on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.
This concept is regarded, both by the supporters as well as by the opponents of psycho-analysis, as a paradigm of the analytical method. It is, therefore, understandable that it has been the subject of epistemological criticism designed to throw doubt on the whole of the analytical science. 'How, ' it is asked, 'can we prove the truth of the opinion of an analyst who claims to expose the arguments of another person as a rationalization? Who can assure us that this exposure is not, in its turn, a rationalization on the part of the analyst—and therefore also of doubtful truth—intended to oppose the arguments of the other by means of an arbitary interpretation?'
As a consequence of considerations of this and a similar kind, the critics of analysis often reject the concept of rationalization (and with it the analytical method) as leading to an 'infinite regress'; or they accept it, but maintain that as a consequence of the formation of this concept a general 'relativity' in the claims to truth of all arguments must be admitted, and that analysis has to take this into account.
I believe that this epistemological criticism is guilty of an error in logic. (Its objections are, incidentally, of a similar kind to the arguments used against the concept of ideology in scientific sociology.) When, for instance, an analyst says that someone's line of thought is 'rationalized' he is not thereby expressing any opinion as to its rightness or wrongness or as to the correctness of the logical processes involved. He is only describing a particular mechanism of thought. This mechanism is characterized by a discrepancy between what the patient puts forward as the reasons for his opinions and what the analyst recognizes as the motives and causes of those opinions. That the reasons with which one tries to prove an ar