'The Psychoanalytic Vision'

DEAR SIR,

In the review of my book 'The Psychoanalytic Vision' by Dr Wallerstein, unfortunately, in spite of the care he devoted to the review, a number of misquotations and misrepresentations have crept in which make it difficult or impossible for the

reader to get an accurate picture of my book. I would like to have an opportunity to provide an appropriate answer.

With regard to the misquotations, they form a consistent pattern as making me out to be rather wild. Thus I nowhere said that psychohistory has changed everything in historical scholarship. What I did say (p. 211) is: 'Eventually it will become clear to professional historians that they have always been making psychological inferences, merely using an antiquated and inadequate kind of psychology'.

I did not say that sociology is nothing but the psychology of the human being in the social sphere. What I did say (p. 236) is: 'What is at issue is the psychology of the human being in the social sphere. Some social forces will submerge the individual, some will be on a par with him, and some will be submerged by him. Generalizations are impossible. Instead, a research strategy is indicated'.

Dr Wallerstein's critique on this point is all the more surprising in view of the statement by himself and Smelser (Int. J. Psychoanal., 1969, p. 694) that: 'A general conclusion emerges from these observations: an adequate psychological theory is not possible unless it is, at the same time, social; and an adequate social theory is not possible unless it is, at the same time, psychological'. We are saying the same thing in different words.

I nowhere said that traditional economics is dismissed in favor of my conception of psycho-economic disorders. What I did say is (p. 243): 'And finally there are many direct psychological questions involved in economics that have been largely ignored by the traditional scholars. Among contemporary economists Galbraith has particularly called attention to the f