Editorial

In this number F. Beyme publishes an account of some experimental work being undertaken by him on frigid women. It is followed by a discussion in which the method is subjected to critical examination by an analyst, A. Plaut, and an experimentalist, C. P. Blakemore.

The decision to publish Beyme's research derived from the policy of this Journal to promote discussion, in the belief that it can be just as useful to show in some detail where a research is at fault as to publish an uncriticized and therefore presumably definitive study. In this case Beyme's work raised important issues of principle and of method, so it was accepted.

At the present time the reputation of experimental and statistical researches into psychodynamic hypotheses is high and they are widely preferred to other methods of study. The idea behind them is often that they will succeed in giving precision to formulations now ‘merely’ backed by ‘unreliable’ clinical observation or analytic inference. It can however be maintained, with justification, that the experimental method is still in a very elementary state of development and is in no position to compete with the far more developed and increasingly refined analytic techniques whose achievements, though still questioned, have not been successfully contested. In his criticism of the main paper Plaut implicitly takes this position.

The Journal of Analytical Psychology is avowedly supporting the view that the main energies of analysts can best be directed to developing analytic methods, formulating theories relevant to them and testing them in the analytical setting. But this does not mean that experimental work is to be excluded. Indeed, readers of this Journal will be aware that a neurophysio-logical study by Max Knoll and his collaborators was published in volume 7, no. 1, showing that images, sometimes mandala-like, could be produced by electrical stimulation of the cortex. Further it has long been recognized that the theory of types is suitable for