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Out of the state of open warfare or armed peace that existed between traditional psychopathology and psychoanalysis ever since the inception of the latter, there comes with increasing clarity the realization that the conflict between the two is more a result of mental attitude than of scientific observation.
Viewed historically there appears to be an uninterrupted continuity of thought all along the developmental pathway of psychopathology from Pinel and Esquirol through Carus, Griesinger and Charcot to Breuer and Freud. This continuity is a historical fact no matter how much the views of Pinel may be in contrast with those of Freud—a century after Philippe Pinel. However, a number of older mental attitudes continue to linger and infiltrate some of the newer discoveries and developments in psychopathology. To be sure, this is true not only of psychopathology, which is empirical rather than experimental; even in the strictly experimental sciences we find frequently an older mental attitude dominating over and obscuring a new bit of experimental evidence, incontrovertible though it may be. The French Academy refused to be convinced by Pasteur, no matter how convincing his experimental chickens, and in our day we still find medical men having more "faith" in dietary treatment of diabetes than in insulin—and insulin is far from being a mere concept. This conservative and retarding power of tradition, so dynamic in all walks of human endeavor, quite naturally makes itself felt in the field of psychopathology. If we look at this phenomenon from the standpoint of purely external manifestations, the following traditions in psychiatry stand out:
a.Mental disease is an organic disease, more definitely—a brain disease. This is tradition carried over from Hippocrates, Galen, and Erasistratus, and forcefully reasserted by