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Dr. Myerson undertook the laborious task of sending four hundred and twenty-eight questionnaires to psychologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in order to check the remark of a psychoanalyst 'that practically all informed scientists accept psychoanalysis'.1 It will surprise no one to state at the onset that the conclusion reached is that the contention of the psychoanalyst was wrong. The investigator need not have gone to the trouble of making so many inquiries to prove this point since as an informed scientist he does not accept psychoanalysis.
Dr. Myerson's undertaking nevertheless is of some importance, and it is to be hoped that the full answers to the questionnaire will be completely published or at least preserved for the future historian of psychoanalysis. Assuming that psychoanalysis is the first scientific approach to the total human personality—previously this domain was accessible principally to the intuition of artists—this is an opportunity to study the reaction of a group to science conquering a new field.
Since Myerson devotes much of the article to his own opinion of psychoanalysis, a report of his statistics will be followed by a discussion of his arguments against psychoanalysis.
Each recipient of a questionnaire was asked to classify himself in one of the following groups:
I.Those individuals who completely accept psychoanalysis. (In a second questionnaire the term 'completely' was modified.)