Psychoanalytical Views on Intelligence: Edward Podolsky. Psa. Rev., XXVIII, 1941, pp. 359–362.

Intelligence is 'the capacity for acquiring, absorbing and using knowledge of reality', and its measure would be 'the ability to carry out the process of identification and absorption in reference to persons and things in the outer world'. Without direct mention of the psychoanalytic studies of intelligence defects, such as on pseudodebility (Landauer, Bornstein, Federn), mental arrest is called a failure to apply instinctual energy to these processes. When, however, the author states that 'psychoanalysis divides intelligence in two categories: the introvert and extravert type of thinking', he must mean the school of Jung and hence follows a summarizing diagram of the supposedly static 'types' regarding thinking and speed of reaction. A third category is added, that of compulsive thinking, an escape from conflict by way of a de-emotionalization process and suggestive of dementia præcox. The only clinical reference is to the dictators, who would be 'compulsive thinkers and doers, which gives an idea of the menace of this particular type of intelligence'. The article proves the correctness of the author's statement that 'to define intelligence in terms satisfactory to everyone, is no easy matter'.