Psychoanalytic Techniques in Social Analysis: Marvin K. Oppler. J. of Social Psychology, XV, 1942, pp. 91–129.

Oppler once again discusses the basic questions of the relationship of psychology to sociology, with a special consideration of the methods and contributions of psychoanalysis. He asks for the 'full coöperation' of both fields, and emphatically rejects the too limited point of view that psychology should only concern itself with the processes within the individual mind. Today, various prejudices and methodological mistakes hinder such coöperation. The scientific division of labor has—besides its advantages—very definite disadvantages; it makes a comprehension of the dynamics and dialectic interrelationships of sociological and psychological processes especially difficult. For the study of this very interrelationship, anthropology is the best fitted discipline. But what matters is, how the anthropological material is dealt with.

Oppler discusses the ways in which psychoanalysis treats anthropological material. He defends the scientific character and social orientation of psychoanalysis: 'As a matter of fact, this system [psychoanalysis] was so completely geared to a dialectical approach involving the interaction of opposites that Freud derived not only neurosis from particular kinds of repression and