You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The center of Dr. Szasz's struggle with the problem of pain and pleasure appears to be his wish to apply the principles of the philosophy of science to psychoanalysis. The precise meaning of words, concepts, the referents in external reality to which our words should point, the use of one frame of reference, and the avoidance of mixing the psychological and the physiological are indeed valuable and necessary equipment for the analyst threading his way through an area so closely entangled with philosophical and linguistic problems. And yet analysis deals with the everyday language of everyday life and intuitively ascribes a value and dignity to it. It senses that in its present state it may infringe on reality were it to push conceptualization vigorously. At times it seems that Dr. Szasz becomes entangled in just such difficulties because of his wish to harmonize and integrate analysis into a smooth framework and his unwillingness to permit nooks, crannies, juttings out, and all the irregularities that must necessarily exist in an empirical science. For example, he feels obligated to redefine the ordinary usage of the word 'love' so as