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It has been said that a new idea in science has at best a life of about thirty years. It has also been said that psychoanalysis has the means to avoid its own destruction. No science can be static and eternal. Psychoanalysis develops by the rejuvenating effect of the introduction of new ideas into the basic structure. The Academy of Psychoanalysis was organized to further this purpose which is a laudable one regardless of the outcome. This book constitutes, in the main, scientific papers given and discussed at the second of the yearly meetings of the Academy in Chicago on May 12, 1957. The papers are more important for the clarification of the issues involved than for any contribution leading to their solution.
The first part, An Interdisciplinary Survey of Psychoanalysis, consists of papers which plead for closer joint or complementary studies with allied sciences.
In The Biological Roots of Psychoanalysis, David Rioch reviews briefly a number of recent biological experimental studies on the problems of purpose, integration, cognitive-conative correlations, and methods and criteria for investigating symbolic behavior. He correlates these with the findings of psychoanalysis. He points out the difficulties inherent in the study of human beings as compared with the lower animals because of the greater capacity of the human for symbolic behavior and integration, and because of the limitations of the reporting technique.
Riese, in The Pre-freudian Origins of Psychoanalysis, discusses the historical precursors to psychoanalytic theory and practice with emphasis on Greek Hippocratic concepts showing their similarities and differences. Freud's thoughts were essentially rooted in the experimental and evolutionistic empiricism of Western science.
Devereux discusses The Anthropological Roots of Psychoanalysis. Of the various possible meanings of the assigned topic, he chooses the role of the life outlook of the Viennese middle class and of anthropological data in the de