The author calls for more precise definitions and operational concepts in psychoanalysis to facilitate scientific verification. However, while ostensibly a critique of unscientific attitudes and methods, the paper vitiates its valid criticisms by a

mixture of vague generalizations, anecdotal refutations, and special pleading. Decrying the behavior of certain psychoanalysts, the author ascribes this to the unscientific, imprecise nature of psychoanalysis itself. By partially misreading a section of Freud (reference to a later, better translation might have obviated this), he is led to state, 'Scientific precision has far too often been consciously excluded from classical psychoanalysis, because Freud rejected it'.