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I would like to thank Dr. Charles Hanly and The Psychoanalytic Quarterly for the opportunity to engage with the multiple issues brought out by Hanly's paper, “The Interplay of Deductive and Inductive Reasoning in Psychoanalytic Theorizing.” Several of the themes raised by Hanly represent central topics in the current practice and theory of clinical psychoanalysis. While I cannot address all these topics here with the degree of attention I would wish to, I would like to comment on some of what I regard to be key questions raised by Hanly's contribution.
I will begin with what Hanly describes as his “speculative reconstruction” (p. 913) of Freud's process of theory construction, and then consider the dichotomization of critical realist and subjectivist positions. I will assert that the presentation of pure positions is not tenable, and I will conclude with some thoughts regarding what I take to be implications of Hanly's view.
Hanly's treatment of Freud's process of theory construction is a reading from the position that he identifies as critical realism. Hanly refers to his own speculative reconstruction of this process. He makes a rather convincing