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This is one of those delightful and fascinating essays psychoanalysts enjoy writing as well as reading. It probably will appeal to the popular imagination and no doubt will be snared by the wire services for newspaper distribution—though not without some tongue in cheek derisive commentary.
Dr. Gorney's thesis may be entirely correct, but it is neither good science nor good psychoanalysis. He provides no information as to the source of his data and the mode of its acquisition. Is this a personal experience? Did he analyze a series of scuba divers? (He cites the daydream of one diver.) Did he interview a group of divers? Did he interview diving instructors for their observations on the scuba novice? No such information is provided.
What is the distribution of the data? Are we to believe there is merely one pattern of reaction—that all divers respond with a mixture of desire and fear? Or does Dr. Gorney refer only to those who experience “shallow water euphoria”? From what material does he generalize?
Dr. Gorney does not clearly define his terms. What is meant by “euphoria” in operational (data-derived) as well as in conceptual
terms? To move from exhaustion to feeling “fresh and relaxed” hardly qualifies as “euphoria.” Nor does the reference to “lyric or mystic reports” satisfy the requirements of a phenomenologic or operational definition any more than does the account of the hypothetical diver setting forth with his diving equipment.
A daydream of one patient (about whom we know nothing other than that he is shy and polylingual) constitutes the sum total of manifest content reported. We do not even know what relation the daydream had to his diving experience or even, for that matter, that he did scuba diving. At this point the author may protest he has more data and I certainly trust he does—to which my response can only be “I only know what I read in the paper[s].” He generates broad and sweeping generalizations which would be equally applicable to a host of life e