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We know how difficult it sometimes is in the treatment situation to judge whether or not a proffered interpretation is “correct.” Glover, for instance, long ago formulated for us that inexact interpretations may, although making a patient “feel better,” strengthen defenses and impede rather than promote the work of analysis. Ordinarily, we look for some “advance” in the patient as proof: evidence of further insight, synthesis, productive action, and so on. This bears on the general form of the problem of appraising Dr. Krystal's thesis that an important factor in economic cyclicity is an emotional cyclicity in the lives of the people participating in the economy. How can we know his interpretation is correct? I am assuming that it could be generally agreed that he is in fact making an interpretation—that he is not simply observing, but that in offering an explanation of a phenomenon, he is interested in its verification, and hopeful of its being influential.
As a friendly reader, and a psychoanalyst to boot, I think he is probably correct. He is certainly most interesting; and furthermore, within me, his interpretation has the sense of correctness, particularly in that he stimulates curiosity about and understanding of my own fiscal behavior. In addition, within the framework of psychoanalysis, his thesis is plausibly developed. On these grounds, I would like to leave no doubt that my reaction is a positive one, as individual and therapist. In connection with the latter, my surmise is that at least for a time, I will hear, the vicissitudes of my patients' financial interests more acutely. That is, as a contribution to clinical theory, the paper is eminently respectable.
Yet, Dr. Krystal is writing about more than our patients. He is writing about our society. Despite the brevity of the paper in proportion to the topic, its thesis and the questions it raises are of a very large order. If he is right, then certain implications of his ideas require considerable appraisal