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My few brief speculations on the special problems of the youngest child and the hypothesis of an ideal fused parent-figure seem to have caused despondency and alarm in at least two of the discussants. This, of course, is partly due to the fact that I cut my paper rather drastically for this presentation and had to omit much relevant material, not only from the case of Miss B but also from a number of other “youngest child” cases (including two male “Cinderellas”).
Dr. Stoller apparently values only papers which “scrupulously lead one to new insights,” and Dr. Levitt seems to wish only for papers which “substantiate one of Freud's theories.” But, valuable as such papers may be, I think that if these rules were never broken, they would lead to sterility and the stifling of progressive thought instead of to fruitfulness and the enrichment of ideas.
Freud's genius seems to me to supply the springboard from which we can dive deep into the depths of our own experiences, both conscious and unconscious; and however small the idea with which we emerge, it need not be rejected out of hand simply because others have emerged with different and possibly more acceptable ideas.