Author's Response

Dr. Gardiner's comment that my essay would form the basis of a convincing novel is the best compliment she could pay it. The comment suggests that the essay hangs together in depth, and (while it may not be real) is realistic. As I understand it, she says that it is a good hypothesis (“an unproved theory tentatively accepted to explain certain facts”)—which is all that I claim it to be. I take her added comment that it is “not at all convincing” to mean that I have not proved my case because I could not test the ideas in the analytic situation. To this I also agree.

This same criticism is applicable to the whole field of applied psychoanalysis and to many clinical reports as well. Some of Freud's ideas regarding the Wolf-Man are themselves merely hypotheses not proved by the analytic material. Indeed, we can debate whether the Wolf-Man's observation of the primal scene at the age of one and a half years—Freud's central idea—is a fact, a theory, or a hypothesis. But regardless of our conclusion, there is little doubt that this idea has been of great help in psychoanalytic work and that the role of the primal scene has been proved beyond doubt in many other cases as the result of Freud's contribution.

The principle that data must be tested in the analytic situation is worthy of application whenever possible. But it can be a dubious blessing if held too tenaciously. Analytic material following an interpretation often corroborates it or bolsters it with additional evidence. How often, though, does it render absolute proof? On the other hand, evidence available

from sources outside the analytic situation occasionally fits together so neatly that the conclusion is as solid as that arising during the course of free associations.

The fact that the Wolf-Man tried to please both Ruth Mack Brunswick and me is but a pale shadow of the attempt he made to please Freud. Any evaluation of Freud's essay must bear this in mind. In regard to religion, this temptation was especially st