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To the Editors: Dr. Henry Krystal is most correct in believing that emotional factors play an important role in stock market swings [“Theory of Cyclicity of the Financial Economy,” The Psychoanalytic Forum, Vol. 1, No. 4]. However, it is somewhat naive for us as analysts to believe we can explain the major component of economic cyclicity as group guilt over economic aggression and acquisitiveness. If we are to postulate the most simple basic cause for economic cycles, it is that investors'
confusion and fear for their livelihoods cause them to panic and withdraw when the slightest doubt arises. In our zeal to find the “deeper” causes, we analysts often overlook the simple ones.
Nevertheless, topics such as economic cyclicity—and an even more important one, the emotional causes of war—are well worth investigating, because there is no question that a war cannot be fought for any length of time without some emotional stimulus. Mercenaries do not fight for long if the going gets tough.
The economic problems and political aspects underlying any war are interwoven with emotional causation. Certainly fear, suspicion, and individual paranoid attitudes may also characterize nations. Although a psychoanalyst must be careful that he not reduce the causation of war to a purely emotional one, psychoanalytic insight could contribute greatly to the understanding even of international conflicts.
Albert Schrut, M.D.
Beverly Hills, California