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At a recent seminar I made a rather long and somewhat earnest theoretical statement. When I had finished, the leader of the seminar confessed that he did not know what I was talking about; nor, it turned out, did any of the others present. I shall use two German words to describe how I felt at that point: I felt klein (small) and without freude (joy). I can say that for the space of several moments I experienced being “kleinian” and not “freudian.” I mention this experience because, in my judgment, being kleinian or freudian—in the precise sense that I am using these terms—is not compatible with being scientific.
If a fellow-worker's “scolding” makes me kleinian, or his approving makes me freudian, then my usefulness as a scientific worker ceases. I know that I am vulnerable to kleinian and freudian experiences of the sort I just described. I have observed also that I am more vulnerable to such experiences in the context of theoretical statements.
When Dr. Meltzer says that he finds the clinical material in the paper of “high quality,” I am assuming that the observations there recorded approximate his own. I assume also, from Dr. Kanzer's discussion, that my observations do not approximate his.