“Form” Psychology and Psychoanalysis

Koehler's remarkable observations on anthropoid apes verify and illuminate certain psychoanalytic theories from the standpoint of group psychology and of libido and ego development. Although this new Berlin school of psychology has concerned itself primarily with principles of a theory of psychological forms (Gestalt psychology), yet on reading Koehler's fascinating volume1 one is struck with the intimate relationship of this psychological approach with the findings of psychoanalysis. As Koehler points out (p. 275),“The chimpanzee manifests intelligent behavior of the general kind familiar in human beings,” but at the same time, it is not at all obvious to the reviewer that an understanding of “the capacities and mistakes of chimpanzees in visually given situations is quite impossible without a theory of visual functions, especially of shapes in space” (p. 136). The behavior of these chimpanzees can be reinterpreted from the psychoanalytic standpoint and the experiments refute the customary criticism against psychoanalysis, namely, that the ideas or theories were suggested by the analyst to the patient. It is this psychoanalytic approach which demonstrates that by the theory of visual functions alone it is impossible to understand certain aspects of the spontaneous behavior of the chimpanzees which forms the basis of Koehler's experiments.

According to Hermann, there are three main principles of the theory of psychological “forms.”2 (1) It disputes the “bundle” or “mosaic” notion of the old psychology, in harmony with psychoanalysis, which refers everything in the mind to instincts and complexes. (2) The new school attacks the association—theory of the old psychology and it is this very theory which was also overthrown by the psychoanalytic investigation of the hidden meaning of even those