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If concrete psychology is understood to stand for the laudable efforts of many fine minds of to-day to separate psychological facts from the interpretations put upon them, whether of those according to traditional routine or of a kind hastily constructed, there is no doubt that all those who, in France, are interested in concrete psychology will find profitable reading in an historical account of the French psychanalytic movement.
It cannot be denied at the present time that the numerous clinical observations gathered by Freud and his assistants contain a veritable mine of psychological facts to which little or no attention had been paid before the Freudian era for the reason that there was no method of investigation known that could set them forth with sufficient clarity.
A method of investigation together with a wealth of clinical facts gathered by this method, and a body of psychological and psycho-economic doctrine, there are the three elements which are usually confused under the general term of psychanalysis.
We do not hesitate to state that the doctrinal construction of Freud and of his most fearless pupils may seem to be premature on several points; that it cannot claim to be taken for an untouchable dogma; and that, whatever unfolding of the mind may be implied on the part of the Viennese master, his elaborations are, like all human achievements, subject to criticism, to remodeling and even to partial crumbling. In fact, we believe it to be characteristic of the French psychanalytic movement, this legitimately critical attitude maintained in regard to every detail of the Freudian doctrine, even by those of us who have the greatest confidence in the psychanalytic method and are the most ardent admirers of the splendid work of Freud. As for the method itself, every day and in every country it undergoes modification of detail due to pressure of clinical necessity, but as a whole it remains unchanged in its nature, a lasting proof of the clinical genius of Freud.