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The purpose of my paper was to pose a technical issue of current interest in a way that would enable psychotherapists to examine more sharply the philosophical and theoretical rationale behind their technical procedures. My invitation to scientific debate does not impose the requirement of accepting my position. It would have been specious, however, had I withheld my own views. Because I included them, Dr. Menaker designates the whole as a “position paper.” Opportunity for meaningful debate is diminished by such slanting, for, had she grappled with the issue as posed, even in considered disagreement, her discussion could have constituted an appreciable contribution in the form of clarification of the philosophy of another point of view.
It is difficult to respond to Dr. Menaker's discussion because, by such slanting and some raising of false and peripheral issues, the main point is obscured. “Position paper,” “dichotomy,” “old ghost,” are straw men which must be swept away in order to reclarify the real issue.
On the body-mind problem: From an implication contained in the introductory part of my paper, far from the main subject, one may laboriously construe that I raise “the old ghost of the body-mind problem.” That it is not my subject matter does not negate that it could well be the subject of an important paper. Though it be old and ghostly, it haunts us still. If Dr. Menaker knows the final answer to the body-mind problem, such a paper would be most welcome to the scientific world.