An Approach to the Relation Between Concept and Content in Psychoanalytic Theory—(With Special Reference to the Work of Melanie Klein and her Followers)

The relation between theory and practice is a central problem in the development of every branch of science. In the physical sciences, it is relatively easy to make a clear distinction between the objective data which lead to theoretical hypotheses and the objective experiments which confirm or validate theoretical hypotheses. With the growth and expanding applications of psychoanalytic thought not only to the problems of clinical psychiatry but to the related fields of anthropology, social relations and general psychology, there is inevitably increasing interest in similar methods of validation. In psychoanalysis, however, even more than in the other social sciences, both the lack of concrete objective data and the relative difficulty of repeating observational situations leads to special problems in respect to objective validation. In addition, however, to this problem which is well recognized in all social sciences, the development of psychoanalysis indicates certain inherent difficulties in making a clear distinction in our science not only between theory and practice, but also between theoretical hypotheses based on the interpretation of specific content, and theoretical hypotheses of a more general abstract nature concerning the structure and function of the mental apparatus itself. The development and validation of our science, in short, would appear to involve at least a threefold task; namely, first, the collection of clinical data; second, correlation and comparison of such clinical data leading to theories based on the content or meaning of such data; and third, general concepts of an abstract nature deduced on the basis of these formulations.

The development of psychoanalytic knowledge has from the outset been concerned with ever deeper and more penetrating investigation into