On Conceptual Clarity in Psychoanalysis*

After being invited to contribute an article to a festschrift to be published to honour Veikko Tähkä, the title of this paper first came to my mind, together with one sentence in his textbook on psychotherapy (Tähkä, 1970). In describing the special nature of psychoanalysis in the initial pages of the book, he calls attention to the fact that, in this dicipline, the attributes of that which is studied do not extend to apply to its methods and results. This sentence continued to occupy my mind in the early 1970s and has later often returned. At that time, I did not yet know that Veikko Tähkä would become my teacher and that under his guidance, I would have an opportunity to acquaint myself with the foundations of psychoanalysis. His conceptual clarity has, in fact, been of decisive importance for the development of my researcher identity.

I will consider, following the approach of psychoanalysis itself, the obstacles in the researcher's mind that tend to cloud and distort the perception of reality and a clear conception of that which is perceived. The inhibition of these mental functions is not, of course, a problem met only in the science investigating man's inner reality; quite the contrary, it has been necessary in all sciences to develop procedures and techniques designed to overcome the resistance of the human mind to comprehend clear facts behind an apparent ambiguity. It cannot be denied, however, that the problem is particularly burning when the scientific interest is directed at man's inner reality. Psychoanalytic everyday experience in fact shows that intellectual honesty regarding the ongoing analytic process is, from both