These reductions and constructions of the psychoanalytic schools appear to
be rather favorite ways of guessing than rival scientific methods.
Unquestionably, they must achieve a gratifying number of hits under the
easygoing conditions of the psycho-analytic seance. This is obviously
satisfactory to medical practice; but the danger to psychological theory
lies in the temptation to overvalue the particular technique that seems to
bring about such successes. For instance, Freud and Jung, finding it
convenient to assume that the dreamer is attempting to express his latent
thoughts by the use of metaphors and figures of speech, have unfortunately
come to regard the behavior of the Unconscious Mind as if it were employing
a secret archaic code or language of dreams. According to Freud, its symbols
have very concrete meanings; Jung, more liberal, says they are only very
general. But both authors seem to abuse the language-analogy as a guidance
in dream interpretation. That is why psycho-analytic method today suggests
not only the free play of poetic invention, but the license of mystical
speculation.
If there is any present point in Emerson's remark that "Mysticism consists
in the mistake of an accidental and occasional symbol for an universal one,"
then, in speaking to the psycho-analyst, the psychologist should echo
Emerson further, and say: "Let us have a little algebra instead of this
trite rhetoric-- universal signs instead of these village symbols--and we
shall both be gainers."[11]
The reason we shall need a little algebra, as it were, is that many
psycho-analysts have fallen into confused ways of regarding their signs and
significations.
Consider, for example, the reputed signs of the birth-phantasy, as listed by
Freud:[12]
"A large number of dreams, often full of fear, which are concerned with
passing through narrow spaces or with staying in the water, are based upon
fancies about the embryonic life, about the sojourn in the mother's womb and
about the act of birth." . . . Again, "There are dreams about landscapes and
localities in which the emphasis is laid upon the assurance, 'I have been
there before.' In this case the locality is always the genital organ of the
mother; it can be asserted with such certainty of no other locality that one
has 'been there before.' "
(What we should infer from the waking illusion of familiarity, which,
Emerson said "almost every person confesses"--on this basis--is too absurd
to contemplate.)
Statements like these, though far from syllogistic in form, are virtually
general propositions or laws to the effect that all dreams having the
designated earmarks or manifest content, possess additionally and
necessarily certain specified qualities in the latent content--in this case,
the meaning of birth-phantasy.[13]
Freud and Jung have stood sponsors for many such seemingly far-fetched
interpretations. How do they come to be so sure of their ground?