Unfortunately, the psycho-analyst, if he applies the current conceptions of
symbolism, may well doubt whether the reconstitution has gone far enough,
and whether ALL the stimulus-ideas, or all the wish-factors have been found.
This is because he does not make it a rule to check up his guesses as to
meaning, by specific investigations of the settings-of-ideas, by
auscultating the so-called "fringe of thought," or by laying out crucial
tests for his own hypothesis in the given case. Such methods, which belong
no less to general psychopathology than to the reconstitutive method, do not
leave one free to argue from analogy; a privilege which most psycho-analysts
enjoy, and have been known to abuse, as Freud and Jung themselves have done.
It follows that one might properly expect the psychoanalyst to dwell
especially upon the seemingly phallic "symbols" in the Scratch-Reflex dream,
which could be made out in the geometrical features of the microscope and
cover-glass. He would thus, as I have shown, be led to unearth a sexual
motive--which might be a mare's nest. This searching for sexual symbolism on
a purely a priori basis, when no evidence internal or external, and no real
clues to a sex idea exist, may become a mere obsession, a habit of
interpretation which is not scientific at all. Unable to distinguish the
subconscious operation of a non-sexual context, from that of the more
familiar sexual context, the interpreter is at the mercy of superficial
resemblances between the properties of the dream-objects and those of the
well-known sexual symbols. The ambiguity which has resulted from this
condition of affairs, maintains the Psychoanalytic Dilemma: that of not
knowing when to stop in apperceiving sexual allusions. Indeed, it is part of
the interpretative policy of psycho-analysts not to exclude sexual meanings,
in case of doubt; but rather to take the sexual sense for granted.
How far this policy has been carried may perhaps be suggested by the
following instance: A well-known physiological psychologist, attempting to
show the absurdity of extreme sexual interpretations, remarked to a
well-known psycho-analyst that even the geometry of Euclid would, according
to the methods under criticism, be open to the imputation of sexual motive.
To this the psycho-analyst replied that he did not feel at all sure that
Euclid might not have been inspired to write his Geometry by the sexual
ideas which men have, from time immemorial, embodied in circles and
triangles and diameters.--This instance, be it said, implies no criticism of
Psycho-analysis beyond the fact that its conception of symbols in dreams and
elsewhere is transcendental and historical rather than truly psychological
as it purports to be; a state of opinion which the use of the reconstitutive
method is calculated to correct.
The difference between the psycho-analytic methods and the reconstitutive
method, in a given case, is that the former assume the validity of sexual
symbolism unless it can positively be proved absent, which is rarely
attempted; whereas, the reconstitutive method assumes no symbolism and no
meaning to be present in the mind of the dreamer except as the probability
can be demonstrated by specific investigations and inferences as to the
interplay of CUES and CONTEXTS or apperception-masses. Moreover, a special
technique is used to study the "fringe."[1]
Reverting for a moment to the sexual interpretations of the Scratch-Reflex
dream that I manufactured by applying the Freudian ready-made symbolism,
and, again, by imitating the constructive fancy of Jung; they must both be
judged as having no merit beyond, perhaps, that of coinciding with inherent
probabilities in the premises. That is, what they purport to reveal might be
made out of whole cloth to fit almost any unmarried man, barring a few
individual adaptations, to suit the known circumstances of the dreamer. As
these interpretations stand, they do not fit the psychogenesis of the dream.
They are rank confabulations on my part; yet they appear to hold water,
psychoanalytically.
Enough has been said to suggest, I think, that while Dr. Freud may be
honored as the father of dream analysis, with Dr. Jung as its foster-father,
yet, to neither of these gentlemen of psycho-analytic fame should be
conceded the right to bring up the "child!" That is a task for the
psychologist, because he can afford to go deeper into normal processes than
has so far been possible in psycho-analytic practice. But he must take
pains to employ those scientific methods which comport the rigorous
application of logic even to the vagaries of dreams, and the rejection of
the argument from mere authority. Of such methods, the exemplars are to be
found only among those writers who today are worthily carrying forward the
mechanistic traditions originated by Descartes. In so far as
psycho-analysts depart from these traditions and, relying on the authority
of their leaders, follow them into metaphysical speculations about the
Libido, and transcendental notions of symbolism, they are wandering on
ground full of pitfalls to common sense.