Plain SpeakingJohn McKenna, Ireland

The principal tools of psychoanalysis havealways been speech and language. In fact atone stage in its evolutionary process as atherapy it was known as "the talkingmethod". It is not surprising then as we readthe contributions of its contemporary disciplesthat we are treated to a sustained level ofexcellent prose which is only too rare inscientific communications today. • Eachvolume contains original contributions in boththeory and practice from distinguishedpractitioners and no doubt the quality of thecontents and of their presentation is due in nosmall measure to the wisdom and skills of theeditors whose collective work has been thegreatest contribution to the clinicalunderstanding of child development not onlyof this century but of all previous ages.

Having acknowledged this it must be saidat the same time that like all works of multipleauthorship there is an uneveness in the qualityof the contributions, sometimes a dogmatismforeign to the nature of the founder ofpsychoanalysis and modes of expressionwhich may be strange and off-potting to thoseunfamiliar with the technical shorthand ofpsychoanalysis.

As Ornston indicates in Vol. 33 Freud'sdeliberate strategy for the development ofpsychoanalysis was to eschew anycomprehensive final definitions of terms inorder to allow unhindered observation andevolution of consistent conventions andconceptions. Freud constantly experimentedwith terms, metaphors, models and points ofview, using different words for the same ideaand the same word to refer to several,different ideas. It is a great pity that many, ifnot most, students of psychiatry, social workand psychology are given condensed pop

* The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, edited byEissler, Ruth S.; Freud, Anna; Kris, Marianne;Neubauer, Peter B. and Solnit, Albert J. Vol. 32, 1977and Vol. 33, 1978. Newhaven Yale University Press.

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versions of psychoanalysis compnsmg thewell known constructs at the core ofFreudian theory, viz. the topography ofpersonality in terms of id, ego, superego andthe development of personality through oral,anal, oedipal stages and the consequences ofdominant points of fixation at various stages.

It is not generally known that Freud wasre-sponsible for innovations in severalbranches of science before his interests ledhim finally to psychological medicine. His firstpaper in 1877 was an original contribution toanatomy on the basis of work with eels. Againhe made a break-through in histology usinggold chloride for cell-staining and in neurologywhere he wrote a definitive paper on aphasia:some of the terms he coined in relation tobrain-damage, central diplegia and paraplegicspacticity are as Freudian in origin as id, ego,and superego.

Freud as a scientist was interested not onlyin the discovery and verification of facts butalso in trying to establish an essential unityand causality which would give form andconsistency to the content of his discoveries.Despite the fact that his task was nevercompleted and it is probably true that such atask can never be brought to a close becauseof the nature of our evolving universe, he stillremains the most outstanding system-makerin the history of psychology. Yetpsychoanalysis lacks a coherent theory ofcognition and of different types of thinking,despite Freud's formulation of primary andsecondary process, upon which many believehis reputation as a thinker rests. "Thinking"he implies could never be a pure process; itmust always be coloured by feeling. Thephysical world makes sense to us according toprinciples of organization that come fromwithin our own psyche; when we think, wethink affectively. The psychoanalyticpostulates of determinism and continuitystressed the importance of childhoodexperiences and their strongly determining

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influences on the thinking and behaviour ofthe adult. Because of the accent he and hisfollowers laid upon the concept ofunconscious mental activity it is probable thathis work lacks the attraction for educationistsas that of Piaget, another of the great systemmakers of psychology who emphasizes ratherthe cognitive aspects of development.

Again I think that many teachers andscientists, not to mention psychologists, areliterally scandalized, not only by theinsupportable assertions that are made bysome psychoanalytic writers, but also bywhat they perceive as bizarre constructs andthe strange terms in which they are couched,often thrown at them like firebrands amongthe infidels. The unconscious can beultimately accepted by everybody: even thestrictest Pavlovian admits of 'uncognizedactivity'. In the process of psychotherapy theskilled therapist rarely throws his clients intothe stream of the unconscious: he nudgesthem imperceptibly towards the race of thestream so that insights can be assimilatedrather than rejected. An interpretation thoughaccurate in content is always wrong if giventoo soon or given at an inappropriate time foracceptance. What a pity that some of thecontributors to the volumes are not using themethods of psychoanalytic therapy toimprove their effectiveness as educators andcommunicators.

Take for example one of the clinicalcontributions of high quality, scholarly andwellwritted, by Simenauer, "A Double Helix".The first sentence states that "Thepsychoanalytic investigationof the world-widestudents' protests of the 1960s has led to onegenerally agreed upon conclusion - that theyare based on unresolved oedipal conflicts".One colleaguewhen asked what he thought ofthe statement said he didn't know what itmeant; another thought it simplistic nonsenseand another, a psychologist, thought it hadthe same validity as the stork bringing thebaby. I know that these can easily beinterpreted as hostility based on ignorance.Yet the same respondents had no difficulty inaccepting the same author's speculation aboutthe aims of diverse radical groups, " ... these

ideologies represent an extreme disavowal oftraditional values of the world of their fathers. . ." In other words seemingly objectiveevaluation of political structures frequentlybears the effective imprint of early experienceswhich in turn unequivocally influences currentpolitical thinking and behaviour.

I believe that the editors possibly couldperform a greater service to the developmentand acceptance of psychoanalysis if theydemanded some translation in moreacceptable and universally comprehensibleterms than appear in many of thecontributions and possibly a gentler gradationin the traditionally technical language andconcepts of psychoanalysis for neophytes inthe behavioural sciences.

Volume 32 contains sections oncontributions to psychoanalytic theory,problems of development, clinicalcontributions, psychoanalysis and educationand applied psychoanalysis. Volume 33 has asomewhat similar set of sections. Even for thedilettante with no formal connection withpsychology the chapters on application ofpsychoanalysis make fascinating reading withtheir cultured, speculative thinking on thegenesis of the creative act and on the forceswhich energize the activities of writers, poets,painters and sculptors.

For those whose primary interest lies inpreschool education the focus of interest willbe on the clinical contributions and thepsychoanalysis and education. Within thestrictures previously discussed thesecontributions dispense the wisdom andexperience of people who have given time toreflection on their dealings with children andenergy to the tasks they have set themselves ipeducation. Do not expect slick formulae as tohow to proceed when setting up facilities forpreschool children. Look forward rather to aninitiation into a broader understanding ofchild development, a kind of preparation forthe indeterminacy which characterizes humanbehaviour rather than absolute prediction asto what should happen under certaincircumstances. The papers clarify manyproblems of development, show how help maybe proferred and indicate where others may

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play an active part in achieving solutions tochildren's problems.

I realize how easy it is to demonstrate theclinical ineffectiveness of the applications ofpsychoanalysis and to show the difficulties ofvalidating its hypotheses but many criticizepsychoanalysis on the basis of unrealisticexpectations. In these volumes however thereis a pleasing absence of the omnipotencewhich occasionally shows through in somescientific papers: no claims are made to havethe solution to all clinical problems. In thisrespect the contributors appear to have

identified with the father of psychoanalysis,who with the authentic modesty of geniuswrote "psychoanalysis alone cannot offer acomplete picture of the world ... in each fieldof knowledge therefore, it can make onlycontributions, which require to be completedfrom the psychology of the ego. If thesecontributions often contain the essence offacts, this only corresponds to the importantpart which, it may be claimed, is played in ourlives by the mental unconscious that has solong remained unknown".

Le mouvement expressif