Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/60

 216 COLLECTIVE REVIEWS

scribed (e. g. the Purkinje phenomenon), these considerations are far from convincing.

C. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE THOUGHT-PROCESSES AND PSYCHO-

ANALYTIC METHOD

Our juxtaposition of these two aspects of psychology — aspects which are at first sight so remote from one another — is justified by the treatment accorded to them by a number of writers of very different schools. Thus v. Karpinska (20) points out the funda- mental similarity between the methods of introspection employed in psycho-analysis and in experimental psychology. In spite of this similarity, psycho-analysis can produce results of value only in the field of affection, noty_in that of pure intellect. In the concept of the 'wish' there has taken place — according to this author — an unjustifiable fusion of several categories of thought; the theory of wish-fulfilment is based on a presupposition without adequate theoretical foundation.

Furtmiiller (12) draws a parallel between the method of thought psychology and that of Adler's individual psychology. The concept of the determining tendency elaborated by the experimental psych- ology of the thought processes must be employed outside its ex- perimental setting and given a wider scope. It is the general tendencies, those which lie nearest to the personality, which are important and which we need to discover. The nature of these dominating tend- encies can be inferred not only by a (more or less complete) process of introspection, but i.L.o, without resorting to experiment, by noting the first and last links in connected series of thoughts or actions.

The partial conformity between the methods of Freud and " those of Kiilpe is recognised also by Schilder (29). The method of unconstrained association 7nay (but need not necessarily) reveal the fundamental conative tendencies of the individual, because all the latent wishes and attitudes may co-operate in the work. In general, all psychic life can be understood only in connection with the life of the Ego as a whole. The direction of attention to any object depends not only on the object itself but on the whole previous history of the self.

In order to arrive at a psychology of knowledge Schilder under- takes an analysis of the process of knowing. Experimental invest!-