PSYCHIATRY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

Abstract

A few psychiatrists of the present generation have had the opportunity of observing in the study of mental disease in America, three angles of vision in regard to the so-called functional psychoses. Roughly stated, prior to 1900 one can discover little effort in the direction of separating groups of functional symptoms into disease entities; then followed a period when, under the influence of Kraepelin’s descriptions, one finds persistent though by no means satisfactory attempts to squeeze each functional psychotic disorder into either the manic depressive or the dementia pr ecox group and more recently, a steadily growing tendency toward classificatory delimitation, with an accentuation of the dynamic interpretation of the psychoses in the terms of libido disposition. In many respects all classification is disappointing, belittling and arbitrary. So, notwithstanding the convenience of Kraepelin’s groupings, because of the tremendous latitude permitted through the very minuti2e of his descriptions, as well as because of its prognostic value, a sense of the incompleteness of such classification could not escape the conscientious observer. This dissatisfaction found expression in the creation of compromise groups (allied to dementia pr cox, benign stupors, perplexity states, allied to manic-depressive insanity) whereby scientific scruples were superficially placated. Barely had the classification system become moderately stabilized and standardized, before the dynamic and mechanistic psychological conceptions, originated by Freud, applied and corroborated in psychotic cases by Bleuler and Jung and sponsored in America by Meyer, Hoch, White and others, began to demand recognition. The visit of Freud, Ferenczi and Jung to America in i o on the occasion of the 25th anniversary celebration of Clark University, greatly stimulated interest