International Psychoanalysis

One Comment on “Primary Process Thinking: Theory, Measurement, and Research, Volume I by Robert Holt”

1. Tamar Schwartz Says:
   October 6th, 2011 at 7:12 am

   Comment from Robert Holt:

   Dear Joe,
   When I wrote to thank you for your kind review of my primary process book, it didn’t seem an appropriate time to do my usual editorial thing. Of course it is too late to make any difference, but I won’t feel complete unless I point out some minor errors.

   To begin with, you do me too much honor in attributing to me what was actually Rapaport’s early contribution, trying to clarify and expand the metapsychological points of view in his Structure of Psychoanalytic Theory monograph. So, in your third paragraph, I’d have put it thus: “Early on, Holt investigates thinking from Rapaport’s first (1959) attempt to expand Freud’s three metapsychological points of view: dynamic, . . . . Each of these approaches deals with . . . , e.g., in the economic point of view, cathecting . . . .” etc, substituting “point of view” for “model” or “system.” The last quotation from me in this paragraph is also from p. 9. In the next sentence, you skip an important step in the way things developed: instead of the last three lines, I’d rather have seen: “found that Freud had provided numerous reports of its concrete manifestations in clinical material. He therefore inferred that examples . . . blots.”

   Page 2, paragraph 2, sentence 2: delete the word “and.” Vol. 2 is the CD.

   I was surprised by your statement, in the fourth paragraph, that the literature I reviewed was “essentially limited” to the works of Rapaport’s students. Repeatedly, I cast as wide a net as I could, making every effort to check into everything that explicitly or implicitly dealt with primary process thinking. I’m surprised, also, that you overlooked Suler (1980) in my bibliography and index. The reason I didn’t discuss it was that I had already covered the same sources he surveyed and that I didn’t find that his paper added anything. It struck me as a rather routine, not very insightful piece of work. And I do thoroughly agree that the situation and the examiner have important influences on the person giving Rorschach responses, though offhand I can’t recall just where in Vol. 2 I discuss those matters at some length. It is true that my scoring system, like the vast majority of others, implicitly does ignore determinants other than those located in the respondent. They can affect the data, however, only through their influence on him/her. If, for example, the Rorschach is administered in a manner and/or situation that conveys the message that it is a test of intellectual ability, that is likely to result in more intellectualizing in persons who rely on that defense. The relevant material produced and scored is an interactive product of person and situation. Ideally, one would want to get data in a variety of situations and with a variety of examiners (though in practice that would be impossible for a number of reasons).

   I fully share your final dismay about the non-publication of so many dissertations. Your suggestion is appealing, but this problem needs to be considered in light of the growing crisis in scientific publishing and the expanding role of the internet. If all dissertations had to be posted (in digital form, of course) perhaps on the web site of the sponsoring university, it would be a rather different ballgame. Old-fashioned print-on-paper publication is getting unsupportably expensive and library resources (to buy and to house hard copy) ever harder pressed, while the exponential growth of literature continues. Controls and filters for scientific quality and originality will have to be developed. My own attempt to cope with a related problem might be emulated: offer courses in the evaluation of finished research (i.e., published in some form), not just in planning investigations.

   Again, thanks for writing such a thoughtful and friendly review.
   Bob

Comment: