The Measurement of Psychological States Through the Content Analysis of Verbal Behavior

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Abstract

alysis and academic psychiatry) are often important and delicately balanced." My experiences and my theoretical and clinical orientation as both a psychoanalyst and a psychiatrist made it clear to me that my position was unhesitatingly with Dr. James Mann's spirited paper. He makes clear that a blurring of psychiatry and psychoanalysis has taken place because psychoanalytic concepts have become so much a part of psychiatry and he proceeds to differentiate between the two. He points out specifically that so-called Neo-Freudians may minimize, ignore or discard significant unified psychoanalytic theoretical considerations but insist that the end result be considered psychoanalysis anyway. His focus is also upon residency training. He addresses himself to the issue of how much psychoanalytic insights, theories and procedures can and should be incorporated into basic psychiatric residency training, education and practice. His view is that a residency training program should be devoted to the intensive study of human behavior, individual and in small groups, in normal and in abnormal states, in children and adults, and that this intensive study rests upon fundamental psychoanalytic contributions. After this three-year basic training, residents are in a position to choose in which direction they want to go—including education and training in psychoanalysis. This differentiates Doctor Mann's position both from Doctor Lief's views concerning psychoanalysis and residency training and from Dr. Milton Miller's views about the kinds of psychiatrists he apparently feels we should be turning out. This collection of papers then is for the reader who would like a glimpse of some aspects of the relationship between psychoanalysis and psychiatry—USA—circa 1968. JACOB SWARTZ, MD The Measurement of Psychological States Through the Content Analysis of Verbal Behavior