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THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORs: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRoviNCE OF ST. J-OSEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XXI APRIL, 1958 No.~ THOMISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYSIS STATEMENT OF THE THESIS PREVIOUS to the last war there seemed to exist a certain immisceability among the three major approaches to the study of human nature: the philosophical psychological , the empirical psychological and the psychoanalytic. This is not to say that every writer or researcher felt himself obliged to remain within the confines established for his discipline , but only to acknowledge that a hard core of the practitioners of one approach labored in ignorance and even disdain of the labors of those who used other approaches. Since the war, the situation seems to have changed. As a result of practical collaboration, psychologists and psychoanalysts have begun to find common interests; as a result of the generally felt need for broader contexts of thought, philosophy is be125 U6 MICHAEL STOCK ginning to win acceptance with students of a more empirical cast of mind. This situation should be welcome to Thoinists, especially to those who see no formal line of distinction between the philosophical and 'empirical approach to any, object of science. For them, any truth is grist for the mill, no matter how or by whom discovered; a challenge to the integrating power of the fundamental Thomistic principles and an opportunity to enrich their science by a further application. Within this context, I should like to suggest that it would be profitable for students of St. Thomas to investigate the writings of Sigmund Freud. I do not mean this in the merely superficial sense, that, because Freud is widely read and discussed , we also should know something about him, if only to be abreast of current thinking. Nor do I mean it in the more praiseworthy but still 1 inadequate sense, that because the Freudian methods of therapy have proved useful in curing some types of mental disturbances, we should understand enough of the matter to be able to use them or recommend their use. I mean the thesis in a more formal sense, that, namely, there are Freudian concepts which can be integrated into the content of Thomistic psychology, where they would provide valuable elaborations in the speculative order. · A number of objections immediately come to mind. In what sense does St. Thomas' psychology need addition or elaboration ? And if it needs some kind of development, why look to psychoanalysis, and, if one must look to psychoanalysis, why to Freud? To take up the second question first, it would seem evident that psychoanalysis, even as a study of human nature, has made great contributions to our understanding of man, uncovering truths which were previously hardly suspected and certainly greatly undervalued. If, then, we hold, as we do, that there is no need to defend the profundity and accuracy of St. Thomas' psychology, it would seem hard to believe that there is no substantial area of agreement between the two points of view, no intersection of their respective insights. For it seems THOMISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND FREUD'S PSYCHOANALYSIS 127 hard to allow that there could be two profound penetrations into human nature which were entirely disparate, entirely unprofitable for speculative analysis and comparison. This is not to assert that only psychoanalysis has provided material interesting to the Thomist psychologist. It would certainly be useful to integrate also the findings of empirical psychologists, especially, for instance, Gestalt schools. However , since empirical psychology initially turned its attention to the problems of external sensation, and even to the more physiological aspects thereof, and has consequently effected its greatest contribution in these areas in which philosophical interest is relatively thin, while psychoanalysis has from the beginning plunged into the areas of deeper perceptions and basic motivations, in which areas philosophy is also more intensely concerned, psychoanalysis seems to hold out at present a promise of greater immediate rewards to the philosophical investigator. Granting, then, the value of a philosophical study of psychoanalysis , why Freud? For all his genius and influence, it is widely admitted that Freud had some fundamental limitations, even within the field...

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