Acknowledgements, Preface and Chapter One of William Stephenson’s Psychoanalysis and Q-Method

Abstract

In this opening chapter, Stephenson first sets out his own personal position about psychoanalysis while giving a foretaste of the basic principles to be employed in his probe into psychoanalytic theory. He notes that although he had not previously identified himself with psychoanalysis, he had been in analysis with Melanie Klein, the celebrated Austrian-British psychoanalyst, some 20 years previously. Stephenson argues that for him, psychoanalysis fell short in two fundamental respects: It was rooted in outmoded dogmas about the mind and had developed no operationally-defined procedure suited to its needs. Stephenson goes on to outline his behavioral stance toward consciousness and mind, introducing Jacob Kantor’s notion of behaviour segments. As an example of the various conditions that mediate the typical segments of behaviour that are of interest to psychoanalysts, Stephenson discusses results from a simple Art-form projective test. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of theory in psychoanalysis. Stephenson’s pragmatic approach to theory draws upon Charles Peirce’s philosophy of scientific inference, highlighting the role of abduction in the explanatory aspects of psychoanalytic theory.