Jane, since you concluded that I believe psychoanalysis to be incorrect, I went back to see what I had written that could have led you to that conclusion. I found it. I wrote: "So, the most succinct thing I can say is that I do not consider "psychoanalyis" to be correct as you summarily put it." My statement could mean two different things: 1. My statement could mean that I believe psychoanalysis to be incorrect (which it the meaning you read). This is not, however, the meaning I intended even though it is a perfectly correct meaning for you to have derived from what I wrote. 2. My statement could also mean that I have no belief about the correctness of psychoanalysis (i.e., I do not consider the matter of the correctness of psychoanalysis). This second meaning is the one I intended, but my intentied meaning was certainly not presented unambiguously--until now. Sorry about my ambiguous statement. As to belief in the unconscious mind and unconscious thinking, I am actually an insistent believer. In fact I consider unconscious mental activity to be virutually self-evident. However, I don't think that psychoanalytic theories have the most accurate interpreations of the mechanisms of unconscious mental processes.
I suspect that some parts of some psychoanaytic theories may be correct, but I am ultimately agnostic in the matter. I do believe, however, that some parts of some psychoanalytic theories and techniques are useful, as I think I made clear in the above posting.
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