Abstract
The question raised at the beginning of this paper was “Is psychoanalysis a science?” I have avoided a straight answer to this question, but have set out to demonstrate the inter-relationships between psychological and physiological processes in accordance with psychoanalytic theory.
Successive steps in rigorous research design have been defined as problem formation, review of knowledge, preliminary observation, theory construction, verification by empirical tests, control experiments, repetition of observation by independent investigators, and prediction of behaviour on repetition.
Three investigations concerning ovarian, thyroid and gastric function have been reported in some detail. It has been possible to verify some aspects of psychoanalytical theory by rigorously designed experimental procedures. Predictive psychological changes in relation to ovarian function and predictive physiological changes in relation to well-defined personality functions have been demonstrated. Some light has been thrown on the relevance of emotional factors to the etiology of Graves’ disease and of duodenal ulcer.