One Psychologist as Analysand [1940]

One's previous psychological background necessarily plays a considerable role in finally determining whether or not an analysis is undertaken. In my own case, I had been exposed to psychoanalytic concepts for a number of years before actually commencing analysis. I had entered psychology with the usual fundamental basis for its study-the desire to understand behavior (perhaps unconsciously more the desire to understand myself?)-and continued through a rather conventional, if not deep-rooted, change to a concern with psychophysics because of the lure of the exact. The interest in personality continued, however, with an attempt to apply more stringent methods to its study. This endeavor brought me into the field of the abnormal and into contact with phenomena for which too frequently only the psychoanalysts had explanations-strange ones sometimes-to offer.