ABSTRACT
In spite of William Jame’s (1950) challenge to study ongoing thought in all its richness diversity, and complexity, a review of much of the literature in psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy since the early 1900s little serious interest in the study of our ever-changing stream of consciousness (Singer & Pope, 1978). Although Freud and other psychoanalysts drew our attention to primary process thinking, they were primarily interested in uncovering the ways in which nonverbal, irrational, wishful, childlike, fantasy-laden material intrudes into adult mental life to bring about maladaptive, self-defeating behavior and other aspects of psychopathology. Freud and many other psychoanalysts appeared to be saying that a well-analyzed adult would rely primarily on secondary process thinking and avoid primary process thinking as much as possible. Within such a framework, there was little room for the adaptive, pleasurable, creative, and therapeutic qualities of imagery-laden mentation. Instead, the value of goal-directed logical thinking was greatly underscored; and psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists developed a bias toward the use of verbal, linear thought which continues to the present.
