ABSTRACT
Man and animals investigate their surroundings with the aid of the sensory organs; they listen, smell, watch, and touch; they form cohesive impressions of their surroundings, remember these impressions, compare them, and develop expectations on the basis of past impressions. Introspection and empathy thus play a role in all psychological understanding; Josef Breuer and E. L. Freud, however, were par excellence pioneers in the scientific use of introspection and empathy. Resistances against free association are properly discussed as a consequence of the defense function of the mind. Psychoanalytic therapy in toto may be said to prepare for action; free association itself, however, is not preparatory for action but for structural rearrangements via increased tension tolerance. Freud's early research was directed toward the introspective and empathic investigation of the psychoneuroses. Some concepts used by psychoanalysis are not abstractions founded on introspective observation or empathic introspection, but are derived from data obtained through other methods of observation.
