ABSTRACT
In addition to its unique, highly specialized theories, clinical psychoanalysis depends on and makes use of a good deal of nonpsychoanalytic knowledge. Knowledge of language is the most obvious example, but one could also cite knowledge of the physical world, of human biology, of the use and effect of body language and tone of voice, and so on. So far, few would disagree. It is more controversial to suggest that psychoanalysis also depends on nonpsychoanalytic psychological knowledge. And it would be even more controversial to urge that, as well as depending on nonpsychoanalytic psychological knowledge, psychoanalysis is also an extension of it. Let us call the first claim the dependency hypothesis, the second, the extension hypothesis. Both have had their advocates, including Edelson (1988) in the United States and Hopkins (1986) in England. The nonpsychoanalytic psychology in question is the commonsense psychological knowledge of everyday life, the knowledge that allows us to interpret others' noises as expressions of ideas, attitudes, intentions; others' facial gestures and body language as expressions of affects, desires, and so on. In the last decade, this commonsense psychology has sometimes been referred to as folk psychology (Stich, 1983; Churchland, 1984; Dennett, 1987a), but this term is misleading. We are not talking about something on a par with folk art; we are talking about the stuff of great novels, the raw material of Shakespeare. Even the term commonsense psychology is too weak for this store of interpretive skill and wisdom, but it is the term I will use.
