ABSTRACT
It is obvious that neither the philobat nor the ocnophil is fully justified in his picture of the world. They both rely on faults and omissions in their testing of reality. In 'Contributions to Reality Testing', the author proposes to consider reality testing as occurring in steps. The first step is to decide whether a particular sensation is coming from within or without. The second step is to infer from the sensations what it is that causes them; this step may be called the object formation. Very closely connected with it is the third step—to find the significance of the sensation. The fourth step is then to find the appropriate reaction to the sensation perceived. A further important point is that the psycho-analytic study of reality testing has been confined to a limited field, viz. that of practically unemotional perceptions and sensations.
