ABSTRACT
Freudian theory is extensive, multifaceted, and complex. Like other theoretical systems in the human, social, and behavioral sciences, it is loosely “concatenated” rather than deductively hierarchical. The methodologist Abraham Kaplan (1964) explained that a concatenated theory is one in which the components constitute a network of relations that form an identifiable configuration or pattern. Theories of this kind are characterized by “tendency” statements, which depend on their joint application for closure. Facts are explained by such theories when their place in the overall pattern can be demonstrated. “The ‘big bang’ theory of cosmology, the theory of evolution, and the psychoanalytic theory of the neuroses may all be regarded as being of this type” (p. 298).
