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The Claims of [[Psychoanalysis ]] to [[Scientific ]] Interest was first published in the Italian review Scientia. It was the first of [[Freud]]'s [[texts ]] to be translated into [[French]], and this [[translation ]] was by M.W. Horn. Scientia's title page contained some information concerning the publication: it was a bimonthly based in Milan, its subtitle [[being ]] International Review of Scientific [[Synthesis]]. It was co-edited in [[London ]] and Leipzig, and in [[Paris ]] by Félix Alcan. Among its contributors between 1912 and 1914 were Alfred Adler,Émile Durckheim, Albert [[Einstein]], Henri Piéron, Henri Poincaré, and Bertrand Russell.

"I have just had to do an unwanted job, a kind of introduction to [[psycho]]-[[analysis ]] for Scientia;Ididit, not wishing to refuse in view of the admirable [[character ]] of that international journal," Freud wrote to Oskar Pfister on March 11, 1913. It was in fact a "propaganda article," in Freud's [[words ]] to Karl [[Abraham ]] on September 21, aimed at making a large [[public ]] more familiar with the advantages and possibilities that psychoanalysis offered to contemporary [[culture]]. Presented in [[German ]] in the review and simultaneously in French in an attached fascicule containing [[other ]] translations from this resolutely eclectic collection, the first part, Its Interest for [[Psychology]], was thus published in the [[supplement ]] to volume XIV dated September 1, 1913. The second, Its Interest for the Non-[[Psychological ]] [[Sciences]], was published in the supplement to the next issue, dated November 1, 1913. For unknown reasons, although [[World ]] War I no [[doubt ]] had a large [[role ]] to play, it remained totally unknown to French [[psychoanalysts ]] until 1976.

The first part is a [[summary]], such as Freud was [[good ]] at producing, of the [[psychoanalytic ]] [[theory ]] of [[parapraxes]], [[dreams ]] and their [[interpretation]], and of the hopes of curing psychopathological affections. But the second part is perhaps the most original because in it Freud develops the spirit of "conquest" (he used the expression in a [[letter ]] to [[Jung ]] in 1909) with [[regard ]] to "other domains of [[knowledge]]," a spirit that motivated him ever since the afflux of students put an end to his splendid [[isolation]]. The break with the Jungians further reinforced the [[necessity ]] of familiarizing researchers with the "reveals unexpected relations" (p. 165) between their [[subjects ]] and the [[pathology ]] of [[mental ]] [[life]]" (p. 165).

First mentioned were the "[[language ]] sciences," a pre-eminence that may easily seem prophetic. Interpretation is the "translations from an [[alien ]] method of expression into the one which is familiar to us" (p. 176) and the study of [[dream ]] [[symbols ]] evokes "the earliest phases of [[linguistic ]] [[development ]] and [[conceptual ]] [[construction]]" (p. 176). "The language of dreams may be looked upon as the method by which [[unconscious ]] mental [[activity ]] expresses itself. But the unconscious speaks more than one dialect" (p. 177).

"The [[philosophical ]] interest of psycho-analysis" (p. 178) comes next, specifically asserting the [[existence ]] of an Unconscious that is no longer a mystical hypothesis, and the new implications of this for "the relation of [[mind ]] to [[body]]" (p. 178). But Freud's distrust of [[philosophers ]] found expression in the paragraph where he extols the merits of a psychoanalytic pathography that "psychography" (p. 179) that "can indicate the [[subjective ]] and [[individual ]] motives behind philosophical theories which have ostensibly sprung from impartial [[logical ]] [[work]]" (p. 179).

It was in [[terms ]] of its "[[biological]]" (p. 179) interest that psychoanalysis attracted the most criticism: the revelation of the importance of the [[sexual ]] function shocked, mainly because of the light it shed on the [[forbidden ]] territory of [[infantile ]] [[sexuality]]. It was, however, desirable to establish a junction between the two sciences in [[order ]] to have a better [[understanding ]] of the [[instincts]], a point of contact with [[biology]]" (p. 182) and to shed light on their "[[active]]" and "[[passive]]" properties in their relations with [[masculinity ]] and [[femininity]].

"The interest of psycho-analysis from a [[developmental ]] point of view" followed next, organized around the evolution from the [[psychic ]] life of the [[child ]] to that of the [[adult ]] and the discovery that "in spite of all the later development that occurs in the adult, none of the infantile [[formations ]] perish. All the wishes, [[instinctual ]] impulses, modes of reaction and attitudes of [[childhood ]] are still demonstrably [[present ]] in maturity and in appropriate circumstances emerge once more" (p. 184). Moreover, psychoanalysis confirmed the [[idea ]] that "'ontogeny is a [[repetition ]] of phylogeny" (p. 184), which demonstrated its "interest . . . from the point of view of the [[history ]] of [[civilization]]" (p. 184) in relation to deciphering [[myths]], understanding [[primitive ]] peoples, ancient civilizations and [[religions]]. The new hypothesis was that "the [[principle ]] function of the mental [[mechanism ]] is to relieve the individual from the tensions created in him by his [[needs]]. One part of this task can be achieved by extracting [[satisfaction ]] from the [[external ]] world; and for this [[purpose ]] it is essential to have [[control ]] over the [[real ]] world" (p. 186). The study of the [[neuroses ]] demonstrated the same dynamism and thus enriched anthropological research with its discoveries.

"The interest of psycho-analysis from the point of view of the [[science ]] of [[aesthetics]]" (p. 187) is next stressed, opening the door to this [[form ]] of "applied psychoanalysis" that has been of such importance in the history of psychoanalysis. But Freud cautiously states that "the motive forces of artists are the same conflicts which [[drive ]] other [[people ]] into [[neurosis ]] and have encouraged [[society ]] to [[construct ]] its institutions. Whence it is that the [[artist ]] derives his creative capacity is not a question for psychology" (p. 187). Art "constitutes a region half-way between a [[reality ]] which [[frustrates ]] wishes and the [[wish]]-fulfilling world of the imagination—a region in which, as it were, primitive man's strivings for omnipotence are still in [[full ]] force" (p. 188).

The erotism underlying [[social ]] relations and the [[repression ]] required by the cohabitation of [[human ]] beings are essential psychoanalytic contributions to "[[sociology]]." Hence, also, "the educational interest" (p. 189) of a science that becomes more familiar with the real psychic life of the child and its evolution. "We grown-up people cannot [[understand ]] [[children ]] because we no longer understand our own childhood" (p. 189). Teachers learned from the discoveries concerning the "[[Oedipus ]] [[complex]], [[self]]-[[love ]] (or '[[narcissism]]'), the disposition to perversions, [[anal ]] erotism, [and] sexual curiosity" (p. 189). Psychoanalysis "can also show what precious contributions to the [[formation ]] of character are made by these asocial and [[perverse ]] instincts in the child, if they are not subjected to repression but are diverted from their original aims to more valuable ones by the [[process ]] known as '[[sublimation]].' Our highest virtues have grown up, as reaction formations and sublimations, out of our worst dispositions" (p. 190).

See also: [[Anthropology ]] and psychoanalysis; Applied psychoanalysis and the interactions of psychoanalysis; Ego; [[France]]; [[Imago]]. Zeitschrift für die Anwendung der Psychoanalyse auf die Geisteswissenschaften. "[[On the History of the Psychoanalytic Movement]]"; Psychoanalytic [[epistemology]]; Sociology and psychoanalysis, sociology.