statements are not always evaluated within their proper context.
Thus, not infrequently, specific aspects are torn out of a long
historical line of theoretical development and isolated from the
rest, and similarly one or the other phase of psychoanalytic thinking
is given undue emphasis out of context. Such misrepresentations
are apt to convey the erroneous impression that whatever aspect has
been singled out embraces all that Freud or psychoanalysis had
ever to say on some specific topic. In this sense we very much en-
dorse the statement made by Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein
that 'quoting Freud is, as a rule, meaningful only if it is part of a
laborious but unavoidable attempt to gain insight into the position of
the quoted passage within the development of Freud's thought'. ¹ This is precisely one of the major aims of the Concept Research
Group.

We were similarly prompted for what we felt with Hartmann,
Kris and Loewenstein, to be 'the disregard for the psycho-
analytic theory as a coherent set of assumptions'. ² ' Freud's hypo-
theses are interrelated in a systematic way: there is a hierarchy of
hypothesis in their relevance, their closeness to observation, their
degree of verification. It is none the less true that there exists no
comprehensive presentation of analysis from this angle. Here again
recourse to the historical approach seems imperative...by show-
ing the actual problems in their right proportions and in their
right perspective.' ³

Another important factor is the realization that Freud made many
statements in the course of developing his theories which he with-
drew or modified in subsequent works. This in itself constitutes a
major source of frequent misrepresentation of Freud's views. One
of the aims of this work, in which we try to evaluate Freud's basic
psychoanalytic concepts in their historical context, is precisely to
avoid such pitfalls and misrepresentations.

We further agree with Hartmann, Kris and Loewenstein that a
serious danger of misrepresentation exists when there is an in-

-16-