Here is a problem of the greatest interest and of the greatest importance— one which should demand the most careful research and the most positive deliberation and consideration, with prolonged and intensive study and observation of cases, combined with self-scrutiny and self-analysis and self-knowledge (which means a keen insight into human nature and the human mind in its manifold workings). Here is a serious, concrete problem of great practical importance. Its solution and elucidation means much. And he who comes forward with an explanation of this problem should be expected to give conclusive proof of his conception and for his conclusion. And we should, justly and as a matter of course, expect and demand it.
And what proof has Dr. Coriat given us for his conclusions? Here and there scattered through his paper one finds a few conclusions or explanations of a concrete nature, but they are his interpretations of the facts and not the facts. No real, in fact not a vestige of proof is offered. The few dreams which he presents do not, to the inquiring and demanding reader, show anything which permit of the conclusions which Dr. Coriat draws with reference to their meaning or significance. He seems to have interpretated (rather than analyzed) them in typical Freudian fashion. And, furthermore, even if his interpretations of the few dreams which he presents and which were taken from different cases were true, of what significance would that be? What right would we thus have of drawing conclusions which apply to all cases of stuttering (and, as mentioned earlier in this paper, to many other related states of a normal and abnormal nature)? Not the slightest.
Not a single case has been presented in proof of the conclusions drawn in the paper. Surely this is not what we have been accustomed to expect in other fields of medicine, especially when the conception newly put forth is entirely novel, sensational, revolutionary, contrary to all former beliefs, and based on theories and conclusions which have been for some time and still are a centre of storm, of wordy argumentation, and even of insult and abuse—at any rate sub judice,
Has the science and practice of psychopathology come to the stage when theories of any sort can be given to the reading public as fact, and no actual proof therefor presented?
I venture to say that in no other department of medicine or in fact in no other aspect of life would scientific men tolerate such presentation and promulgation, despite opposition and disproof and with no tangible or definite evidence or proof. Nor would men come forward to offer revolutionary, let alone dangerous theories, for general consumption, with so little proof, as is being laid on the platter for psychopathologists.
I find no evidence offered by Dr. Coriat to bolster up the conclusions of his paper.
In response to a question asked by one of those who discussed his paper in which he was requested to explain how he knew that stammering begins by concealing something, Dr. Coriat stated: "I have had an opportunity of examining a number of stammerers and subjecting them to a complete psychoanalysis, studying all the paradoxical mental reactions and in nearly every case this concealment of some sexual secret of childhood came up. It is easy to establish a certain relationship between the speech embarrassment and the concealed sexuality."
There is, as is seen, no other proof for this theory (that is all that one call it) of Dr. Coriat and the Freudian school in general, than his or their say-so. Those who are acquainted with the method of arriving at conclusions adopted by the Freudian school will demand more than this as proof of either the "concealment" of some "sexual secret" of childhood (and where lives there a man or woman that has not sexual memories, not necessarily secrets, of some sort or other, related to the period of puberty or antedating it by a certain varying period?) or the establishment of a relationship other than co-existence or coincidence, between the speech embarrassment and the "concealed sexuality" (just as if even proof of the existence of this relationship was sufficient testimony of the causative operating influence of the latter).
I could discuss Dr. Coriat's paper from many angles, and in each case show that its conclusions were not only unsupported but impossible.[11] But in the above remarks I have presented sufficient evidence, I believe, to carry out the objects of this criticism.
[11] The ideas in the paper are, in fact, absurd. If definite, practical, clinical issues were not involved matters might be different. But the situation is serious yes, dangerously antisocial, since the practical application of these theories to human beings is the point of greatest interest.