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ABSTRACT

THE UNCOVERING PROPERTIES OF VISUAL IMAGERY, VERBAL ASSOCIATION WITH
EYES CLOSED, AND VERBAL ASSOCIATION WITH EYES OPEN:

A COMPARATIVE STUDY

By

Donnel Stern

An attempt was made to replicate and expand the results of
Reyher and Smeltzer (1968), who found that visual imagery was accompanied
by more anxiety than verbal association, more signs of primary process
regulation, more direct expression of drives, and less effective defense
mechanisms. In the present study, the possibility was evaluated that
eye closure is an uncovering technique and that it helped to account forT
the differences between visual imagery and verbal association in the
study by Reyher and Smeltzer. Two measures of degree of primary process
regulation were used to evaluate the relative effectiveness as uncovering
techniques of visual imagery, verbal association with eyes open, and
verbal association with eyes closed.

Thirty-six undergraduate subjects, 18 male and 18 female, each
participated in ten minutes of visual imagery, ten minutes of verbal
association with eyes closed, and ten minutes of verbal association with
eyes open. The verbal responses of the subjects were transcribed, broken
into sentences by the experimenter, and scored by two extensively

trained undergraduates blind to the experimental hypotheses.‘ The scoring

Donne} Stern

systems used were those devised by Holt (1960, 1970) for scoring
primary process manifestations on the Rorschach.

Analysis of the results lent support neither to the hypothesis
that eye closure aids uncovering nor to the hypothesis that visual
imagery is more primary process regulated than verbal association.

This lack of support for the experimental hypotheses seemed
to be due to the differences between the procedures of the present study
and those of Reyher and Smeltzer. It was pointed out that different
conditions of observation of the same dependent variables tend to pro-
duce different kinds of data. The data of the present experiment,
though they could not be used to evaluate the experimental hypotheses,
did contain spontaneous psychopathological symptoms, both psychosomatic
and "psychological" (e.g. paranoid ideas and obsessive compulsive symp-
toms), and also contained empirical demonstrations of H. S. Sullivan's
important concept, security operations. These further data will be
presented in a later report. .

Since the measures of the dependent variables were theoreti-
cally instead of empirically derived, and since some evidence led the
writer to doubt the validity of the measures, it was concluded that the

measures could not be assumed to be valid.

Approved by:

 

Date:

 

THE UNCOVERING PROPERTIES OF VISUAL IMAGERY, VERBAL ASSOCIATION WITH
EYES CLOSED, AND VERBAL ASSOCIATION WITH EYES OPEN:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY

By

#1 ,

Donneletern

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Psychology

1974

To Annie,
who is tender and fiery
and creative and unique
and with whom I have never been lonely

ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To Dr. Joseph Reyher, my committee chairman, whose interest
and support never flag, I cannot express enough appreciation. When my
enthusiasm waned, his rekindled it.

I wish to thank Dr. Norman Abeles and Dr. Don Grumman for
their suggestions, critiques, and careful reviews of this thesis.

Mark Oleshansky and Terry Steele, the students who scored the
data, worked harder than I had any right to expect. I appreciate the

many hours they contributed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
LIST OF TABLES ....................... v
INTRODUCTION ........................ 1
Hypotheses ....................... 5
METHOD ........................... 8
Subjects ........ . ............... 8
Procedure ........................ 8
Scoring ......................... 10
RESULTS .......................... 12
Reliability ............. . ......... 12
Primary process content ................. 12
Primary process formal deviations of the thought
process ......................... 13
Subjective reports ................... 16
DISCUSSION ......................... 19
Validity of the Holt scoring system ........... 19
Comparison of the present study with Reyher and
Smeltzer ........................ 22
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS .................. 29
REFERENCES ......................... 31

iv

Table

LIST OF TABLES

Analysis of variance of primary process content (raw
scores) for sex, methods of uncovering, and order of

presentation of experimental treatments ........

Analysis of variance of primary process content
(transformed scores) for sex, methods of uncovering,
and order of presentation of experimental treatments

Analysis of variance of raw scores for primary process
formal deviation of the thought process for sex,
methods of uncovering, and order of presentation of

experimental treatments ................

Analysis of variance of transformed scores for primary
process formal deviation of the thought process for
sex, methods of uncovering, and order of presentation

of experimental treatments ..............

Page

I3

14

I4

15

INTRODUCTION

Freud developed free association at a time when he was trying
to dissociate himself from hypnosis, his previous method of choice
(Kline, 1958). Even so, in the early days of free association, he did
instruct his patients to report visual images. For instance, in the

description of one case, he says:

I began the psychoanalytic treatment of a boy of fourteen years
who was suffering from tic convulsif, hysterical vomiting, head-
ache, etc., by assuring him that, after closing his eyes, he
would see pictures or have ideas, which I requested him to com-
municate to me. He answered by describing pictures (Freud, 1913,
p. 491 .

 

Freud instructed this patient to close his eyes; Jones (1955)
points out that it was only later that Freud decided to do away with eye
closure. Without eye closure, of course, patients produced few visual
images, and so the "pictures" Freud had previously asked his patients to
report were no longer used as part of treatment. Kline's (1958) asser-
tion that Freud developed free association at least partly as an escape
route from hypnosis is substantiated by an excerpt from one of Freud's
own early papers on technique. The paper was written in the third per-
son because it was originally published anonymously (Jones, 1955).

The cathartic method had already renounced suggestion; Freud went
one step further and gave up hypnosis as well. At the present
time he treats his patients as follows: without exerting any
other kind of influence, he invites them to recline in a comfort-
able position on a couch, while he himself is seated on a chair
behind them, outside their field of vision. He does not ask them

to close their eyes as well as any other procedure which might
remind them of hypnosis (Freud, 1959, pp. 265-266).

Nowhere else in the paper is eye closure mentioned; it is dispensed
with in a phrase. Since Freud did not make a rational assessment of
the potential usefulness of eye closure, the decision to give it up
seems to have been no better than arbitrary. However, since so many
professionals have held Freud's words in such awe, few have questioned
this decision. Some psychoanalytically oriented practitioners have
reported their clients' spontaneous production of visual images during
free association (Jellinek, 1949; Kanzer, 1958; Warren, 1961), and
others report occasional use of imagery in psychoanalytic psychotherapy
(Goldberger, 1957; Kubie, 1943), but there has been little systematic
use of visual imagery as a method of uncovering. (See Singer (1972) for
a review of the uses of imagery in psychotherapy.)

Reyher (1963, 1970) has developed a technique employing visual
imagery and has demonstrated the technique to be an effective uncovering
procedure. In the use of this method, which is called free imagery, or,
more recently, emergent uncovering (Reyher, 1968, 1969; Reyher and
Morishige, 1969), therapist and client are seated vis a vis and the
therapist asks the client to close his eyes and describe visual images
and any feelings or bodily sensations which may come to his attention.
As the client's images become increasingly depictive of repressed drives,
symptoms and/or resistance are produced.

Reyher and Smeltzer (1968) found that visual imagery was
accompanied by more anxiety than verbal association, more signs of pri-
mary process regulation, more direct expression of drives, and less
effective defense mechanisms. These investigators recorded subjects'

verbal associations and visual images to stimulus words from the

categories of family relationships (e.g., sister), sex (e.g.,
masturbation), and hostility (e.g., kill). A modified version of the
Holt system (Holt and Havel, 1960) was used to score subjects' responses
for level of primary process, successful and unsuccessful attempts at
defense, and blatancy of drive expression. Magnitude of subjects' GSR
was the index of anxiety. Short trials of association and imagery were
systematically alternated.

Since in this study eye closure was used in visual imagery
and not during verbal association, it may be that eye closure is the
variable responsible for the observed differences between the two
methods. The possibility that this is indeed the case is supported by
Reyher's (1963) description of the theoretical basis for the effective-
ness of free imagery.

The procedures involved in free imagery are designed to minimize

secondary process and maximize primary process by eliminating
or reduc1ng Visual and auditory cues that are necessary for

supporting defenses and maintaining an external frame of refer-

ence. Without these cues, an external frame of reference and

defenses can be maintained only by internal cognitive processes,

such as the formulation of thoughts for communication to T

(p. 459).
To put the point in another way, it may be that eye closure is the
crucial determinant in the success of free imagery, that eye closure
is the means by which the client is "thrown back upon more subjective
media which are more easily influenced by unconscious material and
primary process" (Reyher, 1963, p. 459).

However, it is also possible that the effects of visual im-

agery and eye closure combine to produce the comparative results cited
above. If eye closure and visual imagery both have uncovering propert-

ies and, further, if visual imagery is less secondary process than

verbal association, then visual imagery (eyes closed) should be a more
effective uncovering technique than verbal association with eyes closed,
and eyes-closed verbal association should be more effective than the
traditional eyes-open verbal association method.

The purpose of the present study was to explore and expand
the results of Reyher and Smeltzer by using some of their criteria to
compare visual imagery and verbal association under conditions in which
eye closure was systematically varied. The amounts of primary process
content and primary process formal deviation of the thought process were
compared in verbal association with eyes open, verbal association with
eyes closed, and visual imagery (eyes closed).

When the writer made an attempt to review the relevant litera-
ture, it was found that, beyond the study by Reyher and Smeltzer, empiri-
cal research comparing two or more uncovering techniques does not exist.
The second purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether or not
an uncovering effect of eye closure contributed to the greater amount of
primary process content observed by Reyher and Smeltzer in visual imagery
than in verbal association. The only previous research which also
attempted to evaluate the uncovering properties of a particular aspect
of an uncovering technique is a study by Kroth and Forrest (1969), who
found that low-anxious subjects produced more effective free associations
when lying in the traditiOnal prone position on a couch than they pro-
duced while in a sitting position. High-anxious subjects did not show
this difference between the two postures. The only other relevant exper-
imental reference is by Bordin (1966), who presents an experimental

analogue for the study of free association. Bordin comments on the lack

of research on free association and states that most of those who have
written on psychoanalysis as treatment have been concerned only with

resistance.

Hypotheses

 

Hypothesis I. The content of visual imagery shows more signs

 

of primary process regulation than does the content of verbal association
with eyes closed.

Hypothesis II. The content of verbal association with eyes

 

closed shows more signs of primary process regulation than does the con-
tent of verbal association with eyes open.

Hypothesis III. Thought process shows more signs of primary

 

process regulation in visual imagery than in verbal association with
eyes closed.

Hypothesis IV. Thought process shows more signs of primary

 

process regulation in verbal association with eyes closed than in verbal
association with eyes open.

The original plan for this research contained several other
hypotheses which the writer was not able to evaluate. Two of these
hypotheses concerned anxiety. The measure of anxiety was to be the
Gottshalk-Gleser content analysis scale of anxiety (Gottshalk, Winget,
and Gleser, 1969; Gottshalk and Gleser, 1969). Upon examination, how-
ever, it was found that the Gottshalk-Gleser categories overlapped with
the Holt categories; the same aspects of a single verbal production by
a subject are scorable both as primary process content and as anxiety.

And while the writer feels that anxiety may often accompany the

production of primary process material, the two are certainly not the
same thing. The Gottshalk-Gleser scoring system was, therefore, aban-
doned. Instead, subjects' spontaneously reported anxiety was to be used
as the measure of anxiety, and a list of scorable descriptions of anxi-
ety was to be constructed. It became clear, though, that conscious
anxiety was reported too infrequently to be a useful measure. Further,
without reporting anxiety, subjects manifested many feelings and behav-
iors which are usually thought to stem from anxiety (e.g., paranoid
thoughts, obsessive-compulsive thoughts and actions, psychosomatic symp-
toms). Conscious anxiety in the present study is now conceptualized as
one of many possible indications of disturbance of the psychological
equilibrium, and will be discussed in a forthcoming report on these
indications.

Two other original hypotheses concerned the degree of direct
expression of drive in verbal association and visual imagery. For rea-
sons which will be explored in the discussion of this report, subjects
in the present study produced only three or four direct (or Level 1,
according to the Holt scoring system) drive expressions. Since the two
hypotheses about directness of drive expression could be evaluated only
by obtaining a ratio of number of direct to number of relatively indirect
drive expressions, these hypotheses also had to be discarded. There were
simply no data with which to evaluate them.

Finally, two hypotheses concerning the effectiveness of
defense had to be abandoned. The dependent variable to be used in the
evaluation of these hypotheses was another scoring system devised by

Holt (1970) for use on the Rorschach. After the data of the present

study were collected, it was found that the scoring system would have
had to have been virtually rewritten to be applicable to free verbal

material. Rewriting such a complex scoring system was considered an

impractical task to undertake.

METHOD

Subjects

All subjects were selected randomly from a population of male
and female undergraduate volunteers who had signed up to participate in
an experiment on "unconscious processes." All subjects were enrolled
in psychology courses, and most were freshmen. Of the 36 total subjects,

18 were male and 18 were female.

Procedure

Each subject attended one-half hour experimental session in
which he participated in three conditions: (1) verbal association with
eyes open, (2) verbal association with eyes closed, and (3) visual im-
agery with eyes closed. Each condition lasted ten minutes. The subjects'
verbal responses in each condition were tape recorded. The order of
presentation of the three conditions was completely counterbalanced,
i.e., six subjects received each of the six possible orders of present-
ation of the three conditions. 0f the six subjects who received each
order of presentation, three were male and three were female.

The experimenter's pre-experimental contact with the subjects
was minimal. The experimenter contacted the subjects by telephone and
made an appointment. At the appointed time, the experimenter met the
subject in a waiting area and conducted him into the laboratory, where

the experimenter suggested that the subject put his books and/or coat

"on the bed" and "sit down in the big black chair." After requesting
permission to tape record, the experimenter gave the subject the first
instructions. For the duration of the session, the subject reclined in
the comfortable lounge chair. The experimenter's chair was located
behind the subject, out of the subject's field of vision. After request-
ing permission to tape record, the experimenter spoke only to give
instructions to the subject. If the subject asked a question about the
instructions after the experimenter had given them, the experimenter
repeated the instructions once. If the subject asked another question,
the experimenter said "I can't answer your questions." If the subject
asked further questions, the experimenter did not respond.

The experimental room was small, soundproof, windowless, and
contained a 6 Channel Grass #5 polygraph (in storage in the room), the
large black lounge chair, the experimenter's straight-backed chair, and
a cot (also in storage).

The following instructions were given to the subjects at the
beginning of the eyes-open verbal association condition:

Now, with your eyes open, I would like you to describe in detail
whatever thoughts and feelings occur to you. These thoughts and
feelings may be about anything. Just let your mind wander and
tell me the thoughts and feelings that come to your attention
without omitting a thing.

The following instructions were given to the subject at the
beginning of the eyes-closed verbal association condition:

Now, with your eyes closed, I would like you to describe in detail
whatever thoughts and feelings occur to you. These thoughts and
feelings may be about anything. Just let your mind wander and

tell me the thoughts and feelings that come to your attention
without omitting a thing.

TO

The following instructions were given to the subject at the
beginning of the visual imagery condition:
Now, with your eyes closed, I would like you to wait until an
image appears in your mind's eye. This may be an image of any-
thing. Wait until you see a picture in your mind's eye and
describe what you see and feel in detail. Describe the next

image or changes in the first one in the same way, without omit-
ting a thing.

Scoring

Two extensively trained undergraduates, blind to the experi-
mental hypotheses, used the tenth draft of Holt's procedure for scoring
primary process manifestations on the Rorschach (1970) to score the
subjects' transcribed verbal responses for amount of primary process
content and amount of primary process formal deviation of the thought
process. The scoring systems are sufficiently operational that the
scorers were able to use them without a thorough background in psycho-
analytic theory.

The primary process content scoring system measures the amount
of primary process representation of libidinal (oral, oral-aggressive,
anal, exhibitionistic-voyeuristic, homosexual, sexual, and miscellaneous
libidinal) and aggressive (sadistic, masochistic, and results of aggres-
sion) drives. The scoring system for primary process formal deviations
of the thought process is a way to "catch those instances where the
tool-marks of the primary process have been left on the finished pro-
duct" (Holt, 1970, p. iv). From these "tool-marks" is inferred the
operation of condensation, displacement, symbolization, and other aspects

of the primary process described by Holt. In the case of both scoring

11

systems, the specific categories were not used; only the total number
of scores in each of the scoring systems was used in the analyses.

The basic unit to be scored in the data was the sentence.
Before scoring began, the experimenter broke the data into sentences
and numbered them consecutively. All scorers then used the experiment-
er's breakdown of the data.

The sentences were examined one at a time. If a sentence con-
tained primary process content and/or primary process formal deviation
of the thought process, the information was recorded. This procedure
was repeated for each sentence in the data. If a primary process mani-
festation continued from one sentence to the next, it was scored in both
sentences. Also, it was possible for one sentence to receive more than
one primary process content score and/or more than one score for primary
process formal deviation of the thought process, although doubly scored
sentences were rare.

The number of primary process content scores in each condition
was totaled for each subject. The number of scores for primary process
formal deviation of the thought process was totaled in the same manner.
The data from each subject were therefore consolidated to three primary
process content totals and three totals for primary process formal devia-

tion of the thought process.

RESULTS

Reliability

One condition was chosen from the transcript of each subject's
verbal responses. The total number of primary process content scores
and scores for primary process formal deviations of the thought process
was calculated for each of these 36 ten-minute segments of data. The 36
ten-minute segments were then ranked according to their total scores,
and the Spearman rank-order correlation of the rankings of the two scor-
ers was calculated. The degree of interjudgement agreement was .87 for
primary process content and .89 for primary process formal deviations of

the thought process. These correlations indicate adequate reliability.

Primary process content

Initially, a four-way analysis of variance with repeated meas-
ures and equal group sizes (Winer, 1962) was performed. It is presented
in Table 1. This analysis used as data the total number of scores. There
were no significant effects, although the method of uncovering X order
of presentation of methods of uncovering interaction approached signifi-
cance (p = .077).

It was found that the number of primary process content scores,
though, correlated significantly with the number of sentences spoken
(r = .52, p = .001). In order to control for the influence of the number

of sentences, the number of primary process content scores was divided

12

13

Table 1. Analysis of variance of primary process content (raw scores)
for sex, methods of uncovering, and order of presentation of
experimental treatments.

 

 

 

Source 511: MS 1:
Order of presentation of
experimental treatments (A) 5 174.21 .97
Sex (B) 1 228.23 1.27
A X B 5 356.43 1.98
Error between 24 180.12
'Methods of uncovering (C) 2 2.56 .05
A X C 10 89.56 1.85
B X C 2 36.23 .75
A X B X C 10 49.83 1.03
Error within 48 48.38
Total 107

 

by the number of sentences in that condition for that subject. A second
four-way analysis of variance with repeated measures and equal group
sizes was then performed using the transformed scores. This analysis is
presented in Table 2. Again, there are no significant results. The
method of uncovering X order of presentation of conditions interaction
does not approach significance in this analysis. ‘

Neither of the two analyses provided any support for Hypothe-
sis I or Hypothesis II.

Primary process formal deviations
of the thought process

 

Again, an initial four way analysis of variance with repeated
measures and equal group sizes was performed. It is presented in Table

3, and shows no significant effects.

14

Table 2. Analysis of variance of primary process content (transformed
scores) for sex, methods of uncovering, and order of present-
ation of experimental treatments.

 

 

 

Source 9: MS _F_
Order of presentation of
experimental treatments (A) 5 .0509 2.06
Sex (B) 1 .0655 2.65
A X B 5 .0218 .88
Error between 24 .0248
Methods of uncovering (C) 2 .0093 .56
A X C 10 .0259 1.57
B X C 2 .0187 1.13
A X B X C 10 .0108 .66
Error within 48 .0165
Total 107

 

Table 3. Analysis of variance of raw scores for primary process formal
deviation of the thought process for sex, methods of uncovering,
and order of presentation of experimental treatments.

 

 

 

Source _dj _M_S_ f_
Order of presentation of
experimental treatments (A) 5 246.34 .54
Sex (B) l 66.90 .15
A X B 5 500.96 1.10
Error between 24 455.81
Methods of uncovering (C) 2 52.12 .98
A X C 10 55.85 1.05
B X C 2 60.18 1.13
A X B X C 10 29.64 .56
Error within 48 53.13
Total 107

 

15

As in the case of primary process content, the number of
primary process formal deviations of the thought process was found to
correlate significantly with the number of sentences spoken (r = .44,

p = .001). In order to control for the influence of the number of sen-
tences spoken, the number of scores for primary process formal devia-
tions of the thought process was divided by the number of sentences in
that condition for that subject. A second four-way analysis of variance
with repeated measures and equal group sizes was performed using the
transformed scores. Results of the analysis are presented in Table 4.
There were no significant results.

Neither of the analyses provided any support for Hypothesis
III or Hypothesis IV.

Table 4. Analysis of variance of transformed scores for primary process
formal deviation of the thought process for sex, methods of

uncovering, and order of presentation of experimental treat-

 

 

 

ments.
Source g [42 5
Order of presentation of
experimental treatments (A) 5 .1668 1.39
Sex (B) 1 .0400 .33
A X B 5 .1148 .96
Error between 24 .1200
Methods of uncovering (C) 2 .0013 .05
A X C 10 .0219 .89
B X C 2 .0326 1.32
A X B X C 10 .0096 .39
Error within 48 .0246

Total 107

 

l6

Subjective reports

Although the numerical data do not support the hypotheses
about eye closure, the reported experiences of several subjects do.

From the spontaneous remarks presented below, it appears that at least
some subjects were acutely aware, during and after the eyes-closed condi-
tions, of difficulty in "maintaining an external frame of reference" and
found themselves "thrown back upon more subjective media" (Reyher, 1963,
p. 459). There were no subjects who described similar experiences due

to having their eyes open. These subjective reports suggest that eye
closure may be an uncovering technique even though its effect was not
measured in this study.

The first quotation comes from a female subject during the
eyes-open verbal association condition. The order of presentation of
the treatments to her was: (1) eyes-closed verbal association, (2) eyes-
open verbal association, and (3) visual imagery.

Really glad to open up my eyes. Makes me feel a bit more comfort-
able to be able to see things. Cause everything-~being in a strange
place--the chair doesn't feel so weird with my eyes open.

A male subject commented at some length on his perception of
the effects of eye closure. His remarks are from the eye-closed verbal
association condition. The order of presentation he received was: (1)
eyes-open verbal association, (2) eyes-closed verbal association, and
(3) visual imagery.

Well, now it seems more restricted because my mind could pick up
certain things about the room that--the geometries, like the

tiles on the walls, and now I can't do that, so I'm restricted

to what's in my, in my head . . . I probably feel less comfortable

now than with my eyes open . . . . Again, I feel like I want to
cooperate, but just, you know, I just . . . . Seems like you'd

17

be able to let your mind wander more with your eyes closed, but
again, I might, I might have the fear of what-~my mind wander and
saying things that are--whatever. I don't know. I might be afraid
of it. . . . Probably the distractions that you can experience
with your eyes open are comfortable. Your mind will--I wasn't
thinking about how much I wasn't talking with my eyes open, 'cause
I could be distracted.

Perhaps the most interesting and striking point in the above
remarks is the clear description of this subject's loss of an external
frame of reference. This description is augmented by the words spoken
by a female subject in the eyes-closed verbal association condition. A
second quotation from the record of this subject data from the eyes-open
verbal association condition immediately follows the first description.
The order of presentation of treatments for this subject was: (1) visual
imagery, (2) eyes-closed verbal association, and (3) eyes-open verbal
association.

With your eyes closed like this, you're trying to see, look inside.
Instead of outside, you look inside at yourself . . . . Like you
were walking around inside of your own head. Looking for some-
thing . . . . Most of this I put in the eyes of a child's world.
And it's drawn to yourself . . . . It's like walking through the
night and seeing things--or trying to see things . . . . Forget
everything from outside . . . . Then something reminds you there
is an outside. And knowing, or a feeling. You realize you can't
really look into yourself and ignore the outside . . . . Each
voice makes you feel off alone . . . . (Note: E heard no voices.)
Everything seems far away . . . . Most of the other people become
very, very small . . . . When you can't see, your world is sort
of shrunken . . . . Shrinks down into a very small space . . . .
Like somebody put a wall between you and everything else . . . .
You only catch glimpses of what's going on outside . . . . And
when it's dark all around, time slows down. It almost stops . . .
Like you're standing still . . . . The things that are happening
around you don't exist.

When you open your eyes, you're more aware of other things. Out-
side, and you can't forget them . . . . I guess things are more
noticeable.

The loss of an external frame of reference in the first of the

two descriptions is obvious. As well, this subject has described the

18

process of falling back on an internal frame of reference. In the
second, shorter excerpt, the subject returns to the external reality.
Two last short excerpts come from the remarks made in the

eyes-open verbal association condition by two subjects. Both descrip-
tions are from females. The subject whose remarks are presented first
received the following order of presentation: (1) eyes-closed verbal
association, (2) visual imagery, and (3) eyes-open verbal association.
Her remarks were the first words she spoke in the eyes-open verbal asso-
ciation condition.

That's good. I can look around. Still feels like a dentist's

chair, though. That tile is like we have at--1ike we had at

home on the ceiling. Except this goes all over. Good, oh, I

can look around. That will be nice to talk about.
The subject who described her experience in the following words received
this order of presentation of treatments: (1) visual imagery, (2) eyes-
closed verbal association, and (3) eyes-open verbal association.

Strange to have your eyes open. It's not easy to think about

things that are far away. You focus your attention on things you

can see, objects.

These subjective reports have not been presented as evidence.

Rather, they are suggestive. Several reasons to doubt the validity of
the data have arisen; in light of these doubts, the spontaneous reports
of the subjects must be taken as further indications of the possibility

that the measurement tools used in this study were not appropriate to

the experimental hypotheses.

DISCUSSION

Validity of the Holt
scoring_system

A pg§t_hpg examination of the data on primary process formal
deviations of the thought process convinced the writer that, at least
in the case of the type of data collected in the present study, the
formal deviations scoring system does not measure any phenomenon unitary
enough to be comprehensible. The data is a hodge-podge of behaviors
which could be stuffed into one conceptual mold only if this writer made
a strenuous effort to do so. It is unfortunate that this is the case,
but it is unavoidable. Consider the following set of examples, all of
which make the sentence in which they occur scorable: puns or malaprop-
isms, great exaggeration for the sake of emphasis, contradiction of pre-
viously expressed effect, description of unlikely or inappropriate
activities or attributes, autistic logic, a factual error made by someone
who presumably knows the correct information, verbal incoherence.

There are other reasons to reject the data on primary process
formal deviations of the thought process. For instance, between one
quarter and one third of the total number of formal deviations scores
were from the category called "intrusion of irrelevancy.“ A sentence is
scored in this category when the associative link between it and the
one immediately prior to it is not at all clear to the scorer. In both

verbal association and visual imagery, of course, since subjects were

19

20

asked to let their minds wander, it was the subject who successfully
followed the instructions who scored the greatest number of "intrusions."
It could reasonably be asserted that production of loose associations
more or less on command is a secondary process function, not a primary
process one. Holt certainly did not observe a large number of "intru-
sions" in the Rorschach data which his scales were devised to score.
Further, fully half the categories in the formal deviations scoring
system were not applicable to the type of data collected in the present
study, and so were never used. The data from the present study are
vastly different than those for which Holt devised the scoring systems;
and if the data are different, there is no way to tell whether or not
the scales measure the same variables in both cases. That is, even the
validity that the Holt systems may have when applied to the data for
which they were devised cannot be assumed to hold in the case of differ-
ent types of data.

There is yet another reason to doubt the validity of the
formal deviations data. Holt has developed a scoring system which he
hopes will detect the operation of condensation, displacement, symboli-
zation, and other aspects of the primary process. He has built this
scoring system by constructing a set of rules which seem to compare the
form of a subject's interpretation of the reality with the reality itself.
The "reality" seems usually to be defined as the consensual reality. So,
for instance, if a subject uses a word or phrase in a strange way (e.g.,
buttermoth), the word or phrase is scorable. In the data for which Holt
developed the scoring systems, Rorschach responses, it is often possible

to compare a subject's interpretation of the reality with the reality

21

itself. However, in free verbal responses there exist no objective
external stimuli which can be compared to the response. The formal
deviations scoring system is, therefore, much more difficult to use on
free verbal data than on Rorschach responses.

The primary process content data are prone to some of the same
criticisms and objections that have been made to the formal deviations
data. The only difference is that the content scoring system has more
face validity, as long as one is psychoanalytically oriented; that is,
by referring to psychoanalytic theory, it becomes clear why a scorable
verbalization is scorable. The face validity comes about because the
content scoring system measures derivatives rather than the processes
which form derivatives; and it seems intuitively obvious that relatively
static and concrete results are easier to measure than ongoing processes.
Also, the sentence scorable for primary process content is usually sev-
eral steps less abstracted from the category it represents than is the
sentence scorable for primary process formal deviations. For instance,

a mouth seen in visual imagery or described in verbal association is
scorable as primary process oral content; the step from "oral" to "mouth"
is obvious. It is much less obvious how to measure a fluid process like
displacement. However, even given the face validity of the content scor-
ing system, it is not a completely acceptable measure because it, too,

is a theoretical creation.

There is perhaps only one measure in the Holt systems which
can very safely be assumed to have validity: the distinction between

Level I and Level II responses. Level I responses are very direct,

22

blatant drive expressions; Level II responses are more socialized drive
expressions.

The conclusion to this discussion of the validity of the experi-
mental measures must be that no validity has been demonstrated. This
conclusion does not mean to imply that the validity is, therefore, non-
existent. Rather, especially since one of the measures seems to have
doubtful face validity, validity cannot be assumed to exist. Empirical
demonstrations of the validity of these scoring systems need to be done
if the systems are to be used in research.

Comparison of theppresent study
with Reyher and Smeltzer

 

Even given the serious doubts about the validity of the depend-
ent measures, the apparent lack of support for the hypotheses in the
present study seems surprising in light of the unambiguous support Reyher
and Smeltzer (1968) reported for their hypothesis that visual imagery
is more regulated by primary process than is verbal association. Reyher
and Smeltzer, however, used a different procedure than the one used in
the present study; it will be suggested that the procedural difference
accounts for.the difference in results.

Instead of employing the open ended instructions of the present
experiment, Reyher and Smeltzer asked the subjects to describe the visual
images (along with concomitant "feelings and sensations") or verbal asso-
ciations they experienced immediately after the presentation of stimulus
words or phrases. The words and phrases represented three common areas

of conflict: sex (e.g., masturbation, pregnant, breasts, orgasm),

23

hostility (e.g., slaughter, kill, maim, punch), and family relationships
(e.g., fatherly advice, brother, master of the house, childhood). These
words and phrases are clearly blatant derivatives. It is not surpris-
ing, then, that the subjects' responses to these stimuli were signifi-
cantly influenced by primary process.

In general, there was more blatant expressions of drive in
Reyher and Smeltzer's data than in the data of the present study. In
the Holt scoring system, primary process responses are divided into two
levels: Level I represents very direct, intense, or blatant drive
expression; Level II represents more socialized drive expression.. In
Reyher and Smeltzer's data, the mean proportion per subject of Level I
to Level 11 responses in visual imagery and verbal association was .45
and .14, respectively. In the present study, there were no more than
three or four Level I responses in the total of more than one thousand
sentences scorable for primary process content.

This difference in number of Level I responses in the two
experiments suggests one speculative way to interpret the difference in
results: visual imagery is a more effective uncovering technique than
verbal association only when drive strength is high, as in Reyher and
Smeltzer's study. When drive strength is relatively lower, as in the
present study, neither uncovering technique is more effective than the
other. Experience with the clinical use of visual imagery in the tech-
nique called emergent uncovering or free imagery (Reyher, 1963, 1970)
tends to support this speculation. The psychotherapist using emergent
uncovering tries to discover the derivatives which are "hot" for the

client by watching for the association of particular images with anxiety,

24

psychopathological symptoms and/or resistances. It is usually only when
the client is struggling with these "hot" images that significant uncov-
ering takes place. That is, visual imagery is an effective uncovering
technique in psychotherapy only when the images being seen by the client
are blatant enough expressions of repressed drive that the client begins
to experience the anxiety which initially caused the material to be
repressed. It may be said that this conclusion is a truism; obviously,
uncovering can occur only when the client can begin to tolerate the
previously intolerable drive expression. However, to accept this as a
clinical and theoretical truism logically necessitates that the results
of the present investigation be viewed as an unfair test of the original
experimental hypotheses, i.e., uncovering techniques can only be fairly
compared under conditions in which it is reasonable to assume that uncov-
ering is possible. Certainly a possible conclusion, then, as earlier
stated, is that visual imagery is a more effective uncovering technique
than verbal association only when drive strength is high.

The rather obvious difference in the procedures of the two
experiments is probably responsible for the difference in number of
blatant drive expressions. It is likely that Reyher and Smeltzer's
subjects felt that blatantly drive related material was acceptable to
the experimenter. As a matter of fact, the subjects may have felt that
a primary process response was expected. After all, college students
are psychologically sophisticated enough to suspect something very
defensive about a non-sexual response to a word like "orgasm." On the
other hand, since in the present study the experimenter did not interact

with the subjects beyond giving instructions, subjects had no reason to

25

think that blatant drive expression was any more acceptable to the
experimenter than to any other unknown person. In order to blatantly
express drive, subjects in the present study would have had to initiate
a behavior which under normal circumstances is considered inappropriate.
H. S. Sullivan's concept of security operations is useful here

as a further explanatory device. Security operations are those activi-
ties or lack of activity (e.g., selective inattention) which preserve the
self-system's accustomed manner of interaction.

I think it will suffice for my present purpose to say that any-

thing which would seriously disturb the equilibrium, any event

which tends to bring about a basic change in an established

pattern of dealing with others, sets up the tension of anxiety
and calls out activities for its relief. This tension and the

activities required for its reduction or relief--which we call
security operations because they can be said to be addressed
to maintaining a feeling of safety in the esteem reflected to
one from the other person concerned--always interfere with what-
ever other tensions and energy transformations they happen to
coincide with (Sullivan, 1953, p. 373).
In other words, security operations are those activities undertaken by
the self to protect and maintain self-esteem; further, the anxiety con-
cerning loss of self-esteem and the activities required to allay this
anxiety are so important to the self that they supersede all other feel-
ings and psychological functions.

In Reyher and Smeltzer's study, keeping his self-esteem intact
was relatively simple for the subject. The relationship of subject and
experimenter was a traditional one--passive dependent student and demand-
ing authority figure. Stable, traditional relationships have familiar
security operations built into them. It may be said that the particular
constellation of security operations appropriate to a certain type of

relationship is the description and definition of the roles (in the

26

sociological sense) being played by the participants in that relationship.
A student plays his role by performing the tasks set before him by the
teacher and derives his self-esteem from the assurance that he (the stu-
dent) has satisfied the demands of the authority figure. In Reyher and
Smeltzer's study, the experimenter's demand was the accomplishment of a
specific task, and the subject was able to discriminate when he had
accomplished it; i.e., the subject knew that the experimenter wanted an
image or an association, and knew that he had satisfied the demands of
the experimenter by giving one image or one association. Thus, though
subjects may have been anxious about the new environment in which the
interaction took place, the familiar structure of the relationship gave
him a way to cope with the anxiety.

Subjects in the present study, though, could not use the famil-
iar routes to the maintenance of their self-esteem. Since the situation
was so unusual and unstructured, subjects found that security operations
appropriate and effective in other interactions simply did not work in
this one. The experimenter did not interact with subjects, so subjects
could not directly appease him or accede to his wishes; and how to suc-
cessfully complete the task set by him was so unclear that subjects had
no way of knowing when they had done 50. Thus, self-esteem was threat-
ened. When self-esteem is threatened, one does not do something which
will threaten it even further, e.g., volunteering a drive-related remark
which is usually considered unacceptable. And not only would a person
in these circumstances of threat suppress unacceptable behaviors, he
would also display behaviors which he thought would retrieve some of his

threatened self-esteem. If these methods did not work, he would dredge

27

up others until his repertoire was exhausted. At the point of failure
of interpersonal defenses, or security operations, the relatively more
intrapsychic defenses (denial, undoing, projection, etc.) would come
into play in an attempt to bind the anxiety. If these defenses were
effective, the subject would begin to manifest the various psychopatho-
logical symptoms displayed by persons whose egos are too weak to handle
anxiety consciously. Just as in neurosis, these symptoms would simul-
taneously express and defend against the anxiety. For example, it might
be expected that some subjects trying to master this type of anxiety
would eventually resort to self-depreciation, since the reinforcing value
to the student of the completion of a task set by an authority figure
rests on the disparity in the statuses of the student and the authority
figure. Unconsciously, perhaps, most of the students would know that
the authority figure's security operations required the demonstration of
his higher status. In fact, the authority figure's benevolent acceptance
of the student's attempt to satisfy the demands of the task 1§_such a
demonstration and is, therefore, an integral part of the security opera-
tions of the authority figure. By self-depreciation, then, the student
might hope (unconsciously) to emphasize the status disparity enough to
satisfy the authority figure and persuade him to dispense the withheld
acceptance of the student's efforts. Finally, if neurotic defenses
failed, the ego would retreat from the anxiety-provoking stimuli; psycho-
tic symptoms would then appear.

Indeed, subjects in the present study did spontaneously show
psychopathological symptoms. The example given, self-depreciation, was

one of them. The data on these symptoms will be presented in another

28

report, but it was felt that a knowledge of the existence of these
results would be helpful to anyone attempting to understand the data
presented in this report.

To return to the original point, it is clear that subjects in
the present study had good reason not to give responses which were bla-
tant expressions of drive. It can even be said that the conditions of
this experiment stimulated repressive forces awakened by the threat to
self—esteem. The only way a subject could maintain his self-esteem was
to take no risks. Several subjects became so constricted that they
spoke only five or six sentences during each ten-minute period. Others
spoke many sentences, but concentrated on descriptions of the experi-
mental room or scenery on a roadside or the objects in their homes or
dormitory rooms. Under such constriction, with subjects being extra
carefu1 to monitor everything communicated to the experimenter, it is
not surprising that any differences between experimental treatments
which might have existed under other conditions were obscured under the
conditions of the present study. To put it simply, the fear of loss of
self-esteem is a more powerful effect than any other in the experiment.
If subjects systematically suppressed (or repressed) the very type of
response which was used as the dependent variable in this study, there
is very little logical basis on which to make comparative statements

about the relative effectiveness of the three experimental conditions.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Because the Holt scoring systems were theoretically instead
of empirically derived, and because the writer found reason to doubt
their validity, it was decided that the scoring systems could not be
assumed to be valid. The reasons to doubt the validity of Holt's meas-
ures as applied to the present data were presented.

It was pointed out that drive strength was much higher in
Reyher and Smeltzer's data than in the data of the present study, and it
was suggested that uncovering techniques work most effectively only when
drive strength is high. Therefore, the present study was an unfair test
of the experimental hypotheses.

The explanation of the large difference between the two studies
in blatancy of drive expression was explored. It is clear that the
different experimental procedures produced different types of data.
Sullivan's concept of security operations was used to explain the effects
of the two procedures, and it was briefly mentioned that psychopatho-
logical symptoms, both psychosomatic and "psychological," were spontan-
eously reported by the subjects. The nature and causes of the symptoms
will be explored in a future report.

The subjects' own spontaneous descriptions of the effects of
eye closure were presented. These descriptions contradicted the numeri-
cal findings and supported the hypothesis that eye closure is an uncover-

ing technique.

29

30

The first conclusion, unfortunately, must be that the theory
described briefly in the introduction was not fairly tested. This study
was not in any way a replication of Reyher and Smeltzer, and did not
accomplish what it set out to do. One valuable lesson to be learned,
though, is that the phenomena observed depend entirely upon the methods
used to observe them. The data of the present study are not what they
were planned to be, but they are rich in information about psychopatho-

logical symptoms and the function and process of security operations.

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Freud, S. The Interpretation of Dreams. New York: The Macmillan Com-
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Typed and Printed in the U.S.A.
Professional Thesis Preparation
Cliff and Paula Haughey

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Telephone (517) 337-1527

 

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