Structure, Function, and Meaning

Abstract

I have followed Wolman’s work for many years, and I am proud that he invited me to contribute to his encyclopedic work several times. He is not only an encyclopedic but also a very poetic man. Once, after our work conference was completed, he took me to one of New York’s museums. Both of us, educated in different parts of central Europe but having originally lived in the same Austro-Hungarian monarchy, found how similar our education had been. As we walked through the museum rooms we tried to recall German poetry which we had to learn by heart during our high school days. Each of us was often able to carry on when memory failed the other. I do not know who won, but I remember the mutual delight in our recalling common educational background and the erudition of our teachers with whom we identified.

It is one of the most interesting paradoxes that Freud, who started with the determined attempt to find out the mechanics of psychic life, has discovered that the psychic life is full of meaning.

Paul Schilder, (1935)