Address by Recipient of Great Man Award: A Rational Explanation of the Irrational: Freud's and Jung's Own Dreams Reinterpreted

Two hypotheses were tested: (a) That information critical of self will disrupt the body boundary; (b) That information which is self-enhancing will bolster the body boundary. Male and female Ss were exposed to tape recorded messages containing either self-critical or self-enhancing information. Holtzman Inkblots were administered before and during exposure to the taped messages. The state of the boundary was measured by means of the Fisher-Cleveland Barrier score. There were also two control conditions in which the taped input did not contain information either critical or enhancing of self. The results supported the hypothesis concerning the boundary disrupting impact of self-critical information; but they were not congruent with the hypothesis concerning the boundary bolstering effect of self-enhancing input.