vODE^ \' 
LIBRARY 
BdL AN OUTLINE OF 
PSYCHOANALYSIS 
EDITED BY 
J. S. VAN TESLAAR 
Kb^ 
BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
PUBLISHERS :: :: NEWYORK AN OUTLINE OF 
PSYCHOANALYSIS 
Copyright, 1924, by 
Boni & Liveright, Inc. 
Printed in the United States of America THE MODERN LIBRARY 
OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS 
AN OUTLINE OF 
PSYCHOANALYSIS The publishers will be glad to 
mail upon request a forty-page 
illustrated catalogue descriptive 
of the Modem Library. This 
booklet sets forth the purposes 
and ideals of the series, and 
gives a brief outline of each 
book included in the Modem 
Library. Every reader of books 
will find titles he needs at a low 
price in an attractive form. EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
"In multiplicity of counsel there is confusion." Perhaps 
the multitude of feature articles in our newspapers and 
periodicals and of books aiming to popularize psychoanal- 
ysis denotes a widespread interest and ought to be wel- 
comed. But so many incorrect views float about and so 
many absurd inferences, wrongly attributed to psycho- 
analysis, find ready acceptance, on this point, that the 
practicing psychoanalyst and earnest student finds this state 
of things far from satisfactory, notwithstanding the ap- 
parent popularity of the subject. The publishers of The 
Modern Library have conceived the excellent idea of add- 
ing to their Series a volume of contributions by the found- 
ers and pioneers of psychoanalysis and at their invitation 
I was glad to assume the responsibility of selecting the 
articles for the volume. 
From the outset I resolved that the selections must 
represent the various schools of psychoanalytic thought. 
For the original sources of psychoanalysis we turn, first 
and foremost, to Freud and his circle of followers but also 
to Jung, Adler and Stekel, his former co-workers and 
associates. An Outline of Psychoanalysis must represent 
at least the work of these men. 
Of Prof. Sigmund Freud it may be said that he has 
enriched with the penetrating insight of his rare genius 
every subject he has touched-and he has touched a 
wealth of themes. The range of his scientific contribu- 
tions is encyclopedic. Fortunately the lectures which 
Prof. Freud delivered at Clark University on the occasion 
of its twenty-fifth anniversary suggest themselves as par- 
ticularly appropriate for this volume. These lectures were 
intended not for physicians or specialists but for persons 
V VI 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
whose interest in psychoanalysis is presumably identical 
with that of the discriminating readers who turn to The 
Modern Library books. They contain an account of the 
origin and growth of psychoanalysis in the master's own 
words. It is obvious that the place for Freud's Clark 
University lectures is at the head of the volume. 
The essay by Prof. James Jackson Putnam, which fol- 
lows, will serve better than any formal admonition to im- 
press the reader with the fact that psychoanalysis can 
neither be understood nor properly appreciated unless one 
divests oneself of customary previous prejudices and ap- 
proaches the subject in a spirit of objective inquiry. At 
an advanced age, when most men of his assured position 
in the professional world are content to rest on their 
laurels, Dr. Putnam saw in the claims of psychoanalysis 
a challenge. He approached the subject with a spirit of 
intellectual hospitality which, unfortunately, is still rare, 
even among our men of science. The result of his un- 
biased investigation was that he became one of the most 
valued and trusted champions of psychoanalysis. 
I have referred already to the difficulty of attempting 
to choose from Freud's writings. Aside from his larger 
studies, each a revelation in its respective field, many of 
Freud's shorter contributions are noteworthy additions to 
science. In slightly lesser measure this is true also of the 
contributions of some of his followers. The psychoana- 
lytic writings abound in implications which open up new 
fields of research. One by one these hints are taken up 
by zealous followers and elaborated. Thus psychoanalytic 
research, constantly growing, unravels so many apparent 
mysteries within the mind-maze that it would be difficult 
to single out any particular discovery as the most impor- 
tant. The representative contributions I have chosen from 
the writings of Jones, Ferenczi and Brill, gifted pupils of 
Freud, are intended to acquaint the reader with the wide 
range and applicability of psychoanalysis. 
The paper by Jones deals with a well-known mental INTRODUCTION 
VII 
process first cleared up through psychoanalysis. I refer 
to the familiar habit of investing our unconscious wishes 
and prejudices with a pretense of logical motives. This 
habit of assigning automatically reasons for deeds and 
thoughts which express feeling-attitudes and which have 
little or nothing to do with the alleged reasons, first ex- 
plained by Freud, is described in greater detail by Ernest 
Jones who also proposes for this mental process the term 
rationalization. 
Dr. Brill's essay, The Only or Favorite Child, should 
interest the educator, the social worker and all others who 
are concerned with problems of social adjustment. The 
crucial situation into which Dr. Brill here applies psycho- 
analytic insight has numerous important ramifications. 
Ferenczi's paper is an extension of one of Freud's most 
brilliant generalizations. The study of the psycho-sexual 
development of the individual, inaugurated by Freud, has 
revealed that our mental life is governed by a dual prin- 
ciple. Before we learn to adapt ourselves to the world of 
reality with its strict determinism, our mind dwells in a 
realm of its own which is governed entirely by the prin- 
ciple of unmediated gratification; here the pleasure motive 
is supreme. Mental adaptation and growth consists in 
abandoning the fantasy world in which wishes are supreme 
and accepting the world of external reality. Mentally we 
are grown up in the measure in which we do this. Briefly, 
this is the generalization to which I refer as one of Freud's 
most brilliant discoveries. He has formulated it in a short 
contribution which is a model of condensation. I should 
have gladly included it in this volume but it is difficult 
reading. Aside from the difficulties inherent in its 
pithy construction Freud's paper presupposes considerable 
familiarity with modern biology as well as with the mooted 
problems in the phenomenology of the mind. Fortunately 
Ferenczi, in the contribution here reproduced, has worked 
out in a simpler form the basic idea of Freud's original 
contribution. VIII 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
The excerpt from one of Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe's con- 
tributions points the way towards the practical demolition 
of the old and troublesome division between organic and 
functional disorders. Instead of indulging in idle meta- 
physical speculations as heretofore, we are learning to apply 
the standpoint of natural science to the investigation of 
the problem of the mind-and-body relationship. This has 
always been and continues to be a problem of universal 
interest. The reader, I feel sure, will welcome the new 
light which psychoanalytic research throws on the inter- 
relationship of "psychical" and "physical." The bearing 
of psychoanalysis on organic disease-an unexpected rela- 
tionship-is concretely shown by Dr. Jelliffe's illustrative 
case. 
Perhaps the most bitterly contested and the least under- 
stood generalizations of psychoanalysis are its discovery 
of symbolism and its hypothesis of man's psycho-sexual 
constitution. Both concepts have undergone considerable 
transformation since they were first formulated, but their 
fundamental validity has not been shaken. The intro- 
ductory chapter of Stekel's Language of Dreams, here 
reproduced, gives a general idea of the reciprocal bearings 
of these two themes. 
For an account of the therapeutic value of psychoanaly- 
sis another of Dr. Stekel's essays suggested itself because 
of its candor and clarity. 
These papers, however, fail to give an adequate idea of 
the role that Dr. Stekel's own contributions are playing 
in the development of psychoanalytic theory and technique. 
His original contributions are strewn in numerous various 
parts of his monumental Disorders of the Instincts and 
Emotions series and studies in such a way that they cannot 
be adequately singled out. The importance of Stekel is 
only beginning to dawn upon the English world. In the 
course of time he undoubtedly will be recognized as the 
spiritual heir of Freud-the man who more than any other 
has built upon the foundations laid by Freud, even INTRODUCTION 
IX 
though he has had the temerity of reconstructing those 
foundations here and there in accordance with his own 
observations and experience. The selections I have made 
from Stekel's writings are intended to round out the Out- 
line. They do not record his original contributions or 
standpoint, although in the interpretation of a dream in 
one of these papers he does take issue with Freud. 
Jung has found much favor in this country largely, it 
is said, because he has broadened Freud's fundamental 
theory of man's psycho-sexual constitution into a concep- 
tion o-f the libido from which all the features which Anglo- 
Saxon prudery finds objectionable have been excluded. 
At the same time, Jung's sterilized conception of the libido, 
it is alleged, leaves ample room for introjecting meta- 
physical-mystical and religious-ethical notions which are 
not supposed to have a place in science. Certainly Freud's 
infantile polymorph perverse trends and Stekel's asocial, 
criminal trends which are said to lurk in every human 
breast are part of the stern realities about human nature 
which few have the courage to acknowledge. It cannot 
be gainsaid, however, that Jung's standpoint is important 
and deserves representation. In spite of the allegations 
of narrow partisanship to the contrary, I have always held 
that the views of Freud and Jung are not mutually exclu- 
sive. Dr. James Jackson Putnam agreed wholeheartedly 
with me when I emphasized this point at the Friday after- 
noon meetings of the Boston group of psychoanalysts. In 
the article by Dr. Beatrice Hinkle, an experienced pupil 
of Jung, we have a trustworthy and clear account of Jung. 
His standpoint is further illumined by a portion of one of 
Jung's own contributions. 
Adler, another former pupil of Freud, likewise sub- 
stitutes for the libido theory a hypothesis of his own- 
the so-called theory of inferiority based on organic defect, 
with the Nietzschean Will to Power, or Masculine Pro- 
test, as Adler calls it, emerging upon the mental sphere as 
a compensatory defense reaction. Adler's own writings X 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
are difficult reading; in none of them does he give an ade- 
quate summary of his doctrines. The nearest approach 
to such a summary is Bjerre's article included in this 
volume. 
It has been said that the usefulness of the psychoanalytic 
technique as a therapeutic procedure, great as it is, will be 
overshadowed by the practical benefits which are bound to 
flow in the near future out of the application of psycho- 
analysis to education, politics, group psychology and gen- 
erally to our larger social problems. 
Remarkable beginnings have already been made. A 
special volume would be required to reproduce illustrative 
material bearing on the applicability of psychoanalysis to 
the mental-social group of sciences. The special bibliog- 
raphies on hand record over six hundred studies and 
special contributions emanating from psychoanalysts on 
such varied subjects as mythology, religion, folklore, 
poetry, biography, literary criticism, history, linguistics and 
onomatology, art, character traits, philosophical and meta- 
physical systems, mysticism and so-called occult phe- 
nomena, etc. Unable to cover the whole range I had to be 
content with the choice of a few illustrative articles. The 
papers by Pfister, the Zurich pastor who is a pioneer in 
combining the educational uses of psychoanalysis with the 
minister's professional duties, Rivers, the anthropologist 
whose researches upon his own special field corroborate in 
many particulars some of Freud's generalizations, and 
E. D. Martin, the well-known Director of the People's 
Institute of New York, will give the reader at least a 
general idea of the usefulness and rich promise of psycho- 
analysis when thus applied. 
The volume concludes with an essay in which I have 
attempted to point out the position which psychoanalysis 
logically occupies in the history of science. The chief con- 
tribution of psychoanalysis, aside from its special hypothe- INTRODUCTION 
XI 
ses and doctrines, is the viewpoint it introduces in the in- 
vestigation of mental processes. Psychoanalysis represents 
a logical extension of the evolutionistic theory. It has in- 
augurated the application of the principle of evolution to 
the explanation of mental processes. Henceforth the ap- 
proach of any problem in which human nature plays a 
role must include a careful consideration of the develop- 
mental aspects of the mind of man. Conversely, psycho- 
analysis has taught us that a consideration of the evolu- 
tionary or developmental aspects of the mental processes 
holds the key to the understanding of problems in which 
human nature plays a role. 
The adaptation of the developmental viewpoint to men- 
tal phenomena, then, is the chief-the permanent-contri- 
bution of psychoanalysis to the growth of human knowl- 
edge. It is too early as yet for any one to attempt to 
appraise the advantages which must accrue to humanity 
as the result of this new psycho-technical method of in- 
quiry. The men to whose genius we are indebted for the 
origin and development of psychoanalysis are our contem- 
poraries-fortunately living and active. We stand too 
close to them fully to appreciate the work they are doing 
or its far-reaching consequences. It remains for future 
generations to reap the benefit of applied psychoanalysis 
and they will be in a better position to appreciate the 
significance of this psycho-technical procedure whose birth 
and first growth we are witnessing. 
Nevertheless, a few far-seeing minds already discern the 
actual potentialities of psychoanalysis. Mr. H. G. Wells, 
to quote one prominent instance, expresses himself very 
enthusiastically on the subject of psychoanalysis and its 
promise for human welfare. In an article which he has 
contributed recently to a popular periodical he states: 
"These new methods and new views and new discoveries 
are evidently recasting our fundamental ideas about the 
growth, the activity, and the interaction of human minds, 
and upon that recasting of these ideas I believe that there XII 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
is bound to follow such a reconstruction of our methods 
of using our minds and of education, and of the direction 
of human associations, as will be comparable to the recon- 
struction of methods of transport or of metallurgy during 
the last hundred years, due to the application of steam, 
steel, and electricity to these methods. 
"The coming hundred years or so will be, I believe, es- 
sentially a century of Applied Psychology, with which a 
considerable amount of physiological science respecting 
glands and nervous states, drugs and secretions, will be 
very closely involved. It will mark a revolution in human 
affairs altogether more profound and more intimate than 
that merely material revolution of which our great-grand- 
parents saw the early beginnings, and amidst whose 
achievements we live. 
"The material revolution of the past century or so first 
affected the fields and towns and the distribution of the 
population of the world; it appeared as great railway cut- 
tings, gashing the familiar landscape, bridges, smoking 
engines, railway stations, jerry-building. The new revolu- 
tion of the coming days appears as a disturbance of the 
intellectual surface, as a new directness in art that makes 
much old achievement seem platitudinous, as a more pene- 
trating curiosity in readers and an abandonment of many 
gracious conventions in literature, as a breach with many 
of the disciplines and restraints of the past in thought and 
act, as an increasing tendency to psychologize legal, politi- 
cal, financial, and economic conceptions. It will presently 
be making more extensive contacts with the common life 
through the schools of the world. It is already stirring 
in many schools and in the minds of all the best of our 
younger teachers. 
"Before very long we shall begin to realize that there is 
a new sort of education active in the world, a more pur- 
posive education, an education bound up with new and 
clearer ideas of the psychology of economic and political 
life. There has been a curious discontinuity, hitherto, be- INTRODUCTION 
XIII 
tween our educational institutions and the realities of life: 
the former has not led to the latter, but has rather shrunk 
from it and away into elegant bypaths. 
"The school has professed to make citizens, but rather it 
has stimulated a few competitors for success and failed to 
equip them for the struggle. This is because there has 
been and still is no clear theory of motives in the modern 
community; our economic and financial life and much of 
our social life has grown up without such a theory and 
independently of our schools altogether. But the vague, 
scrambling, accidental sort of living that makes up the 
world of men at the present time is not a necessary or 
permanent condition of things; the human intelligence 
resents it and will finally prevail against it. 
"As we reshape our ideas of social justice and relation- 
ship, the character of our schools will change and educa- 
tion will realize its aims anew. Schools are a part of 
statecraft. The same growth of applicable psychology that 
will give the teacher a real power in developing domi- 
nating ideas and training motives in his school will give 
the world outside the school a conception of political and 
social organization based on a balance and reconciliation 
of motives quite beyond the scope of our present under- 
standing. 
"It is curious how difficult people find it at present to 
accept the idea of a mental as distinguished from a physi- 
cal change in human conditions. Nowadays it startles 
nobody to suggest that it may presently be possible to go 
to the moon or the center of the earth for a holiday, or 
jump into another dimension, or prolong the individual 
life to a hundred and fifty. 
"But the suggestion that presently there may be a sort of 
education, and a sort of social and economic order in the 
world, that will have the same relation to the schooling 
and politics and law and business of today that the Wool- 
worth Building or an ocean liner has to the hut or canoe 
of a savage is met by an incredulous resistance. They XIV 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
think that the school will always be the dull, tiresome place 
it is today; the teacher the same ineffective, underpaid 
weakling; business the same loud, disingenuous, and dan- 
gerous sprawling scramble; and employment the same dis- 
tasteful drudgeries. They think there will always be the 
same amount of war, crime, and failure that there is today. 
"Yet it is just such an application of the sciences of men- 
tal relationship as will change and modify these things 
directly and profoundly which is the most immediately 
probable thing before our race. 
"Faced with the forecast that there will presently come 
a phase in the life of our race when the general behavior 
will be as different from and as much better than the gen- 
eral behavior of today as that is different from and better 
than the general behavior in a cannibal village in Central 
Africa, most people have been trained to reply that 'you 
cannot alter human nature.' 
"That, in its way, is perfectly true, but it is also per- 
fectly irrelevant. It is not only human nature you cannot 
change. You cannot change the nature of anything. You 
cannot change nature. But in the last hundred years we 
have learnt to do ten thousand things with nature we never 
knew how to do before, and in the coming centuries we 
shall learn to do ten thousand things with human nature 
that we cannot do now. 
"It is because of my belief in the enormous creative and 
reconstructive power over human motive latent in the 
science of Psychology, and even now being unlocked for 
our use, that I find myself inclined to be more than a little 
impatient and disrespectful with the laws, the poor, feeble, 
silly schools, the flags and political institutions, the eco- 
nomic methods and business tangles that confuse human 
affairs and darken our days and worry our nights at the 
present time. 
"I feel, in relation to such things, much as an American 
with some gift of vision might have felt in the middle of 
the last century as he drove his lumbering wagon day after INTRODUCTION 
XV 
day across the Western prairies, in danger of thirst and 
famine and scalping Indians and disease. Filthy and foot- 
sore, anxious and with night coming upon him, he might 
have had a sudden vision of the great smooth train, brightly 
lit and well equipped and swift, that would carry his grand- 
children to and fro across this lonely and frightful deso- 
lation. 
"So, too, in this present twilight of human division and 
insecurity, amidst oppressions and strikes, shortages of 
goods and slumps in welfare, irreconcilable hatreds and 
the rumors of fresh wars, it is still possible for those who 
have faith and vision to foretell a new release of human 
life to a secure and world-wide peace, to a sufficient and 
happy production to satisfy all normal humane needs, to 
a common life of generous activities and kindliness and 
lively interests and enterprise and hope. 
"And it is along the line of a sedulous pursuit and a 
vigorous application of psychological science that this 
release is attainable, and will be attained." 
A lifetime of preoccupation with psychology and of keen 
interest in the social sciences on a background of training 
in medicine and biology leads me to hold that Mr. Wells' 
picture theoretically, at least, is not overdrawn even though 
I am not inclined to be as optimistic as Mr. Wells regard- 
ing the rate of progression. Any appreciable improvement 
in the qualities of the human race probably requires bio- 
logical eras to become fixed and a permanent gain. A 
cross-section view of human nature as it presents itself to 
the psychoanalyst's view does not hold out the promise of 
a marked change in the spirit of human relations in so 
trifling a period as one or two thousand years. But it is 
gratifying to know that the psycho-technical means for 
bringing about the eternal improvement in human relations 
of which Mr. Wells writes is at hand. We psychoanalysts 
who witness day by day the warfare which rages between 
man's primordial instincts and his higher trends find that XVI 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the end of the conflict is always a compromise. But we 
know also that man's capacity for spiritual growth is prac- 
tically infinite; and that through psychoanalysis this con- 
flict which rages in every human breast can be influenced 
at least so that the compromise is made upon ever higher, 
i.e., more adult, levels of adaptation to reality. 
In the face of the practical significance of psychoanal- 
ysis, of its utility and promise, it is a curious fact that 
none of our institutions of learning have yet made any 
provision for systematic instruction in the subject. Even 
our medical schools do not provide proper training in 
psychoanalysis, although it has proven the only rational 
and adequate form of treatment for the functional dis- 
orders. 
Recently a modest sum of money has been offered as 
a nucleus towards a fund for the establishment of a psycho- 
analytic clinic which shall serve also as a center of instruc- 
tion and research. Already one of the foremost European 
analysts has provisionally accepted the invitation to come 
over and aid in establishing such an institution in the 
United States. If sufficient additional support is received 
to insure the work at least for a few years the plans will 
be taken up in the near future. For further information 
those who are interested may address the edito" 
James S. Van Teslaar. 
Brookline, Mass., June 14, 1924. CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Introduction v 
The Origin and Development of Psycho- 
analysis 21 
Sigmund Freud 
Personal Impressions of Sigmund Freud and 
His Work 71 
James J. Putnam, M.D. 
Rationalization in Every-Day Life .... 98 
Ernest Jones, M.D. 
Stages in the Development of the Sense of 
Reality 108 
S. Ferenczi 
The Only or Favorite Child in Adult Life . 128 
Dr. A. A. Brill 
The Domain of the Pedanalysis 140 
Dr. Oskar Pfister 
Psychopathology and Organic Disease . . . 146 
Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe 
The Meaning of the Dream Symbolism . . 154 
Dr. Wilhelm Stekel 
Some Mechanisms Which Distinguish the 
Crowd from Other Forms of Social 
Behavior 180 
Everett Dean Martin 
Psychology and Politics 202 
W. H. R. Rivers, M.D., D.Sc., F. R. S. 
XVII XVIII 
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
An Introduction to Analytic Psychology . . 218 
Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D. 
The Content of the Psychoses 255 
Dr. C. G. Jung 
The Adler Conception of Neurosis (Differen- 
tial Psychology) 272 
Dr. Paul Bjerre 
Anagogic Psychoanalysis 299 
Dr. Emanuel 
The Final Results of Psychoanalytic Treat- 
ment 319 
Dr. Wilhelm Stekel 
The Significance of Psychoanalysis in the 
History of Science 361 
Dr. James S. Van Teslaar 
Glossary , ♦ , 4 379 THE OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF 
PSYCHOANALYSIS 1 
Sigmund Freud 
Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a new and somewhat 
embarrassing experience for me to appear as lecturer be- 
fore students of the New World. I assume that I owe 
this honor to the association of my name with the theme 
of psychoanalysis, and consequently it is of psychoanalysis 
that I shall aim to speak. I shall attempt to give you in very 
brief form an historical survey of the origin and further 
development of this new method of research and cure. 
Granted that it is a merit to have created psychoanalysis, 
it is not my merit. I was a student, busy with the passing 
of my last examinations, when another physician of 
Vienna, Dr. Joseph Breuer, made the first application of 
this method to the case of an hysterical girl (1880-82). 
We must now examine the history of this case and its 
treatment, which can be found in detail in "Studien fiber 
Hysterie," later published by Dr. Breuer and myself. 
But first one word. I have noticed, with considerable 
satisfaction, that the majority of my hearers do not belong 
to the medical profession. Now do not fear that a medical 
education is necessary to follow what I shall have to say. 
We shall now accompany the doctors a little way, but soon 
we shall take leave of them and follow Dr. Breuer on a 
way which' is quite his own. 
First Lecture 
1 These lectures were delivered at Clark University in 1910. 
Translated from the German by Harry W. Chase, Fellow in Psy- 
chology, Clark University, and revised by Prof. Freud. Published 
with the permission of the author. 
21 22 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
Dr. Breuer's patient was a girl of twenty-one, of a high 
degree of intelligence. She had developed in the course 
of her two years' illness a series of physical and mental 
disturbances which well deserved to be taken seriously. 
She had a severe paralysis of both right extremities, with 
anaesthesia, and at times the same affection of the members 
of the left side of the body; disturbance of eye-movements, 
and much impairment of vision; difficulty in maintaining 
the position of the head, an intense Tussis nervosa, nausea 
when she attempted to take nourishment, and at one time 
for several weeks a loss of the power to drink, in spite of 
tormenting thirst. Her power of speech was also dimin- 
ished, and this progressed so far that she could neither 
speak nor understand her mother tongue; and, finally, she 
was subject to states of "absence," of confusion, delirium, 
alteration of her whole personality. These states will later 
claim our attention. 
When one hears of such a case, one does not need to be 
a physician to incline to the opinion that we are concerned 
here with a serious injury, probably of the brain, for which 
there is little hope of cure and which will probably lead to 
the early death of the patient. The doctors will tell us, 
however, that in one type of cases with just as unfavorable 
symptoms, another, far more favorable, opinion is justified. 
When one finds such a series of symptoms in the case of 
a young girl, whose vital organs (heart, kidneys) are 
shown by objective tests to be normal, but who has suffered 
from strong emotional disturbances, and when the symp- 
toms differ in certain finer characteristics from what one 
might logically expect, in a case like this the doctors are 
not too much disturbed. They consider that there is pres- 
ent no organic lesion of the brain, but that enigmatical 
state, known since the time of the Greek physicians as 
hysteria, which can simulate a whole series of symptoms 
of various diseases. They consider in such a case that the 
life of the patient is not in danger and that a restoration 
to health will probably come about of itself. The differen- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
23 
tiation of such an hysteria from a severe organic lesion is 
not always very easy. But we do not need to know how 
a differential diagnosis of this kind is made; you may be 
sure that the case of Breuer's patient was such that no 
skillful physician could fail to diagnose an hysteria. We 
may also add a word here from the history of the case. 
The illness first appeared while the patient was caring for 
her father, whom she tenderly loved, during the severe 
illness which led to his death, a task which she was com- 
pelled to abandon because she herself fell ill. 
So far it has seemed best to go with the doctors, but 
we shall soon part company with them. You must not 
think that the outlook of a patient with regard to medical 
aid is essentially bettered when the diagnosis points to 
hysteria rather than to organic disease of the brain. 
Against the serious brain diseases medical skill is in most 
cases powerless, but also in the case of hysterical affections 
the doctor can do nothing. He must leave it to benign 
nature, when and how his hopeful prognosis will be real- 
ized.2 Accordingly, with the recognition of the disease as 
hysteria, little is changed in the situation of the patient, 
but there is a great change in the attitude of the doctor. 
We can observe that he acts quite differently toward hys- 
tericals than toward patients suffering from organic dis- 
eases. He will not bring the same interest to the former as 
to the latter, since their suffering is much less serious and 
yet seems to set up the claim to be valued just as seriously. 
But there is another motive in this action. The physi- 
cian, who through his studies has learned so much that is 
hidden from the laity, can realize in his thought the causes 
and alterations of the brain disorders in patients suffering 
from apoplexy or dementia, a representation which must 
be right up to a certain point, for by it he is enabled to 
2 I know that this view no longer holds today, but in the lecture 
I take myself and my hearers back to the time before 1880. If 
things have become different since that time it has been largely due 
to the work the history of which I am sketching. 24 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
understand the nature of each symptom. But before the 
details of hysterical symptoms, all his knowledge, his 
anatomical-physiological and pathological education, desert 
him. He cannot understand hysteria. He is in the same 
position before it as the layman. And that is not agreeable 
to any one, who is in the habit of setting such a high valu- 
ation upon his knowledge. Hystericals, accordingly, tend 
to lose his sympathy; he considers them persons who over- 
step the laws of his science, as the orthodox regard 
heretics; he ascribes to them all possible evils, blames them 
for exaggeration and intentional deceit, "simulation," and 
he punishes them by withdrawing his interest. 
Now Dr. Breuer did not deserve this reproach in this 
case; he gave his patient sympathy and interest, although 
at first he did not understand how to help her. Probably 
this was easier for him on account of those superior quali- 
ties of the patient's mind and character, to which he bears 
witness in his account of the case. 
His sympathetic observation soon found the means 
which made the first help possible. It had been noticed 
that the patient, in her states of "absence," of psychic 
alteration, usually mumbled over several words to herself. 
These seemed to spring from associations with which her 
thoughts were busy. The doctor, who was able to get 
these words, put her in a sort of hypnosis and repeated 
them to her over and over, in order to bring up any asso- 
ciations that they might have. The patient yielded to his 
suggestion and reproduced for him those psychic creations 
which controlled her thoughts during her "absences," and 
which betrayed themselves in these single spoken words. 
These were fancies, deeply sad, often poetically beautiful, 
day dreams, we might call them, which commonly took as 
their starting point the situation of a girl beside the sick- 
bed of her father. Whenever she had related a number 
of such fancies, she was, as it were, freed and restored to 
her normal mental life. This state of health would last 
for several hours, and then give place on the next day to ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
25 
a new "absence," which was removed in the same way by 
relating the newly created fancies. It was impossible not 
to get the impression that the psychic alteration which was 
expressed in the "absence" was a consequence of the ex- 
citations originating from these intensely emotional fancy- 
images. The patient herself, who at this time of her illness 
strangely enough understood and spoke only English, gave 
this new kind of treatment the name "talking cure," or 
jokingly designated it as "chimney sweeping." 
The doctor soon hit upon the fact that through such 
cleansing of the soul more could be accomplished than a 
temporary removal of the constantly recurring mental 
"clouds." Symptoms of the disease would disappear when 
in hypnosis the patient could be made to remember the sit- 
uation and the associative connections under which they 
first appeared, provided free vent was given to the emotions 
which they aroused. "There was in the summer a time 
of intense heat, and the patient had suffered very much 
from thirst; for, without any apparent reason, she had 
suddenly become unable to drink. She would take a glass 
of water in her hand, but as soon as it touched her lips 
she would push it away as though suffering from hydro- 
phobia. Obviously for these few seconds she was in her 
absent state. She ate only fruit, melons and the like, in 
order to relieve this tormenting thirst. When this had been 
going on about six weeks, she was talking one day in 
hypnosis about her English governess, whom she disliked, 
and finally told, with every sign of disgust, how she had 
come into the room of the governess, and how that lady's 
little dog, that she abhorred, had drunk out of a glass. 
Out of respect for the conventions the patient had re- 
mained silent. Now, after she had given energetic expres- 
sion to her restrained anger, she asked for a drink, drank 
a large quantity of water without trouble, and woke from 
hypnosis with the glass at her lips. The symptom there- 
upon vanished permanently." 3 
8 Studien uber Hysteric, 2d ed., p. 26. 26 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
Permit me to dwell for a moment on this experience. 
No one had ever cured an hysterical symptom by such 
means before, or had come so near understanding its cause. 
This would be a pregnant discovery if the expectation 
could be confirmed that still other, perhaps the majority 
of symptoms, originated in this way and could be removed 
by the same method. Breuer spared no pains to convince 
himself of this and investigated the pathogenesis of the 
other more serious symptoms in a more orderly way. Such 
was indeed the case; almost all the symptoms originated 
in exactly this way, as remnants, as precipitates, if you 
like, of affectively toned experiences, which for that reason 
we later called "psychic traumata." The nature of the 
symptoms became clear through their relation to the scene 
which caused them. They were, to use the technical term, 
"determined" (detcrmimert) by the scene whose memory 
traces they embodied, and so could no longer be described 
as arbitrary or enigmatical functions of the neurosis. 
Only one variation from what might be expected must 
be mentioned. It was not always a single experience which 
occasioned the symptom, but usually several, perhaps many 
similar, repeated traumata cooperated in this effect. It was 
necessary to repeat the whole series of pathogenic mem- 
ories in chronological sequence, and of course in reverse 
order, the last first and the first last. It was quite impos- 
sible to reach the first and often most essential trauma 
directly, without first clearing away those coming later. 
You will of course want to hear me speak of other 
examples of the causation of hysterical symptoms beside 
this of inability to drink on account of the disgust caused 
by the dog drinking from the glass. I must, however, if 
I hold to my program, limit myself to very few examples. 
Breuer relates, for instance, that his patient's visual dis- 
turbances could be traced back to external causes, in the 
following way: "The patient, with tears in her eyes, was 
sitting by the sick-bed when her father suddenly asked her 
what time it was. She could not see distinctly, strained ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
27 
her eyes to see, brought the watch near her eyes so that 
the dial seemed very large (macropia and strabismus 
conv.), or else she tried hard to suppress her tears, so that 
the sick man might not see them." 4 
All the pathogenic impressions sprang from the time 
when she shared in the care of her sick father. "Once she 
was watching at night in the greatest anxiety for the 
patient, who was in a high fever, and in suspense, for a 
surgeon was expected from Vienna, to operate on the 
patient. Her mother had gone out for a little while, and 
Anna sat by the sick-bed, her right arm hanging over the 
back of her chair. She fell into a revery and saw a black 
snake emerge, as it were, from the wall and approach the 
sick man as though to bite him. (It is very probable that 
several snakes had actually been seen in the meadow be- 
hind the house, that she had already been frightened by 
them, and that these former experiences furnished the 
material for the hallucination.) She tried to drive off the 
creature, but was as though paralyzed. Her right arm, 
which was hanging over the back of the chair, had "gone 
to sleep," become anaesthetic and paretic, and as she was 
looking at it, the fingers changed into little snakes with 
deaths-heads. (The nails.) Probably she attempted to 
drive away the snake with her paralyzed right hand, and 
so the anaesthesia and paralysis of this member formed 
associations with the snake hallucination. When this had 
vanished, she tried in her anguish to speak, but could not. 
She could not express herself in any language, until finally 
she thought of the words of an English nursery song, and 
thereafter she could think and speak only in this lan- 
guage." 5 When the memory of this scene was revived in 
hypnosis the paralysis of the right arm, which had existed 
since the beginning of the illness, was cured and the treat- 
ment ended. 
When, a number of years later, I began to use Breuer's 
^Studien uber Hysterie, 2d ed., p. 30. 
5 Studien iiber Hysterie, 2d ed., p. 31. 28 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
researches and treatment on my own patients, my experi- 
ences completely coincided with his. In the case of a 
woman of about forty, there was a tic, a peculiar smacking 
noise which manifested itself whenever she was laboring 
under any excitement, without any obvious cause. It had 
its origin in two experiences which had this common ele- 
ment, that she attempted to make no noise, but that by a 
sort of counter-will this noise broke the stillness. On the 
first occasion, she had finally after much trouble put her 
sick child to sleep, and she tried to be very quiet so as not 
to awaken it. On the second occasion, during a ride with 
both her children in a thunderstorm the horses took fright, 
and she carefully avoided any noise for fear of frighten- 
ing them still more.6 I give this example instead of many 
others which are cited in the Studien uber Hysteric. 
Ladies and gentlemen, if you will permit me to gen- 
eralize, as is indispensable in so brief a presentation, we 
may express our results up to this point in the formula: 
Our hysterical patients suffer from reminiscences. Their 
symptoms are the remnants and the memory symbols of 
certain (traumatic) experiences. 
A comparison with other memory symbols from other 
sources will perhaps enable us better to understand this 
symbolism. The memorials and monuments with which 
we adorn our great cities, are also such memory symbols. 
If you walk through London you will find before one of 
the greatest railway stations of the city a richly decorated 
Gothic pillar-"Charing Cross." One of the old Plan- 
tagenet kings, in the thirteenth century, caused the body 
of his beloved queen Eleanor to be borne to Westminster, 
and had Gothic crosses erected at each of the stations 
6 Loc. cit., 2d ed., pp. 43-46. A selection from this book, aug- 
mented by several later treatises on hysteria, lies before me, in an 
English translation by Dr. A. A. Brill, of New York. It bears the 
title Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses, 
1909. [No. 4 of the Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series, 
New York.] ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
29 
where the coffin was set down. Charing Cross is the last 
of these monuments, which preserve the memory of this 
sad journey.7 In another part of the city, you will see a 
high pillar of more modern construction, which is merely 
called "the Monument." This is in memory of the great 
fire which broke out in the neighborhood in the year 1666, 
and destroyed a great part of the city. These monuments 
are memory symbols like the hysterical symptoms; so far 
the comparison seems justified. But what would you say 
to a Londoner who today stood sadly before the monu- 
ment to the funeral of Queen Eleanor, instead of going 
about his business with the haste engendered by modern 
industrial conditions, or rejoicing with the young queen of 
his own heart? Or to another, who before "the Monu- 
ment" bemoaned the burning of his loved native city, which 
long since has arisen again so much more splendid than 
before ? 
Now hystericals and all neurotics behave like these two 
unpractical Londoners, not only in that they remember 
the painful experiences of the distant past, but because 
they are still strongly affected by them. They cannot 
escape from the past and neglect present reality in its 
favor. This fixation of the mental life on the pathogenic 
traumata is an essential, and practically a most significant 
characteristic of the neurosis. I will willingly concede the 
objection which you are probably formulating, as you think 
over the history of Breuer's patient. All her traumata 
originated at the time when she was caring for her sick 
father, and her symptoms could only be regarded as mem- 
ory symbols of his sickness and death. They corresponded 
to mourning, and a fixation on thoughts of the dead so 
short a time after death is certainly not pathological, but 
rather corresponds to normal emotional behavior. I con- 
cede this: there is nothing abnormal in the fixation of 
1 Or rather the later copy of such a monument. The name 
"Charing" is itself, as Dr. E. Jones tells me, derived from the 
words "chere reine." 30 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
feeling on the trauma shown by Breuer's patient. But in 
other cases, like that of the tic that I have mentioned, the 
occasions for which lay ten and fifteen years back, the 
characteristic of this abnormal clinging to the past is very 
clear, and Breuer's patient would probably have developed 
it, if she had not come under the "cathartic treatment" 
such a short time after the traumatic experiences and the 
beginning of the disease. 
We have so far only explained the relation of the hys- 
terical symptoms to the life history of the patient; now by 
considering two further factors which Breuer observed, 
we may get a hint as to the processes of the beginning of 
the illness and those of the cure. With regard to the first, 
it is especially to be noted that Breuer's patient in almost 
all pathogenic situations had to suppress a strong excite- 
ment, instead of giving vent to it by appropriate words 
and deeds. In the little experience with her governess' 
dog, she suppressed, through regard for the conventions, 
all manifestations of her very intense disgust. While she 
was seated by her father's sick bed, she was careful to 
betray nothing of her anxiety and her painful depression 
to the patient. When, later, she reproduced the same scene 
before the physician, the emotion which she had suppressed 
on the occurrence of the scene burst out with especial 
strength, as though it had been pent up all along. The 
symptom which had been caused by that scene reached its 
greatest intensity while the doctor was striving to revive 
the memory of the scene, and vanished after it had been 
fully laid bare. On the other hand, experience shows that 
if the patient is reproducing the traumatic scene to the 
physician, the process has no curative effect if, by some 
peculiar chance, there is no development of emotion. It 
is apparently these emotional processes upon which the 
illness of the patient and the restoration to health are de- 
pendent. We feel justified in regarding "emotion" as a 
quantity which may become increased, derived and dis- 
placed. So we are forced to the conclusion that the patient ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
31 
fell ill because the emotion developed in the pathogenic 
situation was prevented from escaping normally, and that 
the essence of the sickness lies in the fact that these "im- 
prisoned" {eingeklemmt} emotions undergo a series of 
abnormal changes. In part they are preserved as a lasting 
charge and as a source of constant disturbance in psychical 
life; in part they undergo a change into unusual bodily 
innervations and inhibitions, which present themselves as 
the physical symptoms of the case. We have coined the 
name "hysterical conversion" for the latter process. Part 
of our mental energy is, under normal conditions, con- 
ducted off by way of physical innervation and gives what 
we call "the expression of emotions." Hysterical conver- 
sion exaggerates this part of the course of a mental process 
which is emotionally colored; it corresponds to a far more 
intense emotional expression, which finds outlet by new 
paths. If a stream flows in two channels, an overflow of 
one will take place as soon as the current in the other 
meets with an obstacle. 
You see that we are in a fair way to arrive at a purely 
psychological theory of hysteria, in which we assign the 
first rank to the affective processes. A second observation 
of Breuer compels us to ascribe to the altered condition of 
consciousness a great part in determining the character- 
istics of the disease. His patient showed many sorts of 
mental states, conditions of "absence," confusion and alter- 
ation of character, besides her normal state. In her nor- 
mal state she was entirely ignorant of the pathogenic 
scenes and of their connection with her symptoms. She 
had forgotten those scenes, or at any rate had dissociated 
them from their pathogenic connection. When the patient 
was hypnotized, it was possible, after considerable diffi- 
culty, to recall those scenes to her memory, and by this 
means of recall the symptoms were removed. It would 
have been extremely perplexing to know how to interpret 
this fact, if hypnotic practice and experiments had not 
pointed out the way. Through the study of hypnotic 32 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
phenomena, the conception, strange though it was at first, 
has become familiar, that in one and the same individual 
several mental groupings are possible, which may remain 
relatively independent of each other, "know nothing" of 
each other, and which may cause a splitting of conscious- 
ness along lines which they lay down. Cases of such a 
sort, known as "double personality" {"double conscience"), 
occasionally appear spontaneously. If in such a division 
of personality consciousness remains constantly bound up 
with one of the two states, this is called the conscious 
mental state, and the other the unconscious. In the well- 
known phenomena of so-called post hypnotic suggestion, 
in which a command given in hypnosis is later executed in 
the normal state as though by an imperative suggestion, 
we have an excellent basis for understanding how the un- 
conscious state can influence the conscious, although the 
latter is ignorant of the existence of the former. In the 
same way it is quite possible to explain the facts in hys- 
terical cases. Breuer came to the conclusion that the 
hysterical symptoms originated in such peculiar mental 
states, which he called "hypnoidal states" (hypnoide Zus- 
tande). Experiences of an emotional nature, which occur 
during such hypnoidal states easily become pathogenic, 
since such states do not present the conditions for a normal 
draining off of the emotion of the exciting processes. And 
as a result there arises a peculiar product of this exciting 
process, that is, the symptom, and this is projected like a 
foreign body into the normal state. The latter has, then, 
no conception of the significance of the hypnoidal patho- 
genic situation. Where a symptom arises, we also find an 
amnesia, a memory gap, and the filling of this gap includes 
the removal of the conditions under which the symptom 
originated. 
I am afraid that this portion of my treatment will not 
seem very clear, but you must remember that we are deal- 
ing here with new and difficult views, which perhaps could 
not be made much clearer. This all goes to show that our ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
33 
knowledge in this field is not yet very far advanced. 
Breuer's idea of the hypnoidal states has, moreover, been 
shown to be superfluous and a hindrance to further inves- 
tigation, and has been dropped from present conceptions 
of psychoanalysis. Later I shall at least suggest what 
other influences and processes have been disclosed besides 
that of the hypnoidal states, to which Breuer limited the 
causal moment. 
You have probably also felt, and rightly, that Breuer's 
investigations gave you only a very incomplete theory and 
insufficient explanation of the phenomena which we have 
observed. But complete theories do not fall from Heaven, 
and you would have had still greater reason to be dis- 
trustful, had any one offered you at the beginning of his 
observations a well-rounded theory, without any gaps; such 
a theory could only be the child of his speculations and not 
the fruit of an unprejudiced investigation of the facts. 
Second Lecture 
Ladies and Gentlemen: At about the same time that 
Breuer was using the "talking-cure" with his patient, M. 
Charcot began in Paris, with the hystericals of the Sal- 
petriere, those researches which were to lead to a new 
understanding of the disease. These results were, how- 
ever, not yet known in Vienna. But when about ten years 
later Breuer and I published our preliminary communica- 
tion on the psychic mechanism of hysterical phenomena, 
which grew out of the cathartic treatment of Breuer's first 
patient, we were both of us under the spell of Charcot's 
investigations. We made the pathogenic experiences of 
our patients, which acted as psychic traumata, equivalent 
to those physical traumata whose influence on hysterical 
paralyses Charcot had determined; and Breuer's hypothesis 
of hypnoidal states is itself only an echo of the fact that 
Charcot had artificially reproduced those traumatic paral- 
yses in hypnosis. 
The great French observer, whose student I was during 34 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the years 1885-86, had no natural bent for creating psycho- 
logical theories. His student, P. Janet, was the first to 
attempt to penetrate more deeply into the psychic processes 
of hysteria, and we followed his example, when we made 
the mental splitting and the dissociation of personality the 
central points of our theory. Janet propounds a theory of 
hysteria which draws upon the principal theories of hered- 
ity and degeneration which are current in France. Accord- 
ing to his view hysteria is a form of degenerative alteration 
of the nervous system, manifesting itself in a congenital 
"weakness" of the function of psychic synthesis. The 
hysterical patient is from the start incapable of correlating 
and unifying the manifold of his mental processes, and so 
there arises the tendency to mental dissociation. If you 
will permit me to use a banal but clear illustration, Janet's 
hysterical reminds one of a weak woman who has been 
shopping, and is now on her way home, laden with pack- 
ages and bundles of every description. She cannot man- 
age the whole lot with her two arms and her ten fingers, 
and soon she drops one. When she stoops to pick this up, 
another breaks loose, and so it goes on. 
Now it does not agree very well with this assumed men- 
tal weakness of hystericals, that there can be observed in 
hysterical cases, besides the phenomena of lessened func- 
tioning, examples of a partial increase of functional capac- 
ity, as a sort of compensation. At the time when Breuer's 
patient had forgotten her mother-tongue and all other lan- 
guages save English, her control of English attained such 
a level that if a German book was put before her she could 
give a fluent, perfect translation of its contents at sight. 
When later I undertook to continue on my own account 
the investigations begun by Breuer, I soon came to another 
view of the origin of hysterical dissociation (or splitting 
of consciousness). It was inevitable that my views should 
diverge widely and radically, for my point of departure 
was not, like that of Janet, laboratory researches, but 
attempts at therapy. Above everything else, it was prac- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
35 
tical needs that urged me on. The cathartic treatment, as 
Breuer had made use of it, presupposed that the patient 
should be put in deep hypnosis, for only in hypnosis was 
available the knowledge of his pathogenic associations, 
which were unknown to him in his normal state. Now 
hypnosis, as a fanciful, and so to speak, mystical, aid, I 
soon came to dislike; and when I discovered that, in spite 
of all my efforts, I could not hypnotize by any means all 
of my patients, I resolved to give up hypnotism and to 
make the cathartic method independent of it. 
Since I could not alter the psychic state of most of my 
patients at my wish, I directed my efforts to working with 
them in their normal state. This seems at first sight to be 
a particularly senseless and aimless undertaking. The 
problem was this: to find out something from the patient 
that the doctor did not know and the patient himself did 
not know. How could one hope to make such a method 
succeed ? The memory of a very noteworthy and instruc- 
tive proceeding came to my aid, which I had seen in Bern- 
heim's clinic at Nancy. Bernheim showed us that persons 
put in a condition of hypnotic somnambulism, and sub- 
jected to all sorts of experiences, had only apparently lost 
the memory of those somnambulic experiences, and that 
their memory of them could be awakened even in the nor- 
mal state. If he asked them about their experiences dur- 
ing somnambulism, they said at first that they did not re- 
member, but if he persisted, urged, assured them that they 
did know, then every time the forgotten memory came back. 
Accordingly I did this with my patients. When I had 
reached in my procedure with them a point at which they 
declared that they knew nothing more, I would assure 
them that they did know, that they must just tell it out, 
and I would venture the assertion that the memory which 
would emerge at the moment that I laid my hand on the 
patient's forehead would be the right one. In this way I 
succeeded, without hypnosis, in learning from the patient 
all that was necessary for a construction of the connection 36 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
between the forgotten pathogenic scenes and the symptoms 
which they had left behind. This was a troublesome and 
in its length an exhausting proceeding, and did not lend 
itself to a finished technique. But I did not give it up 
without drawing definite conclusions from the data which 
I had gained. I had substantiated the fact that the for- 
gotten memories were not lost They were in the posses- 
sion of the patient, ready to emerge and form associations 
with his other mental content, but hindered from becoming 
conscious, and forced to remain in the unconscious by some 
sort of a force. The existence of this force could be 
assumed with certainty, for in attempting to drag up the 
unconscious memories into the consciousness of the patient, 
in opposition to this force, one got the sensation of his 
own personal effort striving to overcome it. One could 
get an idea of this force, which maintained the pathological 
situation, from the resistance of the patient. 
It is on this idea of resistance that I based my theory 
of the psychic processes of hystericals. It had been found 
that in order to cure the patient it was necessary that this 
force should be overcome. Now with the mechanism of 
the cure as a starting point, quite a definite theory could 
be constructed. These same forces, which in the present 
situation as resistances opposed the emergence of the for- 
gotten ideas into consciousness, must themselves have 
caused the forgetting, and repressed from consciousness 
the pathogenic experiences. I called this hypothetical 
process "repression" (V erdrangung), and considered that 
it was proved by the undeniable existence of resistance. 
But now the question arose: what were those forces, 
and what were the conditions of this repression, in which 
we were now able to recognize the pathogenic mechanism 
of hysteria? A comparative study of the pathogenic situa- 
tions, which the cathartic treatment has made possible, 
allows us to answer this question. In all those experiences, 
it had happened that a wish had been aroused, which was 
in sharp opposition to the other desires of the individual, ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
37 
and was not capable of being reconciled with the ethical, 
aesthetic and personal pretensions of the patient's per- 
sonality. There had been a short conflict, and the end of 
this inner struggle was the repression of the idea which 
presented itself to consciousness as the bearer of this irre- 
concilable wish. This was, then, repressed from conscious- 
ness and forgotten. The incompatibility of the idea in 
question with the "ego" of the patient was the motive of 
the repression, the ethical and other pretensions of the 
individual were the repressing forces. The presence of 
the incompatible wish, or the duration of the conflict, bad 
given rise to a high degree of mental pain; this pain was 
avoided by the repression. This latter process is evidently 
in such a case a device for the protection of the personality. 
I will not multiply examples, but will give you the 
history of a single one of my cases, in which the conditions 
and the utility of the repression process stand out clearly 
enough. Of course for my purpose I must abridge the 
history of the case and omit many valuable theoretical 
considerations. It is that of a young girl, who was deeply 
attached to her father, who had died a short time before, 
and in whose care she had shared-a situation analogous 
to that of Breuer's patient. When her older sister mar- 
ried, the girl grew to feel a peculiar sympathy for her new 
brother-in-law, which easily passed with her for family 
tenderness. This sister soon fell ill and died, while the 
patient and her mother were away. The absent ones were 
hastily recalled, without being told fully of the painful 
situation. As the girl stood by the bedside of her dead 
sister, for one short moment there surged up in her mind 
an idea, which might be framed in these words: "Now he 
is free and can marry me." We may be sure that this 
idea, which betrayed to her consciousness her intense love 
for her brother-in-law, of which she had not been con- 
scious, was the next moment consigned to repression by 
her revolted feelings. The girl fell ill with severe hys- 
terical symptoms, and, when I came to treat the case, it 38 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
appeared that she had entirely forgotten that scene at her 
sister's bedside and the unnatural, egoistic desire which 
had arisen in her. She remembered it during the treat- 
ment, reproduced the pathogenic moment with every sign 
of intense emotional excitement, and was cured by this 
treatment.8 
Perhaps I can make the process of repression and its 
necessary relation to the resistance of the patient, more 
concrete by a rough illustration, which I will derive from 
our present situation. 
Suppose that here in this hall and in this audience, whose 
exemplary stillness and attention I cannot sufficiently com- 
mend, there is an individual who is creating a disturbance, 
and, by his ill-bred laughing, talking, by scraping his feet, 
distracts my attention from my task. I explain that I can- 
not go on with my lecture under these conditions, and 
thereupon several strong men among you get up, and, after 
a short struggle, eject the disturber of the peace from the 
hall. He is now "repressed," and I can continue my lec- 
ture. But in order that the disturbance may not be re- 
peated, in case the man who has just been thrown out 
attempts to force his way back into the room, the gentlemen 
who have executed my suggestion take their chairs to the 
door and establish themselves there as a "resistance," ro 
keep up the repression. Now, if you transfer both loca- 
tions to the psyche, calling this "consciousness," and the 
outside the "unconscious," you have a tolerably good illus- 
tration of the process of repression. 
We can see now the difference between our theory and 
that of Janet. We do not derive the psychic fission from 
a congenital lack of capacity on the part of the mental 
apparatus to synthesize its experiences, but we explain it 
dynamically by the conflict of opposing mental forces, we 
recognize in it the result of an active striving of each 
mental complex against the other. 
8 This case has been translated by Dr. Brill in Selected Papers 
on Hysteria, etc., p. 31-F 4. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
39 
New questions at once arise in great number from our 
theory. The situation of psychic conflict is a very frequent 
one; an attempt of the ego to defend itself from painful 
memories can be observed everywhere, and yet the result 
is not a mental fission. We cannot avoid the assumption 
that still other conditions are necessary, if the conflict is 
to result in dissociation. I willingly concede that with the 
assumption of "repression" we stand, not at the end, but 
at the very beginning of a psychological theory. But we 
can advance only one step at a time, and the completion 
of our knowledge must await further and more thorough 
work. 
Now do not attempt to bring the case of Breuer's 
patient under the point of view of repression. This his- 
tory cannot be subjected to such an attempt, for it was 
gained with the help of hypnotic influence. Only when hyp- 
nosis is excluded can you see the resistances and repres- 
sions and get a correct idea of the pathogenic process. Hyp- 
nosis conceals the resistances and so makes a certain part of 
the mental field freely accessible. By this same process the 
resistances on the borders of this field are heaped up into a 
rampart, which makes all beyond inaccessible. 
The most valuable things that we have learned from 
Breuer's observations were his conclusions as to the con- 
nection of the symptoms with the pathogenic experiences or 
psychic traumata, and we must not neglect to evaluate this 
result properly from the standpoint of the repression-the- 
ory. It is not at first evident how we can get from the re- 
pression to the creation of the symptoms. Instead of giving 
a complicated theoretical derivation, I will return at this 
point to the illustration which I used to typify repression. 
Remember that with the ejection of the rowdy and the 
establishment of the watchers before the door, the affair 
is not necessarily ended. It may very well happen that 
the ejected man, now embittered and quite careless of con- 
sequences, gives us more to do. He is no longer among 
us, we are free from his presence, his scornful laugh, his 40 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
half-audible remarks, but in a certain sense the repression 
has miscarried, for he makes a terrible uproar outside, and 
by his outcries and by hammering on the door with his 
fists interferes with my lecture more than before. Under 
these circumstances it would be hailed with delight if pos- 
sibly our honored president, Dr. Stanley Hall, should take 
upon himself the role of peacemaker and mediator. He 
would speak with the rowdy on the outside, and then turn 
to us with the recommendation that we let him in again, 
provided he would guarantee to behave himself better. On 
Dr. Hall's authority we decide to stop the repression, and 
now quiet and peace reign again. This is in fact a fairly 
good presentation of the task devolving upon the physician 
in the psychoanalytic therapy of neuroses. To say the 
same thing more directly: we come to the conclusion, from 
working with hysterical patients and other neurotics, that 
they have not fully succeeded in repressing the idea to 
which the incompatible wish is attached. They have, in- 
deed, driven it out of consciousness and out of memory, 
and apparently saved themselves a great amount of psychic 
pain, but in the unconscious the suppressed wish still exists, 
only waiting for its chance to become active, and finally 
succeeds in sending into consciousness, instead of the re- 
pressed idea, a disguised and unrecognizable surrogate- 
creation (Ersatzbildung}, to which the same painful sen- 
sations associate themselves that the patient thought he 
was rid of through his repression. This surrogate of the 
suppressed idea-the symptom-is secure against further 
attacks from the defenses of the ego, and instead of a 
short conflict there originates now a permanent suffering. 
We can observe in the symptom, besides the tokens of its 
disguise, a remnant of traceable similarity with the orig- 
inally repressed idea; the way in which the surrogate is 
built up can be discovered during the psychoanalytic treat- 
ment of the patient, and for his cure the symptom must be 
traced back over the same route to the repressed idea. If 
this repressed material is once more made part of the con- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
41 
scious mental functions-a process which supposes the 
overcoming of considerable resistance-the psychic con- 
flict which then arises the same which the patient wished 
to avoid, is made capable of a happier termination, under 
the guidance of the physician, than is offered by repression. 
There are several possible suitable decisions which can 
bring conflict and neurosis to a happy end; in particular 
cases the attempt may be made to combine several of these. 
Either the personality of the patient may be convinced 
that he has been wrong in rejecting the pathogenic wish, 
and he may be made to accept it either wholly or in part; 
or this wish may itself be directed to a higher goal which 
is free from objection, by what is called sublimation 
{Sublimierung) ; or the rejection may be recognized as 
rightly motivated, and the automatic and therefore insuffi- 
cient mechanism of repression be reinforced by the higher, 
more characteristically human mental faculties: one suc- 
ceeds in mastering his wishes by conscious thought. 
Forgive me if I have not been able to present more 
clearly these main points of the treatment which is today 
known as "psychoanalysis." The difficulties do not lie 
merely in the newness of the subject. 
Regarding the nature of the unacceptable wishes, which 
succeed in making their influence felt out of the uncon- 
scious, in spite of repression; and regarding the question 
of what subjective and constitutional factors must be 
present for such a failure of repression and such a surro- 
gate or symptom creation to take place, we will speak in 
later remarks. 
Ladies and Gentlemen: It is not always easy to tell 
the truth, especially when one must be brief, and so today 
I must correct an incorrect statement that I made in my 
last lecture. 
I told you how when I gave up using hypnosis I pressed 
my patients to tell me what came into their minds that had 
Third Lecture 42 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
to do with the problem we were working on, I told them 
that they would remember what they had apparently for- 
gotten, and that the thought which irrupted into conscious- 
ness (Einfall) would surely embody the memory for which 
we were seeking. I claimed that I substantiated the fact 
that the first idea of my patients brought the right clew 
and could be shown to be the forgotten continuation of the 
memory. Now this is not always so; I represented it as 
being so simple only for purposes of abbreviation. In 
fact, it would only happen the first time that the right 
forgotten material would emerge through simple pressure 
on my part. If the experience was continued, ideas 
emerged in every case which could not be the right ones, 
for they were not to the purpose, and the patients them- 
selves rejected them as incorrect. Pressure was of no 
further service here, and one could only regret again 
having given up hypnosis. In this state of perplexity I 
clung to a prejudice which years later was proved by my 
friend C. G. Jung of the University of Zurich and his 
pupils to have a scientific justification. I must confess 
that it is often of great advantage to have prejudices. I 
put a high value on the strength of the determination of 
mental processes, and I could not believe that any idea 
which occurred to the patient, which originated in a state 
of concentrated attention, could be quite arbitrary and out 
of all relation to the forgotten idea that we were seeking. 
That it was not identical with the latter, could be satis- 
factorily explained by the hypothetical psychological situ- 
ation. In the patients whom I treated there were two 
opposing forces: on the one hand the conscious striving to 
drag up into consciousness the forgotten experience which 
was present in the unconscious; and on the other hand the 
resistance which we have seen, which set itself against the 
emergence of the suppressed idea or its associates into con- 
sciousness. In case this resistance was nonexistent or very 
slight, the forgotten material could become conscious with- 
out disguise (Enstellung). It was then a natural supposi- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
43 
tion that the disguise would be the more complete, the 
greater the resistance to the emergence of the idea. 
Thoughts which broke into the patient's consciousness in- 
stead of the ideas sought for, were accordingly made up 
just like symptoms; they were new, artificial, ephemeral 
surrogates for the repressed ideas, and differed from these 
just in proportion as they had been more completely dis- 
guised under the influence of the resistances. These sur- 
rogates must, however, show a certain similarity with the 
ideas which are the object of our search, by virtue of their 
nature as symptoms; and when the resistance is not too 
intensive it is possible from the nature of these irruptions 
to discover the hidden object of our search. This must 
be related to the repressed thought as a sort of allusion, 
as a statement of the same thing in indirect terms. 
We know cases in normal psychology in which anal- 
ogous situations to the one which we have assumed give 
rise to similar experiences. Such a case is that of wit. 
By my study of psychoanalytic technique I was necessarily 
led to a consideration of the problem of the nature of wit. 
I will give one example of this sort, which, too, is a story 
that originally appeared in English. 
The anecdote runs: 9 Two unscrupulous business men 
had succeeded by fortunate speculations in accumulating 
a large fortune, and then directed their efforts to breaking 
into good society. Among other means they thought it 
would be of advantage to be painted by the most famous 
and expensive artist of the city, a man whose paintings 
were considered as events. The costly paintings were first 
shown at a great soiree and both hosts led the most influ- 
ential connoisseur and art critic to the wall of the salon 
on which the portraits were hung, to elicit his admiring 
judgment. The critic looked for a long time, looked about 
as though in search of something, and then merely asked, 
9 Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbeumssten, p. 59. Deu- 
ticke, Vienna, 1905. 44 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
pointing out the vacant space between the two pictures; 
"And where is the Saviour?" 
I see that you are all laughing over this good example 
of wit, which we will now attempt to analyze. We under- 
stand that the critic means to say: "You are a couple of 
malefactors, like those between whom the Saviour was 
crucified." But he does not say this, he expresses himself 
instead in a way that at first seems not to the purpose and 
not related to the matter in hand, but which at the next 
moment we recognize as an allusion to the insult at which 
he aims, and as a perfect surrogate for it. We cannot 
expect to find in the case of wit all those relations that our 
theory supposes for the origin of the irruptive ideas of 
our patients, but it is my desire to lay stress on the similar 
motivation of wit and irruptive idea. Why does not the 
critic say directly what he has to say to the two rogues? 
Because, in addition to his desire to say it straight out, he 
is actuated by strong opposite motives. It is a proceeding 
which is liable to be dangerous to offend people who are 
one's hosts, and who can call to their aid the strong arms 
of numerous servants. One might easily suffer the same 
fate that I used in the previous lecture to illustrate repres- 
sion. On this ground, the critic does not express the par- 
ticular insult directly, but in a disguised form, as an allu- 
sion with omission. The same constellation comes into 
play, according to our hypnothesis, when our patient pro- 
duces the irruptive idea as a surrogate for the forgotten 
idea which is the object of the quest. 
Ladies and gentlemen, it is very useful to designate a 
group of ideas which belong together and have a common 
emotive tone, according to the custom of the Zurich school 
(Bleuler, Jung and others), as a "complex." So we can 
say that if we set out from the last memories of the patient 
to look for a repressed complex, that we have every pros- 
pect of discovering it, if only the patient will communicate 
to us a sufficient number of the ideas which come into his 
head. Sq we let the patient speak along any line that he ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
45 
desires, and cling to the hypothesis that nothing can occur 
to him except what has some indirect bearing on the com- 
plex that we are seeking. If this method of discovering 
the repressed complexes seems too circumstantial, I can 
at least assure you that it is the only available one. 
In practicing this technique, one is further bothered by 
the fact that the patient often stops, is at a standstill, and 
considers that he has nothing to say; nothing occurs to 
him. If this were really the case and the patient were 
right, our procedure would again be proven inapplicable. 
Closer observation shows that such an absence of ideas 
never really occurs, and that it only appears to when the 
patient holds back or rejects the idea which he perceives, 
under the influence of the resistance, which disguises itself 
as critical judgment of the value of the idea. The patient 
can be protected from this if he is warned in advance of 
this circumstance, and told to take no account of the criti- 
cal attitude. He must say anything that comes into hi^ 
mind, fully laying aside such critical choice, even though' 
he may think it unessential, irrelevant, nonsensical, espe- 
cially when the idea is one which is unpleasant to dwell on. 
By following this prescription we secure the material which 
sets us on the track of the repressed complex. 
These irruptive ideas, which the patient himself values 
little, if he is under the influence of the resistance and not 
that of the physician, are for the psychologist like the ore, 
which by simple methods of interpretation he reduces 
from its crude state to valuable metal. If one desires to 
gain in a short time a preliminary knowledge of the pa- 
tient's repressed complexes, without going into the question 
of their arrangement and associations, this examination 
may be conducted with the help of the association experi- 
ments, as Jung 10 and his pupils have perfected them. This 
procedure is to the psychologist what qualitative analysis 
is to the chemist; it may be dispensed with in the therapy 
of neurotic patients, but is indispensable in the investiga- 
10 Jung, C. G., Diagnostische Assosiationsstudien, B. I, 1906. 46 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
tions of the psychoses, which have been begun by the 
Zurich school with such valuable results. 
This method of work with whatever comes into the 
patient's head when he submits to psychoanalytic treat- 
ment, is not the only technical means at our disposal for 
the widening of consciousness. Two other methods of pro- 
cedure serve the same purpose, the interpretation of his 
dreams and the evaluation of acts which he bungles or does 
without intending to (Fehl- und Zufallshandlungen). 
I might say, esteemed hearers, that for a long time I 
hesitated whether instead of this hurried survey of the 
whole field of psychoanalysis, I should not rather offer 
you a thorough consideration of the analysis of dreams; 
a purely subjective and apparently secondary motive de- 
cided me against this. It seemed rather an impropriety 
that in this country, so devoted to practical pursuits, I 
should pose as "interpreter of dreams," before you had a 
chance to discover what significance the old and despised 
art can claim. 
Interpretation of dreams is in fact the via regia to the 
interpretation of the unconscious, the surest ground of 
psychoanalysis and a field in which every worker must 
win his convictions and gain his education. If I were 
asked how one could become a psychoanalyst. I should an- 
swer, through the study of his own dreams. With great 
tact all opponents of the psychoanalytic theory have so far 
either evaded any criticism of the Traumdeutung11 or 
have attempted to pass over it with the most superficial 
objections. If, on the contrary, you will undertake the 
solution of the problems of dream life, the novelties which 
psychoanalysis present to your thoughts will no longer be 
difficulties. 
You must remember that our nightly dream produc- 
tions show the greatest outer similarity and inner rela- 
tionship to the creations of the insane, but on the other 
hand are compatible with full health during waking life 
11 Die Traumdeutung, 2d ed. Deuticke, Vienna, 1909. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
47 
It does not sound at all absurd to say that whoever re- 
gards these normal sense illusions, these delusions and 
alterations of character as matter for amazement instead 
of understanding, has not the least prospect of understand- 
ing the abnormal creations of diseased mental states in 
any other than the lay sense. You may with confidence 
place in this lay group all the psychiatrists of to-day. Fol- 
low me now on a brief excursion through the field of 
dream problems. 
In our waking state we usually treat dreams with as 
little consideration as the patient treats the irruptive ideas 
which the psychoanalyst demands from him. It is evi- 
dent that we reject them, for we forget them quickly and 
completely. The slight valuation which we place on them 
is based, with those dreams that are not confused and 
nonsensical, on the feeling that they are foreign to our 
personality, and, with other dreams, on their evident ab- 
surdity and senselessness. Our rejection derives support 
from the unrestrained shamelessness and the immoral long- 
ings which are obvious in many dreams. Antiquity, as 
we know, did not share this light valuation of dreams. 
The lower classes of our people today stick close to the 
value which they set on dreams; they, however, expect 
from them, as did the ancients, the revelation of the future. 
I confess that I see no need to adopt mystical hypotheses 
to fill out the gaps in our present knowledge, and so I 
have never been able to find anything that supported the 
hypothesis of the prophetic nature of dreams. Many 
other things, which are wonderful enough, can be said 
about them. 
And first, not all dreams are so foreign to the character 
of the dreamer, are incomprehensible and confused. If 
you will undertake to consider the dreams of young chil- 
dren from the age of a year and a half on, you will find 
them quite simple and easy to interpret. The young child 
always dreams of the fulfillment of wishes which were 
aroused in him the day before and were not satisfied. 
You need no art of interpretation to discover this simple 48 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
solution, you only need to inquire into the experiences of 
the child on the day before (the "dream day"). Now it 
would certainly be a most satisfactory solution of the 
dream-riddle, if the dreams of adults, too, were the same 
as those of children, fulfillments of wishes which had been 
aroused in them during the dream day. This is actually 
the fact; the difficulties which stand in the way of this 
solution can be removed step by step by a thorough analy- 
sis of the dream. 
There is, first of all, the most weighty objection, that 
the dreams of adults generally have an incomprehensible 
content, which shows wish-fulfillment least of anything. 
The answer is this: these dreams have undergone a process 
of disguise, the psychic content which underlies them was 
originally meant for quite different verbal expression. 
You must differentiate between the manifest dream-con- 
tent, which we remember in the morning only confusedly, 
and with difficulty clothe in words which seem arbitrary, 
and the latent drcam-thoughts, whose presence in the un- 
conscious we must assume. This distortion of the dream 
(Traumentstellung) is the same process which has been 
revealed to you in the investigations of the creations 
(symptoms) of hysterical subjects; it points to the fact 
that the same opposition of psychic forces has its share in 
the creation of dreams as in the creation of symptoms. 
The manifest dream-content is the disguised surrogate 
for the unconscious dream thoughts, and this disguising 
is the work of the defensive forces of the ego, of the re- 
sistances. These prevent the repressed wishes from enter- 
ing consciousness during the waking life, and even in the 
relaxation of sleep they are still strong enough to force 
them to hide themselves by a sort of masquerading. The 
dreamer, then, knows just as little the sense of his dream 
as the hysterical knows the relation and significance of his 
symptoms. That there are latent dream-thoughts and that 
between them and the manifest dream-content there exists 
the relation just described-of this you may convince ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
49 
yourselves by the analysis of dreams, a procedure the 
technique of which is exactly that of psychoanalysis. You 
must abstract entirely from the apparent connection of the 
elements in the manifest dream and seek for the irruptive 
ideas which arise through free association, according to 
the psychoanalytic laws, from each separate dream ele- 
ment. From this material the latent dream thoughts may 
be discovered, exactly as one divines the concealed com- 
plexes of the patient from the fancies connected with his 
symptoms and memories. From the latent dream thoughts 
which you will find in this way, you will see at once how 
thoroughly justified one is in interpreting the dreams of 
adults by the same rubrics as those of children. What is 
now substituted for the manifest dream-content is the real 
sense of the dream, is always clearly comprehensible, asso- 
ciated with the impressions of the day before, and appears 
as the fulfilling of an unsatisfied wish. The manifest 
dream, which we remember after waking, may then be 
described as a disguised fulfillment of repressed wishes. 
It is also possible by a sort of synthesis to get some 
insight into the process which has brought about the dis- 
guise of the unconscious dream thoughts as the manifest 
dream-content. We call this process "dream-work" 
(Traumarbeit). This deserves our fullest theoretical in- 
terest, since here as nowhere else we can study the unsus- 
pected psychic processes which are existent in the uncon- 
scious, or, to express it more exactly, between two such 
separate systems as the conscious and the unconscious. 
Among these newly discovered psychic processes, two, con- 
densation (V erdichtung') and displacement or transvalua- 
tion, change of psychic accent (Verschiebung), stand out 
most prominently. Dream work is a special case of the 
reaction of different mental groupings on each other, and 
as such is the consequence of psychic fission. In all essen- 
tial points it seems identical with the work of disguise, 
which changes the repressed complex in the case of failing 
repression into symptoms. 50 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
You will furthermore discover by the analysis of dreams, 
most convincingly your own, the unsuspected importance 
of the role which impressions and experiences from early 
childhood exert on the development of men. In the dream 
life the child, as it were, continues his existence in the man, 
with a retention of all his traits and wishes, including those 
which he was obliged to allow to fall into disuse in his later 
years. With irresistible might it will be impressed on you 
by what processes of development, of repression, sublima- 
tion and reaction there arises out of the child, with its 
peculiar gifts and tendencies, the so-called normal man, the 
bearer and partly the victim of our painfully acquired 
civilization. I will also direct your attention to the fact 
that we have discovered from the analysis of dreams that 
the unconscious makes use of a sort of symbolism, espe- 
cially in the presentation of sexual complexes. This sym- 
bolism in part varies with the individual, but in part is of 
a typical nature, and seems to be identical with the symbol- 
ism which we suppose to lie behind our myths and legends. 
It is not impossible that these latter creations of the people 
may find their explanation from the study of dreams. 
Finally, I must remind you that you must not be led 
astray by the objection that the occurrence of anxiety- 
dreams (Angsttraume), contradicts our idea of the dream 
as a wish-fulfillment. Apart from the consideration that 
anxiety-dreams also require interpretation before judg- 
ment can be passed on them, one can say quite generally 
that the anxiety does not depend in such a simple way on 
the dream content as one might suppose without more 
knowledge of the facts, and more attention to the condi- 
tions of neurotic anxiety. Anxiety is one of the ways in 
which the ego relieves itself of repressed wishes which 
have become too strong, and so is easy to explain in the 
dream, if the dream has gone too far towards the fulfilling 
of the objectionable wish. 
You see that the investigation of dreams was justified 
by the conclusions which it has given us concerning things ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
51 
otherwise hard to understand. But we came to it in con- 
nection with the psychoanalytic treatment of neurotics. 
From what has been said you can easily understand how 
the interpretation of dreams, if it is not made too difficult 
by the resistance of the patient, can lead to a knowledge 
of the patient's concealed and repressed wishes and the 
complexes which he is nourishing. I may now pass to that 
group of everyday mental phenomena whose study has 
become a technical help for psychoanalysis. 
These are the bungling of acts (Fehlhandlungen} among 
normal men as well as among neurotics, to which no sig- 
nificance is ordinarily attached; the forgetting of things 
which one is supposed to know and at other times really 
does know (for example the temporary forgetting of 
proper names) ; mistakes in speaking (Versprechen), 
which occur so frequently; analogous mistakes in writing 
(V erschreiben) and in reading (V erlesen), the automatic 
execution of purposive acts in wrong situations (Ter- 
greifen) and the loss or breaking of objects, etc. These 
are trifles, for which no one has ever sought a psycho- 
logical determination, which have passed unchallenged as 
chance experiences, as consequences of absent-mindedness, 
inattention and similar conditions. Here, too, are included 
the acts and gestures executed without being noticed by the 
subject, to say nothing of the fact that he attaches no 
psychic importance to them; as playing and trifling with 
objects, humming melodies, handling one's person and 
clothing and the like.12 
These little things, the bungling of acts, like the symp- 
tomatic and chance acts (Symptom- und Zufallshandlung- 
en) are not so entirely without meaning as is generally 
supposed by a sort of tacit agreement. They have a mean- 
ing, generally easy and sure to interpret from the situation 
in which they occur, and it can be demonstrated that they 
either express impulses and purposes which are repressed, 
12 Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens, 3d ed. S. Karger, 
Berlin, 1910. 52 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
hidden if possible from the consciousness of the individual, 
or that they spring from exactly the same sort of repressed 
wishes and complexes which we have learned to know 
already as the creators of symptoms and dreams. 
It follows that they deserve the rank of symptoms, and 
their observation, like that of dreams, can lead to the dis- 
covery of the hidden complexes of the psychic life. With 
their help one will usually betray the most intimate of his 
secrets. If these occur so easily and commonly among 
people in health, with whom repression has on the whole 
succeeded fairly well, this is due to their insignificance 
and their inconspicuous nature. But they can lay claim to 
high theoretic value, for they prove the existence of re- 
pression and surrogate creations even under the conditions 
of health. You have already noticed that the psychoana- 
lyst is distinguished by an especially strong belief in the 
determination of the psychic life. For him there is in the 
expressions of the psyche nothing trifling, nothing arbi- 
trary and lawless, he expects everywhere a widespread 
motivation, where customarily such claims are not made; 
more than that, he is even prepared to find a manifold 
motivation of these psychic expressions, while our sup- 
posedly inborn causal need is satisfied with a single psychic 
cause. 
Now keeping in mind the means which we possess for 
the discovery of the hidden, forgotten, repressed things in 
the soul life: the study of the irruptive ideas called up by 
free association, the patient's dreams, and his bungled and 
symptomatic acts; and adding to these the evaluation of 
other phenomena which emerge during the psychoanalytic 
treatment, on which I shall later make a few remarks under 
the heading of "transfer" (Ucbcrtragung}, you will come 
with me to the conclusion that our technique is already 
sufficiently efficacious for the solution of the problem of 
how to introduce the pathogenic psychic material into con- 
sciousness, and so to do away with the suffering brought 
on by the creation of surrogate symptoms. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
53 
The fact that by such therapeutic endeavors our knowl- 
edge of the mental life of the normal and the abnormal 
is widened and deepened, can of course only be regarded 
as an especial attraction and superiority of this method. 
I do not know whether you have gained the impression 
that the technique through whose arsenal I have led you is 
a peculiarly difficult one. I consider that on the contrary, 
for one who has mastered it, it is quite adapted for use. 
But so much is sure, that it is not obvious, that it must be 
learned no less than the histological or the surgical tech- 
nique. 
You may be surprised to learn that in Europe we have 
heard very frequently judgments passed on psychoanalysis 
by persons who knew nothing of its technique and had 
never practised it, but who demanded scornfully that we 
show the correctness of our results. There are among 
these people some who are not in other things unacquainted 
with scientific methods of thought, who for example would 
not reject the result of a microscopical research because it 
cannot be confirmed with the naked eye in anatomical prep- 
arations, and who would not pass judgment until they had 
used the microscope. But in matters of psychoanalysis 
circumstances are really more unfavorable for gaining 
recognition. Psychoanalysis will bring the repressed in 
mental life to conscious acknowledgment, and every one 
who judges it is himself a man who has such repressions, 
perhaps maintained only with difficulty. It will conse- 
quently call forth the same resistances from him as from 
the patient, and this resistance can easily succeed in dis- 
guising itself as intellectual rejection, and bring forward 
arguments similar to those from which we protect our 
patients by the basic principles of psychoanalysis. It is 
not difficult to substantiate in our opponents the same im- 
pairment of intelligence produced by emotivity which we 
may observe every day with our patients. The arrogance 
of consciousness which for example rejects dreams so 
lightly, belongs-quite generally-to the strongest pro- 54 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
tective apparatus which guards us against the breaking 
through of the unconscious complexes, and as a result it 
is hard to convince people of the reality of the unconscious, 
and to teach them anew what their conscious knowledge 
contradicts. 
Fourth Lecture 
Ladies and Gentlemen: At this point you will be ask- 
ing what the technique which I have described has taught 
us of the nature of the pathogenic complexes and repressed 
wishes of neurotics. 
One thing in particular: psychoanalytic investigations 
trace back the symptoms of disease with really surprising 
regularity to impressions from the sexual life, show us 
that the pathogenic wishes are of the nature of erotic 
impulse-components (Triebkomponente), and necessitate 
the assumption that to disturbances of the erotic sphere 
must be ascribed the greatest significance among the etio- 
logical factors of the disease. This holds of both sexes. 
I know that this assertion will not willingly be credited. 
Even those investigators who gladly follow my psycho- 
logical labors, are inclined to think that I overestimate the 
etiological share of the sexual moments. They ask me why 
other mental excitations should not lead to the phenomena 
of repression and surrogate-creation which I have de- 
scribed. I can give them this answer; that I do not know 
why they should not do this, I have no objection to their 
doing it, but experience shows that they do not possess 
such a significance, and that they merely support the effect 
of the sexual moments, without being able to supplant 
them. This conclusion was not a theoretical postulate; in 
the Studien iiber Hysteric, published in 1895 with Dr. 
Breuer, I did not stand on this ground. I was converted 
to it when my experience was richer and had led me deeper 
into the nature of the case. Gentlemen, there are among 
you some of my closest friends and adherents, who have 
traveled to Worcester with me. Ask them, and they will 
tell you that they all were at first completely skeptical of ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
55 
the assertion of the determinative significance of the sexual 
etiology, until they were compelled by their own analytic 
labors to come to the same conclusion. 
The conduct of the patients does not make it any easier 
to convince one's self of the correctness of the view which 
I have expressed. Instead of willingly giving us infor- 
mation concerning their sexual life, they try to conceal it 
by every means in their power. Men generally are not 
candid in sexual matters. They do not show their sexuality 
freely, but they wear a thick overcoat-a fabric of lies- 
to conceal it, as though it were bad weather in the world 
of sex. And they are not wrong; sun and wind are not 
favorable in our civilized society to any demonstration of 
sex life. In truth no one can freely disclose his erotic life 
to his neighbor. But when your patients see that in your 
treatment they may disregard the conventional restraints, 
they lay aside this veil of lies, and then only are you in a 
position to formulate a judgment on the question in dis- 
pute. Unfortunately physicians are not favored above the 
rest of the children of men in their personal relationship 
to the questions of the sex life. Many of them are under 
the ban of that mixture of prudery and lasciviousness 
which determines the behavior of most Kulturmenschen 
in affairs of sex. 
Now to proceed with the communication of our results. 
It is true that in another series of cases psychoanalysis at 
first traces the symptoms back not to the sexual, but to 
banal traumatic experiences. But the distinction loses its 
significance through other circumstances. The work of 
analysis which is necessary for the thorough explanation 
and complete cure of a case of sickness does not stop in 
any case with the experience of the time of onset of the 
disease, but in every case it goes back to the adolescence 
and the early childhood of the patient. Here only do we 
hit upon the impressions and circumstances which deter- 
mine the later sickness. Only the childhood experiences 
can give the explanation for the sensitivity to later trau- 56 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
mata and only when these memory traces, which almost 
always are forgotten, are discovered and made conscious, 
is the power developed to banish the symptoms. We ar- 
rive here at the same conclusion as in the investigation of 
dreams-that it is the incompatible, repressed wishes of 
childhood which lend their power to the creation of symp- 
toms. Without these the reactions upon later traumata 
discharge normally. But we must consider these mighty 
wishes of childhood very generally as sexual in nature. 
Now I can at any rate be sure of your astonishment. 
Is there an infantile sexuality? you will ask. Is childhood 
not rather that period of life which is distinguished by the 
lack of the sexual impulse? No, gentlemen, it is not at all 
true that the sexual impulse enters into the child at puberty, 
as the devils in the gospel entered into the swine. The 
child has his sexual impulses and activities from the be- 
ginning, he brings them with him into the world, and from 
these the so-called normal sexuality of adults emerges by 
a significant development through manifold stages. It is 
not very difficult to observe the expressions of this childish 
sexual activity; it needs rather a certain art to overlook 
them or to fail to interpret them.13 
As fate would have it, I am in a position to call a witness 
for my assertions from your own midst. I show you here 
the work of one, Dr. Sanford Bell, published in 1902 in the 
American Journal of Psychology. The author was a fel- 
low of Clark University, the same institution within whose 
walls we now stand. In this thesis, entitled A Prelimi- 
nary Study of the Emotion of Love between the Sexes, 
which appeared three years before my "Drei Abhandlun- 
gen zur Sexualtheorie," the author says just what I have 
been saying to you: "The emotion of sex love . . . does 
not make its appearance for the first time at the period of 
adolescence as has been thought." He has, as we should 
say in Europe, worked by the American method, and has 
13 Three Contributions to a Sexual Theory. Nerv. and Ment. 
Dis. Monogr. Ser., N. Y. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
57 
gathered not less than 2,500 positive observations in the 
course of fifteen years, among them 800 of his own. He 
says of the signs by which this amorous condition mani- 
fests itself: "The unprejudiced mind, in observing these 
manifestations in hundreds of couples of children, cannot 
escape referring them to sex origin. The most exacting 
mind is satisfied when to these observations are added the 
confessions of those who have as children experienced the 
emotion to a marked degree of intensity, and whose mem- 
ories of childhood are relatively distinct." Those of you 
who are unwilling to believe in infantile sexuality will be 
most astonished to hear that among those children who 
fell in love so early not a few are of the tender ages of 
three, four, and five years. 
It would not be surprising if you should believe the 
observations of a fellow-countryman rather than my own. 
Fortunately a short time ago from the analysis of a five- 
year-old boy who was suffering from anxiety, an analysis 
undertaken with correct technique by his own father,14 I 
succeeded in getting a fairly complete picture of the bodily 
expressions of the impulse and the mental productions of 
an early stage of childish sexual life. And I must remind 
you that my friend, Dr. C. G. Jung, read you a few hours 
ago in this room an observation on a still younger girl who 
from the same cause as my patient-the birth of a little 
child in the family-betrayed certainly almost the same 
secret excitement, wish and complex-creation. Accord- 
ingly I am not without hope that you may feel friendly 
toward this idea of infantile sexuality that was so strange 
at first. I might also quote the remarkable example of the 
Zurich psychiatrist, E. Bleuler, who said a few years ago 
openly that he faced my sexual theories incredulous and 
bewildered, and since that time by his own observations 
had substantiated them in their whole scope.15 If it is true 
14 Analyse der Phobie eines 5-jahrigen Knaben. Jahrb. f. Psy- 
choanalyt. u. Psychopath. Forschungen, Vol. I, No. 1. 
16 Bleuler, Sexuelle Abnormitaten der Kinder, Jahrbuch der 
schweizer, Gesellschaft fur Schulgesundheitspflege IX, 1908. 58 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
that most men, medical observers and others, do not want 
to know anything about the sexual life of the child, the 
fact is capable of explanation only too easily. They have 
forgotten their own infantile sexual activity under the 
pressure of education for civilization and do not care to 
be reminded now of the repressed material. You will be 
convinced otherwise if you begin the investigation by a 
self-analysis, by an interpretation of your own childhood 
memories. 
Lay aside your doubts and let us evaluate the infantile 
sexuality of the earliest years.16 The sexual impulse of 
the child manifests itself as a very complex one, it permits 
of an analysis into many components, which spring from 
different sources. It is entirely disconnected from the 
function of reproduction which it is later to serve. It 
permits the child to gain different sorts of pleasure sen- 
sations, which we include, by the analogues and connections 
which they show, under the term sexual pleasures. The 
great source of infantile sexual pleasure is the auto-excita- 
tion of certain particularly sensitive parts of the body; 
besides the genitals are included the rectum and the open- 
ing of the urinary canal, and also the skin and other sen- 
sory surfaces. Since in this first phase of child sexual 
life the satisfaction is found on the child's own body and 
has nothing to do with any other object, we call this phase 
after a word coined by Havelock Ellis, that of "auto- 
eroticism." The parts of the body significant in giving 
sexual pleasure we call "erogenous zones." The thumb- 
sucking (Ludcln') or passionate sucking (Wonnesaugen) 
of very young children is a good example of such an auto- 
erotic satisfaction of an erogenous zone. The first scien- 
tific observer of this phenomenon, a specialist in children's 
diseases in Budapest by the name of Lindner, interpreted 
these rightly as sexual satisfaction and described exhaus- 
tively their transformation into other and higher forms of 
16 Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 2d ed. Vienna, 1910. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
59 
sexual gratification.17 Another sexual satisfaction of this 
time of life is the excitation of the genitals by masturba- 
tion, which has such a great significance for later life and, 
in the case of many individuals, is never fully overcome. 
Besides this and other auto-erotic manifestations we see 
very early in the child the impulse-components of sexual 
pleasure, or, as we may say, of the libido, which presup- 
poses a second person as its object. These impulses appear 
in opposed pairs, as active and passive. The most impor- 
tant representatives of this group are the pleasure in 
inflicting pain (sadism) with its passive opposite (mas- 
ochism) and active and passive exhibition-pleasure (Schau- 
lust}. From the first of these later pairs splits off the 
curiosity for knowledge, as from the latter the impulse 
toward artistic and theatrical representation. Other sexual 
manifestations of the child can already be regarded from 
the viewpoint of object-choice, in which the second person 
plays the prominent part. The significance of this was 
primarily based upon motives of the impulse of self- 
preservation. The difference between the sexes plays, 
however, in the child no very great role. One may at- 
tribute to every child, without wronging him, a bit of the 
homosexual disposition. 
The sexual life of the child, rich, but dissociated, in 
which each single impulse goes about the business of 
arousing pleasure independently of every other, is later 
correlated and organized in two general directions, so that 
by the close of puberty the definite sexual character of the 
individual is practically finally determined. The single 
impulses subordinate themselves to the overlordship of the 
genital zone, so that the whole sexual life is taken over 
into the service of procreation, and their gratification is 
now significant only so far as they help to prepare and 
promote the true sexual act. On the other hand, object- 
choice prevails over auto-eroticism, so that now in the sex- 
ual life all components of the sexual impulse are satisfied in 
17 Jahrbuch f. Kinderheilkunde, 1879- 60 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the loved person. But not all the original impulse-com- 
ponents are given a share in the final shaping of the sexual 
life. Even before the advent of puberty certain impulses 
have undergone the most energetic repression under the 
impulse of education, and mental forces like shame, dis- 
gust and morality are developed, which, like sentinels, 
keep the repressed wishes in subjection. When there 
comes, in puberty, the high tide of sexual desire it finds 
dams in this creation of reactions and resistances. These 
guide the outflow into the so-called normal channels, and 
make it impossible to revivify the impulses which have 
undergone repression. 
The most important of these repressed impulses are 
coprophilism, that is, the pleasure in children connected 
with the excrements; and, further, the tendencies attach- 
ing themselves to the persons of the primitive object- 
choice. 
Gentlemen, a sentence of general pathology says that 
every process of development brings with it the germ of 
pathological dispositions in so far as it may be inhibited, 
delayed, or incompletely carried out. This holds for the 
development of the sexual function, with its many com- 
plications. It is not smoothly completed in all individuals, 
and may leave behind either abnormalities or disposition 
to later diseases«by the way of later falling back or regres- 
sion. It may happen that not all the partial impulses sub- 
ordinate themselves to the rule of the genital zone. Such 
an impulse which has remained disconnected brings about 
what we call a perversion, which may replace the normal 
sexual goal by one of its own. It may happen, as has been 
said before, that the auto-eroticism is not fully overcome, 
as many sorts of disturbances testify. The originally equal 
value of both sexes as sexual objects may be maintained 
and an inclination to homosexual activities in adult life 
result from this, which, under suitable conditions, rises to 
the level of exclusive homosexuality. This series of dis- 
turbances corresponds to the direct inhibition of develop- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
61 
ment of the sexual function, it includes the perversions 
and the general infantilism of the sex life that are not sel- 
dom met with. 
The disposition to neuroses is to be derived in another 
way from an injury to the development of the sex life. 
The neuroses are related to the perversions as the negative 
to the positive; in them we find the same impulse-com- 
ponents as in perversions, as bearers of the complexes and 
as creators of the symptoms; but here they work from out 
the unconscious. They have undergone a repression, but 
in spite of this they maintain themselves in the unconscious. 
Psychoanalysis teaches us that overstrong expression of 
the impulse in very early life leads to a sort of fixation 
(Fixirung}, which then offers a weak point in the articu- 
lation of the sexual function. If the exercise of the nor- 
mal sexual function meets with hindrances in later life, 
this repression, dating from the time of development, is 
broken through at just that point at which the infantile 
fixation took place. 
You will now perhaps make the objection: "But all that 
is not sexuality." I have used the word in a very much 
wider sense than you are accustomed to understand it. 
This I willingly concede. But it is a question whether you 
do not rather use the word in much too narrow a sense 
when you restrict it to the realm of procreation. You 
sacrifice by that the understanding of perversions; of the 
connection between perversion, neurosis, and normal sexual 
life; and have no means of recognizing, in its true signifi- 
cance, the easily observable beginning of the somatic and 
mental sexual life of the child. But however you decide 
about the use of the word, remember that the psychoana- 
lyst understands sexuality in that full sense to which he is 
led by the evaluation of infantile sexuality. 
Now we turn again to the sexual development of the 
child. We still have much to say here, since we have given 
more attention to the somatic than to the mental expres- 
sions of the sexual life. The primitive object-choice of 62 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the child, which is derived from his need of help, demands 
our further interest. It first attaches to all persons to 
whom he is accustomed, but soon these give way in favor 
of his parents. The relation of the child to his parents is, 
as both direct observation of the child and later analytic 
investigation of adults agree, not at all free from elements 
of sexual accessory-excitation {Miterregung}. The child 
takes both parents, and especially one, as an object of his 
erotic wishes. Usually he follows in this the stimulus 
given by his parents, whose tenderness has very clearly the 
character of a sex manifestation, though inhibited so far 
as its goal is concerned. As a rule, the father prefers the 
daughter, the mother the son; the child reacts to this situa- 
tion, since, as son, he wishes himself in the place of his 
father, as daughter, in the place of the mother. The feel- 
ings awakened in these relations between parents and chil- 
dren, and, as a resultant of them, those among the children 
in relation to each other, are not only positively of a tender, 
but negatively of an inimical sort. The complex built up 
in this way is destined to quick repression, but it still exerts 
a great and lasting effect from the unconscious. We must 
express the opinion that this with its ramifications presents 
the nuclear complex of every neurosis, and so we are pre- 
pared to meet with it in a not less effectual way in the other 
fields.of mental life. The myth of King CEdipus, who 
kills his father and wins his mother as a wife is only the 
slightly altered presentation of the infantile wish, rejected 
later by the opposing barriers of incest. Shakespeare's 
tale of Hamlet rests on the same basis of an incest com- 
plex, though better concealed. At the time when the child 
is still ruled by the still unrepressed nuclear complex, there 
begins a very significant part of his mental activity which 
serves sexual interest. He begins to investigate the ques- 
tion of where children come from and guesses more than 
adults imagine of the true relations by deduction from the 
signs which he sees. Usually his interest in this investi- 
gation is awakened by the threat to his welfare through ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
63 
the birth of another child in the family, in whom at first 
he sees only a rival. Under the influence of the partial 
impulses which are active in him he arrives at a number 
of "infantile sexual theories," as that the same male geni- 
tals belong to both sexes, that children are conceived by 
eating and born through the opening of the intestine, and 
that sexual intercourse is to be regarded as an inimical 
act, a sort of overpowering. 
But just the unfinished nature of his sexual constitution 
and the gaps in his knowledge brought about by the hidden 
condition of the feminine sexual canal, cause the infant 
investigator to discontinue his work as a failure. The 
facts of this childish investigation itself as well as the 
infant sex theories created by it are of determinative sig- 
nificance in the building of the child's character, and in 
the content of his later neuroses. 
It is unavoidable and quite normal that the child should 
make his parents the objects of his first object-choice. But 
his libido must not remain fixed on these first chosen 
objects, but must take them merely as a prototype and 
transfer from these to other persons in the time of definite 
object-choice. The breaking loose {Ablosung} of the child 
from his parents is thus a problem impossible to escape if 
the social virtue of the young individual is not to be im- 
paired. During the time that the repressive activity is 
making its choice among the partial sexual impulses and 
later, when the influence of the parents, which in the most 
essential way has furnished the material for these repres- 
sions, is lessened, great problems fall to the work of edu- 
cation, which at present certainly does not always solve 
them in the most intelligent and economic way. 
Gentlemen, do not think that with these explanations 
of the sexual life and the sexual development of the child 
we have too far departed from psychoanalysis and the cure 
of neurotic disturbances. If you like, you may regard the 
psychoanalytic treatment only as a continued education for 
the overcoming of childhood-remnants (Kindheitsresten). 64 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
Fifth Lecture 
Ladies and Gentlemen: With the discovery of infan- 
tile sexuality and the tracing back of the neurotic symp- 
toms to erotic impulse-components we have arrived at 
several unexpected formulae for expressing the nature and 
tendencies of neurotic diseases. We see that the individual 
falls ill when in consequence of outer hindrances or inner 
lack of adaptability the satisfaction of the erotic needs in 
the sphere of reality is denied. We see that he then flees 
to sickness, in order to find with its help a surrogate satis- 
faction for that denied him. We recognize that the symp- 
toms of illness contain fractions of the sexual activity of 
the individual, or his whole sexual life, and we find in the 
turning away from reality the chief tendency and also the 
chief injury of the sickness. We may guess that the re- 
sistance of our patients against the cure is not a simple 
one, but is composed of many motives. Not only does the 
ego of the patient strive against the giving up of the re- 
pression by which it has changed itself from its original 
constitution into its present form, but also the sexual 
impulses may not renounce their surrogate satisfaction so 
long as it is not certain that they can be offered anything 
better in the sphere of reality. 
The flight from the unsatisfying reality into what we 
call, on account of its biologically injurious nature, dis- 
ease, but which is never without an individual gain in 
pleasure for the patient, takes place over the path of 
regression, the return to earlier phases of the sexual life, 
when satisfaction was not lacking. This regression is 
seemingly a twofold one, a temporal, in so far as the libido 
or erotic need falls back to a temporally earlier stage of 
development, and a formal, since the original and primitive 
psychic means of expression are applied to the expression 
of this need. Both sorts of regression focus in childhood 
and have their common point in the production of an in- 
fantile condition of sexual life. 
The deeper you penetrate into the pathogenic of neu- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
65 
rotic diseases, the more the connection of neuroses with 
other products of human mentality, even the most valu- 
able, will be revealed to you. You will be reminded that 
we men, with the high claims of our civilization and under 
the pressure of our repressions, find reality generally quite 
unsatisfactory and so keep up a life of fancy in which we 
love to compensate for what is lacking in the sphere of 
reality by the production of wish-fulfillments. In these 
phantasies is often contained very much of the particular 
constitutional essence of personality and of its tendencies, 
repressed in real life. The energetic and successful man 
is he who succeeds by dint of labor in transforming his 
wish fancies into reality. Where this is not successful in 
consequence of the resistance of the outer world and the 
weakness of the individual, there begins the turning away 
from reality. The individual takes refuge in his satisfy- 
ing w'orld of fancy. Under certain favorable conditions 
it still remains possible for him to find another connecting 
link between these fancies and reality, instead of perma- 
nently becoming a stranger to it through the regression 
into the infantile. If the individual who is displeased with 
reality is in possession of that artistic talent which is still a 
psychological riddle, he can transform his fancies into 
artistic creations. So he escapes the fate of a neurosis and 
wins back his connection with reality by this round-about 
way.18 Where this opposition to the real world exists, but 
this valuable talent fails or proves insufficient, it is un- 
avoidable that the libido, following the origin of the fan- 
cies, succeeds by means of regression in revivifying the 
infantile wishes and so producing a neurosis. The neu- 
rosis takes, in our time, the place of the cloister, in which 
were accustomed to take refuge all those whom life had 
undeceived or who felt themselves too weak for life. Let 
me give at this point the main result at which we have 
arrived by the psychoanalytic investigation of neurotics, 
18 Cf. Rank, Otto, Der Kunstler, Ausdtze zu einer Sexual- 
Psyclwlogie, 56 pp. Heller & Co., Wien, 1907. 66 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
namely, that neuroses have no peculiar psychic content of 
their own, which is not also to be found in healthy states; 
or, as C. G. Jung has expressed it, neurotics fall ill of the 
same complexes with which we sound people struggle. It 
depends on quantitative relationships, on the relations of 
the forces wrestling with each other, whether the struggle 
leads to health, to a neurosis, or to compensatory over- 
functioning ( U eberleistung}. 
Ladies and gentlemen, I have still withheld from you the 
most remarkable experience which corroborates our as- 
sumptions of the sexual impulse-forces of neurotics. 
Every time that we treat a neurotic psychoanalytically, 
there occurs in him the so-called phenomenon of transfer 
(Uebertragung), that is, he applies to the person of the 
physician a great amount of tender emotion, often mixed 
with enmity, which has no foundation in any real relation, 
and must be derived in every respect from the old wish- 
fancies of the patient which have become unconscious. 
Every fragment of his emotive life, which can no longer 
be called back into memory, is accordingly lived over by 
the patient in his relations to the physician, and only by 
such a living of them over in the "transfer" is he con- 
vinced of the existence and the power of these unconscious 
sexual excitations. The symptoms, which, to use a simile 
from chemistry, are the precipitates of earlier love experi- 
ences (in the widest sense), can only be dissolved in the 
higher temperature of the experience of transfer and 
transformed into other psychic products. The physician 
plays in this reaction, to use an excellent expression of 
S. Ferenczi,19 the role of a catalytic ferment, which tem- 
porarily attracts to itself the affect which has become free 
in the course of the process. 
The study of transfer can also give you the key to the 
understanding of hypnotic suggestion, which we at first 
used with our patients as a technical means of investiga- 
tion of the unconscious. Hypnosis showed itself at that 
19 Ferenczi, S., Introjektion und U ebertragung, Jahrbuch f. 
Psycho-anal. u. Psychopath. Forschungen, Bd. I, H. 2, 1909. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
67 
time to be a therapeutic help, but a hindrance to the scien- 
tific knowledge of the real nature of the case, since it 
cleared away the psychic resistances from a certain field, 
only to pile them up in an unscalable wall at the boundaries, 
of this field. You must not think that the phenomenon of 
transfer, about which I can unfortunately say only too 
little here, is created by the influence of the psychoanalytic 
treatment. The transfer arises spontaneously in all human 
relations and in the relations of the patient to the physi- 
cian; it is everywhere the especial bearer of therapeutic 
influences, and it works the stronger the less one knows 
of its presence. Accordingly psychoanalysis does not cre- 
ate it, it merely discloses it to consciousness, and avails 
itself of it, in order to direct the psychic processes to the 
wished-for goal. But I cannot leave the theme of transfer 
without stressing the fact that this phenomenon is of 
decisive importance to convince not only the patient, but 
also the physician. I know that all my adherents were 
first convinced of the correctness of my views through 
their experience with transfer, and I can very well con- 
ceive that one may not win such a surety of judgment so 
long as he makes no psychoanalysis, and so has not himself 
observed the effects of transfer. 
Ladies and gentlemen, I am of the opinion that there 
are, on the intellectual side, two hindrances to acknowledg- 
ing the value of the psychoanalytic viewpoint: first, the 
fact that we are not accustomed to reckon with a strict 
determination of mental life, which holds without excep- 
tion, and, second, the lack of knowledge of the peculiarities 
through which unconscious mental processes differ from 
these conscious ones with which we are familiar. One 
of the most widespread resistances against the work of 
psychoanalysis with patients as with persons in health 
reduces to the latter of the two moments. One is afraid 
of doing harm by psychoanalysis, one is anxious about 
calling up into consciousness the repressed sexual impulses 
of the patient, as though there were danger that they could 68 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
overpower the higher ethical strivings and rob him of his 
cultural acquisitions. One can see that the patient has 
sore places in his soul life, but one is afraid to touch them, 
lest his suffering be increased. We may use this analogy. 
It is, of course, better not to touch diseased places when 
one can only cause pain. But we know that the surgeon 
does not refrain from the investigation and reinvestigation 
of the seat of illness, if his invasion has as its aim the 
restoration of lasting health. Nobody thinks of blaming 
him for the unavoidable difficulties of the investigation 
or the phenomena of reaction from the operation, if these 
only accomplish their purpose, and gain for the patient a 
final cure by temporarily making his condition worse. The 
case is similar in psychoanalysis; it can lay claim to the 
same things as surgery; the increase of pain which takes 
place in the patient during the treatment is very much less 
than that which the surgeon imposes upon him, and espe- 
cially negligible in comparison with the pains of serious 
illness. But the consequence which is feared, that of a dis- 
turbance of the cultural character by the impulse which has 
been freed from repression, is wholly impossible. In rela- 
tion to this anxiety we must consider what our experiences 
have taught us with certainty, that the somatic and mental 
power of a wish, if once its repression has not succeeded, 
is incomparably stronger when it is unconscious than when 
it is conscious, so that by being made conscious it can only 
be weakened. The unconscious wish cannot be influenced, 
is free from all strivings in the contrary direction, while 
the conscious is inhibited by those wishes which are also 
conscious and which strive against it. The work of 
psychoanalysis accordingly presents a better substitute, in 
the service of the highest and most valuable cultural 
strivings, for the repression which has failed. 
Now what is the fate of the wishes which have become 
free by psychoanalysis, by what means shall they be made 
harmless for the life of the individual? There are several 
ways. The general consequence is, that the wish is con- ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT 
69 
sumed during the work by the correct mental activity of 
those better tendencies which are opposed to it. The re- 
pression is supplanted by a condemnation carried through 
with the best means at one's disposal. This is possible, 
since for the most part we have to abolish only the effects 
of earlier developmental stages of the ego. The individual 
for his part only repressed the useless impulse, because 
at that time he was himself still incompletely organized 
and weak; in his present maturity and strength he can, 
perhaps, conquer without injury to himself that which is 
inimical to him. A second issue of the work of psycho- 
analysis may be that the revealed unconscious impulses 
can now arrive at those useful applications which, in the 
case of undisturbed development, they would have found 
earlier. The extirpation of the infantile wishes is not at 
all the ideal aim of development. The neurotic has lost, 
by his repressions, many sources of mental energy whose 
contingents would have been very valuable for his char- 
acter building and his life activities. We know a far more 
purposive process of development, the so-called sublima- 
tion (Sublimirung}, by which the energy of infantile wish- 
excitations is not secluded, but remains capable of applica- 
tion, while for the particular excitations, instead of be- 
coming useless, a higher, eventually no longer sexual, goal 
is set up. The components of the sexual instinct are 
especially distinguished by such a capacity for the sublima- 
tion and exchange of their sexual goal for one more remote 
and socially more valuable. To the contributions of the 
energy won in such a way for the functions of our mental 
life we probably owe the highest cultural consequences. 
A repression taking place at an early period excludes the 
sublimation of the repressed impulse; after the removal 
of the repression the way to sublimation is again free. 
We must not neglect, also, to glance at the third of the 
possible issues. A certain part of the suppressed libidinous 
excitation has a right to direct satisfaction and ought to 
find it in life. The claims of our civilization make life too 70 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
hard for the greater part of humanity, and so further the 
aversion to reality and the origin of neuroses, without pro- 
ducing an excess of cultural gain by this excess of sexual 
repression. We ought not to go so far as to fully neglect 
the original animal part of our nature, we ought not to 
forget that the happiness of individuals cannot be dis- 
pensed with as one of the aims of our culture. The plas- 
ticity of the sexual-components, manifest in their capacity 
for sublimation, may cause a great temptation to accom- 
plish greater culture-effects by a more and more far reach- 
ing sublimation. But just as little as with our machines 
we expect to change more than a certain fraction of the 
applied heat into useful mechanical work, just as little 
ought we to strive to separate the sexual impulse in its 
whole extent of energy from its peculiar goal. This can- 
not succeed, and if the narrowing of sexuality is pushed too 
far it will have all the evil effects of a robbery. 
I do not know whether you will regard the exhortation 
with which I close as a presumptuous one. I only venture 
the indirect presentation of my conviction, if I relate an 
old tale, whose application you may make yourselves. 
German literature knows a town called Schilda, to whose 
inhabitants were attributed all sorts of clever pranks. The 
wiseacres, so the story goes, had a horse, with whose pow- 
ers of work they were well satisfied, and against whom 
they had only one grudge, that he consumed so much ex- 
pensive oats. They concluded that by good management 
they would break him of this bad habit, by cutting down 
his rations by several stalks each day, until he had learned 
to do without them altogether. Things went finely for a 
while, the horse was weaned to one stalk a day, and on the 
next day he would at last work without fodder. On the 
morning of this day the malicious horse was found dead; 
the citizens of Schilda could not understand why he had 
died. We should be inclined to believe that the horse had 
starved, and that without a certain ration of oats no work 
could be expected from an animal. PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND 
FREUD AND HIS WORK1 
James J. Putnam, M.D. (Boston) 
I 
The doctrines of Freud and his colleagues have been 
made known to us here more through the gossip of preju- 
dice and misconception 2 than by the testimony of those 
who have really tested them, and this, in itself, is an inter- 
esting fact. For these doctrines involve at every point 
the belief that the hidden motives which help to rule our 
lives, and which frequently show themselves as prejudices, 
are made up of "attraction," "desire," "acceptance," on 
the one hand, and, on the other hand, of "repulsion," 
"repression," "denial," mixed in equal parts. A strong 
prejudice often means a strong, instinctive attempt to set 
aside as false an influence which we feel that, if differ- 
ently presented, we might be forced to accept, at least in 
part, as true, and the strength of the prejudice usually 
measures the importance of the half-felt but perhaps 
wholly suppressed truth. To say the least, our prejudices 
express feelings that at the moment we cannot or will not 
put to the test of reason. 
Let me now attempt the task of modifying this preju- 
dice-shared formerly by myself. 
In brief, the history of Freud's investigations and opin- 
ions is the following: In 1881, an older colleague, Dr. J. 
Breuer, of Vienna, had occasion to treat an intelligent 
young woman suffering from hysteria in a serious form 
for which he tried the usual means in vain. At length, 
1 From The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Dec., 1910-Jan., 
1911. Reprinted by permission. 
2 On account of their insistence on the importance of the sexual 
life in the etiology of the psycho-neuroses. 
71 72 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
after long and tireless searching, he found that the facts 
offered by the patient in explanation of her illness, although 
they were freely furnished and represented her entire his- 
tory so far as she consciously could furnish it, constituted 
only a tithe of the story which, in the end, her memory 
succeeded in drawing from its depths. Under the influence 
of a special method of inquiry, many hidden facts, repre- 
senting painful experiences long ago forgotten, came one 
by one to light and were as if lived over, attended by the 
emotions that originally formed a part of them. And just 
in proportion as this happened, in proportion as the dense 
barriers were overcome that separated this hidden portion 
of the patient's past from that of which she had remained 
consciously aware, one and another of her distressing symp- 
toms dropped away and disappeared forever. The details 
of the long and significant history of this case cannot be 
given here. Let it suffice to say that although no further 
investigations based on it were undertaken for ten years, 
yet the facts observed had made a deep impression upon 
Dr. Freud and were meditated on by him during this dec- 
ade, a part of which he passed as a student of Charcot's in 
Paris, and that on his return he begged Breuer to take the 
matter up again. After this, for a considerable length of 
time, they worked together; later, Freud alone. It became 
gradually more and more clear to them that the childhood 
of this patient had been in an unsuspected degree and sense 
the parent of her later years.3 For not only had it been 
found that many of the events which counted for so much 
in the production of her illness dated back to days of early 
8 I make no attempt, in this hasty sketch, either to separate the 
principles developed through the study of this first case from those 
of subsequent development, or to state these principles in the his- 
torical order of their discovery. Neither does this communication 
claim to furnish an authorized or systematic record of the Worcester 
lectures. My purpose is solely to reproduce the more prominent 
of my own impressions, obtained through reading, private conver- 
sations and the lectures, and reenforced through personal observa- 
tion in my own practice. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
73 
youth, but the later experiences which had come upon her, 
one after another, and which were the ostensible and ap- 
parently sufficient causes of her illness, were discovered to 
owe a large portion of their power for harm to the fact 
that they reproduced in a new shape old emotions of child- 
ish form and substance, of which, before her treatment, she 
would truthfully have professed herself to be entirely un- 
aware. Only when these emotions were reached and the 
experiences corresponding to them lived over, in memory 
and in speech, was the recovery complete. 
There is little in the bare outlines of this proposition 
that a psychologist need count as wholly novel. Every one 
has heard the claim that no experience is ever wholly lost, 
that our present acts are the outcome of all our antecedent 
acts; that our perceptions, even when apparently new, are 
in reality nine parts memory,4 and that disclosing and talk- 
ing over old troubles clears the mind and relieves the feel- 
ings of distress. But this dictum of the psychologists has 
now received a practical confirmation of an unexpected 
sort. The number and character of the revelations even- 
tually made; the demonstration that memories apparently 
so wholly lost could with sufficient effort be recovered; the 
discovery that symptoms of illness and old and forgotten 
emotional states were not only connected by a certain bond, 
but by a bond so subtle and yet so strong that this patient, 
through living her experiences over again in words, could 
succeed in freeing herself from the signs-physical as well 
as mental-of her present illness; the discovery, finally, that 
the nature of some of these experiences was what it proved 
to be; these were the surprising facts.5 
4 Cf. especially Bergson, Mattere et Memoire. 
5 At first, the aid of hypnotism, later of "hypnoid" states, was 
invoked to secure this enlargement of the memory. Later it was 
found that quiet and relaxation, with the encouragement of the 
physician and the opportunity of talking and reminiscing, rather in 
his presence than under his scrutiny, were sufficient. This is accord- 
ance with the observations of Bernheim that the amnesia of the 
hypnotic state, profound as it at first sight seems, may be invaded 74 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
The physical signs of the hysteria in this case consisted 
partly i» a paralysis and contracture of the arm and a 
peculiar affection of the speech. Such signs are of very 
common occurrence, and the fact of their mental origin had 
been clearly pointed out by Janet. But the study of their 
specific relationship to this patient's mental experiences was 
utilized by Breuer and Freud as the basis of an elaborate 
theory of "conversion," or substitution, which has proved 
to be of wide bearing. It would be an instance of such con- 
version if a person wishing to exclude from his mind an 
unpleasant thought or memory should strive instinctively to 
aid himself by closure of the eyes and then should find that 
an actual and uncontrollable closure of the eyes had re- 
mained as a persistent memorial of the misjudged attempt 
at self-concealment. We can "convert" or we can neu- 
tralize the effect of our experiences, but we cannot kill 
them. Every experience retains the right and need to ex- 
press its influence in our later history. We can accept it, 
work it out, assimilate it to the remainder of our conscious 
lives, or we can repress it. If we adopt (instinctively or 
consciously) the repressive policy, we may give birth to a 
sort of evil genius, who keeps himself concealed only on 
condition that we yield up to him some physical or mental 
evidence of the hold that, until exorcised, he will have on 
us. The physical symptoms of hysteria are thus analogous, 
to use Freud's simile, to the monuments which people set 
up to commemorate important events in history. It became 
clear to Breuer and Freud, further and in harmony with 
the principle just expressed, that this patient's painful 
memories of the past, which at first had seemed as dead to 
her as if the experiences which they stood for never had 
occurred, represented in reality living and acting forces.® 
And not only this but that the very barriers which had to 
and overcome by the power of the subject's memory, if sufficiently 
urged thereto. 
6 Cf. Bergson, Matiere et Memoire; also Janet, Etat Mental des 
Hysteriques, etc., and the works of other writers. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
75 
be overcome in reproducing them represented living and 
active forces too, all vibrating with significance for the 
present moment and for the details of the illness. In other 
words, the term "barrier" as used for the "forgetting" of 
the hysterical patient was shown to be a misnomer. In- 
deed, the forgetting of persons in normal health is largely 
repression, an active process of lending oneself to the task 
of learning how not to dwell upon a subject now painful 
but which perhaps had once a powerful interest. It has 
often been remarked that the conscious memory picks out 
the pleasant items of life and rejects the rest. We remem- 
ber the charms and novelty of an ocean trip, of foreign 
travel, and conveniently "forget"-in reality turn away 
from-the seasickness, the dirty inns, the sleepless nights. 
It was the significance of this species of forgetting and its 
relation to sickness and to health that Freud was led to 
study, and to which he has devoted all the powers of a 
keen and well-trained mind for twenty years. In the 
course of these investigations Freud and Jung and their 
followers have dived more deeply than any one before into 
the mysteries of the unconscious life. These investigations 
were inspired primarily, not by theory, but by the recitals 
of patients who had been helped to search out their mem- 
ories and their motives to a degree that never before had 
been made possible. New evidence has thus been brought 
to show that this hidden life, if technically "unconscious," 
is anything but inactive.7 On the contrary, it is the living 
supplement of our conscious and willed existences, the 
dwelling-place and working-place of emotions which we 
7 Eminent psychologists sometimes deny the propriety of using 
the term "consciousness" for a mental state of which we are not at 
the moment given consciously aware. This criticism has been ex- 
pressed and met in a discussion on the Subconscious, published in 
the Journal of Abnormal Psychology for June-July, 1907. It is 
there satisfactorily shown, as I think, by Dr. Prince, that "aware- 
ness" is not necessary for "consciousness," and that the suppressed 
mental states of hypnotized and hysterical patients, for example, are 
properly designated as conscious states. 76 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
could not utilize in the construction of the personality that 
we had shaped and rounded and that we longed to think of 
as standing completely for "ourselves." It is the study of 
this portion of our lives, repressed yet active, and not the 
attempt to push forward the sexual element in our experi- 
ences, that has constituted the main feature of Freud's 
work, looked at broadly and as a whole. The sexual ele- 
ment has indeed been pushed forward, but this has been 
due to two causes. In the first place, Freud's patients 
themselves, one after another, when urged to analyze the 
motives and influences that had prompted them to this or 
that act of repression or self-reproach, uniformly referred 
to one or another manifestation of this great passion as 
the ultimate source from which these motives sprang; and 
no wonder, for it is the basis of most of what we care for 
in this world. In the next place, the frequent references 
to the sexual life have been seized upon by Freud's critics 
as the basis for attack against the remarkable and truth- 
seeking observations of a remarkable man. I shall try, in 
the second installment of this paper, to explain in more 
detail just what influence it is that, in Freud's view, the 
sexual life does introduce into the composition of our 
characters. What I wish to do here is to make a plea for 
open-mindedness in this matter. There are many subjects 
intensely disagreeable for discussion, from the social stand- 
point, which nevertheless the trained man of science 
studies eagerly and without a trace of unpleasant feeling. 
This is true, for example, of the bodily excretions. The 
study of sexual problems in all their manifold bearings are 
being taken up in this same spirit by an increasing number 
of persons of fine feeling and scientific instinct and a 
desire to work for the remedy of great practical evils. 
Each one of these persons has had to overcome an intense 
sense of aversion to this task of dwelling on details, of 
odious social connotation, but he has overcome it, at least 
to the extent of setting his intelligence moderately free to 
act. Most physicians are still in the grasp of this aversion IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
77 
and strive to justify themselves by denying the importance 
of the inquiry and the significance of the facts adduced. 
Meantime, the aversion means something more than it 
seems at first sight to mean. It indicates that the topic has 
or has had a sort of hold on us or a right to demand our 
interest and attention, and that we fain would persuade 
ourselves that this was not the case. This hold on our 
attention, which we instinctively feel this subject has the 
right to claim even when we repudiate this right, consti- 
tutes one instance of the "desire," which is made to play 
such a large part in Freud's doctrines. What once was an 
instinctive desire, the expression of a perfectly natural 
craving, the basis of the natural curiosity, of an infant 
or young child, becomes, next, something to be repressed, 
as incompatible with the social life which the child grown 
older plans to lead. Either one of several consequences 
is liable to flow from this repression. First, it may be 
adequate and successful. The craving, the curiosity, the 
desire may find some sufficient outlet, may be assimilated 
or neutralized, and disappear permanently from view. 
Next, instead of this, the process of repression may go too 
far, may become too manifest, may impress the character 
too strongly with its own features. Then the "desire" 
utterly disappears from memory, but the eventual outcome 
is an individual of so-called over-sensitiveness and refine- 
ment, overwatchful of himself. Or, again, the "desire" 
or "craving" element may be too strong, or the mechanism 
whereby it should have been assimilated or neutralized may 
have been inadequate. Then the patient-for such we may 
now call him-becomes conscious of a lack of harmony 
with himself. He is one person who wishes and strives, 
consciously, to lead a certain life, but is also another per- 
son with an unsatisfied craving. As the result of this tend- 
ency he becomes predisposed to undergo a still more com- 
plete and definite cleavage, and this may, through "con- 
version," on the occasion of some new mental strain or 
trauma, earn for him the title of "hysteric" (a portion of 78 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the symptoms becoming physical} or may cause him to 
adopt some "phobia" (through a process of substitution) 
in accordance with a principle to be described later. Thus 
fear and repressed desire are shown to have an intimate 
kinship. 
The cravings based on the sexual instincts of infancy 
and childhood take their place, in this scheme, along with 
those of adolescence and adult life, and along, too, with a 
great number of other cravings and ambitions, emotional 
interests and desires, of manifold character and force. It 
should be recognized that the doctrines and methods of 
Freud are full of interest as throwing light upon the mode 
in which the mind works, independently of the particular 
nature of the emotions that are involved. The life of every 
one, even the most commonplace person, even the most 
harmonious and best balanced, is complex enough to fur- 
nish the material for many a romance, for many a study 
of the conflicting tides of feeling. Every one acts from 
motives, many of which he does not clearly grasp; if it 
were not so no novels would be written, wars would have 
been few, and the great tragedians and mythmakers would 
never have existed. And yet, although we do not clearly 
grasp our motives, either as regards their nature or their 
origin; and although, if set to the task of describing our- 
selves and the history of our development we should leave 
out much that was important, yet the very fact that we 
understand novels and tragedies and character studies, and 
find them so entrancing, is an indication that we have felt, 
in some measure, the sentiments they are based on, and 
that we have passed through something corresponding in 
type with all the situations pictured. It may not be neces- 
sary that every one should become intimately acquainted 
with all these crooked byways and obscure corners of him- 
self, or that each person should force himself to recognize 
his kinship with others whose qualities he deplores or 
whose acts he regards as criminal. But there are times 
when such knowledge becomes necessary for the preser- IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
79 
vation of the mental health, and the physician should fit 
himself to be the guide to its attainment. 
I propose, in the rest of this communication, to consider 
a little further some of these psychological principles which 
Freud's observations have brought out in a new light, and 
to show their bearing on his therapeutic methods. The 
principles which I select as examples are embodied in the 
following propositions: 
A. Desire, or craving, furnishes the motive for many 
thoughts and acts that seem actuated by sentiments of a 
different and even of an opposite character. 
B. The principle of "conversion" in accordance with 
which the physical symptoms of hysteria are produced, is 
one manifestation of the wider principle of "substitution." 
Other manifestations of the same general tendency are: 
(i) the attributing to other persons, without adequate 
reason, qualities whose interest for us lies in the fact that 
we ourselves possess or have possessed and have, likewise, 
sought instinctively to repress them; (2) the harboring 
of prejudices for or against certain persons, on similar 
grounds; (3) the identification of ourselves with others, 
as in the assumption of ailments similar to theirs; (4) the 
transference to one person of interest originally centered 
on another; (5) the substitution of fear or of some morbid 
impulsion, for desires which cannot be adequately gratified. 
C. The "forgetting" considered typical of hysteria and 
kindred forms of mental disharmony and disturbance is a 
feature of every one's mental growth. 
D. Dreams are closely related, psychologically, to 
psychoses, and, like them, are classifiable, from certain 
points of view, as "compromises." Dreams likewise fur- 
nish valuable information of the unconscious life and are 
analyzable to a hitherto unsuspected degree, in the interests 
of therapeutics. 
E. Finally, I wish to add a few more words on the 
principles involved in Freud's treatment. 80 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
A. Desire and craving are generally admitted to be 
powerful if only partial motives to conduct. One need not 
accept the doctrine of "hedonism" as alone binding in order 
to admit that we all have instincts and passions which press 
for gratification, and that ungratified or imperfectly grati- 
fied desires remain as unwelcome comrades to our thoughts. 
The point which mainly calls for comment is that even con- 
cealed and partial desires and cravings play an immensely 
important part in health and in disease. A few illustrations 
may take the place of argument. The partial wishes or 
cravings of young children are familiar to every one. Ac- 
customed to deal with fairy tales, living in a world of 
fancy, and subjected to but slight censorship in his fancies, 
the child gives his desires free rein. It is often felt as a 
fine thing by a child to be in the eye of friends and com- 
rades, even when the cause for distinction is really a cause 
for grief. A partial hostility towards a parent is entirely 
compatible with warm affection, but it is not recognized 
that when the child in question is of hysterical tendency, 
that is, when he is a person whose unconscious life plays 
too large a part in controlling his acts and thoughts, making 
him fitful, moody, and capricious, the affection may stand 
for an infantile passion, and the hostility which develops 
out of it may reach a high grade. The fable of the sour 
grapes hints at such a mixture of half-hidden and half- 
felt sentiments. The mental operations of older children 
and adults are not exempt from the working of these prin- 
ciples. The craving for recognition and sympathy flames 
in the eye and thrills in the voice of many a person who 
would deny that he was subject to these motives; dis- 
appointed hopes, the necessity for sacrifice and renuncia- 
tion tinge a sincere grief with unwelcome and perhaps 
scarcely recognized longings. In these and in kindred 
ways mental conflicts arise, although the actual battle may 
be concealed from view. 
The curiosity and emulation of children, as also of 
adolescents and adults, are other species of desire. They IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
81 
may be of manifold sorts, and in certain of their forms 
they represent cravings that are instinctively concealed. 
Out of such materials as these, in the manner thus indi- 
cated, and in the same ratio as we build the conscious per- 
sonality, we form and feed and organize the unconscious 
life. 
B. It will be recognized by every close observer that 
in entertaining a series of conflicting emotions, such as that 
typified by the sour-grapes illustration, for example, the 
instinctive effort is to escape from one distressing situa- 
tion by grasping at another, which if in some respects 
worse is in some respects also better. This process is 
characteristic of the nervous invalid's mental life and, un- 
satisfactory as it is, it is often justified by the fact that 
it leads to the substitution of a definite evil for an indefi- 
nite. The operation of the principle under the form of 
"conversion" has been alluded to, but there are many 
other kinds of substitution, of analogous sort, and one of 
these is the substitution of a specific fear for a sense of 
humiliation or self-reproach. It is sometimes possible for 
a patient to witness the actual occurrence of this process 
of substitution. Certain forms of stage fright are of this 
order. In analogous fashion the personal relationship 
between two individuals, as a pupil and a teacher, may be 
felt to have in it an element of excess or wrong, and this 
feeling may tinge the next friendship, not in itself objec- 
tionable, with a sense of fear which may spread by un- 
conscious paths to a general sense of apprehension, but 
finally concentrate itself in some one direction. Similarly, 
the strong ambition to gain a social success and the dread 
of failure are said by Freud to account for some of the 
fears of appearing in public places (as in agoraphobia), 
or where people must be met, or even of traveling in 
trains. In other words, this fear is the accepted substi- 
tute for an exaggerated form of self-consciousness at- 
tended by a sense of shame or guilt. Thus "self-conscious- 82 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
ness" means the consciousness of oneself as seen by others 
in an unfavorable light. 
Of course I indicate here only the bare outlines of a 
transformation which might be accepted only when de- 
lineated in detail. Usually, the process of transforma- 
tion is hidden, even from the patient. He finds him- 
self with a fear-the fear of open windows, or of the 
railroad train, or with one or another of the morbid 
impulses enumerated by Janet or by Loewenfeld-but 
it may be only with difficulty and after overcoming re- 
luctance that he can be led to see the full force of the 
desires which he repressed or the fact that it was to 
escape from them that he grasped the fear, to justify, 
as it were, the perturbation of his mind, as a drowning 
man catches at a straw. Janet has indicated, in an in- 
teresting paper, published in this journal, other modes 
of unsatisfactory substitution through which psycho- 
pathic patients instinctively seek relief.8 
C. It has been strongly urged by Freud that in the 
amnesia of hysteria, which every close student of the 
subject, since Janet, would admit to be a sort of active 
process, a contrivance for the obliteration of the memo- 
ries of the unhappy and the disagreeable, we have an 
exaggerated form, a type of much of the forgetting of 
ordinary life. This principle is indeed admitted and 
widely acted on, but, as in the other cases, it is in the 
detail, in the fullness of illustrations and in pointing out 
that the principle applied when we feel unwillingly to 
apply it, that Freud's main service lies. 
Every one agrees that "hell is paved with good in- 
tentions," which means that we soothe our consciences 
with words, satisfy ourselves by calling ourselves bad 
8 Fits of anger, and the commoner forms of depression, as I have 
elsewhere pointed out, are species of substitution whereby a person 
seeks to escape from the necessity of showing courage and clear 
thought. Unpleasant as those states are they really represent a sort 
of self-indulgence. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
83 
names, and then proceed to actively forget our duties 
and to close our eyes to the real images of ourselves. 
But it takes a truly scientific conscience, or the conscience 
of a person who is sick and sees a real chance of getting 
well, to recognize the complexity, the elaborate exact- 
ness of the machinery by which, through this forgetting, 
we construct for the torment of our lives. 
D. The laying down of the theory and mode of analy- 
sis of dreams is one of the most remarkable, and in 
principle the most original of Freud's contributions. 
Accustomed as we are to see in dreams only phan- 
tasmagorias of the fancy, sparks leaping to and fro on 
burnt-out paper, to use William James' simile, it is hard 
for us to believe the explanations and constructions of 
this analyst, who shows, as one or two others have done 
in part, that they occupy a definite and useful place in the 
economy of life. 
In our dreams, as in our illnesses, our unconscious and 
repressed thoughts and emotions find expression. But, as 
in our illnesses, again, the revelations are not straight- 
forward, the instinct for compromise and concealment 
makes itself everywhere apparent. In the night dream 
as in the day dream, wishes are fulfilled, but they are 
often partial wishes, and such as in our waking moments 
we do not admit even to ourselves. Symbolisms and 
innuendoes take the place of direct statement, and the 
possession of a treasury of dramatic power is revealed 
by the sleeper, of which his waking moments may indi- 
cate no trace, so deadening, even though useful, is the 
repression of education and convention. The volume 
devoted to the interpretation of dreams indicates the 
method of analysis which underlies all Freud's work, and 
it must be studied carefully by any one who would be 
either a critic or an investigator working on his lines. 
Let it be, if one will, that there is exaggeration, too much 
ingeniousness of interpolation and explanation. That 
criticism is nothing. No student need accept, in his own 84 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
interpretations, more than he believes true. The fact re- 
mains that-in my view at least-Freud has offered us 
a master-key to many of the mysteries of life, and we 
need not reject this because we find ourselves inclined 
contemptuously to deny the reports brought back by this 
or that explorer of the dark realms of the unconscious. 
E. Freud's therapeutic method is his method of analy- 
sis into the structure and working of the whole mind, 
the whole man, carried out with a searching and merci- 
less vigor that is in the end fully justified by the fact 
that it brings at last a sense of freedom and of manhood. 
A critical or rather a hostile feeling invariably raises 
itself in the mind of each new listener to these and kin- 
dred statements,9 and it is one that every earnest student 
of the subject, including the pioneers themselves, has 
had to deal with in himself before he could proceed. 
This critical sentiment favors the view that such in- 
quiries as those here sketched out are unwholesome, un- 
healthy, morbid. The pretended cure is worse, it is said, 
than the disease. Introspection is of the devil. Why 
show us that we once were little animals, having no 
touch with the things that now make life so sacred and 
showing propensities our riper interests have no use for? 
Let us rather press constantly forward into the free air 
and more abundant light, and let those who have had a 
dark history forget it. Look forward and not back. 
This is a fine cry, but unfortunately it has served the 
cause of ignorance, narrowness, and prejudice as well 
as that of progress. It was the cry of the church against 
Darwin, when he sought to "introspect" the history of 
life, and its echoes have drowned the voices of those who 
have sought to talk about the problems of sex, no matter 
with what earnestness. The cause of formal modesty 
and reticence has indeed had many noble martyrs, both 
before the days of Paul and Virginia and since. But 
8 Cf. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
85 
there is such a thing as paying too dear for this niceness, 
especially when, through the opposite course, we can have 
all that we should gain by this, and more besides. Strik- 
ingly enough, this outcry against one or another sort of 
investigation is never raised except with regard to our 
neighbors' efforts to find the truth; the purity of our 
own motives, the value of our own inquiries, provided 
they are genuine, rarely come in question. We may kill 
animals for food and put them to pain for our conven- 
ience, but may not inflict any pain on them as physiolo- 
gists, even for the sake of preventing infinitely more. 
The detective novel is welcome at every fireside, but the 
scientific student of human acts and motives is considered 
a disseminator of morbid tendencies. We are ready 
enough to say "why worry" when the answer is only to 
show that it is unphilosophical to anticipate trouble, but 
we may not ask "why do we worry" if there is danger of 
finding out that we worry because we are unwilling to 
see ourselves as we are, or to recognize that we are what 
we are partly because we were what we were. 
All this is wrong. A fool's paradise is a poor para- 
dise. If our spiritual life is good for anything it can 
afford to see the truth. No investigation is wrong if it 
is earnest. Knowledge knows nothing as essentially and 
invariably dirty. It is a piece of narrow intolerance, 
cruel in its outcome, to raise the cry of "introspection," 
in order to prevent an unfortunate invalid, whose every 
moment is already spent in introspection of the worst 
sort, forced on him by the bigotry, however well meant, 
of social conventions, from searching, even to the death, 
the causes of his misery and learning to substitute the 
freedom, liberality, tolerance, and purity that comes from 
knowledge for the tyranny of ignorance and prejudice. 
This outcry against intolerance may seem overdone and 
out of place, but it is not so, and one evidence of the fact 
is that, these remarkable researches of Freud and Jung, 86 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
and their small band of followers, have met with such 
bitter opposition, even among physicians. 
It is a delightful task to lead our invalids to the moun- 
tain top and urge them to look out over the splendid fields 
around them, waiting for them to till. But it is cruel 
t® attempt this when they must drag thither a heavy bur- 
den under which they are forced to stagger, pale and 
panting, to find themselves, at the summit, unable to 
proceed further. The real mountain top is always within 
the mind, and outward activity, which is so much prized, 
is of little value unless it is the symbol of an inward 
harmony and peace. At every feast Truth should have 
the first place. 
To sum up the essential facts, let me say that Freud's 
main thesis, as I apprehend it, may be stated somewhat 
as follows: (i) Whereas, hitherto, the most important 
cause of the functional psycho-neuroses has usually been 
considered to be a constitutional and in general an in- 
herited taint, and the influence of environment and edu- 
cation has been rated as of secondary significance, the 
facts point to a different conclusion. Our inheritance 
varies indeed within wide limits, but that which makes 
us sick or well (so far as the symptoms of these psycho- 
neuroses are concerned) is the influences to which we 
are subjected after birth. This is not to depreciate the 
importance of what we bring with us to the world, but 
to exalt the significance of education taken in a wide 
sense. (2) But if the influence of education, whether for 
good or ill, is to be exalted, it must be shown that these 
influences are to be given a broader meaning than that 
usually accorded to them; and (3) in so far as it is held 
that adult invalids are susceptible of cure through re- 
education, to a greater extent than others have believed, 
it must be proved that there are educational influences 
hitherto unrecognized or insufficiently recognized, which 
can be called to aid in this work. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
87 
In support of both these propositions Freud brings for- 
ward a remarkable array of evidence, based on the actual 
recitals of his patients. Some of these have been pub- 
lished by him or by his colleagues, while many others, 
for obvious reasons, have been withheld. These recitals 
are held to justify a number of subpropositions, such as 
those which follow, and as the result of my reading of 
the published communications, from personal conversa- 
tions with Freud, and with his colleagues, and from my 
personal observations, I believe these claims to be well 
founded. 
(a) From birth onward our lives are builded on a 
double principle. We have ostensible personalities and 
concealed personalities, and though the two may har- 
monize fairly well they are never fully in accord. Soci- 
ety and our own choice and effort make us what ostensibly 
we are,-artists, merchants, honorable citizens, persons 
following an aim. But in order to fit ourselves to molds 
of such a sort we must, of course, at every moment dis- 
card temptations and repress emotions out of harmony 
with this or that set purpose. 
(&) These emotions and temptations, in spite of being 
discarded and repressed, not only were but continue to 
be important portions of ourselves. They may never 
come to light again individually and in their own form, 
but at the least they contribute something, if only a note 
of seriousness, to our perceptions and our thoughts. 
When they do not help us to remember they may be 
forcing us to forget, and in reality these two results are 
often one. Even our discarded, repressed, forgotten child- 
hood lives actively in our adult years, helping to form 
that variously named portion of our mental lives, of 
which we are not consciously aware, and cannot make 
ourselves entirely aware except with special aid; never, 
perhaps, completely. 
(c) These repressed emotions and thoughts organize 88 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
themselves10 more or less definitely into groups, and 
there is a constant interplay between them and the 
thoughts and emotions of our conscious lives. Thus, the 
repression of a desire gives rise to a vague sense of dis- 
quiet; and this feeling attaching itself to a definite object 
may be felt as a morbid impulse or a defined fear. The 
desire and repression may never, at best, have been more 
than half-conscious processes, and finally become wholly 
forgotten, in the sense above described. 
The vague distress (flottierende Angst) is consciously 
felt as something unendurable, and is at once attached to 
a special object, as in obedience to an impulse which 
counts as "protective," although the relief afforded may 
be anything but complete. The fears of water, of the 
dark, of certain animals, of meeting people, of crowds, 
of church and theater, and so on through all their mul- 
titudinous forms, are made up in part, according to this 
view, of fears of ourselves, i.e., fears engendered in the 
course of the effort to set aside a situation felt to be un- 
bearable. Sometimes the whole process can be witnessed, 
as when a morbid fear of meeting people, or even a so- 
called misanthropy, arises out of the half-a wareness that 
one has been living under conditions that were socially 
compromising. Often, however, the links of this chain 
pass wholly out of sight, and a person finds himself fear- 
ing or hating a person or set of persons without knowing 
why, when in fact it is because these persons stand as 
representing certain aspects of our past selves. 
It is a little harder to explain the common fears of open 
windows, bridges, and the like, than fears of less external 
sorts, but there can be little doubt that these also are at 
least partly due to a similar substitution. We would shine, 
we would be virtuous and recognized as such, conse- 
10 The organization of hell, as figured by Milton, may fairly be 
taken as representing a part, though only a part, of this unconscious 
realm of suppressed thoughts. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
89 
quently we fear to fall. "Natural" fear and symbolism 
do the rest. 
II 
It is an interesting fact that the unfavorable criticisms 
which these researches have called forth, whether di- 
rected against their validity or against their value, have 
been of strikingly contradictory sorts. Most of these 
criticisms have centered really, whether the fact was ad- 
mitted or concealed, on the prominence given by Freud 
to the sexual element in the causation of the Psycho- 
neuroses. This was considered as a disagreeable topic 
on which we had closed our eyes so long that we thought 
we might permit ourselves to regard it as legitimately 
outlawed. Its vast literature-well known to be of great 
importance-was repulsive, and should not be seen upon 
our shelves. It counted for but little that this immense 
subject was daily and hourly thrusting itself upon our 
notice, whether as the cause of terrible sufferings, of 
terrible crimes, of terrible misunderstandings and mis- 
judgments, and that it has played a huge part in the 
history of religion and of civic progress; those who have 
ventured to study it scientifically have been, nevertheless, 
regarded widely as disturbers of the peace. There can 
be no doubt that prejudices of these sorts have warped 
the reasoning of students, otherwise of fair judgment, 
and have led to contradictory kinds of depreciation of 
Freud's work. Some able men claim to have thoroughly 
tested his opinions by methods which they regard as en- 
tirely equivalent to his, and declare his conclusions to be 
unverifiable and absurd. They believe that Freud mis- 
chievously introduces sexual notions into his patients' 
minds, and a mistaken conception of their importance 
into medical doctrine. Other men believe, on the con- 
trary, that just because sexual influences, even morbid 
influences, are so widely prevalent, so much more so than 
the more serious forms of the psychoneuroses, they can- 90 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
not play the important part in pathology which Freud 
assigns to them. 
Without undertaking to discuss these conflicting dif- 
ferences of opinions it is clear that they suggest the 
prevalence, not only of serious prejudices, but also of 
real misunderstandings. Meantime, one good reason for 
hesitating to take up afresh the study of the sexual as- 
pects of psychopathology has been for many persons the 
instinctive feeling that nothing practically satisfactory 
could come of it, either because of their belief that the 
wall of social repugnance is too strong, or because of doubt 
whether any new arguments could be more convincing 
than the old. Neither of these reasons seems to me ap- 
plicable in the present case. There is an audience, small, 
perhaps, but constantly increasing, to which the researches 
of a band of workers, of whom Freud is one, strikingly 
appeal. Freud's particular contribution is of unques- 
tionable importance, and yet there are so many investi- 
gators working on lines parallel with his that the conclu- 
sions of each one are sure to be both supplemented and 
controlled. 
One other, point needs special emphasis which, if un- 
derstood, should place this whole matter, for intelligent 
students, on a better footing. The principal objection to 
the discussion of sex questions, or the prejudice against 
it, rests on the assumption that "sexual" means "sensual," 
and that to speak of sexual influences as of fundamental 
importance for psychopathology is equivalent to imputing 
immorality to the fine, intelligent men -and women whose 
experiences might be at stake. But this hasty prejudice 
needs correction. In the. first place, Freud's whole doc- 
trine is permeated with the belief that much of the later 
neuropathic history of the adult patient was practically 
determined in his infancy, i.e., at a period which indeed 
needs watching, but when "sensuality" is not in question. 
In the second place, it is an essential feature of his thesis 
that "repression" is one of the main agencies in the pro- IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
91 
duction of nervous symptoms, and also that much of 
what goes on lies for the most part outside the patient's 
conscious knowledge. The possession of the finest, the 
noblest qualities of thought and sentiment is not thus 
incompatible with nervous invalidisms of every sort, and 
certain types of invalidism are the outgrowths of both 
early and late repression of sexual instincts under per- 
sonal effort or parental discipline, "Die Tugend ist der 
V ollendeter Kampf." Every one has sexual instincts, if 
the word be correctly understood. Their possession is 
one of the universal properties and glories of all living 
things, and to assume that this is not so would be a piece 
of false and narrow pride. Here, again, it is the "sen- 
suality" connotations that confuse the issue. 
As a corollary to this proposition it should be recog- 
nized that with regard to this, as with regard to many 
other matters, no line is to be sharply drawn between 
disease and health. Stronger efforts to attain our own 
ideal of virtue always are in place, but so, too, is a deep 
recognition of the old sentiment, "nil humanum a me 
alienum puto" and a consequent willingness to arrest judg- 
ment, except when some practical decision is at stake. In 
place of moral judgments the physician may well substi- 
tute a wider knowledge. Morbid sexual tendencies are, 
indeed, extremely common, but the physician may and 
should study them with these sentiments in mind. 
So true is this, that the argument ought to be recog- 
nized as properly applying to the medical estimate even 
of persons and acts classifiable as "abnormal," "crimi- 
nal," or "perverted." For it is true, however those who 
have not looked into the matter may think otherwise, that, 
in the eye of science, perverted instincts-such, for ex- 
ample, as an excessive passion for a person of the same 
sex, carried from the realm of thought into that of act,- 
finds its analogue in many overdone or even quasi-nor- 
mal relationships of daily life. It is a question of degree 
that is at stake, and although for purposes of punish- 92 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
ment, prevention, public self-protection and social stand- 
ards, we must draw sharp lines, yet knowledge should 
make us prudent in passing scientific judgments. Fur- 
thermore, it is one of the propositions of the writer whom 
we are here reviewing, that from certain points of view, 
as, for example, in the production of symptoms and of 
dreams, thoughts count as acts, and if this dictum is 
accepted society would have to recast its estimates of the 
criminal and the abnormal. Let it not be imagined that it 
is in the annals of criminology alone that we should look 
for these analogies. The literature of the great myths 
and great tragedies call to mind the existence of tenden- 
cies in human nature which prove that conventional mor- 
als, important as they are, as indicating standards towards 
which every one should, for certain reasons, strive, are 
often, in a wider view, extremely narrow. 
The course followed by Freud in classifying as "sex- 
ual" many common emotions, as of affection, and their 
opposites,11 as well as a great variety of apparently in- 
different sentiments, longings, and "physiological" habits, 
having no obvious connection with the reproductive func- 
tions is, from the medical and scientific standpoints, use- 
ful and indeed essential. He and his colleague have 
sought conscientiously for some wider term which might 
include the idea "sexual" yet without making that word 
so prominent, but they have come to the conclusion that 
the attempt was useless and, perhaps, not worth making. 
Dr. Jung discusses this point in a footnote to his valuable 
paper on the influence of the father on the evolution of 
the child (Die Bedcutung des Vaters filr das Schicksal 
des Einzelnen. Jahrbuch fiir Psychoanalytische und 
Psychologische Forschungen. I Hdlfte, p. 155), saying, 
in reference to the word "Libido," which they widely use, 
that this term corresponds to the "Longing and Striving" 
(Wollen und Streben) of the older psychiatrists, but, as 
employed by Freud is a denominatio a potiori. 
11 Cf. the sexual significance of violence inflicted or received. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
93 
The English word "craving" seems to me perhaps the 
most significant for general uses; but the main thing is 
that we should strive to comprehend the truth and not 
miss the important analogies, inferences, and symbolisms 
which are here at stake. The burden of proof lies with 
those who are willing to let their ignorance of the facts 
obscure their judgment. 
Freud's position as to this question of sexuality, or of 
unsatisfied craving for which equally unsatisfactory out- 
lets are instinctively being sought, and their significance for 
social evolution, is expressed in many places, but nowhere 
in a more significant and comprehensive form 12 than in an 
article entitled Die "Kulturelle" Sexualmoral und die 
moderne Nervositat, published in his Sammlung Kleiner 
Schriften zur Neurosenlehre: Zweite Folge, 1909. 
Without trying literally to summarize this article, I 
shall strive to give in my own words some of the prin- 
ciples there laid down, together with certain others, 
brought forward in his earlier papers. The task which 
the human race finds itself called upon to meet is one of 
twofold character. We must seek to build up a civiliza- 
tion corresponding to our higher needs, yet are forced 
to recall that we are under sacred obligation to see that 
our species is perpetuated, and that, too, under the best 
conditions. These two sets of obligations often come, 
broadly speaking and narrowly speaking, into striking 
conflict. The pressure which all of us are under to make 
individual interests subservient to community interests 
finds its strongest, its most fundamental expression at 
the point where the problem is in question, how to raise 
to what may be called a higher level, the intense and 
varied emotions and tendencies that cluster round the 
great instinct and function of reproduction. This process 
of transforming our instincts into what may be called 
by courtesy nobler forms is designated by Freud as one 
12 In this paper the evolution, normal and morbid, of the indi- 
vidual is traced out in relation to the evolution of society. 94 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
of "sublimation," and he is surely right in saying that in 
it, that is, in the repression of our instincts in the in- 
terest of other sorts of gain, the march of progress toward 
a higher culture virtually consists. But the special form 
of instinct repression which is here in question and which 
is the most fundamental one of all, is not accomplished 
without a corresponding sacrifice, a sacrifice which falls 
partly on the individual and partly on the community as 
well. 
It is true that this sacrifice is often unattended by a 
marked sense of personal loss, but this is because of the 
immense power of the influences which social imitation 
and convention, religion, and the obligations under which 
we instinctively place ourselves in the interest of common 
happiness and stability, exert upon our emotions, our 
habits, and our thoughts. Every watchful observer, 
nevertheless, can trace, from infancy onwards, the work- 
ing and the conflict of these two great influences, natural 
instinct and the repression of this instinct for the sake of 
society as a whole. This conflict complicates and under- 
lies all the great movements by which the emotions, the 
hopes, the fears of men are stirred, and those investi- 
gators who claim not to trace its influence in psychopathol- 
ogy are either blind or do not know of what they speak. 
The greatest problem for the psychopathology of the 
future is to learn how to detect the subtle working of 
this conflict and the principles which it implies. 
When the symptoms and history described by an adult 
nervous invalid are scrutinized it may be that we obtain 
at first no obvious trace of the sexual emotions and ten- 
dencies which played so important a part in the conflict 
from which his symptoms sprang. Least of all is he him- 
self able to recognize these tendencies. He appears to 
himself a puzzle and a problem and his symptoms seem 
as irrational as if he was possessed by some parasitic 
demon. Like the balking horse, who through repeated 
vain attempts to draw his load has learned to expect fail- IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
95 
ure, he often stands as if paralyzed before the problems 
of his life, or he may have learned to exchange his un- 
certainty for fear; or, as if in cramplike attempts to 
gain relief, he may have constrained himself to convert 
his fears into some impulsive act of useless outcome. Or, 
again, if he would make a strong fight against his troubles, 
he is likely to feel himself, like Braddock's army in the 
Virginia Wilderness, helpless against an unseen foe. It 
is only after a long and patient analysis of motives, in- 
stincts, and desires, that the real enemy from whose at- 
tacks he suffers is found to consist in the above de- 
scribed discarded elements that went to make up the sec- 
ondary and hidden stream of life, described in the earlier 
portion of this paper. It is needless to refer here to 
these elements in so far as they form a portion of his adult 
experiences alone, because these are reasonably well 
known to all. I would only repeat that, as I have said 
elsewhere, if the process of gaining the knowledge of 
them is to be compared in any sense, as it has been com- 
pared, to the confessional of the Catholic Church, it 
should be understood that the real analysis begins where 
the confessional leaves off.13 The remarkable fact, how- 
ever, is that the nervous invalid is always discovered at 
last to be still partially under the sway of the influences 
of childhood. Few persons remember much of their in- 
fantile existence, but the researches of able men have 
made it clear that the sexual life of infancy, and the con- 
flicts involved in childish forms of "sublimation," are of 
remarkable complexity and force. The child has many 
13 This comparison and contrast are introduced for the sake of 
calling attention again to the fact that the thoughts, memories, and 
emotions which the physician seeks to set free are not simply with 
regard to matters which are "on the mind" of the patient. They 
form, indeed, a supplementary complex of vast amount, and one 
which is unified by one thread, running from infancy to later years, 
and reappearing again and again in moments of abstraction and in 
dream-life; but neither thread nor complex are to be discovered 
except by long and patient searching. 96 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
desires, complex sensations, and interests besides those 
which might be classed as intellectual or emotional in a 
higher sense. One series of his deeper feelings are re- 
lated, of course, to hunger, but it has become certain that 
others form a large connected group, of which the most 
important members are those which later go to subserve 
the functions of reproduction. In the period of infancy 
he does not by any means distinguish clearly between 
the different members of this latter group,-which com- 
prise, amongst others, the various sensations referable to 
all the orifices of the body, the nose and mouth as well 
as the vagina, the urethra, and the anus,-but only knows 
that through them all he can obtain analogous sorts of 
gratification. Thus equipped, the child is launched upon 
the task of evolution and repression. He is expected to 
follow a stated pathway, to retain and nourish the great 
function of transmitting his inheritance, but to do so 
under conventional and often highly artificial limitations. 
What wonder if, in the attempt to accomplish this, he 
so often goes at least partly wrong even when seeming to 
go most right. Why is it that sensitive, refined children 
are so prone to grow timid, shy, self-conscious, over-con- 
scientious, morbidly dependent on one parent or another? 
These questions and others which they suggest have been 
variously answered and there are doubtless various in- 
fluences at work; but it is certain that every answer must 
be false which denies the action of the subconscious and 
unconscious mental repressions and conflicts of the sexual 
period of infancy and childhood; and that every answer 
must be inadequate that is not based on an intimate knowl- 
edge of the real contents of the child life from which we 
emerge, and which, in the sense in which forgetting has 
been above described, we so soon forget. It is, of course, 
true that we know as yet little of the exact part played 
by hereditary influences in the production of the neuro- 
pathic invalid. What we do, however, know, is that we 
can inherit what may be called a predisposition only. IMPRESSIONS OF SIGMUND FREUD 
97 
The tuberculous adult was not tuberculous as a newborn 
infant, and there are many who through care and pru- 
dence escape the destiny to which many another less 
careful falls a victim. The same thing is true of nervous 
invalidism, and of some, at least, of the severer forms 
of mental illness. These new researches open a dis- 
tinctly new door for hope. I find myself believing more 
strongly in the reasonableness of this hope; in this op- 
portunity-furnished by a better self-knowledge-to work 
out our possibilities and to escape from our temptations. 
I cannot pretend to have verified as yet all the many in- 
ferences and conclusions of Freud and his companions, 
reaching as they do infinitely further than I have here 
been able even to suggest. But I have learned to believe 
fully in the theory and in the value of their methods of 
analysis and of treatment, and I am the more ready to 
accept their views for having made the personal ac- 
quaintance of the three men mentioned at the beginning 
of this paper, and for having found them so kindly, un- 
assuming, tolerant, earnest, and sincere. I believe there 
is still a good deal to be said on the psychological side 
of the discussion, and believe also that the intimate knowl- 
edge of ourselves, which is so essential, needs to be sup- 
plemented by more or less distinct study of motives of 
a social and ideal sort. But these considerations do not 
detract from the importance of the ideas here referred 
to. However strongly we may believe in the importance 
of character and its relationship to social, philosophical, 
and religious training, it is not to be forgotten that one 
deep root of character lies in the influences brought to 
bear during the remote period and by the remote con- 
flicts of infancy and childhood. RATIONALIZATION IN EVERY-DAY LIFE1 
Ernest Jones, M.D. 
One of the most brilliant results of Professor Freud's 
researches, and one of the cardinal points of his psycho- 
logical theory, has been the demonstration that a number 
of mental processes owe their origin to causes unknown 
to and unsuspected by the individual. This applies 
equally to the mentally normal and abnormal, between 
whom, here as elsewhere, it is so arbitrary to draw a dis- 
tinction. In my opinion this apparently simple idea is 
one of most far-reaching significance both to psychology 
and to the sciences, such as sociology, that must be 
founded on psychology. This conclusion is based on the 
view that inquiry, pursued with adequate skepticism, 
shows the number of such mental processes to be ex- 
ceedingly great; in fact I would maintain that the large 
majority of mental processes in a normal person arise 
from sources unsuspected by him. We are as yet only 
on the threshold of important discoveries that will surely 
be made as soon as this principle finds a rigorous applica- 
tion, and the subject opened up is so vast that in these 
remarks I can do no more than sketch out a few of the 
directions along which it would seem that fruitful con- 
clusions are readily to be attained. 
Although the importance of feeling in the molding of 
our judgments, beliefs, and conduct has for centuries 
been recognized by poets and writers, academic psychology 
has usually allotted to it a very subordinate position in 
relation to what may be called the intellectual processes. 
1 From The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Aug.-Sept., 1908. 
Reprinted by permission. 
98 RATIONALIZATION IN EVERY-DAY LIFE 
99 
Of late years, however, more and more recognition has 
been given to the importance of feeling, until now one 
may fairly question whether there exist any mental proc- 
esses in the formation and direction of which feeling does 
not play a part of the first rank, and the science of feeling- 
psychology, to which Professor Freud has devoted him- 
self, shows every sign of becoming the only scientific 
psychology of the future. He has shown with convinc- 
ing precision that a number of previously incompre- 
hensible mental processes, such as dream formation and 
certain apparently meaningless and accidental happen- 
ings of daily life, are throughout to be explained by 
regarding them as problems of feeling. He has further 
shown that the causes of these mental processes are usually 
not only unsuspected by the individual concerned, but are 
repudiated and denied by him when the very existence 
of them is suggested. In other words there exist 
elaborate psychological mechanisms, the effect of which is 
to conceal from the individual certain feeling processes 
which are often of the highest significance to his whole 
mind. The complexity and subtlety of these mechanisms 
vary with what may be called the extent of the necessity 
for concealment, so that the greater the resistance the in- 
dividual shows to the acceptance of the given feeling the 
more elaborate is the mechanism whereby it is concealed 
from his consciousness. Consideration of this fact from 
a skeptical point of view should make one entertain the 
possibility that even among practical psychologists a num- 
ber of mental processes may take their origin from sources 
widely different from those commonly given as explanatory 
of them. 
The concealment mechanisms may be studied in two 
ways. The known feeling processes may be traced from 
their origin to the changed form in which they appear in 
consciousness and their effect on associated mental proc- 
esses thus observed; or a given mental process may be 
analyzed and its causes traced back to their elementary 100 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
sources. Study along these lines shows that although 
the mechanisms in question are both numerous and com- 
plex they may from one point of view be grouped into 
two great classes, according to whether the individual will 
offer one explanation as to the origin of the terminal men- 
tal process or not. In both classes inquiry into the source 
of the mental process is stopped and the individual re- 
gards any such inquiry as superfluous, in the one case 
because he already has an explanation, in the other case 
because he thinks one does not exist. As will presently 
be seen there is no sharp line between the two classes, and 
in both of them instances may be found of all kinds of 
mental processes, actions, judgments, memories, beliefs, 
etc. 
The prominent characteristic of the second class is the 
fact that the individual considers the given mental proc- 
ess to be self-explanatory and regards any further in- 
quiry into its origin as being absurd, irrelevant, mean- 
ingless, unnecessary, and above all fruitless. This broadly 
speaking is the mechanism that prevents the individual 
from becoming conscious of the source of the mental proc- 
ess. His precise attitude towards the inquiry varies 
somewhat according to the kind of mental process con- 
cerned, and this enables us further to subdivide the class 
into two. 
When a person is asked what was the cause of a given 
mental process belonging to this class, he may in the first 
place categorically assert that it was causeless. Such is 
the usual attitude adopted towards any of the large group 
of unconscious and accidental occurrences described by 
Professor Freud in his Psycho pathologic des Alltagsle- 
bens under the different sections of Versprechcn, V er- 
schreiben, Vergreifen, Zufallshandlungen, etc. If pressed 
the individual may assert vaguely that they are due to 
"chance" or "inattention," but it is plain that what he 
means is that they have no effective cause, and that there 
is no reason whatever why that particular mistake should RATIONALIZATION IN EVERY-DAY LIFE 
101 
have been made rather than any other. Yet, as is well 
known, psychoanalysis always reveals a precise cause for 
the occurrence, showing that only it and no other could 
have arisen, as indeed might have been anticipated from 
the general principles of scientific determinism, and this 
cause is often associated with some of the most intimate of 
the individual's feeling processes. 
The person may in the second place not so much 
solemnly deny that the occurrence had a cause as regard 
the question as being foolish or meaningless. The key to 
the interpretation of this attitude lies in recollecting the 
popular illusion that a volitional process is a self-caused 
one, i.e., has no cause, for it is doubtful whether any one 
is entirely free from the taint of voluntarism in feeling, 
although the heretical nature of the fallacy itself is from 
an intellectual standpoint plain enough. The mental proc- 
esses now under discussion are thus always volitional ones, 
though the volitional element may not always be evident 
at the time, but may be imported as an after-thought. 
A beautiful example of this class, in which the volitional 
element was prominent at the moment of occurrence is the 
classic one given by Adler in which an individual de- 
liberately selected a number under the full impression 
that there was no mental process at work other than his 
free unfettered choice; psychoanalysis, however, revealed 
a complex series of causes which had determined precisely 
the number chosen, causes reaching into the most intimate 
part of his mind. Careful consideration of this example 
shows further that here were two groups of mental proc- 
esses concerned, first a conscious determination to select 
a number and secondly the actual selection itself. The 
former was a volitional process caused by the reading of 
Professor Freud's book, the second an automatic process 
caused by the subconscious feeling processes revealed in 
the psychoanalysis. Yet both groups appeared equally 
volitional to the individual, the feeling of volition having 
been extended from the conscious mental process to the 102 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
automatic one that was associated with it. The same 
mechanism may be seen in the other cases in which the 
volitional element is imported as an after thought. If for 
example a person decides to take a stroll, the actual di- 
rection of his stroll may well be determined by various 
minor influences that pass unnoticed. If later he is asked 
why he walked down such-and-such a street, the proba- 
bility is that he will simply answer "Because I decided 
to." Here also the slightest trace of volitional feeling is 
utilized to cover other associated mental processes. In a 
large number of routine acts, performed automatically, the 
individual adopts the same attitude when questioned as to 
their cause. Many acts, the cause of which is a reflex 
obedience to the custom prevailing in his circle, he will 
regard when questioned as being volitional, the true cause 
being thus concealed from him. If for instance he is 
asked why he wears a stiff collar or a tie, he will certainly 
regard the question as being extremely foolish, though if 
he is in an indulgent mood he may humor one to the 
extent of giving some imaginary explanation, such "to 
keep warm," "to look respectable," etc. It is quite plain 
that he does so only to please the inquirer, and to his mind 
the real and final explanation of the act lies in its obvious- 
ness. The fact that he regards the question as to the 
origin of the mental process as essentially absurd is evi- 
dently because he considers there is no need to search for 
a cause in an action that he likes to think is volitional, 
i.e., self-caused. 
. We thus soon come to a full stop in the case of the 
ordinary man, but in the case of an observer who has 
trained himself to introspective analysis we can get this 
further clew. Such an observer may quite well recog- 
nize that there is something behind the volitional process, 
though he cannot directly detect what it is. If, for in- 
stance, he essays spontaneously to choose a number, he 
discovers that he is not free to choose any number; one 
number alone comes and not as one of many alternatives; RATIONALIZATION IN EVERY-DAY LIFE 
103 
it comes with a certain impulsive force and he has no 
option but to "choose" this one number. In other words, 
he can recognize that it comes to him apparently from 
without, and it is clear to him that it must have been 
determined by some hidden influence to which he has no 
direct access. A striking illustration of this mechanism, 
together with an analysis of the source of the mental 
process, is described by Professor Freud in relation to 
his "choice" of the name Dora to designate the heroine 
of his Bruchstuck-Analyse. 
Summing up this class of mental processes, therefore, 
we may say that whenever an individual considers a 
given process as being too obvious to permit of any in- 
vestigation into its origin and shows resistance to such an 
investigation, we are right in suspecting that the actual 
origin is concealed from him-almost certainly on account 
of its inacceptable nature. Reflection shows that this 
criterion applies to an enormous number of our fixed 
beliefs-religious, ethical, political and hygienic, as well 
as to a great part of our daily conduct: in other words, 
the principle above quoted refers to a large sphere of 
mental processes where we least suspect it. Yet if such 
beliefs and conduct are to be brought into scientific har- 
mony, it is of the highest importance that the mechan- 
isms controlling them should be made the subject of pre- 
cise study in a way that is as yet only just begun. 
We return now to the first great class of mental proc- 
esses in regard to which the individual proffers indeed an 
explanation, but a false one. It is not sharply divided 
from the other class we have considered, for there we 
saw examples in which the individual casually gave an 
obviously inadequate explanation for an act which to his 
mind really needed none. Indeed, all possible grades may 
be observed in what may be called the feeling of a neces- 
sity to provide an explanation. On inquiring into the 
source of this necessity we see that it is only another as- 
pect of the necessity everyone feels to have what may 104 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
be called a theory of life, and particularly a theory of 
himself. Every one feels that as a rational creature he 
must be able to give a connected, logical and continuous 
account of himself, his conduct and opinions, and all his 
mental processes are unconsciously manipulated and re- 
vised to that end. No one will admit that he ever de- 
liberately performed an irrational act, and any act that 
might appear so is immediately justified by distorting the 
mental processes concerned and providing a false ex- 
planation that has a plausible ring of rationality. This 
justification bears a special relation to the prevailing opin- 
ion of the circle of people who are most significant to 
the individual concerned, and two different groups of 
false explanations can be distinguished according as they 
are formed essentially for the individual himself or for 
him in special reference to the opinions of his circle, or 
roughly speaking, according as they are formed mainly 
for private or mainly for public consumption. The former 
of these I would term "evasions," the latter "rationaliza- 
tions" ; there is however no sharp line dividing the two. 
We may now consider a couple of examples of these. 
One of the best instances of evasion is the form of re- 
ligious belief chosen by an individual. Religious belief 
itself rests of course on far different psychological prin- 
ciples from those now under discussion, but the form of 
doctrine accepted is another matter. There are a num- 
ber of arguments used by each sect to support its special 
view of religion, and as a rule these are as convincing to 
the members of the given sect as they are unconvincing 
to the members of other sects. Let us take the case of 
a man brought up in a close circle, family and otherwise, 
of Baptists. At the age of puberty he may become a 
Baptist without thinking twice about the matter, but it 
often occurs to such a man that it is an irrational and 
therefore distasteful thing to hold a belief merely be- 
cause all his friends do so. He therefore embarks with 
a great show of reason upon what seems to him to be a RATIONALIZATION IN EVERY-DAY LIFE 
105 
critical and dispassionate examination of the evidence for 
and against Baptism. It need hardly be said that in most 
cases an individual is strongly prejudiced in favor of Bap- 
tism, and is so deeply persuaded in his subconsciousness 
of its truth that he is only seeking for the slightest pre- 
text to become an open convert. The matter once settled 
he then maintains that he has become convinced of the 
truth of his doctrine by the overwhelming force of the 
evidence in its favor, and is highly offended if one bluntly 
says that he believes in Baptism simply because his father 
did, and he passionately denies this true but inacceptable 
explanation. The origin of this belief is thus concealed 
from him by the mechanism of evasion. How different 
with an individual brought up in a Catholic environment. 
The same arguments that with the one man proved so 
efficacious may here be repeated with the most persuasive 
eloquence and are rejected with scorn as being obviously 
fallacious. We see here that environmental influence may 
inculcate a given belief by the indirect way of raising the 
standard of acceptability of the arguments used in its 
favor; in other words, by making them appear more 
obviously sensible and reasonable to the individual. It 
will be an interesting question for the future to deter- 
mine how many of our most firmly held opinions in the 
value of universal suffrage, of representative government, 
of marriage, institutions, etc., are not similar examples of 
blind acceptance of the suggestive influence of our en- 
vironment, fortified by the most elaborate evasions and ra- 
tionalizations. 
As an example of the allied mechanism of rationaliza- 
tion I will take the current use of valerian as a specific 
antidote for hysteria. It will be remembered that for 
many centuries asafcetida and valerian were administered 
on the grounds that hysteria was due to the wandering of 
the uterus about the body and that evil smelling drugs 
tended to drive it down to its proper position and thus 
cure the complaint. Although these assumptions have 106 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
not been upheld by experience, nevertheless at the pres- 
ent day most cases of hysteria are still treated by these 
drugs. Evidently the operating influence that leads to 
their administration is the blind response to a prevailing 
tradition, the origin of which is largely forgotten. But 
the necessity of teachers of neurology to provide rea- 
sons for their treatment to students has led to the ex- 
planation being invented that the drugs act as "antispas- 
modics"-whatever that may mean-and they are often 
given in the following refined form. One of the constitu- 
ents of valerian, valerianic acid, is given the name of 
"active principle," and is administered, usually as the zinc 
salt, sugar-coated so as to disguise its unpleasant taste. 
Some modern authorities, aware of the origin of the treat- 
ment, have even remarked how curious it is that the an- 
cients, in spite of their false views about hysteria, should 
have discovered a valuable line of treatment and have 
given such an absurd explanation of its action. This 
continuous rationalization in the face of the knowledge 
that the process in the past was irrational is often seen, 
a well-known example being the Last Supper explana- 
tion of the Mass and Communion, in spite of the recog- 
nized theophagic origin of the rite, that is to say present 
day exponents often plume themselves on their superior 
rational behavior while performing the identical acts 
that they deride as irrational- in their forefathers. It is 
difficult to see to what further lengths self-deception can 
go, once the beaten path of experience and the scientific 
standard of verifiability are departed from, and yet I hold 
it probable that many of our beliefs now thought to be 
beyond suspicion will prove to be just as bizarre as soon 
as the searchlight of skepticism is turned on them. 
My aim in these few remarks has been to illustrate 
from what diverse sides Professor Freud's principle may 
be supported and to indicate what a vast field there yet 
remains for it to be applied over. We are beginning to 
see man not as the smooth self-acting agent he pretends RATIONALIZATION IN EVERY-DAY LIFE 
107 
to be, but as he really is, a creature only dimly conscious 
of the various influences that mold his thought and action, 
and blindly resisting with all the means at his command 
the forces that are making for a higher and fuller con- 
sciousness. In conclusion I would point out that future 
studies in this direction must give us the secret to the 
formation of opinion and belief and the methods whereby 
these can be controlled. This will yield practical help in 
the knowledge of how best to promulgate ideas that are 
in themselves inacceptable, for the day is past when psy- 
chologists are justified in still sharing the common illusion 
of mankind that the best way to spread an opinion is 
simply to state and restate the evidence in its favor under 
the pious belief that sooner or later it will surely be ac- 
cepted if only it is true. We know that that method 
is not only tedious, but often permanently unsuccessful. 
There are unquestionably true ideas that mankind has 
had the opportunity of accepting for two or three thou- 
sand years, but which will never be accepted until they 
are promulgated with the aid of the knowledge now being 
gleaned by the new school of psychology. STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
SENSE OF REALITY 1 
By S. Ferenczi (Budapest) 
Translated by Dr. Ernest Jones (London) 
The development of the mental forms of activity in the 
individual consists, as Freud has shown, in the resolution 
of the originally prevailing pleasure-principle, and the 
repression mechanism peculiar to it, by the adjustment to 
reality, i.e., by the testing of reality that is based on judg- 
ment. Thus arises out of the "primary" psychical stage, 
such as is displayed in the mental activities of primitive 
beings (animals, savages, children), and in primitive men- 
tal states (dreams, neurosis, phantasy), the secondary 
stage of the normal man in waking thought. 
At the beginning of its development the new-born babe 
seeks to attain a state of satisfaction merely through in- 
sistent wishing (imagining), whereby it simply ignores 
(represses) the unsatisfying reality, picturing to itself as 
present, on the contrary, the wished-for, but lacking, satis- 
faction; it attempts, therefore, to conceal without effort 
all its needs by means of positive and negative halluci- 
nations. "It was only the non-appearance of the expected 
satisfaction, the disappointment, that led to the abandon- 
ment of this attempt at satisfaction by the hallucinatory 
method. Instead, the psychical apparatus had to decide to 
represent the actual circumstances of the outer world to 
itself, and to strive to alter reality. With this a new prin- 
ciple of mental activity was initiated; not what was pleas- 
1 Reprinted from Sex in Psychoanalysis (Contributions to 
Psychoanalysis), by Dr. S. Ferenczi. Translated by Ernest Jones, 
M.D. Richard G. Badger, Publisher. Boston. 
108 SENSE OF REALITY 
109 
ant was any longer imagined, but what was real, even 
though it should be unpleasant." 2 
The significant essay in which Freud displayed to us 
this fundamental fact of psychogenesis is confined to the 
sharp differentiation between the pleasure and the reality 
stages. Freud also concerns himself here, it is true, with 
transitional states in which both principles of mental func- 
tioning coexist (phantasy, art, sexual life), but he leaves 
for the present unanswered the question whether the de- 
velopment of the secondary form of mental activity from 
the primary takes place gradually or in a series of steps, 
and whether such stages of development are to be recog- 
nized, or their derivatives demonstrated, in the mental life 
of the normal or abnormal. 
An earlier work of Freud's, however, in which he 
affords us deep insight into the mental life of obsessional 
patients,3 calls attention to a fact from which as a starting 
point one may attempt to bridge over the gap between the 
pleasure and the reality stages of mental development. 
Obsessional patients who have submitted themselves to 
a psychoanalysis-so it runs in that work-admit to us 
that they cannot help being convinced of the omnipotence 
of their thoughts, feelings, and wishes, good and bad. 
However enlightened they may be, however much their 
academic knowledge and their reason may strive to the 
contrary, they have the feeling that their wishes in some 
inexplicable way get realized. Of the truth of this state 
of affairs any analyst can convince himself as often as he 
likes. He will learn that the weal and woe of other people, 
indeed their life and death, seem to the obsessional patient 
to depend on certain thought processes and actions, in 
themselves harmless, on which he engages. The patient 
has to think of certain magical formulas, or carry out a 
2 Freud, Formulierungen uber die zwet Prinzipien des psy- 
chischen Gesechehens Jahrb., Bd. Ill, S. I. 
3 Freud, Bemerkungen uber einen Fall von Zwangsneurose, 
Jahrb., Bd. I, S. 411. 110 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
certain action; otherwise a great misfortune will befall this 
or that person (mostly a near relative). This conviction, 
though felt to be superstitious, is not shaken even by 
repeated experiences to the contrary.4 
Leaving aside the fact that analysis reveals such obses- 
sive thoughts and actions to be the substitutes of wish- 
impulses that are logically correct, but which on account 
of their intolerableness have been repressed,5 and turning 
our attention exclusively to the peculiar manifestation of 
this obsessional symptom, we must admit that it constitutes 
a problem in itself. 
Psychoanalytical experience has made it clear to me that 
this symptom, the feeling of omnipotence, is a projection 
of the observation that one has slavishly to obey certain 
irresistible instincts. The obsessional neurosis constitutes 
a relapse of the mental life to that stage of child-develop- 
ment characterized, among other things, by there being as 
yet no inhibiting, postponing, reflecting thought-activity 
interposed between wishing and acting, the wish-fulfilling 
movement following spontaneously and unhesitatingly on 
the wishing-an averting movement away from something 
disagreeable, or an approach towards something agree- 
able.® 
A part of the mental life, more or less removed from 
consciousness, thus remains with the obsessional patient- 
4 This article was finished before use could be made of Freud's 
article on "Animismus, Magie und Allmacht der Gedanken" (Imago, 
Jahrg. II, Heft I), which deals with the same topic from other 
points of view. 
6 Freud, Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre, 1906, 
S. 45 und 86. 
6 It is well known that small children almost reflexly stretch out 
their hands after every object that shines or in any other way 
pleases them. They are, to begin with, also incapable of foregoing 
any "naughtiness" that yields them any kind of pleasure, whenever 
the stimulus causing this appears. A young boy who had been for- 
bidden to bore his finger into his nose answered his mother, "I don't 
want to, but my hand does and I can't prevent it." SENSE OF REALITY 
111 
as the analysis shows-on this childhood level in conse- 
quence of an arrest in development (fixation), and makes 
wishing equivalent to acting because-just on account of 
the repression, of the distraction of attention-this re- 
pressed portion of the mental life was not able to learn 
the difference between the two activities, while the ego 
itself, which has developed free from repression and 
grown wise through education and experience, can only 
laugh at this equating of the two. Hence the inner dis- 
cordance of the obsessional patient, the inexplicable oc- 
currence of enlightenment and superstition side by side. 
Not being quite satisfied with this explanation of the 
feeling of omnipotence as an autosymbolic phenomenon,7 
I put'to myself the question: Whence then does the child 
get the boldness to set thinking and acting as equivalents ? 
Whence comes the feeling of obviousness with which it 
stretches out its hand after all objects, after the lamp 
hanging above him as after the shining moon, in the sure 
expectation of reaching it with this gesture and drawing 
it into the domain of its power? 
I then recalled that according to Freud's assumption 
"a piece of the old grandiose delusion of childhood was 
honestly confessed" in the omnipotence phantasy of the 
obsessional patient, and I tried to trace out the origin and 
fate of this delusion. In this way I hoped also to learn 
something new about the development of the ego from 
the pleasure to the reality principle, since it seemed to me 
probable that the replacement (to which we are compelled 
by experience) of the childhood megalomania by the rec- 
ognition of the power of natural forces composes the 
essential content of the development of the ego. 
Freud declares an organization that is a slave to the 
pleasure principle, and which can neglect the reality of 
the outer world, to be a fiction, one, however, which is 
almost realized in the young infant, when one only takes 
7 This is what Silberer terms the self-perceptions that are sym- 
bolically represented. 112 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
into account the maternal care.8 I might add that there 
is a stage in human development that realizes this ideal 
of a being subservient only to pleasure, and that does so 
not only in imagination and approximately, but in actual 
fact and completely. 
I mean the period of human life passed in the womb. 
In this state the human being lives as a parasite of the 
mother's body. For the nascent being an "outer world" 
exists only in a very restricted degree; all its needs for 
protection, warmth, and nourishment are assured by the 
mother. Indeed, it does not even have the trouble of 
taking the oxygen and nourishment that is brought to it, 
for it is seen to that these materials, through suitable 
arrangements, arrive directly into its blood-vessels. In 
comparison with this an intestinal worm, for example, has 
a good deal of work to perform, "to change the outer 
world," in order to maintain itself. All care for the con- 
tinuance of the foetus, however, is transferred to the 
mother. If, therefore, the human being possesses a men- 
tal life when in the womb, although only an unconscious 
one-and it would be foolish to believe that the mind 
begins to function only at the moment of birth-he must 
get from his existence the impression that he is in fact 
omnipotent. For what is omnipotence? The feeling that 
one has all that one wants, and that one has nothing left to 
wish for. The foetus, however, could maintain this of 
itself, for it always has what is necessary for the satis- 
faction of its instincts,9 and so has nothing to wish for; 
it is without wants. 
8 Jahrb., Bd. Ill, S. 2, footnote. See also the controversy between 
Bleuler and Freud on this question ,Bleuler, Das antistische Dcnken, 
Jahrb., Bd. IV). 
9 As a result of disturbances, such as through illness or injury of 
the mother or of the umbilical cord, etc., necessity can face a human 
being already in the mother's body, can rob him of his omnipotence, 
and compel him to the effort of "changing the outer world," i. e., 
of performing work (an example being the inspiration of amniotic 
fluid when in danger of suffocation). SENSE OF REALITY 
113 
The childhood megalomania of their own omnipotence 
is thus at least no empty delusion; the child and the obses- 
sional patient demand nothing impossible from reality 
when they are not to be dissuaded from holding that their 
wishes must be fulfilled; they are only demanding the 
return of a state that once existed, those "good old days" 
in which they were all-powerful. {Period of uncondi- 
tional omnipotence.) 
With the same right by which we assume the trans- 
ference of memory traces of the race's history on to the 
individual, indeed with more justification than this, we 
may assert that the traces of intra-uterine psychical proc- 
esses do not remain without influence on the shaping of 
the psychical material produced after birth. The behavior 
of the child immediately after birth speaks for this con- 
tinuity of the mental processes.10 
The new-born child does not accommodate himself uni- 
formly as regards all his needs to the new situation which 
is visibly disagreeable to him. Immediately after the 
delivery he begins to breathe, so as to restore the provision 
of oxygen that has been interrupted by the tying of the 
umbilical vessels; the possession of a respiratory mechan- 
ism, formed already in intra-uterine life, at once enables 
him actively to remedy the oxygen privation. If, however, 
one observes the remaining behavior of the new-born child 
one gets the impression that he is far from pleased at the 
rude disturbance of the wish-less tranquillity he had en- 
joyed in the womb, and indeed that he longs to regain this 
situation. Nurses instinctively recognize this wish of the 
child, and as soon as he has given vent to his discomfort 
by struggling and crying they deliberately bring him into 
a situation that resembles as closely as possible the one 
he has just left. They lay him down by the warm body 
10 Freud has incidentally pointed out that the sensations of the 
child during the birth act probably evoke the first anxiety affect of 
the new being, which remains prefigurative for all later anxiety 
and anxiousness. 114 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
of the mother, or wrap him up in soft, warm coverings, 
evidently so as to give him the illusion of the mother's 
warm protection. They guard his eye from light stimuli, 
and his ear from noise, and give him the possibility of 
further enjoying the intra-uterine absence of irritation, or, 
by rocking the child and crooning to him monotonously 
rhythmical lullabies, they reproduce the slight and monot- 
onously rhythmical stimuli that the child is not spared even 
in utero (the swaying movements of the mother when 
walking, the maternal heart-beats, the deadened noise from 
without that manages to penetrate to the interior of the 
body). 
If we try, not only to feel ourselves into the soul of 
the new-born babe (as the nurses do), but also to think 
ourselves into it, we must say that the helpless crying and 
struggling of the child is apparently a very unsuitable 
reaction to the unpleasant disturbance that the previous 
situation of being satisfied has suddenly experienced as a 
result of the birth. We may assume, supported by con- 
siderations which Freud has expounded in the general 
part of his Traumdeutungthat the first consequence of 
this disturbance is the hallucinatory re-occupation of the 
satisfying situation that is missed, the untroubled exist- 
ence in the warm, tranquil body of the mother. The first 
wish-impulse of the child, therefore, cannot be any other 
than to regain this situation. Now the curious thing is 
that-presupposing normal care-this hallucination is in 
fact realized. From the subjective standpoint of the child 
the previously unconditional "omnipotence" has changed 
merely in so far that he needs only to seize the wish-aims 
in a hallucinatory way (to imagine them) and to alter 
nothing else in the outer world, in order (after satisfying 
this single condition) really to attain the wish-fulfillment. 
Since the child certainly has no knowledge of the real con- 
catenation of cause and effect, or of the nurse's existence 
and activity, he must feel himself in the possession of a 
11 Freud, Die Trauwideutung, 3 e Aufl., S. 376. SENSE OF REALITY 
115 
magical capacity that can actually realize all his wishes 
by simply imagining the satisfaction of them. {Period of 
magical-hallucinatory omnipotence.) 
That the nurse guesses the hallucinations of the child 
aright is shown by the effect of her actions. As soon as 
the first nursing measures are carried out the child calms 
itself and goes to sleep. The first sleep, however, is noth- 
ing else than the successful reproduction of the womb 
situation {which shelters as far as possible from external 
stimuli'), probably with the biological function that the 
processes of growth and regeneration can concentrate all 
energy on themselves, undisturbed by the performance of 
any external work. Some considerations, which cannot 
be presented in this connection, have convinced me that 
also every later sleep is nothing else than a periodically 
repeated regression to the stage of the magical-hallucina- 
tory omnipotence, and through the help of this to the 
absolute omnipotence of the womb situation. According 
to Freud, one has to postulate for each system subsisting 
by the pleasure-principle arrangements by means of which 
it can withdraw itself from the stimuli of reality.12 Now 
it seems to me that sleep and dreams are functions of such 
arrangements, that is to say, remains of the hallucinatory 
omnipotence of the small child that survive into adult life. 
The pathological counterpart of this regression is the hal- 
lucinatory wish-fulfillment in the psychoses. 
Since the wish for the satisfying of instincts manifests 
itself periodically, while the outer world pays no attention 
to the occurrence of the occasion on which the instinct is 
exerted, the hallucinatory representation of the wish-ful- 
fillment soon proves inadequate to bring about any longer 
a real wish-fulfillment. A new condition is added to the 
fulfillment: the child has to give certain signals-thus per- 
forming a motor exertion, although an inadequate one- 
so that the situation may be changed in the direction of 
12 Freud, Jahrb., Bd. Ill, S. 3. 116 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
his disposition, and the "ideational identity" be followed 
by the satisfying "perpetual identity." 13 
The hallucinatory stage was already characterized by 
the occurrence of uncoordinated motor discharges (cry- 
ing. struggling) on the occasion of disagreeable affects. 
These are now made use of by the child as magic signals, 
at the dictation of which the satisfaction promptly arrives 
(naturally with external help, of which the child, however, 
has no idea). The subjective feeling of the child at all 
this may be compared to that of a real magician, who has 
only to perform a given gesture to bring about in the 
outer world according to his will the most complicated 
occurrences.14 
We note how the omnipotence of human beings gets to 
depend on more and more "conditions" with the increase 
in the complexity of the wishes. These efferent mani- 
festations soon become insufficient to bring about the situ- 
ation of satisfaction. As the wishes take more and more 
special forms with development, they demand increasingly 
13 Freud, Die Traumdeutung, loc, cit. 
14 When I search in pathology for an analogy to these discharges 
I have always to think of genuine epilepsy, that most problematical 
of the major neuroses. And although I fully admit that in the 
question of epilepsy the physiological is difficult to separate from 
the psychological, I may call attention to the fact that epileptics are 
known to be uncommonly "sensitive" beings, behind whose submis- 
siveness frightful rage and domineeringness can appear on the least 
occasion. This characteristic has up to the present usually been 
interpreted as a secondary degeneration, as the consequence of re- 
peated attacks. One should, however, think of another possibility, 
namely, whether the epileptic attacks are not to be considered as 
regressions to the infantile period of wish-fulfilment by means of 
uncoordinated movements. Epileptics would then be persons with 
whom the disagreeable affects get heaped up and are periodically 
abreacted in paroxysms. If this explanation proves to be useful we 
should have to localize the place of fixation for a later affliction of 
epilepsy in this stage of uncoordinated wish-manifestions.-The 
irrational stamping of the feet, clenching of the fists, and grinding 
of the teeth, etc., that are to be seen in outbursts of anger would be 
a milder form of the same regression in otherwise healthy persons. SENSE OF REALITY 
117 
specialized signals. To begin with are such as, imitations 
of the movement of sucking with the mouth when the 
infant wants to be fed, and the characteristic expressions 
by means of the voice and abdominal pressing when it 
wants to be cleansed after excreting. The child gradually 
learns also to stretch out its hand for the objects that it 
wants. From this is developed later a regular gesture- 
language : by suitable combinations of gestures the child 
is able to express quite special needs, which then are very 
often actually satisfied, so that-if only it keeps to the 
condition of the expression of wishes by means of corre- 
sponding gestures-the child can still appear to itself as 
omnipotent: Period of omnipotence by the help of magic 
gestures. 
This period also has a representative in pathology; the 
curious jump from the world of thought into that of 
bodily processes, which Freud has discovered hysterical 
conversion to be,15 becomes more intelligible to us when 
we view it as a regression to the stage of gesture-magic. 
Psychoanalysis shows us in fact that hysterical attacks 
present with the help of gestures the repressed wishes of 
the patient as fulfilled. In the mental life of the normal 
the countless number of superstitious gestures, or such as 
are in some other way considered efficacious (gestures of 
cursing, blessing, praying) is a remainder of that develop- 
mental period of the sense of reality in which one still felt 
mighty enough to be able to violate the regular order16 
of the universe. Fortune-tellers, soothsayers, and magne- 
tizers continually find belief in the assertion of such com- 
plete power of their gestures, and the Neapolitan also 
averts the evil eye with a symbolic gesture. 
With the increase in the extent and complexity of the 
wants goes naturally an increase, not only of the "condi- 
tions" that the individual has to submit to if he wishes to 
see his wants satisfied, but also of the number of cases in 
15 See Freud's works in the Studien iiber Hysterie, 1895. 
16 This being, of course, quite unsuspected. 118 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
which his ever more audacious wishes remain unfulfilled 
even when the once efficacious conditions are strictly 
observed. The outstretched hand must often be drawn 
back empty, the longed-for object does not follow the 
magic gesture. Indeed, an invincible hostile power may 
forcibly oppose itself to this gesture and compel the hand 
to resume its former position. Till now the "all-power- 
ful" being has been able to feel himself one with the world 
that obeyed him and followed his every nod, but gradually 
there appears a painful discordance in his experiences. 
He has to distinguish between certain perfidious things, 
which do not obey his will, as an outer world, and on 
the other side his ego; i.e., between the subjective psychical 
contents (feelings) and the objectified ones (sensations). 
I once called the first of these stages the Introjection Phase 
of the psyche, since in it all experiences are still incor- 
porated into the ego, and the later one the Projection 
Phase. One might also, following this terminology, speak 
of the omnipotence stage as the introjection stage, the 
reality stage as the projection stage, of the development 
of the ego. 
Still even the objectifying of the outer world does not 
at once destroy every tie between the ego and the non- 
ego. The child learns, it is true, to be content with having 
only a part of the world, the ego, at his disposal, the outer 
world, however, often opposing his wishes, but there still 
remains in this outer world qualities that he has learned 
to know in himself, i.e., ego qualities. Everything points 
to the conclusion that the child passes through an animistic 
period in the apprehension of reality, in which every object 
appears to him to be endowed with life, and in which he 
seeks to find again in every object his own organs and their 
activities.17 
The derisive remark was once made against psycho- 
analysis that, according to this doctrine, the unconscious 
17 On the subject of animism, see also the essay Ueber Naturge- 
fiihl, by Dr. Hanns Sachs (Imago, Jahrg, I.) SENSE OF REALITY 
119 
sees a penis in every convex object and a vagina or anus 
in every concave one. I find that this sentence well char- 
acterizes the facts. The child's mind (and the tendency 
of the unconscious in adults that survives from it) is at 
first concerned exclusively with his own body, and later 
on chiefly with the satisfying of his instincts, with the 
pleasurable satisfactions that sucking, eating, contact with 
the genitaljregions, and the functions of excretion procure 
for him; what wonder, then, if also his attention is ar- 
rested above all by those objects and processes of the outer 
world that on the ground of ever so distant a resemblance 
remind him of his dearest experiences. 
Thus arise those intimate connections, which remain 
throughout life, between the human body and the objective 
world that we call symbolic. On the one hand the child in 
this stage sees in the world nothing but images of his 
corporeality, on the other he learns to represent by means 
of his body the whole multifariousness of the outer world. 
This capacity for symbolic representation is an important 
completion of the gesture-language; it enables the child 
not only to signalize such wishes as immediately concern 
his body, but also to express wishes that relate to the 
changing of the outer world, now recognized as such. If 
the child is surrounded by loving care, he need not even 
in this stage of his existence give up the illusion of his 
omnipotence. He still only needs to represent an object 
symbolically and the thing, believed to be alive, often 
really "comes" to him; for the animistically thinking child 
must have this impression at the satisfaction of his wishes. 
From the uncertainty regarding the arrival of the satis- 
faction it gradually dawns on him, to be sure, that there 
are also higher, "divine" powers (mother or nurse), whose 
favor he must possess if the satisfaction is to follow 
closely on the magic gesture. Still this satisfaction also 
is not hard to obtain, especially with indulgent surround- 
ings. 
One of the bodily means that the child makes use of 120 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
for representing his wishes, and the objects he wishes for, 
attains then an especial significance, one that ranges beyond 
that of all other means of representation-speech, namely. 
Speech is originally18 imitation, i.e., vocal representation, 
of sounds and noises that are produced by things, or which 
can be produced by their help; the executive capacity of 
the speech organs allows the reproduction of a much 
greater multiplicity of objects and processes of the outer 
world than was possible with the help of gesture-language, 
and in a much simpler manner. Speech symbolism thus 
gets substituted for gesture symbolism: certain series of 
sounds are brought into close associative connection with 
definite objects and processes, and indeed gradually iden- 
tified with these. From this accrues the great progress: 
there is no longer a necessity for the cumbrous figurative 
imagination and the still more cumbrous dramatic repre- 
sentation ; the imagination and representation of the series 
of sounds that we call words allow a far more specialized 
and economic conception and expression of the wishes. 
At the same time conscious thinking makes speech sym- 
bolism possible by becoming associated to thought proc- 
esses that are in themselves unconscious, and lending them 
perceptual qualities.19 
Now conscious thought by means of speech signs is the 
highest accomplishment of the psychical apparatus, and 
alone makes adjustment to reality possible by retarding 
the reflex motor discharge and the release from unpleas- 
antness. In spite of this the child knows how to preserve 
his feeling of omnipotence even in this stage of his de- 
velopment, for his wishes that can be set forth in thoughts 
are still so few and comparatively uncomplicated that the 
attentive entourage concerned with the child's welfare 
18 See Kleinpaul, "Leben der Sprache" (1893), and Sperber "Uber 
den Einfluss sexueller Momente auf Entstehung und Entwicklung 
der Sprache," Imago, 1912. 
19 See Freud, "Traumdeutung," III Aufl., S. 401, and Jahrb., Bd. 
Ill, S. I. SENSE OF REALITY 
121 
easily manages to guess most of these thoughts. The 
mimic expressions that continually accompany thinking 
(peculiarly so with children) make this kind of thought- 
reading especially easy for the adults; and when the child 
actually formulates his wishes in words the entourage, 
ever ready to help, hastens to fulfill them as soon as pos- 
sible. The child then thinks himself in possession of magic 
capacities, is thus in the period of magic thoughts and 
magic words.19 
It is this stage of reality development to which the 
obsessional patients seem to regress when they are not to 
be dissuaded from the feeling of the omnipotence of their 
thoughts and verbal formulas, and when, as Freud has 
shown, they set thinking in the place of acting. In super- 
stition, in magic, and in religious cults this belief in the 
irresistible power of certain prayer, cursing, or magical 
formulas, which one has only to think inwardly or only to 
speak aloud for them to work, plays an enormous part.21 
This almost incurable megalomania of mankind is only 
apparently contravened by those neurotics with whom be- 
hind the feverish search for success one at once comes 
across a feeling of inferiority (Adler), which is well 
known to the patients themselves. An analysis that 
reaches to the depths reveals in all such cases that these 
feelings of inferiority are in no sense something final, 
an explanation of the neurosis, but are themselves the 
reactions to an exaggerated feeling of omnipotence, to 
which such patients have become "fixed" in their early 
childhood, and which has made it impossible for them to 
adjust themselves to any subsequent renunciation. The 
manifest seeking for greatness that these people have, 
however, is only a "return of the repressed," a hopeless 
20 The psychological explanation of "magic" naturally does not 
exclude the possibility of this belief containing also the foreshadow- 
ing of physical facts (telepathy, etc.). 
21 This "omnipotence" ("motor power") is highly characteristic 
also of obscene words. 122 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
attempt to reach once more, by means of changing the 
outer world, the omnipotence that originally was enjoyed 
without effort. 
We can only repeat: All children live in the happy 
delusion of omnipotence, which at some time or other- 
even if only in the womb-they really partook of. It 
depends on their "Daimon" and their "Tyche" whether 
they preserve the feelings of omnipotence also for later 
life, and become Optimists, or whether they go to aug- 
ment the number of Pessimists, who never get reconciled 
to the renunciation of their unconscious irrational wishes, 
who on the slightest provocation feel themselves insulted 
or slighted, and who regard themselves as step-children 
of Fate-because they cannot remain her only or favorite 
children. 
Freud dates the end of the domination of the pleasure- 
principle only from the complete psychical detachment 
from the parents. It is also at this epoch, which is ex- 
tremely variable in individual cases, that the feeling of 
omnipotence gives way to the full appreciation of the 
force of circumstances. The sense of reality attains its 
zenith in Science, while the illusion of omnipotence here 
experiences its greatest humiliation: the previous omnipo- 
tence here dissolves into mere "conditions." (Condition- 
alism, determinism.) Nevertheless, we possess in the doc- 
trine of the freedom of the will an optimistic philosophical 
dogma that can still realize phantasies of omnipotence. 
The recognition that our wishes and thoughts are con- 
ditioned signifies the maximum of normal projection, 
i.e., objectification. There is also, however, a psychical 
disorder, paranoia, which has the characteristic, among 
others, that in it even the person's own wishes and thoughts 
are expelled into the outer world, are projected.22 It 
seems natural to locate the fixation-point of this psychosis 
22 See Freud, Die Abwehr-Neuropsy chosen (KI. Schr. z. Neu- 
rosenlehre, S. 45), Psychoanalytische Bcmerkungen iiber einen 
autobiographisch beschriebenen Fall von Paranoia, Jahrb., Bd. III. SENSE OF REALITY 
123 
in the period of the final renunciation of omnipotence, 
i.e., in the projection phase of the sense of reality. 
The stages in the development of the sense of reality 
have here been presented up to now only in terms of the 
egoistic, so-called "ego-instincts," which serve the function 
of self-preservation; reality has, as Freud has established, 
closer connections with the ego than with sexuality, on 
the one hand because the latter is less dependent on the 
outer world (it can for a long time satisfy itself auto- 
erotically), on the other hand because it is suppressed 
during the latency period and does not come at all into 
contact with reality. Sexuality thus remains throughout 
life more subjected to the pleasure-principle, whereas the 
ego has immediately to experience the bitterest disappoint- 
ment after every disregarding of reality.23 If we now 
consider the feeling of omnipotence in sexual development 
that characterizes the pleasure stage, we have to observe 
that here the "period of unconditional omnipotence" lasts 
until the giving up of the auto-erotic kinds of satisfaction, 
a time when the ego has already long adjusted itself to 
the increasingly complicated conditions of reality, has 
passed through the stages of magic gestures and words, 
and has already almost attained the knowledge of the 
omnipotence of natural forces. Auto-erotism and narcis- 
sism are thus the omnipotence stages of erotism, and, since 
narcissism never comes to an end at all, but always re- 
mains by the side of object-erotism, it can thus be said 
that-in so far as we confine ourselves to self-love-in 
the matter of love we can retain the illusion of omnipo- 
tence throughout life. That the way to narcissism is at 
the same time the constantly accessible way of regression 
after every disappointment in an object of love is too well 
known to need proof; auto-erotic-narcissistic regressions 
of pathological strength may be suspected behind the symp- 
toms of Paraphrenia (Dementia praecox) and Hysteria, 
whereas the fixation-points of the Obsessional Neurosis 
23 Freud, Jahrb., Bd. Ill, S. 5. 124 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
and of Paranoia should be found in the line of develop- 
ment of "erotic reality" (the compulsion to find an object). 
These relations, however, have not yet been appro- 
priately studied with all the neuroses, so that we have to 
be content with Freud's general formulation concerning 
the choice of neurosis, namely, that the variety of the sub- 
sequent disorder is decided by "which phase in the develop- 
ment of the ego and the sexual hunger is affected by the 
determining inhibition of development." 
One may nevertheless venture to add to this sentence 
a second one; we suspect that the wish-constituent of the 
neurosis, i.e., the varieties and aims of the erotism that 
the symptoms present as fulfilled, depends on where the 
fixation-point is in the phase of the development of the 
sexual hunger, while the mechanism of the neuroses is 
probably decided by what stage in the development of the 
ego the individual is in at the time of the determining 
inhibition. It is very well thinkable that with the regres- 
sion of the sexual hunger to earlier stages of development 
the level of the reality-sense that was dominant at the 
time of fixation also becomes renascent in the mechanisms 
of the symptom-formation. Since, that is to say, this 
earlier kind of "reality-testing" is incomprehensible to the 
present ego of the neurotic, there is nothing to prevent 
its being placed at the disposal of the repression, and used 
for the presentation of censured feeling- and thought- 
complexes. Hysteria and the obsessional neurosis, for 
example, would according to this conception be charac- 
terized on the one hand by a regression of the sexual 
hunger to earlier stages of development (auto-erotism, 
CEdipusism), and on the other hand in their mechanisms 
by a relapse of the reality-sense to the stage of magic 
gestures (conversion) or of magic thoughts (omnipotence 
of thought). I repeat: It will need much longer laborious 
work before the fixation-points of all neuroses can be 
established with certainty. I wish here only to point to SENSE OF REALITY 
125 
one possibility of a solution, one, it is true, that to me is 
plausible. 
What we may conceive about the phylogenesis of the 
reality-sense can at present be offered only as a scientific 
prediction. It is to be assumed that we shall some day 
succeed in bringing the individual stages in the develop- 
ment of the ego, and the neurotic regression-types of these, 
into a parallel with the stages in the racial history of man- 
kind, just as, for instance, Freud found again in the men- 
tal life of the savage the characters of the obsessional 
neurosis.24 
In general the development of the reality-sense is repre- 
sented by a succession of repressions, to which mankind 
was compelled, not through spontaneous "strivings towards 
development," but through necessity, through adjustment 
to a demanded renunciation. The first great repression 
is made necessary by the process of birth, which certainly 
comes about without active cooperation, without any "in- 
tention" on the part of the child. The foetus would much 
rather remain undisturbed longer in the womb, but it is 
cruelly turned out into the world, and it has to forget 
(repress) the kinds of satisfaction it had got fond of, 
and adjust itself to new ones. The same cruel game is 
repeated with every new stage of development.25 
It is perhaps allowable to venture the surmise that it 
was the geological changes in the surface of the earth, 
with their catastrophic consequences for primitive man, 
that compelled repression of favorite habits and thus 
"development." Such catastrophes may have been the 
sites of repression in the history of racial development, 
and the temporal localization and intensity of such catas- 
24 Freud, Ueber cinige Uebereinstimmungen im Seelenleben der 
Wilden und der Neurotiker, Imago, Jahrg. I, 1912. 
25 If this thought is logically pursued, one must make oneself 
familiar with the idea of a tendency of perseveration, or regression- 
tendency, also dominating organic life, the tendency to further de- 
velopment, adaptation, etc., depending only on external stimuli. 126 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
trophes may have decided the character and the neuroses 
of the race. According to a remark of Professor Freud's, 
racial character is the precipitate of racial history. Having 
ventured so far beyond the knowable, we have no reason 
to shrink before the last analogy and from bringing the 
great step in individual repression, the latency period, into 
connection with the last and greatest catastrophe that smote 
our primitive ancestors (at a time when there were cer- 
tainly human beings on the earth), i.e., with the misery of 
the glacial period, which we still faithfully recapitulate in 
our individual life.26 
The impetuous curiosity to know everything that has 
just seduced me into enchanted vistas of the past, and led 
me to bridge over the yet unknowable by the help of 
analogies, brings me back to the starting-point of these 
considerations: to the theme of the acme and decline of 
the feeling of omnipotence. Science has to repudiate this 
illusion, or at least always to know when she is entering 
the field of hypotheses and fancies. In fairy-tales, on the 
contrary, phantasies of omnipotence are and remain the 
dominating ones.27 Just where we have most humbly to 
bow before the forces of Nature, the fairy-tale comes to 
our aid with its typical motives. In reality we are weak, 
hence the heroes of fairy-tales are strong and uncon- 
querable; in our activities and our knowledge we are 
26 Cases where development precedes the real needs seem to con- 
tradict the conception that only external compulsion, and never 
spontaneous impulse, leads to the giving up of accustomed mechan- 
isms (development). An example for this would be the develop- 
ment of the respiratory mechanism already in utero. This happens, 
however, only in ontogenesis, and is here to be regarded as a 
recapitulation of a compulsory process of development in the history 
of the race. The playful practising of animals (Gross) also are 
not the preliminary stages of a future racial function, but repetitions 
of phylogenetically acquired capacities. They thus allow of a purely 
historical-causal explanation, and we are not compelled to regard 
them from the point of view of finality. 
27 Cp. Riklin, JVunscherfullung und SymboJik im Marchen. 
(Schriften sur angewandten Seelenkunde, Heft 2.) SENSE OF REALITY 
127 
cramped and hindered by time and space, hence in fairy- 
tales one is immortal, is in a hundred places at the same 
time, sees into the future and knows the past. The pon- 
derousness, the solidity, and the impenetrability of matter 
obstruct our way every moment: in the fairy-tale, how- 
ever, man has wings, his eyes pierce the walls, his magic 
wand opens all doors. Reality is a hard fight for exist- 
ence; in the fairy-tale the words "little table, be spread" 
are sufficient. A man may live in perpetual fear of attacks 
from dangerous beasts and fierce foes; in the fairy-tale 
a magic cap enables every transformation and makes us 
inaccessible. How hard it is in reality to attain love that 
can fulfill all our wishes! In the fairy-tale the hero is 
irresistible, or he bewitches with a magic gesture. 
Thus the fairy-tale, through which grown-ups are so 
fond of relating to their children their own unfulfilled 
and repressed wishes, really brings the forfeited situation 
of omnipotence to a last, artistic presentation. THE ONLY OR FAVORITE CHILD IN ADULT 
LIFE1 
Dr. A. A. Brill (New York) 
Very little attention has been given to the problem of 
the only child, and the little literature we have at our 
disposal deals mainly with the superficial and general 
aspects of the question. Neter, who has written an ex- 
cellent pamphlet on the subject, gives a very good descrip- 
tion of the only child's attributes, but he does not enter 
into the deeper psychological elements. Moreover, no 
attempt has been made outside of the Freudian school to 
follow those children into adult life and to trace the indi- 
vidual influence at play in their adjustment to environ- 
ments. This can be readily understood when we remem- 
ber that very little has been done in child psychology in 
general and that only few psychologists are at present 
occupying themselves with the subject. 
Stimulated by the works of Freud and Jung I have 
investigated the subject from the psychoanalytical side and 
shall endeavor to present some of the results. But before 
proceeding to do so it will be necessary to orient ourselves 
on some of the psychological principles that form a part 
of the discussion. 
In his famous essay Concerning Human Understanding, 
Locke tells us that the child's mind is essentially a tabula 
rasa, a blank tablet upon which nothing is written, and 
that all knowledge rests on experience. Psychoanalysis 
fully demonstrates Locke's empiricism, and confining our- 
1 This chapter is reprinted from the book Psycho-Analysis, by 
A. A. Brill. Copyright, 1922, by W. B. Saunders Company. Re- 
printed through the courtesy of the publishers. 
128 FAVORITE CHILD IN ADULT LIFE 
129 
selves to the question of parental influences and relation- 
ships we may say that every individual's mind possesses 
certain stereotype plates or models, as it were, which are 
the result of mental impressions produced by the parents 
during childhood. Thus a father image and a mother 
image remain permanently engraved in the mind and act 
as standards for estimation of men and women that later 
enter into this person's life. It is not difficult to show 
that our behavior toward our fellow beings depends mostly 
on our early relations to our parents. In other words, we 
unconsciously endeavor to fit every stranger into one of 
our latent parental images and our likes and dislikes de- 
pend in a great measure on the success or failure of such 
correlation. Further investigation shows that children do 
not always love their parents as is commonly supposed, 
but very often hate one of them. The first woman the 
little boy loves is his mother, and the first man the little 
girl loves is her father. The little boy idolizes his mother 
and supplies her with that part of poetic love which she 
no longer gets from her husband. The mother calls her 
little boy sweetheart and tries to realize in him her ideal 
of the man. The same thing takes place between the little 
girl and her father. Normally, however, these parental 
ideals vanish with the advancing age, when the growing 
child begins to project his love on strangers. The boy 
then no longer thinks that his mother is the prettiest and 
loveliest woman in the world, but he evinces an interest 
in other persons of the opposite sex. The deflection of 
love from the mother may also be furthered by the ap- 
pearance of a little brother, who claims a part of his 
mother's love and attention. However, this absence of 
the mother ideal is only apparent. It is not eliminated, 
but repressed into the unconscious and there it continues 
to exert its influence throughout the whole life of the 
individual. Psychoanalysis of normal persons shows be- 
yond any doubt the enormous influence of unconscious 
parental complexes. It explains the important mechanism 130 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
of transference as well as many of the peculiarities of the 
love life. 
Recently I was consulted by a young girl of twenty-one 
years who was said to have become nervous as a result 
of a disagreement with her mother. She was in love with 
a man of forty-six years to whom her mother strongly 
objected, not only on account of the marked difference in 
their ages, but because the man was considered mentally 
abnormal. During our conversation she remarked that 
her mother had always been in her way, and by way of 
explanation she stated that her mother was jealous of her 
and that when she was younger she hated to have her 
mother go along when she went out with her father. "I 
always looked upon her as a stranger," she said. She 
idolized her father who is her ideal in every respect, 
although he is a paranoiac and has been for years in an 
insane asylum. She surprised me when she told me that 
there is as marked a difference in the ages of her father 
and mother as there is in her own and her fiance's ages. 
Indeed, all the features of the case unmistakably pointed 
to an identification with her mother and an unconscious 
desire to get her father ideal. Such cases are not at all 
uncommon, I have reported some in the preceding chap- 
ter and could cite many more. 
From what has just been said it can be readily under- 
stood that such parental influences may often be strong 
enough to inhibit materially the individual's relations to 
the other sex. Thus, too much and prolonged affection on 
the part of the mother is apt to cause an undue conscious 
or unconscious attachment to the parents, and thus pre- 
vent the child from going through the various stages of 
its psychosexual development. In this connection it may 
be repeated that the sexual impulse of childhood is auto- 
erotic or objectless. The child knows no other sexual 
object than himself and gets his gratification through the 
erogenous zones of his own body. As it grows older we 
have the so-called latency period, during which the greater FAVORITE CHILD IN ADULT LIFE 
131 
part of the sexual excitation is utilized for aims other than 
sexual, viz., for the formation of social feelings and the 
future sexual barriers. Between autoerotism and the ob- 
ject love there is an intermediate stage which has been 
designated as narcissism. Freud tells us that every stage of 
development of the psychosexual life offers a possibility 
for "fixation" which may result in a type of character. 
Thus we have shown above that fixation in narcism may 
cause paranoia or homosexuality, and that fixation in auto- 
eroticism may lay the foundation for dementia praecox. By 
giving the child too much love, mothers often prolong or 
cause a fixation in the various stages mentioned. This 
naturally occurs very often in only children, who, having 
no one with whom to share their parents' affection, are 
overburdened with love. The same is true of favorite 
children who are subjected to the same conditions as only 
children during the impressionable period of their exist- 
ence. Since the fall of 1908 I have examined hundreds 
of only or favorite children, and my findings may be 
divided into (a) general and (&) specific. 
(a) Whether burdened by heredity or not the adult only 
child usually shows one prominent feature, namely, he is a 
very poor competitor in the struggle for existence. Hav- 
ing been carefully reared and constantly watched by his 
loving mother, he remains forever "mama's boy." He is 
devoid of those qualities which characterize the real boy. 
He lacks independence, self-confidence and the practical 
skill which the average boy acquires through competition 
with other boys. 
Owing to the fact that the only boy constantly asso- 
ciates with grown-ups he is usually precocious even in 
childhood, and as he grows older he finds it very hard to 
associate with persons of his own age. Real friendships 
begin very early in life. I know an only boy of nineteen 
years who has not a single friend. He is practically 
asocial. He wishes only to associate with persons much 
older than himself and cannot adapt himself to the society 132 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
of young people because they "bore" him. Some time ago 
I was consulted about another only boy, seven years old, 
because, as his mother put it, he did not get along with 
other children and was a real blase. He was not inter- 
ested in anything. Toys, pets, books, etc., that would have 
been sufficient to delight the hearts of a dozen children 
had absolutely no charm for him. He was in constant 
need of new excitements and as they could not be sup- 
plied quickly enough he was unhappy and morose. 
The only child is usually spoiled and coddled because 
the parents gratify all his whims and have not the heart 
to be severe with or punish him when necessary. This 
has its evil consequences in adult life, for the slightest 
depreciation, hardly noticeable by the average person, is 
enough to throw him into a fit of depression and rage 
lasting for days and even for weeks. An only daughter 
attempted suicide because her best friend received more 
attention than she at a social gathering. 
It is due to the undivided attention and abnormal love 
that the only child gets from his parents that he develops 
into a confirmed egotist. He is never neglected in favor 
of sisters and brothers. He is the sole ruler of the house- 
hold and his praises are constantly sung. It is, therefore, 
no wonder that the only child becomes vain and one-sided 
and develops an exaggerated opinion of himself. In later 
life he is extremely conceited, jealous and envious. He 
begrudges the happiness of friends and acquaintances and 
he is therefore shunned and disliked.2 A favorite son. a 
bachelor of sixty-two years who was a wealthy retired 
merchant, told me that whenever there was a rise in the 
market he suffered from severe depression and fits of 
envy, simply because he knew that some of his friends 
would make money. He himself had no personal interest 
in the market. Such qualities are surely not conducive to 
2 A typical example is Joseph of the Bible; having been his 
mother's only son (Rachel died during the birth of Benjamin) and 
his father's favorite, he was despised and hated by his half-brothers. FAVORITE CHILD IN ADULT LIFE 
133 
happiness, and it is not at all surprising that almost all 
such children are selfish, unhappy and morose. 
(b) The specific findings are of still greater interest. 
Of 400 cases observed years ago there were 172 men and 
228 women. Their ages ranged from eighteen to sixty- 
eight years. The morbid manifestations were as follows: 
The predominant feature in about 36 per cent of my 
cases was the abnormal sex life. Most of them sought 
treatment for homosexuality, psychic impotence (men) 
and sexual anaesthesia (women) ; there were also some 
exhibitionists, voyeurs, sadists and masochists. About 18 
per cent suffered from the various types of dementia 
praecox. The rest represented the different forms of the 
psychoneuroses. I was unable to tabulate the hundreds 
of cases that I have observed since I had published these 
cases but I am quite certain that the percentages are about 
the same. 
No statistical conclusions should be drawn from these 
figures, as most of these patients came, or were sent to 
me for treatment because they suffered from psycho- 
neuroses or from the other maladies enumerated above. 
They show, however, the marked prevalence of only or 
favorite children in these classes. Bearing in mind our 
psychoanalytic knowledge of early impressions this is not 
at all surprising. As shown above, the foundations for 
one's later erotic life are mostly laid by the parent of the 
opposite sex. It primarily depends on the mother whether 
the son will pass through normally the various stages of 
psychosexual evolution. If for some reason she prevents 
him from giving up his infantile erotic activities by en- 
couraging him to look for his love outlets in her only, he 
will perforce remain sexually speaking infantile, and hence 
abnormal. It is quite obvious that abnormal love in early 
life hinders the normal sexual evolution. It either keeps 
alive or later revives some of the early sexual activities. 
The boy cannot transfer his libido on other women be- 
cause his mother stands in his way. As a rule this is 134 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
accomplished quite innocently under the guise of maternal 
care. Such mothers discourage social intercourse with 
the opposite sex because consciously they wish to preserve 
their son's purity, unconsciously they are extremely jeal- 
ous of any other woman. This may also be conscious. 
A number of my homosexual patients told me that their 
mothers were actually jealous of every woman with whom 
they chanced to come in contact and behaved exactly as if 
they were confronted with a rival. No one is good enough 
for such children. At least that is what the parents think. 
This, by the way, explains the difficulties with mothers- 
in-law. They unconsciously want their sons for them- 
selves and are jealous of every other woman. It is a sex 
jealousy pure and simple.3 The majority of only children 
3 The deeper reasons, however, lying at the basis of the hostility 
between the proverbial mother-in-law and her son-in-law are ex- 
plained by Freud in his Totem und Taboo. He first shows that 
among savages the world over there exist very stringent laws 
against any familiarity with one's mother-in-law. The son-in-law 
and mother-in-law are forced by the tribal laws to shun each other. 
They must run away or hide when they meet by chance. In civil- 
ized communities where, to the regret of many, there are no such 
laws, it is extremely common to find very strained, not to say 
hostile, feelings between mother-in-law and son-in-law. Freud 
uses the term coined by Bleuler to describe the feeling between 
mother-in-law and son. He thinks that the relation between them 
may be designated as "ambivalent," i. e., it is made up of both affec- 
tionate and hostile feelings. Some of these feelings are quite clear. 
Thus, the mother-in-law dislikes to relinquish her daughter to a 
stranger whom she suspects, and shows a tendency to assume a 
domineering attitude to which she became accustomed in her own 
home. The son-in-law, on the other hand, is determined to resent 
any subordination on the part of his wife to the will of any stranger. 
He is jealous of all persons who once possessed his wife's love and, 
what is more, he dislikes to have his illusion of sexual overestima- 
tion disturbed. Such disturbance mostly emanates from the mother- 
in-law, who reminds him of his wife because of many common 
features between them, but who lacks all the attractions of youth, 
beauty and psychic freshness which give value to his wife. 
Added to that there are unconscious motives. Whenever the 
psychosexual needs of the woman are to be gratified in marriage or FAVORITE CHILD IN ADULT LIFE 
135 
do not marry at all or they frequently marry some near 
relative whom they unconsciously identify with their 
parent image. The probable average of my patients' ages 
was thirty-four years, but only ninety-three out of the 
400 had been married. Most of them remained old maids 
and bachelors. 
There are many other forms of sexual maladjustments 
in family life she is always threatened by the danger of lack of 
gratification through a premature cessation of the marital relations 
or through the uneventfulness of her emotional life. The aging 
mother protects herself against it by living, as it were, in her chil- 
dren. It is said that one remains young with one's children. This 
is really the most valuable psychic gain accruing to the parents 
from their children. This living through the daughter proceeds 
in the mother to an extent that she falls in love with the man her 
daughter loves, which, in pronounced cases, leads to severe forms 
of neurotic disturbance brought on by the violent psychic con- 
flicts. A tendency to love her son-in-law is frequently observed in 
the mother-in-law and either this feeling alone or its contrary 
emotion allies itself to the tumultuous struggling forces in her 
psyche. Quite often the son-in-law faces the hostile, sadistic com- 
ponents of the emotions of love which only serve to better repress 
the prohibited affectionate feelings. 
The relations of the man to his mother-in-law are complicated by 
similar feelings which flow, however, from another source. As a 
rule the road of object selection leading to the love object is fol- 
lowed by the man over the images of his mother or perhaps his 
sister. The deflection of his first love from these beloved persons 
of his childhood is effected by the incest barriers in order that he 
should attain in a stranger this prototype. In place of his mother 
or the mother of his sister he is now confronted by the mother-in- 
law. This gives rise to a tendency to return to the prehistoric 
selection which is rapidly repressed. His incest shyness demands 
that he should not be reminded of the genealogy of his love selec- 
tion. The rejection is facilitated by the actuality of the mother-in- 
law whom he did not know from the beginning of his existence and 
hence, unlike his mother's, her image does not remain unchanged in 
his unconscious. A special addition of attractiveness and repulsion 
to the emotional mixture allows the conjecture that the mother- 
in-law really represents an incestuous temptation for the son-in-law. 
On the other hand, it is not rare for a man to fall in love first with 
his future mother-in-law before turning his affection to her 
daughter. 136 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
which one finds in such children, but as they are not 
necessarily peculiar to only or favorite children there is 
no need to dwell on them. I merely repeat that parental 
influences play a great part in both normal and neurotic 
individuals, but whereas the normal person gets away at 
least consciously from these dominations the neurotic re- 
mains anchored and succeeds only partially in freeing him- 
self from them. This fixation is mainly responsible for 
psychic impotence, frigidity in women, and homosexuality, 
and its general influences can always be found in every 
psychoneurotic. I know an old bachelor of forty-five 
years, an only son, who slept with his mother until she 
died. He is a good business man and is said to be normal 
in every other respect. I have treated an old maid, a 
favorite daughter, who lost her father three years ago. 
She still wears black and cries bitterly at any allusion to 
her father. Her answer to my question as to why she 
still wore mourning was typical of many similar expres- 
sions that one hears from such patients. "Why shouldn't 
I? No one ever had such a kind, generous and self- 
sacrificing father. There is not another man like him in 
this world. Oh! how I love this man, etc." This may 
sound like pure filial love, but having analyzed her, I have 
definitely ascertained that she unconsciously loved her 
father as any woman loves a stranger. We can readily 
see why such persons cannot marry. This patient char- 
acteristically expressed it when she said: "If I could find 
a man like my father I would marry." 
Judging from what was said about only or favorite 
children it would naturally be best for the individual as 
well as the race that there should be no only children. 
However, when this cannot be avoided by virtue of ill 
health or death of one of the parents the child need not 
necessarily become a neurotic and belong to any of the 
categories mentioned above. It all depends upon its sub- 
sequent bringing up. 
When we read the history of only children we find that FAVORITE CHILD IN ADULT LIFE 
137 
only those who have been brought up in the manner 
described develop into abnormal beings, those who are not 
pampered and coddled have the same chances as other 
children. As classical examples we may mention Nero 
and Confucius; the former was a spoiled only child, while 
the latter was a well-bred only child. For a number of 
years I have been investigating only children from history 
and as far as I have gone I could mention quite a number 
of only children belonging to both types. As a matter of 
fact if properly brought up the only child actually possesses 
some attributes which tend towards leadership. Some of 
the greatest leaders in all walks of life were only children 
in the absolute or relative sense (only child for first few 
years). An only child should be made to associate with 
other children who will soon teach him that he is not 
the only one in the world. This should begin at a very 
early age. I have seen many "nervous and wild" only 
children who were completely changed after a few weeks' 
attendance in a kindergarten. This form of therapy is 
effective only when applied very early in life where the 
parents are aware that only childism is a bad disease. But 
even in such cases the only child traits can always be 
recognized. But what is still more important is that only 
children should not be gorged with parental love. Parents 
should take care that such children should not develop an 
exaggerated idea of their own personality and think that 
they are superior to everybody. For individuals imbued 
with such paranoid ideas are bound to come into conflict 
with their fellowmen. What is true of the individual may 
also be true of a race, and history furnishes us with a 
very nice example. 
I refer to the only and favorite child of Jehovah, the 
Jewish race. The Bible tells us that the Jews are the 
"chosen people," "the only son," and even "the first-born." 
That the Jews have displayed all the attributes of the only 
or favorite child need hardly be mentioned. From the 
Bible we learn that they were stiff-necked, spoiled and 138 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
overbearing, and considered themselves superior to every 
other nation. Characteristics of such nature have been 
attributed to them by almost all writers of ancient and 
modern times, and although some are gross exaggerations 
it must nevertheless be admitted that they are essentially 
correct in reference to the Hebrews of antiquity and the 
modern orthodox European Jews. Still it is gratifying 
to note that this no longer holds true of the great bulk of 
western Jews who have enjoyed a couple of generations 
of freedom. The explanation of this change is given by 
Dr. M. Fishberg in his very interesting book. He plainly 
shows that "Judaism has been preserved throughout the 
long years of Israel's dispersion by two factors: its sepa- 
rative ritualism, which prevented close and intimate con- 
tact with non-Jews, and the iron laws of Christian 
theocracies of Europe which encouraged and enforced 
isolation." In other words, as long as the Jew has been 
imbued with the racial pride of belonging to the "chosen 
people" and has been offering daily prayers to Jehovah 
because he was not created a gentile, he perforce remained 
exclusive and therefore was suspected and disliked by his 
non-Jewish neighbors. When we study the history of the 
Jews we find that their enforced isolation was the result 
of an early, voluntary clannish exclusiveness. This shows 
the striking analogy to the only boy who at first refuses 
to associate with others because he believes himself supe- 
rior to everybody else, and who is later excluded from 
social relations because he is misunderstood and disliked. 
Dr. Fishberg also tells us that as soon as the barriers are 
removed the Jews readily assimilate and all former pre- 
judices disappear. The only boy, too, loses his identity as 
soon as he realizes that he is no better than his fellow 
beings. 
More could be said in reference to this problem, but I 
must reserve that for the future. Perhaps the most impor- 
tant thing to remember is, that regardless of heredity, 
environments here definitely stamp the individual into a FAVORITE CHILD IN ADULT LIFE 
139 
certain type. For no matter how careful parents are to 
eliminate the only child attributes, the fact remains that 
any average child who is alone for the first few years of 
its existence always shows the only child traits. I do not 
find it difficult to pick out from among the people I meet 
former only or favorite children, even if they have made 
a good adjustment. To be sure, it is quite simple to diag- 
nose the Aaron Burr type of only children. 
Another point to remember is that the psychosexual life 
is a part of every individual and that the infantile part of 
it is the foundation of the adult sex life. Our civilization, 
which is based on renunciation, demands that much of 
the sex impulse should be sublimated to other aims and 
that the rest of it should be controlled, that is to say, that 
its actual biological role must be deferred for many years. 
When parents who are ignorant of these basic facts stimu- 
late the child with much love, because the child offers them 
a love outlet, they not only spoil the normal mental evolu- 
tion by interfering with the latency period, but the prema- 
ture stimulation makes the child incapable of controlling 
his sex life when control is absolutely necessary. Such 
parents fail to see that love and sex are one and the same 
thing, and that the little boy who is gorged with love will 
continually need more and more of it and that mere kisses 
will not suffice at the prepubescent and pubescent age. 
Sex must and can only be controlled, but if the parents 
are shocked at the later manifestation of love and if they 
try to exterminate the whole impulse they reopen or keep 
alive some of the components and partial impulses of sex 
which are part of the infantile sexuality, and thus they 
usually make neurotics, perverts or inverts. THE DOMAIN OF THE PEDANALYSIS1 
Dr. Oskar Pfister (Zurich) 
Under pedanalysis, I understand in this connection an 
educational method practiced by professional teachers. I 
am well aware that this definition involves a certain arbi- 
trariness. The analysis performed by a physician on a 
young person is also a pedagogic one. Even in the name, 
the difficulty of separating the medical analysis from the 
professional educational analysis is indicated. 
i. The Rights of the Pedagogic Psychoanalysis 
(a) the analysis of healthy individuals 
The treatment of the healthy pupil is solely a matter for 
the teacher. Pedagogy has to decide how far the healthy 
pupil may and should be analyzed. We have already ex- 
pressed the opinion that an analysis of youthful persons 
is only to be undertaken when necessary, hence the healthy 
youth drops out of consideration. On the other hand, a 
good bit of psychoanalysis can be done without the youth's 
knowing it. The clever educator can guess from essays 
and symptomatic acts hundreds of important background 
processes which would otherwise remain hidden, as indeed 
the knowledge of humanity in general gains an unsus- 
pected enrichment from psychoanalysis. 
Little superficial analyses for the purpose of theoretical 
demonstration will naturally do no harm although it may 
be asked how far one may go in this direction. It would 
be bad, if, for instance, pupils of a teachers' seminary were 
to receive a half-under standing of the analysis and should 
make foolhardy attempts with this little knowledge. It 
seems obvious to me that the new educational work must 
1 From The Psychoanalytic Method, by Dr. Oskar Pfister. Re- 
printed by courtesy of the publishers, Dodd, Mead and Co., New 
York. 
140 THE DOMAIN OF THE PEDANALYSIS 
141 
some time be known to every teacher. That every one 
should make practical use of it is not my intention. 
An immense field of work is opened to the analyzing 
education in the salvation of those who are not sick in the 
medical sense, yet have their lives disturbed and destroyed 
as a result of continuing unconscious anachronisms. To* 
day, the analytic neurologist receives many of this class 
of persons. They treat with wonderful results sons who 
behave very badly at home and in school, daughters who 
suffer from fluctuating erotic conditions or female Don 
Juanism, unhappy marriages, etc., all, however, only when 
no severe constitutional defects are present. In so doing, 
they attain much better results than professional educators 
and pastors untrained in analysis, since they receive into 
their treatment almost entirely only individuals on whom 
the forenamed have tried their skill. Also, fatal distortions 
of character, religious abnormalities, ethical monstrosities 
do not belong so much in the keeping of the neurologist 
and psychiatrist as in that of the analytic pedagogue. 
Likewise to the latter belongs the noble work of pro- 
phylaxis. But how can one rightly prevent disease who 
does not know its causes? 
(b) the right of the pedagogic analysis on sick 
CHILDREN 
The analytic therapy is, as is admitted on all sides, a 
work of education. That far, the medical man invades the 
field of the pedagogue. The treatment of the sick, however, 
is an affair of the physician. If the pedagogue exercises 
his office on sick children, it may be asked whether he does 
not invade the rights of another profession. 
So long as medicine followed, wholly or predominantly, 
physiological ways, a sharp division was possible. Should 
the professional educator, today, after the physician him- 
self has become pure educator for a great number of 
patients, simply withdraw, or does he possess the right 
also to treat the mental conflicts when a medically patho- 142 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
logical trait appears, as he has these same processes to 
treat exclusively, when-I might almost say accidentally- 
no pathological sign appears ? 
I believe that every one is agreed in the view that physi- 
cian and educator exist for the sake of the child, not the 
child for their sake. Consideration for the welfare of the 
child may thus be the supreme test for the decision of our 
problem. I will not boast, therefore,that historically, psycho- 
therapy was for thousands of years an affair of the priests 
and other educators before the medical men engaged in it. 
From this standpoint, the following considerations speak 
for a pedagogic analysis: 
i. The great majority of physicians are not so familiar 
with the child mind as the teacher and pastor. The physi- 
cian as physician studies people predominantly as physiol- 
ogist, therewith knowing them according to the physical 
side; the pedagogue submerges himself early and late in 
the child mind and thereby adapts himself for the psycho- 
analysis, on a whole, more easily and quickly than the 
physician. Of course, the analytic neurologist will also 
much surpass the educator as student of the mind. 
2. In many insignificant pathological symptoms, there 
is a large educational work to be performed. Hence, since 
a trespass by one profession upon the other is not to be 
avoided, the pedagogue commits far less usurpation than 
the physician. 
3. A considerable percentage of all pupils in country 
and city are neurotics. Admonitions, punishments and 
promises are rendered of no account by the tyranny of the 
complexes, while the analysis, by setting the individual 
free from these inhibiting complexes, can work transfor- 
mations in the life. Has the teacher now a right to dis- 
miss from educational consideration such pupils, who are 
often the most valuable ones, the leaders of their classes, 
when, for example, a little stuttering or writing disturb- 
ance is exhibited? 
4. The analysis of healthy individuals is best learned THE DOMAIN OF THE PEDANALYSIS 
143 
on patients, because these show many phenomena most 
plainly and require the deepest exploration. 
5. The teacher sees the neurosis when he understands 
it, earliest, and can therefore guard most efficiently against 
misfortune. He will also, as we shall soon show, direct 
the sufferer to the physician best adapted for handling this 
class of cases. When the teachers understand enough of 
pedagogic analysis, the physicians will receive more ana- 
lytic work through them, for today much too few patients 
come into medical care within the period when they may be 
benefited. It is greatly to be desired that teachers should 
consult more with the physicians. In the neglect of this 
consultation, much harm is done by pedagogic ignorance. 
6. The power of the physicians could never suffice to 
eliminate the vast array of neurotic disturbances. In par- 
ticular, without pedanalysis, numerous poor children lose 
the benefit of appropriate help, since the physician, for 
reason of support of self and family, cannot give them 
his valuable time in sufficient amount, no matter how sym- 
pathetic he may be. 
2. The Bounds of the Pedanalysis 
The danger and foolishness of a "wild" pedagogic 
analysis has been pointed out many times. I emphasize 
again the most important points: 
1. The educator is often unable to tell whether a 
psychogenic or physiogenic disturbance is present. Even 
a clever physician is very often compelled to go to the 
specialists for a diagnosis. A pedagogue, who, for ex- 
ample, would drive away neuralgic pains, might easily 
consider every neuralgia as hysteria and apply the analysis 
in unwise manner. Now, to be sure, this work can do no 
harm directly, but under some circumstances it might con- 
sume time within which another treatment, for example 
surgical, might be applied with success.2 
2 Stekel, Zur Differentialdiagnose organischer u. psychogener 
Erkrankungen. Zbl. I, p. 45 ff. 144 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
2. Further, the educator cannot diagnose mental anom- 
alies sufficiently well. Often he does not know whether 
hysteria or obsessional neurosis, catatonia or some other 
beginning psychosis is present. The suicide of a patient 
will be charged to him while the physician is excused when 
it happens to him. Further, the psychiatrist recognizes 
changes for the worse in mental disease earlier than the 
teacher. 
3. The Fundamental Characteristics of the 
Educational Treatment of the Sick 
1. In all pathological cases which are not insignificant 
(analogous to the minor surgery of the barber), the peda- 
gogue obtains the diagnosis from an analytic physician 
wherever possible and has him authorize the educational 
work. Dangerous cases, he will gladly renounce. 
2. In the further course of the analysis, he will keep in 
touch with the physician where it is necessary, and, in 
case of need, obtain his advice. 
3. The analyzing educator, in his work on patients, 
never considers himself as rival of the experienced physi- 
cian but always as pupil, helper and co-worker. 
If the educator adheres to these fundamental principles, 
he has good right to be recognized in his analytic work, 
not as layman but as professional. To this end, not only 
his office as professional educator aids him, but also his 
scientific training. It is beyond question that the psycho- 
analytic investigation and the elaboration of its technique 
has much of value to expect from keen-sighted educators 
and no physician will hesitate to accept this service grate- 
fully. 
Our experience agrees fully with the expressions which 
Prof. Freud has contributed to this book. Aside from 
him, there have spoken concerning this circumstance only 
physicians who understand nothing or almost nothing of 
psychoanalysis. That they are indignant when someone 
else does something which was denied to them, will neither THE DOMAIN OF THE PEDANALYSIS 
145 
surprise nor disturb us. A real professional, Riklin, ex- 
presses himself thus: "Obviously, we must greet the 
collaboration of philologists, pedagogues and others with 
joy. We need them and have the greatest stimulus to 
expect from them. For psychoanalysis can never be lim- 
ited to pathology. Further, it is very desirable that the 
educated world should acquire psychoanalytic knowledge. 
From the strictly medical standpoint, much is to be ex- 
pected from this collaboration and a restriction of the 
neuroses in particular. The principle of the necessary 
liberation from the parents, the knowledge of the own 
personality, the conditions of marital competence, etc., 
must have an unconditional mitigating influence. Besides 
a prophylactic result, a therapeutic one must also be pres- 
ent. It will be less possible for the conflicts to hide be- 
hind the poor masks of the neurosis and happen less often 
that a patient can terrorize his whole environment. A 
number of conflicts, for example, those of puberty, will 
be judged quite differently and be led to rational solutions. 
"Concerning the practice of analysis by non-physicians 
the following standpoint may well be taken: There are 
non-physicians of great psychological acumen and com- 
plete comprehension of psychoanalytic questions whose 
collaboration we very much need: in the assistance of the 
physician, in the education of neurotic children, etc. For 
the sake of order, we must wish that the patients treated 
by these non-physicians should have the diagnosis passed 
on by a physician schooled in analysis and that the latter 
should keep in touch with the course of the analytic treat- 
ment and help bear the responsibility. Against this formu- 
lation, it will be difficult to find an important objection. 
"To declaim against the application of analytic knowl- 
edge in pedagogy and to want to forbid the pedagogue 
from that kind of conference with his pupils, seems to 
me unreasonable." 3 
3 Riklin, Ueber Psa. Corr. bl. f. Schweizer Aertzte, 1912, No. 27, 
1020/. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY AND ORGANIC 
DISEASE 1 
By Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe (New York) 
In 1914, an old friend came to my office and dra- 
matically said, "For God's sake, save my wife. The doc- 
tors have given her six months to live, and I am out of 
my mind." In response to my question he said: "She 
has kidney trouble, a blood pressure of 240. And ac- 
cording to the doctors, unless she dieted, went to bed, did 
this and did not do that, she would die in six months." 
I assured him that it could not be as bad as he said. He 
was upset and his fears had magnified what had been told 
him. I said I was sorry but did not specialize in kidney 
disease, etc. His attendant and consultant physicians were 
the best in the city; in fact, they had national repute and 
could be relied on. I knew his wife was of a very active 
type, but I said it would be better for her if she slowed 
down a bit and possibly gave up her plan of stumping the 
state for woman's suffrage, or what not. 
He insisted on my doing something. So I told him 
I would send her to one of the city's best hospitals, to one 
of the best internists, and get as complete a balance sheet 
of her condition as I could get, and then, as he was an 
engineer, I would translate, as best I could, the Greek and 
Latin terminology of the medical lingo, into mechanical 
terms with which he was familiar. 
So I did. She was examined by all the methods known 
to internists' lore of the time. She was under observa- 
tion for two or three weeks. The problems involved were, 
clinically speaking, quite banal. There was a cardiovas- 
1 Reprinted by courtesy of Dr. Jelliffe. 
146 PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 
147 
cular-renal syndrome known to all medical men, and hyper- 
tension of from 220 to 240 mm. systolic pressure, with 
nephritis. The treatment prescribed was rest in bed, 
plenty of water, a restricted diet, plenty of restrictions. 
The prognosis was dubious and serious; she might live 
for some time if she followed the treatment indicated; 
if not she would probably die within a short time. 
A woman, aged 36, married, children , , . , 
nephritis-hypertension. 
Symptoms 
Headache four years. Blood pressure 240-250 
mm. Albumin. Diminished urea output. Re- 
tention. Asthenia. Edema. Dyspnea. Constipa- 
tion + + +. Slight momentary lapses. 
Behavior 
"7 Able, energetic, cultivated interests in home, 
children, society. Two girls in family. De- 
voted father; beautiful, much admired mother. Large 
family group of professional people. Never peculiar. 
No eccentricities. 
Unconscious 
Oedipus evolutions, defective. Strong father 
fixation. Rejection of male. Homophilic. 
Supremacy of genital zone, defective. Urinary fixa- 
tions. Strong anal erotic components. 
Outline of Case. 
I asked concerning the cause of the nephritis. The 
physician said it was the high tension. I said, "Why the 
high tension?" "The nephritis," he answered. "And 
where do we get off this circle ?" "We don't," he asserted. 
And there we were. Of course, I am abbreviating the 
conversation. A review of the world's literature during 
the past four or five years on this problem shows that this 
is its present status. As Widal, in answer to a similar 
inquiry I made to him last summer, at the close of a bril- 148 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
liant bedside clinic on almost a facsimile of my patient, 
said, "C'est les my steres! Internal medicine, so far as it 
has gone, cannot break into the circle, and looks, when it 
looks at all, at the 'mysteries.' " 
When I explained to my engineer friend what I had 
been told, he saw the difficulty, but was surprised at the 
static position in which the internists left the case. I 
agreed with him. After much discussion I finally con- 
sented to make a tentative appraisal of the intrapsychic 
situation and try to determine whether, in terms of what 
has here been formulated, there was any look in on the 
dynamic side. 
Within two weeks it was quite apparent that the un- 
conscious material afforded illuminating glimpses of some 
of the "mysteries," and told us why the organism as a 
whole was not functioning satisfactorily, although I was 
not able in that time to determine why the cardiovascular- 
renal components were the structures which showed the 
most evident signs of breakdown (that is, from present 
day clinical criteria). 
I then proposed to conduct a research. If, in the crude 
thought of centuries, the mind was said to influence the 
body, what could the refinements of analytic technic show 
as to such influences? Or, since modern psychopathology 
rejects this setting off of opposites, body versus mind, 
what could such a technic show as to the mental, that 
is, the symbolic level activities, going on in the individ- 
ual? These the internist knows little about, except as he 
mouths such vague monstrosities as "nervous," or "emo- 
tional" or "psychic." The internist is, for the most part, 
working at the physico-chemical level. Like Yank, in 
O'Neill's Hairy Ape, he thinks he "belongs" because he 
stokes the fires. He is iron and steel. Our present in- 
ternist's conception of the "human machine" is as crude 
as Yank's conception of the world which broke him. I 
am not unmindful of the legitimate protest against such 
a statement, as evidenced, for example, in Kraus' Allge- PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 
149 
meine Pathologic der Person, in which, fortunately, it 
may be seen that internal medicine is breaking away from 
the static molds of descriptive science which have been 
building up too onesidedly for the past fifty years. Never- 
theless, I maintain that when the time comes that Claude 
Bernard dreamed of-"when the physiologist, the philoso- 
pher, and the poet would talk the same language, and un- 
derstand each other"-a true science of medicine will be 
possible. That time has not yet arrived. We have a few 
physiologists, but where are the medical philosophers ? As 
for seers in medicine, they are too few and are mostly 
despised and rejected of men. I need only refer to one 
medical poet, philosopher, and physiologist, who after 
thirty years of contumely and most prejudiced criticism, 
is finally recognized as a genius, and whose illumined 
hypotheses are making it possible to understand the enor- 
mous role that psychopathology plays, not only in the 
neuroses and psychoses, but in what is termed constitu- 
tional disease. But to return to our patient: 
I cannot recapitulate all the evidence, but the very first 
finding in the "unconscious" contained some interesting 
material. While in the hospital she had dreamed the fol- 
lowing which was a seminightmare: 
"There was a road along which two men were driving 
like mad in single-horse racing sulkies. As they went by 
in a cloud of dust, a woman with disheveled hair came 
from a house facing the road wringing her hands and 
screaming at the top of her voice. The men and horses 
went up a steep hill, and as one reached the top he turned 
sharply to the left and ran into a stone wall about two 
feet high and smashed the sitlky all to pieces." 
Now I know to the nonanalytically trained observer this 
means as little as the sight of a small red stained rod 
under the microscope means to one who does not know 
anything about the tubercle bacillus. 
To the patient J said, "What about it?" 
"About what?" she said. 150 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
"Well, imagine yourself one of those riders." 
"I'd be crazy," she said. 
Well, I said, "It looks as if somebody was destroying 
something, at all events, and maybe the wish to destroy 
has something to do with your own breakdown. Let us 
go further." Then her free associations were obtained, 
and for several sessions we worked on this dream. 
To give the results of these investigations in extenso 
would be as wearisome as to give in minute detail all of 
the intricate directions for carrying out a Wassermann 
test. The general findings showed an obvious difficulty in 
her object choice. According to the principles of the 
CEdipus hypothesis, she showed a strong unconscious 
father fixation. He was the man of the sulky. A part 
of him, the one that ran into the stone wall and smashed 
up the machine, was related to the incestuous component 
of an infantile fixation period; but to the student of un- 
conscious processes as modified through the dream work, 
and as further extended by the technic of free associations, 
an enormous amount of material may be recorded, just as 
the physician who finds the tubercle bacillus in a patient's 
sputum has opened up an enormous amount of material 
heretofore unknown. 
Here, then, one finds the first obvious failure in the 
energy delivery system, since it had become fixed (con- 
ditioned) for infantile rather than for adult psychosexual 
functioning. The psychopathologist can envisage some 
high voltage energy seeking an adequate pathway for dis- 
charge {racing horses on the road}, and not finding the 
adequate outlet, backfires and creates havoc somewhere in 
the machine. This is the general rough idea. Can an 
analytic Franklin- conceive, with his kite and string, how 
to determine the line of discharge? That is, can the 
analytic technic show why the cardiovascular-renal struc- 
tures were chosen as the lightning rod for grounding this 
faultily delivered energy? If so, then, in general, we PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 
151 
have the leading features of our problem laid bare: faulty 
psychosexual evolution in terms of object choice, and su- 
premacy of the genital zones. 
Every psychopathologist working with the analytic tech- 
nic knows that the stage of the CEdipus formula turns 
up fairly early in an analysis. It may be that Freud's 
genius in pointing out the way enables us to recognize the 
main indicia of difficulties in its development. The trav- 
eler from New York to San Francisco recognizes Buffalo, 
Chicago, St. Paul, Denver, Salt Lake City as stopping 
places on the road; so the analyst can observe the sym- 
bolizations of the Archaic, Organic, Narcisistic and Social 
stages in the growth of the individual to adult psycho- 
sexual development. But there are innumerable stations 
between these larger more or less arbitrarily named stop- 
ping places. The libido is, however, ever on the go. It 
stops nowhere. It is the insufficiency of the intellect that 
creates the need of static stopping places, of giving dead 
names to dynamic processes. 
Psychopathology is still working to analyze the displace- 
ments, the side tracking, splittings, and condensations of 
energy traversing the somatic segmental pathways in the 
evolutionary urge toward a truly creative use of the seg- 
mental structures. 
Judging from conscious criteria, the fact that our pa- 
tient had four children all growing up and free from 
gross defect would argue that the supremacy of the genital 
zone had reached an adult stage in the plan of psycho- 
sexual evolution. This is the general intellectual con- 
ception. But on looking over the accumulating dream ma- 
terial, a sufficient number of reasons are found which tend 
to explain why the patient was frigid in her intercourse 
with her husband, even frigid to manual or any type of 
contact with the genitals. The evidence was plain that a 
fixation had taken place even before the clitoris could 
serve as a guide to the zone supremacy. There was 152 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
plainly indicated in the dream material that vesical and 
urethral fixations were conditioned and that no supremacy 
had been reached beyond this stage. 
Marked constipation which had resisted over twenty 
years of attempted treatment by scores of procedures was 
soon traced to its anal erotic sources-another libido dis- 
placement-and was effectively relieved in a few months. 
One bit of dream evidence bearing on the anal eroticism 
is worthy of record. After I had known the patient about 
eighteen months and she had been free from constipation 
for over a year, she had a short period of relapse. She 
came in one day and laughingly asked me what I thought 
of this dream: 
She and B. (her maid) zvere trying to smuggle a couple 
of boxes filled zvith long bottles into a small closet on the 
second floor. It zvas locked from the inside and she had 
to descend to the cellar and ascend a circular staircase in 
order to unfasten this closet door. As she started going 
up the circular staircase she noticed a Chinese mask on 
the zvall of the cellar. 
"The bottles?" I asked. "Pluto. Isn't the dream a 
cute one? It looks as if my attack of constipation was 
hankering for some gratification." 
"But why the Chinese mask and the circular staircase ?" 
This was addressed to me. 
The Chinese mask was soon resolved as Father. The 
circular staircase, her intestinal tract. Further analysis 
resolved the outlines of the pederastic aspect of the anal 
erotic wish. Whereas it seems a far cry from Fabre's 
story of the impregnated spider who immediately devours 
her mate for food for the offspring, it is by no means an 
unrecognized factor in certain human matings that the 
"bringing home the bacon" for the sake of support of self 
and children (often the latter being but narcissistic replicas 
of the self) is, if not the chief motive, certainly near con- 
sciousness. In this connection the myth of Lot's wife PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 
153 
and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah would repay read- 
ing in the light of unconscious fixations.2 
The temporary constipation regression cleared up, and 
for seven years now there has been no necessity for treat- 
ment for constipation. The constipation, that is, the anal 
erotic fixations also showed on analysis much concealed 
sadistic material directed toward the homo-sexual, much 
envied mother (unconscious), displaced and concealed be- 
hind the heterosexual, husband-father image. This mother 
rivalry also was marked (unconscious) and hidden behind 
urinary phantasies. In childhood water plays were 
adored. They were numerous and were followed with 
fascinated excitement; copious, almost abnormal, water 
drinking afforded greater somatic outlet as well. The 
urinary gratifications were all of this intense quality. 
They thus demanded a large renal output, and they got 
it. In a complicated and subtle manner from the ages of 
3, 4 and 5 years, the unconscious urinary phantasies made 
use of the cardiovascular-renal mechanism to gratify an 
almost feverish urge to overcome the mother and later 
the mother imago (homosexual) substitutes. Hence the 
constant narcissistic homosexual unconscious symboliza- 
tions which throughout the entire analysis were persistent 
sign-posts of the retardation in complete psychosexual de- 
velopment, both as to object choice and to supremacy of 
the genital zones. 
It would take many more hours to present the complete 
analysis, but I hope I have given a glimpse of the prob- 
lems as seen from the analytic standpoint.3 
2 Cf. Jones, The Symbolism of Salt, in the Unconscious. Col- 
lected papers, 2d. ed. William Wood & Co., New York, 1921. 
3 Jelliffe, S. E., Paleopsychology. A tentative sketch of the 
Evolution of Symbolic Function, Psychoanalytic Rev., April, 1923. THE MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 1 
Dr. Wilhelm Stekel (Vienna) 
Translated by Dr. James S. Van Teslaar (Boston) 
The art of dream interpretation is a most ancient one. 
Some of the oldest documents relate to dream interpreta- 
tions. The dream was considered an intermediary be- 
tween the higher forces of nature and mankind. Usually 
it was the voice of divinity that was speaking through the 
medium of dreams. But demons and evil powers, too, 
were capable of coming into contact with man through the 
dream life. That was a period which we, belonging to a 
sophisticated age, can hardly visualize. "The lights and 
shadows and the coloring, at any rate, have changed," says 
Nietzsche. "We no longer understand precisely how an- 
cient mankind felt about the most ordinary and common 
facts of life-about daylight and about waking up; for 
instance: because the ancients believed in dreams, their 
waking life had another coloring." 
Contrary to the learned men, the simple folk have never 
looked upon dreams as "foam." Within their soul there 
persisted a belief in the reality of this psychic experi- 
ence. But the belief rested stubbornly on what might be 
termed the "historic" background: the people wanted to 
interpret the future through the dream. The dream was 
looked upon as the infallible prophet. Whoever could 
interpret dreams possessed the gift to solve the riddle of 
the future. A derivation of this belief is the application 
1 Reprinted from Sex and Dreams, by Wilhelm Stekel, M. D. 
Translated by James S. Van Teslaar, M.D. Richard G. Badger, 
Publisher. Boston. 
154 MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
155 
of the dream to mercenary ends. The transposition of 
the dream pictures into figures is diligently practiced to 
this day and plays a great role among the people.2 The 
"cultured" classes regard it as their duty superiorily to 
smile at such practices. They look upon the dream as a 
meaningless play of the phantasy uncontrolled by con- 
sciousness. Even so, ordinary reflection should have sug- 
gested the thought that here was raw material of great 
psychic value, though in a distorted form. We ought to 
see what we can make out of it. Here and there an in- 
vestigator occasionally tried to penetrate the riddle of 
dreams. But these promising beginnings only led to far- 
fetched theories.3 
Anatole France is justified when he states: "I am 
firmly convinced that the power of dreams is greater than 
that of reality." The dream is the bridge between the 
real and the supersensory world. The ancient peoples knew 
this better than we. They believed in dreams and through 
the dream they felt themselves nearer their divinity. 
Divinity is the projection of our ideal into infinity. 
What we demand of our ideal self appears to us as God's 
command. All appearances of self are continually re- 
ferred to an ideal that stands supreme. Hence the first 
conception about the origins of dreams-that the dream 
is a gift sent down by the gods. The divine voice com- 
mands and warns, it annunciates and praises through the 
dream. The dream interpreter of former ages claimed 
2 I want to take this opportunity to state that I have not dis- 
dained to look over the various Egyptian and Persian Dream books. 
I wanted to find out whether our knowledge derived through the 
modern analysis of dreams is in any way corroborated in the old 
writings. That is but rarely the case. The dream books, so-called, 
which circulate among the people, impress me as being deliberate 
artifacts. The transposition of dream pictures into numbers is 
clearly traceable to the lottery game which is only a few cen- 
turies old. 
3 The extensive literature on dreams has been adequately con- 
sidered by Freud to whose work the interested reader is referred. 156 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the gift of understanding that secret language and to be 
able thereby to foretell the future. 
But not only is the ideal self projected into infinity. 
The evil self is also refracted outwardly and it reflects 
back as temptation or as the influence of demonic powers. 
The naive conception of the Middle Ages was that the 
dream represents a struggle between heaven and hell, a 
contest between God and Satan. That combat has always 
fascinated man's fancy. From Job and Jesus down to 
Faust and Parsifal,-what a wealth of poetic creations! 
It is the eternal warfare between instinct and repression, 
between man, in his primordial character, and himself, 
under the tinsel of culture, which breaks forth in this won- 
derful symbolic picture. Our culture requires the con- 
tinual repression of our cravings. The higher man as- 
cends upon the cultural scale the stricter are the laws 
which impose the ethical strictures of the society in which 
he finds himself. Culture means smooth-working inhibi- 
tion. The greater the social freedom, i.e., the stronger 
the social rights of the individual, the smaller becomes the 
span of his individual freedom; the stricter also the limi- 
tations which the individual must impose upon himself 
for the benefit of all. Social progress is based on the 
annihilation of individualism. 
The dream represents an indulgence in fancies without 
the intervention of consciousness or under a limited con- 
trol by the latter. The dream is a hallucination. Con- 
sciousness is the bearer of inhibitions. The ethical self 
first assumes control of consciousness and then it attempts 
to penetrate into the depths of the unconscious. Hence 
the cleft which arises between the pictures of the waking 
self and the hallucinations of the dream. Conscience is 
the sum of all inhibitions of a religious and ethical char- 
acter. The term conscience in itself shows that it pertains 
to a knowledge of good and evil. The primitive man has 
no such knowledge. He is familiar only with the prompt- 
ings of his cravings; with unpleasure, which arises out of MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
157 
the non-fulfillment of wishes and with the pleasure which 
accompanies and follows their gratification. The primor- 
dial man in us lives again in the dream. 
But the tremendous gap which exists between the 
requisites of our cultural and those of our elemental self 
leads eventually to a strange state of affairs. The cultural 
self knows not, or assumes not to know, the primordial 
self. It fails to recognize the language of the dream and 
thus carries out more completely its attitude of "innocent" 
ignorance. For that reason, too, the dream portrays its 
images in a secret symbolic language. Its language is the 
language of the primordial man. For man's aboriginal an- 
cestor also expressed himself in symbolic form. The 
earliest written documents are symbolic writings. A sword 
signifies fight, a tree nature, lightning divinity, etc. The 
art of dream interpretation consists of transposing this 
symbolic language into everyday terms. 
What is the function of the dream? We pass over the 
old conception according to which the dream was merely 
a senseless play of mental elements; we disregard like- 
wise the ancient hypotheses which were based on the 
premise of an intervention of evil powers. We turn di- 
rectly to the theory of Freud, who regards the dream as a 
wish fulfillment. 
"Our relations to the world," 4 states Freud in his latest 
writing on dreams, "is from the outset such that we can- 
not endure it without a break. Therefore we withdraw 
from time to time into the primordial state,-that state 
which is characteristic of our intra-uterine existence. At 
least we create for ourselves an environment very close 
to it: warmth, darkness, and absence of stimuli. Some of 
us curl up and actually assume during sleep a position 
very close to that which is characteristic of the infant when 
resting within the mother-body. It looks as if the world 
does not possess us wholly as adults, it can lay claim only 
to two-thirds of us: for one-third of our existence we are 
4 A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Boni & Liveright, 
Publishers, New York. 158 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
as if we were yet unborn. Every rising in the morning is 
thus like a new birth." 
Hebbel has expressed the same thought more fittingly 
without recourse to the dubious notion of a sinking back 
into the intra-uterine state: "$leep is a sinking into one's 
self." I have expressed the same idea in my monograph, 
The Will to Sleep, as follows: "Sleep means reexperienc- 
ing one's past, forgetting one's present, and pre-feeling 
one's future." 
This one example from Freud's latest work is enough 
to show the one-sided character of his conception of 
dreams. The dream is and remains for him a wish ful- 
fillment. Into this procrustean bed of wish he wedges in 
every dream. Thus he neglects altogether the telepathic 
dreams which do not happen to fit in with his theory. 
He does not believe in telepathic dreams. But he brushes 
aside also all other dreams, which we must recognize as 
denoting warning or anxiety as well as the dreams which 
we may call "instructive." Anxiety is always for him 
the sign of a repressed wish. But knowing that the dream 
portrays the eternal warfare between craving and inhi- 
bition, the struggle of man with himself under his dual 
aspect as the heir of primordial instincts and as the rep- 
resentative of culture, we must look upon the dream as a 
picture of both sides of the combat, a dramatization in 
which the cravings as well as the inhibitions find pictorial 
representation, and in which even foreign thoughts may 
crop out through telepathic means. If one sees only the 
cravings, one may be easily led to the erroneous conception 
which I myself have held for a time, that the dream is 
merely a wish fulfillment. For back of every wish there 
always stands some craving: the sexual instinct, the nutri- 
tional instinct, the craving for power, for self-aggrandize- 
ment, etc. But if we investigate the inhibitions we find 
back of them also the influences of culture: warnings, 
preparation for the future, foreshadowings, religiosity 
and moral restrictions of every kind. MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
159 
Perhaps my conception will be more clear if I contrast 
it with Freud's in connection with a concrete illustration. 
In the work mentioned above Freud relates a peculiar 
dream and adds his interpretation. He states: 
"One of my patients had lost her father during the treat- 
ment. Since then she takes every opportunity to find him 
again in her dreams. In one of her dreams the father ap- 
pears in a certain connection . . . and says: 'It is a quar- 
ter past eleven, half past eleven, it is a quarter of twelve? 
Towards the solution of this strange dream feature the 
patient recalls merely that the father always wanted to 
see the children gather for their meals on time. That 
undoubtedly had something to do with the dream element 
in question but this association yields no light on its mean- 
ing. On account of certain considerations which arose 
in the course of the treatment the suspicion seemed justi- 
fied at the time that a carefully repressed, critical revulsion 
against the beloved and honored father had its share in this 
dream. Continuing further her associations, apparently 
in a direction remote from the dream proper, the subject 
relates that she had listened the day before to a lengthy 
psychologic discussion when a relative said: 'The primor- 
dial man lives in each of us!' We now think we under- 
stand her. That gave her an excellent chance to conjure 
into life once more her deceased father. She made him 
in the dream the primordial man, by having him call out 
the quarter hours for the noon meal. [Urmensch- 
Uhrmensch, savage-"Father Time," or lit., primordial 
man-clock man, a play on words !]" 
Any one finding this play of words between Uhrmensch, 
clock man, and Urmensch, primordial man, rather forced, 
will be informed by the genial master that the dream is 
capable of punning and wit. The dreamer wishes to see 
her father, and the obliging dream fulfills her wish. 
Therefore, a typical clear wish fulfillment-according to 
Freud. I would have conceived this dream as a warning. 
The death of her father had strongly influenced the patient 
and caused her thoughts to shift from worldly to super- 
mundane themes. She is interested in the question of life 160 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
after death. This earthly life must be but a preparation 
for the life eternal. It is as if the father cried out to her: 
"Life is short! Use your days well! Soon twelve bells 
will strike (the ghost hour). Soon your day will be over!" 
The flight of time is very ingeniously indicated by the 
progressive admonition: "a quarter past eleven, half past 
eleven, a quarter of twelve." Since the neurosis ex- 
presses the struggle between craving and repression under 
the form of an ailment, we may appreciate the patient's 
trouble. A power draws her towards indulgence and en- 
joyment and another pulls her in the direction of renun- 
ciation and self-control. The father appears as the rep- 
resentative of authority (also of the divine) and admon- 
ishes her : "Renounce all earthly joys and prepare thyself 
for God's judgment, for the life eternal. The day of 
judgment is near." 
But is this dream a wish fulfillment? If the father ap- 
peared in response to her wish, conjured up (hallucina- 
torily) by her yearning to see him again, would he have 
found no other words, no kindlier attitude, with which to 
approach his child ? I see in this dream merely the power 
of conscience. I sense the torturing anxiety, I note the 
racking regret over a life misspent or lost, I hear an an- 
guishing outcry which fills me with compassion. 
This dream is a warning and it foreshadows at the 
same time the subject's future. She will continue to wan- 
der on the path of asceticism and self-denial. Letters of 
flame proclaim in the subject's dream the approach of that 
end which overtakes every one. 
And-what about the character of the dream? It is 
a wish or a warning, according to the power (craving or 
inhibition) which pervades it. The dream seeks solutions 
for unsolvable problems. It is an apposition of past and 
present and a foreshadowing of the future. Its realm is 
inexhaustible and it is not to be encased within the narrow 
limits of a formula. The dream is in fact as inexhaustible 
as the riddle of man and yet as transparent as a man, pro- MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
161 
vided one does not start out with any preconceived notions. 
Are the thoughts of a person in the waking state reducible 
to a single formula ? Do we think merely in terms of wish 
fulfillment? This question is rendered superfluous when 
we take into consideration the factor of conscience alone. 
The dream is the stream of our mental life as it flows out 
of the unexplored depths through the filter of conscience 
and up to the level of awareness. 
Every falling asleep is a dying for the day. Every wak- 
ing up is a rebirth. The thought of death reveals itself 
in curious pictures in the dreams. Though we forget the 
fact of death during the day, and though the bustle of 
daily existence may stifle the voice of conscience, the dream 
brings back to our mind the eternal "memento mori!" 
Each one of us hears the admonishing voice: "It is a 
quarter of twelve!" And we hear it in the midst of our 
entangling wishes,-we hear the swan song in the midst 
of all the frivolous cravings. And thus we die many 
times, and we pass again and again through the last ac- 
counting-thus we look over our past critically, apprais- 
ingly, amidst fears and regrets. Every night provides a 
cleansing purgatory for our world of thoughts. Within 
us lies heaven and earth-within us judge and defendant 
alike. It is as if the ideal which we have shifted to in- 
finity at night finds the path back to us again, as if we 
are trying every night to overcome once more the demons 
which incite us from one indulgence to another and which 
fill our childish heart with envy and with feelings of re- 
venge, with treacherous self-seeking and forbidden crav- 
ings. And every dream dramatizes plastically this bitter 
combat, every dream is a proof that humanity strives to 
grow out of itself and up towards unsuspected heights. 
In Grillparzer's 6 wonderful drama, Traum ein Leben, we 
6 Tide. Analysis of this drama in my: Poetry and Neurosis, 
Contributions to the Psychology of the Artist and of Creative 
Activity. English version by Dr. James S. Van Teslaar has ap- 
peared serially in The Psychoanalytic Review and will be published 
shortly as a monograph. 162 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
find a wonderful expression of this function of the dream 
as a warning, as a picture of the struggle between craving 
and inhibition. The artist has furnished us in this poetic 
drama the key to the understanding of dreams. 
But we must be grateful to Freud for having shown us 
the path leading into the realm of dreams and for having 
been the first to penetrate with the pioneer's keen eye the 
veil which has kept the dream a secret. Today the in- 
terpretation of dreams has become an indispensable aid in 
the practice of psychotherapy. Any one intending to be 
helpful as a psychotherapeutist must familiarize himself 
with the art of dream interpretation. 
It is not an easy art to acquire. It requires special 
training and a great deal of patience. It involves careful 
testing for one's self of the results thus far gained until 
one acquires the requisite knowledge and conviction 
through personal observation and experience. 
The proper schooling for the interpretation of dreams 
involves an appropriate new conception of language, the 
keen tracing of double meanings and familiarity with sym- 
bolisms and with the processes of dream distortion. 
The role of symbolism in human life is not yet suffi- 
ciently appreciated. "All art is symbolism," states 
Feuchtersleben. "The most important task of my career," 
states Hebbel, speaking as an artist, "I regard the sym- 
bolization of my inner life." Symbolism pervades all our 
existence. Language, customs, beliefs and thoughts are 
more or less cryptic symbolisms. 
Without knowledge of symbolism the interpretation of 
dreams is an impossible task. 
The proper training for dream interpretation consists of 
learning to read aright its language, of tracing the double 
meanings and of becoming familiar with the symbolisms 
and processes of dream distortion. 
The significance of symbolism in human life is still but 
insufficiently recognized. "All art is but symbolism" 
states Feuchtersleben. "The most important task of my MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
163 
career," declares Hebbel, "I regard the symbolization of my 
inner life" Symbolism pervades all our life. Language, 
customs, peculiarities, thoughts-all are more or less 
hidden symbolisms. To Rudolf Kleinpaul belongs the 
credit of having shown up the tremendous significance of 
symbolism, through his various works, particularly, his 
Sprache ohne Worte (Language without Words) and his 
more elaborate work entitled, Das Leben der Sprache 
(Leipzig, Wm. Friedrich, 1888). 
What is truly a symbol ? 
Riklin states:6 
"A symbol is a sign, an abbreviation for something more 
elaborate. When I look over a railroad time table and find 
a 'postal sign' in the form of the familiar horn mark, 
against the name of a station, it enables me to know that the 
station has postal connections with places not on that line. 
"But the symbol stands for more than that. Why does 
not some other sign stand for postal connections in the 
railroad time guide? The postal horn is something that 
originally belonged to the postal service. Although no 
longer an essential part of that service it was formerly 
one of its most conspicuous signs, impressive both to the 
eye and to the ear. Thus we find here two additional fea- 
tures which belong to the symbol. The sign chosen for a 
symbol stands in associative inner, as well as outer, rela- 
tionship to the thing it signifies and is meaningful. It is 
particularly fitting as a symbol on account of its history 
and development in connection with the thing it signifies, 
although its importance in that connection is not without 
its fluctuations. At the present time we no longer have 
the long-distance drivers lustily blowing their horn. But 
the horn persists as a sign in the railroad time guides, in 
military service denoting the field postal station, and in 
various other connections. 
"Usually the concept symbol embodies also something 
6 Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde, II, Franz Deutike, 
Wien u. Leipzig, 1909. 164 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
mystical (or mysterious). Symbols are frequently used 
as signs of recognition among members of secret organiza- 
tions, as for instance, the signs among the Freemasons. 
The 'mysterious' feature consists of the fact that only the 
initiated is familiar with the meaning of the sign. That 
was the case, for instance, with the Runic Characters, 
which only certain persons could read; that, too, is what 
lends churchly ceremonials their power of impressing the 
human sensitive mind. Developmental history and the 
changes in meaning incidental thereto are enough to ob- 
scure the true meaning of the symbol to all but the initiated. 
"Because the symbol is only a sign, only a part of the 
original thing which it stands for, in the course of its 
developmental history it may gradually assume varied 
significance and stand for a number of things: the postal 
horn may be variously taken, in a psychologic sense, and 
may mean any one of a number of things according to the 
locality, or circumstances: it may mean 'junction' when 
placed against the station name in a railroad time guide, 
or 'postal connection' when found in a circular. In a dis- 
tant mountain village it means one thing, on a uniform 
sleeve it stands for something else. 
"This indication of possible meanings shows that the 
sign or symbol stands for a summation or fusion of all 
the possible associations. It is characteristic of the dream 
symbol, for instance, that it takes in thousands of asso- 
ciation paths. This leads to many-sidedness and the 
'shadowy sense' of the symbol lends itself, for that reason, 
to a number of plausible interpretations. Any one who 
is not experienced and does not know the symbol in all 
its possible applications, may interpret it falsely or only in 
a sense with which he happens to be familiar. The Bible, 
for instance, has the advantage-and disadvantage at the 
same time-of containing numerous symbols which may 
be interpreted in any one of various ways." (Wunscher- 
fiillung und Symbolik im Marchen.} 
Without a knowledge of symbolism the interpretation MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
165 
of dreams is impossible. The great fault of modern dream 
interpreters was precisely the fact that they knew nothing 
about symbolism. The ancients were further advanced 
in that respect. How impressive is the symbolism of 
dreams set forth in the Bible! And how completely 
rounded out appears the symbolism of Artemidoros of 
Daldis, whose book entitled The Symbolism of Dreams is 
worthy of the modern psychoanalyst's attention.7 
Before beginning to describe the art of dream interpre- 
tation proper let us turn our attention briefly to the Bible 
dreams and to the Greek art of interpretation. I know 
no more fitting examples for introducing the subject of 
dream symbolism. 
The best known is the dream interpretation of Joseph, 
found in the first book of Moses. Joseph owed his high 
position entirely to his extraordinary ability to interpret 
properly his master's dreams. The first dream which he 
told his brothers was : 
(i) We tied sheafs on the field and my sheaf stood 
upright; and your sheafs bowed before my sheaf. 
The brothers at once interpreted the dream to mean 
that Joseph will surpass them: "Shalt thou be our king 
and rule over us?" Even we children of this age could 
not interpret the dream otherwise. Only we are able to 
conclude from it that it is the dream of an ambitious 
person. And since ambition carries one far, especially 
when one is endowed with the necessary wisdom and with 
indefatigable energy, we are justified to surmise favorable 
augury regarding the future of any one whose youth is 
filled with such dreams.8 
7 There is an excellent German translation of this work by 
Friedr. S. Krauss (Hartleben, Vienna, 1881). Unfortunately, the 
most significant portion, The Symbolism of the Sexual Processes, 
has been omitted. Dr. James S. Van Teslaar's English version is 
an unabridged rendering from the original text. 
8 In modern dreams "ambition" is symbolized by modern means: 
the ambitious person flies high above the heads of others in a 166 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
The second of Joseph's dreams also denotes similar 
ambition: 
(2) I thought the sun and the moon and the eleven stars 
bowed before me. 
This dream led to his supposed perdition and was the 
beginning of his miraculous good luck. Equally remark- 
able are Joseph's further interpretations of dreams: 
(3) The seven ugly starved cows, which eat up the seven 
fat cows 
he genially interpreted as seven years of famine which 
were to follow seven years of abundance. 
These interpretations exhibit a remarkable grasp of 
dream symbolism. 
The art of dream interpretation was similarly developed 
among the Greeks, and I quote two examples from 
Artemidoros (loc. cit., p. 236) : 
Some one dreamed of being tied with a chain to 
the post of Poseidon. He became a priest of Poseidon; for 
in that position he could not get away from the holy place. 
This glimpse into the future is as clever as the next 
prophecy of Artemidoros which I shall presently relate. 
No one becomes a priest who did not first wish it, unless 
he were coerced. . . . 
The second dream from the work of Artemidoros shows 
a symbolism to which we will have occasion frequently to 
revert. In that dream picture the sexual is represented 
as flesh: the sensuous in man, through the animal flesh. 
(3) Some one dreamed of seducing and sacrificing his 
own wife, of bartering with and offering her flesh for sale, 
and that he earned a great sum thereby. Thereupon he 
dreamed that he was very joyful over it and he attempted 
to hide the money he had gained, on account of the jeal- 
ousy of those around. 
"That man eventually sold his own wife and made 
balloon, aeroplane, or according to the good old fashion, as an 
angel. Sometimes the flight through air is carried on without 
wings, merely by swaying the limbs or the body. MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
167 
money out of the shameful deed. That source of income 
proved very profitable, but he found it necessary to keep 
the matter from any one's knowledge." 
In the case of that man, too, wish was father to the 
thought-and that, long before the deed. He first dreamed 
what he lacked the courage of carrying out. As he could 
look upon the dream as an order from the gods, that 
dream led to a course of action which he might have 
adopted even in the absence of the dream. Possibly only 
in a short time. The dream is a dream of impatience. 
The dreamer can hardly wait to sell his wife and acquire 
the gain. 
From the art of dream interpretation of the East one 
might also draw some excellent examples. I limit myself 
to one account of a jest of Buadem (literally "that man"), 
a name which, according to Dr. Miillendorf, is only a 
pseudonym devised by Mehemed Tewfik, the publisher, for 
the well-known Jester-Poet, Nassr-ed-din. This Turkish 
Eulenspiegel is supposed to have "flourished" during the 
fourteenth century. 
Buadem was not quite five or six years of age, when he 
related the following dream to his father: 
(6) "Father, last night I have seen fancy cakes in my 
dream" 
"My son, that has a good meaning." (Jokingly): "Give 
me ten paras (the smallest monetary unit current in Con- 
stantinople) and I will interpret the dream for you." 
"If I had ten paras, I would not be dreaming of cakes." ' 
Let us now take a long jump all the way into the six- 
teenth century and turn our attention to a dream of the 
famous physician, philosopher and mathematician, Car- 
danus, author of a book, De Somniis, and whose faith in 
the prophetic truth of his dreams was so unshakable that 
he chose his wife, the daughter of a highway robber, after 
a resemblance with a face he had seen in dreams; the 
9 Die Schwanke des Nassr-ed-din und Buadem. Reklam Bib- 
liothek, 2735. 168 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
dream had prophesied for him the awakening of his pas- 
sion, previously dormant, in that particular woman's com- 
pany. He had been impotent up to his thirty-fourth year. 
That an impotent man should crave entrance into the 
"garden of love" any one may easily understand. Here is 
how Cardanus relates the story: 
(7) One night I found myself in a beautiful garden of 
flowers and fruit. A soft air pervaded everything so that 
no painter, no poet, no human thought could have con- 
jured up anything more charming. I was at the entrance 
to that garden. The gate was open and I saw a girl clad 
in white. I embraced and kissed her; but at the very first 
kiss the gardener bolted the gate close. I begged him most 
fervently to leave the gate open. It seemed to me that I 
felt sad about it and I was still clinging to the girl when 
I was locked out. 
What is a man of rich imagery likely to dream about 
when the garden of love closes on him? This beautiful 
example shows us the day wish in a symbolism but partly 
covered up. But the symbolism is not always so obvious 
and plain as in this example. Often the whole dream is 
devoted to a symbolic dramatization. I want to avoid for 
the present the more complicated problems which we shall 
have to consider later. I shall merely quote an example 
from Freud's Interpretation of Dreams showing how the 
dream expresses colloquialisms through pictures. 
A lady dreams: 
(8) A servant girl climbs on the ladder, as if preparing 
for window cleaning and carries a chimpanzee and a 
gorilla cat (later corrected to angora cat) with her. She 
throws the animals at the dreamer; the chimpanzee clings 
to the latter, who finds this very disagreeable. 
"This dream has achieved its end through the simplest 
of means, namely, by taking a colloquialism literally and 
representing the picture to which it gives rise. 'Monkey,' 
like almost any animal name, is a derogatory term, and 
the dream situation merely depicts the colloquialism 'mit MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
169 
Schimpfworten um sich werfen,' 'hurling insult' " (Inter- 
pretation of Dreams, translated by Brill.) 
Occasionally we are compelled thus to reduce the situa- 
tions and pictures of a dream back to Redewendungen, 
"colloquialisms." The dream takes words in a literal 
sense; we must conceive the processes pictorially. That 
requires a special art and particular practice. Both must 
be acquired. 
In order to illustrate what I have just stated I record 
now a brief dream with a very significant content. Beta,10 
a man suffering from anxiety, has the following dream: 
(9) I see before me a large wooden picture of the 
Christ. I take a chip out of it. 
This dream is also to be understood in a symbolic sense. 
The dreamer is still a believer at heart, even strongly so, 
though outwardly a fanatic free thinker. The day before 
the dream he had read a book, entitled La Folie de Jesus 
(The Insanity of Jesus).11 Suddenly he had to give up 
the reading. He is unable to state why. It was a com- 
pulsive-like act. Like a commandment: Now, quit read- 
ing! The deeper reasons for this compulsion-like act are 
revealed in this dream. Er hat sich etwas gegen seine 
Gottheit herausgenommen [a German colloquialism not 
unlike our "chip on the shoulder" expression]. 
The further significance of this dream and the relation- 
ship between anxiety and wish need not be taken up at 
this time. For the present I have merely attempted to 
indicate in a few general lines the foundations of dream 
symbolism. The understanding of symbolism forms the 
basis of dream interpretation. We have had even before 
Freud some intimation of the role of symbolism in human 
10 For the subjects whose dreams are repeatedly quoted I have 
adopted substitutive designations in the form of Greek letters. The 
names of all persons are changed so as to make their recognition 
impossible. That is a strong disadvantage in a work of this 
character. But it cannot be done otherwise. Discretion is the 
first duty of the psychotherapeutist. 
11 Dr. Binet-Sangle, La Folie de Jesus (Paris, Maloine, 1908). 170 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
life. Schubert and Kleinpaul, for instance, have dwelt on 
the symbolic conception of life as a whole. These inves- 
tigators have also boldly pointed out the sexual symbolism. 
Is it not remarkable that our language [the author here 
refers, naturally, to the German] distinguishes words 
according to their gender? 
When we take up the dream analysis we are impressed 
with the far-reaching extent of our symbolic thinking and 
particularly of sexual symbolism. In the dream anything 
oblong may represent the penis and any round object may 
stand for the vagina. But is that the case only in dreams? 
One should consult what Kleinpaul has to say on the sub- 
ject in his work entitled Das Leben dor Sprache, already 
mentioned, particularly the chapter on Die Psychopathia 
Sexualis des Volkes (loc. cit., vol. ii, p. 490). He points 
out that language as a whole is sexualized and symbolized. 
Language is full of sexual symbols. 
"Indeed, the human race is love-mad," says Kleinpaul. 
"Whichever way we turn we meet perpetually her phan- 
tasy, half morbidly, half foolishly centered on the sexual 
sphere. The race seems to have lost its reason! It can- 
not put the male and female out of its mind, it cannot 
see an elevation or a hole without thinking of sex-and 
if it is a tower in which prisoners are languishing away, 
it is called 'il maschio di Volterra.' 
"The iris is called 'das Mddchen des Anges' literally, 
the 'girl of the eye,' not because of any resemblance to a 
girl. The iris itself is a girl. Because it has a hole in 
the middle-no anatomy is needed for that-the black 
mid-spot in the middle of the eye looks like a hole. Hole, 
trypa, Tpuna, trou, in all languages is the name for woman, 
so also in Genesis (i. 27) ; and because the eye is small, 
it was regarded as a little girl. 
"Reflection or thought assumes this erotic bent particu- 
larly when something fits into a hole, like the foot into 
the shoe, or the knife into the sheath,-when things come 
in pairs and one sticks into the other. All such 'paired' MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
171 
things evoke the 'great luck' of sexual beings, sexual union, 
-that which is called lingam in the Ganges region. 
" 'Qual Buco, tai Cavicchio? is an Italian proverb, or, as 
Fischart once remarked, 'es war eben ein Zapff fur diese 
Flasch, denn faul Eyer und stinkent Blitter gehbren 
zusammen'-'the right stopper for the bottle, for bad 
eggs and rancid butter belong together'; a popular Ger- 
man saying expresses the same thought: 'Auf jedes 
Tbpchen gehbrt sein Deckelchen'-'every vessel has its 
cover.' Numberless technical expressions can be ex- 
plained only through their reverberation of the old Adam 
and Eve theme. The numerous mothers, matrices, etc., 
in the various technical industries have the same origin. 
"Mutter, Nonne, Weib and Schneke, mother, nun, fe- 
male, screw; on the other side Vater, Monch and Mann, 
father, monk and male, represent here only the important 
parts. There is deep significance in such terms: monk 
and nun. Often it happens the male half bears also a 
particularly significant name, like stamp, or spindle, while 
the typically female parts are poetically covered up. The 
screw seems to imply a marital relationship (spindle and 
female)." 
, Truly, Kleinpaul's statement is correct: Language is full 
of sexual symbols. 
In fact, it is enough to perceive the true spirit of the 
language in order to interpret quite a number of dreams. 
A young boy, sixteen years of age, whose father is a 
famous artist and a very popular Don Juan much admired 
by the ladies, tells me the following dream: 
(io) Father finds "various holes in the rooms. I am 
worried becaitse he alone wants to stop them up. 
When I asked him why it worried him, he answered. 
"Because father took all that trouble alone. I could help 
him. That is not a suitable task for so great an artist." 
He rationalizes his dream-to use the fitting expression 
of Jones. But we prefer to take the dream literally. The 
young man is an Alexander who is worried because Philip 
leaves him nothing to conquer. All the women in the house 172 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
worship the father: the mother, the aunt, the French 
teacher, the secretary. He suspects the father of rela- 
tions grossly sexual-perhaps with good reason. The 
holes in the walls are to be taken in Kleinpaul's literal 
sense. 
We began with the general neutral symbolisms-the 
sheafs in the field 12 and already we find ourselves in the 
midst of erotic symbolism. That is inevitable in the case 
of dream interpretation. Whoever takes up the subject 
must be prepared to meet the issue. 
I may mention here another forerunner of Freud's- 
the well-known investigator of dreams, Scherner,13 who 
has conceived the hypothesis that all dreams are generated 
by bodily sensations. This theory has proven altogether 
untenable. Nevertheless its founder formulated a fairly 
correct view of sexual symbolism. Some details may ap- 
pear ridiculous. But facts lose none of their significance 
merely because they seem ridiculous. 
Regarding sexual symbolism Scherner wrties: 
"Sexual excitation is symbolized by representations of 
the erect organ itself or by pictures and phantasy actions 
which arouse desire for sexual gratification. But here, 
too, we meet the masked formulations as preserved by the 
plastic art of the phantasy. For instance, one finds on 
the street while on the way to a particular spot, the stem 
of a clarinet, near by, the similar portion of a pipe, a 
penny whistle, or a piece of fur. (The stem of clarinet 
or whistle represents unmistakably the form of the male 
organ, the pipe-like configuration of the found object cor- 
responding to the similar form of the external male sexual 
organ; but the found objects are always double, on ac- 
count of the character of the excitation of the double organ 
12 Joseph's dream may also lend itself to another-an erotic 
interpretation. Dreams of "greatness," and the wish for extraor- 
dinary potence often go hand in hand. Paranoiacs with delusions 
of grandeur often claim they have a thousand wives, a thousand 
sons, etc. 
13 Das Leben des Traumes. Heinrich Schindler, Berlin, 1861. MEANING. OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
173 
of vision, which is primarily involved in the act of finding 
the respective objects. Finally the fur piece in question 
stands for the pubic hairs, just as the brush stands for 
eyebrows and eyelashes, instead of the symbolically more 
fitting brush; finding the three pictures together means the 
conjunction of the objects represented through them). Or 
as the result of bladder stimuli one finds a curiously 
crumpled up short stem or cigarette holder which por- 
trays the collapse of the whole male external apparatus. 
More clearly delineated appears to be the symbolism de- 
noting states of sexual tension, such as usually follow 
urinary stimuli, the clearer symbolic expression corre- 
sponding to the sharper degree of stimulation. For in- 
stance, one sees through a clump of trees under which one 
is standing a near-by tower of great height, and one won- 
ders that the highest peak of the familiar tower (an object 
known in reality) is crumpled up, and observing the round 
cupola below, the impression is gained that a second peak 
(nothing corresponding to reality) must have flattened 
out down there; while thus watching attentively, the 
dreamer sees himself standing under women, or he sees 
them step over him. The high tower represents the ten- 
sion of the active organ, its peak seems crumpled or flat- 
tened, corresponding to the uppermost portion of the sex- 
ual apparatus; phantasy seeks forcefully to find two towers 
where only one exists in reality, in order thus to express 
the parity of the lower organ; it suggests the vision of a 
high tower through the undergrowth, because the active 
organ in erection stands forth in the midst of the sur- 
rounding pubic hair (underbrush). Tower, peak, double 
ball, cupola, underbrush, together express a composite 
thought, because fantasy fuses all pictures in one. . . ." 
{Das Leben des Traumes, p. 197.) 
The next dream is that of an unmarried thirty-year-old 
woman: 
(n) Papa goes around cutting off all the leaf ends to 
all the plastic figures in the room. I am angry at that and 
want to prevent it. I am thinking: has he turned crazy? 
The girl tells us that her father was always terribly 174 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
jealous. He did not allow her so much as to shake hands 
with a strange man. Young men never called at the house. 
She could not attend a dance. That is how she remained 
unmarried. 
This dream we may also take in a literal sense. The 
father removes all ends, he thus prevents her from having 
an opportunity to become familiar with a phallus. In the 
dream she finds courage to tell him what she, unfortu- 
nately, has never dared say to him in actual life. She was 
the obedient type of daughter. There comes to her mind 
a figure protected in front with the usual fig leaf. We 
note the circumlocution so characteristic of dream thoughts. 
Why that covering? What was the fig leaf for-if the 
ends are clipped off ? She notes how senseless her father's 
conduct seemed to be. She is struck by the peculiar 
(crazy) feature of his conduct. 
We thus perceive in connection with two different 
dreams the symbolic meaning of "hole" and of "end" or 
tip. The language of dreams makes use of the cryptic 
forces which have created our everyday language. 
That symbolism holds true not only of dreams. It is 
equally valid in connection with stories, myths, folklore, 
and wit. 
The symbolism of fairy stories is particularly clear. 
Dream and story ! What wonderful association! What 
the children experience, the adults dream about. New 
principles are being evolved. We transpose the old truths 
and now declare: the obverse is true: what the adults 
experience, the children dream about. That is not a mere 
play on words. 
Freud has furnished us the key to the meaning of 
dreams. Dr. Franz Riklin tries to apply that key to the 
investigation of the charming realm of fairy stories. And 
lo! the attempt proves successful. It turns out that the 
fairy stories of children bear an intimate inner relation- 
ship to the dreams of adults, that they are pervaded 
through and through with a cryptic sexual symbolism the MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
175 
significance of which presents no particular difficulty. 
The Wunscherfiillung und Symbolik im Marchen (Wish 
Fulfillment and Symbolism of the Fairy Story) by Riklin, 
proves that the fairy story has a cryptic sexual meaning. 
The fairy story, too, like the dream, represents a "wish 
fulfillment" in Freud's sense. 
The simple fairy stories represent relatively simple folk 
wishes. Riklin brings a number of excellent illustrations. 
Who is not familiar with the charming Mdrlein in Bech- 
stein's famous collection of fairy stories? A mother 
weeps three days and three nights over her most deeply 
beloved child. At night the door opens softly and the 
deceased child appears in its nightgown carrying the little 
tear vessel in which all the mother's tears are gathered u^, 
A few more tears and the little vessel is filled to over- 
flowing and the child attains peace and quiet. "There- 
fore, weep no more, for thy child is well taken care of 
and little angels are its playmates I" The child disappears. 
The mother avoids shedding more tears. The child must 
not be disturbed in its heavenly peace! Riklin very prop- 
erly observes that the story could equally well be an actual 
dream of some particular person. But it happens not to 
be an account of a particular experience; this curative 
means (consolation) has become a generalized, psychically 
purposive belief-namely, that excessive tears disturb the 
peace of those who have passed away! That is not a 
notion helpful to the dead but it is helpful to the living. 
The same motive is played up in numerous variants: in 
the Japanese story about the Nun of the Temple of 
Armida; in another German version by Grimm as Todt- 
enhemdchen; in the New Islandic Folk-tales, edited by 
Ritterhaus. Everywhere the wish of the adults to be rid 
of their worry sooner reveals itself as the cryptic motive 
of the weaver of the fairy story. 
The sexual symbolism reveals to us the character of the 
story even more penetratingly than the principle of wish 
fulfillment. Here we first learn that the adults tell the 176 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
child chiefly what they themselves prefer to hear. Natu- 
rally they do so in symbolic, that is, masked, form. 
We underrate the significance of symbolic acts and of 
symbolic representations in our everyday life. As a mat- 
ter of fact, existence is inconceivable without symbols. 
Riklin states: "Is not almost every word a symbol? The 
writing signs are symbols, the words are symbols, our 
mimicry, our gestures are in great part symbolic. A 
geographic chart is a symbol. Noteworthy are the mean- 
ingful abstract symbols: God's eye; the scales (as, of jus- 
tice, for instance); the cross; the color symbols: black, 
red; the symbolism of uniforms, etc." 
What tremendous power belongs in the first place to 
the sexual symbol! It pervades our whole life. There 
is no object, which under certain circumstances may not 
represent a sexual symbol. A particular intonation, a 
deliberate gesture, a wink of the eye accompanying an 
innocent remark may give the latter a "double meaning." 
Sexual symbolism is the key which unravels for us the 
various myths of the different races. Also the religious 
formulations. A striking example of the latter we have 
in the concept of the snake, which plays also a great role 
in folklore. A snake seduced Eve in paradise. The snake 
appears to young girls (Oda and the Snake, Bechstein), 
and when the latter overcome their revulsion and take the 
cold snake into their bed . . . the snake suddenly changes 
into a wonderful prince who had been bewitched. The 
slippery, cold, ugly snake is a sexual symbol, like the ugly 
toad, which climbs into the bed of the king's daughter 
(Der Froschkonig and Der Anne Heinrich, of Grimm). 
Here, too, the overcoming of disgust is rewarded with the 
presence of a wonderful prince. Further illustrations of 
this type may be found in Riklin's work already men- 
tioned. 
What the fairy stories mean to the individual, that the 
folk story or myth represents in its relations to the folk 
mind. The myth is a folk dream and contains in a cryptic MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
177 
symbolic language an expression of the unconscious wish- 
excitations and fulfillment-hallucinations of the folk mind. 
The myth, too, contains a more or less cryptic, sometimes 
fairly overt and rather obvious, sexual symbolism which 
is remarkably like the similar dream symbolism-a fact 
convincingly brought out by Abraham in his interesting 
study in folk psychology entitled Traum und My thus 
(Dream and Myth). 
The study of these myths has long been assiduously 
cultivated by the folk-psychologists who justifiedly ex- 
pected to find through them a path towards a better under- 
standing of the mental life of the various people. Just as 
dreams disclose the secret thoughts of the individual man, 
so myths must disclose in unmistakable manner the ideals 
and wishes of the people. It turns out that a number of 
myths which have appeared at different times among the 
most varied nations on earth show^a remarkable similarity 
between them so that some investigators were led to con- 
clude that the formation of myths depends on mental 
processes common to all mankind. On the other hand, 
many other investigators held that the similarity of myths 
is due to transference-a borrowing or transferring of 
the same myth material. What was lacking until recently 
in the investigation of the problem of myths was an ap- 
preciation of the parallels between the process of myth 
formation and the mental life of the individual. The 
bridging over of the two realms of inquiry-the world of 
individual dreams and the sphere of folk dreams as repre- 
sented in myths, represents a gigantic step forward. 
It is pleasing to record that the connecting links between 
the social and the individual activities of the psyche have 
been successfully revealed at least in one limited field, 
namely, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, in a study 
under that title, by Otto Rank, to whom we were already 
indebted for another excellent study, The Artist (Der 
Kunstler, Wien und Leipzig, 1907). Rank points out 
very convincingly the similarities between the phantasies 178 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
of individuals and the folk phantasies as revealed in a 
series of birth myths. 
We want to lay stress on the mere fact of this paral- 
lelism : for dreams and myths, fairy and traditional stories 
present the same kind of psychic structure. One may 
contend that the myths about heroes were conceived orig- 
inally by poets, while fairy stories are creations of the 
poetic genius of the whole people. Such a contention may 
be met best with Hebbel's fitting words: in den Dichtern 
traunit die Menschheit-mankind drcams throiigh its 
poets. 
An almost inexhaustible fund of material for symbolism 
is to be found in the collections gathered by the well- 
known folklorist F. S. Krauss and his co-workers, and 
published under the title Anthropophyteia (Leipzig, 
Deutsche Verlagsaktiengesellschaft). The tremendous 
material gathered therein awaits systematic elaboration in 
the light of dream symbolism. Occasionally I shall refer 
to the similarities between folk language and the sym- 
bolism of dreams. The formations of wit, too, reveal to 
us the operations of the unconscious.14 
I have thus far indicated only a few simple examples 
illustrating the significance of sexual symbolisms. It is not 
possible to give an account of a dream analysis without 
touching on eroticism. There is, in fact, no anerotic dream. 
The power of the sexual instinct is so tremendous that 
it probably never leaves us out of its grip even for a few 
seconds of time. We shall see later, when we consider 
the subject of drowsing, of hypnagogic pictures (dream 
pictures before falling asleep, or just before fully waking 
up-during the so-called "twilight" states), that the sexual 
instinct is momentarily ready to take possession of man's 
psyche. 
The symbolism of dreams is chiefly sexual. If in the 
pages of this work the erotic plays a predominating role 
44 Freud, Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. Translated 
by Brill. Moffat, Yard Co. MEANING OF THE DREAM SYMBOLISM 
179 
it is not my fault. I cannot do otherwise than present the 
material as it reveals itself. 
There is another determinant which plays a tremendous 
role in the dream life: the criminal tendency. The cryptic 
criminality within us reveals itself in our dream. But the 
criminal tendency stands nearly always in the service of 
the sexual. Perhaps every criminal is a sexual criminal- 
possibly. In the chapters which follow I expect to prove 
that the investigator is not responsible for the presence of 
the erotic features. We do not lay stress on it delib- 
erately. It is there. Whoever is endowed with unencum- 
bered eyes cannot fail to see that symbolism plays the most 
important role in our mental ilfe. 
Why do persons make free use of symbolism in wit- 
ticism and why do they usually display such a keen appre- 
ciation of the symbolic shadings of meaning employed by 
the flirt ? Hitschmann15 rightly observes that, "in the cyn- 
ical gathering of males at festivities, or at cabarets, or on 
reading the humorous papers the same persons usually 
display sufficient insight into sexual symbolism." 
What would be the sense of avoiding these facts of life 
simply because we do not like them ? This work is a rec- 
ord of facts. . . . 
The ancient, eternal struggle between instinct and 
society, between mine and thine (Gross) does not cease 
in the dream. The wish fulfillment, postulated by Freud, 
may also be a wish fulfillment of the moral self. 
But there are many dreams which do not fit within the 
range of wish fulfillment, even though we conceive the 
"conscience dreams" as wishes of the moral self. There 
are, above all, the telepathic dreams: no objective inves- 
tigator can doubt any longer their occurrence or validity.18 
16 Hitschmann, Freud's Theories of the Neuroses. Translated 
by Charles R. Payne. Moffat, Yard & Co., New York. 
16 Stekel, The Telepathic Dream, translated by Van Teslaar. SOME MECHANISMS WHICH DISTINGUISH 
THE CROWD FROM OTHER FORMS OF 
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR1 
Everett Dean Martin 
Director of the People's Institute (New York) 
Social psychology may profitably adapt to its own uses 
the knowledge of abnormal behavior possessed by the 
psychopathologist. There is much group behavior which 
shows a lack of adjustment to social situations very simi- 
lar to that of certain neuroses. Without entering upon 
the discussion of the question of the therapeutic value of 
the Freudian method of psychoanalysis, it is safe to say 
that we are greatly indebted to Freud for such knowledge 
as we possess concerning the determinants of many well 
recognized types of individual maladjustment to environ- 
ment. Much of Freud's terminology has met with severe 
criticism at the hands of psychologists whose training has 
been confined to the laboratory. Some of his basic con- 
cepts, notably that of the unconscious, have likewise be- 
come controversial subjects among psychologists. But 
from a pragmatist point of view, the unconscious is at any 
rate a most valuable fiction, an assumption which throws 
light upon many mental phenomena. Freud's method of 
tracing the causal connections between symptoms and cer- 
tain repressed, forgotten and unconscious impulses and 
experiences which are unacceptable to the consciousness 
of his patient, gives us a new insight into many forms of 
human behavior that could not be strictly termed psycho- 
pathic. 
1 Reprinted by courtesy of the author and his publishers, 
Harper and Brothers, New York. 
180 SOME MECHANISMS 
181 
This is especially true in the case of group behavior. 
The same unconscious mechanisms which cause the un- 
adjusted individual to be out of harmony with his fellows 
may on occasion lead a group of men to forms of behavior 
which are in the true sense anti-social. The term "anti- 
social" is somewhat ambiguous. In one sense any reaction 
to the human beings in one's environment is social be- 
havior, and anti-social behavior is that in which human 
fellowship plays no part, being present neither in the stim- 
ulus nor as a factor which modifies the mode of response. 
If we exclude certain very simple reflexes, it is doubtful 
if there is anti-social behavior in this sense. Certainly 
most so-called egoistic actions have social significance, since 
the imagery through which the ego urge operates is socially 
acquired. In a second sense, the true sense, the term 
"anti-social" denotes those modes of behavior in which 
there is a failure in mutual adjustment. The paranoiac's 
delusion of grandeur, though the imagery which his wish 
fancy assumes involves factors of a social nature, is anti- 
social in the sense that the behavior which is motivated by 
his wish fancy fails to bring him into harmonious rela- 
tionships with his neighbors. Psychopathology finds in 
such behavior a criterion by which the normal may be dis- 
tinguished from the abnormal. 
Now unless we are content to regard any sort of social 
relationship as a norm, it would seem that we are justified 
in applying to groups of men the same criteria that are 
used to determine whether an individual is adjusted or 
unadjusted. There are many instances where the behavior 
of a group results in serious maladjustment toward the 
community as a whole. We do not hesitate to say that 
certain popular ideas are "crazy," or that the crowd on 
certain occasions "has lost its head," is "swept away by 
passion," is "hysterical." Thoughtful men know how 
little confidence may be placed in rumor and propaganda. 
When thousands of people visit the scene of a grewsome 
murder and carry away for souvenirs everything that is 182 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
loose, even the newspapers speak of such behavior as an 
exhibition of "morbid curiosity." Spasmodic reform 
movements are declared "quixotic." Strikes are con- 
demned because the behavior of those who participate in 
them frequently shows no "concern for the public." Rev- 
olutionary groups are said to be "intoxicated." Race riots 
and lynching mobs are regarded as "insane attacks upon 
law and order." 
Men with common sense have long regarded such phe- 
nomena as these as epidemic mental affections. Thus, I 
think, we may fairly say that there is a generally recog- 
nized distinction between that social behavior which re- 
sults in satisfactory adjustment and that which fails in 
this respect. To be sure, the social situation taken as a 
whole is never altogether satisfactory. There is always 
an element of struggle among the various factions, par- 
ties, cults, sects, or classes in the community. Each strug- 
gling group aspires to increased power and prestige, looks 
upon its imaginary future supremacy as a sort of millem 
nium, and watches its rivals, jealously regarding any ex- 
pression of their will to power as a social menace. Never- 
theless, there are recognized modes of adjustment between 
these rival groups which all cooperate in imposing upon a 
common rival and without which there could be between 
the factions in the community no social peace or stability. 
These recognized forms of behavior are the social con- 
trols which constitute any community a society. And it 
is by creating an abnormal social environment in which 
the indulgence in behavior of the sort inhibited by general 
social control is possible that a group becomes a crowd. 
Not every group is a crowd, in the psychological sense 
of the term. Popularly speaking, a crowd is a multitude. 
There are writers who use the word crowd to denote the 
many, the mass, the common people, the rabble as distin- 
guished from the superior few. Such writers tell us that 
the crowd is fickle, irresponsible, ignorant, easily swayed 
by oracularly uttered half-truths; incapable of discrimina- SOME MECHANISMS 
183 
tion, self-criticism or tolerance; given to enthusiasm and 
uncontrolled by reason. In other words, the crowd is the 
vulgus, the men in the street, the "lower classes." On the 
other hand, democrats are inclined to idealize the "crowd," 
and dwell upon its possibilities for good. But whether one 
hold the crowd in contempt or in good opinion is usually 
a mere class prejudice. 
Le Bon, to whom I believe we are indebted for the first 
serious attempt to understand the psychology of the crowd 
as a special subject of study, started out with such a social 
prejudice. To his mind, also, the demos was a dreadful 
sort of conglomerate beast which might unless held in 
check destroy the social order in an orgy of revolution. 
But in the effort to learn just what are the mental habits 
of this animal, Le Bon saw that almost any group, large 
or small, could at times act and think as a crowd. Thus 
crowd mentality was something which might happen to a 
group of people under certain conditions. The mere fact 
of their being present in large numbers was not enough to 
make them a crowd. Thus with Le Bon the psychology 
of the crowd becomes a study of those traits which are 
sometimes manifest in groups. The problem of the crowd 
becomes that of distinguishing crowd behavior from other 
forms of reaction to social situations. Le Bon thought 
that when a group became a crowd a sort of mysterious 
"collective mind" was created. Like Jung recently-if I 
understand Jung correctly-he held that personality was 
a sort of principle of individuation, a conscious achieve- 
ment which existed over or alongside of a "subconscous" 
principle which was common to us all and identical. This 
common humanity, Le Bon thought, consisted of certain 
reflexes and animal impulses which exist chiefly "in the 
spinal cord." Intellect, therefore, has nothing to do with it. 
When a group becomes a crowd, according to Le Bon, 
there is a stripping off of the layer of conscious person- 
ality along with all higher mental faculties. Hence the 
individual in the crowd descends several rungs in the lad- 184 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
der of civilization. He becomes more of an automaton. 
He is more a creature whose actions are governed by 
imitation and suggestion. He becomes at once credulous, 
passionate and irresponsible. All this results from the 
fact that the individual merges himself in an anonymous 
and impersonal whole. 
We need not pause to discuss Le Bon's theory; it is 
rather old-fashioned today, although much of it persists 
in different terminology in the writings of Trotter, McDou- 
gall and Jung. The point is that Le Bon, fanciful as his 
explanation may have been, was on the right track. He 
saw that the behavior of crowds is a special phenomenon 
of social psychology; that the thought and behavior of 
people in a crowd is different from that which we find in 
their ordinary social relationships. On this point Le 
Bon's thinking was essentially empirical. The facts of 
behavior justify such a distinction, and without it it is diffi- 
cult to see how a social psychology can be very significant. 
Let one who has a knowledge of psychopathology watch 
a mob in the making, listen to its orators, talk with men 
who are about to go out on a strike or have watched with 
sympathy the lynching of a negro, or let him study a move- 
ment like the communist party, prohibition, or a nation at 
war, or a religious revival; let him watch carefully a large 
popular audience and he will see men whose behavior has 
on the whole shown the customary adaptations to real 
situations, suddenly manifest symptoms which in an iso- 
lated individual he would at once recognize as compulsive 
or even paranoiac. 
I give as an illustration an episode in the political his- 
tory of New York City. In the fall of 1917, Mr. John 
P. Mitchel was candidate for reelection to the office of 
mayor. During his term in office, he had brought upon 
himself the bitter antipathy of certain religious groups as 
a result of a series of investigations into the management 
of certain charitable institutions. Moreover, Mr. Mitchel 
had given evidence that he favored America's entrance SOME MECHANISMS 
185 
into the World War, and as the candidate of the fusion 
party he had the support of those elements in the com- 
munity which the man in the street calls "highbrow." 
Now on none of these counts could the opposition make 
a public attack upon the Mayor. Although the matters 
to which I have referred were the real issues in the cam- 
paign, the main point of attack was made with an issue 
which at first sight appears irrelevant and insignificant. 
The opposition candidate attacked the educational policies 
of the administration, and the popular response was over- 
whelming. Because it was found that the school buildings 
in certain districts were overcrowded, while at the same 
time these buildings were only used to one-half of their 
capacity, the Board of Education, with approval of the 
Mayor, sent to Gary, Indiana, and brought to New York 
a man who had established there a system which appeared 
to be both economical and in accord with contemporary 
educational psychology. About thirty schools had been 
organized by the fall of 1917, and the newspapers had 
given these schools the name "Gary Schools." The word 
Gary suggested the United States Steel Corporation, and 
steel meant munitions, and munitions meant war. More- 
over, the newer educational methods were associated with 
the General Education Board of the Rockefeller Founda- 
tion, and the name Rockefeller meant big business, capi- 
talism. The Gary School issue was therefore an issue 
between designing capitalists and honest labor. In some 
of these schools, little shops were established in order that 
pupils might learn by doing. What purpose could such 
shops have but that of training nonunion workers who 
might therefore be able to take the places of union men 
if they should strike for their rights? 
Here we have two phenomena which are known to 
psychopathologists-substitution and rationalization. The 
Gary School because of certain unconscious associations 
with the war, and also with the inferiority complex which 
the working classes feel when they compare their lot with 186 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
that of the rich and the educated, was substituted for the 
real objects of resentment, since the latter could not be 
openly expressed. Again, the thought processes through 
which the evils of the "Gary Schools" were elaborated 
were mechanisms by which the opposition to our entrance 
into the war, and other things which the Mayor repre- 
sented, could be made to appear as justifiable opposition 
to "wicked capitalists." 
All the elements which disliked the Mayor for reasons 
which they could not consciously and openly express, could 
now express their dislike in the form of dislike of the 
"Steel Trust" and the Rockefellers, who were ostensibly 
plotting to corrupt the very foundation of this free repub- 
lic, the public school. A city-wide crowd was formed. 
Facts no longer counted. Those who tried to state the 
facts of the case were suspected of being "bought up" by 
the Rockefellers and the Steel Magnates. Violent hostility 
was manifested toward the entire educational system. 
School children were induced to "go on strike" against 
the evil system. I saw mobs of them, aided by their elders, 
all over New York, in districts where there was not a 
"Gary School" within five miles. Speakers who tried to 
tell the parents of the children that there were no Gary 
Schools near them were attacked on the streets and driven 
off. Men, thousands of them, who had never before 
shown the slightest interest in public education, amongst 
whom for three years the Gary Schools had existed with- 
out attracting their attention, suddenly became excited. 
The "little red school house"-a piece of imagery bor- 
rowed from rural communities which were wholly foreign 
to the experience of the city proletariat-suddenly became 
an ideal. Men were ready to fight for it, as they were for 
the sacredness of their mothers. They suddenly discovered 
that they wanted "old-fashioned" education, the kind that 
had produced Abraham Lincoln. They were "down on 
experts" and on "new-fangled ideas" and "wealthy foun- 
dations." After promising the crowd that the day after SOME MECHANISMS 
187 
he was elected "all the trains leaving New York City would 
be crowded with experts seeking employment elsewhere," 
Judge Hylan was elected Mayor by the largest majority 
that any one had ever received in the history of the city. 
When the election returns began to come in on the night 
of the election, the streets were literally filled with a 
shouting, ecstatic crowd, comparable only to that which 
we witnessed on Armistice Day. One would have thought 
that society had been redeemed. 
Consciously, the elation was joy in the triumph of 
democracy over plotting capitalists and their alleged re- 
tainers. Unconsciously, it was joy over a victorious ex- 
pression of opposition to our entering the war, over the 
apparent vindication of religious organizations whose 
charities had been subject to ridicule, over the victory of 
"lowbrows" over experts-"highbrows." The man in the 
street had elected to a great office a man like unto himself; 
he had showed the rich and the cultured "where they got 
off," and in the victory of one who represented himself, 
he felt that he too was triumphant over that element in 
the community which had caused him to feel .himself in- 
ferior. 
Here we have a protest against the feeling of inferiority, 
a mechanism of compensation, also a mechanism of escape 
through disguised forms, of impulses which were in con- 
flict with consciously accepted social ideals. This illustra- 
tion is typical of crowd behavior in all its forms. If we 
had space within the limitations of this paper, I could show 
that most of our political behavior, our social reform, our 
industrial class struggle, our religious revivals, our pa- 
triotism, and morality, are determined by psychic mechan- 
isms which are very similar to those which brought about 
the defeat of Mr. Mitchel. 
Wherever the crowd mind takes possession of a group 
of men, there is an all-or-none type of reaction, in which 
all sensible discrimination and third alternatives are 
brushed aside, and everything is just "utterly utter"- 188 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
wholly good or wholly bad. Always the true motive of 
group behavior is disguised. Always there is a propa- 
ganda of rationalization by means of which the unconscious 
motives are made to appear as devotion to lofty patriotic 
and moral principles. Always there is a disturbance of 
the function of the real, so that the situation reacted to 
is turned into a fictitious issue of some sort and the plain 
facts of the case are denied or ignored. Always certain 
repressed impulses find, through what I call justification 
mechanisms, an escape from social control. Always there 
is an egomania which is at bottom a protest against the 
feeling of inferiority. Always there is manifest an im- 
pulse toward hostile behavior, generally disguised as the 
vindication of some moral principle. Commonly one sees 
what psychopathologists call "projection"-an accusation 
of the prospective victim of crowd hatred of the very 
motives which impel the crowd itself. 
Freud has shown us that social control is a severe re- 
pressive force. Tendencies in the individual psyche, which 
are in conflict with its requirements, are unacceptable to 
his consciousness. They are "repressed" into the uncon- 
scious, automatically forgotten for the purpose of self- 
appreciation. In the unconscious, or unattended, these 
repressed impulses continue to make their presence felt, 
not however for what they are, but in disguised form. 
Hence between the latent content of the dream and its 
manifest content the censor is imposed. The dream is 
therefore a disguised symbolic expression of a wish fancy 
which is egoistic and anti-social, and the symptoms of the 
neuroses and the psychoses may be said to be likewise 
disguised expressions of repressed wishes. 
The psychopathic patient takes the solitary course in his 
effort to solve the conflict between his unconscious im- 
pulses and the conscious picture of himself which he has 
acquired in social experience. He strives to save that 
picture by disguising the significance of those impulses 
which are in conflict with it. SOME MECHANISMS 
189 
Now suppose that there were a group of persons who 
upon occasion found that they were impelled to action 
which was in conflict with social control ideas. Suppose 
they were all simultaneously impelled to give expression 
to some protest against the feeling of inferiority or to 
carry out some deed of violence. If a sort of unconscious 
conspiracy could be entered into so that the forms of 
social control which we customarily impose upon one 
another could be modified in such a way that the anti- 
social behavior could appear to be conformity to principle, 
then, obviously, each might permit his fellows to perform 
the anti-social deed with the tacit assumption that they 
would also approve it in his own behavior, and if principle 
could be so twisted as to become a plausible justification 
for such behavior, all present could indulge themselves 
with mutual and hence self-approval. We should have a 
mob, and all mobs however murderous, revolutionary or 
destructive, believe that their behavior is a vindication of 
some universal principle. A fictitious, temporary social 
environment is created in which anti-social behavior ap- 
pears to be social. This pseudo-social environment is made 
possible by the concentration of attention upon those great 
generalizations which are really the forms of rationaliza- 
tion for the forbidden wish. Crowd thinking seizes upon 
certain general principles and in the sequestered social 
environment it creates, makes them into justification 
mechanisms for the use of the repressed wishes of those 
present. This is why all propaganda takes on the appear- 
ance of virtuous devotion to abstract moral ideas. All 
demagogues and mob orators therefore speak platitudes 
because they thus easily catch the attention of all present 
and stir up the fewest resistances while at the same time 
they are using their platitudes as justifications for certain 
unconscious wishes of their hearers. 
Thus the lynching mob is concerned only with vindi- 
cating female chastity, the patriotic mob with resisting for- 
eign aggression, the reformist mob with saving the com- 190 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
munity from vice, the revolutionary mob with establishing 
social justice. It is interesting that with all such mobs 
the behavior of the group reveals the fact that the pro- 
fessed motive was only an irrelevant plausibility. The 
lynching mob forgets about chastity in the fun of killing 
its victim with moral approval; the reformist mob begins 
to disintegrate after its quixotic legislative triumph; the 
patriotic mob after overthrowing the foreign aggressor 
adopts his tyrannical customs; the revolutionary mob 
abandons "social justice" in the hour of its triumph and 
sets up a dictatorship of its own. 
Normally a man after participating in mob behavior 
"comes to," that is, the pseudo-social situation passes 
away, the normal social controls return and he sees his 
conduct in the light of his wider social habits. But in 
cases where there is a permanently unconscious interest 
which draws men together, the crowd mechanism may 
continue to operate for years and we have a crowd even 
though the members of the crowd are widely diffused and 
are only held together through such means as the press, 
occasional meetings, or the common acceptance of certain 
cult beliefs. These cult beliefs are at bottom only ration- 
alizations of wishes and of hypothetical situations which 
if ever realized would turn any crowd into an ordinary 
mob. The crowd differs from the mob therefore only in 
the fact that the former is hypothetical and potential; the 
latter does the thing, and gets it out of its system. 
There are three characteristics of the crowd mind, 
which so far as I can discover, are uniformly present, and 
these traits are interesting psychologically, first, because I 
think they help the student of society to distinguish the 
crowd from normal forms of social behavior, and, second, 
because they are strikingly analogous to the symptoms of 
paranoia, and are doubtless the outgrowth of similar un- 
conscious mechanisms. 
There is first the closed system of ideas which the crowd 
professes and which it substitutes for the facts of experi- SOME MECHANISMS 
191 
ence. With the paranoiac patient, this is symptomatic. 
It is his delusional system, his ideal world in which he 
takes refuge from the real, and in which he finds a fic- 
titious reality that is more congenial to his ego than is the 
world of fact. 
The crowd likewise has its fixed ideas, its propaganda, 
its dogma, its creed. It will not permit these ideas tO' be 
changed or modified by fact. To the crowd its "truth" is 
not a matter of hypothesis which is to be verified in expe- 
rience, it is a matter of principle which the crowd proposes 
to vindicate and thus humiliate its enemies. The crowd's 
truth is always a priori truth, any modification of which is 
regarded as an act of disloyalty to the group. And the 
vindication of the crowd's principle is not to be achieved 
by research and experimentation, but by the power of 
numbers or of direct action. The vindication is but the 
symbol of the crowd's own prospective victory and the 
whole system of crowd ideas is but the rationalization of 
its wish to do something which society inhibits. 
The paranoiac along with certain other psychopathic 
patients commonly has a delusion of grandeur. Psycho- 
pathology in recent years has had much to say about delu- 
sional systems of this nature. It is not necessary here to 
dwell upon the etiology of such delusions in narcissistic 
and autoerotic fixations. For the social psychologist it is 
sufficient that almost any sort of inferiority may give rise 
to a protest of some sort, or ideal compensation. The 
crowd is a great face-saving device. It helps men preserve 
their self-appreciation. The sense that one is a member 
of a like-minded multitude brings both consolation and a 
feeling of potential power through collective effort. And 
praise of the crowd to which one belongs is unconscious 
self-flattery. Moreover, the crowd commonly professes 
high moral motives-even in its basest actions. Hence 
one's crowd is the fellowship of the good, and the con- 
summation of its egoism, its proposed self-vindication and 
triumph is pictured as the salvation of society. It is a 192 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
great thing to be able to find that one's fellows approve 
that in him which is socially taboo, that together they may 
translate their own imagined rights into universal right- 
eousness. 
Thus in a crowd men will perform acts of exhibition, 
as for instance, marching in a parade dressed in fancy 
regalia when they would be too modest to do such things 
alone. And the group may claim a superiority for all its 
members which they could not claim for themselves. The 
Jews are God's chosen people; the Ku Klux Klan are the 
finest patriots; the Catholics are the true church of Christ; 
the Presbyterians are the elect; the prohibitionists are the 
"temperance people"; America is the land of the free and 
the home of the brave; the cause of the proletariat is the 
cause of humanity; the Republican Party alone has the 
ability to run the government, and the "boosters" of 
Gopher Prairie have the "finest little city on God's green 
earth" and all who do not think so are "knockers." As a 
rule, the farther men are removed from those circles of 
wealth and power which they envy, the more they find 
themselves lacking in those qualities to which they defer 
and regard as marks of superiority, the stronger is their 
tendency to strive to keep up a fiction of superiority with 
the aid of their crowd. 
The apparent exception to this rule is to be found in the 
very lowest strata of society in which people become too 
dull and unimaginative to care about superiority of any 
sort. But even here one often finds a sort of perverse 
pride in squalor and depravity and a contempt for those 
who strive for beauty and value. Such an attitude of 
mind is really an attempt to discount and ridicule a supe- 
riority which while recognized is despaired of. So that 
it is among this class that the most violent mob behavior 
in history is manifest. The tendency to sporadic crowd 
behavior in this class shows that our rule still applies but 
that with persons of this sort there is an inability to sustain 
any line of effort very long. SOME MECHANISMS 
193 
Amongst the groups which form the strata between this 
lower element and the thin layer of real superiority at the 
top of society, the tendency to crowd behavior is most 
prevalent. The Ku Klux Klan and the prohibition move- 
ment flourish in the rural west and south where goodness is 
identified with provincial morality. The religious revival 
takes place among the lower middle class; the industrial 
riot among the proletariat, and patriotism is often the "last 
refuge of the scoundrel." The crowd orator knows that 
he may always "get the crowd" by casting a slur upon 
the educated. In fact men simply will not consciously 
indure the feeling of inferiority; against it they fabricate 
various fictions of self-importance and one of the elemental 
functions of the crowd is to sustain these fictions. 
Closely associated with the psychotic delusion of gran- 
deur is the delusion of persecution. The latter is a phe- 
nomenon of "projection." Psychopathologists have come 
to regard the delusion of persecution as a device by which 
the patient attributes his own feeling of hostility to the 
object of that feeling. It is unnecessary here for us to 
enter into a discussion of the unconscious connections be- 
tween this psychopathic egoism and feeling of hostility. 
It is enough to see that they are related symptoms in cer- 
tain psychoses. The same is true of the crowd mind. 
This symptom uniformly appears in the behavior of 
crowds. Every crowd is either actually or potentially 
homicidal. The crowd's rationalizations provide it with 
a mechanism which permits its members to indulge with a 
good conscience in acts of torture, killing and destruction. 
Such deeds are the first impulse of the mob. Some one 
has said that the electorate does not vote for its candidate, 
but against the candidate of the opposition. Crowd patri- 
otism, even when no national enemy is visible, inevitably 
glories in thoughts of war. The crowd orator seldom 
fails to delight his hearers by abusing some one. Social- 
ists are always pointing to the sufferings of the poor to 
justify their hatred of capitalists, a hatred which emanates 194 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
from envy. I once asked a large audience composed chiefly 
of radicals whether it was not true that their ideal of the 
cooperative commonwealth was at bottom a rationalization 
the function of which was to justify their will to destroy 
in the moment of revolutionary mass action. I suggested 
that each ask himself how much he really wanted the co- 
operative commonwealth, whether he would be as enthusi- 
astic a radical if he felt that the ideal social order was to 
come, as Bellamy suggested, peacefully, without the kill- 
ing of any one, without struggle, without a triumph of 
any party over any one. To their own amazement they 
all laughed. Even the church when it becomes a crowd 
becomes the church militant, and has upon its record a 
long list of persecutions. A psychological connection be- 
tween this hostility and the feelings of inferiority which 
gives rise to the crowd's egoism, is seen in the uniform 
tendency of propaganda to caricature those who chal- 
lenge the crowd's fictions of superiority. It is seen again 
in race riots. It is significant that the mobs which kill 
and burn negroes are composed chiefly of that element of 
the white race which is socially nearest the status of the 
negro, and habitually saves its face by the fiction that at 
least its members are "better than niggers." As long as 
negroes are cringing and obsequious in the presence of men 
of this type all is well. But let a few negroes acquire 
wealth or education or let an occasional superior negro be 
treated with respect by those of the white race to whom 
the lower stratum has to defer, and their fiction of supe- 
riority is destroyed. It must be reestablished by the de- 
struction of the object which challenges it. But this homi- 
cidal wish must wait for a moral justification. The 
moment a negro commits a crime, or is believed to have 
done so, such a justification is provided. The colored 
population may then be massacred. The wish fancy ap- 
pears in consciousness as a determination to keep an al- 
leged dangerous and criminal race in its place. 
Much anti-Semitic prejudice is motivated in this same SOME MECHANISMS 
195 
way, also the opposition of agrarians to the "wicked 
metropolis." Our quixotic episodes of moral reform are 
manifestations of similar wish fancies. Consciously such 
reform movements appear to be a hunger and thirst after 
righteousness. Unconsciously the righteousness is but a 
justification mechanism for the escape of the wish to de- 
nounce, attack, exterminate some one, and do it in the 
name of morality. Even the crowds which flock to base- 
ball games show that the hostile wish exists in them. It 
is no mere accident that most of the games men love are 
played by hitting something with a club, and are inter- 
esting because they present a matched contest. The con- 
test is a sublimated fight. As army officers say, "You 
know, war is the greatest game in the world." 
Thus we have three characteristics of crowd behavior 
which are so symptomatic that they may be used em- 
pirically to distinguish the crowd from normal forms of 
social behavior. When a group manifests a collective 
egoism, when it shows homicidal tendencies, and when it 
justifies the escape of these two wish fancies by a closed 
system of platitudinous ideas, a creed, a dogma, a propa- 
ganda, the function of which is to rationalize its behavior 
and make its real motives appear like devotion to ideal 
ends, we have a crowd. 
I have left out of this discussion any reference to rumor 
and panic; the former because it is a phenomenon of the 
rationalization which we have discussed, and the latter be- 
cause it does not appear as a uniform characteristic of the 
behavior of crowds. Panic is a manifestation of terror 
and it would seem that it makes its appearance when a 
pseudo-social environment is created which removes the 
customary inhibition to cowardice, in much the same way 
that the homicidal wish appears when the crowd removes 
the social inhibition to that sort of behavior. 
The mechanisms of crowd behavior are therefore de- 
vices for creating a pseudo-social environment in which 
certain repressed wishes may escape from control. Crowd 196 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
behavior grows out of inner conflicts between forms of 
social control which are consciously assented to, and those 
human traits which are unacceptable to consciousness. 
Such behavior cannot be regarded as the solution of prob- 
lems which arise in the world of objects. It is not the find- 
ing of the unknown means toward desired ends with which 
the organisms may so intervene in the course of events 
that better adaptations are secured to environmental situ- 
ations. Crowd thinking is a philosophy of "as if"; it is a 
disturbance of the function of the real. It substitutes fic- 
tions for fact. The true social situation is ignored and 
one is created in imagination which is congenial to the 
fancy of the repressed wish. The fact that this fictitious 
social reality appears simultaneously to the consciousness 
of a number of people makes possible a sort of concerted 
action within the sequestered social situation so created, 
but the behavior of the crowd as a whole is in conflict with 
the social as such. The behavior of the crowd is there- 
fore a sort of coincident somnambulism, in which the 
dream may be acted out so long as dissociation continues. 
The normally social consists of acquired habits of mu- 
tual adjustment. People exist permanently in one an- 
other's environment. Certain habits of behaving together 
inevitably arise. One may adjust himself to his environ- 
ment only if that environment has a degree of stability 
and regularity. Hence men necessarily reduce to some 
degree of predictability the conduct of one another. Thus 
there arise what Sumner called the folkways, the mores, 
habits of language, custom and law, the function of which 
is to secure mutual adjustment. The habits so engen- 
dered are not necessarily wise adaptations of means to 
ends. Nor are the adjustments so achieved ever equally 
satisfactory to all concerned. Many social forms of be- 
havior are themselves motivated by unconscious desires, 
but once they exist and become mutually recognized, they 
are as truly environmental as are natural objects. The 
great bulk of our behavior toward our fellows consists SOME MECHANISMS 
197 
of those movements which we know they expect of us, 
and which we in turn expect of them. The sum total of 
the relationships so achieved we call society. Hence the 
distinction between social behavior and crowd behavior is 
radical. The mechanisms of the one are designed to solve 
problems which lie in the relations of the organism to its 
environment. Those of the other are designed to solve 
conflicts which exist within the psyche. 
Full value is given to this distinction only if we approach 
the problem from the standpoint of psychopathology. 
Otherwise we are obliged to fall back upon such gen- 
eralizations as the "group mind," or the "instinct of the 
herd." Neither of these hypotheses helps us toward the 
solution of our problem. Social psychology would do well 
to give them up. 
The concept of the group-mind would seem to be at 
best only an analogy. If we try to conceive of any indi- 
vidual as distinct from the group in which he lives, we 
notice that there are certain similarities between his be- 
havior and that of the other members of his group. Thus 
the likeness between the members of a group is conceived 
of as a likeness between the individual and the group as a 
whole, and as the behavior of each individual is greatly 
modified by his contacts with other individuals, it is pos- 
sible to think of much of the mental life of the individual 
as a social product. The group as such must then have 
certain mental qualities. So the student proceeds to psy- 
chologize, pointing out the similarities of the group to the 
individual. 
Now this group mind either means that there is a psy- 
chological entity which is exclusive of individual psyches 
and yet includes them, or it means that for certain pur- 
poses individual differences may be ignored and we may 
speak of collective behavior as the behavior of the col- 
lectivity. In the first case, the group mind is a mystical 
concept, and in the second it is tautological. 
Individual minds do not sum themselves up into a col- 198 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
lective mind which is different from that of any other 
mind. As there are no impersonal ideas or permanently 
existing ideas, there can be no common consciousness. 
My thought may be about my neighbor, and his about 
me, but taken together there is no sharing of thoughts or 
mingling of subjects and objects. My thought may be like 
my neighbor's, also my behavior, but similarity is not iden- 
tity. What is shared in human association is the objec- 
tive situation which the thought or behavior is about, not 
the mental activity itself. There is no more reason for 
believing in a collective mind than in a collective stomach. 
The concept arises through the intellectualist habit of 
ascribing independent existence to the mere fact that cer- 
tain objects are alike in certain respects. The philoso- 
pher abstracts from the various objects that attribute in 
which they are alike, thinks of it as separate from the 
objects in which it inheres, and then in good Platonic fash- 
ion sticks it up behind them as if it were some higher kind 
of being. 
In the other sense, the concept of the group mind is 
mere tautology. Of course, there is much likeness be- 
tween the individual and his group for the reason that 
each individual is in certain respects like his fellows, and 
especially so when they have together acquired certain 
similar habits of mutual adjustment. In the psychological 
sense, the group is an objective situation which stimulates 
certain responses and to which certain adjustments are 
made, but the objective situation as such has no mind or 
psychology of its own. The mind and the psychology 
which are ascribed to the group really belong to the several 
individuals in it, each of whom is a subject to himself and 
an object for the experience of the others. Thus the 
psychologist may if he wishes call attention to the mental 
similarities of the individuals within the group, compar- 
ing in turn the behavior of each imaginary individual with 
that of the rest. He may speak of the similarity of be- 
havior as a group mind, but it is difficult to see how such SOME MECHANISMS 
199 
a concept will aid him in discovering the motives which 
impel men to this or that form of mutual adjustment. 
Neither does the concept of the group mind aid us in dis- 
tinguishing the crowd from the normally social. Since by 
hypothesis the crowd must have its own group mind, a 
mind therefore within a larger group mind, we should still 
have the problem of the likenesses and differences of 
these two "minds," and of the relation of each to the mind 
of the individual. 
The concept of the herd instinct has played a promi- 
nent role in social psychology which is rather surprising 
considering the vagueness of this concept and the ambigu- 
ous manner in which it is ordinarily used. Social psy- 
chologists are not unaware of the fact that the whole 
subject of instinct is as yet problematical. The concept 
has met with serious criticism from writers whose points 
of view are as wide apart as those of Hocking and Watson. 
Few who resort to instinct in order to explain social be- 
havior take the trouble to make it clear whether by in- 
stinct they mean an innate disposition to act and feel 
toward certain objects in a characteristic way, or mean 
simply an hereditary mode of response of the pattern re- 
action type. With the exception of the Behaviorist 
school, there is still much confusion between instinct and 
its affect, and as to whether instinctive behavior is essen- 
tially teleological. 
Much that is written about the "gregarious instinct" 
involves all the confusion of the concept of instinct along 
with much that has nothing to do with instinct whatever. 
Trotter and his followers would "explain" almost the 
whole social interest as a manifestation of the herd in- 
stinct ; ideas, institutions, sentiments and habits which are 
obviously acquired. McDougall can find no definite affect 
in connection with gregariousness. Rivers finds that sug- 
gestion plays a large part in it, and certain Freudians 
have difficulty in distinguishing the instinct of the herd 
from that of sex. 200 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
If we follow Watson in holding that there is a dis- 
tinction between instinctive behavior and those modes of 
response which are acquired, then instinct as he says is 
an inherited mode of response of the pattern reaction 
type. To say that an act is instinctive, we must be sure 
that the organism has inherited just that behavior trend. 
We must discover the inherited pattern and distinguish 
between that and those conditioned reflexes* which are 
acquired modes of response. 
Man perhaps has the gregarious instinct, but even so 
it is deeply conditioned by tradition and habit and the 
effects of his institutional environment. If the original 
pattern is lost in a variety of deliberately cultivated habits 
most of which have originated in necessities and inter- 
ests which were related to sex, egoism, and economic situ- 
ations, we might better look for our explanation of social 
behavior in these habits rather than in gregariousness. 
To attempt to explain public opinion, as Trotter does, 
by calling it a manifestation of the herd instinct, is simply 
to read into the concept of gregariousness what one wishes 
to discover there. 
Rivers classified the instincts teleologically, and clas- 
sified as gregarious all those modes of behavior which 
served to perpetuate the group. Thus he brought sym- 
pathy and suggestion under this head. But sympathy is 
an emotion, and is as closely related to sex as to gregari- 
ousness, and suggestion is simply a means of communica- 
tion. The problem is not how certain impulses are com- 
municated, but the content of that which is communicated. 
Here is our problem: What impulses are operative in 
the behavior of the crowd? And how do these impulses 
and their operation differ from those of normal social be- 
havior? Obviously there are other motives than those of 
pure gregariousness at work. We are not told much about 
the behavior of a crowd when one says that it is a phe- 
nomenon of the herd instinct-even though he seems to 
find in this instinct patterns of so diverse a nature as those SOME MECHANISMS 
201 
of the sheep herd and those of the wolf pack. In fact, 
since by hypothesis the instinct of the herd is equally op- 
erative in the crowd and in the other forms of social be- 
havior, the concept of the herd instinct would seem to be 
irrelevant if we are striving to discover the peculiar 
mechanisms of the behavior of the crowd. 
Instinct or no instinct, social situations are objects of 
experience. Social forms grow out of the fact that we 
are in one another's way. We must come to some pre- 
dictable processes of mutual adjustment. Once our social 
habits are formed, they necessarily inhibit many impulses 
which, if indulged, would bring us into conflict with our 
neighbors. Conflict between the organism and its en- 
vironment is avoided, but it reappears in the unconscious 
as conflict between the socialized consciousness and its re- 
pressed desires. The neurotic seeks to solve the problem 
by symptoms which express the repressed wish in dis- 
guised form. The crowd solves it by substituting for 
the true social situation a fictitious environment in which 
the moral principles of social control are made to appear 
to justify the very sort of behavior that they normally 
inhibit. PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS1 
By W. H. R. Rivers, M.D., D.Sc., F.R.S. 
(From a series of lectures delivered in London in 1922) 
I am afraid that I have been unduly bold in undertaking 
the task of speaking about the relation between psychol- 
ogy and politics. Probably most of you are hoping that 
I may be able to utilize such psychological knowledge as 
we possess to point the way towards a solution of some 
of the many thorny political problems with which we are 
now confronted. Though it is possible that I may be 
able to go some little way in this direction, I wish to begin 
this course of lectures by asking you not to expect too 
much, and by pointing out some of the obstacles in the 
way of fulfilling the purpose at which we should all wish 
to aim. 
The first point on which to insist is that the science of 
psychology is still very young; in so far as concerns the 
kind of problem with which we are now concerned, it can 
hardly be said to be yet in its teens. We all recognize 
now that the art of government is far more than a matter 
ruled by intellect, and yet until quite recently the psy- 
chologist was interested in little else. Until recently he 
paid but scant attention to the affective aspect of mental 
life, to the instincts with which this aspect is so closely 
linked, and to the vast store of experience which is capable 
of influencing our thoughts and actions, though it is not 
readily, or may be even only with the greatest difficulty 
accessible, to consciousness. These realms of mental ex- 
perience and activity are of so vague and indefinite a kind 
1 From Psychology and Politics. Reprinted by courtesy of 
Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York. 
202 PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
203 
as compared with intellectual processes that their study did 
not appeal to men who had been trained, as nearly all psy- 
chologists then were, in the intellectual exercises of logic 
or the subtle distinctions and verbal refinements of meta- 
physics. As a shocking example of the neglect of the 
less intellectual aspects of psychology I am able to quote 
myself. So recently as just before the war, less than 
ten years ago, I was one of those concerned in drawing up 
a syllabus for an examination in psychology, and what 
makes the matter worse, for an examination intended for 
those who wished to specialize in psychological medicine. 
When, after the war, we had to undertake a revision of 
this syllabus, I discovered to my horror that the heading 
of instinct had not been included. So little did instinct 
occupy our thoughts in those days that we had neglected 
the subject even when prescribing a course of psycho- 
logical study in a case where its importance is now so 
obvious that it seems incredible it could be omitted. And 
now we all recognize that in many other departments of 
mental activity the instincts, the affective states associated 
with them, and the sentiments of which they form the 
basis, are all factors of the greatest importance in the de- 
termination of human behavior, and especially behavior of 
that social kind of which political behavior is only a spe- 
cial branch. At the present moment, as seems always to 
happen when experience leads people to correct a fault, 
the pendulum has swung, or is swinging, too far in the 
opposite direction, so that there is now a tendency to un- 
derestimate the importance of the intellectual factors in 
the determination of human conduct. It is only grad- 
ually that we shall come to see just how intelligence and 
the intellectual factor take their part in controlling and 
directing the more affective elements, and how the ulti- 
mate factors upon which sane conduct, whether of indi- 
vidual or group, depends are those in which the basic in- 
stinctive elements have been modified by reason. 
In this state of uncertainty in which a young, almost 204 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
indeed an embryo, science finds itself, one should be ch^ry 
of attempting to apply its findings practically. There is 
now a serious danger that psychology will fall into dis- 
credit, partly owing to the zeal of its votaries for the un- 
conscious and infantile aspects of the mind, but still more 
owing to premature attempts to utilize its supposed dis- 
coveries practically while the basis upon which they rest 
is uncertain and insecure. It seems to me almost certain 
that there will be a reaction against the almost universal 
interest which the study of psychology excites today, and 
that we are approaching a period when it may even be- 
come a matter of ridicule to make those references to psy- 
chological explanation and interpretation which now 
arouse such hopes and interest. 
Animated as I am by these apprehensions concerning 
the immediate value-I have no doubts whatever concern- 
ing the ultimate value-of psychology in politics, I have 
no intention of adding to the gravity of the approaching 
reaction by too ambitious attempts to show how psycho- 
logical doctrines can be immediately applied to the solution 
of political problems. 
In these lectures I shall deal in the main with certain 
general principles and shall state problems rather than at- 
tempt their solution. Though at the same time I confess 
to the belief that if it is possible to state a problem clearly 
and unequivocally, one has already gone a long way 
towards its solution. 
In beginning the consideration of my subject after this 
preliminary warning, I must first stress the fact that, in 
applying psychology to the field of politics, we shall be 
dealing with social or collective psychology rather than 
with the psychology of the individual. This at once raises 
a whole group of problems, some of a most difficult kind, 
concerning the relation between individual and collective 
psychology, such problems as the concept of a collective 
or group mind, together with the question how far society 
can be regarded as an organism, and the explanation of PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
205 
the fact that when a number of individuals act together, 
the product of their combined activity is not the same as 
that which would have emerged from the separate activity 
of the individuals, even if the products of their individual 
activity were synthesized by some external agent. With 
some of these matters I shall attempt to deal in the course 
of these lectures, and I now propose to proceed to a prob- 
lem of a fundamental kind which confronts the psycholo- 
gist who turns from the study of the individual to that 
of the group. 
In a paper written in 1914, but owing to the occurrence 
of the war not published until two years later,2 I have con- 
sidered the relation between psychology and sociology, 
putting forward the position that our chief avenue to the 
formulation of an adequate science of social psychology 
lies in the observation of social conduct, including under 
this heading not merely the social conduct of everyday 
life, but still more those forms of it which are subsumed 
under the headings of religion, economics and politics, as 
well as the social institution of language. Though I did 
not use the term "behaviorism," the point of view put for- 
ward in that paper was that in order to understand the 
real springs of social conduct we have to adopt the attitude 
of the behaviorist. I put forward the view that the social 
behavior of mankind is capable of being studied as a 
methodological principle, independently of the psycho- 
logical basis of that behavior, forming a discipline which 
might be called "pure sociology," and that such a discipline 
would give us a firm basis for the study of social psychol- 
ogy. In illustration of my point I took the relation be- 
tween the social institution of war as studied compara- 
tively and the emotion of revenge which had been espe- 
cially emphasized by Professor Westermarck. In his book 
on The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas3 this 
2 Sociology and Psychology, Sociological Review, 1916, Vol. 
IX, p. 1. 
8 London, 1906, Vol. I, p. 477. 206 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
writer had assumed at the outset that especially that form 
of warfare known as the blood-feud was the result of the 
activity of the emotion of revenge, and had then proceeded 
to cite in favor of this position a number of examples of 
warfare from various parts of the world, apparently be- 
lieving them to support his position when, as a matter of 
fact, a number of them directly contradicted it. Thus, to 
take only one example, Professor Westermarck cites in 
favor of his thesis that the blood-feud is determined by 
revenge cases in which the "revenge" takes the form of 
adopting the murderer into the family and treating him 
as one of its members. Judging from his most recent 
work 4 Professor Westermarck seems to be unable to see 
that such social behavior does not readily fit in with the 
dependence of the blood-feud on revenge. If we start 
from behavior of this kind we shall be driven to formu- 
late motives more complicated than the simple emotion of 
revenge put forward by Professor Westermarck. Even 
if revenge remains our chief interest, we need some 
different mode of treatment if we are to discover how far 
revenge is a universal character of the human mind; how 
far, if universal, it has developed, atrophied and been 
modified in the course of human history; and whether, if 
universal, it is an emotion which has the same content and 
character among different peoples or varies with the 
physical and social environment. These questions do not 
involve idle academical distinctions, but are of the greatest 
possible importance. Thus, if it could be shown that re- 
venge is not a universal human character, it would follow 
that it is not instinctive, or if instinctive, that it is either 
the expression of an instinct only recently acquired or, if 
deeply seated, that it is capable of being successfully sup- 
pressed. In either case we should be in a far more hope- 
ful position so far as the eradication of war is concerned 
than if revenge is the primary, deeply seated, universal 
4 The History of Human Marriage, 5th ed., 1921, Vol. I, p. 9. PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
207 
instinct which it is assumed to be by Professor Wester- 
marck. 
In the further course of the paper I am considering, I 
showed that though it was theoretically possible to have a 
science of pure, or as it might be more suitably termed 
inductive, sociology, this was not possible so long as this 
science takes its terminology from the language of every- 
day life with its inevitable psychological implications, and 
that the two lines of study of pure sociology and social 
psychology, or of inductive and deductive sociology, should 
go on side by side, and that the student should recognize 
clearly which of the two methods he is following. 
The general conclusion to which I was led is that at 
the present stage of our inquiry, and probably for a long 
time to come, the student of pure or inductive sociology 
is, and will be, able to do far more for a science of social 
psychology, than at present, or for some time, the psy- 
chologist can do for a science of sociology. The observa- 
tion of social behavior must for long be our chief instru- 
ment towards the formulation of a science of collective 
psychology. 
I am afraid that it may seem a somewhat depressing 
introduction to a course of lectures on psychology and 
politics to begin with such a statement concerning the 
science of sociology which includes politics in its scope. 
The paper to which I have referred was written eight 
years ago, and though as a statement of method I believe 
that it still holds good, the science of psychology has ad- 
vanced greatly in the interval, or perhaps more correctly, 
certain psychological doctrines which were then little 
known have now become the subject of almost universal 
interest, though not, I am afraid, of universal understand- 
ing. I propose in this course to consider whether these 
advances in knowledge have made it more possible now 
than eight years ago to apply psychological doctrines di- 
rectly to the solution of any of the practical problems of 
politics. 208 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
In considering the relation between psychology and 
the comprehensive science of sociology of which the study 
of politics forms a part, I have taken as an example the 
relation between the social institution of warfare and the 
emotion of revenge. I propose now to give some exam- 
ples of the same kind of principle which come more defi- 
nitely into the realm of political science. Before doing 
so, however, I may refer to a problem of fundamental 
importance which has a definite bearing on our subject. 
Our existing psychological knowledge is derived from the 
study of the individual; from the observation or intro- 
spection of the mental processes of the more or less normal 
individual in the first place, and in the second place by 
the observation from without, combined in favorable cases 
with conclusions gained from introspection, of the indi- 
vidual under abnormal conditions, and especially when af- 
flicted by disease, and during the development of child- 
hood. A great deal of so-called "social psychology" con- 
sists in the direct application of the conclusions of this 
psychology of the individual to collective behavior on the 
assumption, tacit or avowed, that since society consists of 
individuals, what is true of the individual must neces- 
sarily be true of the group of individuals. I propose to 
consider this problem at a later stage and only mention 
it now as another reason why it is necessary to study social 
behavior as an independent discipline, for I believe that 
such a question as that I have just put is not going to be 
answered on a priori grounds, but that a satisfactory an- 
swer will only be reached by the study of evidence in which 
the behavior of the individual is compared with the be- 
havior of the group. For the moment I must be content 
to mention this problem and ask you to bear it in mind 
while you follow me in a brief inquiry into the relation 
between motive and behavior in certain departments of 
politics. 
I will take as my first example the institution of female 
suffrage. Among the mass of conflicting motives which PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
209 
prompted the long struggle concerning this political in- 
stitution in our own and other countries, one which was 
absent was any definite body of knowledge worthy of 
being called scientific, concerning the existence of psy- 
chological differences between men and women in respect 
of the capacity to govern. Works in which the psycho- 
logical character of the two sexes were compared dealt 
largely with observations on such subjects as sense-acuity 
and speed of reaction, which have no obvious connection, 
probably none at all, with the far more subtle factors 
which come into play in the exercise of political functions. 
I doubt whether the science of psychology was in a posi- 
tion to make a contribution of any value at the time when 
female suffrage was a subject of political conflict. The 
problem which had to be solved was determined by factors 
of a very different kind. Apart from the application of 
such political principles as that which regards the right 
of representation as a necessary result of taxation, the 
issue was largely determined by personal preferences and 
prejudices, and on grounds of political expediency, while 
perhaps the most striking fact is that in our own country 
the final and peaceful outcome of the conflict was largely, 
if not mainly, determined by a purely affective state, viz., 
the gratitude of the community to women for all that they 
had done during the war. Moreover, while women were 
deprived of political functions there, was no possibility 
of any real knowledge of their qualclfication for the art 
of government, except, of course, in so far as political 
power had been entrusted to them in connection with other 
bodies than parliament and in other countries. Whereas, 
after women have exercised political functions, the world 
comes into possession, or should come into possesion, of 
a mass of facts which make scientific study possible. The 
point I wish to make is that the observation of the political 
behavior of women, and of the differences, if there be 
such, between their political behavior and that of men, is 
capable of supplying us with a mass of facts which make 210 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
a real contribution to our knowledge of the psychology of 
the sexes; which will tell us whether there are psycho- 
logical differences and the nature of such differences, if 
they exist, between men and women. One kind of fact of 
which I am thinking would be derived from a study of 
the relative proportions of men and women who vote, and 
especially of any differences in this respect between local 
elections where the issues are readily appreciated as com- 
pared with parliamentary elections where the issues are 
more confused and intangible. Another kind of fact 
would be derived from the study of the nature of leg- 
islation before and after the introduction of female suf- 
frage, especially in matters of education and hygiene. 
Especially valuable in this respect would be the evidence 
from regions so like one another as those of the United 
States of America at the time when only some of these 
states had adopted this form of suffrage. My point is 
that the observation and statistical study of political be- 
havior is capable of contributing far more to our psycho- 
logical knowledge of any differences between the two 
sexes than such knowledge otherwise gained has been able 
to contribute towards the solution of the political prob- 
lems involved. 
Again, it will only be through the utilization of facts of 
this kind combined with other lines of evidence that we can 
expect the solution of the far more difficult problem 
whether if differences in the political behavior of men and 
women are shown to exist, they are inherent in the nature 
of the two sexes or are determined by the factors which 
Graham Wallas has summarized so aptly under the head- 
ing of social heritage. The point on which I wish to in- 
sist is that just as I have previously held that it is only 
through the comparative study of that special kind of be- 
havior we call warfare that we can expect to understand 
the place taken by the emotion of revenge in human his- 
tory, so in politics it is only through the study of political 
behavior that we can hope to understand the real nature PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
211 
of the psychological factors which enter into this behavior. 
Both in the broader field of comparative sociology and in 
the narrower field of politics, knowledge of the facts of 
social and political behavior can make a far greater con- 
tribution to our psychology than any psychological knowl- 
edge we possess at present can contribute to our under- 
standing and treatment of social and political problems. 
A striking example of the thesis I am putting forward 
is, in my opinion, provided by the great book of our Chair- 
man on Human Nature in Politics. Throughout that 
book the author modestly implies that he is engaged in ap- 
plying psychological knowledge to the elucidation of po- 
litical behavior. I venture to put forward the somewhat 
different view that the most important contribution made 
by that book is that it gave us a body of evidence col- 
lected by one who, while taking part in political life, had 
succeeded in keeping alive the capacity for dispassionate 
observation; that, by the study of political behavior re- 
corded in Human Nature in Politics Graham Wallas con- 
tributed far more to psychology than he was helped by 
it. It is true that through other lines of work the science 
of psychology was moving in the direction along which 
Graham Wallas was led by his political observations, but 
the special contribution of that book was its demonstration 
that the factors to which others were being led through 
the study of morbid states of the individual are also active 
in the collective behavior of our own people in the political 
sphere. 
I fear that what I have said in introducing the subject 
of the relation between psychology and politics may be 
disappointing to those who have been expecting that I 
should be able to point clearly to the value of psycho- 
logical knowledge to the politician. I have deliberately 
chosen, however, to begin in this way because if there is 
any truth in what I have said the lesson to which it points 
is clear. The psychologist of politics cannot make bricks 
without straw. You cannot expect him to formulate laws 212 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
concerning the motives of political behavior unless he has 
the data whereon to found hypotheses and the facts where- 
with to test those hypotheses. 
If there is any truth in the view I have put before you, 
what is needed if we are to advance in knowledge is the 
collection of data derived from the observation of political 
behavior, using the terms "observation" and "behavior" in 
a very wide sense. These data fall into several classes of 
which two may be clearly distinguished from one another. 
One class of facts which should be available for the use 
of the psychologist are the records, usually more or less 
statistical in form, which are already collected by gov- 
ernment departments or are capable of such collection. 
The other main class will be derived from the direct ob- 
servation by those trained in psychology of the various 
forms of political behavior, of which kind of observation 
I have already cited the work of Graham Wallas as an ex- 
ample. In considering these two forms of observation I 
will begin by stating my conviction not only that the second 
kind of observation is by far the more important of the 
two, but also that it is the more immediately necessary 
and that the knowledge derived therefrom is essential to 
the successful utilization of statistical data. The social 
psychologist is here confronted with a problem very similar 
to that which was presented thirty years ago to the indi- 
vidual psychologist when he was first introduced to the 
experimental method. Carried away by the glamour and 
attractiveness of a new method, many believed that the 
problems of psychology were going to be solved by ex- 
perimental methods. Advocates of what in those days 
was called the "new psychology" firmly believed that the 
more they refined their methods and measured by the 
thousandth of a second, and the more they multiplied the 
observations so made and applied to them the most elab- 
orate statistical methods, the sooner they would reach the 
psychological millennium. The hopes thus raised have 
been rudely disappointed, though believers still linger here PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
213 
and there. The disillusionment came because the advo- 
cates of these new methods did not appreciate the fact 
that we need knowledge derived from the close qualita- 
tive study of the individual mind, and from the compari- 
son of its nature under such variation of conditions as dis- 
ease provides, before we can expect to be able to utilize 
such statistical data as are provided by the very limited 
forms of mental activity to which the experimental method 
is capable of application. 
It is very necessary that the social psychologist should 
now avoid the similar danger into which he may fall. It 
is essential that he shall recognize that he will not be in 
a position to learn much from the psychological interpre- 
tation of social and political statistics until he has pre- 
pared the field by a close and immediate study of social 
and political behavior. I propose to devote what remains 
of this lecture to a brief examination of two examples of 
political behavior which need far closer study than they 
have hitherto received. ■ 
One of these is the behavior of the committee which is 
so prominent in the mechanism of government; the other 
is the behavior associated with bureaucracy. 
The committee now occupies so important a position 
in our system of government; it is an instrument so obvi- 
ously capable of being turned to good or evil purpose ac- 
cording to the way it is conducted, that it needs definite 
study of a kind which, so far as I know, has never been 
attempted. At the same time it is a study from which a 
successful issue can hardly be expected except on the basis 
of psychological knowledge and by the application of psy- 
chological method. 
Committees are of many kinds and work with very dif- 
ferent degrees of success. One important distinction 
which could be made is according to the nature of their 
functions, and especially whether they are advisory or 
have executive functions. My own impression, it is noth- 
ing more than an impression, is that the committees of 214 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the former kind, with which I am acquainted, are a suc- 
cess and those of the latter kind often a failure. It is 
evident that a form of grouping which is adapted to one 
kind of social or political function need not, and probably 
will not, be suitable for another, and the two kinds of 
function which differ from one another so greatly as those 
denoted by the terms "advisory" and "executive" would 
probably need instruments of different kinds. Commit- 
tees might also be classed according to the nature of their 
mode of working and of their results. We probably all 
know the committee which does little more than support 
and register the decisions of one of its members, in which 
the result may be better or worse than that which would 
be reached by its members acting individually, according 
as the master mind is superior or inferior to the rest. 
Leaving this frequent case on one side, it will probably be 
widely recognized that some committees reach conclusions 
definitely superior to those which would be reached by 
their individual members, while other committees may pro- 
duce results altogether on a lower level than the decisions 
of their constituent members if acting as individuals. Cer- 
tain factors to which such differences may be due are 
fairly obvious. The former result is the more likely to 
be reached the more the individual members are able to 
contribute special knowledge, and are ready to put this' 
knowledge in the possession of others. The latter result 
is the more likely when the members of the committee have 
not the adequate knowledge or, if they have it, have not 
the courage, the enterprise, sometimes perhaps the hon- 
esty, to put it forward, but allow the opinion of the more 
vocal members to carry the day. Here again I should like 
to register the impression that there is a tendency for this 
mode of classification of committees to coincide with that 
which distinguishes committees according to their advisory 
or executive functions, the advisory committee tending to 
produce a result superior to that which would be reached 
by its individual members, while the committee of the PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
215 
executive class is one in which the result often tends to 
be of a kind one has to regard as inferior to that of the 
individual members. I only put forward this suggestion 
in the most tentative manner, for I believe that the whole 
subject needs an exhaustive examination, through the re- 
sults of which I believe it would be possible to reach con- 
clusions which would make the committee an institution 
of greater value to the community, or at least reduce the 
magnitude of certain unsatisfactory aspects of this mode 
of government which cannot altogether be abolished. 
The other subject to which I should like to refer briefly, 
though here again only by way of illustration of the kind 
of way in which psychology may be useful to politics, is 
one connected with what is usually called bureaucracy, a 
subject perhaps of as great and as immediate political im- 
portance as any other which can be named. There is no 
question that the greatest obstacle to the management of 
production, distribution and consumption in the interest of 
the community is the general dread of certain evils which 
have become closely connected in public opinion with gov- 
ernment control, a dread which has been greatly accentu- 
ated by the experience of nearly every one who had to do 
with government departments, at any rate with certain 
government departments, during the war. One of the 
most important problems with which our society is con- 
fronted is to discover how to administer and manage en- 
terprises of various kinds without the evils which are 
summed up under the name bureaucracy. There can be 
little question that we have here a subject in which psy- 
chology can be of service. Here again we need an ex- 
haustive study of the factors which enter into management, 
among which, of course, the subject with which I have 
just dealt, the committee, will rank as one of the most 
important. This is not the place, even had I the neces- 
sary knowledge to enter upon the full consideration of 
this subject, but as an illustration of the kind of problem 
with which the investigating psychologist would have to 216 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
deal I may mention the highly important and widespread 
social institution known as "red tape." It is obvious that 
in the conduct of any extensive business one cannot trust 
to the unregulated individual judgment of every one con- 
cerned in management, but that there have to be definite 
rules of procedure. The state or process which is known 
as "red tape" is one in which these rules are unduly com- 
plex and unduly rigid, and have become masters instead 
of servants. Here again I shall make no attempt to deal 
with the subject fully, but shall be content to throw out 
a suggestion concerning one kind of psychological process 
which acts as a factor in the misuse of a necessary pro- 
cedure. 
Modern psychology is largely concerned with the 
mechanisms by which certain mental products, and espe- 
cially those products we regard as morbid, come into 
being. Among the many processes or mechanisms it has 
distinguished is one which is called the defense-mechan- 
ism. A good example of this process is the exaggerated 
confidence, often amounting to bluster and swagger, which 
is adopted by those who, under the surface, have a definite 
sense of inferiority. I think that most educated people 
now recognize that many examples of exaggerated social 
behavior only cover an attitude of self-distrust and doubt. 
The psychologist classes this mode of behavior, with many 
others of different kinds, as due to the action of a defense- 
mechanism in which the blustering or swaggering attitude 
is adopted, not of set purpose, but more or less unwit- 
tingly, as a defense against the unpleasant state of mind 
which would be present if the inferiority were explicitly 
recognized. I should like to suggest that one of the fac- 
tors which enters into the production of "red tape" is the 
activity of a defense-mechanism; that it is a protection 
adopted in a more or less, usually more rather than less, 
unwitting manner by those who find themselves confronted 
with administrative problems to which their powers are 
not adequate. My own experience of individual experts PSYCHOLOGY AND POLITICS 
217 
in the use of "red tape" certainly points in this direction, 
while it is significant that it flourishes luxuriantly in such 
departments as the War Office, where men who enter 
upon the career of arms because they have the qualifica- 
tions for fighting and adventure find that their essential 
task is the management of a vast organization in which 
the qualities especially needed are very different from 
those which led them to adopt the army as a career. I 
must be content to throw out this suggestion as to one of 
the lines which may serve as a guide in the psychological 
investigation of an attitude which must be understood if 
we are to correct the evils now associated with govern- 
ment control. 
I must be content with these examples of the kind of 
way in which psychology may be able to help towards the 
solution of certain practical problems, but I should like 
to insist again that these must only be regarded as exam- 
ples of the kind of problem to which psychological meth- 
ods and principles may be applied. As a beginner in the 
study of politics it is not my place to attempt the practical 
application of psychology to such problems. AN INTRODUCTION TO ANALYTIC 
PSYCHOLOGY 1 
Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D. 
When Professor Freud of Vienna made his early dis- 
coveries in the realm of the neuroses, and announced that 
the basis and origin of the various symptoms grouped 
under the terms hysteria and neuroses lay in unfulfilled 
desires and wishes, unexpressed and unknown to the pa- 
tient for the most part, and concerned chiefly with the 
sexual instinct, it was not realized what far-reaching in- 
fluence this unpopular and bitterly attacked theory would 
exert on the understanding of human life in general. 
For this theory has so widened in its scope that its ap- 
plication has now extended beyond a particular group of 
pathologic states. It has in fact led to a new evaluation 
of the whole conduct of human life; a new comprehen- 
sion has developed which explains those things which for- 
merly were unexplained, and there is offered an under- 
standing not only of the symptoms of a neurosis and the 
phenomena of conduct but the product of the mind as ex- 
pressed in myths and religions. 
This amazing growth has proceeded steadily in an ever- 
widening fashion despite opposition as violent as any of 
which we have knowledge in the past. The criticism orig- 
inally directed towards the little understood and much dis- 
liked sexual conception now includes the further teachings 
of a psychology which by the application to it of such 
damning phrases as mystical, metaphysical and sacri- 
legious, is condemned as unscientific. 
1 Reprinted from Tung's Psychology of the Unconscious, with 
the author's permission and by courtesy of Dodd, Mead & Co., 
New York. 
218 ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
219 
To add to the general confusion and misunderstanding 
surrounding this new school of thought there has arisen a 
division amongst the leaders themselves, so that there now 
exist two schools led respectively by Professor Sigmund 
Freud of Vienna and Dr. Carl Jung of Zurich, referred 
to in the literature as the Vienna School and the Zurich 
School. 
It is very easy to understand that criticism and oppo- 
sition should develop against a psychology so difficult of 
comprehension, and so disturbing to the ideas which have 
been held by humanity for ages; a psychology which fur- 
thermore requires a special technique as well as an ob- 
server trained to recognize and appreciate in psychologic 
phenomena a verification of the statement that there is no 
such thing as chance, and that every act and every ex- 
pression has its own meaning, determined by the inner 
feelings and wishes of the individual. 
It is not a simple matter to come out boldly and state 
that every individual is to a large extent the determiner 
of his own destiny, for only by poets and philosophers 
has this idea been put forth-not by science; and it is a 
brave act to make this statement with full consciousness 
of all its meaning, and to stand ready to prove it by 
scientific reasoning and procedure. 
Developed entirely through empirical investigation and 
through an analysis of individual cases, Freudian psy- 
chology seems particularly to belong to that conception 
of Max Muller's that "An empirical acquaintance with 
facts rises to a scientific knowledge of facts as soon as 
the mind discovers beneath the multiplicity of single pro- 
ductions the unity of an organic system." 2 
Psychoanalysis is the name given to the method de- 
veloped for reaching down into the hidden depths of the 
individual to bring to light the underlying motives and 
determinants of his symptoms and attitudes, and to reveal 
the unconscious tendencies which lie behind actions and 
2 Science of Language. First series, p. 25. 220 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
reactions and which influence development and determine 
the relations of life itself. The result of digging down 
into the hidden psyche has been to produce a mass of 
material from below the threshold of consciousness, so 
astonishing and disturbing and out of relation with the 
previously held values as to arouse in any one unfamiliar 
with the process the strongest antagonism and criticism. 
Although originally studied only as a therapeutic method 
for the sick it was soon realized through an analysis of 
normal people how slight were the differences in the con- 
tent of the unconscious of the sick and of the normal. 
The differences observed were seen to be rather in the 
reactions to life and to the conflicts produced by contend- 
ing forces in the individual. 
These conflicts, usually not fully perceived by the in- 
dividual, and having to do with objectionable desires and 
wishes that are not in keeping with the conscious idea of 
self, produce marked effects which are expressed either in 
certain opinions, prejudices, attitudes of conduct, faulty 
actions, or in some definite pathologic symptom. As Dr. 
Jung says, he who remains healthy has to struggle with 
the same complexes that cause the neurotic to fall ill. 
In a valuable book called The Neighbor, written by 
the late Professor N. Shaler of Harvard University, there 
occurs this very far-reaching statement: "It is hardly too 
much to say that all the important errors of conduct, all 
the burdens of men or of societies are caused by the in- 
adequacies in the association of the primal animal emo- 
tions with those mental powers which have been so rapidly 
developed in mankind." 
This statement, reached by a process of reasoning and 
a method of thought and study entirely different from 
psychoanalysis, nevertheless so completely expresses in 
brief form the very basis of the postulates developed 
through psychoanalysis that I quote it here. Such a state- 
ment made in the course of a general examination of 
human relations does not arouse opposition nor seem to ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
221 
be so difficult of acceptance. It appears to be the indi- 
vidual application of these conceptions that has roused 
such bitter antagonism and violent denunciations. 
Rightly understood and used, psychoanalysis may be 
compared to surgery, for psychoanalysis stands in the 
same relation to the personality as surgery does to the 
body, and they aim at parallel results. 
It is well recognized that in the last analysis nature is 
the real physician, the healer of wounds; but prior to the 
development of our modern asepsis and surgical technique 
the healing produced by nature was most often of a very 
faulty and imperfect type-hideous scars, distorted and 
crippled limbs, with functions impaired or incapacitated, 
resulted from the wounds, or else nature was unable to 
cope with the hurt and the injured one succumbed. 
Science has been steadily working for centuries with 
the aim of understanding nature and finding means to 
aid and cooperate with her so that healing could take 
place with the least possible loss of function or permanent 
injury to the individual. Marvelous results have rewarded 
these persistent efforts, as the brilliant achievements of 
surgery plainly indicate. 
Meantime, however, little thought was given to the pos- 
sibility of any scientific method being available to help 
man overcome the wounds and conflicts taking place in 
his soul, hurts which retarded his development and prog- 
ress as a personality, and which frequently in the struggle 
resulted in physical pains and symptoms of the most varied 
character. That was left solely to religion and meta- 
physics. Now, however, this same assistance that surgery 
has given to the physical body, psychoanalysis attempts 
to give to the personality. That it cannot always succeed 
is as much to be expected, and more, than that surgery 
does not always succeed, for the analytic work requires 
much of the individual. No real result can be attained 
if he has not already developed a certain quality of char- 
acter and intelligence which makes it possible for him to 222 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
submit himself to a facing of his naked soul, and to the 
pain and suffering which this often entails. Here, as in 
no other relation in life, an absolute truth and an absolute 
honesty are the only basis of action, since deception of 
any kind deceives no one but the individual himself and 
acts as a boomerang, defeating his own aims. 
Such deep searching and penetrating into the soul is not 
something to be undertaken lightly nor to be considered 
a trivial or simple matter, and the fact is that where a 
strong compulsion is lacking, such as sickness or a situa- 
tion too difficult to meet, much courage is required to 
undertake it. 
In order to understand this psychology which is per- 
vading all realms of thought and seems destined to be a 
new psychological-philosophical system for the under- 
standing and practical advancement of human life, it will 
be necessary to go somewhat into detail regarding its 
development and present status. For in this new direction 
lies its greatest value and its greatest danger. 
The beginnings of this work were first published in 
1895 in a book entitled Studien uber Hysteric, and con- 
tained the joint investigations into hysteria of Dr. Breuer 
of Vienna and his pupil Dr. Sigmund Freud. The results 
of their investigations seemed to show that the various 
symptoms grouped under the title of hysteria were the 
result of emotionally colored reminiscences which, all un- 
known to the conscious waking self, were really actively 
expressing themselves through the surrogate form of 
symptoms and that these experiences, although forgotten 
by the patient, could be reproduced and the emotional 
content discharged. 
Hypnosis was the means used to enable the physician 
to penetrate deeply into the forgotten memories, for it 
was found through hypnosis that these lost incidents and 
circumstances were not really lost at all but only dropped 
from consciousness, and were capable of being revived 
when given the proper stimuli. The astonishing part about ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
223 
it was that with the revival of these memories and their 
accompanying painful and disturbing emotions, the symp- 
toms disappeared. This led naturally to the conclusion 
that these symptoms were dependent upon some emotional 
disturbance or psychic trauma which had been inadequately 
expressed, and that in order to cure the patient one merely 
had to establish the connection between the memory and 
the emotions which properly belonged to it, letting the 
emotion work itself out through a reproduction of the 
forgotten scene. 
With further investigation Freud found that hypnosis 
was unnecessary for the revival of the forgotten experi- 
ences, and that it was possible to obtain the lost emotional 
material in the conscious and normal state. For this pur- 
pose the patient was encouraged to assume a passive, non- 
critical attitude and simply let his thoughts flow, speaking 
of whatever came into his mind, holding nothing back. 
During this free and easy discussion of his life and con- 
ditions, directed by the law of association of ideas, refer- 
ence was invariably made to the experiences or thoughts 
which were the most affective and disturbing elements. 
It was seen to be quite impossible to avoid this indirect 
revelation because of the strength of the emotions sur- 
rounding these ideas and the effect of the conscious wish 
to repress unpleasant feelings. This important group of 
ideas or impressions, with the feelings and emotions clus- 
tered around them which are betrayed through this process, 
was called by Jung a complex. 
However, with the touching of the complex which 
always contains feelings and emotions so painful or un- 
pleasant as to be unacceptable to consciousness, and which 
are therefore repressed and hidden, great difficulties ap- 
peared, for very often the patient came to a sudden stop 
and could apparently recall nothing more. Memory gaps 
were frequent, relations twisted, etc. Evidently some 
force banished these memories so that the person was 
quite honest in saying that he could remember nothing or 224 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
that there was nothing to tell. This kind of forgetfulness 
was called repression, and is the normal mechanism by 
which nature protects the individual from such painful 
feelings as are caused by unpleasant and unacceptable 
experiences and thoughts, the recognition of his egoistic 
nature, and the often quite unbearable conflict of his weak- 
nesses with his feelings of idealism. 
At this early time great attention was given towards 
developing a technique which would render more easy the 
reproduction of these forgotten memories, for with the 
abandonment of hypnosis it was seen that some unknown 
active force was at work which not only banished painful 
memories and feelings, but also prevented their return; 
this was called resistance. This resistance was found to 
be the important mechanism which interfered with a free 
flow of thought and produced the greatest difficulty in the 
further conduct of the analysis. It appeared under vari- 
ous guises and frequently manifested itself in intellectual 
objections based on reasoning ground, in criticism directed 
towards the analyst, or in criticism of the method itself, and 
finally, often in a complete blocking of expression, so that 
until the resistance was broken nothing more could be 
produced. 
It was necessary then to find some aid by which these 
resistances could be overcome and the repressed memories 
and feelings revived and set free. For it was proven again 
and again that even though the person was not at all 
aware of concealing within himself some emotionally dis- 
turbing feeling or experience with which his symptoms 
were associated, yet such was the fact, and that under 
proper conditions this material could be brought into con- 
sciousness. This realm where these unknown but dis- 
turbing emotions were hidden was called the "Uncon- 
scious"-the "Unconscious" also being a name used arbi- 
trarily to indicate all that material of which the person 
is not aware at the given time-the not-conscious. 
This term is used very loosely in Freudian psychology ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
225 
and is not intended to provoke any academic discussion 
but to conform strictly to the dictionary classification of 
a "negative concept which can neither be described nor 
defined." To say that an idea or feeling is unconscious 
merely means to indicate that the individual is unaware 
at that time of its existence, or that all the material of 
which he is unaware at a given time is unconscious. 
With the discovery of the significance in relation to 
hysteria of these varied experiences and forgotten mem- 
ories which always led into the erotic realm and usually 
were carried far back into early childhood, the theory of 
an infantile sexual trauma as a cause of this neurosis de- 
veloped. Contrary to the usual belief that children have 
no sexuality and that only at puberty does it suddenly 
arise, it was definitely shown that there was a very marked 
kind of sexuality among children of the most tender years, 
entirely instinctive and capable of producing a grave effect 
on the entire later life. 
However, further investigations carried into the lives 
of normal people disclosed quite as many psychic and 
sexual traumas in their early childhood as in the lives of 
the patients; therefore, the conception of the "infantile 
sexual trauma" as the etiological factor was abandoned in 
favor of "the infantilism of sexuality" itself. In other 
words, it was soon realized that many of the sexual 
traumas which were placed in their early childhood by 
these patients did not really exist except in their own 
phantasies and probably were produced as a defense 
against the memories of their own childish sexual activ- 
ities. These experiences led to a deep investigation into 
the nature of the child's sexuality and developed the ideas 
which Freud incorporated in a work called Three Con- 
tributions to the Sexual Theory. He found so many 
variations and manifestations of sexual activity even 
among young children that he realized that this activity 
was the normal, although entirely unconscious, expression 
of the child's developing life, and while not comparable 226 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
to the adult sexuality, nevertheless produced a very defi- 
nite influence and effect on the child's life. 
These childish expressions of this instinct he called 
"polymorphous perverse," because in many ways they 
resembled the various abnormalities called perversions 
when found among adults under certain conditions. 
In the light of these additional investigations Freud 
was led to change his formulation, for instead of the 
symptoms of the neurotic patient being due to definite 
sexual experiences, they seemed to be determined by his 
reactions towards his own sexual constitution and the kind 
of repression to which these instincts were subjected. 
Perhaps one of the greatest sources of misunderstand- 
ing and difficulty in this whole subject lies in the term 
sexuality, for Freud's conception of this is entirely dif- 
ferent from that of the popular sense. He conceives 
sexuality to be practically synonymous with the word 
love and to include under this term all those tender feel- 
ings and emotions which have had their origin in a primi- 
tive erotic source, even if now their primary aim is entirely 
lost and another substituted for it. It must also be borne 
in mind that Freud strictly emphasizes the psychic side of 
sexuality and its importance, as well as the somatic ex- 
pression. 
Therefore, to understand Freud's theories, his very 
broad conception of the term sexual must never be for- 
gotten. 
Through this careful investigation of the psychic life 
of the individual, the tremendous influence and impor- 
tance of phantasy-making for one's fate was definitely 
shown. It was discovered that the indulgence in day- 
dreams and phantasies was practically universal not only 
among children but among adults, that even whole lives 
were being lived out in a phantastic world created by the 
dreamer, a world wherein he could fulfill all those wishes 
and desires which were found to be too difficult or im- 
possible to satisfy in the world of reality. ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
227 
Much of this phantasy thinking was seen to be scarcely 
conscious, but arose from unrealized wishes, desires and 
strivings which could only express themselves through 
veiled symbols in the form of phantastic structures not 
understood, nor fully recognized. Indeed, it is perhaps 
one of the most common human experiences to find 
"queer thoughts," undesired ideas and images, forcing 
themselves upon one's attention to such an extent that the 
will has to be employed to push them out of mind. It is 
not unusual to discover long-forgotten impressions of 
childhood assuming a phantastic shape in memory, and 
dwelt upon as though they were still of importance. 
This material afforded a rich field for the searchers 
into the soul, for through the operation of the law of 
association of ideas these phantastic products, traced back 
to their origin, revealed the fact that instead of being 
meaningless or foolish, they were produced by a definite 
process, and arose from distinct wishes and desires which 
unconsciously veiled themselves in these mysterious forms 
and pictures. 
It is conceded that the most completely unconscious 
product of an individual is his dream, and therefore Pro- 
fessor Freud turned his attention from phantasies and 
day-dreams to the investigation of the nightly dreams of 
his patients to discover whether they would throw light 
upon the painful feelings and ideas repressed out of con- 
sciousness, and therefore inaccessible to direct revelation. 
This brilliant idea soon led to a rich fruiting, for it 
became evident that, contrary to the usual conception that 
the dream is a phantastic and absurd jumble of hetero- 
geneous fragments, having no real relation to the life of 
the individual, it is full of meaning. In fact, it is usually 
concerned with the problem of life most pressing at the 
time, which expresses itself not directly, but in symbolic 
form so as to be unrecognized. In this way the individual 
gains an expression and fulfillment of his unrealized wish 
or desire. 228 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
This discovery of the symbolic nature of the dream and 
the phantasy was brought about entirely through the asso- 
ciative method and developed empirically through investi- 
gations of the dreams of many people. In this manner it 
became evident that certain ideas and objects which re- 
curred again and again in the dreams and phantasies of 
different people were definitely associated with certain 
unconscious or unrecognized wishes and desires, and were 
repeatedly used by the mind to express these meanings 
where a direct form was repressed and unallowed. Thus 
certain dream expressions and figures were in a general 
way considered to be rather definite symbols of these 
repressed ideas and feelings found in the unconscious. 
Through a comparative and parallel study it soon ap- 
peared that there was a similar mechanism at work in 
myths and fairy tales and that the relationship between 
the dreams and phantasies of an individual and the myths 
and folk tales of a people were so close that Abraham 
could say that the myth is a fragment of the infantile soul 
life of the race and the dream is the myth of the indi- 
vidual. 
Thus through relating his dreams the patient himself 
furnished the most important means of gaining access to 
the unconscious and disturbing complexes with which his 
symptoms were connected. 
Besides the dream analysis the patient furnished other 
means of revelation of his complexes-his mannerisms 
and unconscious acts, his opening remarks to his physician, 
his emotional reactions to certain ideas; in short the whole 
behavior and verbal expressions of the individual reveal 
his inner nature and problems. 
Through all this work it became clear that in the emo- 
tional nature lay the origin not only of the various nervous 
illnesses themselves, but also of the isolated symptoms 
and individual idiosyncrasies and peculiarities which are 
the part of all humanity and that the pathogenic cause of 
the disturbances lies not in the ignorance of individuals, ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
229 
but in those inner resistances which are the underlying 
basis of this ignorance. 
Therefore the aim of the therapy became not merely 
the relief of the ignorance but the searching out and com- 
bating of these resistances. 
It becomes evident from even this brief description of 
the analytic procedure that we are dealing with a very 
complex and delicate material, and with a technique which 
needs to make definite use of all influences available for 
the help of the patient. It has long been recognized that 
the relation established between physician and patient has 
a great effect upon the medical assistance which he is able 
to render-in other words, if a confidence and personal 
regard developed in the patient towards the physician, the 
latter's advice was just so much more efficacious. This 
personal feeling has been frankly recognized and made 
of distinct service in psychoanalytic treatment under the 
name of transference. It is through the aid of this definite 
relationship which must be established in the one being 
analyzed towards the analyst that it is possible to deal 
with the unconscious and organized resistances which so 
easily blind the individual and render the acceptance of 
the new valuations very difficult to the raw and sensitive 
soul. 
Freud's emphasis upon the role of the sexual instinct 
in the production of the neurosis and also in its determin- 
ing power upon the personality of the normal individual 
does not imply that he does not also recognize other deter- 
minants at the root of human conduct, as for instance, 
the instinct for preservation of life and the ego principle 
itself. But these motives are not so violently forbidden 
and repressed as the sexual impulse, and therefore, be- 
cause of that repressive force and the strength of the 
impulse he considers this primary in its influence upon the 
human being. 
The importance of this instinct upon human life is 
clearly revealed by the great place given to it under the 230 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
name of love in art, literature, poetry, romance and all 
beauty from the beginning of recorded time. Viewed in 
this light it cannot seem extraordinary that a difficulty or 
disturbance in this emotional field should produce such 
far-reaching consequences for the individual. The sexual 
impulse is often compared with that of hunger, and this 
craving and need lying in all humanity is called by Freud 
libido. 
With further investigations into the nature of the 
repressed complexes a very astonishing situation was re- 
vealed. The parental influence on children is something 
so well recognized and understood that to call attention 
to it sounds much like a banality. However, here an 
extraordinary discovery was made, for in tracing out the 
feelings and emotions of adults it became evident that this 
influence was paramount not only for children but for 
adults as well; that the entire direction of lives was largely 
determined quite unconsciously by the parental associa- 
tions, and that, although adults, the emotional side of their 
nature was still infantile in type and demanded uncon- 
sciously the infantile or childish relations. 
Freud traces out the commencement of the infantile 
attachment for the parents in this wise. 
In the beginning the child derives its first satisfaction 
and pleasure from the mother in the form of nutrition 
and care for its wants. In this first act of suckling Freud 
sees already a kind of sexual pleasure, for he apparently 
identifies the pleasure principle and the sexual instinct and 
considers that the former is primarily rooted in the latter. 
At this early time commence such various infantile actions 
unconnected with nutrition as thumbsucking, various 
movements of the body as rubbing, boring, pulling and 
other manifestations of a definite interest in its own body, 
a delight in nakedness, the pleasure exhibited in inflicting 
pain on some object and its opposite, the pleasure from 
The CEdipus Problem ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
231 
receiving pain. All of these afford the child pleasure 
and satisfaction, and because they seem analogous to cer- 
tain perversions in adults they are called by Freud the 
"polymorphous perverse sexuality" of childhood. The 
character of these instinctive actions which have nothing 
to do with any other person, and through which the child 
attains pleasure from its own body, caused Freud to term 
this phase of life as autoerotic, after Havelock Ellis. 
However, with the growth of the child there is a parallel 
development of the psychic elements of its sexual nature 
and now the mother, the original object of its love, pri- 
marily determined by its helplessness and need, acquires a 
new valuation. The beginnings of the need for a love 
object to satisfy the craving or libido of the child are early 
in evidence and, following along sex lines in general, the 
little son prefers the mother and the daughter the father 
after the usual preference of the parents. 
At this early time children feel deeply the enormous 
importance of their parents and their entire world is 
bounded by the family circle. All the elements of the 
ego which the child possesses have now become manifest; 
love, jealousy, curiosity, hate, etc., and those instincts are 
directed in the greatest degree towards the objects of their 
libido, namely, the parents. With the growing ego of the 
child there is a development of strong wishes and desires 
demanding satisfaction which can only be gratified by the 
mother; therefore there is aroused in the small son the 
feeling of jealousy and anger towards the father in whom 
he sees a rival for the affection of the mother and whom 
he would like to replace. This desire in the soul of the 
child Freud calls the CEdipus complex in recognition of 
its analogy to the tragedy of King CEdipus who was drawn 
by his fate to kill his father and win his mother for a 
wife. Freud presents this as the nuclear complex of every 
neurosis. 
At the basis of this complex, some trace of which can 
be found in every person, Freud sees a definite incest wish 232 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
towards the mother which only lacks the quality of con- 
sciousness. Because of moral reactions this wish is quickly 
subjected to repression through the operation of the 
"incest barrier," a postulate he compares to the incest 
taboo found among inferior peoples. At this time the 
child is beginning to develop its typical sexual curiosity 
expressed by the question, "Where do I come from?" 
The interest and investigation of the child into this prob- 
lem, aided by observations and deductions from various 
actions and attitudes of the parents, who have no idea 
of the watchfulness of the child, lead him, because of his 
imperfect knowledge and immature development, into 
many false theories and ideas of birth. These infantile 
sexual theories are held by Freud to be determinative in 
the development of the child's character and also for the 
contents of the unconscious as expressed in a future 
neurosis. 
These various reactions of the child and his sexual curi- 
osity are entirely normal and unavoidable, and if his de- 
velopment proceeds in an orderly fashion then, at the time 
of definite object choice he will pass smoothly over from 
the limitations of the family attachment out into the world 
and find therein his independent existence. 
However, if the libido remains fixed on the first chosen 
object so that the growing individual is unable to tear 
himself loose from these familial ties, then the incestuous 
bond is deepened with the developing sexual instinct and 
its accompanying need of a love object, and the entire 
future of the young personality endangered. For with the 
development of the incestuous bond the natural repres- 
sions deepen because the moral censor cannot allow these 
disturbing relations to become clear to the individual. 
Therefore, the whole matter is repressed more deeply into 
the unconscious, and even a feeling of positive enmity and 
repulsion towards the parents is often developed in order 
to conceal and over-compensate for the impossible situa- 
tion actually present. ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
233 
This persistence of the attachment of the libido to the 
original object, and the inability to find in this a suitable 
satisfaction for the adult need, interferes with the normal 
development of the psychosexual character, and it is due 
to this that the adult retains that "infantilism of sexual- 
ity" which plays so great a role in determining the in- 
stability of the emotional life which so frequently leads 
into the definite neuroses. 
These were the conclusions reached and the ground on 
which Freudian psychology rested, regarding the etiology 
of the neurosis, and the tendencies underlying normal 
human mechanisms, when Dr. Carl Jung, the most promi- 
nent of Freud's disciples, and the leader of the Zurich 
school, found himself no longer able to agree with Freud's 
findings in certain particulars, although the phenomena 
which Freud observed and the technique of psychoanal- 
ysis developed by Freud were the material on which Jung 
worked and the value of which he clearly emphasizes. 
The differences which have developed lay in his under- 
standing and interpretation of the phenomena observed. 
Beginning with the conception of libido itself as a term 
used to connote sexual hunger and craving, albeit the 
meaning of the word sexual was extended by Freud to 
embrace a much wider significance than common usage 
has assigned it, Jung was unable to confine himself to this 
limitation. He conceived this longing, this urge or push 
of life as something extending beyond sexuality even in 
its wider sense. He saw in the term libido a concept of 
unknown nature, comparable to Bergson's elan vital, a 
hypothetical energy of life, which occupies itself not only 
in sexuality but in various physiological and psychological 
manifestations such as growth, development, hunger, and 
all the human activities and interests. This cosmic energy 
or urge manifested in the human being he calls libido and 
compares it with the energy of physics. Although recog- 
nizing, in common with Freud as well as with many others, 234 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the primal instinct of reproduction as the basis of many 
functions and present-day activities of mankind no longer 
sexual in character he repudiates the idea of still calling 
them sexual, even though their development was a growth 
originally out of the sexual. Sexuality and its various 
manifestations Jung sees as most important channels occu- 
pied by libido, but not the exclusive ones through which 
libido flows. 
This is an energic concept of life; and from this view- 
point this hypothetical energy of life or libido is a living 
power used instinctively by man in all the automatic proc- 
esses of his functioning; such very processes being but 
different manifestations of this energy. By virtue of its 
quality of mobility and change man, through his under- 
standing and intelligence, has the power consciously to 
direct and use his libido in definite and desired ways. 
In this conception of Jung will be seen an analogy to 
Bergson, who speaks of "this change, this movement and 
becoming, this self-creation, call it what you will, as the 
very stuff and reality of our being." 3 
In developing the energic conception of libido and sepa- 
rating it from Freud's sexual definition, Jung makes pos- 
sible the explanation of interest in general, and provides 
a working concept by which not only the specifically 
sexual, but the general activities and reactions of man can 
be understood. 
If a person complains of no longer having interest in 
his work or of losing interest in his surroundings, then one 
understands that his libido is withdrawn from this object 
and that in consequence the object itself seems no longer 
attractive, whereas, as a matter of fact, the object itself 
is exactly the same as formerly. In other words, it is 
the libido that we bestow upon an object that makes it 
attractive and interesting. 
The causes for the withdrawal of libido may be various 
and are usually quite different from those that the persons 
3 Creative Evolution. ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
235 
offer in explanation. It is the task of psychoanalysis to 
discover the real reasons, which are usually hidden and 
unknown. On the other hand, when an individual ex- 
hibits an exaggerated interest or places an overemphasis 
upon an idea or situation, then we know there is too much 
libido here and that we may find as a consequence a corre- 
sponding depletion elsewhere. 
This leads directly into the second point of difference 
between Jung's views and those of Freud. This is con- 
cerned with those practically universal childish manifesta- 
tions of sexuality called by Freud "polymorphous per- 
verse" because of their similarity to those abnormalities 
of sexuality which occur in adults and are called per- 
versions. 
Jung takes exception to this viewpoint. He sees in the 
various manifestations of childhood the precursors or 
forerunners of the later fully developed sexuality, and 
instead of considering them perverse he considers them 
preliminary expressions of sexual coloring. He divides 
human life into three stages. The first stage up to about 
the third or fourth year, generally speaking, he calls the 
presexual stage, for there he sees the libido or life energy 
occupied chiefly in the functions of nutrition and growth, 
and he draws an analogy between this period and that of 
the caterpillar stage of the butterfly. 
The second stage includes the years from this time 
until puberty, and this he speaks of as the prepubertal 
stage. 
The third period is that from puberty onward and can 
be considered the time of maturity. 
It is in the earliest stage, the period of which varies 
greatly in different individuals, that are fully inaugurated 
those various manifestations which have so marked a 
sexual coloring that there can be no question of their rela- 
tionship, although at that time sexuality in the adult 
meaning of the word does not exist. 
Jung explains the polymorphism of these phenomena 236 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
as arising from a gradual movement of the libido from 
exclusive service in the function of nutrition into new 
avenues which successively open up with the development 
of the child until the final inauguration of the sexual 
function proper at puberty. Normally these childish bad 
habits are gradually relinquished until the libido is entirely 
withdrawn from these immature phases and with the 
ushering in of puberty for the first time "appears in the 
form of an undifferentiated sexual primitive power, clearly 
forcing the individual towards division, budding, etc." 
However, if in the course of its movement from the 
function of nutrition to the sexual function the libido is 
arrested or retarded at any phase, then a fixation may 
result, creating a disturbance in the harmony of the normal 
development. For, although the libido is retarded and 
remains clinging to some childish manifestation, time goes 
on and the physical growth of the child does not stand 
still. Soon a great contrast is created between the infan- 
tile manifestations of the emotional life and the needs of 
the more adult individual, and the foundation is thus pre- 
pared for either the development of a definite neurosis 
or else for those weaknesses of character or symptomatic 
disturbances which are not sufficiently serious to be called 
a neurosis. 
One of the most active and important forms of childish 
libido occupation is in phantasy making. The child's 
world is one of imagery and make-believe where he can 
create for himself that satisfaction and enjoyment which 
the world of reality so often denies. As the child grows 
and real demands of life are made upon him it becomes 
increasingly necessary that his libido be taken away from 
his phantastic world and used for the required adaptation 
to reality needed by his age and condition, until finally 
for the adult the freedom of the whole libido is necessary 
to meet the biological and cultural demands of life. 
Instead of thus employing the libido in the real world, 
however, certain people never relinquish the seeking for ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
237 
satisfaction in the shadowy world of phantasy and even 
though they make certain attempts at adaptation they are 
halted and discouraged by every difficulty and obstacle in 
the path of life and are easily pulled back into their inner 
psychic world. This condition is called a state of intro- 
version. It is concerned with the past and the reminis- 
cences which belong thereto. Situations and experiences 
which should have been completed and finished long ago 
are still dwelt upon and lived with. Images and matters 
which were once important but which normally have no 
significance for their later age are still actively influencing 
their present lives. The nature and character of these 
phantasy products are legion, and are easily recognized 
in the emotional attitudes and pretensions, the childish 
illusions and exaggerations, the prejudices and incon- 
sistencies which people express in manifold forms. The 
actual situation is inadequately faced; small matters are 
reacted towards in an exaggerated manner; or else a 
frivolous attitude is maintained where real seriousness is 
demanded. In other words, there is clearly manifested 
an inadequate psychic adaptation towards reality which is 
quite to be expected from the child, but which is very 
discordant in the adult. 
The most important of these past influences is that of 
the parents. Because they are the first objects of the 
developing childish love, and afford the first satisfaction 
and pleasure to the child, they become the models for all 
succeeding efforts, as Freud has worked out. This he 
called the nuclear or root complex because this influence 
was so powerful it seemed to be the determining factor 
in all later difficulties in the life of the individual. 
In this phase of the problem lies the third great differ- 
ence between Jung's interpretation of the observed phe- 
nomena and that of Freud. 
Jung definitely recognizes that there are many neurotic 
persons who clearly exhibited in their childhood the same 
neurotic tendencies that are later exaggerated. Also that 238 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
an almost overwhelming affect on the destiny of these 
children is exercised by the influence of the parents, the 
frequent over-anxiety or tenderness, the lack of sympathy 
or understanding, in other words, the complexes of the 
parent reacting upon the child and producing in him love, 
admiration, fear, distrust, hate, revolt. The greater the 
sensitiveness and impressionability of the child, the more 
he will be stamped with the familial environment, and 
the more he will unconsciously seek to find again in the 
world of reality the model of his own small world with 
all the pleasures and satisfactions, or disappointments and 
unhappinesses with which it was filled. 
This condition to be sure is not a recognized or a 
conscious one, for the individual may think himself per- 
fectly free from this past influence because he is living in 
the real world, and because actually there is a great dif- 
ference between the present conditions and that of his 
childish past. He sees all this, intellectually, but there is 
a wide gap between the intellectual grasp of a situation 
and the emotional development, and it is the latter realm 
wherein lies the disharmony. However, although many 
ideas and feelings are connected with the parents, analysis 
reveals very often that they are only subjective and that 
in reality they bear little resemblance to the actual past 
situation. Therefore, Jung speaks no longer of the real 
father and mother but uses the term imago or image to 
represent the father or mother, because the feelings and 
phantasies frequently do not deal with the real parents 
but with the distorted and subjective image created by the 
imagination of the individual. 
Following this distinction Jung sees in the CEdipus com- 
plex of Freud only a symbol for the "childish desire 
towards the parents and for the conflict which this craving 
evokes," and cannot accept the theory that in this early 
stage of childhood the mother has any real sexual sig- 
nificance for the child. 
The demands of the child upon the mother, the jealousy ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
239 
so often exhibited, are at first connected with the role of 
the mother as protector, caretaker and supplier of nutri- 
tive wants, and only later, with the germinating eroticism, 
does the child's love become admixed with the developing 
sexual quality. The chief love objects are still the parents 
and he naturally continues to seek and to find in them 
satisfaction for all his desires. In this way the typical 
conflict is developed which in the son is directed towards 
the father and in the daughter towards the mother. This 
jealousy of the daughter towards the mother is called the 
Electra complex from the myth of Electra who took re- 
venge on her mother for the murder of the husband 
because she was in this way deprived of her father. 
Normally as puberty is attained the child gradually 
becomes more or less freed from his parents, and upon 
the degree in which this is accomplished depends his 
health and future well-being. 
This demand of nature upon the young individual to 
free himself from the bonds of his childish dependency 
and to find in the world of reality his independent exist- 
ence is so imperious and dominating that it frequently 
produces in the child the greatest struggles and severest 
conflict, the period being characterized symbolically as a 
self-sacrifice by Jung. 
It frequently happens that the young person is so closely 
bound in the family relations that it is only with the 
greatest difficulty that he can attain any measure of free- 
dom and then only very imperfectly, so that the libido 
sexualis can only express itself in certain feelings and 
phantasies which clearly reveal the existence of the com- 
plex until then entirely hidden and unrealized. Now 
commences the secondary struggle against the unfilial and 
immoral feelings with a consequent development of intense 
resistances expressing themselves in irritation, anger, re- 
volt and antagonism against the parents, or else in an 
especially tender, submissive and yielding attitude which 
overcompensates for the rebellion and reaction held within. 240 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
This struggle and conflict gives rise to the unconscious 
phantasy of self-sacrifice which really means the sacri- 
ficing of the childish tendencies and early love type in 
order to free libido; for man's nature demands that he 
attain the capacity for the accomplishment of his own 
personal fulfillment, the satisfaction of which belongs to 
the developed man and woman. 
This brings us to one of the most important of Jung's 
conceptions in that it bears practically upon the treatment 
of certain types of the neuroses and stands theoretically 
in direct opposition to Freud's hypothesis. While recog- 
nizing fully the influence of the parents and of the sexual 
constitution of the child, Jung refuses to see in this in- 
fantile past the real cause for the later development of 
the illness. He definitely places the cause of the patho- 
genic conflict in the present moment and considers that in 
seeking for the cause in the distant past one is only fol- 
lowing the desire of the patient, which is to withdraw 
himself as much as possible from the present important 
period. 
The conflict is produced by some important task or 
duty which is essential biologically and practically for the 
fulfillment of the ego of the individual, but before which 
an obstacle arises from which he shrinks, and thus halted 
cannot go on. With this interference in the path of pro- 
gression libido is stored up and a regression takes place 
whereby there occurs a reanimation of past ways of libido 
occupation which were entirely normal to the child, but 
which for the adult are no longer of value. These re- 
gressive infantile desires and phantasies now alive and 
striving for satisfaction are converted into symptoms, and 
in these surrogate forms obtain a certain gratification, 
thus creating the external manifestations of the neurosis. 
Therefore Jung does not ask from what psychic experi- 
ence or point of fixation in childhood the patient is suffer- 
ing, but what is the present duty or task he is avoiding, 
or what obstacle in his life's path he is unable to over- ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
241 
come? What is the cause of his regression to past psychic 
experiences ? 
Following this theory Jung expresses the view that the 
elaborate phantasies and dreams produced by these pa- 
tients are really forms of compensation or artificial sub- 
stitutes for the unfulfilled adaptation to reality. The 
sexual content of these phantasies and dreams is only 
apparently and not actually expressive of a real sexual 
desire or incest wish, but is a regressive employment of 
sexual forms to symbolically express a present-day need 
when the attainment of the present ego demand seems 
too difficult or impossible, and no adaptation is made to 
what is possible for the individual's capability.4 
With this statement Jung throws a new light on the 
work of analytic psychology and on the conception of the 
neurotic symptoms, and renders possible of understanding 
the many apparent incongruities and conflicting observa- 
tions which have been so disturbing to the critics. 
Jung sees the infantile sexuality itself as one of the 
symptoms of the immature and only partially developed 
personality. In other words, the development of man's 
personality is looked upon as being due to factors other 
than the sole one of his sexual organism, although this 
plays a large part-much larger than is generally sup- 
posed. 
Perhaps Dr. Jung's most important contribution for the 
understanding of human personality, however, is the dif- 
ferentiation and study of the psychologic types. The ad- 
vantage of the classification of mankind into distinct 
psychologic types whose reactions to stimuli are different 
4 For a more complete presentation of Jung's views consult his 
Theory of Psychoanalysis in the Nervous and Mental Disease 
Monograph Series. No. 19. Also, Chapter on Jung, in Van 
Teslaar's volume of essays entitled, The Founders of the New 
Psychology: Freud, Stekel, Adler and Jung, to be published shortly. 242 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
and distinct and can fairly adequately be postulated in 
advance is as valuable for the medical psychologist as is 
Dr. Joel Goldthwaite's anatomical and physiological classi- 
fication for the internist. 
To be sure, William James referred to two distinct 
mental types when he spoke of the tough-minded and 
tender-minded persons, and the age-old disputes between 
various schools of romanticists and classicists all dealt 
with the same problem, but until the present time the im- 
portance of thoroughly recognizing these types and their 
distinctive reactions has never been properly understood, 
and in no other way as yet devised can any real under- 
standing of human personality be gained. 
Jung deals for the time being with the two very distinct 
and definite types which are most easily recognized and 
are everywhere in evidence, and these he calls the extra- 
vert and the introvert types. He does not deny that there 
are probably other types not yet clearly defined, but from 
my own rather large experience I am inclined to believe 
that these are variations of these two main types, depend- 
ing upon the functions used and the degree of subjectivity 
or objectivity affecting the individual. The basic types 
can be conceived of as being at opposite poles-and be- 
tween them the less pronounced individuals who lean, how- 
ever, definitely toward the one or the other side, until the 
middle is reached, when they would partake of the nature 
of both introvert and extravert. 
The two main types are characterized by absolutely 
opposite reactions and are in marked contrast to each 
other. The one called by Jung extra vert is chiefly recog- 
nized by responding to stimuli with action. He feels his 
way, as it were, into the situation and identifies himself 
with the object so that the ego and the object become one. 
This is the so-called man of action. His thought function 
is ordinarily less developed and is inferior to his feeling 
which is frequently so finely differentiated as to enable him 
to handle difficult situations and meet practical problems ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
243 
of life in a highly successful way, and this often passes 
for intellectual acumen. He is frequently referred to as 
the person who acts first and thinks afterwards. 
Exactly contrary is the reaction of the introvert. He 
reacts to stimuli by thinking and tends to withdraw from 
the object to think it over and weigh matters. For him 
action is difficult, uncertain, and delayed. He cannot make 
an immediate and direct contact with the object because 
between his feeling and the object is the ego. An extreme 
example of this type is Hamlet "all sickbed o'er with the 
pale cast of thought." He broods, meditates and is often 
moody. 
If the introvert has had an intellectual training and 
development he substitutes for his difficulty in activity 
and quick adjustment to the changing conditions of life, 
the creation of theories, philosophies and logical reasoning 
about things and seeks to adapt himself mentally-his 
trouble comes in putting these ideas into practical appli- 
cation. This does not mean that he is without feeling. 
Indeed, he may have the strongest feelings-one class of 
introvert is often called the emotional type-but his feel- 
ing is undifferentiated, and he reveals an inadequate emo- 
tional reaction and valuation. His emotions when aroused 
frequently show undeveloped character so that it is not 
surprising to find highly cultivated introverts acting in a 
childish and infantile manner with deep moods of depres- 
sion and a tendency towards infantile sexual manifesta- 
tions. 
The introvert is also affected by a feeling of inferiority 
which is so unbearable that there is developed a mech- 
anism which is constantly striving to overcome this by an 
overaccentuation of the ego-the power system-Adler's 
masculine protest. 
The extravert, however, has not these same difficulties. 
Our modern world, with its accent on action and results, 
was made for him. He responds to stimuli, to people and 
events with finely differentiated feeling and in the tumult 244 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
and struggle of the world he is more or less at home. 
He is preeminently the natural fighting man. His diffi- 
culty, however, lies in his too great bondage to the object 
and in his thinking. When this is required of him instead 
of action, it is often disclosed as of an undeveloped char- 
acter-conventional and collective in type. 
Two individuals prominent in American public life 
represent these types most perfectly and they may serve 
to make this subject clearer. These are ex-President 
Wilson and ex-President Roosevelt. Roosevelt is ob- 
viously the extravert of rather an extreme type-highly 
successful in action with responsive feelings and a keen 
sense of events and situations-a man who can pick men 
-a man who makes warm friends and strong enemies, 
and who sways people by his emotional appeal. How- 
ever, if his thought is examined, it will be found to follow 
action rather than precede it. It is conventional and lack- 
ing in originality, is usually made over from the ideas and 
thoughts of others, and he can quickly reverse himself 
when the occasion demands. Ex-president Wilson, on the 
other hand, was an introvert. He was a student and 
thinker, slow to action, with a policy called watchful wait- 
ing ; that is, of thinking well over a matter before acting- 
of trying to understand all the causes and processes of 
problems. He could construct a political philosophy, or 
build up a religious international vision for the world. He 
referred to himself as having a single-track mind, meaning 
that having once thought out a path of action he must 
unswervingly follow it no matter what new situations may 
arise demanding a reversal or quick adaptation. His weak- 
ness was in the realm of feeling and action. He was 
often, it would seem, mistaken in his judgment of men, and 
in the field of action his retardation has frequently brought 
forth criticism from his most ardent admirers. 
In another way one may say briefly that the extravert 
puts the accent on the object and the introvert on the ego 
or subject. The extravert feels out and acts. He is the ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
245 
opportunist, feeling his way and acting according to the 
demand of the moment. The true introvert thinks in and 
about as it were; he is able to act effectively only after a 
fully worked out line of procedure in which the subject 
is first and the object second. This is the reason that it 
is so much more difficult to treat the neurosis in the intro- 
vert than the extravert. He attaches himself to the object 
in order to assist and enhance the ego or subject and can 
only with great difficulty relinquish his hold once made, 
instead of adapting himself to the object with the ability 
quickly to change and make a new relation when the need 
arises. 
It is in dealing with the neuroses of the introvert that 
one realizes the very great part played by the ego-dominant, 
the "will-to-power," and that recognition must be given 
to this component in any adequate analytic therapy. It is 
through this recognition of types that Jung was enabled 
to reconcile the very opposite conceptions of Freud and 
Adler. Freud's sexual theory applies more particularly 
to the extravert and Adler's power theory to the introvert. 
To be sure, this in no wise means that sexuality is not 
everywhere to be found and must adequately be met, but 
simply that the emphasis in one type is on the ego and in 
the other on the sexual aspect of the individual. 
The introvert can far more successfully repress his 
sexuality and be freer of its claims in consciousness than 
the extravert; and instead of struggling with the sexual 
problem as the central theme, his struggle is with the feel- 
ing of inferiority, which is an almost constant accompani- 
ment of this type, and with his oversensitiveness, which 
is concomitant with the intense ego demand. The impor- 
tant factor in the recognition of these psychological types 
is to realize that they can never under normal conditions 
be changed to the opposite types any more than can the 
physiological types be altered. Therefore, admonitions 
and advice to do or be otherwise is futile and this explains 
why in the psychoneuroses a given line of treatment is 246 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
successful with one patient and fails utterly with another. 
The individuals are unable to respond except according to 
their own mechanism. 
It is therefore most necessary that in the reductive 
process of analytic treatment an important place be given 
to the ego strivings as well as to the sexual components 
of the personality and that the formula or psychic mech- 
anism of the individual be thoroughly grasped. For there 
is a very definite unconscious mechanism governing the 
type of reaction and behavior of the individual and to 
make this conscious is the first step in aiding him to find 
a more satisfactory mode than the primitive and instinc- 
tive one which governs him. 
It now becomes proper to ask what has been established 
by all this mass of investigation into the soul, and what 
is its value not only as a therapeutic measure for the 
neurotic sufferer, but also for the normal human being? 
First and perhaps most important is the recognition of 
a definite psychological determinism. Instead of human 
life being filled with foolish, meaningless or purposeless 
actions, errors and thoughts, it can be demonstrated that 
no expression or manifestation of the psyche, however 
trifling or inconsistent in appearance, is really lawless or 
unmotivated Only a possession of the technique is neces- 
sary in order to reveal, to any one desirous of knowing, 
the existence of the unconscious determinants of his man- 
nerisms, triviaj expressions, acts and behavior, their pur- 
pose and significance. 
This 'leads into the second fundamental conception, 
which is perhaps even less considered than the foregoing, 
and that is the value of the conscious mind and thought. 
It is the general attitude of people to judge themselves 
by their surface motives, to satisfy themselves by saying 
or thinking "this is what I want to do, say" or "I intended 
to do thus and so," but somehow what one thought one 
intended to say or expected to do is very often the con- 
trary of what actually is said or done. Every one has had ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
247 
these experiences when the gap between the conscious 
thought and action was gross enough to be observed. It 
is also a well-known experience to consciously desire some- 
thing very much and when it is obtained to discover that 
this in no wise satisfied or lessened the desire, which was 
then transferred to some other object. Thus one became 
cognizant of the fact that the feeling and idea presented 
by consciousness as the desire was an error. What is the 
difficulty in these conditions? Evidently some other di- 
recting force than that of which we are aware is at work. 
Dr. G. Stanley Hall uses a very striking symbol when 
he compares the mind to an iceberg floating in the ocean 
with one-eighth visible above the water and seven-eighths 
below-the one-eighth above being that part called con- 
scious and the seven-eighths below that which we call the 
unconscious. The influence and controlling power of the 
unconscious desires over our thoughts and acts are in this 
relative proportion. Faint glimmers of other motives and 
interests than those we accept or which we believe, often 
flit into consciousness. These indications, if studied or 
valued accurately, would lead to the realization that con- 
sciousness is but a single stage and but one form of ex- 
pression of mind. Therefore its dictum is but one, often 
untrustworthy, approach to the great question as to what 
is man's actual psychic accomplishment, and as to what 
in particular is the actual soul development of the indi- 
vidual. 
A further contribution of equal importance has been 
the empiric development of a dynamic theory of life; the 
conception that life is in a state of flux-movement-lead- 
ing either to construction or destruction. Through the 
development man has reached he has attained the power 
by means of his intelligence and understanding of defi- 
nitely directing to a certain extent this life energy or 
libido into avenues which serve his interest and bring a 
real satisfaction for the present day. 
When man through ignorance and certain inherent 248 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
tendencies fails to recognize his needs or his power to 
fulfill them, or to adapt himself to the conditions of reality 
of the present time, there is then produced that reanima- 
tion of infantile paths by which an attempt is made to 
gain fulfillment or satisfaction through the production of 
symptoms or attitudes. 
The acceptance of these statements demands the recog- 
nition of the existence of an infantile sexuality and the 
large part played by it in the later life of the individual. 
Because of the power and imperious influence exerted by 
the parents upon the child, and because of the unconscious 
attachment of his libido to the original object, the mother, 
and the perseverance of this first love model in the psyche, 
he finds it very difficult, on reaching the stage of adult 
development and the time for seeking a love object out- 
side of the family, to gain a satisfactory object. 
It is exceedingly important for parents and teachers 
to recognize the requirements of nature, which, beginning 
with puberty, imperiously demand of the young indi- 
vidual a separation of himself from the parent stem and 
the development of an independent existence. In our com- 
plex modern civilization this demand of nature is difficult 
enough of achievement for the child who has the heartiest 
and most intelligent cooperation of his parents and en- 
vironment-but for the one who has not only to contend 
with his own inner struggle for his freedom but has in 
addition the resistance of his parents who would hold him 
in his childhood at any cost, because they cannot endure 
the thought of his separation from them, the task becomes 
one of the greatest magnitude. It is during this period 
when the struggle between the childish inertia and nature's 
urge becomes so keen, that there occur the striking mani- 
festations of jealousy, criticism, irritability, all usually 
directed against the parents, of defiance of parental au- 
thority, of runaways and various other psychic and 
nervous disorders known to all. 
This struggle, which is the first great task of mankind ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
249 
and the one which requires the greatest effort, is that 
which is expressed by Jung as the self-sacrifice motive- 
the sacrifice of the childish feelings and demands, and of 
the irresponsibility of this period, and the assumption of 
the duties and tasks of an individual existence. 
It is this great theme which Jung sees as the real motive 
lying hidden in the myths and religions of man from the 
beginning, as well as in the literature and artistic crea- 
tions of both ancient and modern time, and which he 
works out with the greatest wealth of detail and pains- 
taking effort. 
This necessitates a recognition and revaluation of the 
enormous importance and influence of the ego and the 
sexual instinct upon the thought and reaction of man, and 
also predicates a displacement of the psychological point 
of gravity from the will and intellect to the realm of the 
emotions and feelings. The desired end is a synthesis of 
these two paths or the use of the intellect constructively 
in the service of the emotions in order to gain for the best 
interest of the individual some sort of cooperative reaction 
between the two. 
No one dealing with analytic psychology can fail to be 
struck by the tremendous and unnecessary burdens which 
man has placed upon himself, and how greatly he has 
increased the difficulties of adaptation by his rigid intel- 
lectual views and moral formulas, and by his inability to 
admit to himself that he is actually just a human being, 
imperfect, and containing within himself all manner of 
tendencies, good and bad, all striving for some satisfac- 
tory goal. Further, that the refusal to see himself in this 
light instead of as an ideal person in no way alters the 
actual condition, and that in fact, through the cheap pre- 
tense of being able only to consider himself as a very 
virtuous person, or as shocked and hurt when observing 
the "sins" of others, he actually is prevented from de- 
veloping his own character and bringing his own capac- 
ities to their fullest expressions. 250 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
There is frequently expressed among people the idea 
of how fortunate it is that we cannot see each other's 
thoughts, and how disturbing it would be if our real 
feelings could be read. But what is so shameful in these 
secrets of the soul? They are in reality our own egoistic 
desires all striving, longing, wishing for satisfaction, for 
happiness; those desires which instinctively crave their 
own gratification but which can only be really fulfilled by 
adapting them to the real world and to the social group. 
Why is it that it is so painful for man to admit that 
the prime influence in all human endeavor is found in the 
ego itself, in its desires, wishes, needs and satisfactions, 
in short, in its need for self-expression and self-perpetua- 
tion, the evolutionary impetus in life? 
The basis for the unpleasantness of this idea may per- 
haps be found in an inner resistance in nature itself which 
forces man to include others in his scheme, lest his own 
greedy desires should serve to destroy him. But even 
with this inner demand and all the ethical and moral 
teachings of centuries it is everywhere evident that man 
has only very imperfectly learned that it is to his own 
interest to consider his neighbor and that it is impossible 
for him to ignore the needs of the body social of which 
he is a part. Externally, the recognition of the strength 
of the ego impulse is objectionable because of the ideal 
conception that self-striving and so-called selfish seeking 
are unworthy, ignoble and incompatible with a desirable 
character and must be ignored at all cost. 
The futility of this attitude is to be clearly seen in the 
failure after all these centuries to even approximate it, 
as evidenced in our human relations and institutions, and 
is quite as ineffectual in this realm as in that of sexuality 
where the effort to overcome this imperious domination 
has been attempted by lowering the instinct, and seeing 
in it something vile or unclean, something unspeakable 
and unholy. Instead of destroying the power of sexuality 
this struggle has only warped and distorted, injured and ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
251 
mutilated the expression; for not without destruction of 
the individual can these fundamental instincts be de- 
stroyed. Life itself has needs and imperiously demands 
expression through the forms created. All nature answers 
to this freely and simply except man. His failure to 
recognize himself as an instrument through which the 
life energy is coursing and the demands of which must 
be obeyed, is the cause of his misery. Despite his posses- 
sion of intellect and self-consciousness, he cannot without 
disaster to himself refuse the tasks of life and the fulfill- 
ment of his own needs. Man's great task is the adaptation 
of himself to reality and the recognition of himself as an 
instrument for the expression of life according to his 
individual possibilities. 
It is in his privilege as a self-creator that his highest 
purpose is found. 
The value of self-consciousness lies in the fact that 
man is enabled to reflect upon himself and learn to under- 
stand the true origin and significance of his actions and 
opinions, that he may adequately value the real level of 
his development and avoid being self-deceived and there- 
fore inhibited from finding his biological adaptation. He 
need no longer be unconscious of the motives underlying 
his actions or hide himself behind a changed exterior, in 
other words, be merely a series of reactions to stimuli 
as the mechanists have it, but he may to a certain extent 
become a self-creating and self-determining being. 
Indeed, there seems to be an impulse towards adapta- 
tion quite as Bergson sees it, and it would seem to be a 
task of the highest order to use intelligence to assist one's 
self to work with this impulse. 
Through the investigation of these different avenues 
leading into the hidden depths of the human being and 
through the revelation of the motives and influences at 
work there, although astonishing to the uninitiated, a very 
clear and definite conception of the actual human rela- 252 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
tionship-brotherhood-of all mankind is obtained. It is 
this recognition of these common factors basically inherent 
in humanity from the beginning and still active, which is 
at once both the most hopeful and the most feared and 
disliked part of psychoanalysis. 
It is disliked by those individuals who have prided them- 
selves upon their superiority and the distinction between 
their reactions and motives and those of ordinary man- 
kind. In other words, they attempt to become personali- 
ties through elevating themselves and lowering others, and 
it is a distinct blow to discover that beneath these pre- 
tensions lie the very ordinary elements shared in common 
by all. On the other hand, to those who have been able 
to recognize their own weaknesses and have suffered in 
the privacy of their own souls, the knowledge that these 
things have not set them apart from others, but that they 
are the common property of all and that no one can point 
the finger of scorn at his fellow, is one of the greatest 
experiences of life and is productive of the greatest relief. 
It is feared by many who realize that in these painfully 
acquired repressions and symptoms lie their safety and 
their protection from directly facing and dealing with 
tendencies and characteristics with which they feel unable 
to cope. The repression and the accompanying symptoms 
indicate a difficulty and a struggle, and in this way are a 
sort of compromise or substitute formation which permit, 
although only in a wasteful and futile manner, the activity 
of the repressed tendencies. Nevertheless, to analyze the 
individual back to his original tendencies and reveal to 
him the meaning of these substitute formations would be 
a useless procedure in which truly "the last state of that 
man would be worse than the first" if the work ceased 
there. The aim is not to destroy those barriers upon which 
civilized man has so painfully climbed and to reduce him 
to his primitive state, but, where these have failed or im- 
perfectly succeeded, to help him to attain his greatest pos- 
sibilities with less expenditure of energy, by less wasteful ANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY 
253 
methods than nature provides. In this achievement lies 
the hopeful and valuable side of this method-the develop- 
ment of the synthesis. It is hopeful because now a way 
is opened to deal with these primitive tendencies con- 
structively, and render their effects not only harmless but 
useful, by utilizing them in higher aims, socially and in- 
dividually valuable and satisfactory. 
This is what has occurred normally in those individuals 
who seem capable and constructive personalities; in those 
creative minds that give so much to the race. They have 
converted certain psychological tendencies which could 
have produced useless symptoms or destructive actions into 
valuable productions. Indeed it is not uncommon for 
strong, capable persons to state themselves that they knew 
they could have been equally capable of a wasteful or 
destructive life. This utilization of the energy or libido 
freed by removing the repressions and the lifting of in- 
fantile tendencies and desires into higher purposes and 
directions suitable for the individual at his current status 
is called sublimation. 
It must not be understood by this discussion that 
geniuses or wonderful personalities can be created through 
analysis, for this is not the aim of the procedure. Its 
purpose is to remove the inhibitions and restrictions which 
interfere with the full development of the personality, to 
help individuals attain to that level where they really be- 
long, and to prepare people to better understand and meet 
life whether they are neurotic sufferers or so-called "nor- 
mal people" with the difficulties and peculiarities which 
belong to all. 
This reasoning and method of procedure is only new 
when the application is made to the human being. In all 
improvements of plants and animals these general prin- 
ciples have been recognized and their teachings construc- 
tively utilized. 
Luther Burbank, that plant wizard whose work is known 
to all the world, says, "A knowledge of the battle of the 254 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
tendencies within a plant is the very basis of all plant 
improvement," and "it is not that the work of plant im- 
provement brings with it, incidentally, as people mis- 
takenly think, a knowledge of these forces, it is the knowl- 
edge of these forces, rather, which makes plant improve- 
ment possible," 
Has this not been also the mistake of man regarding 
himself, and the cause, partly at least, of his failure to 
succeed in actually reaching a more advanced and stable 
development ? 
This recognition of man's biological relationship to all 
life and the practical utilization of this recognition, neces- 
sitates a readjustment of thought and asks for an exami- 
nation and reconsideration of the facts of human conduct 
which are observable by any thoughtful person. A quiet 
and progressive upheaval of old ideas has taken place and 
is still going on. Analytic psychology attempts to unify 
and value all of the various phenomena of man which have 
been observed and noted at different times by isolated 
investigators of isolated manifestations and thus bring 
some orderly sequence into the whole. It offers a method 
whereby the relations of the human being biologically to 
all other living forms can be established, the actual achieve- 
ment of man himself adequately valued, and opens a vista 
of the possibilities of improvement in health, happiness 
and accomplishment for the human being. THE CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES1 
Dr. C. G. Jung 
The number of psychoanalytic investigations 2 into the 
psychology of dementia praecox has considerably increased 
since the publication of my book upon the subject.3 When, 
in 1903, I made the first analysis of a case of dementia 
praecox, there dawned on me a premonition of the possi- 
bilities of future discoveries in this sphere. This has 
been confirmed. 
Freud first submitted a case of paranoid dementia to 
closer psychological investigation.4 This he was enabled 
to do by means of an analytic technic perfected through 
his rich experiences with neurotics. He selected the 
famous autobiography of P. Schreber, Denkwurdigkeiten 
eines N ervenkranken. The patient could not be ana- 
lyzed personally, but having published his most interest- 
ing autobiography all the material wanted for an analysis 
was to be found in it. 
In this study Freud shows out of what infantile forms 
of thought and instincts the delusioned system was built 
up. The peculiar delusions which the patient had about 
his doctor whom he identified with God or with a godlike 
being, and certain other surprising and really blasphemous 
ideas, Freud was able to reduce most ingeniously to his 
infantile relationship to his father. This case also pre- 
sented similar bizarre and grotesque concatenations of 
1 From Analytical Psychology, by C. G. Jung. Reprinted by 
courtesy of the publishers, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. 
2 This is an addition to an earlier paper. 
8 The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. 
4 Jahrbuch filr psychoanalytische Forschungen, III, pp. 9, 558. 
255 256 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
ideas to the one I have described. As the author himself 
says, his work confines itself to the task of pointing out 
those universally existent and undifferentiated founda- 
tions out of which we may say every psychological for- 
mation is historically developed.5 This reductive analyti- 
cal process did not, however, furnish such enlightening 
results in regard to the rich and surprising symbolism in 
patients of this kind as we had been accustomed to expect 
from the same method in the realm of the psychology of 
hysteria. In reading certain works of the Zurich school, 
for example, Maeder,6 Spielrein,7 Nelken,8 Grebelskaja,9 
Itten,10 one is powerfully impressed by the enormous 
symbol-formation in dementia praecox. 
Some of the authors still proceed essentially by the 
method of analytic reduction, tracing back the compli- 
cated delusional formation into its simpler and more uni- 
versal components, as I have done in the preceding pages. 
One cannot, however, resist the feeling that this method 
hardly does justice to the fullness and the almost over- 
powering wealth of phantastic symbol-formation, although 
it does undoubtedly throw a light upon the subject in cer- 
tain directions. 
Let me illustrate with an example. We should be 
thankful for a commentary upon Faust which traced 
back all the diverse material of Part II. to its historical 
sources, or for a psychological analysis of Part I. which 
5 Cf. also Ferenczi, Uber die Rolle der Homosexualitat in der 
Pathogenese der Paranoia, Jahrb. Ill, p. ioi. 
6 Maeder, Psychologische Untersuchungen an Dementia prcecox 
Kranken, Jahrbuch f. psychoanalyt. Forsch. II, p. 185. 
7 Spielrein, Uber den psychologischen Inhalt eines Failes von 
Schizophrene, l.c., Ill, p. 329^. 
8 Nelken, Analytische Beobachtungen uber Phc^ntasien eines 
Schizophrenen, l.c., IV, p. 505#. 
9 Grebelskaja, Psychologische Analyse eines Paranoiden, l.c., IV, 
p. 116 ff. 
10 Itten, Beitrdge zur Psychologic der Dementia prcecox, l.c., 
P- V, iff. CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
257 
pointed out how the dramatic conflict corresponds to a 
personal conflict in the soul of the poet; we should be glad 
of an exposition which pointed out how this subjective 
conflict is itself based upon those ultimate and universal 
human things which are nowise foreign to us since we all 
carry the seeds of them in our hearts. Nevertheless we 
should be a little disappointed. We do not read Faust 
just in order to discover that we also are, in all things, 
"human, all too human." Alas, we know that but too well 
already. Let any one who has not yet learnt it go for a 
little while out into the world and look at it without pre- 
conceptions and with open eyes. He will turn back from 
the might and power of the "too human," hungrily he will 
pick up his Faust, not to find again what he has just 
left, but to learn how a man like Goethe shakes off these 
elemental human things and finds freedom for his soul. 
When we once know who was the "Proktophantasmist," 
to what chronological events the mass of symbols in Part 
II. relates, how it is all intimately bound up with the poet's 
own soul and conditioned by it, we come to regard this 
determination as less important than the problem itself- 
what does the poet mean by his symbolic creation? Pro- 
ceeding purely reductively, one discovers the final meaning 
in these universal human things; and demands nothing 
further from an explanation than that the unknown and 
complicated shall be reduced to the known and simple. 
I should like to designate this kind of understanding as 
retrospective understanding. But there is another kind 
of understanding, which is not analytic reduction, but is of 
a synthetic or constructive nature. I would designate this 
prospective understanding, and the corresponding method 
as the constructive method. 
It is common knowledge that present-day scientific ex- 
planation rests upon the basis of the causal principle. 
Scientific explanation is causal explanation. We are there- 
fore naturally inclined, whenever we think scientifically, 
to explain causally, to understand a thing and to regard 258 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
it as explained whenever it is reduced analytically to its 
cause and general principle. In so far Freud's psycho- 
logical method of interpretation is strictly scientific. 
If we apply this method to Faust it must become 
clear that something more is required for a true under- 
standing. It will even seem to us that we have not gath- 
ered the poet's deepest meaning if we only see in it uni- 
versal foregone human conclusions. What we really want 
to find out is how this man has redeemed himself as an 
individual, and when we arrive at this comprehension 
then we shall also understand the symbol given by Goethe. 
It is true we may then fall into the error that we under- 
stand Goethe himself. But let us be cautious and modest, 
simply saying we have thereby arrived at an understand- 
ing of ourselves. I am thinking here of Kant's thought- 
compelling definition of comprehension, as "the realiza- 
tion of a thing to the extent which is sufficient for our 
purpose." 
This understanding is, it is true, subjective, and there- 
fore not scientific for those to whom science and explana- 
tion by the causal principle are identical. But the validity 
of this identification is open to question. In the sphere 
of psychology I must emphasize my doubt n this point. 
We speak of "objective" understanding when we have 
given a causal explanation. But at bottom, understand- 
ing is a subjective process upon which we confer the 
quality "objective" really only to differentiate it from 
another kind of understanding which is also a psycho- 
logical and subjective process, but upon which, without 
further ado, we bestow the quality "subjective." The 
attitude of today only grants scientific value to "objective" 
understanding on account of its universal validity. This 
standpoint is incontestably correct wherever it is not a 
question of the psychological process itself, and hence it 
is valid in all sciences apart from pure psychology. 
To interpret Faust objectively, i.e., from the causal 
standpoint, is as though a man were to consider a sculp- CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
259 
ture from the historical, technical and-last but not least 
-from the mineralogical standpoint. But where lurks 
the real meaning of the wondrous work? Where is the 
answer to that most important question: what aim had the 
artist in mind, and how are we ourselves to understand 
his work subjectively? To the scientific spirit this seems 
an idle question which anyhow has nothing to do with 
science. It comes furthermore into collision with the 
causal principle, for it is a purely speculative constructive 
view. And the modern world has overthrown this spirit 
of scholasticism. 
But if we would approach to an understanding of 
psychological things we must remember the fact of the 
subjective conditioning of all knowledge. The world is 
as we see it and not simply objective; this holds true even 
more of the mind. Of course it is possible to look at the 
mind objectively, just as at Faust, or a Gothic Cathedral. 
In this objective conception there is comprised the whole 
worth and worthlessness of current experimental psy- 
chology and psychoanalysis. The scientific mind, thinking 
causally, is incapable of understanding what is ahead; it 
only understands what is past, that is, retrospective. Like 
Ahriman, the Persian devil, it has the gift of After- 
Knowledge. But this spirit is only one-half of a com- 
plete comprehension. The other more important half is 
prospective or constructive; if we are not able to under- 
stand what lies ahead, then nothing is understood. If 
psychoanalysis, following Freud's orientation, should suc- 
ceed in presenting an uninterrupted and conclusive con- 
nection between Goethe's infantile sexual development and 
his work, or, following Adler, between the infantile strug- 
gle for power and the adult Goethe and his work, an in- 
teresting proposition would have been solved-we should 
have learnt how a masterpiece can be reduced to the sim- 
plest thinkable elements, which are universal, and to be 
found working within the depths of everything and every- 260 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
body. But did Goethe construct his work to this end? 
Was it his intention that it should be thus conceived ? 
It must be sufficiently clear that such an understand- 
ing, though undoubtedly scientific, would be entirely, 
utterly, beside the mark. This statement is valid for psy- 
chology in general. To understand the psyche causally, 
means to understand but half of it. The causal under- 
standing of Faust enlightens us as to how it became a 
finished work of art, but reveals nothing of the living 
meaning of the poet. That meaning only lives if we ex- 
perience it, in and through ourselves. In so far as our 
actual present life is for us something essentially new and 
not a repetition of all that has gone before, the great value 
of such a work is to be seen, not in its causal development, 
but in its living reality for our own lives. We should be 
indeed depreciating a work like Faust if we were only to 
regard it as something that has been perfected and fin- 
ished ; it is only understood when conceived as a becom- 
ing and as an ever-new experiencing. 
Thus we must regard the human psyche. Only on one 
side is the mind a Has Been, and as such subordinate to 
the causal principle. On the other side the mind is a 
Becoming that can only be grasped synthetically or con- 
structively. The causal standpoint asks how it is this 
actual mind has become what it appears today ? The con- 
structive standpoint asks how a bridge can be built from 
this actual psyche to its own future? 
Just as the causal method finally reaches the general 
principles of human psychology by the analysis and re- 
duction of individual events, so does the constructive 
standpoint reach aims that are general by the synthesis 
of individual tendencies. The mind is a point of passage 
and thus necessarily determined from two sides. On the 
one side it offers a picture of the precipitate of the past, 
and on the other side a picture of the germinating knowl- 
edge of all that is to come, in so far as the psyche creates 
its own future. CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
261 
What has been is, on the one hand, the result and apex 
of all that was-as such it appears to the causal stand- 
point ; on the other hand, it is an expression of all that is 
to be. The future is only apparently like the past, but in 
its essence always new and unique (the causal standpoint 
would like to invert this sentence), thus the actual for- 
mula is incomplete, germlike so to say, in relation to what 
is to be. 
To get any conception of this expression of what is to 
be we are forced to apply a constructive interest to it. I 
almost felt myself tempted to say, "a scientific interest." 
But modern science is identical with the causal principle. 
So long as we consider the actual mind causally, that is 
scientifically, we elude the mind as a Becoming. This 
other side of the psyche can never be grasped by the ex- 
clusive use of the causal principle, but only by means of 
the constructive standpoint. The causal standpoint re- 
duces things to their elements, the constructive standpoint 
elaborates them into something higher and more compli- 
cated. This latter standpoint is necessarily a speculative 
one. 
Constructive understanding is, however, differentiated 
from scholastic speculation because it imposes no general 
validity, but only subjective validity. When the specu- 
lative philosopher believes he has comprehended the world 
once for all by his System, he deceives himself; he has 
only comprehended himself and then naively projected 
that view upon the world. In reaction against this, the 
scientific method of the modern world has almost put an 
end to speculation and gone to the other extreme. It 
would create an "objective" psychology. In opposition 
to such efforts, the stress which Freud has placed upon 
individual psychology is of immortal merit. The extraor- 
dinary importance of the subjective in the development 
of the objective mental process was thus first brought 
adequately into prominence. 
Subjective speculation lays no claim to universal valid- 262 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
ity, it is identical with constructive understanding. It is 
a subjective creation, which, looked at externally, easily 
seems to be a so-called infantile phantasy, or at least an 
unmistakable derivative of it; from an objective stand- 
point it must be judged as such, in so far as objective is 
regarded as identical with scientific or causal. Looked at 
from within, however, constructive understanding means 
redemption. 
"Creation-that is the great redemption from suffering 
and easiness of living." 11 
Starting from these considerations as to the psychology 
of those mental patients to whom the Schreber case be- 
longs, we must, from the "objective-scientific" standpoint, 
reduce the structural phantasy of the patient to its simple 
and most generally valid elements. This Freud had done. 
But that is only half of the work to be done. The other 
half is the constructive understanding of Schreber's sys- 
tem. The question is: What end, what freedom, did the 
patient hope to achieve by the creation of his system? 
The scientific thinker of today will regard this question 
as inappropriate. The psychiatrist will certainly smile at 
it, for he is thoroughly assured of the universal validity 
of his causalism, he knows the psyche merely as some- 
thing that is made, descendent, reactive. Not uncom- 
monly there lurks the unconscious prejudice that the 
psyche is a brain-secretion. 
Looking at such a morbid system without preconcep- 
tion, and asking ourselves what goal this delusional sys- 
tem is aiming at, we see, in fact, firstly, that it is en- 
deavoring to get at something, and, secondly, that the 
patient also devotes all his will-power to the service of 
the system. There are patients who develop their delu- 
sions with scientific thoroughness, often dragging in an 
immense material of comparison and proof. Schreber 
certainly belongs to this class. Others do not proceed so 
11 Nietzsche, "Thus Spake Zarathustra." CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
263 
thoroughly and learnedly, but content themselves with 
heaping up synonymous expressions for that at which they 
are aiming. The case of the patient I have described, who 
assumes all kinds of titles, is a good instance of this. 
The patient's unmistakable striving to express some- 
thing through and by means of his delusion Freud con- 
ceives retrospectively, as the satisfaction of his infantile 
wishes by means of imagination. Adler reduces it to the 
desire for power. For him the delusion-formation is a 
"manly protest," a means of gaining security for himself 
against his menaced superiority. Thus characterized, this 
struggle is likewise infantile and the means employed-the 
delusional creation-is infantile because insufficient for its 
purpose; one can therefore understand why Freud de- 
clines to accept Adler's point of view. Freud, rightly on 
the whole, subsumes this infantile struggle for power 
under the concept of the infantile wish. 
The constructive standpoint is different. Here the de- 
lusional system is neither infantile nor, upon the whole, 
eo ipso pathological but subjective, and hence justified 
within the scope of the subjective. The constructive stand- 
point absolutely denies the conception that the subjective 
phantasy-creation is merely an infantile wish, symbol- 
ically veiled; or that it is merely that in a higher degree; 
it denies that it is a convulsive and egoistic adhesion to 
the fiction of its own superiority, in so far as these are 
to be regarded as finalistic explanations. The subjective 
activity of the mind can be judged from without, just as 
one can, in the end, so judge everything. But this judg- 
ment is inadequate, because it is the very essence of the 
subjective that it cannot be judged objectively. We can- 
not measure distance in pints. The subjective can be only 
understood and judged subjectively, that is, construc- 
tively. Any other judgment is unfair and does not meet 
the question. 
The absolute credit which the constructive standpoint 
confers upon the subjective, naturally seems to the 264 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
"scientific" spirit as an utter violation of reason. But 
this scientific spirit can only take up arms against it so 
long as the constructive is not avowedly subjective. The 
constructive comprehension also analyses, but it does not 
reduce. It decomposes the delusion into typical compo- 
nents. What is to be regarded as the type at a given time 
is shown from the attainment of experience and knowl- 
edge reached at that time. 
Even the most individual delusional systems are not 
absolutely unique, occurring only once, for they offer 
striking and obvious analogies with other systems. From 
the comparative analysis of many systems the typical for- 
mations are drawn. If one can speak of reduction at all, 
it is only a question of reduction to general type, but not 
to some universal principle obtained inductively or de- 
ductively, such as "Sexuality" or "Struggle for Power." 
This paralleling with other typical formations only serves 
for a widening of the basis upon which the construction 
is to be built. If one were to proceed entirely subjec- 
tively one would go on constructing in the language of 
the patient and in his mental range. One would arrive at 
some structure which was illuminating to the patient and 
to the investigator of the case, but not to the other scien- 
tific minds. The public would be unable to enter into the 
peculiarities of the speech and thought of the individual 
case in question without further help. 
The works of the Zurich school referred to contain 
careful and detailed expositions of individual material. In 
these materials there are very many typical formations 
which are unmistakably analogies with mythological for- 
mations. There arose from the perception of this rela- 
tionship a new and valuable source for comparative study. 
The acceptance of the possibility of such a comparison 
will not be granted immediately, but the question is only 
whether the materials to be compared really are similar 
or not. It will also be contended that pathological and 
mythological formations are not immediately comparable. CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
265 
But this objection must not be raised a priori, for only a 
conscientious comparison can determine whether any true 
parallelism exists or not. At the present moment all we 
know is that they are both structures of the imagination 
which, like all such products, rest essentially upon the 
activity of the unconscious. Experience must teach us 
whether such a comparison is valid. The results hitherto 
obtained are so encouraging that further work along these 
lines seems to me most hopeful and important. I made 
practical use of the constructive method in a case which 
Flournoy published in the Archives de Psychologic,12 
although he offered no opinion as to its nature at that time. 
The case dealt with a rather neurotic young lady who, in 
Flournoy's publication, described how surprised she was 
at the connected phantasy-formations which penetrated 
from the unconscious into the conscious. I subjected 
these phantasies, which the lady herself reproduced in 
some detail, to my constructive methods and gave the re- 
sults of these investigations in my book, The Psychology 
of the Unconscious. 
This book has, I regret to say, met with many perhaps 
inevitable misunderstandings. But I have had one pre- 
cious consolation, for my book received the approval of 
Flournoy himself, who published the original case which 
he knew personally. It is to be hoped that later works 
will make the standpoint of the Zurich school intelligible 
to a wider public. Whoever, by the help of this work, 
has taken the trouble to grasp the essence of the construc- 
tive method, will readily imagine how great are the diffi- 
culties of investigation, and how much greater still are the 
difficulties of objective presentation of such investigations. 
Among the many difficulties and opportunities for mis- 
understanding I should like to adduce one difficulty which 
is especially characteristic. In an intensive study of 
Schreber's or any similar case, it will be discovered that 
12 Miss Miller, Quelques faits d'imagination creatrice subcon- 
sciente, Vol. V, p. 36. 266 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
these patients are consumed by the desire for a new world- 
philosophy which may be of the most bizarre kind. Their 
aim is obviously to create a system such as will help them 
in the assimilation of unknown psychical phenomena, 
i.e., enable them to adapt their own unconscious to the 
world. This arrangement produces a subjective system 
which must be considered as a necessary transition-stage 
on the path to the adaptation of their personality in regard 
to the world in general. But the patient remains sta- 
tionary at this transitory stage and assumes his subjective 
view is the world's, hence he remains ill. He cannot free 
himself from his subjectivism and does not find the link 
to objective thinking, i.e., to society. He does not reach 
the real summit of self-understanding, for he remains 
with a merely subjective understanding of himself. But 
a mere subjective understanding is not real and adequate. 
As Feuerbach says: Understanding is only real when it 
is in accord with that of some other rational beings. Then 
it becomes objective 13 and the link with life is reached. 
I am convinced that not a few will raise the objection 
that in the first place the psychological process of adapta- 
tion does not proceed by the method of first creating a 
world-philosophy; secondly, that it is in itself a sign of 
unhealthy mental disposition even to make the attempt to 
adapt oneself by way of a "world-philosophy." 
Undoubtedly there are innumerable persons who are 
capable of adaptation without creating any preliminary 
philosophy. If they ever arrive at any general theory of 
the world it is always subsequently. But, on the other 
hand, there are just as many who are only able to adapt 
themselves by means of a preliminary intellectual formu- 
lation. To everything which they do not understand they 
are unable to adapt themselves. Generally it comes about 
that they do adapt themselves just in so far as they can 
grasp the situation intellectually. To this latter group 
13 Here "objective" understanding is not identical with causal 
understanding. CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
267 
seem to belong all those patients to whom we have been 
giving our consideration. 
Medical experience has taught us that there are two 
large groups of functional nervous disorders. The one 
embraces all those forms of disease which are designated 
hysterical, the other all those forms which the French 
school has designated psychasthenic. Although the line of 
demarcation is rather uncertain, one cap mark off two 
psychological types which are obviously different; their 
psychology is diametrically opposed. I have called these 
-the Introverted and Extroverted types. The hysteric 
belongs to the type of Extroversion, the psychasthenic to 
the type of Introversion, as does dementia praecox, in so 
far as we know it today. This terminology, Introversion 
and Extroversion, is bound up with my way of regarding 
mental phenomena as forms of energy. I postulate a 
hypothetical fundamental striving which I designate 
libido.1* In the classical use of the word, libido never 
had an exclusively sexual connotation as it had in medi- 
cine. The word interest, as Claparede once suggested to 
me, could be used in this special sense, if this expression 
had today a less extensive application. Bergson's con- 
cept, elan vital, would also serve if this expression were 
less biological and more psychological. Libido is in- 
tended to be an energizing expression for psychological 
values. The psychological value is something active and 
determining; hence it can be regarded from the energetic 
standpoint without any pretense of exact measurement. 
The introverted type is characterized by the fact that 
his libido is turned towards his own personality to a cer- 
tain extent-he finds within himself the unconditioned 
value. The extroverted type has his libido to a certain 
extent externally; he finds the unconditioned value out- 
14 This energy may also be designated as horme. Horme is 
a Greek word ipw-force, attack, press, impetuosity, violence, 
urgency, zeal. It is related to Bergson's elan vital. The con- 
cept horme is an energetic expression for psychological values. 268 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
side himself. The introvert regards everything from the 
aspect of his own personality; the extrovert is dependent 
upon the value of his object. I must emphasize the state- 
ment that this question of types is the question of our 
psychology, and that every further advance must prob- 
ably proceed by way of this question. The difference be- 
tween these types is almost alarming in extent. So far 
there is only oqe small preliminary communication by 
myself 15 on this theory of type, which is particularly im- 
portant for the conception of dementia praecox. On the 
psychiatric side Gross 16 has called attention to the exist- 
ence of two psychological types. His two types are (1) 
those with limited but deep consciousness, and (2) those 
with broad but superficial consciousness. The former 
correspond to my introverted and the latter to my extro- 
verted type. In my article I have collected some other 
instances among which I would especially call attention 
to the striking description of the two types given by Wil- 
liam James in his book on Pragmatism. Fr. Th. Vischer 
has differentiated the two types very wittily by her divi- 
sion of the learned into "reason-mongers," and "matter- 
mongers." In the sphere of psychoanalysis Freud follows 
the psychology of Extroversion, Adler that of Introver- 
sion. The irreconcilable opposition between the views of 
Freud and those of Adler (see especially his book Uber 
den nerwbsen Charakter) is readily explained by the exist- 
ence of two diametrically opposed psychological types 
which view the same things from entirely different as- 
pects. An Extrovert can hardly, or only with great diffi- 
culty, come to any understanding with an Introvert, on 
any delicate psychological question. 
An Extrovert can hardly conceive the necessity which 
compels the Introvert to conquer the world by means of 
a system. And yet this necessity exists, otherwise we 
15 A contribution to the Study of Psychological Types. Lecture 
delivered at the Psychoanalytical Congress, Munich, 1913. 
10 Die serebrale Sekundarfunktion. Leipzig, 1902. CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
269 
should have no philosophical systems and dogmas, pre- 
sumed to be universally valid. Civilized humanity would 
be only empiricists and the sciences only the experimental 
sciences. Causalism and empiricism are undoubtedly 
mighty forces in our present-day mental life but it may 
come to be otherwise. 
This difference in type is the first great obstacle which 
stands in the way of an understanding concerning funda- 
mental conceptions of our psychology. A second objection 
arises from the circumstance that the constructive method, 
faithful to itself, must adapt itself to the lines of the delu- 
sion. The direction along which the patient develops his 
morbid thoughts has to be accepted seriously, and fol- 
lowed out to its end; the investigator thus places himself 
at the standpoint of the psychosis. This procedure may 
expose him to the suspicion of being deranged himself; or 
at least risks a misunderstanding which is considered ter- 
ribly disgraceful-he may himself have some world-philos- 
ophy 1 The confirmation of such a possibility is as bad as 
being "unscientific." But every one has a world-phi- 
losophy though not every one knows he has. And those 
who do not know it have simply an unconscious and there- 
fore inadequate and archaic philosophy. But everything 
psychological that is allowed to remain in the mind, neg- 
lected and not developed, remains in a primitive state. A 
striking instance of how universal theories are influenced 
by unconscious archaic points of view has been furnished 
by a famous German historian whose name matters to us 
not at all. This historian took it for granted that once 
upon a time people propagated themselves through incest, 
for in the first human families the brother was assigned 
to the sister. This theory is wholly based upon his still 
unconscious belief in Adam and Eve as the first and only 
parents of mankind. It is on the whole better to discover 
for oneself a modern world-philosophy, or at least to make 
use of some decent system which will prevent any errors 
of that kind. 270 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
One could put up with being despised as the possessor 
of a world-philosophy; but there is a greater danger. 
The public may come to believe the philosophy, beaten 
out by the constructive method, is to be regarded as a 
theoretical and objectively valid insight into the meaning 
of the world in general. 
I must now again point out that it is an obstinate, 
scholastic misunderstanding not to be able to distinguish 
between a world-philosophy w'hich is only psychological, 
and an extra-psychological theory, which concerns the 
objective thing. It is absolutely essential that the student 
of the results of the constructive method should be able 
to draw this distinction. In its first results the construc- 
tive method does not produce anything that could be called 
a scientific theory; it furnishes the psychological lines of 
development, a path so to say. I must here refer the reader 
to my book, Psychology of the Unconscious. 
The analytic reductive method has the advantage of 
being much simpler than the constructive method. The 
former reduces to well-known universal elements of an 
extremely simple nature. The latter has, with extremely 
complicated material, to construct the further path to some 
often unknown end. This obliges the psychologist to take 
full account of all those forces which are at work in the 
human mind. The reductive method strives to replace 
the religious and philosophical needs of man, by their 
more elementary components, following the principle of 
the "nothing but," as James so aptly calls it. But to 
construct aright, we must accept the developed aspirations 
as indispensable components, essential elements, of spir- 
itual growth. Such work extends far beyond empirical 
concepts but that is in accordance with the nature of the 
human soul which has never hitherto rested content with 
experience alone. Everything new in the human mind 
proceeds from speculation. Mental development pro- 
ceeds by way of speculation, never by way of limitation 
to mere experience. I realize that my views are parallel CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
with those of Bergson, and that in my book the concept 
of the libido which I have given, is a concept parallel to 
that of elan vital; my constructive method corresponds 
to Bergson's "intuitive method." I, however, confine 
myself to the psychological side and to practical work. 
When I first read Bergson a year and a half ago I dis- 
covered to my great pleasure everything which I had 
worked out practically, but expressed by him in consum- 
mate language and in a wonderfully clear philosophic 
style. 
Working speculatively with psychological material there 
is a risk of being sacrificed to the general misunderstand- 
ing which bestows the value of an objective theory upon 
the line of psychological evolution thus elaborated. So 
many people feel themselves in this way at pains to find 
grounds whether such a theory is correct or not. Those 
who are particularly brilliant even discover that the funda- 
mental concepts can be traced back to Heraclitus or some 
one even earlier. Let me confide to these knowing folk 
that the fundamental ideas employed in the constructive 
method stretch back even beyond any historical philosophy, 
viz., to the dynamic "views" of primitive peoples. If the 
result of the constructive method were scientific theory, 
it would go very ill with it, for then it would be a falling 
back to the deepest superstition. But since the construc- 
tive method results in something far removed from scien- 
tific theory the great antiquity of the basic concepts therein 
must speak in favor of its extreme correctness. Not until 
the constructive method has presented us with much prac- 
tical experience can we come to the construction of a 
scientific theory, a theory of the psychological lines of 
development. But we must first of all content ourselves 
with confirming these lines individually. 
271 THE ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
(DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY) 1 
Translation by Elizabeth N. Barrow, Revised by 
Dr. James S. Van Teslaar 
By Dr. Paul Bjerre (Stockholm) 
Adler's work, which culminated in a separation from 
Freud, has had a purely biologic starting point. Freud 
began his activity by translating into his own tongue the 
works of the French hypnotists and practicing his pro- 
fession in accordance with their methods, while Adler's 
most important first work was his contribution entitled, 
Studien uber die Minderwertigkeit von Organon. In this 
study he considers all the usual imperfections in the child's 
organism and tries to interpret their origin on a bio- 
logical basis. It is not my purpose to take up this matter 
more closely; for the present I want merely to point out 
that from this beginning he advanced towards the study 
of the neuroses. The path was already staked out in the 
study mentioned above; Adler's subsequent work was an 
elaboration of the standpoint adapted therein. 
That when an organ sustains an injury, nature en- 
deavors to make redress by some structural development 
which should compensate for the handicap brought on by 
the injury, is well understood. If, for example, some of 
the heart valves are injured, the heart performs addi- 
tional work; as a consequence the muscular activity in- 
creases, so that it can fully carry out the new demands 
1 Reprinted from History and Practice of Psychoanalysis, by 
Paul Bjerre, M.D. Translated by Elizabeth N. Barrow. Richard 
G. Badger, Publisher. Boston. 
272 ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
273 
upon it. Or if one kidney is removed, the remaining one 
enlarges, so that it can do the work of both. Adler points 
out another kind of compensatory arrangement of nature 
and an understanding of this is, according to his inter- 
pretation, very important, because only by means of it as 
a starting point is it possible to comprehend the building 
up of neuroses. 
An organ's capacity for work depends not only upon 
its physical condition but even more decidedly upon the 
nerve impulses which go out to it from the central nervous 
system. Everybody knows how by means of a vigorous 
tension of will it is possible to accomplish work which 
under ordinary conditions one is powerless to perform. 
Accordingly a physically defective organ can be made to 
function normally by means of augmented nerve impulses. 
The physical deficiency is compensated, in other words, 
by an energetic overefficiency. But this arrangement of 
nature easily involves an oversensitization of the weak- 
ened organ, and this, in turn, lays the foundation for 
nervous suffering. In examining, for instance, an adult 
who is subject to nervous diarrhoea, it is almost invari- 
ably found that before this particular disturbance began, 
he had had some physical trouble in the intestinal tract. 
This may lie far back in his past, e.g., it may have lasted 
for some months during the first years of life. Even if 
it has apparently been cured, it has left behind it a weak- 
ness, or an oversensitiveness, which a few decades later 
may appear in some form of neurosis. What is thus true 
concerning an organ or organic system, is also true of the 
organism as a whole. If the subject of the childhood is 
brought up when a neurotic is examined, the following 
will often be heard: "I was weak and tired even at that 
time, was quite done up with my school work, was tor- 
mented by a disability that put me behind," etc. In the 
same way in which a single weakened organic function 
may persevere through dynamic compensation, so is it 
also with the whole of a poorly equipped organism. This 274 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
explains, too, the apparently paradoxical circumstance, 
that one often finds great feats of strength emanating 
from individuals of relatively weak physical development. 
They are obliged to keep their will-tension in constant 
training, in order to keep up at all; and because of this 
unnaturally disciplined power they are able sporadically to 
accomplish amazing things. To this type belongs that 
spasmodic manner of working characteristic of the nervous 
sufferer; after a sporadic flaring up of the forces, this 
type of patient may at once sink back into a state of ex- 
haustion. Patients of this type are well known for their 
good beginnings, good ideas-but they are unable to carry 
anything through to the end. The oversensitiveness of 
neurotics belongs to the same category. Every part of 
the organism responds with exaggerated vibrations to 
whatever takes place about this class of patients. Of 
course the consequences of these arrangements are ex- 
tremely variable, depending partly upon the extent of 
original impairment, partly upon the measure in which the 
compensation is successful. Adler places beside one 
another the three conceptions : degeneration-neurosis- 
genius. In the first case the compensation has been un- 
successful, just as it has fully succeeded in the last. The 
degenerate sinks out of life, while genius rises by fitting 
itself to a new type of life. The neurotic, in more or less 
heterogeneous blending, shows features of both-he 
wavers between the two extremes, unable to find a per- 
manent balance. 
From the biological starting point, Adler passed over to 
the psychology of neurosis-formation, by going more 
deeply into the question how organic deficiency acts upon 
the sufferer's mental life and character-development. In 
this way he discovered many interesting things. 
ii 
The most apparent consequence of an organic weakness 
is that it attracts attention to itself and demands a certain CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 
275 
interest. If one has a weak heart, one must think about 
it and be on guard continually to take proper care of it; 
it cannot be left to itself as if one were in a state of health. 
Because of this directing of the attention upon a delicate 
organ its sensitiveness is emphasized through autosugges- 
tion. I have already in another connection pointed out 
the role of the attention in the formation of suggestions. 
Here the way lies open for hypochondriacal concern with 
the body and its pains. Disturbances of this nature may 
be quite amenable to suggestive treatment. 
But far more serious than the exaggerated cherishing 
of the weak organ and of the enfeebled organism are the 
special psychic reactions which the enfeeblement forces to 
the surface. It not only strives to absorb the sufferer's 
interest-it tends also to stamp the whole emotional life, 
to annihilate its free activity and to drive it into compul- 
sion, which is fatal to development. The organic defect 
produces a feeling of deficiency, a feeling that the sufferer 
is worth less than his fellows; and this fundamental color- 
ing of the feelings, in its turn, brings about displacements 
in development along various lines, the result being nerv- 
ous character traits and disease. 
It may be easier to make all this plain by means of a 
simple example. 
Suppose a strong, energetic, happy boy becomes sud- 
denly ruptured. He is taken to a physician, is examined 
and given careful orders;-he must keep out of the gym- 
nasium, must give up athletics, must not run, must not 
fight; he must pay such attention to himself that never 
will he thoughtlessly forget to follow the doctor's direc- 
tions. For if he should forget, something dangerous might 
happen-he might have to be operated upon at once in 
order to save his life, etc. The boy is thus compelled to 
divide his attention between the rupture and everything 
which hitherto has been a source of pleasure to him. He 
no longer can devote himself to anything with the same 
undisturbed interest as before; the fact of his disability 276 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
forces itself continually upon him. He has always to be 
on his guard. In this last circumstance, perhaps, lies by 
far the more significant moment. For it means that the 
hitherto spontaneous, self-evident relationship to the sur- 
rounding world has been broken. A human being lives 
only through reciprocal action between himself and the 
external world ; if life goes on harmoniously this reciprocal 
action is so self-evident that it is never even a subject for 
reflection. This is the state of the child who still preserves 
a dim memory of its condition in the mother's body, where 
it was completely at one with its surroundings. The boy 
who formerly had gone his way without extra considera- 
tion as part of the family, in the circle of his comrades, 
in school, now feels that danger threatens him everywhere. 
Instead of being accepted and cherished as heretofore by 
the world about him, it has now become an enemy which 
challenges him at every turn. "You must not go with the 
others to the gymnasium." He is weaker than the others, 
incapable of doing the same things they do; he is cast 
aside-left alone. The restraint he must constantly lay 
upon himself awakens in him as constantly a feeling of 
being out of sorts. Those things which formerly delighted 
him no longer please him. Everything that had amused 
him he now must guard himself against; pleasure itself 
becomes an enemy. He feels himself obliged to find some 
means of getting out of this condition; and as this thought 
forces itself upon him, life becomes a problem-a prob- 
lem that the more perplexes him, becomes the more in- 
solvable, the more he broods over it. 
All this has to do with a case in which the child comes 
upon a defect during its development, which places it in 
a difficult situation. Almost the same thing takes place 
when a person enfeebled from the very start becomes 
conscious of his inferiority. 
As a rule we take for granted that the life of a child 
is very simple. If an adult could recall everything expe- 
rienced during the first ten years of life, other conclusions ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
277 
would be reached. The struggle after favor, the effort to 
keep up on a level with others, to win in competition- 
all these things which rule the greater part of the life of 
the adult are by no means unknown to the child. On the 
contrary. The child who cannot stand on his own legs is 
absolutely dependent upon surroundings; the verdict of 
others becomes of radical importance. If the child loses 
the good graces of those nearest it, goes under in the com- 
petition with brothers, sisters or comrades, it is a far more 
miserable experience than a grown person as a rule can 
imagine. What despair and oppression then it must be, 
to be from the very beginning oppressed by a feeling of 
inferiority? Consider a little girl when she discovers that 
she does not possess the beauty or lovableness by means 
of which she naturally would win all hearts. This is 
worse when the feeling of aloofness, which such an expe- 
rience carries with it, cannot be cleared away-how shall 
a child explain to a grown person what it suffers under 
such circumstances-it does not even understand itself 
what is going on within it. 
There arises now a serious question as to what a child 
may do when it has thus come askew with life and when 
this state becomes an insolvable problem. 
The answer is simple: the child exchanges the real 
world it has lost for a world of illusion. 
in 
The old legend of Paradise is capable of many inter- 
pretations of which one and all may contain a seed of 
truth. But I wonder whether just that second in which 
this change takes place does not mark the most material 
boundary between the original relative state of harmony 
and its breaking up into turbulent dissension. Paradise-• 
that is the world into which, without reflection, we flow 
together with the whole, in which each one is a part and 
of which each life is a symbol. Happiness-that is the 
feeling when our forces radiate without obstruction, touch- 278 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
ing into life all with which they come in contact, as we are 
borne on by the creating power. Into the world of the 
damned comes he who no longer is a partaker in all this 
joy, who withers within himself-longing only after fan- 
tasies that fade into nothingness as he tries to grasp them. 
We may be pretty sure that the child to whom the real 
world becomes an affliction will try to find its way out of 
its trouble by living more and more deeply in the world 
of fantasy. All those desires which could not find reali- 
zation in actuality, become fulfilled in imagination. If a 
boy gets the worst of it in a fight with some comrade, he 
unfailingly constructs afterwards a fantasy in which he 
is the rightful victor. The more evident the whipping 
was, just the more unrestrained works his imagination, 
in order that his humiliation may thus be counteracted. 
The notoriously weak and feeble in their dreams become 
great soldiers who crush hordes of enemies and let the 
sun of their own power shine upon poor human slaves. 
The little girl, ugly even to disfigurement, becomes a great 
enchantress, whom no one can resist. 
Most of those who have had to do with children have 
undoubtedly noticed some time how a formerly sound 
and happy child changes and grows shy and reserved, 
reticent and irritable. The inner change makes its ap- 
pearance externally in this way. The child wants to be 
left in peace with its fantasies, reacting with irritability 
against everything which would detach it from them. It 
cannot speak about the things which fill its thoughts- 
therefore it does not, as a rule, speak at all. The fatality 
in this displacement lies simply in the fact that it is so 
difficult to right, when it takes place in this early stadium. 
Grown people, too, may occasionally fill up the gap left 
by some disappointment, by means of imagination-in this 
manner retrieving the loss. But if one has been firmly 
set on the path of reality it is not hard to return to it again. 
Entirely different, however, is the case of a child who 
has not yet fitted itself into that reality, in which it is to ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
279 
love, nor acquired full connection with it. If imagination 
takes possession of it, this may all too easily become the 
world in which it truly lives. It is by no means unusual 
that a child is not even able to separate fantasy from 
reality, but with entire sincerity believes in its imaginings 
rather than in its real experiences. 
iv 
All this, however, carries along with it under different 
circumstances widely different consequences. The matter 
is best understood if Adler's grouping of terms is kept in 
mind :-degeneration-neurosis-genius. The difference 
in these three instances depends upon the degree to which 
the enfeebled individual has been able to compensate for 
his enfeeblement. It thus finally means the inner power 
of production. But because the whole of that process 
through which a compensation is produced has so much 
to do with fantasy, it is scarcely possible to get a true 
conception of it without having in mind the excessively 
great part which fantasy plays for any one who is bur- 
dened with the feeling of inferiority. 
What is most characteristic about the mental life of 
the degenerate is that mass of shadowy fantasies upon 
which he lets himself weakly be carried away. The baron 
in Gorki's Lower Depths is a characteristic type; he 
has slipped down, from the aristocratic position in which 
he was born, into the most wretched dregs of society, 
without knowing how he got there. The whole of the 
external world has had for him so little reality-value that 
passage through it was not even registered as a mechanical 
memory-only empty fantasies altogether, fantasies that 
broke before his eyes like soap-bubbles, without his lifting 
a hand to try to grasp them. At the same time that this 
moving along on the formless stream of imagination dis- 
integrates the inner life into unreality, it carries the indi- 
vidual farther and farther away from the outside reality. 
This is fatal simply because the degenerate is thus de- 280 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
prived of all necessity for that adaptation, which the out- 
side world always means to the sound mind. Every one 
may chance to go astray; but when one least suspects it 
one feels the iron grip of necessity. And this carries one 
back where one must go. But for the degenerate, that 
compulsion necessarily remains an unreality like all the 
rest. 
Things take on another aspect when an abyss yawns 
between a strong, talented child and that world in which 
it has lived hitherto as a homogeneous part. It also may 
be pushed back by its surrounding circumstances and 
overwhelmed by their verdict: "You are lazy," we say. 
"You have a poor memory. You can never learn to parse 
verbs as well as others"; even such little things may press 
down into the feeling of inferiority. But when a child 
must admit its disadvantage it always does so with cer- 
tain reservations:-"In other ways," it says to itself, "I 
am superior. Just wait and I'll show you what I can do!" 
The most gifted likewise may be forced out of the world 
of reality into that of fantasy. But for them from the 
very beginning fantasies have had a stamp of higher real- 
ity. Out of such fantasies presently proceeds a form of 
life that in its deepest significance comes nearer to the real 
than that from which it has been separated;-it may mean 
the inventor's improvement of material conditions, the 
politician's solution of municipal problems, or the poet's 
revelation of a world of inner beauty. In a word, the 
instant a creative genius is thrown out of banal reality, 
forces within are set in motion which some time become 
the source of new life and due to which a nobler human 
type may be created. If a person, as a rule, is to become 
anything else than one ingredient in the mass, stamped by 
its affects and with all its lack of spirituality, he must at 
a very early stage have been left alone to face the diffi- 
culties of life. No work bears the imprint of genius, 
unless already in childhood the worker learned to take 
hold of existence in an original way and to solve its con- ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
281 
flicts by means of his original qualifications. The whole 
of this process of individualizing and of independent pro- 
ductivity which, in the adult, breaks forth in a life of 
action and at the same time frees him and draws others 
towards a higher form of life, all this process must have 
its foundation laid almost simultaneously with the dawn 
of consciousness and must develop during the whole period 
of growth; only then is it genuine. 
The neurotic, as I have said already, occupies a place 
between these two extremes. He keeps himself within 
the framework of the outside reality; but he lives either 
upon fantasies which have nothing to do with reality- 
or else makes continual unsuccessful efforts to overcome 
it as a creator. To Adler, Strindberg is the embodiment 
of this conception. It is well known how, in childhood, 
Strindberg suffered from an overruling feeling of in- 
feriority ; and all his after life was a series of desperate 
efforts to work himself out of this in the most widely 
separated ways. All that he builded towards this end soon 
collapsed and he again stood in the same place as before. 
In spite of all his unprecedented power for creating, he 
never succeeded in bringing out one single value that be- 
came established for himself or could show a way out 
for others;-it all dissolved in chaos. Finally he suc- 
cumbed to the feeling of inferiority with which he had 
started out, dying with the cross before his eyes and hate 
in his heart;-the cross, which is the everlasting symbol 
of inability to master the earthly life, and hate, which is 
only the negation of all emotional value. 
v 
From this general standpoint let us go on to a more 
critical examination of the formation of neuroses in de- 
tail, according to Adler's opinions. Adler's strength lies 
in his limitations and in his strict logic. The whole of 
his work consists of a study of those different ways by 
which compensation-formations seek a way out. All this 282 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
may be summed up in two broad strokes-one Adler 
calls "die Sicherung," the other he calls "der mannliche 
Protest." 
Freud had already pointed out that neurosis is a flight 
away from life into the realm of disease. Adler has laid 
stress upon the way in which life, for him who is bur- 
dened with a feeling of inferiority, comes to be looked 
upon as one big danger. It is not enough to flee con- 
tinually from this danger, one must always try as well 
to guard one's self against it. As little as the weak can 
meet trouble with an open mind, in order through these 
troubles, as through hell-fire, to arrive at abiding har- 
mony, just as little is such a one able to make himself 
secure beforehand by building life up upon a genuine 
foundation of truth and undisturbed reality. He tries 
instead to protect himself by means of various stratagems. 
Adler has a great faculty for catching, behind all neurotic 
symptoms, a glimpse of diverse delusions, illusions, poses, 
attitudes; tersely, unrealities behind which the neurotic 
tries to protect himself from the unmercifulness of reality. 
He explains a great part of the symptomatology by this 
rearing up of sham barricades. 
There is no doubt that the defense-mechanism plays a 
main part in a great number of neurotic conditions. The 
man who struggles with his polygamous tendencies and 
wishes to escape prostitution, rears up in his mind the 
syphilis-phobia syndrome, and behind this wall feels him- 
self safe; because he is overcome with anxiety and thinks 
only of this deadly peril into which he might fall merely 
through one kiss, he is secure against becoming the victim 
of sensuality. The wife who wishes to escape the mar- 
riage connection and the bearing of many children notices 
some vague, uncomfortable feelings in her reproductive 
organs; she grasps these feelings as a drowning man 
grasps a straw, she makes as much as she can of them 
until they become an actual pain which necessitates long- 
standing local treatment from a clever specialist-it may ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
283 
even happen that she has her home in a country town, but 
that the specialist can be seen only in a metropolis where 
she has always longed to live. The young girl, who has 
been put into an office and finds the monotony of the work 
there as loathsome as the boldness of the men, suddenly 
gets agoraphobia-there is nothing to do but to allow her 
to stay at home and thus she escapes her part towards 
helping in the common support of the home. The teacher 
who has too much to do faints in the middle of a lecture 
-she is carried home, gets a free day and thus protects 
herself against overtiredness. The advanced neurotic who 
already spends his life in bed and thinks it monotonous 
to be alone, gets peculiar attacks in which, for example, 
he rushes to the window and tries to throw himself out; 
these attacks necessitate the continual presence of a nurse, 
in spite of the fact that the family can little afford the 
luxury. A poor woman who suffers from her insignifi- 
cant position in life, when she moves to any new place, 
may attempt suicide, so that every one is frightened and 
she is thus made a topic of general conversation, as if she 
were some great celebrity-so for a time she is assured 
against the ignominy of obscurity. Innumerable examples 
might be given. 
VI 
It is evident that an understanding of this defense- 
mechanism is of especial importance for every practicing 
physician. For it is very often with the assistance of the 
doctor that neurotics are successful in carrying through 
such stratagem. The patient himself has no comprehen- 
sion of the trouble to which he has suddenly fallen a 
victim. In spite of the fact that in its very nature it is 
something illusory, he accepts it as reality; the neurosis 
lies in this fact. The family is unable to explain the right 
connection, although they often have a faint suspicion of 
it. If then the physician comes and with his authority 284 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
supports the tendency to ill health, the patient succeeds 
in putting it through in spite of all opposition. Far from 
being nullified by prescriptions which have no causal con- 
nection with the formation of the illness, these act only 
as a means of embedding it more firmly into the nervous 
system. The harm which has in this way been done in 
the handling of neuroses through routine treatment, iso- 
lating cures, and other blunders, can scarcely be estimated. 
There is no possibility of coming to a rational way of 
treating neuroses without a general understanding of this 
matter. We must not forget that the overcoming of a 
defense mechanism demands work from within, and may 
often be painful and take the energy of years. When 
the patient finds out that he no longer is left in peace but 
must take up the battle of life in order to be well-then 
he runs to some other doctor. And this one perhaps lets 
him once more sink back into his protective measures, and 
by so doing cuts off the road to health which had begun 
to be cleared out. 
It may indeed be a difficult task to once more take hold 
of life when a man has well established himself as a 
neurotic, under this defense-mechanism. But, on the other 
hand, it not infrequently happens that severe symptoms 
which have been built up in this manner disappear as if 
by magic when the causal associations are cleared up. 
It is as if the patient had become enmeshed in a net of 
illusions against his will-it needs only that this be torn 
asunder in order that he become well and free. He has 
fled from reality; but the neurosis has provided a new 
experience;-however dangerous reality itself may be, 
there is one thing still more dangerous; and that is the 
effort to assure one's self against it in any way whatever. 
VII 
After these hints concerning Adler's meaning as it has 
to do with neurotic defense-mechanism, I shall point out ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
285 
briefly what is involved in his other fundamental idea, 
viz., "the masculine protest." It may be most suitable 
to start from a concrete case. 
A robust man of about thirty years consulted me once 
because of impotence. It came out at once that the im- 
potence applied only to his marriage; during the whole 
time of his youth he had been unusually vigorous in the 
sexual respect. He had married solely for love and his 
wife was in no way opposed to him. This seems peculiar, 
but the association is very simple. I asked him some 
questions concerning his father and he then broke out with 
the greatest bitterness. His father, he told me, had ruined 
his life. All through his student days this father had 
dogged his steps in every possible way-he had made home 
a perfect hell during his childhood, etc., etc. He con- 
tinued : "As far back as I can remember, I was deter- 
mined never to be the cause of bringing children into the 
world-I would not bring about such damnation as I had 
known in my own life." Here was the thing quite clear. 
The young man's waking consciousness in childhood had 
been impressed with a protest against the father, the flame 
being continually fed by new feelings of hatred which 
must be suppressed. Out of this protest against the father 
arose a protest against fatherhood. And it was this which 
brought about all that failure of the sexual-mechanism, 
when danger of fatherhood arose because of his marriage. 
I asked him if he still held fast to his decision not to wish 
to become a father. "No, for God's sake!" he answered. 
"My wife would like ten children if I could do my part." 
Consciously then he had given up the protest. In such 
cases that is always the first step toward health. Some- 
times the imprint which the protest puts upon the uncon- 
scious mind is also blotted out: but if this is deep-seated 
it may require tedious work to repair the consequences 
of the past. 
In this case it is easy to see the characteristics of the 286 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
neurotic attitude toward life. In the face of the fact of 
an unhappy childhood, the sound, strong man says to him- 
self: "If I have children it will be the effort of my life 
to see to it that they do not suffer as I have done." This 
is a positive goal; it is something which leaves the mind 
open for what is to come, and at the same time leaves 
the mind a content. The neurotic, on the contrary, flees 
from difficulties; the impotence was an unconscious strata- 
gem, by means of which this patient had beforehand saved 
himself, without the trouble of taking hold in earnest of 
the solution of a risky problem. Neurosis is the negation 
of life. The protest is the active side of this negation. 
The passive side is the defense reaction. 
This protest-mechanism clears understanding of very 
many neurotic disturbances. I just now recall a man who 
suffered from the same trouble as the patient I have last 
mentioned; he had been left behind by his competitors, 
and his feelings were engulfed in protest against this un- 
merited treatment. He was so taken up with thoughts 
concerning this occurrence that he never had time to 
devote himself to his wife and his home. Another patient 
who came to me for treatment for alcoholism, said to me: 
"I notice that if any one suspects me of being unable to 
control myself, something within me arises in protest and 
I go and get drunk. This protest is more dangerous for 
me than anything else." 
I said before that the neurotic, unlike the degenerate, 
lets himself be carried away by shadowy fantasies; he 
must constantly keep hold of himself in the unavailing 
effort to alter the reality of which he is not master. The 
protest is this everlasting rebellion against life, which leads 
to nothing and after which the neurotic once more sinks 
into his helplessness-there is no one who exhausts his 
forces so unnecessarily as the victim of a protest-mech- 
anism. The so-called neurasthenic "tiredness" is often 
caused simply by this. ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
287 
VIII 
Adler gives the protest the epithet "masculine." This 
means that all the struggling, the eagerness to be first in 
competition with others, the strife for power, which char- 
acterize the mind-current, has to do with those qualities 
we are accustomed to call masculine. But there is also 
another and more important reason. We come upon the 
protest in the study of neurosis to a great extent and in 
a special form, among women, who inwardly rise up 
against their position as women. Behind much neurotic 
suffering among women Adler believes that he is able to 
see the hidden desire to escape the position of woman. 
He gives many examples of women who ever since the 
awakening of consciousness have been in open strife with 
their sex, and who react with anxiety, insomnia and other 
symptoms against everything which reminds them of their 
part in life. This is not so strange as it may appear. 
Woman since the earliest days of civilization has been 
placed in a subordinate position; one might almost say 
that the feeling of inferiority throughout centuries has 
enmeshed womanhood itself and now burdens the whole 
sex. A girl becomes aware of this disadvantage as soon 
as she experiences the condescending airs and disdain with 
which her brothers talk "of girls not being any good." 
Not at all strange that such talk awakens a desire to out- 
shine them. But in this very fact may a foundation be 
laid in the girl for a conflict with her own nature, which 
later on becomes fatal. The protest, which should be 
directed against what is fallacious in the opinion, instead 
directs itself against the nature of womanhood itself. 
While on this subject it might be a temptation to see how 
Adler's point of view holds good concerning the so-called 
feminist movement. Undoubtedly he believes this move- 
ment is just, as a means of rectifying the mistakes of the 
history of civilization. But he wonders if it does not 
sometimes come upon paths which have relationship with 288 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
illness, where occasionally a woman goes astray, because, 
without understanding the matter, she rises in arms and 
tries to suppress that which is by far the finest and noblest 
in her nature. In the strife after "equality with man" 
alone lies the seed for one such way of straying;-in this 
one sees an inkling of the "masculine protest," just as in 
every other place where the woman puts forward man and 
masculinity as an aim for her struggle. What the feminist 
movement properly implies is not that the woman shall 
be forced into the same plane as the man and have oppor- 
tunity to develop her powers so that she shall set up an 
opposition against him; what it does mean is that she 
must be freed from the estimation and standard of life 
which men have forced upon her and thus have a fair 
chance to develop freely and fully her own nature. 
What makes early straying upon any one of these many 
wrong paths fatal is the fact that the individual puts 
before him delusive aims and at the same time fashions 
his life-plan after them. The neurotic, because of a feel- 
ing of inferiority, is separated from real life and is thus 
forced into a life of fantasy. Instead of working towards 
tangible external goals, his aim is something which he 
constructs in his imagination. He thus deprives himself 
of the happiness that lies in the attainment of something 
tangible. He is continually confronted with the painful 
discovery that his own fantasies are incongruous with real 
life. "It has not turned out as I expected it to," he says. 
"What is the use in striving for anything?" and so his 
activity is paralyzed and he comes into the state of relaxa- 
tion of will-power so characteristic of the neurasthenic. 
The danger in the building up of such fictitious ideas is 
simply this: the formation-process itself in essential degree 
finally is decided by those tendencies with which the neu- 
rotic tries to compensate the feeling of inferiority. In 
other words: his whole life-plan comes to be decided either 
by the defense-mechanism or the protest. In order to 
abandon his illusions it may often be necessary for the ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
289 
neurotic to rebuild his whole life from the very founda- 
tion. Generally so-called regression plays a great part 
in every treatment. Through regression a stop is put to 
that development in which the individual is being driven 
on by his inner forces. He is compelled to go farther 
and farther back in order to review every point in life's 
falsification to which he has become a victim After this 
has been done he reverts to his present life as if after an 
inner voyage of exploration; he sees it in another light 
and comprehends toward what genuine purpose he should 
direct himself. 
IX 
It is without doubt simply in the ruling of the whole 
life-plan by wrong tendencies that insurmountable hin- 
drances often arise in the road to health. 
I shall here give an example of what I mean. 
I was consulted once by a man of about thirty years, 
who was troubled by a disturbance in the organ of speech. 
He did not stammer exactly, but suddenly without the 
slightest warning the tongue refused to do its service. It 
was a particularly unfortunate trouble for him because he 
had intended to become a popular lecturer. He had put 
before him as his aim in life the elevation of the people 
and he meant to stand forth himself as a moral example. 
Because he had been originally a poor peasant boy, and 
gave me the impression of being orderly and diligent, but 
nevertheless exceedingly poorly gifted, I suspected at once 
that there was a plain incongruity between his qualifica- 
tions and his ambition. I thought that in all probability 
the trouble with the speech had some dim association with 
this fact. Investigation revealed that in childhood this 
patient had indulged in the wildest imaginations connected 
with war and plans for being a great victor; he wanted to 
eclipse the great generals of his country and make it once 
more a world power, etc. As soon as he was grown up 
he had enlisted in the army. In this act there was nothing 290 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
peculiar. But he had by no means taken this course with 
the thought of remaining a non-commissioned officer or 
any such insignificant thing-he had done it with the 
undisturbed conviction that he shortly would become Chief 
of the General Staff and in this position would be able to 
work out his plans as soon as a war broke out. Then 
came upon him the trouble with his speech which forced 
him on to another path. He had then gone to New Zea- 
land. "Why New Zealand?" I asked him. He told me 
because he had wanted to say that he had been farther 
away from his native land than any one else, and so had 
chosen the point on the globe which was precisely opposite 
his own country. I shall not repeat all the queer circum- 
stances with which this analysis swarmed. Tersely, at 
each decision he allowed himself to be dominated by his 
childhood's fiction of being foremost. His work as a 
lecturer was naturally nothing else than the use of such 
subjects as temperance, the education of the people and 
various other questions of the day, in order to attract 
attention to himself, just as indeed many others use such 
means. The disturbance of speech had arisen as a natural 
means to try to force him to fit into reality-a thing I 
must here pass by. In order to become well the man had 
to give up his ideas of greatness and be resigned to the 
fact that he was entirely an every-day unimportant work- 
man, who must make an honorable means of self-support 
his purpose in life;-this change was too much for him. 
In referring to the origin of inferiority, I touched upon 
one circumstance which puts great hindrances in the way 
of making over of the fictitious life-plan, viz.: that the 
feeling of inferiority itself is woven in with actual physical 
weaknesses and irregularities. These thus constantly sus- 
tain the erroneous mind-building processes. In this last 
case, for example, there existed a malformation of the 
gum which made it hard for the patient to pronounce the 
letter "s." 
There is still another circumstance which in this respect ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
291 
is of even greater import and which for the sake of sim- 
plicity I have hitherto passed by. I have so presented the 
matter that it would seem as if the feeling of inferiority 
arose in connection with physical weakness and as if the 
defense- and protest-mechanisms originated in connection 
with those difficulties met with on account of it, in the 
fitting in with reality. But all this has very often a deeper 
association. Anomalies mean psychic educational faults, 
and it is against these that compensation must be estab- 
lished in different directions. In other words, the indi- 
vidual has something constitutional within him from which 
he always tries to escape and against which he continually 
revolts. Let us take as an example a homosexual trait 
in a deeply moral man of strong character. Under such 
circumstances a compulsion-neurosis with a complicated 
ritual may be erected, which forces the individual every 
second of the day to be on his guard. He may, for in- 
stance, be subjected to the compulsion of dressing himself 
in a certain way, of walking upon certain stones in certain 
streets, of carrying out his work in a certain way-he 
may, because of agoraphobia, be frightened away from all 
places where men solicit, etc. I recall one man of splendid 
education, but constitutionally homosexual, who joined 
the Salvation Army and for whom religion played the 
part of such a protecting defense-measure. Or the process 
may also appear in the protest form. We might in that 
case say that the protest is the tension between abnormal 
tendencies-such as perverted animal instincts, and the 
forces which build up morals. The more one is reminded 
of the impulse the stronger arises the protest; this protest 
is then attached to other relatively indifferent objects and 
is projected into the surrounding world and into work in 
accordance with well-known mechanisms. So the reason 
which causes a woman's shrewishness, through which she 
destroys her own happiness as well as that of others, may 
lie in some hidden perversity, from which she continually, 
by this means, tries to turn her attention. 292 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
If neurotic conditions do not become amenable to cure, 
the reason will often be found in such constitutional 
anomalies, which make the fitting into real life an im- 
possibility. This does not, however, preclude the possi- 
bility that the situation can be improved, that is to say, 
after analysis of the associations the individual may re- 
place the neurotic defense-system with something better; 
-for example, replace a compulsion-system that paralyzes 
the whole working power with a useful work which holds 
the attention and engrosses the energy. 
Such deep unchangeable abnormalities hold good about 
psychopathic conditions. For the explanation of the 
psychology of these also, Adler's lines of thought have 
value. This is understandable if one keeps in mind the 
aim toward which both fundamental tendencies point most 
surely-an aim realized in both extreme psychotic types, 
i.e., in the dement- and the protest-paranoiac. The former 
withdraws entirely from the outside world and lives only 
in the fantasies which he himself produces. He shields 
himself by means of walls built up from the compulsion- 
system, symbols, attitudes, automatisms, etc., in such a 
way that he is no longer approachable. The latter, on 
the other hand, instantly takes an "on guard" attitude to- 
ward every one he meets. He is oversensitive in regard 
to the outside world in such a way that he makes use of 
each little thing as a welcome means of obtaining outlet 
for the hate-saturated disharmony within him. Of course 
in the construction of psychopathic conditions, causes of 
quite another sort than those here described also come into 
play; with them medical psychology has nothing to do. 
It is limited to searching into psychological associations. 
x 
It may need no more than the above hints concerning 
Adler's teachings to make clear to every one how widely 
they differ from everything that is connected with the 
name of Freud. Obviously a presentation of everything, ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
293 
which according to Adler is fundamentally important for 
the construction of neurosis, may be given, without once 
bringing the sexual life into question. In his earnestness 
to point out other causes than those emphasized by Freud, 
he has even gone so far as wholly to deny that the sexual- 
life and its conflicts are explanatory foundations for nerv- 
ous suffering. It may appear of only paradoxical inter- 
est. But really that is the conclusion we must arrive at, 
if Adler's opinions are followed out to the goal toward 
which they point. And Adler may be accused of any- 
thing but inconsistency. 
The forces which Adler pointed out, and the action of 
which he tried to follow in detail, play, according to him, 
such a dominating role, that the sexual life itself, by the 
side of them, recedes to the background. Where the feel- 
ing of inferiority has found a way into a person's life 
everything must yield to the effort to build up compensa- 
tion in one way or another,-everything is subordinated to 
this, even the longing to reach freedom of the senses. Be- 
fore the purpose of defending one's self against the dan- 
gers of life, or the longing to overcome other dangers by 
means of the masculine protest, the neurotic loses sight 
of all other purposes. He not only loses love as an aim 
in life, but he loses the faculty to love. He meets every 
rising tendency within himself with an anxious effort to 
flee from it. He dare not devote himself to anything 
which may bring him in contact with this dangerous real- 
ity, which is his constant terror. Love would compel him 
to give up those dreams which are dearer to him than life, 
and drive him to the humiliating acknowledgment that 
he has striven after an illusory goal; so he rises in pro- 
test against it. Because of this everlasting seeking after 
fictitious aims, after unreality, the neurotic can never give 
himself up to the risk of a real emotion, as he must do, 
if by means of it he is to redeem himself. All that has 
to do with the erotic remains for him just as unreal as 
everything else in his life-a fantasy, an arrangement, a 294 
AN OUTLINE OF.PSYCHOANALYSIS 
pose, a part to play. Because of this Adler believes that 
it is preposterous to ascribe a causal significance to neu- 
rosis-formation, even where the patient himself stresses 
such significance and when on a superficial consideration 
it seems to play a chief part. The deciding factors are, 
instead, all those things which drive the neurotic into a 
life of unreality and impede his emancipation. 
Even if Freud's sexual doctrine may not be eliminated 
from scientific consciousness in so convenient a way, 
Adler's point of view contains nevertheless very much of 
value. It can not be denied that the "libidinous satyr- 
play" is often an external phenomenon, deep under which 
"the tragedy of the masculine protest" works the destruc- 
tion of the individual. Strindberg, whose life and work 
are an inexhaustible well-spring for the exemplification of 
Adler's viewpoint is, in this regard, singularly instructive. 
One of Adler's most faithful adherents, Freschi, has re- 
cently devoted himself to a study of Strindberg's book, 
For Pay. This points out how, for the author, every- 
thing was a question of power, an effort to demonstrate 
his superiority. He feels his inferiority in regard to 
woman and marries three times in the hope of finally be- 
coming master over some one. At the bottom of his in- 
clination to endow woman at one and the same time with 
irresistible charm and with the most horrible qualities, 
lies one of those strange stratagems which are so often 
met with in neurotics; he does it to protect himself from 
the humiliation which otherwise would mean his going 
under in the battle against her, for no one need be ashamed 
of being unable to withstand such monsters of artifice and 
enchantment as he makes his fictitious women appear to be. 
Helen must conquer in order to show the dangerous 
power of which she is possessed and it is easy to under- 
stand the need of the man to protect himself against her, 
-against women-etc. Out of Strindberg's life and out ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
295 
of all his books it is easy to see how aggression-tendencies 
originated from a neurotic thought-scheme to which he 
had to hold fast in order to protect himself, since he 
plainly felt how great was his insecurity against women. 
This feeling of powerlessness in the struggle against her, 
was, however, only one expression standing out in the 
foreground, for the general feeling of inferiority which 
he had with him from the very beginning. 
When Strindberg speaks of love between man and 
woman, it does not mean anything like love, but only the 
question which of the two shall get the better of the other 
in the struggle for power. 
This is of interest as showing how Adler thus throws 
new light upon a problem which Freud believed he had 
made quite clear. Adler has brought about a revaluation 
of all those facts which Freud dragged forth and made 
subjects for discussion. 
The most important question is the manner in which 
Adler manages the incest doctrine. During the develop- 
ment of psychoanalysis this doctrine has become such a 
center in the whole structure of the teaching, that it often 
seems as if an answer to all the fundamentally essential 
questions pertains to it. Adler's greatest import lies per- 
haps simply in the fact that he constructed a dam against 
the inclination of this incest doctrine to overflow all the 
different spheres of human nature. 
The material for the incest doctrine has been chiefly 
gathered from dreams. It can neither enter Adler's mind 
nor that of anyone else who is practically engaged with 
psychology, to deny that in the dreams of neurotic pa- 
tients incestuous fantasies are to be met with about as 
Freud describes them, and that through analysis one may 
find a trace of such things in the unconscious life of every 
one. The question therefore is not so much this fact in 
and for itself, but how it shall be explained. The oppo- 
sition which arose was chiefly against Freud's manner of 
interpreting it as an expression of an unconscious wish. 296 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
which prevents free play of the feelings and rouses in- 
superable resistance against psychic freedom. What 
Adler above all objected to was the establishment of the 
incest motive as a reality in the life of the individual. 
Having accepted the erotic conflict in neurotics as an un- 
reality-as a curtain, behind which all these other forces 
are acting, it was but a step for him to view also the 
origin of those conflicts as an illusion, a self-deception. 
He regards it only as a staging of the longing for pro- 
tection and the struggle for power. When a man, for 
instance, dreams of intimate intercourse with his own 
mother, it means only that he runs to her from the dan- 
gers of life in the same way he did as a child. And so 
it is always. The fact that these sensuous situations ap- 
pear in dreams so relatively often depends most closely 
upon a technical circumstance in the formation of dreams. 
We possess in the unconscious mind, so to speak, a stratum 
of memory pictures which superimposes an earlier 
stadium in connection with the most primitive sensuous 
sensations. Among these memories, pictures of our near- 
est relations play the chief role-they being then the only 
individuals who existed for us. Of the psychic material 
furnished by this stratum, we make use in dreams in order 
to express those tendencies by which our conscious ego 
is ruled; we use them to illustrate endeavors of quite 
another sort. 
But the strife which is going on between Freud and 
Adler is more than a matter of scientific controversy; it 
involves the ground work of medical psychology. 
It was pointed out elsewhere that Freud tries to in- 
terpret the psychic-life from its causal assumptions, just 
as every investigator of natural science interprets phe- 
nomena which come within his field of research. The 
basic idea in the sexual doctrine is simply an attempt to 
resolve all different expressions of the mental life into 
more or less fundamental forms, by the power which rules ADLER CONCEPTION OF NEUROSIS 
297 
the whole of the animal world. Freud, in other words, 
attempts to harmonize his teaching concerning the mental 
life with the whole scheme of natural science. Adler's 
opposition is an expression of humanity's persistent pro- 
test against under-valuation of the specifically human 
forces; it is the claim of the final viewpoint against the 
causal. 
According to Adler we understand nothing of that 
which takes place within us unless we first and foremost 
direct attention to the ineffaceable groping for a purpose 
which rules all our undertakings. The nature of neu- 
rosis is unveiled to us only when we learn to distinguish 
between real and illusory aims. If this struggle for a pur- 
pose comes from within and carries with it the stamp of 
our deepest, truest volition-if the purpose is in harmony 
proportion with our forces and if its attainment leads to 
the emancipation of these forces, then we are on the right 
road. But if the effort itself is distorted, stressed, and 
really an egotistical desire to demonstrate our own supe- 
riority; if the purpose is something which in actuality we 
do not desire, something, which looked deeper into, is 
of no worth to us, a will-o'-the-wisp after which we reach 
only because it shines beautifully before our eyes-then 
we are on the road to disease. 
Behind this struggle toward a goal Adler catches a 
gleam of the permanent life-plan. The concept for him, 
carries with it almost a mystical purport, and in reading 
his works one sometimes feels that this idea is his name 
for the substance of life itself. To show how deeply the 
life-plan is grown into the psyche, he has investigated the 
earliest memories of childhood in a very large number of 
cases; he has found thereby that these always are a symbol 
of the life-plan. As an instance, I questioned a young 
man about his earliest recollections; he had sat upon 
somebody's knee and told tales of robbers and had been 
overjoyed when some of the people near him expressed 
delight. He was then three years old. Now he is over 298 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
twenty and wants to study to become an artist; his life 
is ruled by the longing to charm in some such capacity 
his contemporaries. The life-plan is the indwelling, 
primitve, central point in the human soul. Life consists 
of an effort to realize it. Everything else must give way, 
and all other tendencies must be subordinated to it. 
Adler's rigid consistency comes out strongest by far in 
the way in which he puts another construction on the 
Freud incest doctrine. Even the forces which penetrate 
most deeply into the assumptions of our earthly existence 
are not, according to Adler, decisive for the form of it. 
By themselves they are empty, illusory. Their real im- 
port is discovered only when they are seen in connection 
with the life-plan; that is the substance which fills out 
these forces with real content, which negotiates their 
associations with reality in general. 
It may thus be seen that Adler asserts purposiveness 
with that same ruthless one-sidedness with which Freud 
emphasizes causality, as the driving, creating, power in 
human life. ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 1 
(After a Lecture Before the Psychologic-Philosophical 
Society at Goteborg, Sweden) 
By Dr. Emanuel of Geijerstam (Goteborg) 
Translated by Dr. James S. Van Teslaar 
We all know what an important role the forbidden plays 
in the teachings of Freud. He defines conscience as fol- 
lows : "Conscience is the inner perception of the rejection 
of certain wishes existing within us." (Imago, 1912; 
Das Tabu.) The ethical standards which have arisen 
as the result of training and environmental influences are, 
according to Freud, incompatible with our instincts, with 
our sexuality. That the sexual instinct generates the feel- 
ing of guilt is a common human experience which the 
psychotherapeutist has an uncommonly good opportunity 
to verify. The question is whether the feeling of guilt, 
in its deepest sense, actually has its roots in sexuality. 
Let us first consider what may be called an elementary 
example, viz.: the classical type, commonly called sexual 
neurasthenia. A neurotic of this type usually has been 
addicted to masturbation, he has read "house physicians" 
who have taught him the alleged evils of the so-called 
"secret" vice. I may point out that the writings which 
inspire neurotics with fear do not always emanate from 
quacks. There are to this day more physicians than one 
would think credible who represent in these matters a 
viewpoint which has become an anachronism. (As to the 
non-injuriousness of onanism consult the writings of Dr. 
W. Stekel.) The neurotic is induced on account of his 
1 From Psyche and Eros. Reprinted by permission. 
299 300 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
hypochondriac motives to engage in a bitter struggle 
against masturbation. These motives, as we know, are 
usually fortified by religious scruples, since the neurotic's 
education leads him to identify sexuality with sinfulness. 
It is well known-and a fact frequently stressed by Freud 
-that the worst neurotic conflicts break out precisely when 
the struggle against masturbation has been won and the 
habit has been given up. In very serious cases the whole 
sexual instinct may be completely suppressed. In its place 
the patient displays anxiety and eventually other neurotic 
symptoms. Undoubtedly Freud is correct when he teaches 
that in such cases the sexuality is repressed, driven out 
of consciousness. As is well known, Freud also says that 
the neurotic does not succeed thereby in getting rid of his 
sexuality. The latter still persists in the unconscious and 
presses forward for expression. As it is not permitted 
to come to the surface it breaks through in the form of 
anxiety. The libido becomes transformed into anxiety. 
Freud sees in this a process of self-punishment and states 
very properly that to a certain extent all anxiety repre- 
sents the operation of conscience. Anxiety appears to be 
the result of a feeling of guilt which has its roots in 
sexuality. 
But upon analyzing neurotics of this type I have been 
unable for my part to convince myself that this is a fact. 
A couple of years ago I treated a twenty-two-year-old 
neurotic. In the course of a dream analysis he gave the 
following association: "I recall how I prayed very fer- 
vently to God one day, some time ago, to protect me 
against the habit of masturbation." Following the analytic 
technique of Dr. Stromme I asked whether he had fought 
the day before against the habit. He had not. But his 
whole day had been filled with terror concerning the com- 
ing Easter preparations. He was employed in a store. 
He had in fact uttered a pious little prayer. He had prayed 
to God to save him from having to work. I asked whether 
he could recall having felt better after the prayer. He ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
301 
was surprised at that, but answered very promptly that 
he recalled very distinctly that this had not been the case. 
He now saw the reason for it. The same patient reacted 
to another dream with the following association: "I must 
absolutely give up masturbation, otherwise I shall become 
so sick that I shall have to take my life." Here there was 
a similar relationship. The day before he had actually 
thought to himself: "Work will yet drive me to suicide." 
In other words, in his unconscious fantasy he regarded 
masturbation in the same light as work. Undeniably it 
sounds rather far-fetched to find the sign of equation 
between onanism and work. One may also raise the ob- 
jection that such examples are accidental, and that these 
proofs point to no more than a rather superficial play on 
words. But I am in a position to quote masses of similar 
examples. It not infrequently happens that young stu- 
dents act before their comrades as if they are lazy, as if 
they took pride in being lazy, when as a matter of fact 
they are really fairly diligent. They do their work se- 
cretly just as they secretly masturbate. Moreover, the 
neurotic is often conscious of a similar attitude towards 
work as towards sexuality, of course without being aware 
of the parallel. He believes he has become ill on account 
of overwork, he is afraid of the evil consequences of hard 
work, just as he is afraid of masturbation. In fact he 
fears the loss of energy (a narcissistic factor). Moreover, 
it is very convenient and therefore very easy for the neu- 
rotic to attribute the responsibility to something he has 
already done andrcannot undo. (It is, in fact, a typical 
neurotic wish, observable in many patients, that they are 
uncommonly keen to know when and how their neurosis 
had its genesis. A person would rather trace something 
to the remote past than to yesterday.) If in the course 
of his treatment a neurotic dreams that he has kissed a 
woman, he usually feels better the following day and is 
better able to work. As I have pointed out in a previous 
lecture, I stand decidedly upon a broader libido concept 302 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
and I see in the sexual libido only a portion of the general 
interest in life. The dream depicts pars pro toto, the 
sexual object instead of the life aim. Particularly in 
woman's consciousness, man and marriage stand as spe- 
cific representatives of the life aim. A similar role is 
played in the case of the male by the thought of founding 
his own home. The sexual in dreams has not merely a 
literal meaning, but above all a symbolic, an anagogic 
significance. 
Freud, as is well known, lets his patients associate 
freely, requests them to give free course to the flow of 
thoughts and to relate without the least control everything 
that comes to consciousness. Freud states that when our 
customary purposive thinking is abandoned, the uncon- 
scious assumes the determinative role for the content of 
our associations. We also find that the sexual plays the 
same role in the free associations roused during the waking 
state as in the dream. We may have a sexual parallel to 
the previous day's activity, though that need not neces- 
sarily be the case. But an anagogic parallel does seem 
always to be present. Upon a more careful scrutiny of 
the matter, it is not very surprising after all, if, as Stromme 
has recently expressed it, analysis discloses a possible 
equation between sexuality and work. It is well known 
that, in spite of the most careful explanation showing that 
masturbation is but an infantile or juvenile form of grati- 
fication of the sexual instinct and that it need not be con- 
sidered in itself harmful to health, the sexual neurasthenic 
is relatively seldom able to overcome his hypochondriac 
fears. When the orthodox conception of the sixth com- 
mandment comes into play, it naturally aggravates the 
despair of the neurotic. The modern translation of that 
commandment ("Thou shalt not commit adultery") has, 
in my experience, the effect of supporting the therapeu- 
tist's efforts to some extent. An orthodox patient usually 
looks eagerly for a free thinker in his physician, i.e., some 
®ne to rid him of his qualms of conscience. I am reminded ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
303 
particularly of an elderly, pious school-teacher who suf- 
fered from so-called "sexual excitation," i.e., masturba- 
tion. It was hopeless to try to touch upon that subject 
with her. Through hypnosis her sexual excitability was 
diminished and after a certain measure of self-criticism she 
thanked me because she believed herself as well as it was 
possible for her to be. In the last analysis it is surprising, 
however, that these patients, aside from their religious 
views, find it so hard to forgive themselves their mastur- 
bation habit. Freud, as is well known, states that the 
symptom is a substitute gratification for sexuality. In 
anagogic terms this means that there is something pur- 
posive back of every symptom. Stromme states very 
properly, that there is truth in all compulsive thoughts- 
if only they are rightly interpreted. That is true also here. 
There is a valid reason why the sexual neurasthenic can- 
not forgive himself. The fact is he has committed the 
so-called sin against the Holy Ghost, a transgression for 
which no one has yet been able to achieve self-forgiveness. 
With the overcoming of his masturbation and the repres- 
sion of his sexuality, he has also lost his pleasure in life, 
he has repressed his pleasure in work-hence the feeling 
of guilt. What breaks into the field of consciousness in 
the form of anxiety is not sexuality alone, but also the 
(similarly repressed) joy in work. The primary factor 
of the neurosis consists in the shrinking back from exer- 
tion. The neurotic, to use Stromme's expression, does not 
want to expend his energy. And there is profound truth 
in the saying that avarice is the root of all evil. Freud 
continually reiterates that our moral self wants to know 
nothing of our sexuality. It becomes, so to speak, a nega- 
tive, proscriptive conscience. Freud speaks of the self- 
judging factor, the censorship, our conscience. (Cf. his A 
General Introduction to Psychoanlaysis.} It is the factor 
which exercises a censorial influence on dreams at night 
and through which the repressed energies break fp-th. 
But in a deeper sense we have in our unconscious a mou-d 304 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
self which refuses to know that a natural instinct is being 
repressed as something abhorrent, just as it does not tol- 
erate the repression of the craving for work. The sexual 
neurotic who overcomes his masturbation habit without 
overcoming the neurosis, suffers, strictly speaking, from 
anxiety not because he has masturbated, but because he 
did not dare continue the habit-from the anagogic stand- 
point, because he fails to give proper expression to the 
craving for life and work. And the orthodox teaching, 
according to which he- ought to be satisfied to-be free from 
his sexual longings, helps him as little as any alleged free- 
thinking attitude. Failure properly to express the natural 
cravings generates a feeling of guilt. Freud says that the 
neurotic represses his sexuality because of a feeling of 
guilt. That is correct in so far as it explains the attitude 
of the neurotic towards his struggle against his instinctive 
cravings. But as I see it, the truth is rather that he has 
the feeling of guilt because he has repressed his sexuality. 
When the neurotic recoils from his tasks, becomes a vic- 
tim of anxiety attacks, and seeks to be consoled by his 
mother, in other words, when the CEdipus complex is being 
actualized, the feeling of guilt comes into play not because 
he loves his mother, but because he does not love his work. 
I cannot accept the Freudian doctrine that the feeling of 
guilt in relation to sexuality has its deepest roots in the 
incestuous object-choice. If the CEdipus complex be taken 
literally, the feeling of guilt is due rather to the hostile 
attitude towards the father. The young neurotic, so bound 
to his mother that he is not comfortable at home except 
during his father's absence, is not rarely met with. An 
eleven-year-old neurotic, with asthmatic symptoms, among 
others, dreamed as follows: "A man stepped in through 
the bedroom door, held a knife in his hand and wanted to 
stick it into my mother. Then I dreamed that I awoke 
from my sleep, gripped the intruder by the wrist and tore 
the knife out of his hand." This dream, which, inciden- 
tally, ought to be of interest to those who doubt the ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
305 
CEdipus theory and the doctrine of sexual symbolisms, 
hardly requires interpretation. I do not propose to analyze 
it at present. From the patient's father I obtained subse- 
quently an excellent substantiation of the analysis of this 
dream. The young boy had been to the theater with his 
parents the previous evening. When they returned home 
the parents sat up and engaged in conversation while the 
boy was sent to bed. Excited by the evening's entertain- 
ment, the boy retired most unwillingly. Looking now 
merely at the objective side of the dream, it is very plain 
to me that the feeling of guilt must be traceable .here to 
the boy's jealousy of his father. Subjectively the man in 
the dream represents egoism. The feeling of guilt which 
stands back of the neurotic's fear is never due to love, 
but to the absence of love; it is due not to what the neurotic 
does, but rather to what he fails to do. The sins of omis- 
sion are the worst. It is psychologically very appropriate 
that in Ola Hansson's Ung Ofegs visor (The Songs of 
Young Of eg), the worst fate overtakes the man who keeps 
silent. 
I want to quote one more example to illustrate the role 
which sexuality, and particularly masturbation, may play 
in neurosis. A few years ago I treated a thirty-year-old 
patient who suffered from agoraphobia. When he was at 
his worst, he had no sexual interest, felt no trace of joy 
in his work, but instead was subject to depression, apathy 
and fatigue. After a time his condition improved some- 
what. The first sign of that was that he began to mas- 
turbate. At the same time his interest in work returned. 
Then he began indulging in sexual relations. (He was a 
'Don Juan, a sexual type which is distinctly neurotic). 
Simultaneously his zest in his daily occupations became 
strong or as strong as it could be in a man of his type. 
If after a while he became worse again, his pleasure in 
work also decreased; he began to masturbate again and 
after a time fell once more into a deep depression during 
which his interest in work and his sexual cravings alike 306 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
were at the lowest level. During the upward swing of 
the curve the onset of masturbation was a symptom of 
improvement and during the downward course of his con- 
dition it was a symptom of neurosis. In fact, all symp- 
toms are in a certain sense a sign of unconscious progres- 
siveness (i.e., anagogic translation of Freud's "libido"). 
Freud calls them substitutes. They are, so to speak, a less 
laborious, more easily attainable form of the gratification 
of the pleasure in life than sensible forms of work. In 
the truest sense the patient wants to have his symptoms, 
although he does not understand this. There is therefore 
sense in the advice often given to the neurotic that he 
ought to learn to put up with his symptoms. Unfortu- 
nately this advice is of little use to him because he does 
not acquire at the same time an insight into the mechanisms 
of a neurosis. When, in the case cited above, cohabitation 
displaced masturbation, the latter was really a surrogate, 
a sign of diminished craving. But we must not forget that 
it stands also for the only possible outlet for progression 
available to the patient. The most serious cases of neu- 
rosis are those which show a scant formation of symptoms, 
which are characterized by apathy rather than by anxiety, 
and in which the subjects cling almost with the stubborn- 
ness of the insane to the idea that they are ill. 
The case mentioned above illustrates also very clearly 
the psychic parallels between sexual craving and pleasure 
in work. In fact, the neurotic assumes towards all life 
problems in general precisely the same inhibited attitude 
which he displays towards his sexual life. For the present 
I wish to point out that the sexual neurasthenic who feels 
such deep regrets over his masturbation often lacks similar 
compunctions with regard to loose morals otherwise, and 
that in spite of orthodox views-this being further proof 
that the neurotic reaction against sexuality has little to do 
with morals in the deeper sense. 
That moral fanaticism is a pure neurosis and nothing 
more need hardly be specially emphasized in this connec- ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
307 
tion. A twenty-two-year-old girl suffering from hysteria 
and phobias once complained in the course of her analysis 
that she awoke that morning with a very peculiar feeling: 
she felt little pleasure in work. She thought it was on 
account of an unpleasant dream she had had. The dream 
was as follows: 
"I was at home-it was late at night. I went to bed. 
After a while my betrothed came into the room. He was 
undressed as he approached my bed. At first I was horri- 
fied and uneasy, but presently I felt a most pleasant sen- 
sation, such as I have never experienced in reality. I was 
not ashamed that he had come to me; I seemed to take it 
quite naturally. Then mother came in. At once my be- 
trothed disappeared; she began busying herself in my 
room. I could not understand why she did not go aw'ay. 
I waited impatiently for her to go so that my betrothed 
might return, but she stayed." 
This is a good example of how one may understand 
one's dreams. As might be expected, she attributed her 
dysphoric feelings to the erotic element in the dream. As 
a matter of fact, the dream mother stood for moral fanati- 
cism. Concerning her mother the patient related that she 
was a very nervous person, very critical in her judgments 
of others and particularly severe in her criticism of the 
liberties men took. "Whenever mother speaks that way, 
I feel precisely as she does," added the girl. She herself 
had expressed herself on various occasions with the utmost 
disgust and indignation about all who are morally impure. 
The account she gave of her betrothed corresponded with 
his characteristics as she had described them on the pre- 
vious day to the analyst. He represents the analysis- 
subjectively he stands for her progressive self. Her own 
and her mother's moral fanaticism becomes-the neurosis, 
the resistance against the analysis. (The freedom of men 
-the candor of the analyst.) The dream arose out of 
the struggle she passed through in the* course of the pre- 
vious day's analysis when she trited to overcome her aver- 308 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
sion and to express herself frankly-an aversion which, 
according to her own statement, rested on pretended bash- 
fulness. The unpleasant feelings which followed the 
dream were due, therefore, not to the appearance of the 
betrothed in the dream, as she thought, but to the fact 
that he disappeared and that the mother failed to do so. 
Such a dream is very characteristic of a young hysterical 
girl who had been subjected to a wrong educational system. 
Some time ago I treated a forty-year-old bachelor suf- 
fering from impotentia coeundi. After a couple of months 
he broke off the treatment under some pretext or other. 
I had therefore no opportunity to finish the work I had 
begun and therapeutically I could obtain but a partial re- 
sult. But the case is interesting nevertheless and not least 
so from the anagogic standpoint. Like many others suf- 
fering from the same trouble, he thought that in other 
respects he was quite normal. But a sexual impotence of 
this character is unthinkable without a corresponding dis- 
turbance of one's attitude towards life in general. It ac- 
tually turned out that not infrequently he suffered from 
marked depression, dislike for work and mental indolence. 
He was bashful and timid, and in his social relations he 
described himself as one who is not easily drawn into con- 
versation. This attitude of his determined his relations 
to women as well as to his work. At the age of twenty- 
one he acquired a venereal disease; because of this he was 
disgusted with sex and lived abstinently for years, during 
which time he "repressed all feelings." He succeeded 
very well in this and the result was-impotence. During 
the first analysis he invented the cryptolalic, i.e., artificial, 
expression "Krusamynta." To the term "krusa" ("ruf- 
fle") he associated "ruffled collars, such as priests wore 
formerly around their necks." In a moving picture play 
about Joan of Arc, priests wearing such collars were repre- 
sented as sitting in judgment on her. The priests were 
goaded by the English (who, in his mind, stand for puri- 
tanism, public opinion-which condemns sexuality). The ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
309 
priests, therefore, stand for the neurosis. To "kru" he 
associated "kruka," i.e., fear. To "Samynta," the Samoan 
Islands, "famous for their fertility." Accordingly "Kru- 
samynta" means: "I fear and condemn sexuality because 
of public opinion." Incidentally I may draw attention to 
the fact that cryptolalia (gift of tongues) is one of the 
best means whereby to convince one of the existence of 
unconscious mental processes. Nothing proves it more 
convincingly ad oculos, as it were. (Cf. O. Pfister, Kryp- 
tolalie, Krytographie, etc., in Jahrb. f. Psa., vol. V.) 
The patient above mentioned has had a number of in- 
teresting cryptolalias. "Brunevarepar," literally trans- 
lated, "en brun Eva repararer impotensen" (a brown Eva 
repairs impotence). He liked brunettes. In the word 
"Krverisam," there were fused the word "krav" (demand) 
and parts of the words Eremit, ensam (lonely), venereal, 
isolate, eroticism and samlag (coitus). It meant, approxi- 
mately : "Life makes certain demands on bachelors." 
A woman patient yielded an excellent key to herself 
through the cryptolalia "Tystari"-"tysnad" (taciturnity 
inadequacy, resistance). I myself once formed the cryp 
tolalia "Allafara." The circumstances were that my wife 
as well as my daughter had to leave the following day on 
account of illness. Upon analysis I first noticed that 
"Allafara" is practically the same as "Alle fahren," i.e., 
"all travel." The word also contained the thought "Alle 
gefahren" (all gone), partly on account of the illness, 
and partly because my wife and I had been warned the 
same day against diphtheritic infection on the way. There 
was also a third thought in the word, but discretion com- 
pels me to leave it unrecorded. 
To return now to the patient suffering from sexual im- 
potence : at the second sitting he related a dream which 
was to the effect that he had been called to military service 
and had been given a sword which was nearly broken 
across at the middle and was bent and uneven besides. 
An interesting example for any one inclined to doubt 310 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
sexual symbolism! I should perhaps add that the patient 
was an uncultured man, who had not so much as heard 
the words "sexual symbol." Shortly afterwards he had 
the following dream: 
"I enter a garden where I see an apple tree. I pick a 
couple of apples and put one in each coat pocket; thus it 
would be less noticeable than if I put both in one pocket. 
Later I came across the gardener or owner of the garden. 
I caught a glimpse of the man only as I took the apples; 
then he suddenly appeared quite close to me; I was sur- 
prised. I don't remember any conversation with him. 
But I was very anxious to hide carefully the apples which 
I carried in my pockets, so that he would not see them. 
Subsequently I found myself in the company of a lady 
wearing a green shirtwaist and I kissed her. Another 
gentleman was present at the time. (Addendum:) I 
thought it strange, improper, to kiss the lady. She and 
I lay half stretched out on a sofa; the woman turned 
towards me to be kissed. The man was lying on the floor 
a little distance off and towards the foot of the bed and 
had his back towards me. I saw only his shoulders, his 
back and his neck. He did not see me kiss her." 
This dream, as we see, falls into two parts. It is plain 
that the two parts are variants of the same theme. In 
both a forbidden act is being carried out. The first part 
of the dream reminds us at once of the fall in Chapter III 
of the First Book of Moses (Genesis). The dream cer- 
tainly appears an excellent illustration of Freud's theory 
that every dream is the fulfillment of an egoistic wish. In 
a previous lecture I have expressed the view that the 
dream does not represent merely the literal fulfillment of 
infantile inferior wishes, but that the symbols employed 
are merely the form in which the language of dreams ex- 
presses our progressive striving. The apparently infan- 
tile, egoistic wish of the dream, in other words, becomes 
a symbol for what is deepest and best in us. 
But how is it in the present instance? ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
311 
According to Freud, the dream in question would be 
an CEdipus dream: the apple tree would be the mother, 
the gardener or proprietor would be the father. Un- 
doubtedly that interpretation is correct. But we must note 
that the apple tree also stands for the analysis. On the 
previous day the thought had occurred to the subject that 
the analysis will "bear fruit." It is a well-known fact that 
the dream material does not necessarily always reveal 
during the first analysis of the dream the infantile sex- 
uality. And for therapeutic purposes the writer seldom 
analyzes dream material more than once. Nothing sexual 
came to surface in the infantile material back of this 
dream, but it did associatively bring into the subject's 
mind the recollection that as a child he had broken into 
orchards to steal apples when no one saw him. His father 
had been the manager of an estate which included orchards; 
he was literally, therefore, a watchman over forbidden 
fruit. One who always seeks to find in the analysis the 
current relations will necessarily inquire: what was there 
in the previous day which stands in parallel relation to the 
apple stealing in childhood ? A clear sexual parallel I was 
unable to uncover. The previous day's analysis, which 
was concerned with his sexual repression, may possibly 
have been brought out again during the associations. But 
a more satisfactory explanation is found in the fact that 
on the previous day the patient had obtained a detailed 
report about his professional training course. The patient 
had formerly been employed in business by another man. 
During that time he devoted his evenings to preparatory 
studies which should enable him eventually to establish 
himself in a business of his own and this he succeeded 
in accomplishing. He thus worked behind the employer's 
back to make himself independent-conduct which was 
not in the least unethical. Nevertheless it figures in the 
dream and in the associations. One of his associations 
was: "stolen fruit tastes sweetest." What would taste 
sweetest to him would be to be his own master. It may 312 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
be noted also that he had to struggle against a very strong 
distaste for work in order to accomplish the necessary 
preparation which enabled him to establish himself inde- 
pendently in business. This is shown in the dream by his 
compunctions against stealing and by his unpleasant sur- 
prise when he saw the gardener. The fact is also to be 
noted that he was unable to recall any conversation with 
the latter. The element of wish-fulfillment comes into 
play particularly at this juncture. The forbidden fruit, 
therefore, is not only the mother-womanhood-the sex- 
ual object, but, above all, the theme of life-activity 
(work). Subjectively the forbidden fruit is naturally a 
libido symbol, but viewed anagogically it stands not for 
an inferior instinct, but for the interest in life. Objec- 
tively the gardener becomes the father, the chief, the com- 
petitor. But the objective interpretation of such an 
CEdipus dream is of secondary significance, even when it 
is anagogic; the subjective is the deeper and incomparably 
more significant interpretation. In the first place he him- 
self is the gardener, i.e., his weaker, neurotic self. For 
who is the antagonist, the parasite in his soul, if not the 
neurosis, i.e., the regressive tendencies which have always 
handicapped his pleasure in life and in work, which, in 
other words, have always played the role of prohibitive 
influences? The gardener is the neurotic unwilling to 
part with his libido, the dragon of the fairy tale who 
guards the treasure. 
I need hardly go into the second half of the dream. 
The woman there is an equivalent of the apple tree, her 
husband is the gardener. But it is plain that what Freud 
calls conscience, the critical element, is represented in this 
dream by the gardener and the husband. In other words, 
they are here nothing but the regressive, repressive con- 
scious tendencies. It is certain that dreams often show also 
other, entirely different, progressive, symbols for con- 
science. It is a very frequent occurrence that there ap- 
pears in the dream some one possessing the progressive ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
313 
qualities which the dreamer actually lacks in his conscious- 
ness. Such a dream image represents precisely the de- 
mands of conscience, conscience in its progressive aspect 
-a positive conscience, such as is always functioning in 
the unconscious. During analytic treatment this is often 
represented by the analyst or by some substitute for him. 
Back of the representatives of conscience there often are 
various persons (Freud's "Verdichtung," condensation), 
possibly one of the parents (usually the one of opposite 
sex), a teacher or some similar person. This conscience, 
however, is not prohibitory; it represents merely what the 
subject has failed to do. I recall a dream in which the 
subject found himself standing before a semicircle of 
judges. The latter represented the progressive demands. 
They were various editions of the subject's progressive 
self. Freud states, very properly, that when many per- 
sons, ultimately "the whole family," appear in the dream, 
it signifies a great secret. Many persons will stand for a 
great interest. By the appearance of numerous persons 
the dream attempts to bring into sharp outline the most 
sensitive element of conscience. 
The more terrifying our life tasks appear, the more 
uncanny are the forms under which they are symbolized 
in the dream. The monster in the dream, e.g., a snake, 
certainly represents sexuality, but not sin; on the con- 
trary, it stands for the progressive tendencies. But Freud's 
contention that the unconscious transposes plus and minus 
contains a deep truth and the snake may represent also 
sinfulness; but in that case it stands not for sexuality, but 
for the neurosis, apprehension. It becomes what Jung 
calls a negative phallus symbol. 
I recall a dream which a twenty-two-year-old anxiety 
hysteric reported at the beginning of his psychoanalytic 
treatment. He dreamed that he was standing on the top 
of a church steeple and that a snake crawled up and curled 
around him. It does not require much analytic experi- 
ence to see in such a dream the expression of strong re- 314 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
cessive tendencies. He had a great dislike for work. 
The snake was the analysis, activity, etc. The snake, he 
said, was something unpleasant, cunning. It crept noise- 
lessly upon its victim. He was unable to protect himself 
against the snake and was helpless in its presence. He 
had discovered that analysis was a cunning and uncanny 
procedure; he had actually felt himself helpless before the 
analyst "who can get anything out of one at will." His 
associations brought forth also the thought of ghosts which 
scared him; it seemed to him that there was something 
mystical about psychoanalysis. Another association was 
as follows: "When I was twelve years old, a boy lay on 
me, held my arms and legs tight and tickled me; it was 
very unpleasant." This scene represented his feeling of 
helplessness in the presence of analysis. The infantile 
admixture of anxiety and delight, uneasiness and pleasure, 
which he experienced when he was tickled was an appro- 
priate expression for his attitude towards the latter. The 
homosexual admixture appears here in its actual setting. 
(Another neurotic recalled associatively, in some connec- 
tion or other, homosexuality, which he regarded as a de- 
testable vice. That was also his feeling-attitude towards 
the analysis and towards work.) It is noteworthy that 
analysis, though centered on the actual situation, does not 
by any means overlook the infantile sexual roots. But it 
endeavors to determine what the infantile reminiscences 
now signify rather than what meaning they had formerly. 
Such an association as the last mentioned, for instance, 
shows that during the previous day the patient had found 
himself in an infantile situation. We see also how posi- 
tive transferences have their beginning. The rest of the 
latent dream material disclosed only a negative attitude. 
I have mentioned already that the dream of apple- 
stealing mentioned above recalled associatively the Biblical 
fall into sin. It is, as is well known, a psychoanalytic 
theory that our unconscious contains archaic material and 
that our dreams often correspond most surprisingly to the ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
315 
aboriginal myths and legends (the latter pointed out first 
by Jung). But to me it has been clear for a long time, 
long even before I obtained the dream of apple-stealing, 
that sexuality has a wholly different meaning, at least in 
the dreams of my patients, than it appears to have in the 
story of the fall of man. 
As I have already mentioned, I find almost always that 
sexuality symbolizes the task of living. The fall of man 
has always seemed to me very obscure from the psycho- 
analytic standpoint. It fits splendidly into Freud's the- 
ories, with his morality versus sexuality principle and, as 
is well known, Freud looks upon the lost paradise as repre- 
senting the lost and innocent childhood, that period in 
which the parents have not yet interfered with the child's 
sexual life. 
But how does the fall of man fit in with the anagogic 
standpoint? If sexuality represents $the life problems, 
God must represent the inferior, or in psychoanalytic 
language, the regressive element. Would it not be a sign 
of a blasphemous fantasy to make Satan, the snake, repre- 
sent the good, and God the symbol for evil? Indeed, the 
idea is not a novel one. I need only call to mind the 
myths of Lucifer and Prometheus. But another and more 
important consideration rests for me in the fact that in 
the course of analysis nearly always I find that the re- 
ligious represents the progressive element regardless of 
the subject's personal convictions. And this is of course 
perfectly natural for unconsciously, if not consciously, we 
aim to enjoy the whole of life, irrespective of the con- 
siderations of the cold logic which tells us that life is not 
worth while. Jung very properly says that the rationalism 
of modern life has driven the irrational into the uncon- 
scious. The will to live regardless of all logical considera- 
tions bears a certain resemblance to religious faith, which 
means the blind acceptance of something. I always say 
to my patients: "You know that deeply within yourself 
you have the will to live. Your constant depression and 316 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
your despondency are therefore contrary to your real will." 
If therefore the neurotic lacks the ability to accept his own 
will to live, if he opposes himself to the world instead of 
feeling he himself is a part of it, in other words, if he 
lacks so-called belief in life, which is the essential element 
in all forms of religion, it is evident that the religion is 
well adapted to represent the unconscious progressiveness. 
Nevertheless I hold that in the fall of man God represents 
our neurotic, life-denying tendencies. And as a matter of 
fact the God in the Old Testament stands above all for 
the strict disciplinarian, the representative of the "thou 
shalt not" principle, in contrast to Christ, the representa- 
tive of the principle "thou shalt love." 
A psychoanalyst of the Freudian school, Dr. Ludwig 
Lewy, pointed out in a very valuable essay on Sexual- 
symbolik in dcr biblischen Paradicsgeschichte (Sexual 
Symbolism in the Biblical Story of Paradise) that in the 
older religions divine service, with its invocations to fer- 
tility, phallic worship, etc., degenerated into sexual orgies. 
The religious believers, in other words, took the symbols 
literally. The Jewish religion represented a reaction 
against that tendency. But it is noteworthy that in our 
own age persons make use in their dreams of the same 
symbolisms which were utilized in the older religions. 
Even in such a dream as the one about the stolen apples, 
where it seems that the sexual represents something in- 
ferior, a more thorough analysis shows that precisely the 
contrary is the case. 
Very characteristic of the author of Genesis is the 
divine punishment for the sinful transgression. The pun- 
ishment is work, which thus becomes a burden, an evil. 
Indeed, precisely that is the light in which the neurotic 
looks upon work. It is true, indeed, that there are neu- 
rotics who work fairly well, but at best work is a burden 
to them. Owing to his fear of exertion the neurotic ab- 
stains from work as well as from sexuality and from all 
other things dangerous to life. There are sexual neu- ANAGOGIC PSYCHOANALYSIS 
317 
rotics who speak of the evil effects of work with the same 
feeling-attitude which they display towards the alleged 
evil consequences of masturbation. The neurotic divides 
his life problems into two categories between which he 
draws a sharp dividing line. One is the realm of duty 
and that he conceives as something horrible, or at least 
tedious. The other is the world of eroticism, of pleasure, 
etc. One of the fundamental characteristics of neurosis 
is the sharp contrast between duty and pleasure. One is 
reminded of the story of the old Major who with bitter 
self-irony summarized the experiences of his whole life as 
follows: "Everything that is good is harmful and every- 
thing that is pleasurable is sinful." The neurotic cer- 
tainly is unaware that in his dreams the same symbols 
represent duty as well as his so-called gratifications. He 
does not appreciate the fact that work, sociability, pleas- 
ure, in other words, the common tasks of daily existence, 
are but different objectives of the same life ideal (or 
interest). Naturally he is even farther from perceiving 
that activity (or work) is the only objective in life capable 
of yielding lasting gratification, and that in the absence 
of work all other objectives are but surrogates. Because 
duty, activity, is hateful, spiritual health also becomes 
hateful. It is very common for the neurotic to see in 
health something trivial and prosaic. The identification 
of health with mental inferiority is also not uncommon. 
The healthy are weak-minded, the neurotic is made of 
better stuff. A patient once said to me: "Average folks 
who are energetic often do better than intelligent persons 
who are lazy." He himself was a type of the intellectual 
indolent; in his opinion all healthy, active people were a 
pack of idiots. Some neurotics are ashamed of their vir- 
tues and pride themselves on their shortcomings. It is 
also characteristic of many of these patients that they are 
unable to enjoy vacations. One who finds no gratification 
in work is also unable to experience any joy in leisure. 
I remember a patient with whom the first signs of im- 318 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
provement showed themselves in the ability to enjoy 
leisure. One's attitude towards amusements and towards 
the use of leisure time is often an excellent index to men- 
tal health. Ferenczi, one of Freud's most prominent fol- 
lowers, very properly speaks of "Sunday neuroses." The 
neurotic suffers from an unhealthy craving for freedom. 
The whole problem of freedom ceases to exist for him 
from the moment he learns to recognize that in his inner- 
most self he is really unwilling to be free. THE FINAL RESULTS OF PSYCHOANALYTIC 
TREATMENT 1 
By Dr. Wilhelm Stekel (Vienna) 
Translated by Dr. James S. Van Teslaar 
Every psychoanalyst finds that it is very difficult for 
the patient to reconcile himself to the discovery of his 
hidden instinctive cravings. If the analyst is careless, 
and discloses too much of the cryptic interplay of forces 
during the first consultation, he awakens thereby the pa- 
tient's resistance against the treatment, and as a result 
the patient is likely later to absent himself under one pre- 
text or another. Sometimes the greatest care is of no 
avail in this respect. The fact is that the patient first 
enters the physician's consulting-room with the determina- 
tion "not to give himself away." Every neurotic guards 
the secret of his neurosis as a precious possession, as his 
special treasure, of which he must not allow himself to be 
deprived. If he scents danger for his pet fancies he takes 
refuge in flight. . . . The greatest precaution is often 
powerless to prevent this. In a couple of days or so the 
patient will suddenly discover that he is already cured 
and take his leave, with profuse declarations of gratitude 
to the physician, not forgetting to add that he will recom- 
mend the treatment to some of his relatives and friends. 
. . . As a matter of fact, he is no better than he was at 
the beginning. Another will be suddenly called away on 
an unexpected journey; a third discover that the treat- 
1 Reprinted by permission of Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. 
319 320 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
ment is "too exciting" for him, and that he must quiet 
himself down before he goes on with it; and so on. There 
are endless variations to the excuses conjured up. It is 
well, therefore, to enter upon each case with a consider- 
able amount of skepticism and with the greatest care. The 
more the doctor keeps his trump cards and his knowledge 
to himself, the more certain is a favorable result to ensue. 
It is foolish to offer explanations to the patient during the 
first stages of the treatment, even should he appear to be 
well informed on the subject of psychoanalysis and per- 
haps a physician himself. The reverse is the fact. Those 
well informed are the most difficult patients to treat. 
They are forewarned, and use their knowledge of psycho- 
analysis to organize resistances against their own analysis. 
I therefore absolutely agree with Freud, who advises 
against the plan of lecturing to the patients with a view 
to explaining psychoanalysis to them or in the expectation 
of thus aiding the progress of the treatment.2 At first 
sight it might seem as though this might hasten the cure. 
The patients read psychoanalytic writings eagerly, and 
thereby learn ways of concealing their inner self against 
the physician's attempts to disclose their unconscious 
tendencies. It is foolish to allow patients to read every- 
thing. I did this whilst I still believed that the patient 
had a genuine desire to be cured. Now I know that the 
neurotic is animated by but one dread, i.e., the fear that 
he will get rid of his neurosis. One of my compulsion- 
neurotics in the course of the analysis developed a new 
dread, this very fear of "losing something." It turned 
out that the root of that feeling of dread was the fear 
of getting rid of the neuroses and of becoming well. 
The psychoanalyst who prepares his patient with pre- 
liminary talks is like the strategist who delivers into the 
enemy's hands his plan of attack. Therefore I only allow 
2 Freud, Ratschldge fiir den Arzt bei d. psychoanalytischen 
Behandlung, Zentralblatt fiir Psychoanalyse, Vol II. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
321 
my patients to read general, superficial accounts of the 
subject. One of my patients studied psychoanalytic lit- 
erature day and night, with the alleged intention of hasten- 
ing his recovery. When I objected to this plan, he met 
my remonstrance with the statement that when doing so 
he recalled various significant incidents. These reminis- 
cences he then carefully noted down so that the consulta- 
tion hour was hardly long enough to cover the ground. 
But all this was farcical, and, in spite of his endless notes 
and reminiscences, he only hovered over the surface of 
things. 
We cannot proceed successfully towards the prosecution 
of our aim until we have learnt to appreciate this effort 
on the patient's part in its true light. The greatest meas- 
ure of resistance does not depend on the transference, 
i.e., on the patient's "falling in love" with the physician, 
as we once thought. The transference is but a form of 
resistance. Every psychoanalysis betrays a tendency to 
switch the attention of the patient away from the past 
and from the neurosis proper by concentrating it on the 
present moment. Every patient is inclined to interrupt 
the consultation with numerous accounts of his present 
complaints. Sometimes patients will even say: "As long 
as I don't get this off my mind there is no use in trying 
to continue!" The consultant should not permit these 
tactics to obscure the issue. Whenever the danger is im- 
pending that the nucleus of the trouble may be disclosed, 
these minor complications break in. One of the most 
potent factors is the transference, the attachment to the 
physician. What is the use of talking about the emo- 
tional fixation on the father when there is, so to speak, a 
present emotional attachment to be dealt with ? This 
attachment to the physician may be used as a means of 
promoting the patient's recovery. For neurotics never get 
well for their own sake. They get well to please the 
physician. They do it as a favor to him. 322 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
II 
It is now some years since I first pointed out3 that a 
patient's first dreams often display his resistance sym- 
bolically, and with irresistible strength. 
A patient submitted to me the following dream: 
"I am standing at the teacher's desk in front of the 
blackboard, on which I see the following drawing. My 
task is to solve the problem mathematically, or by means 
of drawing, and I feel quite helpless. Lamp-light." 
The patient draws the picture as follows: 
The analysis of this dream reveals a number of deter- 
minative factors. It would be very tempting to explain 
the patient's whole neurosis on the basis of this dream. 
But I must limit myself here to my present theme. The 
patient showed me the drawing with the light marked by 
points. "Here the picture ends," said the patient, point- 
ing to where the rays break off. He merely has the feel- 
3 Darstellung der Ncurose im Traume, Zentralblatt filr Psycho 
analyse, Vol. Ill, No. I. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
323 
ing that behind the wall there is a source of light. The 
dream indicates that the source of the neurosis must 
remain undisclosed. The five rays, on first association, 
remind him of five girls with whom he had been in love 
at different times; Ray a is thickest; then the rays grow 
successively dimmer, so that ray c is rather vague. All 
the five girls become fused into one picture. They revert 
back to one central point. I found out afterwards that 
the central point in question was his mother. In other 
words, the five girls were surrogates for the only genuine 
love of his life . . . the most recent was the strongest 
love affair. But ray e was nearly forgotten. 
But what is the meaning of this first dream as a whole ? 
Plainly, that he does not propose ever to disclose to me 
the whole truth. The analysis will only lead up to a cer- 
tain point and there stop. The physician who, in this 
dream, is represented as the examining teacher, will never 
find out the whole truth. The patient will only penetrate 
as far as the superficial layers of his mind; his memories 
and thoughts will reach no farther. 
I pass by the other determinations of the dream as 
irrelevant in connection with our immediate subject. I 
only want to point out the unfavorable omen which the 
dream casts upon the treatment. And the patient actually 
behaved as the dream foreshadowed. His memory only 
carried him to a certain level, beyond which he found 
himself unable to go. But, as the dream-analysis re- 
vealed against his will the whole extent of his complexes, 
particularly his unconscious homosexuality (burning 
point - anus), he suddenly discovered all sorts of excuses 
for taking refuge in flight. Before that, he had diligently 
studied, though against my advice, everything on which 
he could lay his hands that bore on psychoanalysis, in 
order, as he asserted, that we might get along more rap- 
idly with the analysis. As a matter of fact, this was but 
a means for learning how to cover up his neurosis with 
various defenses. He studied diligently the plans and 324 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
strategy of his antagonist-the psychoanalyst. Three 
months later he returned, determined to take up the 
struggle anew. For he was chiefly interested in winning 
a victory over the psychoanalyst and in bidding farewell 
to the physician without having been understood or cured. 
In a few days he brought me the following dream, which 
plainly disclosed his new attitude towards the struggle: 
"I am standing with my brother in front of my new 
house, and am keeping sharp watch. A couple of thieves 
appear; I point my revolver and shoot. I hit one in the 
back. I think to myself: 'Oh, this is unpleasant-how 
shall I prove that I acted in self-defense?'" 
I pass over the obvious homosexual meaning, and turn 
my attention to the resistance displayed in this dream. 
The new house is his new neurosis. He had built a new 
house during my absence. The brother also figures as a 
symbol of his neurosis. I myself am one of the thieves 
(the other, according to the patient's associations, is 
Freud), and I am trying to break into the dark chamber 
of his soul. Here we have the functional symbolism 
(Silberer) in its wonderful plasticity. He cannot act in 
any other way. He must defend his neurosis and protect 
himself with all the means at his disposal, against my skill 
in the art of breaking through. . . . 
In another dream this patient saw a certain Professor 
Jodi swimming with powerful strokes in a basin of water. 
He was ordered to follow the swimmer, and did so, re- 
luctantly, and presently stopped the professor. The basin 
represented his soul. Jodi, a professor of psychology, 
stood for me. The end of the dream was that he swam 
back alone. The dream revealed his jealousy of the 
analyst, his attempt to surpass the latter, and to accom- 
plish his own cure unaided. 
in 
The deeper I penetrate into the nature of psychoanalysis, 
the stronger is my conviction that the analysis really means PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
325 
a continuous struggle with the reluctant patient, who is, 
at heart, unwilling to get well, even though he pathetically 
avers the contrary. The illness is generated expressly for 
the purpose of enabling the patient to dominate his en- 
vironment and to carry out his will, though at great cost 
to himself. The patient is therefore antagonistically dis- 
posed towards the analyst from the very beginning. His 
own fate comes to be a secondary consideration. For the 
time being, the physician stands as a symbol for the whole 
world. The patient aims at winning a victory over his 
father and over his teacher and over his whole environ- 
ment by defeating his analyst. If he does get well, he 
does it to please the physician. But instances of this kind 
are relatively rare. In most cases the patient is disposed 
to deride the physician's efforts, and intends to come out 
victorious in the end. Even sufferers from impotentia, 
who complain so bitterly of their misfortune and avow 
that they would be the happiest people on earth if they 
could only get rid of this handicap, meet the physician's 
efforts with considerable inner resistance. 
The "will to power" is the neurotic's all-powerful trend. 
And that "will to power" means, "Above all, I want to 
be loved." . . . Will to power is will to be loved. The 
patient endeavors in every possible way to induce his 
physician to love him. He even goes so far as to lead 
the way by proffering love, and does not disdain to beg 
for love in return. He at first yields to the sway of his 
will to subjection and falls in love with the physician, 
who, in the course of this emotional transference, is made 
to play all sorts of roles. 
His own final object is always borne in mind by the 
patient from the beginning of the treatment. To begin 
with he does not wish to prove an easy case. When I 
first began practicing psychoanalysis I was naive enough 
to think that I was doing the patient a favor when I told 
him that his case was not a serious one, and that I had 
treated others like him. Every neurotic looks upon his 326 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
neurosis as an extraordinary work of art, an ingenious 
structure securely protected by numberless walls and 
moats against the incursion of any enemy; hence he is 
incensed at the thought of having to share his invention- 
the product of his genius-with others. An easy cure 
would, of course, prove that his ailment was of a trivial 
character-and that he is by no means willing to admit, 
or to allow others to believe. I once treated a physician 
who had retired from practice and had had to return 
home. I had been treating him for four months. He 
chanced to meet a man who had been under treatment by 
Freud for over a year. This made him angry, and he 
wasted a month's time brooding over his disappointment 
at the thought that his own case had been cured so much 
more quickly. Why had the other man required a whole 
year? Was not his a more serious case? Perhaps I had 
underestimated the seriousness of his condition, and so 
forth. 
This example illustrated in a very instructive manner 
the analysis of the transference. Some psychoanalysts 
believe that dissolution of the transference means draw- 
ing the patient's attention to the fact that he is emotionally 
attached to his physician. In most cases, nothing is gained 
thereby, and the patient remains as closely attached as 
before. Dissolution of the attachment means the uncov- 
ering of the parallel constellation which has detached from 
its moorings an affect not yet abreacted or cleared up, but 
still operative. Furthermore, it means revealing the re- 
sistance which that situation generates instead of allowing 
it to remain concealed under the emotional transference. 
That is what happened in the case just mentioned. The 
patient's father did not believe that his case was very 
serious. And as I stood as substitute for the father, my 
belief that his case was not a serious one, and that a few 
months of treatment would effect a cure, roused great 
anger and resistance on his part. During the stage of 
transference I stood in the place of the father. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
327 
I will turn now to another case to illustrate the meaning 
of transference. I recently treated a patient to whom I 
proposed that we should carry on our talks whilst walking 
out of doors-a form of treatment which I have found 
highly efficacious in some cases. But this particular pa- 
tient was unable to recall any associations, and remained 
peculiarly silent during our walks. He preferred to stay 
indoors, where he "felt much better." It turned out that 
in his youth his father had often compelled him to join 
him on walks and the recollection of these unpleasant 
compulsory excursions with his father acted as a resist- 
ance during the transference. The old attitude of con- 
trariness against the father was revived by the parallel 
situation. 
We see, therefore, that psychoanalysis may reawaken 
the old relationship of opposition between father and son, 
between the older generation and the new. The struggle 
with the physician arouses the old feelings of antagonism 
endowing them with new strength and life. Presently 
it will lead the patient to adopt the attitude of supremacy 
over his physician, and to part from him victorious in the 
end. We must not forget, either, the pleasure conferred 
by the neurosis itself. What can we offer the patient in 
its stead? Realities which, in contrast with his fancies, 
must appear to him to be pathetically inadequate sub- 
stitutes.4 
I may add a few remarks concerning the nature of 
transference. To love a person means to understand that 
person. To be loved means to be understood. If the 
4 I must refer the reader to the exhaustive account of a case of 
impotence in which this struggle continued for six years, until 
finally, with my aid, the patient triumphed over his former 
physician. This is Case 103, in Male Impotence: the Clinical 
Psychopathology of Man's Love Life. The English version of 
the work will appear shortly, together with the companion volume, 
Sexual Frigidity of Woman. Both belong to the Disorders of the 
Instincts and the Emotions series of studies, translated by Van 
Teslaar. 328 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
patient is confident that the physician understands him, 
he will love him. We must not forget that most neuroses 
are disorders of the love-affect. He who heals their 
troubles must be capable of giving the patients the supreme 
medicament for which they are yearning-i.e., love. The 
transference of that love from the sexual to the erotic 
realm, and its transposition into the ethical standards, 
often requires the highest skill on the part of the physician, 
who may easily succumb to counter-affection. 
IV 
In my larger work, The Dreams of Artists (authorized 
English version by J. S. Van Teslaar) I have exposed and 
described the neurotic's faith in his "great historic mis- 
sion." The skill with which neurotics cover up this faith, 
and how they struggle against giving up the fiction, are 
difficult of belief. What is reality worth to them when 
compared with the alluring fantasy of their great historic 
misson ? The neurotic is an apostle; he is God's anointed ; 
he has hitched his wagon to a star! The whole world will 
some day admire him and prostrate itself before him! 
The world may scorn and scoff at him now, but he will 
yet triumph over all! And the struggle with the physician 
becomes a replica of his struggle with the world at large. 
He measures his forces against the physician's, and fights 
for the right to retain his neurosis. For, we must repeat, 
he does not really want to get well. He seeks all sorts of 
reasons for this Wille zur Krankheit. For instance, a 
neurotic may fear that the analysis may interfere with his 
creative ability as a writer, yet he may never have accom- 
plished anything as an author. His very neurosis may 
have attained such depths as to render any creative activity 
impossible. One neurotic told me in all earnestness that 
he feared the analysis might foster a tendency to perver- 
sions in him. . . . Another brought me the following 
dream at our first session: "I am lying on a sofa. Kornit- 
zer arrives, and is very tender towards me. I say to him: PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
329 
'Now you have come to me, but it is too late. I do not 
want you now.' " 
Kornitzer had been a former colleague with whom he 
had been on friendly terms until they parted on account 
of business differences. It is easy to see that there was 
a certain homosexual tension between them, and that 
Kornitzer here stood for myself. In the dream he lies 
down on the sofa, as he does during the progress of the 
psychoanalysis. [His was one of the cases in which the 
reclining posture favored the flow of the association of 
ideas.] And yet this dream contains a deeper meaning: 
it betrays a rationalized resistance. I ask him whether 
Kornitzer is good looking: "The very picture of health," 
the patient answers promptly. Kornitzer, then, is also the 
picture of health in the dream-translated, the dream 
means: What is the use of the treatment ? Health has 
been too late in coming. If I were younger there would 
be some sense in it. But-at my age! Yet the man was 
only thirty-five years old. 
This undercurrent of resistance suggests to patients all 
sorts of objections to psychoanalysis. One patient de- 
clares himself tremendously interested in the art of dream- 
interpretation. He brings so many dreams with him that 
it would take years to analyze them. The dreams give 
some indications of the trend which the physician has sus- 
pected from the very beginning. But there is trouble 
ahead for the inexperienced analyst, who may be led 
thereby to declare: "We shall soon discover the impor- 
tant trauma in the situation; we are getting nearer to it." 
The dream-chase then begins in earnest. Each dream 
appears to be more interesting than the previous one. The 
trauma is dramatized in the most varied forms and pic- 
tures. The associated thoughts come nearer and nearer 
to the significant traumatic incident. Months pass by- 
but the sought-for nucleus does not reveal itself-it was 
not there at all! The patient was playing hide-and-seek 
with his physician. Within himself, the neurotic will 330 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
smile and feel triumphant over his physician's helplessness 
and shortsightedness. 
v 
The misuse (due to misunderstanding) of the notion of 
sexual trauma is extraordinarily widespread. For years 
I have held that in and of themselves the traumas mean 
nothing, and that incidents are raised to the quality of 
traumas by the neurotic. The traumas seem to retain an 
actual determinative power only in the case of certain 
forms of "psychosexual infantilism" (fetishism, exhibi- 
tionism, etc.). Usually such traumas are fully conscious. 
Members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society will re- 
member that I once facetiously declared that for certain 
children traumas are the best form of sexual enlighten- 
ment. The trauma acts thus only within certain definite 
constellations and on the basis of a physical predisposition 
-a fact which Abraham had already pointed out. Else- 
where I have described the significance of sexual traumas 
in the life of the adult. It would almost seem that chil- 
dren easily shake off the effects of traumas. For while 
these traumas of children are exceedingly frequent, they 
are relatively rare among the real determinative factors 
in the etiology of the neuroses. 
Indeed, we see children who experience numerous 
traumas, and who nevertheless remain perfectly well. 
The neurotic has the tendency to scrutinize the past criti- 
cally. and to search for incidents on which to fix his con- 
sciousness of guilt. He also needs to find occurrences 
independent of his will and hence serving as excuses. The 
"Tendency to find excuses for himself" plays a great role 
in the dynamics of the neuroses. The trauma frees the 
patient from the troublesome self-reproach with which he 
has surrounded his neurosis. He transfers his respon- 
sibility to some traumatic episode. Some traumas act as 
perpetual moral admonitions. It is a striking fact that 
most neurotics are able to relate their traumas at the first PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
331 
consultation. We used to think that this was exceptional: 
but it is the rule. The neurotics know their traumas, and 
many attribute to them their troubled state, from the very 
first. This is especially true of those patients who are 
familiar with Freud's doctrine of the neuroses. Indeed, 
sometimes neurotics begin with the skeptical remark: "I 
don't see how psychoanalysis is going to help me. I know 
my traumas; I know my repressed thoughts-in fact I 
have none at present. I am quite aware of my incestuous 
tendencies. . . . Consequently, what can I expect psycho- 
analysis to do for me?" Physicians, especially those who 
themselves practice psychoanalysis, are likely to assume 
this attitude and to evince that obstinacy, with reference 
to their own complexes, which I have called "psychoana- 
lytic scotoma." Among them are to be found some rather 
keen-witted, well-trained minds. But in matters pertain- 
ing to himself the cleverest of men may be rendered stupid 
by an affect. 
In his Vorlesungen zur Einfiihrung in der Psycho- 
analyse (Vienna: Heller, 1917) Freud gives us a syn- 
thetic account of his latest views regarding his doctrine 
of the libido. According to this account, the libido strives 
to become attached to some object in the external world. 
If its course is interfered with-in other words, if the 
individual finds he is unable to find external gratification 
of his erotic cravings-the libido becomes dammed up. 
It reverts to various infantile positions, and through this 
reversion the old infantile traumas again acquire signifi- 
cance. This is said to be the origin of the psychoneuroses 
which Freud, following a suggestion made by Jung, calls 
"transference neuroses" (Ubertragungsneurosen, i.e., hys- 
teria and compulsion-neurosis) ; or else the libido reverts 
to the person's own self, this giving rise to the narcistic 
neuroses (dementia praecox, paranoia-the latter called by 
Freud paraphrenia-and melancholia). As the libido 
endows the infantile unconscious traumas, it flows back 
into the unconscious. The task of the analysis is, there- 332 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
fore, to dissolve the fixation upon childhood, to release 
the unconscious, and to facilitate a new fixation of the 
libido upon its proper external objects, or its sublimation 
into spiritual values. 
Here we again have the doctrine of the significance of 
the infantile traumas, which has caused so much confusion 
in psychoanalysis. Freud has recently emphasized the 
significance of trauma. In his latest contribution, Aus 
der Geschichte einer Infantilen Neurose {Sammlung 
kleiner Schriften zur Neuroscnlchre, 4te Folge. Vienna: 
Heller, 1918) he again attempts to prove that an infantile 
sexual trauma was the cause of a serious neurosis. The 
trauma in question was not disclosed until after three 
years' exploration! 
Without attempting to belittle the significance of in- 
fantile traumas, I can only state that the case as published 
did not seem to me convincing. In previous writings I 
have expressed myself at length regarding the disadvan- 
tages of such protracted periods of treatment. I strongly 
suspect that many neurotics are tortured for years with 
questions about their sexual traumas. The histories of 
those cases which I have published, and the prompt re- 
sults obtained, at least show us that it is possible to attain 
a satisfactory insight into the depths of a neurosis, and 
that, therapeutically too, the best that we ought to ex- 
pect may be achieved without overstressing the infantile 
factors. I could not have accomplished more than this, 
had I prolonged the treatment over a course of three 
years. The duration of the treatment in individual cases 
was from a few days, a few weeks, to, at most, six 
months. 
VI 
There are, of course, a number of cases in which cer- 
tain repressions are first disclosed through the analysis. 
But in most cases the patients relate things which they 
have always known and have not wanted to disclose. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
333 
Thus, for instance, one neurotic did not describe her com- 
pulsive ceremonial (mannerisms) to me until after six 
months. She had, in fact, mentioned it before, but she 
had done it so superficially and imperfectly that she had 
not given a true conception of the situation. 
Another compulsive neurotic did not describe his man- 
nerisms (ceremonial) on defecation to me until after a 
year's treatment. This is the patient to whom I owe the 
clearest and deepest insight into the pliancy'of the neu- 
rosis. I must frankly confess that I did not learn to 
appreciate the dynamic power of resistance until I came 
into contact with this case. He did not want to confess 
his defecation-mannerisms to me. He wanted to triumph 
over me. He wanted to prove himself the stronger. He 
did not want to get well. I was at the time still under 
the spell of Freud's doctrines, and I believed that a com- 
pulsive neurotic could be cured only after a prolonged 
course of treatment (one year or longer). Now I achieve 
that result in three or four months, even in the most severe 
cases of compulsion-neurosis. 
I know of patients to whom inexperienced psycho- 
analysts have promised a cure as soon as their infantile 
traumas should be disclosed. Thereupon there has fol- 
lowed a wild chase through their dreams. Dreams were 
brought up daily which referred to some trauma. The 
physician was triumphant, ''Now we are near the trauma; 
we shall soon have it now." But the patient's secret vic- 
tory was greater than his doctor's. He was merely lead- 
ing his physician by the nose. He produced the most art- 
ful dream-constructions, which the physician finally had 
to reject as artifices. This went on for four months. 
The patient stayed at home all day long wracking his 
brain to recall his reminiscences. He reproached himself 
very seriously for not cooperating better. The physician 
on his part dissolved transference after transference, yet 
the analysis did not progress any farther. . . . 
What we must specifically bear in mind is, that patients 334 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
are really not keen to get well. With their tongues they 
clamor for a cure, but their actions prove the reverse. 
It is not easy to induce a patient to give up his neurosis. 
The dissolution alone is not enough. Sometimes the pa- 
tient permits the dissolving of a symptom, thus lending a 
semblance of reality to his alleged desire to get well, and 
permitting the physician a slight triumph. The emotional 
transferences may be accomplished without following the 
devious and troublesome path of psychoanalysis. That 
is why certain slight forms of neurosis may be readily 
cured by a superficial psychoanalysis. But this, too, may 
be sometimes accomplished by other means. The fact is 
that it is not the method, but the physician who heals. 
Psychoanalysis enables us to penetrate more deeply into 
the structure of the neurosis proper. It lays bare before 
us the patient's resistance to his complete recovery. It 
discloses his antagonistic attitude, his perennial readiness 
to assume the offensive-an attitude which is at the same 
time a defense. 
Considerable ingenuity and experience are required to 
penetrate through these disguises, to release the patient, 
and to free him from his contrary inclination. 
Bearing in mind these various considerations, we are 
led to recognize the fact that the ending of a psycho- 
analytic course of treatment is one of the most difficult 
problems. The best prognosis is yielded by those cases 
in which the attendant circumstances permit only of a 
relatively short time for the treatment. The employe with 
but a couple of months' vacation at his disposal, the physi- 
cian who has to interrupt his practice, people who make 
great material sacrifices for the sake of their health, these 
are the people particularly anxious that the treatment 
should take as short a time as possible. The problem is 
much more difficult in the case of wealthy, independent 
people who seem never to want to get through with it. 
Their struggle with the physician becomes more important 
to them than the ultimate result of the analysis. They PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
335 
will forego the prospective cure, about which they are 
but lukewarm, if they may only triumph over their physi- 
cian ; they would rather be able to maintain the attitude: 
"You may have cured a great many others, but you cannot 
deal with my case so easily. In fact, you cannot cure 
me at all." 
I treated a wealthy man for a serious neurosis, whose 
one refractory symptom was a fear of public places 
(agoraphobia). In every other respect he was cured. 
His gastric disturbances, his attacks of indigestion, his 
social reticence, his inability to work, had all been over- 
come. But, in spite of all my efforts his agoraphobia did 
not disappear. He interrupted the analysis unexpectedly, 
and returned to his former physician. The latter advised 
him to go to an oculist who was curing troubles of that 
nature by prescribing glasses. In fact, the doctor accom- 
panied the patient on the journey to Germany to consult 
this particular oculist. And what did this faithful patient 
say, when in the train? Why! characteristically enough 
he declared: "It will be the greatest triumph of my life 
to know that Dr. Stekel did not absolutely cure me- 
that he could not-that I shall owe my complete recovery 
to some one else!" 
The glasses helped him for a few days, but soon the 
old trouble returned. He was disinclined to attribute the 
victory even to his family physician. The next thing was 
that he heard about a masseur, who undertook to cure him 
in a few days by massage. As a matter of fact, he was 
able to walk about the city freely after only three appli- 
cations of massage. He was completely cured. He owed 
his recovery to a simple masseur, and thus scored against 
all his professional advisers. 
VII 
If we take these peculiarities in our subjects into con- 
sideration, certain matters become quite clear to us. We 
can understand the results obtained in certain sanatoria 336 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
with patients who have previously undergone a psycho- 
analytic course of treatment. Many an opponent of 
psychoanalysis takes pride in the fact that he has in a 
short time cured cases which the psychoanalyst was un- 
able to cure after a prolonged course ef treatment. But 
these gentlemen merely reap where others have sown. 
We can easily understand why our erstwhile patients 
become our most inveterate antagonists, fighting us with 
scientific arguments and with slander. The final result 
of the analysis discloses the true character of the person 
analyzed. A person of real delicacy of feeling will not 
lend himself to such procedure in spite of the inner urge, 
but those of a different temperament, such as we often 
meet in the course of our psychoanalytic practice, will 
just as certainly follow out their lower impulses. 
On the other hand, we may console ourselves with the 
obvious fact that our good results are de facto far-reaching 
and much more effective than they appear on the surface 
to be. For many patients who leave us apparently un- 
cured, do, after a short period of incubation, effect a self- 
cure, or are healed by some other physician, sometimes 
even by some quack. 
Nearly all patients dread the termination of the analy- 
sis. I will here point out only a few of their devices to 
show how diplomatically the psychoanalyst has to con- 
duct his cases in order to parry his patients' subterfuges, 
with even subtler tact. 
A woman, who had been under my care for about half 
a year on account of a fear of public places (agoraphobia) 
was apparently well and ready to return home. She could 
go some distance without fear or anxiety, and she fully 
appreciated this improvement in her condition, for she 
had been troubled for thirty years with this difficulty, and 
during that time she had been unable to travel, or to go 
out at all, even with an escort. A few days before her 
departure she experienced a tremendous attack of dread 
while in the streets. She came to me very discouraged, PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
337 
and told me of her plight. How could she go home now, 
before she was really well? I made it clear to her that 
this was a case of unconsciously seeking a reason for pro- 
longing the treatment and for remaining in Vienna. Her 
anxiety-attack had developed in order that she might need 
a continuation of the treatment. Her next dream was 
as follows: 
"I had given my old shoes to my aunt and was stand- 
ing naked and barefoot. I thought to myself: 'How 
can you now go into town!' and I dreaded having to go 
through the streets without my shoes on. . . ." 
The aunt in question had been dead long since. She 
had been a poor woman, and had received small gifts 
from the dreamer-possibly a pair of shoes. The patient 
related that she was fond of walking barefoot, and lately 
she had often been surprised to find herself starting out 
without her shoes. Here we find clear indications of 
foot-fetishism, such as are frequently met with among 
neurotics suffering from disorders of locomotion. But 
the explanation of the dream as an exposition of my pa- 
tient's neurosis yielded the following result: The old 
shoes were very large and yet they pressed her feet. In- 
deed, they had irritated her feet across the insteps. The 
shoes were the symbol of her neurosis. She was about 
to transfer the neurosis-to make a present of it-to her 
deceased aunt, that is, to bury it with the dead, and to 
attempt to live without her neurosis. But she had lived 
with her neurosis for thirty years. The illness caused 
her discomfort (shoe pressure), but it was to her a sure 
defense against the uncertainties and dangers of life. . . . 
Now the task she had to face was to go through life with- 
out the protection of the neurosis. She dreaded it. An- 
other determinant led associatively to my name. Shoe- 
heels are called here, colloquially, Stockcl. She needs 
low Stockel. This is a pun on my name. In short, she 
is unable to get along now without my protection, my ad- 
vice, my suggestions. The dream portrays also a desire 338 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
for freedom, like many of the later dreams of those who 
are cured. I am thrown aside with the dead. 
Now began the hide-and-seek game on the patient's 
part. She wanted to be well, and yet was afraid to be 
well. If her emotional attitude be motivated largely by 
contrariness she will cling to her agoraphobia. The situa- 
tion was further complicated by the patient's inability to 
free herself from me. At such a stage the doctor must 
have the will and determination to break off the analysis 
as soon as the chief motives of the patient's anxiety have 
been revealed and the patient sees clearly the relationship 
between the feeling of dread and these cryptic motives. 
The patient, under the circumstances, may return home 
dissatisfied, but after having tried some other cure, will 
often, without taking any further steps, shortly begin to 
walk about freely. This was the condition of the patient 
that I have described in Chapter XXI of the second, and 
Chapter XX of the first edition of my Conditions of 
Nervous Anxiety. The treatment was interrupted after 
four weeks, and the patient left in an improved condi- 
tion. I met her walking along the Ringstrasse, without es- 
cort-a thing she had previously been unable to do. She 
admitted that shortly after giving up the treatment she 
began to improve without having recourse to any further 
remedies. The patients feel that they are protected by 
their neurosis. One of my patients called his neurosis 
his Gehschule. . . . The physician becomes to them the 
substitute for their neurosis. Eventually they have to 
learn to do without their neurosis and without its substi- 
tute, the physician. That is a tremendously difficult task 
for those who have lost all power of self-reliance. . . . 
To return to my patient who could not walk. She had 
measured her strength against mine all along. She now 
had to face the necessity of giving up the treatment and 
of acknowledging herself conquered. That was beyond 
her power. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
339 
VIII 
Anyone who becomes familiar with the hidden struc- 
ture of the neuroses cannot but recognize the justice of 
Adler's contention when he speaks of a fictitious goal 
which the patients seek as the aim of their underlying 
motives. I have found that this fictitious goal is Heaven 
and eternal bliss. In the case of the woman under con- 
sideration, her whole neurosis was directed towards safe- 
guarding herself against temptation and insuring for her- 
self eternal happiness. She intuitively felt she was too 
weak to follow the strait and narrow path of virtue, 
and therefore she thought of insuring for herself eternal 
bliss in the next world through her dread of open spaces 
in this. What were to her the joys of this world com- 
pared to heavenly bliss? Her one object was to reach 
Heaven. I believe her whole life was a preparation for 
the supreme test before her God. She hoped that all her 
privations would be so many points in her favor and must 
increase her chances of eternal bliss. She also manifested 
a belief in her "great historic mission"-a very wide- 
spread fiction among neurotics. She was no ordinary 
person-she was holy, God must take special note of her, 
and must mark her for special treatment. In short, she 
made herself as snug within her neurosis as the pro- 
verbial "bug in a rug," and thus protected herself against 
the crude realities of everyday life. She no longer cared 
to walk about. Among other dreams she had the fol- 
lowing: "I am going out, and rejoice at the thought. 
Then I cannot find my pretty knitted jacket, so I have 
to stay at home. I might otherwise catch cold." 
The knitted jacket is the web of her neurosis. She 
cannot live without her neurosis. She is afraid lest the 
beautiful ardor of her faith should cool, and so she wanted 
to prolong the treatment. 
I assumed a bellicose tone. I told her that "I had de- 
cided to discontinue her treatment, that she might return 340 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
to her home." The indignant woman pointed out that 
other women who had suffered from a similar agorapho- 
bia had been under my treatment for a longer time. 
"True," I answered, "but the outlook was more en- 
couraging. Those patients used to come to me, unac- 
companied, after the first few weeks. If you would come 
to me by yourself, I should be more hopeful as to your 
prospects of a cure, and might then consider the question 
of continuing your treatment. Your fear of open spaces 
is not the neurosis, but only a visible symptom of it. . . ." 
Three days later the woman came to me unaccompa- 
nied, and since then she has been walking about the streets 
freely without any fear. 
I pressed for an early termination of the treatment. 
The woman hesitated, and, as it turned out later, with 
good reason. There were still some things she had to 
tell me. There was another feature in her emotional at- 
titude which had to be corrected. She was anxious to 
triumph over me and disclose my incapacity. She brought 
me the following dream: "I scolded my servant because 
she had only half-cleaned the kitchen. In one-half of it 
there was a lot of dirt lying about; the other half was 
clean." 
That kitchen was a symbol of her soul, or, if you pre- 
fer, a symbol of her brain, and the neurosis was being 
swept out of it. I had not done the work thoroughly. I 
was the servant girl in the dream. I was her hired serv- 
ant. She gave her orders, and I was to obey. In short, 
her pride would not permit me to end the treatment. She 
wanted to be the one to do that when she thought the 
proper time had come. It was her privilege to give no- 
tice to her hired help. She then brought forward a mass 
of additional material information, which she declared 
she had already told me. This was again an artifice to 
belittle me and to triumph over me! Such assertions are 
often made by the patients. They keep their most im- 
portant fancies and reminiscences hidden for a time, and PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
341 
afterwards insist emphatically that they have told us all 
about them; or they exclaim with an air of innocence: 
"Didn't I tell you that before? I seem to remember dis- 
tinctly having spoken to you about it." 
The patient next related to me the most important fac- 
tor in her condition-her belief in the omnipotence of 
thought. Thought is capable of inflicting the greatest 
misfortune! This woman believed herself to be a par- 
ticularly gifted person. This belief in her greatness, 
which now came to the surface, is what I have named 
the neurotic's belief in "his great historic mission." With- 
out an appreciation of this trait in neurotics, no analysis 
can be complete. It is not enough for the patient to 
overcome his idea of his own "littleness," his feeling of 
inadequacy, his alleged inferiority; he must also learn to 
give up his belief in his unconquerable nature, the fiction 
of his "great historic mission." If he is cured through 
psychoanalysis, the cure probably indicates the first occa- 
sion on which the patient has allowed himself to be con- 
quered, after which he is content to assume the modest 
role which he is destined to play in real life. 
This patient afterwards decided when the treatment 
should end. She suddenly became desirous to return 
home. But she first intimated that there were still some 
things of which she wanted to free her soul. Finally she 
relented and told me the last fantasies she had been with- 
holding during the entire period of the treatment. They 
showed that she had always held the belief that she would 
attract the attention of the higher powers through her 
exemplary abstemious conduct. The fancies of her youth 
had reacted upon her as an "eternal warning" to turn from 
the path of self-indulgence and to devote herself to a life 
of virtue. Her mind was chiefly concerned with the 
problem of eternal bliss. That was why she had been able 
for thirty years to endure a prisoner's life, locked in her 
room. For what does this short life amount to when 
contrasted with an endless eternity? Her sufferings were 342 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
but a preparation for the highest bliss, and were to earn 
her a place in Heaven. In that other life she would tri- 
umph over all those who had devoted themselves to earthly 
pleasures in this. Her life was a preparation for the last 
triumph, and the feeling of dread would protect her 
against the chance of sinning. 
Cures of this kind can be effected without psychoanaly- 
sis. I recall the famous case of the woman-sleeper of 
Okno who maintained her dormant state for thirty years 
and then suddenly rose and went about her household 
duties. People flocked from far and wide to witness the 
miracle. This woman had undoubtedly been preparing 
herself for that historic occasion. Her whole life had 
been a preparation for that great miracle.5 My patient, 
too, longed to be looked upon as a wonder. She told 
everybody that after thirty years of invalidism she had 
been cured by me, and that, after having been treated 
without result by sixty-three other physicians in suc- 
cession. 
I wanted to introduce her to a medical association at 
one of its meetings, but on that particular day she had a 
fresh attack of dread and was unable to come to me un- 
attended. That she begrudged me the triumph was shown 
by the fact that the very next day she went about the 
streets freely by herself. She juggled with her fears so 
skillfully that by their aid she dominated her whole fam- 
ily ; she tried to press me into her service, too. Not suc- 
ceeding in this, she gave up her anxiety, which did not 
return until the day when my triumph was to have become 
public. At the same time she confessed to me that it 
would have given her great satisfaction to have made her 
appearance and to have been admired as a "rare case." 
Suddenly, however, the thought had come into her mind: 
"You will not be an unusual case. You are an ordinary 
healthy person." 
I have received from this patient a number of letters 
6 Fully explained in my Monograph, The Will to Sleep. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
343 
expressing her gratitude. She wrote me an account of 
her triumph. In Russia she looked up all the physicians 
who had treated her without result, and showed them that 
she was cured. 
Then she wrote and asked me whether she had not better 
come to Vienna for a short visit in order to undergo an 
"after-cure." There were a number of important points 
she wanted to go over with me. I advised her not to do 
so. I pointed out that it was a lengthy journey from 
Riga to Vienna, and urged her to rid herself of the re- 
mains of her neurosis through her own efforts. 
I was very astonished one day to see her enter my con- 
sulting-room. She then related the following occurrence: 
She had gone to a famous physician in Petrograd, and 
had told him about her wonderful cure. (This doctor 
had tried his own method of treatment on the patient 
without satisfactory results.) He gazed at her for some 
time and then said: "This Dr. Stekel must be a clever 
man." That remark had caused her to stop and think. 
"Do you know," she continued, "I once read about a pa- 
tient who insisted that there was a bird in his head. A 
make-believe operation was performed on him, and he 
was shown a bird which he was told had been found in 
his head and removed. The patient got well. It has 
occurred to me that perhaps you have not cured me by 
the new method after all, but through suggestion, and 
that you have made me believe that I am well." 
I looked at her for a moment in astonishment. The pa- 
tient who had suffered from agoraphobia for thirty years, 
but was now well, had obviously returned to Vienna to 
get back her old trouble, and triumph over me. 
"Can you go out by yourself freely?" 
"Yes." 
"Have you any attacks of dread?" 
"No." 
"Then what more do you want? You can be glad that 
you are well. Is it not immaterial how you got well so 344 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
long as you can walk about alone with no feelings of 
anxiety ?" 
I explained frankly to her that she had returned to 
Vienna in order to punish me for my brief and business- 
like letters, by relapsing into her old agoraphobia. 
The explanation worked wonders. In a few days she 
returned home perfectly satisfied and without a particle 
of her old anxiety left. 
This case illustrates the sources of and pathway to suc- 
cess in psychoanalytic treatment. In psychoanalysis 
Freud has furnished us with a tremendous weapon: a 
weapon capable of inflicting terrific wounds if handled 
carelessly, but of inestimable value in fighting a neurosis 
if carefully used. Only we may have to modify many of 
our views, and we must guard against the tendency of ap- 
praising the value of the method merely on the basis of 
its current successes and failures. 
IX 
In the above case psychoanalysis helped me to uncover 
the root of the patient's feeling of guilt and acted as a 
mental release. But four months of treatment did not 
bring to light a single incident of which the patient had 
not been previously conscious. The reverse, of course, 
happens in some cases. But in this case it was only neces- 
sary to correct the patient's false-feeling attitude and the 
conflicts were clearly brought to light. The patient 
learned to speak and to think about phases of life about 
which she had previously been unwilling to talk or to think. 
She became aware of her death-wish for others, her crimi- 
nal trends, her brutal egoism, her indolence, her envy 
and boundless selfish ambition. But she was cured only 
after she had given up her belief in herself as an "ex- 
ceptional" being. The moment she had resolved to be an 
"ordinary" person the physician's task was accomplished. 
It is manifest that the chief task of psychoanalysis is to 
disclose the patient's resistance to treatment, and to con- PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
345 
vince him that he does not truly care to get well, that he is 
unwilling to give up the secret goal existing only in his 
fantasies. 
I may illustrate this generalization by a quotation from 
the thoughts of Otto Ludwig. The creative writer knows 
what we physicians were for a long time ignorant of. The 
patient's belief in his "great historic mission" must be 
dissipated before he can find reality acceptable. Finally 
all psychoanalytic endeavors lead to the one aim-to recon- 
cile the patient with the sober facts of reality. Ludwig 
expresses this thought very beautifully: 
"Youthful idealism is vanity. With a certain measure 
of deliberation a young man turns his enthusiasm to any 
object which becomes linked with his vanity. And this 
feeling of vanity, to what more does it amount in the end 
than the lofty disdain with which the young man, in his 
deluded self-conceit, looks down upon everything real and 
human as something beneath him? He requires the im- 
possible of others, not because he is capable of accomplish- 
ing the impossible himself-not that-but because in his 
case he takes that for granted. 
"Skepticism, which is a phase following the period of 
enthusiasm and grows out of the latter as its antithesis, is 
the great educational fever through which man's soul must 
pass, and the condition of its enlightenment. A man 
must learn to doubt his imaginary worth in order to be- 
come certain of his real worth. What he formerly ex- 
pected of others without knowing whether he himself 
could do it or not, this he will now do without expecting 
it of others. 
"His highest ideal was at first to die gloriously for 
something; now his ideal is the supreme one: to live 
humbly for something." 
This is the final result which the psychoanalyst must 
from the beginning bear in mind. He who has learned 
this secret holds the key to the greatest possibilities of 
successful treatment. 346 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
X 
There was a particularly sacred doctrine advocated in 
psychoanalysis to the effect that "the patient must take the 
lead." This rule certainly has its justification. It would 
be ridiculous to say: "Today I will take up the incest- 
complex, tomorrow I shall discuss the problem of the 
relationship to the father," etc. The patients should be 
ready for the definite problems before they are taken up. 
The experienced psychoanalyst can judge when the proper 
time has come for discussing this or that particular prob- 
lem. But woe to the analyst who permits the patient to 
take the bit between his teeth without the least control, 
and who looks upon the spontaneous associations of the 
patient as rulers in the field! Thereby the gates are set 
wide open to wantonness, and it is in the patient's power 
to lead the physician by the nose, as it were, and to pro- 
long the treatment ad infinitum. It is for the analyst to 
appraise the associations critically, and he must distin- 
guish between what is useful and what merely arises on 
account of the resistance. He must know how to separate 
the grain from the chaff, and he must always be ready to 
step in at the proper moment. That is far from easy, 
because a sensitive patient is readily disturbed and always 
defends the significance of his associations with great 
stubbornness. Indeed, these defenses are the channels 
through which he forgets his ingenious weapons of ob- 
struction and passive resistance. 
All the actual current events, upon which the patient 
is fond of dwelling, the letters from home and from his 
sweetheart, the exciting occurrences of the previous day, 
the endless dreams which are produced in unaccountable 
numbers, are so many manifestations of resistance: it is 
necessary firmly to limit these accounts to essentials, to 
ignore completely any theoretic objections to psychoanaly- 
sis, and, by an inflexible discipline, to put an end once 
for all to obstructions. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
347 
I may illustrate this in connection with a case of psychic 
impotence. A physician who ran away from women at 
the critical moment, or, at the most, accomplished 
ejaculatio ante portas, began a psychoanalytic interview 
by reading a letter he had just written to his bride, which 
was supposed to exhibit his bipolar attitude. I have heard 
dozens of such letters, and this time I refused to listen 
to it. The physician next recalled certain impressions 
which the reading of a case in the Jahrbuch fur Psycho- 
analyse had made on him. I made short work of that, 
too. After a pause of a few minutes, the patient told 
me that, when he was a school-boy, he could not bear it 
when the teacher wrote on the blackboard with chalk. It 
gave him a physical sensation of discomfort, almost 
amounting to pain, in his teeth. His next association was 
that the sight of, and especially the stroking of, satin, 
had a similar effect, setting his teeth on edge, and it made 
him shudder when he passed his hand over a satin collar. 
His next association was that he was reminded of a friend 
who was hard of hearing.6 One had to shout into the 
man's ears. But sometimes this friend would show a 
wonderful adroitness in "catching on." (I mentally 
thanked him for the implied reproach and compliment.) 
The next thing he told me was that he had often regretted 
that he had not specialized as a gynecologist and particu- 
larly as a surgeon. In that connection there followed a 
long-drawn out tale about a teacher who adopted the 
policy of searching his pupils' homes to discover whether 
they were hiding books of a forbidden character. (Again 
a reference to our inquisitorial role.) Next followed an 
animated account of the various High School teachers, 
which I recognized at once as mere "padding," and firmly 
put a stop to. I felt I should like to investigate the mean- 
ing of that particular idiosyncrasy-his objection to the 
chalk-writing on the blackboard, and I asked the patient 
6 Referring to the analyst, who was so hard of hearing that 
he failed to hear the things of most importance. 348 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
how he explained that in his own mind. He pondered a 
little and then said: "The chalk is a phallus symbol; 
the board is the vagina." Now I assumed a tone of 
anger: "Do you consider me such a fool and simpleton 
that you dare to advance such an explanation?" 
The patient laughingly answered: "I confess frankly 
that I wanted to make fun of you. I thought that you, 
the symbolist, would certainly fall into the trap." 
I then pointed out the connection between the idiosyn- 
crasy and the sensation in the teeth. The chalk obviously 
symbolized bone, satin the "satin-like" skin, and that we 
probably had to do here with a case of the cannibalistic 
complex. 
Suddenly the patient became loquacious. The day be- 
fore he had discussed cannibalism for an hour. He had 
confessed to a number of sadistic fantasies, and had 
stated that they had played a great role in his childhood. 
He recalled something that had not crossed his mind for 
twenty years. He was a child of four or five when he 
heard the story of a butcher who was very famous for his 
"sweet hams," and carried on a very successful business. 
The story ran that this man had a trapdoor, through 
which purchasers, calling at odd times when no one else 
was by, disappeared into the cellar, where he himself mur- 
dered them. The human flesh thus acquired he used in 
the preparation of his goods, and that was what made 
the hams so "tasty" and sweet. (Such stories are told 
to children!) Another story of a man who devoured his 
sweetheart had also made a powerful impression on his 
mind. The old blood-accusation brought against the Jews 
came up for discussion and he confessed that he believed 
the Jews did use human blood. ... In a word, important 
material flowed from his lips like water gushing from a 
newly opened spring. 
On the following day he reveled in cannibalistic fancies. 
He was obviously bent on reducing my discovery ad ab- 
surdity, and represented himself in his fantasy as de- PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
349 
vouring his sweetheart piecemeal. He exaggerated his 
sadistic leaning towards women, and attempted to make it 
look ridiculous through exaggeration. There followed 
reflections of doubt concerning psychoanalysis. The as- 
sociations might rouse forgotten complexes and thus lead 
to confusion. . . . 
I explained to him that psychoanalysis does not create 
these complexes, that it merely brings them forward into 
the light of consciousness. He said he was secretly afraid 
of these instincts, and that was why he had never mar- 
ried. That was why he did not dare to go near a pros- 
titute, he, for whom Jack the Ripper was a cryptic ideal. 
But through my treatment he hoped he might find that 
he had been afraid of mere shadows, that these fantasies 
would never crystallize into deeds. He hoped he might 
quietly examine the Medusa head and put the question at 
rest for ever. Every neurotic represents a regressive stage 
of existence in which the primitive instincts are immeas- 
urably the strongest. But these instincts have long since 
been tamed and converted into moral standards. If he 
feels that he stands above these instinctive cravings he 
need have no fear, etc. 
It is the task of psychoanalysis to unburden the pa- 
tients' minds, to convince them of the harmlessness of 
their fantasies which often only scare them and hold 
them in check. They then use these childish fantasies 
in order that they may always possess a memento of their 
vileness, and they compare themselves with others, with 
the result that they become obsessed with a feeling of 
their own inferiority. 
XI 
I have already said that it is very difficult to induce a 
patient to abandon his fiction about his "great historic 
mission," and to modify his ideas of his own importance. 
The sentiment d'incompletitude serves as a bipolar 350 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
antithesis for protection against the urge of selfish ambi- 
tion as well as a self-excuse: "You would attain the 
greatest position the world offers if you were not so weak 
and ill-if you were only in good health!" The neurosis 
itself plays into the hands of this tendency to self-excuse 
and as a genuine reason for failure to accomplish anything 
great, i.e., as a counterpoise to self-reproach for achieving 
nothing and for the indolence which arises from the nat- 
ural dislike of ordinary occupations. 
The task of the analyst is to reconcile the patient to 
reality. With that end in view, the analyst must also be 
qualified to act as an educator; consequently the practice 
of psychoanalysis requires men of above the average ca- 
pacity ; they must be to a certain extent creative artists, 
capable of building up personalities. The analysis must 
be followed by synthesis, to use Dr. B. Martin's apt ex- 
pression. 
Naturally in such cases the patient looks upon his physi- 
cian as the representative of authority, against which he 
has fought all his life, and in that struggle his illness sup- 
plies him with the most valuable weapon. 
The old spitefulness now reasserts itself against the 
physician, and the treatment becomes either an open or a 
hidden struggle, in which the physician must be allowed 
finally to play the role of victor. I can only agree with 
Alfred Adler, who, as an experienced psychotherapeutist, 
declares: "As a last resort, after an exhaustive treatment, 
the self-sacrifice of the physician must be called upon; he 
must assume all responsibility for his alleged failure to 
complete a cure. In two of my cases this subterfuge 
worked well; one patient was healed by a Bosnian rural 
physician through correspondence, and another-a case of 
trigeminus neuralgia of several years' standing, in which 
in the course of two years, I had achieved by waking 
suggestion. Often cases such as these, after the actual 
treatment has ceased, show marked improvement, enjoy PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
351 
long intervals of good health, and sometimes complete 
recovery." 7 
For these reasons it is very difficult to furnish statistics 
regarding one's therapeutic results. I have really very 
seldom heard patients say: "Doctor, I am well now- 
thanks to you!" On these occasions the patient was gen- 
erally far from cured, but said it merely as a subterfuge 
to put me off the track and to prevent my further search- 
ing of the unconscious. More often the patient is inclined 
to prolong the course of treatment, hoping thus to prove 
to the physician that his case is hopeless. Again, the 
treatment often has to come to an abrupt end. I once 
cherished the illusion of remaining the patients' friend, to 
guide them and advise them after the treatment, to see 
them from time to time and direct them on their proper 
path. Today I know that it is best for those who are 
healed to bid a final farewell to the physician; and I also 
know that sometimes it is best to bring about the parting 
abruptly, even at the cost of one's personal feelings. The 
abrupt ending of relations between doctor and patient is 
an excellent means of rousing the patient's feelings of 
spite. 
I treated the serious case of a compulsive neurotic who 
had abandoned his studies for four years, although he was 
ready to take his doctor's degree. The treatment brought 
about no alleviation, although all his compulsive acts had 
been cleared up. The clearing was helpful only so long 
as the patient was obliging enough to yield to the analyst. 
I therefore wrote to his parents and warned them not to 
be surprised if I should drop their son's case; that we 
might have a scene in the course of which I might show 
him the door. A few days later I thought that the time 
had arrived for me to stop the case. The patient was 
always "over-sensitive." I reproached him for not re- 
i Adler, The Neurotic Constitution, authorized English version, 
by Dr. B. Glueck and Dr. J. E. Lind. Kegan Paul, London. 
Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, 1921. 352 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
suming his studies and for concealing his indolence. He 
gave a sharp and excited answer; I retorted still more 
sharply, and that roused him to make a cutting remark. 
I used this as a pretext, and informed him that I had 
done with his case, adding: "The fact is, you do not want 
to get well, and now that I have withdrawn my assistance, 
you will not get well." 
"On the contrary," was the excited retort. "I shall 
show you that I can get well without your treatment!" 
That is just what happened. He returned home, took 
up his studies again, received his doctor's degree, and- 
his equilibrium restored-afterwards made it up with me. 
Previous to that, I had met all his requests for forgive- 
ness and for permission to resume the treatment with the 
most relentless and firm refusal. 
The treatment of cases of impotence is more gratify- 
ing. The results are obvious. In such cases the patients 
themselves are anxious to be able to indulge in their vita 
sexualis. The "will to be ill" is more easily overcome and 
is displaced by the will to be well. 
XII 
Another important question is: Shall the ex-patient 
continue to be interested in the analysis and to preoccupy 
himself, for instance, with its literature? Shall he be 
trained in psychoanalysis by us and be thereafter ex- 
pected to free himself permanently of his compulsive and 
symptomatic acts and of his various newly developed 
symptoms? Shall he become the physician of his own 
soul ? 
This is a question towards which I have radically 
changed my attitude. I consider it a mistake to make 
psychoanalysts out of one's patients and to introduce them 
in psychoanalytical societies. I have never seen this 
course followed by such good results as when patients 
are encouraged to forget all about psychoanalysis and 
their troubles. It is not the function of psychoanalysis PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
353 
to convert neurotics into psychoanalysts. It is natural 
that most physicians should become psychoanalysts in that 
way, for many a one in trying to help others helps him- 
self,-says Nietzsche. Psychoanalysis becomes for those 
physicians a calling and an aim. Unfortunately these 
psychoanalysts themselves remain anchored to their com- 
plexes-a condition I have designated as "psychoanalytic 
scotoma," the psychoanalyst's "blind-spot." That may be 
the reason why so many bitter feelings are displayed be- 
tween physicians, especially among neurologists and still 
more among psychoanalysts.8 But we should endeavor 
to raise ourselves above our affects and to overcome our 
complexes. We must do so if we are to help others. But 
the neurotic will do well promptly to forget the analysis 
and everything pertaining to it, as soon as he is cured. 
Otherwise the psychoanalysis will only become a pretext 
for him to hold on to his neurosis. This may be seen 
particularly often in the case of compulsive neurosis. 
The apparently cured sufferers are no longer obsessed 
with their various compulsive images or acts, but they 
often become just as much obsessed with their dissolu- 
tions and explanations instead; in short, their interest is 
still centered on their morbidly over-stressed complexes, 
with this only difference, that they now clothe their ob- 
sessions in psychoanalytic terms. 
I have seen many such cases-neurotics who dreaded 
their incestuous wishes, where formerly they had been 
obsessed by a symbolized form of anxiety. So long as 
8 It is never decorous to tell tales out of school. But even an 
inexperienced person after some intercourse with psychoanalysis 
must arrive at the conviction that most of Freud's younger pupils 
have scarcely applied the principles of psychoanalysis towards the 
removal of their own complexes. How much I had to endure as a 
member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society! I hope some day 
to write the history of the psychoanalytic movement objectively 
and with care. I must wait until I can have the benefit of looking 
at the problem from a distance. According to reports which have 
reached me the situation does not differ from that in other places. 354 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the patient is not free from anxiety, we are not justified 
in speaking of a cure, even though he has become fully 
aware of the objects of his feeling of dread (incest, para- 
philia, criminality). He must first raise himself above 
his complexes. That is also true of the feeling of doubt. 
I saw a man who had been treated for some time by Adler 
on account of a morbid feeling of doubt. He was in love 
with a girl, and doubted whether he was sufficiently potent, 
whether he could make her happy, whether he would be 
able to support her, and so on. He came to me with the 
statement that he was in love with a girl, but was all the 
time trying to "belittle" her; he feared she would triumph 
over him and would always be above him. He could not 
bear to be belittled and "subject"; that roused the "male 
protest" on his part and that was the reason why he was 
unhappy. He persisted in his feeling-attitude of doubt 
-but this time he had adopted the Adlerian mechanisms. 
Probably his feeling-attitude of doubt was due to his re- 
sistance to the physician, and that was the reason of his 
change of physician and why he had come to me. But 
this very feeling-attitude of resistance or contrariness, 
which had belonged originally to the father-imago, showed 
that his reactions were still morbid, and therefore in his 
case we could not speak of a cure. 
The patient must cease to regard himself as a patient. 
He should put aside psychoanalysis and everything per- 
taining to it. He should not try to interpret dreams, or 
to ferret out symptomatic acts or solve obsessions. He 
should turn from himself and his psyche, and cultivate 
outside interests. 
The longer he is preoccupied with psychoanalysis the 
more decisively will the latter assume in his mind the 
functions of his old neurosis. He reproaches himself 
when associations fail to come to his mind; he fears that 
resistances are beginning to reassert themselves, and begins 
to doubt whether the physician is really helping him. This 
explains a remarkable fact. Certain cases grow worse PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
355 
the longer they are treated. The therapy of gonorrhoea 
has evolved a particular term with which to express over- 
treatment. Some cases of gonorrhoea fail to get cured 
because, through the treatment, the urethra is kept con- 
tinuously irritated. Similar overtreatment may also take 
place in psychoanalysis. The longer a case is treated the 
more difficult becomes the final separation from the 
analyst. There are certain serious cases which do re- 
quire a prolonged period of treatment of twelve months 
or even longer. But I confess frankly that after my 
earlier experiences I have adopted the policy of lessening 
the period of treatment very considerably, and allow a 
longer time for the most advanced cases only-for patients 
who are downright invalids and who have also experi- 
enced organic trouble. I do not usually suggest such a 
long period as a whole year, and endeavor to curtail it as 
much as possible. As I have already stated: those patients 
who have but a limited time at their disposal-physicians 
who have left their practice, employes who have been 
granted a limited leave, housewives whose presence is 
urgently needed at home-patients such as these give the 
best prognosis. 
That may explain the fact that my results were so sat- 
isfactory at the beginning of my psychoanalytic practice. 
The period of treatment was short. I described some of 
the cases in my work, Nervous Anxiety. 
I now propose to go through the cases which I reported 
there, and to give a brief critical report of the final results 
of some of them. It is very difficult to obtain accurate 
data and to arrive at definite statistical facts. Many pa- 
tients disappear entirely into the obscurity from which 
they had emerged. Of others one hears only inci- 
dentally and in round-about ways. 
XIII 
Looking over my results, I have reason to be very 
contented. I possess some information about most of 356 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
the cases which I recorded in my Conditions of Nervous 
Anxiety. The singer (case No. 106 of the 2nd edition) 
is able to appear in public, to withstand the buffets of 
Fate, and suffers only from minor neurotic disturbances 
from time to time. These are not serious enough to pre- 
vent her from striving and achieving in her chosen career. 
(Duration of treatment, four months, one half-hour to 
one hour daily.) Of the Rumanian priest (case 98) I 
had not heard for a long time. One day a lady came to 
me from Rumania suffering from agoraphobia. The 
priest (I. B.) had sent her to me. He had been very seri- 
ously ill, and a physician had cured him in Vienna with 
some simple drops. He had said this with a peculiar 
smile. She was merely to tell Dr. Stekel that he was per- 
fectly well. She requested me to prescribe those miracu- 
lous drops for herself, and could not believe that I had 
cured the priest "only with talk." The treatment of this 
case lasted six weeks. And thus most cases get along 
fairly well, if Fate does not press them too hard. Some 
have withstood even the most severe blows very success- 
fully. 
On the whole, therefore, I am justified in feeling fairly 
well satisfied with my results, especially when I add those 
cases which got well subsequently, ostensibly through an- 
other kind of "treatment," as, for instance, the singer, 
who after taking a tea-infusion prescribed by a quack, for 
two months, entirely overcame a troublesome nervous dis- 
order which had interfered with his singing. I must 
again give as my emphatic opinion that a short period of 
treatment leads to the best results, particularly in the case 
of phobias. That, I surmise, is due to the fact that the 
shorter time renders the dissolution (that is the giving up) 
of the transference more easy for the patient and does not 
afford the opportunity for too great differences in the emo- 
tional tension. 
We also come across some patients who, after having 
been under treatment for hardly a week, rush round and PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
357 
tell everyone they meet that psychoanalysis has not helped 
them. A doctor who suffered from a severe compulsion- 
neurosis and was introduced to a medical meeting at 
Odessa as one of the failures ( !) of psychoanalysis, had 
been under my care for only about a week. 
I may mention a successful case: A young man suf- 
fering from various obsessions and severe compulsive man- 
nerisms came to me once a week only, for about half-an- 
hour each time. It would be gratifying if I could achieve 
such excellent results in all similar cases. But a cure is 
not often brought about as easily as that. These patients 
are particularly proud of their illness and generate the 
severest resistances. (For the treatment, as I have re- 
peatedly stated, resolves itself into a hard struggle be- 
tween patient and physician.) Sometimes this is due to 
the fact that the analyst fails to realize he is being led 
by the patient, and allows the latter to skim over the sur- 
face of things with his associations. Under such condi- 
tions, progress is hardly to be expected, and the treatment 
may go on for ever. If the compulsion-neurotic is al- 
lowed to take the lead, the treatment may last a year or 
longer-it might be for years or a lifetime. The patient 
intends to prove, thereby, the serious character of his ill- 
ness. The doctor must have the courage to throw up 
the treatment, and to do so abruptly. This is the very 
class of patients likely to return every now and again for 
an hour or so's consultation, merely to get rid of this or 
that particular symptom; soon their old dread of losing 
something reasserts itself, their morbid fear of verdigris, 
syphilis (syphilidophobia), or some other obsession of the 
most foolish kind-for instance, that the book-shelf is 
poisoned. The patients mean to prove thereby that the 
physician has not helped them out of their difficulty at 
all, and that they are as badly off as they were at the 
beginning. I avoid these possibilities by sending off the 
patients as soon as the treatment is ended, and by reduc- 
ing correspondence with them to a minimum-in fact, I 358 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
advise them to act as if they barely knew me. A large 
number of them obey the right impulse of their own ac- 
cord, and act thus without any special instruction. They 
free themselves absolutely from the physician, just as they 
should. Such patients forget their physician readily, un- 
less they present the evil picture of the Judas-neurosis. 
In my work The Language of Dreams (English version 
by J. S. Van Teslaar) I have described the Christ-neurosis 
on the basis of a number of illustrative instances. By 
the side of this we also find the Judas-type of neurosis. 
A patient of this type once confessed to me during our 
very first consultation that he had it in his mind to write 
a drama about Judas. "He thought his character was of 
a much more interesting type than that of Christ. Judas 
had sacrificed himself, and had by his act of treason raised 
Christ to a Godhead"; the patient "could not but feel that 
Judas was the greater of the two." I at once recognized 
that that man was himself a Judas, and that he would act 
in accordance with his character towards me. He strongly 
resented the inference. His whole nature was, he said, 
steeped in gratitude and feelings of friendship. But at a 
critical moment in my life he played precisely the part of 
a Judas towards me.9 Some of the patients of this type 
resolve to lecture on psychoanalysis after their treatment 
is over, so as to prove that it is good for nothing, a pass- 
ing fad; and state that they intend to sue for the return 
of the money spent on the treatment. They write scur- 
rilous articles and letters to newspapers, become the bit- 
terest enemies of psychoanalysis, discover biologic founda- 
tions for the neuroses, and emphasize the hereditary fac- 
tors-in short, they plan their revenge and deliberately 
seek, and actually hanker after, some opportunity to play 
the role of a Judas. Since a number of practicing psycho- 
analysts are former patients of mine who have themselves 
submitted to psychoanalysis, the tendency to seek out schis- 
9 Cf. The chapter, The Traitor, in my book Unser Seelen- 
leben ini Kricge. Otto Salle, Berlin. PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT 
359 
matic differences and to become antagonistic may be due 
partly to this Judas-complex, and the fault may not always 
be with the unfortunate neurotic. A skillful analyst should 
be able to uncover the potential Judas, and avoid a per- 
petration of deceptions by that type of patient. He pre- 
dicts it so frequently, he proves it so often through the 
patient's symptomatic acts and dreams, that the latter, out 
of sheer contrariness, will fail to assume the role of a 
Judas, so as to prove his physician in the wrong.10 
On the whole, it may be affirmed that psychoanalysis 
has proved itself superior to all other forms of psycho- 
therapy, particularly in the compulsion-neuroses. Ordi- 
nary influences and explanations do no lasting good in 
cases of this type. And, if the psychoanalysis succeeds, 
the result is so convincingly plain, and it involves so radical 
a transformation of the patient's whole personality, that 
the psychotherapeutist is assured of the gratitude of the 
patient's whole family. At any rate the treatment of these 
severe cases is the touchstone of the psychotherapeutist's 
skill. The termination of the treatment, the freeing and 
overcoming of the patient's feelings, the adjusting of the 
latter to life and to reality, from which he had previously 
shrunk back, are tasks beset with difficulties and obstacles. 
10 I recently had an amusing experience with a typical "Judas"- 
a physician. Of his own free will he read my Nervose Angstzus- 
tdnde and told me every day that he had found himself reading 
something else. With that and with his coming just a few minutes 
late and leaving very punctually (not to give "himself away" freely) 
he indicated his spirit of independence. One day he told me that 
he had read through Jones' study of Hamlet at one sitting 
with great enjoyment; a work no doubt greatly enhanced in value, 
he thought, by its excellent translation into German. It turned 
out that he had confused Tausig, the translator, with a medical 
man, "Tausk," who had often attacked me and my methods of 
investigation. He admitted that he thought "Tausk" was really 
"Tausig." He also suddenly thought of going to Freud and later 
still the wish to be treated by Tausig played a greal role in his 
"Judas" phantasy. 360 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
XIV 
We must take up every case as if the whole riddle of 
the neuroses were to be unfolded before our eyes for the 
first time. This open-minded attitude has enabled me to 
arrive at new conclusions in the interpretation of dreams. 
I am not unmindful of the fact that we are but at the be- 
ginning of our knowledge in the investigation of dreams 
and of the neuroses. Much water will yet be poured into 
our old wine. But we shall be all the more sober for that, 
and, instead of the intoxication of victory, followed by the 
disillusions of the "morning after," we shall have the ex- 
perience of tracing back the trail of truth with open eyes. 
My statements should be taken in this sense. They 
are also intended as a warning against the practice of 
psychoanalysis by persons who are not qualified by native 
gifts and capabilities. 
I have the impression that there is already too much 
promiscuous practising of psychoanalysis. Analysis may 
be compared to a serious laparotomy. Psychoanalysis is 
a complicated science, and, to use a fitting expression of 
Riklin's, "the delicate structures of a neurosis should not 
be handled by rough and untrained fingers." 
Every psychotherapeutist is inclined to prove his views 
by his patients' statements. But in the course of the treat- 
ment the patient learns his physician's jargon, and uses 
the terms he has learned from the latter when he attempts 
to describe his condition. That leads to serious errors 
about the methods and the findings in a given case. 
I am reminded of the air-balloons with which children 
love to play. The neurotic, too, allows himself to be filled 
with our ideas and "air." He thus seems to be a sub- 
stantial massive figure. But he bursts when overstretched 
or he gives off the surplus of air. Only the degree in 
which the new ideas, attitudes, and views are permanently 
retained is the test of the method and the proof of its 
success. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE1 
By James S. Van Teslaar (Brookline, Mass.) 
I 
In the history of science it is not often that it falls to 
the lot of a single investigator to inaugurate an entirely 
new method of research or to discover a whole group of 
general laws, each valid, each equally fundamental. 
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, has 
done both: he has inaugurated the analytic method of 
inquiry which is being successfully applied to all the mani- 
festations and products of mental activity; and through 
the careful use of this technique he has uncovered funda- 
mental principles hitherto either wholly unrecognized or 
perceived but vaguely. 
For the first time psychoanalysis introduces true order 
and understanding into some of the most obscure and 
baffling provinces of the mind-phobias, compulsions, ob- 
sessions and dreams. 
For the first time, too, we are acquiring true insight 
into the meaning, the psychic development and mechanism 
of that most dreadful of all personal calamities, mental 
breakdown or insanity; and through the aid of psycho- 
analysis correct principles are being evolved for its pre- 
vention-in so far as mental disorder may be preventable. 
Although psychoanalytic research is only in its initial 
stage, it has already thrown a flood of light on mental 
growth during infancy, childhood and adolescence; and 
the respective educational and hygienic requirements are 
becoming clear as the development of human personality 
is traced with scientific accuracy. The unfoldment of 
character traits is becoming a study as objective in its 
1 Reprinted from the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 
361 362 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
technique and results as any study of natural history. 
Human behavior is being subjected to scientific scrutiny 
at last without the handicap of ego-centric presuppositions. 
It would not be easy at this early stage properly to esti- 
mate the great practical benefits in terms of personal and 
racial welfare bound to follow the wider extension and 
applications of psychoanalysis and certain to be witnessed 
in the immediate future. In unraveling for us the natural 
history of mental growth and thus placing within our ken 
the means for its conscious direction and control, Freud's 
discoveries promise to accomplish, with respect to our 
knowledge of the subjective, inner world of our psyche 
a transformation as radical as that which Newton's dis- 
covery of the laws governing the Cosmos has accom- 
plished with respect to our knowledge of the world of 
external reality. 
The same precision, of course, cannot be expected in 
the two fields of inquiry. The laws of mind are infinitely 
more complicated and do not lend themselves to mathe- 
matical treatment like the laws of nature. But in general 
aspects the comparison holds. The position of both New- 
ton and Freud is alike unique in the history of science; 
for just as there is no other cosmic system for man to 
repeat Newton's discovery of its laws so there is but one 
subjective world for man to delve into and Freud has 
shown the way of discovering law and order therein. 
The earliest significant observations were made by 
Freud in connection with his professional studies of per- 
sons suffering from various nervous complaints. These 
incidental observations have led him to most important 
discoveries. From the field of abnormal psychology in 
which they first arose, Freud and his pupils extended the 
important discoveries to the whole realm of psychology. 
Not psychology alone but all contiguous disciplines, 
anthropology, folklore, religion, economics, sociology, his- 
tory, and even literary criticism, politics and biography, 
are becoming indebted to psychoanalysis. SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
363 
The work is only at its beginnings, as mentioned, but 
significant contributions have already been made in some 
of these various directions. Already it is not premature 
to assert that psychoanalysis promises to accomplish for 
the whole group of the so-called Geisteswisscnschaften (the 
cultural sciences, as contrasted to the exact disciplines) 
what the evolutionary theory-and specifically the work 
of Darwin-has done for the biological group of sciences. 
Indeed, in a broad sense, it may be said that psychoanalysis 
represents but an extension of the theory of evolution, an 
application of the principle of evolution to the study of 
mind or, rather, a rediscovery of that truth in terms of 
concrete psychologic data, facts. 
Scientific discoveries so wide in their range of applica- 
bility, so novel-even revolutionary-and of such tremen- 
dous consequence as those which form the major body of 
psychoanalytic theory, cannot but rouse extreme skepti- 
cism, even hostility-at first. 
That is precisely the fate that psychoanalysis has met 
at the hands of critics too startled by the new principles 
to view them with objective detachment. 
Psychoanalysis is nothing short of revolutionary, exactly 
as Darwinism has proven to be. That the introduction 
of conceptions compelling a rearrangement of funda- 
mental principles should create havoc is only to be ex- 
pected. Such a change foretells the doom of the old and 
customary viewpoints whose protagonists will not yield 
the ground without a struggle. 
Now, psychoanalysis challenges the whole group of 
scientific disciplines in any way related to the operations 
of the mind. It requires all psychologic branches of learn- 
ing to undertake nothing less than a restatement in terms 
of evolutionary dynamics of the principles upon which 
they are based. Freudian psychology has sounded the 
death-knell of static, descriptive, atomistic psychology just 
as surely as Darwinism has put an end to the pre-evolu- 
tionary biology. 364 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
The world at large cannot remain long indifferent to 
the Freudian transformations of psychology. This is not 
merely a matter concerning specialists. The controversy 
raised by psychoanalysis does not center on theoretic prob- 
lems and abstract points such as are popularly supposed 
to be dear to the dry-as-dust scientist. The problems 
raised by psychoanalysis relate most intimately to the 
practical concerns of health and everyday living. If Freud 
be correct, if the unconscious, for instance, plays the role 
he assigns to it and if it is truly possible to get at it through 
the analysis of dreams and of the other formulations and 
products of the unconscious by means of the technique he 
has evolved, we have in our hands, for the first time in the 
history of science, a scientific method for controlling our 
psychic energies and for properly directing their outward 
flow. Through psychoanalysis, at last, mental health, effi- 
ciency, education of mind and body, human welfare gen- 
erally-racial as well as personal-become subject to pur- 
posive direction and control, exactly as the forces of nature 
are today in the engineers' hands. 
The prospect is not overdrawn. Psychoanalysis clearly 
holds out no less a promise than this. 
Not the least merit of Freud is that he has at last linked 
in a practical, rigorously scientific manner our so-called 
''normal" mental activities with those considered "abnor- 
mal," and has proven the essential unity of mental func- 
tions. 
That mental disorders are the result of the psychic 
forces governing the normal reactions of mind has long 
been accepted as a truism-in the abstract. But in the 
practical working out of the subject, in our text-books on 
psychiatry, for example, this essentia l truth played no part. 
It was practically disregarded-abstract theory and prac- 
tice did not conform to each other in this instance, for 
the simple reason that there had been found no way of 
utilizing the truth; no method of interpreting the dis- SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
365 
ordered mind through a knowledge of what is going on 
in the healthy mind and vice versa. 
To assert the essential unity of mental functions as a 
truth flowing out of theoretic considerations is one thing; 
to prove, as well as make fruitful use of, this important 
fact, is quite another. 
This bridging over of normal and abnormal, the redis- 
covery of the essential unity of oneness of mind, has been 
accomplished by Freud. 
The links that connect normal and abnormal mind are 
furnished by the functions of the unconscious. The notion 
of the unconscious, of course, is not in itself a novel con- 
tribution of psychoanalysis. Indeed, as a mere hypothesis 
the unconscious is as old as, and perhaps antedates, the 
formulation even of our earliest scientific conceptions in 
psychology. But Freud gave the principle its present 
scientific and precise formulation. Above all he has 
evolved the technique for the empiric investigation of the 
unconscious-a technique that enables us to deal with the 
facts and forces of mind as objectively as with any other 
facts and forces in nature. 
The concept of the unconscious had been rejected from 
modern scientific psychology because of its metaphysical 
and highly speculative character. But with the adoption 
of Freud's rigorous, practical method of inquiry the prin- 
ciple of the unconscious has become the core of psychology. 
It is in this connection that Freud has evolved the study 
and analysis of dreams. The results are overwhelming; 
they yield a new sense of order and permit our under- 
standing to reach down to the nethermost depths of human 
nature. 
ii 
The significance of psychoanalysis in the history of 
science may be best illustrated perhaps by pointing out 
the background, the historic setting of Freud's invaluable 
contributions. 
The dominant conception in all the biologic sciences, 366 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
during the period immediately preceding Darwin's epoch- 
making discoveries and before Darwinism made itself felt, 
may be designated as atomism. 
The age of atomism in biology was preceded by, and 
to a large extent cotemporaneous with, atomism in poli- 
tics, philosophy, theology and education; for in every age 
the dominant idea spreads itself over the whole realm of 
its characteristic culture. 
Political atomism culminated in the French Revolution 
and the American Declaration of Independence. 
The sense theory of knowledge carried to its logical 
extreme by Hume with his denial of causality and true 
selfhood, by Leibniz with his theory of monads, and by 
Kant's teacher, Wolff, with his so-called Rational Psy- 
chology, illustrates the philosophical atomism of the period. 
Theological atomism manifested itself in the crude 
theism of that period separating a kind of atomic divinity 
from the aggregate of units called the Universe, and rep- 
resenting that unit as standing in a sort of preferential 
relationship to the other atoms-an offshoot, clearly, of 
the Leibniz-Wolffian doctrine. 
Educational atomism blossomed forth in the theories of 
Rousseau, notably his "Emile." 
Finally upon the sociologic-economic field we have, 
towards the end of the atomistic period, the materialistic 
conception of history culminating in the doctrine of the 
struggle between classes, a little earlier the laissez-faire 
doctrine and between the middle and the end of that period, 
again, the formulation of the philosophical anarchism of 
Godwin and Proudhon. Thus the various cultural move- 
ments manifested the same or a similar dominant note- 
individualism, atomism. 
Closely upon the heels of this atomistic Weltanschauung, 
there followed the conception of energy. Indeed, the doc- 
trine of energy was inherent in the standpoint of atomism. 
Just as atomism attempted to show us the constitution, 
"energeticism" was to explain the dynamics of the universe SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
367 
and of human existence. Then followed in rapid succes- 
sion the discoveries of new energies in nature, the har- 
nessing of electricity, steam, and other labor-saving forces, 
the multiplication of means for creating power, the rise of 
large cities, of international trade combinations and of 
corporations for the exploitation of natural resources on 
a tremendous scale-all in keeping with the new cultural 
development. 
At that stage Darwin introduced the concept of unfold- 
ment, of scientific evolution. It became the fashion of 
scientific endeavor to explain what a thing really is by 
showing how it came to be, that is, by giving its develop- 
mental history. 
In the history of psychology "associationism" represents 
the atomistic phase of the science of mind. The pre- 
Freudian conception of psychic dynamism is a sort 
of metaphysical, philosophic, speculative energeticism. 
Though rooted in physiology and often expressed in terms 
current in biology, it is at bottom but little more than the 
psychology of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Dugald Stewart, 
Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, 
and Alexander Bain-to mention only some of the chief- 
tains of British speculative psychology. 
Even the psychology of Herbert Spencer does not typify 
the true evolutionistic development. In his day the data 
were not yet available for the adoption of evolution as a 
working principle in psychology; but to Spencer belongs 
the credit of having anticipated with many keen generali- 
zations, though speculatively, the next phase in the de- 
velopment of the science of mind. 
At any rate the adoption of the evolutionistic or de- 
velopmental concept in biology and the rapid spread of 
that viewpoint to contiguous sciences represents the next 
great general phase in the history of culture. Even dis- 
ciples of speculative character, philosophy, sociology, 
ethics, adopted the new viewpoint. But clinical psychology 
remained strangely aloof, and experimental psychology 368 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
lagged behind. The "energeticism" of Herbart and Lotze, 
fruitful and significant as it has been, remained a sec- 
ondary development. No working basis had been devised 
for the adoption of evolution as a guiding principle in the 
practical concerns of psychology. The main course of 
development in the study of mind during health and dis- 
ease alike persisted on the old path of atomism. The 
doctrine of the association of ideas and the more recent 
doctrine of the "conditional reflex" are typical of the stand- 
point of non-Freudian psychology to this day in spite of 
the influence of the principle of evolution upon the course 
of scientific development. 
In that state psychology and clinical psychiatry were 
not likely to yield significant results along other than de- 
scriptive lines. Kraepelin, the high light of psychiatry, 
arranged his text-book with the conscientious scruples of 
one who appreciates the scientific value of classification 
and description. His clinical entities are divided, classified 
and subdivided, tabulated and labeled with much care. 
Progress between succeeding editions of Kraepelin's text- 
book on Psychiatry consists largely of the introduction of 
some new subdivision or in the transfer from one label to 
another of a part of its contents. 
The tendency of clinical psychology and psychiatry in 
its atomistic stage to emphasize description and classifica- 
tion, as illustrated in Kraepelin, is equally obvious in the 
French school of clinical psychologic research. The Ray- 
mond-Janet contributions are masterly descriptions of 
psychologic states. Janet's works, in particular, read like 
romances. His studies of hysteria, neuroses, fixed ideas 
and psychic automatisms have inspired Professor William 
James to hold out the expectation, in his Principles of Psy- 
chology, that, "all these facts, taken together, form unques- 
tionably the beginning of an inquiry which is destined to 
throw a new light into the very abysses of our nature." 
The new light came as the result of Freud's important 
discoveries. To the two-dimensional, atomistic, descriptive SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
369 
psychology of the French school and of the Kraepelinian 
psychiatry Freud has added a third dimension-the genetic, 
developmental, evolutionistic viewpoint. The result is as 
radical a transformation of all branches of psychology as 
that which Darwin has inaugurated in the biological 
sciences. Freud's discoveries are doing for psychology 
what Darwin's have done for biology. 
in 
The method of Freud is known as psychoanalysis. It 
recognizes a selective property whereby ideas group and 
regroup themselves in accordance with laws governing 
their emotional value to the person concerned. Freud's 
psychology lays stress on the emotional, affective value of 
our ideas rather than on their logical content: that feature 
constitutes one of the chief differences between it and the 
older psychology. 
Even in that regard Freud's work is not altogether 
novel. The most radical departure is the serviceable, ac- 
curate conception of the qualities and forces of our psyche 
which he has formulated as the result of his recognition 
of the unconscious. 
An illustration will make this matter clear. Suppose a 
person has undergone a strong emotional experience-a 
sudden shock, fright, some keen disappointment or painful 
loss. The reaction to that experience will vary with the 
person's temperament, mental status, and other conditions. 
Suppose the person in question is highly nervous and the 
shock results in some degree of dissociation, that is, in 
a loss from memory of certain parts of the experience. 
This is a most frequent occurrence. In such cases, too, it 
is common for some unreasonable and unaccountable fear 
to appear, the fear being associated with some object or 
situation harmless in itself. For instance, the person in 
question may be afraid of closed doors, or of open spaces, 
or of crowds or of being alone, or of some animal or 
person. The victim cannot account for this fear; cannot 370 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
even tell when it began or why it appeared. The fear may 
be partly overcome in the course of years. But the chances 
are rather that it will persist and that all through his future 
life that person will go about more or less handicapped by 
that unreasonable fear. I have chosen this example because 
it is a very common experience and in its milder form may 
be found in every person's experience. 
If the victim of such a condition is helped to reestablish 
a free intercommunication of his ideas by regular periods 
of concentration upon the disturbing situation or idea or 
object which happens to become associated with his un- 
reasonable fear, it will soon be evident that there is an 
intimate connection between the object of his fear and the 
unpleasant experience which became lost from ordinary 
consciousness. Through concentration of the mind around 
the disturbing object, thought, or image, and allowing all 
ideas which crop up in that connection to come to the 
surface (aided thereby by the counsel of the consulting 
psychologist), the afflicted person finds that the ideas 
evoked, at first scattered and coming as if by chance from 
nowhere in particular, point gradually and at last irresist- 
ibly to the particular event which, because of its painful 
or unpleasant character, had become excluded from con- 
sciousness. Following the ramification of the ideas as 
they crop up, it is soon found that a number of other 
experiences, entirely forgotten, many of them dating from 
early childhood, have become associatively linked to the 
painful occurrence or incident and have fortified the fear 
or other unreasonable symptom with their own emotional 
strength. While this is going on another strange thing 
happens. As the painfully unpleasant, apparently for- 
gotten memories are brought to the surface and the emo- 
tions with which they were originally associated are re- 
called, the fear which was the object of investigation 
disappears either suddenly or more or less rapidly. The 
reawakening of painful reminiscences, apparently lost from 
memory, dissolves the unreasonable and apparently mean- SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
371 
ingless fear. The connection between the painful incident 
and the later fear is thus disclosed. 
But what is the nature of that relationship? The two 
are linked through a common emotion or complementary 
affect. Where the condition is not entirely relieved by 
the recall of certain painful reminiscences, further inquiry 
leads to the unearthing of additional occurrences which 
had become similarly excluded from ordinary conscious- 
ness and have added their emotional strength to the un- 
pleasant existing state. This teaches us that when painful 
experiences are pushed out of memory, they are really 
only pushed further in; they disappear from conscious 
memory but only to lie dormant and to influence the sub- 
ject unconsciously, throwing up emotional bubbles in most 
unexpected ways. No matter how deeply this ingrown 
emotion may lie buried it does not wholly get out of reach. 
Following up the free association of ideas, especially those 
which arise around the subject's dreams, the submerged 
memory is brought back, element by element. 
One of the most remarkable features of repressed emo- 
tions is that they belong in large part to our childhood 
life. Even when the events to which they pertain belong 
to a later period the reaction they evoke is characteristic 
of our childish or infantile attitude towards life and does 
not belong to the age at which it appears. In other words, 
certain infantile emotional reactions persist in the uncon- 
scious and become the center of psychic shocks or injuries. 
Previous to Freud's discovery of these important facts 
clinical psychology, as I have pointed out already, was con- 
cerned chiefly with description and classification. In the 
case mentioned it would have limited itself to inquire: 
What is the person most afraid of? Closed doors? That 
is claustrophobia. Open spaces? That is agoraphobia, 
and so forth. Freud found that these fears have specific 
meanings in every instance. That "open spaces" and 
"closed door," for instance, have particular meanings for 
the persons concerned on account of which they play the 372 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
role they do in certain instances; that their role is always 
determined by what they stand for in the subject's own 
mind-perhaps a meaning acquired in connection with 
some actual experience, forgotten, or rather repressed, or 
a fanciful meaning derived symbolically. 
In other words, our fears, morbid dreads, doubts, feel- 
ings of incapacity and numerous other emotional handi- 
caps have an inner, or subjective developmental history; 
their course must be traced back to the earliest episodes 
in connection with which they have arisen, before we can 
expect to be completely freed of them. 
Now, childhood has been compared to the primitive state 
of mankind. Conversely, savage society is said to repre- 
sent the childhood of the race. This much was surmised 
here and there even during the pre-evolutionistic phase 
of science. 
Since Darwin, the comparison between childhood and 
primitive mankind as representative of the same develop- 
mental stages has achieved new significance. Darwinism 
has led to the theoretic assumption that in our physical as 
well as mental development we recapitulate the biologic 
history of the race. Herbert Spencer has popularized 
this idea. It has led to the formulation of the so-called 
recapitulation theory-an idea which has been worked out 
extensively in embryology where it is associated chiefly 
with the researches of Ernst Haeckel. Readers will recall 
the interesting series of embryologic sections which were 
circulated years ago, showing that during the various stages 
of its development the human foetus resembles in form 
and functional arrangement one after another various 
animal species from the lower to the higher. 
The recapitulation theory maintains that during the 
embryonic stage every individual repeats, in abbreviated 
form of course, many of the important stages through 
which the human race has passed in its ascent from the 
lower and more primitive forms. Countless centuries of 
unfoldment are thus condensed and recapitulated in the SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
373 
brief course of our intra-uterine existence. Beginning as 
an unicellular organism, a protozoon in all respects, the 
fertilized human ovum becomes a metazoon, assumes 
shapes and forms resembling one after another various 
organisms from the simpler to the more complex and at 
birth still resembles man's immediate anthropoid progeni- 
tor more than the human race. 
This is not the place to mention the numerous limita- 
tions and strictures that have been placed upon this in- 
genious theory as originally worked out by Haeckel and 
his enthusiastic pupils. It is true that some phases of 
intra-uterine existence appear to correspond to a higher 
phyletic branch than the immediately following ones, as 
if in repeating the story of the biologic unfoldment of 
the human race, the embryo rushed ahead a period or two 
and returned to the omitted sections subsequently, exactly 
as one often does when telling an interesting story. This 
and other minor considerations in no way detract from the 
significance of the theory as a whole any more than rush- 
ing from one crucial point to another in the telling of a 
story and then returning to dwell on details makes the 
story untrue. The facts are sufficient in their essentials 
to prove the recapitulation theory is sound. 
rv 
Now, turning our attention to the individual mind, may 
not that, too, similarly recapitulate in the course of its 
growth the psychic unfoldment of the human race ? That 
our mind does that very thing has long been a theoretic 
conclusion of biological investigators. 
Unfortunately, psychologists had discovered no way to 
lift that capital idea from the realm of hypothesis and 
transmute it into a working, useful, practical principle. 
Neither the technique of ordinary laboratory psychology 
nor that of clinical psychiatry was such as to enable 
students of mind to make use of this fundamental truth 
in their work. Both psychology and psychiatry remained 374 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
as before Darwin, atomistic, loosely dynamistic, descrip- 
tive. Whole text-books on psychology have been written 
without the term "development" becoming once necessary 
in the description of mental processes. At this stage in 
the history of science that in itself should have warned 
the old school psychologists and psychiatrists that some- 
thing was the matter with the technique of their disciplines. 
Freud did not set out deliberately to cover the gap 
between atomism and evolutionism. His ambition was 
limited to the direct and practical task of finding out what 
was wrong in the case of that large number of functional 
nervous disorders which ordinary methods of therapy, in- 
cluding hypnosis and suggestion, failed to cure. His task 
was a practical one, his attitude that of a specialist in 
nervous diseases interested in the welfare of his patients. 
When Freud found that his patients suffered from 
painful reminiscences, hidden or suppressed, he set to 
work to discover the forces which lead to suppression. He 
found that the reminiscences in question were linked emo- 
tionally to promptings incompatible with ethical standards, 
and violating the most common dictates of culture-here 
I use the terms "ethical" and "culture" in their broadest 
meaning. Persons mentally handicapped, those who 
undergo "nervous" breakdowns or who give way entirely, 
becoming subjects for sanitoria, are burdened with "un- 
ethical" and "irrational" cravings of which they are often 
unaware. Mental and nervous disorders are caused by 
an attempt of the primitive residue of the psyche to break 
through. This proposition is as simple as it is fundamental 
to the proper understanding of the forces which govern 
human nature. Freud found that ordinarily we are often 
prompted by bits of our racial past in the form of an 
obscure craving, an unorganized attitude, a blind predis- 
position impelling us to think or do things which con- 
sciousness would refuse openly to contemplate. He found 
further that manifestations of this primitive, raw, un- 
moral attitude together with the cravings to which it gives SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
375 
rise, far from being exceptional, is the rule during the 
earlier phases of our mental existence; namely, during the 
preconscious stage of infancy and early childhood. 
Incidentally Freud's discovery shows that in the course 
of its development the individual mind repeats our racial 
history. The details of Freud's work amount to a restate- 
ment of the recapitulation theory applied to the biologic 
history of the mind. For the first time there has been 
disclosed to us the manner in which psychic recapitulation 
operates and its consequences. 
Primordial cravings that persist are racial vestiges of 
the mind. They are racial endowments belonging to early 
psychic stages in our individual development just as cer- 
tain structures and organs of the embryo represent passing 
phases in the course of our physical development. Some 
embryonic organs disappear when higher stages are 
reached; but certain other organs and structures persist 
in rudimentary form long after their functions have ceased. 
But, unlike the embryonic organs which disappear after 
fulfilling whatever role they may play during the em- 
bryonic phase of our physical existence, unlike the rudi- 
mentary structures which are carried forward but lie dor- 
mant and useless in the adult, the mental vestiges of our 
earlier existence, our primordial cravings, our racial in- 
stincts persist in their raw and naked form alongside the 
more complex, subtle emotions, ideals and aspirations 
which we acquire in later life as the heritage of historic 
civilization. Our raw instincts not only persist but so 
long as they are allowed to remain "uncharted" within us 
they compete with consciousness for mastery over our 
conduct. 
Man's unconscious, the bearer of the racial past, the 
instinctive and primordial in human nature, functions long 
before consciousness is awakened. Its beginnings cannot 
be traced. It seems to be always present. It reaches far 
beyond any stage in our individual development which can 
be subjected to direct investigation. All we know is that 376 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
during intra-uterine existence the foetus already shows 
reactions which must have a psychic counterpart, be it 
ever so vague. Certain it is that our mental life does not 
begin with consciousness; and consequently any psychology 
that concerns itself with consciousness to the total exclu- 
sion of the unconscious is neglecting the greater for the 
lesser part of our mental existence. The unconscious 
has back of it a biologic history of millions of years com- 
pared to which the phyletic period of man's consciousness 
is like the efflorescence of an hour. A proper knowledge 
of the unconscious will enables us the better to penetrate 
the mental processes of primitive folk and to reconstruct, 
as it were, the kind of world in which man's ancestors 
moved, lived and had their being. Finally we can under- 
stand neither the mental aspects of childhood and infancy 
nor the true requirements of education unless we appre- 
ciate the significance, extent, operation and consequences 
of our unconscious mental processes. 
Sleep is a state during which it is possible for the un- 
conscious within us to find a sort of vicarious expression. 
Dreams are largely the expression of the unconscious, 
hence the significance of the meaning of dreams; hence the 
fundamental importance of Freud's discovery of the tech- 
nique and methodology for the interpretation of dreams. 
v 
For the first time since Darwin announced his dis- 
coveries, an important corollary of the theory of evolution 
-recapitulation-is thus proven to hold good of the 
psyche. It happens that the ontogenetic account of the 
mind is of greatest practical significance because in no 
other field is an appreciation of the workings of recapit- 
ulation so important. Thus it is interesting to know that 
the appendix, for instance, is a vestigial organ represent- 
ing a phase of existence during which man's dietary habits 
were what we call today "vegetarian." It is interesting 
to know that certain sets of muscles around our ears prove SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
377 
that at one stage in his long past man had the ability to 
move his ears in all directions with the agility displayed 
today by animals depending for safety upon acute hearing 
more than man does. Such remnants are tell-tale signs 
of man's previous history, as much as the findings ex- 
hibited in our museums of natural history. They testify 
as to man's past habits and ways of living. But when 
the appendix becomes inflamed it is no longer a matter 
of "museum interest" for the person concerned. And if 
all the vestigial, embryonic organs and structures were to 
persist and flare up into activity, a difficult and serious 
situation would arise. 
That is precisely what often happens upon the mental 
sphere. Phases of our past, in the widest sense of the 
term, tend to perpetuate themselves "in their original 
image," as it were. 
An occasional strong flaring up and more commonly, 
a continuous functional persistence of the mental equip- 
ment characteristic of our early stages of existence is the 
rule rather than the exception. This is precisely what 
makes an understanding of the processes of psychic re- 
capitulation a matter of such capital importance in the 
study of human behavior. 
In spite of the refinements of civilization, in spite of 
the influence of education, religion, precept or preach- 
ment, our mental equipment still persists in its primordial 
forms. Eventually most of the cravings of the human 
race, our raw instincts, undergo transformations and re- 
finements. But for a long time these cravings continue 
to manifest themselves very much "in the raw." We 
recognize this fact when we remark that "the child is a 
savage" or that "youth is callous and cruelly selfish." 
As youth passes into manhood and womanhood respec- 
tively it learns to abide by the more refined manifestations 
of the instincts which make up life. But the instincts are 
never abandoned. They are only refined. Moreover, they 
persist and occasionally flare up in their "original image." 378 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
The recapitulation theory, so interesting in other fields 
of biology, becomes here of the utmost practical sig- 
nificance. 
It will be understood, of course, that the idea of recapit- 
ulation had been conceived as a principle of mental de- 
velopment and somewhat exploited long before Freud. 
Various attempts, some of them more ingenious than con- 
vincing, had been made to trace correspondence between 
the behavior of children and the life of primitive people 
on the supposition that children and so-called savages 
stand psychically close to each other. 
We have long been familiar with such expressions as 
"the childhood of the human race" and by many compari- 
sons we have been led to infer what is implied. The pro- 
pensity of children for climbing, for instance, has been 
described as a vestigial tendency harking back, as it were, 
to the arboreal habits of man's ancestors. Children's 
games, peculiar choices, curious likes and dislikes, and 
many of their imageries have been similarly related. But 
all such observations were conjectural. Proof was lacking. 
Freud has stumbled upon the proof; and what is more, 
he has had the sagacity to recognize the importance of 
his discovery for science. He has disclosed the role of 
ontogenetic recapitulation in the growth and interplay of 
our psychic forces. 
For the first time in the history of psychology we now 
have the key to the understanding of human behavior in 
the light of its biological history. 
The technique which Freud has evolved largely in the 
connection with the analysis of dreams for sounding, in- 
vestigating and charting the realm of man's unconscious 
is one of the most important contributions in the history 
of science. The practical benefits of this discovery have 
only begun to be realized. Psychology is but beginning 
to redeem the promise it had long held out of becoming 
a practical guide in the conduct of our everyday life. GLOSSARY 
Abasia: Inability to walk. 
Aboulia: Indecision; suspension of will power. 
Abreaction: The process of reviving a past disagreeable 
experience in speech or action during the analysis. 
Affect: Sum of emotion or excitation. 
Algolagnia: Sexual excitement brought on by causing, or 
felt on experiencing, pain. 
Ambivalent (feelings): Contrary emotions of love and 
hatred experienced at the same time for one person. 
Amnesia: Defective memory for a particular period or 
event while the memory is otherwise unimpaired. 
Anagoge: Spiritual or mystical significance. 
Aphonia: Speechlessness. 
Aphronia: Lack of practical judgment. 
Astasia: Inability to stand. 
Autistic (thinking): Uncritical thinking governed by 
wishes in contrast to realistic and scientific thinking. 
(Bleuler.) Called also, Dereistic (thinking). 
Autoeroticism: Self-gratification. 
Bipolarity: Coexistence of opposite emotions and desires. 
Bisexuality: Sexual feeling for both sexes. 
Blocking: Sudden stop in the association of ideas when 
a complex is reached. 
Bulimia: Inordinate appetite. 
Catatonia: Form of mental disorder characterized by 
peculiar postures. 
Catharsis: Mental purging induced by bringing into con- 
sciousness disagreeable or painful thoughts and ex- 
periences. 
Censorship (endopsychic): Sum of emotional forces 
which induce repressions. 
Claustrophobia: Dread of closed spaces. 
379 380 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
Cleptomania: Uncontrollable inclination to steal. 
Cloaca theory: The notion formed by children and main- 
tained by some neurotics that the child comes out like 
a passage of the bowels because that is the only large 
outlet from the body with which they are familiar. 
Complex: A cluster of ideas or mental images linked to- 
gether by a stressed emotion and subjected to repres- 
sion. 
Condensation: Fusion of events or mental images. 
Contamination: Fusion of words. 
Conversion: Transposition of repressed emotions into 
physical manifestations. 
Coprophilia: Liking for filth. 
Cryptamnesia: Unrecognized memory. 
Cyclothemia: Mild form of manic depressive psychosis. 
Delirium: Mental confusion. 
Delusion: False idea not subject to the influence of 
reason. 
Dementia praecox: A form of insanity. 
Dipsomania: Uncontrollable desire for drink. 
Displacement: Substitution of one idea for another; 
substitution of objects. 
Dromomania: Uncontrollable desire to wander. 
Dysphoria: Feeling of not being well; unpleasure. 
Enuresis: Urinary incontinence. 
Erogenous zone: Any organ or bodily region capable of 
yielding erotic pleasure on stimulation. 
Erotic: Pertaining to the love life. 
Erotomania: An extravagant affection for some person, 
usually of the opposite sex, displayed in certain forms 
of mental disorder. 
Euphoria: Feeling of well being. 
Exhibitionism: Erotic gratification experienced in the 
act of exposing one's sexual organs or other bodily 
parts; morbid desire to exhibit oneself. 
Folie de toucher: Compulsive handling or touching of 
things. GLOSSARY 
381 
Foreconscious: Mental images of which we become 
aware only under certain conditions. 
Forepleasure: Initial stage of sexual gratification. 
Fugue: Centrifugal wandering; running "away from 
home." 
Hallucination: Sensory impression which originates in 
the brain without any corresponding external stimulus. 
Heterosexuality: Love for persons of opposite sex. 
Homosexuality: Love for persons of same sex. 
Idiogamy: Sexual capacity limited to intercourse with 
one type of woman. 
Illusion (morbid) : False belief not subject to the influ- 
ence of reason. 
Introjection: Absorption of the environment into the ego 
so that external events are reacted to as if they were 
internal and part of one's personality. 
Libido: Sexual craving (Freud). 
Emotional craving or capacity for affect (Jung). 
Masochism: Enhancement of sexual enjoyment by the 
wish to be physically subdued and hurt by the sexual 
objective. 
Mixoscopia: Excitement at witnessing a sexual act. 
Narcissism: Sexual enjoyment derived through the ad- 
miration of one's own body. 
Necrophilia: Interest in death. 
Nostalgia: Longing for home. 
Nosology: Classification of disease. 
Nosophobia: Dread of disease. 
Oniomania: Buying mania; bargain hunting. 
Ontogenesis: Development of the individual. 
Over-determination: The hypothesis that a symptom or 
dream element is determined by every factor revealed 
through the association of ideas. 
Paedophilia: Love for children. 
Paralogy: Mental disorder. 382 
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS 
Paramnesia: False memory. 
Parapathy: Functional nervous disorder. 
Paraphilia: Interest in perversions. 
Phylogenesis: Race development. 
Poriomania: Circular wandering. 
Preconscious: Realm of mental processes of which we 
are ordinarily unaware but which may be recalled to 
consciousness more or less readily. 
Psychogenetic: Of mental origin, as distinguished from 
physical. 
Psychosis: See Paralogy. 
Rationalization: The process of investing an attitude or 
action the real motive of which is unrecognized with 
an alleged reason. 
Regression: (i) The process of reducing an idea back to 
its sensorial components instead of the usual carrying 
forward of the idea into action; (2) Reversion of 
mental processes together with the accompanying feel- 
ing-attitude to a form characteristic of an earlier, 
more primitive stage of development. 
Repression: The process which results in withholding 
from consciousness anything painful or unpleasant. 
Resistance: Instinctive opposition against laying bare the 
repressed mental contents. 
Sadism: Erotic gratification derived from inflicting pain. 
Schizophrenia: A form of mental disorder; Bleuler's 
term for Dementia Praecox. 
Somatic: Pertaining to the body; physical. 
Somatization: Conversion of emotional states into physi- 
cal symptoms; see Conversion. 
Somnambulism: Sleep walking. 
Sublimation: Deflection of mental energy, usually of a 
libidinous character, to socially useful aims. 
Tic: Spasm of muscles. 
Transference: Transposition of an affect from one ob- 
ject, idea or person, to another. 
Trauma: Mental injury or shock. GLOSSARY 
383 
Unconscious: Mental processes of which we are un- 
aware and which cannot be brought to consciousness 
without external aid. 
Voyeurism: Erotic gratification experienced on looking 
at another person's private or secondary sexual parts; 
morbid desire to peep into secrets. 
Zoophilia: Love of animals. 
THE END