212 CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE 



psychoanalysis, rightly understood, is a method of treat- 

 ment based on the recognition of a psychic conflict in the 

 life of the patient arising precisely from his inherent re- 

 vulsion against the artificial inhibitions which are imposed 

 on him under the constitution of society. The conflict is 

 therefore a social one. 



It would seem, then, that we all have within us the 

 elements of the neurotic diathesis; that the difference 

 between the normal and the neurotic is more a matter 

 of circumstances than of constitution; that the interval 

 between the two is proportional rather than generic. 



If, therefore, psychoanalysis, unlike the gently concilia- 

 tory procedures characteristic of other forms of psycho- 

 therapy, is a method whose specific task it is to lay bare 

 the pious devices through which we seek to evade life's 

 sterner verities, we shall very naturally incline to resent 

 it as an impertinent intrusion. Indeed, it requires no small 

 measure of courage to view with equanimity the unwel- 

 come factors which psychoanalysis thrusts before our 

 eyes. 



It is, then, because of the essential significance of 

 psychoanalysis, with its open hostility to the wide social 

 repression of those insatiate biologic demands which be- 

 long, broadly speaking, to the sexual sphere, and the 

 consequent affront it offers to our habitual sense of out- 

 ward reserve, that I am led to utter a warning lest in 

 estimating the value of this inimical method we allow 

 traditional prejudice to distort our judgment. 



The psychoanalytic method, introduced by Sigmund 

 Freud, is, of course, concerned solely with the treatment 

 of nervous disorders. In reality the term "nervousness" 

 or "neurosis," as commonly applied, is etymologically mis- 

 leading, for the morbid condition involved in such psychic 

 disturbances is not neural ; it is moral. There is question 

 not of a disease of the tissues but of a disharmony of the 

 personality ; not of a lesion of organs but of a schism of 

 consciousness. We are dealing not with the pathology of 



