December 26, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



929 



invents some substitute for the suppressed 

 memories, thus giving rise to the tics, paraly- 

 ses, pains, anesthesias and amnesias which 

 continually torment the patient, while occa- 

 sionally the repressed memories, bursting 

 through the barriers of suppression, take con- 

 trol of consciousness and produce the " at- 

 tack." 



The treatment of hysteria is, accordingly, 

 to discover the suppressed memories and 

 wishes, and satisfy them by " abreaction." 

 The wish must be dealt with in the full light 

 of consciousness. The reaction to it need not 

 be the direct accomplishment of the wish in 

 its original form, but may be " sublimated." 

 The reaction may consist in the quasi-sexual 

 relation between the (usually female) pa- 

 tient and the psychoanalyst, a relation care- 

 fully guarded and yet perfectly frank, in 

 which sexual wishes are openly acknowledged 

 and the memories connected with them are 

 ferreted out and rehearsed at length. It is to 

 the method adopted for ferreting out the re- 

 pressed wishes and memories that the term 

 " psychoanalysis " is most directly applied. 

 The plan is to remove the repression as far as 

 possible, and let the patient's thoughts move 

 freely, in the hope that they will move towards 

 what is repressed. Often a dream of the patient 

 is taken as the starting point, and he is asked 

 to let his thoughts play freely about the items 

 of the dream. This free play of thoughts is 

 called " free association " ; but since associa- 

 tion is seldom, if ever, perfectly free, the proc- 

 ess needs to be examined a little more closely 

 in order to find out what " control " is exerted 

 upon association. The subject is encouraged 

 to look for something emotionally significant 

 and for something which he is tempted to re- 

 press; eventually, his thoughts are steered in 

 a sexual direction. The operator, convinced 

 beforehand that this is the direction in which 

 fruitful results are to be found, more or less 

 overtly steers the patient's thoughts. This 

 analysis of the patient's subconscious wishes 

 and memories is a time-consuming process, 

 and of late there is an increasing tendency to 

 take short-cuts by the use of dream symbol- 

 ism. It appears that certain objects dreamed 



about, gardens, snakes, stairs and a host of 

 others, are fixed sexual symbols, and, being 

 so interpreted by the operator, enable him to 

 make rapid strides at the beginning of his 

 analysis. 



The above inadequate account of Freud's 

 teaching scarcely affords a basis for apprais-. 

 ing its scientific or practical value. At the 

 present time, the data are simply not at hand 

 for such an appraisal. Current discussion 

 of the doctrine has not yet reached the level 

 of scientific consideration. The opposition 

 has been characterized by derision and indig- 

 nation, and the counter-argumentation of the 

 Freudians by repartee rather than by evidence. 

 From the Freudian point of view, opposition 

 is to be expected because men are unwilling 

 to admit their own repressed complexes and 

 the extent to which their lives are domi- 

 nated by sex. This indicates the manner in 

 which Freudians handle their opponents, and 

 it is certainly not a manner calculated to lead 

 to dispassionate consideration. The result is 

 that there is not a point in the whole Freudian 

 system which can be regarded as either 

 proved or disproved. The evidence as pre- 

 sented by the Freudians is too full of jumps 

 and gaps to be logically convincing, and it 

 would seem that those who embrace the doc- 

 trine — as several eminent neurological prac- 

 titioners, especially in this country, have em- 

 braced it — have been not so much convinced 

 as converted — that they have adopted Freud- 

 ism as a faith, finding it justified by its works, 

 and desiring themselves to practise these 

 works. In other words, they have found the 

 treatment eiEcacious; and the principal argu- 

 ment in favor of the doctrine has been the 

 success of the treatment. (It should be said 

 that there are decidedly two opinions regard- 

 ing the value of the treatment, and the pres- 

 ent reviewer is in no position to pass judg- 

 ment in this matter.) The weakness of this 

 argument is that it would prove the truth of 

 many rival systems — animal magnetism. 

 Christian Science, " new thought," divine 

 healing. Yoga, osteopathy — each of which 

 meets with appreciable success in treating 

 hysterical and other neurotic cases. Consid- 



