PSYCHOANALYSIS: FREUDIAN SCHOOL. In the
years 1880–82 a Viennese physician, Dr. Josef Breuer (1842–
1925), discovered a new procedure by means of which he relieved
a girl, who was suffering from severe hysteria, of her various
symptoms. The idea occurred to him that the symptoms were
connected with impressions which she had received during a
period of excitement while she was nursing her sick father. He
therefore induced her, while she was in a state of hypnotic som-
nambulism, to search for these connections in her memory and to
live through the “pathogenic” scenes once again without inhibit-
ing the effects that arose in the process. He found that when she
had done this the symptoms in question disappeared for good.
 

This was at a date before the investigations of Charcot and
Pierre Janet into the origin of hysterical symptoms, and Breuer’s

PSYCHOANALYSIS
 

673
 

discovery was thus entirely uninfluenced by them. But he did
not pursue the matter any further at the time, and it was not
until some 10 years later that he took it up again in collaboration
with Sigmund Freud. In 1895 they published a book. Studien
über Hysterie, in which Breuer's discoveries were described and
an attempt was made to explain them by the theory of Catharsis.
According to that hypothesis, hysterical symptoms originate
through the energy of a mental process being withheld from con-
scious influence and being diverted into bodily innervation ("Con-
version"). A hysterical symptom would thus be a substitute for
an omitted mental act and a reminiscence of the occasion which
should have given rise to that act. And, on this view, recovery
would be a result of the liberation of the affect that had gone
astray and of its discharge along a normal path ("Abreaction").
Cathartic treatment gave excellent therapeutic results, but it was
found that they were not permanent and that they were dependent
on the personal relation between the patient and the physician.
Freud, who later proceeded with these investigations by himself,
made an alteration in their technique, by replacing hypnosis by
the method of free association. He invented the term "psycho-
analysis," which in the course of time came to have two meanings:
(1) a particular method of treating nervous disorders and (2) the
science of unconscious mental processes, which has also been
appropriately described as "depth-psychology."
 

Subject Matter of Psychoanalysis.-Psychoanalysis finds a
constantly increasing amount of support as a therapeutic pro-
cedure, owing to the fact that it can do more for certain classes
of patients than any other method of treatment. The principal
field of its application is in the milder neuroses-hysteria, pho-
bias and obsessional states, but in malformations of character
and in sexual inhibitions or abnormalities it can also bring about
marked improvements or even recoveries. Its influence upon
dementia praecox and paranoia is doubtful; on the other hand,
in favourable circumstances it can cope with depressive states,
even if they are of a severe type.
  

In every instance the treatment makes heavy claims upon both
the physician and the patient: the former requires a special
training, and must devote a long period of time to exploring the
mind of each patient, while the latter must make considerable
sacrifices, both material and mental. Nevertheless, all the trouble
involved is as a rule rewarded by the results. Psychoanalysis does
not act as a convenient panacea ("cito, tute, jucunde") upon all
psychological disorders. On the contrary, its application has been
instrumental in making clear for the first time the difficulties and
limitations in the treatment of such affections.
 

The therapeutic results of psychoanalysis depend upon the re-
placement of unconscious mental acts by conscious ones and are
operative in so far as that process has significance in relation to
the disorder under treatment. The replacement is effected by
overcoming internal resistances in the patient's mind. The future
will probably attribute far greater importance to psychoanalysis
as the science of the unconscious than as a therapeutic procedure.
Depth-Psychology.-Psychoanalysis, in its character of depth-
psychology, considers mental life from three points of view: the
dynamic, the economic and the topographical.
 

From the first of these standpoints, the dynamic one, psycho-
analysis derives all mental processes (apart from the reception of
external stimuli) from the interplay of forces, which assist or in-
hibit one another, combine with one another, enter into compro-
mises with one another, etc. All of these forces are originally in
the nature of instincts; that is to say, they have an organic origin.
They are characterised by possessing an immense (somatic) per-
sistence and reserve of power ("repetition-compulsion"); and
they are represented mentally as images or ideas with an affective
charge ("cathexis"). In psychoanalysis, no less than in other
sciences, the theory of instincts is an obscure subject. An empirical
analysis leads to the formation of two groups of instincts: the
so-called "ego-instincts," which are directed towards self-preserva-
tion and the "object-instincts," which are concerned with rela-
tions to an external object. The social instincts are not regarded
as elementary or irreducible. Theoretical speculation leads to the
suspicion that there are two fundamental instincts which lie con-

cealed behind the manifest ego-instincts and object-instincts;
namely (a) Eros, the instinct which strives for ever closer union,
and (b) the instinct for destruction, which leads toward the dis-
solution of ties. It is in the psychic sphere the manifestation of
the force of Eros is given the name “libido.”
Pleasure-Pain Principle.—From the economic standpoint
psychoanalysis recognizes that the mental manifestations of the
instincts have a catheris of definite quantities of energy, and that
it is the purpose of the mental apparatus to hinder any damag-
ing I N C R E A S E of this quota of energy, or to keep the total
amount of the excitations to which it is subject. The course of
mental processes is automatically regulated by the “pleasure-pain
principle,” that is, it is bound in some way to lead to an increase of
excitation and pleasure to a decrease. In the course of develop-
ment the original pleasure principle undergoes a modification with
reference to the external world, and is given the “reality
principle,” whereby the mental apparatus learns to postpone the
pleasure of satisfaction and to tolerate temporarily feelings of
pain.
Mental Topography—Topographically, psychoanalysis re-
gards the mental apparatus as a composite instrument, and
endeavors to determine at what points in it the various mental
processes take place. According to the most recent psychoanalytic
theories, the mental apparatus is composed of an **“id,”** which is the
reservoir of the instinctive impulses, of an **“ego”** which is the
most superficial portion of the id and one which is modified by
the influence of the external world, and of a **“super-ego,”** which
develops out of the id, dominates the ego and represents the
inhibitions of instinct characteristic of man. Further, the property
is ascribed to these two topographic conceptions, that parts of
the id are entirely unconscious, while consciousness is the function
of the ego’s outermost layers, while consciousness is the per-
ception of the external world.
At this point two observations may be in place. It must not
be supposed that these very general ideas are presuppositions
upon which the work of psychoanalysis depends. On the con-
trary, they are its latest conclusions and are in every respect open
to revision. Psychoanalysts are occupied primarily upon the close
vision of the facts of mental life; and for that very reason its
theoretical superstructure is still incomplete and subject to con-
stant alterations. Secondly, there is no schism as yet in the ranks
of psychoanalysis, which was originally no more than an attempt
at explaining pathological mental phenomena, should have devel-
oped into a conception of the normal mental life. The difficulty
for this arose with the discovery that the dreams and mistakes
(**“parapraxis,”** such as slips of the tongue, etc.) of normal men
show the same mechanisms as in the neuroses.
Theoretical Basis.—The first task of psychoanalysis was the
elucidation of nervous disorders. The analytical theory of the
neuroses is based upon three strongly utilized conceptions:
(1) “repression,” (2) the importance of the sexual instincts and
(3) “transference.”
Censorship.—There is a force in the mind which exercises the
functions of a censorship, and which excludes from consciousness
and from any influence upon action all impulses, which it con-
siders as undesirable, and which it then stores in the domain of the
unconscious; and if the physician attempts to bring them into the
patients’ consciousness, he encounters **“resistance.”** These repressed
instinctual impulses, however, are not always made powerless by
this process. In many cases they succeed in making their influence
felt from the unconscious, and it is indeed a complete manifesta-
tion of repressed impulses is what constitutes neurotic symptoms.
Sexual Instincts.—For clinical reasons the most intensive
researches from all the mental instincts but it is merely in
connection with them that repression most easily miscarries, so
that neurotic symptoms are caused by a reproductive G E M I S C H
made of repressed sexual. The belief that is, when sexual life
begins only at puberty is incorrect. On the contrary, signs of it
can be detected from the very start of extra-uterine existence. It
reaches a first culminating point at or before the fifth year (**“early
period”**), after which it is inhibited or interrupted (**“latency
period”**) until the age of puberty, which is the second climax of

PSYCHOGALVANIC REFLEX
 

its development. This double onset of sexual development seems
to be distinctive of the human race. All experiences during the
first period of childhood are of the greatest importance to the
individual, and in combination with his inherited sexual constitu-
tion, form the conditions for the subsequent development of
character or disease. It is a mistaken belief that sexually con-
cerned with **“genitality.”** The sexual life is concerned with a com-
plicated course of development, and it is only at the end of it
that the **“primacy of the genital zone”** is attained. Before this
there are a number of pre-genital organizations of the instincts,
points at which it may become **“fixated”** and to which, in the
event of subsequent repression, it will return (**“regression”**). The
infantile neuroses of the first years are ascribed to the fact that the
repression, which sets in during the latency period, leaves **“l
i b i d o”** with the neurons where it is to be regarded
as inhibitions in the development of the libido.
**The Oedipus Complex.**—Where are the specific causes of
nervous disorders; the question whether a conflict finds a healthy
solution or leads to a neurotic inhibition of function depends
upon a quantitative consideration, that is, upon the proportion of
the forces concerned. The most important conflict with which
a small child is faced is his relation to his parents, the **“Oedipus
complex”**; it is in consequence to this conflict that all
persons destined to suffer from a neurosis habitually fail. The
reactions against the instinctual demands of the Oedipus complex
are the source of the most precious and socially important achieve-
ments of the human mind; and this probably holds true not only
in the life of individuals but also in the history of the human
species as a whole. The **“super-ego,”** the moral factor which domi-
nates the ego, also has its origin in the process of overcoming the
Oedipus complex.
**Transference.**—By **“transference”** is meant a striking peculiar-
ity of neurotics. They develop toward their physician emotional
relations, both of an affectionate and of a hostile nature, which are
not based upon the actual situation but are derived from their
relations toward their parents (the Oedipus complex). Trans-
ference is the core of the psychoanalytic procedure. Upon it
(former childish dependence) it coincides with the force which has
been created **“suggestion”**; and it is only by learning to make use
of it that the analyst is enabled to induce the patient to over-
come his internal resistances and do away with his repressions.
Thus psychoanalytic treatment acts as a second education of the
adult to restore the formation of a moral character.
Within this narrow compass it has not been possible to men-
tion many matters of the greatest interest, as for example the
**“denial”** of instincts, the part played by symbolism, the problem of
**“ambivalence,”** etc. Nor has there been space to allude to the
applications of psychoanalysis, which certainly are not least
in the sphere of medicine, to other departments of knowledge
(such as anthropology, the study of religion, literary history
and education). Psychoanalysis is an intellectual acquisition
strong enough to exist. In its character of the psychol-
ogy of the deepest, unconscious mental acts, promises to become
an indispensable part of all human knowledge.
**The Psychoanalytic Movement.**—The beginnings of psycho-
analysis may be marked by two dates: 1895, which saw the pub-
lication of Breuer’s and Freud’s **“Studies in Hysteria,”** and 1900, which
saw that of Freud’s **“Traumdeutung.”** At first the new dis-
coveries aroused no interest, either as a medical profession or
among the general public. In 1907 the Swiss psychiatrists, under
the leadership of E. Bleuler and C. G. Jung, began to concern
themselves with the subject; and in 1908 there took place in Salzburg
a first meeting of adherents from a number of different coun-
tries. In 1909 Freud and Jung were invited to America by G.
Stanley Hall to give a course of lectures on psychoanalysis at
Clark University, Worcester, Mass. From that time forward in-
terest in Europe grew rapidly; it showed itself, however, in a
marked resistance to the new doctrines, a phenomenon of an emo-
tional colouring which sometimes bordered upon the unscientific.
The reasons for this hostility are to be found, from the moral
point of view, in the fact that psychoanalysis does not veil
psychical factors, and from the philosophical point of view, in its
insisting as an underlying postulate the concept of unconscious

mental activity; but the strongest reason was undoubtedly the
general disinclination of mankind to concede to the factor of sex-
uality such importance as is assigned to it by psychoanalysis.
In spite of this widespread opposition, however, the movement in
favour of psychoanalysis was not to be checked. Its adherents
formed themselves into an **International Association**, which
passed successfully through the ordeal of the World War, and at
the present time comprises local groups in Vienna, Berlin, Buda-
pest, London, Switzerland, Holland, Moscow and Calcutta, as
well as two in the United States. There are three journals repre-
senting the views of these societies: the *Internationale Zeitschrift
für Psychoanalyse*, *Imago* (which is concerned with the applica-
tion of psychoanalysis to non-medical fields of knowledge), and
the *International Journal of Psycho-Analysis*.
 

During the years 1911–13 two former adherents, Alfred Adler,
of Vienna, and C. G. Jung, of Zürich, seceded from the psycho-
analytic movement and founded schools of thought of their own.
In 1921 Dr. M. Eitingon founded in Berlin the first public psycho-
analytic clinic and training school, and this was soon followed by
a second in Vienna. (See **A B N O R M A L P S Y C H O L O G Y**.)

**BIBLIOGRAPHY**.—Breuer and Freud, *Studien über Hysterie* (1895);
Freud, *Traumdeutung* (1900), *Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens*
(1904), *Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie* (1905); *Vorlesungen zur
Einführung in die Psychoanalyse* (1916). Freud’s complete works have
been published in Spanish (*Obras completas*) (1924), and German
(*Gesammelte Schriften*) (1925); the greater part of them has been
translated into English and other languages. Short accounts of the
subject-matter and history of psychoanalysis will be found in: Freud,
*Ueber Psychoanalyse* (the lectures delivered at Worcester, U.S.A.)
(1909); *Zur Geschichte der psychoanalytischen Bewegung* (1914);
*Selbstdarstellung* (in Grote’s collection *Die Medizin der Gegenwart*)
(1925). Particularly accessible to English readers are: A. A. Brill,
*Psycho-Analysis* (1922); Ernest Jones, *Papers on Psycho-Analysis*
(1923). (S. Fr.)