New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-07-18
r T seems impossible to escape being
spattered by those who have
taken the Ereudian nlunre. Aud

taken the Freudian plunge. And
it is perhaps little more exhil-
arating to get in and splash too than to
sit on the brink and get a chilly soak
ing with secondary drops o. hn.v.~>.., :.
"a General Introduction to Psychic
analysis" by the great Sigmund Freud
himself, has the final effect OF sweeping
aside the obscuring debris of interpret
ers who have for so long stood between
Freud and the unscientific reader Freud
has seen strange versions Of his theory
go abroad through leaving the popular
exposition of it to his disciples. These
lectures make his authentic path through
the jungle of raw facts, the intricate
windings of scientific processes, wide
enough for the layman to follow.
Nothing more dynamic, nothing more
far-reaching or persuasive in it's effec.
Aon philosophy and art has occurred in
modern thinking since the Darwinian
theory than these discoveries of Freud.
his findings wholly as system of
therapy. He is keenly enough aware
that his technique is immensely sugges-
tive and adaptable to the uses of phi
these popular terms is an offer of it to
the general uses of the world-but it is
characteristic of him that he will him.
self not be districted to any bypaa:l
of speculation.
Freud came upon his discoveries
through his investigations into nervous
disorders. In tracing abnormal psychic
phenomena to its source he came upon
notivations latent in and fundamental
to all human beings, which proves the
conscious life of the individual merely
the instrument of q more powerful sub
merged life. This motivation is the SEX
impulse, and to the literal Interpretation
of this Freud holds far more tenaciously
than any of those who have followed
and supplemented him,
There are enough of the catci
phrases of psychoanalysis current /,
make the gradually unfolding proc
csses by which, in these lectures, he
discloses the ma;n facts of psyche
analysis to the understanding of the
elementary student seem punctuatea
with landmarks. And yet it is not until
the tenth lecture that one hears the
familiar word complex" For while
in his own experience Freud penetrated
to the unconscious by progressing
from the exceptional neurotic to the
common manifestation, in giving back
his findings to the world he proceeds
from the normal to the abnormal--and
his lectures cease at the point where
his theory becomes the property of the
specialist in the neurotic
But, clearly and inexorably, the
amazing, the intricate thread of psychic
vitality which connects the normal
human being with the protoplasm I'M
winds itself through the manipulation
Of the dream, which is the psychoan-
aiyst's key to the unconscious. The
dream, says Freud, far from being the
. disturber Of sleep which it is popularity
supposed 10 De, is the guardian OF steep.
Through it the unfulfilled wish, which
would otherwise be unbearably tor
mentng in the allegiance of will at
tendant upon sleep. finds expression in
fantasy. 1t does not find uncontrolled
expression, because there is remnant
of will left even in sleep which forces
the wish, if it is one which the in
dividual in waking would not care to
own, to mask itself The dream may
seem to derive directly from the hap
penings of the day, but it will in its