The following example, taken from Dr. Bernard Hart's paper on ' The Psychology of Freud and his School,' * gives an excellent illustration of the value of a word-association test in directing the physician's attention to an underlying complex: 'The patient from whom the series was obtained had, during a recent attack of depression, determined to commit suicide by drowning. The complex manifested itself in the associations which are italicized. These - 3, 6, 10, and 13 - are instances of increased reaction time; 13 shows a peculiarity in the reaction word itself.'

The psycho-analysis of dreams is made to subserve therapeutic uses by unveiling or diagnosing unconscious causes of disturbance, and while the diagnosis is in process the cure is being applied. Neurotic symptoms, as before stated, are constantly caused by the conflict between atavistic ideas and the civilized personality; the analysis is a means of liberating repression by speech, and, by enabling a man to understand himself psychically, forms a basis for reeducation.

* Journal of Mental Science, July, 1910.

The hysteric always unites his non-reacted affects with his infantile suppressed affects, and the morbid processes are seen in obsessions, phobias, psychic symbolic pain and pareses, etc. The psychoneuroses which may appear to be due to shock, overstrain, sorrow, or somatic causes, are no more determined by these than is the dream determined by the physical stimulus. The pre-existing psychic life of the neurotic allows precipitation or crystallization to take place round the experience of the moment, which thus acts as an exciting cause, and serves very well as an obvious explanation; but this does not exonerate the physician from searching into the subconscious for the buried causal factors.

Many years ago Freud described a form of hypnoid hysteria induced by dream states, akin to day dreams of normal persons, as potent in the causation of hysteria. These states are voluntarily induced, not with the intention of producing hysteria, but to obtain psychic comfort by substitution; and they result in a splitting of consciousness. Such dissociated states voluntarily induced show a tendency to associate among themselves, building up organized symptoms, which, though growing out of normal experiences and tendencies, are so altered, exaggerated, and unrelated to the ego, as to produce disharmony with environment. In certain persons there appears to be a congenital tendency to a want of synthesis (Janet); in others there are traumatic moments generally related to sexual experiences of infancy, which lie unrecognized in the subconscious and act as foreign bodies; in others an unbearable idea arises which the moral fibre of the personality censors or rejects, and determines to suppress by ' forgetting.' This suppression prevents a normal and healthy reaction, and, while it is harmless in some instances, in others it produces hysterical stigmata.

It lies in the unconscious ' like a lion couched, waiting its hour to spring '

- ready to attach itself to unreacted affects should they present themselves. It is as difficult to say why suppression should result in neurosis in one instance and not in another, as it is to explain why some persons pick up microbic infection while others under similar conditions remain free. This theory of repression is the kernel of Freud's psychology, and it is not surprising that the pathological moments are to be found in the sexual life; since, in view of the strength of the primary passions and the requirements of civilized life, here is found the battleground of man's fiercest conflicts.

Direct man's passions and energies well, and he mounts towards heaven; suppress, pervert, and distort them, and he plunges towards hell. The findings of psycho-analysis are objected to because, as expounded by Freud, they are described as rank determinism. Be this as it may, a recognition of facts makes the teacher or physician provide so far as possible the right determining influences. In nothing is this so important as in the matter of education. If, as is claimed, the life of infants and young children under five is so much richer in sexual experiences than was supposed, it is better to face facts; exercise more watchful care, eliminate the opportunities for perversion, be ready with suitable distractions, and discourage unhealthy dependence. It is clear that certain practical points arise even should judgment be suspended and the case for Freud's psychology be considered 'not proven.' Environment is of the utmost importance. The inculcating of healthy physical habits should be by practical example as well as by precept. The wise supervision of children is necessary; not that of the unthinking mother who says to the nurse: 'Find out what Master Tommy is doing, and tell him he mustn't.' It should not consist in forbiddings, but in invitations to well-selected activities.

The coddling of only children, and the over-preciousness of the members of small families, tend to build up instability of character and overdevelopment of the emotional side of the child. Day-dreaming, moodiness, and brooding, should be checked and exchanged for interesting activities. The guardians and young companions of children should be chosen, so far as may be, with the same discrimination as is shown in the choice of right books. If it is desired to inculcate good taste in literature, it is not achieved by forbidding inferior books, but by the provision of desirable ones. It is clear that no knowledge or endowment, intellectual, moral, or physical, that can be brought to the making of a child, will be wasted from the point of view of psycho-analysis.

Other special times of psycho-sexual importance in the life of the individual are adolescence (a period of several years) and the involutionary processes of the climacteric in both sexes.

In the education of girls, it is no longer considered necessary to devote too much time to needlework, * which, Freud says, † offers so much opportunity for reveries, from which hypnoid hysteria often develops. But the repression under which so many are educated has a bearing upon the greater prevalence of hysteria among women. Taken all round, the sexual life of a woman, though less recognized than that of a man, is no less imperative and no less delicately poised. In education, what is required for both sexes is that energy should be well directed, not rigorously suppressed; and so intimately are the interests of men and women combined that one sex cannot be benefited without benefiting the other, nor can their interests stand in opposition when Nature has decreed otherwise.