Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/11

Rh. This is further enhanced by the fact that the hysterical symptom is the symbolic expression of the realization of a repressed wish, and serves as a gratification for the patient. He strives very hard, unconsciously of course, to retain the symptom, as it is the only thing left to him from his former unattainable conscious wishes and strivings. The object of the psychanalytic treatment is to overcome all these resistances, and to reconduct to the patient's consciousness the thoughts underlying the symptoms. Here lies the greatest difficulty, for just as in the normal life and the dream, a psychoneurotic symptom is merely a symbolic or cryptic expression of the original repressed thoughts. Every hysterical symptom, every obsession, and every phobia, has a definite meaning, and as was shown by Bleuler, Jung, Riklin, and others, the same holds true for the psychoses proper.

To discover the hidden mechanism, one must make use of the author's developed method of interpretation, that is, one must look for symbolic actions, lapses in speech, memory, etc., and above all, one must resort to the analysis of dreams, as they give the most direct access to the unconscious. No one is really qualified to use or judge Freud's psychanalytic method who has not thoroughly mastered the Traumdeutung, the Psychopathologie des Alltagsleben, and the Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, and has not had considerable experience in analyzing his own and other's dreams and psychopathological actions. It is especially in the Traumdeutung that Freud has fully developed his psychanalytic technique and a perfect knowledge of which is the