Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/36

 290 H, VON HUG-HELLMUTH

Happy Returns of the Day. As he had an impediment in his speech he also accepted quite trustingly the further explanation that I would teach him to speak distinctly, and he actually tried himself to speak more clearly.

The mother of an eleven year old boy, who lived completely iB his phantasies and dreams, chose, without my sanction, a form of introduction which I thought might have proved harmful. She said that a friend of hers was very much interested in children's dreams and would like him to talk to her about his own. How- ever the course of the analysis convinced me that no harm had been done, for the somewhat artificial accounts of dreams given in the beginning were after all only reflections of his conscious and unconscious day-dreams.

No rule can be laid down for the appropriate moment to tell the patient the aim of these talks; experience and personal tact are the only reliable guides.

In close connection with the above matter is the formulating of the obligations which must be carried out by the adult patient at the beginning as a sine qua non if a cure is to be effected. Right from the beginning one understands that in the case of the second type of psycho-analytic patients one must abandon the de- mand for absolute openness, and uncensored expression of every- thing which comes into the mind, and instead put forward this obligation only at some favourable opportunity. In the case of the first-mentioned group, however, those more mature young people who often have already had instruction concerning psycho-ana- lysis from some other member of the family who has already undergone treatment, it is often suitable in the very first hour to demand that they shall be completely frank and shall not talk over the treatment with their comrades, their brothers and sisters, or other members of the family. Of course, in connection with this enjoining of secrecy, we must not overlook that commands and prohibitions are the very means of tempting the young to transgress.

The period of time devoted to the child's analysis is generally conditioned by the attendance at school, which the parents do ot want on any account to be shortened. Apart from the few cases where the young patient has special difficulties in preserving the continuity, I have always found that three or four hours a week, if the analysis is carried on long enough, leads to

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