Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/92

 346 JAMES S. VAN TESLAAR

that feature constitutes one ot tlie chief differences between it and the older psychology.

Even in that regard Freud's work is not altogether novel, ihe most radical departure is the serviceable, accurate conception of the qualities and forces of our psyche which he has formulated as the result of his recognition of the unconscious.

An illustration will make this matter clear. Suppose a person

has undergone a strong emotional experience— a sudden shock,

fright, some keen disappointment or painful loss. The reaction to

that experience will vary with the person's temperament, mental

status, and other conditions. Suppose the person in question is

highly nervous and the shock results in some degree of dissociation,

that is, in a loss from memory of certain parts of the experience.

This is a most frequent occurrence. In such cases, too, it is common

for some unreasonable and unaccountable fear to appear, the fear

being associated with some object or situation harmless in itself. [

For instance, the person in question may be afraid of closed doors,

or of open spaces, or of crowds or of being alone, or of some animal.

or person. The victim cannot account for this fear; cannot even tell I

when "it began or why it appeared. The fear may be partly over- j

come in the course of years. But the chances are rather that it will.

persist and that, all through his future life that person will go j

about more or less handicapped by that unreasonable fear. I have ■

chosen this example because it is a very common experience and ^

in its milder form may be found in every person's experience. {

If the victim of such a condition is helped to reestablish a free intercommunication of his ideas by regular periods of concen- tration upon the disturbing situation or idea or object which happens to become associated with his unreasonable fear, it will soon be evident that there is an intimate connection between the object of his fear and the unpleasant experience which became lost from ordinary consciousness. Through concentration of the mind around the disturbing object, thought, or image, and allowing all ideas which crop up in that connection to come to the surface (aided thereby by the counsel of the consulting psychologist), the afflicted person finds that the ideas evoked, at first scattered and coming as if by chance from nowhere in particular, point gradually and at last irresistibly to the particular event which, because of its painful or unpleasant character, had become excluded from con- sciousness. Following the ramification of the ideas as they crop