Freud, S (1926) Psycho-Analysis Encyclopædia Britannica

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THE 
ENCYCLOPÆDIA 
BRITANNICA 
THIRTEENTH EDITION 
1926 
VOLUME Ill 
PACIFIC - ZUYDER ZEE 
THE 
ENCYCLOPADIA BRITANNICA 
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, 
SCIENCES, LITERATURE 
© GENERAL INFORMATION 
The Three New Supplementary Volumes 
constituting with the Volumes of the 
Latest Standard Edition 
THE THIRTEENTH EDITION, 
VOLUME III 
PACIFIC to ZUYDER ZEE 
and INDEX 
LONDON. 
THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA COMPANY, LTD. 
NEW YORK. 
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA, INC. 
PSYCHOANALYSIS: FREUDIAN SCHOOL 
BIBLIOGRAPHY. —Sir Oliver Lodge, Raymond (1916); Papers by 
Mrs. Sidgwick, Miss Radclyffe-Hall, Una, Lady Troubridge and 
a in S. P. R. Proc., vol. 28 (1915), 30 (1920), 32 (1922), 35 
1925). 
Conscious DESIGN 
That telepathy impaired the evidence of survival derived from 
trance-communications was recognised by Myers and the other 
founders of the Society for Psychical Research, and it is of inter- 
est that evidence of a kind not readily explicable by telepathy 
first began to appear shortly after Myers’ death, and ostensibly 
on his inspiration, in the form of “ cross-correspondences ”’ in 
automatic writing. It was found that several automatists, writ- 
ing without knowledge of each other’s scripts, would each pro- 
duce fragmentary allusions to some topic. Taken separately 
the scripts meant little, but when compared the fragments fitted 
together to form a complex whole. There secmed a substratum 
of conscious design, not originating with any single automatist, 
or, as far as could be ascertained or imagined, with any other 
living mind, and accordingly supporting the claim, frequently 
made in the scripts, that they originated in a particular discar- 
nate mind or group of minds (S.P.R. Proc., vol. 20, 1906, et 
seg.). In one instance, however (the “ Sevens” Case, S.P.R, 
Proc. vol. 25, 1911), the mind of a living person seems to some 
extent at least to have influenced the scripts. 
Further evidence of design is afforded by the literary puzzles 
contained in automatic scripts of which the “ Ear of Dionysius ” 
is the most remarkable (see Mr. Gerald Balfour’s paper, S. P.R. 
Proc., vol. 29, 1918). In this case the automatic writings of a 
lady with little classical knowledge set out piecemeal and very 
allusively the story of the obscure Greek poet Philoxenus. Prob- 
ably the majority of those who have taken honours in the Classi- 
cal Tripos or “‘ Mods ”’ could not give the full story as recounted 
in the scripts; in fact, it is only to be found in one English book, 
a book never seen by the automatist, but known to have been 
possessed and used by the distinguished classical scholar, then 
dead, from whom the scripts purported to come. 
These cross-correspondences and literary puzzles are difficult 
reading, a tangle of recondite literary allusions, but no student 
of the literature of survival should be deterred thereby from giv- 
ing them careful consideration. If they have heen correctly 
interpreted, they suggest the survival of a mind capable of origi- 
nating and carrying out an elaborate plan, something more than 
the persistence of a psychic factor, which Dr. C. D. Broad is 
willing to concede (see The Mind and Its Place in Nature, 
1925). 
BIBLIOGRAPItTY.—General. Particular volumes of the Proc. Soc. 
Psy. Res. and American Proc. Soc. Psy. Res. have been quoted 
but the whole series is important. On the Continent Zeitschrift fiir 
Parapsychologie and Zeit f. Kritischen Okkultesmus ably represent 
the two main schools of thought. 
see also E. Osty, La connaissance supra-normale (1923); C. Richet, 
Tratté de métapsychique (1923); M. Dessoir, Der Okkultismus in 
Urkunden, Part 2 (1925); H.Driesch, The Crisis in Psychology (1925). 
F. Schrenck-Notzing, Materializations-Phaenomene (1914); Physi- 
kalische phaenomene des Medinmismus (1920); W. J. Crawford, The 
Psychic Structures at the Goligher Circle (1921); “ Reports on Eva C., 
Willy Schneider, ete.,”’ Proc. Soc. Psy. Res., vol. 32 (1922) and 35 
(1925); G. Geley, L'Ectoplasmie et la Clairvoyance (1924); M. Dessoir 
Der Okkultismus in Urkunden (1925). (W. H. S.) 
PSYCHOANALYSIS: FREUDIAN SCHOOL.—In the years 
1880-2 a Viennese physician, Dr. Josef Breuer (1842-1925), dis- 
covered a new procedure by means of which he relieved a girl, 
who was suffering from severe hysteria, of her various symptoms. 
The idea occurred to him that the symptoms were connected 
with impressions which she had received during a period of ex- 
citement while she was nursing her sick father. He therefore 
induced her, while she was ina state of hypnotic somnambulism, 
to search for these connections in her memory and to live through 
the ‘‘ pathogenic” scenes once again without inhibiting the 
affects that arose in the process. He found that when she had 
done this the symptom in question disappeared for good. 
This was at a date before the investigations of Charcot and 
Pierre Janet into the origin of hysterical symptoms, and Breuer’s 
discovery was thus entirely uninfluenced by them. But he did 
253 
not pursue the matter any further at the time, and it was not 
until some 10 years later that he took it up again in collaboration 
with Sigmund Freud. In 1895 they published a book, Studien 
tiber Hysterie, in which Breuer’s discoveries were described and 
an attempt was made to explain them by the theory of Catharsis. 
According to that hypothesis, hysterical symptoms originate 
through the energy of a mental process being withheld from 
conscious influence and being diverted into bodily innervation 
(° Conversion’). A hysterical symptom would thus be a sub- 
stitute for an omitted mental act and a reminiscence of the occa- 
sion which should have given rise to that act. And, on this view, 
recovery would be a result of the liberation of the affect that had 
gone astray and of its discharge along a normal path (“Abre- 
action ”). Cathartic treatment gave excellent therapeutic re- 
sults, but it was found that they were not permanent and that 
they were dependent on the personal relation between the patient 
and the physician. Freud, who later proceeded with these in- 
vestigations by himself, made an alteration in their technique, 
by replacing hypnosis by the method of free association. He 
invented the term “psychoanalysis, which in the course of 
time came to have two meanings: (1) a particular method of 
treating nervous disorders and (2) the science of unconscious 
mental processes, which has also been appropriately described 
as “ depth-psychology.” 
Subject Matter of Psychoanalysis.—Psychoanalysis finds a 
constantly increasing amount of support as a therapcutic pro- 
cedure, owing to the fact that it can do more for certain classes 
of patients than any other method of treatment. The principal 
field of its application is in the milder neuroses—hysteria, pho- 
bias and obsessional states, but in malformations of character 
and in sexual inhibitions or abnormalities it can also bring about 
marked improvements or even recoveries. Its influence upon 
dementia praecox and paranoia is doubtful; on the other hand, 
infavourable circumstances it can cope with depressive states, 
even if they are of a severe type. 
In every instance the treatment makes heavy claims upon both 
the physician and the patient: the former requires a special 
training, and must devote a long period of time to exploring the 
mind of each patient, while the latter must make considerable 
sacrifices, both material and mental. Nevertheless, all the trouble 
involved is as a rule rewarded by the results. Psychoanalysis 
does not act as a convenient panacea (‘‘cito, tute, Jucunde’’) 
upon all psychological disorders. On the contrary, its applica- 
tion has been instrumental in making clear for the first time the 
difficulties and limitations in the treatment of such affections. 
The therapeutic results of psychoanalysis depend upon the 
replacement of unconscious mental acts by conscious ones and 
are operative in so far as that process has significance in relationto the disorder under treatment. The replacement is effected 
by overcoming internal resistances in the patient’s mind. The 
future will probably attribute far greater importance to psycho- 
analysis as the science of the unconscious than as a therapeutic 
procedure. 
De pth-psychology.—Psychoanalysis, in its character of depth- 
psychology, considers mental life from three points of view: the 
dynamic, the economic and the topographical. 
From the first of these standpoints, the dynamic one, psycho- 
analysis derives all mental processes (apart from the reception 
of external stimuli) from the interplay of forces, which assist or 
inhibit one another, combine with one another, enter into com- 
promises with one another, etc. All of these forces are originally 
in the nature of instincts; that is to say, they have an organic 
origin. They are characterised by possessing an immense (so- 
matic) persistence and reserve of power (“‘repetition-compul- 
sion’); and they are represented mentally as images or ideas 
with an affective charge (‘ cathexis ’). In psychoanalysis, no 
less than in other sciences, the theory of instincts is an obscure 
subject. An empirical analysis leads to the formation of two 
groups of instincts: the so-called ‘‘ ego-instincts,’’ which are 
directed towards self-preservation and the “ object-instincts,” 
which are concerned with relations to an external object. The 
social instincts are not regarded as elementary or irreducible. 
254 PSYCHOANALYSIS: 
Theoretical speculation leads to the suspicion that there are 
two fundamental instincts which lie concealed behind the mani- 
fest ego-instincts and object-instincts: namely (a) Eros, the 
instinct which strives for ever closer union, and (b) the instinct 
of destruction, which leads toward the dissolution of what is 
living. In psychoanalysis the manifestation of the force of Eros 
is given the name “‘ /ibido.”’ 
Pleasure-Pain Principle. —From the economic standpoint 
psychoanalysis supposes that the mental representations of the 
instincts have a cathexis of definite quantities of energy, and that 
it is the purpose of the mental apparatus to hinder any dam- 
ming-up of these energies and to keep as low as possible the total 
amount of the excitations to which it is subject. The course of 
mental processes is automatically regulated by the “ pleasure- 
puin principle ”; and pain is thus in some way related to an in- 
crease of excitation and pleasure to a decrease. In the course of 
development the original pleasure principle undergoes a modifi- 
cation with reference to the external world, giving place to the 
““veality-princtple,’? whereby the mental apparatus learns to post- 
pone the pleasure of satisfaction and to tolerate temporarily 
feelings of pain. 
Mental Topography.—Tepographically, psychoanalysis re- 
gards the mental apparatus as a composite instrument, and 
endeavours to determine at what points in it the various mental 
processes take place. According to the most recent psycho- 
analytic views, the mental apparatus is composed of an “ 7d,” 
which is the reservoir of the instinctive impulses, of an “ego,” 
which is the most superficial portion of the id and one which is 
modified by the influence of the external world, and of a “ super- 
ego,’ which develops out of the id, dominates the ego and repre- 
sents the inhibitions of instinct characteristic of man. Further, 
the property of consciousness has a topographical reference; for 
processes in the id are entirely unconscious, while consciousness is 
the function of the ego’s outermost layer, which is concerned 
with the perception of the external world. 
At this point two observations may be In place. It must not 
be supposed that these very general ideas are presuppositions 
upon which the work of psychoanalysis depends. On the con- 
trary, they are its latest conclusions and are in every respect open 
to revision. Psychoanalysis is founded securely upon the obser- 
vation of the facts of mental life; and for that very reason its 
theoretical superstructure is still incomplete and subject to con- 
stant alteration. Secondly, there is no reason for astonishment 
that psychoanalysis, which was originally no more than an 
attempt at explaining pathological mental phenomena, should 
have developed into a psychology of normal mental hfe. The 
justification for this arose with the discovery that the dreams 
and mistakes (‘‘ para praxes,”’ such as slips of the tongue, etc.) of 
normal men have the same mechanism as neurotic symptoms. 
Theoretical Basis —The first task of psychoanalysis was the 
elucidation of nervous disorders. The analytical theory of the 
neuroses is based upon three ground-pillars: the recognition of 
(1) “‘ repression,” of (2) the importance of the sexual instincts 
and of (3) ‘ transference.” 
Censorship.—tThere is a force in the mind which exercises the 
functions of a censorship, and which excludes from consciousness 
and from any influence upon action all tendencies which dis- 
please it. Such tendencies are described as “ repressed.” They 
remain unconscious; and if the physician attempts to bring them 
into the patient’s consciousness he provokes a “ resistance.” 
These repressed instinctual impulses, however, are not always 
made powerless by this process. In many cases they succeed in 
making their influence felt by circuitous paths, and the indirect 
or substitutive gratification of repressed impulses is what con- 
stitutes neurotic symptoms. 
Sexual Instincts ——For cultural reasons the most intensive 
repression falls upon the sexual instincts; but it is precisely in 
connection with them that repression most easily miscarries, so 
that neurotic symptoms are found to be substitutive gratifica- 
tions of repressed sexuality. The belief that in man sexual life 
begins only at puberty is incorrect. On the contrary, signs of it 
can be detected from the beginning of extra-uterine existence; it 
FREUDIAN SCHOOL 
reaches a first culminating point at or before the fifth year 
(“ early period ”), after which it is inhibited or interrupted 
(“latency period”) until the age of puberty, which is the second 
climax of its development. This double onset of sexual develop- 
ment seems to be distinctive of the genus Homo. All experiences 
during the first period of childhood are of the greatest importance 
to the individual, and in combination with his inherited sexual 
constitution, form the dispositions for the subsequent develop- 
ment of character or disease. It is a mistaken belief that sexuality 
coincides with “genitality.””. The sexual instincts pass through 
a complicated course of development, and it is only at the end 
of it that the “ primacy of the genital zone ” is attained. Before 
this there are a number of ‘ pre-genital organisations ”’ of the 
libido—points at which it may become “ fixated ” and to which, 
in the event of subsequent repression, it will return (“ regres- 
sion’), The infantile fixations of the libido are what determine 
the form of neurosis which sets in later. Thus the neuroses are 
to be regarded as inhibitions in the development of the libido. 
The Ocdipus Complex.—There are no specific causes of nerv- 
ous disorders; the question whether a conflict finds a healthy 
solution or leads to a neurotic inhibition of function depends 
upon quantitative considerations, that is, upon the relative 
strength of the forces concerned. The most important conflict 
with which a small child is faced is his relation to his parents, 
the “ Oedipus complex ”; it is in attempting to grapple with this 
problem that persons destined to suffer from a neurosis habitu- 
ally fail. The reactions against the instinctual demands of the 
Oedipus complex are the source of the most precious and socially 
important achievements of the human mind; and this probably 
holds true not only in the life of individuals but also in the history 
of the human species as a whole. The super-ego, the moral factor 
which dominates the ego,also has its origin in the process of 
overcoming the Oedipus complex. 
Transfercnce.—By “ transference” is meant a striking peculiar- 
ity of neurotics. They develop toward their physician emotional 
relations, both of an affectionate and hostile character, which 
are not based upon the actual situation but are derived from their 
relations toward their parents (the Oedipus complex). Trans- 
ference is a proof of the fact that adults have not overcome their 
former childish dependence; it coincides with the force which 
has been named “ suggestion’; and it is only by learning to 
make use of it that the physician is enabled to induce the patient 
to overcome his internal resistances and do away with his repres- 
sions. Thus psychoanalytic treatment acts as a second educa- 
tion of the adult, as a corrective to his education as a child. 
Within this narrow compass it has not been possible to men- 
tion many matters of the greatest interest, such as the “ sud/i- 
mution ” of instincts, the part played by symbolism, the problem 
of “ ambivalence,” etc. Nor has there been space to allude to the 
applications of psychoanalysis, which originated, as we have 
seen, in the sphere of medicine, to other departments of knowl- 
edge (such as Anthropology, the Study of Religion, Literary 
History and Education) where its influence is constantly in- 
creasing. It is enough to say that psychoanalysis, in its char- 
acter of the psychology of the deepest, unconscious mental acts, 
promises to become the link between Psychiatry and all of these 
other fields of study. 
The Psychoanalytic Movement —The beginnings of psycho- 
analysis may be marked by two dates: 1895, which saw the pub- 
lication of Breuer and Freud’s Studien iiber Hysterie, and 1900, 
which saw that of Freud’s Traumdeutung. At first the new dis- 
coveries aroused no interest either in the medical profession or 
among the gencral public. In r907 the Swiss psychiatrists, under 
the leadership of E. Bleuler and C. G. Jung, began to concern 
themselves in the subject; and in 1908 there took place at Salz- 
burg a first meeting of adherents from a number of different coun- 
tries. In 1909 Freud and Jung were invited to America by G. 
Stanley Hall to deliver a series of lectures on psychoanalysis at 
Clark University, Worcester, Mass. From that time forward in- 
terest in Europe grew rapidly; it showed itself, however, in a 
forcible rejection of the new teachings, characterised by an emo- 
tional colouring which sometimes bordered upon the unscientific. 
PSYCHOLOGY 
The reasons for this hostility are to be found, from the medical 
point of view, in the fact that psychoanalysis lays stress upon 
psychical factors, and from the philosophical point of view, in its 
assuming as an underlying postulate the concept of unconscious 
mental activity; but the strongest reason was undoubtedly the 
general disinclination of mankind to concede to the factor of sex- 
uality such importance as is assigned to it by psychoanalysis. In 
spite of this widespread opposition, however, the movement in 
favour of psychoanalysis was not to be checked. Its adherents 
formed themselves into an International Association, which 
passed successfully through the ordeal of the World War, and at 
the present time comprises local groups in Vienna, Berlin, Buda- 
pest, London, Switzerland, Holland, Moscow and Calcutta, as 
well as two in the United States. There are three journals repre- 
senting the views of these socicties: the Internationale Zeitschrift 
fiir Psychoanalyse, Imago (which is concerned with the appli- 
cation of psychoanalysis to non-medical fields of knowledge), 
and the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. 
During the years 1911-3 two former adherents, Alfred Adler, 
of Vienna, and C. G. Jung, of Zürich, seceded from the psycho- 
analytic movement and founded schools of thought of their own. 
In r921 Dr. M.Eitingon founded in Berlin the first public psycho- 
analytic clinic and training-school, and this was soon followed 
by a second in Vienna. For the moment these are the only in- 
stitutions on the continent of Europe which make psychoanalytic 
treatment accessible to the wage-earning classes. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY.— Breuer and Freud, Studien tiber Hysterie (1895); 
Freud, Traumdeutung (1900); Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens 
(1904); Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexuaitheorie (1905); Vorlesungen sur 
Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (1916). Freud’s complete works 
have been published in Spanish (Obras completas) (1924), and Ger- 
man (Gesammelte Schriften) (1925); the greater part of them has 
been translated into English and other languages. Short accounts of 
the subject-matter and history of psychoanalysis will be found in: 
Freud, Ueber Psychoanalyse (the lectures delivered at Worcester, 
U.S.A.) (1909); Zur Geschichte der psychoanalytischen Bewegung 
(1914); Selbstdarstellung (in Grote's collection Die Medizin der Gegen- 
wart) (1925). Particularly accessible to English readers are: A. A. 
Brill, Psycho-Analysis (1922); Ernest Jones, Papers on Psycho- 
Analysis (1923). (S. FR.) 
PSYCHOLOGY (see 22.547b, also PSYCHIATRY; PSYCHOSIS; 
PSYCHOTHERAPY).—The most important influence affecting re- 
cent developments of psychology has been the widespread use 
of experimental methods of investigation, and a general accept- 
ance of their implications. 
Experiment in psychology is, as C. S. Myers points out, “ at 
least as old as Aristotle.’ But its systematic and unrestricted 
application to psychological problems, and particularly a recog- 
nition of all that this involves with regard to the general nature 
of psychological theory, are a comparatively recent growth. 
These, more than anything else, have brought psychology into 
line with the other biological sciences, have transformed its 
questions from those of descriptive analysis to those of function, 
have contributed most powerfully to the destruction of the 
purely introspective, atomistic or mosaic psychology of the 
past and have encouraged and rendered possible the important 
practical applications of psychology which have characterised 
the period under review, and are particularly vigorous at the 
present time. 
Behaviourism.—This account of general theoretical develop- 
ments may begin by a reference to behaviourism, itself a direct 
result of the application of experiment to psychology. The early 
behaviourists were all interested mainly in animal conduct. 
They studied, not merely the reactions of particular parts of an 
organism, but the response of the organism as a whole; not mere- 
ly the effects of particular isolated stimuli, but the influence 
of what they called the “ whole situation,” including in the latter 
the past history of the organism itself. They tried to show how 
more complex forms of response (e.g., instinct and habit re- 
sponses) may grow up out of combinations of simpler reaction 
(e.g., tropisms and reflexes), and they made a great amount of 
use of Pawlow’s principle of “ conditioned reflex,” erecting it 
into the most important explanatory principle of complex 
forms of conduct. They then applied exactly the same methods 
255 
to the study of human behaviour. They tended at once to be- 
come philosophical, and to assert that there is no such thing as 
consciousness, thereby opening up a large amount of fruitless 
and violent controversy. All that their method demanded 
they should assert was that consciousness need not be invoked as 
a determining condition of any form of response with which the 
psychologist must deal. Perhaps no psychologist has yet pro- 
vided a thoroughly convincing refutation of this position, but 
the attempt to establish the precise functions of consciousness 
in human conduct—whether stimulated directly by behaviourist 
writings or not—has produced much important research. 
Relations with Physiology —Experimental physiologists have 
made striking advances in our knowledge of the physics and 
chemistry of muscular contraction, of the effectsof glandular 
secretion, of the conditions and character of the conduction of 
nerve impulses, and of the functions of peripheral nerves and of 
the central nervous system. These have all helped to delimit 
the range of psychology, to show, that is, precisely where the 
psychological problems emerge. Of the most direct significance 
to the psychologist have been the researches of neurologists— 
provided with unrivalled experimental material in the course 
of the World War—into the effects of localised injuries to the 
brain and spinal cord. Perhaps the most significant of these is 
the work of Henry Head, who has carried further his investiga- 
tions of the functions of the afferent sensibility by a thorough 
study of the “ high level’ responses involved in the use of 
language. His work represents the first attempt to carry out a 
searching investigation of the problems of aphasia by the 
systematic application of specifically psychological tests. 
Psychical Activity— Broadly speaking the result of all this 
work seems to show that conditions which at present, at any 
rate, have to be treated as definitely “ psychical” play an 
efficient part in the determination of all highly developed con- 
duct, and that the most fundamental of these have to do (a) 
with the emergence of meaning as a factor in response, (b) with 
the development and functions of images and (c) with the 
growth and reactive significance of the various forms of feeling. 
Thus although the methods of control of pre-conscious and 
conscious reactions may be the same, the factors in control 
appear to be different. 
Gestalt Theory.—More purely psychological paths of approach 
seem to converge toward the same conclusion. What is known as 
Gestalttheorie has had a great influence upon recent psychological 
formulations. This, developed by Wertheimer and his associates, 
was in the first place concerned with the psychology of perception. 
Its central contention is that all of the material (or “ objects ’’) 
dealt with at the level of psychological responses are Gestalten, 
(wholes, forms, configurations—there is no exact English 
equivalent) diversified or complex, but in no sense capable of 
expression in terms of the parts which they may seem to contain. 
It is perhaps not unfair to say that the whole of this important 
movement is concerned with an elucidation of the character 
and functions of meaning in psychological responses. 
Imagery.—Another active development is connected with the 
names of Jaensch and of his collaborators and pupils. Jaensch 
claims to have discovered a new and important type of imagery, 
photographically accurate, projected, coloured and abnormally 
resistant to the usual wearing effects of time. Such imagery is 
common in early life, but later is overlaid or outgrown, and is 
called eidefic. These workers try to show that all psychological 
problems centre in the use and functions of images. 
Psychoanalysis ——Most prominent of all, particularly outside 
strict academic circles, has been the influence of a variety of views 
which are generally rather loosely put together and referred to as 
“ psychoanalysis ”’ (g.v.), Freud, Jung, Adler and a host of en- 
thusiastic followers in all countries, have developed and pro- 
mulgated its doctrines. Probably most psychologists would 
maintain that the practical significance of psychoanalysis out- 
weighs its theoretical importance, but a convinced psycho- 
analyst is rarely willing to admit that this is the case. This 
movement, in all its many, and often conflicting forms, has con- 
clusively demonstrated the enormous part which may be played 
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