A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
Now I shall present to you the psychoanalytic conception of neurotic
manifestations. The natural thing for me to do is to connect them to the
phenomena we have previously treated, for the sake of their analogy as
well as their contrast. I will select as symptomatic an act of frequent
occurrence in my office hour. Of course, the analyst cannot do much for
those who seek him in his medical capacity, and lay the woes of a
lifetime before him in fifteen minutes. His deeper knowledge makes it
difficult for him to deliver a snap decision as do other
physicians--"There is nothing wrong with you"--and to give the advice,
"Go to a watering-place for a while." One of our colleagues, in answer
to the question as to what he did with his office patients, said,
shrugging his shoulders, that he simply "fines them so many kronen for
their mischief-making." So it will not surprise you to hear that even in
the case of very busy analysts, the hours for consultation are not very
crowded. I have had the ordinary door between my waiting room and my
office doubled and strengthened by a covering of felt. The purpose of
this little arrangement cannot be doubted. Now it happens over and over
again that people who are admitted from my waiting room omit to close
the door behind them; in fact, they almost always leave both doors open.
As soon as I have noticed this I insist rather gruffly that he or she go
back in order to rectify the omission, even though it be an elegant
gentleman or a lady in all her finery. This gives an impression of
misapplied pedantry. I have, in fact, occasionally discredited myself by
such a demand, since the individual concerned was one of those who
cannot touch even a door knob, and prefer as well to have their
attendants spared this contact. But most frequently I was right, for he
who conducts himself in this way, and leaves the door from the waiting
room into the physician's consultation room open, belongs to the rabble
and deserves to be received inhospitably. Do not, I beg you, defend him
until you have heard what follows. For the fact is that this negligence
of the patient's only occurs when he has been alone in the waiting room
and so leaves an empty room behind him, never when others, strangers,
have been waiting with him. If that latter is the case, he knows very
well that it is in his interest not to be listened to while he is
talking to the physician, and never omits to close both the doors with
care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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