But that is not all. Thanks to a second discovery of Breuer’s, for which he alone deserves credit and which seems to me even more far-reaching in its significance than the first, more still has been learnt about the relation between the Unconscious and the symptoms of neurotics. Not merely is the meaning of the symptom invariably unconscious; there exists also a connection of a substitutive nature between the two; the existence of the symptom is only possible by reason of this unconscious activity. You will soon understand what I mean. With Breuer, I maintain the following: Every time we meet with a symptom we may conclude that definite unconscious activities which contain the meaning of the symptom are present in the patient’s mind. Conversely, this meaning must be unconscious before a symptom can arise from it. Symptoms are not produced by conscious processes; as soon as the unconscious processes involved are made conscious the symptom must vanish. You will perceive at once that here is an opening for therapy, a way by which symptoms can be made to disappear. It was by this means that Breuer actually achieved the recovery of his patient, that is, freed her from her symptoms; he found a method of bringing into her consciousness the unconscious processes which contained the meaning of her symptoms and the symptoms vanished. This discovery of Breuer’s was not the result of any speculation but of a fortunate observation made possible by the co-operation of the patient. Now you must not rack your brains to try and understand this by seeking to compare it with something similar that is already familiar to you; but you must recognize in it a fundamentally new fact, by means of which much else becomes explicable. Allow me therefore to express it again to you in other words. The symptom is formed as a substitute for something else which remains submerged. Certain mental processes would, under normal conditions, develop until the person became aware of them consciously. This has not happened; and, instead, the symptom has arisen out of these processes which have been interrupted and interfered with in some way and have had to remain unconscious. Thus something in the nature of an exchange has occurred; if we can succeed in reversing this process by our therapy we shall have performed our task of dispersing the symptom. Breuer’s discovery still remains the foundation of psycho-analytic therapy. The proposition that symptoms vanish when their unconscious antecedents have been made conscious has been borne out by all subsequent research; although the most extraordinary and unexpected complications are met with in attempting to carry this proposition out in practice. Our therapy does its work by transforming something unconscious into something conscious, and only succeeds in its work in so far as it is able to effect this transformation.