It should not be supposed that the secrets of the mind are exposed for the asking. The method of repression is a primitive means by which the feeble, nascent self seeks protection from impulses which, if tolerated, if not shut out with unreflecting violence, would overrun it (Alexander). When the self becomes strong and stable, primitive impulses can be permitted to develop farther in consciousness without imminent danger that they will pass over into action by controlling the motor apparatus. Now the critical, reflecting, deciding self must not be crippled by an unduly strong conscience. The structure which we know as the conscience is begun in early childhood, and is formed by the incorporation into the self of the orders and commands which are administered by authority. When the self is weak, as during these formative years, the conscience relies on crude methods to protect its hard-won ascendancy over the antisocial drives in the personality. It visits penalties of anxiety upon the self whenever there are any signs of leniency toward these impulses. The conscience keeps its summary, sadistic quality long after, and neurotics are properly said to suffer from an excess of conscience. Blind denial of the existence of fundamental trends in the personality must be supplanted, and the _obiter dicta_ of the conscience subjected to the criticism of the more mature and experienced self. An obstacle to this procedure is furnished by those energies of the personality which are specialized in resisting the antisocial impulses which have been repressed and denied direct and undisguised access to consciousness. Any lowering of resistance subjects the individual to acute anxiety, as the conflict between the socialized and the unsocialized drives is reinstated. All sorts of subterfuges are hit upon to obviate the necessity for enduring this anxiety and bringing the hidden into consciousness, where it can lose its charge. The overcoming of this resistance to taking up the battle again is a major process in the prolonged analysis.