Though the dream process may to a certain extent be made verbally
intelligible he who studies it most best realizes the attendant mystery.
Dream-self, subconscious ideas, visual images,--these are but terms which
bridge the abyss of our ignorance. Further exploration of the mystery is of
value not only from the standpoint of pure science, to whose domain there is
no limit, but also in the interest of education, health, sanity and
morality. It is neither necessary nor wise for all persons to study their
dreams, but for those who shape the growing thought and conduct of the world
a knowledge of even the remotest outposts of human mentality is supremely
important.
REMARKS UPON DR. CORIAT'S PAPER "STAMMERING AS A PSYCHONEUROSIS"[1]
[1] Dr. Isador H. Coriat's paper with this title appeared in the Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, Volume IX, No. 6, February-March, 1915.
A CRITICISM
BY MEYER SOLOMON, M. D., CHICAGO
I have frequently wondered whether those of us who oppose the dissemination
of the Freudian theories, at least as they are being and have been applied
to the psychoneuroses and to psychopathology in general, have solved the
problem as we should have solved it or fought the fight as we should have
fought it. It has not infrequently seemed to me that our plan of battle, our
campaign, the battle we have in a way waged, was not as consistently planned
and as well organized as it should have been and as the occasion really
demanded. There were many lines of attack open for us. We could, if we so
wished, have made generalized and wholesale attacks upon all that Freudism
stood for regardless of whether, in certain principles, it was right or
wrong. This some have actually done. Although this method is not in my
opinion fair or scientific, yet, so reckless and so uncritical have been
many of the Freudians, and the foremost Freudians at that, in their
declarations and conclusions, that I can readily see how one may be prompted
to resort to unmitigated ridicule and general condemnation of the entire
system, the standpoints and the conclusions that have been made the bulwark
of the Freudian movement. Others have adopted a different method of dealing
with the situation. They have entirely ignored the Freudian school and all
that it stands for, and have permitted the members of this school to go to
ever greater and greater extremes and excesses, with the more extensive
elaboration of their system, so that eventually the error of their ways
would be apparent to all, since the final conclusions to which they would be
led would be openly fallacious and give proof positive that the foundation,
the psychology upon which as a basis the Freudian system of interpretation
and analysis has been erected, was defective to such an extent that it would
crumple into disintegrated portions under the heavy load of the unsupported
superstructure. This method has by no manner of means been unsuccessful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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