With this aim in view, Freud from then on ceased to hypnotize his patients
and substituted for that method, "spontaneous ideas." This means that when
the analysis of a patient who is awake is obstructed, and has come to a dead
stop, he is told to communicate anything which comes into his mind, no
matter what idea, what thought, even if the thing were very queer to him or
seemed meaningless. In the material thus obtained the thread should be found
leading to the semi-forgotten, the thing hidden in the consciousness. In
single cases--where the resistance toward bringing into consciousness the
forgotten or repressed thing, the complex, was slight--this method of
treatment very quickly attains its end, but in others where the resistance
was greater, the spontaneous ideas merely brought about indirect
representations, mere allusions as it were to the forgotten element. Here
favorable results either were not so readily obtained, or else were entirely
lacking. In conjunction with this, Freud planned a simple method of
interpretation by means of which, from the material thus obtained, the
repressed complexes could be brought to consciousness.
Independently of Freud, the Zurich school (Bleuler, Jung) had planned the
association method in order to penetrate into the patient's
subconsciousness. The value of this method is chiefly a theoretical
experimental one; it leads to an orientation of large circumference, but
necessarily superficial in regard to the subconscious conflict (complex).
Freud compares its importance for the psychoanalyticus; with the importance
of the qualitative analysis for the chemist.
Not being completely satisfied with his method of spontaneous ideas Freud
sought shorter paths to the subconscious, and therefore undertook the study
of the dream-life (dealing with forgetfulness, speaking to one's self,
making mistakes, giving offense to one's self, and with superstition and
absent-mindedness, and the study of word quibbles taken in their widest
sense), to all of which we are indebted for the possession of his three
important books: "Die Traumdeutung?" (First edition 1900, third edition
1912); "Zur Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens" (1901-1907); "Der Witz und
seine Bedeutung zum Unbewussten" (1905).
Because of the discovery of the repressed and the forbidden in the soul
life, the instructions contained in the three last-named works are of great
importance and of help to us in the study of the spontaneous ideas of the
patient brought to light by free association. But what is of more importance
for analysis is the study of what may well be termed Freud's masterpiece,
"Die Traumdeutung."
Jung expresses himself as follows in regard to Freud's ingenious discovery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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