“Well, the general impression which prevails is that, in the course of the analysis; the most intimate and the most revolting phases of sex life are aired with all their sordid details. Of course, I do not draw this conclusion from the lecture on psychology you have given me so far! But if this is really true, it would constitute a strong argument in favor of the demand that the practice of psychoanalysis should be restricted to physicians. How else would it be possible to confide such details to persons whose discretion may be open to doubt, and whose character may not warrant such frankness on the part of a patient?” It is true enough that physicians are privileged characters, as regards sexual matters. In our times, physicians may even examine sex organs, a prerogative denied to them in the dark ages. However, you wished to know whether sexual matters play an important part in psychoanalysis. They do! There is a necessity for this because, in the first place, frankness is an indispensable condition for the efficacy of the analysis. But don’t forget that, in the course of an analysis, the patient will be just as frank in financial matters. He will give details which he otherwise would withhold, not only from the tax collector and his competitors, but practically from everybody. That such frankness on the part of the patient puts the analyst under a heavy obligation, imposing upon him a severe moral responsibility, I surely do not deny, but rather stress energetically. The second necessity for airing the sex life in psychoanalysis is proved by the established fact that, among the reasons and causes for nervous disturbances, phases of the sex life play a tremendously important, a most essential part; they may even prove to be the specific reason of such disturbances. Could psychoanalysis, under such circumstances, do anything else than adapt itself to this state of affairs? The analyst never persuades his patient to venture into the realm of sex. He will never tell a patient in advance: intimacies of your sex life are involved here! The analyst permits the patient to start where he feels inclined to start, encouraging him to roam in any fashion that suits his fancy, waiting calmly for the patient himself to touch upon sex matters. It is one of my strictest rules to remind my disciples time and again: Our opponents are reiterating continuously that we shall run across cases in which the sexual moment does not play any part whatever. Therefore, beware of introducing it into the analysis! Do not let us spoil the possibility of really discovering cases, in which there is no sexual moment. To be sure, up to now, we have never been fortunate enough to detect such a case.