In the case of conversion-hysteria, the circuitous route led to the nerve supply of the body; the repressed impulse broke through at some point or other and produced _symptoms_. The symptoms were thus results of a compromise, for although they were substitutive gratifications, they were nevertheless distorted and deflected from their aim, owing to the resistance of the ego. The theory of repression became the foundation-stone of our understanding of the neuroses. A different view had now to be taken of the task of therapy. Its aim was no longer to “abreact” an effect which had got onto the wrong lines, but to uncover repressions and replace them by acts of judgment which might result either in the acceptance or in the rejection of what had formerly been repudiated. I showed my recognition of the new situation by no longer calling my method of investigation and treatment _catharsis_ but _psychoanalysis_. It is possible to take repression as a centre and to bring all the elements of psychoanalytic theory into relation with it. But before doing so, I have a further remark of a polemical nature to make. According to Janet’s view, a hysteric was a wretched person who, on account of a constitutional weakness, was unable to hold her mental acts together, and it was for that reason that she fell a victim to mental dissociation and to a restriction of the field of her consciousness. The results of psychoanalytical investigations, on the other hand, showed that these phenomena were the result of dynamic factors—of mental conflict and of repression. This distinction seems to me to be far-reaching enough to put an end to the glib repetition of the view that whatever is of value in psychoanalysis is merely borrowed from the ideas of Janet. The reader will have learned from my account that historically psychoanalysis is completely independent of Janet’s discoveries, just as, in its content, it diverges from them and goes far beyond them. Janet’s works would never have had the implications which have made psychoanalysis of such importance to the mental sciences and have made it attract such universal interest. I always treated Janet himself with respect, since his discoveries coincided, to a considerable extent, with those of Breuer, which had been made earlier, but were published later than his. But when, in the course of time, psychoanalysis became a subject of discussion in France, Janet behaved ill, showed ignorance of the facts and used ugly arguments. And finally he revealed himself to my eyes and destroyed the value of his own work by declaring that when he had spoken of ‘unconscious’ mental acts, he had meant nothing by the phrase—it had been no more than a _façon de parler_.