them, when the treatment brings them back to the very thing from which they have tried constantly to escape. The following answer may be made: all depends upon the position which the patient takes up towards his own phantasies. These phantasies have been hitherto, for the patient, an absolutely passive and involuntary manifestation. As we say, he was lost in his dreams. The patient’s so-called brooding is an involuntary kind of dreaming too. What psychoanalysis demands from a patient is only apparently the same. Only a man who has a very superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis can confuse this passive dreaming with the position taken up in analysis. What psychoanalysis asks from the patient is just the contrary of what the patient has always done. The patient can be compared to a person who, unintentionally, has fallen into the water and sunk, whilst psychoanalysis wants him to dive in, as it was no mere chance which led him to fall in at just that spot. There lies a sunken treasure, and only a diver can raise it. The patient, judging his phantasies from the standpoint of his reason, regards them as valueless and senseless; but, in reality, the phantasies have their great influence on the patient because they are of great importance. They are old, sunken treasures, which can only be recovered by a diver, that is, the patients, contrary to their wont, must now pay an active attention to their inner life. Where they formerly dreamed, they must now think, consciously and intentionally. This new way of thinking about himself has about as much resemblance to the patient’s former mental condition as a diver has to a drowning man. The earlier joy in indulgence has now become a purpose and an aim—that is, has become work. The patient, assisted by the physician, occupies himself with his phantasies, not to lose himself therein, but to uproot them, piece by piece, and to bring them into daylight. He thus reaches an objective standpoint towards his inner life, and everything he formerly loathed and feared is now considered consciously. This contains the basis of the whole psychoanalytic therapy. In consequence of his illness, the patient stood, partially or totally, outside of real life. Consequently he neglected many of his life’s duties, either in regard to social work or to the ordinary daily tasks. If he wishes to be well, he must return to the fulfilment of his particular obligations. Let me say, by way of caution, that we are not to understand by such “duties,” some general ethical postulates, but duties towards himself. Nor does this mean that they are eo ipso egoistic interests, since we are social beings as well, a matter too easily forgotten by individualists. An ordinary person will feel very much more comfortable sharing a common virtue than possessing an individual vice, even if the latter is a very seductive one. They must be already neurotic, or otherwise extraordinary people who can be deluded by such particular interests. The neurotic