_The Inability to Voluntarily Modify Obsessions._—We are now in a position on this theory to look a little more deeply into the structure and mechanism of an obsession and thereby realize why it is that the unfortunate victims are so helpless to modify or control them. Indeed this behavior of the setting could be cited as another piece of circumstantial evidence for the theory that the setting is largely unconscious and that only a few elements of it enter the field of consciousness. If we simply explain to a person who has a true obsession, i.e., an insistent idea with a strong feeling tone, the falsity of the point of view, the explanation in many cases at least has no or little effect in changing the viewpoint, though the patient admits the correctness of the explanation. The patient cannot modify his idea even if he will. But if the original complex, which is hidden in the unconscious and which gives rise to the meaning of the idea, is discovered, and so altered that it takes on a new meaning and different feeling tones, the patient’s conscious idea becomes modified and ceases to be insistent. This would imply that the insistent idea is only an element in a larger unconscious complex which is the setting and unconsciously determines the viewpoint. The reason why the patient cannot voluntarily alter his viewpoint becomes intelligible by this theory, because that which determines it is unconscious and unknown. He may not even know what his point of view is, owing to the meaning being in the fringe of consciousness. If this theory of the mechanism is soundly established the difficulty of correcting obsessions becomes obvious and intelligible. It is also obvious that there are theoretically two ways in which an obsession might be corrected. 1. A new setting with strong affects may be artificially created so that the perception acquires another equally strong meaning and interest. 2. The second way theoretically would be to bring into consciousness the setting and the past experiences of which the setting is a _sifted_ residuum, and reform it by introducing new elements, including new emotions and feelings. In this way the old setting and point of view would become transformed and a new point of view substituted which would give a new meaning to the perception. Now in practice both these theoretical methods of destroying an obsession are found to work, although both are not always equally efficacious in the same case. In less intense obsessions where the complex composing the setting is only partially and inconsequently submerged, and to a slight degree differentiated from the mass of conscious experiences, the first and simpler method practically is amply sufficient. We might say that the greater the degree to which the setting is conscious and the less the degree to which it has acquired, as an unconscious process, independent autonomous activity the more readily it may be transformed by this method.