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of the enemy. Thus the following incidents, apparently quoted as evidence against psycho-analysis seem to cry out for a psycho-analytical interpretation:

Quoting a line from Shelley's Oedipus Tyrannus [a friend] wrote: "All is sealed up with the broad seal of fraud."-Freud-Edipus-Fraud?-When I met my friend the following day, and drew his attention to the lapsus calami, he smiled, but declined to be psycho-analysed.

Another correspondent with whom I had discussed the question of Freud's "Anal Eroticism" persistently wrote 'psycho-analists.'

Another friend of mine discoursing upon Sir Oliver Lodge's arguments in favour of spiritualism wrote to me that he considered them quite Lodgecal (p. 205). With regard to these cases we are surely justified in quoting Dr Wohlgemuth himself in another connection to the effect that "comment is superfluous."

In other cases Dr Wohlgemuth's arguments do not touch the real point at issue. Refusing to grant the possibility of the existence of unconscious tendencies, he endeavours to show the absence of the alleged tendencies by appeal to introspection. This is particularly true with regard to his attempted refutation of the supposed existence of latent homosexual tendencies. Relying on the "delicate and powerful instrument" of introspection in a trained observer, he carried out the enterprising and heroic experiment of endeavouring to arouse sexual excitement in himself by the contemplation of men encountered casually in public vehicles and public places. The results were always negative, however pleasing in other respects the objects selected for the experiment. It mattered not whether the attempt was made with "the martial figure of the dashing soldier or the brainy and intellectual countenance of the thinker, the athlete, or the delicate and dreamy artist...in no single case [was he ever able] to discover the slightest trace of libido" (pp. 157, 158). This however (as is indeed admitted at the end of the chapter) proves nothing with regard to those aspects of the mind-should such exist-which are not accessible to the "delicate instrument" employed, and the experiment is therefore irrelevant as a criticism of psychoanalysis, however interesting and illuminating it may be in other respects.

Among other arguments which leave the real issue untouched are those dealing with symbolism. Apart from the remarks on Silberer's 'anagogic' symbols to which we have already referred, most of the chapter on symbolism. is taken up in showing that symbols (particularly phallic symbols) may have other meanings than those stressed by psycho-analysts, and that these latter meanings may occur without the accompaniment of the corresponding symbols. Neither of these facts has ever been denied by psycho-analysts and neither of them disproves the existence of symbols in the psycho-analytic sense-i.e. where the meaning of the symbol is unconscious nor the importance of the distinction between these 'true symbols,' as Ernest Jones has called them (the present writer has suggested that they might perhaps be more conveniently termed 'cryptophors'), and other symbols (metaphors' in Ernest Jones' terminology) where the meaning is readily accessible.

In other cases again, the criticisms advanced, though superficially striking and pointing perhaps to incautious or inexact expression on the part of psycho-analytic writers, scarcely affect the underlying doctrine, except perhaps in so far as they may show the desirability of more precise formulations (and in so far as they do this they have of course some value). Thus, a good debating point is scored when, with reference to the definition of the Censor as "the sum total of repressing inhibitions," it is asked how the Censor can possess certain qualities which have been predicated of it, e.g. an "esprit d'escalier"

or "an ability to interpose a doubt in the subject's mind" (pp. 84, 85). This certainly seems paradoxical at first sight, but if we regard the inhibitions as active tendencies or 'wishes' (as from one point of view we surely must) there is nothing really absurd in either of these statements concerning the Censor as above defined.

Certain other criticisms of a similar kind are obviously based on misunderstandings, often of a verbal nature, as when scorn is poured on a statement concerning an "objectionable and superficial association" or "a correct and deeper reaching connection" on the ground that

this connection, or association, itself is not a psychical element, although all thought depends upon it. How, then, can this mere connection be objectionable, or superficial, or correct, or deeper reaching? This is perfectly meaningless. The association may be strong or weak, but that is all that can be predicated of it (p. 73).

This is in reality a purely dialectical argument, for it is obvious from the context that what is really meant is an idea called up by association and of such a nature as to throw light on the connection between two other ideas.

As already indicated the reductio ad absurdum is a favourite weapon, which is resorted to freely throughout the book and lends itself to some amusing banter. At least one example of its use deserves to be quoted. We may select that which relates to Freud's view of the sleep-preserving function of dreams:

That the "dream is the protector of sleep, not its interrupter!", that the function of the dream, as Ernest Jones says, is to protect sleep by stilling the activity of the unconscious mental processes that would otherwise disturb it, appears to me about as intelligible as if I were told that the function of the bath was to keep the bather dry by letting the water run over him. But, I suppose, I am too simple.

Denn ein vollkommener Widerspruch

Bleibt gleich geheimnisvoll für Kluge wie für Toren,

says Goethe's Mephistopheles. When I went to bed, say, at half-past eleven and hardly had time to switch off the light before I fell asleep in a certain position, and then suddenly-brrrrrr-! "Oh! bless it! there is that wretched alarm already!”—I awakened in the same position in which I fell asleep, after seven hours of dreamless uninterrupted sleep, then my poor sleep had not been protected. But when I had turned from being on my back on to the left side, and from the left side I tossed on to the right, when I breathless tried to scale a wall, or to run away from a big red lobster that pursued me, when I flew through the air and expected to drop down every moment, or was sure that I had committed a murder and was going to be arrested and hanged-then I now know that my sleep was protected. I wronged in my ignorance the lobster mayonnaise and falsely accused the cucumber salad of the previous night's dinner. Well, we live to learn! (pp. 63, 64).

To this criticism the psycho-analyst will naturally reply that the assumption of the author's sleep not having been protected when it was dreamless or uninterrupted is an unproved one. On Freud's theory it would naturally be supposed that in this case the Censor was working not less but more efficiently, or else that the disturbing stimuli (sensory or orectic) were less intense.

The best prima facie case made out by Dr Wohlgemuth is probably that with regard to suggestion, to which, in his view (as of course in that of many other critics) is due all the therapeutic success of psycho-analysis; and through which all the supposed clinical evidence for psycho-analytic views is, he holds, invalidated. He quotes various psycho-analytic writers who admit the operation of suggestive factors in the psycho-analytic technique and who openly state that in the course of an analysis the analyst has always to some extent to supply "to the patient the respective expectation ideas (Erwartungsvorstellungen) by means of which he (the patient)

shall be enabled to recognise that which is unconscious and seize it." He also quotes a portion of the published analysis of 'little Hans' to show that "in practically every extract quoted the little fellow is made to say what his father wants him to say" and that "the boy has been corrupted to afford gratification to the sexual phantasies of his psycho-analysts," concerning whom some very unflattering remarks are made in passing. Now it is pretty generally recognised that the precise nature of the rôle of suggestion in psycho-analysis is a difficult and complex question, one on which it is hard to convince a sceptic that the so-called results are not put into the patient's head by an analyst, who himself has been similarly infected with the psycho-analytic doctrine during his own previous analysis. This is one of the matters in which, it must be confessed, psycho-analysis is, as already mentioned, in a peculiarly difficult position with regard to the furnishing of 'proofs,' and in which it is exceedingly hard to find any common ground of agreement between believers and non-believers. Either the critic is unconversant with the intimate working of the analytic method (as we tried to show above is pretty clearly the case with Dr Wohlgemuth) and is therefore scarcely in a position to form a sound judgment on an admittedly difficult matter; or else, having undertaken the necessary study of the method, he expresses his belief that the results are not due to suggestion, in which case his testimony is discounted by the sceptic on the ground that he is now himself under the influence of suggestion. It is true that those who have worked by both psycho-analytic and suggestion methods allege, as an argument in favour of the ultimate difference of the factors involved in the two cases, that the therapeutic results obtained by the former method are far more stable and less capricious than those obtained by the latter. But they have published no figures that would convince a sceptical experimental psychologist, and even if they did provide otherwise satisfactory numerical results, these might only be held to show that suggestion in the form of psycho-analysis was more effective than suggestion of a simple and more direct kind.

In view of this deadlock, it is all the more desirable to see whether processes similar to those claimed to have been discovered by psycho-analysts can be discovered in cases where there can be no question of the operation of suggestion. Such cases have been found in dements and paranoiacs who, when studied by psycho-analysts, appear to exhibit much the same mechanisms as those found in normal and psycho-neurotic individuals; although they do not share the suggestibility of these latter. A careful examination of the psycho-analytic findings in these cases should therefore be one of the chief points of attack by those who maintain that the discoveries claimed by psycho-analysts are really only artifacts due to suggestion. Such an examination is unfortunately not undertaken in the present work. Data that are if possible still freer from the influence of suggestion are provided also by the study of mythology and folklore, of literature and of the lives of historical personages. These fields of research possess also the immense advantage that the full data are available to the critic as well as to the psycho-analyst himself. Within these fields Dr Wohlgemuth refers only to the symbolism of folklore where, as already noted, he confines himself chiefly to the possibility of other interpretations (interpretations which are not denied by psycho-analysts), and to one case from literature-Freud's interpretation of Jensen's Gradiva.' He is very shocked at this interpretation, and holds the view that in this application of his method to literature Freud has himself performed a control experiment

which proves the worthlessness of his dream interpretation, since this interpretation is here applied without obtaining free associations from the dreamer. But surely it is permissible to apply explanations that have been obtained from cases with full data-in this case free associations-to other cases where the data are incomplete, with a view to seeing how far these explanations will work with the limited data available. Such a process is carried out constantly both in everyday matters and in science, particularly in comparative science. Dr Wohlgemuth would perhaps reply that a real dream and an artificial dream invented by a novelist are too far apart to admit of any valid comparison. But yet both are products of the human mind; certain imaginative writers have admitted that their dreams have not been without influence on their artistic creations; and moreover it has often been recognised even by psychologists untainted by psycho-analysis that good writers of fiction have a fine intuitive knowledge of the workings of the mind. Is there anything necessarily absurd then in Freud's endeavour to see whether the novelist's artificial dreams could be shown to obey the same laws as those which he thought he had discovered in the case of living patients?

From our above remarks on psycho-analysis and suggestion, it may perhaps have been concluded that Dr Wohlgemuth's critical account is adequate in so far as it concerns the purely clinical material. Unfortunately this is not the case. It is, as we have said, generally admitted by psychoanalysts themselves that the problems connected with the rôle of suggestion in psycho-analysis are far from easy. They have for long been endeavouring to make clearer the nature of this rôle, with results that have thrown light not only on psycho-analytic procedure but also on the nature of suggestion itself. Dr Wohlgemuth takes no account whatsoever of this work. He makes no reference even to the subject of Transference, which should surely be the central point in any treatment of suggestion in relation to psycho-analysis. He is therefore unable to consider the claims of psycho-analysts that psychoanalysis differs in a most important respect from all other methods of psychotherapy, in that the factors underlying the suggestive influences are themselves undermined by being made the object of analysis. In the last resort therefore the considerations on suggestion, in spite of their more imposing appearance on the surface, get but little nearer the heart of the matter than do the author's other criticisms.

It is a relief to turn in conclusion to certain points with regard to which Dr Wohlgemuth would seem to have really provided critical material of some value. In the opinion of the present reviewer, there are two main points of this kind. In his preliminary "Psychological Statement," Dr Wohlgemuth reviews the experimental evidence with regard to the forgetting of pleasant and unpleasant experiences respectively and adds some further material of his own, obtained by extensive experiments on school children. He appears to make out a good case for believing that, so far as the existing experimental evidence goes, there is, on the whole, no tendency to forget unpleasant experiences to a greater extent than pleasant experiences. This seems to be in genuine contradiction to the views held by psycho-analysts and points to the need for further experimentation, if these views are to be maintained or at any rate brought into harmony with the results of experimental psychology. It seems to the present reviewer that four problems especially deserve consideration in such experimentation as may be undertaken in the near future. These are: (1) the influence and incidence of 'memory optimism,' i.e. the

tendency for the memory of an experience to be more pleasantly (or less unpleasantly) toned than the experience itself; (2) the difference between memories of objective events and memories of subjective experiences, so far as these can be separated; (3) the extent to which affective tone influences the first recall in experiments, such as those of Kowalewski and of Dr Wohlgemuth himself; (4) the relation to pleasure and unpleasure of Whately Smith's 'positive and negative affective tones,' should be determined, in the event of the existence of these separate kinds of 'affective tone' being corroborated (Dr Wohlgemuth is perhaps rather unduly sceptical as to the value of Whately Smith's experiments).

The other point in Dr Wohlgemuth's book which seems to indicate the desirability of further work arises from the demand for control experiments in such matters as the analysis of numbers; the control experiment taking the form of an attempt to analyse a series of digits determined by chance or selected by some person other than the analysand. It seems clear that free association starting from any number will, sooner or later, reveal the existence of unconscious affects. The question is how far free associations from a chance number will provide an explanation of that number comparable to that provided by free associations from a number selected by the analysand himself. If the explanations work equally well in both cases, the view that the selection of a particular number by the analysand was determined by unconscious factors revealed by free associations must be regarded as unproved, so far at least as evidence from this source is concerned. It would seem that experimental work on these lines might prove very useful and illuminating. But in carrying out such work it will be most important to keep account of the extent to which the associations are really 'free,' i.e. undetermined by a conscious endeavour to find an interpretation of the numbers. As we have seen, it is pretty clear that Dr Wohlgemuth has failed to realise the importance of this factor in his own work. Similar control experiments might perhaps also be made with profit in the case of dreams (analysis of other persons' dreams, etc.), though here the conditions are undoubtedly more complicated in a variety of ways; more especially, allowance will have to be made (as also of course to some extent in the case of numbers) for the similarity of associative processes in different individuals (Marbe's 'Gleichförmigkeit des psychischen Geschehens'). Bleuler appears to be so far the only investigator who has realised the importance of work along these lines; but his published experiments are too few and unsystematic to be of much value in themselves. This is eminently a matter which demands the co-operation of the psycho-analyst and the experimental psychologist.

In the course of his book Dr Wohlgemuth has many harsh things to say of psycho-analysts. But 'the most unkindest cut of all' is reserved for his very last paragraph. He here tells us:

That I have not written this criticism before has its reason in this: For psychologists, in general, psycho-analysis was stillborn, and has ever been as dead as a door nail. Only when, owing to the propaganda of psycho-analysts in the press, the general public began to take an interest in the subject, but especially when I saw that some medical men, and, worse still, educationists appeared to be taken in by the psychoanalytic confidence trick, did I decide to warn the unwary (p. 246).

It would be interesting to know where Dr Wohlegmuth has come across "the propaganda of psycho-analysts in the press." As far as the present writer can ascertain, psycho-analysts have taken but very little trouble to present their case

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