The volume of Studies of Hysteria which Professor Freud published in conjunction with Dr. Breuer some ten years ago aroused much controversy, but even many of those who were by no means prepared to accept its teaching at every point could not fail to recognise that it was an epoch-marking book in the history of hysteria. In method it introduced a refined and penetrating psychic analysis which had never before been known, and in theory it brought back in a more acceptable form the conception of the large part played in hysteria by the sexual emotions, which, under the influence of Charcot, had been too absolutely rejected.

While Freud's method and theory remain substantially the same, he has very considerably developed the technique of his analytical process. He has abandoned the use of hypnosis as a method of investigation, and attaches still more importance than before to what may be called “symbolic manifestations” of the psychic condition. He seeks to obtain a complete and sympathetic knowledge of the patient's outer and inner life, and to interpret the data thus obtained by means of clues which often seem of the slightest character. It is obvious that such a method must be carried out in an extremely elaborate manner to be in any degree convincing. Even the present fragment of a history, which might easily be dismissed as a quite ordinary case of hysteria, covers nearly a hundred pages, and though it really reveals itself as an exceedingly complex and many-sided history, which, under the investigator's hands, slowly falls into order, there is still much that a cautious and critical reader is inclined to view with suspicion, notably as regards the interpretation of dreams (a subject to which of recent years Freud has devoted special study); even here, however, the clues often prove such excellent guides that one hesitates to condemn them on account of their extreme tenuity. It should be remarked that Freud now attaches very great importance to dreams in the interpretation, not only of hysteria, but of all allied psycho-neurotic conditions; without a study of dream-life, indeed, he believes we can make very little progress in this field. It is necessary, however, to pay close attention to all the automatic and involuntary manifestations of the psychic and physical organism. “He who has eyes to see and ears to hear becomes convinced that no mortal can hide his secret. He whose lips are silent chatters with his finger-tips and betrays himself through all his pores. That is how it is that the task of bringing even the most hidden regions of the soul to consciousness becomes quite possible.”

It is impossible to analyse this analysis, but by many readers its study will be found highly fascinating and profitable. There are other readers for whom it will seem unsatisfactory, trivial, and unwholesome. Of this type of mind was the little girl who criticised the operations of the Divine mind with the remark that it “must be fiddling work making flies.” People of this mental type cannot, however, be advised to study hysteria.

Havelock Ellis.