Dreams and the unconscious Free PDF book: an introduction to the study of psycho-analysis by Charles Wilfred Valentine





In many cases of nervous disease, possibly in all, there is some physical element involved, and medical skill is required for this,^ though it must not be supposed that the ordinary medical training is adequate for dealing with psychological matters. It is obvious that where there is a physical factor involved, an attempt to deal with the trouble on purely psychological lines will result in neglect of treatment which may be essential to recovery, and grave consequences may ensue. Nor, as Freud suggests, can the psychologist always be relied upon to know when it is necessary to consult a medical man.On the other hand, incompetent psychological treatment, whether by medical man or layman, may also cause more evil than it cures. For one thing, the power of suggestion, often so helpful in a mental case, may also be a hindrance, leading to the imagination of troubles and ills which do not exist, or to the exaggeration of the importance of those which do. Having said this,I would point out, however, that a few failures in psychoanalytic treatment are not an adequate cause for general denunciation of the method used, any more than are the few deaths that result from mistaken diagnosis or treatment by medical men, or from a slip of the knife in a serious operation. Nor is the fact that 1 On this point sees Functional Nerve Disease, edited by Crichton Miller, especially chap. i. and p. 183.Author: Charles Wilfred ValentinePublication Date:1922