Introduction

The collection of short contributions, of which we here present a first instalment, calls for a few introductory words. The cases of illness which come under a psycho-analyst's observation are of course of unequal value in adding to his knowledge. There are some on which he has to bring to bear all that he knows and from which he learns nothing; and there are others which show him what he already knows in a particularly clearly marked manner and in exceptionally revealing isolation, so that he is indebted to them not only for a confirmation but for an extension of his knowledge. […] we shall choose to describe [psychical processes] as they occur in the favourable and clear examples [durchsichtigen Fällen] afforded by the latter […] the numerous apt examples, which […] are for the most part lost to view […]. There is therefore some advantage in the provision of a framework within which observations and examples of this kind can be published and made generally known.1

With these words in the Internationale Zeitschrift für ärztliche Psychoanalyse Freud introduced a set of clinical observations gathered in collaboration with Ferenczi and Tausk and intended as an initial contribution to a specific section of that journal.

Let us sum up Freud's intentions. The aim was to furnish apt examples assembled with a view to confirming the theory briefly and clearly, demonstrating the theory's practical value by both putting it to the test and, in particular, proving it. The revealing isolation of the examples is reminiscent of a laboratory experiment, in which isolating means clearly defining the experimental objects and limits in terms of the chosen intentions - and it is obvious that the Freudian laboratory par excellence is that of dreams, given that as many as eleven of Freud's thirteen apt examples are made up, precisely, of dreams and their interpretations. They are described as «short examples», and indeed not one of them is preceded by a statement of the cornerstones of the