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After expounding briefly the theory of neuroses and laying special stress on the nature of defence mechanisms the author comments on the medical neglect of psychology. He considers that the usual excuses for this—difficulty of acquiring a knowledge of the subject, confusion between different 'schools', etc.—are only partly justified and that a more important explanation is the simple one that the physician as well as the patient is a human being and therefore subject to the universal repression and dread of the unconscious. Doctors characteristically use a particular mechanism, namely, 'projection on the somatic', which the author illustrates from his study of the nightmare phenomenon. Two further themes are dealt with: the interaction, whether collaboration or opposition, between the unconscious minds of the patient and physician; and the various ways in which the presence of organic disease stimulates any latent neurosis. Finally he expresses the opinion that the physician's unconscious extensively influences his scientific views to daily work in such fields as ætiology, pathology and, above all, therapeutics.
Author's Abstract.