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The theory of the neuroses has the same relation to psychoanalytic practice as pathology has to internal medicine: though inductively arrived at through practical experience, it furnishes the scientific foundation for further practical work. It represents an attempt to ascertain that which is regular in the etiology, manifestation, and clinical course of the neuroses in order to furnish us with a causally directed method of therapy and prophylaxis. As the theory of the neuroses is the best developed chapter in psychoanalytic psychology, a careful study of it will be of importance also for the non-medical psychologist. We must not demand of such theories anything which a medical man would not demand of pathology. The striving for "regularity" permits a formulation only of that which is of general significance, and so does violence in a sense to the uniqueness of the individual case. In compensation, however, it gives the practitioner a better general orientation, even though it must be remembered that this orientation alone is not adequate for the treatment of individual cases.
Psychoanalysis regards the neurosis as a result of a conflict between the instinctual part of the personality and an opposing part which sets defensive measures into operation and forces a pathological form upon the expression of the instincts. In the beginning, psychoanalysis was interested in the instinctual part of the individual, and its chief task was to set this part free from the influence of repression. In so doing, psychoanalysis revealed the immense world of the unconscious, discovered,