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In Stockholm, where this book was written and published, as well as elsewhere, people may have unkind free associations to such a title as 'Is Aggressiveness an Evil' and the author may find herself caught in her own catch-question.
The psychoanalyst attempting to read this book finds on the second page a statement which arouses his resistance. According to the author, Freud says 'the aggressions are destructive under all circumstances'. Either this statement (which we hope was not intended to be taken as a quotation from Freud) may be simply considered to be meaningless, implying that aggressions are aggressions, or it is a misstatement implying that aggressions are, according to Freud, always 'evil'. Adler too is supposed not to see anything 'good' in aggressions. It is clear that the author uses the term 'aggressiveness' very vaguely. Aggression, according to the author, is a part of the self-preservative instincts.
The author's summary of her conception of a neurosis may be quoted: 'We maintain that a weakness of the self-preservative instincts is always to be assumed as the cause of functional neurosis; a weakness which induces the self-preservative instincts to work in negative direction, that means not useful for life but harmful'. (p. 20.)