You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In this issue of the Yearbook the editors have continued the practice of assembling under one cover the outstanding contributions in various periodicals during the preceding year. Apart from an American Psychoanalytic Association panel, not otherwise available to the reader, no fewer than seven journals are represented in this compilation. Since there are few among us with sufficient time and diligence to scan this volume of literature, and in view of the general excellence of the articles selected, there seems to be ample justification, even in a capsule era, for what might otherwise appear unnecessary reduplication of labor and matériel.
In the opening paper, Wittels in a charming, if somewhat discursive, manner traces the history of certain secessions from the psychoanalytic movement, and directs attention to the tubular sort of vision and the mistaking of a part for the whole of doctrine that gave rise to such deviations. Bernfeld's paper, Freud's Scientific Beginnings, is especially rewarding to those interested in Freudiana. In it he continues his fascinating studies of Freud's intellectual development and conditioning, and acquaints us with relatively little known facts about his life. The 'scientific beginnings' refers to researches carried on by Freud, mainly in Brücke's laboratory, in the preanalytic period 1873–1874, researches which already give intimations of the incisiveness of mind and the need to blaze new trails that later led to the creation of a new psychology. Bergman's paper, Freud's Germinal Observation, likewise is of interest to the historically minded. It assesses the decisive influence of Freud's original observation concerning the beneficial effect of recovery of forgotten memories in the subsequent development of his system.
Studies on the dream find a liberal representation in this volume. Fliess, apparently stimulated by Freud's complaint that little interest had been shown in the dream itself as a subject of psychoanalytic invest