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After reviewing the major characteristics of primitive magic the author states his thesis: a relic of primitive man's magic is to be found today in our projections and personifications of nosological and theoretical concepts, as if they were either substantial, material, or demonic spirits. Out of our new psychodynamics have arisen a whole new host of symptoms against which we proceed in our therapeutic zeal as if they were enemies. This new host of symptoms is fought in many a psychotherapy by the magical device of mentioning the name: anxiety, hostility, dependency, impulsiveness, ambivalence, acting out. We employ a magical device when, using the names of these demons, we expect that if a patient is told he is hostile or anxious, he will forthwith give up the demon. The author makes a plea for a more leisurely, studious, and scientific pursuit of conditional relationships between forces.
Structural concepts lend themselves to magical manipulation in the same ways. Perhaps the best example is the use of the descriptive concept 'severe superego'. Here, almost personified, one can see the enemy. Often a therapist tries by seduction, persuasion, shaming, ridicule, or threatening to force the disappearance of this enemy. Still another example comes from the earlier days of psychoanalysis. 'The unconscious' was most frequently seen as the demon. This led to the concentrated drive toward making the unconscious conscious. Mental mechanisms are likely to suffer similar treatment. Also high on the psychotherapist's list is that operational handmaiden of the defense, resistance. Reider does not deny here the value of the concept in its total and appropriate gestalt; he decries its misuse when it is pulled out from the context of the entire proper formulation and used as a particular target for the hour.
Reider also describes the rites of this magic. The technical details of the treatment situation can be used magically. One can set up actual taboos of relatio