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.
Psychoanalysis made its position clear a long time ago concerning certain limited groups of problems in criminal law. It has occupied itself predominantly with the following questions as the true field of its research in so far as they extend into social life from the study of the etiology of crime:
What is the best treatment of the individual criminal to make him an inoffensive member of society?
Are general crime-restricting measures which might direct criminality possible?
The significance of positive results of such studies could not easily be overestimated. In the following paragraph we shall set forth briefly how far the practical application of psychoanalytical methods could contribute to these results.
We proceed from Freud's1 concept of the preëxistent sense of guilt which has led us to one of the decisive motives of crime.2 From