A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of the Mental Symptoms of Paresis

In the relationship of psychoanalysis to clinical psychiatry, it must be emphasized that psychoanalytic interpretations of psychotic symptoms are not a speculative system of ideas. According to Freud, “On the contrary, it is the result of experience, being founded either on direct observations or on conclusions drawn from observations.” Freud furthermore goes on to state that “Psychoanalysis stands to psychiatry more or less as histology does to anatomy; in one, the outer forms of organs are studied, in the other, the construction of these out of the constituent elements…. Presumably at a not too distant date, we shall have perceived that there can be no psychiatry which is scientifically radical without a thorough knowledge of the deep-seated unconscious processes in mental life.” (1) Although this statement was made almost twenty years ago, Freud's prophecy on the relations of psychoanalysis to psychiatry and the reconstruction and interpretation of psychotic symptoms based on the discoveries of psychoanalysis has been amply justified, particularly in stimulating investigations into the deeper dynamics of the psychoses.

Within the last decade a new era in psychiatry has been developing. There has been a gradual abandoning of the purely statistical attitude and the mere classification of psychoses and a more dynamic approach is becoming increasingly evident in psychiatric thinking. It is being realized that mental symptoms are not due to chance, but are the result of deeply seated ego defensive mechanisms and id inroads and