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.
Although the psycho-analytic investigation of the psychoneuroses was the basis of all Freud's work, affording as it did first-hand access to the deeper layers of the mind, he was from the very beginning aware that the conclusions he had reached in this way had far wider validity. Moreover, it was in this wider bearing of his work that he was primarily interested. He wanted to know how the mind works, what makes it work, and the laws of its working. Then since his discoveries pertained to the more primitive and less rational areas of the mind he was interested in any way in which they come to expression, especially the products of phantasy—whether in neuroses, myths, legends, folklore, or custom. He was less concerned with the adaptations to reality, the workings of the intellect in science and other realms. Still the ways in which the deeper unconscious can influence or interfere with the smoother operations of the intellect did fall within his sphere. It follows that the collection of writings we shall consider in the present chapter are decidedly heterogeneous.
The proof that Freud's interest in the normal, non-medical, aspects of psychology was an early one is given in the fact that the first two books he wrote alone after his neurological period were devoted to such topics: the psychology of dream life, and the ‘slips’ that interfere with normal mental functioning. His understanding of both these topics came early, from 1895, the year from which psycho-analysis may be dated.
(1) The Interpretation of Dreams was considered in the previous volume, as was also a little book belonging to the present period (1901), entitled On Dreams.1
Freud revised extensively the various editions of The Interpretation of Dreams. The new Standard Edition2 makes it for the first time possible, thanks to James Strachey's careful editing,