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In the last twenty years of his life Freud, although his interests had mainly passed over to metapsychological and sociological problems, continued to make a number of clinical contributions. There are some twenty papers as well as two books that come essentially under this heading. Some of these are concerned with matters of technique, others with theoretical problems, and a still larger number with specific aspects of libido development. We may consider them in that order.
The first of these was a paper written in 1922, though published in 1923, called ‘Remarks on the Theory and Practice of Dream Interpretation’. It was a useful comment on the important matter of how to deal with dream interpretation in day-to-day work. The contents were described in a former volume.1
The other three papers were written in the last years of Freud's life. One was a note, only a couple of pages long, analysing a slip of the pen when writing instructions to a jeweller to make up a ring Freud intended to give as a birthday present to Lou Andreas-Salomé.2 It was a most trivial slip, but the lesson of the analysis is that one should not be content with the first superficial interpretation, because even such slight material may be connected with surprisingly complicated trains of thought interwoven in the most delicate fashion.
In 1937 there were two weighty papers. In April appeared ‘Analysis Teminable and Interminable’.3 It is for the practising psycho-analyst possibly the most valuable contribution Freud ever wrote. The deep wisdom and close thinking it displays are truly remarkable, and show how Freud at the age of eighty-one had retained his mental powers without the slightest impairment. He began with a few remarks on the frequent attempts that have