Chapter IX. Lay Analysis

Since the topic of lay analysis was the feature of the psycho-analytical movement that, with the possible exception of the Verlag, most keenly engaged. Freud's interest, and indeed emotions, during the last phase of his life, it deserves a chapter to itself. It was associated with a central dilemma in the psycho-analytical movement, one for which no solution has yet been found. It was Freud who most clearly perceived the nature of that dilemma, and it will be well to expound it before narrating the history of the problems it gave rise to. Discounting the fact of psycho-analysis having originated in the field of psychopathology Freud recognized that the discoveries he had made, and the theoretical basis established in respect of them, had a very general and extremely wide bearing outside that field. To him they constituted a foundation for a truly dynamic psychology with all that this conclusion implies. In so far as it signifies a more profound understanding of human nature, of the motives and emotions of mankind, it was inevitable that psycho-analysis should be in a position to make valuable, and sometimes crucial, contributions to all fields of human mentality, and that further researches would increase the value of such contributions to an extent not easy to limit. To mention only a few of these: the study of anthropology, mythology, and folklore; the historical evolution of mankind with the various divergent routes this has followed; the upbringing and education of children; the significance of artistic endeavour; the vast field of sociology with a more penetrating estimate of the various social institutions, such as marriage, law, religion, and perhaps even government; possibly even the apparently insoluble problems of international relations. All these endless potentialities would be lost were psycho-analysis to end by being confined to a small section in the chapter on therapy in a text-book of psychiatry side by side with hypnotic suggestion, electrotherapy,