Stamering And Cognate Defects Of Speech Vol - Ii

PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS 243

out of memory, and apparently saved themselves a great
amount of psychic pain, but in the unconscious the suppressed
wish still exists, only waiting for its chance to become active, and
finally succeeds in sending into consciousness, instead of the

repressed idea, a disguised and unrecognizable surrogate-
creation (Ersaizungsbild) j to which the same painful sensations

associate themselves that the patient thought he was rid of
through his repression, This surrogate of the repressed idea
— the symptom — is secure against further attacks from the
defences of the ego, and instead of a short conflict there orig-
inates now a permanent suffering." *

As to the relation between the symptoms and the
"psychic trauma/' Freud says:2

"We can observe in the symptom, besides the tokens of its
disguise, a remnant of traceable similarity with the originally
repressed idea; the way in which the surrogate is built up can
be discovered during the psychoanalytic treatment of the
patient, and for his cure the symptom must be traced back over
the same route to the repressed idea,"

In endeavoring to trace the relationship between
the symptoms and the "psychic trauma'1 the
psychoanalyst may resort to several expedients —hyp-
notism, an analysis of the patient's dreams, observance
of his incoodinations (Fehlhandlungeri), and an explo-
ration of his "subconscious mind" (das Unbewusste) by
the methods of controlled and free association.

1 Freud, " Lectures and Addresses on Psychology and Pedagogy at

Clark University," pp. 15-16,
* Loc. al., p. 16,