ng, she said: "Oh,
do you know, I can tell you why I have always been afraid to go to the
Public Library. While I was in Parochial School, Father ---- used to
come in and tell us children to use the books out of the school
library and never to go to the Public Library." I questioned her
concerning her idea of the reason for such an injunction and what she
thought was in the books which she was told not to read. She
hesitatingly stated that it was her idea, even in childhood, that the
books dealt with topics concerning the tabooed subject of the birth of
children and kindred matters.

=Smoldering Volcanoes.= Let us now consider those emotional
experiences which seem far too compelling to be forgotten, but which
may live within us for years without giving any evidence of their
existence. Memories like these are apt to be anything but a dead past.

Many of my own patients have uncovered emotional memories through
simply talking out to me whatever came into their minds, laying aside
their critical faculty and letting their minds wander on into whatever
paths association led them. This is known as the free-association
method, and simple as it seems, is one of the most effective in
uncovering memories which have been forgotten for years. One of my
patients, a refined, highly educated woman of middle age, had suffered
for two years with almost constant nausea. One day, after a long talk,
with no suggestion on my part, only an occasional, "What does that
remind you of?" she told with great emotion an experience which she
had had at eighteen years of age, in which she had for a moment been
sexually attracted to a boy friend, but had recoiled as soon as she
realized where her impulse was leading her. She had been so horrified
at the idea of her degradation, so nauseated at what she considered
her sin, that she had put it out of her mind, denied that such a
thought had ever been hers, repressed the desire into the
subconscious, where it had continued to function unsatisfied,
unassimilated with her mature judgments. Her nausea was the symbol of
a moral disgust. Physical nausea she was willing to acknowledge, but
not this other thing. Upon reciting this old experience, with every
sign of the original shame, she cried: "Oh, Doctor! why did you bring
this up? I had forgotten it. I haven't thought of it in thirty years."
I reminded her that I couldn't bring it up,--I had never known
anything about it. With the emotional incoming of t