. Carl Jung of Switzerland. The analyst prepares a
list of perhaps one hundred words, which he reads one by one to the
patient, hoping in this way to strike some of the emotional reactions
of which the patient himself is unaware. The latter responds with the
first word that comes into his mind, no matter how absurd it may seem.
The responses themselves are often significant, but the time that
elapses is even more so. It usually happens that it takes very much
longer for some responses than for others. If a patient's average time
is one or two seconds, some responses may take five or ten or twenty
seconds. Sometimes no word comes at all and the patient says that his
mind is a blank. He coughs or blushes, grows pale or trembles, showing
all the signs of emotion even when he himself has no notion of the
cause. The significant word has hit upon a subconscious association
with some emotional complex. The blocking of the mind is an effort of
the resistance to keep the painful ideas out of consciousness. The
telltale word then furnishes a starting point for further
associations.

One of my patients blocked on the word "long." Instead of saying
"short" or "pencil" or "road" or "day" or any other word which might
naturally be associated with "long," she laughed and said that no word
would come. Finally an emotional memory came to light. It seems that
this woman had been courted by a man whom she unconsciously loved, but
whom she had "turned down" because she was ambitious for a career.
After the man had moved to another town, my patient heard that he was
engaged to another girl. She then realized that she loved him and
began to long for him with her whole heart. The meaningful word "long"
thus led us to one of the emotional memories for which we were
seeking.

="Chance" Signs.= There are other clues to hidden inner processes,
other sign-posts pointing to the cause of a neurosis. Not only through
dreams and through emotional reactions to certain words does the
subconscious reveal its desires, but also through the little slips of
the tongue and of the pen, the "chance" acts and unconscious
mannerisms which are usually ignored as entirely insignificant. When
we "make a break" and say what we secretly mean but wish to hide from
ourselves or others; when we forget an appointment which part of us
really wishes to avoid, or forget a name with which we are perfectly
familiar; when we lose the pen so that we cannot write or the desk ke