r
hypnosis is essential to him. The fixed idea is to disappear forever,
the paralyzed limb is under control, the desire for morphine and cocaine
is gone for all future time, the perverse longing is annihilated, the
old energy is to remain again for all time. It is the post-hypnotic
after-effectiveness which gives to the hypnoid and to the hypnotic
states their importance for the treatment of the most exasperating
symptoms. To be sure, the treatment often must be a prolonged one. A man
who for years has used thirty grains of morphine a day cannot be rid of
the desire after two or three hypnotic sittings. In such a case the
treatment may cover three or four months, if it is to be of lasting
value and without any damage during the treatment.

Still we are not at the end of the psychotherapeutic methods and we may
turn to a fascinating group of curative efforts which has especially
come to the foreground in recent years. We mentioned before that
mischief cannot seldom be traced back to earlier experiences with a
strong unpleasurable feeling. In certain cases, the subject remembers
such particular experiences as the beginning of his discomfort; in
others, especially those of hysteric character, the starting point may
have long been forgotten, and yet that early impression evidently left
traces in the brain which produce disturbances in conscious life. The
psychotherapist nowadays calls these groups of traces "complexes." We
recognized clearly that there is no reason to refer such forgotten
remainders of the past to any subconscious mind; they are physical
after-effects which keep their influence over the equilibrium of the
psychophysical system. Now modern psychotherapy finds that the entire
disturbances which arise from such emotional disagreeable experiences,
forgotten or not forgotten, can often be removed by psychical means. Two
ways in particular seem open. As soon as the idea is fully brought back
to consciousness again, the patient must be made to express the primary
emotion with full intensity. Subtle analysis has repeatedly shown that
many of the gravest hysteric symptoms result from such a suppression of
emotions at the beginning and disappear as soon as the primary
experience comes to its right motor discharge and gains its normal
outlet in action. The whole irritation becomes eliminated, the emotion
is relieved from suppression and the source of the cortical uproar is
removed forever.

Practically still more im