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Taking a still wider view of the influence of the narrow "civilized" conception of sexual morality on women, Freud finds that it is not limited to the production of neurotic conditions; it affects the whole intellectual aptitude of women.
"Now that's interesting," said Mr. Heritage. "You're obsessed by a particular type of landscape. Ever read Freud?" Dickson shook his head. "Well, you've got an odd complex somewhere. I wonder where the key lies. Cape woods two rivers moor behind. Ever been in love, Dogson?" Mr. McCunn was startled.
But I don't remember anything very monstrous or incestuous in my childish imaginations, such things as Freud, I understand, lays stress upon. If there was an Oedipus complex or anything of that sort in my case it has been very completely washed out again.
We are bound to admit that into all human relationships, particularly adult human relationships, a large element of sex enters. We are thankful that Freud has insisted on this. We are thankful that Freud pulled us somewhat to earth, out of all our clouds of superfineness. What Freud says is always partly true. And half a loaf is better than no bread.
Hamlet comes to shipwreck in his undertaking to avenge upon his uncle the father's murder, because the uncle, as Freud explains in his "Interpretation of Dreams," had at bottom done nothing else than Hamlet had wished in his childhood but had not had the self confidence to carry out.
I have not attempted a detailed account of the technique of free association, nor the Freudian account of humor, etc. There are plenty of books on the market written by Freud himself and his followers. Frankly I advise the average person not to read them.
But Freud, although theoretically agreed, falls victim in practice to the fascinations of the dream-book cipher method which he has condemned. The adjective Freudian is now justly a by-word, among psychopathologists, for a stereotyped habit of reducing each item of a dream to some cryptic allusion or roundabout reference to the primitive demands of the infantile and sexual life.
In this connection, also, reference may probably be made to those attacks of anxiety which Freud associates with psychic sexual lesions of an emotional character. Associated with this vascular activity in detumescence we find a general tendency to glandular activity. Various secretions are formed abundantly.
This use of the word "invite" is worthy of notice, and calls to mind a sentence used by a writer on Freud, that "the activity of a human being is a constant function of his environment."
As a method of treatment for neuroses of childhood, psycho-analysis is not only unsuccessful, it has dangers and produces ill effects which far outweigh any advantage which may be gained from it. There can be no doubt that Freud has exaggerated the part which sexual impulses play in causing neurosis.
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