more likely to be favourable in self-observation than in the observation of others; in any case, it is permissible to see how much can be accomplished by means of self-analysis. I must overcome further difficulties arising from inner self. One has a readily understood aversion to exposing so many intimate things from one's own psychic life, and one does not feel safe from the misinterpretation of strangers. But one must be able to put one's self beyond this. "Toute psychologiste," writes Delbœuf,26 "est obligé de faire l'aveu même de ses faiblesses s'il croit par là jeter du jour sur quelque problème obscure." And I may assume that in the case of the reader, the immediate interest in the indiscretions which I must commit will very soon give way to exclusive engrossment in the psychological problems which are illuminated by them.
I shall, therefore, select one of my own dreams and use it to elucidate my method of interpretation. Every such dream necessitates a preliminary statement. I must now beg the reader to make my interests his own for a considerable time, and to become absorbed with me in the most trifling details of my life, for an interest in the hidden significance of dreams imperatively demands such transference.
Preliminary statement: In the summer of 1895 I had psychoanalytically treated a young lady who stood in close friendship to me and those near to me. It is to be understood that such a complication of relations may be the source of manifold feelings for the physician, especially for the psychotherapist. The personal interest of the physician is greater, his authority is less. A failure threatens to undermine the friendship with the relatives of the patient. The cure ended with partial success, the patient got rid of her hysterical fear, but not of all her somatic symptoms. I was at that time not yet sure of the criteria marking the final settlement of a hysterical case, and expected her to accept a solution which did not seem acceptable to her. In this disagreement, we cut short the treatment on account of the summer season. One day a younger colleague, one of my best friends, who had visited the patient—Irma—and her family in their country resort, came to see me. I asked him how he found her, and received the answer: "She is better, but not altogether well." I realise that those words of my friend Otto, or the tone of
