as psychoneuroses, are
directly attributed by Dr. Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalytic school,
as it is called, to these suppressions, many of which consist of
memories that go back to the period of early childhood before the sexual
instinct had attained the form that it has in adults.

The theory of Freud, stated briefly, amounts to this: As a result of
emotional conflicts considerable portions of the memories of certain
individuals, with the motor impulses connected with them, are thrust
into the background of the mind, that is to say, the subconscious. Such
suppressed memories, with the connected motor dispositions, he first
named "suppressed complexes." Now it is found that these suppressed
complexes, which no longer respond to stimulations as they would under
normal conditions, may still exercise an indirect influence upon the
ideas which are in the focus of consciousness. Under certain conditions
they may not get into consciousness at all but manifest themselves, for
example, in the form of hysterical tics, twitchings, and muscular
convulsions.

Under other circumstances the ideas associated with the suppressed
complexes tend to have a dominating and controlling place in the life of
the individual. All our ideas that have a sentimental setting are of
this character. We are all of us a little wild and insane upon certain
subjects or in regard to certain persons or objects. In such cases a
very trivial remark or even a gesture will fire one of these loaded
ideas. The result is an emotional explosion, a sudden burst of weeping,
a gust of violent, angry, and irrelevant emotion, or, in case the
feelings are more under control, merely a bitter remark or a chilling
and ironical laugh. It is an interesting fact that a jest may serve as
well to give expression to the "feelings" as an expletive or any other
emotional expression. All forms of fanaticism, fixed ideas, phobias,
ideals, and cherished illusions may be explained as the effects of
mental mechanisms created by the suppressed complexes.

From what has been said we are not to assume that there is any necessary
and inevitable conflict among ideas. In our dreams and day-dreams, as in
fairyland, our memories come and go in the most disorderly and fantastic
way, so that we may seem to be in two places at the same time, or we may
even be two persons, ourselves and someone else. Everything trips
lightly along, in a fantastic pageant without rhyme or reason. We
discover