Even stammering, which has always been considered a physical disorder, has been proved, by psycho-analysis, to be the sign of an emotional disturbance.  H. Addington Bruce reports the case of one of Dr. Brill’s patients, a young man who had been stammering for several years.  Observation revealed the fact that his chief difficulty was with words beginning with K and although at first he firmly denied any significance to the letter, he later confessed that his sweetheart whose name began with K had eloped with his best friend and that he had vowed never to mention her name again.  Upon Dr. Brill’s suggestion he tried to think of the unfaithful lover as Miss W., but soon returned, saying that he was stammering worse than ever.  Investigation showed that the additional unpronounceable words contained the letter W. When he was induced to renounce his oath never to call the girl’s name again, he found that he had no more difficulty with his speech.[43]

[Footnote 43:  H. Addington Bruce; “Stammering and Its Cure,” McClure’s, February, 1913.]

Thus we see that even the halting tongue of a stammerer may point the way to the buried complex for which search is being made.

Since there is no accident in mental life, and since there is behind every action a force or group of forces, no smallest action is insignificant to the person trained to understand.

If this at first seems disturbing, it is only because we do not realize that there is nothing within of which we need be ashamed.  People are very much alike, especially in the deeper layers of their being.  What belongs to the whole human race does not need to be hidden away in darkness.  There is nothing to lose and everything to gain by an increasing understanding of the chance signals which reveal the forces at work within the depths of the mind.  To the analyst every little unconscious act is a valuable clue pointing toward the end of his quest.[44]

[Footnote 44:  For further discussion of this subject, see Freud’s Psycho-pathology of Everyday Life, translated by A.A.  Brill.]

=The Aim of Psycho-Analysis.= As we have seen, the object of all this technique is the discovery and the removal of the resistances which have been keeping the emotional conflicts in the dark.  It is a long step just to learn that there are resistances; and by reliving, bit by bit, the earlier experiences responsible for unfortunate habits, we find that the habits themselves lose much of their old power.  They can be seen for what they are, and changed to suit present conditions.  A wish is incomparably stronger when unconscious than when conscious; and the old stereotyped, automatic reactions tend to cease when once they have been seen for what they are.  They become assimilated with the rest of the personality and modified by the mature attitudes of the conscious mind.  The person then re-educates himself by the very act of discovering himself.  In other cases, the uncovering is merely