Chapter 2 (pp. 8-17) Summary and Analysis

At the beginning of Chapter 2, Freud reveals that he has learned that the view of dreams that comes nearest to the truth is that of public opinion. In his past practice, Freud used psychoanalysis to cure phobias, obsessions, and delusions. Since this process has worked so well for other issues with the psyche, it will most probably work to help investigate dreams. In his rationalization, Freud thinks that phobias and obsessions are as different from normal conciseness as dreams are from waking consciousness. So, it makes sense to start the investigation with psychotherapy. This might have been different had Freud lived in a different time, but psychoanalysis is all he had to go off of.

Freud confusingly explains the process a therapist uses to perform psychoanalysis on a patient. If a patient has a phobia, first the...