The social basis of consciousness

Chapter I 9

Chapter 2138 wordsPublic domain

PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THEORY AND IN LIFE

Theory of psychoanalysis rests upon conception that nervous disorders are substitutive manifestation of repressed sexual life--Sexuality itself, however, as now existing, symptomatic of repression and quite preclusive of the organic instinct of sex--Popular analytic view places a premium upon the reaction embodied in normality but substitution and repression in this collective reaction identical with the unconscious of neurotic individuals--Substitution of self-image for reality, present in reactions of normal, is not as yet recognized by psychoanalysis--Psychoanalysis remains in so far a theory only--In truth, the neurotic personality is index of the urge toward an essential organic mode of consciousness--Continuity with organic processes registered as subjective feeling cannot be approached by objective methods--The insanity of the individual not to be cured as long as there is the insanity of the social mind about him.