ABSTRACT
From the beginning analysis, as a therapeutic method, was concerned with the ego and its aberrations: the investigation of the id and of its mode of operation was always only a means to an end. And the end was invariably the same: the correction of these abnormalities and the restoration of the ego to its integrity. When the relations between the two neighboring powers —ego and id—are peaceful, the former fulfills to admiration its role of observing the latter. In favorable cases the ego does not object to the intruder but puts its own energies at the other’s disposal and confines itself to perceiving; it notes the onset of the instinctual impulse, the heightening of tension and the feelings of unpleasure by which this is accompanied and, finally, the relief from tension when gratification is experienced. The inroads from the one side and from the other are by no means equally valuable from the point of view of observation.
