ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book includes "Ibsen the Druggist", "Short Contributions to the Interpretation of Dreams", and "Contributions to the Psychopathology of Everyday Life". It discusses on the subject at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was collected together to appear as a book. The book demonstrates Tausk Victor's earlier legal experience, both as a lawyer and a judge, as well as his loyal exposition of Sigmund Freud's theories at that time. It explains melancholia and paranoia in relation to each other, the working up of heterosexual libido in depression and of homosexual libido in projection. The book was written about a problem that was a very common psychiatric syndrome in Tausk's time, the alcoholic psychosis. It shows how schizophrenic symptoms can represent the earliest stage of the ego's contact with reality.
