ABSTRACT
As we now prepare to determine the general conditions under which repression occurs, as well as the laws by which we have arranged the individual processes with an aim toward explaining them, we are met by a difficulty which compels a troublesome concession. In order to obtain by strict induction a theory of the special processes of the repression, we would have to introduce an immense number of observations. I recognize that in the two to three thousand hours of my analytic work thus far, enough results have not accumulated to enable me to give by examples, with sufficient thoroughness and completeness, the elements of the repression forces, the changes and inner connections of these. The temptation is great to take on faith a great master like Freud who has devoted to psychoanalysis his incomparable talents for observation eight to ten hours daily aside from vacations and Sundays for almost two decades. But this appeal to him would only be permissible if he could expose his immense material to testing, which is possible only in the smallest part. Thus, I must put down much as provisional hypothesis which I might assert as certain if my experience were larger; indeed, I fear, because of my restraint, to be looked at askance by more than one older analyst.
