ABSTRACT
The unconscious originated not only in the childhood of man, but because it contains so many repressed motives, may also be said to have originated in the childhood of the world. The dreams offer the best and it might be said, the incontrovertible evidence of these repressed feelings, which, since they cannot be fulfilled in reality, are fulfilled either in dreams or in neurotic disturbances. The neuroses were classified as anxiety hysteria and repressed hysteria, and like all neuroses were merely methods of escape from an unbearable situation, chosen unconsciously. By abreaction is meant the mental processes of working off a pent-up emotion by living through it again in feeling and action. If completely abreacted, a repressed emotion is diffused and works itself off harmlessly, if not completely abreacted, it may lead to states of mental dissociation.
