PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 149, 18 March 1924, Page 8

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

A DOCTOR’S WARNING. Dr. L. S. Latham, president of the Victoria branch of the British Medical Association, in his retiring speech, delivered recently, said: — “Tho iridesprcad and general interest in psycho-analysis is to be viewed with some concern.. I am anxious not to indulge in cheap criticism, but it may bo pointed out (what should be clear to ; anyone who has practised with any concentration psychological method of introspection) that there are many pitfalls to bo avoided in a logical tracing out of psychological associations. Follow a train of thought in your own mind and the associations are frequently most difficult to connect. The ideas would appear to be associated in time, but in. little else. Psycho-analysis affords by the 'word association tests’ a valuable means of examination of mind and determining tire lines along which association tends to occur, hut recognition of the occasional value of this method is consistent with the view that it should be but rarely applied, aud that the Freudian symbolic interpretation of many phenomena thus observed need not . be endorsed. The efforts of ancient philologists in derivations such as faba, fabaricus (fab-aricot-us) (h) aricot, and mus muris (mu-rat-us) rat, are ingenuous and simple in comparison with some of the psycho-analytic symbolisms. Probably the whole profession makes use from time to time of suggestion, and many of our patients need above all things inspiration or, it may be, comfort, and these constitute a form of psycho-therapy. It should be strongly emphasised, that in cases of nervous disease psycho-analytic methods should not be employed by non-medical exponents alone, even though they may be expert psychologists, for it is necessary before application of such methods that tho presence of organic disease liable to bo aggravated by the employment of such methods be first excluded. Such conditions are encephalitis and other inflammatory states. Of course, the ideal method would be that persons suitable for this method of investigation should be handled by an expert psychologist in association with .skilled medical direction.”