nothing remains, save a little heap of personal vanity. I have had amusing experiences here.
It is best to let the patient talk freely and to confine oneself to pointing out connexions here and there. When the conscious material is exhausted we come to the dreams, which furnish us with the subliminal material. If people have no dreams, as they allege, or if they forget them, there is usually still some conscious material that ought to be produced and discussed, but is kept back owing to resistances. When the conscious is emptied then come the dreams, which are indeed, as you know, the chief material of the analysis.
How the "Analysis" is to be made and what is to be said to patients depends, firstly, upon the material to be dealt with; secondly, on the doctor's skill; and, thirdly, on the patient's capacity. I must insist that no one ought to undertake analysis except on the basis of a sound knowledge of the subject, that necessitates an intimate understanding of the existing literature. Without this, the work may be bungled. I do not know what else to tell you beforehand. I must wait for further questions. In regard to questions of morality and education let me say that these belong to the later stages of the analysis, wherein they find—or should find—solutions for themselves. You cannot compile recipes out of psychoanalysis.
VII.
From Dr. Loÿ.
You write that a solid knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature is necessary for an initiation into psychoanalysis. I should agree, but with a certain reservation: the more one reads the more one notices how many contradictions there are among the different writers, and less and less does one know until one has had sufficient personal experience to which view to give adherence, since quite frequently assertions are made without any proof. For example, I had thought (strengthened in the view by my own experience of suggestion-therapy) that the transference to the doctor might be an
