| Summary: | "The libido to the psychiatrist may be compared with the scalpel in the hands of the surgeon. It is the understanding of the libido which makes the operation of psychoanalysis possible, and this is really an operation on the mind. The psychoanalyst must watch the libido in his technique during treatment, just as the surgeon watches his incisions under the scalpel. The psychoanalyst, like the surgeon, also dissects and operates. He removes and destroys the poison-breeding miasma in the mind to enlarge one's mental horizon. This book is divided into three parts, and eight chapters. The first chapter contains various theories of the libido, and the author's theory. Chapters two, three, four, five and six contain case material from the author's own practice. In the discussion of the first thirty-nine cases, much of the analytic material has been omitted, as the author has tried to evaluate the mechanisms of the libido and how it operates both in the neuroses and psychoses. The question of therapy is not discussed, but in some cases reference is made to differential diagnosis. In chapter seven the psychopathology of delusions are discussed, and in chapter eight the analytic sessions of two borderline cases are described. Here an attempt is made to show the formation of a delusion. The understanding of the formation of a delusion may be compared to the study of histological anatomy in relation to gross anatomy; the delusion is here observed under a more powerful immersion lens. Throughout part of the analyses demonstrated in chapter eight some repetitions will be observed. These have been included to show how firmly the ideas are fixed in the psyche. Also, it is impossible to record analytic material and avoid repetitions since it loses the value of demonstrating the workings of the psyche. One of the fundamental reasons for the publication of this book is to stimulate studies in the libido and come to the determining factors which will enable us to differentiate early cases of schizophrenia from the neuroses. Altogether forty-one cases are described, thirty-nine in the libido studies, and two in the study of the formation of delusions"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
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