The Psychology of Dementia Praecox

This work is the fruit of three years of experimental labor and clinical observation. Given the difficulty and scale of the material, my work cannot and does not claim either perfection in its treatment or absolute certainty in its conclusions; on the contrary, it unites all the disadvantages of eclecticism. This may seem so peculiar to many a reader that they might call my work a confession of faith rather than a scientific book—Peu importe! original French: "It matters little!" What is most important is that I may succeed in showing my readers how, through certain psychological investigations, I reached conclusions that I believe are fit to stimulate the study of the individual psychological basis of dementia præcox in a new and fruitful direction.

My views are not the inventions of a wandering fancy, but thoughts that matured through almost daily interaction with my venerable chief, Professor Bleuler. I owe special thanks to my friend, Dr. Riklin, of Rheinau, for significantly enriching my empirical material. Even a superficial glance at my work will show how indebted I am to the excellent conceptions of Freud. As Freud has not yet attained fair recognition and appreciation, but is opposed in the most authoritative circles, I hope to be allowed to define my position toward him. My attention was drawn to Freud by reading some of his articles, and initially by chance through his Traumdeutung Interpretation of Dreams, after which I studied his other works as well. To be sure, in the beginning, I naturally entertained all the objections advanced in literature against Freud. However, I believed that Freud could only be refuted by one who had personally and thoroughly tested the psychoanalytic method, and who truly investigated as Freud does—that is, by patiently studying daily life, hysteria, and dreams from Freud's perspective for a long time. Anyone who does not or cannot do this should not judge Freud; otherwise, they act like those famous men of science who disdained to look through Galileo's telescope.