simply talking out to me whatever came into their minds, laying aside
their critical faculty and letting their minds wander on into whatever
paths association led them. This is known as the free-association
method, and simple as it seems, is one of the most effective in
uncovering memories which have been forgotten for years. One of my
patients, a refined, highly educated woman of middle age, had suffered
for two years with almost constant nausea. One day, after a long talk,
with no suggestion on my part, only an occasional, "What does that
remind you of?" she told with great emotion an experience which she
had had at eighteen years of age, in which she had for a moment been
sexually attracted to a boy friend, but had recoiled as soon as she
realized where her impulse was leading her. She had been so horrified
at the idea of her degradation, so nauseated at what she considered
her sin, that she had put it out of her mind, denied that such a
thought had ever been hers, repressed the desire into the
subconscious, where it had continued to function unsatisfied,
unassimilated with her mature judgments. Her nausea was the symbol of
a moral disgust. Physical nausea she was willing to acknowledge, but
not this other thing. Upon reciting this old experience, with every
sign of the original shame, she cried: "Oh, Doctor! why did you bring
this up? I had forgotten it. I haven't thought of it in thirty years."
I reminded her that I couldn't bring it up,--I had never known
anything about it. With the emotional incoming of this memory and the
saner attitude toward it which the mature woman's mind was able to
take, the nausea disappeared for good. This case is typical of the
psycho-neuroses and we shall have occasion to refer to it again. The
present emphasis is on the fact that an emotional memory may be buried
for many years while it still retains the power of reappearing in more
or less disguised manifestation.