Studies in word-association : experiments in the diagnosis of psychopathological conditions carried out at the Psychiatric clinic of the University of Zurich

Abstract

"This book is a translation of a series of papers on the results of the association method applied to normal and abnormal persons, which appeared in the Journal für Psychologie und Neurologie (vols, iii-xvi) and were afterwards collected into two volumes. The experiments were carried out at the instance and under the guidance of Dr. C.G. Jung. The work which Drs. Jung and F. Riklin published in 1904 gave an entirely new direction to association experiments. The new departure which we owe to Dr. Jung is the application of the association method to unconscious mental processes; the theory of unconscious complexes was developed by these experiments; the results obtained by Freud's psycho-analytic technique were confirmed by the use of a very different method. This confirmation by experimental methods compelled many who had hitherto looked askance at the psycho-analytic theory of the unconscious to investigate the phenomena for themselves. These studies in word-association have now acquired a permanent place in the historical development of this theory"--Preface.