Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/11

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TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

In 1908 when it was agreed between Professor Freud and myself that I should be his translator, it was decided to render into English first the following five works: Selected Papers on Hysteria and Psychoneuroses[1] Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex,[2] The Interpretation of Dreams[3] Psychopathology of Everyday Life[4] and the present volume. These works were selected because they represent the various stages of development of Professor Freud's Psychoanalysis,[5] and also because it was thought that they contain the material which one must master before one is able to judge correctly the author's theories or apply them in practice. This undertaking, which was fraught with many linguistic and other difficulties, has finally been accom-

  1. Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Pub. Co., 2nd Ed., 1912.
  2. Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Pub. Co., 2nd Ed., 1916.
  3. The Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen & Unwin, London.
  4. The Macmillan Co, New York, and T. Fisher Unwin, London.
  5. This expression is used advisedly in order to distinguish it from other methods of "analysis," which Professor Freud fully disavows. Cf. The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, translated by A. A. Brill, The Psychoanalytic Review, June-Sept., 1916.