Machado de Assis's own writings about his epilepsy: a brief clinical note.

Machado de Assis's own writings about his epilepsy are here given. They come from his correspondence with his friend Mario de Alencar during the last 8 months of Machado de Assis's life. These are the only places where Machado de Assis dealt clearly with his epilepsy during his entire life.

The concept of nemesis in psychoneurosis.

A patient who has a nemesis fear as the basic process in his psychoneurosis feels that he is destined to repeat the life course of one of his parents to eventual long-term psychosis, or incapacitating physical illness or death by illness or accident. He feels that this will occur at about the same age as that at which his parent suffered his misfortune. The patient during his childhood and adolescence had a traumatic relationship with this parent, and is haunted by guilt feelings about it, and fears that avenging destiny, or nemesis, requires that he pay with a similar misfortune for that which he feels he caused. These patients improve much in psychotherapy, but the underlying nemesis fear, though much reduced in severity, is not entirely eliminated.

Obsessions of infanticide and imminent psychosis.

In young mothers an obsession of infanticide, that is, fear that they may murder their children, may be coupled with an obsession of imminent psychosis, that is, fear that the first obsession is a sign of approaching insanity. Sixteen mothers with this clinical picture were evaluated in interviews. Seven of them entered psychotherapy and improved. The causative factors in childhood and adolescence wich led to the later development of these obsessive difficulties are analyzed. Even when psychotherapy was not possible, as was the case in nine patients, they should be strongly reassured and explanations should be given about the nature of the problem, for such encouragement and clarification helps them to improve to a significant extent. The prognosis of patients who have systematic psychoterapy is good.

The use of humor in psychotherapy.

Humor can be a useful treatment technique in the hands of some psychotherapists. It may help the patient to see painful life events and situations from less threatening perspectives, and can take the anxiety and guilt out of many difficult circumstances and incidents. Humor can be valuable in talking with parents about the problems of their adolescent children, in working with adolescents themselves, in discussing difficulties encountered in the workplace and in social environments, in decreasing obstructive awe of the therapist and apprehensiveness about treatment, in dealing with problems such as male sexual impotence, and in many other areas. Some therapists, however, handle humor awkwardly; in their hands it misfires or falls flat, and they should avoid it.

The influence of Nietzsche on Freud's ideas.

BACKGROUND: The striking analogies between the ideas of Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, whose works were published from one to three decades before those of Freud, have been commented upon, but no previous systematic correlation of the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud has been made. METHOD: The major works of Nietzsche were read, and each possible analogy to an idea later broached by Freud was correlated by a systematic review of his works. Any references to Nietzsche in Freud's writings and reported conversation were culled. RESULTS: Concepts of Nietzsche which are similar to those of Freud include (a) the concept of the unconscious mind; (b) the idea that repression pushes unacceptable feelings and thoughts into the unconscious and thus makes the individual emotionally more comfortable and effective; (c) the conception that repressed emotions and instinctual drives later are expressed in disguised ways (for example, hostile feelings and ideas may be expressed as altruistic sentiments and acts); (d) the concept of dreams as complex, symbolic "illusions of illusions" and dreaming itself as a cathartic process which has healthy properties; and (e) the suggestion that the projection of hostile, unconscious feelings onto others, who are then perceived as persecutors of the individual, is the basis of paranoid thinking. Some of Freud's basic terms are identical to those used by Nietzsche. CONCLUSION: Freud repeatedly stated that he had never read Nietzsche. Evidence contradicting this are his references to Nietzsche and his quotations and paraphrases of him, in causal conversation and his now published personal correspondence, as well as in his early and later writings.

Tentative interpretations in psychotherapy.

The nature and technique of the tentative interpretation are described. Its usefulness and advantages are outlined, and its field of application in psychotherapy is discussed.