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The use of this method is also described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_flipping#Use_in_clarifying_feelings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coin_flipping#

• bazzargh 14y ago
  I'm not sure about this attribution to Freud. The wiki reference is to a management self-help book. That kind of book is full of inspirational quotes, never cites sources, and really shouldn't be relied on. Digging back it seems likely that the story has been mangled somewhere from this apposite quote, also popular in the same kind of book: When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.-- Freud. This one's real though, it's related by Theodore Reik in "The Inner Experience of a Psychoanalyst", 1949. In context, Reik studied under Freud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Reik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Reik). They met and Reik asked for help in choosing a career, the quote was Freud's reply. There's not a mention of a coin in the anecdote.