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Title: Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology
Author: Jung, C. G.
Language: English
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COLLECTED PAPERS ON
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
COLLECTED PAPERS
ON
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
BY
C. G. JUNG, M.D., LL.D.,
FORMERLY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ZÜRICH.
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION
EDITED BY DR. CONSTANCE E. LONG,
MEDICAL OFFICER, EDUCATION BOARD; MEMBER ADVISORY COMMITTEE INSURANCE
ACT; EX-PRESIDENT ASSOCIATION OF REGISTERED MEDICAL WOMEN, ETC.
SECOND EDITION (REPRINTED)
[Illustration]
LONDON
BAILLIÈRE, TINDALL AND COX
8, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1920
[_All rights reserved_]
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The following papers have been gathered together from various sources,
and are now available for the first time to English readers. The subject
of psychoanalysis is much in evidence, and is likely to occupy still
more attention in the near future, as the psychological content of the
psychoses and neuroses is more generally appreciated and understood.
It is of importance, therefore, that the fundamental writings of both
the Viennese and Zürich Schools should be accessible for study. Several
of Freud's works have already been translated into English. Dr. Jung's
"Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido" was published in America in 1916
under the title of "The Psychology of the Unconscious." That work, read
in conjunction with these papers, offers a fairly complete picture of
the scientific and philosophic standpoint of the leader of the Zürich
School. It is the task of the future to judge and expand the findings
of both schools, and to work at the development of the new psychology,
which is still in its infancy.
It will be a relief to many students of the unconscious to see it in
another aspect than that of "a wild beast couched, waiting its hour to
spring." Some readers have gathered that view of it from the writings
of the Viennese School, a view which is at most that dangerous thing "a
half-truth."
In the papers appearing for the first time in this edition (Chapters
XIV. and XV.), Dr. Jung develops his ideas of introversion and
extroversion, a contribution of the first importance to psychology.
He agrees with Freud in regarding the neuroses to be the result of
repression, but differs in his view as to the origin of repression.
He finds this to lie not in sexuality _per se_, but rather in man's
natural tendency to adapt to the demands of life one-sidedly, according
to his type of mentality. The born extrovert adapts by means of
feeling, thought being under repression and relatively infantile. The
introvert's natural adaptation is by means of thought; feeling being
more or less repressed remains undeveloped. In either type the neglected
co-function is behind the adapted function. This inequality operating
in the unconscious, brings about a conflict, which in certain subjects
amounts to a neurosis, and in others produces a limitation of individual
development. This view shifts the interpretation of repression on to a
much more comprehensive basis than that of sexuality, although there can
scarcely be a repression that does not include this instinct on account
of its deep and far-reaching importance in man.
There is no doubt that some even scientific persons have a certain
fear of whither the study of the unconscious may lead. These fearful
persons should be reminded that they possess an unconscious in spite of
themselves, and that they share it in common with every human being. It
is an extension of the individual. To study it is to deepen the self.
All new discoveries have at one stage been called dangerous, and all new
philosophies have been deemed heresies. It is as though we would once
more consign radium to its dust-heaps, lest some day the new radiancy
should over-power mankind. Indeed this particular thing has proved
at once most dangerous and most precious. Man must learn to use his
treasure, and in using it to _submit to its own laws_, which can only
become known when it is handled and investigated.
Those who read this book with the attention it requires, will find they
gain an impression of many new truths. The second edition is issued
towards the end of the third year of the Great European war, at a time
when much we have valued and held sacred is in the melting-pot. But
we believe that out of the crucible new forms will arise. The study
of psychoanalysis produces something of the effect of a war in the
psyche; indeed, we need to make conscious this war in the inner things
of the mind and soul if we would be delivered in the future from war
in the external world. There is a parallelism between individual and
international neurosis. In the pain of the upheaval, one recognises the
birth-pangs of newer, and let us hope, truer thought, and more natural
adaptations. We need a renewal of our philosophy of life to replace much
that has perished in the general cataclysm, and it is because I see in
the analytical psychology, which grows out of a scientific study of the
unconscious, the germs of such a new construction, that I have gathered
the following essays together. The translation is the work of various
hands, the names of the different translators being given in a footnote
at the beginning of each essay; for the editing I am responsible. The
essays are, as far as possible, printed in chronological order, and
those readers who are sufficiently interested will be able to discern
in them the gradual development of Dr. Jung's present position in
psychoanalysis.
CONSTANCE E. LONG.
2, HARLEY PLACE, W.
_June, 1917_.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
In agreement with my honoured collaborator, Dr. C. E. Long, I have
made certain additions to the second edition. It should especially be
mentioned that a new chapter upon "The Concept of the Unconscious" has
been added. This is a lecture I gave early in 1916 before the Zürich
Union for Analytical Psychology. It gives a general orientation of a
most important problem in practical analysis, viz. of the relation
of the psychological ego to the psychological non-ego. Chapter XIV.
has been fundamentally altered, and I have used the opportunity to
incorporate an article that should describe the results of more recent
researches. In accordance with my usual mode of working, the description
is as generalised as possible. My habit in my daily practical work is
to confine myself for some time to studying my human material. I then
abstract as generalised a formula as possible from the data collected,
obtaining from it a point of view and applying it in my practical work,
until it has either been confirmed, modified, or else abandoned. If
it has been confirmed, I publish it as a general view-point, without
giving the empirical material. I only introduce the material amassed
in the course of my practice in the form of example or illustration. I
therefore beg the reader not to consider the views I present as mere
fabrications of my brain. They are, as a matter of fact, the results of
extensive experience and ripe reflection.
These additions will enable the reader of the second edition to become
familiar with the recent views of the Zürich School.
As regards the criticism encountered by the first edition of this
work, I was pleased to find my writings were received with much more
open-mindedness among English critics than was the case in Germany,
where they are met with the silence born of contempt. I am particularly
grateful to Dr. Agnes Savill for an exceptionally understanding
criticism in the _Medical Press_. My thanks are also due to Dr. T. W.
Mitchell for an exhaustive review in the _Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research_. This critic takes exception to my heresy respecting
causality. He considers that I am entering upon a perilous, because
unscientific, course, when I question the sole validity of the causal
view-point in psychology. I sympathise with him, but in my opinion the
nature of the human mind compels us to take the final point of view.
For it cannot be disputed that, psychologically speaking, we are living
and working, day by day, according to the principle of directed aim
or purpose, as well as that of causality. A psychological theory must
necessarily adapt itself to this fact. What is plainly directed towards
a goal cannot be given an exclusively causalistic explanation, otherwise
we should be led to the conclusion expressed in Moleschott's famous
enunciation: "Man _is_, what he eats." We must always bear the fact in
mind that _causality is a point of view_. It affirms the inevitable and
immutable relation of a series of events: a-b-d-z. Since this relation
is fixed, and according to the view-point must necessarily be so,
looked at logically the order may also be reversed. _Finality is also
a view-point_, that is justified empirically solely by the existence
of series of events, wherein the causal connection is indeed evident,
_but the meaning of which only becomes intelligible as producing final
effect_. Ordinary daily life furnishes the best instances of this. The
causal explanation must be mechanistic, if we are not to postulate a
metaphysical entity as first cause. For instance, if we adopt Freud's
sexual theory and assign primary importance psychologically to the
function of the genital glands, the brain is viewed as an appendage of
the genital glands. If we approach the Viennese idea of sexuality with
all its vague omnipotence, and trace it in a strictly scientific manner
down to its psychological basis, we shall arrive at the first cause,
according to which psychic life is for the most, or the most important
part, tension and relaxation of the genital glands. If we assume for the
moment that this mechanistic explanation be "true," it would be the sort
of truth which is exceptionally tiresome and rigidly limited in scope.
A similar statement would be that the genital glands cannot function
without adequate _nourishment_, with its inference that sexuality is an
appendage-function of nutrition! The truth contained in this is really
an important chapter in the biology of lower forms of life.
But if we wish to work in a really psychological way, we shall want
to know the _meaning_ of psychological phenomena. After learning the
kinds of steel the various parts of a locomotive are made of, and from
what ironworks and mines they come, we do not really know anything
about the locomotive's _function_, that is to say, its _meaning_. But
"function" as conceived by modern science is by no means solely a
causal concept; it is especially a final or "teleological" one. For it
is utterly impossible to consider the soul from the causal view-point
only; we are obliged to consider it also from the final point of view.
As Dr. Mitchell also points out, it is impossible for us to think of the
causal determination conjointly with a final connection. That would be
an obvious contradiction. But our theory of cognition does not need to
remain on a pre-Kantian level. It is well known that Kant showed very
clearly that the mechanistic and the teleological view-points are not
_constituent_ (objective) principles, in some degree qualities of the
object, but that they are purely _regulative_ (subjective) principles
of thought, and as such they are not mutually inconsistent. I can, for
example, easily conceive the following thesis and antithesis:--
_Thesis_: Everything came into existence according to
mechanistic laws.
_Antithesis_: Some things did not come into existence
according to mechanistic laws only.
Kant says to this: Reason cannot prove either of these principles,
because _a priori_ purely empirical laws of nature cannot give us a
determinative principle regarding the potentiality of things.
As a matter of fact, modern physics has necessarily been converted from
the idea of pure mechanism to the final concept of the conservation of
energy, because the mechanistic explanation only recognises reversible
processes, whereas the actual truth is that the process of nature is
irreversible. This fact led to the concept of an energy that tends
towards relief of tension, and therewith also towards a definite final
state.
Obviously, I consider both these points of view necessary, the causal as
well as the final, but would at the same time lay stress upon the fact
that since Kant's time we have come to know that the two view-points
are not antagonistic if they are regarded as regulative principles of
thought, and not as constituent principles of the process of nature
itself.
When speaking of the reviews, I must also mention those that seem to
me beside the mark. I was once more struck by the fact that certain
critics cannot distinguish between the theoretical explanation given by
the author, and the phantastic ideas provided by the patient. One of
my critics makes this confusion when discussing "Number Dreams." The
associations to the quotation from the Bible in Chapter V. are, as every
attentive reader must readily perceive, not arbitrary explanations of
my own, but a cryptomnesic conglomeration emanating, not from my brain
at all, but from that of the patient. Surely it is not difficult to
perceive upon reflection that this conglomeration of numbers corresponds
exactly to that unconscious psychological function from which proceeded
all the mysticism of numbers, Pythagoric, Kabbalistic, and so forth,
existent from untold ages.
I am grateful to my serious reviewers, and should like here to also
express my thanks to Mrs. Harold F. McCormick for her generous help in
the production of this book.
C. G. JUNG.
_June, 1917._
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
This volume contains a selection of articles and pamphlets on analytical
psychology written at intervals during the past fourteen years. These
years have seen the development of a new discipline, and as is usual in
such a case, have involved many changes of view-point, of concept, and
of formulation.
It is not my intention to give a presentation of the fundamental
concepts of analytical psychology in this book; it throws some
light, however, on a certain line of development which is especially
characteristic of the Zürich School of psychoanalysis.
As is well known, the merit of the discovery of the new analytical
method of general psychology belongs to Professor Freud of Vienna. His
original view-points had to undergo many essential modifications, some
of them owing to the work done at Zürich, in spite of the fact that he
himself is far from agreeing with the standpoint of this school.
I am unable to explain fully the fundamental differences between the
two schools, but would indicate the following points: The Vienna School
takes the standpoint of an exclusive sexualistic conception, while
that of the Zürich School is symbolistic. The Vienna School interprets
the psychological symbol semiotically, as a sign or token of certain
primitive psychosexual processes. Its method is analytical and causal.
The Zürich School recognises the scientific feasibility of such a
conception, but denies its exclusive validity, for it does not interpret
the psychological symbol semiotically only, but also symbolistically,
that is, it attributes a positive value to the symbol.
The value does not depend merely on historical causes; its chief
importance lies in the fact that it has a meaning for the actual
present, and for the future, in their psychological aspects. For to the
Zürich School the symbol is not merely a sign of something repressed and
concealed, but is at the same time an attempt to comprehend and to point
out the way of the further psychological development of the individual.
Thus we add a prospective import to the retrospective value of the
symbol.
The method of the Zürich School is therefore not only analytical and
causal, but also synthetic and prospective, in recognition that the
human mind is characterised by "causæ" and also by "fines" (aims). The
latter fact needs particular emphasis, because there are two types of
psychology, the one following the principle of hedonism, and the other
following the principle of power. Scientific materialism is pertinent
to the former type, and the philosophy of Nietzsche to the latter. The
principle of the Freudian theory is hedonism, while that of Adler (one
of Freud's earliest personal pupils) is founded upon the principle of
power.
The Zürich School, recognising the existence of these two types (also
remarked by the late Professor William James), considers that the views
of Freud and Adler are one-sided, and only valid within the limits of
their corresponding type. Both principles exist within every individual,
but not in equal proportions.
Thus, it is obvious that each psychological symbol has two aspects, and
should be interpreted according to the two principles. Freud and Adler
interpret in the analytical and causal way, reducing to the infantile
and primitive. Thus with Freud the conception of the "aim" is the
fulfilment of desire, with Adler it is the usurpation of power. Both
authors take the standpoint in their practical analytical work which
brings to view only infantile and gross egoistic aims.
The Zürich School is convinced of the fact that within the limits of
a diseased mental attitude the psychology is such as Freud and Adler
describe. It is, indeed, just on account of such impossible and childish
psychology that the individual is in a state of inward dissociation and
hence neurotic. The Zürich School, therefore, in agreement with them so
far, also reduces the psychological symbol (the phantasy products of
the patient) to the fundamental infantile hedonism, or to the infantile
desire for power. But Freud and Adler content themselves with the
result of mere reduction, according to their scientific biologism and
naturalism.
But here a very important question arises. Can man obey the fundamental
and primitive impulses of his nature without gravely injuring himself
or his fellow beings? He cannot assert either his sexual desire or
his desire for power unlimitedly, and the limits are moreover very
restricted. The Zürich School has in view also the final result
of analysis, and regards the fundamental thoughts and impulses
of the unconscious, as symbols, indicative of a definite line of
future development. We must admit there is, however, _no scientific
justification_ for such a procedure, because our present-day science is
based as a whole upon causality. But causality is only one principle,
and psychology essentially cannot be exhausted by causal methods
only, because the mind lives by aims as well. Besides this disputable
philosophical argument, we have another of much greater value in favour
of our hypothesis, namely, that of _vital necessity_. It is impossible
to live according to the intimations of infantile hedonism, or according
to a childish desire for power. If these are to be retained they must be
taken symbolically. Out of the symbolic application of infantile trends,
an attitude evolves which may be termed philosophic or religious, and
these terms characterise sufficiently the lines of further development
of the individual. The individual is not only an established and
unchangeable complex of psychological facts, but also an extremely
changeable entity. By exclusive reduction to causes, the primitive
trends of a personality are reinforced; this is only helpful when at
the same time these primitive tendencies are balanced by recognition
of their symbolic value. Analysis and reduction lead to causal truth;
this by itself does not help living, but brings about resignation and
hopelessness. On the other hand, the recognition of the intrinsic value
of a symbol leads to constructive truth and helps us to live. It induces
hopefulness and furthers the possibility of future development.
The functional importance of the symbol is clearly shown in the history
of civilisation. For thousands of years the religious symbol proved
a most efficacious means in the moral education of mankind. Only a
prejudiced mind could deny such an obvious fact. Concrete values cannot
take the place of the symbol; only new and more efficient symbols can
be substituted for those that are antiquated and outworn, such as have
lost their efficacy through the progress of intellectual analysis and
understanding. The further development of mankind can only be brought
about by means of symbols which represent something far in advance of
himself, and whose intellectual meanings cannot yet be grasped entirely.
The individual unconscious produces such symbols, and they are of the
greatest possible value in the moral development of the personality.
Man almost invariably has philosophic and religious views of the meaning
of the world and of his own life. There are some who are proud to have
none. These are exceptions outside the common path of mankind; they miss
an important function which has proved itself to be indispensable to the
human mind.
In such cases we find in the unconscious, instead of modern
symbolism, an antiquated archaic view of the world and of life. If a
requisite psychological function is not represented in the sphere of
consciousness, it exists in the unconscious in the form of an archaic or
embryonic prototype.
This brief _résumé_ may show what the reader cannot find in this
collection of papers. The essays are stations on the way of the more
general views developed above.
C. G. JUNG.
ZÜRICH,
_January, 1916_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
EDITOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION v
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION ix
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION xiii
CHAPTER I
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF SO-CALLED OCCULT
PHENOMENA 1
Difficulty of demarcation in borderline cases between
epilepsy, hysteria, and mental deficiency--Somnambulism an
hysterical manifestation--A case of spontaneous somnambulism,
with some characters of protracted hysterical delirium--Other
cases quoted--Charcot's classification of somnambulism--Naef's
and Azam's cases of periodic amnesia--Proust's and Boileau's
wandering-impulse cases--William James' case of Rev. Ansel
Bourne--Other examples showing changes in consciousness--Hypnagogic
hallucinations--Neurasthenic mental deficiency, Bleuler's
case--Summing up of Miss Elsie K.'s case--Need of further
scientific investigation in the field of psychological
peculiarities.
CASE OF SOMNAMBULISM IN A PERSON WITH NEUROPATHIC INHERITANCE
(SPIRITUALISTIC MEDIUM) 16
History of case--Accidental discovery of her mediumistic
powers--Her somnambulic attacks, "_attitudes passionelles_,"
catalepsy, tachypnoea, trance speeches, etc.--Ecstasies--Her
conviction of the reality of her visions--Her dreams,
hypnagogic and hypnopompic visions--The elevation of her
somnambulic character--Mental thought transference--S. W.'s
double life--Psychographic communications--Description of
séances--The Prophetess of Prevorst--Automatic writing--The two
grandfathers--Appearance of other somnambulic personalities.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOMNAMBULIC PERSONALITIES 30
The psychograph and spiritualistic wonders--The
grandfather the medium's "guide" or "control"--Ulrich von
Gerbenstein--The somnambulic personalities have access
to the medium's memory--Ivenes--S. W.'s amnesia for her
ecstasies--Later séances--Her journeys on the other side--Oracular
sayings--Conventi--Ivenes' dignity and superiority to her
"guides"--Her previous incarnations--Her race-motherhood.
MYSTIC SCIENCE AND MYSTIC SYSTEM OF POWERS 40
Her growing wilful deception--The waking
state--Her peculiarities--Instability--Hysterical
tendencies--Misreading--Errors of dispersion of attention discussed.
SEMI-SOMNAMBULISM 48
AUTOMATISMS 49
Table movements--Unconscious motor
phenomena--Verbal suggestion and auto-suggestion--The
experimenter's participation--The medium's unconscious
response--Thought-reading--Table-tilting experiment,
illustrated--Experiments with beginners--Myers' experiments
in automatic writing--Janet's conversation with Lucie's
subconsciousness--Example of the way the subconscious personality
is constructed--Hallucinations appear with deepening hypnosis;
some contributing factors--Comparison between dream symbols
and appearance of somnambulic personalities--Extension of the
unconscious sphere--The somnambulist's thinking is in plastic
images, which are made objective in hallucinations--Why visual
and not auditory hallucinations occur--Origin of hypnagogic
hallucinations--Those of Jeanne d'Arc and others.
THE CHANGE IN CHARACTER 64
Noticeable in S. W.'s case, also in Mary
Reynolds'--Association with amnesic disturbances--Influence
of puberty in our case--S. W.'s systematic anæsthesia--Ivenes
not so much a case of double consciousness as one in which she
dreams herself into a higher ideal state--Similar pathological
dreaming found in the lives of saints--Mechanism of hysterical
identification--S. W.'s dreams break out explosively--Their origin
and meaning, and their subjective roots.
RELATION TO THE HYSTERICAL ATTACK 75
In considering the origin of attack, two moments, viz.
irruption of hypnosis, and the psychic stimulation, must be
taken into account--In susceptible subjects relatively small
stimuli suffice to bring about somnambulism--Our case approaches
to hysterical lethargy--The automatisms transform lethargy
into hypnosis--Her ego-consciousness is identical in all
states--Secondary somnambulic personalities split off from the
primary unconscious personality--All group themselves under two
types, the gay-hilarious, and serio-religious--The automatic
speaking occurs--This facilitates the study of the subconscious
personalities--Their share of the consciousness--The irruption of
the hypnosis is complicated by an hysterical attack--The automatism
arising in the motor area plays the part of hypnotist--When the
hypnotism flows over into the visual sphere the hysterical attack
occurs--Grandfathers I. and II.--Hysterical dissociations belong to
the superficial layers of the ego-complex--There are layers beyond
the reach of dissociation--Effect of the hysterical attack.
RELATIONSHIP TO THE UNCONSCIOUS PERSONALITY 82
The serio-religious and the gay-hilarious explained by the
anamnesis--Two halves of S. W.'s character--She is conscious of the
painful contrast--She seeks a middle way--Her aspirations bring her
to the puberty dream of the ideal Ivenes--The repressed ideas begin
an autonomous existence--This corroborates Freud's disclosures
concerning dreams--The relation of the somnambulic ego-complex and
the waking consciousness.
COURSE 83
The progress of this affection reached its maximum in
4-8 weeks--Thenceforth a decline in the plasticity of the
phenomena--All degrees of somnambulism were observable--Her
manifest character improved--Similar improvements seen in certain
cases of double consciousness--Conception that this phenomenon
has a teleological meaning for the future personality--As seen in
Jeanne d'Arc and Mary Reynolds II.
THE UNCONSCIOUS ADDITIONAL CREATIVE WORK 84
S. W. shows primary susceptibility of the unconscious--Binet
affirms the susceptibility of the hysteric is fifty times
greater than that of normal--Cryptomnesia, a second additional
creation--Cryptomnesic picture may enter consciousness
intra-physically--Unconscious plagiarism explained--Zarathustra
example--Glossolalia--Helen Smith's Martian language--The names
in Ivenes' mystic system show rudimentary glossolalia--The
Cryptomnesic picture may enter consciousness as a hallucination--Or
arrive at consciousness by motor automatism--By automatisms regions
formerly sealed are made accessible--Hypermnesia--Thought-reading
a prototype for extraordinary intuitive knowledge of somnambulists
and some normal persons--Association-concordance--Possibility
that concept and feeling are not always clearly separated in the
unconscious--S. W.'s mentality must be regarded as extraordinary.
CHAPTER II
THE ASSOCIATION METHOD 94
LECTURE I.--Formula for test--Disturbances of reaction
as complex-indicators--Discovery of a culprit by means of
test--Disturbances of reaction show emotional rather than
intellectual causes--Principal types--Value of the experiment in
dealing with neurotics.
LECTURE II.--FAMILIAR CONSTELLATIONS 119
Dr. Fürst's researches--Effect of environment and education
on reactions--Effect of parental discord on children--Unconscious
tendency to repetition of parental mistakes--Case of pathological
association-concordance between mother and daughter--Neurosis, a
counter-argument against the personality with which the patient is
most nearly concerned--How to free the individual from unconscious
attachments to the milieu.
LECTURE III.--EXPERIENCES CONCERNING THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF
THE CHILD 132
Importance of emotional processes in children--Little Anna's
questions--Arrival of the baby brother--Anna's embarrassment and
hostility--Introversion of the child--Of the adolescent--Her
pathological interest in the Messina earthquake--The meaning of
her fear--Anna's theories of birth--Meaning of her questions--Her
father tells her something of origin of her little brother--Her
fears now subside--The unconscious meaning of the child's wish to
sit up late--Anna's equivalent to the "lumpf-theory" of little
Hans--The stork-theory again--Author's remarks on the sexual
enlightenment of the child.
CHAPTER III
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FATHER IN THE DESTINY OF THE
INDIVIDUAL 156
Psychosexual relationship of child to father--Fürst's
experiments quoted--The association experiment typical for
man's psychological life--Adaptation to father--Father-complex
productive of neurosis--Father-complex in man with masochistic and
homosexual trends--Peasant woman "her father's favourite," tragic
effect of the unconscious constellation--Case of eight-year-old
boy with enuresis--Enuresis a sexual surrogate--Importance of
infantile sexuality in life--Hence necessity for psychoanalytic
investigation--The Jewish religion and the father-complex--Parental
power guides the child like a higher controlling fate--The conflict
for the development of the individual--Father-complex in Book of
Tobias.
CHAPTER IV
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RUMOUR 176
Investigation of a rumour in a girls' school--The rumour arose
from a dream--Teacher's suspicions--Was the rumour an invention
and not, as alleged, the recital of a dream?--Interpolations
in dreams--Collection of evidence--Duplication of persons an
expression of their significance both in dreams and in dementia
præcox--The additions and interpolations represent intensive
unconscious participation--Hearsay evidence--Remarks.
EPICRISIS 188
The dream is analysed by rumour--Psychoanalysis explains the
construction of rumour--The dream gives the watchword for the
unconscious--It brings to expression the ready-prepared sexual
complexes--Marie X.'s unsatisfactory conduct brought her under
reproof--Her indignation and repressed feelings lead to the
dream--She uses this as an instrument of revenge against the
teacher--More investigation needed in the field of rumour.
CHAPTER V
ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBER-DREAMS 191
Symbolism of numbers has acquired fresh interest from
Freud's investigations--Example of number dream of middle-aged
man--How the number originates--A second dream also contains a
number--Analysis--The wife's dream "Luke 137"--This dream is an
example of cryptomnesia.
CHAPTER VI
A CRITICISM OF BLEULER'S "THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIC NEGATIVISM" 200
Bleuler's concept of ambivalency and ambitendency--Every
tendency balanced by its opposite--Schizophrenic
negativism--Bleuler's summary of its causes--The painfulness of
the complex necessitates a censorship of its expression--Thought
disturbance the result of a complex--Thought pressure due to
schizophrenic introversion--Resistance springs from peculiar sexual
development--Schizophrenia shows a preponderance of introversion
mechanisms--The value of the complex theory concept.
CHAPTER VII
PSYCHOANALYSIS 206
Doctors know too little of psychology, and psychologists
of medicine--Strong prejudice aroused by Freud's conception of
the importance of the sexual moment--The commoner prejudices
discussed--Psychoanalysis not a method of suggestion or
reasoning--The unconscious content is reached _via_ the
conscious--Case of neurotic man with ergophobia for professional
work--Case of neurotic woman who wants another child--Resistances
against the analyst--Dream analysis the efficacious instrument
of analysis--The scientist's fear of superstition--The genesis
of dreams--Dream material is collected according to scientific
method--The rite of baptism analysed--When the unconscious
material fails, use the conscious--The physician's own complexes a
hindrance--Interpretations of Viennese School too one-sided--Sexual
phantasies both realistic and symbolic--The dream the subliminal
picture of the individual's present psychology--Symbolism a process
of comprehension by analogy--Analysis helps the neurotic to
exchange his unconscious conflict for the real conflict of life.
CHAPTER VIII
ON PSYCHOANALYSIS 226
Difficulties of public discussion--Competence to form an
opinion presupposes a knowledge of the fundamental literature--The
abandoned trauma theory--Fixation--The importance of the infantile
past--Analysis discloses existence of innumerable unconscious
phantasies--Œdipus complex--Fixation discussed--The critical
moment for the outbreak of the neurosis--Predisposition--Author's
energic view point--Application of the libido to the
obstacle--Repression--Neurosis an act of adaptation that
has failed--The energic view does not alter the technique of
analysis--Analysis re-establishes the connection between the
conscious and unconscious--Is a constructive task of great
importance.
CHAPTER IX
ON SOME CRUCIAL POINTS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS 236
LETTER I.--LOY 236
The dream a means of re-establishing the moral equipoise--The
dreamer finds therein the material for reconstruction--Methods
discussed--The part played by "faith in the doctor"--Abreaction.
LETTER II.--JUNG 238
For the patient any method that works is good, though some
more valuable than others--The doctor must choose what commends
itself to his scientific conscience--Why the author gave up the
use of hypnotism--Three cases quoted--Breuer and Freud's method
a great advance in psychic treatment--Evolution of author's
views--Importance of conception that behind the neurosis lies
a moral conflict--Divergence from Freud's sexual theory of
neurosis--The doctor's responsibility for the cleanliness of his
own hands--Necessity that the psychoanalyst should be analysed--He
is successful in so far as he has succeeded in his own moral
development.
LETTER III.--LOY 244
Opportunism _v._ scientific honour--Psychoanalysis no more
than hypnotism gets rid of "transference"--Cases of enuresis
nocturna, and of washing-mania treated by hypnosis--On what grounds
should such useful treatment be dispensed with?--The difficulty of
finding a rational solution for the moral conflict--The doctor's
dilemma of the two consciences.
LETTER IV.--JUNG 248
Author's standpoint that of the scientist, not
practical physician--The analyst works in spite of the
transference--Psychoanalysis not the only way--Sometimes less
efficacious than any known method--Cases must be selected--For the
author and his patients it is the best way--The real solution of
the moral conflict comes from within, and then only because the
patient has been brought to a new standpoint.
LETTER. V.--LOY 252
"What is truth?"--Parable of the prism--All man attains is
relative truth--Fanaticism is the enemy to science--Psychoanalysis
a method of dealing with basic motives of the human soul--Must not
each case be treated individually?--Morals are above all relative.
LETTER VI.--JUNG 256
Definition of psychoanalysis--Technique--So-called chance is
the law--Rules well-nigh impossible--The patients' unconscious is
the analysts' best confederate--Questions of morality and education
find solutions for themselves in later stages of analysis.
LETTER VII.--LOY 258
Contradictions in psychoanalytic literature--Should the doctor
canalise the patient's libido?--Does he not indirectly suggest
dreams to patient?
LETTER VIII.--JUNG 261
Different view-points in psychoanalysis--_Vide_ Freud's
causality and Adler's finality--Discussion of meaning of
transference--The meaning of "line of least resistance"--Man as a
herd-animal--Rich endowment with social sense--Should take pleasure
in life--Error as necessary to progress as truth--Patient must be
trained in independence--Analyst is caught in his own net if he
makes hard-and-fast rules--Through the analyst's suggestion only
the outer form, never the content, is determined--The patient may
mislead the doctor, but this is disadvantageous and delays him.
LETTER IX.--LOY 267
The line of least resistance is a compromise with all
necessities--The analyst as accoucheur--The neurotic's faith in
authority--Altruism innate in man--He advances in response to his
own law.
LETTER X.--JUNG 270
Transference is the central problem of analysis--It may be
positive or negative--Projection of infantile phantasies on the
doctor--Biological "duties"--The psyche does not only react, but
gives its individual reply--We have an actual sexual problem
to-day--Evidences thereof--We have no real sexual morality, only
a legal attitude--Our moral views are too undifferentiated--The
neurotic is ill not because he has lost his faith in morality, but
because he has not found the new authority in himself.
CHAPTER X
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS IN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 278
Content of the unconscious--Defined as sum of all psychical
processes below the threshold of consciousness--Answer to question
how does the unconscious behave in neurosis found in its effect
on normal consciousness--Example of a merchant--Compensating
function of the unconscious--Symptomatic acts--Nebuchadnezzar's
dream discussed--Intuitive ideas, and insane manifestations
both emanate from the unconscious--Eccentricities pre-exist
a breakdown--In mental disorder unconscious processes
break-through into consciousness and disturb equilibrium--True
also in fanaticism--Pathological compensation in case of
paranoia--Unconscious processes have to struggle against
resistances in the conscious mind--Distortion--In morbid conditions
the function of the unconscious is one of compensation.
CHAPTER XI
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES 287
Striking contrast between hysteria and dementia
præcox--Extroversion and Introversion--Repression--Hysterical
transference and repression the mechanism of
extroversion--Depreciation of the external world the mechanism
of introversion--The nervous temperament pre-exists the
illness--Examples of the two types from literature--James's Tough
and Tender-minded--Warringer's Sympathy and Abstraction--Schiller's
Naïf and Sentimental--Nietzsche's Apollien and Dionysian--Gross's
Weakness and Reinforcement of Consecutive Function--Freud and
Adler's Causalism and Finality--The fundamental need for further
study of the two types.
CHAPTER XII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMS 299
Psychic structure of dream contrasted with that of conscious
thought--Why a dream seems meaningless--Freud's empirical
evidence--Technique, analysis of a dream--The causal and
teleological view of the dream--A typical dream with mythological
content--Compensating function of dreams--Phallic symbols.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES 312
Discussion of psychological _v._ physical origin of
mental disease--Mediæval conception of madness as work of evil
spirits--Development of materialistic idea that diseases of
the mind are diseases of the brain--Psychiatrists have come to
regard function as accessory to the organ--Analysis of patients
entering Burgholzi Asylum--A quarter only show lesions of the
brain--The psychiatry of the future must advance by way of
psychology--Cases of dementia præcox illustrating recent methods
in psychiatry--The development of the outbreak at a moment of
great emotion--Delusions determined by deficiencies in the
patient's personality--Difficulties of investigation--Temporary
remission of mental symptoms proves that reason survives in
spite of preoccupation with diseased thoughts--Case of dementia
præcox, showing exceeding richness of phantasy formations, and the
continuity of ideas.
PART II. 336
Freud's case of paranoid dementia--(Schreber case)--Two ways
of regarding Goethe's "Faust"--Retrospective and prospective
understanding--The scientific mind thinks causally--This is
but one half of comprehension--Pathological and mythological
formations, both structures of the imagination--Flournoy's
case--Misunderstanding of author's analysis of it--Adaptations
only possible to the introverted type by means of a
world-philosophy--The extroverted type always arrives at a
general theory subsequently--Psychasthenia is the neurosis of
introversion, hysteria of extroversion--These diseases typify the
general attitude of the types to the phenomena of the external
world--The extreme difference in type a great obstacle to common
understanding--The general result of the constructive method is a
subjective view, not a scientific theory.
CHAPTER XIV
FOREWORD TO NEW EDITION 352
Adler's views more fully discussed--The psychological events
of the war force the problems of the unconscious on society--The
psychology of individuals corresponds to the psychology of nations.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSES 354
I. THE BEGINNING OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
The evolution of psychology--How little it has had to offer
to the psychiatrist till Freud's discoveries--The origin and
reception of psychoanalysis--The prejudiced attitude of certain
physicians--Freud's view that his best work arouses greatest
resistances--The Nancy School--Breuer's first case--"The talking
cure"--The English "shock theory"--Followed by the trauma
theory--Discussion of predisposition--Author's case of hysteria
following fright from horses--The pathogenic importance of the
hidden erotic conflict.
II. THE SEXUAL THEORY 367
Humanity evolves its own restrictions on sexuality for the
sake of the advance of civilisation--The presence of a grave
sexual problem testifies to the need of more differentiated
conceptions--The erotic conflict largely unconscious--Neurosis
represents the unsuccessful attempt of the individual to solve
the problem in his own case--To understand the idea of the
dream as a wish-fulfilment the manifest and latent content must
be taken in review--The nature of unconscious wishes--Dream
analysis leads to the deepest recesses of the unconscious--The
analyst compared to the accoucheur--The highest development
of the individual is sometimes in complete conflict with the
herd-morality--Psychoanalysis provides the patient with a
philosophy of life founded upon insight--Man has within himself
the essence of morals--Both the moral and immoral man must accept
the corrective of the unconscious--Our sexual morality too
undifferentiated--Freud's sexual theory right to a point but too
one-sided.
III. THE OTHER VIEWPOINT: THE WILL TO POWER 381
The superman--Nietzsche's failure to justify his theories by
his life--His view also too one-sided--Adler's theory of neurosis
founded upon the principle of power--Case of hysteria discussed
from the standpoint of unconscious motivation.
IV. THE TWO TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGY 391
Thinking the natural adaptive function for introvert,
feeling for the extrovert--The sexual theory promulgated from
the standpoint of feeling, the power theory from that of
thought--Criticism of both theories indispensable--Symptoms of
neurosis are aims at a new synthesis of life--Definition of
positive value as energy in a useful form--In neurosis energy
is located in an inferior form--Sublimation a transference of
sexual energy to another sphere--Destiny often frustrates purely
rational sublimations--Rationalism, the world-war an example of
its breakdown--So-called "disposable energy"--Case of American
business-man--The types have different problems--The feelings of
the introvert relatively conventional and undifferentiated--The
thinking of the extrovert colourless and dry--The types apt to
marry, but not to understand one another--The theories of the
types led to a new theory of psychogenic disturbances--Neurosis
postulates the existence of an unconscious conflict--New theory
declares it to lie between the natural conscious function and the
repressed undifferentiated co-function--Repressed feelings of
introvert projected as vague physical symptoms--Repressed thought
of extrovert projected as hysterical symptoms--In analysis the
libido liberated from the unconscious phantasies is projected on
to the physician--It finds its way into the transference, which in
turn is dissolved--The new channel for the libido is already found.
V. THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS 408
Transference a projection of unconscious contents on to
the physician--Contents of the unconscious at first personal,
later impersonal--Primordial images--A differentiation of the
unconscious contents necessary--The deepest layers are now
designated impersonal, absolute, collective, or super-personal--The
libido now liberated in analysis sinks down into the unconscious,
reviving original "thought-feelings"--Example in Mayer's idea of
conservation of energy--The world-wide existence of the primordial
images--The concept of God--Enantiodromia, the world-war an example
of this--In analysis the pairs of opposites are torn asunder--This
necessitates that patients learn to differentiate between the ego
and non-ego.
VI. THE SYNTHETIC OR CONSTRUCTIVE METHOD 417
The transcendental function, a new way of regarding the
psychological materials as a bridge between the two sides of the
psyche--Example of method of synthesis of symbols of absolute
unconscious--Dream of the crab.
VII. ANALYTICAL (CAUSAL-REDUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION 419
The unconscious homosexual tendencies--The causal-reductive
method does not strictly follow the patient's own
associations--It does not interpret the dream as subjective
phenomenon--Interpretation on both objective and subjective planes
necessary.
VIII. THE SYNTHETIC (CONSTRUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION 422
Homosexuality in this case an unconscious defence against
acceptance of "more dangerous" tendencies--Fascination an
unconscious compulsion--"Identifications" have power so long as
they remain unconscious--Union of subjective and objective view of
dream gives its full meaning.
IX. THE DOMINANTS OF THE SUPER-PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS 426
Projection in relation to transference--Projection of certain
attributes not explicable on the ground of personal contents, but
must be referred to the super-personal--Collective unconscious
is sediment of all the experience of the universe throughout
time--Certain features that have become prominent, _e.g._ gods
and demons, are called "dominants" and have a character of
universal psychological truth--These dominants become conscious
as projections, explaining infatuations, incompatibilities,
unconscious conflicts, etc.--The "magical demon" is the most
primitive concept of God--Analysis traces home these projections
to the non-ego--Fear belongs to the dominants of the collective
unconscious--The next step is the detachment of these projections
from the objects of consciousness--This liberates energy for
further progress--The transcendental function--The hero-myth
symbolises this differentiation of ego from non-ego.
X. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TYPES OF INTROVERSION AND EXTROVERSION 437
The types apprehend life by opposite methods--All psychic
images have two sides, one directed towards the object, the
other towards the soul (idea)--The feelings of the introvert
are under repression, the thoughts of the extrovert--Analytical
development of the unconscious brings out the secondary function
in each type--The pairs of opposites being thus demonstrated need
for synthesis arises--This is a compensatory process leading to
enrichment of the individual.
XI. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE THERAPY 441
The unconscious is a source of danger when the individual
is not at one with it--It also creates harmonious prospective
combinations which can be an effective source of wisdom for the
individual--The use of the phantasies in conjunction with conscious
elaboration is the transcendental function--Not every individual
passes through all the stages described--For some the end of
analysis is reached when the cure is achieved--Others are under a
moral necessity to reach a full psychological development.
CONCLUSION 443
CHAPTER XV
THE CONCEPT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 445
I. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE PERSONAL AND IMPERSONAL
UNCONSCIOUS.
Development of concepts--Removal of repression does not
empty the unconscious--Repression is a special phenomenon--The
unconscious contains not only repressed material, but subliminal
sense-impressions which have never reached consciousness--It is
constantly busied with new phantasy formation--Patients are urged
to retain their hold on repressed materials that analysis has
brought into consciousness--Prolonged analysis reveals contents
other than those of a personal nature--Necessity to differentiate a
layer called the "personal" unconscious whose materials originate
in the personal past--Their omission from consciousness constitutes
a defect or neglect--The moral reaction against this neglect shows
they could become conscious if sufficient trouble were taken--The
gradual transference of the personal unconscious contents into
consciousness extends the periphery of consciousness.
II. THE CONSEQUENCES OF ASSIMILATION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS 449
First result is increased self-consciousness--May lead to
a sense of God-Almightiness in one type, or to overwhelming
self-depreciation in the other--A result of ascribing to
oneself qualities or vices that do not belong individually but
collectively--The collective pysche divided into collective
mind and collective soul--The collective contains the "parties
inférieures" of Janet; the conscious and personal unconscious
contains the "parties supérieures"--Incorporation of the impersonal
unconscious leads to a dissolution of the pairs of opposites--As
seen in neurotic, who combines megalomania and sense of inferiority
in extreme degree--Primitive man possesses the collective vices and
virtues in an undifferentiated way--Mental conflict only begins
with conscious personal development--Desire to be good brings about
repression of the bad--Collective view-point, though necessary,
is dangerous to individuality--Collective psyche is the result of
psychological differentiation of the gregarious instincts--Dangers
of identification with collective psyche--Recognition of the
different psychology of the types a safeguard, promoting a proper
respect for individuality of the opposite type--Individuation
hampered by man's suggestibility and tendency to imitation.
III. THE INDIVIDUAL AS AN EXCERPT OF THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE 456
The personal unconscious contains repressed materials capable
of becoming conscious--By also incorporating the impersonal
contents the state of God-Almightiness is brought about--The
"persona" a mask for the collective psyche--Development of
God-Almightiness, physical concomitants--Dissolution of the
persona results in release of phantasy--Analogy with mental
derangement--Difference consists in that the unconscious is at
first deliberately brought into consciousness by consent, and later
that it is recognised as having psychic validity only.
IV. ENDEAVOURS TO FREE THE INDIVIDUALITY FROM THE COLLECTIVE
PSYCHE 459
(i) _The Regressive Restoration of the Persona_--Three ways
open, (_a_) Regressive application of a reductive theory; (_b_)
application of God-Almightiness as a "virile protest;" (_c_)
recognition of the primitive archaic collective psychology in
man--Temptation to solve the difficulty by forgetting one has an
unconscious--This does not work--The unconscious cannot be deprived
of libido, nor its activity stilled for any length of time.
(ii) _Identification with the Collective
Psyche_--God-Almightiness developed into a system--Identification
increases feeling for life or sense of power, according to the
type--This, mystically understood, is the "yearning for the
mother" of the hero-myth, or the "incest-wish" of Freud--It is the
collective psyche that has to be overcome--Identification with the
collective psyche is a failure because being lost in it, a bearable
or satisfactory life is impossible.
V. LEADING PRINCIPLES FOR THE TREATMENT OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHE 468
Neither regressive restoration of the persona,
nor identification with collective psyche solves the
problem--Psychology will have to admit a plurality of
principles--Only the collective part of individual psychology
can be the subject of scientific study--What belongs to the
psychology of the individual requires its own text-book--The
persona must be strictly separated from the concept of the
individual--What is individual is the remnant which can
never be merged into the collective--Analysis of the persona
transfers greater value on to the individuality, increasing its
conflict with collectivity--The persona is identical with a
one-sided attitude, being a typical attitude in which thought
or feeling or intuition dominates, causing relative repression
of the other functions--Dissolution of persona indispensable
to individuation--The more individual a person is the more he
assimilates and develops those attributes that are the basis of a
collective concept of human nature--Unifying function between the
conscious and unconscious, between the collective and individual is
found in the phantasies--Phantasy the creative soil for everything
that has brought development to humanity--Phantasy not to be
taken literally but hermeneutically--Hermeneutics adds analogies
to those already given--Hermeneutical interpretation indicates
the means of synthesis of the individual, provided as soon as the
symbolic outlines of the path are understood they are followed
up--Co-operation and honest endeavour essential to cure--The moral
factor determines the cure--"Life-lines" have a short and ephemeral
value--Dreams are compensatory to conscious thinking--Watch must be
kept for dreams indicative of causes of error--Hence the patient
must remain in contact with the unconscious--End of analysis
reached when enough psychological insight and mastery of technique
is acquired to enable individual to follow his ever-changing
life-line, and to retain hold on the libido currents which give
conscious support to his individuality.
SUMMARY 472
INDEX 475
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER I
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF SO-CALLED OCCULT PHENOMENA[1]
In that wide field of psychopathic deficiency where Science has
demarcated the diseases of epilepsy, hysteria and neurasthenia, we meet
scattered observations concerning certain rare states of consciousness
as to whose meaning authors are not yet agreed. These observations
spring up sporadically in the literature on narcolepsy, lethargy,
_automatisme ambulatoire_, periodic amnesia, double consciousness,
somnambulism, pathological dreamy states, pathological lying, etc.
These states are sometimes attributed to epilepsy, sometimes
to hysteria, sometimes to exhaustion of the nervous system, or
neurasthenia, sometimes they are allowed all the dignity of a disease
_sui generis_. Patients occasionally work through a whole graduated
scale of diagnoses, from epilepsy, through hysteria, up to simulation.
In practice, on the one hand, these conditions can only be separated
with great difficulty from the so-called neuroses, sometimes even are
indistinguishable from them; on the other, certain features in the
region of pathological deficiency present more than a mere analogical
relationship not only with phenomena of normal psychology, but also
with the psychology of the supernormal, of genius. Various as are the
individual phenomena in this region, there is certainly no case that
cannot be connected by some intermediate example with the other typical
cases. This relationship in the pictures presented by hysteria and
epilepsy is very close. Recently the view has even been maintained that
there is no clean-cut frontier between epilepsy and hysteria, and that
a difference is only to be noted in extreme cases. Steffens says, for
example[2]--"We are forced to the conclusion that in essence hysteria
and epilepsy are not fundamentally different, that the cause of the
disease is the same, but is manifest in a diverse form, in different
intensity and permanence."
The demarcation of hysteria and certain borderline cases of epilepsy
from congenital and acquired psychopathic mental deficiency likewise
presents the greatest difficulties. The symptoms of one or other disease
everywhere invade the neighbouring realm, so violence is done to the
facts when they are split off and considered as belonging to one or
other realm. The demarcation of psychopathic mental deficiency from the
normal is an absolutely impossible task, the difference is everywhere
only "more or less." The classification in the region of mental
deficiency itself is confronted by the same difficulty. At best, certain
classes can be separated off which crystallise round some well-marked
nucleus through having peculiarly typical features. Turning away from
the two large groups of intellectual and emotional deficiency, there
remain those deficiencies coloured pre-eminently by hysteria or epilepsy
(epileptoid) or neurasthenia, which are not notably deficiency of the
intellect or of feeling. It is essentially in this region, insusceptible
of any absolute classification, that the above-named conditions play
their part. As is well known, they can appear as part manifestations
of a typical epilepsy or hysteria, or can exist separately in the
realm of psychopathic mental deficiency, where their qualifications of
epileptic or hysterical are often due to the non-essential accessory
features. It is thus the rule to place somnambulism among hysterical
diseases, because it is occasionally a phenomenon of severe hysteria,
or because mild so-called hysterical symptoms may accompany it. Binet
says: "Il n'y a pas une somnambulisme, état nerveux toujours identique
à lui-même, il y a des somnambulismes." As one of the manifestations
of a severe hysteria, somnambulism is not an unknown phenomenon, but
as a pathological entity, as a disease _sui generis_, it must be
somewhat rare, to judge by its infrequency in German literature on the
subject. So-called spontaneous somnambulism, resting upon a foundation
of hysterically-tinged psychopathic deficiency, is not a very common
occurrence and it is worth while to devote closer study to these cases,
for they occasionally present a mass of interesting particulars.
_Case of Miss Elise K._, aged 40, single; book-keeper in a large
business; no hereditary taint, except that it is alleged a brother
became slightly nervous after family misfortune and illness. Well
educated, of a cheerful, joyous nature, not of a saving disposition,
always occupied with some big idea. She was very kind-hearted and
gentle, did a great deal both for her parents, who were living in very
modest circumstances, and for strangers. Nevertheless she was not happy,
because she thought she did not understand herself. She had always
enjoyed good health till a few years ago, when she is said to have
been treated for dilatation of the stomach and tapeworm. During this
illness her hair became rapidly white, later she had typhoid fever. An
engagement was terminated by the death of her fiancé from paralysis. She
had been very nervous for a year and a half. In the summer of 1897 she
went away for change of air and treatment by hydropathy. She herself
says that for about a year she has had moments during work when her
thoughts seem to stand still, but she does not fall asleep. Nevertheless
she makes no mistakes in the accounts at such times. She has often been
to the wrong street and then suddenly noticed that she was not in the
right place. She has had no giddiness or attacks of fainting. Formerly
menstruation occurred regularly every four weeks, and without any
pain, but since she has been nervous and overworked it has come every
fourteen days. For a long time she has suffered from constant headache.
As accountant and book-keeper in a large establishment, the patient has
had very strenuous work, which she performs well and conscientiously. In
addition to the strenuous character of her work, in the last year she
had various new worries. Her brother was suddenly divorced. In addition
to her own work, she looked after his housekeeping, nursed him and his
child in a serious illness, and so on. To recuperate, she took a journey
on the 13th September to see a woman friend in South Germany. The great
joy at seeing her friend from whom she had been long separated, and
her participation in some festivities, deprived her of her rest. On
the 15th, she and her friend drank half a bottle of claret. This was
contrary to her usual habit. They then went for a walk in a cemetery,
where she began to tear up flowers and to scratch at the graves. She
remembered absolutely nothing of this afterwards. On the 16th she
remained with her friend without anything of importance happening. On
the 17th her friend brought her to Zürich. An acquaintance came with her
to the Asylum; on the way she spoke quite sensibly, but was very tired.
Outside the Asylum they met three boys, whom she described as the "three
dead people she had dug up." She then wanted to go to the neighbouring
cemetery, but was persuaded to come to the Asylum.
She is small, delicately formed, slightly anæmic. The heart is slightly
enlarged to the left, there are no murmurs, but some reduplication of
the sounds, the mitral being markedly accentuated. The liver dulness
reaches to the border of the ribs. Patella-reflex is somewhat increased,
but otherwise no tendon-reflexes. There is neither anæsthesia,
analgesia, nor paralysis. Rough examination of the field of vision with
the hands shows no contraction. The patient's hair is a very light
yellow-white colour; on the whole she looks her age. She gives her
history and tells recent events quite clearly, but has no recollection
of what took place in the cemetery at C. or outside the Asylum. During
the night of the 17th-18th she spoke to the attendant and declared she
saw the whole room full of dead people--looking like skeletons. She was
not at all frightened, but was rather surprised that the attendant did
not see them too. Once she ran to the window, but was otherwise quiet.
The next morning, while still in bed, she saw skeletons, but not in
the afternoon. The following night at four o'clock she awoke and heard
the dead children in the neighbouring cemetery cry out that they had
been buried alive. She wanted to go out to dig them up, but allowed
herself to be restrained. Next morning at seven o'clock she was still
delirious, but recalled accurately the events in the cemetery at C. and
those on approaching the Asylum. She stated that at C. she wanted to
dig up the dead children who were calling her. She had only torn up the
flowers to free the graves and to be able to get at them. In this state
Professor Bleuler explained to her that later on, when in a normal state
again, she would remember everything. The patient slept in the morning,
afterwards was quite clear, and felt herself relatively well. She did
indeed remember the attacks, but maintained a remarkable indifference
towards them. The following nights, with the exception of those of the
22nd and the 25th September, she again had slight attacks of delirium,
when once more she had to deal with the dead. The details of the attacks
differed, however. Twice she saw the dead in her bed, but she did not
appear to be afraid of them, she got out of bed frequently, however,
because she did not want "to inconvenience the dead"; several times she
wanted to leave the room.
After a few nights free from attacks there was a slight one on the
30th Sept., when she called the dead from the window. During the day
her mind was clear. On the 3rd of October she saw a whole crowd of
skeletons in the drawingroom, as she afterwards related, during full
consciousness. Although she doubted the reality of the skeletons, she
could not convince herself that it was a hallucination. The following
night, between twelve and one o'clock--the earlier attacks were usually
about this time--she was obsessed with the idea of dead people for
about ten minutes. She sat up in bed, stared at a corner and said:
"Well, come!--but they're not all there. Come along! Why don't you
come? The room is big enough, there's room for all; when all are there,
I'll come too." Then she lay down with the words: "Now they're all
there," and fell asleep again. In the morning she had not the slightest
recollection of any of these attacks. Very short attacks occurred in
the nights of the 4th, 6th, 9th, 13th and 15th of October, between
twelve and one o'clock. The last three occurred during the menstrual
period. The attendant spoke to her several times, showed her the lighted
street-lamps, and trees; but she did not react to this conversation.
Since then the attacks have altogether ceased. The patient has
complained about a number of troubles which she had had all along. She
suffered much from headache the morning after the attacks. She said it
was unbearable. Five grains of Sacch. lactis promptly alleviated this;
then she complained of pains in both fore-arms, which she described as
if it were a teno-synovitis. She regarded the bulging of the muscles in
flexion as a swelling, and asked to be massaged. Nothing could be seen
objectively, and no attention being paid to it, the trouble disappeared.
She complained exceedingly and for a long time about the thickening of
a toenail, even after the thickened part had been removed. Sleep was
often disturbed. She would not give her consent to be hypnotised for
the night-attacks. Finally on account of headache and disturbed sleep
she agreed to hypnotic treatment. She proved a good subject, and at the
first sitting fell into deep sleep with analgesia and amnesia.
In November she was again asked whether she could now remember the
attack on the 19th September which it had been suggested that she would
recall. It gave her great trouble to recollect it, and in the end she
could only state the chief facts, she had forgotten the details.
It should be added that the patient was not superstitious, and in
her healthy days had never particularly interested herself in the
supernatural. During the whole course of treatment, which ended on the
14th November, great indifference was evinced both to the illness and
the cure. Next spring the patient returned for out-patient treatment
of the headache, which had come back during the very hard work of
these months. Apart from this symptom her condition left nothing to
be desired. It was demonstrated that she had no remembrance of the
attacks of the previous autumn, not even of those of the 19th September
and earlier. On the other hand, in hypnosis she could recount the
proceedings in the cemetery and during the nightly disturbances.
By the peculiar hallucination and by its appearance our case recalls
the conditions which V. Kraft-Ebing has described as "protracted states
of hysterical delirium." He says: "Such conditions of delirium occur
in the slighter cases of hysteria. Protracted hysterical delirium is
built upon a foundation of temporary exhaustion. Excitement seems to
determine an outbreak, and it readily recurs. Most frequently there
is persecution-delirium with very violent anxiety, sometimes of a
religious or erotic character. Hallucinations of all the senses are
not rare, but illusions of sight, smell and feeling are the commonest,
and most important. The visual hallucinations are especially visions
of animals, pictures of corpses, phantastic processions in which dead
persons, devils and ghosts swarm. The illusions of hearing are simply
sounds (shrieks, howlings, claps of thunder) or local hallucinations,
frequently with a sexual content."
This patient's visions of corpses, occurring almost always in attacks,
recall the states occasionally seen in hystero-epilepsy. There likewise
occur specific visions which, in contrast with protracted delirium, are
connected with single attacks.
(1) A lady 30 years of age with _grande hystérie_ had twilight states in
which as a rule she was troubled by terrible hallucinations; she saw her
children carried away from her, wild beasts eating them up, and so on.
She has amnesia for the content of the individual attacks.[3]
(2) A girl of 17, likewise a semi-hysteric, saw in her attacks the
corpse of her dead mother approaching her to draw her to her. Patient
has amnesia for the attacks.[4]
These are cases of severe hysteria wherein consciousness rests upon a
profound stage of dreaming. The nature of the attack and the stability
of the hallucination alone show a certain kinship with our case, which
in this respect has numerous analogies with the corresponding states of
hysteria. For instance, with those cases where a psychical shock (rape,
etc.) was the occasion for the outbreak of hysterical attacks, and where
at times the original incident is lived over again, stereotyped in the
hallucination. But our case gets its specific mould from the identity of
the consciousness in the different attacks. It is an "Etat Second" with
its own memory and separated from the waking state by complete amnesia.
This differentiates it from the above-mentioned twilight states and
links it to the so-called somnambulic conditions.
Charcot[5] divides the somnambulic states into two chief classes:--
1. Delirium with well-marked incoordination of representation and action.
2. Delirium with co-ordinated action. This approaches the waking state.
Our case belongs to the latter class.
If by somnambulism be understood a state of systematised partial
waking,[6] any critical review of this affection must take account of
those exceptional cases of recurrent amnesias which have been observed
now and again. These, apart from nocturnal ambulism, are the simplest
conditions of systematised partial waking. Naef's case is certainly the
most remarkable in the literature. It deals with a gentleman of 32, with
a very bad family history presenting numerous signs of degeneration,
partly functional, partly organic. In consequence of over-work at the
age of 17 he had a peculiar twilight state with delusions, which lasted
some days and was cured with a sudden recovery of memory. Later he
was subject to frequent attacks of giddiness and palpitation of the
heart and vomiting; but these attacks were never attended by loss of
consciousness. At the termination of some feverish illness he suddenly
travelled from Australia to Zürich, where he lived for some weeks in
careless cheerfulness, and only came to himself when he read in the
paper of his sudden disappearance from Australia. He had a total and
retrograde amnesia for the several months which included the journey to
Australia, his sojourn there and the return journey.
Azam[7] has published a case of periodic amnesia. Albert X., 12 1/2
years old, of hysterical disposition, was several times attacked in
the course of a few years by conditions of amnesia in which he forgot
reading, writing and arithmetic, even at times his own language, for
several weeks at a stretch. The intervals were normal.
Proust[8] has published a case of _Automatisme ambulatoire_ with
pronounced hysteria which differs from Naef's in the repeated occurrence
of the attacks. An educated man, 30 years old, exhibits all the signs
of _grande hystérie;_ he is very suggestible, has from time to time,
under the influence of excitement, attacks of amnesia which last from
two days to several weeks. During these states he wanders about, visits
relatives, destroys various objects, incurs debts, and has even been
convicted of "picking pockets."
Boileau describes a similar case[9] of wandering-impulse. A widow of
22, highly hysterical, became terrified at the prospect of a necessary
operation for salpingitis; she left the hospital and fell into a state
of somnambulism, from which she awoke three days later with total
amnesia. During these three days she had travelled a distance of about
60 kilometres to fetch her child.
William James has described a case of an "ambulatory sort."[10]
The Rev. Ansel Bourne, an itinerant preacher, 30 years of age,
psychopathic, had on a few occasions attacks of loss of consciousness
lasting one hour. One day (January 17, 1887) he suddenly disappeared
from Greene, after having taken 551 dollars out of the bank. He
remained hidden for two months. During this time he had taken a little
shop under the name of H. J. Browne in Norriston, Pa., and had carefully
attended to all purchases, although he had never done this sort of work
before. On March 14, 1887, he suddenly awoke and went back home, and had
complete amnesia for the interval.
Mesnet[11] publishes the following case:--
F., 27 years old, sergeant in the African regiment, was wounded in
the parietal bone at Bazeilles. Suffered for a year from hemiplegia,
which disappeared when the wound healed. During the course of his
illness the patient had attacks of somnambulism, with marked limitation
of consciousness; all the senses were paralysed, with the exception
of taste and a small portion of the visual sense. The movements
were co-ordinated, but obstacles in the way of their performance
were overcome with difficulty. During the attacks he had an absurd
collecting-mania. By various manipulations one could demonstrate a
hallucinatory content in his consciousness; for instance, when a stick
was put in his hand he would feel himself transported to a battle scene,
would place himself on guard, see the enemy approaching, etc.
Guinon and Sophie Waltke[12] made the following experiments on
hysterics:--
A blue glass was held in front of the eyes of a female patient during
a hysterical attack; she regularly saw the picture of her mother in
the blue sky. A red glass showed her a bleeding wound, a yellow one an
orange-seller or a lady with a yellow dress.
Mesnet's case reminds one of the cases of occasional attacks of
shrinkage of memory.
MacNish[13] communicates a similar case.
An apparently healthy young lady suddenly fell into an abnormally long
and deep sleep--it is said without prodromal symptoms. On awaking she
had forgotten the words for and the knowledge of the simplest things.
She had again to learn to read, write, and count; her progress was rapid
in this re-learning. After a second attack she again woke in her normal
state, but without recollection of the period when she had forgotten
things. These states alternated for more than four years, during which
consciousness showed continuity within the two states, but was separated
by an amnesia from the consciousness of the normal state.
These selected cases of various forms of changes of consciousness
all throw a certain light upon our case. Naef's case presents two
hysteriform eclipses of memory, one of which is marked by the appearance
of delusions, and the other by its long duration, contraction of the
field of consciousness, and desire to wander. The peculiar associated
impulses are specially clear in the cases of Proust and Mesnet. In our
case the impulsive tearing up of the flowers, the digging up of the
graves, form a parallel. The continuity of consciousness which the
patient presents in the individual attacks recalls the behaviour of
the consciousness in MacNish's case; hence our case may be regarded
as a transient phenomenon of alternating consciousness. The dreamlike
hallucinatory content of the limited consciousness in our case does not,
however, justify an unqualified assignment to this group of _double
consciousness_. The hallucinations in the second state show a certain
creativeness which seems to be conditioned by the auto-suggestibility
of this state. In Mesnet's case we noticed the appearance of
hallucinatory processes from simple stimulation of touch. The patient's
subconsciousness employs simple perceptions for the automatic
construction of complicated scenes which then take possession of the
limited consciousness. A somewhat similar view must be taken about
our patient's hallucinations; at least, the external conditions which
gave rise to the appearance of the hallucinations seem to strengthen
our supposition. The walk in the cemetery induces the vision of the
skeletons; the meeting with the three boys arouses the hallucination of
children buried alive whose voices the patient hears at night-time. She
arrived at the cemetery in a somnambulic state, which on this occasion
was specially intense in consequence of her having taken alcohol. She
performed actions almost instinctively about which her subconsciousness
nevertheless did receive certain impressions. (The part played here by
alcohol must not be underestimated. We know from experience that it does
not only act adversely upon these conditions, but, like every other
narcotic, it gives rise to a certain increase of suggestibility.) The
impressions received in somnambulism subconsciously form independent
growths, and finally reach perception as hallucinations. Thus our
case closely corresponds to those somnambulic dream-states which have
recently been subjected to a penetrating study in England and France.
These lapses of memory, which at first seem without content, gain a
content by means of accidental auto-suggestion, and this content builds
itself up automatically to a certain extent. It achieves no further
development, probably on account of the improvement now beginning,
and finally it disappears altogether as recovery sets in. Binet and
Féré have made numerous experiments on the implanting of suggestions
in states of partial sleep. They have shown, for example, that when a
pencil is put in the anæsthetic hand of a hysteric, letters of great
length are written automatically whose contents are unknown to the
patient's consciousness. Cutaneous stimuli in anæsthetic regions are
sometimes perceived as visual images, or at least as vivid associated
visual presentations. These independent transmutations of simple stimuli
must be regarded as primary phenomena in the formation of somnambulic
dream-pictures. Analogous manifestations occur in exceptional cases
within the sphere of waking consciousness. Goethe,[14] for instance,
states that when he sat down, lowered his head and vividly conjured up
the image of a flower, he saw it undergoing changes of its own accord,
as if entering into new combinations.
In half-waking states these manifestations are relatively frequent
in the so-called hypnagogic hallucinations. The automatisms which
the Goethe example illustrates are differentiated from the truly
somnambulic, inasmuch as the primary presentation is a conscious one
in this case; the further development of the automatism is maintained
within the definite limits of the original presentation, that is, within
the purely motor or visual region.
If the primary presentation disappears, or if it is never conscious at
all, and if the automatic development overlaps neighbouring regions,
we lose every possibility of a demarcation between waking automatisms
and those of the somnambulic state; this will occur, for instance,
if the presentation of a hand plucking the flower gets joined to the
perception of the flower or the presentation of the smell of the flower.
We can then only differentiate it by the more or less. In one case
we then speak of the "waking hallucinations of the normal," in the
other, of the dream-vision of the somnambulists. The interpretation
of our patient's attacks as hysterical becomes more certain by the
demonstration of a probably psychogenic origin of the hallucination.
This is confirmed by her troubles, headache and teno-synovitis, which
have shown themselves amenable to suggestive treatment. The ætiological
factor alone is not sufficient for the diagnosis of hysteria; it might
really be expected _a priori_ that in the course of a disease which is
so suitably treated by rest, as in the treatment of an exhaustion-state,
features would be observed here and there which could be interpreted
as manifestations of exhaustion. The question arises whether the
early lapses and later somnambulic attacks could not be conceived as
states of exhaustion, so-called "neurasthenic crises." We know that in
the realm of psychopathic mental deficiency there can arise the most
diverse epileptoid accidents, whose classification under epilepsy or
hysteria is at least doubtful. To quote C. Westphal: "On the basis of
numerous observations, I maintain that the so-called epileptoid attacks
form one of the most universal and commonest symptoms in the group of
diseases which we reckon among the mental diseases and neuropathies; the
mere appearance of one or more epileptic or epileptoid attacks is not
decisive for its course and prognosis. As mentioned, I have used the
concept of epileptoid in the widest sense for the attack itself."[15]
The epileptoid moments of our case are not far to seek; the objection
can, however, be raised that the colouring of the whole picture is
hysterical in the extreme. Against this, however, it must be stated
that every somnambulism is not _eo ipso_ hysterical. Occasionally
states occur in typical epilepsy which to experts seem parallel with
somnambulic states,[16] or which can only be distinguished by the
existence of genuine convulsions.[17]
As Diehl shows,[18] in neurasthenic mental deficiency crises also occur
which often confuse the diagnosis. A definite presentation-content
can even create a stereotyped repetition in the individual crisis.
Lately Mörchen has published a case of epileptoid neurasthenic twilight
state.[19]
I am indebted to Professor Bleuler for the report of the following
case:--
An educated gentleman of middle age--without epileptic antecedents--had
exhausted himself by many years of over-strenuous mental work. Without
other prodromal symptoms (such as depression, etc.) he attempted suicide
during a holiday; in a peculiar twilight state he suddenly threw himself
into the water from a bank, in sight of many persons. He was at once
pulled out and retained but a fleeting remembrance of the occurrence.
Bearing these observations in mind, neurasthenia must be allowed to
account for a considerable share in the attacks of our patient, Miss
E. K. The headaches and the teno-synovitis point to the existence of
a relatively mild hysteria, generally latent, but becoming manifest
under the influence of exhaustion. The genesis of this peculiar illness
explains the relationship which has been described between epilepsy,
hysteria and neurasthenia.
_Summary._--Miss Elise K. is a psychopathic defective with a tendency
to hysteria. Under the influence of nervous exhaustion she suffers from
attacks of epileptoid giddiness whose interpretation is uncertain at
first sight. Under the influence of an unusually large dose of alcohol
the attacks develop into definite somnambulism with hallucinations,
which are limited in the same way as dreams to accidental external
perceptions. When the nervous exhaustion is cured the hysterical
manifestations disappear.
In the region of psychopathic deficiency with hysterical colouring, we
encounter numerous phenomena which show, as in this case, symptoms of
diverse defined diseases, which cannot be attributed with certainty
to any one of them. These phenomena are partially recognised to be
independent; for instance, pathological lying, pathological reveries,
etc. Many of these states, however, still await thorough scientific
investigation; at present they belong more or less to the domain of
scientific gossip. Persons with habitual hallucinations, and also the
inspired, exhibit these states; they draw the attention of the crowd to
themselves, now as poet or artist, now as saviour, prophet or founder of
a new sect.
The genesis of the peculiar frame of mind of these persons is for the
most part lost in obscurity, for it is only very rarely that one of
these remarkable personalities can be subjected to exact observation.
In view of the often great historical importance of these persons, it
is much to be wished that we had some scientific material which would
enable us to gain a closer insight into the psychological development of
their peculiarities. Apart from the now practically useless productions
of the pneumatological school at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, German scientific literature is very poor in this respect;
indeed, there seems to be real aversion from investigation in this
field. For the facts so far gathered we are indebted almost exclusively
to the labours of French and English workers. It seems at least
desirable that our literature should be enlarged in this respect. These
considerations have induced me to publish some observations which will
perhaps help to further our knowledge concerning the relationship of
hysterical twilight-states and enlarge the problems of normal psychology.
CASE OF SOMNAMBULISM IN A PERSON WITH NEUROPATHIC INHERITANCE
(SPIRITUALISTIC MEDIUM).
The following case was under my observation in the years 1899 and
1900. As I was not in medical attendance upon Miss S. W., a physical
examination for hysterical stigmata unfortunately could not be made.
I kept a complete diary of the séances, which I filled up after each
sitting. The following report is a condensed account from these notes.
Out of regard for Miss S. W. and her family a few unimportant dates have
been altered and a few details omitted from the story, which for the
most part is composed of very intimate matters.
Miss S. W., 15 1/2 years old. Reformed Church. The paternal grandfather
was highly intelligent, a clergyman with frequent waking hallucinations
(generally visions, often whole dramatic scenes with dialogues, etc.).
A brother of the grandfather was an imbecile eccentric, who also saw
visions. A sister of the grandfather, a peculiar, odd character. The
paternal grandmother after some fever in her 20th year (typhoid?) had
a trance which lasted three days, from which she did not awake until
the crown of her head had been burned by a red-hot iron. During states
of excitement later on she had fainting fits which were nearly always
followed by a brief somnambulism during which she uttered prophesies.
Her father was likewise a peculiar, original personality with bizarre
ideas. All three had waking hallucinations (second-sight, forebodings,
etc.). A third brother was also eccentric and odd, talented but
one-sided. The mother has an inherited mental defect often bordering
on psychosis. The sister is a hysteric and visionary and a second
sister suffers from "nervous heart attacks." Miss S. W. is slenderly
built, skull somewhat rachitic, without pronounced hydrocephalus, face
rather pale, eyes dark with a peculiar penetrating look. She has had
no serious illnesses. At school she passed for average, showed little
interest, was inattentive. As a rule her behaviour was rather reserved,
sometimes giving place, however, to exuberant joy and exaltation. Of
average intelligence, without special gifts, neither musical nor fond
of books, her preference is for handwork--and day dreaming. She was
often absent-minded, misread in a peculiar way when reading aloud,
instead of the word _Ziege_ (goat), for instance, said _Gais_, instead
of _Treppe_ (stair), _Stege_; this occurred so often that her brothers
and sisters laughed at her. There were no other abnormalities; there
were no serious hysterical manifestations. Her family were artisans and
business people with very limited interests. Books of mystical content
were never permitted in the family. Her education was faulty; there
were numerous brothers and sisters and thus the education was given
indiscriminately, and in addition the children had to suffer a great
deal from the inconsequent and vulgar, indeed sometimes rough, treatment
of their mother. The father, a very busy business man, could not pay
much attention to his children, and died when S. W. was not yet grown
up. Under these uncomfortable conditions it is no wonder that S. W.
felt herself shut in and unhappy. She was often afraid to go home, and
preferred to be anywhere rather than there. She was left a great deal
with playmates and grew up in this way without much polish. The level
of her education is relatively low and her interests correspondingly
limited. Her knowledge of literature is also very limited. She knows
the common school songs by heart, songs of Schiller and Goethe and a
few other poets, as well as fragments from a song book and the psalms.
Newspaper stories represent her highest level in prose. Up to the time
of her somnambulism she had never read any books of a serious nature.
At home and from friends she heard about table-turning and began to
take an interest in it. She asked to be allowed to take part in such
experiments, and her desire was soon gratified. In July 1899, she took
part a few times in table-turnings with some friends and her brothers
and sisters, but in joke. It was then discovered that she was an
excellent "medium." Some communications of a serious nature arrived
which were received with general astonishment. Their pastoral tone
was surprising. The spirit said he was the grandfather of the medium.
As I was acquainted with the family I was able to take part in these
experiments. At the beginning of August, 1899, the first attacks of
somnambulism took place in my presence. They took the following course:
S. W. became very pale, slowly sank to the ground, or into a chair, shut
her eyes, became cataleptic, drew several deep breaths, and began to
speak. In this stage she was generally quite relaxed; the reflexes of
the lids remained, as did also tactile sensation. She was sensitive to
unexpected noises and full of fear, especially in the initial stage.
She did not react when called by name. In somnambulic dialogues she
copied in a remarkably clever way her dead relations and acquaintances,
with all their peculiarities, so that she made a lasting impression
upon unprejudiced persons. She also so closely imitated persons whom
she only knew from descriptions that no one could deny her at least
considerable talent as an actress. Gradually gestures were added to
the simple speech, which finally led to "_attitudes passionelles_" and
complete dramatic scenes. She took up postures of prayer and rapture,
with staring eyes, and spoke with impassionate and glowing rhetoric. She
then made use exclusively of a literary German which she spoke with an
ease and assurance quite contrary to her usual uncertain and embarrassed
manner in the waking state. Her movements were free and of a noble
grace, depicting most beautifully her varying emotions. Her attitude
during these states was always changing and diverse in the different
attacks. Now she would lie for ten minutes to two hours on the sofa or
the ground, motionless, with closed eyes; now she assumed a half-sitting
posture and spoke with changed tone and speech; now she would stand
up, going through every possible pantomimic gesture. Her speech was
equally diversified and without rule. Now she spoke in the first person,
but never for long, generally to prophesy her next attack; now she
spoke of herself (and this was the most usual) in the third person.
She then acted as some other person, either some dead acquaintance or
some chance person, whose part she consistently carried out according
to the characteristics she herself conceived. At the end of the ecstasy
there usually followed a cataleptic state with _flexibilitas cerea_,
which gradually passed over into the waking state. The waxy anæmic
pallor which was an almost constant feature of the attacks made one
really anxious; it sometimes occurred at the beginning of the attack,
but often in the second half only. The pulse was then small but regular
and of normal frequency; the breathing gentle, shallow, or almost
imperceptible. As already stated, S. W. often predicted her attacks
beforehand; just before the attacks she had strange sensations, became
excited, rather anxious, and occasionally expressed thoughts of death:
"she will probably die in one of these attacks; during the attack her
soul only hangs to her body by a thread, so that often the body could
scarcely go on living." Once after the cataleptic attack tachypnoea
lasting two minutes was observed, with a respiration rate of 100 per
minute. At first the attacks occurred spontaneously, afterwards S. W.
could provoke them by sitting in a dark corner and covering her face
with her hands. Frequently the experiment did not succeed. She had
so-called "good" and "bad" days. The question of amnesia after the
attacks is unfortunately very obscure. This much is certain, that after
each attack she was quite accurately orientated as to what she had gone
through "during the rapture." It is, however, uncertain how much she
remembered of the conversations in which she served as medium, and of
changes in her surroundings during the attack. It often seemed that
she did have a fleeting recollection, for directly after waking she
would ask: "Who was here? Wasn't X or Y here? What did he say?" She
also showed that she was superficially aware of the content of the
conversations. She thus often remarked that the spirits had communicated
to her before waking what they had said. But frequently this was not
the case. If, at her request, the contents of the trance speeches were
repeated to her she was often annoyed about them. She was then often
sad and depressed for hours together, especially when any unpleasant
indiscretions had occurred. She would then rail against the spirits and
assert that next time she would beg her guides to keep such spirits far
away. Her indignation was not feigned, for in the waking state she could
but poorly control herself and her emotions, so that every mood was at
once mirrored in her face. At times she seemed only slightly or not at
all aware of the external proceedings during the attack. She seldom
noticed when any one left the room or came in. Once she forbade me to
enter the room when she was awaiting special communications which she
wished to keep secret from me. Nevertheless I went in, and sat down with
the three other sitters and listened to everything. Her eyes were open
and she spoke to those present without noticing me. She only noticed me
when I began to speak, which gave rise to a storm of indignation. She
remembered better, but still apparently only in indefinite outlines, the
remarks of those taking part which referred to the trance speeches or
directly to herself. I could never discover any definite rapport in this
connection.
In addition to these great attacks which seemed to follow a certain law
in their course, S. W. produced a great number of other automatisms.
Premonitions, forebodings, unaccountable moods and rapidly changing
fancies were all in the day's work. I never observed simple states of
sleep. On the other hand, I soon noticed that in the middle of a lively
conversation S. W. became quite confused and spoke without meaning in
a peculiar monotonous way, and looked in front of her dreamily with
half-closed eyes. These lapses usually lasted but a few minutes. Then
she would suddenly proceed: "Yes, what did you say?" At first she
would not give any particulars about these lapses, she would reply
off-hand that she was a little giddy, had a headache, and so on.
Later she simply said: "they were there again," meaning her spirits.
She was subjected to the lapses much against her will; she often tried
to defend herself: "I do not want to, not now, come some other time;
you seem to think I only exist for you." She had these lapses in the
streets, in business, in fact anywhere. If this happened to her in
the street, she leaned against a house and waited till the attack was
over. During these attacks, whose intensity was most variable, she
had visions; frequently also, especially during the attacks where she
turned extremely pale, she "wandered"; or as she expressed it, lost
her body, and got away to distant places whither her spirits led her.
Distant journeys during ecstasy strained her exceedingly; she was
often exhausted for hours after, and many times complained that the
spirits had again deprived her of much power, such overstrain was now
too much for her; the spirits must get another medium, etc. Once she
was hysterically blind for half an hour after one of these ecstasies.
Her gait was hesitating, feeling her way; she had to be led; she did
not see the candle which was on the table. The pupils reacted. Visions
occurred in great numbers without proper "lapses" (designating by this
word only the higher grade of distraction of attention). At first the
visions only occurred at the beginning of the sleep. Once after S. W.
had gone to bed the room became lighted up, and out of the general foggy
light there appeared white glittering figures. They were throughout
concealed in white veil-like robes, the women had a head-covering like
a turban, and a girdle. Afterwards (according to the statements of S.
W.), "the spirits were already there" when she went to bed. Finally she
also saw the figures in bright daylight, though still somewhat blurred
and only for a short time, provided there were no proper lapses, in
which case the figures became solid enough to take hold of. But S. W.
always preferred darkness. According to her account the content of the
vision was for the most part of a pleasant kind. Gazing at the beautiful
figures she received a feeling of delicious blessedness. More rarely
there were terrible visions of a dæmonic nature. These were entirely
confined to the night or to dark rooms. Occasionally S. W. saw black
figures in the neighbouring streets or in her room; once out in the dark
courtyard she saw a terrible copper-red face which suddenly stared at
her and frightened her. I could not learn anything satisfactory about
the first occurrence of the vision. She states that once at night, in
her fifth or sixth year, she saw her "guide," her grandfather (whom she
had never known). I could not get any objective confirmation from her
relatives of this early vision. Nothing of the kind is said to have
happened until her first séance. With the exception of the hypnagogic
brightness and the flashes, there were no rudimentary hallucinations,
but from the beginning they were of a systematic nature, involving all
the sense-organs equally. So far as concerns the intellectual reaction
to these phenomena it is remarkable with what curious sincerity she
regarded her dreams. Her entire somnambulic development, the innumerable
puzzling events, seemed to her quite natural. She looked at her whole
past in this light. Every striking event of earlier years stood to her
in necessary and clear relationship to her present condition. She was
happy in the consciousness of having found her real life-task. Naturally
she was unswervingly convinced of the reality of her visions. I often
tried to present her with some sceptical explanation, but she invariably
turned this aside; in her usual condition she did not clearly grasp a
reasoned explanation, and in the semi-somnambulic state she regarded
it as senseless in view of the facts staring her in the face. She once
said: "I do not know if what the spirits say and teach me is true,
neither do I know if they are those by whose names they call themselves,
but that my spirits exist there is no question. I see them before me, I
can touch them, I speak to them about everything I wish, as naturally
as I'm now talking to you. They must be real." She absolutely would
not listen to the idea that the manifestations were a kind of illness.
Doubts about her health or about the reality of her dream would distress
her deeply; she felt so hurt by my remarks that when I was present she
became reserved, and for a long time refused to experiment if I was
there; hence I took care not to express my doubts and thoughts aloud.
From her immediate relatives and acquaintances she received undivided
allegiance and admiration--they asked her advice about all kinds of
things. In time she obtained such an influence upon her followers that
three of her brothers and sisters likewise began to have hallucinations
of a similar kind. Their hallucinations generally began as night-dreams
of a very vivid and dramatic kind; these gradually extended into the
waking time, partly hypnagogic, partly hypnopompic. A married sister
had extraordinary vivid dreams which developed from night to night,
and these appeared in the waking consciousness; at first as obscure
illusions, next as real hallucinations, but they never reached the
plastic clearness of S. W.'s visions. For instance, she once saw in a
dream a black dæmonic figure at her bedside in animated conversation
with a white, beautiful figure, which tried to restrain the black one;
nevertheless the black one seized her and tried to choke her, then
she awoke. Bending over her she then saw a black shadow with a human
contour, and near by a white cloudy figure. The vision only disappeared
when she lighted a candle. Similar visions were repeated dozens of
times. The visions of the other two sisters were of a similar kind, but
less intense.
This particular type of attack with the complete visions and ideas had
developed in the course of less than a month, but never afterwards
exceeded these limits. What was later added to these was but the
extension of all those thoughts and cycles of visions which to a
certain extent were already indicated quite at the beginning. As well
as the "great" attacks and the lesser ones, there must also be noted
a third kind of state comparable to "lapse" states. These are the
_semi-somnambulic states_. They appeared at the beginning or at the
end of the "great" attacks, but also appeared without any connection
with them. They developed gradually in the course of the first month.
It is not possible to give a more precise account of the time of their
appearance. In this state a fixed gaze, brilliant eyes, and a certain
dignity and stateliness of movement are noticeable. In this phase S. W.
is herself, her own somnambulic ego.
She is fully orientated to the external world, but seems to stand
with one foot, as it were, in her dream-world. She sees and hears her
spirits, sees how they walk about in the room among those who form
the circle, and stand first by one person, then by another. She is in
possession of a clear remembrance of her visions, her journeys and the
instructions she receives. She speaks quietly, clearly and firmly and
is always in a serious, almost religious frame of mind. Her bearing
indicates a deeply religious mood, free from all pietistic flavour, her
speech is singularly uninfluenced by her guide's jargon compounded of
Bible and tract. Her solemn behaviour has a suffering, rather pitiful
aspect. She is painfully conscious of the great differences between
her ideal world at night and the rough reality of the day. This state
stands in sharp contrast to her waking existence; there is here no
trace of that unstable and inharmonious creature, that extravagant
nervous temperament which is so characteristic for the rest of her
relationships. Speaking with her, you get the impression of speaking
with a much older person who has attained through numerous experiences
to a sure harmonious footing. In this state she produced her best
results, whilst her romances correspond more closely to the conditions
of her waking interests. The semi-somnambulism usually appears
spontaneously, mostly during the table experiments, which sometimes
announced by this means that S. W. was beginning to know beforehand
every automatic communication from the table. She then usually stopped
the table-turning and after a short time passed more or less suddenly
into an ecstatic state. S. W. showed herself to be very sensitive. She
could divine and reply to simple questions thought of by a member of the
circle who was not a "medium," if only the latter would lay a hand on
the table or on her hand. Genuine thought-transference without direct
or indirect contact could never be achieved. In juxtaposition with the
obvious development of her whole personality the continued existence of
her earlier ordinary character was all the more startling. She imparted
with unconcealed pleasure all the little childish experiences, the
flirtations and love-secrets, all the rudeness and lack of education
of her parents and contemporaries. To every one who did not know her
secret she was a girl of fifteen and a half, in no respect unlike a
thousand other such girls. So much the greater was people's astonishment
when they got to know her in her other aspect. Her near relatives could
not at first grasp this change: to some extent they never altogether
understood it, so there was often bitter strife in the family, some of
them taking sides for and others against S. W., either with enthusiastic
over-valuation or with contemptuous censure of "superstition." Thus
did S. W., during the time I watched her closely, lead a curious,
contradictory life, a real "double life" with two personalities existing
side by side or closely following upon one another and contending for
the mastery. I now give some of the most interesting details of the
sittings in chronological order.
First and second sittings, August, 1899. S. W. at once undertook to
lead the "communications." The "psychograph," for which an upturned
glass tumbler was used, on which two fingers of the right hand were
laid, moved quick as lightning from letter to letter. (Slips of paper,
marked with letter and numbers, had been arranged in a circle round
the glass.) It was communicated that the "medium's" grandfather was
present and would speak to us. There then followed many communications
in quick sequence, of a most religious, edifying nature, in part in
properly made words, partly in words with the letters transposed, and
partly in a series of reversed letters. The last words and sentences
were produced so quickly that it was not possible to follow without
first inverting the letters. The communications were once interrupted in
abrupt fashion by a new communication, which announced the presence of
the writer's grandfather. On this occasion the jesting observation was
made: "Evidently the two 'spirits' get on very badly together." During
this attempt darkness came on. Suddenly S. W. became very disturbed,
sprang up in terror, fell on her knees and cried "There, there, do you
not see that light, that star there?" and pointed to a dark corner of
the room. She became more and more disturbed, and called for a light in
terror. She was pale, wept, "it was all so strange, she did not know in
the least what was the matter with her." When a candle was brought she
became calm again. The experiments were now stopped.
At the next sitting, which took place in the evening, two days later,
similar communications from S. W.'s grandfather were obtained. When
darkness fell S. W. suddenly leaned back on the sofa, grew pale, almost
shut her eyes, and lay there motionless. The eyeballs were turned
upwards, the lid-reflex was present as well as tactile sensation. The
breathing was gentle, almost imperceptible. The pulse small and weak.
This attack lasted about half an hour, when S. W. suddenly sighed and
got up. The extreme pallor, which had lasted throughout the whole
attack, now gave place to her usual pale pink colour. She was somewhat
confused and distraught, indicated that she had seen all sorts of
things, but would tell nothing. Only after urgent questioning would
she relate that in an extraordinary waking condition she had seen her
grandfather arm-in-arm with the writer's grandfather. The two had gone
rapidly by in an open carriage, side by side.
III. In the third séance, which took place some days later, there was a
similar attack of more than half an hour's duration. S. W. afterwards
told of many white, transfigured forms who each gave her a flower
of special symbolic significance. Most of them were dead relatives.
Concerning the exact content of their talk she maintained an obstinate
silence.
IV. After S. W. had entered into the somnambulic state she began to make
curious movements with her lips, and made swallowing gurgling noises.
Then she whispered very softly and unintelligibly. When this had lasted
some minutes she suddenly began to speak in an altered deep voice. She
spoke of herself in the third person. "She is not here, she has gone
away." There followed several communications of a religious kind. From
the content and the way of speaking it was easy to conclude that she
was imitating her grandfather, who had been a clergyman. The content of
the talk did not rise above the mental level of the "communications."
The tone of the voice was somewhat forced, and only became natural when,
in the course of the talk, the voice approximated to the medium's own.
(In later sittings the voice was only altered for a few moments when a
new spirit manifested itself.)
Afterwards there was amnesia for the trance-conversation. She gave hints
about a sojourn in the other world, and she spoke of an undreamed-of
blessedness which she felt. It must be further noted that her
conversation in the attack occurred quite spontaneously, and was not in
response to any suggestions.
Directly after this séance S. W. became acquainted with the book of
Justinus Kerner, "Die Seherin von Prevorst." She began thereupon to
magnetise herself towards the end of the attack, partly by means of
regular passes, partly by curious circles and figures of eight, which
she described symmetrically with both arms. She did this, she said,
to disperse the severe headaches which occurred after the attacks. In
the August séances, not detailed here, there were in addition to the
grandfather numerous spirits of other relatives who did not produce
anything very remarkable. Each time when a new one came on the scene the
movement of the glass was changed in a striking way; it generally ran
along the rows of letters, touching one or other of them, but no sense
could be made of it. The orthography was very uncertain and arbitrary,
and the first sentences were frequently incomprehensible or broken
up into a meaningless medley of letters. Generally automatic writing
suddenly began at this point. Sometimes automatic writing was attempted
during complete darkness. The movements began with violent backward
jerks of the whole arm, so that the paper was pierced by the pencil. The
first attempt at writing consisted of numerous strokes and zigzag lines
about 8 cm. high. In later attempts there came first unreadable words,
in large handwriting, which gradually became smaller and clearer. It
was not essentially different from the medium's own. The grandfather was
again the controlling spirit.
V. Somnambulic attacks in September, 1899. S. W. sits upon the sofa,
leans back, shuts her eyes, breathes lightly and regularly. She
gradually becomes cataleptic, the catalepsy disappears after about
two minutes, when she lies in an apparently quiet sleep with complete
muscular relaxation. She suddenly begins to speak in a subdued voice:
"No! you take the red, I'll take the white, you can take the green,
and you the blue. Are you ready? We will go now." (A pause of several
minutes during which her face assumes a corpse-like pallor. Her hands
feel cold and are very bloodless.) She suddenly calls out with a
loud, solemn voice: "Albert, Albert, Albert," then whispering: "Now
you speak," followed by a longer pause, when the pallor of the face
attains the highest possible degree. Again, in a loud solemn voice,
"Albert, Albert, do you not believe your father? I tell you many errors
are contained in N.'s teaching. Think about it." Pause. The pallor
of the face decreases. "He's very frightened. He could not speak any
more." (These words in her usual conversational tone.) Pause. "He will
certainly think about it," S. W. now speaks again in the same tone,
in a strange idiom which sounds like French or Italian, now recalling
the former, now the latter. She speaks fluently, rapidly, and with
charm. It is possible to understand a few words but not to remember the
whole, because the language is so strange. From time to time certain
words recur, as _wena_, _wenes_, _wenai_, _wene_, etc. The absolute
naturalness of the proceedings is bewildering. From time to time she
pauses as if some one were answering her. Suddenly she speaks in German,
"Is time already up?" (In a troubled voice.) "Must I go already?
Goodbye, goodbye." With the last words there passes over her face an
indescribable expression of ecstatic blessedness. She raises her arms,
opens her eyes,--hitherto closed,--looks radiantly upwards. She remains
a moment thus, then her arms sink slackly, her eyes shut, the expression
of her face is tired and exhausted. After a short cataleptic stage she
awakes with a sigh. She looks around astonished: "I've slept again,
haven't I?" She is told she has been talking during the sleep, whereupon
she becomes much annoyed, and this increases when she learns she has
spoken in a foreign tongue. "But didn't I tell the spirits I don't want
it? It mustn't be. It exhausts me too much." Begins to cry. "Oh, God!
Oh, God! must then everything, everything, come back again like last
time? Is nothing spared me?" The next day at the same time there was
another attack. When S. W. has fallen asleep Ulrich von Gerbenstein
suddenly announces himself. He is an entertaining chatterer, speaks very
fluently in high German with a North-German accent. Asked what S. W. is
now doing, after much circumlocution he explains that she is far away,
and he is meanwhile here to look after her body, the circulation of the
blood, the respiration, etc. He must take care that meanwhile no black
person takes possession of her and harms her. Upon urgent questioning
he relates that S. W. has gone with the others to Japan, to appear to
a distant relative and to restrain him from a stupid marriage. He then
announces in a whisper the exact moment when the manifestation takes
place. Forbidden any conversation for a few minutes, he points to the
sudden pallor occurring in S. W., remarking that materialisation at such
a great distance is at the cost of correspondingly great force. He then
orders cold bandages to the head to alleviate the severe headache which
would occur afterwards. As the colour of the face gradually becomes more
natural the conversation grows livelier. All kinds of childish jokes and
trivialities are uttered; suddenly U. von G. says, "I see them coming,
but they are still very far off; I see them there like a star." S. W.
points to the North. We are naturally astonished, and ask why they do
not come from the East, whereto U. von G. laughingly retorts: "Oh, but
they come the direct way over the North Pole. I am going now; farewell."
Immediately after S. W. sighs, wakes up, is ill-tempered, complains of
extremely bad headache. She saw U. von G. standing by her body; what
had he told us? She gets angry about the "silly chatter" from which he
cannot refrain.
VI. Begins in the usual way. Extreme pallor; lies stretched out,
scarcely breathing. Speaks suddenly, with loud, solemn voice: "Yes,
be frightened; I am; I warn you against N.'s teaching. See, in hope
is everything that belongs to faith. You would like to know who I
am. God gives where one least expects it. Do you not know me?" Then
unintelligible whispering; after a few minutes she awakes.
VII. S. W. soon falls asleep; lies stretched out on the sofa. Is very
pale. Says nothing, sighs deeply from time to time. Casts up her eyes,
rises, sits on the sofa, bends forward, speaks softly: "You have sinned
grievously, have fallen far." Bends forward still, as if speaking to
some one who kneels before her. She stands up, turns to the right,
stretches out her hands, and points to the spot over which she has been
bending. "Will you forgive her?" she asks, loudly. "Do not forgive men,
but their spirits. Not she, but her human body has sinned." Then she
kneels down, remains quite still for about ten minutes in the attitude
of prayer. Then she gets up suddenly, looks to heaven with ecstatic
expression, and then throws herself again on her knees, with her face
bowed on her hands, whispering incomprehensible words. She remains rigid
in this position several minutes. Then she gets up, looks again upwards
with a radiant countenance, and lies down on the sofa; soon after she
wakes.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOMNAMBULIC PERSONALITIES.
At the beginning of many séances the glass was allowed to move by
itself, when occasionally the advice followed in stereotyped fashion:
"You must ask."
Since convinced spiritualists took part in the séances, all kinds
of spiritualistic wonders were of course demanded, and especially
the "protecting spirits." In reply, sometimes names of well-known
dead people were produced, sometimes unknown names, _e.g._ Berthe
de Valours, Elizabeth von Thierfelsenburg, Ulrich von Gerbenstein,
etc. The controlling spirit was almost without exception the medium's
grandfather, who once explained: "he loved her more than any one in
this world because he had protected her from childhood up, and knew
all her thoughts." This personality produced a flood of Biblical
maxims, edifying observations, and song-book verses; the following is a
specimen:--
In true believing,
To faith in God cling ever nigh,
Thy heavenly comfort never leaving,
Which having, man can never die.
Refuge in God is peace for ever,
When earthly cares oppress the mind;
Who from the heart can pray is never
Bowed down by fate, howe'er unkind.
Numerous similar elaborations betrayed by their banal, unctuous
contents their origin in some tract or other. When S. W. had to speak
in ecstasy, lively dialogues developed between the circle-members and
the somnambulic personality. The content of the answers received is
essentially just the same commonplace edifying stuff as that of the
psychographic communications. The character of this personality is
distinguished by its dry and tedious solemnity, rigorous conventionality
and pietistic virtue (which is not consistent with the historic
reality). The grandfather is the medium's guide and protector. During
the ecstatic state he gives all kinds of advice, prophesies later
attacks and the visions she will see on waking, etc. He orders cold
bandages, gives directions concerning the medium's lying down or the
date of the séances. His relationship to the medium is an extremely
tender one. In liveliest contrast to this heavy dream-person stands
a personality, appearing first sporadically, in the psychographic
communications of the first séance. It soon disclosed itself as the
dead brother of a Mr. R., who was then taking part in the séance. This
dead brother, Mr. P. R., was full of commonplaces about brotherly love
towards his living brother. He evaded particular questions in all
manner of ways. But he developed a quite astonishing eloquence towards
the ladies of the circle and in particular offered his allegiance to
one whom Mr. P. R. had never known when alive. He affirmed that he
had already cared very much for her in his lifetime, had often met
her in the street without knowing who she was, and was now uncommonly
delighted to become acquainted with her in this unusual manner. With
such insipid compliments, scornful remarks to the men, harmless childish
jokes, etc., he took up a large part of the séance. Several of the
members found fault with the frivolity and banality of this "spirit,"
whereupon he disappeared for one or two séances, but soon reappeared,
at first well-behaved, often indeed uttering Christian maxims, but
soon dropping back into the old tone. Besides these two sharply
differentiated personalities, others appeared who varied but little from
the grandfather's type; they were mostly dead relatives of the medium.
The general atmosphere of the first two months' séances was accordingly
solemnly edifying, disturbed only from time to time by Mr. P. R.'s
trivial chatter. Some weeks after the beginning of the séances, Mr. R.
left our circle, whereupon a remarkable change took place in Mr. P.
R.'s conversation. He became monosyllabic, came less often, and after a
few séances vanished altogether, later on he reappeared but with great
infrequency, and for the most part only when the medium was alone with
the particular lady mentioned. Then a new personality forced himself
into the foreground; in contrast to Mr. P. R., who always spoke the
Swiss dialect, this gentleman adopted an affected North-German way of
speaking. In all else he was an exact copy of Mr. P. R. His eloquence
was somewhat remarkable, since S. W. had only a very scanty knowledge of
high German, whilst this new personality, who called himself Ulrich von
Gerbenstein, spoke an almost faultless German, rich in charming phrases
and compliments.[20]
Ulrich von Gerbenstein was a witty chatterer, full of repartee, an
idler, a great admirer of the ladies, frivolous, and most superficial.
During the winter of 1899-1900 he gradually came to dominate
the situation more and more, and took over one by one all the
above-mentioned functions of the grandfather, so that under his
influence the serious character of the séances disappeared.
All suggestions to the contrary proved unavailing, and at last the
séances had on this account to be suspended for longer and longer
intervals. There is a peculiarity common to all these somnambulic
personalities which must be noted. They have access to the medium's
memory, even to the unconscious portion, they are also _au courant_ with
the visions which she has in the ecstatic state, but they have only
_the most superficial knowledge of her phantasies during the ecstasy_.
Of the somnambulic dreams they know only what they occasionally pick
up from the members of the circle. On doubtful points they can give no
information, or only such as contradicts the medium's explanations. The
stereotyped answer to these questions runs: "Ask Ivenes."[21] "Ivenes
knows." From the examples given of different ecstatic moments it is
clear that the medium's consciousness is by no means idle during the
trance, but develops a striking and multiplex phantastic activity.
For the reconstruction of S. W.'s somnambulic self we have to depend
altogether upon her several statements; for in the first place her
spontaneous utterances connecting her with the waking self are few,
and often irrelevant, and in the second very many of these ecstatic
states go by without gesture, and without speech, so that no conclusions
as to the inner happenings can afterwards be drawn from the external
appearances. _S. W. is almost totally amnesic for the automatic
phenomena during ecstasy as far as they come within the territory of
the new personalities of her ego. Of all the other phenomena, such as
loud talking, babbling, etc., which are directly connected with her own
ego she usually has a clear remembrance._ But in every case there is
complete amnesia only during the first few minutes after the ecstasy.
Within the first half-hour, during which there usually prevails a kind
of semi-somnambulism with a dreamlike manner, hallucinations, etc., the
amnesia gradually disappears, whilst fragmentary memories emerge of what
has occurred, but in a quite irregular and arbitrary fashion.
The later séances were usually begun by our hands being joined and laid
on the table, whereon the table at once began to move. Meanwhile S. W.
gradually became somnambulic, took her hands from the table, lay back
on the sofa, and fell into the ecstatic sleep. She sometimes related
her experiences to us afterwards, but showed herself very reticent if
strangers were present. After the very first ecstasy she indicated
that she played a distinguished _rôle_ among the spirits. She had
a special name, as had each of the spirits; hers was _Ivenes_; her
grandfather looked after her with particular care. In the ecstasy with
the flower-vision we learnt her special secret, hidden till then beneath
the deepest silence. During the séances in which her spirit spoke she
made long journeys, mostly to relatives, to whom she said she appeared,
or she found herself on the Other Side, in "That space between the
stars which people think is empty, but in which there are really very
many spirit-worlds." In the semi-somnambulic state which frequently
followed her attacks, she once described, in peculiar poetic fashion,
a landscape on the Other Side, "a wondrous, moon-lit valley, set aside
for the races not yet born." She represented her somnambulic ego as
being almost completely released from the body. It is a fully-grown but
small, black-haired woman, of pronounced Jewish type, clothed in white
garments, her head covered with a turban. She understands and speaks the
language of the spirits, "for spirits still, from old human custom, do
speak to one another, although they do not really need to, since they
mutually understand one another's thoughts." She "does not really always
talk with the spirits, but just looks at them, and so understands their
thoughts." She travels in the company of four or five spirits, dead
relatives, and visits her living relatives and acquaintances in order
to investigate their life and their way of thinking; she further visits
all places which lie within the radius of these spectral inhabitants.
From her acquaintanceship with Kerner's book, she discovered and
improved upon the ideas of the black spirits who are kept enchanted in
certain places, or exist partly beneath the earth's surface (compare
the "Seherin von Prevorst"). This activity caused her much trouble and
pain; in and after the ecstasy she complained of suffocating feelings,
violent headache, etc. But every fortnight, on Wednesdays, she could
pass the whole night in the garden on the Other Side in the company of
holy spirits. There she was taught everything concerning the forces
of the world, the endless complicated relationships and affinities of
human beings, and all besides about the laws of reincarnation, the
inhabitants of the stars, etc. Unfortunately only the system of the
world-forces and reincarnation achieved any expression. As to the other
matters she only let fall disconnected observations. For example, once
she returned from a railway journey in an extremely disturbed state. It
was thought at first something unpleasant had happened, till she managed
to compose herself, and said, "A star-inhabitant had sat opposite to
her in the train." From the description which she gave of this being,
I recognised a well-known elderly merchant I happened to know, who has
a rather unsympathetic face. In connection with this experience she
related all kinds of peculiarities of these star-dwellers; they have no
god-like souls, as men have, they pursue no science, no philosophy, but
in technical arts they are far more advanced than men. Thus on Mars a
flying-machine has long been in existence; the whole of Mars is covered
with canals, these canals are cleverly excavated lakes and serve for
irrigation. The canals are quite superficial; the water in them is very
shallow. The excavating caused the inhabitants of Mars no particular
trouble, for the soil there is lighter than the earth's. The canals are
nowhere bridged, but that does not prevent communication, for everything
travels by flying-machine. Wars no longer occur on the stars, for no
differences of opinion exist. The star-dwellers have not human bodies,
but the most laughable ones possible, such as one would never imagine.
Human spirits who are allowed to travel on the Other Side may not set
foot on the stars. Equally, wandering star-dwellers may not come to the
earth, but must remain at a distance of twenty-five metres above the
earth's surface. Should they transgress they remain in the power of the
earth, and must assume human bodies, and are only set free again after
their natural death. As men, they are cold, hard-hearted, cruel. S. W.
recognises them by a singular expression in which the "Spiritual" is
lacking, and by their hairless, eyebrowless, sharply-cut faces. Napoleon
was a star-dweller.
In her journeys she does not see the places through which she hastens.
She has a feeling of floating, and the spirits tell her when she is
at the right spot. Then, as a rule, she only sees the face and upper
part of the person to whom she is supposed to appear, or whom she
wishes to see. She can seldom say in what kind of surroundings she sees
this person. Occasionally she saw me, but only my head without any
surroundings. She occupied herself much with the enchanting of spirits,
and for this purpose she wrote oracular sayings in a foreign tongue,
on slips of paper which she concealed in all sorts of queer places. An
Italian murderer, presumably living in my house, and whom she called
Conventi, was specially displeasing to her. She tried several times
to cast a spell upon him, and without my knowledge hid several papers
about, on which messages were written; these were later found by chance.
One such, written in red ink, was as follows:
------------------- ------------------
| Conventi | | Conventi, go |
| Marche. 4 govi | | orden, Astaf |
| Ivenes. | | vent. |
------------------- ------------------
-------------------------------
| Gen palus, vent allis |
| ton prost afta ben genallis.|
-------------------------------
Unfortunately, I never obtained any interpretation of this. S. W.
was quite inaccessible in this matter. Occasionally the somnambulic
Ivenes speaks directly to the public. She does so in dignified fashion,
rather precociously, but she is not wearisomely unctuous and impossibly
twaddling as are her two guides; she is a serious, mature person, devout
and pious, full of womanly tenderness and great modesty, always yielding
to the judgments of others. This expression of plaintive emotion and
melancholy resignation is peculiar to her. She looks beyond this
world, and unwillingly returns to reality; she bemoans her hard lot,
and her unsympathetic family surroundings. Associated with this there
is something elevated about her; she commands her spirits, despises
the twaddling chatter of Gerbenstein, consoles others, directs those
in distress, warns and protects them from dangers to body and soul.
She is the intermediary for the entire intellectual output of all
manifestations, but she herself ascribes it to the direction of the
spirits. It is Ivenes who entirely controls S. W.'s semi-somnambulic
state.
In semi-somnambulism S. W. gave some of those taking part in the
séances the opportunity to compare her with the "Seherin von Prevorst"
(Prophetess of Prevorst). This suggestion was not without results.
S. W. gave hints of earlier existences which she had already lived
through, and after a few weeks she suddenly disclosed a whole system of
reincarnations, although she had never before mentioned anything of the
kind. Ivenes is a spiritual being who is something more than the spirits
of other human beings. Every human spirit must incorporate himself
twice in the course of the centuries. But Ivenes must incorporate
herself at least once every two hundred years; besides herself only two
other persons have participated in this fate, namely, Swedenborg and
Miss Florence Cook (Crookes's famous medium). S. W. calls these two
personages her brother and sister. She gave no information about their
pre-existences. In the beginning of the nineteenth century Ivenes was
Frau Hauffe, the Prophetess of Prevorst; at the end of the eighteenth
century, a clergyman's wife in central Germany (locality unknown).
As the latter she was seduced by Goethe and bore him a child. In the
fifteenth century she was a Saxon countess, and had the poetic name of
Thierfelsenburg. Ulrich von Gerbenstein is a relative from that line.
The interval of 300 years, and her adventure with Goethe, must be atoned
for by the sorrows of the Prophetess of Prevorst. In the thirteenth
century she was a noblewoman of Southern France, called de Valours,
and was burnt as a witch. From the thirteenth century to the Christian
persecution under Nero there were numerous reincarnations of which S.
W. could give no detailed account. In the Christian persecution under
Nero she played a martyr's part. Then comes a period of obscurity till
the time of David, when Ivenes was an ordinary Jewess. After her death
she received from Astaf, an angel from a high heaven, the mandate for
her future wonderful career. In all her pre-existences she was a medium
and an intermediary in the intercourse between this side and the other.
Her brothers and sisters are equally old and have the like vocation. In
her various pre-existences she was sometimes married, and in this way
gradually founded a whole system of relationships with whose endless
complicated inter-relations she occupied herself in many ecstasies.
Thus, for example, about the eighth century she was the mother of her
earthly father and, moreover, of her grandfather, and mine. Hence the
striking friendship of these two old gentlemen, otherwise strangers. As
Mme. de Valours she was the present writer's mother. When she was burnt
as a witch the writer took it much to heart, and went into a cloister
at Rouen, wore a grey habit, became Prior, wrote a work on Botany and
died at over eighty years of age. In the refectory of the cloister
there hung a picture of Mme. de Valours, in which she was depicted in
a half-reclining position. (S. W. in the semi-somnambulic state often
took this position on the sofa. It corresponds exactly to that of Mme.
Recamier in David's well-known picture.) A gentleman who often took part
in the séances, who had some slight resemblance to the writer, was also
one of her sons from that period. Around this core of relationship
there grouped themselves, more or less intimately connected, all the
persons in any way related or known to her. One came from the fifteenth
century, another--a cousin--from the eighteenth century, and so on.
From the three great family stocks grew by far the greater part of the
present European peoples. She and her brothers and sisters are descended
from Adam, who arose by materialisation; the other then-existing
families, from whom Cain took his wife, were descended from apes. S. W.
produced from this circle of relationship an extensive family-gossip,
a very flood of romantic stories, piquant adventures, etc. Sometimes
the target of her romances was a lady acquaintance of the writer's who
for some undiscoverable reason was peculiarly antipathetic to her. She
declared that this lady was an incarnation of a celebrated Parisian
poisoner, who had achieved great notoriety in the eighteenth century.
She maintained that this lady still continued her dangerous work, but
in a much more ingenious way than formerly; through the inspiration of
the wicked spirits who accompany her she had discovered a liquid which
when merely exposed to the air attracted tubercle bacilli and formed
a splendid developing medium for them. By means of this liquid, which
she was wont to mix with the food, the lady had brought about the death
of her husband (who had indeed died of tuberculosis); also one of her
lovers, and of her own brother, for the sake of his inheritance. Her
eldest son was an illegitimate child by her lover. As a widow she had
secretly borne to another lover an illegitimate child, and finally she
had had an unnatural relationship with her own brother (who was later
on poisoned). In this way S. W. spun innumerable stories, in which she
believed quite implicitly. The persons of these stories appeared in
the drama of her visions, as did the lady before referred to, going
through the pantomime of making confession and receiving absolution
of sins. Everything interesting occurring in her surroundings was
incorporated in this system of romances, and given an order in the
network of relationships with a more or less exact statement as to
their pre-existences and the spirits influencing them. It fared thus
with all who made S. W.'s acquaintance: they were valued at a second or
first incarnation, according as they possessed a marked or indefinite
character. They were generally described as relatives, and always
exactly in the same definite way. Only subsequently, often several
weeks later, after an ecstasy, there would make its appearance a new
complicated romance which explained the striking relationship through
pre-existences or through illegitimate relations. Persons sympathetic to
S. W. were usually very near relatives. Most of these family romances
were very carefully made up, so that to contradict them was impossible.
They were always worked out with a quite bewildering certainty, and
surprised one by an extremely clever evaluation of certain details which
she had noticed or taken from somewhere. For the most part the romances
had a ghastly character, murder by poison and dagger, seduction and
divorce, forgery of wills, played the chief rôle.
* * * * *
_Mystic Science._--In reference to scientific questions S. W. put
forward numerous suggestions. Generally towards the end of the séances
there was talk and debate about various subjects of scientific and
spiritistic nature. S. W. never took part in the discussion, but
generally sat dreamily in a corner in a semi-somnambulic state. She
listened to one and another, taking hold of the talk in a half-dream,
but she could never relate anything connectedly; if asked about it
only partial explanations were given. In the course of the winter
hints emerged in various séances: "The spirits taught her about the
world-forces and the strange revelations from the other side, yet she
would not tell anything now." Once she tried to give a description,
but only said: "On one side was the light, on the other the power of
attraction." Finally, in March 1900, when for some time nothing had been
heard of the teachings at the séances, she announced suddenly with a
joyful face that she had now received everything from the spirits. She
drew out a long narrow strip of paper upon which were numerous names.
Although I asked for it she would not let it leave her hands, but
dictated the following scheme to me.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
I can remember clearly that in the course of the winter of 1895 we
spoke several times in S. W.'s presence of the forces of attraction and
repulsion in connection with Kant's "Natural History of the Heavens"; we
spoke also of the "Law of the Conservation of Energy," of the different
forces of energy, and of the question whether the force of gravity was
perhaps a form of movement. From this talk S. W. had plainly created the
foundation of her mystic system. She gave the following explanation:
The natural forces are arranged in seven circles. Outside these circles
are three more, in which unknown forces intermediate between energy
and matter are found. Matter is found in seven circles which surround
ten inner ones. In the centre stands the primary force, which is the
original cause of creation and is a spiritual force. The first circle
which surrounds the primary force is matter which is not really a
force and does not arise from the primary force, but it unites with
the primary force and from this union the first descendants are the
spiritual forces; on the one hand the Good or Light Powers, on the other
the Dark Powers. The Power Magnesor consists most of primary force; the
Power Connesor, in which the dark might of matter is greatest, contains
the least. The further outwards the primary force streams forth, the
weaker it becomes, but weaker too becomes the power of matter, since
its power is greatest where the collision with the primary power is
most violent, _i.e._ in the Power Connesor. Within the circles there
are fresh analogous forces of equal strength but making in the opposite
direction. The system can also be described in a single series beginning
with primary force, Magnesor, Cafor, etc., proceeding from left to right
on the scheme and ascending with Tusa, Endos, ending with Connesor; only
then the survey of the grade of intensity is made more difficult. Every
force in the outer circle is combined from the nearest adjacent forces
of the inner circle.
1. _The Magnesor Group._--The so-called powers of Light descend in
direct line from Magnesor, but slightly influenced by the dark side. The
powers Magnesor and Cafor form together the so-called Life Force, which
is no single power but is differently combined in animals and plants.
Between Magnesor and Cafor there exists the Life Force of Man. Morally
good men and those mediums who bring about interviews of good spirits
on the earth have most Magnesor. Somewhere about the middle there stand
the life forces of animals, and in Cafor that of plants. Nothing is
known about Hefa, or rather S. W. can give no information. Persus is the
fundamental power which comes to light in the phenomenon of the forces
of locomotion. Its recognisable forces are Warmth, Light, Electricity,
Magnetism, and two unknown forces, one of which only exists in comets.
Of the powers of the seventh circle S. W. could only point out north
and south magnetism and positive and negative electricity. _Deka_ is
unknown. _Smar_ is of peculiar significance, to be indicated below; it
leads to--
2. _Hypnos Group._--_Hypnos_ and _Hyfonismus_ are powers which only
dwell within certain beings, in those who are in a position to exert
a magnetic influence upon others. _Athialowi_ is the sexual instinct.
Chemical affinity is directly derived from it. In the ninth circle under
it arises indolence (that is the line of Smar). _Svens_ and _Kara_ are
of unknown significance. _Pusa_ corresponds to _Smar_ in the opposite
sense.
3. _The Connesor Group._--Connesor is the opposite pole of Magnesor. It
is the dark and wicked power equal in intensity to the good power of
light. While the good power creates, this one turns into the opposite.
Endos is an elemental power of minerals. From these (significance
unknown) gravitation proceeds, which on its side is designated as the
elemental force of the forces of resistance that occur in phenomena
(gravity, capillarity, adhesion and cohesion). Nakus is the secret
power of a rare stone which controls the effect of snake poison. The
two powers _Smar_ and _Pusa_ have a special importance. According to S.
W., _Smar_ develops in the bodies of morally good men at the moment of
death. This power enables the soul to rise to the powers of light. Pusa
behaves in the opposite way, for it is the power which conducts morally
bad people to the dark side in the state of Connesor.
In the sixth circle the visible world begins, which only appears to be
so sharply divided from the other side in consequence of the fickleness
of our organs of sense. In reality the transition is a very gradual one,
and there are people who live on a higher stage of knowledge because
their perceptions and sensations are more delicate than those of others.
Great seers are enabled to see manifestations of force where ordinary
people can perceive nothing. S. W. sees Magnesor as a white or bluish
vapour, which chiefly develops when good spirits are near. Connesor is a
dark vapour-like fluid, which, like Magnesor, develops on the appearance
of "black" spirits. For instance, the night before the beginning of
great visions the shiny vapour of Magnesor spreads in thick layers, out
of which, the good spirits grow to visible white forces. It is just
the same with Connesor. But these powers have their different mediums.
S. W. is a Magnesor medium, as were the Prophetess of Prevorst and
Swedenborg. The materialisation mediums of the spiritualists are mostly
Connesor mediums, because materialisation takes place much more easily
through Connesor on account of its close connection with the properties
of matter. In the summer of 1900 S. W. tried several times to produce
the circles of matter, but she never arrived at other than vague and
incomprehensible hints and afterwards spoke no more about this.
_Conclusion._--The really interesting and valuable séances came to an
end with the production of the system of powers. Before this a gradual
decline in the vividness of the ecstasies was noticeable. Ulrich von
Gerbenstein came increasingly to the front, and filled up the séances
with his childish chatter. The visions which S. W. had in the meantime
likewise seem to have lost vividness and plasticity of formation, for S.
W. was afterwards only able to feel pleasant sensations in the presence
of good spirits, and disagreeableness in that of bad spirits. Nothing
new was produced. There was something of uncertainty in the trance
talks, as if feeling and seeking for the impression which she was making
upon the audience, together with an increasing staleness in the content.
In the outward behaviour of S. W. there arose also a marked shyness
and uncertainty, so that the impression of wilful deception became
ever stronger. The writer therefore soon withdrew from the séances. S.
W. experimented afterwards in other circles, and six months after my
leaving was caught cheating _in flagranti delicto_. She wanted to arouse
again by spiritualistic experiments the lost belief in her supernatural
powers; she concealed small objects in her dress, throwing them up in
the air during the dark séance. With this her part was played out. Since
then, eighteen months have passed during which I have not seen S. W. I
have learnt from an observer who knew her in the earlier days, that
she has now and again strange states of short duration during which she
is very pale and silent, and has a fixed glittering look. I did not
hear any more of visions. She is said not to take part any longer in
spiritualistic séances. S. W. is now in a large business, and according
to all accounts is an industrious and responsible person who does her
work eagerly and cleverly, giving entire satisfaction. According to the
account of trustworthy persons, her character has much improved; she has
become quieter, more regular and sympathetic. No other abnormalities
have appeared in her. This case, in spite of its incompleteness,
contains a mass of psychological problems whose exposition goes far
beyond the limits of this little work. We must therefore be satisfied
with a mere sketch of the various striking manifestations. For the sake
of a more lucid exposition it seems better to review the various states
separately.
1. The _Waking State_.--Here the patient shows various peculiarities.
As we have seen, at school she was often distracted, lost herself in
a peculiar way, was moody; her behaviour changes inconsequently, now
quiet, shy, reserved, now lively, noisy and talkative. She cannot be
called unintelligent, but she strikes one sometimes as narrow-minded,
sometimes as having isolated intelligent moments. Her memory is good
on the whole, but owing to her distraction it is much impaired.
Thus, despite much discussion and reading of Kerner's "Seherin von
Prevorst," for many weeks, she does not know, if directly asked,
whether the author's name is _Koerner_ or _Kerner_, nor the name of
the Prophetess. All the same, when it occasionally comes up, the
name _Kerner_ is correctly written in the automatic communications.
In general it may be said that her character has something extremely
impulsive, incomprehensible, protean. Deducting the want of balance
due to puberty, there remains a pathological residue which expresses
itself in reactions which follow no rule and a bizarre unaccountable
character. This character may be called _déséquilibré_, or unstable. Its
specific mould is derived from traits which can certainly be regarded
as hysterical. This is decidedly so in the conditions of distraction.
As Janet[22] maintains, the foundation of hysterical anæsthesia is
the loss of attention. He was able to prove in youthful hysterics "a
striking indifference and distracted attention in the whole region of
the emotional life." Misreading is a notable instance, which beautifully
illustrates hysterical dispersion of attention. The psychology of
this process may perhaps be viewed as follows: during reading aloud
attention becomes paralysed for this act and is directed towards some
other object. Meanwhile the reading is continued mechanically, the
sense impressions are received as before, but in consequence of the
dispersion the excitability of the perceptive centre is lowered, so
that the strength of the sense impression is no longer adequate to fix
the attention in such a way that perception as such is conducted along
the motor speech route; thus all the inflowing associations which at
once unite with any new sense impression are repressed. The further
psychological mechanism permits of only two possible explanations:
(1) The admission of the sense impression is received unconsciously
(because of the increase of threshold stimulus), in the perceptive
centre just below the threshold of consciousness, and consequently is
not incorporated in the attention and conducted back to the speech
route. It only reaches verbal expression through the intervention of the
nearest associations, in our case through the dialect expression[23] for
the object. (2) The sense impression is perceived consciously, but at
the moment of its entrance into the speech route it reaches a territory
whose excitability is diminished by the dispersion of attention. At
this place the dialect word is substituted by association for the motor
speech image, and it is uttered as such. In either case it is certain
that it is the acoustic dispersed attention which fails to correct
the error. Which of the two explanations is correct cannot be proved
in this case; probably both approach the truth, for the dispersion of
attention seems to be general, and in each case concerns more than one
of the centres engaged in the act of reading aloud. In our case this
phenomenon has a special value, for we have here a quite elementary
automatic phenomenon. It may be called hysterical in so far as in this
concrete case a state of exhaustion and intoxication, with its parallel
manifestations, can be excluded. A healthy person only exceptionally
allows himself to be so engaged by an object that he fails to correct
the errors of a dispersed attention--those of the kind described. The
frequency of these occurrences in the patient point to a considerable
limitation of the field of consciousness, in so far as she can only
master a relative minimum of elementary sensations flowing in at the
same time. If we wish to describe more exactly the psychological state
of the "psychic shady side," we might call it either a sleeping or a
dream-state, according as passivity or activity predominated. There
is, at all events, a pathological dream-state of very rudimentary
extension and intensity and its genesis is spontaneous; dream-states
arising spontaneously, with the production of automatisms, are generally
regarded as hysterical on the whole. It must be pointed out that these
instances of misreading occurred frequently in our subject, and that the
term hysterical is employed in this sense; so far as we know, it is only
on a foundation of hysterical constitution that spontaneous states of
partial sleep or dreams occur frequently.
Binet[24] has studied experimentally the automatic substitution of some
adjacent association in his hysterics. If he pricked the anæsthetic
hand of the patient without his noticing the prick, he thought of
"points"; if the anæsthetic finger was moved, he thought of "sticks"
or "columns." When the anæsthetic hand, concealed from the patient's
sight by a screen, writes "Salpêtrière," she sees in front of her the
word "Salpêtrière" in white writing on a black ground. This recalls the
experiments above referred to of Guinon and Sophie Waltke.
We thus find in our subject, at a time when there was nothing to
indicate the later phenomena, rudimentary automatisms, fragments of
dream manifestations, which imply in themselves the possibility that
some day more than one association would creep in between the perception
of the dispersed attention and consciousness. The misreading shows us,
moreover, a certain automatic independence of the psychical elements.
This occasionally expands to a more or less fleeting dispersion of
attention, although with very slight results which are never in any
way striking or suspicious; this dispersedness approximates to that
of the physiological dream. The misreading can be thus conceived as a
prodromal symptom of the later events; especially as its psychology is
prototypical for the mechanism of somnambulic dreams, which are indeed
nothing but a many-sided multiplication and manifold variation of the
elementary processes reviewed above. I never succeeded in demonstrating
during my observations similar rudimentary automatisms. It would seem
that in course of time the states of dispersed attention, to a certain
extent beneath the surface of consciousness, at first of low degree have
grown into these remarkable somnambulic attacks; hence they disappeared
during the waking state, which was free from attacks. So far as concerns
the development of the patient's character, beyond a certain not very
extensive ripening, no remarkable change could be demonstrated during
the observations lasting nearly two years. More remarkable is the fact
that in the two years since the cessation (complete?) of the somnambulic
attacks, a considerable change in character has taken place. We shall
have occasion later on to speak of the importance of this observation.
_Semi-Somnambulism._--In S. W.'s case the following condition was
indicated by the term semi-somnambulism. For some time after and before
the actual somnambulic attack the patient finds herself in a state
whose most salient feature can best be described as "preoccupation."
She only lends half an ear to the conversation around her, answers at
random, often gets absorbed in all manner of hallucinations; her face
is solemn, her look ecstatic, visionary, ardent. Closer observation
discloses a far-reaching alteration of the entire character. She is
now serious, dignified; when she speaks her subject is always an
extremely serious one. In this condition she can talk so seriously,
forcibly and convincingly, that one is tempted to ask oneself if this is
really a girl of fifteen and a half. One has the impression of a mature
woman possessed of considerable dramatic talent. The reason for this
seriousness, this solemnity of behaviour, is given in her explanation
that at these times she stands at the frontier of this world and the
other, and associates just as truly with the spirits of the dead as
with living people. And, indeed, her conversation is usually divided
between answers to real objective questions and hallucinatory ones. I
call this state semi-somnambulism because it coincides with Richet's
own definition. He[25] says: "La conscience de cet individu persiste
dans son intégrité apparente, toutefois des opérations très compliquées
vont s'accomplir en dehors de la conscience sans que le moi volontaire
et conscient paraisse ressentir une modification quelconque. Une autre
personne sera en lui qui agira, pensera, voudra, sans que la conscience,
c'est à dire le moi réfléchi conscient, aît la moindre notion."
Binet[26] says of this term: "Le terme indique la parenté de cet état
avec le somnambulisme véritable, et en suite il laisse comprendre que
la vie somnambulique qui se manifeste durant la veille est réduite,
déprimée, par la conscience normale qui la recouvre."
AUTOMATISMS.
Semi-somnambulism is characterised by the continuity of consciousness
with that of the waking state and by the appearance of various
automatisms which give evidence of an activity of the subconscious self,
independent of that of consciousness.
Our case shows the following automatic phenomena:
(1) Automatic movements of the table.
(2) Automatic writing.
(3) Hallucinations.
1. _Automatic Movements of the Table._--Before the patient came
under my observation she had been influenced by the suggestion of
"table-turning," which she had first come across as a game. As soon as
she entered the circle there appeared communications from members of
her family which showed her to be a medium. I could only find out that,
as soon as ever her hand was placed on the table, the typical movements
began. The resulting communications have no interest for us. But the
automatic character of the act itself deserves some discussion, for
we may, without more ado, set aside the imputation that there was any
question of intentional and voluntary pushing or pulling on the part of
the patient.
As we know from the investigations of Chevreul,[27] Gley, Lehmann
and others, unconscious motor phenomena are not only of frequent
occurrence among hysterical persons, and those pathologically inclined
in other directions, but they are also relatively easily produced in
normal persons who show no other spontaneous automatisms. I have made
many experiments on these lines, and can confirm this observation.
In the great majority of instances all that is required is enough
patience to put up with an hour of quiet waiting. In most subjects,
motor automatisms will be obtained in a more or less high degree if
contra-suggestions do not intervene as obstacles. In a relatively small
percentage the phenomena arise spontaneously, _i.e._ directly under
the influence of verbal suggestion or of some earlier auto-suggestion.
In this instance the case is powerfully affected by suggestion. In
general, the particular predisposition is subject to all those laws
which also hold good for normal hypnosis. Nevertheless, certain
special circumstances are to be taken into account, conditioned by the
peculiarity of the case. It is not a question of a total hypnosis, but
of a partial one, limited entirely to the motor area of the arm, like
the cerebral anæsthesia produced by "magnetic passes" for a painful spot
in the body. We touch the spot in question employing verbal suggestion
or making use of some existing auto-suggestion, using the tactile
stimulus which we know acts suggestively, to bring about the desired
partial hypnosis. In accordance with this procedure, refractory subjects
can be brought easily enough to an exhibition of automatism. The
experimenter intentionally gives the table a slight push, or, better, a
series of rhythmic but very slight taps. After a short time he notices
that the oscillations become stronger, that they continue although
he has interrupted his own intentional movements. The experiment has
succeeded, the subject has unsuspectingly taken up the suggestion. By
this procedure much more is obtained than by verbal suggestion. In very
receptive persons and in all those cases where movement seems to arise
spontaneously, the purposeful tremulous movements,[28] not perceptible
by the subject, assume the _rôle_ of _agent provocateur_.
In this way persons who, by themselves, have never obtained automatic
movements of a coarse calibre, sometimes assume the unconscious guidance
of the table-movements, provided that the tremors are strong and that
the medium understands their meaning. In this case the medium takes
control of the slight oscillations and returns them considerably
strengthened, but rarely at exactly the same instant, generally a
few seconds later, in this way revealing the agent's conscious or
unconscious thought. By means of this simple mechanism there may arise
those cases of thought-reading so bewildering at first sight. A very
simple experiment, that succeeds in many cases even with unpractised
persons, will serve to illustrate this. The experimenter thinks, say,
of the number _four_, and then waits, his hands quietly resting on
the table, until he feels that the table makes the first inclination
to announce the number thought of. He lifts his hands off the table
immediately, and the number _four_ will be correctly tilted out. It
is advisable in this experiment to place the table upon a soft thick
carpet. By close attention the experimenter will occasionally notice a
movement of the table which is thus represented.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
(1) Purposeful tremors too slight to be perceived by the subject.
(2) Several very small but perceptible oscillations of the table which
indicate that the subject is responding to them.
(3) The big movements (tilts) of the table, giving the number four that
was thought of.
(_ab_) Denotes the moment when the operator's hands are removed.
This experiment succeeds excellently with well-disposed but
inexperienced subjects. After a little practice the phenomenon indicated
is wont to disappear, since by practice the number is read and
reproduced directly from the purposeful movements.[29]
In a responsive medium these purposeful tremors of the experimenter
act just as the intentional taps in the experiment cited above; they
are received, strengthened and reproduced, although slightly wavering.
Still they are perceptible and hence act suggestively as slight tactile
stimuli, and by the increase of partial hypnosis give rise to great
automatic movements. This experiment illustrates in the clearest way
the increase step by step of auto-suggestion. Along the path of this
auto-suggestion are developed all the automatic phenomena of a motor
nature. How the intellectual content gradually mingles in with the
purely motor need scarcely be elucidated after this discussion. There
is no need of a special suggestion for the evoking of intellectual
phenomena. From the outset it is a question of word-presentation, at
least from the side of the experimenter. After the first aimless motor
irrelevancies of the unpractised subject, some word-products or the
intentions of the experimenter are soon reproduced. Objectively the
occurrence of an intellectual content must be understood as follows:--
By the gradual increase of auto-suggestion the motor-range of the arm
becomes isolated from consciousness, that is to say, the perception of
the slight movement-impulse is concealed from consciousness.[30]
By the knowledge gained from consciousness that some intellectual
content is possible, there results a collateral excitation in the
speech-area as the means immediately at hand for intellectual
notification. The motor part of word-presentation is necessarily
chiefly concerned with this aiming at notification.[31] In this way
we understand the unconscious flowing over of speech-impulse to the
motor-area[32] and conversely the gradual penetration of partial
hypnosis into the speech-area.
In numerous experiments with beginners, as a rule I have observed
at the beginning of intellectual phenomena a relatively large number
of completely meaningless words, also often a series of meaningless
single letters. Later on, all kinds of absurdities are produced, _e.g._
words or entire sentences with the letters irregularly misplaced or
with the order of the letters all reversed--a kind of mirror-writing.
The appearance of the letter or word indicates a new suggestion; some
sort of association is involuntarily joined to it, which is then
realised. Remarkably enough, these are not generally the conscious
associations, but quite unexpected ones, a circumstance showing that a
considerable part of the speech-area is already hypnotically isolated.
The recognition of this automatism again forms a fruitful suggestion,
since invariably at this moment the feeling of strangeness arises, if it
is not already present in the pure motor-automatism. The question, "Who
is doing this?" "Who is speaking?", is the suggestion for the synthesis
of the unconscious personality which as a rule does not like being kept
waiting too long. Any name is introduced, generally one charged with
emotion, and the automatic splitting of the personality is accomplished.
How accidental and how vacillating this synthesis is at its beginning,
the following reports from the literature show. Myers[33] communicates
the following interesting observation on a Mr. A., a member of the
Society for Psychical Research, who was making experiments on himself in
automatic writing.
THIRD DAY.
Question: What is man?
Answer: TEFI H HASL ESBLE LIES.
Is that an anagram? Yes.
How many words does it contain? Five.
What is the first word? SEE.
What is the second word? SEEEE.
See? Shall I interpret it myself? Try to.
Mr. A. found this solution: "Life is less able." He was astonished
at this intellectual information, which seemed to him to prove the
existence of an intelligence independent of his own. Therefore he went
on to ask:
Who are you? Clelia.
Are you a woman? Yes.
Have you ever lived upon the earth? No.
Will you come to life? Yes.
When? In six years.
Why are you conversing with me? E if Clelia el.
Mr. A. interpreted this answer as: I Clelia feel.
FOURTH DAY.
Question: Am I the one who asks the questions? Yes.
Is Clelia there? No.
Who is here then? Nobody.
Does Clelia exist at all? No.
With whom then was I speaking yesterday? With no one.
* * * * *
Janet[34] conducted the following conversation with the subconsciousness
of Lucie, who, meanwhile, was engaged in conversation with another
observer. "M'entendez-vous?" asks Janet. Lucie answers by automatic
writing, "Non." "Mais pour répondre il faut entendre?" "Oui,
absolument." "Alors comment faites-vous?" "Je ne sais." "Il faut bien
qu'il y ait quelqu'un qui m'entend?" "Oui." "Qui cela! Autre que Lucie.
Eh bien! Une autre personne. Voulez-vous que nous lui donnions un
nom?" "Non." "Si, ce sera plus commode," "Eh bien, Adrienne!" "Alors,
Adrienne, m'entendez-vous?" "Oui."
From these quotations it will be seen in what way the subconscious
personality is constructed. It owes its origin purely to suggestive
questions meeting a certain disposition of the medium. The explanation
is the result of the disintegration of the psychical complex; the
feeling of the strangeness of such automatisms then comes in to help, as
soon as conscious attention is directed to the automatic act. Binet[35]
remarks on this experiment of Janet's: "Il faut bien remarquer que si
la personnalité d'Adrienne a pu se créer, c'est qu'elle a rencontré
une possibilité psychologique; en d'autres termes, il y avait là des
phénomènes désagrégés vivant séparés de la conscience normale du
sujet." The individualisation of the subconsciousness always denotes a
considerable further step of great suggestive influence upon the further
formation of automatisms.[36] So, too, we must regard the origin of the
unconscious personalities in our case.
The objection that there is simulation in automatic table-turning may
well be given up, when one considers the phenomenon of thought-reading
from the purposeful tremors which the patient offered in such plenitude.
Rapid, conscious thought-reading demands at the least an extraordinary
degree of practice, which it has been shown the patient did not
possess. By means of the purposeful tremors whole conversations can
be carried on, as in our case. In the same way the suggestibility
of the subconscious can be proved objectively if, for instance, the
experimenter with his hand on the table desires that the hand of
the medium should no longer be able to move the table or the glass;
contrary to all expectation and to the liveliest astonishment of
the subject, the table will immediately remain immovable. Naturally
any other desired suggestions can be realised, provided they do not
overstep by their innervations the region of partial hypnosis; this
proves at the same time the limited nature of the hypnosis. Suggestions
for the legs and the other arm will thus not be obeyed. Table-turning
was not an automatism which belonged exclusively to the patient's
semi-somnambulism: on the contrary, it occurred in the most pronounced
form in the waking state, and in most cases then passed over into
semi-somnambulism, the appearance of this being generally announced by
hallucinations, as it was at the first sitting.
2. _Automatic Writing._--A second automatic phenomenon, which at
the outset corresponds to a higher degree of partial hypnosis, is
automatic writing. It is, according to my experience, much rarer and
more difficult to produce than table-turning. As in table-turning,
it is again a matter of a primary suggestion, to the conscious when
sensibility is retained, to the unconscious when it is obliterated.
The suggestion is, however, not a simple one, for it already bears in
itself an intellectual element. "To write" means "to write something."
This special element of the suggestion, which extends beyond the
merely motor, often conditions a certain perplexity on the part of the
subject, giving rise to slight contrary suggestions which hinder the
appearance of the automatisms. I have observed in a few cases that the
suggestion is realised, despite its relative venturesomeness (_e.g._
one directed towards the waking consciousness of a so-called normal
person). However, it takes place in a peculiar way; it first displaces
the purely motor part of the central system concerned in hypnosis, and
the deeper hypnosis is then reached by auto-suggestion from the motor
phenomenon, analogous to the procedure in table-turning described above.
The subject,[37] who has a pencil in his hand, is purposely engaged in
conversation whilst his attention is diverted from the writing. The hand
begins to make movements, beginning with many upward strokes and zigzag
lines, or a simple line is made. Occasionally it happens that the pencil
does not touch the paper, but writes in the air. These movements must be
conceived as purely motor phenomena, which correspond to the expression
of the motor element in the presentation "write." This phenomenon is
somewhat rare; generally single letters are first written, and what was
said above of table-turning holds true of their combination into words
and sentences. True mirror-writing is also observed here and there. In
the majority of cases, and perhaps in all experiments with beginners
who are not under some very special suggestion, the automatic writing
is that of the subject. Occasionally its character may be greatly
changed,[38] but this is secondary, and is always to be regarded as a
symptom of the intruding synthesis of a subconscious personality.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
As stated, the patient's automatic writing never came to any very great
development. In these experiments, generally carried out in darkness,
she passed over into semi-somnambulism, or into ecstasy. The automatic
writing had thus the same effect as the preliminary table-turning.
3. _The Hallucinations._--The nature of the passing into somnambulism
in the second séance is of psychological importance. As stated, the
automatic phenomena were progressing favourably when darkness came on.
The most interesting event of this séance, so far, was the brusque
interruption of the communication from the grandfather, which was the
starting-point of various debates amongst the members of the circle.
These two momentous occurrences, the darkness and the striking event,
seem to have been the foundation for a rapid deepening of hypnosis,
in consequence of which the hallucinations could be developed. The
psychological mechanism of this process seems to be as follows. The
influence of darkness upon the suggestibility of the sense-organs
is well known.[39] Binet[40] states that it has a special influence
on hysterics, producing a state of sleepiness. As is clear from the
foregoing, the patient was in a state of partial hypnosis and had
constituted herself one with the unconscious personality in closest
relationship to her in the domain of speech. The automatic expression
of this personality is interrupted most unexpectedly by a new person,
of whose existence no one had any suspicion. Whence came this cleavage?
Obviously the eager expectation of this first séance had very much
occupied the patient. Her reminiscences of me and my family had probably
grouped themselves around this expectation; hence these suddenly come
to light at the climax of the automatic expression. That it was just
my grandfather and no one else--not, _e.g._, my deceased father, who,
as she knew, was much closer to me than the grandfather whom I had
never known--perhaps suggests where the origin of this new person
is to be sought. It is probably a dissociation of the personality
already present which seized upon the material next at hand for its
expression, namely, upon the associations concerning myself. How far
this is parallel to the experiences revealed by dream investigation
(Freud's[41]) must remain undecided, for we have no means of judging how
far the effect mentioned can be considered a "repressed" one. From the
brusque interruption of the new personality, we may conclude that the
presentations concerned were very vivid, with corresponding intensity
of expectation. This perhaps was an attempt to overcome a certain
maidenly shyness and embarrassment. This event reminds us vividly of the
manner in which the dream presents to consciousness, by a more or less
transparent symbolism, things one has never said to oneself clearly and
openly. We do not know when this dissociation of the new personality
occurred, whether it had been slowly prepared in the unconscious,
or whether it first occurred in the séance. In any case, this event
meant a considerable increase in the extension of the unconscious
sphere rendered accessible through the hypnosis. At the same time
this event must be regarded as powerfully suggestive in regard to the
impression which it made upon the waking consciousness of the patient.
For the perception of this unexpected intervention of a new power must
inevitably excite a feeling of the strangeness of the automatisms,
and would easily suggest the thought that an independent spirit is
here making itself known. Hence the intelligible association that she
would finally be able to see this spirit. The situation that ensued
at the second séance is to be explained by the coincidence of this
energising suggestion with the heightened suggestibility conditioned
by the darkness. The hypnosis, and with it the series of dissociated
presentations, break through to the visual area, and the expression of
the unconscious, hitherto purely motor, is made objective, according
to the measure of the specific energy of the new system, in the shape
of visual images with the character of hallucinations; not as a mere
accompanying phenomenon of the word-automatism, but as a substituted
function. The explanation of the situation that arose in the first
séance, at that time unexpected and inexplicable, is no longer presented
in words, but as a descriptive allegorical vision. The sentence "they
do not hate one another, but are friends," is expressed in a picture.
We often encounter events of this kind in somnambulism. The thinking of
somnambulists is given in plastic images which constantly break into
this or that sense-sphere and are made objective in hallucinations. The
process of reflection sinks into the subconscious; only its end-results
arise to consciousness either as presentations vividly tinged by the
senses, or directly as hallucinations. In our case the same thing
occurred as in the patient whose anæsthetic hand Binet pricked nine
times, making her think of the figure 9; or as in Flournoy's[42] Helen
Smith, who, when asked during business-hours about certain patterns,
suddenly saw the number of days (18) for which they had been lent, at
a length of 20 mm. in front of her. The further question arises, why
does the automatism appear in the visual and not in the acoustic sphere?
There are several grounds for this choice of the visual sphere.
(1) The patient is not gifted acoustically; she is, for instance, very
unmusical.
(2) There was no stillness corresponding to the darkness which might
have favoured the appearance of sounds; there was a lively conversation.
(3) The increased conviction of the near presence of spirits, because
the automatism felt so strange, could easily have aroused the idea that
a spirit might be seen, thus causing a slight excitation of the visual
sphere.
(4) The entoptic phenomena in darkness favoured the occurrence of
hallucinations.
The reasons (3) and (4)--the entoptic phenomena in the darkness and the
probable excitation of the visual sphere--are of decisive importance
for the appearance of hallucinations. The entoptic phenomena in this
case play the same rôle in the auto-suggestion, the production of
the automatism, as the slight tactile stimuli in hypnosis of the
motor centre. As stated, flashes preceded the first hallucinatory
twilight-state. Obviously attention was already at a high pitch, and
directed to visual perceptions, so that the retina's own light, usually
very weak, was seen with great intensity. The part played by entoptic
perceptions of light in the origin of hallucinations deserves further
consideration. Schüle[43] says: "The swarming of light and colour which
stimulates and animates the field of vision, although in the dark,
supplies the material for phantastic figures in the air before falling
asleep. As we know, absolute darkness is never seen; a few particles
of the dark field of vision are always illumined; flecks of light move
here and there, and combine into all kinds of figures; it only needs a
moderately active imagination to create out of them, as one does out
of clouds, certain known figures. The power of reasoning, fading as one
falls asleep, leaves phantasy free play to construct very vivid figures.
In the place of the light spots, haziness and changing colours of the
dark visual field, there arise definite outlines of objects."[44]
In this way hypnagogic hallucinations arise. The chief _rôle_ naturally
belongs to the imagination, hence imaginative people in particular are
subject to hypnagogic hallucinations.[45] The hypnopompic hallucinations
described by Myers arise in the same way.
It is highly probable that hypnagogic pictures are identical with
the dream-pictures of normal sleep--forming their visual foundation.
Maury[46] has proved from self-observation that the pictures which
hovered around him hypnagogically were also the objects of the
dreams that followed. G. Trumbull Ladd[47] has shown this even more
convincingly. By practice he succeeded in waking himself suddenly two
to five minutes after falling asleep. He then observed that the figures
dancing before the retina at times represented the same contours as
the pictures just dreamed of. He even states that nearly every visual
dream is shaped by the retina's own light-figures. In our case the
fantastic rendering of these pictures was favoured by the situation. We
must not underrate the influence of the over-excited expectation which
allowed the dull retina-light to appear with increased intensity.[48]
The further formation of the retinal appearances follows in accordance
with the predominating presentations. That hallucinations appear in this
way has been also observed in other visionaries. Jeanne d'Arc[49] first
saw a cloud of light, and only after some time there stepped forth St.
Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. For a whole hour Swedenborg[50]
saw nothing but illuminated spheres and fiery flames. He felt a mighty
change in the brain, which seemed to him "release of light." After
the space of one hour he suddenly saw red figures which he regarded
as angels and spirits. The sun visions of Benvenuto Cellini[51] in
Engelsburg are probably of the same nature. A student who frequently saw
apparitions stated: "When these apparitions come, at first I only see
single masses of light and at the same time am conscious of a dull noise
in the ears. Gradually these contours become clear figures."
The appearance of hallucinations occurred in a quite classical way
in Flournoy's Helen Smith. I quote the cases in question from his
article.[52]
"18 Mars. Tentative d'expérience dans l'obscurité. Mlle. Smith voit un
ballon tantôt luminieux, tantôt s'obscurcissant.
"25 Mars. Mlle. Smith commence à distinguer de vagues lueurs, de
longs rubans blancs, s'agitant du plancher au plafond, puis enfin une
magnifique étoile qui dans l'obscurité s'est montrée à elle seule
pendant toute la séance.
"1 Avril. Mlle. Smith se sent très agitée, elle a des frissons, est
partiellement glacée. Elle est très inquiète et voit tout à coup se
balançant au-dessus de la table une figure grimaçante et très laide avec
de longs cheveux rouges. Elle voit alors un magnifique bouquet de roses
de nuances diverses; tout à coup elle voit sortir de dessous le bouquet
un petit serpent, qui, rampant doucement, vient sentir les fleurs, les
regarde," etc.
Helen Smith[53] says in regard to the origin of her vision of March:
"La lueur rouge persista autour de moi et je me suis trouvée entourée de
fleurs extraordinaires."
At all times the complex hallucinations of visionaries have occupied
a peculiar place in scientific criticism. Macario[54] early separated
these so-called intuition-hallucinations from others, since he maintains
that they occur in persons of an eager mind, deep understanding and high
nervous excitability. Hecker[55] expresses himself similarly but more
enthusiastically.
His view is that their condition is "the congenital high development
of the spiritual organ which calls into active, free and mobile play
the life of the imagination, bringing it spontaneous activity." These
hallucinations are "precursors or signs of mighty spiritual power." The
vision is "an increased excitation which is harmoniously adapted to
the most complete health of mind and body." The complex hallucinations
do not belong to the waking state, but prefer as a rule a partial
waking state. The visionary is buried in his vision even to complete
annihilation. Flournoy was also always able to prove in the visions
of H.S. "un certain degré d'obnubilation." In our case the vision is
complicated by a state of sleep whose peculiarities we shall review
later.
THE CHANGE IN CHARACTER.
The most striking characteristic of the second stage in our case is the
change in character. We meet many cases in the literature which have
offered the symptom of spontaneous character-change. The first case in a
scientific publication is Weir-Mitchell's[56] case of Mary Reynolds.
This was the case of a young woman living in Pennsylvania in 1811.
After a deep sleep of about twenty hours she had totally forgotten her
entire past and everything she had learnt; even the words she spoke
had lost their meaning. She no longer knew her relatives. Slowly she
re-learnt to read and write, but her writing was from right to left.
More striking still was the change in her character. Instead of being
melancholy, she was now cheerful in the extreme. Instead of being
reserved, she was buoyant and sociable. Formerly taciturn and retiring,
she was now merry and jocose. Her disposition was totally changed.[57]
In this state she renounced her former retired life and liked to
undertake adventurous excursions unarmed, through wood and mountain, on
foot and horseback. In one of these excursions she encountered a large
black bear, which she took for a pig. The bear raised himself on his
hind legs and gnashed his teeth at her. As she could not drive her horse
on any further, she took an ordinary stick and hit the bear until it
took to flight. Five weeks later, after a deep sleep, she returned to
her earlier state with amnesia for the interval. These states alternated
for about sixteen years. _But her last twenty-five years Mary Reynolds
passed exclusively in her second state._
Schroeder von der Kalk[58] reports on the following case: The patient
became ill at the age of sixteen with periodic amnesia, after a previous
tedious illness of three years. Sometimes in the morning after waking
she passed through a peculiar choreic state, during which she made
rhythmical movements with her arms. Throughout the whole day she would
then exhibit a childish, silly behaviour and lost all her educated
capabilities. (When normal she is very intelligent, well-read, speaks
French well.) In the second state she begins to speak faulty French.
On the second day she is again at times normal. The two states are
completely separated by amnesia.[59]
Hoefelt[60] reports on a case of spontaneous somnambulism in a girl who,
in her normal state, was submissive and modest, but in somnambulism was
impertinent, rude and violent. Azam's[61] Felida was, in her normal
state, depressed, inhibited, timid; and in the second state lively,
confident, enterprising to recklessness. _The second state gradually
became the chief one, and finally so far suppressed the first state
that the patient called her normal states, lasting now but a short
time, "crises."_ The amnesic attacks had begun at 14 1/2. In time the
second state became milder and there was a certain approximation between
the character of the two states. A very striking example of change in
character is that worked out by Camuset, Ribot, Legrand du Saulle,
Richer, Voisin, and put together by Bourru and Burot.[62] It is that of
Louis V., a severe male hysteric with amnesic alternating character.
In the first stage he is rude, cheeky, querulous, greedy, thievish,
inconsiderate. In the second state he is an agreeable, sympathetic
character, industrious, docile and obedient. This amnesic change of
character has been used by Paul Lindau[63] in his drama "Der Andere"
(The Other One).
Rieger[64] reports on a case parallel to Lindau's criminal lawyer. The
unconscious personalities of Janet's Lucie and Léonie (Janet, _l.c._)
and Morton Prince's[65] may also be regarded as parallel with our case.
There are, however, therapeutic artificial products whose importance
lies in the domain of the dissociation of consciousness and of memory.
In the above cases, the second state is always separated from the first
by an amnesic dissociation, and the change in character is, at times,
accompanied by a break in the continuity of consciousness. In our case
there is no amnesic disturbance; the passage from the first to the
second stage follows quite gradually and the continuity of consciousness
remains. The patient carries out in her waking state everything,
otherwise unknown to her, from the field of the unconscious that she has
experienced during hallucinations in the second stage.
Periodic changes in personality without amnesic dissociation are found
in the region of _folie circulaire_, but are rarely seen in hysterics,
as Renaudin's[66] case shows. A young man, whose behaviour had always
been excellent, suddenly began to display the worst tendencies. There
were no symptoms of insanity, but, on the other hand, the whole surface
of the body was anæsthetic. This state showed periodic intervals, and
in the same way the patient's character was subject to vacillations. As
soon as the anæsthesia disappeared he was manageable and friendly. When
the anæsthesia returned he was overcome by the worst instincts, which,
it was observed, even included the wish to murder.
Remembering that our patient's age at the beginning of the disturbances
was 14 1/2, that is, the age of puberty had just been reached, one
must suppose that there was some connection between the disturbances
and the physiological character-changes at puberty. "There appears
in the consciousness of the individual during this period of life a
new group of sensations, together with the feelings and ideas arising
therefrom; this continuous pressure of unaccustomed mental states makes
itself constantly felt because the cause is always at work; the states
are co-ordinated because they arise from one and the same source, and
must little by little bring about deep-seated changes in the ego."[67]
Vacillating moods are easily recognisable; the confused new, strong
feelings, the inclination towards idealism, to exalted religiosity
and mysticism, side by side with the falling back into childishness,
all this gives to adolescence its prevailing character. At this epoch
the human being first makes clumsy attempts at independence in every
direction; for the first time uses for his own purposes all that family
and school have contributed hitherto; he conceives ideals, constructs
far-reaching plans for the future, lives in dreams whose content is
ambitious and egotistic. This is all physiological. The puberty of
a psychopathic is a crisis of more serious import. Not only do the
psychophysical changes run a stormy course, but features of a hereditary
degenerate character become fixed. In the child these do not appear at
all, or but sporadically. For the explanation of our case we are bound
to consider a specific disturbance of puberty. The reasons for this
view will appear from a further study of the second personality. (For
the sake of brevity we shall call the second personality IVENES--as the
patient baptised her higher ego).
Ivenes is the exact continuation of the everyday ego. She includes
the whole of her conscious content. In the semi-somnambulic state her
intercourse with the real external world is analogous to that of the
waking state, that is, she is influenced by recurrent hallucinations,
but no more than persons who are subject to non-confusional psychotic
hallucinations. The continuity of Ivenes obviously extends to the
hysterical attack with its dramatic scenes, visionary events, etc.
During the attack itself she is generally isolated from the external
world; she does not notice what is going on around her, does not
know that she is talking loudly, etc. But she has no amnesia for the
dream-content of her attack. Amnesia for her motor expressions and for
the changes in her surroundings is not always present. That this is
dependent upon the degree of intensity of her somnambulic state and
that there is sometimes partial paralysis of individual sense organs is
proved by the occasion when she did not notice me; her eyes were then
open, and most probably she saw the others, although she only perceived
me when I spoke to her. This is a case of so-called _systematised
anæsthesia_ (negative hallucination) which is often observed in
hysterics.
Flournoy,[68] for instance, reports of Helen Smith that during the
séances she suddenly ceased to see those taking part, although she still
heard their voices and felt their touch; sometimes she no longer heard,
although she saw the movements of the lips of the speakers, etc.
Ivenes is just the continuation of the waking self. She contains
the entire consciousness of S. W.'s waking state. Her remarkable
behaviour tells decidedly against any analogy with cases of _double
consciousness_. The characteristics of Ivenes contrast favourably with
the patient's ordinary self. She is a calmer, more composed personality;
her pleasing modesty and accuracy, her uniform intelligence, her
confident way of talking must be regarded as an improvement of the whole
being; thus far there is analogy with Janet's Léonie. But this is the
extent of the similarity. Apart from the amnesia, they are divided by
a deep psychological difference. Léonie II. is the healthier, the more
normal; she has regained her natural capabilities, she shows remarkable
improvement upon her chronic condition of hysteria. Ivenes rather gives
the impression of a more artificial product; there is something thought
out; despite all her excellences she gives the impression of playing
a part excellently; her world-sorrow, her yearning for the other side
of things, are not merely piety but the attributes of saintliness.
Ivenes is no mere human, but a mystic being who only partly belongs to
reality. The mournful features, the attachment to sorrow, her mysterious
fate, lead us to the historic prototype of Ivenes--Justinus Kerner's
"Prophetess of Prevorst." Kerner's book must be taken as known, and
therefore I omit any references to these common traits. But Ivenes is
no copy of the prophetess; she lacks the resignation and the saintly
piety of the latter. The prophetess is merely used by her as a study
for her own original conception. The patient pours her own soul into
the _rôle_ of the prophetess, thus seeking to create an ideal of virtue
and perfection. She anticipates her future. She incarnates in Ivenes
what she wishes to be in twenty years--the assured, influential, wise,
gracious, pious lady. It is in the construction of the second person
that there lies the far-reaching difference between Léonie II. and
Ivenes. Both are psychogenic. But Léonie I. receives in Léonie II. what
really belongs to her, while S. W. builds up a person beyond herself.
It cannot be said "she deceives herself" into, but that "she dreams
herself" into the higher ideal state.[69]
The realisation of this dream recalls vividly the psychology of the
pathological cheat. Delbruck[70] and Forel[71] have indicated the
importance of auto-suggestion in the formation of pathological cheating
and reverie. Pick[72] regards intense auto-suggestibility as the first
symptom of the hysterical dreamer, making possible the realisation of
the "day-dream." One of Pick's patients dreamt that she was in a morally
dangerous situation, and finally carried out an attempt at rape on
herself; she lay on the floor naked and fastened herself to a table and
chairs. Or some dramatic person will be created with whom the patient
enters into correspondence by letter, as in Bohn's case.[73] The patient
dreamt herself into an engagement with a totally imaginary lawyer in
Nice, from whom she received letters which she had herself written in
disguised handwriting. This pathological dreaming, with auto-suggestive
deceptions of memory amounting to real delusions and hallucinations, is
pre-eminently to be found in the lives of many saints.[74]
It is only a step from the dreamlike images strongly stamped by the
senses to the true complex hallucinations.[75] In Pick's case, for
instance, one sees that the patient, who persuades herself that she is
the Empress Elizabeth, gradually loses herself in her dreams to such an
extent that her condition must be regarded as a true "twilight" state.
Later it passes over into hysterical delirium, when her dream-phantasies
become typical hallucinations. The pathological liar, who becomes
involved through his phantasies, behaves exactly like a child who
loses himself in his play, or like the actor who loses himself in his
part.[76] There is here no fundamental distinction from somnambulic
dissociation of personality, but only a difference of degree, which
rests upon the intensity of the primary auto-suggestibility or
disintegration of the psychic elements. _The more consciousness becomes
dissociated, the greater becomes the plasticity of the dream situation,
the less becomes the amount of conscious lying and of consciousness in
general._ This being carried away by interest in the object is what
Freud calls _hysterical identification_. For instance, to Erler's[77]
acutely hysterical patient there appeared hypnagogically little riders
made of paper, who so took possession of her imagination that she had
the feeling of being herself one of them. Similar phenomena normally
occur to us in dreams in general, in which we think like "hysterics."[78]
The complete abandonment to the interesting image explains also the
wonderful naturalness of pseudological or somnambulic representation--a
degree unattainable in conscious acting. The less waking consciousness
intervenes by reflection and reasoning, the more certain and convincing
becomes the objectivation of the dream, e.g. the roof-climbing of
somnambulists.
Our case has another analogy with _pseudologia phantastica_: _The
development of the phantasies during the attacks._ Many cases are known
in the literature where the pathological lying comes on in attacks and
during serious hysterical trouble.[79]
Our patient develops her systems exclusively in the attack. In her normal
state she is quite incapable of giving any new ideas or explanations;
she must either transpose herself into somnambulism or await its
spontaneous appearance. This exhausts the affinity to _pseudologia
phantastica_ and to pathological dream-states.
Our patient's state is even differentiated from pathological dreaming,
since it could never be proved that her dream-weavings had at any
time previously been the objects of her interest during the day. Her
dreams occur explosively, break forth with bewildering completeness
from the darkness of the unconscious. Exactly the same was the case
in Flournoy's Helen Smith. In many cases (see below), however, links
with the perceptions of the normal states can be demonstrated: it seems
therefore probable that the roots of every dream were originally images
with an emotional accentuation, which, however, only occupied waking
consciousness for a short time.[80] We must allow that in the origin
of such dreams hysterical forgetfulness[81] plays a _part not to be
underestimated_.
Many images are buried which would be sufficient to put the
consciousness on guard; associated classes of ideas are lost and
go on spinning their web in the unconscious, thanks to the psychic
dissociation; this is a process which we meet again in the genesis of
our dreams.
"Our conscious reflection teaches us that when exercising attention we
pursue a definite course. But if that course leads us to an idea which
does not meet with our approval, we discontinue and cease to apply
our attention. Now, apparently, the chain of thought thus started and
abandoned, may go on without regaining attention unless it reaches a
spot of especially marked intensity, which compels renewed attention.
An initial rejection, perhaps consciously brought about by the judgment
on the ground of incorrectness or unfitness for the actual purpose of
the mental act, may therefore account for the fact that a mental process
continues unnoticed by consciousness until the onset of sleep."[82]
In this way we may explain the apparently sudden and direct appearance
of dream-states. The entire carrying over of the conscious personality
into the dream-_rôle_ involves indirectly the development of
simultaneous automatisms. "Une seconde condition peut amener la division
de conscience; ce n'est pas une altération de la sensibilité, c'est
une attitude particulière de l'esprit, la concentration de l'attention
pour un point unique; il résulte de cet état de concentration que
l'esprit devient distrait pour la reste et en quelque sorte insensible,
ce qui ouvre la carrière aux actions automatiques, et ces actions
peuvent prendre un caractère psychique et constituer des intelligences
parasites, vivant côte à côte avec la personnalité normale qui ne les
connaît pas."[83]
Our subject's romances throw a most significant light on the subjective
roots of her dreams. They swarm with secret and open love-affairs,
with illegitimate births and other sexual insinuations. The central
point of all these ambiguous stories is a lady whom she dislikes, who
is gradually made to assume the form of her polar opposite, and whilst
Ivenes becomes the pinnacle of virtue, this lady is a sink of iniquity.
_But her reincarnation doctrines, in which she appears as the mother
of countless thousands, arises in its naïve nakedness from an exuberant
phantasy which is, of course, very characteristic of the period of
puberty. It is the woman's premonition of the sexual feeling, the dream
of fruitfulness, which the patient has turned into these monstrous
ideas._ We shall not go wrong if we seek for the curious form of the
disease in the teeming sexuality of this too-rich soil. Viewed from this
standpoint, the whole creation of Ivenes, with her enormous family, is
nothing but a dream of sexual wish-fulfilment, differentiated from the
dream of a night only in that it persists for months and years.
RELATION TO THE HYSTERICAL ATTACK.
So far one point in S. W.'s history has remained unexplained, and
that is her attack. In the second séance she was suddenly seized with
a sort of fainting fit, from which she awoke with a recollection of
various hallucinations. According to her own statement, she had not lost
consciousness for a moment. Judging from the external symptoms and the
course of the attack, one is inclined to regard it as a _narcolepsy_,
or rather a _lethargy_; such, for example, as Loewenfeld has described,
and the more readily as we know that previously one member of her family
(her grandmother) has had an attack of lethargy. It is possible to
imagine that the _lethargic disposition_ (Loewenfeld) had descended to
our subject. In spiritualistic séances it is not usual to see hysterical
convulsions. Our subject showed no sort of convulsive symptoms, but in
their place, perhaps, the peculiar sleeping-states. Ætiologically, at
the outset, two moments must be taken into consideration:
1. The irruption of hypnosis.
2. The psychic stimulation.
1. _Irruption of Partial Hypnosis._--Janet observes that the
subconscious automatisms have a hypnotic influence and can bring about
complete somnambulism.[84]
He made the following experiment: While the patient, who was in the
completely waking state, was engaged in conversation by a second
observer, Janet stationed himself behind her and by means of whispered
suggestions made her unconsciously move her hand and by written signs
give an answer to questions. Suddenly the patient broke off the
conversation, turned round and with her supraliminal consciousness
continued the previously subconscious talk with Janet. She had fallen
into hypnotic somnambulism.[85]
There is here a state of affairs similar to our patient's. But it must
be noted that, for certain reasons discussed later, the sleeping state
is not to be regarded as hypnotic. We therefore come to the question of--
2. _The Psychic Stimulation._--It is told of Bettina Brentano that the
first time she met Goethe she suddenly fell asleep on his knee.[86]
This ecstatic sleep in the midst of extremest torture, the so-called
"witch-sleep," is well known in the history of trials for witchcraft.[87]
With susceptible subjects relatively insignificant stimuli suffice to
bring about the somnambulic state. Thus a sensitive lady had to have
a splinter cut out of her finger. Without any kind of bodily change
she suddenly saw herself sitting by the side of a brook in a beautiful
meadow, plucking flowers. This condition lasted as long as the slight
operation and then disappeared spontaneously.[88]
Loewenfeld[89] has noticed unintentional inducement of hysterical
lethargy through hypnosis.
Our case has certain resemblances to hysterical lethargy[90] as
described by Loewenfeld, viz. the shallow breathing, the diminution of
the pulse, the corpse-like pallor of the face, and further the peculiar
feeling of dying and the thoughts of death.[91]
The retention of one sense is not inconsistent with lethargy: thus in
certain cases of trance the sense of hearing remains.[92]
In Bonamaison's[93] case not only was the sense of touch retained,
but the senses of hearing and smell were quickened. The hallucinatory
content and loud speaking is also met with in persons with
hallucinations in lethargy.[94] Usually there prevails total amnesia
for the lethargic interval. Loewenfeld's[95] case D. had, however,
a fleeting recollection; in Bonamaison's case there was no amnesia.
Lethargic patients do not prove susceptible to the usual waking stimuli,
but Loewenfeld succeeded with his patient St. in turning the lethargy
into hypnosis by means of mesmeric passes, thus combining it with the
rest of consciousness during the attack.[96] Our patient showed herself
absolutely insusceptible in the beginning of the lethargy, but later on
she began to speak spontaneously, was incapable of giving any attention
when her somnambulic ego was speaking, but could attend when it was
one of her automatic personalities. In this last case it is probable
that the hypnotic effect of the automatisms succeeded in achieving a
partial transformation of the lethargy into hypnosis. When we consider
that, according to Loewenfeld's view, the lethargic disposition must not
be "too readily identified with the peculiar condition of the nervous
apparatus in hysteria," then the idea of the family heredity of this
disposition in our case becomes not a little probable. The disease is
much complicated by these attacks.
So far we have seen that the patient's consciousness of her ego is
identical in all the states. We have discussed two secondary complexes
of consciousness and have followed them into the somnambulic attack,
where they appear as the patient's vision when she had lost her motor
activity during the attack. During the next attacks she was impervious
to any external incidents, but on the other hand developed, within
the twilight state, all the more intense activity, in the form of
visions. It seems that many secondary series of ideas must have split
off quite early from the primary unconscious personality, for already,
after the first two séances, "spirits" appeared by the dozen. The
names were inexhaustible in variety, but the differences between the
personalities were soon exhausted and it became apparent that they could
all be subsumed under two types, the _serio-religious_ type and the
_gay-hilarious_. So far it was really only a matter of _two different
unconscious personalities_, which appeared under different names but
had no essential differences. The older type, the grandfather, who
had initiated the automatisms, also first began to make use of the
twilight state. I am not able to remember any suggestion which might
have given rise to the automatic speaking. According to the preceding
view, the attack in such circumstances might be regarded as a partial
auto-hypnosis. The ego-consciousness which remains and, as a result of
its isolation from the external world, occupies itself entirely with
its hallucinations, is what is left over of the waking consciousness.
Thus the automatism has a wide field for its activity. The independence
of the individual central spheres which we have proved at the beginning
to be present in the patient, makes the automatic act of speaking
appear intelligible. Just as the dreamer on occasion speaks in his
sleep, so, too, a man in his waking hours may accompany intensive
thought with an unconscious whisper.[97] The peculiar movements of the
speech-musculature are to be noted. They have also been observed in
other somnambulists.[98]
These clumsy attempts must be directly paralleled with the unintelligent
and clumsy movements of the table or glass, and most probably correspond
to the _preliminary activity_ of the motor portion of the presentation;
that is to say, a stimulus limited to the motor-centre which has not
previously been subordinated to any higher system. Whether the like
occurs in persons who talk in their dreams, I do not know. But it has
been observed in hypnotised persons.[99]
Since the convenient medium of speech was used as the means of
communication, the study of the subconscious personalities was
considerably lightened. Their intellectual compass is a relatively
mediocre one. Their knowledge is greater than that of the waking
patient, including also a few occasional details, such as the birthdays
of dead strangers and the like. The source of these is more or less
obscure, since the patient does not know whence in the ordinary way
she could have procured the knowledge of these facts. These are cases
of so-called cryptomnesia, which are too unimportant to deserve more
extended notice. The intelligence of the two subconscious persons is
very slight; they produce banalities almost exclusively, but their
relation to the conscious ego of the patient when in the somnambulic
state is interesting. They are invariably aware of everything that takes
place during ecstasy and occasionally they render an exact report from
minute to minute.[100]
The subconscious persons only know the patient's phantastic changes of
thought very superficially; they do not understand these and cannot
answer a single question concerning the situation. Their stereotyped
reference to Ivenes is: "Ask Ivenes." This observation reveals a dualism
in the character of the subconscious personalities difficult to explain;
for the grandfather, who gives information by automatic speech, also
appears to Ivenes and, according to her account, teaches her about the
objects in question. How is it that, when the grandfather speaks through
the patient's mouth, he knows nothing of the very things which he
himself teaches her in the ecstasies?
We must again return to the discussion of the first appearance of the
hallucinations. We picture the vision, then, as an irruption of hypnosis
into the visual sphere. That irruption does not lead to a "normal"
hypnosis, but to a "hystero-hypnosis," that is, the simple hypnosis is
complicated by a hysterical attack.
It is not a rare occurrence in the domain of hypnotism for normal
hypnosis to be disturbed, or rather to be replaced by the unexpected
appearance of hysterical somnambulism; the hypnotist in many cases then
loses rapport with the patient. In our case the automatism arising in
the motor area plays the part of hypnotist; the suggestions proceeding
from it (called objective auto-suggestions) hypnotise the neighbouring
areas in which a certain susceptibility has arisen. At the moment
when the hypnotism flows over into the visual sphere, the hysterical
attack occurs which, as remarked, effects a very deep-reaching change
in a large portion of the psychical region. We must now suppose that
the automatism stands in the same relationship to the attack as the
hypnotist to a pathological hypnosis; its influence upon the further
structure of the situation is lost. The hallucinatory appearance of the
hypnotised personality, or rather of the suggested idea, may be regarded
as the last effect upon the somnambulic personality. Thenceforward the
hypnotist becomes only a figure with whom the somnambulic personality
occupies itself independently: he can only state what is going on and is
no longer the _conditio sine qua non_ of the content of the somnambulic
attack. The independent ego-complex of the attack, in our case Ivenes,
has now the upper hand. She groups her own mental products around
the personality of the hypnotiser, that is, of the grandfather, now
degraded to a mere image. In this way we are enabled to understand the
dualism in the character of the grandfather. _The grandfather I. who
speaks directly to those present, is a totally different person and a
mere spectator of his double, grandfather II., who appears as Ivenes'
teacher._ Grandfather I. maintains energetically that both are one and
the same person, and that I. has all the knowledge which II. possesses,
and is only prevented from giving information by the difficulties of
speech. (The dissociation was of course not realized by the patient,
who took both to be one person.) Grandfather I., if closely examined,
however, is not altogether wrong, judging from one fact which seems
to make for the identity of I. and II., viz. that they are never both
present together. When I. speaks automatically, II. is not present;
Ivenes remarks on his absence. Similarly, during the ecstasy, when
she is with II., she cannot say where I. is, or she may learn only on
returning from an imaginary journey that meanwhile I. has been guarding
her body. Conversely I. never says that he is going on a journey with
Ivenes and never explains anything to her. This behaviour should be
noted, for if I. is really separate from II., there seems no reason why
he should not speak automatically at the same time that II. appears,
and be present with II. in the ecstasy. Although this might have been
supposed possible, as a matter of fact it was never observed. How is
this dilemma to be resolved? At all events there exists an identity
of I. and II., but it does not lie in the region of the personality
under discussion; it lies in the basis common to both; that is, in
the personality of the subject which in deepest essence is one and
indivisible. Here we come across the characteristic of all hysterical
dissociations of consciousness. _They are disturbances which only
belong to the superficial, and none reaches so deep as to attack the
strong-knit foundation of the ego-complex._
In many such cases we can find the bridge which, although often
well-concealed, spans the apparently impassable abyss. For instance, by
suggestion, one of four cards is made invisible to a hypnotised person;
he thereupon names the other three. A pencil is placed in his hand with
the instruction to write down all the cards lying there; he correctly
adds the fourth one.[101]
In the aura of his hystero-epileptic attacks a patient of Janet's[102]
invariably had a vision of a conflagration, and whenever he saw an
open fire he had an attack; indeed, the sight of a lighted match was
sufficient to bring about an attack. The patient's visual field on the
left side was limited to 30°, the right eye was shut. The left eye was
fixed in the middle of a perimeter whilst a lighted match was held at
80°. The hystero-epileptic attack took place immediately. Despite the
extensive amnesia in many cases of double consciousness, the patients'
behaviour does not correspond to the degree of their ignorance, but it
seems rather as if a deeper instinct guided their actions in accordance
with their former knowledge. Not only this relatively slight amnesic
dissociation, but the severe amnesia of the epileptic twilight-state,
formerly regarded as _irreparabile damnum_, does not suffice to cut
the inmost threads which bind the ego-complex in the twilight-state to
the normal ego. In one case the content of the twilight-state could be
grafted on to the waking ego-complex.[103]
Making use of these experiments for our case, we obtain the helpful
hypothesis that those layers of the unconscious beyond reach of the
dissociation endeavour to present the unity of automatic personality.
This endeavour is shattered in the deeper-seated and more elemental
disturbance of the hysterical attack,[104] which prevents a more
complete synthesis by the tacking on of associations which are to a
certain extent the most original individual property of supraliminal
personality. _As the Ivenes dream emerged it was fitted on to the
figures accidentally in the field of vision, and henceforth remains
associated with them._
RELATIONSHIP TO THE UNCONSCIOUS PERSONALITY.
As we have seen, the numerous personalities become grouped round two
types, the grandfather and Ulrich von Gerbenstein. The first produces
exclusively sanctimonious religiosity and gives edifying moral precepts.
The latter is, in one word, a "flapper," in whom there is nothing male
except the name. We must here add from the anamnesis that at fifteen the
patient was confirmed by a very bigoted clergyman, and at home she is
occasionally the recipient of sanctimonious moral talks. The grandfather
represents this side of her past, Gerbenstein the other half; hence the
curious contrast. Here we have personified the chief characteristics
of her past. On the one hand the sanctimonious person with a narrow
education, on the other the boisterousness of a lively girl of fifteen
who often overshoots the mark.[105] We find both sets of traits mixed
in the patient in sharp contrast. At times she is anxious, shy, and
extremely reserved; at others boisterous to a degree. She is herself
often most painfully aware of these contradictions. This circumstance
gives us the key to the source of the two unconscious personalities. The
patient is obviously seeking a middle path between the two extremes;
she endeavours to repress them and strains after some ideal condition.
These strainings bring her to the puberty dream of the ideal Ivenes,
beside whose figure the unacknowledged trends of her character recede
into the background. They are not lost, however, but as repressed
ideas, analogous to the Ivenes idea, begin an independent existence as
automatic personalities.
S. W.'s behaviour recalls vividly Freud's[106] investigations into
dreams which disclose the independent growth of repressed thoughts. We
can now comprehend why the hallucinatory persons are separated from
those who write and speak automatically. The former teach Ivenes the
secrets of the Other Side, they relate all those phantastic tales about
the extraordinariness of her personality, they create scenes where
Ivenes can appear dramatically with the attributes of power, wisdom and
virtue. These are nothing but dramatic dissociations of her dream-self.
The latter, the automatic persons, are the ones to be overcome, they
must have no part in Ivenes. With the spirit-companions of Ivenes they
have only the name in common. _A priori_, it is not to be expected that
in a case like ours, where these divisions are never clearly defined,
that two such characteristic individualities should disappear entirely
from a somnambulic ego-complex having so close a relation with the
waking consciousness. And in fact, we do meet them in part in those
ecstatic penitential scenes and in part in the romances crammed with
more or less banal, mischievous gossip.
COURSE.
It only remains to say a few words about the course of this strange
affection. The process reached its maximum in four to eight weeks. The
descriptions given of Ivenes and of the unconscious personalities belong
generally to this period. Thenceforth a gradual decline was noticeable;
the ecstasies grew meaningless and the influence of Gerbenstein became
more powerful. The phenomena gradually lost their distinctive features,
the characters which were at first well demarcated became by degrees
inextricably mixed. The psychological contribution grew smaller and
smaller until finally the whole story assumed a marked effect of
fabrication. Ivenes herself was much concerned about this decline; she
became painfully uncertain, spoke cautiously, feeling her way, and
allowed her character to appear undisguised. The somnambulic attacks
decreased in frequency and intensity. All degrees from somnambulism to
conscious lying were observable. Thus the curtain fell. The patient has
since gone abroad. We should not underestimate the importance of the
fact that her character has become pleasanter and more stable. Here we
may recall the cases cited in which the second state gradually replaced
the first state. Perhaps this is a similar phenomenon.
It is well known that somnambulic manifestations sometimes begin at
puberty.[107] The attacks of somnambulism in Dyce's case[108] began
immediately before puberty and lasted just till its termination. The
somnambulism of H. Smith is likewise closely connected with puberty.[109]
Schroeder von der Kalk's patient was 16 years old at the time of her
illness; Felida 14 1/2, etc. We know also that at this period the
future character is formed and fixed. In the case of Felida and of
Mary Reynolds we saw that the character in state II. replaced that
of state I. _It is not therefore unthinkable that these phenomena of
double consciousness are nothing but character-formations for the
future personality, or their attempts to burst forth._ In consequence
of special difficulties (unfavourable external conditions, psychopathic
disposition of the nervous system, etc.), _these new formations,
or attempts thereat, become bound up with peculiar disturbances
of consciousness_. Occasionally the somnambulism, in view of the
difficulties that oppose the future character, takes on a marked
teleological meaning, for it gives the individual, who might otherwise
be defeated, the means of victory. Here I am thinking first of all
of Jeanne d'Arc, whose extraordinary courage recalls the deeds of
Mary Reynolds' II. This is perhaps the place to point out the similar
function of the "hallucination téléologique" of which the public reads
occasionally, although it has not yet been submitted to a scientific
study.
THE UNCONSCIOUS ADDITIONAL CREATIVE WORK.
We have now discussed all the essential manifestations offered by
our case which are of significance for its inner structure. Certain
accompanying manifestations may be briefly considered: _the unconscious
additional creative work_. Here we shall encounter a not altogether
unjustifiable scepticism on the part of the representative of science.
Dessoir's conception of a second ego met with much opposition, and was
rejected, as too impossible in many directions. As is known, occultism
has proclaimed a pre-eminent right to this field and has drawn premature
conclusions from doubtful observations. We are indeed very far from
being in a position to state anything conclusive, since we have at
present only most inadequate material. Therefore if we touch on the
field of the unconscious additional creative work, it is only that we
may do justice to all sides of our case. _By unconscious addition we
understand that automatic process whose result does not penetrate to
the conscious psychic activity of the individual._ To this region above
all belongs thought-reading through table movements. I do not know
whether there are people who can divine a whole long train of thought
by means of inductions from the intentional tremulous movements. It is,
however, certain that, assuming this to be possible, such persons must
be availing themselves of a routine achieved after endless practice. But
in our case long practice can be excluded without more ado, and there is
nothing left but to accept a primary susceptibility of the unconscious,
far exceeding that of the conscious.
This supposition is supported by numerous observations on somnambulists.
I will mention only Binet's[110] experiments, where little letters
or some such thing, or little complicated figures in relief were
laid on the anæsthetic skin of the back of the hand or the neck, and
the unconscious perceptions were then recorded by means of signs. On
the basis of these experiments he came to the following conclusion:
"D'après les calculs que j'ai pu faire, la sensibilité inconsciente
d'une hystérique est à certains moments _cinquante fois_ plus fine que
celle d'une personne normale." A second additional creation coming under
consideration in our case and in numerous other somnambulists, is that
condition which French investigators call "cryptomnesia."[111] By this
term is meant the becoming conscious of a memory-picture which cannot
be regarded as in itself primary, but at most is secondary, by means
of subsequent recalling or abstract reasoning. It is characteristic of
cryptomnesia that the picture which emerges does not bear the obvious
mark of the memory-picture, is not, that is to say, bound up with the
idiosyncratic super-conscious ego-complex.
Three ways may be distinguished in which the cryptomnesic picture is
brought to consciousness.
1. _The picture enters consciousness without any intervention of the
sense-spheres (intra-psychically)._ It is an inrushing idea whose
causal sequence is hidden within the individual. In so far cryptomnesia
is quite an everyday occurrence, concerned with the deepest normal
psychic events. How often it misleads the investigator, the author
or the composer into believing his ideas original, whilst the critic
quite well recognises their source! Generally the individuality of the
representation protects the author from the accusation of plagiarism
and proves his good faith; still, cases do occur of unconscious verbal
reproduction. Should the passage in question contain some remarkable
idea, the accusation of plagiarism, more or less conscious, is
justified. After all, a valuable idea is linked by numerous associations
with the ego-complex; at different times, in different situations, it
has already been meditated upon and thus leads by innumerable links in
all directions. It can therefore never so disappear from consciousness
that its continuity could be entirely lost from the sphere of conscious
memory. We have, however, a criterion by which we can always recognise
objectively intra-psychic cryptomnesia. The cryptomnesic presentation
is linked to the ego-complex by the minimum of associations. The reason
for this lies in the relation of the individual to the particular
object, in the disproportion of interest to object. Two possibilities
occur: (1) The object is worthy of interest but the interest is slight
in consequence of dispersion or want of understanding; (2) The object
is not worthy of interest, consequently the interest is slight. In
both cases an extremely labile connection with consciousness arises
which leads to a rapid forgetting. The slight bridge is soon destroyed
and the acquired presentation sinks into the unconscious, where it is
no longer accessible to consciousness. Should it enter consciousness
by means of cryptomnesia, the feeling of strangeness, of its being an
original creation, will cling to it because the path by which it entered
the subconscious has become undiscoverable. Strangeness and original
creation are, moreover, closely allied to one another if one recalls
the numerous witnesses in _belles-lettres_ to the nature of genius
("possession" by genius).[112]
Apart from certain striking cases of this kind, where it is doubtful
whether it is a cryptomnesia or an original creation, there are some
cases in which a passage of no essential content is reproduced, and that
almost verbally, as in the following example:--
About that time when Zarathustra lived on the blissful islands, it came
to pass that a ship cast anchor at that island on which the smoking
mountain standeth; and the sailors of that ship went ashore in order to
shoot rabbits! But about the hour of noon, when the captain and his men
had mustered again, they suddenly saw a man come through the air unto
them, and a voice said distinctly: "It is time! It is high time!" But
when that person was nighest unto them (he passed by them flying quickly
like a shadow, in the direction in which the volcano was situated) they
recognised with the greatest confusion that it was Zarathustra. For all
of them, except the captain, had seen him before, and they loved him, as
the folk love, blending love and awe in equal parts. "Lo! there," said
the old steersman, "Zarathustra goeth unto hell!"
* * * * *
An extract of awe-inspiring import from the log of the ship "Sphinx" in
the year 1686, in the Mediterranean.
Just. Kerner, "Blätter aus Prevorst," vol. IV., p, 57.
The four captains and a merchant, Mr. Bell, went ashore on the island of
Mount Stromboli to shoot rabbits. At three o'clock they called the crew
together to go aboard, when, to their inexpressible astonishment, they
saw two men flying rapidly over them through the air. One was dressed
in black, the other in grey. They approached them very closely, in the
greatest haste; to their greatest dismay they descended amid the burning
flames into the crater of the terrible volcano, Mount Stromboli. They
recognised the pair as acquaintances from London.
Frau E. Förster-Nietzsche, the poet's sister, told me, in reply to my
inquiry, that Nietzsche took up Just. Kerner between the age of twelve
and fifteen, when stopping with his grandfather, Pastor Oehler, in
Pobler, but certainly never afterwards. It could never have been the
poet's intention to commit a plagiarism from a ship's log; if this had
been the case, he would certainly have omitted the very prosaic "to
shoot rabbits," which was, moreover, quite unessential to the situation.
In the poetical sketch of Zarathustra's journey into Hell there was
obviously interpolated, half or wholly unconsciously, that forgotten
impression from his youth.
This is an instance which shows all the peculiarities of cryptomnesia.
A quite unessential detail, which deserves nothing but speedy
forgetting, is reproduced with almost verbal fidelity, whilst the
chief part of the narrative is, one cannot say altered, but recreated
quite distinctively. To the distinctive core, the idea of the journey
to Hell, there is added a detail, the old, forgotten impression of
a similar situation. The original is so absurd that the youth, who
read everything, probably skipped through it, and certainly had no
deep interest in it. Here we get the required minimum of associated
links, for we cannot easily conceive a greater jump, than from that
old, absurd story to Nietzsche's consciousness in the year 1883. If we
picture to ourselves Nietzsche's mood at the time when "Zarathustra"
was composed,[113] and think of the ecstasy that at more than one
point approached the pathological, we shall comprehend the abnormal
reminiscence. The second of the two possibilities mentioned, the
acceptance of some object, not itself uninteresting, in a state of
dispersion or half interest from lack of understanding, and its
cryptomnesic reproduction we find chiefly in somnambulists; it is also
found in the literary chronicles dealing with dying celebrities.[114]
Amid the exhaustive selection of these phenomena we are chiefly
concerned with _talking in a foreign tongue, the so-called glossolalia_.
This phenomenon is mentioned everywhere when it is a question of similar
ecstatic conditions. In the New Testament, in the _Acta Sanctorum_,[115]
in the Witchcraft Trials, more recently in the Prophetess of Prevorst,
in Judge Edmond's daughter Laura, in Flournoy's Helen Smith. The last
is unique from the point of view of investigation; it is found also in
Bresler's[116] case, which is probably identical with Blumhardt's[117]
Gottlieben Dittus. As Flournoy shows, glossolalia is, so far as it
really is independent speech, a cryptomnesic phenomenon, [Greek:
Kat' exochên]. The reader should consult Flournoy's most interesting
exposition.
In our case glossolalia was only once observed, when the only
understandable words were the scattered variations on the word "vena."
The source of this word is clear. A few days previously the patient
had dipped into an anatomical atlas for the study of the veins of the
face, which were given in Latin. She had used the word "vena" in her
dreams, as happens occasionally to normal persons. The remaining words
and sentences in a foreign language betray, at the first glance, their
derivation from French, in which the patient was somewhat fluent.
Unfortunately I am without the more accurate translations of the various
sentences, because the patient would not give them; but we may hold
that it was a phenomenon similar to Helen Smith's Martian language.
Flournoy found that the Martian language was nothing but a childish
translation from French; the words were changed but the syntax remained
the same. Even more probable is the view that the patient simply ranged
next to each other meaningless words that rang strangely, without any
true word-formation;[118] she borrowed certain characteristic sounds
from French and Italian and combined them into a kind of language,
just as Helen Smith completed the _lacunæ_ in the real Sanscrit words
by products of her own resembling that language. The curious names of
the mystical system can be reduced, for the most part, to known roots.
The writer vividly recalls the botanical schemes found in every school
atlas; the internal resemblance of the relationship of the planets to
the sun is also pretty clear; we shall not be going astray if we see in
the names reminiscences from popular astronomy. Thus can be explained
the names Persus, Fenus, Nenus, Sirum, Surus, Fixus, and Pix, as
the childlike distortions of Perseus, Venus, Sirius and Fixed Star,
analogous to the Vena variations. Magnesor vividly recalls Magnetism,
whose mystic significance the patient knew from the Prophetess of
Prevorst. In Connesor, the contrary to Magnesor, the prefix "con" is
probably the French "contre." Hypnos and Hyfonismus recall hypnosis
and hypnotism (German _hypnotismus_), about which there are the most
superstitious ideas circulating in lay circles. The most used suffixes
in "us" and "os" are the signs by which as a rule people decide the
difference between Latin and Greek. The other names probably spring
from similar accidents to which we have no clues. The rudimentary
glossolalia of our case has not any title to be a classical instance of
cryptomnesia, for it only consisted in the unconscious use of various
impressions, partly optical, party acoustic, and all very close at hand.
2. _The cryptomnesic image arrives at consciousness through the senses
(as a hallucination)._ Helen Smith is the classic example of this kind.
I refer to the case mentioned on the date "18 Mars."[119]
3. _The image arrives at consciousness by motor automatism._ H. Smith
had lost her valuable brooch, which she was anxiously looking for
everywhere. Ten days later her guide Leopold informed her by means
of the table where the brooch was. Thus informed, she found it at
night-time in the open field, covered by sand.[120] Strictly speaking,
in cryptomnesia there is not any additional creation in the true sense
of the word, since the conscious memory experiences no increase of its
function, but only an enrichment of its content. By the automatism
certain regions are merely made accessible to consciousness in an
indirect way, which were formerly sealed against it. But the unconscious
does not thereby accomplish any creation which exceeds the capacity of
consciousness qualitatively or quantitatively. Cryptomnesia is only an
apparent additional creation, in contrast to hypermnesia, which actually
represents an increase of function.[121]
We have spoken above of a receptivity of the unconscious greater
than that of the consciousness, chiefly in regard to the simple
attempts at thought-reading of numbers. As mentioned, not only our
somnambulist but a relatively large number of normal persons are able
to guess from the tremors lengthy thought-sequences, if they are not
too complicated. These experiments are, so to speak, the prototype
of those rarer and incomparably more astonishing cases of intuitive
knowledge displayed at times by somnambulists.[122] Zschokke[123] in
his "Introspection" has shown us that these phenomena do not belong
only to the domain of somnambulism, but occur among non-somnambulic
persons. The formation of such knowledge seems to be arrived at in
various ways: first and foremost there is the fineness, already noted,
of unconscious perceptions; then must be emphasised the importance of
the enormous suggestibility of somnambulists. _The somnambulist not
only incorporates every suggestive idea to some extent, but actually
lives in the suggestion, in the person of his doctor or observer,
with that abandonment characteristic of the suggestible hysteric._
The relation of Frau Hauffe to Kerner is a striking example of this.
That in such cases there is a high degree of _association-concordance_
can cause no astonishment; a condition which Richet might have taken
more account of in his experiments in thought-transference. Finally
there are cases of somnambulic additional creative work which are not
to be explained solely by hyperæsthesia of the unconscious activity
of the senses and association-concordance, but presuppose a highly
developed intellectual activity of the unconscious. The deciphering
of the purposive tremors demand an extreme sensitiveness and delicacy
of feeling, both psychological and physiological, to combine the
individual perceptions into a complete unity of thought, if it is at
all permissible to make an analogy between the processes of cognition
in the realm of the unconscious and the conscious. The possibility
must always be considered that _in the unconscious, feeling and concept
are not clearly separated_, perhaps even are one. The intellectual
elevation which certain somnambulists display in ecstasy, though a rare
thing, is none the less one that has sometimes been observed.[124] I
would designate the scheme composed by our patient as just one of those
pieces of creative work that exceed the normal intelligence. We have
already seen whence one portion of this scheme probably came. A second
source is no doubt the life-crisis of Frau Hauffe, portrayed in Kerner's
book. The external form seems to be determined by these adventitious
facts. As already observed in the presentation of the case, the idea of
dualism arises from the conversations picked up piecemeal by the patient
during those dreamy states occurring after her ecstasies. This exhausts
my knowledge of the sources of S. W.'s creations. Whence arose the
root-idea the patient is unable to say. I naturally examined occultistic
literature pertinent to the subject, and discovered a store of parallels
with her gnostic system from different centuries scattered through all
kinds of work mostly quite inaccessible to the patient. Moreover, at
her youthful age, and with her surroundings, the possibility of any
such study is quite excluded. A brief survey of the system in the light
of her own explanations shows how much intelligence was used in its
construction. How highly the intellectual work is to be estimated is a
matter of opinion. In any case, considering her youth, her mentality
must be regarded as quite extraordinary.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Thesis published in 1902. Translator, M. D. Eder, M.D.]
[Footnote 2: _Arch. f. Psych._, XXXIII. p. 928.]
[Footnote 3: Richer, "Études cliniques sur l'hystéro-épilepsie," p. 483.]
[Footnote 4: _Idem_, _l.c._, p. 487; cp. also Erler, _Allg. Zeitschrift
f. Psychiatrie_, XXXV. p. 28; also Culerre, _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._,
XLVI., Litteraturbericht 356.]
[Footnote 5: Charcot and Guinon, "Progrès méd.," 1891.]
[Footnote 6: "Somnambulism must be conceived as systematised partial
waking, in which a limited, connected presentation-complex takes place.
Contrary presentations do not occur, at the same time the mental
activity is carried on with increased energy within the limited sphere
of the waking" (Lowenfeld, "Hypnotism," 1901, p. 289).]
[Footnote 7: Azam, "Hypnotisme--Double conscience," etc., Paris, 1887.
For similar cases, cf. Forbes Winslow, "On Obscure Diseases," p. 335.]
[Footnote 8: _Trib. méd._, March, 1890.]
[Footnote 9: _Annal. méd. psychol._, Jan., Feb., 1892.]
[Footnote 10: "Principles of Psychology," p. 391.]
[Footnote 11: Mesnet, "De l'automatisme de la mémoire et du souvenir
dans le somnambulisme pathologique." Union médicale, Juillet, 1874. Cf.
Binet, "Les Altérations de la personnalité," p. 37. Cf. also Mesnet,
"Somnambulisme spontané dans ses rapports avec l'hystérie," _Arch. de
Neurol._, Nr. 69, 1892.]
[Footnote 12: _Arch. de Neur._, Mai, 1891.]
[Footnote 13: "Philosophy of Sleep," 1830. Cf. Binet, "Les Altérations,"
etc.]
[Footnote 14: Goethe: _Zur Naturwissenschaft in Allgemeinen_. "I was
able, when I closed my eyes and bent my head, to conjure the imaginary
picture of a flower. This flower did not retain its first shape for
a single instant, but unfolded out of itself new flowers composed of
coloured petals and green leaves. They were not natural flowers, but
phantastic ones. They were as regular in shape as a sculptor's rosettes.
It was impossible to fix the creation which sprang up, nevertheless the
dream-image lasted as long as I desired it to last; it neither faded nor
grew stronger."]
[Footnote 15: C. Westphal, "Die Agoraphobie," _Arch. f. Psych._, III. p.
158.]
[Footnote 16: Pick, _Arch. f. Psych._, XV. p. 202.]
[Footnote 17: _Allgem. Zeitschr. f. Psych._, XXI. p. 78.]
[Footnote 18: "Neurasthenische Krisen," _Münch. Med. Wochenschr._, März,
1902, "When the patients first describe their crises they generally give
a picture that makes us think of epileptic depression. I have often been
deceived in this way."]
[Footnote 19: Mörchen, "Ueber Dämmerzustände," Marburg, 1901, Fall. 32,
p. 75.]
[Footnote 20: It must be noted that a frequent guest in S. W.'s home was
a gentleman who spoke high German.]
[Footnote 21: Ivenes is the mystical name of the medium's somnambulic
self.]
[Footnote 22: "The Major Symptoms of Hysteria." New York: The Macmillan
Company.]
[Footnote 23: See page 17.]
[Footnote 24: Binet, "Les altérations de la personnalité."]
[Footnote 25: Richet, _Rev. Phil._, 1884, II. p. 650.]
[Footnote 26: Binet, "Les altérations de la personnalité," p. 139.]
[Footnote 27: Complete references in Binet, "Les altérations," p. 197,
footnote.]
[Footnote 28: As is known, during the waking-state the hands and arms
are never quite still, but are constantly subjected to fine tremors.
Preyer, Lehmann, and others have proved that these movements are
influenced in a high degree by the predominant presentations. Preyer
shows that the outstretched hand drew small, more or less faithful,
copies of figures which were vividly presented. These purposeful tremors
can be demonstrated in a very simple way by experiments with the
pendulum.]
[Footnote 29: Cf. Preyer, "Die Erklärung des Gedankenlesens," Leipzig,
1886.]
[Footnote 30: Analogous to certain hypnotic experiments in the waking
state. Cf. Janet's experiment when by a whispered suggestion he
induced a patient to lie flat on the ground without being aware of it
("L'Automatisme").]
[Footnote 31: Charcot's scheme of word-picture combination: 1, Auditory
image. 2, Visual image. 3, Motor image., Speech image., Writing image.
In Gilbert Ballet, "Die innerliche Sprache," Leipzig and Wien, 1890.]
[Footnote 32: Bain says, "Thought is a suppressed word or a suppressed
act" ("The Senses and the Intellect").]
[Footnote 33: _Proceedings of S.P.R._, 1885. "Automatic writing."]
[Footnote 34: Pierre Janet, "L'Automatisme Psychologique," p. 317,
Paris, 1889.]
[Footnote 35: "Les Altérations," p. 132.]
[Footnote 36: "Une fois baptisé, le personnage inconscient est plus
déterminé et plus net, il montre mieux ses caractères psychologiques"
(Janet, "L'Automatisme," p. 318).]
[Footnote 37: Cf. the corresponding experiments of Binet and Féré. See
Binet, "Les Altérations."]
[Footnote 38: Cf. Corresponding tests by Flournoy: "Des Indes à la
planète Mara. Etude sur un cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie." Paris
and Genève, 1900.]
[Footnote 39: Cf. Hagen, "Zur Theorie des Hallucinationen," _Allg.
Zeitschrift f. Psych._, XXV. 10.]
[Footnote 40: Binet, "Les Altérations," p. 157.]
[Footnote 41: "Die Traumdeutung," 1900. ["The Interpretation of Dreams,"
translated by Dr. A. A. Brill. London: Allen & Unwin, 1918.]]
[Footnote 42: Flournoy, _l.c._, p. 55.]
[Footnote 43: Schüle, "Handbuch," p. 134.]
[Footnote 44: J. Müller, quoted _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, XXV. 41.]
[Footnote 45: Spinoza hypnopompically saw a "_nigrum et scabiosum
Brasilianum_."--J. Müller, _l.c._
In Goethe's "The Elective Affinities," at times in the half darkness
Ottilie saw the figure of Edward in a dimly-lit spot. Compare also
Cardanus, "imagines videbam ab imo lecti, quasi e parvulis annulis
arcisque constantes, arborum, belluarum, hominum, oppidorum,
instructarum acierum, bellicorum et musicorum instrumentorum aliorumque
huius generis adscendentes, vicissimque descendentes, aliis atque aliis
succedentibus" (Hieronymus Cardanus, "De subtilitate rerum").]
[Footnote 46: "Le sommeil et les rêves," p. 134.]
[Footnote 47: G. Trumbull Ladd, "Contribution to the Psychology of
Visual Dreams," _Mind_, April, 1892.]
[Footnote 48: Hecker says of the same condition, "There is a
simple elemental vision, even without sense presentation, through
over-excitation of mental activity, not leading to phantastic imagery,
that is the vision of light free from form, a manifestation of the
visual organs stimulated from within" ("Ueber Visionen," Berlin, 1848).]
[Footnote 49: Jules Quicherat, "Procès de condamnation et de
réhabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc, dite La Pucelle," etc.]
[Footnote 50: Hagen, _l.c._, p. 57.]
[Footnote 51: Goethe, "Benvenuto Cellini."]
[Footnote 52: Flournoy, _l.c._, p. 32 ff.]
[Footnote 53: Flournoy, _l.c._, p. 51.]
[Footnote 54: _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, IV. 139.]
[Footnote 55: _Ibid._, VI. 285.]
[Footnote 56: Coll. Physicians of Philadelphia, April 4, 1888. Also
_Harper's Magazine_, 1869. Abstracted in extenso in William James's
"Principles of Psychology," 1891, p. 391 ff.]
[Footnote 57: Cf. Emminghaus, "Allg. Psychopathologie," p. 129, Ogier
Ward's case.]
[Footnote 58: Schroeder von der Kalk, "Pathologie und Therapie der
Geisteskrankheiten," p. 31: Braunschweig, 1863. Quoted in _Allg. Zeit.
f. Psych._, XXII., p. 405.]
[Footnote 59: Cf. Donath, "Ueber Suggestibilität," Wiener mediz. Presse,
1832, No. 31. Quoted _Arch. f. Psych._, XXXII., p. 335.]
[Footnote 60: Hoefelt. _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, XLIX., p. 200.]
[Footnote 61: Azam, "Hypnotisme, Double Conscience," etc.]
[Footnote 62: Bourru et Burot, "Changements de Personnnalité," 1888.]
[Footnote 63: Moll, "Zeit. f. Hypn.," I., 306.]
[Footnote 64: Rieger, "Der Hypnotismus," 1884, p. 190 ff.]
[Footnote 65: Morton Prince, "An Experimental Study of Visions," Brain,
1898.]
[Footnote 66: Quoted by Ribot, "Die Persönlichkeit."]
[Footnote 67: _Ibid._, p. 69.]
[Footnote 68: Flournoy, _l.c._, p. 59.]
[Footnote 69: "Les rêves somnambuliques, sortes de romans de
l'imagination subliminale, analogues à ces histoires continues, que
tant de gens se racontent à eux-mêmes et dont ils sont généralement les
héros dans leurs moments de far niente ou d'occupations routinières qui
n'offrent qu'un faible obstacle aux rêveries intérieures. Constructions
fantaisistes, millefois reprises et poursuivies, rarement achevées, où
la folle du logis se donne libre carrière et prend sa revanche du terne
et plat terre à terre des réalités quotidiennes." (Flournoy, _l.c._, p.
8).]
[Footnote 70: Delbruck, "Die Pathologische Lüge."]
[Footnote 71: Forel, "Hypnotisme."]
[Footnote 72: Pick, "Ueber Path. Träumerei und ihre Beziehung zur
Hysterie," _Jahr. f. Psych. und Neur._, XIV., p. 280.]
[Footnote 73: Bohn, "Ein Fall von doppelten Bewusstsein Diss." Breslau,
1898.]
[Footnote 74: Görres, _l.c._]
[Footnote 75: Cf. Behr, _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, LVI., 918, and Ballet,
_l.c._, p. 44.]
[Footnote 76: Cf. _Redlich, Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, LVII., 66.]
[Footnote 77: Erler, _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, XXXV., 21.]
[Footnote 78: Binet, "Les hystériques ne sont pas pour nous que des
sujets d'élection agrandissant des phénomènes qu'on doit nécessairement
retrouver à quelque degré chez une foule d'autres personnes qui ne
sont ni atteintes ni même effleurées par la nêvrose hystérique". ("Les
altérations," p. 29)]
[Footnote 79: Delbrück, _l.c._, and Redlich, _l.c._ Cf. the development
of delusions in epileptic stupor mentioned by Mörchen, "Essay on
Stupor," pp. 51 and 59, 1901.]
[Footnote 80: Cf. Flournoy's very interesting supposition as to the
origin of the Hindu _cycle_ of H.S.: "Je ne serais pas étonné que
la remarque de Martes sur la beauté des femmes du Kanara ait été le
clou, l'atome crochu, qui a piqué l'attention subliminale et l'a très
naturellement rivée sur cette unique passage avec les deux ou trois
lignes consécutives, à l'exclusion de tout le contexte environnant
beaucoup moins intérressant" (_L.c._, p. 285).]
[Footnote 81: Janet says, "From forgetfulness there arises frequently,
even if not invariably, the so-called lying of hysteria. The same
explanation holds good of a hysteric's whims, changes of mood,
ingratitude--in a word, of his inconstancy. The link between the past
and present, which gives to the whole personality its seriousness and
poise, depends to a large extent upon memory" ("Mental States," etc., p.
67).]
[Footnote 82: Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams," p. 469.]
[Footnote 83: Binet, _l.c._, p. 84.]
[Footnote 84: "Une autre considération rapproche encore ces deux
états, c'est que les actes subconscients ont un effet en quelque sorte
hypnotisant et contribuant par eux-mêmes à amener le somnambulisme"
("L'Automatisme," p. 329).]
[Footnote 85: Janet, _l.c._, p. 329.]
[Footnote 86: In literature Gustave Flaubert has made use of a similar
falling asleep at the moment of extreme excitement in his novel
"Salambo." When the hero, after many struggles, has at last captured
Salambo, he suddenly falls asleep just as he touches her virginal bosom.]
[Footnote 87: Perhaps the cases of paralysis of the emotions also belong
here. Cf. Baetz, _Allg. Zeitsch. f. Psych._, LVIII., p. 717.]
[Footnote 88: _Allg. Zeitsch. f. Psych._, XXX., p. 17.]
[Footnote 89: _Arch. f. Psych._, XXIII., p. 59.]
[Footnote 90: Cf. here Flournoy, _l.c._, 65.]
[Footnote 91: _Arch. f. Psych._, XXII., p. 737.]
[Footnote 92: _Ibid._, 734.]
[Footnote 93: Bonamaison, "Un cas remarquable d'Hypnose spontanée,"
etc.--_Rev. de l'Hypnotisme_, Fév. 1890, p. 234.]
[Footnote 94: _Arch. f. Psych._, XXII., 737.]
[Footnote 95: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 96: _Ibid._, XXIII., p. 59 ff.]
[Footnote 97: Cf. Lehman's investigations of involuntary whispering,
"Aberglaube und Zauberei," 1898, p. 385 ff.]
[Footnote 98: Thus Flournoy writes, "Dans un premier essai Léopold
(H.S.'s control-spirit) ne réussit qu'à donner ses intimations et sa
pronunciation à Helen: après une séance où elle avait vivement souffert
dans la bouche et le cou comme si on lui travaillait ou lui enlevait les
organes vocaux, elle se mit à causer très naturellement."]
[Footnote 99: Loewenfeld, _Arch. f. Psych._, XXIII., 60.]
[Footnote 100: This behaviour recalls Flournoy's observations: "Whilst
H.S. as a somnambule speaks as Marie Antoinette, the arms of H.S. do not
belong to the somnambulic personality, but to the automatism Leopold,
who converses by gestures with the observer" (Flournoy, _l.c._, p. 125).]
[Footnote 101: Dessoir, "Das Doppel-Ich," II. Aufl., 1896, p. 29.]
[Footnote 102: Janet, "L'anesthésie hystérique," _Arch. d'Neur._, 69,
1892.]
[Footnote 103: Graeter, _Zeit. f. Hypnotismus_, VIII., p. 129.]
[Footnote 104: The hysterical attack is not a purely psychical process.
By the psychic processes only a pre-formed mechanism is set free, which
has nothing to do with psychic processes in and for themselves (Karplus,
_Jahr. f. Psych._, XVII.).]
[Footnote 105: Carl Hauptmann, in his drama "Die Bergschmiede," has
made use of the objectivation of certain linked association-complexes.
In this play the treasure-seeker is met on a gloomy night by a
hallucination of his entire better self.]
[Footnote 106: Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams." See also Breuer
and Freud's "Studies on Hysteria," 1895.]
[Footnote 107: Pelman, _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, XXI., p. 74.]
[Footnote 108: _Allg. Zeit. f. Psych._, XXII., p. 407.]
[Footnote 109: Flournoy, _l.c._, p. 28.]
[Footnote 110: Binet, "Les Altérations," p. 125. Cf. also Loewenfeld's
statements on the subject in "Hypnotismus," 1901.]
[Footnote 111: _Cryptomnesia_ must not be regarded as synonymous with
_Hypermnesia_; by the latter term is meant the abnormal quickening of
the power of recollection which reproduces the memory-pictures as such.]
[Footnote 112: "Has any one at the end of the nineteenth century any
clear conception of what the poets in vigorous ages called inspiration?
If not, I will describe it. The slight remnant of superstition by
itself would scarcely have sufficed to reject the idea of being merely
incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely the medium of superior forces.
The concept revelation in the sense that quite suddenly, with ineffable
certainty and delicacy, something is seen, something is heard, something
convulsing and breaking into one's inmost self, does but describe
the fact. You hear--you do not seek; you accept--asking not who is
the giver. Like lightning, flashes the thought, compelling without
hesitation as to form--I have had no choice" (Nietzsche's "Works," vol.
III., p. 482.).]
[Footnote 113: "There is an ecstasy so great that the immense strain of
it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, during which one's steps
now involuntarily rush, and anon involuntarily lag. There is the feeling
that one is utterly out of hand, with the very distinct consciousness of
an endless number of fine thrills and titillations descending to one's
very toes;--there is a depth of happiness in which the most painful and
gloomy parts do not act as antitheses to the rest, but are produced and
required as necessary shades of colour in such an overflow of light"
(Nietzsche, "Ecce Homo," vol. XVII. of English translation, by A. M.
Ludovici, p. 103).]
[Footnote 114: Eckermann, "Conversations with Goethe," vol. III.]
[Footnote 115: Cf. Goerres, "Die christliche Mystik."]
[Footnote 116: Bresler, "Kulturhistorischer Beitrag zur Hysterie,"
_Allg. Zeits. f. Psych._ LIII., p. 333.]
[Footnote 117: Zündel, "Biographie Blumhardt's."]
[Footnote 118: "Le baragouin rapide et confus dont on ne peut jamais
obtenir la signification, probablement parce qu'il n'en a en effet
aucune, n'est qu'un pseudo-langage (p. 193) analogue au baragouinage par
lequel les enfants se donnent parfois dans leurs jeux l'illusion qu'ils
parlent chinois, indien ou 'sauvage'" (p. 152, Flournoy, _l.c._).]
[Footnote 119: See p. 63.]
[Footnote 120: Flournoy, _l.c._, p. 378.]
[Footnote 121: For a case of this kind see Krafft Ebing, "Lehrbuch," 4th
edition, p. 578.]
[Footnote 122: The limitation of the associative processes and the
concentration of attention upon a definite sphere of presentation can
also lead to the development of new ideas, which no effort of will
in the waking state would have been able to accomplish (Loewenfeld,
"Hypnotismus," p. 289).]
[Footnote 123: Zschokke, "Eine Selbstschau," III., Aufl. Aarau, 1843, p.
227 ff.]
[Footnote 124: Gilles de la Tourette says, "We have seen somnambulic
girls, poor, uneducated, quite stupid in the waking state, whose whole
appearance altered so soon as they were sent to sleep. Whilst previously
they were boring, now they are lively, alert, sometimes even witty" (Cf.
Loewenfeld, _l.c._, p. 132).]
CHAPTER II
THE ASSOCIATION METHOD
LECTURE I[125]
When you honoured me with an invitation to lecture at Clark University,
a wish was expressed that I should speak about my methods of work, and
especially about the psychology of childhood. I hope to accomplish this
task in the following manner:--
In my first lecture I will give to you the view points of my association
methods; in my second I will discuss the significance of the familiar
constellations; while in my third lecture I shall enter more fully into
the psychology of the child.
I might confine myself exclusively to my theoretical views, but I
believe it will be better to illustrate my lectures with as many
practical examples as possible. We will therefore occupy ourselves first
with the association test which has been of great value to me both
practically and theoretically. The history of the association method in
vogue in psychology, as well as the method itself, is, of course, so
familiar to you that there is no need to enlarge upon it. For practical
purposes I make use of the following formula:--
1. head
2. green
3. water
4. to sing
5. dead
6. long
7. ship
8. to pay
9. window
10. friendly
11. to cook
12. to ask
13. cold
14. stem
15. to dance
16. village
17. lake
18. sick
19. pride
20. to cook
21. ink
22. angry
23. needle
24. to swim
25. voyage
26. blue
27. lamp
28. to sin
29. bread
30. rich
31. tree
32. to prick
33. pity
34. yellow
35. mountain
36. to die
37. salt
38. new
39. custom
40. to pray
41. money
42. foolish
43. pamphlet
44. despise
45. finger
46. expensive
47. bird
48. to fall
49. book
50. unjust
51. frog
52. to part
53. hunger
54. white
55. child
56. to take care
57. lead pencil
58. sad
59. plum
60. to marry
61. house
62. dear
63. glass
64. to quarrel
65. fur
66. big
67. carrot
68. to paint
69. part
70. old
71. flower
72. to beat
73. box
74. wild
75. family
76. to wash
77. cow
78. friend
79. luck
80. lie
81. deportment
82. narrow
83. brother
84. to fear
85. stork
86. false
87. anxiety
88. to kiss
89. bride
90. pure
91. door
92. to choose
93. hay
94. contented
95. ridicule
96. to sleep
97. month
98. nice
99. woman
100. to abuse
This formula has been constructed after many years of experience. The
words are chosen and partially arranged in such a manner as to strike
easily almost all complexes which occur in practice. As shown above,
there is a regulated mixing of the grammatical qualities of the words.
For this there are definite reasons.[126]
Before the experiment begins the test person receives the following
instruction: "Answer as quickly as possible with the first word that
occurs to your mind." This instruction is so simple that it can easily
be followed. The work itself, moreover, appears extremely easy, so that
it might be expected any one could accomplish it with the greatest
facility and promptitude. But, contrary to expectation, the behaviour is
quite otherwise.
I.--AN EXAMPLE OF A NORMAL REACTION TYPE.
--------+----------------+--------------------------+----------------
| Reaction | |
Stimulus| Time. | |
word. |Unit 0·2 second.| Reaction. | Reproduction.
--------+----------------+--------------------------+----------------
head | 9 | foot |part of the body
green | 11 | blouse |
water | 14 | clear |light
to sing | 6 | children |
dead | 11 | do not like |
long | 6 | short |I, tall
ship | 7 | forth |
to pay | 9 | bills |
window | 9 | room |
friendly| 10 | children |
table | 9 | chair |room
to ask | 10 | all kinds |
cold | 7 | warm |
stem | 6 | flower |
to dance| 9 | I . . |like
lake | 8 | Zürich |
sick | 8 | sister |
pride | 6 | people |
to cook | 7 | woman |
ink | 5 | black |
angry | 10 | children |people
needle | 9 | to prick |
to swim | 10 | healthy |
voyage | 9 | England |
blue | 10 | pretty |like
lamp | 6 | light |
to sin | 8 | much |people
bread | 10 | good |like, necessary
rich | 9 | nice |
tree | 6 | green |
to prick| 9 | need |
--------+----------------+--------------------------+----------------
II.--AN EXAMPLE OF AN HYSTERICAL REACTION TYPE.
--------+----------------+--------------------------+----------------
| Reaction | |
Stimulus| Time. | |
word. |Unit 0·2 second.| Reaction. | Reproduction.
--------+----------------+--------------------------+----------------
needle | 7 | to sew |
to swim | 9 | water |ship [127]
[128] | | |
voyage | 35 | to ride, motion, voyager |
blue | 10 | colour |
lamp | 7 | to burn |
--------+----------------+--------------------------+----------------
to sin | 22 |this idea is totally |
| | strange to me, I do not |
| | recognize it |
bread | 10 |to eat |
rich[129]| 50 |money, I don't know |possession
brown | 6 |nature |green
to prick| 9 |needle |
pity | 12 |feeling |
yellow | 9 |colour |
mountain| 8 |high |
to die | 8 |to perish |
salt | 15 |salty (laughs) I don't |
| | know |NaCl
new | 15 |old |as an opposite
custom | 10 |good |barbaric
to pray | 12 |Deity |
money | 10 |wealth |
foolish | 12 |narrow minded, restricted | ?
pamphlet| 10 |paper |
despise | 30 |that is a complicated, too| ?
| | foolish |
finger | 8 |hand, not only hand, but |
| | also foot, a joint, |
| | member, extremity |
dear | 14 |to pay (laughs) |
bird | 8 |to fly |
to fall | 30 |_tomber_, I will say no | ?
| | more, what do you |
| | mean by fall? |
book | 6 |to read |
unjust | 8 |just |
frog | 11 |quack |
to part | 30 |what does that mean? | ?
hunger | 10 |to eat |
white | 12 |colour, everything |
| | possible, light |
child | 10 |little, I did not hear | ?
| | well, _bébé_ |
to take | | |
care | 14 |attention |
lead | |to draw, everything |
pencil| 8 | possible can be drawn |
sad | 9 |to weep, that is not |to be
| | always the case |
plum | 16 |to eat a plum, pluck what |fruit
| | do you mean by it? Is |
| | that symbolic? |
to marry| 27 |how can you? reunion, |union, alliance
| | union |
--------+----------------+--------------------------+----------------
The following diagrams illustrate the reaction times in an association
experiment in four normal test-persons. The height of each column
denotes the length of the reaction time.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.]
The succeeding diagram shows the course of the reaction time in
hysterical individuals. The light cross-hatched columns denote the
places where the test-person was unable to react (so-called failures to
react).
[Illustration: FIG. 8.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
The first thing that strikes us is the fact that many test-persons
show a marked prolongation of the reaction time. This would seem to
be suggestive of intellectual difficulties,--wrongly however, for we
are often dealing with very intelligent persons of fluent speech. The
explanation lies rather in the emotions. In order to understand the
matter, comprehensively, we must bear in mind that the association
experiments cannot deal with a separated psychic function, for any
psychic occurrence is never a thing in itself, but is always the
resultant of the entire psychological past. The association experiment,
too, is not merely a method for the reproduction of separated word
couplets, but it is a kind of pastime, a conversation between
experimenter and test-person. In a certain sense it is still more
than that. Words really represent condensed actions, situations, and
things. When I give a stimulus word to the test-person, which denotes
an action, it is as if I represented to him the action itself, and
asked him, "How do you behave towards it? What do you think of it?
What would you do in this situation?" If I were a magician, I should
cause the situation corresponding to the stimulus word to appear in
reality, and placing the test-person in its midst, I should then study
his manner of reaction. The result of my stimulus words would thus
undoubtedly approach infinitely nearer perfection. But as we are not
magicians, we must be contented with the linguistic substitutes for
reality; at the same time we must not forget that the stimulus word
will almost without exception conjure up its corresponding situation.
All depends on how the test-person reacts to this situation. The word
"bride" or "bridegroom" will not evoke a simple reaction in a young
lady; but the reaction will be deeply influenced by the strong feeling
tones evoked, the more so if the experimenter be a man. It thus happens
that the test-person is often unable to react quickly and smoothly
to all stimulus words. There are certain stimulus words which denote
actions, situations, or things, about which the test-person cannot think
quickly and surely, and this fact is demonstrated in the association
experiments. The examples which I have just given show an abundance of
long reaction times and other disturbances. In this case the reaction
to the stimulus word is in some way impeded, that is, the adaptation to
the stimulus word is disturbed. The stimulus words therefore act upon us
just as reality acts; indeed, a person who shows such great disturbances
to the stimulus words, is in a certain sense but imperfectly adapted to
reality. Disease itself is an imperfect adaptation; hence in this case
we are dealing with something morbid in the psyche,--with something
which is either temporarily or persistently pathological in character,
that is, we are dealing with a psychoneurosis, with a functional
disturbance of the mind. This rule, however, as we shall see later, is
not without its exceptions.
Let us, in the first place, continue the discussion concerning the
prolonged reaction time. It often happens that the test-person actually
does _not_ know what to answer to the stimulus word. He waives any
reaction, and for the moment he totally fails to obey the original
instructions, and shows himself incapable of adapting himself to the
experimenter. If this phenomenon occurs frequently in an experiment,
it signifies a high degree of disturbance in adjustment. I would
call attention to the fact that it is quite indifferent what reason
the test-person gives for the refusal. Some find that too many ideas
suddenly occur to them; others, that they suffer from a deficiency of
ideas. In most cases, however, the difficulties first perceived are so
deterrent that they actually give up the whole reaction. The following
example shows a case of hysteria with many failures of reaction:--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stimulus | Reaction Time. | |
word. |Unit 0·2 second.| Reaction. | Reproduction.
---------------+----------------+----------------------+--------------
to sing | 9 | nice | +[130]
dead | 15 | awful | ?
long[131] | 40 | the time, the journey| ?
ship[132] | | | +
to pay | 11 | money |
window | 10 | big | high
friendly | 50 | a man | human
to cook | 10 | soup | +
ink | 9 | black or blue | +
angry | | | bad
needle | 9 | to sew | +
lamp | 14 | light | +
to sin | | |
bread | 15 | to eat | +
rich[133][134] | 40 | good, convenient | +
yellow | 18 | paper | colour
mountain | 10 | high | +
to die | 15 | awful | +
salt[135] | 25 | salty | +
new | | | good, nice
custom[136] | | |
to pray | | |
money[137] | 35 | to buy, one is able | +
pamphlet | 16 | to write | +
to despise[138]| 22 | people | +
finger | | |
dear | 12 | thing | +
bird | 12 | sings or flies | +
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In example II. we find a characteristic phenomenon. The test-person
is not content with the requirements of the instruction, that is, she
is not satisfied with _one_ word, but reacts with many words. She
apparently does more and better than the instruction requires, but in
so doing she does not fulfil the requirements of the instruction. Thus
she reacts:--custom--good--barbaric; foolish--narrow minded--restricted;
family--big--small--everything possible.
These examples show in the first place that many other words connect
themselves with the reaction word. The test person is unable to suppress
the ideas which subsequently occur to her. She also pursues a certain
tendency which perhaps is more exactly expressed in the following
reaction: new--old--as an opposite. The addition of "as an opposite"
denotes that the test-person has the desire to add something explanatory
or supplementary. This tendency is also shown in the following reaction:
finger--not only hand, also foot--a limb--member--extremity.
Here we have a whole series of supplements. It seems as if the reaction
were not sufficient for the test-person, something else must always
be added, as if what has already been said were incorrect or in some
way imperfect. This feeling is what Janet designates the "_sentiment
d'incomplétude_," but this by no means explains everything. I go
somewhat deeply into this phenomenon because it is very frequently met
with in neurotic individuals. It is not merely a small and unimportant
subsidiary manifestation demonstrable in an insignificant experiment,
but rather an elemental and universal manifestation which plays a _rôle_
in other ways in the psychic life of neurotics.
By his desire to supplement, the test-person betrays a tendency to give
the experimenter more than he wants, he actually makes great efforts to
find further mental occurrences in order finally to discover something
quite satisfactory. If we translate this observation into the psychology
of everyday life, it signifies that the test-person has a constant
tendency to give to others more feeling than is required and expected.
According to Freud, this is a sign of a reinforced object-libido, that
is, it is a compensation for an inner want of satisfaction and voidness
of feeling. This elementary observation therefore displays one of the
characteristics of hysterics, namely, the tendency to allow themselves
to be carried away by everything, to attach themselves enthusiastically
to everything, and always to promise too much and hence perform too
little. Patients with this symptom are, in my experience, always hard
to deal with; at first they are enthusiastically enamoured of the
physician, for a time going so far as to accept everything he says
blindly; but they soon merge into an equally blind resistance against
him, thus rendering any educative influence absolutely impossible.
We see therefore in this type of reaction an expression of a tendency to
give more than is asked or expected. This tendency betrays itself also
in other failures to follow the instruction:--
to quarrel--angry--different things--I always quarrel at home;
to marry--how can you marry?--reunion--union;
plum--to eat--to pluck--what do you mean by it?--is it symbolic?
to sin--this idea is quite strange to me, I do not recognise it.
These reactions show that the test-person gets away altogether from the
situation of the experiment. For the instruction was, that he should
answer only with the first word which occurs to him. But here we note
that the stimulus words act with excessive strength, that they are taken
as if they were direct personal questions. The test-person entirely
forgets that we deal with mere words which stand in print before us, but
finds a personal meaning in them; he tries to divine their intention and
defend himself against them, thus altogether forgetting the original
instructions.
This elementary observation discloses another common peculiarity of
hysterics, namely, that of taking everything personally, of never being
able to remain objective, and of allowing themselves to be carried away
by momentary impressions; this again shows the characteristics of the
enhanced object-libido.
Yet another sign of impeded adaptation is the often occurring
_repetition of the stimulus words_. The test-persons repeat the stimulus
word as if they had not heard or understood it distinctly. They repeat
it just as we repeat a difficult question in order to grasp it better
before answering. This same tendency is shown in the experiment. The
questions are repeated because the stimulus words act on hysterical
individuals in much the same way as difficult personal questions. In
principle it is the same phenomenon as the subsequent completion of the
reaction.
In many experiments we observe that the same reaction constantly
reappears to the most varied stimulus words. These words seem to possess
a special reproduction tendency, and it is very interesting to examine
their relationship to the test-person. For example, I have observed a
case in which the patient repeated the word "short" a great many times
and often in places where it had no meaning. The test-person could not
directly state the reason for the repetition of the word "short." From
experience I knew that such predicates always relate either to the
test-person himself or to the person nearest to him. I assumed that
in this word "short" he designated himself, and that in this way he
helped to express something very painful to him. The test-person is
of very small stature. He is the youngest of four brothers, who, in
contrast to himself, are all tall. He was always the "_child_" in the
family; he was nicknamed "Short" and was treated by all as the "little
one." This resulted in a total loss of self-confidence. Although he was
intelligent, and despite long study, he could not decide to present
himself for examination; he finally became impotent, and merged into a
psychosis in which, whenever he was alone, he took delight in walking
about in his room on his toes in order to appear taller. The word
"short," therefore, stood to him for a great many painful experiences.
This is usually the case with the perseverated words; they always
contain something of importance for the individual psychology of the
test-person.
The signs thus far discussed are not found spread about in an arbitrary
way through the whole experiment, but are seen in very definite places,
namely, where the stimulus words strike against emotionally accentuated
complexes. This observation is the foundation of the so-called
"diagnosis of facts" (_Tatbestandsdiagnostik_). This method is employed
to discover, by means of an association experiment, which is the culprit
among a number of persons suspected of a crime. That this is possible I
will demonstrate by the brief recital of a concrete case.
On the 6th of February, 1908, our supervisor reported to me that a
nurse complained to her of having been robbed during the forenoon of
the previous day. The facts were as follows: The nurse kept her money,
amounting to 70 francs, in a pocket-book which she had placed in her
cupboard where she also kept her clothes. The cupboard contained two
compartments, of which one belonged to the nurse who was robbed, and the
other to the head nurse. These two nurses and a third one, who was an
intimate friend of the head nurse, slept in the room where the cupboard
was. This room was in a section which was occupied in common by six
nurses who had at all times free access to the room. Given such a state
of affairs it is not to be wondered that the supervisor shrugged her
shoulders when I asked her whom she most suspected.
Further investigation showed that on the day of the theft, the
above-mentioned friend of the head nurse was slightly indisposed and
remained the whole morning in the room in bed. Hence, unless she herself
was the thief, the theft could have taken place only in the afternoon.
Of four other nurses upon whom suspicion could possibly fall, there was
one who attended regularly to the cleaning of the room in question,
while the remaining three had nothing to do in it, nor was it shown that
any of them had spent any time there on the previous day.
It was therefore natural that the last three nurses should be regarded
for the time being as less implicated, so I began by subjecting the
first three to the experiment.
From the information I had obtained of the case, I knew that the
cupboard was locked but that the key was kept near by in a very
conspicuous place, that on opening the cupboard the first thing which
would strike the eye was a fur boa, and, moreover, that the pocket-book
was between some linen in an inconspicuous place. The pocket-book was of
dark reddish leather, and contained the following objects: a 50-franc
banknote, a 20-franc piece, some centimes, a small silver watch-chain, a
stencil used in the lunatic asylum to mark the kitchen utensils, and a
small receipt from Dosenbach's shoeshop in Zürich.
Besides the plaintiff, only the head nurse knew the exact particulars
of the deed, for as soon as the former missed her money she immediately
asked the head nurse to help her find it, thus the head nurse had
been able to learn the smallest details, which naturally rendered the
experiment still more difficult, for she was precisely the one most
suspected. The conditions for the experiment were better for the others,
since they knew nothing concerning the particulars of the deed, and
some not even that a theft had been committed. As critical stimulus
words I selected the name of the robbed nurse, plus the following words:
cupboard, door, open, key, yesterday, banknote, gold, 70, 50, 20, money,
watch, pocket-book, chain, silver, to hide, fur, dark reddish, leather,
centimes, stencil, receipt, Dosenbach. Besides these words which
referred directly to the deed, I took also the following, which had a
special effective value: theft, to take, to steal, suspicion, blame,
court, police, to lie, to fear, to discover, to arrest, innocent.
The objection is often made to the last species of words that they
may produce a strong affective resentment even in innocent persons,
and for that reason one cannot attribute to them any comparative
value. Nevertheless, it may always be questioned whether the affective
resentment of an innocent person will have the same effect on the
association as that of a guilty one, and that question can only
be authoritatively answered by experience. Until the contrary is
demonstrated, I maintain that words of the above-mentioned type may
profitably be used.
I distributed these critical words among twice as many indifferent
stimulus words in such a manner that each critical word was followed by
two indifferent ones. As a rule it is well to follow up the critical
words by indifferent words in order that the action of the first may be
clearly distinguished. But one may also follow up one critical word by
another, especially if one wishes to bring into relief the action of the
second. Thus I placed together "darkish red" and "leather," and "chain"
and "silver."
After this preparatory work I undertook the experiment with the three
above-mentioned nurses. Following the order of the experiment, I shall
denote the friend of the head nurse by the letter A, the head nurse
by B, and the nurse who attended to the cleaning of the room by C. As
examinations of this kind can be rendered into a foreign tongue only
with the greatest difficulty, I will content myself with presenting the
general results, and with giving some examples. I first undertook the
experiment with A, and judging by the circumstances she appeared only
slightly moved. B was next examined; she showed marked excitement, her
pulse being 120 per minute immediately after the experiment. The last to
be examined was C. She was the most tranquil of the three; she displayed
but little embarrassment, and only in the course of the experiment
did it occur to her that she was suspected of stealing, a fact which
manifestly disturbed her towards the end of the experiment.
The general impression from the examination spoke strongly against the
head nurse B. It seemed to me that she evinced a very "suspicious," or
I might almost say, "impudent" countenance. With the definite idea of
finding in her the guilty one I set about adding up the results. You
will see that I was wrong in my surmise and that the test proved my
error.
One can make use of many special methods of computing, but they are
not all equally good and equally exact. (One must always resort to
calculation, as appearances are enormously deceptive.) The method
which is most to be recommended is that of the probable average of the
reaction time. It shows at a glance the difficulties which the person in
the experiment had to overcome in the reaction.
The technique of this calculation is very simple. The probable average
is the middle number of the various reaction times arranged in a series.
The reaction times are, for example,[139] placed in the following
manner: 5, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 12, 13, 14. The number found in
the middle (8) is the probable average of this series.
The probable averages of the reaction are:
A B C
10·0 12·0 13·5.
No conclusions can be drawn from this result. But the average
reaction times calculated separately for the indifferent reactions,
for the critical, and for those immediately following the critical
(post-critical) are more interesting.
From this example we see that whereas A has the shortest reaction time
for the indifferent reactions, she shows in comparison to the other two
persons of the experiment, the longest time for the critical reactions.
THE PROBABLE AVERAGE OF THE REACTION TIME.
---------------------------------------------
for | A | B | C
------------------------+------+------+------
Indifferent reactions | 10·0 | 11·0 | 12·0
Critical reactions | 16·0 | 13·0 | 15·0
Post-critical reactions | 10·0 | 11·0 | 13·0
---------------------------------------------
The difference between the reaction times, let us say between the
indifferent and the critical, is 6 for A, 2 for B, and 3 for C, that is,
it is more than double for A when compared with the other two persons.
In the same way we can calculate how many complex indicators there are
on an average for the indifferent, critical, etc., reactions.
THE AVERAGE COMPLEX-INDICATORS FOR EACH REACTION.
---------------------------------------------
for | A | B | C
------------------------+------+------+------
Indifferent reactions | 0·6 | 0·9 | 0·8
Critical reactions | 1·3 | 0·9 | 1·2
Post-critical reactions | 0·6 | 1·0 | 0·8
---------------------------------------------
The difference between the indifferent and critical reactions for A =
0·7, for B = 0, for C = 0·4. A is again the highest.
Another question to consider is, the proportion of imperfect reactions
in each case.
The result for A = 34%, for B = 28%, and for C = 30%.
Here, too, A reaches the highest value, and in this, I believe, we see
the characteristic moment of the guilt-complex in A. I am, however,
unable to explain here circumstantially the reasons why I maintain that
memory errors are related to an emotional complex, as this would lead me
beyond the limits of the present work. I therefore refer the reader to
my work "_Ueber die Reproductionsstörrungen im Associationsexperiment_"
(IX Beitrag der Diagnost. Associat. Studien).[140]
As it often happens that an association of strong feeling tone produces
in the experiment a perseveration, with the result that not only the
critical association, but also two or three successive associations are
imperfectly reproduced, it will be very interesting to see how many
imperfect reproductions are so arranged in the series in our cases.
The result of computation shows that the imperfect reproductions thus
arranged in series are for A 64·7%, for B 55·5%, and for C 30·0%.
Again we find that A has the greatest percentage. To be sure, this
may partially depend on the fact that A also possesses the greatest
number of imperfect reproductions. Given a small number of reactions,
it is usual that the greater the total number of the same, the more the
imperfect reactions will occur in groups. But this cannot account for
the high proportion in our case, where, on the other hand, B and C have
not a much smaller number of imperfect reactions when compared to A. It
is significant that C with her slight emotions during the experiment
shows the minimum of imperfect reproductions arranged in series.
As imperfect reproductions are also complex indicators, it is necessary
to see how they distribute themselves in respect to the indifferent,
critical, etc., reactions.
It is hardly necessary to bring into prominence the differences between
the indifferent and the critical reactions of the various subjects as
shown by the resulting numbers of the table. In this respect, too, A
occupies first place.
IMPERFECT REPRODUCTIONS WHICH OCCUR.
----------------------------------------
in | A | B | C
------------------------+----+----+-----
Indifferent reactions | 10 | 12 | 11
Critical reactions | 19 | 9 | 12
Post-critical reactions | 5 | 7 | 7
----------------------------------------
Naturally, here, too, there is a probability that the greater the
number of the imperfect reproductions the greater is their number in
the critical reactions. If we suppose that the imperfect reproductions
are distributed regularly and without choice, among all the reactions,
there will be a greater number of them for A (in comparison with B and
C) even as reactions to critical words, since A has the greater number
of imperfect reproductions. Admitting such a uniform distribution of the
imperfect reproductions, it is easy to calculate how many we ought to
expect to belong to each individual kind of reaction.
From this calculation it appears that the disturbances of reproductions
which concern the critical reactions for A greatly surpass the number
expected, for C they are 0·9 higher, while for B they are lower.
IMPERFECT REPRODUCTIONS.
----------------------------------------------
Which may be expected |
---------------------------------------------+
| Indifferent | Critical | Post-critical |
For| Reactions. | Reactions.| Reactions. |
---+-------------+-----------+---------------+
A | 11·2 | 12·5 | 10·2 |
B | 9·2 | 10·3 | 8·4 |
C | 9·9 | 11·1 | 9·0 |
----------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
| Which really occur
--------------+----------------------------
| Indifferent | Critical | Post-critical
For| Reactions. | Reactions. | Reactions.
--------------+------------+---------------
A | 10 | 19 | 5
B | 12 | 9 | 7
C | 11 | 12 | 7
-------------------------------------------
All this points to the fact that in the subject A the critical stimulus
words acted with the greatest intensity, and hence the greatest
suspicion falls on A. Practically relying on the test one may assume the
probability of this person's guilt. The same evening A made a complete
confession of the theft, and thus the success of the experiment was
confirmed.
Such a result is undoubtedly of scientific interest and worthy of
serious consideration. There is much in experimental psychology which
is of less use than the material exemplified in this test. Putting the
theoretical interest altogether aside, we have here something that is
not to be despised from a practical point of view, to wit, a culprit
has been brought to light in a much easier and shorter way than is
customary. What has been possible once or twice ought to be possible
again, and it is well worth while to investigate some means of rendering
the method increasingly capable of rapid and sure results.
This application of the experiment shows that it is possible to strike
a concealed, indeed an unconscious complex by means of a stimulus word;
and conversely we may assume with great certainty that behind a reaction
which shows a complex indicator there is a hidden complex, even though
the test-person strongly denies it. One must get rid of the idea that
educated and intelligent test-persons are able to see and admit their
own complexes. Every human mind contains much that is unacknowledged
and hence unconscious as such; and no one can boast that he stands
completely above his complexes. Those who persist in maintaining that
they can, are not aware of the spectacles upon their noses.
* * * * *
It has long been thought that the association experiment enables one
to distinguish certain _intellectual_ types. That is not the case. The
experiment does not give us any particular insight into the purely
intellectual, but rather into the emotional processes. To be sure we
can erect certain types of reaction; they are not, however, based on
intellectual peculiarities, but depend entirely on the _proportionate
emotional states_. Educated test-persons usually show superficial and
linguistically deep-rooted associations, whereas the uneducated form
more valuable associations and often of ingenious significance. This
behaviour would be paradoxical from an intellectual view-point. The
meaningful associations of the uneducated are not really the product of
intellectual thinking, but are simply the results of a special emotional
state. The whole thing is more important to the uneducated, his
emotion is greater, and for that reason he pays more attention to the
experiment than the educated person, and his associations are therefore
more significant. Apart from those determined by education, we have to
consider three principal individual types:
1. An objective type with undisturbed reactions.
2. A so-called complex-type with many disturbances in the experiment
occasioned by the constellation of a complex.
3. A so-called definition-type. The peculiarity of this type consists in
the fact that the reaction always gives an explanation or a definition
of the content of the stimulus word; _e.g._:
apple,--a tree-fruit;
table,--a piece of household furniture;
to promenade,--an activity;
father,--chief of the family.
This type is chiefly found in stupid persons, and it is therefore quite
usual in imbecility. But it can also be found in persons who are not
really stupid, but who do not wish _to be taken as stupid_. Thus a young
student from whom associations were taken by an older intelligent woman
student reacted altogether with definitions. The test-person was of
the opinion that it was an examination in intelligence, and therefore
directed most of his attention to the significance of the stimulus
words; his associations, therefore, looked like those of an idiot. All
idiots, however, do not react with definitions; probably only those
react in this way who would like to appear smarter than they are, that
is, those to whom their stupidity is painful. I call this widespread
complex the "intelligence-complex." A normal test-person reacts in a
most overdrawn manner as follows:
anxiety--heart anguish;
to kiss--love's unfolding;
to kiss--perception of friendship.
This type gives a constrained and unnatural impression. The test-persons
wish to be more than they are, they wish to exert more influence than
they really have. Hence we see that persons with an intelligence-complex
are usually unnatural and constrained; that they are always somewhat
stilted, or flowery; they show a predilection for complicated foreign
words, high-sounding quotations, and other intellectual ornaments.
In this way they wish to influence their fellow-beings, they wish
to impress others with their apparent education and intelligence,
and thus to compensate for their painful feeling of stupidity. The
definition-type is closely related to the predicate-type, or, to express
it more precisely, to the predicate-type expressing personal judgment
(_Wertprädikattypus_). For example:
flower--pretty;
money--convenient;
animal--ugly;
knife--dangerous;
death--ghastly.
In the definition type the _intellectual_ significance of the stimulus
word is rendered prominent, but in the predicate type its _emotional_
significance. There are predicate-types which show great exaggeration
where reactions such as the following appear:
piano--horrible;
to sing--heavenly;
mother--ardently loved;
father--something good, nice, holy.
In the definition-type an absolutely _intellectual_ make-up is
manifested or rather simulated, but here there is a very _emotional_
one. Yet, just as the definition-type really conceals a lack of
intelligence, so the excessive _emotional_ expression conceals or
overcompensates an emotional deficiency. This conclusion is very
interestingly illustrated by the following discovery:--On investigating
the influence of the familiar milieus on the association-type it was
found that young people seldom possess a predicate-type, but that, on
the other hand, the predicate-type increases in frequency with advancing
age. In women the increase of the predicate-type begins a little after
the 40th year, and in men after the 60th. That is the precise time when,
owing to the deficiency of sexuality, there actually occurs considerable
emotional loss. If a test-person evinces a distinct predicate-type, it
may always be inferred that a marked internal emotional deficiency is
thereby compensated. Still, one cannot reason conversely, namely, that
an inner emotional deficiency must produce a predicate-type, no more
than that idiocy directly produces a definition-type. A predicate-type
can also betray itself through the external behaviour, as, for example,
through a particular affectation, enthusiastic exclamations, an
embellished behaviour, and the constrained sounding language so often
observed in society.
The complex-type shows no particular tendency except the _concealment_
of a complex, whereas the definition and predicate types betray a
positive tendency to exert in some way a _definite_ influence on the
experimenter. But whereas the definition-type tends to bring to light
its intelligence, the predicate-type displays its emotion. I need hardly
add of what importance such determinations are for the diagnosis of
character.
After finishing an association experiment I usually add another of a
different kind, the so-called _reproduction_ experiment. I repeat the
same stimulus words and ask the test-persons whether they still remember
their former reactions. In many instances the memory fails, and as
experience shows, these locations are stimulus words which touched an
emotionally accentuated complex, or stimulus words immediately following
such critical words.
This phenomenon has been designated as paradoxical and contrary to all
experience. For it is known that emotionally accentuated things are
better retained in memory than indifferent things. This is quite true,
but it does not hold for the _linguistic_ expression of an emotionally
accentuated content. On the contrary, one very easily forgets what he
has said under emotion, one is even apt to contradict himself about
it. Indeed, the efficacy of cross-examinations in court depends on
this fact. The reproduction method therefore serves to render still
more prominent the complex stimulus. In normal persons we usually find
a limited number of false reproductions, seldom more than 19-20 per
cent., while in abnormal persons, especially in hysterics, we often
find from 20-40 per cent. of false reproductions. The reproduction
certainty is therefore in certain cases a measure for the emotivity of
the test-person.
* * * * *
By far the larger number of neurotics show a pronounced tendency to
cover up their intimate affairs in impenetrable darkness, even from the
doctor, so that he finds it very difficult to form a proper picture
of the patient's psychology. In such cases I am greatly assisted by
the association experiment. When the experiment is finished, I first
look over the general course of the reaction times. I see a great many
very prolonged intervals; this means that the patient can only adjust
himself with difficulty, that his psychological functions proceed with
marked internal frictions with _resistances_. The greater number of
neurotics react only under great and very definite resistances; there
are, however, others in whom the average reaction times are as short as
in the normal, and in whom the other complex indicators are lacking,
but, despite that fact, they undoubtedly present neurotic symptoms.
These rare cases are especially found among very intelligent and
educated persons, chronic patients who, after many years of practice,
have learned to control their outward behaviour and therefore outwardly
display very little if any trace of their neuroses. The superficial
observer would take them for normal, yet in some places they show
disturbances which betray the repressed complex.
After examining the reaction times I turn my attention to the type of
the association to ascertain with what type I am dealing. If it is a
predicate-type I draw the conclusions which I have detailed above; if it
is a complex type I try to ascertain the nature of the complex. With the
necessary experience one can readily emancipate one's judgment from the
test-person's statements and almost without any previous knowledge of
the test-persons it is possible under certain circumstances to read the
most intimate complexes from the results of the experiment. I look at
first for the reproduction words and put them together, and then I look
for the stimulus words which show the greatest disturbances. In many
cases merely assorting these words suffices to unearth the complex. In
some cases it is necessary to put a question here and there. The matter
is well illustrated by the following concrete example:
It concerns an educated woman of 30 years of age, married three years
previously. Since her marriage she has suffered from episodic excitement
in which she is violently jealous of her husband. The marriage is a
happy one in every other respect, and it should be noted that the
husband gives no cause for the jealousy. The patient is sure that she
loves him and that her excited states are groundless. She cannot imagine
whence these excited states originate, and feels quite perplexed over
them. It is to be noted that she is a catholic and has been brought
up religiously, while her husband is a protestant. This difference of
religion did not admittedly play any part. A more thorough anamnesis
showed the existence of an extreme prudishness. Thus, for example, no
one was allowed to talk in the patient's presence about her sister's
childbirth, because the sexual moment suggested therein caused her the
greatest excitement. She always undressed in the adjoining room and
never in her husband's presence, etc. At the age of 27 she was supposed
to have had no idea how children were born. The associations gave the
results shown in the accompanying chart.
The stimulus words characterised by marked disturbances are the
following: yellow, to pray, to separate, to marry, to quarrel, old,
family, happiness, false, fear, to kiss, bride, to choose, contented.
The strongest disturbances are found in the following stimulus words:
_to pray_, _to marry_, _happiness_, _false_, _fear_, and _contented_.
These words, therefore, more than any others, seem to strike the
complex. The conclusions that can be drawn from this is that she is not
indifferent to the fact that her husband is a protestant, that she again
thinks of praying, believes there is something wrong with marriage,
that she is false, entertains fancies of faithlessness, is afraid (of
the husband? of the future?), she is not contented with her choice
(to choose) and she thinks of separation. The patient therefore has a
separation complex, for she is very discontented with her married life.
When I told her this result she was affected and at first attempted to
deny it, then to mince over it, but finally she admitted everything
I said and added more. She reproduced a large number of fancies of
faithlessness, reproaches against her husband, etc. _Her prudishness
and jealousy were merely a projection of her own sexual wishes on her
husband._ Because she was faithless in her fancies and did not admit it
to herself she was jealous of her husband.
[Illustration: For the stimulus words corresponding to the numbers, see
the list on pages 94 and 95.
The blue columns represent failures of reproductions, the green ones
represent repetitions of stimulus words, and the yellow columns show
those associations in which the patient either laughed or made mistakes,
using many words instead of one. The height of the columns represent the
length of the reaction time.
[_To face p. 118._]
]
It is impossible in a lecture to give a review of all the manifold
uses of the association experiment. I must content myself with having
demonstrated to you a few of its chief uses.
LECTURE II
THE FAMILIAL CONSTELLATIONS
Ladies and Gentlemen: As you have seen, there are manifold ways in which
the association experiment may be employed in practical psychology. I
should like to speak to you to-day about another use of this experiment
which is primarily of theoretical significance. My pupil, Miss Fürst,
M.D., made the following researches: she applied the association
experiment to 24 families, consisting altogether of 100 test-persons;
the resulting material amounted to 22,200 associations. This material
was elaborated in the following manner: Fifteen separate groups were
formed according to logical-linguistic standards, and the associations
were arranged as follows:
Husband Wife Difference
I. Co-ordination 6·5 0·5 6
II. Sub and supraordination 7 -- 7
III. Contrast -- -- --
IV. Predicate expressing a personal
judgment 8·5 95·0 86·5
V. Simple predicate 21·0 3·5 17·5
VI. Relations of the verb to the
subject or complement 15·5 0·5 15·0
VII. Designation of time, etc. 11·0 -- 11·0
VIII. Definition 11·0 -- 11·0
IX. Coexistence 1·5 -- 1·5
X. Identity 0·5 0·5 --
XI. Motor-speech combination 12·0 -- 12·0
XII. Composition of words -- -- --
XIII. Completion of words -- -- --
XIV. Clang associations -- -- --
XV. Defective reactions -- -- --
----- ----- -----
Total -- -- 173·5
173·5
Average difference ----- = 11·5
15
As can be seen from this example, I utilise the difference to
demonstrate the degree of the analogy. In order to find a basis for the
sum of the resemblance I have calculated the differences among all Dr.
Fürst's test-persons, not related among themselves, by comparing every
female test-person with all the other unrelated females; the same has
been done for the male test-persons.
The most marked difference is found in those cases where the two
test-persons compared have no associative quality in common. All the
groups are calculated in percentages, the greatest difference possible
being 200/15 = 13·3 per cent.
* * * * *
I. The average difference of male unrelated test-persons is 5·9 per
cent., and that of females of the same group is 6 per cent.
II. The average difference between male related test-persons is 4·1 per
cent., and that between female related tests-persons is 3·8 per cent.
From these numbers we see that relatives show a tendency to agreement in
the reaction type.
III. Difference between fathers and children = 4·2.
" " mothers " " = 3·5.
The reaction types of children come nearer to the type of the mother
than to the father.
IV. Difference between fathers and their sons = 3·1.
" " " " " daughters = 4·9.
" " mothers " " sons = 4·7.
" " " " " daughters = 3·0.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.
Tracing A. ---- father; ..... mother; ++++ daughter.
I. Assoc. by co-ordination; II. sub and supraordination; III. contrast,
etc. (see previous page).]
V. Difference between brothers = 4·7.
" " sisters = 5·1.
If the married sisters are omitted from the comparison we get the
following result:
Difference of unmarried sisters = 3·8. These observations show
distinctly that marriage destroys more or less the original agreement,
as the husband belongs to a different type.
Difference between unmarried brothers = 4·8.
Marriage seems to exert no influence on the association forms in men.
Nevertheless, the material which we have at our disposal is not as yet
enough to allow us to draw definite conclusions.
VI. Difference between husband and wife = 4·7.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.
Tracing B. ---- husband; ..... wife.]
This number sums up inadequately the different and very unequal values;
that is to say, there are some cases which show extreme difference and
some which show marked concordance.
The different results are shown in the tracings (Figs. 11-15).
In the tracings I have marked the number of associations of each quality
perpendicularly in percentages. The Roman letters written horizontally
represent the forms of association indicated in the above tables.
Tracing A. The father (black line) shows an objective type, while the
mother and daughter show the pure predicate type with a pronounced
subjective tendency.
Tracing B. The husband and wife agree well in the predicate objective
type, the predicate subjective being somewhat more numerous in the wife.
Tracing C. A very nice agreement between a father and his two daughters.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.
Tracing C. ---- father; ..... 1st daughter; ++++ 2nd daughter.]
Tracing D. Two sisters living together. The dotted line represents the
married sister.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.
Tracing D. ---- single sister; ..... married sister.]
Tracing E. Husband and wife. The wife is a sister of the two women of
tracing D. She approaches very closely to the type of her husband. Her
tracing is the direct opposite of that of her sisters.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.
Tracing E. ---- husband; ..... wife.]
The similarity of the associations is often very extraordinary. I will
reproduce here the associations of a mother and daughter.
Stimulus Word. Mother. Daughter.
to pay attention diligent pupil pupil
law command of God Moses
dear child father and mother
great God father
potato bulbous root bulbous root
family many persons 5 persons
strange traveller traveller
brother dear to me dear
to kiss mother mother
burn great pain painful
door wide big
hay dry dry
month many days 31 days
air cool moist
coal sooty black
fruit sweet sweet
merry happy child child
One might indeed think that in this experiment, where full scope is
given to chance, individuality would become a factor of the utmost
importance, and that therefore one might expect a very great diversity
and lawlessness of associations. But as we see the opposite is the
case. Thus the daughter lives contentedly in the same circle of ideas
as her mother, not only in her thought but in her form of expression;
indeed, she even uses the same words. What could be regarded as more
inconsequent, inconstant, and lawless than a fancy, a rapidly passing
thought? It is not lawless, however, neither is it free, but closely
determined within the limits of the milieu. If, therefore, even the
superficial and manifestly most inconsequent formations of the intellect
are altogether subject to the milieu-constellation, what must we not
expect for the more important conditions of the mind, for the emotions,
wishes, hopes, and intentions? Let us consider a concrete example,
illustrated by tracing A.
The mother is 45 years old and the daughter 16 years. Both have a very
distinct predicate-type expressing personal judgment, both differ from
the father in the most striking manner. The father is a drunkard and
a demoralised creature. We can thus readily understand that his wife
experiences an emotional voidness which she naturally betrays by her
enhanced predicate-type. The same causes cannot, however, operate in
the case of the daughter, for, in the first place, she is not married
to a drunkard, and, in the second, life with all its hopes and promises
still lies before her. It is distinctly unnatural for the daughter
to show an extreme predicate-type expressing personal judgment. She
responds to the stimuli of the environment just like her mother. But
whereas in the mother the type is in a way a natural consequence of her
unhappy condition of life, this condition is entirely lacking in the
daughter. The daughter simply imitates the mother; she merely appears
like the mother. Let us consider what this can signify for a young girl.
If a young girl reacts to the world like an old woman, disappointed
in life, this at once shows unnaturalness and constraint. But more
serious consequences are possible. As you know the predicate-type is a
manifestation of intensive emotions; the emotions are always involved.
Thus we cannot prevent ourselves from responding inwardly, at least,
to the feelings and passions of our immediate environment; we allow
ourselves to be infected and carried away by it. Originally the effects
and their physical manifestations had a biological significance; _i.e._
they were a protective mechanism for the individual and the whole
herd. If we manifest emotions, we can with certainty expect to receive
emotions in return. That is the feeling of the predicate-type. What the
45-year-old woman lacks in emotions, _i.e._ in love in her marriage
relations she seeks to obtain in the outside world, and for that reason
she is an ardent participant in the Christian Science movement. If
the daughter imitates this situation she copies her mother, she seeks
to obtain emotions from the outside. But for a girl of sixteen such
an emotional state is, to say the least, quite dangerous; like her
mother, she reacts to her environment as a sufferer soliciting sympathy.
Such an emotional state is no longer dangerous in the mother, but for
obvious reasons it is quite dangerous in the daughter. Once freed from
her father and mother she will be like her mother, _i.e._ she will be
a suffering woman craving for inner gratification. She will thus be
exposed to the great danger of falling a victim to brutality and of
marrying a brute and inebriate like her father.
This conception is of importance in the consideration of the influence
of environment and education. The example shows what passes over from
the mother to the child. It is not the good and pious precepts, nor
is it any other inculcation of pedagogic truths that have a moulding
influence upon the character of the developing child, but what most
influences him is the peculiarly affective state which is totally
unknown to his parents and educators. The concealed discord between
the parents, the secret worry, the repressed hidden wishes, all these
produce in the individual a certain affective state with its objective
signs which slowly but surely, though unconsciously, works its way
into the child's mind, producing therein the same conditions and hence
the same reactions to external stimuli. We know the depressing effect
mournful and melancholic persons have upon us. A restless and nervous
individual infects his surroundings with unrest and dissatisfaction,
a grumbler with his discontent, etc. Since grown-up persons are so
sensitive to surrounding influences, we should certainly expect this
to be even more noticeable among children, whose minds are as soft and
plastic as wax. The father and mother impress deeply into the child's
mind the seal of their personality; the more sensitive and mouldable the
child the deeper is the impression. Thus things that are never even
spoken about are reflected in the child. The child imitates the gesture,
and just as the gesture of the parent is the expression of an emotional
state, so in turn the gesture gradually produces in the child a similar
feeling, as it feels itself, so to speak, into the gesture. Just as the
parents adapt themselves to the world, so does the child. At the age
of puberty when it begins to free itself from the spell of the family,
it enters into life with, so to say, a surface adaptation entirely in
keeping with that of the father and mother. The frequent and often very
deep _depressions of puberty_ emanate from this; they are symptoms which
are rooted in the difficulty of new adjustment. The youthful person at
first tries to separate himself as much as possible from his family; he
may even estrange himself from it, but inwardly this only ties him the
more firmly to the parental image. I cite the case of a young neurotic
who ran away from his parents; he was estranged from, and almost hostile
to them, but he admitted to me that he possessed a special sanctum; it
was a strong box containing his old childhood books, old dried flowers,
stones, and even small bottles of water from the well at his home and
from a river along which he walked with his parents, etc.
The first attempts to assume friendship and love are constellated in
the strongest manner possible by the relation to parents, and here one
can usually observe how powerful are the influences of the familiar
constellations. It is not rare, for instance, for a healthy man whose
mother was hysterical to marry a hysteric, or for the daughter of an
alcoholic to choose an alcoholic for her husband. I was once consulted
by an intelligent and educated young woman of twenty-six who suffered
from a peculiar symptom. She thought that her eyes now and then took
on a strange expression which exerted a disagreeable influence on men.
If she then looked at a man he became self-conscious, turned away and
said something rapidly to his neighbour, at which both were either
embarrassed or inclined to laugh. The patient was convinced that her
look excited indecent thoughts in the men. It was impossible to convince
her of the falsity of her conviction. This symptom immediately aroused
in me the suspicion that I dealt with a case of paranoia rather than
with a neurosis. But as was shown only three days later by the further
course of the treatment, I was mistaken, for the symptom promptly
disappeared after it had been explained by analysis. It originated
in the following manner: The lady had a lover who deserted her in a
very marked manner. She felt utterly forsaken; she withdrew from all
society and pleasure, and entertained suicidal ideas. In her seclusion
there accumulated unadmitted and repressed erotic wishes which she
unconsciously projected on men whenever she was in their company.
This gave rise to the conviction that her look excited erotic wishes
in men. Further investigation showed that her deserting lover was a
lunatic, which she had not apparently observed. I expressed my surprise
at her unsuitable choice, and added that she must have had a certain
predilection for loving mentally abnormal persons. This she denied,
stating that she had once before been engaged to be married to a normal
man. He, too, deserted her; and on further investigation it was found
that he, too, had been in an insane asylum shortly before,--another
lunatic! This seemed to me to confirm with sufficient certainty my
belief that she had an unconscious tendency to choose insane persons.
Whence originated this strange taste? Her father was an eccentric
character, and in later years entirely estranged from his family. Her
whole love had therefore been turned away from her father to a brother
eight years her senior; him she loved and honoured as a father, and
this brother became hopelessly insane at the age of fourteen. That was
apparently the model from which the patient could never free herself,
after which she chose her lovers, and through which she had to become
unhappy. Her neurosis which gave the impression of insanity, probably
originated from this infantile model. We must take into consideration
that we are dealing in this case with a highly educated and intelligent
lady, who did not pass carelessly over her mental experiences, who
indeed reflected much over her unhappiness, without, however, having any
idea whence her misfortune originated.
There are things which unconsciously appear to us as a matter of course,
and it is for this reason that we do not see them truly, but attribute
everything to the so-called congenital character. I could cite any
number of examples of this kind. Every patient furnishes contributions
to this subject of the determination of destiny through the influence of
the familiar milieu. In every neurotic we see how the constellation of
the infantile milieu influences not only the character of the neurosis,
but also life's destiny, even in its minute details. The unhappy choice
of a profession, and innumerable matrimonial failures can be traced
to this constellation. There are, however, cases where the profession
has been well chosen, where the husband or wife leaves nothing to
be desired, and where still the person does not feel well but works
and lives under constant difficulties. Such cases often appear under
the guise of chronic neurasthenia. Here the difficulty is due to the
fact that the mind is unconsciously split into two parts of divergent
tendencies which are impeding each other; one part lives with the
husband or with the profession, while the other lives unconsciously in
the past with the father or mother. I have treated a lady who, after
suffering many years from a severe neurosis, merged into a dementia
præcox. The neurotic affection began with her marriage. This lady's
husband was kind, educated, well to do, and in every respect suitable
for her; his character showed nothing that would in any way interfere
with a happy marriage. The marriage was nevertheless unhappy, all
congenial companionship being excluded because the wife was neurotic.
The important heuristic axiom of every psychoanalysis reads as
follows: _If a person develops a neurosis this neurosis contains the
counter-argument against the relation of the patient to the individual
with whom he is most intimately connected._ A neurosis in the husband
loudly proclaims that he has intensive resistances and contrary
tendencies against his wife; if the wife has a neurosis she has a
tendency which diverges from her husband. If the person is unmarried
the neurosis is then directed against the lover or the sweetheart or
against the parents. Every neurotic naturally strives against this
relentless formulation of the content of his neurosis, and he often
refuses to recognise it at any cost, but still it is always justified.
To be sure, the conflict is not on the surface, but must generally be
revealed through a painstaking psychoanalysis.
The history of our patient reads as follows:
The father had a powerful personality. She was his favourite daughter,
and entertained for him a boundless veneration. At the age of seventeen
she for the first time fell in love with a young man. At that time she
twice dreamt the same dream, the impression of which never left her in
all her later years; she even imputed a mystic significance to it, and
often recalled it with religious dread. In the dream she saw a tall,
masculine figure with a very beautiful white beard; at this sight she
was permeated with a feeling of awe and delight as if she experienced
the presence of God Himself. This dream made the deepest impression
on her, and she was constrained to think of it again and again. The
love affair of that period proved to be one of little warmth, and was
soon given up. Later the patient married her present husband. Though
she loved her husband she was led continually to compare him with her
deceased father; this comparison always proved unfavourable to her
husband. Whatever the husband said, intended, or did, was subjected
to this standard and always with the same result: "My father would
have done all this better and differently." Our patient's life with
her husband was not happy, she could neither respect nor love him
sufficiently; she was inwardly dissatisfied. She gradually developed
a fervent piety, and at the same time violent hysterical symptoms
supervened. She began by going into raptures now over this and now over
that clergyman; she was looking everywhere for a spiritual friend, and
estranged herself more and more from her husband. The mental trouble
manifested itself about ten years after marriage. In her diseased state
she refused to have anything to do with her husband and child; she
imagined herself pregnant by another man. In brief, the resistances
against her husband, which hitherto had been laboriously repressed,
came out quite openly, and among other things manifested themselves in
insults of the gravest kind directed against him.
In this case we see how a neurosis appeared, as it were, at the moment
of marriage, _i.e. this neurosis expresses the counter-argument against
the husband_. What is the counter-argument? The counter-argument is
the father of the patient, for she verified her belief daily that her
husband was not the equal of her father. When the patient first fell in
love there had appeared a symptom in the form of an extremely impressive
dream or vision. She saw the man with the very beautiful white beard.
Who was this man? On directing her attention to the beautiful white
beard she immediately recognised the phantom. It was of course her
father. Thus every time the patient merged into a love affair the
picture of her father inopportunely appeared and prevented her from
adjusting herself psychologically to her husband.
I purposely chose this case as an illustration because it is simple,
obvious, and quite typical of many marriages which are crippled through
the neurosis of the wife. The cause of the unhappiness always lies in a
too firm attachment to the parents. The infantile relationship has not
been given up. We find here one of the most important tasks of pedagogy,
namely, the solution of the problem how to free the growing individual
from his unconscious attachments to the influences of the infantile
milieu, in such a manner that he may retain whatever there is in it that
is suitable and reject whatever is unsuitable. To solve this difficult
question on the part of the child seems to me impossible at present. We
know as yet too little about the child's emotional processes. The first
and only real contribution to the literature on this subject has in fact
appeared during the present year. It is the analysis of a five-year-old
boy published by Freud.
The difficulties on the part of the child are very great. They should
not, however, be so great on the part of the parents. In many ways
the parents could manage the love of children more carefully, more
indulgently, and more intelligently. The sins committed against
favourite children by the undue love of the parents could perhaps be
avoided through a wider knowledge of the child's mind. For many reasons
I find it impossible to say anything of general validity concerning the
bringing up of children as it is affected by this problem. We are as yet
very far from general prescriptions and rules; indeed we are still in
the realm of casuistry. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the finer mental
processes in the child is so meagre that we are not yet in any position
to say where the greatest trouble lies, whether in the parents, in the
child, or in the conception of the milieu. Only psychoanalyses of the
kind that Professor Freud has published in the _Jahrbuch_, 1909,[141]
will help us out of this difficulty. Such comprehensive and profound
observations should act as a strong inducement to all teachers to occupy
themselves with Freud's psychology. This psychology offers more values
for practical pedagogy than the physiological psychology of the present.
LECTURE III
EXPERIENCES CONCERNING THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF THE CHILD[142]
Ladies and Gentlemen: In our last lecture we saw how important the
emotional processes of childhood are for later life. In to-day's lecture
I should like to give you some insight into the psychic life of the
child through the analysis of a four-year-old girl. It is much to be
regretted that there are few among you who have had the opportunity
of reading the analysis of "Little Hans" (_Kleiner Hans_), which was
published by Freud during the current year.[143] I ought to begin by
giving you the content of that analysis, so that you might be in a
position to compare Freud's results with those obtained by me, and
observe the marked, and astonishing similarity between the unconscious
creations of the two children. Without a knowledge of the fundamental
analysis of Freud, much in the report of the following case will
appear strange, incomprehensible, and perhaps unacceptable to you. I
beg you, however, to defer your final judgment and to enter upon the
consideration of these new subjects with a kindly disposition, for such
pioneer work in virgin soil requires not only the greatest patience on
the part of the investigator, but also the unprejudiced attention of
his audience. Because the Freudian investigations apparently involve a
discussion of the most intimate secrets of sexuality many people have
had a feeling of repulsion against them, and have therefore rejected
everything as a matter of course without any real disproof. This,
unfortunately, has almost always been the fate of Freud's doctrines up
to the present. One must not come to the consideration of these matters
with the firm conviction that they do not exist, for it may easily
happen that for the prejudiced they really do not exist. One should
perhaps assume the author's point of view for the moment and investigate
these phenomena under his guidance. Only in this way can the correctness
or otherwise of our observations be affirmed. We may err, as all human
beings err. But the continual holding up to us of our mistakes--perhaps
they are worse than mistakes--does not help us to see things more
distinctly. We should prefer to see _wherein_ we err. That should be
demonstrated to us in our own sphere of experience. Thus far, however,
no one has succeeded in meeting us on our own ground, nor in giving us a
different conception of the things which we ourselves see. We still have
to complain that our critics persist in maintaining complete ignorance
about the matters in question. The only reason for this is that they
have never taken the trouble to become thoroughly acquainted with our
method; had they done this they would have understood us.
The little girl to whose sagacity and intellectual vivacity we are
indebted for the following observations is a healthy, lively child of
emotional temperament. She has never been seriously ill, and never,
even in the realm of the nervous system, had there been observed any
symptoms prior to this investigation. In the report which follows we
shall have to waive any connected description, for it is made up of
anecdotes which treat of one experience out of a whole cycle of similar
ones, and which cannot, therefore, be arranged scientifically and
systematically, but must rather be described somewhat in the form of a
story. We cannot as yet dispense with this manner of description in our
analytical psychology, for we are still far from being able in all cases
to separate with unerring certainty what is curious from what is typical.
* * * * *
When the little daughter, whom we will call Anna, was about three years
old, she once had the following conversation with her grandmother:
Anna: "Grandma, why are your eyes so dim?"
Grandma: "Because I am old."
A.: "But you will become young again."
G.: "No, do you know, I shall become older and older, and then I shall
die."
A.: "Well, and then?"
G.: "Then I shall be an angel."
A.: "And then will you be a little baby again?"
The child found here a welcome opportunity for the provisional solution
of a problem. For some time before she had been in the habit of asking
her mother whether she would ever have a living doll, a little child, a
little brother. This naturally included the question as to the origin of
children. As such questions appeared only spontaneously and indirectly,
the parents attached no significance to them, but responded to them
as lightly and in appearance as carelessly as the child seemed to ask
them. Thus she once received from her father the pretty story that
children are brought by the stork. Anna had already heard somewhere a
more serious version, namely, that children, are little angels living
in heaven, and are brought from heaven by the stork. This theory seems
to have become the starting point for the investigating activity of the
little one. From the conversation with the grandmother it could be seen
that this theory was capable of wide application, namely, it not only
solved in a comforting manner the painful idea of parting and dying,
but at the same time also the riddle of the origin of children. Such
solutions which kill at least two birds with one stone were formerly
tenaciously adhered to in science, and cannot be removed from the mind
of the child without a certain amount of shock.
Just as the birth of a little sister was the turning point in the
history of "Little Hans," so in this case it was the birth of a
brother, which happened when Anna had reached the age of four years.
The pregnancy of the mother apparently remained unnoticed; _i.e._ the
child never expressed herself on this subject. On the evening before the
birth, when labour pains were beginning, the child was in her father's
room. He took her on his knee and said, "Tell me, what would you say
if you should get a little brother to-night?" "I would kill him" was
the prompt answer. The expression "to kill" looks very serious, but
in reality it is quite harmless, for "to kill" and "to die" in child
language signify only to remove, either in the active or in the passive
sense, as has already been pointed out a number of times by Freud.
"To kill" as used by the child is a harmless word, especially so when
we know that the child uses the word "kill" quite promiscuously for
all possible kinds of destruction, removal, demolition, etc. It is,
nevertheless, worth while to note this tendency (see the analysis of
_Kleiner Hans_, p. 5).
The birth occurred early in the morning, and later the father entered
the room where Anna slept. She awoke as he came in. He imparted to her
the news of the advent of a little brother, which she took with surprise
and strained facial expression. The father took her in his arms and
carried her into the lying-in room. She first threw a rapid glance at
her somewhat pale mother and then displayed something like a mixture of
embarrassment and suspicion as if thinking, "Now what else is going to
happen?" (Father's impression.) She displayed hardly any pleasure at the
sight of the new arrival, so that the cool reception she gave it caused
general disappointment. During the forenoon she kept very noticeably
away from her mother; this was the more striking as she was usually
much attached to her. But once when her mother was alone she ran into
the room, embraced her and said, "Well, aren't you going to die now?"
Now a part of the conflict in the child's psyche is revealed to us.
Though the stork theory was never really taken seriously, she accepted
the fruitful re-birth hypothesis, according to which a person by dying
helps a child into life. Accordingly the mother, too, must die; why,
then, should the newborn child, against whom she already felt childish
jealousy, cause her pleasure? It was for this reason that she had to
seek a favourable opportunity of reassuring herself as to whether the
mother was to die, or rather was moved to express the hope that she
would not die.
With this happy issue, however, the re-birth theory sustained a severe
shock. How was it possible now to explain the birth of her little
brother and the origin of children in general? There still remained the
stork theory which, though never expressly rejected, had been implicitly
waived through the assumption of the re-birth theory. The explanations
next attempted unfortunately remained hidden from the parents as the
child went to stay with her grandmother for a few weeks. From the
latter's report the stork theory was often discussed, and was naturally
reinforced by the concurrence of those about her.
When Anna returned to her parents, she again, on meeting her mother,
evinced the same mixture of embarrassment and suspicion which she had
displayed after the birth. The impression, though inexplicable, was
quite unmistakable to both parents. Her behaviour towards the baby was
very nice. During her absence a nurse had come into the house who, on
account of her uniform, made a deep impression on Anna; to be sure, the
impression at first was quite unfavourable as she evinced the greatest
hostility to her. Thus nothing could induce her to allow herself to
be undressed and put to sleep by this nurse. Whence this resistance
originated was soon shown in an angry scene near the cradle of the
little brother in which Anna shouted at the nurse, "This is not your
little brother, he is mine!" Gradually, however, she became reconciled
to the nurse, and began to play nurse herself; she had to have her white
cap and apron, and "nursed" now her little brother, and now her doll.
In contrast to her former mood she became unmistakably mournful and
dreamy. She often sat for a long time under the table singing stories
and making rhymes, which were partially incomprehensible but sometimes
contained the "nurse" theme ("I am a nurse of the green cross"). Some of
the stories, however, distinctly showed a painful feeling striving for
expression.
Here we meet with a new and important feature in the little one's life:
that is, we meet with reveries, even a tendency towards poetic fancies
and melancholic attacks. All of them things which we are wont first
to encounter at a later period of life, at a time when the youth or
maiden is preparing to sever the family tie and to enter independently
upon life, but is still held back by an inward, painful feeling of
homesickness for the warmth of the parental hearth. At such a time the
youth begins to replace what is lacking with poetic fancies in order
to compensate for the deficiency. To approximate the psychology of a
four-year-old child to that of the youth approaching puberty will at
first sight seem paradoxical; the relationship lies, however, not in the
age but rather in the mechanism. The elegiac reveries express the fact
that a part of that love which formerly belonged, and should belong,
to a real object, is now _introverted_, that is, it is turned inward
into the subject and there produces an increased imaginative activity.
What is the origin of this _introversion_? Is it a psychological
manifestation peculiar to this age, or does it owe its origin to a
conflict?
This is explained in the following occurrence. It often happened that
Anna was disobedient to her mother, she was insolent, saying, "I am
going back to grandma."
Mother: "But I shall be sad when you leave me."
Anna: "Oh, but you have my little brother."
This reaction towards the mother shows what the little one was really
aiming at with her threats to go away again; she apparently wished to
hear what her mother would say to her proposal, that is, to see what
attitude her mother would actually assume to her, whether her little
brother had not ousted her altogether from her mother's regard. One
must, however, give no credence to this little trickster. For the child
could readily see and feel that, despite the existence of the little
brother, there was nothing essentially lacking to her in her mother's
love. The reproach to which she subjects her mother is therefore
unjustified, and to the trained ear this is betrayed by a slightly
affected tone. Such an unmistakable tone does not expect to be taken
seriously and hence it obtrudes itself more vehemently. The reproach
as such cannot be taken seriously by the mother, for it was only the
forerunner of other and this time more serious resistances. Not long
after the conversation narrated above, the following scene took place:
Mother: "Come, we are going into the garden now!"
Anna: "You are telling lies, take care if you are not telling the truth."
M.: "What are you thinking of? I _am_ telling the truth."
A.: "No, you are not telling the truth."
M.: "You will soon see that I am telling the truth: we are going into
the garden now."
A.: "Indeed, is that true? Is that really true? Are you not lying?"
Scenes of this kind were repeated a number of times. This time the
tone was more rude and more vehement, and at the same time the accent
on the word "lie" betrayed something special which the parents did not
understand; indeed, at first they attributed too little significance to
the spontaneous utterances of the child. In this they merely did what
education usually does in general, _ex officio_. We usually pay little
heed to children in every stage of life; in all essential matters, they
are treated as not responsible, and in all unessential matters, they are
trained with an automatic precision.
Under resistances there always lies a question, a conflict, of which we
hear later and on other occasions. But usually one forgets to connect
the thing heard with the resistances. Thus, on another occasion, Anna
put to her mother the following questions:--
Anna: "I should like to become a nurse when I grow big--why did you not
become a nurse?"
Mother: "Why, as I have become a mother I have children to nurse anyway."
A. (Reflecting): "Indeed, shall I be a lady like you, and shall I talk
to you then?"
The mother's answer again shows whither the child's question was really
directed. Apparently Anna, too, would like to have a child to "nurse"
just as the nurse has. Where the nurse got the little child is quite
clear. Anna, too, could get a child in the same way if she were big.
Why did not the mother become such a nurse, that is to say, how did
she get a child if not in the same way as the nurse? Like the nurse,
Anna, too, could get a child, but how that fact might be changed in
the future or how she might come to resemble her mother in the matter
of getting children is not clear to her. From this resulted the
thoughtful question, "Indeed, shall I be a lady like you? Shall I be
quite different?" The stork theory evidently had come to naught, the
dying theory met a similar fate; hence she now thinks one may get a
child in the same way, as, for example, the nurse got hers. She, too,
could get one in this natural way, but how about the mother who is no
nurse and still has children? Looking at the matter from this point of
view, Anna asks: "Why did you not become a nurse?" namely, "why have
you not got your child in the natural way?" This peculiar indirect
manner of questioning is typical, and evidently corresponds with the
child's hazy grasp of the problem, unless we assume a certain diplomatic
uncertainty prompted by a desire to evade direct questioning. We shall
later find an illustration of this possibility. Anna is evidently
confronted with the question "Where does the child come from?" The
stork did not bring it; mother did not die; nor did mother get it in
the same way as the nurse. She has, however, asked this question before
and received the information from her father that the stork brings
children; this is positively untrue, she can never be deceived on
this point. Accordingly, papa and mama and all the others lie. This
readily explains her suspicion at the childbirth and her discrediting
of her mother. But it also explains another point, namely, the elegiac
reveries which we have attributed to a partial introversion. We know
now what was the real object from which love was removed and uselessly
introverted, namely, it had to be taken _from the parents_ who deceived
her and refused to tell her the truth. (What can this be which must not
be uttered? What is going on here?) Such were the parenthetic questions
of the child, and the answer was: Evidently this must be something to
be concealed, perhaps something dangerous. Attempts to make her talk
and to draw out the truth by means of artful questions were futile,
so _resistance is placed against resistance_, and the introversion
of love begins. It is evident that the capacity for sublimation in a
four-year-old child is still too slightly developed to be capable of
performing more than symptomatic services. The mind, therefore, depends
on another compensation, namely, it resorts to one of the relinquished
infantile devices for securing love by force, preferably that of crying
and calling the mother at night. This had been diligently practised
and exhausted during her first year. It now returns, and corresponding
to the period of life has become well determined and equipped with
recent impressions. It was just after the earthquakes in Messina, and
this event was discussed at the table. Anna was extremely interested
in everything, she repeatedly asked her grandmother to tell her how
the earth shook, how the houses fell in and many people lost their
lives. After this she had nocturnal fears, she could not be alone, her
mother had to go to her and stay with her; otherwise she feared that an
earthquake would happen, that the house would fall and kill her. During
the day, too, she was much occupied with such thoughts. While walking
with her mother she annoyed her with such questions as, "Will the house
be standing when we return home? Are you sure there is no earthquake at
home? Will papa still be living?" About every stone lying in the road
she asked whether it was from an earthquake. A building in course of
erection was a house destroyed by the earthquake, etc. Finally, she
began to cry out frequently at night that the earthquake was coming and
that she heard the thunder. Each evening she had to be solemnly assured
that there was no earthquake coming.
Many means of calming her were tried, thus she was told, for example,
that earthquakes only occur where there are volcanoes. But then she
had to be satisfied that the mountains surrounding the city were not
volcanoes. This reasoning led the child by degrees to a desire for
learning, as strong as it was unnatural at her age, which showed itself
in a demand that all the geological atlases and text-books should be
brought to her from her father's library. For hours she rummaged through
these works looking for pictures of volcanoes and earthquakes, and
asking questions continually. Here we are confronted by an energetic
effort to sublimate the fear into an eager desire for knowledge,
which at this age made a decidedly premature exaction. But how many
a gifted child suffering in exactly the same way with such problems,
is "cosseted" through this untimely sublimation, by no means to its
advantage. For, by favouring sublimation at this age one is merely
strengthening manifestation of neurosis. The root of the eager desire
for knowledge is _fear_, and _fear is the expression of converted
libido_; that is, it is the expression of _an introversion which has
become neurotic_, which at this age is neither necessary nor favourable
for the development of the child.
Whither this eager desire for knowledge was ultimately directed is
explained by a series of questions which arose almost daily. "Why is
Sophie (a younger sister) younger than I?" "Where was Freddie (the
little brother) before? Was he in heaven? What was he doing there? Why
did he come down just now, why not before?"
This state of affairs led the father to decide that the mother should
tell the child when occasion offered _the truth concerning the origin
of the little brother_. This having been done, Anna soon thereafter
asked about the stork. Her mother told her that the story of the stork
was not true, but that Freddie grew inside his mother like the flowers
in a plant. At first he was very little, and then he became bigger and
bigger as a plant does. She listened attentively without the slightest
surprise, and then asked, "But did he come out all by himself?"
Mother: "Yes."
Anna: "But he cannot walk!"
Sophie: "Then he crawled out."
Anna, overhearing her little sister's answer: "Is there a hole here?
(pointing to the breast) or did he come out of the mouth? Who came
out of the nurse?" She then interrupted herself and exclaimed, "No,
no, the stork brought baby brother down from heaven." She soon left
the subject and again wished to see pictures of volcanoes. During the
evening following this conversation she was calm. The sudden explanation
produced in the child a whole series of ideas, which manifested
themselves in certain questions. New unexpected perspectives were
opened; she rapidly approached the main problem, namely, the question,
"_Where did the baby come out?_" _Was it from a hole in the breast
or from the mouth?_ Both suppositions are entirely qualified to form
acceptable theories. We even meet with recently married women who
still entertain the theory of the hole in the abdominal wall or of the
Cæsarean section; this is supposed to betray a very unusual degree of
innocence. But as a matter of fact it is not innocence; we are always
dealing in such cases with infantile sexual activities, which in later
life have brought the _vias naturales_ into ill repute.
It may be asked where the child got the absurd idea that there is a
hole in the breast, or that the birth takes place through the mouth.
Why did she not select one of the natural openings existing in the
pelvis from which things come out daily? The explanation is simple. Very
shortly before, our little one had invoked some educational criticism
from her mother by a heightened interest in both openings with their
remarkable excretions,--an interest not always in accord with the
requirements of cleanliness and decorum. Then for the first time she
became acquainted with the exceptional laws relating to these bodily
regions and, being a sensitive child, she soon learned that there was
something here to be tabooed. This region, therefore, must not be
referred to. Anna had simply shown herself docile and had so adjusted
herself to the cultural demands that she thought (at least spoke) of the
simplest things last. The incorrect theories substituted for correct
laws sometimes persist for years until brusque explanations come from
without. It is, therefore, no wonder that such theories, the forming of
and adherence to which are favoured even by parents and educationalists
should later become determinants for important symptoms in a neurosis,
or of delusions in a psychosis, just as I have shown that in dementia
præcox[144] what has existed in the mind for years always remains
somewhere, though it may be hidden under compensations of a seemingly
different kind.
But even before this question was settled as to where the child really
comes out a new problem obtruded itself, viz. the children came out
of the mother, but how is it with the nurse? Did some one come out of
her too? This question was followed by the remark, "No, no, the stork
brought down baby brother from heaven." What is there peculiar about the
fact that nobody came out of the nurse? We recall that Anna identified
herself with the nurse, and planned to become a nurse later, for she,
too, would like to have a child, and she could have one as well as the
nurse. But now when it is known that the little brother grew in mama,
how is it now?
This disquieting question is averted by a quick return to the
stork-angel theory which has never been really believed and which after
a few trials is at last definitely abandoned. Two questions, however,
remain in the air. The first reads as follows: Where does the child come
out? The second, a considerably more difficult one, reads: How does it
happen that mama has children while the nurse and the servants do not?
All these questions did not at first manifest themselves.
On the day following the explanation, while at dinner, Anna
spontaneously remarked: "My brother is in Italy, and has a house of
cloth and glass, but it does not tumble down."
In this case, as in the others, it was impossible to ask for an
explanation; the resistances were too great and Anna could not be drawn
into conversation. This former officious and pretty explanation is very
significant. For some three months the two sisters had been building
a stereotyped fanciful conception of a "big brother." This brother
knows everything, he can do and has everything, he has been and is in
every place where the children are not; he is owner of great cows,
oxen, horses, dogs; everything is his, etc. Every one has such a "big
brother." We must not look far for the origin of this fancy; the model
for it is the _father_ who seems to correspond to this conception;
he seems to be like a brother to mama. The children, too, have their
similar powerful "brother." This brother is very brave; he is at present
in dangerous Italy and inhabits an impossible fragile house, and _it
does not tumble down_. For the child this realises an important wish:
_the earthquake is no longer to be dangerous_; in consequence _the
child's fear disappeared and did not return_. The fear of earthquakes
now entirely vanished. Instead of calling her father to her bed to
conjure away the fear, she now became very affectionate and begged him
every night to kiss her.
In order to test this new state of affairs the father showed her
pictures illustrating volcanoes and earthquake devastations. Anna
remained unaffected, she examined the pictures with indifference,
remarking, "These people are dead; I have already seen that quite
often." The picture of a volcanic eruption no longer had any attraction
for her. Thus all her scientific interest collapsed and vanished as
suddenly as it came. During the days following the explanation Anna had
quite important matters to occupy herself with; she disseminated her
newly acquired knowledge among those about her in the following manner:
She began by again circumstantially affirming what had been told her,
viz. that Freddy, her younger sister, and herself had grown in her
mother, that papa and mama grew in their mothers, and that the servants
likewise grew in their respective mothers. By frequent questions she
tested the true basis of her knowledge, for her suspicion was aroused in
no small measure, so that it needed many confirmations to remove all her
uncertainties.
On one occasion the trustworthiness of the theory threatened to go
to pieces. About a week after the explanation, the father was taken
ill with influenza and had to remain in bed during the forenoon. The
children knew nothing about this, and Anna, coming into the parents'
bedroom, saw what was quite unusual, namely, that her father was
remaining in bed. She again took on a peculiar surprised expression; she
remained at a distance from the bed and would not come nearer; she was
apparently again reserved and suspicious. But suddenly she burst out
with the question, "Why are you in bed; have you a plant in your inside
too?"
The father naturally had to laugh. He calmed her, however, by assuring
her that children never grow in the father, that only women can have
children, and not men; thereupon the child again became friendly. But
though the surface was calm the problems continued to work in the dark.
A few days later, while at dinner, Anna related the following dream:
"I dreamed last night of Noah's ark." The father then asked her what
she had dreamed about it, but Anna's answer was sheer nonsense. In such
cases it is necessary only to wait and pay attention. A few minutes
later she said to her mother, "I dreamed last night about Noah's ark,
and there were a lot of little animals in it." Another pause. She then
began her story for the third time. "_I dreamed last night about Noah's
ark, and there were a lot of baby animals in it, and underneath there
was a lid and that opened and all the baby animals fell out._"
The children really had a Noah's ark, but its opening, a lid, was on the
roof and not underneath. In this way she delicately intimated that the
story of the birth from mouth or breast is incorrect, and that she had
some inkling where the children came out.
A few weeks then passed without any noteworthy occurrences. On one
occasion she related the following dream: "_I dreamed about papa and
mama; they had been sitting late in the study, and we children were
there too._" On the face of this we find a wish of the children to be
allowed to sit up as long as the parents. This wish is here realised,
or rather it is utilised to express a more important wish, namely, _to
be present in the evening when the parents are alone_; of course, quite
innocently, it was in the _study_ where she has seen all the interesting
books, and where she has satiated her thirst for knowledge; _i.e._ she
was really seeking an answer to the burning question, whence the little
brother came. If the children were there they would find out.[145] A
few days later Anna had a terrifying dream from which she awoke crying,
"The earthquake is coming, the house has begun to shake." Her mother
went to her and calmed her by saying that the earthquake was not coming,
that everything was quiet, and that everybody was asleep. Whereupon Anna
said: "_I would like to see the spring, when all the little flowers are
coming out and the whole lawn is full of flowers; I would like to see
Freddy, he has such a dear little face. What is papa doing? What is he
saying?_" The mother said, "He is asleep, and isn't saying anything
now." Little Anna then remarked with a sarcastic smile: "_He will surely
be sick again to-morrow._"
This text should be read backwards. The last sentence was not meant
seriously, as it was uttered in a mocking tone. When the father was sick
the last time, Anna suspected that he had a "plant in his inside." The
sarcasm signifies: "To-morrow papa is surely going to have a child." But
this also is not meant seriously. Papa is not going to have a child;
mama alone has children; perhaps she will have another child to-morrow;
but where from? "What does papa do?" The formulation of the difficult
problem seems here to come to the surface. It reads: What does papa
really do if he does not bear children? The little one is very anxious
to have a solution for all these problems; she would like to know how
Freddy came into the world, she would like to see how the little flowers
come out of the earth in the spring, and these wishes are hidden behind
the fear of earthquakes.
After this intermezzo Anna slept quietly until morning. In the morning
her mother asked her what she had dreamed. She did not at first recall
anything, and then said: "_I dreamed that I could make the summer, and
then some one threw a Punch_[146] _down into the closet._"
This peculiar dream apparently has two different scenes which are
separated by "then." The second part draws its material from the recent
wish to possess a Punch, that is, to have a boy doll just as mama has
a little boy. Some one threw Punch down into the closet; one often
lets other things fall down into the water closet. _It is just like
this that the children, too, come out._ We have here an analogy to the
"Lumpf-theory" of little Hans.[147] Whenever several scenes are found
in one dream, each scene ordinarily represents a particular variation
of the complex elaboration. Here accordingly the first part is only a
variation of the theme found in the second part. The meaning of "to see
the spring" or "to see the little flowers come out" we have already
remarked. Anna now dreams that she _can make the summer_, that is she
can bring it about that the little flowers shall come out. She herself
can make a little child, and the second part of the dream represents
this just as one makes a motion in the w.c. Here we find the egoistic
wish which is behind the seemingly objective interest of the previous
night's conversation.
A few days later the mother was visited by a lady who expected soon to
become a mother. The children seemed to take no interest in the matter,
but the next day they amused themselves with the following play which
was directed by the elder girl; they took all the newspapers they
could find in their father's paper-basket and stuffed them under their
clothes, so that the imitation was unmistakable. During the night little
Anna had another dream: "_I dreamed about a woman in the city; she had
a very big stomach._" The chief actor in a dream is always the dreamer
himself under some definite aspect; thus the childish play of the day
before is fully solved.
Not long after, Anna surprised her mother with the following
performance: She stuck her doll under her clothes, then pulled it out
slowly head downwards, and at the same time remarked, "_Look, the baby
is coming out, now it is all out._" By this means Anna tells her mother,
"You see, thus I apprehend the problem of birth. What do you think of
it? Is that right?" The play is really meant to be a question, for,
as we shall see later, this idea had to be officially confirmed. That
rumination on this problem by no means ended here, is shown by the
occasional ideas conceived during the following weeks. Thus she repeated
the same play a few days later with her Teddy Bear, who stands in the
relation of an especially beloved doll. One day, looking at a rose,
she said to her grandmother, "See, the rose is getting a baby." As her
grandmother did not quite understand her, she pointed to the enlarged
calyx and said, "Don't you see it is quite fat here?"
Anna once quarrelled with her younger sister, and the latter exclaimed
angrily, "I will kill you." Whereupon Anna answered, "When I am dead you
will be all alone; then you will have to pray to God for a live baby."
But the scene soon changed: Anna was the angel, and the younger sister
was forced to kneel before her and pray to her that she should present
to her a living child. In this way Anna became the child-dispensing
mother.
Oranges were once served at table. Anna impatiently asked for one and
said, "_I am going to take an orange and swallow it all down into my
stomach, and then I shall get a baby._" Who does not think here of
fairy tales in which childless women become pregnant by swallowing
fruit, fish, and similar things?[148] In this way Anna sought to solve
the problem _how the children actually come into the mother_. She thus
enters into a formulation which hitherto had not been defined with
so much clearness. The solution follows in the form of an _analogy_,
which is quite characteristic of the archaic thinking of the child.
(In the adult, too, there is a kind of thinking by metaphor which
belongs to the stratum lying immediately below consciousness; dreams
bring the analogies to the surface; the same may be observed also in
dementia præcox.) In German as well as in numerous foreign fairy tales
one frequently finds such characteristic childish comparisons. Fairy
tales seem to be the myths of the child, and therefore contain among
other things the mythology which the child weaves concerning the sexual
processes. The spell of the fairy tale poetry, which is felt even by
the adult, is explained by the fact that some of the old theories
are still alive in our unconscious minds. We experience a strange,
peculiar and familiar feeling when a conception of our remotest youth
is again stimulated. Without becoming conscious it merely sends into
consciousness a feeble copy of its original emotional strength.
The problem how the child gets into the mother was difficult to solve.
As the only way of taking things into the body is through the mouth, it
could evidently be assumed that the mother ate something like a fruit,
which then grows inside her. But then comes another difficulty, namely,
it is clear enough what the mother produces, but it is not yet clear
what the father is good for.
What does the father do? Anna now occupied herself exclusively with this
question. One morning she ran into the parents' bedroom while they were
dressing, she jumped into her father's bed, lay face downwards, kicked
with her legs and called at the same time, "_Look! does papa do that?_"
The analogy to the horse of "little Hans" which raised such disturbance
with its legs, is very surprising.
With this last performance the problem seemed to be at rest entirely,
at least the parents found no opportunity to make any pertinent
observations. That the problem should come to a standstill just here
is not at all surprising, for this is really its most difficult part.
Moreover, we know from experience that not many children go beyond
these limits during the period of childhood. The problem is almost
too difficult for the childish mind, which still lacks much knowledge
necessary to its solution.
This standstill lasted about five months, during which no phobias or
other signs of complex-elaboration appeared. After this lapse of time
there appeared premonitory signs of some new incidents. Anna's family
lived at that time in the country near a lake where the mother and
children could bathe. As Anna was afraid to wade farther into the water
than knee-deep, her father once put her into the water, which led to
an outburst of crying. In the evening while going to bed Anna asked
her mother, "Do you not believe that father wanted to drown me?" A few
days later there was another outburst of crying. She continued to stand
in the gardener's way until he finally placed her in a newly dug hole.
Anna cried bitterly, and afterwards maintained that the gardener wished
to bury her. Finally she awoke during the night with fearful crying.
Her mother went to her in the adjoining room and quieted her. She had
dreamed that "a train passed and then fell in a heap."
This tallies with the "stage coach" of "little Hans." These incidents
showed clearly enough that fear was again in the air, _i.e._ that a
resistance had again arisen preventing transference to the parents,
and that therefore a great part of her love was converted into fear.
This time suspicion was not directed against the mother, but against
the father, who she was sure must know the secret, but would never
let anything out. What could the father be doing or keeping secret?
To the child this secret appeared as something dangerous, so that she
felt the worst might be expected from the father. (This feeling of
childish anxiety with the father as object we see again most distinctly
in adults, especially in dementia præcox, which lifts the veil of
obscurity from many unconscious processes, as though it were following
psychoanalytic principles.) It was for this reason that Anna came to
the apparently absurd conclusion that her father wanted to drown her.
At the same time her fear contained the thought that the _object of the
father had some relation to a dangerous action_. This stream of thought
is no arbitrary interpretation. Anna meanwhile grew a little older and
her interest in her father took on a special colouring which is hard to
describe. Language has no words to describe the quite unique kind of
tender curiosity which shone in the child's eyes.
Anna once took marked delight in assisting the gardener while he was
sowing grass, without apparently divulging the profound significance
of her play. About a fortnight later she began to observe with great
pleasure the young grass sprouting. On one of these occasions she asked
her mother the following question: "Tell me, how did the eyes grow into
the head?" The mother told her that she did not know. Anna, however,
continued to ask whether God or her papa could tell this? The mother
then referred her to her father, who might tell her how the eyes grew
into the head. A few days later there was a family reunion at tea. When
the guests had departed, the father remained at the table reading the
paper and Anna also remained. Suddenly approaching her father she said,
"Tell me, how did the eyes grow into the head?"
Father: "They did not grow into the head; they were there from the
beginning and grew with the head."
A.: "Were not the eyes planted?"
F.: "No, they grew in the head like the nose."
A.: "Did the mouth and the ears grow in the same way? and the hair, too?"
F.: "Yes, they all grew in the same way."
A.: "And the hair, too? But the mousies came into the world naked. Where
was the hair before? Aren't there little seeds for it?"
F.: "No; you see, the hair really came out of little grains which are
like seeds, but these were already in the skin long before and nobody
sowed them." The father was now getting concerned; he knew whither the
little one's thoughts were directed, but he did not wish to overthrow,
for the sake of a former false application, the opportunely established
seed-theory which she had most fortunately gathered from nature; but the
child spoke with an unwonted seriousness which demanded consideration.
Anna (evidently disappointed, and in a distressed tone): "But how did
Freddy get into mama? Who stuck him in? and who stuck you into your
mama? Where did he come out from?"
From this sudden storm of questions the father chose the last for
his first answer. "Just think, you know well enough that Freddy is a
boy; boys become men and girls women. Only women and not men can have
children; now just think, where could Freddy come out from?"
A. (Laughs joyfully and points to her genitals): "Did he come out here?"
Father: "Yes, of course, you certainly must have thought of this before?"
A. (Overlooking the question): "But how did Freddy get into mama? Did
anybody plant him? Was the seed planted?"
This very precise question could no longer be evaded by the father.
He explained to the child, who listened with the greatest attention,
that the mother is like the soil and the father like the gardener; that
the father provides the seed which grows in the mother, and thus gives
origin to a baby. This answer gave extraordinary satisfaction; she
immediately ran to her mother and said, "Papa has told me everything,
now I know it all." She did not, however, tell what she knew.
The new knowledge was, however, put into play the following day. Anna
went to her mother and said, "Think, mama, papa told me how Freddy was
a little angel and was brought from heaven by a stork." The mother was
naturally surprised and said, "No, you are mistaken, papa surely never
told you such a thing!" whereupon the little one laughed and ran away.
This was apparently a mode of revenge. Her mother did not wish or was
not able to tell her how the eyes grew into the head, hence she did not
know how Freddy got into her. It was for this reason that she again
tried her with the old story.
* * * * *
I wish to impress firmly upon parents and educationists this instructive
example of child psychology. In the learned psychological discussions
on the child's psyche we hear nothing about those parts which are so
important for the health and naturalness of our children, nor do we hear
more about the child's emotions and conflicts; and yet they play a most
important rôle.
It very often happens that children are erroneously treated as quite
imprudent and irrational beings. Thus on indulgently remarking to
an intelligent father, whose four-year-old daughter masturbated
excessively, that care should be exercised in the presence of the child
who slept in the same room as the parents, I received the indignant
reply, "I can absolutely assure you that the child knows nothing about
sexual matters." This recalls that distinguished old neurologist who
wished to deny the attribute "sexual" to a childbirth phantasy which was
represented in a dreamy state.
On the other hand, a child evincing neurotic talent exaggerated by
neurosis may be urged on by solicitous parents. How easy and tempting
it would have been, _e.g._ in the present case, to admire, excite, and
develop prematurely the child's eager desire for learning, and thereby
develop an unnatural _blasé_ state and a precociousness masking a
neurosis! In such cases the parents must look after their own complexes
and complex tendencies and not make capital out of them at the expense
of the child. The idea should be dismissed once for all that children
are to be held in bondage by their parents or that they are their toys.
They are characteristic and new beings. In the matter of enlightenment
on sexual things it can be affirmed that they suffer from the
preconceived opinion that the truth is harmful. Many neurologists are of
opinion that even in grown-ups enlightenment on their own psychosexual
processes is harmful and even immoral. Would not the same persons
perhaps refuse to admit the existence of the genitals themselves?
One should not, however, go from this extreme of prudishness to the
opposite one, namely that of enlightenment _à tout prix_, which may
turn out as foolish as it is disagreeable. In this matter I believe
much discretion is advisable; still if children come upon an idea, they
should be deceived no more than adults.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that I have shown you what complicated
psychic processes psychoanalytic investigation reveals in the child, and
how great is the significance of these processes for the mental health
as well as for the general psychic development of the child. What I have
been unable to show is the universal validity of these observations.
Unfortunately, I am not in a position to demonstrate this, for I do not
know myself how much of it is universally valid. Only by accumulation
of such observations and further penetration into the problems broached
shall we gain a complete insight into the laws of psychical development.
It is to be regretted that we are at present still far from this goal.
But I confidently hope that educators and practical psychologists,
whether physicians or deep-thinking parents, will not leave us too long
unassisted in this immensely important and interesting field.
LITERATURE.
1. FREUD. "Die Traumdeutung," II Auflage. Deuticke, Wien, 1909.
2. ---- ----. "Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre," Band
I & II. Deuticke, Wien.
3. ---- ----. "Analyse der Phobie eines 5 jahrigen Knaben,"
_Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische u. Psychopathologische
Forschungen_, Band I. Deuticke, Wien, 1908.
4. FREUD. "Der Inhalt der Psychose," _Freud's Shriften zur
angewandten Seelenkunde._ Deuticke, 1908.
5. JUNG. "Diagnostische Associationsstudien," Band I. Barth,
Leipzig, 1906.
6. ---- ----. "Die Psychologische Diagnose des Thatbestandes." Carl
Marhold, Halle, 1906.
7. JUNG. "Die Bedeutung des Vaters für das Schicksal des
Einzelnen." Deuticke, Wien, 1908.
8. JUNG. "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox," translated by
Peterson and Brill, _Journal of Mental and Nervous Diseases_,
Monograph Series, No. 2.
9. FÜRST. "Statistische Untersuchungen über Wortassoziationen
und über familiäre Übereinstimmung im Reactionstypus bei
Ungebildeten," X. Beitrag der Diagnost. Assoc. Studien, vol. II.
10. BRILL. "Psychological Factors in Dementia Præcox,"
_Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, vol. III., No. 4.
11. ---- ----. "A case of Schizophrenia," _American Journal of
Insanity_, vol. LXVI., No. 1.
12. "Le Nuove Vedute della Psicologia Criminale," _Rivista de
Psicologia Applicata_, 1908, No. 4.
13. "L'Analyse des Rêves," _Année Psychologique_, 1909, Tome
XV.
14. "Associations d'idées Familiales," _Archives de
Psychologie_, T. VII., No. 26.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 125: Lectures delivered at the celebration of the twentieth
anniversary of the opening of Clark University, September, 1909;
translated from the German by Dr. A. A. Brill, of New York. Reprinted by
kind permission of Dr. Stanley Hall.]
[Footnote 126: The selection of these stimulus words was naturally made
for the German language only, and would probably have to be considerably
changed for the English language.]
[Footnote 127: Denotes misunderstanding.]
[Footnote 128: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 129: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 130: + denotes Reproduced unchanged.]
[Footnote 131: Denotes misunderstanding.]
[Footnote 132: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 133: Denotes misunderstanding.]
[Footnote 134: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 135: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 136: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 137: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 138: Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.]
[Footnote 139: Reaction times are always given in fifths of a second.]
[Footnote 140: "Studies in Word Association," in course of publication.]
[Footnote 141: "Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische
Forschungen," Band I. Deuticke, Wien, 1902.]
[Footnote 142: This lecture was originally published in the "Jahrbuch
für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen," Band II.]
[Footnote 143: "Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische
Forschungen," Band I. Deuticke, Wien, 1902.]
[Footnote 144: Jung: "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox," translated by
Peterson and Brill. _Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases_, Monograph
Series, No. 3.]
[Footnote 145: This wish to sit up with the father and mother until late
at night often plays a great part later in a neurosis.]
[Footnote 146: A doll from Punch and Judy.]
[Footnote 147: See analysis of a five-year-old boy, _Jahrbuch f.
Psychoanalytische u. Psychopathologische Forschungen_, vol. I.]
[Footnote 148: Franz Riklin, "Fulfilment of Wishes and Symbolism in
Fairy Tales."]
CHAPTER III
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FATHER IN THE DESTINY OF THE INDIVIDUAL[149]
_Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt._
Freud has pointed out in many places[150] with unmistakable clearness
that the psychosexual relationship of the child towards his parents,
particularly towards the father, possesses an overwhelming importance
in the content of any later neurosis. This relationship is in fact the
infantile channel _par excellence_ in which the libido flows back[151]
when it encounters any obstacles in later years, thus revivifying
long-forgotten dreams of childhood. It is ever so in life when we
draw back before too great an obstacle--the menace of some severe
disappointment or the risk of some too far-reaching decision--the
energy stored up for the solution of the task flows back impotent;
the by-streams once relinquished as inadequate are again filled up.
He who has missed the happiness of woman's love falls back, as a
substitute, upon some gushing friendship, upon masturbation, upon
religiosity; should he be a neurotic he plunges still further back into
the conditions of childhood which have never been quite forsaken, to
which even the normal is fettered by more than one link--he returns to
the relationship to father and mother. Every psychoanalysis carried
out at all thoroughly shows this regression more or less plainly. One
peculiarity which stands out in the works and views of Freud is that
the relationship to the father is seen to possess an overwhelming
importance. This importance of the father in the moulding of the
child's psycho-sexuality may also be discovered in a quite other and
remote field, in the investigation of the family.[152] The most recent
thorough investigations demonstrate the predominating influence of the
father often lasting for centuries. The mother seems of less importance
in the family.[153] If this is true for heredity on the physical side
how much more should we expect from the psychological influences
emanating from the father? These experiences, and those gained more
particularly in an analysis carried out conjointly with Dr. Otto Gross,
have impressed upon me the soundness of this view. The problem has been
considerably advanced and deepened by the investigations of my pupil,
Dr. Emma Fürst, into familial resemblances in the reaction-type.[154]
Fürst made association experiments on one hundred persons belonging
to twenty-four families. Of this extensive material, only the results
in nine families and thirty-seven persons (all uneducated) have been
worked out and published. But the painstaking calculations do already
permit some valuable conclusions. The associations are classified on the
KRÆPELIN-ASCHAFFENBURG scheme as simplified and modified by myself; the
difference is then calculated between each group of qualities of the
subjects experimented upon and the corresponding group of every other
subject experimented upon. Thus we finally get the differentiation of
the mean in reaction-type. The following is the result:--
Non-related men differ among themselves by 5·9.
Non-related women differ among themselves by 6·0.
Related men differ among themselves by 4·1.
Related women differ among themselves by 3·8.
Relatives, and especially related women, have therefore, on the
average, resemblance in reaction-type. This fact means that the
psychological adaptation of relatives differs but slightly.
An investigation into the various relationships gave the following:--
The mean difference of the husband and wife amounts to 4·7. The mean
deviation of this mean is, however, 3·7, a very high figure, which
signifies that the mean figure 4·7 is composed of very heterogeneous
figures; there are married couples in whom the reaction type is very
close and others in whom it is very slight. On the whole, however,
father and son, mother and daughter stand remarkably close.
The difference between father and son amounts to 3·1.
The difference between mother and daughter amounts to 3·0.
With the exception of a few cases of married couples (where the
difference fell to 1·4) these are the lowest differences. In Fürst's
work there was a case where the difference between the forty-five
year old mother and her sixteen year old daughter was only 0·5. But
it was just in this case that the mother and daughter differed from
the father's type by 11·8. The father is a coarse, stupid man, an
alcoholic; the mother goes in for Christian Science. This corresponds
with the fact that mother and daughter exhibit an extreme word-predicate
type,[155] which is, in my experience, important semeiotically for the
diagnosis of insufficiency in the sexual object. The word-predicate
type transparently applies an excessive amount of emotion externally
and displays emotions with the unconscious, but nevertheless obvious,
endeavour to awaken echoing emotions in the experimenter. This view
closely corresponds with the fact that in Fürst's material the number
of word-predicates increases with the age of the subjects experimented
upon.
The fact of the extreme similarity between the reaction-type of the
offspring and the parents is matter for thought. The association
experiment is nothing but a small section from the psychological life of
a man. At bottom daily life is nothing but an extensive and many-varied
association experiment; in essence we react in life just as we do in
the experiments. Although this truth is evident, still it requires
a certain consideration and limitation. Let us take as an instance
the case of the unhappy mother of forty-five years and her unmarried
daughter of sixteen. The extreme word-predicate type of the mother is,
without doubt, the precipitate of a whole life of disappointed hopes
and wishes. One is not in the least surprised at the word-predicate
type here. But the daughter of sixteen has really not yet lived at all;
her real sexual object has not yet been found, and yet she reacts as if
she were her mother with endless disillusions behind her. She has _the
mother's adaptation_, and in so far she is identified with the mother.
There is ample evidence that the mother's adaptation must be attributed
to her relationship to the father. But the daughter is not married to
the father and therefore does not need this adaptation. She has taken it
over from the influence of her milieu, and later on will try to adapt
herself to the world with this _familial disharmony_. In so far as an
ill-assorted marriage is unsuitable, the adaptation resulting from it is
unsuitable.
Clearly such a fate has many possibilities. To adapt herself to life,
this girl either will have to surmount the obstacles of her familial
milieu, or, unable to free herself from them, she _will succumb to
the fate to which such an adaptation predisposes_ her. Deep within,
unnoticed by any one, there may go on a glossing over of the infantile
disharmony, or a development of the negative of the parents' character,
accompanied by hindrances and conflicts to which she herself has no
clue. Or, growing up, she will come into painful conflict with that
world of actualities to which she is so ill-adapted till one stroke
of fate after another gradually opens her eyes to the fact that it
is herself, infantile and maladjusted, that is amiss. The source
of infantile adaptation to the parents is naturally the affective
condition on both sides; the psycho-sexuality of the parents on one side
and that of the child on the other. It is a kind of psychical infection;
we know that it is not logical truth, but affects and their psychical
expressions[156] which are here the effective forces. It is these that,
with the power of the herd-instinct, press into the mind of the child,
there fashioning and moulding it. In the plastic years between one and
five there have to be worked out all the essential formative lines which
fit exactly into the parental mould. Psychoanalytic experience teaches
us that, as a rule, the first signs of the later conflict between the
parental constellation and individual independence, of the struggle
between repression and libido (Freud), occur before the fifth year.
The few following histories will show how this parental constellation
obstructs the adaptation of the offspring. It must suffice to present
only the chief events of these, that is the events of sexuality.
_Case 1._--A well-preserved woman of 55; dressed poorly but carefully
in black with a certain elegance, the hair carefully dressed; a polite,
obviously affected manner, precise in speech, a devotee. The patient
might be the wife of a minor official or shopkeeper. She informs me,
blushing and dropping her eyes, that she is the divorced wife of a
common peasant. She has come to the hospital on account of depression,
night terrors, palpitations, slight nervous twitchings in the arms,
thus presenting the typical features of a slight climacteric neurosis.
To complete the picture, she adds that she suffers from severe
anxiety-dreams; in her dreams some man seems to be pursuing her, wild
animals attack her, and so on.
Her anamnesis begins with the family history. (So far as possible I
give her own words.) Her father was a fine, stately, rather corpulent
man of imposing appearance. He was very happy in his marriage, for her
mother _worshipped_ him. He was a clever man, a master-mechanic, and
held a dignified and honourable position. There were only two children,
the patient and an elder sister. The sister was the mother's, and the
patient her father's favourite. When the patient was five years old the
father died suddenly from a stroke, at the age of forty-two. The patient
felt herself very isolated and was from that time treated by the mother
and the elder sister as the Cinderella. She noticed clearly enough
that her mother preferred her sister to herself. Her mother remained a
widow, her respect for her husband being too great to allow her to marry
a second time. She preserved his memory "like a religious cult" and
brought up her children in this way.
Later on the sister married, relatively young; the patient did not
marry till twenty-four. She never cared for young men, they all seemed
insipid; her mind turned always to more mature men. When about twenty
she became acquainted with a stately gentleman rather over forty, to
whom she was much drawn. For various reasons the friendship was broken
off. At twenty-four she became acquainted with a widower who had two
children. He was a fine, stately, somewhat corpulent man, and had an
imposing presence, like her father; he was forty-four. She married him
and respected him enormously. The marriage was childless; the children
by the first marriage died from an infectious disease. After four years
of married life her husband also died. For eighteen years she remained
his faithful widow. But at forty-six (just before the menopause) she
experienced a great need of love. As she had no acquaintances she went
to a matrimonial agency and married the first comer, a peasant of some
sixty years who had been already twice divorced on account of brutality
and perverseness; the patient knew this before marriage. She remained
five unbearable years with him, when she also obtained a divorce. The
neurosis set in a little later.
No further discussion will be required for those with psychoanalytic
experience; the case is too obvious. For those unversed in
psychoanalysis let me point out that up to her forty-sixth year the
patient did but reproduce most faithfully the milieu of her earliest
youth. The sexuality which announced itself so late and so drastically,
even here only led to a deteriorated edition of the father-surrogate;
to this she is brought by this late-blossoming sexuality. Despite
repression, the neurosis betrays the ever-fluctuating eroticism of
the aging woman who still wants to please (affectation) but dares not
acknowledge her sexuality.
_Case 2._--A man of thirty-four of small build and with a sensible,
kindly expression. He is easily embarrassed, blushes often. He came for
treatment on account of "nervousness." He says he is very irritable,
readily fatigued, has nervous indigestion, is often deeply depressed so
that he has thought of suicide.
Before coming to me for treatment he sent me a circumstantial
autobiography, or rather a history of his illness, in order to prepare
me for his visit. His story began: "My father was a very big and strong
man." This sentence awakened my curiosity; I turned over a page and
there read: "When I was fifteen a big lad of nineteen took me into the
wood and indecently assaulted me."
The numerous gaps in the patient's story induced me to obtain a more
exact anamnesis from him, which produced the following remarkable facts.
The patient is the youngest of three brothers. His father, a big,
red-haired man, was formerly a soldier in the Papal Swiss Guard, and
then became a policeman. He was a strict, gruff old soldier, who brought
up his sons with military precision; he commanded them, did not call
them by name, but whistled to them. He had spent his youth in Rome,
where he acquired syphilis, from the consequences of which he still
suffered in old age. He was fond of talking about his adventures in
early life. His eldest son (considerably older than the patient) was
exactly like him, he was big, strong and had reddish hair. The mother
was a feeble woman, prematurely aged; exhausted and tired of life, she
died at forty when the patient was eight years old. He preserved a
tender and beautiful memory of his mother.
When he went to school he was always the whipping-boy and always the
object of his schoolfellows' mockery. The patient considers that his
peculiar dialect was to blame for this. Later he was apprenticed to a
severe and unkind master, under most trying conditions, from which all
the other apprentices had run away, finding them intolerable. Here he
held out for over two years. At fifteen the assault already mentioned
took place, in addition to some other slighter homosexual experiences.
Then fate sent him to France. There he made the acquaintance of a man
from the South of France, a great boaster and Don Juan. He dragged
the patient into a brothel; he went unwilling and out of fear. He
was impotent there. Later he went to Paris, where his brother, a
master-mason, the replica of his father, was leading a dissolute
life. There the patient remained a long time, badly paid and helping
his sister-in-law out of pity. The brother often took him along to a
brothel, where the patient was always impotent. Here the brother asked
him to make over to him his inheritance, 6000 francs. He first consulted
his second brother, who was also in Paris, who urgently tried to
dissuade him from giving the money to his brother, because it would only
be squandered. Nevertheless the patient gave his all to his brother,
who indeed soon squandered it. And the second brother, who would have
dissuaded him, was also let in for 500 francs. To my astonished question
why he had so light-heartedly given the money to his brother without
any guarantee, he replied: he had asked for it, he was not a bit sorry
about the money; he would give him another 6000 francs if he had it. The
eldest brother came to grief altogether and his wife divorced him. The
patient returned to Switzerland and remained for a year without regular
employment, often suffering from hunger. During this time he made the
acquaintance of a family where he became a frequent visitor. The husband
belonged to some peculiar sect; he was a hypocrite and neglected his
family. The wife was elderly, ill and weak, and moreover pregnant.
There were six children and great poverty. The patient developed warm
affection for this woman and divided with her the little he possessed.
She brought him her troubles, and said she felt sure she would die in
childbed. Then he promised her (he who possessed nothing) to take charge
of the children himself and bring them up. The wife did die in childbed.
The orphanage-board interfered, however, and allowed him only one child.
So he had a child but no family, and naturally could not bring it up by
himself. He thus came to think of marrying. But as he had never been
in love with any woman he was in great perplexity. It then occurred to
him that his elder brother was divorced from his wife, and he resolved
to marry her. He wrote his intention to her in Paris. She was seventeen
years older than he, but not disinclined to the plan. She invited him
to come to Paris to talk matters over. On the eve of this journey fate,
however, willed that he should run a big iron nail into his foot so that
he could not travel. After a little while, when the wound was healed,
he went to Paris, and found that he had imagined his sister-in-law, and
now his _fiancée_, to be younger and prettier than she really was. The
wedding took place, and three months later the first coitus, at his
wife's initiative. He himself had no desire for it. They brought up the
child together, he in the Swiss and she in the French way, for she was
a French woman. At the age of nine the child was run over and killed
by a cyclist. The patient then felt very lonely and dismal at home. He
proposed to his wife that she should adopt a young girl, whereupon she
broke out into a fury of jealousy. Then for the first time he fell in
love with a young girl, whilst at the same time the neurosis started,
with deep depression and nervous exhaustion, for meanwhile his life at
home had become a hell.
My proposition to separate from his wife was refused out of hand,
because he could not take upon himself to make the old woman unhappy on
his account. He clearly prefers to be tormented still further; for it
would seem that the recollection of his youth is more precious to him
than any present joys.
In this case also the whole movement of a life takes place in the magic
circle of the familial constellation. The relation to the father is the
strongest and most momentous issue; its masochistic homosexual colouring
stands out clearly everywhere. Even the unhappy marriage is determined
in every way through the father, for the patient marries the divorced
wife of his eldest brother, which _is as if_ he married his mother. His
wife is also the representative of the mother-surrogate, of the friend
who died in childbed.
The neurosis started at the moment when the libido had obviously
withdrawn from this relationship of infantile constellation, and
approached, for the first time, the sexual end determined by the
individual. In this, as in the previous case, the familial constellation
proves to be by far the stronger; the narrow field vouchsafed by a
neurosis is all that remains for the display of individuality.
_Case 3._--A thirty-six year old peasant woman, of average intelligence,
healthy appearance and robust build, mother of three healthy children.
Comfortable family circumstances. Patient comes to the hospital for
treatment for the following reasons: for some weeks she has been
terribly wretched and anxious, has been sleeping badly, has terrifying
dreams, and suffers also during the day from anxiety and depression. All
these things are admittedly without foundation, she herself is surprised
at them, and must admit her husband is perfectly right when he insists
they are all "stuff and nonsense." All the same she cannot get away from
them. Strange ideas come to her too; she is going to die and is going to
hell. She gets on very well with her husband.
The psychoanalytic examination of the case immediately brought the
following: some weeks before, she happened to take up some religious
tracts which had long lain about the house unread. There she read that
_swearers_ would go to hell. She took this very much to heart, and has
since thought it incumbent on her to prevent people swearing or she
herself will go to hell. About a fortnight before she read these tracts,
her father, who lived with her, suddenly died from a stroke. She was not
actually present at his death, but arrived when he was already dead.
Her terror and grief were very great.
In the days following the death she thought much about it all, wondering
why her father had to meet his end so abruptly. In the midst of such
meditations it suddenly occurred to her that the last words she had
heard her father say were: "I also am one of those who have fallen from
the cart into the devil's clutches." The remembrance filled her with
grief, and she recalled how often her father had sworn savagely. She
wondered then whether there really were a life after death, and whether
her father were in heaven or hell. During these musings she came across
the tracts and began to read them, getting to the place where it said
that swearers go to hell. Then came upon her great fear and terror;
she overwhelmed herself with reproaches, she ought to have stopped her
father's swearing, deserved punishment for her neglect. She would die
and would be condemned to hell. Henceforth she was full of sorrow,
moody, tormented her husband with this obsessive idea, and renounced all
joy and happiness.
The patient's life-history (reproduced partly in her own words) is as
follows:--
She is the youngest of five brothers and sisters and was always her
_father's favourite_. The father gave her everything she wanted if he
possibly could. For instance, if she wanted a new dress and her mother
refused it, she could be sure her father would bring her one next time
he went to town. The mother died rather early. At twenty-four the
patient married the man of her choice, _against her father's wishes_.
The father simply disapproved of her choice although he had nothing
particular against the man. After the wedding she made her father come
and live with them. That seemed a matter of course, she said, since the
other relations had never suggested having him with them. The father was
a quarrelsome swearer and drunkard. Husband and father-in-law, as may
easily be imagined, got on extremely badly together. The patient would
always meekly fetch her father spirits from the inn, although this gave
rise perpetually to anger and altercations. But she finds her husband
"all right." He is a good, patient fellow with only one failing: he
does not obey her father enough; she finds that incomprehensible, and
would rather have her husband knuckle under to her father. All said and
done, father is still father. In the frequent quarrels she always took
her father's part. But she has nothing to say against her husband and he
is usually right in his protests, but _one must help one's father_.
Soon it began to seem to her that she had sinned against her father
by marrying against his will, and she often felt, after one of these
incessant wrangles, that her love for her husband had quite vanished.
And since her father's death it is impossible to love her husband any
longer, for his disobedience was the most frequent occasion of her
father's fits of raging and swearing. At one time the quarrelling became
too painful for the husband, and he induced his wife to find rooms for
her father elsewhere, where he lived for two years. During this time
husband and wife lived together peaceably and happily. But by degrees
the patient began to reproach herself for letting her father live alone;
in spite of everything he was her father. And in the end, despite the
husband's protests, she fetched him home again because, as she said, in
truth she did love her father better than her husband. Scarcely was the
old man back in the house before strife was renewed. And so it went on
till the father's sudden death.
After this recital she broke out into a whole series of lamentations:
she must separate from her husband: she would have done it long ago if
it were not for the children. She had indeed done an ill-deed, committed
a very great sin when she married her husband against her father's wish.
She ought to have taken the man whom her father had wanted her to have.
He certainly would have obeyed her father and then everything would have
been right. Oh, her husband was not by a long way so kind as her father,
she could do anything with her father, but not with her husband. Her
father had given her everything she wanted. _Now she would best of all
like to die, so that she might be with her father._
When this outburst was over, I inquired eagerly on what grounds she had
refused the husband her father had suggested to her.
The father, a small peasant on a lean little farm, had taken as a
servant, just at the time when his youngest daughter came into the
world, a miserable little boy, a foundling. The boy developed in most
unpleasant fashion: he was so stupid that he could not learn to read
or write or even speak quite properly. He was an absolute idiot. As he
approached manhood there developed on his neck a series of ulcers, some
of which opened and continually discharged pus, giving such a dirty,
ugly creature a horrible appearance. His intelligence did not grow with
his years, so he stayed on as servant in the peasant's house without any
recognised wage.
_To this youth the father wanted to marry his favourite daughter._
The girl, fortunately, had not been disposed to yield, but now she
regretted it, since this idiot would unquestionably have been more
obedient to her father than her good man had been.
Here, as in the foregoing case, it must be clearly understood that the
patient is not at all weak-minded. Both possess normal intelligence,
which unfortunately the blinkers of the infantile constellation prevent
their using. That appears with quite remarkable clearness in this
patient's life-story. The father's authority is never questioned! It
makes not the least difference that he is a quarrelsome drunkard, the
obvious cause of all the quarrels and disturbances; on the contrary, the
lawful husband must give way to the bogey, and at last our patient even
comes to regret that her father did not succeed in completely destroying
her life's happiness. So now she sets about doing that herself through
her neurosis, which compels in her the wish to die, that she may go to
hell, whither, be it noted, the father has already betaken himself.
If we are ever disposed to see some demonic power at work controlling
mortal destiny, surely we can see it here in these melancholy silent
tragedies working themselves out slowly, torturingly, in the sick souls
of our neurotics. Some, step by step, continually struggling against the
unseen powers, do free themselves from the clutches of the demon who
forces his unsuspecting victims from one savage mischance to another:
others rise up and win to freedom, only to be dragged back later to the
old paths, caught in the noose of the neurosis. You cannot even maintain
that these unhappy people are neurotic or "degenerates." If we normal
people examine our lives from the psychoanalytic standpoint, we too
perceive how a mighty hand guides us insensibly to our destiny and not
always is this hand a kindly one.[157] We often call it the hand of God
or of the Devil, for the power of the infantile constellation has become
mighty during the course of the centuries in affording support and proof
to all the religions.
But all this does not go so far as to say that we must cast the blame
of inherited sins upon our parents. A sensitive child whose intuition
is only too quick in reflecting in his own soul all the excesses of his
parents must lay the blame for his fate on his own characteristics.
But, as our last case shows, this is not always so, for the parents can
(and unfortunately only too often do) fortify the evil in the child's
soul, preying upon the child's ignorance to make him the slave of their
complexes. In our case this attempt on the part of the father is quite
obvious. It is perfectly clear why he wanted to marry his daughter to
this brutish creature: _he wanted to keep her and make her his slave
for ever_. What he did is but a crass exaggeration of what is done by
thousands of so-called respectable, educated people, who have their
own share in this educational dust-heap of enforced discipline. The
fathers who allow their children no independent possession of their own
emotions, who fondle their daughters with ill-concealed eroticism and
tyrannical passion, who keep their sons in leading-strings, force them
into callings and finally marry them off "suitably," and the mothers
who even in the cradle excite their children with unhealthy tenderness,
later on make them into slavish puppets, and then at last, out of
jealousy, destroy their children's love-life fundamentally, they all act
not otherwise than this stupid and brutal boor.
It will be asked, wherein lies the parents' magic power to bind their
children to themselves, as with iron fetters, often for the whole
of their lives? The psychoanalyst knows that it is nothing but the
sexuality on both sides.
We are always trying not to admit the child's sexuality. That view only
comes from wilful ignorance, which happens to be very prevalent again
just now.[158]
I have not given any real analysis of these cases. We therefore do not
know what happened within the hearts of these puppets of fate when
they were children. A profound insight into a child's mind as it grows
and lives, hitherto unattainable, is given in Freud's contribution to
the first half-yearly volume of _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische u.
Psychopathologische Forschungen_. If I venture, after Freud's masterly
presentation, to offer another small contribution to the study of the
child-mind it is because the psychoanalytic records of cases seem to me
always valuable.
_Case 4._--An eight year old boy, intelligent, rather delicate-looking,
is brought to me by his mother, on account of enuresis. During the
consultation the child always hangs on to his mother, a pretty, youthful
woman. The parents' marriage is a happy one, but the father is strict,
and the boy (the eldest child) is rather afraid of him. The mother
compensates for the father's strictness by corresponding tenderness, to
which the boy responds so much that he never gets away from his mother's
apron-strings. He never plays with his schoolfellows, never goes alone
into the street unless he has to go to school. He fears the boys'
roughness and violence and plays thoughtful games at home or helps his
mother with housework. He is extremely jealous of his father. He cannot
bear it when the father shows tenderness to the mother.
I took the boy aside and asked him about his dreams.
He dreams very often of a _black snake_ which _wants to bite his face_.
Then he cries out, and his mother has to come from the next room to his
bedside.
In the evening he goes quietly to bed. But when he falls asleep it seems
to him that a wicked _black man with a sabre or gun lies on his bed_--_a
tall, thin man who wants to kill him_.
His parents sleep in the adjoining room. It often seems to him that
something dreadful is going on there, as if there are great _black
snakes or wicked men who want to kill his Mamma_. Then he has to cry out
and his mother comes to comfort him.
Every time he wets his bed he calls his mother, who has to settle him
down again in dry things.
The father is a tall thin man. Every morning he stands at the washstand
naked in full view of the child, to perform a thorough ablution. The
child also tells me that at night he is often suddenly waked from sleep
by a strange sound in the next room; then he is always horribly afraid
as if something dreadful were going on in there, some struggle--but his
mother quiets him, says there's nothing to be afraid of.
It is not difficult to see whence comes the black snake and who the
wicked man is, and what is happening in the next room. It is equally
easy to understand the boy's aim when he calls out for his mother: he
is jealous and separates her from the father. This he does also in the
daytime whenever he sees his father caressing her. So far the boy is
simply his father's rival for his mother's love.
But now comes the circumstance that the snake and the bad man also
threaten him, there happens to him the same thing as to his mother in
the next room. Thus he identifies himself with his mother and proposes a
similar relationship for himself with his father. That is owing to his
homosexual component which feels like a woman towards the father. What
enuresis signifies in this case is, from the Freudian standpoint, not
difficult to understand. The micturition dream throws light upon it.
Let me refer to an analysis of the same kind in my article: "L'analyse
des rêves, Année psychologique" (1909). Enuresis must be regarded as an
infantile sex-surrogate; in the dream-life of adults too it is easily
used as a cloak for the urge of sexual desire.
This little example shows what goes on in the mind of an eight year old
boy, when he is in a position of too much dependence upon his parents,
but the blame is also partly due to the too strict father and the too
indulgent mother.
The infantile attitude here, it is evident, is nothing but infantile
sexuality. If now we survey all the far-reaching possibilities of the
infantile constellation, we are forced to say that _in essence our
life's fate is identical with the fate of our sexuality_. If Freud and
his school devote themselves first and foremost to tracing out the
individual's sexuality it is certainly not in order to excite piquant
sensations, but to gain a deeper insight into the driving forces that
determine that individual's fate. In this we are not saying too much,
rather understating the case. If we can strip off the veils shrouding
the problems of individual destiny, we can afterwards widen our view
from the history of the individual to the history of nations. And
first of all we can look at the history of religions, at the history
of the phantasy-systems of whole peoples and epochs. The religion of
the Old Testament elevated the _paterfamilias_ to the Jehovah of the
Jews whom the people had to obey in fear and dread. The Patriarchs are
an intermediate stage towards the deity. The neurotic fear and dread
of the Jewish religion, the imperfect, not to say unsuccessful attempt
at the sublimation of a still too barbarous people, gave rise to the
excessive severity of the Mosaic Law, the ceremonial constraint of the
neurotic.[159]
Only the prophets succeeded in freeing themselves from this constraint;
in them the identification with Jehovah, the complete sublimation,
is successful. They became the fathers of the people. Christ, the
fulfilment of prophecy, put an end to this fear of God and taught
mankind that the true relation to the Godhead is "love." Thus he
destroyed the ceremonial constraint of the Law and gave the example of
a personal loving relationship to God. The later imperfect sublimation
of the Christian Mass leads again to the ceremonial of the Church from
which occasionally the minds capable of sublimation among the saints and
reformers have been able to free themselves. Not without cause therefore
does modern theology speak of "inner" or "personal" experiences as
having great enfranchising power, for always the ardour of love
transmutes the dread and constraint into a higher, freer type of feeling.
What we see in the development of the world-process, the original
source of the changes in the Godhead, we see also in the individual.
Parental power guides the child like a higher controlling fate. But
when he begins to grow up, there begins also the conflict between the
infantile constellation and the individuality, the parental influence
dating from the prehistoric (infantile) period is repressed, sinks into
the unconscious but is not thereby eliminated; by invisible threads it
directs the individual creations of the ripening mind as they appear.
Like everything that has passed into the unconscious, the infantile
constellation sends up into consciousness dim, foreboding feelings,
feelings of mysterious guidance and opposing influences. Here are the
roots of the first religious sublimations. In the place of the father,
with his constellating virtues and faults, there appears, on the one
hand, an altogether sublime deity, on the other the devil, in modern
times for the most part largely whittled away by the perception of one's
own moral responsibility. Elevated love is attributed to the former,
a lower sexuality to the latter. As soon as we approach the territory
of the neurosis, the antithesis is stretched to the utmost limit. God
becomes the symbol of the most complete sexual repression, the Devil the
symbol of sexual lust. Thus it is that the conscious expression of the
father-constellation, like every expression of an unconscious complex
when it appears in consciousness, gets its Janus-face, its positive and
its negative components. A curious, beautiful example of this crafty
play of the unconscious is seen in the love-episode in the Book of
Tobias. Sarah, the daughter of Raguel in Ecbatana, desires to marry; but
her evil fate wills it that seven times, one after another, she chooses
a husband who dies on the marriage-night. The evil spirit Asmodi, by
whom she is persecuted, kills these husbands. She prays to Jehovah to
let her die rather than suffer this shame again. She is despised even by
her father's maid-servants. The eighth bridegroom, Tobias, is sent to
her by God. He too is led into the bridal-chamber. Then the old Raguel,
who has only pretended to go to bed, gets up again and goes out and digs
his son-in-law's grave beforehand, and in the morning sends a maid to
the bridal-chamber to make sure of the expected death. But this time
Asmodi's part is played out, Tobias is alive.
Unfortunately medical etiquette forbids me to give a case of hysteria
which fits in exactly with the above instance, except that there were
not seven husbands, but only three, ominously chosen under all the signs
of the infantile constellation. Our first case too comes under this
category and in our third we see the old peasant at work preparing to
dedicate his daughter to a like fate.
As a pious and obedient daughter (compare her beautiful prayer in
chapter iii.) Sarah has brought about the usual sublimation and cleavage
of the father-complex and on the one side has elevated her childish
love to the adoration of God, on the other has turned the obsessive
force of her father's attraction into the persecuting demon Asmodi.
The legend is so beautifully worked out that it displays the father in
his twofold aspect, on the one hand as the inconsolable father of the
bride, on the other as the secret digger of his son-in-law's grave,
whose fate he foresees. This beautiful fable has become a cherished
paradigm for my analysis, for by no means infrequent are such cases
where the father-demon has laid his hand upon his daughter, so that
her whole life long, even when she does marry, there is never a true
union, because her husband's image never succeeds in obliterating the
unconscious and eternally operative infantile father-ideal. This is
valid not only for daughters, but equally for sons. A fine instance of
such a father-constellation is given in Dr. Brill's recently published:
"Psychological factors in dementia præcox. An analysis."[160]
In my experience the father is usually the decisive and dangerous object
of the child's phantasy, and if ever it happens to be the mother, I have
been able to discover behind her a grandfather to whom she belonged in
her heart.
I must leave this question open: my experience does not go far enough to
warrant a decision. It is to be hoped that the experience of the coming
years will sink deeper shafts into this still dark land which I have
been able but momentarily to light up, and will discover to us more of
the secret workshop of that fate-deciding demon of whom Horace says:
"Scit Genius natale comes qui temperat astrum,
Naturæ deus humanæ, mortalis in unum,
Quodque caput, vultu mutabilis, albus et ater."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 149: _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische
Forschungen_, vol. I., 1909. Translator, Dr. M. D. Eder.]
[Footnote 150: Freud, especially "The Interpretation of Dreams."]
[Footnote 151: Libido is what earlier psychologists called "will"
or "tendency." The Freudian expression is _denominatio a potiori_.
_Jahrbuch_, vol. I., p. 155, 1909.]
[Footnote 152: Sommer, "Familienforschung und Vererbungslehre." Barth,
Leipzig, 1907. Joerger, "Die Familie, Zero," _Arch. für Rassen u.
Gesellschaftsbiologie_, 1905. M. Ziermer (pseudonym), "Genealogische
Studien über die Vererbung geistiger Eigenschaften," ibid., 1908.]
[Footnote 153: For the importance of the mother, see "The Psychology of
the Unconscious." C. G. Jung. Moffart, Yard and Co., New York.]
[Footnote 154: E. Fürst, "Statistische Untersuchungen über
Wortassoziationen und über familiäre Übereinstimmung im Reaktionstypus
bei Ungebildeten. Beitrag der diagnostischen Assoziationsstudien
herausgegeben von Dr. C. G. Jung," _Journal für Psychologie und
Neurologie_, Bd. II., 1907. (Reprinted in volume two of the Joint
Reports.)]
[Footnote 155: By this type I understand reactions where the response
to the stimulus-word is a predicate subjectively accentuated instead of
an objective relation, _e.g_., Flower, pleasant; frog, horrible; piano,
terrible; salt, bad; singing, sweet; cooking, useful (see p. 124).]
[Footnote 156: Cf. Vigouroux et Jaqueliers, "La contagion mentale,"
Chapitre VI. Doin, Paris, 1905.]
[Footnote 157: Between whiles we believe ourselves masters of our acts
at any given moment. But when we look back along our life's path and
fix our eyes chiefly upon our unfortunate steps and their consequences,
often we cannot understand how we came to do this and leave that undone,
and it seems as if some power outside ourselves had directed our steps.
Shakespeare says;
"Fate show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;
What is decreed must be, and be this so!"
Schopenhauer, "Ueber die anscheinende Absichtlichkeit im Schicksale des
Einzelnen. Parerga und Paralipomena."]
[Footnote 158: This was seen in the Amsterdam Congress of 1907, where
a prominent French savant assured us that the Freudian theory was but
"une plaisanterie." This gentleman has demonstrably neither read Freud's
latest works nor mine, he knows less about the subject than a little
child. This opinion, so admirably grounded, ended with the applause of a
well-known German professor. One can but bow before such thoroughness.
At the same Congress another well-known German neurologist immortalised
his name with the following intellectual reasoning: "If hysteria on
Freud's conception does indeed rest on repressed affects, then the whole
German army must be hysterical."]
[Footnote 159: Cf. Freud, "Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie," 1907.]
[Footnote 160: _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, vol. III., p. 219,
1908.]
CHAPTER IV
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RUMOUR[161]
About a year ago the school authorities in N. asked me to give a
professional opinion as to the mental condition of Marie X., a thirteen
year old schoolgirl. Marie had been expelled from school because she
had been instrumental in originating an ugly rumour, spreading gossip
about her class-teacher. The punishment hit the child, and especially
her parents, very hard, so that the school authorities were inclined
to readmit her if protected by a medical opinion. The facts were as
follows:--
The teacher had heard indirectly that the girls were attributing some
equivocal sexual story to him. On investigation it was found that Marie
X. had one day related a dream to three girl-friends which ran somewhat
as follows:--
"The class was going to the swimming-baths. I had to go to the boys'
because there was no more room. Then we swam a long way out in the lake
(asked 'who did so': 'Lina P., the teacher, and myself'). A steamer came
along. The teacher asked us if we wished to get into it. We came to
K. A wedding was just going on there (asked 'whose': 'a friend of the
teacher's'). We were also to take part in it. Then we went for a journey
(who? 'I, Lina P., and the teacher'). It was like a honeymoon journey.
We came to Andermatt, and there was no more room in the hotel, so we
were obliged to pass the night in a barn. The woman got a child there,
and the teacher became the godfather."
When I examined the child she told this dream. The teacher had likewise
related the dream in writing. In this earlier version the obvious
blanks after the word "steamer" in the above text were filled up as
follows: "We got up. Soon we felt cold. An old man gave us a blouse
which the teacher put on." On the other hand, there was an omission of
the passage about finding no room in the hotel and being obliged to pass
the night in the barn.
The child told the dream immediately, not only to her three friends but
also to her mother. The mother repeated it to me with only trifling
differences from the two versions given above. The teacher, in his
further investigations, carried out with deepest misgivings, failed,
like myself, to get indications of any more dangerous material. There
is therefore a strong probability that the original recital could not
have run very differently. (The passage about the cold and the blouse
seems to be an early interpolation, for it is an attempt to supply a
logical relationship. Coming out of the water one is wet, has on only a
bathing dress, and is therefore unable to take part in a wedding before
putting on some clothes.) At first, of course, the teacher would not
allow that the whole affair had arisen only out of a dream. He rather
suspected it to be an invention. He was, however, obliged to admit that
the innocent telling of the dream was apparently a fact, and that it was
unnatural to regard the child as capable of such guile as to indicate
some sexual equivocation in this disguised form. For a time he wavered
between the view that it was a question of cunning invention, and the
view that it was really a question of a dream, innocent in itself, which
had been understood by the other children in a sexual way. When his
first indignation wore off he concluded that Marie X.'s guilt could not
be so great, and that her phantasies and those of her companions had
contributed to the rumour. He then did something really valuable. He
placed Marie's companions under supervision, and made them all write out
what they had heard of the dream.
Before turning our attention to this, let us cast a glance at the
dream analytically. In the first place, we must accept the facts and
agree with the teacher that we have to do with a dream and not with
an invention; for the latter the ambiguity is too great. Conscious
invention tries to create unbroken transitions; the dream takes no
account of this, but sets to work regardless of gaps, which, as we
have seen, here give occasion for interpolations during the conscious
revision. The gaps are very significant. In the swimming-bath there is
no picture of undressing, being unclothed, nor any detailed description
of their being together in the water. The omission of being dressed
on the ship is compensated for by the above-mentioned interpolation,
but only for the teacher, thus indicating that his nakedness was in
most urgent need of cover. The detailed description of the wedding
is wanting, and the transition from the steamer to the wedding is
abrupt. The reason for stopping overnight in the barn at Andermatt is
not to be found at first. The parallel to this is, however, the want
of room in the swimming-bath, which made it necessary to go into the
men's department; in the hotel the want of room again emphasises the
separation of the sexes. The picture of the barn is most insufficiently
filled out. The birth suddenly follows and quite without sequence.
The teacher as godfather is extremely equivocal. Marie's rôle in the
whole story is throughout of secondary importance, indeed she is only a
spectator.
All this has the appearance of a genuine dream, and those of my readers
who have a wide experience of the dreams of girls of this age will
assuredly confirm this view. Hence the meaning of the dream is so simple
that we may quietly leave its interpretation to her school-companions,
whose declarations are as follows:
AURAL WITNESSES.
_Witness I._--"M. dreamed that she and Lina P. had gone swimming with
our teacher. After they had swum out in the lake pretty far, M. said she
could not swim any further as her foot hurt her so much. The teacher
said she might sit on my[162] back. M. got up and they swam out. After a
time a steamer came along and they got up on it. Our teacher seems to
have had a rope by which he tied M. and L. together and dragged them out
into the lake. They travelled thus as far as Z., where they stepped out.
But now they had no clothes on. The teacher bought a jacket whilst M.
and L. got a long, thick veil, and all three walked up the street along
the lake. This was when the wedding was going on. Presently they met the
party. The bride had on a blue silk dress but no veil. She asked M. and
L. if they would be kind enough to give her their veil. M. and L. gave
it, and in return they were allowed to go to the wedding. They went into
the Sun Inn. Afterwards they went a honeymoon journey to Andermatt; I do
not know now whether they went to the Inn at A. or at Z. There they got
coffee, potatoes, honey, and butter."
"I must not say any more, only the teacher finally was made godfather."
_Remarks._--The roundabout story concerning the want of room in the
swimming-bath is absent; Marie goes direct with her teacher to the bath.
Their persons are more closely bound together in the water by means of
the rope fastening the teacher and the two girls together. The ambiguity
of the "getting up" in the first story has other consequences here, for
the part about the steamer in the first story now occurs in two places;
in the first the teacher takes Marie on his back. The delightful little
slip "she could sit on my back" (instead of _his_), shows the real part
taken by the narrator herself in this scene. This makes it clear why
the dream brings the steamer somewhat abruptly into action, in order to
give an innocent, harmless turn to the equivocal "getting up" instead of
another which is common, for instance, in music-hall songs. The passage
about the want of clothing, the uncertainty of which has been already
noticed, arouses the special interest of the narrator. The teacher buys
a jacket, the girls get a long veil (such as one only wears in case
of death or at weddings). That the latter is meant is shown by the
remark that the bride had none (it is the bride who wears the veil).
The narrator, a girl-friend of Marie, here helps the dreamer to dream
further: the possession of the veil designates the bride or the brides,
Marie and Lina. Whatever is shocking or immoral in this situation is
relieved by the girls giving up the veil; it then takes an innocent
turn. The narrator follows the same mechanism in the cloaking of the
equivocal scene at Andermatt; there is nothing but nice food, coffee,
potatoes, honey, butter, a turning back to the infantile life according
to the well-known method. The conclusion is apparently very abrupt: the
teacher becomes a godfather.
_Witness II._--M. dreamt she had gone bathing with L. P. and the
teacher. Far out in the lake M. said to the teacher that her leg was
hurting her very much. Then the teacher said she could get up on him.
I don't know now whether the last sentence was really so told, but I
think so. As there was just then a ship on the lake the teacher said
she should swim as far as the ship and then get in. I don't remember
exactly how it went on. Then the teacher or M., I don't really remember
which, said they would get out at Z. and run home. Then the teacher
called out to two gentlemen who had just been bathing there, that they
might carry the children to land. Then L. P. sat up on one man, and M.
on the other fat man, and the teacher held on to the fat man's leg and
swam after them. Arrived on land they ran home. On the way the teacher
met his friend who had a wedding. M. said: "It was then the fashion to
go on foot, not in a carriage." Then the bride said she must now go
along also. Then the teacher said it would be nice if the two girls gave
the bride their black veils, which they had got on the way. I can't now
remember how. The children gave it her, and the bride said they were
really dear generous children. Then they went on further and put up at
the Sun Hotel. There they got something to eat, I don't know exactly
what. Then they went to a barn and danced. All the men had taken off
their coats except the teacher. Then the bride said he ought to take off
his coat also. Then the teacher hesitated but finally did so. Then the
teacher was.... Then the teacher said he was cold. I must not tell any
more; it is improper. That's all I heard of the dream.
_Remarks._--The narrator pays special attention to the getting up, but
is uncertain whether in the original it referred to getting up on the
teacher or the steamer. This uncertainty is, however, amply compensated
for by the elaborate invention of the two strangers who take the girls
upon their backs. The getting up is too valuable a thought for the
narrator to surrender, but she is troubled by the idea of the teacher
seeing the object. The want of clothing likewise arouses much interest.
The bride's veil has, it is true, become the black veil of mourning
(naturally in order to conceal anything indelicate). There is not only
no innocent twisting, but it is conspicuously virtuous ("dear, generous
children"); the amoral wish has become changed into virtue which
receives special emphasis, arousing suspicion as does every accentuated
virtue.
This narrator exuberantly fills in the blanks in the scene of the barn:
the men take off their coats; the teacher also, and is therefore ...
_i.e._ naked and hence cold. Whereupon it becomes too improper.
The narrator has correctly recognised the parallels which were suspected
in the criticisms of the original dream; she has filled in the scene
about the undressing which belongs to the bathing, for it must finally
come out that the girls are together with the naked teacher.
_Witness III._--M. told me she had dreamt: Once I went to the baths but
there was no room for me. The teacher took me into his dressing-room.
I undressed and went bathing. I swam until I reached the bank. Then I
met the teacher. He said would I not like to swim across the lake with
him. I went, and L. P. also. We swam out and were soon in the middle of
the lake. I did not want to swim any further. Now I can't remember it
exactly. Soon a ship came up, and we got up on the ship. The teacher
said, "I am cold," and a sailor gave us an old shirt. The three of us
each tore a piece of the shirt away. I fastened it round the neck. Then
we left the ship and swam away towards K.
L. P. and I did not want to go further, and two fat men took us upon
their backs. In K. we got a veil which we put on. In K. we went into
the street. The teacher met his friend who invited us to the wedding.
We went to the Sun and played games. We also danced the polonaise;
now I don't remember exactly. Then we went for a honeymoon journey to
Andermatt. The teacher had no money with him, and stole some chestnuts
in Andermatt. The teacher said, "I am so glad that I can travel with my
two pupils." Then there is something improper which I will not write.
The dream is now finished.
_Remarks._--The undressing together now takes place in the narrow
space of the dressing-room at the baths. The want of dress on the ship
gives occasion to a further variant. (The old shirt torn in three.)
In consequence of great uncertainty the getting up on the teacher is
not mentioned. Instead, the two girls get up on two fat men. As "fat"
becomes so prominent it should be noted that the teacher is more than a
little plump. The setting is thoroughly typical; each one has a teacher.
The duplication or multiplication of the persons is an expression of
their significance, _i.e._ of the stored-up libido.[163] (Compare the
duplication of the attribute in dementia præcox in my "Psychology of
Dementia Præcox.") In cults and mythologies the significance of this
duplication is very striking. (Cp. the Trinity and the two mystical
formulas of confession: "Isis una quæ es omnia. Hermes omnia solus
et ter unus.") Proverbially we say he eats, drinks, or sleeps "for
two." The multiplication of the personality expresses also an analogy
or comparison--_my friend_ has the same "ætiological value" (Freud)
as _myself_. In dementia præcox, or schizophrenia, to use Bleuler's
wider and better term, the multiplication of the personality is mainly
the expression of the stored-up libido, for it is invariably the
person to whom the patient has transference who is subjected to this
multiplication. ("There are two professors N." "Oh, you are also Dr.
J.; this morning another came to see me who called himself Dr. J.") It
seems that, corresponding to the general tendency in schizophrenia,
this splitting is an analytic degradation whose motive is to prevent
the arousing of too violent impressions. A final significance of the
multiplication of personality which, however, does not come exactly
under this concept is the raising of some attribute of the person to a
living figure. A simple instance is Dionysos and his companion Phales,
wherein Phales is the equivalent of Phallos, the personification of
the penis of Dionysos. The so-called attendants of Dionysos (Satyri,
Sileni, Mænades, Mimallones, etc.) consist of the personification of the
attributes of Dionysos.
The scene in Andermatt is portrayed with a nice wit, or more properly
speaking, dreamt further: "The teacher steals chestnuts," that is
equivalent to saying he does what is prohibited. By chestnuts is meant
roasted chestnuts, which on account of the incision are known as a
female sexual symbol. Thus the remark of the teacher, that he was
especially glad to travel with his pupils, following directly upon
the theft of the chestnuts, becomes intelligible. This theft of the
chestnuts is certainly a personal interpolation, for it does not occur
in any of the other accounts. It shows how intensive was the inner
participation of the school companions of Marie X. in the dream, resting
upon similar ætiological requirements.
This is the last of the aural witnesses. The story of the veil, the
pain in the feet, are items which we may perhaps suspect to have been
suggested in the original narrative. Other interpolations are, however,
absolutely personal, and are due to independent inner participation in
the meaning of the dream.
HEARSAY EVIDENCE.
(I.) The whole school had to go bathing with the teacher. M. X. had
no place in the bath in which to undress. Then the teacher said: "You
can come into my room and undress with me." She must have felt very
uncomfortable. When both were undressed they went into the lake. The
teacher took a long rope and wound it round M. Then they both swam far
out. But M. got tired, and then the teacher took her upon his back.
Then M. saw Lina P.; she called out to her, Come along with me, and Lina
came. Then they all swam out still farther. They met a ship. Then the
teacher asked, "May we get in? these girls are tired." The boat stopped,
and they could all get up. I do not know exactly how they came ashore
again at K. Then the teacher got an old night-shirt. He put it on. Then
he met an old friend who was celebrating his wedding. The teacher, M.
and L. were invited. The wedding was celebrated at the Crown in K. They
wanted to play the polonaise. The teacher said he would not accompany
them. Then the others said he might as well. He did it with M. The
teacher said: "I shall not go home again to my wife and children. I love
you best, M." She was greatly pleased. After the wedding there was the
honeymoon journey. The teacher, M. and L. had to accompany the others
also. The journey was to Milan. Afterwards they went to Andermatt, where
they could find no place to sleep. They went to a barn, where they could
stop the night all together. I must not say any more because it becomes
highly improper.
_Remarks._--The undressing in the swimming-bath is properly detailed.
The union in the water receives a further simplification for which the
story of the rope led the way; the teacher fastens himself to Marie.
Lina P. is not mentioned at all; she only comes later when Marie is
already sitting upon the teacher. The dress is here a jacket. The
wedding ceremony contains a very direct meaning. "The teacher will not
go home any more to wife and child." Marie is the darling. In the barn
they all found a place together, and then it becomes highly improper.
(II.) It was said that she had gone with the school to the
swimming-baths to bathe. But as the baths were over-full the teacher had
called her to come to him. We swam out to the lake, and L. P. followed
us. Then the teacher took a string and bound us to one another. I do not
know now exactly how they again got separated. But after a long time
they suddenly arrived at Z. There a scene is said to have taken place
which I would rather not tell, for if it were true it would be too
disgraceful; also now I don't know exactly how it is said to have been,
for I was very tired, only I also heard that M. X. is said to have told
how she was always to remain with our teacher, and he again and again
caressed her as his favourite pupil. If I knew exactly I would also say
the other thing, but my sister only said something about a little child
which was born there, and of which the teacher was said to have been the
godfather.
_Remarks._--Note that in this story the improper scene is inserted in
the place of the wedding ceremony, where it is as apposite as at the
end, for the attentive reader will certainly have already observed
that the improper scene could have taken place in the swimming-bath
dressing-room. The procedure has been adopted which is so frequent
in dreams as a whole; the final thoughts of a long series of dream
images contain exactly what the first image of the series was trying
to represent. The censor pushes the complex away as long as possible
through ever-renewed disguises, displacements, innocent renderings,
etc. It does not take place in the bathing-room, in the water the
"getting up" does not occur, on landing it is not on the teacher's back
that the girls are sitting, it is another pair who are married in the
barn, another girl has the child, and the teacher is only--godfather.
All these images and situations are, however, directed to pick out the
complex, the desire for coitus. Nevertheless the action still occurs at
the back of all these metamorphoses, and the result is the birth placed
at the end of the scene.
(III.) Marie said: the teacher had a wedding with his wife, and they
went to the "Crown" and danced with one another. M. said a lot of wild
things which I cannot repeat or write about, for it is too embarrassing.
_Remarks._--Here everything is too improper to be told. Note that the
marriage takes place with the wife.
(IV.) ... that the teacher and M. once went bathing, and he asked M.
whether she wanted to come along too. She said "yes." When they had gone
out together they met L. P., and the teacher asked whether she wished to
come along. And they went out farther. Then I also heard that she said
that the teacher said L. P. and she were the favourite pupils. She also
told us that the teacher was in his swimming drawers. Then they went to
a wedding, and the bride got a little child.
_Remarks._--The personal relationship to the teacher is strongly
emphasised (the "favourite pupils"), likewise the want of clothing
("swimming drawers").
(V.) M. and L. P. went bathing with the teacher. When M. and L. P. and
the teacher had swum a little way, M. said: "I cannot go any further,
teacher, my foot hurts me." Then the teacher said she should sit on his
back, which M. did. Then a small steamer came along, and the teacher
got into the ship. The teacher had also two ropes, and he fastened both
children to the ship. Then they went together to Z. and got out there.
Then the teacher bought himself a dressing jacket and put it on, and the
children had put a cloth over themselves. The teacher had a bride, and
they were in a barn. Both children were with the teacher and the bride
in the barn, and danced. I must not write the other thing, for it is too
awful.
_Remarks._--Here Marie sits upon the teacher's back. The teacher fastens
the two children by ropes to the ship, from which it can be seen how
easily ship is put for teacher. The jacket again emerges as the piece of
clothing. It was the teacher's own wedding, and what is improper comes
after the dance.
(VI.) The teacher is said to have gone bathing with the whole school. M.
could not find any room, and she cried. The teacher is said to have told
M. she could come into his dressing-room.
"I must leave out something here and there," said my sister, "for it is
a long story." But she told me something more which I must tell in order
to speak the truth. When they were in the bath the teacher asked M. if
she wished to swim out into the lake with him. To which she replied, "If
I go along, you come also." Then we swam until about half-way. Then M.
got tired, and then the teacher pulled her by a cord. At K. they went on
land, and from there to Z. (The teacher was all the time dressed as in
the bath.) There we met a friend, whose wedding it was. We were invited
by this friend. After the ceremony there was a honeymoon journey, and
we came to Milan. We had to pass one night in a barn where something
occurred which I cannot say. The teacher said we were his favourite
pupils, and he also kissed M.
_Remarks._--The excuse "I must leave out something here and there"
replaces the undressing. The teacher's want of clothing is emphasised.
The journey to Milan is a typical honeymoon. This passage also seems
to be an independent fancy, due to some personal participation. Marie
clearly figures as the loved one.
(VII.) The whole school and the teacher went bathing. They all went
into one room. The teacher also. M. alone had no place, and the teacher
said to her, "I have still room," she went. Then the teacher said, "Lie
on my back, I will swim out into the lake with you." I must not write
any more, for it is improper; I can hardly say it at all. Beyond the
improper part which followed I do not know any more of the dream.
_Remarks._--The narrator approaches the basis. Marie is to lie upon the
teacher's back in the bathing compartment. Beyond the improper part she
cannot give any more of the dream.
(VIII.) The whole school went bathing. M. had no room and was invited
by the teacher into his compartment. The teacher swam out with her and
told her that she was his darling or something like that. When they got
ashore at Z. a friend was just having a wedding and he invited them both
in their swimming costumes. The teacher found an old dressing jacket and
put it over the swimming drawers. He (the teacher) also kissed M. and
said he would not return home to his wife any more. They were also both
invited on the honeymoon journey. On the journey they passed Andermatt,
where they could not find any place to sleep, and so had to sleep in
the hay. There was a woman; the dreadful part now comes, it is not at
all right to make something serious into mockery and laughter. This
woman got a small child. I will not say any more now, for it becomes too
dreadful.
_Remarks._--The narrator is thoroughgoing. (He told her simply she was
his darling. He kissed her and said he would not go home to his wife.)
The vexation about the silly tattling which breaks through at the end
suggests some peculiarity in the narrator. From subsequent investigation
it was found that this girl was the only one of the witnesses who had
been early and intentionally given an explanation about sex by her
mother.
EPICRISIS.
So far as the interpretation of the dream is concerned, there is nothing
for me to add; the children have taken care of all the essentials,
leaving practically nothing over for psychoanalytic interpretation.
_Rumour has analysed and interpreted the dream._ So far as I know
rumour has not hitherto been investigated in this new capacity. This
case certainly makes it appear worth while to fathom the psychology of
rumour. In the presentation of the material I have purposely restricted
myself to the psychoanalytic point of view, although I do not deny that
my material offers numerous openings for the invaluable researches of
the followers of Stern, Claparède, and others.
The material enables us to understand the structure of the rumour, but
psychoanalysis cannot rest satisfied with that. The why and wherefore
of the whole manifestation demands further knowledge. As we have
seen, the teacher, astonished by this rumour, was left puzzled by the
problem, wondering as to its cause and effect. How can a dream which
is notoriously incorrect and meaningless (for teachers are, as is well
known, grounded in psychology) produce such effects, such malicious
gossip? Faced by this, the teacher seems to have instinctively hit upon
the correct answer. The effect of the dream can only be explained by its
being "le vrai mot de la situation," _i.e._ that the dream formed the
fit expression for something that was already in the air. It was the
spark which fell into the powder magazine. The material contains all
the proofs essential for this view. I have repeatedly drawn attention
to their own unrecognised participation in the dream by Marie's
school-companions, and the special points of interest where any of them
have added their own phantasies or dreams. The class consists of girls
between twelve and thirteen years of age, who therefore are in the midst
of the prodromata of puberty. The dreamer Marie X. is herself physically
almost completely developed sexually, and in this respect ahead of her
class; she is therefore a leader who has given the watchword for the
unconscious, and thus brought to expression the sexual complexes of her
companions which were lying there ready prepared.
As can be easily understood, the occasion was most painful to the
teacher. The supposition that therein lay some secret motive of the
schoolgirls is justified by the psychoanalytic axiom--judge actions by
their results rather than by their conscious motives.[164] Consequently
it would be probable that Marie X. had been especially troublesome to
her teacher. Marie at first liked this teacher most of all. In the
course of the latter half-year her position had, however, changed. She
had become dreamy and inattentive, and towards the dusk of evening was
afraid to go into the streets for fear of bad men. She talked several
times to her companions about sexual things in a somewhat obscene way;
her mother asked me anxiously how she should explain the approaching
menstruation to her daughter. On account of this alteration in conduct
Marie had forfeited the good opinion of her teacher, as was clearly
evidenced for the first time by a school report, which she and some of
her friends had received a few days before the outbreak of the rumour.
The disappointment was so great that the girls had imagined all kinds of
fancied acts of revenge against the teacher; for instance, they might
push him on to the lines so that the train would run over him, etc.
Marie was especially to the fore in these murderous phantasies. On the
night of this great outburst of anger, when her former liking for her
teacher seemed quite forgotten, that repressed part of herself announced
itself in the dream, and fulfilled its desire for sexual union with the
teacher--as a compensation for the hate which had filled the day.
On waking, the dream became a subtle instrument of her hatred, because
the wish-idea was also that of her school companions, as it always is in
rumours of this kind. Revenge certainly had its triumph, but the recoil
upon Marie herself was still more severe. Such is the rule when our
impulses are given over to the unconscious. Marie X. was expelled from
school, but upon my report she was allowed to return to it.
I am well aware that this little communication is inadequate and
unsatisfactory from the point of view of exact science. Had the original
story been accurately verified we should have clearly demonstrated what
we have now been only able to suggest. This case therefore only posits
a question, and it remains for happier observers to collect convincing
experiences in this field.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 161: "Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse," 1911, vol. I., p. 81.]
[Footnote 162: Author's italics.]
[Footnote 163: This also holds good for any objects that are repeated.]
[Footnote 164: See "The Association Method," Lecture III.]
CHAPTER V
ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBER-DREAMS[165]
The symbolism of numbers which greatly engaged the imaginative
philosophy of earlier centuries has again acquired a fresh interest from
the analytic investigations of Freud and his school. But in the material
of number-dreams we no longer discover conscious puzzles of symbolic
concatenations of numbers but the unconscious roots of the symbolism of
numbers. There is scarcely anything quite fundamentally new to offer
in this sphere since the presentations of Freud, Adler and Stekel. It
must here suffice to corroborate their experiences by recording parallel
cases. I have had under observation a few cases of this kind which are
worth reporting for their general interest.
The first three instances are from a middle-aged married man whose
conflict of the moment was an extra-conjugal love affair. The piece
of the dream from which I take the symbolised number is: _in front of
the manager his general subscription. The manager comments on the high
number of the subscription. It reads 2477._
The analysis of the dream brings out a rather ungentlemanly reckoning up
of the expense of the affair, which is foreign to the generous nature
of the dreamer, and which the unconscious makes use of as a resistance
to this affair. The preliminary interpretation is, therefore, that the
number has some financial importance and origin. A rough estimate of the
expenses so far leads to a number which in fact approaches 2477 francs;
a more exact reckoning, however, gives 2387 francs, which could be only
arbitrarily translated into 2477. I then left the numbers to the free
association of the patient; it occurs to him that the figure in the
dream should be divided as 24-77. Perhaps it is a telephone number; this
supposition proves incorrect. The next association is that it is the
total of some numbers. A reminiscence then occurs to him that he once
told me that he had celebrated the 100th birthday of his mother and
himself when his mother was 65 and he was 35 years old. (Their birthdays
are on the same day.)
In this way the patient arrived at the following series of
associations:--
He is born on 26 II.
His mistress 28 VIII.
His wife 1 III.
His mother (his father is long dead) 26 II.
His two children 29 IV.
and 13 VII.
The patient is born II. 75.
His mistress VIII. 85.
He is now 36 years old, his mistress 25.
If this series of associations is written in the usual figures, the
following addition is arrived at:--
26. II. = 262
28. VIII. = 288
1. III. = 13
26. II. = 262
29. IV. = 294
13. VII. = 137
II. 75. = 275
VIII. 85 = 885
25 = 25
36 = 36
----
2477
This series, which includes all the members of his family, gives the
number 2477.
This construction led to a deeper layer of the dream's meaning. The
patient is most closely united to his family, but on the other hand very
much in love. This situation provokes a severe conflict. The detailed
description of the manager's appearance (which I leave out for the sake
of brevity) pointed to the analyst, from whom the patient rightly fears
and desires firm control and criticism of his condition of dependence
and bondage.
The dream which followed soon afterwards, reported in brief, runs: _The
analyst asks the patient what he actually does at his mistress'? to
which the patient replied he plays there, and that indeed on a very high
number, on 152. The analyst remarks: "You are sadly cheated."_
The analysis displayed again a repressed tendency to reckon up the
expense of the affair. The amount spent monthly was close on 152 francs,
it was from 148-158 francs. The remark that he was being cheated
alludes to the point at issue in the difficulties of the patient with
his mistress. She maintains that he had deflowered her; he, on the
contrary, is firmly convinced that she was not a virgin, and that she
had already been seduced by some one else at the time when he was
seeking her favours and she was refusing him. The expression "number"
leads to the associations: number of the gloves, calibre-number. From
there the next step was to the fact that he recognized, at the first
coitus, a noticeable width of the opening instead of the expected
resistance of the hymen. To him, this is proof of the deception. The
unconscious naturally makes use of this opportunity as an effective
means of opposition to the relationship. 152 proves at first refractory
to further analysis. The number on a subsequent occasion aroused the
really not remote association, "house-number." Then came this series of
associations. When the patient first knew her the lady lived at X Street
No. 17, then Y Street No. 129, then Z Street No. 48.
Here the patient thought that he had clearly gone far beyond 152, the
total being 194. It then occurred to him that the lady had removed
from No. 48 Z Street at his instigation for certain reasons; it must
therefore run 194 - 48 = 146. She now lives in A Street No. 6, therefore
146 + 6 = 152.
The following dream was obtained during a later part of the analysis.
The patient dreamt that _he had received an account from the analyst
in which he was charged interest for delay in payment from the period
September 3rd to 29th. The interest on the total of 315 francs was 1
franc._
Under this reproach of meanness and avariciousness levelled at the
analyst, the patient covered, as analysis proved, a violent unconscious
envy. Diverse things in the life of the analyst can arouse the patient's
envy; one fact here in particular had recently made a marked impression.
His physician had received an addition to the family. The disturbed
relations between the patient and his wife unfortunately does not permit
such an expectation in his case. Hence his ground for envy and invidious
comparisons.
As before, the analysis of 315 produces a separation into 3--1--5. To
three he associates--his doctor has three children, just lately there is
one in addition. He himself would have five children were all living; as
it is he has 3 - 1 = 2 living; for three of the children were stillborn.
The symbolism of the numbers is not exhausted by these associations.
The patient remarks that the period from 3rd to 29th September contains
twenty-six days. His next thought is to add this and the other figures
of the dream:
26
315
1
___
342
___
With 342 he carries out the same operation as on 315, splitting it into
3--4--2. Whereas before it came out that his doctor had three children,
and then had another, and the patient had five, now it runs: the doctor
had three children, and now has four, patient has only two. He remarks
on this that the second figure sounds like a rectification in contrast
with the wish-fulfilment of the first.
The patient, who had discovered this explanation for himself without
my help, declared himself satisfied. His physician, however, was not;
to him it seemed that the above disclosures did not exhaust the rich
possibilities that determined the unconscious images. The patient had,
for instance, added to the figure five that of the stillborn children;
one was born in the 9th month and two in the 7th. He also emphasised the
fact that his wife had had two miscarriages, one in the 5th week and the
other in the 7th. Adding these figures together we get the determination
of the number 26.
Child of 7 months
" " 7 "
" " 9 "
__
23 "
2 miscarriages (5 + 7 weeks) 3 "
__
26 "
__
It seems as if the number twenty-six were determined by the number of
the lost times of pregnancy. This time (twenty-six days) denotes, in the
dream, a delay for which the patient was charged one franc interest.
He has, in fact, suffered a delay through the lost pregnancies, for
his doctor has, during the time the patient has known him, surpassed
him with one child. One franc must be one child. We have already seen
the tendency of the patient to add together all his children, even the
dead ones, in order to outdo his rival. The thought that his physician
had outdone him by one child could easily react immediately upon the
determination of 1. We will therefore follow up this tendency of the
patient and carry on his play with figures, by adding to the figure 26
the two complete pregnancies of nine months each.
26 + 9 + 9 = 44
If we follow the tendency to split up the numbers we get 2 + 6 and 4 +
4, two groups of figures which have only this in common, that each group
gives 8 by addition. These numbers are, as we must notice, composed
entirely of the months of pregnancy given by the patient. Compare with
them those groups of figures which contain the information as to
the doctor's fecundity, viz. 315 and 342; it is to be noted that the
resemblance lies in their sum-total giving 9 : 9 - 8 = 1. It looks as
if here likewise the notion about the differentiation of 1 were carried
out. As the patient remarked, 315 seems thus a wish-fulfilment, 342 on
the other hand a rectification. An ingenious fancy playing round will
discover the following difference between the two numbers:
3 × 1 × 5 = 15. 3 × 4 × 2 = 24. 24 - 15 = 9
Here again we come upon the important figure 9, which neatly combines
the reckoning of the pregnancies and births.
It is difficult to say where the borderline of play begins; necessarily
so, for the unconscious product is the creation of a sportive fancy, of
that psychic impulse out of which play itself arises. It is repugnant
to the scientific mind to have serious dealings with this element of
play, which on all sides loses itself in the vague. But it must be never
forgotten that the human mind has for thousands of years amused itself
with just this kind of game; it were therefore nothing wonderful if this
historic past again compelled admission in dream to similar tendencies.
The patient pursues in his waking life similar phantastic tendencies
about figures, as is seen in the fact already mentioned of the
celebration of the 100th birthday. Their presence in the dream therefore
need not surprise us. In a single example of unconscious determination
exact proofs are often lacking, but the sum of our experiences entitles
us to rely upon the accuracy of the individual discoveries. In the
investigation of free creative phantasy we are in the region, almost
more than anywhere else, of broad empiricism; a high measure of
discretion as to the accuracy of individual results is consequently
required, but this in nowise obliges us to pass over in silence what is
active and living, for fear of being execrated as unscientific. There
must be no parleying with the superstition-phobia of the modern mind;
for this itself is a means by which the secrets of the unconscious are
kept veiled.
It is of special interest to see how the problems of the patient are
mirrored in the unconscious of his wife. His wife had the following
dream: She dreamt, and this is the whole dream: "_Luke_ 137." The
analysis of the number gives the following. To 1 she associates: The
doctor has another child. He had three. If all her children were living
she would have 7; now she has only 3 - 1 = 2. But she desires 1 + 3 +
7 = 11 (a twin number, 1 and 1), which expresses her wish that her two
children had been pairs of twins, for then she would have reached the
same number of children as the doctor. Her mother once had twins. The
hope of getting a child by her husband is very precarious; this had
for a long time turned her ideas in the unconscious towards a second
marriage. Other phantasies pictured her as "done with," _i.e._ having
reached the climacteric at 44. She is now 33 years old, therefore in
11 years she will have reached her 44th year. This is an important
period as her father died in his 44th year. Her phantasy of the 44th
year contains the idea of the death of her father. The emphasis on the
death of her father corresponds to the repressed phantasy of the death
of her husband, who is the obstacle to a second marriage. At this place
the material belonging to the dream "_Luke_ 137" comes in to solve the
conflict. The dreamer is, one soon discovers, in no wise well up in her
Bible, she has not read it for an incredible time, she is not at all
religious. It would be therefore quite purposeless to have recourse to
associations here. The dreamer's ignorance of her Bible is so great that
she did not even know that the citation "_Luke_ 137" could only refer to
the Gospel of St. Luke. When she turned up the New Testament she came
to the Acts of the Apostles. As chapter i. has only 26 verses and not
37, she took the 7th verse, "It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."
But if we turn to Luke i. 37, we find the Annunciation of the Virgin.
Verse 35. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the
Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
Verse 36. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a
son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called
barren.
Verse 37. For with God nothing shall be impossible.
The necessary continuation of the analysis of "_Luke_ 137" demanded the
looking up of Luke xiii. 7, where it says:
Verse 6. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he
came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.
Verse 7. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these
three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it
down; why cumbereth it the ground?
The fig-tree, which from antiquity has been a symbol of the male
genital, is to be cut down on account of its unfruitfulness. This
passage is in complete accord with innumerable sadistic phantasies of
the dreamer, concerned with the cutting or biting off of the penis.
The relation to her husband's unfruitful organ is obvious. That she
withdraws her libido from her husband is clear for he is impotent as
regard herself; it is equally clear that she undergoes regression to the
father ("which the father hath put in his own power") and identifies
herself with her mother who had twins.[166] By thus advancing her age
the dreamer places her husband in regard to herself in the position of
a son or boy, of an age at which impotency is normal. Furthermore, the
desire to overcome her husband is easily understood from, and amply
evidenced in her earlier analysis. It is therefore only a confirmation
of what has been already said, if, following up the matter of "_Luke_
137," we find in Luke vii. verse 12, Now when he came nigh to the gate
of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of
his mother, and she was a widow. (13) And when the Lord saw her, he had
compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. (14) And he came and
touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young
man, I say unto thee, Arise.
In the particular psychological situation of the dreamer, the allusion
to the resurrection presents a delightful meaning as the cure of her
husband's impotency. Then the whole problem would be solved. There is no
need for me to point out in so many words the numerous wish-fulfilments
contained in this material; they are obvious to the reader.
The important combination of the symbol "_Luke_ 137" must be conceived
as cryptomnesia, since the dreamer is quite unversed in the Bible.
Both Flournoy[167] and myself[168] have already drawn attention to the
important effects of this phenomenon. So far as one can be humanly
certain, the question of any manipulation of the material with intent to
deceive does not come into consideration in this case. Those well posted
in psychoanalysis will be able to allay any such suspicion simply from
the disposition and setting of the material as a whole.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 165: "Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse," 1911, p. 567.
Translator, Dr. M. D. Eder.]
[Footnote 166: The husband's principal conflict is a pronounced
mother-complex.]
[Footnote 167: Flournoy, "Des Indes à la Planète Mars." Idem: "Nouvelles
observations sur un cas de somnambulisme," _Arch. de Pyschol._, vol. I.]
[Footnote 168: See chapter I, p. 86.]
CHAPTER VI
A CRITICISM OF BLEULER'S "THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIC NEGATIVISM"[169]
Bleuler's work contains a noteworthy clinical analysis of "Negativism."
Besides giving a very precise and discerning summary of the various
manifestations of negativism, the author presents us with a new
psychological conception well worthy of attention, viz. the concept of
_ambivalency_ and of _ambitendency_, thus formulating the psychological
axiom that every tendency is balanced by its opposite tendency (to this
must be added that positive action is produced by _a comparatively small
leaning to one side of the scale_). Similarly all other tendencies,
under the stress of emotions, are balanced by their opposites--thus
giving an _ambivalent_ character to their expression. This theory rests
on clinical observation of katatonic negativism, which more than proves
the existence of contrasting tendencies and values. These facts are well
known to psychoanalysis, where they are summed up under the concept of
resistance. But this must not be taken as meaning that every positive
psychic action simply calls up its opposite. One may easily gain the
impression from Bleuler's work that his standpoint is that, _cum grano
salis_, the conception or the tendency of the Schizophrenic is always
accompanied by its opposite. For instance, Bleuler says:--
1. "Disposing causes of negativistic phenomena are: the _ambitendency_
by which every impulse is accompanied by its opposite."
2. "_Ambivalency_, which gives two opposed emotional expressions to the
same idea, and would regard that idea as positive and negative at the
same time."
3. "_The schizophrenic splitting_ of the psyche prevents any final
summing up of the conflicting and corresponding psychisms, so that the
unsuitable impulse can be realised just as much as the right one, and
the negative thought substituted for the right one." "On this theory,
negative manifestations may directly arise, since non-selected positive
and negative psychisms may stand for one another," and so on.
If we investigate psychoanalytically a case of obvious ambivalency,
_i.e._ of a more or less unexpected negative reaction instead of a
positive one, we find that there is a strict sequence of psychological
causes conditioning negative reaction. The tendency of this sequence is
to disturb the intention of the contrasting or opposite series, that is
to say, _it is resistance set up by a complex_. This fact, which has not
yet been refuted by any other observations, seems to me to contradict
the above-mentioned formulæ. (For confirmation, see my "Psychology
of Dementia Præcox," p. 103.) Psychoanalysis has proved conclusively
that a resistance always has an intention and a meaning; that there is
no such thing as a capricious playing with contrasts. The systematic
character of resistance holds good, as I believe I have proved, even in
schizophrenia. So long as this position, founded upon a great variety
of experience, is not disproved by any other observations, the theory
of negativism must adapt itself to it. Bleuler in a sense supports this
when he says: "For the most part the negative reaction does not simply
appear as accidental, _but is actually preferred to the right one_."
This is an admission that negativism is of the nature of resistance.
Once admit this, and the primary importance of ambivalency disappears
so far as negativism is concerned. The tendency to resistance remains
as the only fundamental principle. Ambivalency can in no sense be put
on all fours with the "schizophrenic splitting of the psyche," but must
be regarded as a concept which gives expression to the universal and
ever-present inner association of pairs of opposites. (One of the most
remarkable examples of this is the "contrary meaning of root-words."
See Freud's "Essay on Dreams," Jahrbuch, vol. II., p. 179.) The same
thing applies to ambitendency. Neither is specific of schizophrenia, but
applies equally to the neuroses and the normal. All that is specific to
katatonic negativism is _the intentional contrast, i.e. the resistance_.
From this explanation we see that resistance is something different
from ambivalency; it is the dynamic factor which makes manifest the
everywhere latent ambivalency. What is characteristic of the diseased
mind is not ambivalency but resistance. This implies the existence
of a conflict between two opposite tendencies which has succeeded in
raising the normally present ambivalency into a struggle of opposing
components. (Freud has very aptly called this, "The separation of pairs
of opposites.") In other words it is a conflict of wills, bringing about
the neurotic condition of "disharmony within the self." This condition
is the only "splitting of the psyche" known to us, and is not so much
to be regarded as a predisposing cause, but rather as a manifestation
resulting from the inner conflict--the "incompatibility of the complex"
(Riklin).
_Resistance_, as the fundamental fact of schizophrenic dissociation,
thus becomes something which, in contra-distinction to ambivalency, is
not _eo ipso_ identical with the concept of the state of feeling, but
is a secondary and supplementary one, with its own special and _quasi_
independent psychological development; and this is identical with the
necessary previous history of the complex in every case. It follows that
the theory of negativism coincides with the theory of the complex, as
the complex is the cause of the resistance.
Bleuler summarises the causes of negativism as follows:
(_a_) The autistic retirement of the patient into his own
phantasies.
(_b_) The existence of a life-wound (complex) which must be
protected from injury.
(_c_) The misconception of the environment and of its meaning.
(_d_) The directly hostile relation to environment.
(_e_) The pathological irritability of schizophrenics.
(_f_) The "press of ideas," and other aggravations of action and
thought.
(_g_) Sexuality with its ambivalency on the emotional plane is
often one of the roots of negative reaction.
* * * * *
(_a_) Autistic withdrawal into one's own phantasies[170] is what I
formerly designated as the obvious overgrowth of the phantasies of
the complex. The strengthening of the complex is coincident with the
increase of the resistance.
(_b_) The life-wound (_Lebenswund_) is the complex which, as a matter
of course, is present in every case of schizophrenia, and of necessity
always carries with it the phenomena of autism or auto-erotism
(introversion), for complexes and involuntary egocentricity are
inseparable reciprocities. Points (_a_) and (_b_) are therefore
identical. (_Cf._ "Psychology of Dementia Præcox," chapters ii. and iii.)
(_c_) It is proved that the misconception of environment is an
assimilation of the complex.
(_d_) The hostile relation to environment is the maximum of resistance
as psychoanalysis clearly shows. (_d_) goes with (_a_).
(_e_) "Irritability" proves itself psychoanalytically to be one of the
commonest results of the complex. I designated it _complex-sensibility_.
Its generalised form (if one may use such an expression) manifests
itself as a damming up of the affect (= damming of the _libido_),
consequent on increased resistance. So-called neurasthenia is a
classical example of this.
(_f_) Under the term "press of ideas," and similar intellectual
troubles, may be classified the "want of clearness and logic of the
schizophrenic thinking," which Bleuler considers a predisposing
cause. I have, as I may presume is known, expressed myself with much
reserve on what he regards as the premeditation of the schizophrenic
adjustment. Further and wider experience has taught me that the laws
of the Freudian psychology of dreams and the theory of the neuroses
must be turned towards the obscurities of schizophrenic thinking. _The
painfulness of the elaborated complex necessitates a censorship of its
expression._[171] This principle has to be applied to schizophrenic
disturbance in thinking; and until it has been proved that this
principle is not applicable to schizophrenia, there is no justification
for setting up a new principle; _i.e._ to postulate that schizophrenic
disturbance of ideas is something primary. Investigations of hypnagogic
activity, as well as association reactions in states of concentrated
attention, give psychical results which up to now are indistinguishable
from the mental conditions in schizophrenia. For example excessive
relaxation of attention suffices to conjure up images as like as two
peas to the phantasies and expressions of schizophrenia. It will
be remembered that I have attributed the notorious disturbances of
attention in schizophrenia to the special character of the complex; an
idea which my experience since 1906 have further confirmed. There are
good reasons for believing specific schizophrenic thought-disturbance to
be the _result of a complex_.
Now as regards the symptoms of thought-pressure, it is first and
foremost a thought-compulsion, which, as Freud has shown, is first a
thought-complex and secondly a _sexualisation of the thought_. Then
to the symptom of thought-pressure there is superadded at least a
_demoniac_ impulse such as _may be observed in every vigorous release or
production of libido_.
Thought-pressure, on closer examination, is seen to be a result of
schizophrenic introversion, which necessarily leads to a sexualisation
of the thought; _i.e._ to an autonomy of the complex.[172]
(_g_) _The transition to sexuality_ appears from the psychoanalytical
standpoint difficult to understand. If we consider that the development
of resistance coincides in every case with the history of the
complex we must ask ourselves: Is the complex sexual or not? (It
goes without saying that we must understand sexuality in its proper
sense of psycho-sexuality.) To this question psychoanalysis gives the
invariable answer: _Resistance always springs from a peculiar sexual
development_. The latter leads in the well-known manner to conflict,
_i.e._ to the complex. Every case of schizophrenia which has so far
been analysed confirms this. It can therefore claim at least to be a
working hypothesis, and one to be followed up. In the present state
of our knowledge, it is therefore not easy to see why Bleuler only
allows to sexuality a _quasi_-determining influence on the phenomena of
negativism; for psychoanalysis demonstrates that the cause of negativism
is resistance; and that with schizophrenia, as with all other neuroses,
this arises from the peculiar sexual development.
It can scarcely be doubted to-day that schizophrenia, with its
preponderance of the mechanisms of introversion, possesses the same
mechanism as any other "psycho-neurosis." In my opinion, at any
rate, its peculiar symptoms (apart from the clinical and anatomical
standpoints) are only to be studied by psychoanalysis, _i.e._ when
the investigation is mainly directed to the genetic impetus. I have,
therefore, endeavoured to indicate how Bleuler's hypothesis stands in
the light of the theory of complexes; I feel myself bound to emphasise
the complex-theory in this relation, and am not disposed to surrender
this conception, which is as illuminating as it was difficult to evolve.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 169: "Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische
Forschungen," vol. III. 1912. Translator, Dr. M. D. Eder.]
[Footnote 170: Autism (Bleuler) = Auto-erotism (Freud). For some time I
have employed the concept of _introversion_ for this condition.]
[Footnote 171: Hence the replacing of the complex by its corresponding
symbol.]
[Footnote 172: See "Psychology of Dementia Præcox," chapters iv. and v.]
CHAPTER VII
PSYCHOANALYSIS[173]
Psychoanalysis is not only scientific, but also technical in character;
and from results technical in their nature, has been developed a new
psychological science which might be called "analytical psychology."
Psychologists and doctors in general are by no means conversant
with this particular branch of psychology, owing to the fact that
its technical foundations are as yet comparatively unknown to them.
Reason for this may be found in that the new method is exquisitely
psychological, and therefore belongs neither to the realm of medicine
nor to that of experimental psychology. The medical man has, as a rule,
but little knowledge of psychology; and the psychologist has no medical
knowledge. There is therefore a lack of suitable soil in which to plant
the spirit of this new method. Furthermore, the method itself appears
to many persons so arbitrary that they cannot reconcile it with their
scientific conscience. The conceptions of Freud, the founder of this
method, laid particular stress upon the sexual factor; this fact has
aroused strong prejudice, and many scientific men are repelled merely
by this feeling. I need hardly remark that such an antipathy is not a
logical ground for rejecting a new method. The facts being so, it is
obvious that the psychoanalyst should discuss the principles rather than
the results of his method, when he speaks in public; for he who does not
acknowledge the scientific character of the method cannot acknowledge
the scientific character of its results.
Before I enter into the principles of the psychoanalytic method, I must
mention two common prejudices against it.
The first of these is that psychoanalysis is nothing but a somewhat
deep and complicated form of anamnesis. Now it is well known that the
anamnesis is based upon the evidence supplied by the patient's family,
and upon his own conscious self-knowledge, revealed in reply to direct
questions. The psychoanalyst naturally develops his anamnesic data as
carefully as any other specialist; but this is merely the patient's
history, and must not be confused with analysis. Analysis is the
reduction of an actual conscious content of a so-called accidental
nature, into its psychological determinants. This process has nothing to
do with the anamnesic reconstruction of the history of the illness.
The second prejudice, which is based, as a rule, upon a superficial
knowledge of psychoanalytic literature, is that psychoanalysis is
a method of suggestion, by which a faith or doctrine of living is
imposed upon the patient, thereby effecting a cure in the manner of
mental healing or Christian Science. Many analysts, especially those
who have worked in psychoanalysis for a long time, previously used
therapeutic suggestion, and are therefore familiar with its workings.
They know that the psychoanalyst's method of working is diametrically
opposed to that of the hypnotist. In direct contrast with therapeutic
suggestion, the psychoanalyst does not attempt to force anything upon
his patient which the latter does not see himself, and find reasonable
with his own understanding. Faced with the constant desire on the
part of the neurotic patient to receive suggestions and advice, the
analyst just as constantly endeavours to lead him away from this
passive receptive attitude, and make him use his common sense and
powers of criticism, that equipped with these he may become fitted to
meet the problems of life independently. We have often been accused
of forcing interpretations upon patients, interpretations that were
frequently quite arbitrary in character. I wish that one of these
critics would make the attempt to force such arbitrary interpretations
upon my patients, who are often persons of great intelligence and high
culture, and who are, indeed, not infrequently my own colleagues. The
impossibility of such an undertaking would soon be laid bare. In
psychoanalysis we are dependent upon the patient and his judgment, for
the reason that the very nature of analysis consists in leading him to
a knowledge of his own self. The principles of psychoanalysis are so
entirely different from those of therapeutic suggestion that they are
not comparable.
An attempt has also been made to compare analysis with the reasoning
method of Dubois, which is in itself a rational process. This comparison
does not however hold good, for the psychoanalyst strictly avoids
argument and persuasion with his patients. He must naturally listen to
and take note of the conscious problems and conflicts of his patient,
but not for the purpose of fulfilling his desire to obtain advice or
direction with regard to his conduct. The problems of a neurotic patient
cannot be solved by advice and conscious argument. I do not doubt
that good advice at the right time can produce good results; but I do
not know whence one can obtain the belief that the psychoanalyst can
always give the right advice at the right time. The neurotic conflict
is frequently, indeed as a rule, of such a character that advice cannot
possibly be given. Furthermore, it is well known that the patient only
desires authoritative advice in order that he may cast aside the burden
of responsibility, referring himself and others to the opinion of the
higher authority.
In direct contrast to all previous methods, psychoanalysis endeavours to
overcome the disorders of the neurotic psyche through the subconscious,
not through the conscious self. In this work we naturally have need of
the patient's conscious content, for his subconsciousness can only be
reached _viâ_ the conscious. The material furnished by the anamnesis
is the source from which our work starts. The detailed recital usually
furnishes many valuable clues which make the psychogenic origin of the
symptoms clear to the patient. This work is naturally only necessary
where the patient is convinced that his neurosis is organic in its
origin. But even in those cases where the patient is convinced from the
very first of the psychic nature of his illness, a critical survey
of the history is very advantageous, since it discloses to him a
psychological concatenation of ideas of which he was unaware. In this
manner those problems which need special discussion are frequently
brought to the surface. Work of this kind may occupy many sittings.
Finally the explanation of the conscious material reaches an end, in so
far as neither the patient nor the doctor can add anything to it that
is decisive in character. Under the most favourable circumstances the
end comes with the formulation of the problem which proved itself to be
impossible of solution. Let us take, for instance, the case of a man
who was once well, but who became a neurotic between the age of 35 and
40. His position in life is assured, and he has a wife and children.
Parallel with his neurosis he developed an intense resistance towards
his professional work. He observed that the first symptoms of neurosis
became noticeable when he had to overcome a certain difficulty in regard
to it. Later on his symptoms became aggravated with each successive
difficulty that arose. An amelioration in his neurosis occurred whenever
fortune favoured him in his professional work. The problem that results
from a critical discussion of the anamnesis is as follows:--
The patient is aware that if he could improve his work, the mere
satisfaction that would result could bring about the much-desired
improvement in his neurotic condition. He cannot, however, make his work
more efficient because of his great resistance against it. This problem
cannot be solved by any reasoning process.
Let us take another case. A woman of 40, the mother of four children,
became neurotic four years ago after the death of one of her children.
A new period of pregnancy, followed by the birth of another child,
produced a great improvement in her condition. The patient now lived
in the thought that it would be a great help to her if she could have
yet another child. Believing, however, that this could not happen, she
attempted to devote her energies to philanthropic interests. But she
failed to obtain the least satisfaction from this work. She observed a
distinct alleviation of her complaint whenever she succeeded in giving
real, living interest to any matter, but she felt entirely incapable
of discovering anything that could bring her lasting interest and
satisfaction. It is clear that no process of reasoning can solve this
problem.
Here psychoanalysis must begin with the endeavour to solve the problem
as to what prevents the patient from developing interests above and
beyond her longing for a child.
Since we cannot assume that we know from the very beginning what the
solution of such problems is, we must at this point trust to the clues
furnished us by the individuality of the patient. Neither conscious
questioning nor rational advice can aid us in the discovery of these
clues, for the causes which prevent us from finding them are hidden
from her consciousness. There is, therefore, no clearly indicated path
by which to reach these subconscious inhibitions. The only rule that
psychoanalysis lays down for our guidance in this respect, is to let the
patient speak of that which occurs to him at the moment. The analyst
must observe carefully what the patient says and, in the first instance,
take due note thereof without attempting to force his own opinions upon
him. Thus we observe that the patient whom I first mentioned begins by
talking about his marriage, which we hitherto had reason to regard as
normal. We now learn that he constantly has difficulties with his wife,
and that he does not understand her in the least. This knowledge causes
the physician to remark that the patient's professional work is clearly
not his only problem; but that his conjugal relations are also in need
of revision. This starts a train of thought in which many further ideas
occur to the patient, concerning his married life. Hereupon follow ideas
about the love affairs he had before his marriage. These experiences,
related in detail, show that the patient was always somewhat peculiar
in his more intimate relations with women, and that this peculiarity
took the form of a certain childish egoism. This is a new and surprising
point of view for him, and explains to him many of his misfortunes with
women.
We cannot in every case get so far as this on the simple principle
of letting the patient talk; few patients have their psychic material
so much on the surface. Furthermore, many persons have a positive
resistance against speaking freely about what occurs to them on the
spur of the moment; it is often too painful to tell the doctor whom
perhaps they do not entirely trust; in other cases because apparently
nothing occurs to them, they force themselves to speak of matters about
which they are more or less indifferent. This habit of not talking to
the point by no means proves that patients consciously conceal their
unpleasant contents, for such irrelevant speaking can occur quite
unconsciously. In such cases it sometimes helps the patient if he is
told that he must not force himself, that he must only seize upon the
very first thoughts that present themselves, no matter how unimportant
or ridiculous they may seem. In certain cases even these instructions
are of no use, and then the doctor is obliged to have recourse to other
expedients. One of these is the employment of the association test,
which usually gives excellent information as to the chief momentary
tendencies of the individual.
A second expedient is dream analysis; this is _the real instrument_ of
psychoanalysis. We have already experienced so much opposition to dream
analysis that a brief exposition of its principles is necessary. The
interpretation of dreams, as well as the meaning given to them, is, as
we know, in bad odour. It is not long since that oneirocritics were
practised and believed in; nor is the time long past when even the most
enlightened human beings were entirely under the ban of superstition.
It is therefore comprehensible that our age should still retain a
certain lively fear of those superstitions which have but recently been
partially overcome. To this timidity in regard to superstition, the
opposition to dream analysis is in a large measure due; but analysis is
in no wise to blame for this. We do not select the dream as our object
because we pay it the homage of superstitious admiration, but because it
is a psychic product that is independent of the patient's consciousness.
We ask for the patient's free thoughts, but he gives us little, or
nothing; or at best something forced or irrelevant. Dreams are free
thoughts, free phantasies, they are not forced, and they are psychic
phenomena just as much as thoughts are.
It may be said of the dream that it enters into the consciousness as
a complex structure, the connection between the elements of which is
not conscious. Only by afterwards joining associations to the separate
pictures of the dream, can the origin of these pictures, in certain
recollections of the near and more remote past, be proved. One asks
oneself: "Where have I seen or heard that?" And by the same process of
free association comes the memory that one has actually experienced
certain parts of the dream, some of them yesterday, some at an earlier
date. This is well known, and every one will probably agree to it.
Thus far the dream presents itself, as a rule, as an incomprehensible
composition of certain elements which are not in the first instance
conscious, but which are later recognised by the process of free
association. This might be disputed on the ground that it is an _a
priori_ statement. I must remark, however, that this conception conforms
to the only generally recognised working hypothesis as to the genesis
of dreams, namely, the derivation of the dream from experiences and
thoughts of the recent past. We are, therefore, upon known ground.
Not that certain dream parts have under all circumstances been known
to the individual, so that one might ascribe to them the character of
being conscious; on the contrary, they are frequently, even generally,
unrecognisable. Not until later do we remember having consciously
experienced this or that dream part. We may therefore regard the dream
from this point of view as a product that comes from a subconscious
origin. The technical unfolding of these subconscious sources is a mode
of procedure that has always been instinctively employed. One simply
tries to remember whence the dream parts come. Upon this most simple
principle the psychoanalytic method of solving dreams is based. It
is a fact that certain dream parts are derived from our waking life
and, indeed, from experiences which, owing to their notorious lack of
importance, would frequently have been consigned to certain oblivion,
and were therefore well on their way towards becoming definitely
subconscious. Such dream parts are the results of subconscious
representations (images).
The principles according to which psychoanalysis solves dreams are
therefore exceedingly simple, and have really been known for a long
time. The further procedure follows the same path logically and
consistently. If one spends considerable time over a dream, which
really never happens outside psychoanalysis, one can succeed in finding
more and more recollections for the separate dream parts. It is,
however, not always possible to discover recollections for certain
other parts; and then one must leave them for the time being, whether
one likes it or not. When I speak of "recollections" I naturally do
not mean merely memories of certain concrete experiences, but also of
their inter-related meanings. The collected recollections are known
as the dream material. With this material one proceeds according to a
scientific method that is universally valid. If one has any experimental
material to work up, one compares its separate parts and arranges them
according to their similarities. Exactly the same course is pursued
in dealing with the dream material; one gathers together its common
characteristics, whether these be formal or material. In doing this one
must absolutely get rid of certain prejudices. I have always observed
that the beginner expects to find some tendency or other according
to which he endeavours to mould his material. I have noticed this
particularly in the cases of colleagues who were previously more or
less violent opponents of psychoanalysis, owing to their well-known
prejudices and misunderstandings. When fate willed that I should analyse
them, and they consequently gained at last an insight into the method
of analysis, it was demonstrated that the first mistake which they had
been apt to make in their own psychoanalytic practice was that they
forced the material into accord with their own preconceived opinions;
that is, they allowed their former attitude towards psychoanalysis,
which they were not able to appreciate objectively, but only according
to subjective phantasies, to have its influence upon their material.
If one goes so far as to venture upon the task of examining the dream
material, one must permit no comparison to frighten one away. The
material consists, as a general rule, of very unequal images, from which
it is under some circumstances most difficult to obtain the "tertium
comparationis." I must forego giving you detailed examples of this,
since it is quite impossible to introduce such extensive material into a
lecture.
One pursues, then, the same method in classifying the unconscious
content, as is used everywhere in comparing materials for the purpose
of drawing conclusions from them. One objection has often been made,
namely: why should the dream have a subconscious content at all? This
objection is unscientific in my opinion. Every psychological moment
has its own history. Every sentence that I utter has, besides the
meaning consciously intended by me, a meaning that is historical; and
this last may be entirely different from the conscious meaning. I am
purposely expressing myself somewhat paradoxically. I certainly should
not take it upon myself to explain each sentence according to its
individual-historical meaning. That is easier in the case of larger and
more complex formations. Every one is certainly convinced of the fact
that a poem--in addition to its manifest contents--is also particularly
characteristic of its author, in its form, subject-matter, and the
history of its origin. Whereas the poet gave skilful expression to
a fleeting mood in his song, the historian of literature sees in it
and beyond it, things which the poet would never have suspected. The
analysis which the literary critic makes of the subject-matter furnished
by the poet may be compared with psychoanalysis in its method, even to
the very errors which occur therein. The psychoanalytic method may be
aptly compared with historical analysis and synthesis. Let us assume,
for instance, that we do not understand the meaning of the rite of
baptism as it is practised in our churches to-day. The priest tells
us that baptism means the reception of the child into the Christian
community. But we are not satisfied with this. Why should the child be
sprinkled with water, etc.? In order that we may understand this rite we
must gather together materials for comparison from the history of the
rite, that is, from the memories of mankind appertaining to it; and this
must be done from various points of view.
Firstly--Baptism is clearly a rite of initiation, a consecration.
Therefore those memories, above all, must be assembled which preserve
the rites of initiation.
Secondly--The act of baptism is performed with water. This especial form
of procedure proves the necessity of welding together another chain of
memories concerning rites in which water was used.
Thirdly--The child is sprinkled with water when it is christened. In
this case we must gather together all the forms of the rite, where the
neophyte is sprinkled or where the child is submerged, etc.
Fourthly--We must recollect all the reminiscences in mythology and
all the superstitious customs which are in any respect similar to the
symbolic act of baptism.
In this manner we obtain a comparative study of the act of baptism.
Thus we ascertain the elements from which baptism is derived; we
further ascertain its original meaning, and at the same time make the
acquaintance of a world rich in religious mythology, which makes clear
to us all the multifarious and derived meanings of the act of baptism.
Thus the analyst deals with the dream. He gathers together historical
parallels for each dream part, even though they be very remote and
attempts to construct the psychological history of the dream and the
meanings that underlie it. By this monographic elaboration of the
dream one gains, exactly as in the analysis of the act of baptism, a
deep insight into the wonderfully subtle and significant network of
subconscious determinations; an insight which, as I have said, can only
be compared with the historical understanding of an act that we used
only to consider from a very one-sided and superficial point of view.
I cannot disguise the fact that in practice, especially at the beginning
of an analysis, we do not in all cases make complete and ideal analyses
of dreams, but that we more generally continue to gather together the
dream associations until the problem which the patient hides from us
becomes so clear that even he can recognize it. This problem is then
subjected to conscious elaboration until it is cleared up as far as
possible, and once again we stand before a question that cannot be
answered.
You will now ask what course is to be pursued when the patient does not
dream at all; I can assure you that hitherto all patients, even those
who claimed never to have dreamed before, began to dream when they
went through analysis. But on the other hand it frequently occurs that
patients who began by dreaming vividly are suddenly no longer able to
remember their dreams. The empirical and practical rule, which I have
hitherto regarded as binding, is that the patient, if he does not dream,
has sufficient conscious material, which he keeps back for certain
reasons. A common reason is: "I am in the doctor's hands and am quite
willing to be treated by him. But the doctor must do the work, I shall
remain passive in the matter."
Sometimes the resistances are of a more serious character. For
instance, persons who cannot admit certain morally grave sides to
their characters, project their deficiencies upon the doctor by calmly
presuming that he is more or less deficient morally, and that for this
reason they cannot communicate certain unpleasant things to him. If,
then a patient does not dream from the beginning or ceases to dream he
retains material which is susceptible of conscious elaboration. Here the
personal relation between the doctor and his patient may be regarded
as the chief hindrance. It can prevent them both, the doctor as well
as the patient, from seeing the situation clearly. We must not forget
that, as the doctor shows, and must show, a searching interest in the
psychology of his patient, so, too, the patient, if he has an active
mind, gains some familiarity with the psychology of the doctor and
assumes a corresponding attitude towards him. Thus the doctor is blind
to the mental attitude of the patient to the exact extent that he does
not see himself and his own subconscious problems. Therefore I maintain
that a doctor must be analysed before he practises analysis. Otherwise
the practice of analysis can easily be a great disappointment to him,
because he can, under certain circumstances, reach a point where further
progress is impossible, a situation which may make him lose his head.
He is then readily inclined to assume that psychoanalysis is nonsense,
so as to avoid the admission that he has run his vessel ashore. If you
are sure of your own psychology you can confidently tell your patient
that he does not dream because there is still conscious material to be
disposed of. I say that one must be sure of one's self in such cases,
for the opinions and unsparing criticisms to which one sometimes has to
submit, can be excessively disturbing to one who is unprepared to meet
them. The immediate consequence of such a loss of personal balance on
the part of the doctor is that he begins to argue with his patient, in
order to maintain his influence over him; and this, of course, renders
all further analysis impossible.
I have told you that, in the first instance, dreams need only be used
as sources of material for analysis. At the beginning of an analysis it
is not only unnecessary, but also unwise, to make a so-called complete
interpretation of a dream; for it is very difficult indeed to make a
complete and really exhaustive interpretation. The interpretations of
dreams that one sometimes reads in psychoanalytic publications are often
one-sided, and not infrequently contestable formulations. I include
among these certain one-sided sexual reductions of the Viennese school.
In view of the comprehensive many-sidedness of the dream material one
must beware, above all, of one-sided formulations. The many-sidedness of
the meaning of a dream, not its singleness of meaning, is of the utmost
value, especially at the beginning of the psychoanalytic treatment.
Thus, for instance, a patient had the following dream not long after her
treatment had begun: "_She was in a hotel in a strange city. Suddenly
a fire broke out; and her husband and her father, who were with her,
helped her in the work of saving others._" The patient was intelligent,
extraordinarily sceptical, and absolutely convinced that dream analysis
was nonsense. I had difficulty in inducing her to give dream analysis
even one trial. Indeed I saw at once that I could not inform my patient
of the real content of the dream under these circumstances because
her resistances were much too great. I selected the fire, the most
conspicuous occurrence of the dream, as the starting point for obtaining
her free associations. The patient told me that she had recently read
in a newspaper that a certain hotel in Z. had been burnt down; that she
remembered the hotel because she had once lived in it. At the hotel
she had made the acquaintance of a man, and from this acquaintance a
somewhat questionable love affair developed. In connection with this
story the fact came out that she had already had quite a number of
similar adventures, all of which had a certain frivolous character.
This important bit of past history was brought out by the first free
association with a dream-part. It would have been impossible in this
case to make clear to the patient the very striking meaning of the
dream. With her frivolous mental attitude, of which her scepticism was
only a special instance, she could have calmly repelled any attempt of
this kind. But after the frivolity of her mental attitude was recognised
and proved to her, by the material that she herself had furnished, it
was possible to analyse the dreams which followed much more thoroughly.
It is, therefore, advisable in the beginning to make use of dreams for
the purpose of reaching the important subconscious material by means
of the patient's free associations in connection with them. This is
the best and most cautious method, especially for those who are just
beginning to practise analysis. An arbitrary translation of the dreams
is absolutely unadvisable. That would be a superstitious practice based
on the acceptance of well-established symbolic meanings. But there
are no fixed symbolic meanings. There are certain symbols that recur
frequently, but we are not able to get beyond general statements. For
instance, it is quite incorrect to assume that the snake, when it
appears in dreams, has a merely phallic meaning; just as incorrect
as it is to deny that it may have a phallic meaning in some cases.
Every symbol has more than one meaning. I can therefore not admit the
correctness of exclusively sexual interpretations, such as appear in
some psychoanalytic publications, for my experience has made me regard
them as one-sided and therefore insufficient. As an example of this I
will tell you a very simple dream of a young patient of mine. It was as
follows: "_I was going up a flight of stairs with my mother and sister.
When we reached the top I was told that my sister was soon to have a
child._"
I shall now show you how, on the strength of the hitherto prevailing
point of view, this dream may be translated so that it receives a sexual
meaning. We know that the incest phantasy plays a prominent part in
the life of a neurotic. Hence the picture "with my mother and sister"
might be regarded as an allusion in this direction. The "stairs" have a
sexual meaning that is supposedly well established; they represent the
sexual act because of the rhythmic climbing of steps. The child that
my patient's sister is expecting is nothing but the logical result of
these premises. The dream, translated thus, would be a clear fulfilment
of infantile desires which as we know play an important part in Freud's
theory of dreams.
Now I have analysed this with the aid of the following process of
reasoning: If I say that the stairs are a symbol for the sexual act,
whence do I obtain the right to regard the mother, the sister, and the
child as concrete; that is, as not symbolic? If, on the strength of
the claim that dream pictures are symbolic, I give to certain of these
pictures the value of symbols, what right have I to exempt certain other
dream parts from this process? If, therefore, I attach symbolic value
to the ascent of the stairs, I must also attach a symbolic value to the
pictures that represent the mother, the sister, and the child. Therefore
I did not translate the dream, but really analysed it. The result was
surprising. I will give you the free associations with the separate
dream-parts, word for word, so that you can form your own opinions
concerning the material. I should state in advance that the young man
had finished his studies at the university a few months previously; that
he found the choice of a profession too difficult to make; and that he
thereupon became a neurotic. In consequence of this he gave up his work.
His neurosis took, among other things, a decidedly homosexual form.
The patient's associations with his mother are as follows: "I have not
seen her for a long time, a very long time. I really ought to reproach
myself for this. It is wrong of me to neglect her so." "Mother," then,
stands here for something which is neglected in an inexcusable manner. I
said to the patient: "What is that?" And he replied, with considerable
embarrassment, "My work."
With his sister he associated as follows: "It is years since I have seen
her. I long to see her again. Whenever I think of her I recall the time
when I took leave of her. I kissed her with real affection; and at that
moment I understood for the first time what love for a woman can mean."
It is at once clear to the patient that his sister represents "love for
woman."
With the stairs he has this association: "Climbing upwards; getting to
the top; making a success of life; being grown up; being great." The
child brings him the ideas: "New born; a revival; a regeneration; to
become a new man."
One only has to hear this material in order to understand at once that
the patient's dream is not so much the fulfilment of infantile desires,
as it is the expression of biological duties which he has hitherto
neglected because of his infantilism. Biological justice, which is
inexorable, sometimes compels the human being to atone in his dreams for
the duties which he has neglected in real life.
This dream is a typical example of the prospective and teleological
function of dreams in general, a function that has been especially
emphasised by my colleague Dr. Maeder. If we adhered to the
one-sidedness of sexual interpretation, the real meaning of the dream
would escape us. Sexuality in dreams is, in the first instance, a means
of expression, and by no means always the meaning and the object of
the dream. The unfolding of the prospective or teleological meaning
of dreams is of particular importance as soon as analysis is so far
advanced that the eyes of the patient are more easily turned upon the
future, than upon his inner life and upon the past.
In connection with the application of symbolism, we can also learn from
the example furnished us by this dream, that there can be no fixed and
unalterable dream symbols, but at best a frequent repetition of fairly
general meanings. So far as the so-called sexual meaning of dreams,
in particular, is concerned, my experience has led me to lay down the
following practical rules:
If dream analysis at the beginning of the treatment shows that the
dream has an undoubted sexual meaning, this meaning is to be taken
realistically; that is, it is proved thereby that the sexual problem
itself must be subjected to a careful revision. If, for instance, an
incest phantasy is clearly shown to be a latent content of the dream,
one must subject the patient's infantile relations towards his parents
and his brothers and sisters, as well as his relations towards other
persons who are fitted to play the part of his father or mother in his
mind, to a careful examination on this basis. But if a dream that comes
in a later stage of the analysis has, let us say, an incest phantasy
as its essential content, a phantasy that we have reason to consider
disposed of, concrete value must not be attached to it under all
circumstances; it must be regarded as symbolic. In this case symbolic
value, not concrete value, must be attached to the sexual phantasy. If
we did not go beyond the concrete value in this case, we should keep
reducing the patient to sexuality, and this would arrest the progress of
the development of his personality. The patient's salvation is not to be
found by thrusting him back again into primitive sexuality; this would
leave him on a low plane of civilisation whence he could never obtain
freedom and complete restoration to health. Retrogression to a state of
barbarism is no advantage at all for a civilised human being.
The above-mentioned formula, according to which the sexuality of a
dream is a symbolic or analogous expression, naturally also holds good
in the case of dreams occurring in the beginning of an analysis. But the
practical reasons that have induced us not to take into consideration
the symbolic value of this sexual phantasy, owe their existence to the
fact that a genuine realistic value must be given to the abnormal sexual
phantasies of a neurotic, in so far as the latter suffers himself to be
influenced in his actions by these phantasies. Experience teaches us
that these phantasies not only hinder him from adapting himself suitably
to his situation, but that they also lead him to all manner of really
sexual acts, and occasionally even to incest. Under these circumstances,
it would be of little use to consider the symbolic content of the dream
only; the concrete content must first be disposed of.
These arguments are based upon a different conception of the dream
from that put forward by Freud; for, indeed, my experience has forced
me to a different conception. According to Freud, the dream is in its
essence a symbolic veil for repressed desires which are in conflict
with the ideals of the personality. I am obliged to regard the dream
structure from a different point of view. The dream for me is, in the
first instance, the subliminal picture of the psychological condition
of the individual in his waking state. It presents a _résumé_ of the
subliminal association material which is brought together by the
momentary psychological situation. The volitional meaning of the
dream which Freud calls the repressed desire, is, for me, essentially
a means of expression. The activity of the consciousness, speaking
biologically, represents the psychological effort which the individual
makes in adapting himself to the conditions of life. His consciousness
endeavours to adjust itself to the necessities of the moment, or, to put
it differently: there are tasks ahead of the individual, which he must
overcome. In many cases the solution is unknown; and for this reason the
consciousness always tries to find the solution by the way of analogous
experience. We always try to grasp what is unknown and in the future,
according to our mental understanding of what has gone before. Now we
have no reasons for assuming that the unconscious follows other laws
than those which apply to conscious thought. The unconscious, like the
conscious, gathers itself about the biological problems and endeavours
to find solutions for these by analogy with what has gone before, just
as much as the conscious does. Whenever we wish to assimilate something
that is unknown, we arrive at it by a process of comparison. A simple
example of this is the well-known fact that, when America was discovered
by the Spaniards, the Indians took the horses of the conquerors, which
were strange to them, for large pigs, because pigs were familiar to
their experience. This is the mental process which we always employ in
recognising unknown things; and this is the essential reason for the
existence of symbolism. It is a process of comprehension by means of
analogy. The apparently repressed desires, contained in the dream, are
volitional tendencies which serve as language-material for subconscious
expression. So far as this particular point is concerned, I am in full
accord with the views of Adler, another member of Freud's school. With
reference to the fact that subconscious materials of expression are
volitional elements or tendencies, I may say that this is dependent
upon the archaic nature of dream thinking, a problem with which I have
already dealt in previous researches.[174]
Owing to our different conception of the structure of the dream, the
further course of analysis also gains a different complexion from
that which it had until now. The symbolic valuation given to sexual
phantasies in the later stages of analysis necessarily leads less to the
reduction of the patient's personality into primitive tendencies, than
to the extension and further development of his mental attitude; that
is, it tends to make his thinking richer and deeper, thus giving him
what has always been one of the most powerful weapons that a human being
can have in his struggle to adapt himself to life. By following this new
course logically, I have come to the conclusion that these religious
and philosophical motive forces--the so-called metaphysical needs of
the human being--must receive positive consideration at the hands of
the analyst. Though he must not destroy the motive forces that underlie
them, by reducing them to their primitive, sexual roots, he must make
them serve biological ends as psychologically valuable factors. Thus
these instincts assume once more those functions that have been theirs
from time immemorial.
Just as primitive man was able, with the aid of religious and
philosophical symbol, to free himself from his original state, so, too,
the neurotic can shake off his illness in a similar way. It is hardly
necessary for me to say, that I do not mean by this, that the belief in
a religious or philosophical dogma should be thrust upon the patient; I
mean simply that he has to reassume that psychological attitude which,
in an earlier civilisation, was characterised by the living belief in
a religious or philosophical dogma. But the religious-philosophical
attitude does not necessarily correspond to the belief in a dogma. A
dogma is a transitory intellectual formulation; it is the result of
the religious-philosophical attitude, and is dependent upon time and
circumstances. This attitude is itself an achievement of civilization;
it is a function that is exceedingly valuable from a biological point
of view, for it gives rise to the incentives that force human beings to
do creative work for the benefit of a future age, and, if necessary, to
sacrifice themselves for the welfare of the species.
Thus the human being attains the same sense of unity and totality, the
same confidence, the same capacity for self-sacrifice in his conscious
existence that belongs unconsciously and instinctively to wild animals.
Every reduction, every digression from the course that has been laid
down for the development of civilisation does nothing more than turn
the human being into a crippled animal; it never makes a so-called
natural man of him. My numerous successes and failures in the course of
my analytic practice have convinced me of the invariable correctness of
this psychological orientation. We do not help the neurotic patient by
freeing him from the demand made by civilisation; we can only help him
by inducing him to take an active part in the strenuous task of carrying
on the development of civilisation. The suffering which he undergoes in
performing this duty takes the place of his neurosis. But, whereas the
neurosis and the complaints that accompany it are never followed by the
delicious feeling of good work well done, of duty fearlessly performed,
the suffering that comes from useful work, and from victory over real
difficulties, brings with it those moments of peace and satisfaction
which give the human being the priceless feeling that he has really
lived his life.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 173: Reprinted from the _Transactions of the Psycho-Medical
Society_, August 5th, 1913.]
[Footnote 174: See "Psychology of the Unconscious."]
CHAPTER VIII
ON PSYCHOANALYSIS[175]
After many years' experience I now know that it is extremely difficult
to discuss psychoanalysis at public meetings and at congresses. There
are so many misconceptions of the matter, so many prejudices against
certain psychoanalytic views, that it becomes an almost impossible task
to reach mutual understanding in public discussion. I have always found
a quiet conversation on the subject much more useful and fruitful than
heated discussions _coram publico_. However, having been honoured by
an invitation from the Committee of this Congress as a representative
of the psychoanalytic movement, I will do my best to discuss some of
the fundamental theoretical conceptions of psychoanalysis. I must limit
myself to this part of the subject because I am quite unable to place
before my audience all that psychoanalysis means and strives for, all
its various applications, its psychology, its theoretical tendencies,
its importance for the realm of the so-called "Geisteswissenschaften,"
_e.g._ Mythology, Comparative Religion, Philosophy, &c. But if I am to
discuss certain theoretical problems fundamental to psychoanalysis, I
must presuppose my audience to be well acquainted with the development
and main results of psychoanalytic researches. Unfortunately, it often
happens that people believe themselves entitled to judge psychoanalysis
who have not even read the literature. It is my firm conviction that no
one is competent to form a judgment concerning the subject until he has
studied the fundamental works on psychoanalysis.
In spite of the fact that Freud's theory of neurosis has been worked out
in great detail, it cannot be said to be, on the whole, very clear or
easily accessible. This justifies my giving you a very short abstract
of his fundamental views concerning the theory of neurosis.
You are aware that the original theory that hysteria and the related
neuroses take their origin in a trauma or shock of sexual character
in early childhood, was given up about fifteen years ago. It soon
became obvious that the sexual trauma could not be the real cause of
a neurosis, since trauma is found so universally; there is scarcely a
human being who has not had some sexual shock in early youth, and yet
comparatively few have incurred a neurosis in later life. Freud himself
soon became aware that several of the patients who related an early
traumatic event, had only invented the story of a so-called trauma; it
had never taken place in reality, and was a mere creation of phantasy.
Moreover, on further investigation it became quite obvious that even
a trauma which had actually occurred was not always responsible for
the whole of the neurosis, although it does sometimes look as if the
structure of the neurosis depended entirely upon the trauma. If a
neurosis were the inevitable consequence of a trauma it would be quite
incomprehensible why neurotics are not incomparably more numerous.
This apparently heightened shock-effect was clearly based upon the
_exaggerated and morbid phantasy_ of the patient. Freud also saw that
this same phantasy manifested itself in relatively early bad habits,
which he called infantile perversities. His new conception of the
ætiology of a neurosis was based upon this further understanding and
traced the neurosis back to some sexual activity in early infancy; this
conception led on to his recent view that the neurotic is "fixed" to a
certain period of his early infancy, because he still seems to preserve
some trace of it, direct or indirect, in his mental attitude. Freud
also makes the attempt to classify or to differentiate the neuroses,
including dementia præcox, according to the stage of the infantile
development in which the fixation took place.
From the standpoint of this theory, the neurotic appears to be entirely
dependent upon his infantile past, and all his troubles in later
life, his moral conflicts, and deficiencies, seem to be derived
from the powerful influence of that period. The therapy and its main
preoccupation are in full accord with this view, and are chiefly
concerned with the unravelling of this infantile fixation, which is
understood as an unconscious attachment of the sexual libido to certain
infantile phantasies and habits.
This is, so far as I can see, the essence of Freud's theory. But this
conception neglects the following important question: What is the cause
of this fixation of the libido to the old infantile phantasies and
habits? We have to remember that almost all persons have at some time
had infantile phantasies and habits exactly corresponding to those
of a neurotic, but they do not become fixed to them; consequently,
they do not become neurotic later on. The ætiological secret of the
neurosis, therefore, does not consist in the mere _existence_ of
infantile phantasies, but lies in the so-called _fixation_. The manifold
statements of the existence of infantile sexual phantasies in neurotic
cases are worthless, in so far as they attribute an ætiological value
to them, for the same phantasies can be found in normal individuals as
well, a fact which I have often proved. It is only the fixation which
seems to be characteristic. It is important to demand the nature of
the proofs of the real existence of this infantile fixation. Freud, an
absolutely sincere and thorough empiricist, would never have evolved
this hypothesis had he not had sufficient grounds for it. The grounds
are found in the results of the psychoanalytic investigations of the
unconscious. Psychoanalysis discloses the unconscious existence of
manifold phantasies, which have their end root in the infantile past
and turn around the so-called "_Kern-complex_," or nucleus-complex,
which may be designated in male individuals as the Œdipus-complex
and in females as the Electra-complex. These terms convey their own
meaning exactly. The whole tragic fate of Œdipus and Electra took place
within the narrow confines of the family, just as the child's fate
lies wholly within the family boundaries. Hence the Œdipus conflict is
very characteristic of an infantile conflict, so also is the Electra
conflict. The existence of these conflicts in infancy is largely
proven by means of psychoanalytic experience. It is in the realm of
this complex that the fixation is supposed to have taken place. Through
the highly potent and effective existence of the nucleus-complex in
the unconscious of neurotics, Freud was led to the hypothesis, that
the neurotic has a peculiar fixation or attachment to it. Not the mere
existence of this complex--for everybody has it in the unconscious--but
the very strong attachment to it is what is typical of the neurotic.
He is far more influenced by this complex than the normal person; many
examples in confirmation of this statement will be found in every one of
the recent psychoanalytic histories of neurotic cases.
We must admit that this conception is a very plausible one, because
the hypothesis of fixation is based upon the well-known fact, that
certain periods of human life, and particularly infancy, do sometimes
leave determining traces for ever. The only question is whether this
principle is a sufficient explanation or not. If we examine persons who
have been neurotic from infancy it seems to be confirmed, for we see
the nucleus-complex as a permanent and powerful activity throughout
the whole life. But if we take cases which never show any considerable
traces of neurosis except at the particular time when they break down,
and there are many such, this principle becomes doubtful. If there
is such a thing as fixation, it is not permissible to base upon it a
new hypothesis, claiming that at times during certain epochs of life
the fixation becomes loosened and ineffective, while at others it
suddenly becomes strengthened and effective. In such cases we find the
nucleus-complex as active and as potent as in those which apparently
support the theory of fixation. Here a critical attitude is peculiarly
justifiable, when we consider the often-repeated observation that the
moment of the outbreak of the disease is by no means indifferent; as a
rule it is most critical. It usually occurs _at the moment when a new
psychological adjustment, that is, a new adaptation, is demanded_. Such
moments facilitate the outbreak of a neurosis, as every experienced
neurologist knows. This fact seems to me extremely significant. If
the fixation were indeed real we should expect to find its influence
constant, _i.e._ a neurosis continuous throughout life. This is
obviously not the case. The psychological determination of a neurosis
is only partially due to an early infantile predisposition; it is due
to a certain actual cause as well. And if we carefully examine the kind
of infantile phantasies and events to which the neurotic individual
is attached, we shall be obliged to agree that there is nothing in
them specific for neurosis. Normal individuals have pretty much the
same kind of internal and external experiences, and are attached to
them to an even astonishing degree, without developing a neurosis.
You will find primitive people, especially, very much bound to their
infantility. It now begins to look as if this so-called fixation were
a normal phenomenon, and that the importance of infancy for the later
mental attitude is natural and prevails everywhere. The fact that the
neurotic seems to be markedly influenced by his infantile conflicts,
shows that it is less a matter of fixation than of a peculiar use which
he makes of his infantile past. It looks as if he exaggerated its
importance, and attributed a very great artificial value to it (Adler,
a pupil of Freud's, expresses a very similar view). It would be unjust
to say that Freud confined himself to the hypothesis of fixation; he
also was conscious of the impression I have just discussed. He called
this phenomenon of reactivation or secondary exaggeration of infantile
reminiscences "regression." But in Freud's conception it appears as
if the incestuous desires of the Œdipus-complex were the real cause
of the regression to infantile phantasies. If this were the case,
we should have to postulate an unexpected intensity of the primary
incestuous tendencies. This view led Freud to his recent comparison
between the so-called psychological "incest-barrier" in children and
the "incest-taboo" in primitive man. He supposes that a real incestuous
desire has led the primitive man to the invention of a protective law;
while to me it looks as if the incest-taboo is one among numerous taboos
of all sorts, and due to the typical superstitious fear of primitive
man, a fear existing independently of incest and its interdiction. I am
able to attribute as little particular strength to incestuous desires in
childhood as in primitive humanity. I do not even seek the reason for
regression in primary incestuous or any other sexual desires. I must
state that a purely sexual ætiology of neurosis seems to me much too
narrow. I base this criticism upon no prejudice against sexuality, but
upon an intimate acquaintance with the whole problem.
Therefore I suggest that the psychoanalytic theory should be liberated
from the purely sexual standpoint. In place of it I should like to
introduce an _energic view-point_ into the psychology of neurosis.
All psychological phenomena can be considered as manifestations of
energy, in the same way as all physical phenomena are already understood
as energic manifestations since Robert Mayer discovered the law of the
conservation of energy. This energy is subjectively and psychologically
conceived as _desire_. I call it _libido_, using the word in the
original meaning of this term, which is by no means only sexual.
Sallustius applies the term exactly in the way we do here: "_Magis in
armis et militaribus equis, quam in scortis et conviviis libidinem
habebant._"
From a broader standpoint libido can be understood as vital energy in
general, or as Bergson's _élan vital_. The first manifestation of this
energy in the suckling is the instinct of _nutrition_. From this stage
the libido slowly develops through manifold varieties of the act of
sucking into the sexual function. Hence I do not consider the act of
sucking as a sexual act. The pleasure in sucking can certainly not be
considered as sexual pleasure, but as pleasure in nutrition, for it
is nowhere proved that pleasure is sexual in itself. This process of
development continues into adult life and is connected with a constantly
increased adaptation to the external world. Whenever the libido, in
the process of adaptation, meets an obstacle, an accumulation takes
place which normally gives rise to an increased effort to overcome
the obstacle. But if the obstacle seems to be insurmountable, and the
individual renounces the overcoming of it, the stored-up libido makes
a regression. In place of being employed in the increased effort, the
libido now gives up the present task and returns to a former and more
primitive way of adaptation. We meet with the best examples of such
regressions very frequently in hysterical cases where a disappointment
in love or marriage gives rise to the neurosis. There we find the
well-known disturbances of nutrition, resistance against eating,
dyspeptic symptoms of all sorts, etc. In these cases the regressive
libido, turning away from its application to the work of adaptation,
holds sway over the function of nutrition and provokes considerable
disturbance. Such cases are obvious examples of regression. Similar
effects of regression are to be found in cases where there are no
troubles in the function of nutrition, and here we readily find a
regressive revival of reminiscences of a time long past. We find a
revival of the images of the parents, of the Œdipus-complex. Here things
and events of infancy--never before important--suddenly become so. They
are regressively reanimated. Take away the obstacle in the path of life
and this whole system of infantile phantasies at once breaks down and
becomes again as inactive and as ineffective as before. But do not let
us forget that, to a certain extent, it is at work influencing us always
and everywhere. I cannot forbear to mention that this view comes very
near Janet's hypothesis of the substitution of the "parties supérieures"
of a function by its "parties inférieures." I would also remind you of
Claparède's conception of neurotic symptoms as emotional reflexes of a
primitive nature.
Therefore I no longer find the cause of a neurosis in the past, but in
the present. I ask, what is the necessary task which the patient will
not accomplish? The whole list of his infantile phantasies does not give
me any sufficient ætiological explanation, because I know that these
phantasies are only puffed up by the regressive libido, which has not
found its natural outlet into a new form of adjustment to the demands of
life.
You may ask why the neurotic has a special inclination not to accomplish
his necessary tasks. Here let me point out that no living being adjusts
itself easily and smoothly to new conditions. The principle of the
_minimum of effort_ is valid everywhere.
A sensitive and somewhat inharmonious character, as a neurotic always
is, will meet special difficulties and perhaps more unusual tasks in
life than a normal individual, who as a rule has only to follow the
well-established line of an ordinary life. For the neurotic there is
no established way, for his aims and tasks are apt to be of a highly
individual character. He tries to follow the more or less uncontrolled
and half-conscious way of normal people, not fully realizing his own
critical and very different nature, which imposes upon him more effort
than the normal person is required to exert. There are neurotics who
have shown their increased sensitiveness and their resistance against
adaptation in the very first weeks of life, in their difficulty in
taking the mother's breast, and in their exaggerated nervous reactions,
&c. For this portion of a neurotic predisposition it will always be
impossible to find a psychological ætiology, for it is anterior to
all psychology. But this predisposition--you may call it "congenital
sensitiveness" or by what name you like--is the cause of the first
resistances against adaptation. In such case, the way of adaptation
being blocked, the biological energy we call libido does not find its
appropriate outlet or activity and therefore replaces an up-to-date and
suitable form of adaptation by an abnormal or primitive one.
In neurosis we speak of an infantile attitude or the predominance of
infantile phantasies and desires. In so far as infantile impressions
and desires are of obvious importance in normal people they are equally
influential in neurosis, but they have here no ætiological significance,
they are reactions merely, being chiefly secondary and regressive
phenomena. It is perfectly true, as Freud states, that infantile
phantasies determine the form and further development of neurosis, but
this is not ætiology. Even when we find perverted sexual phantasies of
which we can prove the existence in childhood, we cannot consider them
of ætiological significance. A neurosis is not really originated by
infantile sexual phantasies and the same must be said of the sexualism
of neurotic phantasy in general. It is not a primary phenomenon based
upon a perverted sexual disposition, but merely secondary and a
consequence of a failure to apply the stored-up libido in a suitable
way. I realize that this is a very old view, but this does not prevent
its being true. The fact that the patient himself very often believes
that this infantile phantasy is the real cause of the neurosis, does
not prove that he is right in his belief, or that a theory following
the same belief is right either. It may look as if it were so, and I
must confess that indeed very many cases do have that appearance. At all
events, it is perfectly easy to understand how Freud came to this view.
Every one having any psychoanalytic experience will agree with me here.
To sum up: I cannot see the real ætiology of a neurosis in the various
manifestations of infantile sexual development and their corresponding
phantasies. The fact that they are exaggerated and put into the
foreground in neurosis is a consequence of the stored-up energy or
libido. The psychological trouble in neurosis, and neurosis itself,
can be considered _as an act of adaptation that has failed_. This
formulation might reconcile certain views of Janet's with Freud's view,
that a neurosis is--under a certain aspect--an attempt at self-cure; a
view which can be and has been applied to many diseases.
Here the question arises whether it is still advisable to bring to light
all the patient's phantasies by analysis, if we now consider them as
of no ætiological significance. Psychoanalysis hitherto has proceeded
to the unravelling of these phantasies because they were considered to
be ætiologically significant. My altered view concerning the theory
of neurosis does not change the procedure of psychoanalysis. The
technique remains the same. We no longer imagine we are unearthing the
end-root of the disease, but we have to pull up the sexual phantasies
because the energy which the patient needs for his health, that is, for
his adaptation, is attached to them. By means of psychoanalysis the
connexion between the conscious and the libido in the unconscious is
re-established. Thus you restore this unconscious libido to the command
of conscious intention. Only in this way can the formerly split-off
energy become again applicable to the accomplishment of the necessary
tasks of life. Considered from this standpoint, psychoanalysis no longer
appears to be a mere reduction of the individual to his primitive sexual
wishes, but it becomes clear that, if rightly understood, it is a
_highly moral task of immense educational value_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 175: Paper given before the 17th International Medical
Congress, London, 1913.]
CHAPTER IX
ON SOME CRUCIAL POINTS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS[176]
CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN DR. JUNG AND DR. LOY APPEARING IN
"PSYCHOTHERAPEUTISCHE ZEITFRAGEN." PUBLISHED BY DR. LOY, SANATORIUM
L'ABRI, TERRITET-MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND, 1914.
I
_From Dr. Loÿ._
12th January, 1913.
What you said at our last conversation was extraordinarily stimulating.
I was expecting you to throw light upon the interpretation of my own
and my patients' dreams from the standpoint of Freud's "Interpretation
of Dreams." Instead, you put before me an entirely new conception: the
dream as a means of re-establishing the moral equipoise, fashioned
in the realm below the threshold of consciousness. That indeed is a
fruitful conception. But still more fruitful appears to me your other
suggestion. You regard the problems of psychoanalysis as much deeper
than I had ever thought: it is no longer merely a question of getting
rid of troublesome pathological symptoms; the analysed person gets to
understand not his anxiety-experiences alone, but his whole self most
completely, and by means of this understanding he can build up and
fashion his whole life anew. But he himself must be the builder, the
Analyst only furnishes him with the necessary tools.
To begin with, I would ask you to consider what justification there is
for the original procedure of Breuer and Freud, now entirely given up
both by Freud himself and by you, but practised by Frank, for instance,
as his only method: I mean "the abreaction of the inhibited effects
under light hypnosis." Why have you given up the cathartic method? More
particularly, has light hypnosis in psychocatharsis a different value
from suggestion during sleep, long customary in treatment by suggestion?
that is, has it only the value which the suggestionist contributes,
or does it claim to possess only the value which the patient's belief
bestows upon it? Or, again, is suggestion in the waking-state equivalent
to suggestion in hypnoidal states? This Bernheim now asserts to be
the case, after having used suggestion for many years exclusively in
hypnosis. You will tell me we must talk of psychoanalysis, not of
suggestion. But I really mean this: is not the _suggestion_, by means of
which the psychocatharsis in the hypnoidal state produces therapeutic
effects, (modified naturally, by the patients' age, etc.) the main
factor in the therapeutic success of the psychocatharsis? Frank, in
his "_Affektstörungen_," says: "these partial adjustments of effect,
suggestibility and suggestion, are almost altogether omitted in the
psychocathartic treatment in light sleep, in so far as the content of
the reproduced presentations is concerned." Is that really true? Frank
himself adds: "How can meditation upon the dreams of youth in itself
lead to the discharge of the stored-up anxiety, whether in hypnoidal
states or under any other conditions? Must one not suppose, with
much greater probability, that the anxiety-states would become more
pronounced through such concentration upon them?" [I have noticed that
myself, and much more than I at all liked.] One does indeed say to the
patient: "First we must stir up, then afterwards comes peace." And it
does come. But does it not come _in spite of the stirring-up process_,
because gradually, by means of frequent talks under light hypnosis, the
patient gets such confidence in the doctor that he becomes susceptible
to direct suggestion, and that produces at first improvement and
finally, cure? I go still further: in an analysis _in the waking-state_,
is not the patient's belief that the _method employed will cure him_,
coupled with his ever-growing trust in the doctor, a main cause of
his cure? And I ask even further: in every systematically carried-out
therapeutic treatment, is not faith in it, trust in the doctor, a main
factor in its success? I will not indeed say the only factor, for one
cannot deny that the physical, dietetic and chemical procedures, when
properly selected, have a real effect in securing a cure, over and above
the obvious effect of their indirect suggestion.
II
_From Dr. Jung._
28th January, 1913.
With regard to your question as to the applicability of the cathartic
method, the following is my standpoint: every method is good if
it serves its purpose, including every method of suggestion, even
Christian Science, Mental Healing, etc. "_A truth is a truth, when it
works._" It is quite another question whether a scientific physician
can answer for it to his conscience should he sell little bottles of
Lourdes-water because that suggestion is at times very useful. Even
the so-called highly scientific suggestion-therapy employs the wares
of the medicine-man and the exorcising Schaman. And please, why should
it not? The public is not even now much more advanced and continues
to expect miracles from the doctor. And truly those doctors should be
deemed clever--worldly-wise in every respect--who understand the art
of investing themselves with the halo of the medicine-man. Not only
have they the biggest practices--they have also the best results. This
is simply because countless physical maladies (leaving out of count
the neuroses) are complicated and burdened with psychic elements to an
extent scarcely yet suspected. The medical exorcist's whole behaviour
betrays his full valuation of the psychic element when he gives the
patient the opportunity of fixing his faith firmly upon the doctor's
mysterious personality. Thus does he win the sick man's mind, which
henceforth helps him indeed to restore his body also to health. The cure
works best when the doctor really believes in his own formulæ, otherwise
he may be overcome by scientific doubt and so lose the correct,
convincing tone. I, too, for a time practised hypnotic suggestion
enthusiastically. But there befell me three dubious incidents which I
want you to note:--
1. Once there came to me to be hypnotised for various neurotic troubles
a withered peasant-woman of some fifty years old. She was not easy to
hypnotise, was very restless, kept opening her eyes--but at last I did
succeed. When I waked her after about half an hour she seized my hand
and with many words testified to her overflowing gratitude. I said:
"But you are by no means cured yet, so keep your thanks till the end of
the treatment." She: "I am not thanking you for that, but--(blushing
and whispering)--because you have been so _decent_." So she said,
looked at me with a sort of tender admiration and departed. I gazed
long at the spot where she had stood--and asked myself, confounded,
"So decent?"--good heavens! surely she hadn't imagined, somehow or
other.... This glimpse made me suspect for the first time that possibly
the loose-minded person, by means of that notorious feminine (I should
at that time have said "animal") directness of instinct, understood
more about the essence of hypnotism than I with all my knowledge of the
scientific profundity of the text-books. Therein lay my harmlessness.
2. Next came a pretty, coquettish, seventeen-year-old girl with a
harassed, suspicious mother. The young daughter had suffered since early
girlhood from _enuresis nocturna_, which, among other difficulties,
hindered her from going to a boarding-school abroad.
At once I thought of the old woman and her wisdom. I tried to hypnotise
the girl; she laughed affectedly and prevented hypnosis for twenty
minutes. Of course I kept quiet and thought: I know why you laugh; you
have already fallen in love with me, but I will give you proof of my
decency in gratitude for your wasting my time with your challenging
laughter. I succeeded in hypnotising her. Success followed at once. The
enuresis stopped, and I therefore informed the young lady later that,
instead of Wednesday, I would not see her again for hypnosis till the
following Saturday. On Saturday she arrived with a cross countenance,
presaging failure. The enuresis had come back again. I remembered
my wise old woman, and asked: "When did the enuresis return?" She
(unsuspecting), "Wednesday night." I thought to myself, There it is
again, she wants to show me that I simply must see her on Wednesdays
too; not to see me for a whole long week is too much for a tender,
loving heart. But I was quite resolved to give no help to such annoying
romancing, so I said, "To continue the hypnosis would be quite wrong
under these circumstances. We must drop it for quite three weeks, to
give the enuresis a chance to stop. Then come again for treatment." In
my malicious heart I knew I should then be on my holiday and so the
course of hypnotic treatment would come to an end. After the holidays my
_locum tenens_ told me the young lady had been there with the news that
the enuresis had vanished, but her disappointment at not seeing me was
very keen. The old woman was right, thought I.
3. The third case gave my joy in suggestion its death-blow. This was
the manner of it. She was a lady of sixty-five who came stumbling into
the consulting-room with a crutch. She had suffered from pain in the
knee-joint for seventeen years, and this at times kept her in bed for
many weeks. No doctor had been able to cure her, and she had tried
every possible remedy of present-day medicine. After I had suffered the
stream of her narrative to flow over me for some ten minutes, I said,
"I will try to hypnotise you, perhaps that will do you good." She, "Oh
yes, please do!" leaned her head on one side and fell asleep before
ever I said or did anything. She passed into somnambulism and showed
every form of hypnosis you could possibly desire. After half an hour I
had the greatest difficulty in waking her; when at last she was awake
she jumped up: "I am well, I am all right, you have cured me." I tried
to make timid objections, but her praises drowned me. She could really
walk. Then I blushed and said, embarrassed, to my colleagues: "Look!
behold the wondrously successful hypnotic therapy." That day saw the
death of my connection with treatment by suggestion; the therapeutic
praise won by this case shamed and humiliated me. When, a year later, at
the beginning of my hypnotic course, the good old lady returned, this
time with the pain in her back, I was already sunk in hopeless cynicism;
I saw written on her forehead that she had just read the notice of the
re-opening of my clinic in the newspaper, that vexatious romanticism
had provided her with a convenient pain in the back so that she might
have a pretext for seeing me, and again let herself be cured in the same
theatrical fashion. This proved true in every particular.
As you will understand, a man possessed of scientific conscience cannot
endure such cases without embarrassment. There ripened in me the resolve
to renounce suggestion altogether rather than to allow myself passively
to be transformed into a miracle-worker. I wanted to understand what
really went on in the souls of people. It suddenly seemed to me
incredibly childish to think of dispelling an illness with charms, and
that this should be the only result of our scientific endeavours for
a psychotherapy. Thus for me the discovery of Breuer and Freud was a
veritable deliverance. I took up their method with unalloyed enthusiasm
and soon recognised how right Freud was, when at a very early date,
indeed so far back as the _Studien ueber Hysterie_, he began to direct a
searchlight upon the accompanying circumstances of the so-called trauma.
I too soon discovered that certainly some traumata with an obvious
etiological tinge are opportunely present. But the greater number
appeared highly improbable. So many of them seemed so insignificant,
even so normal, that at most one could regard them as just providing
the opportunity for the neurosis to appear. But what especially
spurred my criticism was the fact that so many traumata were simply
inventions of phantasy which had never really existed. This perception
was enough to make me sceptical about the whole trauma-theory. (But I
have dealt with these matters in detail in my lectures on the theory
of psychoanalysis).[177] I could no longer suppose that the hundred
and one cathartic experiences of a phantastically puffed-up or entirely
invented trauma were anything but the effect of suggestion. It is well
enough if it helps. If one only had not a scientific conscience and that
impulsion towards the truth! I found in many cases, especially when
dealing with more mentally gifted patients, that I must recognise the
therapeutic limitations of this method. It is, of course, a definite
plan, and convenient for the doctor, since it makes no particular
demands upon his intellect for new adaptations. The theory and practice
are both of the pleasantest simplicity: "The neurosis is caused by
a trauma. The trauma is abreacted." When the abreaction takes place
under hypnotism, or with other magical accessories (dark room, peculiar
lighting, and the rest), I remember once more the wise old woman,
who opened my eyes not merely to the magic influence of the mesmeric
gestures, but also to the essential character of hypnotism itself. But
what alienated me once for all from this relatively efficacious indirect
method of suggestion, based as it is upon an equally efficacious false
theory, was the perception I obtained at the same time that, behind the
confused deceptive intricacies of neurotic phantasies, there stands a
_conflict_, which may be best described as a _moral_ one. With this
there began for me a new era of understanding. Research and therapy
now coincided in the attempt to discover the causes and the _rational_
solution of this conflict. That is what psychoanalysis meant to me.
Whilst I had been getting this insight, Freud had built up his sexual
theory of the neurosis, and therewith had brought forward an enormous
number of questions for discussion, all of which I thought deserved
the profoundest consideration. Thus I have had the good fortune of
co-operating with Freud for a long time, and working with him in the
investigation of the problem of sexuality in neurosis. You, perhaps,
know from some of my earlier work that I was always dubious somewhat
concerning the significance of sexuality.[178] This has now become the
exact point where I am no longer altogether of Freud's opinion.
I have preferred to answer your questions in rather non-sequent fashion.
Whatever is still unanswered, let me now repeat: _light hypnosis_ and
_complete hypnosis_ are but varying grades of intensity of unconscious
attraction towards the hypnotist. Who can here venture to draw sharp
distinctions? To a critical intelligence it is unthinkable that
suggestibility and suggestion can be excluded in the cathartic method.
They are present everywhere and are universal human attributes, even
with Dubois and the psychoanalysts who think they work on purely
rational lines. _No technique, no self-deception avails here--the
doctor works, nolens volens--and perhaps primarily--by means of his
personality, that is by suggestion._ In the cathartic treatment, what
is of far more importance to the patient than the conjuring up of old
phantasies is the being so often with the doctor, and having confidence
and belief in him personally, and in his method. The belief, the
self-confidence, perhaps also the devotion with which the doctor does
his work, are far more important things to the patient (_imponderabilia_
though they be) than the recalling of old traumata.[179]
Ultimately we shall some day know from the history of medicine
everything that has ever been of service; then perhaps at last we may
come to the really desirable therapy, to psychotherapy. Did not even
the old materia medica of filth have brilliant cures?--cures which only
faded away with the belief in it!
Because I recognise that the patient does attempt to lay hold of the
doctor's personality, in spite of all possible rational safeguards,
I have formulated the demand that the psychotherapeutist shall be
held just as responsible for the cleanness of his own hands as is the
surgeon. I hold it to be an absolutely indispensable preliminary that
the psychoanalyst should himself first undergo an analysis, for his
personality is one of the chief factors in the cure.
Patients read the doctor's character intuitively and they should find in
him a human being, with faults indeed, but also a man _who has striven
at every point_ to _fulfil his own human duties in the fullest sense_. I
think that this is the first healing factor. Many times I have had the
opportunity of seeing that the analyst is successful with his treatment
just in so far as he has succeeded in his own moral development. I think
this answer will satisfy your question.
III
_From Dr. Loÿ._
2nd February, 1913.
You answer several of my questions in a decidedly affirmative sense. You
take it as proved that in the cures by the cathartic method the main
_rôle_ is played by faith in the doctor and in his method, and not by
the "abreaction" of real or imaginary traumata. I also. Equally I am at
one with your view that the cures of the old materia medica of filth,
as well as the Lourdes cures, or those of the Mental Healers, Christian
Scientists and Persuasionists, are to be attributed to faith in the
miracle-worker, rather than to any of the methods employed.
Now comes the ticklish point: the augur can remain an augur so long
as he himself believes the will of the gods is made manifest by the
entrails of the sacrificial beast. When he no longer believes, he has
to ask himself: Shall I continue to use my augur's authority to further
the welfare of the State, or shall I make use of my newer, and (I hope)
truer convictions of to-day? Both ways are possible. The first is called
opportunism; the second the pursuit of truth, and scientific honour. For
a doctor, the first way brings perhaps therapeutic success and fame;
the second, reproach: such a man is not taken seriously. What I esteem
most highly in Freud and his school is just this passionate desire for
truth. But again, it is precisely here that people pronounce a different
verdict: "It is impossible for the busy practitioner to keep pace with
the development of the views of this investigator and his initiates."
(Frank, "Affektstörungen Einleitung.")
One can easily disregard this little quip, but one must take more
seriously one's self-criticism. We may have to ask ourselves whether,
since science is an undivided, ever-flowing stream, we are justified
in relinquishing on conscientious grounds any method or combination of
methods by means of which we know cures can be achieved?
Looking more closely at the fundamental grounds of your aversion to
the use of hypnosis (or semi-hypnosis, the degree matters nothing) in
_treatment by suggestion_, (which as a matter of fact every doctor
and every therapeutic method makes use of willy-nilly, no matter what
it is called), it is clear that what has disgusted you in hypnotism
is at bottom nothing but the so-called "transference" to the doctor,
which you, with your unalloyed psychoanalytic treatment, can get rid
of as little as any one else, for indeed it plays a chief part in the
success of the treatment. Your insistence that the psychoanalyst must
be answerable for the cleanness of his own hands--(here I agree with
you unreservedly)----is an inevitable conclusion. But, after all, does
anything more "augurish" really cling to the use made of hypnosis in
psychotherapeutic treatment, than to the quite inevitable use made of
the "transference to the doctor" for therapeutic ends? In either case
we must perforce "take shares" in faith as a healing agent. As for the
feeling which the patient--whether man or woman--entertains for the
doctor, is there never anything in the background save conscious or
unconscious sexual desire? In many cases your view is most certainly
correct; more than one woman has been frank enough to confess that
the beginning of hypnosis was accompanied by voluptuous pleasure.
But this is not true in all instances--or how would you explain the
underlying feeling in the hypnotising of one animal by another, _e.g._
snake and bird? Surely you can say that there the feeling of _fear_
reigns, fear which is an inversion of the libido, such as comes upon
the bride in that hypnoidal state before she yields to her husband
wherein pure sexual desire rules, though possibly it contains an
element of fear. However this may be, from your three cases I cannot
draw any ethical distinction between the "unconscious readiness towards
the hypnotist" and the "transference to the doctor" which should avail
to condemn a combination of hypnotism and psychoanalysis as a method
of treatment. You will ask why I cling to the use of hypnotism; or
rather of hypnoidal states. Because I think there are cases that can be
much more rapidly cured thereby, than through a purely psychoanalytic
treatment. For example, in no more than five or six interviews I cured
a fifteen-year-old girl who had suffered from _enuresis nocturna_ from
infancy, but was otherwise thoroughly healthy, gifted, and pre-eminent
at school: she had previously tried all sorts of treatment without any
result.
Perhaps I ought to have sought out the psychoanalytic connexion between
the enuresis and her psychosexual attitude and explained it to her,
etc., but I could not, she had only the short Easter holidays for
treatment: so I just hypnotised her and the tiresome trouble vanished.
It was a lasting cure.
In psychoanalysis I use hypnosis to help the patient to overcome
"resistances."
Further, I use light hypnosis in association with psychoanalysis, to
hasten the advance when the "re-education" stage comes.
For example, a patient afflicted with washing-mania was sent to me after
a year's psychocathartic treatment by Dr. X. The symbolic meaning of
her washing-ceremonial was first made plain to her; she became more and
more agitated during the "abreaction" of alleged traumata in childhood,
because she had persuaded herself by auto-suggestion that she was too
old to be cured, that she saw no "images," etc. So I used hypnosis
to help her to diminish the number of her washings, "so that the
anxiety-feeling would be banished"; and to train her to throw things on
the ground and pick them up again without washing her hands afterwards,
etc.
In view of these considerations, if you feel disposed to go further
into the matter, I should be grateful if you would furnish me with
more convincing reasons why hypnotic treatment must be dispensed with;
and explain how to do without it, or with what to replace it in such
cases. Were I convinced, I would give it up as you have done, but what
convinced you has, so far, not convinced me. _Si duo faciunt idem, non
est idem._
Now I want to consider another important matter to which you alluded,
but only cursorily, and to put one question: behind the neurotic
phantasies there stands, you say, almost always (or always) a moral
conflict which belongs to the present moment. That is perfectly clear
to me. Research and therapy coincide; their task is to search out the
foundations and the rational solution of the conflict. Good. But can
the rational solution always be found? "Reasons of expediency" so often
bar the way, varying with the type of patient, for instance children,
young girls and women from "pious" catholic or protestant families.
Again that accursed opportunism! A colleague of mine was perfectly right
when he began to give sexual enlightenment to a young French patient, a
boy who was indulging in masturbation. Whereupon, like one possessed,
in rushed a bigoted grandmother, and a disagreeable sequel ensued. How
to act in these and similar cases? What to do in cases where there
arises a moral conflict between love and duty (a conflict in married
life)?--or in general between instinct and moral duty? What to do in the
case of a girl afflicted with hysterical or anxiety symptoms, needing
love and having no chance to marry, either because she cannot find a
suitable man or because, being "well-connected," she wants to remain
chaste? Simply try to get rid of the symptoms by suggestion? But that is
wrong as soon as one knows of a better way. How to reconcile these two
consciences: that of the man who does not want to confine his fidelity
to truth within his own four walls; and that of the doctor who must
cure, or if he dare not cure according to his real convictions (owing to
opportunist-motives), must at least procure some alleviation? We live
in the present, but with the ideas and ideals of the future. That is
_our_ conflict. How resolve it?
IV
_From Dr. Jung._
4th February, 1913.
You have put me in some perplexity by the questions in your yesterday's
letter. You have rightly grasped the spirit which dictated my last. I
am glad you, too, recognise this spirit. There are not very many who
can boast of such tolerance. I should deceive myself if I regarded my
standpoint as that of a practical physician. First and foremost I am
a scientist; naturally that gives me a different outlook upon many
problems. In my last letter I certainly left out of count the doctor's
practical needs, but chiefly that I might show you on what grounds we
might be moved to relinquish hypnotic therapy. To remove the first
objection at once, let me say that I did not give up hypnotism because I
desired to avoid dealing with the basic motives of the human soul, but
rather because I wanted to battle with them _directly_ and _openly_.
When once I understood what kind of forces play a part in hypnotism I
gave it up, simply to get rid of all the indirect advantages of this
method. As we psychoanalysts see regretfully every day--and our patients
also--_we do not work with the "transference to the doctor,"_[180] _but
against it and in spite of it_. It is just not upon the _faith_ of the
sick man that we can build, but upon his _criticism_. So much would I
say at the outset upon this delicate question.
As your letter shows, we are at one in regard to the theoretical aspect
of treatment by suggestion. So we can now apply ourselves to the further
task of coming to mutual understanding about the practical question.
Your remarks on the physician's dilemma--whether to be magician or
scientist--bring us to the heart of the discussion. I strive to be no
fanatic--although there are not a few who reproach me with fanaticism. I
contend not for the application of the psychoanalytic method solely and
at all costs, but for the recognition of every method of investigation
and treatment. I was a medical practitioner quite long enough to realise
that practice obeys, and should obey, other laws than does the search
after truth. One might almost say practice must first and foremost
submit to the laws of opportunism. The scientist does great injustice
to the practitioner if he reproaches him for not using the "one true"
scientific method. As I said to you in my last letter: "A truth is a
truth, when it works." But on the other hand, the practitioner must not
reproach the scientist if in his search for truth and for newer and
better methods, he makes trial of unusual ways. After all, it is not the
practitioner but the investigator, and the latter's patient, who will
have to bear any injury that may arise. The practitioner must certainly
use those methods which he knows how to use to greatest advantage, and
which give him the best relative results. My tolerance, indeed, extends,
as you see, even to Christian Science. But I deem it most uncalled for
that Frank, a practising doctor, should depreciate research in which he
cannot participate, and particularly the very line of research to which
he owes his own method. It is surely time to cease this running down of
every new idea. No one asks Frank and all whom he represents to become
psychoanalysts; we grant them the right to their existence, why should
they always seek to cut ours short?
As my own "cures" show you, I do not doubt the effect of suggestion.
Only I had the idea that I could perhaps discover something still
better. This hope has been amply justified. Not for ever shall it be
said--
"The good attained is oft of fairer still
The enemy, calling it vain illusion, falsehood's snare."
I confess frankly were I doing your work I should often be in
difficulties if I relied only on psychoanalysis. I can scarcely imagine
a general practice, especially in a sanatorium, with no other means than
psychoanalysis. At Dr. Bircher's sanatorium in Zürich the principle of
psychoanalysis is adopted completely by several of the assistants, but
a whole series of other important educative influences are also brought
to bear upon the patients, without which matters would probably go very
badly. In my own purely psychoanalytic practice I have often regretted
that I could not avail myself of the other methods of re-education
that are naturally at hand in an institution--this, of course, only
in special cases where one is dealing with extremely uncontrolled,
uneducated persons. Which of us has shown any disposition to assert that
we have discovered a panacea? There are cases in which psychoanalysis
operates less effectively than any other known method. But who has ever
claimed psychoanalysis should be employed in every sort of case, and on
every occasion? Only a fanatic could maintain such a view. Patients for
whom psychoanalysis is suitable have to be selected. I unhesitatingly
send cases I think unsuitable to other doctors. As a matter of fact
this does not happen often, because patients have a way of sorting
themselves out. Those who go to an analyst usually know quite well why
they go to him and not to some one else. However, there are very many
neurotics well suited for psychoanalysis. In these matters every scheme
must be looked at in due perspective. It is never quite wise to try to
batter down a stone wall with your head. Whether simple hypnotism, the
cathartic treatment, or psychoanalysis shall be used, must be determined
by the conditions of the case and the preference of the _particular_
doctor. Every doctor will obtain the best results with the instrument he
knows best.
But, barring exceptions, _I must say definitely that for me, and
for my patients also, psychoanalysis proves itself better than any
other method_. This is not merely a matter of feeling; from manifold
experiences I know many cases can indeed be cured by psychoanalysis
which are refractory to all other methods of treatment. I have many
colleagues whose experience is the same, even men engaged exclusively
in practice. It is scarcely to be supposed that a method altogether
contemptible would meet with so much support.
When once psychoanalysis has been applied in a suitable case, it is
_imperative_ that rational solutions of the conflicts should be found.
The objection is at once advanced that many conflicts are intrinsically
incapable of solution. That view is sometimes taken because only an
external solution is thought of--and that, at bottom, is no real
solution at all. If a man cannot get on with his wife he naturally
thinks the conflict would be solved if he were to marry some one
else. If such marriages are examined they are seen to be no solution
whatsoever. The old Adam enters upon the new marriage and bungles it
just as badly as he did the earlier one. _A real solution comes only
from within, and only then because the patient has been brought to a new
standpoint._
Where an external solution is possible no psychoanalysis is necessary;
in seeking an internal solution we encounter the peculiar virtues of
psychoanalysis. The conflict between "love and duty" must be solved
upon that particular plane of character where "love and duty" are no
longer in opposition, for indeed they really are not so. The familiar
conflict between "instinct and conventional morality" must be solved
in such a way that both factors are taken satisfactorily into account,
and this is only possible through a change of character. This change
psychoanalysis can bring about. In such cases external solutions are
worse than none at all. Naturally the particular situation dictates
which road the doctor must ultimately follow, and what is then his duty.
I regard the conscience-searching question of the doctor's remaining
true to his scientific convictions as rather unimportant in comparison
with the incomparably weightier question as to how he can best help his
patient. The doctor _must_, on occasion, be able to play the augur.
_Mundus vult decipi_--but the cure is no deception. It is true that
there is a conflict between ideal conviction and concrete possibility.
_But we should ill prepare the ground for the seed of the future, were
we to forget the tasks of the present, and sought only to cultivate
ideals._ That is but idle dreaming. Do not forget that Kepler cast
horoscopes for money, and that countless artists have been condemned to
work for wages.
V.
_From Dr. Loÿ._
9th February, 1913.
The selfsame passion for truth possesses us both when we think of pure
research, and the same desire to cure when we are considering therapy.
For the scientist, as for the doctor, we desire the fullest freedom in
all directions, fullest freedom to select and use the methods which
promise the best fulfilment of their ends at any moment. Here we are at
one; but there remains a postulate we must establish to the satisfaction
of others if we want recognition for our views.
First and foremost there is a question that must be answered, an old
question asked already in the Gospels: _What is Truth?_ I think clear
definitions of fundamental ideas are most necessary. How shall we
contrive a working definition of the conception "Truth"? Perhaps an
allegory may help us.
Imagine a gigantic prism extending in front of the sun, so that its
rays are broken up, but suppose man entirely ignorant of this fact. I
exclude the invisible, chemical and ultra-violet rays. Men who live
in a blue-lit region will say: "The sun sends forth blue light only."
They are right and yet they are wrong: from their standpoint they are
capable of perceiving only a _fragment_ of truth. And so too with the
inhabitants of the red, yellow, and in-between regions. And they will
all scourge and slay one another to force _their_ belief in _their_
fragment upon the others--till, grown wiser through travelling in each
others' regions, they come to the harmonious agreement that the sun
sends out light of varying colours. That comprehends more truth, but it
is not yet _the_ Truth. Only when the giant lens shall have recombined
the split-up rays, and when the invisible, chemical and heat rays
have given proof of their own specific effects, will a view more in
accordance with the facts be able to arise, and men will perceive that
the sun emits white light which is split up by the prism into differing
rays with different peculiarities, which rays can be recombined by the
lens into one mass of white light.
This example shows sufficiently well that the road to Truth leads
through far-reaching and comparative observations, the results of which
must be controlled by the help of freely chosen _experiments_, until
well-grounded hypotheses and theories can be put forward; but these
hypotheses and theories will fall to the ground as soon as a single new
observation or experiment contradicts them.
The way is difficult, and in the end all man ever attains to is
_relative_ truth. But such relative truth suffices for the time being,
if it serves to explain the most important actual concatenations of the
past, to light up present problems, to predict those of the future,
so that we are then in a position to achieve adaptation through our
knowledge. But _absolute_ truth could be accessible only to omniscience,
aware of all possible concatenations and combinations; that is not
possible, for the concatenations and their combinations are infinite.
Accordingly, we shall never know more than an approximate truth. Should
new relationships be discovered, new combinations built up, then the
picture changes, and with it the entire possibilities in knowledge and
power. To what revolutions in daily life does not every new scientific
discovery lead: how absurdly little was the beginning of our first
ideas of electricity, how inconceivably great the results! Time and
again it is necessary to repeat this commonplace, because one sees
how life is always made bitter for the innovators in every scientific
field, and now is it being made especially so for the disciples of
the psychoanalytic school. Of course, every one admits the truth of
this platitude so long as it is a matter of "academic" discussion, but
only so long; just as soon as a concrete case has to be considered,
sympathies and antipathies rush into the foreground and darken judgment.
And therefore the scientist must fight tirelessly, appealing to logic
and honour, for freedom of research in every field, and must not
permit authority, of no matter what political or religious tinge, to
advance reasons of _opportunism_ to destroy or restrict this freedom;
opportunist reasons may be and are in place elsewhere, not here. Finally
we must completely disavow that maxim of the Middle Ages: "_Philosophia
ancilla Theologiæ_," and no less, too, the war-cries of the university
class-rooms with their partisanship of one or other religious or
political party. All fanaticism is the enemy of science, which must
above all things be _independent_.
And when we turn from the search for Truth back once more to
therapeutics, we see immediately that here too we are in agreement.
In practice expediency _must_ rule: the doctor from the yellow region
must adapt himself to the sick in the yellow region, as must the
doctor in the blue region, to his patients; both have the same object
in view. And the doctor who lives in the white light of the sun must
take into consideration the past experiences of his patients from the
yellow or blue region, in spite of, or perhaps rather because of, his
own wider knowledge. In such cases the way to healing will be long and
difficult, may indeed lead more easily into a _cul-de-sac_, than in
cases where he has to do with patients who, like himself, have already
come to a knowledge of the white sunlight, or, one might say, when his
patient-material has "already sorted itself out." With such sorted-out
material the psychoanalyst can employ psychoanalysis exclusively; and
may deem himself happy in that he need not "play the augur." Now, what
are these psychoanalytic methods? If I understand you aright, from
beginning to end it is a question of dealing directly and openly with
_the basic forces of the human soul_, so that the analysed person, be
he sick or sound or in some stage between--for health and sickness
flow over by imperceptible degrees into one another--shall gradually
have his eyes opened to the drama that is being acted within him. He
has to come to an understanding of the development of the hostile
automatisms of his personality, and by means of this understanding he
must gradually learn to free himself from them; he must learn, too, how
to employ and strengthen the favourable automatisms. He must learn
to make his self-knowledge real, and of practical use, to control his
soul's workings so that a balance may be established between the spheres
of emotion and reason. And what share in all this has the physician's
_suggestion_? I can scarcely believe that suggestion can be altogether
avoided till the patient feels himself really _free_. Such freedom, it
goes without saying, is the main thing to strive for, and it must be
_active_. The sick man who simply obeys a suggestion, obeys it only just
so long as the "transference to the doctor" remains potent.
But if he wishes to be able to adjust himself to all circumstances he
must have fortified himself "from within." He should no longer need the
crutches of faith, but be capable of encountering all theoretical and
practical problems squarely, and of solving them by himself. That is
surely your view? Or have I not understood correctly?
I next ask, must not every single case be treated differently, of course
_within the limits of the psychoanalytic method_? For if every case is a
case by itself, it must indeed demand individual treatment.
"Il n'y a pas de maladies, il n'y a que des malades," said a French
doctor whose name escapes me. But _on broad lines_, what course, from a
technical point of view, does analysis take, and what deviations occur
most frequently? That I would gladly learn from you. I take for granted
that all "augurs' tricks," darkened rooms, masquerading, chloroform, are
out of the question.
Psychoanalysis--purged so far as is humanly possible from suggestive
influence--appears to have an essential difference from Dubois'
psychotherapy. With Dubois, from the beginning conversation about the
past is forbidden, and "the moral reasons for recovery" placed in the
forefront; whilst psychoanalysis uses the subconscious material from
the patient's past as well as present, for present self-understanding.
Another difference lies in the conception of morality: morals are
above all "_relative_." But what essential forms shall they assume at
those moments when one can hardly avoid suggestion? You will say, the
occasion must decide. Agreed, as regards older people, or adults, who
have to live in an unenlightened _milieu_. But if one is dealing with
children, the seed of the future, is it not a sacred duty to enlighten
them as to the shaky foundations of the so-called "moral" conceptions
of the past, which have only a dogmatic basis; is it not a duty to
educate them into full freedom by courageously unveiling Truth? I ask
this not so much with regard to the analysing doctor as to the teacher.
May not the creation of _free schools_ be looked for as one task for the
psychoanalyst?
VI.
_From Dr. Jung._
11th February, 1913.
The idea of the relativity of "Truth" has been current for ages, but
whether true or not, it does not stand in the way of anything save the
beliefs of dogma and authority.
You ask me, or indeed tell me--what psychoanalysis is. Before
considering your views, permit me first to try and mark out the
territory and definition of psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is primarily
just a method--but a method complying with all the rigorous demands
insisted upon to-day by the conception "method." Let it be made plain
at once that psychoanalysis is not an _anamnesis_, as those who know
everything without learning are pleased to believe. It is essentially
a method for the exploration of the unconscious associations, into
which no question of the conscious self enters. Again, it is not
a _kind_ of _examination_ of the nature of an intelligence test,
though this mistake is common in certain circles. It is no _cathartic
method_, abreacting real and phantastic "traumata," with or without
hypnosis. _Psychoanalysis is a method which makes possible the analytic
reduction of the psychic content to its simplest expression, and the
discovery of the line of least resistance in the development of a
harmonious personality._ In neurosis, straightforward direction of
life's energies is lacking, because opposing tendencies traverse and
hinder psychological adaptation. Psychoanalysis, so far as our present
knowledge of it goes, thus appears to be simply a rational nerve-therapy.
For the technical application of psychoanalysis no programme can be
formulated. There are only general principles, and, for the individual
case, working rules. (Here let me refer you to Freud's work in volume
I. of the _Internationale Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Psychoanalyse_.) My
one working rule is to conduct the analysis as a perfectly ordinary,
sensible conversation, and to avoid all appearance of medical magic.
The leading principle of the psychoanalytic technique is to analyse
the _psychic material which offers itself then and there_. Every
interference on the part of the analyst, with the object of inducing
the analysis to follow some systematic course, is a gross mistake in
technique. _So-called chance is the law and the order of psychoanalysis._
Naturally in the beginning of the analysis the anamnesis and the
diagnosis come first. The subsequent analytic process develops quite
differently in every case. To give rules is well-nigh impossible. All
one can say is that very frequently, quite at the beginning, a series
of resistances have to be overcome, resistances against both method and
man. Patients having no idea of psychoanalysis must first be given some
understanding of the method. In those who already know something of it
there are very often many misconceptions to set right, and frequently
one has to deal also with many reproaches cast by scientific criticism.
In either case the misconceptions rest upon arbitrary interpretations,
superficiality, or complete ignorance of the facts.
If the patient is himself a doctor his special knowledge may prove
extremely tiresome. To intelligent colleagues it is best to give a
complete theoretic exposition. With foolish and limited persons you
begin quietly with analysis. In the unconscious of such folk there
is a confederate that never refuses help. From the analysis of the
very earliest dreams the emptiness of the criticism is obvious; and
ultimately of the whole beautiful edifice of supposedly scientific
scepticism nothing remains, save a little heap of personal vanity. I
have had amusing experiences here.
It is best to let the patient talk freely and to confine oneself to
pointing out connexions here and there. When the conscious material is
exhausted we come to the dreams, which furnish us with the subliminal
material. If people have no dreams, as they allege, or if they forget
them, there is usually still some conscious material that ought to be
produced and discussed, but is kept back owing to resistances. When the
conscious is emptied then come the dreams, which are indeed, as you
know, the chief material of the analysis.
How the "Analysis" is to be made and what is to be said to patients
depends, firstly, upon the material to be dealt with; secondly, on the
doctor's skill; and, thirdly, on the patient's capacity. I must insist
that no one ought to undertake analysis except on the basis of a sound
knowledge of the subject; that necessitates an intimate understanding of
the existing literature. Without this, the work may be bungled.
I do not know what else to tell you beforehand. I must wait for further
questions. In regard to questions of morality and education let me say
that these belong to the later stages of the analysis, wherein they
find--or should find--solutions for themselves. _You cannot compile
recipes out of psychoanalysis._
VII
_From Dr. Loÿ._
10th February, 1913.
You write that a solid knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature is
necessary for initiation into psychoanalysis. I should agree, but with a
certain reservation: the more one reads, the more one notices how many
contradictions there are among the different writers, and less and less
does one know--until one has had sufficient personal experience--to
which view to give adherence, since quite frequently assertions are made
without any proof. For example, I had thought (strengthened in the view
by my own experience of suggestion-therapy) that the transference to
the doctor might be an essential condition in the patient's cure. But
you write: "We psychoanalysts do not build upon the patient's faith,
rather do we have to deal with his criticism." And Stekel writes, on
the other hand (_Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, 3rd year, vol. IV.,
p. 176, "Ausgänge der psychoanalytischen Kuren"): "Love for the doctor
can become a power essential to recovery. Neurotics never get well for
love of themselves. They recover out of love for the doctor. They give
him that pleasure." Here again, surely, stress is laid on the power of
suggestion? And yet Stekel too thinks he is a psychoanalyst pure and
simple. On the other hand, you say in your letter of Jan. 20th that "the
doctor's personality is one of the main factors in the cure." Should
not this expression be translated: "When the doctor inspires respect in
the patient and is worthy of his love, the patient will gladly follow
his example and endeavour to recover from his neurosis and fulfil his
human duties in the widest sense"? I think one can only emerge from
all this uncertainty by means of much personal experience, which will
indicate also which way best suits one's own personality and brings the
greatest therapeutic success. This is a further reason for undergoing
analysis oneself, to recognise fully what one is. I was decidedly in
agreement with your definition of psychoanalysis in its first (negative)
portion: psychoanalysis is neither an _anamnesis_ nor a _method of
examination_ after the fashion of a test for intelligence, nor yet
a _psychocatharsis_. In your second (positive) part, however, your
definition: "Psychoanalysis is a method of discovering the line of least
resistance to the harmonious development of the whole personality,"
seems to me valid for the patient's inertia, but not for the releasing
of the sublimated libido with a view to the new direction of life. You
consider that the neurosis causes a lack of singleness of aim in life,
because opposing tendencies hinder psychic adaptation. True, but will
not this psychic adaptation eventuate quite differently according as
the patient, when well, directs his life either to the avoidance of
pain merely (line of least resistance) or to the achievement of the
greatest pleasure?--In the first case he would be more passive, he
would merely reconcile himself "to the emptiness of reality" (Stekel,
_loc. cit._, p. 187). In the second he would be "filled with enthusiasm"
for something or other or some person or other. But what will determine
this choice of his as to whether he will be passive rather than active
in his "second life"? In your view, will the determining factor manifest
itself spontaneously in the course of the analysis, and must the
doctor carefully avoid swaying the balance to one side or other by his
influence? Or must he, if he does _not_ renounce the right to canalise
the patient's libido in some particular direction, renounce the right
to be called a psychoanalyst, and is he to be regarded as "moderate"
or altogether as "wild"?[181] (Cf. Furtmüller, "Wandlungen in der
Freudschen Schule," _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, vols. IV., V.,
3rd year, p. 191.) But I think you have already answered this question,
since in your last letter you write: "Every interference on the part of
the analyst is a gross mistake in technique. So-called chance is the law
and the order of psychoanalysis." But, torn from its context, perhaps
this does not quite give your whole meaning. With regard to detailed
explanation of the psychoanalytic method before the beginning of the
analysis, I think you agree with Freud and Stekel: give too little
rather than too much. For the knowledge _instilled into_ a patient
remains more or less half-knowledge, and half-knowledge engenders "the
desire to know better" (than the analyst), which only impedes progress.
So, after brief explanation, first "let the patient talk," then and
there point out connexions, then after the exhaustion of the conscious
material, take dreams.
But there another difficulty confronts me which I have already pointed
out in our talks: you find the patient adapting himself to the doctor's
tone, language, jargon, whether from conscious imitation, transference,
or even resistance, when he can fight the analyst with his own weapons;
how then can you possibly prevent his beginning to produce all manner of
phantasies as supposedly real traumata of early childhood, and _dreams_
supposedly spontaneous which are in reality, though not designedly,
directly or indirectly _suggested_? I then told you that Forel ("Der
Hypnotismus") made his patients dream just what he wanted, and I have
myself easily repeated the experiment. But if the analyst desires to
_suggest nothing_, should he remain silent for the most part and let the
patient speak--except that in interpreting dreams he may lay before the
patient his own interpretation?
VIII
_From Dr. Jung._
18th February, 1913.
I cannot but agree with your observation that confusion reigns in
psychoanalytic literature. Just at this moment different points of view
are developing in the theoretical conception of the analytic results;
not to mention many individual deviations. Over against Freud's almost
purely _causal_ conception, there has developed, apparently in absolute
contradiction, Adler's purely _final_ view, but in reality the latter
is an essential complement of Freud's theory. I hold rather to a middle
course, taking into account both standpoints. That discord still reigns
round the ultimate questions of psychoanalysis need not surprise us
when we consider the difficulty. The problem of the therapeutic effect
of psychoanalysis is bound up in particular with supremely difficult
questions, so that it would indeed be astonishing if we had yet
reached final certitude. Stekel's statement to which you refer is very
characteristic. What he says about love for the doctor is obviously
true, but it is a simple affirmation, and not a goal or plumb-line of
the analytic therapy. If his statement were the goal, many cures, it is
true, would be possible, but also many calamities might result which are
avoidable. But the aim is so to educate the patient that he will get
well for his own sake and by reason of his own determination, rather
than to procure his doctor some sort of advantage; though of course
it would be absurd from the therapeutic standpoint not to allow the
patient to get better because in doing so he does the doctor a good turn
also. It suffices if the patient knows it. But we must not prescribe
for him which path he should take to recovery. Naturally it seems to me
(from the psychoanalytic standpoint) an inadmissible use of suggestive
influence if the patient is compelled to get better out of love for
the doctor. And indeed such compulsion may sometimes take bitter
revenge. The "you must and shall be saved" is no more to be commended in
nerve-therapy than in any other department of life. It contradicts the
principle of analytic treatment, which shuns all coercion and desires
to let everything grow up from within. I do not, as you know, object to
influencing by use of suggestion in general, but merely to a doubtful
motivation. If the doctor demands that his patient shall get well from
love of himself, the patient may easily reckon on reciprocal services
and will without doubt try to extort them. I can but utter a warning
against any such method. A far stronger motive for recovery--also a far
healthier and ethically more valuable one--consists in the patient's
thorough insight into the real state of affairs, the recognition of how
things are now and how they ought to be. The man of any sort of worth
will then discern that he can hardly sit down at ease in the quagmire of
his neurosis.
With your rendering of what I said about the healing power of
personality I cannot entirely agree. I wrote that the doctor's
personality has a power for healing because the patient reads the
doctor's personality: not that he produces a cure through _love_ of the
doctor. The doctor cannot prevent the patient's beginning to behave
himself towards _his_ conflicts just as the doctor himself behaves,
for nothing is finer than a neurotic's intuition. _But every strong
transference serves this same purpose._ If the doctor makes himself
charming, he buys off from the patient a series of resistances which he
should have overcome, and whose overcoming will certainly have to be
gone through later on. Nothing is won by this technique; at most the
beginning of the analysis is made easy for the patient (though this is
not quite without its use in certain cases). To be able to crawl through
a barbed wire fence without some enticing end in view testifies to an
ascetic strength of will which you can expect neither from the ordinary
person nor from the neurotic. Even the Christian religion, whose moral
demands certainly reached a great height, thought it no scorn to
represent the near approach of the Kingdom of Heaven as goal and reward
of earthly pain. In my view, the doctor may well speak of the rewards
which follow the toils of analysis. But he must not depict himself or
his friendship, in hints or promises, as reward, if he is not seriously
determined to keep his word.
In regard to your criticism of my outline-definition of the conception
of psychoanalysis, it must be observed that the road over the steep
mountain is the line of least resistance only when a ferocious bull
waits for you in the pleasant valley-road. In other words, the line
of least resistance is a compromise with _all_ demands, and not
with inertia alone. It is prejudice to think that the line of least
resistance coincides with the path of inertia. (That's what we thought
in the days when we dawdled over Latin exercises.) Inertia is only an
immediate advantage and leads to consequences which produce the worst
resistances; as a whole, it does not lie in the direction of least
resistance. Life along the line of least resistance is not synonymous
with a man's regardless pursuit of his own egoistic desires. He who
lives thus soon painfully perceives that he is not moving along the line
of least resistance, for he is also a social being, and not merely a
bundle of egoistic instincts, as some people rather like to depict him.
This is best seen among primitive men and herd-animals, who all have a
richly developed social sense. Without it, indeed, the herd could not
exist at all. Man as herd-animal has therefore by no manner of means to
subject himself to laws enforced on him from without; he carries his
social imperatives within himself, _a priori_, as an inborn necessity.
As you see, I here put myself in decided opposition to certain views--I
think quite unjustified--which have been put forth here and there
inside the psychoanalytic movement.
So the line of least resistance does not signify _eo ipso_ the avoidance
of unpleasure so much as the just balancing of unpleasure and pleasure.
Painful activity by itself leads to no result but exhaustion. Man must
be able to take pleasure in his life, or the struggle of life has no
reward. What direction the patient's future life should take is not ours
to judge. We must not imagine we know better than his own nature--or
we prove ourselves educators of the worst kind. Psychoanalysis is but
a means of removing stones from the path, and in no way a method (as
hypnotism often pretends to be) of putting anything into the patient
which was not there before. So we renounce any attempt to give a
direction, and occupy ourselves only with setting in proper relief
all that analysis brings into the light of day, in order that the
patient may see clearly, and be in a position to draw the appropriate
conclusions. Anything that he has not himself won, he does not in
the long run believe in; and all that he has received from authority
keeps him still infantile. He must rather be put in such a position as
will enable him to take control of his own life. It is the art of the
psychoanalyst to follow the patient's apparently mistaken paths without
prejudice, and thus to discover his strayed and separated sheep. Working
on a system, according to a preconceived scheme, we spoil the best
results of the analysis. So I hold fast to the maxim you quote from me:
"Every interference on the part of the analyst is a gross mistake in
technique. So-called chance is the law and the order of psychoanalysis."
You surely recognise that the schoolmaster-view never releases us
from the attempt to correct Nature and the desire to force upon her
our limited "truths." In nerve-therapy we get so many wonderful
experiences--unforeseen and impossible to foresee--that surely we ought
to dismiss all hope of being infallibly able to point out the right
path. The roundabout way and even the wrong way are necessary. If you
deny this you must also deny that the errors in the history of the
whole world have been necessary. That indeed were a world-conception fit
for a schoolmaster. For psychoanalysis this view suits not at all.
The question as to how much the analyst involuntarily suggests to
the patient is a very ticklish one. Undoubtedly that has a much more
important place than psychoanalysts have till now admitted. Experience
has convinced us that the patient rapidly avails himself of the ideas
won through the analysis, and of whatever comes to light through the
shaping of the dreams. You may obtain all manner of such impressions
from Stekel's book: "Die Sprache des Traumes" ("The Language of the
Dream"). I had once a most instructive experience: a very intelligent
lady had from the beginning extreme transference phantasies which
appeared in well-recognised erotic forms. Nevertheless she entirely
declined to admit their existence. Of course she was betrayed by the
dreams in which my own person was hidden behind some other figure, and
often difficult to unveil. A long series of such dreams forced me at
last to say: "So you see it is always like that, and the person of whom
one has really dreamt is replaced and hidden by some one else in the
manifest dream." Till then the patient had obstinately contested this
point. But this time she could no longer evade it, and had to admit my
rule--but only that she might play me a trick. Next day she brought me a
dream in which she and I appeared in a manifest lascivious situation. I
was naturally perplexed and thought of my rule. Her first association to
the dream was the malicious question: "It's always true, isn't it, that
the person of whom one is really dreaming is replaced by some one else
in the manifest dream-content?"
Clearly, she had made use of her experience to find a protective formula
by means of which she secured the open expression of her phantasies in
an apparently innocent way.
This example aptly shows how patients avail themselves of insight
gained during analysis; they use it symbolically. You get caught in
your own net if you give credence to the idea of unalterable, permanent
symbols. That has already happened to more than one psychoanalyst. It
is therefore fallacious to try to prove any particular theory from the
dreams arising in the course of analysis. For this purpose the only
conclusive dreams are those derived from demonstrably uninfluenced
persons. In such cases one would only have to exclude the possibility of
telepathic thought-reading. But if you concede this possibility you will
have to subject very many things to a rigorous re-examination and, among
others, many judicial verdicts.
But although we must do full justice to the force of suggestion, we must
not overrate it. The patient is no empty sack into which you may stuff
whatever you like; on the contrary, he brings his own predetermined
contents which strive obstinately against suggestion and always obtrude
themselves afresh. Through analytic "suggestions," only the outward
_form_ is determined, never the content--this is always being freshly
impressed upon my notice. The form is the unlimited, the ever-changing;
but the content is fixed, and only to be assailed slowly and with great
difficulty. Were it not so, suggestion-therapy would be in every respect
the most effective, profitable, and easiest therapy,--a real panacea.
That, alas! it is not, as every honourable hypnotist will freely admit.
To return to your question as to how far it is conceivable that patients
may deceive the doctor by making use--perhaps involuntarily--of his
expressions: this is indeed a very serious problem. The analyst must
exercise all possible care and practise unsparing self-criticism if
he would avoid, as far as possible, being led into error by patients'
dreams. It may be admitted that they almost always use modes of
expression in their dreams learnt in analysis--some more, some less.
Interpretations of earlier symbols will themselves be used again as
fresh symbols in later dreams. It happens not seldom, for instance, that
sexual situations which appear in symbolic form in the earlier dreams,
will appear "undisguised" in later ones, and here again they are the
symbolic expression of ideas of another character capable of further
analysis. The not infrequent dream of incestuous cohabitation is by
no means an "undisguised" content, but a dream as freshly symbolic and
capable of analysis as all others. You surely only reach the paradoxical
view that such a dream is "undisguised" if you are pledged to the sexual
theory of neurosis.
That the patient may mislead the doctor for a longer or shorter time by
means of deliberate deception and misrepresentation is possible; just as
occasionally happens in all other departments of medicine. Therewith the
patient injures himself most, since he has to pay for every deception
or suppression, with aggravated or additional symptoms. Deceptions are
so obviously disadvantageous to himself that in the end he can scarcely
avoid the definite relinquishment of such a course.
The technique of analysis we can best postpone for oral discussion.
IX
_From Dr. Loÿ._
23rd February, 1913.
From your letter of 16th February I want first to single out the
end, where you so admirably assign to its proper place the power of
suggestion in psychoanalysis: "The patient is no empty sack, into which
you can cram what you will; he brings his own predetermined content
with him, with which one has always to reckon afresh." With this I
fully agree, my own experience confirms it. And you add: "This content
remains untouched by involuntary analytical suggestion, but its form is
altered, proteus-fashion, beyond measure." So it becomes a matter of
a sort of "mimicry" by which the patient seeks to escape the analyst,
who is driving him into a corner and therefore for the moment seems
to him an enemy. Until at last, through the joint work of patient and
analyst--the former spontaneously yielding up his psychic content,
the latter only interpreting and explaining--the analysis succeeds in
bringing so much light into the darkness of the patient's psyche that
he can see the true relationships and, without any preconceived plan of
the analyst's, can himself draw the right conclusions and apply them
to his future life. This new life will betake itself along the line of
least resistance--or should we not rather say, the least resistances,
as a "compromise with all the necessities," in a just balancing of
pleasure and unpleasure? It is not we who must arbitrarily seek to
determine how matters stand for the patient and what will benefit him;
his own nature decides. In other words, we must assume the _rôle_ of
the accoucheur who can bring out into the light of day a child already
alive, but who must avoid a series of mistakes if the child is to remain
able to live and the mother is not to be injured. All this is very
clear to me, since it is only the application to the psychoanalytic
method of a general principle which should have universal validity:
never do violence to Nature. Hence I also see that the psychoanalyst
must follow his patient's apparently "wrong roads" if the patient is
ever to arrive at his own convictions and be freed once and for all
from infantile reliance on authority. We ourselves as individuals have
learnt or can only learn by making mistakes how to avoid them for the
future, and mankind as a whole has created the conditions of its present
and future stages of development quite as much by frequent travel along
wrong paths as along the right road. Have not many neurotics--I do not
know if you will agree, but I think so--become ill partly for the very
reason that their infantile faith in authority has fallen to pieces?
Now they stand before the wreckage of their faith, weeping over it, in
dire distress because they cannot find a substitute which shall show
them clearly whither their life's course should now turn. So they remain
stuck fast betwixt infancy which they must unwillingly renounce, and the
serious duties of the present and future (the moral conflict). I see,
particularly in such cases, you are right in saying it is a mistake to
seek to replace the lost faith in authority by another similar faith,
certain to be useful only so long as the belief lasts. This applies to
the deliberate use of suggestion in psychoanalysis, and the building
upon the transference to the doctor as the object of the analytic
therapy. I am no longer in doubt about your maxim: "Every interference
on the analyst's part is a gross mistake in technique. So-called chance
is the law and the order of psychoanalysis." Further, I am entirely
in agreement with you when you say that _altruism necessarily must be
innate in man considered as a herd-animal_. The contrary would be the
thing to be wondered at.
I should be much disposed to agree that not the egoistic, but the
altruistic instincts are primary. Love and trust of the child for the
mother who feeds it, nurses, cherishes and pets it,--love of the man for
his wife, regarded as the going out towards another's personality,--love
for offspring, care for it,--love for kinsfolk, etc. The egoistic
instincts owe their origin to the desire for exclusive possession of
all that surrounds love, the desire to possess the mother exclusively,
in opposition to the father and the brothers and sisters, the desire
to have a woman for himself alone, the desire to possess exclusively
ornaments, clothing, etc. But perhaps you will say I am paradoxical
and that the instincts, egoistic or altruistic, arise together in the
heart of man, and that every instinct is ambivalent in nature. But I
have to ask if the feelings and instincts are really ambivalent? Are
they exactly bipolar? Are the qualities of all emotions altogether
comparable? Is love really the opposite of hate?
However that may be, in any case it is well that man bears the social
law within himself, as an inborn imperative; otherwise our civilised
humanity would fare badly, having to subject themselves to laws imposed
on them from outside only: they would be impervious to the inheritance
of the earlier religious faiths, and would soon fall into complete
anarchy. Man would then have to ask himself whether it would not be
better to maintain by force an extreme belief in religious authority
such as prevailed in the Middle Ages. For the benefits of civilisation,
which strove to grant every individual as much outward freedom as was
consistent with the freedom of others, would be well worth the sacrifice
of free research. But the age of this use of force against nature is
past, civilised man has left this wrong track behind, not arbitrarily,
but obeying an inner necessity, and we may look joyfully towards the
future. Mankind, advancing in knowledge, will find its way across the
ruins of faith in authority to the moral autonomy of the individual.
X
_From Dr. Jung._
March, 1913.
At various places in your letters it has struck me that the problem
of "transference" seems to you particularly critical. Your feeling is
entirely justified. The transference is indeed at present the central
problem of analysis.
You know that Freud regards the transference as the projection of
infantile phantasies upon the doctor. To this extent the transference
is an infantile-erotic relationship. All the same, viewed from the
outside, superficially, the thing by no means always looks like an
infantile-erotic situation. As long as it is a question of the so-called
"positive" transference, the infantile-erotic character can usually be
recognised without difficulty. But if it is a "negative" transference,
you can see nothing but violent resistances which sometimes veil
themselves in seemingly critical or sceptical dress. In a certain
sense the determining factor in such circumstances is the patient's
relation to authority, that is, in the last resort, to the father. In
both forms of transference the doctor is treated as if he were the
father--according to the situation either tenderly or with hostility.
In this view the transference has the force of a resistance as soon as
it becomes a question of resolving the infantile attitude. But this
form of transference must be destroyed, inasmuch as the object of
analysis is the patient's moral autonomy. A lofty aim, you will say.
Indeed lofty, and far off, but still not altogether so remote, since it
actually corresponds to one of the predominating tendencies of our stage
of civilisation, namely, that urge towards individualisation by which
our whole epoch deserves to be characterised. (Cf. Müller-Lyer: "Die
Familie.") If a man does not believe in this orientation and still bows
before the scientific causal view-point, he will, of course, be disposed
merely to resolve this hostility, and to let the patient remain in a
positive relationship towards the father, _thus expressing the ideal of
an earlier epoch of civilisation_. It is commonly recognised that the
Catholic Church represents one of the most powerful organisations based
upon this earlier tendency. I cannot venture to doubt that there are
very many individuals who feel happier under compulsion from others than
when forced to discipline themselves. (Cf. Shaw: "Man and Superman.")
None the less, we do our neurotic patients a grievous wrong if we try
to force them all into the category of the unfree. Among neurotics,
there are not a few who do not require any reminders of their social
duties and obligations; rather are they born or destined to become the
bearers of new social ideals. They are neurotic so long as they bow down
to authority and refuse the freedom to which they are destined. Whilst
we look at life only retrospectively, as is the case in the Viennese
psychoanalytic writings, we shall never do justice to this type of case
and never bring the longed-for deliverance. For in that fashion we can
only educate them to become obedient children, and thereby strengthen
the very forces that have made them ill--their conservative retardation
and their submissiveness to authority. Up to a certain point this
is the right way to take with the infantile resistance which cannot
_yet_ reconcile itself with authority. But the power which edged them
out from their retrograde dependence on the father is not at all a
childish desire for insubordination, but the powerful urge towards the
development of an individual personality, and this struggle is their
imperative life's task. Adler's psychology does much greater justice to
this situation than Freud's.
In the one case (that of infantile intractability) the positive
transference signifies a highly important achievement, heralding cure;
in the other (infantile submissiveness) it portends a dangerous
backsliding, a convenient evasion of life's duty. The negative
transference represents in the first case an increased resistance, thus
a backsliding and an evasion of duty, but in the second it is an advance
of healing significance. (For the two types, cf. Adler's "Trotz und
Gehorsam.")
The transference then is, as you see, to be judged quite differently in
different cases.
The psychological process of "transference"--be it negative or
positive--consists in the libido _entrenching itself_, as it were, round
the personality of the doctor, the doctor accordingly representing
certain emotional values. (As you know, by _libido_ I understand very
much what Antiquity meant by the cosmogenic principle of _Eros_; in
modern terminology simply "psychic energy.") The patient is bound to
the doctor, be it in affection, be it in opposition, and cannot fail to
follow and imitate the doctor's psychic adaptations. To this he finds
himself urgently compelled. And with the best will in the world and all
technical skill, the doctor cannot prevent him, for intuition works
surely and instinctively, in despite of the conscious judgment, be it
never so strong. Were the doctor himself neurotic, and inadequate in
response to the demands of the external life, or inharmonious within,
the patient would copy the defect and build it up into the fabric of his
own presentations: you may imagine the result.
Accordingly I cannot regard the transference as merely the transference
of infantile-erotic phantasies; no doubt that is what it is from one
standpoint, but I see also in it, as I said in an earlier letter,
the process of the _growth of feeling_ and _adaptation_. From this
standpoint the infantile erotic phantasies, in spite of their
indisputable reality, appear rather as material for comparison or
as analogous pictures of something not understood as yet, than as
independent desires. This seems to me the real reason of their being
unconscious. The patient, not knowing the right attitude, tries to
grasp at a right relationship to the doctor by way of comparison and
analogy with his infantile experiences. It is not surprising that he
gropes back for just the most intimate relations of his childhood, to
discover the appropriate formula for his attitude to the doctor, for
this relationship also is very intimate, and to some extent different
from the sexual relationship, just as is that of the child towards its
parents. This relationship--child to parent--which Christianity has
everywhere set up as the symbolic formula for human relationships,
provides a way of restoring to the patient that directness of ordinary
human emotion of which he had been deprived through the inroad of
sexual and social values (from the standpoint of power, etc.). The
purely sexual, more or less primitive and barbaric valuation, operates
in far-reaching ways against a direct, simple human relationship, and
thereupon a blocking of the libido occurs which easily gives rise to
neurotic formations. By means of analysis of the infantile portion
of the transference-phantasies, the patient is brought back to the
remembrance of his childhood's relationship, and this--stripped of
its infantile qualities--gives him a beautiful, clear picture of
direct human intercourse as opposed to the purely sexual valuation. I
cannot regard it as other than a misconception to judge the childish
relationship retrospectively and therefore as exclusively a sexual one,
even though a certain sexual content can in no wise be denied to it.
Recapitulating, let me say this much of the positive transference:--
The patient's libido fastens upon the person of the doctor, taking the
shape of expectation, hope, interest, trust, friendship and love. Then
the transference produces the projection upon the doctor of infantile
phantasies, often of predominatingly erotic tinge. At this stage the
transference is usually of a decidedly sexual character, in spite of
the sexual component remaining relatively unconscious. But this phase
of feeling serves the higher aspect of the growth of human feeling as a
bridge, whereby the patient becomes conscious of the defectiveness of
his own adaptation, through his recognition of the doctor's attitude,
which is accepted as one suitable to life's demands, and normal in its
human relationships. By help of the analysis, and the recalling of his
childish relationships, the road is seen which leads right out of those
exclusively sexual or "power" evaluations of social surroundings which
were acquired in puberty and strongly reinforced by social prejudices.
This road leads on towards a purely human relation and intimacy, not
derived solely from the existence of a sexual or power-relation, but
depending much more upon a regard for personality. That is the road to
freedom which the doctor must show his patient.
Here indeed I must not omit to say that the obstinate clinging to the
sexual valuation would not be maintained so tenaciously if it had
not also a very deep significance for that period of life in which
propagation is of primary importance. The discovery of the value of
human personality belongs to a riper age. For young people the search
for the valuable personality is very often merely a cloak for the
evasion of their biological duty. On the other hand, an older person's
exaggerated looking back towards the sexual valuation of youth, is an
undiscerning and often cowardly and convenient retreat from a duty which
demands the recognition of personal values and his own enrolment among
the ranks of the priesthood of a newer civilisation. The young neurotic
shrinks back in terror from the extension of his tasks in life, the old
from the dwindling and shrinking of the treasures he has attained.
This conception of the transference is, you will have noted, most
intimately connected with the acceptance of the idea of biological
"_duties_." By this term you must understand those tendencies or
motives in human beings giving rise to civilisation, as inevitably
as in the bird they give rise to the exquisitely woven nest, and in
the stag to the production of antlers. The purely causal, not to say
materialistic conception of the immediately preceding decades, would
conceive the organic formation as the reaction of living matter, and
this doubtless provides a position heuristically useful, but, as far
as any real understanding goes, leads only to a more or less ingenious
and _apparent_ reduction and postponement of the problem. Let me refer
you to Bergson's excellent criticism of this conception. From external
forces but half the result, at most, could ensue; the other half lies
within the individual disposition of the living material, without which
it is obvious the specific reaction-formation could never be achieved.
This principle must be applied also in psychology. The psyche does not
only _react_; it also gives its own individual reply to the influences
at work upon it, and at least half the resulting configuration and its
existing disposition is due to this. Civilisation is never, and again
never, to be regarded as merely reaction to environment. That shallow
explanation we may abandon peacefully to the past century. It is just
these very dispositions which we must regard as imperative in the
psychological sphere; it is easy to get convincing proof daily of their
compulsive power. What I call "biological duty" is identical with these
dispositions.
In conclusion, I must deal with a matter which seems to have caused you
uneasiness, namely, the _moral_ question. Among our patients we see
many so-called immoral tendencies, therefore the thought involuntarily
forces itself upon the psychotherapist as to how things would go if all
these desires were to be gratified. You will have discerned already
from my earlier letters that these desires must not be estimated too
literally. As a rule it is rather a matter of unmeasured and exaggerated
demands, arising out of the patient's stored-up libido, which have
usurped a prominent position, usually quite against his own wish. In
most cases the canalisation of the libido for the fulfilment of life's
simple duties, suffices to reduce these exaggerated desires to zero.
But in some cases it must be recognised that such "immoral" tendencies
are in no way removed by analysis; on the contrary, they appear more
often and more clearly, hence it becomes plain that they belong to the
individual's biological duties. And this is particularly true of certain
sexual claims, whose aim is an individual valuation of sexuality. This
is not a question for pathology, it is a social question of to-day which
peremptorily demands an ethical solution. For many it is a biological
duty to work for the solution of this question, to discover some sort
of practical solution. (Nature, it is well known, does not content
herself with theories.) To-day we have no real sexual morality, only a
legal attitude towards sexuality; just as the early Middle Ages had no
genuine morality for financial transactions, but only prejudices and a
legal standpoint. We are not yet sufficiently advanced in the domain
of free sexual activity to distinguish between a moral and an immoral
relationship. We have a clear expression of this in the customary
treatment, or rather ill-treatment, of unmarried motherhood. For a great
deal of sickening hypocrisy, for the high tide of prostitution, and for
the prevalence of sexual diseases, we may thank both our barbarous,
undifferentiated legal judgments about the sexual situation, and our
inability to develop a finer moral perception of the immense psychologic
differences that may exist in free sexual activity.
This reference to the existence of an exceedingly complicated and
significant problem may suffice to explain why we by no means seldom
meet with individuals among our patients who are quite specially called,
because of their spiritual and social gifts, to take an active part in
the work of civilisation--for this they are biologically destined. We
must never forget that what to-day is deemed a moral law will to-morrow
be cast into the melting-pot and transformed, so that in the near or
distant future it may serve as the basis of a new ethical structure.
This much we ought to have learnt from the history of civilisation, that
the forms of morality belong to the category of transitory things. The
finest psychological tact is required with these critical natures, so
that the dangerous corners of infantile irresponsibility, indolence and
uncontrolledness may be turned, and a pure, untroubled vision of the
possibility of a moral autonomous activity made possible. Five per cent.
on money lent is fair interest, twenty per cent. is despicable usury.
That point of view we have to apply equally to the sexual situation.
So it comes about that there are many neurotics whose innermost delicacy
of feeling prevents their being at one with present-day morality, and
they cannot adapt themselves to civilisation as long as their moral
code has gaps in it, the filling up of which is a crying need of the
age. We deceive ourselves greatly if we suppose that many married women
are neurotic only because they are unsatisfied sexually or because they
have not found the right man, or because they still have a fixation to
their infantile sexuality. The real ground of the neurosis is, in many
cases, the inability to recognise the work that is waiting for them, of
helping to build up a new civilisation. We are all far too much at the
standpoint of the "nothing-but" psychology; we persist in thinking we
can squeeze the new future which is pressing in at the door into the
framework of the old and the known. And thus the view is only of the
present, never of the future. But it was of most profound psychological
significance when Christianity first discovered, in the orientation
towards the future, a redeeming principle for mankind. In the past
nothing can be altered, and in the present little, but the future is
ours and capable of raising life's intensity to its highest pitch. A
little space of youth belongs to us, all the rest of life belongs to our
children.
Thus does your question as to the significance of the loss of faith in
authority answer itself. The neurotic is ill not because he has lost his
old faith, but because he has not yet found a new form for his finest
aspirations.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 176: Translated by Mrs. Edith Eder.]
[Footnote 177: "Psychoanalysis." Nervous and Mental Disease, No. 19.
Monograph series.]
[Footnote 178: See Author's preface to "The Psychology of Dementia
Præcox."]
[Footnote 179: Thus a patient, who had been treated by a young colleague
without very much result, once said to me: "Certainly I made great
progress with him, and I am much better than I was. He tried to analyse
my dreams. It's true he never understood them, but he took _so much
trouble_ over them. He is really a good doctor."]
[Footnote 180: Defined in the Freudian sense, as the transference to the
doctor of infantile and sexual phantasies. A more advanced conception
of the transference perceives in it the important process of emotional
approach [_Einfühlung_] which at first makes use of infantile and sexual
analogies.]
[Footnote 181: "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses."
_Monograph Series_, No. 4, last edition.]
CHAPTER X
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS IN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY[182]
When we speak of a thing as being "unconscious" we must not forget that
from the point of view of the functioning of the brain a thing may be
unconscious to us in two ways--physiologically or psychologically. I
shall only deal with the subject from the latter point of view. So that
for our purposes we may define the unconscious as "the sum of all those
psychological events which are not apperceived, and so are unconscious."
The unconscious contains all those psychic events which, because of the
lack of the necessary intensity of their functioning, are unable to pass
the threshold which divides the conscious from the unconscious; so that
they remain in effect below the surface of the conscious, and flit by in
subliminal phantom forms.
It has been known to psychologists since the time of Leibniz that the
elements--that is to say, the ideas and feelings which go to make up
the conscious mind, the so-called conscious content--are of a complex
nature, and rest upon far simpler and altogether unconscious elements;
it is the combination of these which gives the element of consciousness.
Leibniz has already mentioned the _perceptions insensibles_--those vague
perceptions which Kant called "shadowy" representations, which could
only attain to consciousness in an indirect manner. Later philosophers
assigned the first place to the unconscious, as the foundation upon
which the conscious was built.
But this is not the place to consider the many speculative theories nor
the endless philosophical discussions concerning the nature and quality
of the unconscious. We must be satisfied with the definition already
given, which will prove quite sufficient for our purpose, namely the
conception of the unconscious as the sum of all psychical processes
below the threshold of consciousness.
The question of the importance of the unconscious for psychopathology
may be briefly put as follows: "In what manner may we expect to find
unconscious psychic material behave in cases of psychosis and neurosis?"
In order to get a better grasp of the situation in connexion with
mental disorders, we may profitably consider first how unconscious
psychic material behaves in the case of normal people, especially
trying to visualize what in normal men is apt to be unconscious. As
a preliminary to this knowledge we must get a complete understanding
of what is contained in the conscious mind; and then, by a process of
elimination we may expect to find what is contained in the unconscious,
for obviously--_per exclusionem_--what is in the conscious cannot be
unconscious. For this purpose we examine all activities, interests,
passions, cares, and joys, which are conscious to the individual. All
that we are thus able to discover becomes, _ipso facto_, of no further
moment as a content of the unconscious, and we may then expect to find
only those things contained in the unconscious which we have not found
in the conscious mind.
Let us take a concrete example: A merchant, who is happily married,
father of two children, thorough and painstaking in his business
affairs, and at the same time trying in a reasonable degree to improve
his position in the world, carries himself with self-respect, is
enlightened in religious matters, and even belongs to a society for the
discussion of liberal ideas.
What can we reasonably consider to be the content of the unconscious in
the case of such an individual?
Considered from the above theoretical standpoint, everything in the
personality that is not contained in the conscious mind should be
found in the unconscious. Let us agree, then, that this man consciously
considers himself to possess all the fine attributes we have just
described--no more, no less. Then it must obviously result that he is
entirely unaware that a man may be not merely industrious, thorough,
and painstaking, but that he may also be careless, indifferent,
untrustworthy; for some of these last attributes are the common heritage
of mankind and may be found to be an essential component of every
character. This worthy merchant forgets that quite recently he allowed
several letters to remain unanswered which he could easily have answered
at once. He forgets, too, that he failed to bring a book home which his
wife has asked him to get at the book-stall, where she had previously
ordered it, although he might easily have made a note of her wish.
But such occurrences are common with him. Therefore we are obliged to
conclude that he is also lazy and untrustworthy. He is convinced that he
is a thoroughly loyal subject; but for all that he failed to declare the
whole of his income to the assessor, and when they raise his taxes, he
votes for the Socialists.
He believes himself to be an independent thinker, yet a little while
back he undertook a big deal on the Stock Exchange, and when he came
to enter the details of the transaction in his books he noticed with
considerable misgivings that it fell upon a Friday, the 13th of the
month. Therefore, he is also superstitious and not free in his thinking.
So here we are not at all surprised to find these compensating vices
to be an essential content of the unconscious. Obviously, therefore,
the reverse is true--namely, that unconscious virtues compensate for
conscious deficiencies. The law which ought to follow as the result
of such deductions would appear to be quite simple--to wit, the
conscious spendthrift is unconsciously a miser; the philanthropist is
unconsciously an egoist and misanthrope. But, unfortunately, it is
not quite so easy as that, although there is a basis of truth in this
simple rule. For there are essential hereditary dispositions of a latent
or manifest nature which upset the simple rule of compensation, and
which vary greatly in individual cases. From entirely different motives
a man may, for instance, be a philanthropist, but the manner of his
philanthropy depends upon his originally inherited disposition, and the
way in which the philanthropic attitude is compensated depends upon his
motives. It is not sufficient simply to know that a certain person is
philanthropic in order to diagnose an unconscious egoism. For we must
also bring to such a diagnosis a careful study of the motives involved.
In the case of normal people the principal function of the unconscious
is to effect a compensation and thus produce a balance. All extreme
conscious tendencies are softened and toned down through an effective
opposite impulse in the unconscious. This compensating agency, as I have
tried to show in the case of the merchant, maintains itself through
certain unconscious, inconsequent activities, as it were, which Freud
has very well described as symptomatic acts (_Symptom-handlungen_).
To Freud we owe thanks also for having called attention to the
importance of dreams, for by means of them, also, we are able to learn
much about this compensating function. There is a fine historical
example of this in the well-known dream of Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth
chapter of the Book of Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar at the height of
his power had a dream which foretold his downfall. He dreamed of a tree
which had raised its head even up to heaven and now must be hewn down.
This is a dream which is obviously a counterpoise to the exaggerated
feeling of royal power.
Now considering states in which the mental balance is disturbed, we can
easily see, from what has preceded, wherein lies the importance of the
unconscious for psychopathology. Let us ponder the question of where
and in what manner the unconscious manifests itself in abnormal mental
conditions. The way in which the unconscious works is most clearly seen
in disturbances of a psychogenic nature, such as hysteria, compulsion
neurosis, etc.
We have known for a long time that certain symptoms of these
disturbances are produced by unconscious psychic events. Just as
clear, but less recognised, are the manifestations of the unconscious
in actually insane patients. As the intuitive ideas of normal men do
not spring from logical combinations of the conscious mind, so the
hallucinations and delusions of the insane arise, not out of conscious
but out of unconscious processes.
Formerly, when we held a more materialistic view of psychiatry we were
inclined to believe that all delusions, hallucinations, stereotypic
acts, etc., were provoked by morbid processes in the brain cells. Such a
theory, however, ignores that delusions, hallucinations, etc., are also
to be met with in certain functional disturbances, and not only in the
case of functional disturbances, but also in the case of normal people.
Primitive people may have visions and hear strange voices without having
their mental processes at all disturbed. To seek to ascribe symptoms
of that nature directly to a disease of the brain cells I hold to be
superficial and unwarranted. Hallucinations show very plainly how a part
of the unconscious content can force itself across the threshold of the
conscious. The same is true of a delusion whose appearance is at once
strange and unexpected by the patient.
The expression "mental balance" is no mere figure of speech, for its
disturbance is a real disturbance of that equilibrium which actually
exists between the unconscious and conscious content to a greater extent
than has heretofore been recognised or understood. As a matter of fact,
it amounts to this--that the normal functioning of the unconscious
processes breaks through into the conscious mind in an abnormal manner,
and thereby disturbs the adaptation of the individual to his environment.
If we study attentively the history of any such person coming under
our observation, we shall often find that he has been living for a
considerable time in a sort of peculiar individual isolation, more or
less shut off from the world of reality. This constrained condition
of aloofness may be traced back to certain innate or early acquired
peculiarities, which show themselves in the events of his life. For
instance, in the histories of those suffering from dementia præcox
we often hear such a remark as this: "He was always of a pensive
disposition, and much shut up in himself. After his mother died he
cut himself off still more from the world, shunning his friends and
acquaintances." Or again, we may hear, "Even as a child he devised many
peculiar inventions; and later, when he became an engineer, he occupied
himself with most ambitious schemes."
Without discussing the matter further it must be plain that a
counterpoise is produced in the unconscious as a compensation to the
one-sidedness of the conscious attitude. In the first case we may expect
to find an increasing pressing forward in the unconscious, of a wish
for human intercourse, a longing for mother, friends, relatives; while
in the second case self-criticism will try to establish a correcting
balance. Among normal people a condition never arises so one-sided
that the natural corrective tendencies of the unconscious entirely
lose their value in the affairs of everyday life; but in the case of
abnormal people, it is eminently characteristic that the individual
entirely fails to recognise the compensating influences which arise in
the unconscious. He even continues to accentuate his one-sidedness; this
is in accord with the well-known psychological fact that the worst enemy
of the wolf is the wolf-hound, the greatest despiser of the negro is the
mulatto, and that the biggest fanatic is the convert; for I should be a
fanatic were I to attack a thing outwardly which inwardly I am obliged
to concede as right.
The mentally unbalanced man tries to defend himself against his own
unconscious, that is to say, he battles against his own compensating
influences. The man already dwelling in a sort of atmosphere of
isolation, continues to remove himself further and further from the
world of reality, and the ambitious engineer strives by increasingly
morbid exaggerations of invention to disprove the correctness of his own
compensating powers of self-criticism. As a result of this a condition
of excitation is produced, from which results a great lack of harmony
between the conscious and unconscious attitudes. The pairs of opposites
are torn asunder, the resulting division or strife leads to disaster,
for the unconscious soon begins to intrude itself violently upon the
conscious processes. Then odd and peculiar thoughts and moods supervene,
and not infrequently incipient forms of hallucination, which clearly
bear the stamp of the internal conflict.
These corrective impulses or compensations which now break through into
the conscious mind, should theoretically be the beginning of the healing
process, because through them the previously isolated attitude should
apparently be relieved. But in reality this does not result, for the
reason that the unconscious corrective impulses which thus succeed in
making themselves apparent to the conscious mind, do so in a form that
is altogether unacceptable to consciousness.
The isolated individual begins to hear strange voices, which accuse him
of murder and all sorts of crimes. These voices drive him to desperation
and in the resulting agitation he attempts to get into contact with the
surrounding _milieu_, and does what he formerly had anxiously avoided.
The compensation, to be sure, is reached, but to the detriment of the
individual.
The pathological inventor, who is unable to profit by his previous
failures, by refusing to recognise the value of his own self-criticism,
becomes the creator of still more preposterous designs. He wishes to
accomplish the impossible but falls into the absurd. After a while he
notices that people talk about him, make unfavourable remarks about him,
and even scoff at him. He believes a far-reaching conspiracy exists
to frustrate his discoveries and render them objects of ridicule. By
this means his unconscious brings about the same results that his
self-criticism could have attained, but again only to the detriment of
the individual, because the criticism is projected into his surroundings.
An especially typical form of unconscious compensation--to give a
further example--is the paranoia of the alcoholic. The alcoholic loses
his love for his wife; the unconscious compensation tries to lead him
back again to his duty, but only partially succeeds, for it causes him
to become jealous of his wife as if he still loved her. As we know, he
may even go so far as to kill both his wife and himself, merely out of
jealousy. In other words, his love for his wife has not been entirely
lost, it has simply become subliminal; but from the realm of the
unconscious it can now only reappear in the form of jealousy.
We see something of a similar nature in the case of religious converts.
One who turns from protestantism to catholicism has, as is well known,
the tendency to be somewhat fanatical. His protestantism is not entirely
relinquished, but has merely disappeared into the unconscious, where it
is constantly at work as a counter-argument against the newly acquired
catholicism. Therefore the new convert feels himself constrained to
defend the faith he has adopted in a more or less fanatical way. It
is exactly the same in the case of the paranoiac, who feels himself
constantly constrained to defend himself against all external criticism,
because his delusional system is too much threatened from within.
The strange manner in which these compensating influences break through
into the conscious mind derives its peculiarities from the fact that
they have to struggle against the resistances already existing in the
conscious mind, and therefore present themselves to the patient's mind
in a thoroughly distorted manner. And secondly, these compensating
equivalents are obliged necessarily to present themselves in the
language of the unconscious--that is, in material of a heterogeneous
and subliminal nature. For all the material of the conscious mind which
is of no further value, and can find no suitable employment, becomes
subliminal, such as all those forgotten infantile and phantastic
creations that have ever entered the heads of men, of which only the
legends and myths still remain. For certain reasons which I cannot
discuss further here, this latter material is frequently found in
dementia præcox.
I hope I may have been able to give in this brief contribution, which
I feel to be unfortunately incomplete, a glimpse of the situation
as it presents itself to me of the importance of the unconscious in
psychopathology. It would be impossible in a short discourse to give an
adequate idea of all the work that has already been done in this field.
To sum up, I may say that the function of the unconscious in conditions
of mental disturbance is essentially a compensation of the content
of the conscious mind. But because of the characteristic condition
of one-sidedness of the conscious striving in all such cases, the
compensating correctives are rendered useless. It is, however,
inevitable that these unconscious tendencies break through into the
conscious mind, but in adapting themselves to the character of the
one-sided conscious aims, it is only possible for them to appear in a
distorted and unacceptable form.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 182: Paper given before the Section of Neurology and
Psychological Medicine, Aberdeen, 1914. Reprinted from the _British
Medical Journal_, by kind permission of the Editor, Dr. Dawson Williams.]
CHAPTER XI
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES[183]
It is well known that in their general physiognomy hysteria and dementia
præcox present a striking contrast, which is seen particularly in the
attitude of the sufferers towards the external world. The reactions
provoked in the hysteric surpass the normal level of intensity of
feeling, whilst this level is not reached at all by the precocious
dement. The picture presented by these contrasted illnesses is one of
exaggerated emotivity in the one, and extreme apathy in the other, with
regard to the environment. In their personal relations this difference
is very marked. Abstraction creates some exceptions here, for we remain
in affective rapport with our hysterical patients, which is not the case
in dementia præcox.
The opposition between these two nosological types is also seen in
the rest of their symptomatology. From the intellectual point of view
the products of hysterical imagination may be accounted for in a very
natural and human way in each individual case by the antecedents
and individual history of the patient; while the inventions of the
precocious dement, on the contrary, are more nearly related to dreams
than to normal consciousness, and they display moreover an incontestably
archaic tendency, wherein mythological creations of primitive
imagination are more in evidence than the personal memories of the
patient. From the physical point of view we do not find in dementia
præcox those symptoms so common in the hysteric, which simulate well
known or severe organic affections.
All this clearly indicates that hysteria is characterised by a
centrifugal tendency of the libido,[184] whilst in dementia præcox its
tendency is centripetal. The reverse occurs, however, where the illness
has fully established its compensatory effects. In the hysteric the
libido is always hampered in its movements of expansion and forced to
regress upon itself; one observes that such individuals cease to partake
in the common life, are wrapped up in their phantasies, keep their beds,
or are unable to live outside their sick-rooms, etc. The precocious
dement, on the contrary, during the incubation of his illness turns
away from the outer world in order to withdraw into himself; but when
the period of morbid compensation arrives, he seems constrained to draw
attention to himself, and to force himself upon the notice of those
around him, by his extravagant, insupportable, or directly aggressive
conduct.
I propose to use the terms "extroversion" and "introversion" to describe
these two opposite directions of the libido, further qualifying them,
however, as "regressive" in morbid cases where phantasies, fictions,
or phantastic interpretations, inspired by emotivity, falsify the
perceptions of the subject about things, or about himself. We say that
he is extroverted when he gives his fundamental interest to the outer or
objective world, and attributes an all-important and essential value to
it: he is introverted, on the contrary, when the objective world suffers
a sort of depreciation, or want of consideration, for the sake of the
exaltation of the individual himself, who then monopolising all the
interest, grows to believe no one but himself worthy of consideration.
I will call "regressive extroversion" the phenomenon which Freud calls
"transference" (Übertragung), by which the hysteric projects into the
objective world the illusions, or subjective values of his feelings.
In the same way I shall call "regressive introversion," the opposite
pathological phenomenon which we find in dementia præcox, where the
subject himself suffers these phantastical transfigurations.
It is obvious that these two contrary movements of the libido, as
simple psychic mechanisms, may play a part alternately in the same
individual, since after all they serve the same purpose by different
methods--namely, to minister to his well-being. Freud has taught us
that in the mechanism of hysterical transference the individual aims
at getting rid of disagreeable memories or impressions, in order to
free himself from painful complexes, by a process of "repression."
Conversely in the mechanism of introversion, the personality tends to
concentrate itself upon its complexes, and with them, to isolate itself
from external reality, by a process which is not properly speaking
"repression," but which would be better rendered perhaps by the term
"depreciation" (Entwertung) of the objective world.
The existence of two mental affections so opposite in character as
hysteria and dementia præcox, in which the contrast rests on the almost
exclusive supremacy of extroversion or introversion, suggests that these
two psychological types may exist equally well in normal persons, who
may be characterised by the relative predominance of one or other of
the two mechanisms. Psychiatrists know very well that before either
illness is fully declared, patients already present the characteristic
type, traces of which are to be found from the earliest years of life.
As Binet pointed out so well, the neurotic only accentuates and shews
in relief the characteristic traits of his personality. One knows, of
course, that the hysterical character is not simply the product of the
illness, but pre-existed it in a measure. And Hoch has shown by his
researches into the histories of his dementia præcox patients, that this
is also the case with them; dissociations or eccentricities were present
before the onset of the illness. If this is so, one may certainly expect
to meet the same contrast between psychological temperaments outside
the sphere of pathology. It is moreover easy to cull from literature
numerous examples which bear witness to the actual existence of these
two opposite types of mentality. Without pretending to exhaust the
subject, I will give a few striking examples.
In my opinion, we owe the best observations on this subject to the
philosophy of William James.[185] He lays down the principle that no
matter what may be the temperament of a "professional philosopher,"
it is this temperament which he feels himself forced to express
and to justify in his philosophy. And starting from this idea,
which is altogether in accord with the spirit of psychoanalysis,
divides philosophers into two classes: the "tender-minded," who are
only interested in the inner life and spiritual things; and the
"tough-minded," who lay most stress on material things and objective
reality. We see that these two classes are actuated by exactly opposite
tendencies of the libido: the "tender-minded" represent introversion,
the "tough-minded" extroversion.
James says that the tender-minded are characterised by rationalism;
they are men of principles and of systems, they aspire to dominate
experience and to transcend it by abstract reasoning, by their logical
deductions, and purely rational conceptions. They care little for facts,
and the multiplicity of phenomena hardly embarrasses them at all: they
forcibly fit data into their ideal constructions, and reduce everything
to their _a priori_ premises. This was the method of Hegel in settling
beforehand the number of the planets. In the domain of mental pathology
we again meet this kind of philosopher in paranoiacs, who, without
being disquieted by the flat contradictions presented by experience,
impose their delirious conceptions on the universe, and find means of
interpreting everything, and according to Adler "arranging" everything,
in conformity with their morbidly preconceived system.
The other traits which James depicts in this type follow naturally
from its fundamental character. The tender-minded man, he says, is
intellectual, idealist, optimist, religious, partisan of free-will,
a monist, and a dogmatist. All these qualities betray the almost
exclusive concentration of the libido upon the intellectual life.
This concentration upon the inner world of thought is nothing else
than introversion. In so far as experience plays a _rôle_ with these
philosophers, it serves only as an allurement or fillip to abstraction,
in response to the imperative need to fit forcibly all the chaos of the
universe within well-defined limits, which are, in the last resort, the
creation of a spirit obedient to its subjective values.
The tough-minded man is positivist and empiricist. He regards only
matters of fact. Experience is his master, his exclusive guide and
inspiration. It is only empirical phenomena demonstrable in the outside
world which count. Thought is merely a reaction to external experience.
In the eyes of these philosophers principles are never of such value
as facts; they can only reflect and describe the sequence of phenomena
and cannot construct a system. Thus their theories are exposed to
contradiction under the overwhelming accumulation of empirical material.
Psychic reality for the positivist limits itself to the observation
and experience of pleasure and pain; he does not go beyond that, nor
does he recognise the rights of philosophical thought. Remaining on the
ever-changing surface of the phenomenal world, he partakes himself of
its instability; carried away in the chaotic tumult of the universe, he
sees all its aspects, all its theoretical and practical possibilities,
but he never arrives at the unity or the fixity of a settled system,
which alone could satisfy the idealist or tender-minded. The positivist
depreciates all values in reducing them to elements lower than
themselves; he explains the higher by the lower, and dethrones it, by
showing that it is "nothing but such another thing," which has no value
in itself.
From these general characteristics, the others which James points out
logically follow. The positivist is a sensualist, giving greater value
to the specific realm of the senses than to reflection which transcends
it. He is a materialist and a pessimist, for he knows only too well the
hopeless uncertainty of the course of things. He is irreligious, not
being in a state to hold firmly to the realities of the inner world
as opposed to the pressure of external facts; he is a determinist and
fatalist, only able to show resignation; a pluralist, incapable of all
synthesis; and finally a sceptic, as a last and inevitable consequence
of all the rest.
The expressions, therefore, used by James, show clearly that the
diversity of types is the result of a different localisation of the
libido; this libido is the magic power in the depth of our being, which,
following the personality, carries it sometimes towards internal life,
and sometimes towards the objective world. James compares, for example,
the religious subjectivism of the idealist, and the quasi-religious
attitude of the contemporary empiricist: "Our esteem for facts has not
neutralised in us all religiousness. It is itself almost religious. Our
scientific temper is devout."[186]
A second parallel is furnished by Wilhelm Ostwald,[187] who divides
"savants" and men of genius into classics and romantics. The latter
are distinguished by their rapid reactions, their extremely prompt and
abundant production of ideas and projects, some of which are badly
digested and of doubtful value. They are admirable and brilliant
masters, loving to teach, of a contagious ardour and enthusiasm, which
attracts many pupils, and makes them founders of schools, exercising
great personal influence. Herein our type of extroversion is easily
recognised. The classics of Ostwald are, on the contrary, slow to react;
they produce with much difficulty, are little capable of teaching or
of exercising direct personal influence, and lacking enthusiasm are
paralysed by their own severe criticism, living apart and absorbed in
themselves, making scarcely any disciples, but producing works of
finished perfection which often bring them posthumous fame. All these
characteristics correspond to introversion.
We find a further very valuable example in the æsthetic theory of
Warringer. Borrowing from A. Riegl his expression "Volonté d'art
absolue" to express the internal force which inspires the artist, he
distinguishes two forms, viz. sympathy (Einfühlung) and abstraction;
and the term which he employs indicates that here, too, we witness the
activity of the push of the libido, the stirring of the _élan vital_.
"In the same way," says Warringer, "as the sympathetic impulse finds its
satisfaction in organic beauty, so abstract impulse discovers beauty in
the inorganic, which is the negation of all life, in crystallised forms,
and in a general manner wherever the severity of abstract law reigns."
Whilst sympathy represents the warmth of passion which carries it into
the presence of the object in order to assimilate it and penetrate
it with emotional values; abstraction, on the other hand, despoils
the object of all that could recall life, and grasps it by purely
intellectual thought, crystallised and fixed into the rigid forms of
law,--the universal, the typical. Bergson also makes use of these images
of crystallisation, solidification, etc., to illustrate the essence of
intellectual abstraction.
Warringer's "abstraction" represents the process which I have already
remarked as a consequence of introversion, namely, the exaltation of
the intellect, in the place of the depreciated reality of the external
world. "Sympathy" corresponds in fact to extroversion, for, as Lipps
has pointed out, "What I perceive sympathetically in an object is, in
a general manner life, and life is power, internal work, effort, and
execution. To live, in a word, is to act, and to act is to experience
intimately the force which we give out; experience creates activity,
which is essentially of a spontaneous character." "Æsthetic enjoyment,"
said Warringer, "is the enjoyment of one's own self projected into the
"object," a formula which corresponds absolutely with our definition of
transference. This æsthetic conception does not refer to the positivist
in James's sense; it is rather the attitude of the idealist for whom
psychological reality only is interesting, and worthy of consideration."
Warringer adds, "what is essential lies not in the gradation of the
feeling, but pre-eminently in the feeling itself; that is to say, the
inner movement, the intimate life, the unfolding of the subject's own
activity; the value of a line or of a form, depends in our eyes on the
biological value it holds for us; that which gives beauty is solely
our own vital feeling, which we unconsciously project into it." This
view corresponds exactly with my own way of understanding the theory
of the libido, in attempting to keep the true balance between the two
psychological opposites of introversion and extroversion.
The polar opposite of sympathy is abstraction. The impulse of
abstraction is conceived by Warringer "as the result of a great internal
conflict of the human soul in the presence of the external world, and
from the religious standpoint, it corresponds to a strong transcendental
colouring of all the representations man has made to himself of
reality." We recognise clearly in this definition the primordial
tendency to introversion. To the introverted type the universe does not
appear beautiful and desirable, but disquieting, and even dangerous;
it is a manifestation against which the subject puts himself on the
defensive; he entrenches himself in his inner fastness, and fortifies
himself therein by the invention of geometrical figures, full of repose,
perfectly clear even in their minutest details, the primitive magic
power of which assures him of domination over the surrounding world.
"The need of abstraction is the origin of all art," says Warringer.
Here is a great principle, which gains weighty confirmation from the
fact that precocious dements reproduce forms and figures which present
the closest analogy to those of primitive humanity, not only in their
thoughts but also in their drawings.
We should recall that Schiller had already tried to formulate the same
presentation in what he calls the naïve and sentimental types. The
latter is in quest of nature, whilst the former is itself "all nature."
Schiller also saw that these two types result from the predominance of
psychological mechanisms which might be met with in one and the same
individual. "It is not only in the same poet," he said, "but even in the
same work that these two types of mentality are found united.... The
naïve poet pursues only nature and feeling in their simplicity, and all
his effort is limited to the imitation and reproduction of reality. The
sentimental poet, on the contrary, reflects the impression he receives
from objects. The object here is allied to an idea, and the poetic power
of the work depends on this alliance." These quotations shew what types
Schiller had in view, and one recognises their fundamental identity with
those with which we are here dealing.
We find another instance in Nietzsche's contrast between the minds
of Apollo and of Dionysus. The example which Nietzsche uses to
illustrate this contrast is instructive--namely, that between a dream
and intoxication. In a dream the individual is shut up in himself, in
intoxication, on the contrary, he forgets himself to the highest degree,
and, set free from his self-consciousness, plunges into the multiplicity
of the objective world. To depict Apollo, Nietzsche borrows the words of
Schopenhauer, "As upon a tumultuous sea, which disgorges and swallows
by turns, lost to view in the mountains of foaming waves, the mariner
remains seated tranquilly on his plank, full of confidence in his frail
barque; so individual man, in a world of troubles, lives passive and
serene, relying with confidence on the principle of 'individuation.'"
"Yes," continues Nietzsche, "we might say that the unshakeable
confidence in this principle, and the calm security of those whom it has
inspired, have found in Apollo their most sublime expression, and we may
always recognise in him the most splendid and divine personification of
the principle of making an individual." The Apollien state, as Nietzsche
conceives it, is consequently the withdrawal into oneself, that is,
introversion. Conversely in the Dionysian state, psychic intoxication,
indicates in his view the unloosening of a torrent of libido which
expends itself upon things. "This is not only," says Nietzsche, "the
alliance of man with man, which finds itself confirmed afresh under
the Dionysian enchantment; it is alienated Nature, hostile or enslaved,
which also celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal child,--man.
Spontaneously Earth offers her gifts and the wild beasts from rock and
desert draw near peacefully. The car of Dionysus is lost under flowers
and garlands; panthers and tigers approach under his yoke."
If we change Beethoven's "Hymn of Praise" into a picture, and giving
rein to our imagination, contemplate the millions of beings prostrated
and trembling in the dust, at such a moment the Dionysian intoxication
will be near at hand. Then is the slave free; then all the rigid and
hostile barriers which poverty and arbitrary or insolent custom have
established between man and man are broken down. Now, by means of this
gospel of universal harmony, each feels himself not only reunited,
reconciled, fused with his neighbour, but actually identified with him,
as if the veil of "Maïa was torn away, nothing remaining of it but a few
shreds floating before the mystery of the Primordial Unity."[188] It
would be superfluous to add comment to these quotations.
In concluding this series of examples culled outside my own special
domain, I will quote the linguistic hypothesis of Finck,[189] where we
also see the duality in question. The structure of language, according
to Finck, presents two principal types: in one the subject is generally
conceived as active: "I see him," "I strike him down;" in the other the
subject experiences and feels, and it is the object which acts: "He
appears to me," "He succumbs to me." The first type clearly shews the
libido as going out of the subject,--this is a centrifugal movement;
the second as coming out of the object,--this movement is centripetal.
We meet with this latter introverted type especially in the primitive
languages of the Esquimaux.
In the domain of psychiatry also these two types have been described
by Otto Gross,[190] who distinguishes two forms of mental debility:
the one a diffuse and shallow consciousness, the other a concentrated
and deep consciousness. The first is characterised by weakness of the
consecutive function, the second by its excessive reinforcement. Gross
has recognised that the consecutive function is in intimate relation
with affectivity, from which we might infer that he is dealing once more
with our two psychological types. The relation he establishes between
maniac depressive insanity and the state of diffuse or extended and
shallow mental disease shows that the latter represents the extroverted
type; and the relation between the psychology of the paranoiac and
repressed mentality, indicates the identity of the former with the
introverted type.
After the foregoing considerations no one will be astonished to find
that in the domain of psychoanalysis we also have to reckon with the
existence of these two psychological types.
On the one side we meet with a theory which is essentially reductive,
pluralist, causal and sensualist; this is Freud's standpoint. This
theory limits itself rigidly to empirical facts, and traces back
complexes to their antecedents and their elemental factors. It regards
the psychological life as being only an effect, a reaction to the
environment, and accords the greatest _rôle_ and the largest place to
sensation. On the other side we have the diametrically opposed theory
of Adler[191] which is an entirely philosophical and finalistic one. In
it phenomena are not reducible to earlier and very primitive factors,
but are conceived as "arrangements," the outcome of intentions and
of ends of an extremely complex nature. It is no longer the view of
causality but of finality which dominates researches: the history of the
patient and the concrete influences of the environment are of much less
importance than the dominating principles, the "fictions directrices,"
of the individual. It is not essential for him to depend upon the
object, and to find in it his fill of subjective enjoyment, but to
protect his own individuality and to guarantee it against the hostile
influences of the environment.
Whilst Freud's psychology has for its predominant note the centrifugal
tendency, which demands its happiness and satisfaction in the objective
world, in that of Adler the chief _rôle_ belongs to the centripetal
movement, which tends to the supremacy of the subject, to his triumph
and his liberty, as opposed to the overwhelming forces of existence.
The expedient to which the type described by Freud has recourse is
"infantile transference," by means of which he projects phantasy into
the object and finds a compensation for the difficulties of life in this
transfiguration. In the type described by Adler what is characteristic
is, on the contrary, the "virile protest," personal resistance, the
efficacious safeguard which the individual provides for himself, in
affirming and stubbornly enclosing himself in his dominating ideas.
The difficult task of elaborating a psychology which should pay equal
attention to the two types of mentality belongs to the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 183: Delivered at the Psychoanalytical Congress, Munich, 1913.
Translated from _Archives de Psychologie_, by kind permission of the
Editor, Dr. Claparède. Translator, C. E. Long.]
[Footnote 184: "The concept of energy is that which comes nearest to
the concept of libido. Libido can perhaps be described as "effect,"
or "capacity for effect." It is capable of transformation from one
form to another. The metamorphosis can be sudden, as when one function
replaces another in a moment of danger; or it can be gradual, as we
see it in the process of sublimation, where the libido is led over a
long and difficult path through a variety of forms into a different
function."--MARY MOLTZER.]
[Footnote 185: "Pragmatism," Chapter I.]
[Footnote 186: "Pragmatism," ch. i., p. 14.]
[Footnote 187: W. Ostwald "Grosse Männer," Leipzig, 1910 (11th Lecture,
"Classics and Romanticists"). See also his contribution, "A propos de la
Biologie du Savant," Bibliothèque Universelle, Oct., 1910.]
[Footnote 188: Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy," trans. Wm. A.
Haussmann.]
[Footnote 189: Finck, "Der deutsche Sprachbon als Aus druck, deutscher
Weltanschauung." Marburg, 1899.]
[Footnote 190: Gross, "Die zerebrale Sekundärfonktion." Leipsig, 1902.]
[Footnote 191: Adler, "Über den nervösen Charakter." Wiesbaden, 1912.]
CHAPTER XII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMS[192]
A dream is a psychic structure which at first sight appears to be
in striking contrast with conscious thought, because judging by its
form and substance it apparently does not lie within the continuity
of development of the conscious contents, it is not integral to it,
but is a mere external and apparently accidental occurrence. Its mode
of genesis is in itself sufficient to isolate a dream from the other
contents of the conscious, for it is a survival of a peculiar psychic
activity which takes place during sleep, and does not originate in the
manifest and clearly logical and emotional continuity of the event
experienced.
But a careful observer should have no difficulty in discovering that a
dream is not entirely severed from the continuity of the conscious, for
in almost every dream certain details are found which have their origin
in the impressions, thoughts, or states of mind of one of the preceding
days. In so far a certain continuity does exist, albeit a _retrograde_
one. But any one keenly interested in the dream problem cannot have
failed to observe that a dream has also a _progressive_ continuity--if
such an expression be permitted--since dreams occasionally exert a
remarkable influence upon the conscious mental life, even of persons
who cannot be considered superstitious or particularly abnormal. These
occasional after-effects are usually seen in a more or less distinct
change in the dreamer's frame of mind.
It is probably in consequence of this loose connection with the other
conscious contents, that the recollected dream is so extremely
unstable. Many dreams baffle all attempts at reproduction, even
immediately after waking; others can only be remembered with doubtful
accuracy, and comparatively few can be termed really distinct
and clearly reproduceable. This peculiar reaction with regard to
recollection may be understood by considering the characteristics of the
various elements combined in a dream. The combination of ideas in dreams
is essentially _phantastic_; they are linked together in a sequence
which, as a rule, is quite foreign to our current way of thinking, and
in striking contrast to the logical sequence of ideas which we consider
to be a special characteristic of conscious mental processes.
It is to this characteristic that dreams owe the common epithet of
"meaningless." Before pronouncing this verdict, we must reflect that
dreams and their chains of ideas are something that _we_ do not
understand. Such a verdict would therefore be merely a projection of our
non-comprehension upon its object. But that would not prevent its own
peculiar meaning being inherent in a dream.
In spite of the fact that for centuries endeavours have been made
to extract a prophetic meaning from dreams, Freud's discovery
is practically the first successful attempt to find their real
significance. His work merits the term "scientific," because he has
evolved a technique which, not only he, but many other investigators
also assert achieves its object, namely, the understanding of the
meaning of the dream. This meaning is not identical with the one which
the manifest dream content seems to indicate.
This is not the place for a critical discussion of Freud's psychology of
dreams. But I will try to give a brief summary of what may be regarded
as more or less established facts of dream psychology to-day.
The first question we must discuss is, whence do we deduce the
justification for attributing to dreams any other significance than the
one indicated in the unsatisfying fragmentary meaning of the manifest
dream content?
As regards this point a particularly weighty argument is the fact that
Freud discovered the hidden meaning of dreams by _empiric_ and not
_deductive_ methods. A further argument in favour of a possible hidden,
as opposed to the manifest meaning of dreams, is obtained by comparing
dream-phantasies with other phantasies (day-dreams and the like) in
one and the same individual. It is not difficult to conceive that such
day-phantasies have not merely a superficial, concrete meaning, but also
a deeper psychological meaning. It is solely on account of the brevity
that I must impose upon myself, that I do not submit materials in proof
of this. But I should like to point out that what may be said about the
meaning of phantasies, is well illustrated by an old and widely diffused
type of imaginative story, of which Æsop's Fables are typical examples,
wherein, for instance, the story is some objectively impossible phantasy
about the deeds of a lion and an ass. The concrete superficial meaning
of the fable is an impossible phantasm, but the hidden moral meaning is
plain upon reflection. It is characteristic that children are pleased
and satisfied with the exoteric meaning of the story. However, the best
argument for the existence of a hidden meaning in dreams is provided
by conscientious application of the technical procedure to solve the
manifest dream content.
This brings us to our second main point, viz.--the question of analytic
procedure. Here again I desire neither to defend nor to criticise
Freud's views and discoveries, but rather to confine myself to what seem
to me to be firmly established facts.
The fact that a dream is a psychic structure, does not give us the
slightest ground for assuming that it obeys laws and designs other than
those applicable to any other psychic structure. According to the maxim:
_principia explicandi proeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda_, we
have to treat dreams, in analysis, just as any other psychic structure,
until experience teaches us some better way.
We know that every psychic construction considered from the standpoint
of causality, is the resultant of previous psychic contents. Moreover,
we know also that every psychic structure, considered from the
standpoint of finality, has its own peculiar meaning and purpose in the
actual psychic process. This standard must also be applied to dreams.
When, therefore, we seek a psychological explanation of a dream, we
must first know what were the preceding experiences out of which it is
combined. We must trace the antecedents of every element in the dream
picture. For example: some one dreams "_that he is walking in a street,
a child is running in front of him, who is suddenly run over by a
motor-car_." We will trace the antecedents of this dream-picture, with
the aid of the dreamer's recollections.
He recognises the street as one down which he had walked on the previous
day. The child he acknowledges as his brother's child, whom he had seen
on the previous evening when visiting his brother. The motor accident
reminds him of an accident that had actually occurred a few days before,
but of which he had only read an account in a newspaper. Popular opinion
is known to be satisfied with this kind of explanation. People say: "Oh,
that is why I dreamt such and such a thing!"
Obviously this explanation is absolutely unsatisfactory from a
scientific standpoint. The dreamer walked down many streets on the
previous day; why was this particular one selected? He had read
about several accidents; why did he select just this one? The mere
disclosure of an antecedent is by no means sufficient; for a plausible
determination of the dream presentation can only be obtained from the
competition of various determinants. The collection of additional
material proceeds, according to the principle of recollection that
has been called the _Association Method_. The result, as will easily
be understood, is the admission of a mass of multifarious and quite
heterogeneous material, having apparently nothing in common but the fact
of its evident associative connection with the dream contents, since it
has been reproduced by means of this content.
How far the collection of such material should go, is an important
question from the technical point of view. Since the entire psychic
content of a life may be ultimately disclosed from any single starting
point, theoretically the whole previous life-experience might be found
in every dream. But we only need to assemble just so much material as
is absolutely necessary in order to comprehend the dream's meaning.
The limitation of the material is obviously an arbitrary proceeding,
according to that principle of Kant's whereby to _comprehend_ is "_to
perceive to the extent necessary for our purpose_." For instance, when
undertaking a survey of the causes of the French Revolution, we could,
in amassing our material, include not only the history of medieval
France but also that of Rome and Greece, which certainly would not be
"necessary for our purpose," since we can comprehend the historical
genesis of the Revolution from much more limited material.
Except for the aforesaid arbitrary limitation, the collecting of
material lies outside the investigator's discretion. The material
gathered must now be sifted and examined, according to principles which
are always applied to the examination of historical or any empirical
scientific material. The method is an essentially comparative one, that
obviously cannot be applied automatically, but is largely dependent upon
the skill and aim of the investigator.
When a psychological fact has to be explained, it must be remembered
that psychological data necessitate a twofold point of view, namely,
that of _causality_ and that of _finality_. I use the word finality
intentionally, in order to avoid confusion with the idea of "teleology."
I use finality to denote immanent psychological teleology. In so far
as we apply the view point of causality to the material that has been
associated with the dream, we reduce the manifest dream content to
certain fundamental tendencies or ideas. These, as one would expect, are
elementary and universal in character.
For instance, a young patient dreams as follows: "_I am standing in a
strange garden, and pluck an apple from a tree. I look about cautiously,
to make sure no one sees me._"
The associated dream material is a memory of having once, when a boy,
plucked a couple of pears surreptitiously from another person's garden.
The feeling of having a bad conscience, which is a prominent feature in
the dream, reminds him of a situation he experienced on the previous
day. He met a young lady in the street--a casual acquaintance--and
exchanged a few words with her. At that moment a gentleman passed whom
he knew, whereupon our patient was suddenly seized with a curious
feeling of embarrassment, as if he had done something wrong. He
associated the apple with the scene in Paradise, together with the fact
that he had never really understood why the eating of the forbidden
fruit should have been fraught with such dire consequences for our first
parents. This had always made him feel angry; it seemed to him an unjust
act of God, for God had made men as they were, with all their curiosity
and greed.
Another association was, that sometimes his father had punished him for
certain things in a way that seemed to him incomprehensible. The worst
punishment had been bestowed after he had secretly watched girls bathing.
That led up to the confession that he had recently begun a love affair
with a housemaid, but had not yet carried it through to a conclusion. On
the day before the dream he had had a _rendezvous_ with her.
Upon reviewing this material we see that the dream contains a very
transparent reference to the last-named incident. The connecting
associative material shows that the apple episode is palpably meant for
an erotic scene. For various other reasons, too, it may be considered
extremely probable that this experience of the previous day is operative
even in this dream. In the dream the young man plucks the apple of
Paradise, which in reality he has not yet plucked. The remainder of the
material associated with the dream is concerned with another experience
of the previous day, namely, with the peculiar feeling of a _bad
conscience_, which seized the dreamer when he was talking to his casual
lady acquaintance; this, again, was connected with the fall of man in
Paradise, and finally with an erotic misdemeanour of his childhood, for
which his father had punished him severely. All these associations are
linked together by the idea of _guilt_.
In the first place we will consider this material from Freud's
view-point of causality; in other words, we will "interpret" it, to use
Freud's expression. A wish has been left unfulfilled from the day before
the dream. In the dream this wish is realised in the _symbolical_ apple
scene. But why is this realisation disguised and hidden under a symbolic
image instead of being expressed in a distinctly sexual thought? Freud
would refer to the unmistakable sense of guilt shown up by the material,
and say the morality that has been inculcated in the young man from
childhood is bent on repressing such wishes, and to that end brands the
natural craving as immoral and reprehensible. The suppressed immoral
thought can therefore only achieve expression by means of a _symbol_. As
these thoughts are incompatible with the moral content of the conscious
ego, a psychic factor adopted by Freud called the _Censor_, prevents
this wish from passing undisguised into consciousness.
Reviewing the dream from the standpoint of finality, which I contrast
with that of Freud, does not--as I wish to establish explicitly--involve
a denial of the dream's _causæ_, but rather a different interpretation
of the associative material collected around the dream. The material
facts remain the same, but the standard by which they are measured is
altered. The question may be formulated simply as follows: What is
this dream's purpose? What should it effect? These questions are not
arbitrary, in as much as they may be applied to every psychic activity.
Everywhere the question of the "why" and "wherefore" may be raised.
It is clear that the material added by the dream to the previous day's
erotic experience, chiefly emphasises the sense of guilt in the erotic
act. The same association has already been shown to be operative
in another experience of the previous day, in the meeting with his
casual lady acquaintance, when the feeling of a bad conscience was
automatically and inexplicably aroused, as if, in that instance, too,
the young man had done something wrong. This experience also plays a
part in the dream, which is even intensified by the association of
additional, appropriate material; the erotic experience of the day
before, being depicted by the story of the Fall which was followed by
such a severe punishment.
I maintain that there exists in the dreamer an unconscious propensity
or _tendency to conceive his erotic experiences as guilty_. It is most
characteristic that the association with the Fall of Man should ensue,
the young man having never really grasped why the punishment should
have been so drastic. This association throws light upon the reasons
why the dreamer did not think simply, "I am doing what is not right."
Obviously he does not _know_ that he might condemn his own conduct as
morally wrong. This is actually the case. His conscious belief is that
his conduct does not matter in the least morally, as all his friends
were acting in the same way; besides, for other reasons too, is unable
to understand why a fuss should be made about it.
Whether this dream should be considered full or void of meaning depends
upon a very important question, viz. whether the standpoint of morality,
handed down to us through the ages by our forefathers is held to be full
or void of meaning. I do not wish to wander off into a philosophical
discussion of this question, but would merely observe that mankind must
obviously have had very strong reasons for devising this morality,
otherwise it would be truly incomprehensible why such restraints should
be imposed upon one of man's strongest cravings. If we attach due
value to this fact, we are bound to pronounce this dream to be full of
meaning, for it reveals to the young man the necessity of facing his
erotic conduct boldly from the view point of morality. Primitive races
have in some respects extremely strict legislation concerning sexuality.
This fact proves that sexual morality is a not-to-be-neglected factor
in the soul's higher functions, but deserves to be taken fully into
account. In the case in question it should be added, that the young
man--influenced by his friends' example--somewhat thoughtlessly let
himself be guided exclusively by his erotic cravings, unmindful of
the fact that man is a morally responsible being and must perforce
submit--voluntarily or involuntarily--to a morality that he himself has
created.
In this dream we can discern a compensating function of the unconscious,
consisting in the fact that _those thoughts, propensities, and
tendencies of a human personality, which in conscious life are too
seldom recognised, come spontaneously into action in the sleeping state,
when to a large extent the conscious process is disconnected_.
The question might certainly be raised, of what use is this to the
dreamer if he does not understand the dream?
To this I must remark that to understand is not an exclusively
intellectual process, for--as experience proves--man may be
influenced--nay, even very effectually convinced--by innumerable things,
of which he has no intellectual understanding. I will merely remind my
readers of the efficacy of religious symbols.
The example given above might suggest the thought that the function
of dreams is a distinctly "moral" one. Such it appears to be in this
case, but if we recall the formula according to which dreams contain
the subliminal materials of a given moment, we cannot speak simply of
a "moral" function. For it is worthy of note that the dreams of those
persons whose actions are morally unexceptionable, bring materials to
light that might well be characterised as "immoral" in the current
meaning of that term. Thus it is significant that St. Augustine was glad
that God did not hold him responsible for his dreams. The unconscious
is the unknown of a given moment, therefore it is not surprising that
all those aspects that are essential for a totally different point of
view should be added by dreams to the conscious psychological factors of
a given moment. It is evident that this function of dreams signifies a
psychological adjustment, a compensation essential for properly balanced
action. In the conscious process of reflection it is indispensable that,
so far as possible, we should realise all the aspects and consequences
of a problem, in order to find the right solution. This process is
continued automatically in the more or less unconscious state of sleep,
wherever--as our previous experience seems to show--all those other
points of view occur to the dreamer (at least by way of allusion) that
during the day were underestimated or even totally ignored; in other
words, were comparatively unconscious.
As regards the much-discussed _symbolism_ of dreams, the value attached
to it varies according to whether the standpoint of causality or of
finality is adopted. According to Freud's causal view point it proceeds
from a _craving_, viz. from the suppressed dream-wish. This craving is
always somewhat simple and primitive, and is able to disguise itself
under manifold forms. For instance, the young man in question might just
as well have dreamt that he had to open a door with a key, or that he
had to travel by aeroplane, or that he was kissing his mother, etc. From
this standpoint all those things would have had the same meaning. In
this way, the typical adherents of Freud's school have come to the point
of interpreting--to give a gross instance--almost all long objects in
dreams as phallic symbols.
From the view-point of finality, the various dream pictures have each
their own peculiar value. For instance, if the young man, instead of
dreaming of the apple scene, had dreamt he had to open a door with
a key, the altered dream picture would have furnished associative
material of an essentially different character; that, again, would have
resulted in the conscious situation being supplemented by associations
of a totally different kind from those connected with the apple scene.
From this point of view, it is the diversity of the dream's mode of
expression that is full of meaning, and not the uniformity in its
significance. The causal view-point tends by its very nature towards
uniformity of meaning, that is, towards a fixed significance of symbols.
On the other hand, the final view-point perceives in an altered dream
picture, the expression of an altered psychological situation. It
recognises no fixed meaning of symbols. From this standpoint all the
dream pictures are important in themselves, each one having a special
significance of its own, to which it owes its inclusion in the dream.
Keeping to our previous example, we see that from the standpoint of
finality the symbol in this dream is approximately equivalent to a
parable; it does not conceal, but it teaches. The apple scene recalls
vividly the sense of guilt, at the same time disguising the real deed of
our first parents.
It is obvious we reach very dissimilar interpretations of the meaning
of the dream, according to the point of view adopted. The question
now arises, which is the better or truer version? After all, for us
therapeuts it is a practical and not a merely theoretical necessity
that leads us to seek for some comprehension of the meaning of dreams.
In treating our patients we must for practical reasons endeavour to lay
hold of any means that will enable us to train them effectually. It
should be quite evident from the foregoing example, that the material
associated with the dream has opened up a question calculated to make
many matters clear to the young man, which, hitherto, he has heedlessly
overlooked. But by disregarding these things he was really overlooking
something in himself, for he possesses a moral standard and a moral
need just like any other man. By trying to live without taking this
fact into consideration, his life is one-sided and incomplete, so to
say inco-ordinate; with the same consequences for the psychological
life as a one-sided and incomplete diet would have for the physical.
In order to develop a person's individuality and independence to the
uttermost, we need to bring to fruition all those functions that have
hitherto attained but little conscious development or none at all. In
order to achieve this aim, we must for therapeutic reasons enter into
all those unconscious aspects of things brought forward by the dream
material. This makes it abundantly clear that the view-point of finality
is singularly important as an aid to the practical development of the
individual.
The view-point of causality is obviously more in accord with the
scientific spirit of our time, with its strictly causalistic reasoning.
Much may be said for Freud's view as a scientific explanation of dream
psychology. But I must dispute its completeness, for the psyche cannot
be conceived merely from the causal aspect, but necessitates also a
final view-point. Only a combination of both points of view--which has
not yet been attained to the satisfaction of the scientific mind, owing
to great difficulties both of a practical and theoretical nature--can
give us a more complete conception of the essence of dreams.
* * * * *
I would like to treat briefly of some further problems of dream
psychology, that border on the general discussion of dreams. Firstly,
as to the _classification of dreams_; I do not wish to overestimate
either the practical or theoretical significance of this question. I
investigate yearly some 1500-2000 dreams, and this experience enables
me to state that typical dreams actually do exist. But they are not
very frequent, and from the view-point of finality they lose much
of the importance which attaches to them as a result of the fixed
significance of symbols according to the causal view-point. It seems to
me that the _typical themes_ of dreams are of far greater importance,
for they permit of a comparison with the themes of mythology. Many of
these mythological themes--in the study of which Frobenius has rendered
notable service--are also found in dreams, often with precisely the
same significance. Unfortunately the limited time at my disposal,
does not permit me to lay detailed materials before you: this has
been done elsewhere.[193] But I desire to emphasise the fact that the
comparison of the typical themes of dreams with those of mythology
obviously suggests the idea (already put forward by Nietzsche) that from
a phylogenetic point of view dream-thought should be conceived as an
older form of thought. Instead of multiplying examples in explanation
of my meaning, I will briefly refer you to our specimen dream. As
you remember, that dream introduced the apple scene as a typical
representation of erotic guilt. The gist of its purport is: "I am doing
wrong in acting like this." But it is characteristic that a dream never
expresses itself in a logically abstract way, but always in the language
of parable or simile. This peculiarity is also a characteristic feature
of primitive languages, whose flowery idioms always strike us. If you
call to mind the writings of ancient literature--_e.g._ the language of
simile in the Bible--you will find that what nowadays is expressed by
means of abstract expressions, could then only be expressed by means
of simile. Even such a philosopher as Plato did not disdain to express
certain fundamental ideas by means of concrete simile.
Just as the body bears traces of its phylogenetic development, so also
does the human mind. There is therefore nothing surprising in the
possibility of the allegories of our dreams being a survival of archaic
modes of thought.
The theft of the apple in our example is a typical theme of dreams,
often recurring with various modifications. It is also a well-known
theme in mythology, and is found not only in the story of the Garden of
Eden, but in numerous myths and fables of all ages and climes. It is one
of those universally human symbols, which can reappear in any one, at
any time. Thus, dream psychology opens up a way to a general comparative
psychology, from which we hope to attain the same sort of understanding
of the development and structure of the human soul, as comparative
anatomy has given us concerning the human body.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 192: This lecture was prepared for the Berne Medical Congress,
1914, postponed on the outbreak of war. Translator, Dora Hecht.]
[Footnote 193: "The Psychology of the Unconscious" ("Wandlungen und
Symbole der Libido"). Moffat, Yard & Co.]
CHAPTER XIII
THE CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES[194]
INTRODUCTION
My short sketch on the Content of the Psychoses which first appeared
in the series of "Schriften zur Angewandten Seelenkunde" under
Freud's editorship was designed to give the non-professional but
interested public some insight into the psychological point of view
of recent psychiatry. I chose by way of example a case of the mental
disorder known as Dementia Præcox, which Bleuler calls Schizophrenia.
Statistically this extensive group contains by far the largest number
of cases of psychosis. Many psychiatrists would prefer to limit it, and
accordingly make use of other nomenclature and classification. From the
psychological standpoint the change of name is unimportant, for it is
of less value to know what a thing is called than to know what it is.
The cases of mental disorder sketched in this essay belong to well-known
and frequently occurring types, familiar to the alienist. The facts will
not be altered if these disorders are called by some other name than
dementia præcox.
I have presented my view of the psychological basis in a work[195]
whose scientific validity has been contested upon all sorts of grounds.
For me it is sufficient justification that a psychiatrist of Bleuler's
standing has fully accepted, in his great monograph on the disease,
all the essential points in my work. The difference between us is as
to the question whether, in relation to the anatomical basis, the
psychological disorders should be regarded as primary or secondary. The
resolution of this weighty question depends upon the general problem as
to whether the prevailing dogma in psychiatry--"disorders of the mind
are disorders of the brain"--presents a final truth or not. This dogma
leads to absolute sterility as soon as universal validity is ascribed
to it. There are undoubted psychogenic mental diseases (the so-called
hysterical) which are properly regarded as _functional_ in contrast
with organic diseases which rest upon demonstrable anatomical changes.
Disorders of the brain should only be called organic when the psychic
symptoms depend upon an undoubtedly primary disease of the brain. Now
in dementia præcox this is by no means a settled question. Definite
anatomical changes are present, but we are very far from being able to
relate the psychological symptoms to these changes. We have, at least,
positive information as to the functional nature of early schizophrenic
conditions; moreover the organic character of paranoia and many paranoid
forms is still in great uncertainty. This being so it is worth while
to inquire whether manifestations of degeneration could not also be
provoked by psychological disturbance of function. Such an idea is only
incomprehensible to those who smuggle materialistic preconceptions into
their scientific theories. This question does not even rest upon some
fundamental and arbitrary spiritualism, but upon the following simple
reflection. Instead of assuming that some hereditary disposition, or a
toxæmia, gives rise directly to organic processes of disease, I incline
to the view that upon the basis of predisposition, whose nature is
at present unknown to us, there arises a non-adaptable psychological
function which can proceed to develop into manifest mental disorder;
this may secondarily determine organic degeneration with its own train
of symptoms. In favour of this conception is the fact that we have no
proof of the primary nature of the organic disorder, but overwhelming
proofs exist of a primary psychological fault in function, whose history
can be traced back to the patient's childhood. In perfect agreement
with this conception is the fact that analytic practice has given us
experience of cases where patients on the borderline of dementia præcox
have been brought back to normal life.
Even if anatomical lesions or organic symptoms were constantly present,
science ought not to imagine the psychological standpoint could
advisedly be neglected, or the undoubted psychological relationship
be given up as unimportant. If, for instance, carcinoma were to prove
an infectious disease the peculiar growth and degenerative process
of carcinomatous cells would still be a constant factor requiring
investigation on its own account. But, as I have said, the correlation
between the anatomical findings and the psychological picture of
the disease is so loose that it is extremely desirable to study the
psychological side of it thoroughly.
PART I
Psychiatry is the stepchild of medicine. All the other branches of
medicine have one great advantage over it--the scientific methods can be
applied; there are things to be seen, and felt, physical and chemical
methods of investigation to be followed: the microscope shows the
dreaded bacillus, the surgeon's knife halts at no difficulty and gives
us glimpses of most inaccessible organs of vital importance. Psychiatry,
which engages in the exploration of the mind, stands ever at the door
seeking in vain to weigh and measure as in the other departments of
science. We have long known that we have to do with a definite organ,
the brain; but only beyond the brain, beyond the morphological basis
do we reach what is important for us--the mind; as indefinable as it
ever was, still eluding any explanation, no matter how ingenious.
Former ages, endowing the mind with substance, and personifying every
incomprehensible occurrence in nature, regarded mental disorder as the
work of evil spirits; the patient was looked upon as one possessed,
and the methods of treatment were such as fitted this conception. This
mediæval conception occasionally gains credence and expression even
to-day. A classical example is the driving out of the devil which
the elder Pastor Blumhardt carried out successfully in the famous
case of Gottlieb in Deltus.[196] To the honour of the Middle Ages
let it also be said that there are to be found early evidences of a
sound rationalism. In the sixteenth century at the Julius Hospital in
Würzburg mental patients were already treated side by side with others
physically ill, and the treatment seems to have been really humane.
With the opening of the modern era, and with the dawn of the first
scientific ideas, the original barbaric personification of the unknown
Great Power gradually disappeared. A change arose in the conception of
mental disease in favour of a more philosophic moral attitude. The old
view that every misfortune was the revenge of the offended gods returned
new-clothed to fit the times. Just as physical diseases can, in many
cases, be regarded as self-inflicted on account of negligence, mental
diseases were likewise considered to be due to some moral injury, or
sin. Behind this conception the angry godhead also stood. Such views
played a great _rôle_, right up to the beginning of last century,
especially in Germany. In France, however, about the same time a new
idea was appearing, destined to sway psychiatry for a hundred years.
Pinel, whose statue fittingly stands at the gateway of the Salpetrière
in Paris, took away the chains from the insane and thus freed them from
the symbol of the criminal. In a very real way he formulated for the
world the humane and scientific conception of modern times. A little
later Esquirol and Bayle discovered that certain forms of insanity ended
in death, after a relatively short time, and that certain constant
changes in the brain could be demonstrated _post mortem_. Esquirol had
described as an entity general paralysis of the insane, or as it was
popularly called "softening of the brain," a disease which is always
bound up with chronic inflammatory degeneration of the cerebral matter.
Thus was laid the foundation of the dogma which you will find repeated
in every text-book of psychiatry, viz. "diseases of the mind are
diseases of the brain." Confirmation of this conception was added about
the same time by Gall's discoveries which traced partial or complete
loss of the power of speech--a psychical capacity--to a lesion in the
region of the left lower frontal convolution. Somewhat later this view
proved to be of general applicability. Innumerable cases of extreme
idiocy or other intense mental disorders were found to be caused by
tumours of the brain. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Wernicke
(recently deceased) localised the speech centre in the left temporal
lobe. This epoch-making discovery raised hopes to the highest pitch.
It was expected that at no distant day every characteristic and every
psychical activity would be assigned a place in the cortical grey
matter. Gradually, increased attempts were made to trace the primary
mental changes in the psychoses back to certain parallel changes in the
brain. Meynert, the famous Viennese psychiatrist, described a formal
scheme in which the alteration in blood-supply in certain regions was
to play the chief part in the origin of the psychoses. Wernicke made a
similar but far more ingenious attempt at a morphological explanation
of psychical disorders. The visible result of this tendency is seen in
the fact that even the smallest and least renowned asylum has, to-day,
its anatomical laboratory where cerebral sections are cut, stained, and
microscoped. Our numerous psychiatric journals are full of morphological
contributions, investigations into the structure and distribution of
cells in the cortex, and other varying source of disorders in the
different mental diseases.
Psychiatry has come into fame as gross materialism. And quite rightly,
for it is on the road--or rather reached it long ago--to put the organ,
the instrument, above function. Function has become the dependent
accessory of its organs, the mind the dependent accessory of the brain.
In modern mental therapy the mind has been the loser, whilst great
progress has been made in cerebral anatomy; of the mind we know less
than nothing. Current psychiatry behaves like a man who thinks he can
unriddle the meaning and importance of a building by a mineralogical
investigation of its stones. Let us attempt to realise in which mental
diseases obvious changes in the brain are found, and what is their
proportion.
In the last four years we have received 1325 patients at Burgholzi;[197]
331 a year. Of these 9 per cent. suffered from congenital psychic
anomalies. By this is understood a certain inborn defect of the psyche.
Of these 9 per cent., about a quarter were imbeciles. Here we meet
certain changes in the brain such as microcephalus, hydrocephalus,
malformations or absence of portions of the brain. The remaining
three-quarters of these congenital defects present no typical changes in
the brain.
Three per cent. of our patients suffer from epileptic mental troubles.
In the course of epilepsy there arises gradually a typical degeneration
of the brain. The degeneration is, however, only discoverable in severe
cases and when the disease has existed for some time. If the attacks
have only existed for a relatively short time, not more than a few
years, the brain as a rule shows nothing. Seventeen per cent. of our
patients suffer from progressive paralysis and senile dementia. Both
diseases present characteristic changes in the brain. In paralysis there
is most extensive shrinkage of the brain, so that the cortex is often
reduced by one half. The frontal portions of the brain more especially,
may be reduced to a third of the normal weight. There is a similar
destruction of substance in senile decay.
Fourteen per cent. of the patients annually received are cases of
poisoning, at least 13 per cent. of these being due to alcohol. As a
rule in slight cases nothing is to be found in the brain; in only a
relatively few severe cases is there shrinkage of the cortex, generally
of slight degree. The number of these severe cases amounts to less than
1 per cent. of the yearly cases of alcoholism.
Six per cent. of the patients suffer from so-called maniacal depressive
insanity which includes the maniacs and the melancholics. The essence
of this disease is readily intelligible to the public. Melancholia is
a condition of abnormal sadness without disorder of intelligence or
memory. Mania is the opposite, the rule being an abnormally excited
state with great restlessness; likewise without deep disturbance of
intelligence and memory. In this disease there are no demonstrable
morphological changes in the brain.
Forty-five per cent. of the patients suffer from the real and common
mental disease called dementia præcox. The name is a very unhappy one,
for the dementia is not always precocious, nor in all cases is there
dementia. Unfortunately the disease is too often incurable; even in the
best cases, in those that recover, where the outside public would not
observe any abnormality, there is always present some defect in the
emotional life. The picture presented by the disease is extraordinarily
diverse; generally there is some disorder of feeling, frequently
delusions and hallucinations. As a rule there is nothing to be found in
the brain. Even in cases of a most severe type, lasting for years, an
intact brain is not infrequently found _post mortem_. In a few cases
only certain slight changes are present which, however, cannot as yet be
reduced to any law.
To sum up: in round figures a quarter of our insane patients show more
or less clearly extensive changes and destruction of the brain, while
three-fourths have a brain which seems to be generally unimpaired or at
most exhibit such changes as give no explanation of the psychological
disturbance.
These figures offer the best possible proof that the purely
morphological view-point of modern psychiatry leads only very
indirectly, if at all, to the understanding of the mental disorder,
which is our aim. We must take into account the fact that those mental
diseases which show the most marked disturbances of the brain end in
death; for this reason the chronic inmates of the asylum form its real
population, consisting of some 70 to 80 per cent. of cases of dementia
præcox, that is, of patients in whom anatomical changes are practically
non-existent. The psychiatry of the future must come to grips with the
core of the thing; the path is thus made clear--_it can only be by way
of psychology_. Hence in our Zürich clinic we have entirely discarded
the anatomical view and turned to the psychological investigation of
insanity. As most of our patients suffer from dementia præcox we were
naturally concerned with this as our chief problem.
* * * * *
The older asylum physicians paid great attention to the psychological
precursors of mental disorder, just as the public still does, following
a true instinct. We accepted this hint and carefully investigated the
previous psychological history wherever possible. Our trouble was richly
rewarded, for we often found, to our surprise, that the disease broke
out at a moment of some great emotion which, in its turn, had arisen in
a so-called normal way. We found, moreover, that in the mental disease
which ensued a number of symptoms occurred which it was quite labour in
vain to study from the morphological standpoint. These same symptoms,
however, were comprehensible when considered from the standpoint of the
individual's previous history. Freud's fundamental investigations into
the psychology of hysteria and dreams afforded us the greatest stimulus
and help in our work.
A few instances of the latest method in psychiatry will make the
subject clearer than mere dry theory. In order to bring home to you the
difference in our conception I will first describe the medical history
in the older fashion, and subsequently give the solution characteristic
of the new departure.
The case to be considered is that of a cook aged 32; she had no
hereditary taint, was always industrious and conscientious, and had
never been noticeable for eccentric behaviour or the like. Quite
recently she became acquainted with a young man whom she wished to
marry. From that time on she began to show certain peculiarities. She
often spoke of his not liking her much, was frequently out of sorts,
ill-tempered, and sat alone brooding; once she ornamented her Sunday hat
very strikingly with red and green feathers, another day she bought a
pair of pince-nez in order to wear them when she went out walking with
her fiancé. One day the sudden idea that her teeth were rather ugly
would not let her rest, and she resolved to get a plate, although there
was no absolute need. She had all her teeth out under an anæsthetic. The
night after the operation she suddenly had a severe anxiety-attack. She
cried and moaned that she was damned for ever, for she had committed
a great sin; she should not have allowed her teeth to be extracted.
People must pray for her, that God might pardon her sin. In vain her
friends attempted to talk her out of her fears, to assure her that the
extraction of teeth was really no sin; it availed nothing. At day-break
she became somewhat quieter; she worked throughout the day. On following
nights the attacks were repeated. When consulted by the patient I found
her quiet, but she wore a rather vacant expression. I talked to her
about the operation, and she assured me it was not so dreadful to have
teeth extracted, but still it was a great sin, from which position,
despite every persuasion, she could not be moved. She continually
repeated in plaintive, pathetic tones, "I should not have allowed my
teeth to be extracted; oh yes, that was a great sin which God will never
forgive me." She gave the impression of real insanity. A few days later
her condition grew worse, and she had to be brought into the asylum. The
anxiety-attack had extended and was persistent, and the mental disorder
lasted for months.
The history shows a series of entirely unrelated symptoms. Why all the
queer story of the hat and pince-nez? Why those anxiety-attacks? Why
this delusion that the extraction of her teeth was an unpardonable
sin? Nothing here is clear. The morphologically-minded psychiatrist
would say: This is just a typical case of dementia præcox; it is the
essence of insanity, of madness, to talk of nothing but mysteries;
the standpoint of the diseased mind towards the world is displaced,
is "mad." What is no sin for the normal, the patient finds a sin.
It is a bizarre delusion characteristic of dementia præcox. The
extravagant lamentation about this supposed sin is what is known as
"inadequate"[198] emotional emphasis. The queer ornamentation of the
hat, the pince-nez, are bizarre notions such as are very common in
these patients. Somewhere in the brain certain cells have fallen into
disorder, and manufacture illogical, senseless ideas of one kind and
another which are quite without psychological meaning. The patient is
obviously a hereditary degenerate with a weak brain, having a kink
which is the origin of the disorder. For some reason or other the
disease has suddenly broken out. It could just as easily have broken
out at any other time. Perhaps we should have had to capitulate to
these arguments had real psychological analysis not come to our aid. In
filling up the certificate required for her removal to the asylum, it
transpired that many years ago she had had an affair which terminated;
her lover left her with an illegitimate child. Nobody had been told of
this. When she was again in love a dilemma arose, and she asked herself,
What will this new lover say about it? At first she postponed the
marriage, becoming more and more worried, and then the eccentricities
began. To understand these we must immerse ourselves in the psychology
of a naïve soul. If we have to disclose some painful secret to a beloved
person we try first to strengthen his love in order to obtain beforehand
a guarantee of his forgiveness. We do it by flattery or by caresses, or
we try to impress the value of our own personality in order to raise it
in the eyes of the other. Our patient decked herself out with beautiful
feathers, which to her simple taste seemed precious. The wearing of
"pince-nez" increases the respect of children even of a mature age.
And who does not know people who will have their teeth extracted, out
of pure vanity, in order that they may wear a plate to improve their
appearance?
After such an operation most people have a slight, nervous reaction, and
then everything becomes more difficult to bear. This was, as a matter
of fact, just the moment when the catastrophe did occur, in her terror
lest her fiancé should break with her when he heard of her previous
life. That was the first anxiety-attack. Just as the patient had not
acknowledged her secret in all these years, so she now sought to guard
it, and shifted the fear in her guilty conscience on to the extraction
of the teeth; she thus followed a method well known to us, for when we
dare not acknowledge some great sin we deplore some small sin with the
greater emphasis.
The problem seemed insoluble to the weak and sensitive mind of the
patient, hence the affect became insurmountably great; this is the
mental desire as presented from the psychological side. The series
of apparently meaningless events, the so-called madness, have now a
meaning; a significance appertains to the delusions, making the patient
more human to us. Here is a person like ourselves, beset by universal
human problems, no longer merely a cerebral machine thrown out of gear.
Hitherto we thought that the insane patient revealed nothing to us by
symptoms, save the senseless products of his disordered cerebral cells,
but that was academic wisdom reeking of the study. When we penetrate
into the human secrets of our patients, we recognise mental disease
to be an unusual reaction to emotional problems which are in no wise
foreign to ourselves, and the delusion discloses the psychological
system upon which it is based.
The light which shines forth from this conception seems to us so
enormously powerful because it forces us into the innermost depths
of that tremendous disorder which is most common in our asylums, and
hitherto least understood; by reason of the craziness of the symptoms it
is the type that strikes the public as madness _in excelsis_.
The case which I have just sketched is a simple one. It is transparent.
My second example is somewhat more complicated. It is the case of a man
between 30 and 40 years of age; he is a foreign archæologist of great
learning and most unusual intelligence. He was a precocious boy of quite
excellent character, great sensitiveness and rare gifts. Physically he
was small, always weakly, and a stammerer. He grew up and was educated
abroad, and afterwards studied for several terms at B----. So far there
had been no disorder of any kind. On the completion of his university
career he became zealously absorbed in his archæological work, which
gradually engulfed him to such an extent that he was dead to the world
and all its pleasures. He worked incessantly, and buried himself
entirely in his books. He became quite unsociable; before, awkward and
shy in society, he now fled from it altogether, and saw no one beyond
a few friends. He thus led the life of a hermit devoted entirely to
science. A few years later, on a holiday tour, he revisited B----,
where he remained a few days. He walked a great deal in the environs
of the town. His few acquaintances now found him somewhat strange,
taciturn, and nervous. After a somewhat protracted walk he seemed tired,
and said that he did not feel very well. He then remarked he must get
himself hypnotised, he felt his nerves unsteady. On top of this he was
attacked by physical illness, viz. inflammation of the lungs. Very
soon a peculiar state of excitement supervened which led to suicidal
ideas. He was brought to the asylum, where for weeks he remained in
an extremely excited state. He was completely deranged, and did not
know where he was; he spoke in broken sentences which no one could
understand. He was often so excited and aggressive that it took several
attendants to hold him. He gradually became quieter, and one day came to
himself, as if waking out of a long, confused dream. He soon completely
regained his health, and was discharged as cured. He returned to his
home and again immersed himself in books. In the following years he
published several remarkable works, but, as before, his life was that
of a hermit living entirely in his books and dead to the world. He then
gradually acquired the name of a dried-up misanthrope, lost to all
meaning of the beauty of life. A few years after his first illness a
brief holiday brought him again to B----. As before he took his solitary
walks in the environs. One day he was suddenly overcome by a faint
feeling, and lay down in the street. He was carried into a neighbouring
house where he immediately became extremely excited. He began to perform
gymnastics, jumped over the rails of the bed, turned somersaults in the
room, began to declaim in a loud, voice, sang his own improvisations,
etc. He was again brought to the asylum. The excitement continued. He
extolled his wonderful muscles, his beautiful figure, his enormous
strength. He believed that he had discovered a natural law by which
a wonderful voice could be developed. He regarded himself as a great
singer, and a marvellous reciter, and at the same time he was a great
inspired poet and composer to whom verse and melody came spontaneously.
All this was in pitiable and very remarkable contrast to reality. He is
a small weakly man of unimposing build, with poorly developed muscles
betraying at the first glance the atrophying effect of his studious
life. He is unmusical, his voice is weak and he sings out of tune; he is
a bad speaker, because of his stutter. For weeks he occupied himself in
the asylum with peculiar jumping, and contortions of the body which he
called gymnastics, he sang and declaimed. Then he became more quiet and
dreamy, often stared thoughtfully in front of him for a long time, now
and then sang a love song which, despite its want of musical expression,
betrayed a pretty feeling for love's aspirations. This also was in
complete contrast with the dryness and isolation of his normal life. He
gradually became accessible for lengthy conversations.
We will break off the history of the disease here, and sum up what is
furnished so far by observation of the patient.
In the first illness the delirium broke out unexpectedly, and was
followed by a mental disorder with confused ideas and violence which
lasted for several weeks. Complete recovery appeared to have taken
place. Six years later there was a sudden outbreak of mania, grandiose
delusions, bizarre actions, followed by a twilight-stage gradually
leading to recovery. Here we again see a typical case of dementia
præcox, of the katatonic variety, especially characterised by peculiar
movements and actions. In psychiatry the views obtaining at present
would regard this as localised cellular disease of some part of the
cortex, exhibiting confusional states, delusions of grandeur, peculiar
contortions of the muscles, or twilight-states, which taken all together
have as little psychological meaning as the bizarre shapes of a drop of
lead thrown into water.
This is not my view. It was certainly no accidental freak of the
brain-cells that created the dramatic contrasts shown in the second
illness. We can see that these contrasts, the so-called grandiose
delusions, were very subtly determined by the deficiencies in the
patient's personality. Without doubt, any one of us would naturally
regard these deficiencies seriously in ourselves. Who would not have
the desire to find compensation for the aridness of his profession and
of his life in the joys of poetry and music and to restore to his body
the natural power and beauty stolen from it by the study's atmosphere?
Do we not recall with envy the energy of a Demosthenes who, despite his
stammering, became a great orator? If our patient thus fulfilled the
obvious gaps in his physical and mental life by delusional wishes, the
supposition is warranted that the whispered love-song which he sang from
time to time filled up a painful blank in his being, which became more
painful the more it was concealed. The explanation is not far to seek.
It is simply the old story, born anew in every human soul, in a guise
befitting the destined creature's highest sensibilities.
When our patient was a student he learnt to know and love a
girl-student. Together they made many excursions in the environs of
the town, but his exceeding timidity and bashfulness (the lot of the
stammerer) never permitted him an opportunity of getting out the
appropriate words. Moreover, he was poor and had nothing to offer her
but hopes. The time came for the termination of his studies; she went
away, and he also, and they never saw one another again. And not long
afterwards he heard she had married some one else. Then he relinquished
his hopes, but he did not know that Eros never emancipates his slaves.
He buried himself in abstract learning, not to forget, but to work for
her in his thoughts. He wanted to keep the love in his heart quite
secret, and never to betray that secret. He would dedicate his works to
her without her ever knowing it. The compromise succeeded, but not for
long. Once he travelled through the town where he heard she lived--it
seems to have been an accident that he travelled through that town.
He did not leave the train, which only made a short halt there. From
the window he saw standing in the distance a young woman with a little
child, and thought it was she. Impossible to say whether it was really
so or not. He does not think he felt any peculiar feeling at that
moment; anyway he gave himself no trouble to ascertain whether it was
she, which makes the presumption strong that it was not really she.
The unconscious wanted to be left in peace with its illusion. Shortly
afterwards he again came to B----, the place of old memories. Then he
felt something strange stir in his soul, an uneasy feeling, akin to
Nietzsche's--
"Not for long shalt thou thirst, O burning heart!
There is promise in the air,
Winds come to me from unknown mouths--
The healing coolness comes."
Civilised man no longer believes in demons, he calls in the doctor. Our
patient wanted to be hypnotised. Then madness overcame him. What was
going on in him?
He answered this question in broken sentences, with long pauses, in that
twilight-stage that heralds convalescence. I give as faithfully as may
be his own words. When he fell ill he suddenly lost the well-regulated
world and found himself in the chaos of an overmastering dream, a sea of
blood and fire; the world was out of joint; everywhere conflagration,
volcanic outbreaks, earthquakes, mountains fell in, followed by enormous
battles where the peoples fell upon one another; he became involved more
and more in the battle of nature, he was right in the midst of those
fighting, wrestling, defending himself, enduring unutterable misery and
pain; gradually he was exalted and strengthened by a strange calming
feeling that some one was watching his struggles, that his loved one saw
all from afar. That was the time when he showed real violence to the
attendants. He felt his strength increasing and saw himself at the head
of great armies which he would lead to victory. Then more great battles
and at length victory. He would try to get his loved one as prize of
victory. As he drew near her the illness ceased, and he awoke from a
long dream.
His daily life again began to follow the regular routine. He shut
himself up in his work and forgot the abyss within himself. A few years
later he is again at B---- Demon or Destiny? Again he followed the
old trail and again was overborne by old memories. But this time he
was not immersed in the depths of confusion. He remained orientated
and _en rapport_ with his surroundings. The struggle was considerably
milder, but he did gymnastics, practised the arts, and made good his
deficiencies; then followed the dreamy stage with the love-songs,
corresponding to the period of victory in the first psychosis. In this
state, according to his own words, he had a dreamlike feeling as if he
stood upon the borders of two worlds and knew not whether truth stood on
the right or on the left. He told me, "It is said she is married, but I
believe she is not, but is still waiting for me; I feel that it must be
so. It is ever to me as if she were not married, and as if success were
yet attainable."
Our patient here portrayed but a pale copy of the scene in the first
attack of psychosis, when he, the victor, stood before his mistress.
In the course of a few weeks after this conversation the scientific
interests of the patient again began to predominate. He spoke with
obvious unwillingness about his intimate life, he repressed it more
and more, and finally turned away from it as if it did not belong to
himself. Thus gradually the gate of the under-world became closed.
There remained nothing but a certain tense expression, and a look
which, though fixed on the outer world, was turned inwards at the same
time; and this alone hinted at the silent activity of the unconscious,
preparing new solutions for his insoluble problem. This is the so-called
cure in dementia præcox.
Hitherto we psychiatrists used not to be able to suppress a laugh when
we read an artist's attempts to portray a psychosis. These attempts have
been generally regarded as quite useless, for the writer introduces
into his conception of the psychosis psychological relationships quite
foreign to the clinical picture of the disease. But the artist has not
simply proceeded to copy a case out of a psychiatric text-book; he knows
as a rule better than the psychiatrist.
The case which I have sketched is not unique, it is typical of a whole
class for which the artist Spitteler has created a model of universal
validity; the model is _Imago_. I may take for granted that you know his
book of that name. The psychological gulf, however, between the creation
of the artist and the insane person is great. The world of the artist
is one of solved problems; the world of reality, that of unsolved
problems. The mental patient is a faithful image of this reality. His
solutions are unsatisfying illusions, his cure a temporary giving up of
the problem, which yet goes on working in the depths of the unconscious,
and at the appointed time again rises to the surface and creates new
illusions with new scenery; part of the history of mankind is here seen
abridged.
Psychological analysis is far from being able to explain in complete and
illuminating fashion all cases of the disease with which we are here
concerned. On the contrary, the majority remain obscure and difficult to
understand, and chiefly because only a certain proportion of patients
recover. Our last patient is noteworthy because his return to a normal
state afforded us a survey of the period of his illness. Unfortunately
the advantage of this standpoint is not always possible to us, for a
great number of persons never find their way back from their dreams.
They are lost in the maze of a magic garden where the same old story
is repeated again and again in a timeless present. For patients the
hands of the clock of the world remain stationary; there is no time, no
further development. It makes no difference to them whether they dream
for two days or thirty years. I had a patient in my ward who was five
years without uttering a word, in bed, and entirely buried in himself.
For years I visited him twice daily, and as I reached his bedside I
could see at once that there was no change. One day I was just about to
leave the room when a voice I did not recognise called out--"Who are
you? What do you want here?" I saw with astonishment that it was the
dumb patient who had suddenly regained his voice, and obviously his
senses also. I told him I was his doctor, whereupon he asked angrily,
why was he kept a prisoner here, and why did no one ever speak to him?
He said this in an injured voice just like a normal person whom one had
neglected for a couple of days. I informed him that he had been in bed
quite speechless for five years and had responded to nothing, whereat
he looked at me fixedly and without understanding. Naturally I tried
to discover what had gone on in him during these five years, but could
learn nothing. Another patient with a similar symptom, when asked why
he had remained silent for years, maintained, "Because I wanted to
spare the German language."[199] These examples show that it is often
impossible to lift the veil of the secret, for the patients themselves
have neither interest nor pleasure in explaining their strange
experiences, in which as a rule they realise nothing peculiar.
Occasionally the symptoms themselves are a sign-post to the
understanding of the psychology of the disease.
We had a patient who was for thirty-five years an inmate at Burghölzli.
For decades she lay in bed, she never spoke or reacted to anything, her
head was always bowed, her back bent and the knees somewhat drawn up.
She was always making peculiar rubbing movements with her hands, so as
to give rise during the course of years to thick horny patches on her
hands. She kept the thumb and index finger of her right hand together
as in the movement of sewing. When she died I tried to discover what
she had been formerly. Nobody in the asylum recalled ever having seen
her out of bed. Only our chief attendant had a memory of having seen
her sitting in the same attitude as that she afterwards took up in bed,
at which time she was making rapid movements of extension of the arm
across the right knee; it was said of her that she was sewing shoes,
later that she was polishing shoes. As time went on the movements became
more limited till finally there remained but a slight rubbing movement,
and only the finger and thumb retained the sewing position. In vain
I consulted our old attendant, she knew nothing about the patient's
previous history. When the seventy-year-old brother came to the funeral
I asked him what had been the cause of his sister's illness; he told
me that she had had a love-affair, but for various reasons it had
come to nothing. The girl had taken this so to heart that she became
low-spirited. In answer to a query about her lover it was found that he
was a _shoemaker_.
Unless you see here some strange play of accident, you must agree that
the patient had kept the memory-picture of her lover unaltered in her
heart for thirty-five years.
One might easily think that these patients who give an impression of
imbecility are only burnt-out ruins of humanity. But such is probably
not the case. One can often prove directly that such patients register
everything going on around them even with a certain curiosity, and have
an excellent memory for it all. This is the reason why many patients
become for a time pretty sensible again, and develop mental powers which
one believed they had long since lost. Such intervals occur occasionally
during serious physical disease, or just before death. We had a patient
with whom it was impossible to carry on a sane conversation; he only
produced a mad medley of delusions and words. He once fell seriously
ill physically, and I expected it would be very difficult to treat him.
Not at all. He was quite changed, he became friendly and amiable, and
carried out all his doctor's orders patiently and gratefully. His eyes
lost their evil darting looks, and shone quietly and understandingly.
One morning I came to his room with the usual greeting: "Good morning.
How are you getting on?" The patient answered me in the well-known way:
"There again comes one of the dog and monkey troupe wanting to play the
Saviour." Then I knew his physical trouble was over. From that moment
the whole of his reason was as if "blown away" again.
From these observations we see that reason still survives, but is pushed
away into some corner by the complete preoccupation of the mind with
diseased thoughts.
Why is the mind compelled to exhaust itself in the elaboration of
diseased nonsense? On this difficult question our new insight throws
considerable light. To-day we can say that the pathological images
dominate the interests of the patient so completely, because they are
simply derivatives of the most important questions that used to occupy
the person when normal--what in insanity is now an incomprehensible
maze of symptoms used to be fields of vital interest to the former
personality.
I will cite as an example a patient who was twenty years in the asylum.
She was always a puzzle to the physicians, for the absurdity of her
delusions exceeded anything that the boldest imagination could create.
She was a dressmaker by trade, born in 1845, of very poor family.
Her sister early went wrong and was finally lost in the swamp of
prostitution. The patient herself led an industrious, respectable,
reserved life. She fell ill in 1886 in her 39th year--at the threshold
of the age when so many a dream is brought to naught. Her illness
consisted in delusions and hallucinations which increased rapidly,
and soon became so absurd that no one could understand her wishes and
complaints. In 1887 she came to the asylum. In 1888 her statements,
so far as the delusions were concerned, were not intelligible. She
maintained such monstrous things as that: "At night her spinal marrow
had been torn out; pains in the back had been caused by substances that
went through the walls and were covered with magnetism." "The monopoly
fixed the sorrows which are not in the body and do not fly about in the
air." "Excursions are made by breathing in chemistry, and by suffocation
regions are destroyed."
In 1892 the patient styled herself the "Bank Note Monopoly, Queen of the
Orphans, Proprietress of the Burghölzli Asylum;" she said: "Naples and I
must provide the world with macaroni" (Nudel).
In 1896 she became "Germania and Helvetia from exclusively pure butter";
she also said, "I am Noah's Ark, the boat of salvation and respect."
Since then the disease has greatly increased; her last creation is the
delusion that she is the "lily red sea monster and the blue one."
These instances will show you how far the incomprehensibility of such
pathological formations go. Our patient was for years the classic
example of meaningless delusional ideas in dementia præcox; and many
hundreds of medical students have received from the demonstration of
this case a permanent impression of the sinister power of insanity. But
even this case has not withstood the newer technique of psychoanalysis.
What the patient says is not at all meaningless; it is full of
significance, so that he who has the key can understand without overmuch
difficulty.
Time does not allow me to describe the technique by means of which I
succeeded in lifting the veil of her secret. I must content myself by
giving a few examples to make the strange changes of thought and of
speech in this patient clear to you.
She said of herself that _she was Socrates_. The analysis of this
delusion presented the following ideas: Socrates was the wisest man,
the man of greatest learning; he was infamously accused, and had to die
in prison at the hands of strange men. She was the best dressmaker, but
"never unnecessarily cut a thread, and never allowed a piece of material
to lie about on the floor." She worked ceaselessly, and now she has been
falsely accused, wicked men have shut her up, and she will have to die
in the asylum.
Therefore she is Socrates; this is, as you see, simple metaphor, based
upon obvious analogy. Take another example: "_I am the finest professor
and the finest artist in the world._"
The analysis furnishes the remarks that she is the best dressmaker and
chooses the most beautiful models which show up well and waste little
material; she puts on the trimming only where it can be seen. She is a
professor, and an artist in her work. She makes the best clothes and
calls them absurdly "The Schnecke Museum-clothes." Her customers are
only such persons as frequent the Schnecke House and the Museum (the
Schnecke House is the aristocratic club. It is near the Museum and the
Library, another rendezvous of the aristocratic set of Zürich), for she
is the best dressmaker and makes only Schnecke Museum[200] clothing.
The patient also _calls herself Mary Stuart_. Analysis showed the same
analogy as with Socrates: innocent suffering and death of a heroine.
"_I am the Lorelei._" Analysis: This is an old and well-known song: "I
know not what it means," etc. Whenever she wants to speak about her
affairs people do not understand her, and say they don't know what it
means; hence she is the Lorelei.
"_I am Switzerland._" Analysis: Switzerland is free, no one can rob
Switzerland of her freedom. The patient does not belong to the asylum,
she would be free like Switzerland, hence she is Switzerland.
"_I am a crane._" Analysis: In the "Cranes of Ibykus" it is said:
"Whosoever is free of sin and fault shall preserve the pure soul of
a child." She has been brought innocent to the asylum and has never
committed a crime--hence she is a crane.
"_I am Schiller's Bell._" Analysis: Schiller's Bell is the greatest work
of the great master. She is the best and most industrious dressmaker,
and has achieved the highest rung in the art of dressmaking--hence she
is Schiller's Bell.
"_I am Hufeland._" Analysis: Hufeland was the best doctor. She suffers
intolerably in the asylum and is moreover treated by the worst doctors.
She is, however, so prominent a personality that she had a claim to the
best doctors, that is to a doctor like Hufeland--hence she is Hufeland.
The patient used the expression "I am" in a very arbitrary way.
Sometimes it meant "it belongs to me" or "it is proper for me";
sometimes it means "I should have." This is seen from the following
analysis:
"_I am the master-key._" Analysis: The master-key is the key that opens
all the doors of the asylum. Properly, according to all rights, the
patient should long since have obtained this key for she has been for
many years "the proprietress of the Burghölzli Asylum." She expresses
this reflection very much simplified in the sentence, "I am the
master-key."
The chief content of her delusions is concentrated in the following
words:--
"_I am the monopoly._" Analysis: The patient means the banknote
monopoly, which has belonged to her for some time. She believes that
she possesses the monopoly of the entire bank notes of the world, thus
creating enormous riches for herself, in compensation for the poverty
and lowliness of her lot. Her parents died early; hence she is the
Queen of the Orphans. Her parents lived and died in great poverty. Her
blessings are extended to them also, the dreamlike delusions of the
patient benefit them in many ways. She says textually: "My parents are
clothed by me, my sorely-tried mother, full of sorrow--I sat with her at
table--covered in white with superfluity."
This is another of these malleable hallucinations which the patient had
daily. It is one of those scenes of wish-fulfilment, with poverty on
one side and riches on the other, recalling Hauptmann's Hannele; more
especially that scene where Gottwald says: "She was clothed in rags--now
she is bedeckt in silken robes; and she ran about barefoot--now she has
shoes of glass to her feet. Soon she will live in a golden castle and
eat each day of baked meats. Here has she lived on cold potatoes...."
The wish-fulfilments of our patient go even further. Switzerland has
to furnish her with an income of 150,000 francs. The Director of the
Burghölzli owes her 80,000 francs damages for wrongful incarceration.
She is the proprietress of a distant island with silver mines, the
"mightiest silver island in the world." Therefore she is also the
greatest orator, possesses the most wonderful eloquence, for, as she
says, "Speech is _silver_, silence gold." To her all the beautiful
landed estates belong--all the rich quarters, towns and lands, she
is the proprietress of a world, even a "threefold proprietress of
the world." Whilst poor Hannele was only elevated to the side of the
Heavenly Bridegroom, our patient has the "Key of Heaven," she is not
only the honoured earthly queens Mary Stuart and Queen Louise of
Prussia, but she is also the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God as well
as the Godhead. Even in this earthly world where she was but a poor,
ill-regarded homely dressmaker she attained fulfilments of her human
wishes, for she had taken three husbands from the best families in
the town and her fourth was the Emperor Francis. From these marriages
there were two phantom children--a little boy and a little girl. Just
as she clothed, fed and feasted her parents, so she provided for the
future of her children. To her son she bequeathed the great bazaar of
Zürich, therefore her son is a "Zur," for the proprietor of a _Bazaar_
is a "Zur." The daughter resembles her mother; hence she becomes the
proprietress of the asylum and takes her mother's place so that the
mother is released from captivity. The daughter therefore receives the
title of "Agency of Socrates," for she replaces Socrates in captivity.
These instances by no means exhaust the delusional fancies of the
patient. But they will give you some idea, I hope, of the richness
of her inner life although she was apparently so dull and apathetic,
or, as was said _imbecile_, and sat for twenty years in her workroom,
where she mechanically repaired her linen, occasionally uttering a
complex of meaningless fragments which no one had hitherto been able to
understand. Her odd lack of words can now be seen in another light; they
are fragments of enigmatical inscriptions, of fairy-story phantasies,
which have escaped from the hard world to found a world of their own.
Here the tables are ever laden, and a thousand feasts are celebrated in
golden palaces. The patient can only spare a few mysterious symbols for
the gloomy dim shores of reality; they need not be understood, for our
understanding has not been necessary for her for this long time.
Nor is this patient at all unique. She is one of a type. Similar
phantasies are always found in patients of this kind, though not always
in such profusion.
The parallels with Hauptmann's Hannele show that here likewise the
artist has shown us the way with the free creation of his own phantasy.
From this coincidence, which is not accidental, we may conclude that
there is something common both to the artist and the insane and not to
them alone. Every human being has also within himself that restless
creative phantasy which is ever engaged in assuaging the harshness
of reality. Whoever gives himself unsparingly and carefully to
self-observation, will realise that there dwells within him something
which would gladly hide and cover up all that is difficult and
questionable in life, and thus procure an easy and free path. Insanity
grants the upper hand to this something. When once it is uppermost,
reality is more or less quickly driven out. It becomes a distant dream,
and the dream which enchains the patient wholly or in part, and often
for life, has now the attributes of reality. We normal persons, who have
to do entirely with reality, see only the products of disordered fancy,
but not the wealth of that side of the mind which is turned away from
us. Unfortunately only too often no further knowledge reaches us of the
things which are transpiring on that other side, because all the bridges
are broken down which unite this side with that.
We do not know to-day whether these new views are of universal or only
of limited validity; the more carefully and perseveringly we examine our
patients, the more we shall meet cases, which, despite apparent total
imbecility, will yet afford us at least some fragmentary insight into
the obscurities of the psychical life. This life is far removed from
that mental poverty which the prevailing theories were compelled to
accept.
However far we are from being able to understand fully the
concatenations of that obscure world, at least we may maintain, with
complete assurance, that in dementia præcox there is no symptom which
can be described as psychologically baseless and meaningless. The
most absurd things are in reality symbols of ideas which are not
only generally understandable, but also universally operative in the
human heart. In insanity we do not discover anything new and unknown,
but we look at the foundation of our own being, the source of those
life-problems in which we are all engaged.
PART II.[201]
The number of psychoanalytic investigations into the psychology of
dementia præcox has considerably increased since the publication of my
book upon the subject.[202] When, in 1903, I made the first analysis
of a case of dementia præcox, there dawned on me a premonition of the
possibilities of future discoveries in this sphere. This has been
confirmed.
Freud first submitted a case of paranoid dementia to closer
psychological investigation.[203] This he was enabled to do by means
of an analytic technique perfected through his rich experiences with
neurotics. He selected the famous autobiography of P. Schreber,
"Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken." The patient could not be
analysed personally, but having published his most interesting
autobiography all the material wanted for an analysis was to be found in
it.
In this study Freud shows out of what infantile forms of thought and
instincts the delusional system was built up. The peculiar delusions
which the patient had about his doctor whom he identified with God
or with a god-like being, and certain other surprising and really
blasphemous ideas, Freud was able to reduce most ingeniously to his
infantile relationship to his father. This case also presented similar
bizarre and grotesque concatenations of ideas to the one I have
described. As the author himself says, his work confines itself to the
task of pointing out those universally existent and undifferentiated
foundations out of which we may say every psychological formation is
historically developed.[204] This reductive analytical process did not,
however, furnish such enlightening results in regard to the rich and
surprising symbolism in patients of this kind as we had been accustomed
to expect from the same method in the realm of the psychology of
hysteria. In reading certain works of the Zürich school, for example,
Maeder,[205] Spielrein,[206] Nelken,[207] Grebelskaja,[208] Itten,[209]
one is powerfully impressed by the enormous symbol-formation in dementia
præcox.
Some of the authors still proceed essentially by the method of analytic
reduction, tracing back the complicated delusional formation into its
simpler and more universal components, as I have done in the preceding
pages. One cannot, however, resist the feeling that this method hardly
does justice to the fulness and the almost overpowering wealth of
phantastic symbol-formation, although it does undoubtedly throw a light
upon the subject in certain directions.
Let me illustrate with an example. We should be thankful for a
commentary upon "Faust" which traced back all the diverse material of
Part II. to its historical sources, or for a psychological analysis
of Part I. which pointed out how the dramatic conflict corresponds to
a personal conflict in the soul of the poet; we should be glad of an
exposition which pointed out how this subjective conflict is itself
based upon those ultimate and universal human things which are nowise
foreign to us since we all carry the seeds of them in our hearts.
Nevertheless we should be a little disappointed. We do not read "Faust"
just in order to discover that also we are, in all things, "human, all
too human." Alas, we know that but too well already. Let any one who
has not yet learnt it go for a little while out into the world and look
at it without preconceptions and with open eyes. He will turn back from
the might and power of the "too human," hungrily he will pick up his
"Faust," not to find again what he has just left, but to learn how a man
like Goethe shakes off these elemental human things and finds freedom
for his soul. When we once know who was the "Proktophantasmist," to what
chronological events the mass of symbols in Part II. relates, how it is
all intimately bound up with the poet's own soul and conditioned by it,
we come to regard this determination as less important than the problem
itself--what does the poet mean by his symbolic creation? Proceeding
purely reductively, one discovers the final meaning in these universal
human things; and demands nothing further from an explanation than that
the unknown and complicated shall be reduced to the known and simple. I
should like to designate this kind of understanding as _retrospective
understanding_. But there is another kind of understanding, which is not
analytic reduction, but is of a _synthetic_ or _constructive_ nature. I
would designate this _prospective understanding_, and the corresponding
method as the _Constructive method_.
It is common knowledge that present-day scientific explanation rests
upon the basis of the causal principle. Scientific explanation is
causal explanation. We are therefore naturally inclined, whenever we
think scientifically, to explain causally, to understand a thing and
to regard it as explained whenever it is reduced analytically to its
cause and general principle. In so far Freud's psychological method of
interpretation is strictly scientific.
If we apply this method to "Faust" it must become clear that something
more is required for a true understanding. It will even seem to us
that we have not gathered the poet's deepest meaning if we only see in
it universal foregone human conclusions. What we really want to find
out is how this man has redeemed himself as an individual, and when we
arrive at this comprehension then we shall also understand the symbol
given by Goethe. It is true we may then fall into the error that we
understand Goethe himself. But let us be cautious and modest, simply
saying we have thereby arrived at an understanding of ourselves. I am
thinking here of Kant's thought-compelling definition of comprehension,
as "the realisation of a thing to the extent which is sufficient for our
purpose."
This understanding is, it is true, subjective, and therefore not
scientific for those to whom science and explanation by the causal
principle are identical. But the validity of this identification is open
to question. In the sphere of psychology I must emphasise my doubt on
this point.
We speak of "objective" understanding when we have given a causal
explanation. But at bottom, understanding is a subjective process upon
which we confer the quality "objective" really only to differentiate it
from another kind of understanding which is also a psychological and
subjective process, but upon which, without further ado, we bestow the
quality "subjective." The attitude of to-day only grants scientific
value to "objective" understanding on account of its universal
validity. This standpoint is incontestably correct wherever it is not a
question of the psychological process itself, and hence it is valid in
all sciences apart from pure psychology.
To interpret Faust objectively, _i.e._ from the causal standpoint, is as
though a man were to consider a sculpture from the historical, technical
and--last but not least--from the mineralogical standpoint. But where
lurks the _real meaning_ of the wondrous work? Where is the answer to
that most important question: what aim had the artist in mind, and how
are we ourselves to understand his work subjectively? To the scientific
spirit this seems an idle question which anyhow has nothing to do with
science. It comes furthermore into collision with the causal principle,
for it is a purely speculative constructive view. And the modern world
has overthrown this spirit of scholasticism.
But if we would approach to an understanding of psychological things we
must remember the fact of the subjective conditioning of all knowledge.
The world is _as we see it_ and not simply objective; this holds true
even more of the mind. Of course it is possible to look at the mind
objectively, just as at Faust, or a Gothic Cathedral. In this objective
conception there is comprised the whole worth and worthlessness of
current experimental psychology and psychoanalysis. The scientific mind,
thinking causally, is incapable of understanding what is ahead; it only
understands what is past, that is, retrospective. Like Ahriman, the
Persian devil, it has the gift of After-Knowledge. But this spirit is
only one half of a complete comprehension. The other more important half
is prospective or constructive; if we are not able to understand what
lies ahead, then nothing is understood. If psychoanalysis, following
Freud's orientation, should succeed in presenting an uninterrupted and
conclusive connection between Goethe's infantile sexual development and
his work, or, following Adler, between the infantile struggle for power
and the adult Goethe and his work, an interesting proposition would have
been solved--we should have learnt how a masterpiece can be reduced to
the simplest thinkable elements, which are universal, and to be found
working within the depths of everything and everybody. But did Goethe
construct his work to _this_ end? Was it his intention that it should be
thus conceived?
It must be sufficiently clear that such an understanding, though
undoubtedly scientific, would be entirely, utterly, beside the mark.
This statement is valid for psychology in general. To understand
the psyche causally, means to understand but half of it. The causal
understanding of Faust enlightens us as to how it became a finished work
of art, but reveals nothing of the living meaning of the poet. That
meaning only lives if we experience it, in and through ourselves. In so
far as our actual present life is for us something essentially new and
not a repetition of all that has gone before, the great value of such
a work is to be seen, not in its causal development, but in its living
reality for our own lives. We should be indeed depreciating a work like
Faust if we were only to regard it as something that has been perfected
and finished; it is only understood when conceived as a becoming and as
an ever new-experiencing.
Thus we must regard the human psyche. Only on one side is the mind a
Has Been, and as such subordinate to the causal principle. On the other
side the mind is a Becoming that can only be grasped synthetically or
constructively. The causal standpoint asks how it is this actual mind
has become what it appears to-day? The constructive standpoint asks how
a bridge can be built from this actual psyche to its own future?
Just as the causal method finally reaches the general principles of
human psychology by the analysis and reduction of individual events,
so does the constructive standpoint reach aims that are general by the
synthesis of individual tendencies. The mind is a point of passage and
thus necessarily determined from two sides. On the one side it offers a
picture of the precipitate of the past, and on the other side a picture
of the germinating knowledge of all that is to come, in so far as the
psyche creates its own future.
What has been is, on the one hand, the result and apex of all that
was--as such it appears to the causal standpoint; on the other hand, it
is an expression of all that is to be. The future is only _apparently_
like the past, but in its essence always new and unique, (the causal
standpoint would like to invert this sentence) thus the actual formula
is incomplete, germlike so to say, in relation to what is to be.
To get any conception of this expression of what is to be we are forced
to apply a constructive interest to it. I almost felt myself tempted
to say, "a scientific interest." But modern science is identical with
the causal principle. So long as we consider the actual mind causally,
that is scientifically, we elude the mind as a Becoming. This other side
of the psyche can never be grasped by the exclusive use of the causal
principle, but only by means of the constructive standpoint. The causal
standpoint reduces things to their elements, the constructive standpoint
elaborates them into something higher and more complicated. This latter
standpoint is necessarily a speculative one.
Constructive understanding is, however, differentiated from scholastic
speculation because it imposes no general validity, but only subjective
validity. When the speculative philosopher believes he has comprehended
the world once for all by his System, he deceives himself; he has only
comprehended himself and then naïvely projected that view upon the
world. In reaction against this, the scientific method of the modern
world has almost put an end to speculation and gone to the other
extreme. It would create an "objective" psychology. In opposition
to such efforts, the stress which Freud has placed upon individual
psychology is of immortal merit. The extraordinary importance of the
subjective in the development of the objective mental process was thus
first brought adequately into prominence.
Subjective speculation lays no claim to universal validity, it is
identical with constructive understanding. It is a subjective creation,
which, looked at externally, easily seems to be a so-called infantile
phantasy, or at least an unmistakable derivative of it; from an
objective standpoint it must be judged as such, in so far as objective
is regarded as identical with scientific or causal. Looked at from
within, however, constructive understanding means redemption.
"Creation--that is the great redemption from suffering and easiness of
living."[210]
* * * * *
Starting from these considerations as to the psychology of those
mental patients to whom the Schreber case belongs, we must, from the
"objective-scientific" standpoint, reduce the structural phantasy of the
patient to its simple and most generally valid elements. This Freud had
done. But that is only half of the work to be done. The other half is
the constructive understanding of Schreber's system. The question is:
What end, what freedom, did the patient hope to achieve by the creation
of his system?
The scientific thinker of to-day will regard this question as
inappropriate. The psychiatrist will certainly smile at it, for he is
thoroughly assured of the universal validity of his causalism, he knows
the psyche merely as something that is made, descendent, reactive. Not
uncommonly there lurks the unconscious prejudice that the psyche is a
brain-secretion.
Looking at such a morbid system without preconception, and asking
ourselves what goal this delusional system is aiming at, we see, in
fact, firstly, that it _is_ endeavouring to get at something, and
secondly, that the patient also devotes all his will-power to the
service of the system. There are patients who develop their delusions
with scientific thoroughness, often dragging in an immense material of
comparison and proof. Schreber certainly belongs to this class. Others
do not proceed so thoroughly and learnedly, but content themselves with
heaping up synonymous expressions for that at which they are aiming. The
case of the patient I have described, who assumes all kinds of titles,
is a good instance of this.
The patient's unmistakable striving to express something through and
by means of his delusion Freud conceives retrospectively, as the
satisfaction of his infantile wishes by means of imagination. Adler
reduces it to the desire for power.
For him the delusion-formation is a "manly protest," a means of
gaining security for himself against his menaced superiority. Thus
characterised, this struggle is likewise infantile and the means
employed--the delusional creation--is infantile because insufficient
for its purpose; one can therefore understand why Freud declines to
accept Adler's point of view. Freud, rightly on the whole, subsumes this
infantile struggle for power under the concept of the infantile wish.
The constructive standpoint is different. Here the delusional system
is neither infantile nor, upon the whole, _eo ipso_ pathological but
_subjective_, and hence justified within the scope of the subjective.
The constructive standpoint absolutely denies the conception that the
subjective phantasy-creation is merely an infantile wish, symbolically
veiled; or that it is merely that in a higher degree; it denies that
it is a convulsive and egoistic adhesion to the fiction of its own
superiority, in so far as these are to be regarded as finalistic
explanations. The subjective activity of the mind can be judged from
without, just as one can, in the end, so judge everything. But this
judgment is inadequate, because it is the very essence of the subjective
that it cannot be judged objectively. We cannot measure distance in
pints. The subjective can be only understood and judged subjectively,
that is, constructively. Any other judgment is unfair and does not meet
the question.
The absolute credit which the constructive standpoint confers upon the
subjective, naturally seems to the "scientific" spirit as an utter
violation of reason. But this scientific spirit can only take up arms
against it so long as the constructive is not avowedly _subjective_. The
constructive comprehension also _analyses_, but it does not _reduce_.
It decomposes the delusion into _typical_ components. What is to be
regarded as the type at a given time is shown from the attainment of
experience and knowledge reached at that time.
Even the most individual delusional systems are not absolutely unique,
occurring only once, for they offer striking and obvious analogies
with other systems. From the comparative analysis of many systems
the typical formations are drawn. If one can speak of reduction at
all, it is only a question of reduction to general type, but not to
some universal principle obtained inductively or deductively, such
as "Sexuality" or "Struggle for Power." This paralleling with other
typical formations only serves for a widening of the basis upon which
the construction is to be built. If one were to proceed entirely
subjectively one would go on constructing in the language of the patient
and in his mental range. One would arrive at some structure which was
illuminating to the patient and to the investigator of the case but not
to the outer scientific public. The public would be unable to enter into
the peculiarities of the speech and thought of the individual case in
question without further help.
The works of the Zürich school referred to contain careful and detailed
expositions of individual material. In these materials there are
very many typical formations which are unmistakably _analogies_ with
_mythological formations_[211]. There arose from the perception of
this relationship a new and valuable source for comparative study.
The acceptance of the possibility of such a comparison will not be
granted immediately, but the question is only whether the materials
to be compared really are similar or not. It will also be contended
that pathological and mythological formations are not immediately
comparable. But this objection must not be raised _a priori_, for only
a conscientious comparison can determine whether any true parallelism
exists or not. At the present moment all we know is that they are both
structures of the imagination which, like all such products, rest
essentially upon the activity of the unconscious. Experience must teach
us whether such a comparison is valid. The results hitherto obtained
are so encouraging that further work along these lines seems to me most
hopeful and important. I made practical use of the constructive method
in a case which Flournoy published in the _Archives de Psychologie_,
although he offered no opinion as to its nature at that time.
The case dealt with a rather neurotic young lady who, in Flournoy's
publication, described how surprised she was at the connected
phantasy-formations which penetrated from the unconscious into the
conscious. I subjected these phantasies, which the lady herself
reproduced in some detail, to my constructive methods and gave the
results of these investigations in my book, "The Psychology of the
Unconscious."
This book has, I regret to say, met with many perhaps inevitable
misunderstandings. But I have had one precious consolation, for my book
received the approval of Flournoy himself, who published the original
case which he knew personally. It is to be hoped that later works will
make the standpoint of the Zürich school intelligible to a wider public.
Whoever, by the help of this work, has taken the trouble to grasp the
essence of the constructive method, will readily imagine how great are
the difficulties of investigation, and how much greater still are the
difficulties of objective presentation of such investigations.
Among the many difficulties and opportunities for misunderstanding I
should like to adduce one difficulty which is especially characteristic.
In an intensive study of Schreber's or any similar case, it will be
discovered that these patients are consumed by the desire for a new
world-philosophy which may be of the most bizarre kind. Their aim is
obviously to create a system such as will help them in the assimilation
of unknown psychical phenomena, _i.e._ enable them to adapt their
own unconscious to the world. This arrangement produces a subjective
system which must be considered as a necessary transition-stage on the
path to the adaptation of their personality in regard to the world in
general. But the patient remains stationary at this transitory stage
and assumes his subjective view is the world's, hence he remains ill.
He cannot free himself from his subjectivism and does not find the link
to objective thinking, _i.e._ to society. He does not reach the real
summit of self-understanding, for he remains with a merely subjective
understanding of himself. But a _mere_ subjective understanding is not
real and adequate. As Feuerbach says: _Understanding is only real
when it is in accord with that of some other rational beings_. Then it
becomes objective[212] and the link with life is reached.
I am convinced that not a few will raise the objection that in the first
place the psychological process of adaptation does not proceed by the
method of first creating a world-philosophy; secondly, that it is in
itself a sign of unhealthy mental disposition even to make the attempt
to adapt oneself by way of a "world-philosophy."
Undoubtedly there are innumerable persons who are capable of adaptation
without creating any preliminary philosophy. If they ever arrive at any
general theory of the world it is always subsequently. But, on the other
hand, there are just as many who are only able to adapt themselves by
means of a preliminary intellectual formulation. To everything which
they do not understand they are unable to adapt themselves. Generally
it comes about that they do adapt themselves just in so far as they can
grasp the situation intellectually. To this latter group seem to belong
all those patients to whom we have been giving our consideration.
Medical experience has taught us that there are two large groups of
functional nervous disorders. The one embraces all those forms of
disease which are designated _hysterical_, the other all those forms
which the French school has designated _psychasthenic_. Although
the line of demarcation is rather uncertain, one can mark off two
psychological types which are obviously different; their psychology
is diametrically opposed. I have called these--the _Introverted_ and
_Extroverted_ types. The hysteric belongs to the type of _Extroversion_,
the psychasthenic to the type of _Introversion_, as does dementia
præcox, in so far as we know it to-day. This terminology, _Introversion_
and _Extroversion_, is bound up with my way of regarding mental
phenomena as forms of energy. I postulate a hypothetical fundamental
striving which I designate _libido_.[213] In the classical use of the
word, _libido_ never had an exclusively sexual connotation as it has in
medicine. The word _interest_, as Claparède once suggested to me, could
be used in this special sense, if this expression had to-day a less
extensive application. Bergson's concept, _élan vital_, would also serve
if this expression were less biological and more psychological. Libido
is intended to be an energising expression for _psychological values_.
The psychological value is something active and determining; hence it
can be regarded from the energic standpoint without any pretence of
exact measurement.
The introverted type is characterised by the fact that his libido
is turned towards his own personality to a certain extent--he finds
within himself the unconditioned value. The extroverted type has his
libido to a certain extent externally; he finds the unconditioned value
outside himself. The introvert regards everything from the aspect of
his own personality; the extrovert is dependent upon the value of his
object. I must emphasise the statement that this question of types is
_the_ question of our psychology, and that every further advance must
probably proceed by way of this question. The difference between these
types is almost alarming in extent. So far there is only one small
preliminary communication by myself[214] on this theory of type, which
is particularly important for the conception of dementia præcox. On the
psychiatric side Gross[215] has called attention to the existence of two
psychological types. His two types are (1) those with limited but deep
consciousness, and (2) those with broad but superficial consciousness.
The former correspond to my introverted and the latter to my extroverted
type. In my article I have collected some other instances among which
I would especially call attention to the striking description of the
two types given by William James in his book on "Pragmatism." Fr. Th.
Vischer has differentiated the two types very wittily by her division of
the learned into "reason-mongers," and "matter-mongers." In the sphere
of psychoanalysis Freud follows the psychology of Extraversion, Adler
that of Introversion. The irreconcilable opposition between the views
of Freud and those of Adler (see especially his book "Über den nervösen
Charakter") is readily explained by the existence of two diametrically
opposed psychological types which view the same things from entirely
different aspects. An Extrovert can hardly, or only with great
difficulty, come to any understanding with an Introvert, on any delicate
psychological question.
An Extrovert can hardly conceive the necessity which compels the
Introvert to conquer the world by means of a system. And yet this
necessity exists, otherwise we should have no philosophical systems
and dogmas, presumed to be universally valid. Civilised humanity
would be only empiricists and the sciences only the experimental
sciences. Causalism and empiricism are undoubtedly mighty forces in our
present-day mental life but it may come to be otherwise.
This difference in type is the first great obstacle which stands in
the way of an understanding concerning fundamental conceptions of our
psychology. A second objection arises from the circumstance that the
constructive method, faithful to itself, must adapt itself to the
lines of the delusion. The direction along which the patient develops
his morbid thoughts has to be accepted seriously, and followed out
to its end; the investigator thus places himself at the standpoint
of the psychosis. This procedure may expose him to the suspicion
of being deranged himself; or at least risks a misunderstanding
which is considered terribly disgraceful--he may himself have some
world-philosophy! The confirmation of such a possibility is as bad
as being "unscientific." But every one has a world-philosophy though
not every one knows he has. And those who do not know it have simply
an unconscious and therefore inadequate and archaic philosophy. But
everything psychological that is allowed to remain in the mind neglected
and not developed, remains in a primitive state. A striking instance of
how universal theories are influenced by unconscious archaic points of
view has been furnished by a famous German historian whose name matters
to us not at all. This historian took it for granted that once upon
a time people propagated themselves through incest, for in the first
human families the brother was assigned to the sister. This theory is
wholly based upon his still unconscious belief in Adam and Eve as the
first and only parents of mankind. It is on the whole better to discover
for oneself a modern world-philosophy, or at least to make use of some
decent system which will prevent any errors of that kind.
One could put up with being despised as the possessor of a
world-philosophy; but there is a greater danger. The public may come to
believe the philosophy, beaten out by the constructive method, is to be
regarded as a theoretical and objectively valid insight into the meaning
of the world in general.
I must now again point out that it is an obstinate, scholastic
misunderstanding not to be able to distinguish between a
world-philosophy which is only psychological, and an extra-psychological
theory, which concerns the objective thing. It is absolutely essential
that the student of the results of the constructive method should be
able to draw this distinction. In its first results the constructive
method does not produce anything that could be called a scientific
theory; it furnishes the _psychological lines of development_, a _path_
so to say. I must here refer the reader to my book, "Psychology of the
Unconscious."
The analytic reductive method has the advantage of being much simpler
than the constructive method. The former reduces to well-known universal
elements of an extremely simple nature. The latter has, with extremely
complicated material, to construct the further path to some often
unknown end. This obliges the psychologist to take full account of
all those forces which are at work in the human mind. The reductive
method strives to replace the religious and philosophical needs of man,
by their more elementary components, following the principle of the
"nothing but," as James so aptly calls it. But to _construct_ aright,
we must accept the developed aspirations as indispensable components,
essential elements, of spiritual growth. Such work extends far beyond
empirical concepts but that is in accordance with the nature of the
human soul which has never hitherto rested content with experience
alone. Everything new in the human mind proceeds from speculation.
Mental development proceeds by way of speculation, never by way of
limitation to mere experience. I realise that my views are parallel
with those of Bergson, and that in my book the concept of the libido
which I have given, is a concept parallel to that of "élan vital"; my
constructive method corresponds to Bergson's "intuitive method." I,
however, confine myself to the psychological side and to practical work.
When I first read Bergson a year and a half ago I discovered to my great
pleasure everything which I had worked out practically, but expressed by
him in consummate language and in a wonderfully clear philosophic style.
Working speculatively with psychological material there is a risk of
being sacrificed to the general misunderstanding which bestows the
value of an objective theory upon the line of psychological evolution
thus elaborated. So many people feel themselves in this way at pains
to find grounds whether such a theory is correct or not. Those who are
particularly brilliant even discover that the fundamental concepts can
be traced back to Heraclitus or some one even earlier. Let me confide
to these knowing folk that the fundamental ideas employed in the
constructive method stretch back even beyond any historical philosophy,
viz. to the dynamic "views" of primitive peoples. If the result of the
constructive method were scientific theory, it would go very ill with
it, for then it would be a falling back to the deepest superstition.
But since the constructive method results in something far removed from
scientific theory the great antiquity of the basic concepts therein must
speak in favour of its extreme correctness. Not until the constructive
method has presented us with much practical experience can we come to
the construction of a _scientific theory, a theory of the psychological
lines of development_. But we must first of all content ourselves with
confirming these lines individually.
FOREWORD TO CHAPTER XIV
This essay was originally written in 1913, when I limited myself
entirely to presenting an essential part of the psychological point
of view inaugurated by _Freud_. A few months ago my Swiss publisher
asked for a second and revised edition. The many and great changes
which the last few years have brought about in our understanding of the
psychology of the unconscious necessitated a substantial enlargement
of my essay. In this new edition some expositions about _Freud's_
theories are shortened, whilst _Adler's_ psychological views are more
fully considered, and--so far as the scope of this paper permits--a
general outline of my own views are given. I must at the outset draw
the reader's attention to the fact that this is no longer an easy
"popular" scientific paper, but a presentation making great demands upon
the patience and attention of the reader. The material is extremely
complicated and difficult. I do not for a moment deceive myself into
thinking this contribution is in any way conclusive or adequately
convincing. Only detailed scientific treatises about the various
problems touched upon in these pages could really do justice to the
subject. Any one who wishes to go deeply into the questions that are
raised here must be referred to the special literature of the subject.
My attention is solely to give the orientation in regard to the newest
concepts of the inner nature of unconscious psychology. I consider the
subject of the unconscious to be specially important and opportune at
this moment. In my opinion, it would be a great loss if this problem,
concerning every one so closely as it does, were to disappear from
the horizon of the educated lay public, by being interned in some
inaccessible specialised scientific journal. The psychological events
that accompany the present war--the incredible brutalisation of public
opinion, the epidemic of mutual calumnies, the unsuspected mania for
destruction, the unexampled flood of mendacity, and man's incapacity
to arrest the bloody demon--are they not, one and all, better adapted
than anything else, to force obtrusively the problem of the chaotic
unconscious--which slumbers uneasily beneath the ordered world of
consciousness,--before the eyes of every thinking individual? This
war has inexorably shown to the man of culture that he is still a
barbarian. It testifies also what an iron scourge awaits him, if ever
again it should occur to him to make his neighbour responsible for his
own bad qualities. The psychology of the individual corresponds to the
psychology of nations. What nations do, each individual does also,
and as long as the individual does it, the nation will do it too. A
metamorphosis in the attitude of the individual is the only possible
beginning of a transformation in the psychology of the nation. The
great problems of humanity have never been solved by universal laws,
but always and only by a remodelling of the attitude of the individual.
If ever there was a time when self-examination was the absolutely
indispensable and the only right thing, it is now, in the present
catastrophic epoch. But he who bethinks himself about his own being
strikes against the confines of the unconscious, which indeed contains
precisely that which it is most needful for him to know.
C. G. JUNG.
KÜSNACHT-ZÜRICH,
_March, 1917_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 194: First Edition, 1908 = Part I. (unaltered); Second
Edition, 1914 = Part II. Translator, M. D. Eder.]
[Footnote 195: "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox," translated by Brill
and Peterson, _Monograph Series of the Journal of Nervous and Mental
Diseases_, New York.]
[Footnote 196: Bresler, "Kulturhistorischer Beitrag zur Hysterie."
_Allg. Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie_, Bd. LIII., p. 333. Zündel,
"Biographie Blumhardts."]
[Footnote 197: Central Asylum and University Psychiatric Clinic in
Zürich.]
[Footnote 198: In psychiatry "inadequate" is employed to denote
disproportion between feeling and idea whether in excess or the reverse.]
[Footnote 199: I am indebted for this example to my colleague Dr.
Abraham of Berlin.]
[Footnote 200: As one might say in England, "a Bond Street dressmaker."]
[Footnote 201: This is an addition to the second edition, 1914.]
[Footnote 202: "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox."]
[Footnote 203: _Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische Forschung_, vol. III. pp.
9 and 558.]
[Footnote 204: Comp. also Ferenczi: "Über die Rolle der Homosexualität
in der Pathogenese der Paranoia," _Jahrb._, III., p. 101.]
[Footnote 205: Maeder: "Psychologische Untersuchungen an Dementia præcox
Kranken," _Jahrbuch f. psychoanalyt. Forsch._, II., p. 185.]
[Footnote 206: Spielrein: "Über den psychologischen Inhalt eines Falles
von Schizophrene," _l.c._, III., p. 329 ff.]
[Footnote 207: Nelken: "Analytische Beobachtungen über Phantasien eines
Schizophrenen," _l.c._, IV., p. 505 ff.]
[Footnote 208: Grebelskaja: "Psychologische Analyse eines Paranoiden,"
_l.c._, IV., p. 116 ff.]
[Footnote 209: Itten: "Beiträge zur Psychologie der Dementia præcox,"
_l.c._, p. V., 1 ff.]
[Footnote 210: Nietzsche, "Thus spake Zarathustra."]
[Footnote 211: "Quelques faits d'imagination créatrice subconsciente,"
Miss Miller, vol. V., p. 36.]
[Footnote 212: Here "objective" understanding is not identical with
causal understanding.]
[Footnote 213: This energy may also be designated as hormé. Hormé is a
Greek word [Greek: hormê]--force, attack, press, impetuosity, violence,
urgency, zeal. It is related to Bergson's "élan vital." The concept
hormé is an energic expression for psychological values.]
[Footnote 214: See p. 287.]
[Footnote 215: "Die zerebrale Sekundärfunktion." Leipzig, 1902.]
CHAPTER XIV
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS PROCESSES[216]
_Being a Survey of the Modern Theory and Method of Analytical Psychology_
I.--THE BEGINNINGS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
In common with other sciences, psychology had to go through its
scholastic-philosophic stage, and to some extent this has lasted on
into the present time. This philosophic psychology has incurred our
condemnation in that it decides _ex cathedra_ what is the nature of the
soul, and whence and how it derives its attributes. The spirit of modern
scientific investigation has summarily disposed of all these phantasies
and in their place has established an exact empiric method. We owe to
this our present-day experimental psychology or "_psychophysiology_,"
as the French call it. This new direction originated with Fechner,
that Janus-minded spirit, who in his remarkable _Psychophysik_ (1860)
embarked on the mighty enterprise of introducing the physical standpoint
into the conception of psychical phenomena. The whole idea of this
work--and not least its astonishing mistakes--proved most fruitful in
results. For Wundt, Fechner's young contemporary, carried on his work,
and it is Wundt's great erudition, enormous power of work and genius for
elaborating methods of experimental research, which have given to modern
psychology its prevailing direction.
Until quite recently experimental psychology remained essentially
academic. The first notable attempt to utilise some few at any rate
of its innumerable experimental methods in the service of practical
psychology came from the psychiatrists of the former Heidelberg school
(Kræpelin, Aschaffenburg, etc.); it is quite intelligible that the
psychotherapists should be the first to feel the urgent need for more
exact knowledge of psychic processes.
Next came pedagogy, making its own demands upon psychology. Out of this
has recently grown up an "experimental pedagogy," and in this field
Neumann in Germany and Binet in France have rendered signal services.
The physician, the so-called "nerve-specialist," has the most urgent
need of psychological knowledge if he would really help his patients,
for neurotic disturbances, such as hysteria, and all things classed as
"nervousness," are of psychic origin, and necessarily demand psychic
treatment. Cold water, light, air, electricity, magnetism, etc., are
only effective temporarily, and quite often are of no use at all. They
are frequently introduced into treatment in a not very commendable
fashion, simply because reliance is placed upon their suggestive effect.
But it is in his soul that the patient is really sick; in those most
complicated and lofty functions which we scarcely dare to include in
the province of medicine. The doctor must needs, in such a case, be a
psychologist, must needs understand the human soul. He cannot evade the
urgent demand upon him. So he naturally turns for help to psychology,
since his psychiatry text-books have nothing to offer him. But modern
experimental psychology is very far from being able to afford him any
connected insight into the most vital psychic processes, that is not
its aim. As far as possible it tries to isolate those simple elementary
phenomena which border on the physiological, and then study them in an
isolated state. It quite ignores the infinite variation and movement of
the mental life of the individual, and accordingly, its knowledge and
its facts are so many isolated details, uninspired by any comprehensive
idea capable of bringing them into co-ordination. Hence it comes about
that the inquirer after the secrets of the human soul, learns rather
less than nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better
advised to abandon exact science, take off his scholar's gown, say
farewell to his study, and then, strong in manly courage, set out to
wander through the world; alike through the horrors of prisons, lunatic
asylums and hospitals, through dreary outlying taverns, through
brothels and gambling-halls, into elegant drawing-rooms, the Stock
Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revival gatherings of strange
religious sects, experiencing in his own person love and hate and every
kind of suffering. He would return laden with richer knowledge than his
yard-long text-books could ever have given him, and thus equipped, he
can indeed be a physician to his patients, for he understands the soul
of man. He may be pardoned if his respect for the "corner-stones" of
experimental psychology is no longer very considerable. There is a great
gulf fixed between what science calls "psychology," on the one hand, and
what the practice of everyday life expects from psychology on the other.
This need became the starting-point of a new psychology whose inception
we owe first and foremost to the genius of Sigmund Freud, of Vienna,
to his researches into functional nervous disease. The new type of
psychology might be described as "analytical psychology." Professor
Bleuler has coined the name "Deep Psychology,"[217] to indicate that
the Freudian psychology takes as its province the deeper regions, the
"hinterland" of the soul, the "unconscious." Freud names his method of
investigation "psychoanalysis."
Before we approach the matter more closely, we must first consider the
relationship of the new psychology to the earlier science. Here we
encounter a singular little farce which once again proves the truth of
Anatole France's apothegm: "Les savants ne sont pas curieux."
The first important piece of work[218] in this new field awakened
only the faintest echo, in spite of the fact that it offered a new
and fundamental conception of the neuroses. Certain writers expressed
their approbation, and then, on the next page, proceeded to explain
their cases of hysteria in the good old way. It was much as if a man
should subscribe fully to the idea of the earth's being spherical, and
yet continue to represent it as flat. Freud's next publications[219]
were practically unnoticed, although they contributed findings of
immeasurable importance to the domain of psychiatry. When in 1900 he
produced the first real psychological elucidation of the dream[220]
(previously there had reigned over this territory a suitable nocturnal
darkness), he was ridiculed; and when in the middle of the last decade
he began to illumine the psychology of sexuality itself,[221] and at
the same time the "Zürich school" decided to range itself on his side,
a storm of abuse, sometimes of the coarsest kind, burst upon him, nor
has it yet ceased to rage. At the last South-West German Congress of
alienists in Baden-Baden, the adherents of the new psychology had
the pleasure of hearing Hoche, University Professor of Psychiatry at
Freiburg in Breisgau, describe the movement in a long and much-applauded
address, as an outbreak of mental aberration _among doctors_. The old
proverb: "Medicus medicum non decimat" was here quite put to shame. How
carefully the question had been studied was shewn by the naïve remark
of one of the most distinguished neurologists of Paris, which I myself
heard at the International Congress in 1907: "It is true I have not
read Freud's works (he did not happen to know any German!), but as for
his theories, they are nothing but a "mauvaise plaisanterie." Freud,
dignified, masterly, once said to me, I first became clearly conscious
of the value of my discoveries when they were met everywhere with
resistance and anger; since that time I have judged the value of my work
according to the degree of opposition provoked. It is against my sexual
theory that the greatest indignation is felt, so it would seem therein
lies my best work. Perhaps after all the real benefactors of mankind
are its false teachers, for opposition to the false doctrine pushes men
willy nilly into truth. Your truth-teller is a pernicious fellow, he
drives men into error."
The reader must now calmly accept the idea that in this psychology
he is dealing with something quite unique, if not indeed with some
altogether irrational, sectarian, or occult wisdom; for what else could
possibly provoke all the scientific authorities to turn away on the very
threshold and utterly refuse to cross it?
Accordingly, we must look more closely into this psychology. As long
ago as Charcot's time it was recognised that neurotic symptoms are
"psychogenic," that is, that they have their origin in the psyche.
It was also known, thanks mainly to the work of the Nancy School,
that every hysterical symptom can be exactly reproduced by means of
suggestion. But _how_ a hysterical system arises, and its relationship
to psychic causes, were altogether unknown. In the beginning of the
eighties Dr. Breuer, an old Viennese doctor, made a discovery[222]
which was really the true starting-point of the new psychology.
He had a very intelligent young patient (a woman) suffering from
hysteria, who exhibited the following symptoms among others: A spastic
paralysis of the right arm, occasional disturbances of consciousness
or twilight-states, and loss of the power of speech in so far as she
no longer retained any knowledge of her mother-tongue, and could only
express herself in English (so-called systematic aphasia). They sought
at that time, and still seek, in such a case to establish some theory of
anatomical disturbance, although there was just as little disturbance
in the arm-centre in the brain as in that of any normal man who boxes
another's ears. The symptomatology of hysteria is full of anatomical
impossibilities; such as the case of the lady who had lost her hearing
completely through some hysterical malady. None the less she often used
to sing, and once when she was singing her doctor sat down at the piano
unnoticed by her and softly accompanied her. Passing from one strophe
to another he suddenly altered the key, and she, quite unconscious of
what she was doing, sang on in the altered key. Thus she heard--yet did
not hear. The various forms of systematic blindness present similar
phenomena. We have the case of a man suffering from complete hysterical
blindness. In the course of the treatment he recovers his sight, but at
first, and for some long time, only partially: he could see everything
with one exception--people's heads. He saw all the people around him
without heads. Thus he saw--yet did not see. From a large number of like
experiences it has long been concluded that it is only the patient's
consciousness which does not see, does not hear, but the sense-function
has nothing at all the matter with it. This state of affairs is directly
contradictory to the essence of an organic disturbance, which always
materially involves the function.
After this digression let us return to Breuer's case. Since there was no
organic cause for the disturbance, the case was clearly to be regarded
as hysterical, that is, psychogenic. Dr. Breuer had noticed that if
during her twilight-states (whether spontaneous or artificially induced)
he let the patient freely express the reminiscences and phantasies that
thronged in upon her, her condition was afterwards much improved for
some hours. He made systematic use of this observation in her further
treatment. The patient herself invented the appropriate name for it of
"talking cure" or, in jest, "chimney sweeping."
Her illness began whilst she was nursing her dying father. It is
easy to understand that her phantasies busied themselves mainly with
this disturbing time. In the twilight-states memories of this period
reappeared with photographic fidelity, distinct in every detail: no
waking recollection is ever so plastically and exactly reproduced.
The term hypermnesia is applied to this heightening of the power of
memory, which occurs without difficulty in certain states of contracted
consciousness. Remarkable things now came to light. Out of the many
things told, one ran somewhat as follows.[223]
On a certain night she was in a state of great anxiety about her
father's high temperature. She sat by his bed, waiting for the surgeon
who was coming from Vienna to perform an operation. Her mother had gone
out of the room for a little while, and Anna (the patient) sat by the
bed, with her right arm hanging over the back of her chair. She fell
into a kind of waking-dream in which she saw a black snake come out
from the wall and approach the sick man, prepared to bite. (It is very
probable that some real snakes had been seen in the fields behind the
house, and that she had been frightened by them; this would furnish the
material for her hallucination.) She wanted to drive the creature away,
but felt paralysed; her right arm, hanging over the chair, had "gone to
sleep," was anæsthetic and paretic, and as she looked her fingers turned
into little snakes with death's heads (the nails). Probably she tried
to drive the snake away with her paralysed right hand, and thereby the
anæsthesia and paralysis became associated with the snake-hallucination.
Even after the snake had disappeared, her terror remained great. She
tried to pray, but found she had no words in any language, until at
length she managed to remember some English nursery rhymes, and then she
could go on thinking and praying in that language.
This was the actual scene in which the paralysis and speech-disturbance
arose; the describing it served to remove the speech-trouble, and in
this same fashion the case was finally completely cured.
I must restrict myself to this one instance. In Breuer and Freud's book
there is a wealth of similar examples. It is easy to understand that
scenes such as these make a very strong impression, and accordingly
there is an inclination to attribute a causal significance to them in
the genesis of the symptoms. The then current conception of hysteria,
arising from the English "nervous shock" theory, which Charcot strongly
supported, came in conveniently to elucidate Breuer's discovery,
hence arose the _trauma-theory_ maintaining that the hysterical
symptom and in so far as the symptoms comprise the disease, hysteria
itself, arises from some _psychic injury_ (or _trauma_), the effect
of which is retained in the unconscious indefinitely. Freud, working
as Breuer's colleague, amply confirmed this discovery. It was fully
demonstrated that not one out of the many hundred hysterical symptoms
came down ready made from heaven; they had already been conditioned
by past psychic experiences. To some extent, therefore, this new
conception opened up a field of very important empirical work. But
Freud's tireless spirit of inquiry could not long rest content at
this superficial layer, since already there obtruded deeper and more
difficult problems. It is obvious enough that moments of great fear
and anxiety, such as Breuer's patient went through, would leave behind
a lasting effect, but how is it that these happenings are themselves
already deeply stamped with the mark of morbidity? Must we suppose
that the trying sick-nursing in itself produce such a result? If
so, such effects should occur much more frequently, for there are,
unfortunately, many trying cases of sick-nursing, and the nurse's
nervous constitution is by no means always of the soundest. To this
problem medicine gives its admirable answer; the "x" in the calculation
is _predisposition_; there is a tendency to these things. But for Freud
the problem was, what exactly constitutes this predisposition? This
question led logically to an investigation of all that had preceded the
psychic trauma. It is a matter of common observation that distressing
scenes have markedly different effects upon the different participants,
and that things which to some are quite indifferent or even pleasant,
such as frogs, mice, snakes, cats, excite the greatest aversion in
others. There are the cases of women who can calmly be present at a
very bad operation, but who tremble all over with horror and nausea
at the touch of a cat. By way of illustration let me give the case
of a young lady suffering from severe hysteria following a sudden
fright.[224] She had been at a social gathering, and was on her way
home at midnight accompanied by several acquaintances, when a carriage
came up behind them at full speed. All the others moved out of the way,
but she, beside herself with fright, ran down the middle of the road
just in front of the horses. The coachman cracked his whip and cursed
and swore in vain. She ran down the whole length of the street till
a bridge was reached. There her strength failed her, and to escape
the horses' feet in her despair she would have jumped into the water
had not passers-by prevented her. This same lady happened to be in
Petrograd during that sanguinary Revolution of the 22nd of January, and
saw a street cleared by the volleys of soldiers. All around her people
were dropping down dead or wounded, but she retained her calmness and
self-possession, and caught sight of a door which gave her escape into
another street. These terrible moments agitated her neither at the time
nor later on. She was quite well afterwards, indeed felt better than
usual.
Essentially similar reactions can quite often be observed. Hence
it follows that the intensity of the trauma is of small pathogenic
importance; the peculiar circumstances determine its pathogenic effect.
Here, then, we have the key which enables us to unlock at least one of
the anterooms to an understanding of predisposition. We must now ask
what were the unusual circumstances in this carriage scene? The terror
and apprehension began as soon as the lady heard the trampling horses.
For a moment she thought this portended some terrible fate, her death,
or something equally frightful; the next, she lost all sense of what she
was doing.
This powerful impression was evidently connected in some way with
the horses. The predisposition of the patient to react in such an
exaggerated fashion to a not very remarkable incident, might result
from the fact that horses had some special significance for her. It
might be suspected that she had experienced some dangerous accident
with them; this actually turned out to be the case. When a child of
about seven years old she was out for a drive with the coachman; the
horses shied and galloped at full speed towards a steep river-bank.
The coachman jumped down, and shouted to her to do the same, but in
her extreme terror she could scarcely bring herself to obey. She did,
however, just manage to jump out in the nick of time, whilst the horses
and carriage were dashed to pieces below. No proof is needed that such
an experience must leave a lasting impression behind it. But it does not
offer any explanation for such an exaggerated reaction to an inadequate
stimulus. So far we only know that this later symptom had its prologue
in childhood, but its pathological aspect remains obscure. To penetrate
into the heart of such a mystery it was necessary to accumulate further
material. And the greater our experience the clearer does it become
that in all cases with such traumatic experiences analysed up to the
present, there co-exists a special kind of disturbance which can only be
described as a derangement in the sphere of _love_. Not all of us give
due credit to the anomalous nature of love, reaching high as heaven,
sinking low as hell, uniting in itself all extremes of good and evil, of
lofty and low.[225]
As soon as Freud recognised this, a decisive change came about in his
view. In his earlier researches, whilst more or less dominated by
Charcot's trauma-theory, he had sought for the origin of the neurosis
in actual traumatic experiences; but now the centre of gravity shifted
to a very different point. This is best demonstrated by reference to
our case; we can understand that horses might easily play a significant
part in the patient's life, but it is not clear why there should be this
later reaction, so exaggerated, so uncalled for. It is not her fear of
horses which forms the morbid factor in this curious story; to get at
the real truth we must remember our empirical conclusion, that, side by
side with traumatic experiences, there is also invariably present some
disturbance in the sphere of love. We must now go on to inquire whether
perhaps there is anything unsatisfactory in this respect in the case
under review.
Our patient has a young man friend, to whom she is thinking of becoming
engaged, she loves him and expects to be happy with him. At first
nothing more is discoverable; but the investigator must not let himself
be deterred by a negative result in the beginning of this preliminary
questioning. When the direct way does not lead to the desired end, an
indirect way may be taken. We accordingly turn our attention back to
that strange moment when she ran away in front of the horses. We inquire
who were her companions and what kind of social gathering was it, and
find it was a farewell-party to her best friend, on her departure to a
foreign health-resort on account of a nervous breakdown. We are told
this friend is happily married and is the mother of one child. We may
well doubt the assertion that she is happy. If she really were so, it
is hardly to be supposed she would be "nervous" and in need of a cure.
When I attacked the situation from a different vantage-ground, I learnt
that our patient--after this episode--had been taken by her friends to
the nearest safe place--her host's house. In her exhausted state he
took charge of her. When the patient came to this part of her story,
she suddenly broke off, was embarrassed, fidgeted and tried to turn
the subject. Evidently some disagreeable reminiscences had suddenly
cropped up. After obstinate resistances had been overcome, she admitted
something very strange had happened that night. Her host had made her
a passionate declaration of love, thus occasioning a situation that,
in the absence of his wife, might well be considered both painful and
difficult. Ostensibly this declaration came upon her like a "bolt from
the blue." But a small dose of criticism applied to such an assertion
soon apprises us that these things never do drop suddenly from the sky;
they always have their previous history. It was a task of the following
weeks to dig out piecemeal a long love-story. I will attempt to sketch
in the picture as it appeared finally.
As a child the patient was a thorough tomboy, loved boys' boisterous
games, laughed at her own sex, and would have nothing to do with
feminine ways or occupations. After puberty, just when the sex-issue
should have meant much to her, she began to shun all society; she
seemingly hated and despised everything which could remind her even
remotely of the biological destiny of mankind, and lived in a world of
phantasy which had nothing in common with rude reality. Thus, till her
twenty-fourth year, she escaped all the little adventures, hopes and
expectations which ordinarily move a girl at this age. But finally she
got to know the two men who were destined to destroy the thorny hedge
which had grown up around her. Mr. A. was her best friend's husband;
Mr. B. was their bachelor-friend. She liked both; but pretty soon found
B. the more sympathetic, and an intimacy grew up between them which made
an engagement seem likely. Through her friendship with him and with
Mrs. A., she often met Mr. A. His presence excited her inexplicably,
made her nervous. Just at this time she went to a big party. All her
friends were there. She became lost in thought, and in a reverie was
playing with her ring, when suddenly it slipped out of her hand and
rolled under the table. Both men tried to find it and Mr. B. managed to
get it. With a meaning smile he put the ring back on her finger, and
said, "You know what that means!" Overcome by some strange, irresistible
feeling, she tore the ring from her finger and flung it out of the open
window. Naturally a painful moment for all ensued, and she soon went
away, much depressed. A little while after, so-called chance brought her
for her summer holidays to the health-resort where A. and his wife were
staying. It was then that Mrs. A. began to suffer from nerve-trouble,
and frequently felt too unwell to leave the house. So our patient could
often go out for walks alone with A. One day they were out in a small
boat. She was boisterously merry and fell overboard. Mr. A. saved her
with difficulty as she could not swim, and he managed to lift her into
the boat in a half-unconscious state. Then he kissed her. This romantic
event wove fast the bonds between them. In self-defence she did her best
to get herself engaged to B. and to persuade herself that she loved him.
Of course this queer comedy could not escape the sharp eye of feminine
jealousy. Mrs. A., her friend, guessed the secret, and was so much upset
by it that her nervous condition grew bad enough to necessitate her
trying a cure at a foreign health-resort. At the farewell gathering the
demon came to our patient and whispered: "To-night he will be alone,
something must happen to you so that you can go to his house." And so
indeed it came about; her strange behaviour made her friends take her to
his house, and thus she achieved her desire.
After this explanation the reader will probably be inclined to assume
that only diabolical subtlety could think out and set in motion such a
chain of circumstances. There is no doubt about the subtlety, but the
moral evaluation is less certain. I desire to lay special emphasis upon
the fact that the patient was _in no sense conscious of the motives_ of
this dramatic performance. The incident apparently just came about of
itself without any conscious motive whatsoever. But the whole previous
history makes it perfectly clear that everything was most ingeniously
directed towards the other aim; whilst the conscious self was apparently
working to bring about the engagement to Mr. B., the unconscious
compulsion to take the other road was still stronger.
So once more we must return to our original question, whence comes the
pathological, the peculiar and exaggerated reaction to the trauma?
Relying on a conclusion obtained from other analogous experiences,
we ventured the conjecture that in the present case we had to do
with a disturbance in the love-life, in addition to the trauma. This
supposition was thoroughly borne out; the trauma, which was apparently
the cause of the illness, was merely the _occasion_ for some factor,
till then unconscious, to manifest itself. This was the _significant
erotic conflict_. With this finding the trauma loses its pathogenic
significance and is replaced by a much deeper and more comprehensive
conception, which regards the erotic conflict as the pathogenic agent.
This conception may be described as the sexual theory of the neurosis.
I am often asked why it is just the erotic conflict rather than any
other which is the cause of the neurosis. There is but one answer to
this. No one asserts that this ought necessarily to be the case, but as
a simple matter of fact it is always found to be so, notwithstanding all
the cousins and aunts, godparents, and teachers, who rage against it.
Despite all the indignant assertions to the contrary, the problem and
conflicts of love are of fundamental importance for humanity,[226] and
with increasingly careful study, it comes out ever more clearly that
the love-life is of immensely greater importance than the individual
suspects.
As a consequence of the recognition that the true root of the neurosis
is not the trauma, but the hidden erotic conflict, the trauma loses its
pathogenic significance.
II.--THE SEXUAL THEORY.
Thus, it will be seen, the theory had to be shifted on to an entirely
different basis, for the investigation now had to face the erotic
conflict itself. Our example shows that this contains extremely abnormal
elements and cannot, _primâ facie_, be compared with an ordinary love
conflict. It is surprising, indeed hardly credible, that only the
postulated affection should be conscious, whilst the real passion
remained unknown to the patient. But in this case it is beyond dispute
that the real erotic relation remained unillumined, whilst the field of
consciousness was dominated by the assumption. If we try to formulate
this fact, something like the following proposition results: _in a
neurosis_, two erotic tendencies exist which stand in extreme opposition
to one another, and one at least is unconscious. Against this formula
the objection can be raised that it has obviously been derived from
this one particular case, and is therefore lacking in general validity.
The criticism will be the more readily urged because no one unpossessed
of special reasons is willing to admit that the erotic conflict is of
universal prevalence. On the contrary, it is assumed that this conflict
belongs more properly to the sphere of novels, since it is generally
depicted as something in the nature of such wild adventures as are
described by Karin Michaelis in her "Aberrations of Marriage," or by
Forel in "The Sexual Question." But indeed this is not the case; for we
know the wildest and most moving dramas are not played on the stage, but
every day in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without
exciting attention, and who betray to the world, save through the symbol
of a nervous breakdown, nothing of the conflicts that rage within them.
But what is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in
most cases patients have no suspicion whatever of the internecine
war raging in their unconscious. But remembering that there are many
people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less
surprised at the realisation that there are also people who are utterly
unaware of their actual conflicts.
If the reader is now inclined to admit the possible existence of
pathogenic, and perhaps even of unconscious conflicts, he will certainly
protest that they are not erotic conflicts. If this kind reader should
happen himself to be somewhat nervous, the mere suggestion will arouse
his indignation, for we are all inclined, as a result of our education
in school and at home, to cross ourselves three times where we meet such
words as "erotic" and "sexual"--and so we are conveniently able to think
that nothing of that nature exists, or at least very seldom, and at a
great distance from ourselves. But it is just this attitude which in the
first instance brings about neurotic conflicts.
We recognise that the course of civilisation consists in the progressive
mastering of the animal element in man; it is a process of domestication
which cannot be carried through without rebellion on the part of the
animal nature still thirsting for its liberty. Humanity forces itself
to endure the restrictions of the civilising process; but from time
to time there comes a frenzied bursting of all bonds. Antiquity had
experience of it in that wave of Dionysian orgies, surging hither from
the East, which became an essentially characteristic element of antique
culture. Its spirit was partly instrumental in causing the numerous
sects and philosophic schools of the last century before Christ, to
develop the Stoic ideal into asceticism; and in producing from the
polytheistic chaos of those times, the ascetic twin-religions of Mithras
and of Christ. A second clearly marked wave of the Dionysian impulse
towards freedom swept over the Western world during the Renaissance.
It is difficult to judge of one's own time, but we gain some insight
if we note how the Arts are developing, what is the prevailing type of
public taste, what men read and write, what societies they found, what
"questions" are the order of the day, and against what the Philistines
are fighting. We find in the long list of our present social problems
that the sexual question occupies by no means the last place. It
agitates men and women who would shake the foundations of sexual
morality, and throw off the burden of moral shame which past centuries
have heaped upon Eros. The existence of these aspirations and endeavours
cannot be simply denied, or declared indefensible; they exist and
are therefore presumably not without justification. It is both more
interesting and more useful to study carefully the basic causes of these
movements than to chime in with the lamentations of the professional
mourners over morals, who prophesy with unction the moral downfall of
humanity. The moralist least of all trusts God, for he thinks that the
beautiful tree of humanity can only thrive by dint of being pruned,
bound, and trained on a trellis, whereas Father-Sun and Mother-Earth
have combined to make it grow joyfully in accordance with its own laws,
which are full of the deepest meaning.
Serious people are aware that a very real sexual problem does exist
at the present time. The rapid development of the towns, coupled with
methods of work brought about by the extraordinary division of labour,
the increasing industrialisation of the country and the growing security
of life, combine to deprive humanity of many opportunities of expending
emotional energy. Think of the life of the peasant, whose work so rich
and full of change, affords him unconscious satisfaction by means of its
symbolic content; a like satisfaction the factory-hand and the clerk
can never know. Think of a life with nature; of those wonderful moments
when, as lord and fructifier, man drives the plough through the earth,
and with kingly gesture scatters the seed of the future harvest; see his
justifiable awe before the destructive power of the elements, his joy in
the fruitfulness of his wife, who gives him daughters and sons, who mean
to him increased working power and enhanced prosperity. Alas! from all
this we town-dwellers, we modern machines, are far, far removed.
Must we not admit that we are already deprived of the most natural and
most beautiful of all satisfactions, since we can no longer contemplate
the arrival of our own seed, the "blessing" of children, with unmixed
pleasure? Marriages where no artifices are resorted to are rare.
Is this not an all-important departure from the joys which Mother
Nature gave her first-born sons? Can such a state of affairs bring
satisfaction? Note how men slink to their work, watch their faces at
an early morning hour in the tram-cars. One of them makes his little
wheels, and another writes trivial things which do not interest him.
What wonder is it if such men belong to as many clubs as there are days
in the week, and that among women little societies flourish, where they
pour out on some particular hero or cause those unsatisfied desires
which the man dulls at his restaurant or club, imbibing beer and playing
at being important? To these sources of dissatisfaction is added a more
serious factor. Nature has provided defenceless, weaponless man with a
great amount of energy to enable him not merely to bear passively the
grave dangers of existence, but also to conquer them. Mother Nature
has equipped her son for tremendous hardships and has placed a costly
premium on the overcoming of them, as Schopenhauer quite understood when
he said that "happiness is really but the termination of unhappiness."
Civilized people are, as a rule, shielded from the immediately pressing
dangers, and they are therefore daily tempted to excess, for in man
the animal always becomes rampant when he is not constrained by fierce
necessity. Are we then indeed unrestrained? In what orgiastic festivals
do _we_ dispose of the surplus of vital power? Our moral views do not
permit us that outlet.
But reckon up in how many directions we are met by unsatisfied
longings; the denial of procreation and begetting, for which purpose
nature has endowed us with great energy; the unending monotony of
our highly developed modern methods of "division of labour," which
excludes any interest in the work itself; and above all our effortless
security against war, lawlessness, robbery, epidemics, infant and
woman mortality--all this gives a sum of surplus energy which must
needs find an outlet. But how? A relatively few create quasi-natural
dangers for themselves in reckless sport; many more, seeking to find
some equivalent for their more primitive energy, take to alcoholic
excess; others expend themselves in the rush of money-making, or in the
morbid performance of duties, in perpetual over-work. By such means
they try to escape a dangerous storing-up of energy which might force
mad outlets for itself. It is for such reasons that we have to-day a
_sexual question_. It is in this direction that men's energy would like
to expend itself as it has done from time immemorial in periods of
security and abundance. Under such circumstances it is not only rabbits
that multiply; men and women, too, become the sport of these accesses
of nature: the sport, because their moral views have confined them in a
narrow cage, the excessive narrowness of which was not felt so long as
harsh external necessity pressed upon them with even greater constraint.
But now the man of the cities finds the space too circumscribed. He is
surrounded by alluring temptation, and like an invisible _procureur_
there slinks through society the knowledge of preventive methods which
evade all consequences. Why then moral restraint? Out of religious
consideration for an angry God? Apart from the prevalence of widespread
unbelief, even the believing man might quietly ask himself whether, if
he himself were God, he would punish the youthful erotic uncontrol of
John and Mary with twice twenty-four years of imprisonment and seething
in boiling oil. Such ideas are no longer compatible with our decorous
conception of God. The God of our time is necessarily much too tolerant
to make a great fuss over it; (knavishness and hypocrisy are a thousand
times worse). In this way the somewhat ascetic and hypocritical sexual
morality of our time has had the ground cut from under its feet.
Or is it the case that we are now protected from dissoluteness by
superior wisdom, recognition of the nothingness of human happenings?
Unfortunately we are very far from that; rather does the hypnotic power
of tradition keep us in bonds, and through cowardice and thoughtlessness
and habit the herd goes tramping on in this same path. But man possesses
in the unconscious a fine scent for the spirit of his time; he has an
inkling of his own possibilities and he feels in his innermost heart
the instability of the foundations of present-day morality, no longer
supported by living religious conviction. It is thus the greater number
of the erotic conflicts of our time originate. Instinct thirsting for
liberty thrusts itself up against the yielding barriers of morality: men
are tempted, they desire and do not desire. And because they will not
and cannot think out to its logical conclusion what it is they really
desire, their erotic conflict is largely unconscious; whence comes
neurosis. Neurosis then is most intimately bound up with the problem of
our times and represents an unsuccessful attempt of the individual to
solve the general problem in his own person. Neurosis is a tearing in
two of the _inner self_. For most men the reason of this cleavage is
the fact that their conscious self desires to hold to its moral ideal,
whilst the unconscious strives after the amoral ideal, steadfastly
rejected by the conscious self. People of this kind would like to appear
more decent than they really are. But the conflict is often of an
opposite kind. There are those who do not outwardly live a decent life
at all and do not place the slightest constraint upon their sexuality,
but in reality this is a sinful pose assumed for goodness knows what
reasons, for down below they have a decorous soul which has somehow gone
astray in their unconscious, just as has the real immoral nature in
the case of apparently moral people. Extremes of conduct always arouse
suspicions of the opposite tendencies in the unconscious.
It was necessary to make this general statement in order to elucidate
the idea of the "erotic conflict" in analytical psychology, for it is
the key to the conception of neurosis. We can now proceed to consider
the psychoanalytic technique. Obviously the main problem is, how to
arrive by the shortest and best path at a knowledge of the patient's
"unconscious." The method first used was hypnotism, the patient being
questioned, on the production of spontaneous phantasies observed while
in a state of hypnotic concentration. This method is still occasionally
used, but in comparison with the present technique is primitive and
frequently unsatisfactory. A second method, evolved by the Psychiatric
Clinic, Zürich, was the so-called association method,[227] which is
chiefly of theoretic, experimental value. Its result is an extensive,
though superficial orientation, concerning the unconscious conflict
("complex").[228] The more penetrating method is that of dream-analysis
whose discovery belongs to Sigmund Freud.[229]
Of the dream it can be said that "the stone which the builders rejected
has become the head of the corner." It is only in modern times that
the dream (that fleeting and seemingly insignificant product of the
soul), has met with such complete contempt. Formerly it was esteemed,
as a harbinger of fate, a warning or a consolation, a messenger of the
gods. Now we use it as a messenger of the unconscious; it must disclose
to us the secrets which our unconscious self enviously hides from our
consciousness, and it does so with astonishing completeness.
On analytical investigation it becomes plain that the dream, as we
remember it, is only a façade which conceals the contents within the
house. But if, observing certain technical rules, we get the dreamer
to talk about the details of his dream, it soon appears that his free
associations group themselves in certain directions and round certain
topics. These appear to be of personal significance, and have a meaning
which at first sight would not be suspected. Careful comparison
shows that they are in close and subtle symbolic connection with the
dream-façade.[230] This particular complex of ideas in which all the
threads of the dream unite, is the conflict for which we are seeking;
is its particular form at the moment, conditioned by the immediate
circumstances. What is painful and incompatible is in this way so
covered up or split that we can call it a wish-fulfilment; but we must
immediately add that the wishes fulfilled in the dream do not seem
at first sight to be _our_ wishes, but rather the very opposite. For
instance, a daughter loves her mother tenderly, but she dreams that
her mother is dead; this causes her great grief. Such dreams, where
apparently there is no trace of any wish-fulfilment are innumerable, and
are a constant stumbling-block to our learned critics, for--_incredible
dictu_--they still cannot grasp the simple distinction between the
_manifest_ and the _latent_ content of the dream. We must guard against
such an error; the conflict dealt with in the dream is an unconscious
one, and equally so also is the manner its solution. Our dreamer has,
as a matter of fact, the wish to get away from her mother--expressed
in the language of the unconscious, she wants her mother to die. Now
we know that a certain section of the unconscious contains all our
lost memories, and also all those infantile impulses that cannot find
any application in adult life--a series, that is, of ruthless childish
desires. We may say that for the most part the unconscious bears an
infantile stamp; like the child's simple wish: "Daddy, when Mummie is
dead, will you marry me?" In a dream that infantile expression of a
wish is the substitute for a recent wish to marry, which is painful to
the dreamer for reasons still undiscovered. This thought, or rather the
seriousness of its corresponding intention, is said to be "repressed
into the unconscious" and must there necessarily express itself in
an infantile way, for the material which is at the disposal of the
unconscious consists chiefly of infantile memories. As the latest
researches of the Zürich school have shown,[231] these are not only
infantile memories but also "racial" memories, extending far beyond the
limits of individual existence.
Important desires which have not been sufficiently gratified, or have
been "repressed," during the day find their symbolic substitution
in dreams. Because moral tendencies usually predominate in waking
hours, these ungratified desires which strive to realise themselves
symbolically in the dream are, as rule, erotic ones. It is, therefore,
somewhat rash to tell dreams before one who understands, for the
symbolism is often extremely transparent to him who knows the rules! The
clearest in this respect are "anxiety-dreams" which are so common, and
which invariably symbolise a strong erotic desire.
Often the dream apparently deals with quite irrelevant details, thereby
making a ridiculous impression; or else it is so unintelligible that we
are simply amazed at it, and accordingly have to overcome considerable
resistance in ourselves before we can set to work seriously to unravel
its symbolic weaving by patient work. But when at last we penetrate
into its real meaning we find ourselves at a bound in the very heart of
the dreamer's secrets, and find to our astonishment that an apparently
senseless dream is quite full of sense, and deals with extraordinarily
important and serious problems of the soul. Having acquired this
knowledge we cannot refrain from giving rather more credit to the
old superstitions concerning the meaning of dreams for which our
rationalising tendencies, until lately, had no use.
As Freud says: "Dream-analysis is the _via regia_ to the unconscious."
Dream-analysis leads us into the deepest personal secrets, and it is
therefore an invaluable instrument in the hand of the psychotherapist
and educator. The objections of the opponents of this method are based,
as might be expected, upon argument, which (setting aside undercurrents
of personal feeling) show the bias of present-day Scholasticism. It
so happens that it is just the analysis of dreams which mercilessly
uncovers the deceptive morals and hypocritical affectations of man, and
shows him the under side of his character; can we wonder if many feel
that their toes have been rather painfully trodden upon? In connection
with the dream-analysis I am always reminded of the striking statue of
Carnal Pleasure in Bâle Cathedral, which shows in front the sweet smile
of archaic sculpture, but behind is covered with toads and serpents.
Dream-analysis reverses the figure and for once shows the other side.
The ethical value of this reality-correction (Wirklichkeitscorrectur)
cannot be disputed. It is a painful but extremely useful operation,
which makes great demands on both physician and patient.
Psychoanalysis, in so far as we are considering it as a therapeutic
technique, consists mainly of the analysis of many dreams; the dreams
in the course of the treatment bringing up successively the contents of
the unconscious in order that they may be subjected to the disinfecting
power of daylight, and in this process many a valuable thing believed
to have been lost is found again. It is not surprising that for
those persons who have adopted a certain pose towards themselves,
psychoanalysis is at times a real torture, since in accordance with
the old mystic saying, "Give all thou hast, then only shalt thou
receive," there is first the necessity to get rid of almost all the
dearly cherished illusions, to permit the advent of something deeper,
finer, and greater, for only through the mystery of self-sacrifice is
it possible to be "born-again." It is indeed ancient wisdom which again
sees the daylight in psychoanalytic treatment, and it is a curious
thing that this kind of psychic re-education proves to be necessary at
the height of our modern culture; this education which in more than
one respect can be compared to the technique of Socrates, even though
psychoanalysis penetrates to much greater depths.
We always find in a patient some conflict, which at a particular
point, is connected with the great problems of society; so that when
the analysis has arrived at this point the apparently individual
conflict is revealed as a universal conflict of the environment and the
epoch. Neurosis is thus, strictly speaking, nothing but an individual
attempt, however unsuccessful, at a solution of the general problem;
it must be so, for a general problem, a "question," is not an end in
itself; it only exists in the hearts and heads of individual men and
women. The "question" which troubles the patient is--whether you like
it or not--the "sexual" question, or more precisely, the problem of
present-day _sexual morality_. His increased demands upon life and the
joy of life, upon glowing reality, can stand the necessary limitations
which _reality_ sets, but not the arbitrary, ill-supported prohibitions
of present-day morals, which would curb too much the creative spirit
rising up from the depths of the darkness of the beasts that perish.
For the _neurotic has in him the soul of a child_ that can but
ill-endure arbitrary limitations of which it does not see the meaning;
it tries to adopt the moral standard, but thereby only falls into
deeper disunion and distress within itself. On the one hand it tries to
suppress itself, and on the other to free itself--this is the struggle
that is called Neurosis. If this conflict were altogether clear to
consciousness it would of course never give rise to neurotic symptoms;
these only arise when we cannot see the other side of our character, and
the urgency of the problems of that other side. In these circumstances
symptoms arise which partially express what is unrecognised in the
soul. The symptom is, therefore, an indirect expression of unrecognised
desires, which, were they conscious, would be in violent opposition to
the sufferer's moral views. As we have already said, this dark side
of the soul does not come within the purview of consciousness, and
therefore the patient cannot deal with it, correct it, resign himself to
it, or renounce it, for he cannot be said to _possess_ the unconscious
impulses. By being repressed from the hierarchy of the conscious soul,
they have become _autonomous complexes_ which can be brought again
under control by analysis of the unconscious, though not without great
resistance. There are a great many patients whose great boast it is that
the erotic conflict does not exist for them; they are sure that the
sexual question is nonsense, that they have, so to say, no sexuality.
These people do not see that other things of unknown origin cumber their
path, such as hysterical whims, underhand tricks, from which they make
themselves, or those nearest them, suffer; nervous stomach-catarrh, pain
here and there, irritability without reason, and a whole host of nervous
symptoms. All which things show what is wrong with them, for relatively,
only a few specially favoured by fate, avoid the great conflict.
Analytical psychology has already been reproached with setting at
liberty the animal instincts of men, hitherto happily repressed, and
causing thereby untold harm. This childish apprehension clearly proves
how little trust is put in the efficacy of present-day moral principles.
It is pretended that only morals can restrain men from dissoluteness;
a much more efficient regulator, however, is _necessity_, which sets
much more real and convincing bounds than any moral principles. It is
true that analysis liberates animal instincts, but not, as some have
said, just in order to let them loose, but rather to make them available
for higher application, in so far as this is possible to the particular
individual, and in so far as such "sublimated" application is required.
Under all circumstances it is an advantage to be in full possession of
one's own personality, for otherwise the repressed desires will get in
the way in a most serious manner, and overthrow us just in that place
where we are most vulnerable. It is surely better that a man learn to
tolerate himself, and instead of making war on himself convert his inner
difficulties into real experiences, rather than uselessly repeat them
again and again in phantasy. Then at least he lives, and does not merely
consume himself in fruitless struggles. But when men are educated to
recognise the baser side of their own natures, it may be hoped they will
learn to understand and love their fellow-men better too. A decrease of
hypocrisy and an increase of tolerance towards oneself, can have only
good results in tolerance towards one's neighbours, for men are only too
easily disposed to extend to others the unfairness and violence which
they do to their own natures.
Freud's theory of repression does, indeed, seem to postulate the
existence only of people who, being too moral, are continually
repressing the immorality of their natural instincts. According to this
idea, the immoral man who allows his natural instincts an unbridled
existence should be proof against neurosis. But daily experience proves
this is obviously not the case; he may be just as neurotic as other men.
If we analyse him, we find that it is simply his decency that has been
repressed. Therefore, when an immoral man is neurotic, he represents
what Nietzsche appropriately described as "the pale criminal," a man who
does not stand upon the same level as his deed.[232]
The opinion may be held, that in such a case the repressed remnants
of decency are merely infantile traditional legacies, that impose
unnecessary fetters upon natural instincts, for which reason they should
be eradicated. The principle "écraser l'infâme" would be the natural
culmination of such an absolute let-instinct-live theory.[233] That
would obviously be quite phantastic and nonsensical. It should, indeed,
never be forgotten--and the Freudian School needs this reminder--that
morality was not brought down upon tables of stone from Sinai and forced
upon the people, but that morality is a function of the human soul,
which is as old as humanity itself. Morality is not inculcated from
without. Man has it primarily within himself--not the law indeed, but
the essence of morals.
After all, does a more moral view-point exist than the let-instinct-live
theory? Is there a more heroic morality than this? That is why
Nietzsche, the heroic, is especially partial to it. It is natural and
inborn cowardice that makes people say, "God preserve me from following
my instincts," thinking that they thus prove their high moral standard.
They do not understand that following one's bent is really much too
costly for them, too strenuous, too dangerous, and finally it cuts
somewhat against that sense of decency which most people associate
rather with taste than with a categorical imperative. The unpardonable
fault of the let-instinct-live theory is, that it is much too heroic,
too idealogic for the multitude.
There is, therefore, probably no other way for the immoral man but
to accept the moral corrective of his unconscious, just as he who
is moral must come to terms as best he may, with his demons of the
netherworld. It cannot be gainsaid that the Freudian School is so
convinced of the fundamental, and even exclusive importance of
sexuality in neurosis, that it has been courageous enough to face the
consequences of its convictions by heroically attacking the sexual
morality of the present day. Many different opinions prevail upon
this subject. What is significant is, that the problem of sexual
morality is being widely discussed at the present time. This is
doubtless both useful and necessary, for hitherto we have not really
had any sexual morality at all, but merely a low barbaric view, quite
insufficiently differentiated. In the Middle Ages, usury was considered
absolutely despicable, for at that time the morality of finance was
not casuistically differentiated; there was nothing but a kind of
lump-morality. So nowadays, there exists nothing but sexual morality in
the lump. A girl who has an illegitimate child is condemned, without
any inquiry as to whether she is a decent person or not. Any form of
love that has no legal sanction is immoral, no matter whether it occurs
between thoughtful people of value or irresponsible scamps. People are
still barbarically hypnotised by the thing itself, to such an extent
that they forget the individual.
Therefore the discussion of and attack upon sexual morality of the
present day signifies at bottom, a moral deed, constraining people
towards a differentiated and really ethical conception of the subject.
As already stated, Freud sees the great conflict between the ego
and natural instinct chiefly under its sexual aspect. This aspect
does exist, but a big query should be placed behind its actuality.
The question is whether what appears in a sexual form must always
essentially be sexuality? It is conceivable that one instinct may
disguise itself under another. Freud himself has supplied several
notable instances of such a disguise, proving therewith, convincingly,
that many of the deeds and aims of human kind are, at bottom, nothing
but somewhat figurative expressions substituted, on account of
embarrassment, in place of important elementary things. The substitution
is not seen through on account of reasons of mutual consideration.
There is nothing to hinder certain elementary things being also pushed
conveniently into the foreground, in place of more necessary but less
pleasant ones, under the illusion that the elementary things only are
really in question.
_The theory of sexuality although one-sided is absolutely right up to
a certain point. It would, therefore, be just as false to repudiate it
as to accept it as universally valid._
III.--THE OTHER VIEWPOINT: THE WILL TO POWER.
We have so far considered the problem of the psychology of unconscious
processes mainly from the point of view of Freud. We have thereby
doubtless gained an inkling of a real truth, which perhaps our pride,
our consciousness of civilisation, tries to deny, although something
else in us affirms it. This situation is extremely irritating to
some people, arousing resistances, and at the same time they are
terror-stricken by it, a fact which they are most unwilling to
acknowledge. There is something terrible in admitting this conflict,
for it is an acknowledgment of being swayed by instinct. Has it ever
been understood what it means to confess to the sway of instinct?
Nietzsche desired to be so swayed and advocated it most seriously. He
even sacrificed himself throughout his whole life, with rare passion, to
the idea of the Superman, that is to the idea of the man who, obeying
his instincts, transcends even his very self. And what was the course of
his life? It turned out as Nietzsche himself prophesied in the passage
in "Zarathustra" relating to the fatal fall of the rope-dancer, of the
man who did not want to be "surpassed." Zarathustra says to the dying
rope-dancer: "Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body." And
later, the dwarf says to Zarathustra: "Oh, Zarathustra, thou stone of
wisdom! Thou threwest thyself high, but every thrown-stone must fall!
Condemned of thyself, and to thine own stoning: oh, Zarathustra, far
indeed threwest thou the stone--but upon _thyself_ will it recoil!"
When he cried his "ecce homo" over himself, it was again too late, and
the crucifixion of the soul began even before the body was dead. He
who thus taught _yea-saying_ to the instincts of life, must have his
own career looked at critically, in order to discover the effects of
this teaching upon the teacher. But if we consider his life from this
point of view, we must say that Nietzsche lived _beyond instinct_, in
the lofty atmosphere of heroic "sublimity." This height could only be
maintained by means of most careful diet, choice climate and above all
by many opiates. Finally, the tension of this living shattered his
brain. He spoke of yea-saying, but lived the nay. His horror of people,
especially of the animal man, who lives by instinct, was too great. He
could not swallow the toad of which he so often dreamt, and which he
feared he must yet gulp down. The Zarathustrian lion roared all the
"higher" men, who craved for life, back into the cavernous depths of the
unconscious. That is why his life does not convince us of the truth of
his teaching. The "higher man" should be able to sleep without chloral,
and be competent to live in Naumburg or Basle despite "the fogs and
shadows." He wants woman and offspring; he needs to feel he has some
value and position in the herd, he longs for innumerable commonplaces,
and not least for what is humdrum: it is this instinct that Nietzsche
did not recognise; it is, in other words, the natural animal instinct
for life.
But how did he live if it was not from natural impulse? Should Nietzsche
really be accused of a practical denial of his natural instincts? He
would hardly agree to that; indeed he might even prove, and that without
difficulty, that he really was following his instincts in the highest
sense. But we may well ask how is it possible that human instincts
could have led him so far from humanity, into absolute isolation,
into an aloofness from the herd which he supported with loathing and
disgust? One would have thought that instinct would have united, would
have coupled and begot, that it would tend towards pleasure and good
cheer, towards gratification of all sensual desires. But we have quite
overlooked the fact that this is only one of the possible directions
of instinct. There exists not only the instinct for the preservation
of the species (the sexual instinct), but also the instinct for the
preservation of the self.
Nietzsche obviously speaks of this latter instinct, that is of _the
will to power_. Whatever other kinds of instinct may exist are for him
only a consequence of the will to power. Viewed from the standpoint
of Freud's sexual-psychology this is a gross error, a misconception
of biology, a bad choice made by a decadent neurotic human being. For
it would be easy for any adherent of sexual psychology to prove that
all that was too lofty, too heroic, in Nietzsche's conception of the
world and of life, was nothing but a consequence of the repression
and misconception of "instinct," that is of the instinct that _this_
psychology considers fundamental.
This brings us to the _question of perception_, or rather it were
better to say of the various lenses through which the world may be
perceived. For it would hardly be permissible to pronounce a judgment
on a life like Nietzsche's. It was lived with rare consistency, from
the beginning to the fateful end, in accordance with his underlying
natural fundamental instinct for power. It would hardly do to pronounce
it to be merely figurative, otherwise we should make the same unjust
condemnation that Nietzsche pronounced upon his polar opposite Richard
Wagner, of whom he said, "_Everything in him is false_; what is genuine
is hidden or disguised. He is an actor, in every bad and good meaning
of the word." Why this judgment? Wagner is a precise representative of
that other fundamental instinct, which Nietzsche overlooked, and upon
which Freud's psychology is based. If we inquire whether the other main
instinct--that of power--was unconsidered by Freud, we shall find that
he has included it under the name of the "ego instinct." But these ego
instincts drag out an obscure existence, according to his psychology,
alongside the broad, all-too-broad, development of the sexual theme.
In reality, however, human nature wages a cruel and hardly-to-be-ended
warfare between the ego-principle and that of formless instinct. The ego
is all barriers; instinct, on the other hand, is without any limits.
Both principles are equally powerful. In a certain sense men may account
themselves fortunate in being conscious of only one instinct: therefore
he who is wise avoids getting to know the other. But if, after all,
he does get to know the other instinct, he is indeed a lost man. For
then he enters upon the Faustian conflict. Goethe has shown us in the
first part of "Faust" what the acceptance of instinct involves, and in
the second part, what the acceptance of the ego and of his gruesome
unconscious world would signify. Everything that is insignificant,
_petty_, and cowardly in us shrinks from it, and would avoid it--and
there is one admirable means of doing so. Namely, by discovering that
the other thing in us is "another fellow," a live man who actually
thinks, feels, does and desires all the things that are despicable
and odious. In this way the bogey is seized, and the battle against
him is begun to our satisfaction. Hence arise, also, those chronic
idiosyncrasies of which the history of morals has preserved a few
examples for us. The instance of Nietzsche contra Wagner, already cited,
is particularly transparent. But ordinary human life is crammed full of
such cases. It is by these ingenuous devices that man saves himself from
the Faustian catastrophe for which he evidently lacks both courage and
strength. But a sincere man knows that even his bitterest opponent, or
any number of them, does not by any means equal his one worst adversary,
that is his other self who "bides within his breast." Nietzsche
unconsciously had Wagner _in himself_, that is why he envied him his
Parsifal. But even worse, he was a Saul and also had Paul within. That
is why Nietzsche became a stigmatised outcast of the Spirit; he had like
Saul to experience Christification when "the other self" inspired him
with his "ecce homo." Which man in him "broke down before the cross,"
Wagner or Nietzsche?
It was ordained by destiny that one of Freud's earliest pupils,
Adler,[234] should formulate a view of neurosis as founded exclusively
upon the principle of power. It is interesting and even fascinating to
observe how totally different the same things appear when viewed in
another light. In order to emphasise the main contrast, I would like at
once to draw attention to the fact that, according to Freud, everything
is a strictly causal consequence of previously-occurring facts; Adler,
on the contrary, sees everything as a finally conditioned arrangement.
To take a simple example: A young woman begins to have attacks of
terror. She wakes at night from some nightmare with a piercing cry;
calming herself with difficulty, she clings to her husband, imploring
him not to leave her, making him repeat again and again that he loves
her, etc. Gradually a nervous asthma develops, attacks of which also
come on during the day.
In such a case, the Freudian system begins at once to burrow in the
inner causality of the illness: What did the initial anxiety-dreams
contain. She recalls wild bulls, lions, tigers, bad men. What does the
patient associate with them? She told a story of something that had
happened to her when she was still single. It ran as follows: She was
staying at a summer-resort in the mountains, a great deal of tennis
was played, the usual acquaintances being made. There was a young
Italian who played particularly well, and who also knew how to handle
the guitar in the evenings. A harmless flirtation developed, leading
once to a moon-light walk. On this occasion, the Italian temperament
"unexpectedly" broke through, running away with the young man to the
great terror of the unsuspecting girl. He "looked at her with such a
look," that she could never forget it. This look follows her even in
her dreams; the wild animals that persecuted her had it. As a matter
of fact, does this look originally come from the Italian? Another
reminiscence enlightens us. The patient had lost her father through an
accident, when she was about fourteen years old. The father was a man
of the world, and travelled a great deal. Not long before his death
he took her to Paris, where, among other things, they visited the
_Follies Bergères_. Something happened there that at the time made a
deep impression upon her. As they were leaving the theatre, a rouged
female suddenly pressed close up to her father in an impertinent way.
She looked at her father in fear as to what he would do--and then she
saw that look, that animal glare in his eyes. An inexplicable something
clung to her day and night. From this moment her attitude to her father
was quite changed. At one instant she was irritable and full of venomous
moods, at another she loved him extravagantly; then causeless fits of
crying suddenly began, and, for a time, whenever her father was at home,
she was tormented by terrible choking at table, with apparent attacks of
suffocation, which were usually followed by voicelessness lasting from
one to two days. When the news of her father's sudden death arrived, she
was overcome by uncontrolled grief ending in hysterical laughter. But
she soon calmed down, her condition improving quickly, and the neurotic
symptoms disappearing almost completely. It seemed as if a veil of
forgetfulness had descended over the past. Only the experience with the
Italian roused something in her of which she was afraid. She had broken
off completely with the young man. A few years later she married. The
present neurosis only began after the birth of her second child, that is
at the moment when she discovered that her husband took a certain tender
interest in another woman.
This history raises a number of questions. For instance, what do we know
about the mother? It should be said of her that she was very nervous,
and had tried many kinds of sanatoria and systems of cure. She also
had symptoms of fear and nervous asthma. The relations between her and
her husband had been very strained as far back as the patient could
remember. The mother did not understand the father; the daughter always
felt that she understood him better. She was moreover her father's
declared favourite, being inwardly correspondingly cool towards her
mother.
These facts are indications for a survey of the meaning of the illness.
Behind the present symptoms phantasies are operative, connected in
the first place with the young Italian, but further clearly referring
to the father, whose unhappy marriage furnished the little daughter
with an early opportunity of acquiring a position that really should
have been filled by her mother. Behind this conquest there lies, of
course, a phantasy of being the woman who was really suited to her
father. The first attack of neurosis broke out at the moment when
this phantasy received a violent shock, presumably similar to that the
mother had once experienced (a fact that was, however, unknown to the
child). The symptoms are easily comprehensible as the expression of
disappointed and rejected love. The choking is based upon a sensation of
tightening in the throat that is a well-known accompanying phenomenon
of violent effects which we cannot quite "swallow." The metaphors of
language often refer to similar physiological occurrences. When the
father died, it seemed that her consciousness sorrowed deeply but her
unconscious laughed, after the manner of Till Eulenspiegel, who was sad
when he went downhill but was jolly when climbing laboriously, happy
in anticipation of what was coming. When the father was at home the
girl was low-spirited and ill, but whenever he was away she felt much
better. Herein she resembles numerous husbands and wives who as yet are
mutually hiding from each other the secret that they are not under all
circumstances indispensable to one another.
That the unconscious had some right to laugh was shown by the subsequent
period of good health. She succeeded in letting all that had passed
retire behind the trap-door. The experience with the Italian, however,
threatened to bring the netherworld up again. But she quickly pulled the
handle and shut the door. She remained quite well until the dragon of
neurosis came creeping in, just when she imagined herself to be already
safely out of her troubles, in the so-to-say perfected state of wife and
mother. Sexual psychology finds the cause of the neurosis in the fact
that the patient is not at bottom free from the father. This forces her
to resuscitate her former experience at the moment when she discovered
in the Italian the very same disturbing something that had formerly made
such a deep impression upon her when perceived in her father. These
recollections were naturally revived by the analogous experience with
another man, and formed the starting-point of the neurosis. It might
therefore be said that the content and cause of the neurosis lay in the
conflict between the phantastic infantile-erotic relation to the father
on the one hand, and her love for the husband on the other.
But if we now consider the course of the same illness from the
standpoint of the other instinct, that is, of the will to power, a
different complexion is put upon the matter. Her parents' unhappy
marriage afforded an excellent opportunity for the exhibition of
childish instinct for power. The instinct for power desires that, under
all circumstances, the ego should be "on top," whether by straight or
crooked means. At all costs the integrity of the personality must be
preserved.
Every attempt, even what appears to be an attempt of the surroundings,
to bring about the slightest subjection of the individual, is retorted
to by the "masculine protest," as Adler expresses it. The mother's
disappointment and her taking refuge in a neurosis brought about an
opportunity for the development of power and the attainment of a
dominating position. Love and excellence of conduct are, as everybody
knows, extremely well-adapted weapons for the purposes of the instinct
for power. Virtue is not seldom made the means of _forcing_ recognition
from others. Already as a child she knew how to obtain a privileged
position with her father by means of specially pleasing and amiable
behaviour, even occasionally to supplant her mother. This was not out
of love for her father, although love was a good means of obtaining the
coveted superiority. The hysterical laughter at the death of her father
is a striking proof of this fact. One is inclined to consider such an
explanation as a deplorable depreciation of love, if not actually a
malicious insinuation. But let us pause a moment, reflect, and look
at the world as it really is. Have we never seen those innumerable
people who love, and believe in their love, only until its purpose is
achieved, and who then turn away as if they had never loved? And, after
all, does not Nature herself do the same? In fact, is a "purposeless"
love possible? If so, it belongs to the highest human virtues, which
confessedly are extremely rare. Perhaps there is a general disposition
to reflect as little as possible about the nature and purpose of love;
discoveries might be made which would show the value of one's own love
to be less considerable than we had supposed. However, it were dangerous
to life to subtract anything from the value of fundamental instincts,
perhaps specially so to-day, when we seem to have only a minimum of
values left.
So the patient had an attack of hysterical laughter at the death of her
father; she had finally arrived at the top. It was hysterical laughter,
therefore a psychogenic symptom, that is, something proceeding from
unconscious motives and not from those of the conscious ego. That is a
difference that should not be underrated, for it enables us to recognise
whence and how human virtues arise. Their contraries led to hell, that
is, in modern terms, to the unconscious, where the counterparts of our
conscious virtue have long been gathering. That is why our very virtue
makes us desire to know nothing of the unconscious; indeed, it is even
the summit of virtuous wisdom to maintain that there is no unconscious
at all. But unfortunately we are all in a like predicament with Brother
Medardus in E. T. A. Hoffman's "The Elixir of the Devil": somewhere
or other there exists a sinister, terrible brother, our own incarnate
counterpart bound to us by flesh and blood, who comprehends everything,
maliciously hoarding whatever we most desire should disappear beneath
the table.
The first outbreak of neurosis occurred in our patient at the moment
when she became aware of the fact that there was something in her
father which she did not control. And then it dawned upon her of what
use her mother's neurosis was. When one meets with an obstacle that
cannot be overcome by sensible and charming means, there yet exists an
arrangement hitherto unknown to her which her mother had been beforehand
in discovering, and that is neurosis. That is the reason why she now
imitates her mother. But, the astonished reader asks, what is supposed
to be the use of neurosis? What does it effect? Whoever has had a
pronounced case of neurosis in his immediate environment, knows all
that can be "effected" by a neurosis. In fact, there is altogether no
better means of tyrannising over a whole household than by a striking
neurosis. Heart attacks, choking fits, convulsions of all kinds achieve
enormous effects, that can hardly be surpassed. Picture the fountains
of pity let loose, the sublime anxiety of the dear kind parents, the
hurried running to and fro of the servants, the incessant sounding
of the call to the telephone, the hasty arrival of the physicians,
the delicacy of the diagnosis, the detailed examinations, the lengthy
courses of treatment, the considerable expense; and there, in the midst
of all the uproar, lies the innocent sufferer, to whom the household is
even overflowingly grateful, when he has recovered from the "spasms."
The girl discovered this incomparable "arrangement" (to use Adler's
term), applying it on occasion when the father was there with success.
It became unnecessary when the father died, for now she was finally
uppermost. The Italian was soon dismissed, because he laid too much
stress upon her femininity by an inopportune reminder of his manliness.
When the way opened to the possibility of a suitable marriage, she
loved, adapting herself without any complaint to the deplorable rôle of
the queen bee. As long as she held the position of admired superiority,
everything went splendidly. But when her husband evinced a small outside
interest, she was obliged again to have recourse to the extremely
efficacious "arrangement," that is, to the indirect application of
power, because she had once again come upon that thing--this time in
her husband--that had already previously withdrawn her father from her
influence.
That is how the matter appears from the standpoint of the psychology of
power. I fear that the reader will feel as did the Kadi, before whom
the counsel of one party spoke first. When he had ended, the Kadi said:
"Thou hast spoken well. I perceive that thou art right." Then spoke the
counsel for the other party, and when he had ended, the Kadi scratched
himself behind his ear and said: "Thou hast spoken well. I perceive
that thou also art right." There is no doubt that the instinct for
power plays a most extraordinary part. It is true that the complexes of
neurotic symptoms are also exquisite "arrangements," that inexorably
realise their aims with incredible obstinacy and unequalled cunning. The
neurosis is final; that is, it is directed towards an aim. Adler merits
considerable distinction for having demonstrated this.
Which of the two points of view is right? That is a question that might
well cause much brain-racking. For the two explanations cannot be simply
combined, being absolutely contradictory. In one case, it is love and
its course that is the principal and decisive fact; and in the other
case, it is the power of the ego. In the first case the ego is merely
a kind of appendage to the passion for love; and in the second love is
upon occasion merely a means to the end, that of gaining the upper hand.
Whoever has the power of the ego most at heart rebels against the former
conception, whilst he who cares most about love, will never be able to
be reconciled to the latter.
IV.--THE TWO TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGY.
It is at this point that our most recent researches may suitably be
introduced. We have found, in the first place, that there are two types
of human psychology.[235] In the one type the fundamental function is
feeling, and in the other it is thought. The one feels his way into
the object, the other thinks about it. The one adapts himself to his
surroundings by feeling, thinking coming later; whilst the other adapts
himself by means of thought, preceded by understanding. The one who
feels his way transfers himself to some extent to the object; whilst the
other withdraws himself from the object to some extent, or pauses before
it and reflects about it. The first we called the _extroverted_ type,
because in the main he goes outside himself to the object, the latter is
called the _introverted_ type, because in a major degree he turns away
from the object, withdrawing into himself and thinking about it.
These remarks only give the broadest outline of the two types. But
even this quite inadequate sketch enables us to recognise that the
two theories are the outcome of the contrast between the two types.
The sexual theory is promulgated from the standpoint of feeling, the
power theory from that of thought; for the extrovert always places the
accent upon the feelings that are connected with the object, whereas the
introvert always puts the accent upon the ego, and is as much detached
by thought from the object as possible.
_The irreconcilable contradictions of the two theories are now to
be understood, because both theories are the product of a one-sided
psychology._ We find an instance of the contrast of types in Nietzsche
and Wagner. The dissension between the two is due to the contrast in
their ideas of psychological values. What is most prized by the one is
"affectation" for the other, and is deemed false to the very core. Each
depreciates the other.
If we apply the sexual theory to an extrovert it tallies with the facts
of the case; but if we apply it to an introvert, we simply maltreat
and do violence to his psychology. The same applies to the contrary
case. The relative rightness of the two hostile theories is explained
by the fact that each one draws its material from cases that prove the
correctness of the theory. There is a remnant of persons whom neither
theory fits--has not every rule its exceptions?
Criticism of both theories is indispensable. Recognition of facts showed
the necessity of overcoming their contrast, and of evolving a theory
that should do justice not only to one or the other type, but equally to
both.
Even the layman will to some extent have been struck by the fact that in
spite of their correctness both theories really have a very unpleasant
character and one not altogether pertinent under all circumstances
to the strict views of science. The sexual theory is unæsthetic and
unsatisfying intellectually. The power theory, on the other hand, is
decidedly venomous. Both inevitably reduce high-flown ideals, heroic
attitudes, pathos, and deep convictions, in a painful manner to a
reality which is hackneyed and trite; that is, if these theories are
applied to such things--but they should certainly not be so applied.
Both theories are really only therapeutic instruments out of the
tool-chest of the physician, whose sharp and merciless knife cuts out
all that is pernicious and diseased. It was just such a misapplication
of theory Nietzsche tried with his destructive criticism of ideals.
He regarded ideals as rampant diseases of the soul of humanity; as
indeed they really are. However, in the hands of a good physician who
really knows the human soul, who, as Nietzsche says, "has a finger
for the slightest shade," who applies the treatment only to what is
really diseased in a soul--in such hands both theories prove wholesome
caustics. The application must be adapted to the individual case. It is
a dangerous therapy in the hands of those who do not understand how to
deal out the treatment. These applications of criticism do good when
there is something that should and must be destroyed, dissolved or
brought low, but can easily damage what is being built up, or growing in
response to life's requirements.
Both theories might, therefore, be allowed to pass without attack, in
so far as they, like medicinal poisons, are entrusted to the safe hands
of the physician. But fate has ordained that they should not remain
solely in the care of those who are qualified to use them. First of all
they naturally became known to the medical public. Every practising
physician has an indefinitely high percentage of neurotics among his
patients; he is therefore more or less obliged to look out for new and
suitable systems of treatment. He ultimately lights upon the difficult
method of psychoanalysis. He is at first not competent for this, for how
should he have learnt about the secrets of the human soul? Certainly
not through his academic studies. The smattering of psychiatry that he
acquired for his examination barely suffices to enable him to recognise
the symptoms of the commonest mental disturbances, and is far from
giving him any sufficient insight into the human soul. He is, therefore,
practically quite unprepared to apply the analytic method. An unusually
far-reaching knowledge of the soul is indeed necessary in order to be
able to apply this caustic treatment with advantage. One must be in
a position to differentiate elements that are diseased and should be
discarded, from those which are valuable and should be retained. This
is plainly a matter of great difficulty. Any one who wishes to get a
vivid impression of the way in which a psychologysing physician may
unwarrantably violate a patient through an ignoble pseudo-scientific
prejudice, should read what Moebius has written about Nietzsche. Or he
may study various psychiatric writings about the "case of Christ," and
will surely not hesitate to lament the lot of the patient whose fate it
is to meet with such "understanding." Psychoanalysis--greatly to the
regret of the medical man who, however, had not accepted it--then passed
over into the hands of the teaching profession. This is right: for it is
really, when rightly understood and handled, an educational method, and
one of the social sciences. I would, however, never personally recommend
that Freud's purely sexual analysis should be exclusively applied as an
educational method. It might do much harm because of its one-sidedness.
In order to make psychoanalysis available for educational purposes, all
the metamorphoses that have been the work of the last few years were
needed. The method had to be expanded from a general psychological point
of view.
But the two theories of which I have spoken are not general theories.
They are, as I have said, caustics to be applied, so to say, "locally,"
for they are both destructive and reductive. They explain to the patient
that his symptoms come from here or there, and are "nothing but" this or
that. It would be very unjust to wish to maintain that this reductive
theory is wrong in a given case, but when exalted into a general
explanation of the nature of the soul--whether sick or healthy--_a
reductive theory becomes impossible_. For the human soul, whether it be
sick or healthy, cannot be _merely_ reductively explained. Sexuality
it is true is always and everywhere present; the instinct for power
certainly does penetrate the heights and the depths of the soul; but
the soul itself is not solely either the one or the other, or even both
together, it is also that which it has made and will make out of them
both. A person is only half understood when one knows how everything
in him came about. Only a dead man can be explained in terms of the
past, a living one must be otherwise explained. Life is not made up
of yesterdays only, nor is it understood nor explained by reducing
to-day to yesterday. Life has also a to-morrow, and to-day is only
understood if we are able to add the indications of to-morrow to our
knowledge of what was yesterday. This holds good for all expressions of
psychological life, even for symptoms of disease. Symptoms of neurosis
are not merely consequences of causes that once have been, whether they
were "infantile sexuality" or "infantile instinct for power." They are
endeavours towards a new synthesis of life. It must immediately be
added, however, they are endeavours that have miscarried. None the less
they are attempts; they represent the germinal striving which has both
meaning and value. They are embryos that failed to achieve life, owing
to unpropitious conditions of an internal and external nature.
The reader will now probably propound the question: What possible value
and meaning can a neurosis have? Is it not a most useless and repulsive
pest of humanity? Can being nervous do anybody good? Possibly, in a way
similar to that of flies and other vermin, which were created by God
in order that man might exercise the useful virtue of patience. Stupid
as this thought is from the standpoint of natural science, it might be
quite shrewd from that of psychology; that is, if we substitute "nervous
symptoms" in the place of "vermin." Even Nietzsche, who had an uncommon
disdain for anything stupid and trite in thought, more than once
acknowledged how much he owed to his illness. I have known more than one
person who attributed all his usefulness, and the justification for his
existence even, to a neurosis, that hindered all decisive stupidities
of his life, _compelling_ him to lead an existence which developed what
was valuable in him; material that would have been crushed had not the
neurosis with its iron grip forced the man to keep to the place where
he really belonged. There are people the meaning of whose life--whose
real significance--lies in the unconscious; in consciousness lies only
all that is vain and delusive. With others the reverse is the case, and
for them the neurosis has another significance. An extended reduction is
appropriate to the one, but emphatically unsuitable to the other.
The reader will now, indeed, be inclined to agree to the possibility
of certain cases of neurosis having such a significance but will
nevertheless be ready to deny an expediency that is so far-reaching
and full of meaning to ordinary cases of this illness. What value, for
instance, might there be in the afore-mentioned case of asthma and
hysterical attacks of fear? I confess that the value here is not so
obvious, especially if the case be looked at from the standpoint of a
reductive theory, that is, from that of a _chronique scandaleuse_ of the
psychological development of an individual.
We perceive that both the theories hitherto discussed have this one
point in common, viz. they relentlessly disclose everything that is
valueless in people. They are theories, or rather hypotheses, which
explain wherein the cause of the sickness lies. They are accordingly
concerned not with the _values_ of a person, but with his lack of value
that makes itself evident in a disturbing way. From this point of view,
it is possible to be reconciled to both standpoints.
A "value" is a possibility by means of which energy may attain
development. But in so far as a negative value is also a possibility
through which energy may attain development--as may, for instance,
be clearly seen in the very considerable manifestations of energy
shown in neurosis--it also stands for a value, albeit it brings about
manifestations of energy which are useless and harmful. In itself energy
is neither useful nor harmful, neither full of value nor lacking in it;
it is indifferent, everything depending upon the _form_ into which it
enters. The form gives the quality to the energy. On the other side,
mere form without energy is also indifferent. Therefore in order to
bring about a positive value, on the one hand energy is necessary,
and upon the other a valuable form. In a neurosis psychic energy is
undoubtedly present, but in an inferior and not realisable form. Both
the analytic methods that have been discussed above are of service only
as solvents of this inferior form. They prove themselves good here as
caustics.
By these methods we gain energy that is certainly free, but which, being
as yet unapplied, is indifferent. Hitherto the supposition prevailed,
that this newly acquired energy was at the patient's conscious disposal,
that he might apply it in any way he liked. In so far as it was thought
that the energy was nothing but the sexual impulse, people spoke of
a sublimated application of the same, under the presumption that the
patient could, without further ado, transfer what was thought of as
sexual energy into a "sublimation"; that is, into a non-sexual form
of use. It might, for instance, be transferred to the cultivation of
an art, or to some other good or useful activity. According to this
concept, the patient had the possibility of deciding, either arbitrarily
or from inclination, how his energy should be sublimated.
This conception may be accorded a justification for its existence, in
so far as it is at all possible for a human being to assign a definite
direction to his life, in which its course should run. But we know that
there is no human forethought nor philosophy which can enable us to give
our lives a prescribed direction, except for quite a short distance.
Destiny lies before us, perplexing us, and teeming with possibilities,
and yet only one of these many possibilities is our own particular right
way. Who should presume to designate the one possibility beforehand,
even though he have the most complete knowledge of his own character
that a man can have? Much can certainly be attained by means of
will-power. But having regard to the fate of certain personalities with
particularly strong wills, it is entirely misleading for us to want
at all costs to change our own fate by power of will. Our will is a
function that is directed by our _powers of reflection_; it depends,
therefore, upon how our powers of reflection are constituted. In order
to deserve its name reflection must be _rational_, that is, according
to reason. But has it ever been proved, or can it ever be proved, that
life and destiny harmonise with our human reason, that is, that they
are exclusively rational? On the contrary, we have ground for supposing
that they are also irrational, that is to say, that in the last resort
they too are based in regions beyond the human reason. The irrationality
of the great process is shown by its so-called _accidentalness_, which
perforce we ought to deny, since, obviously, we cannot think of a
process not being causally and necessarily conditioned. But actually,
accidentality exists everywhere, and does so indeed so obtrusively that
we might as well pocket our causal philosophy! The rich store of life
both is, and is not, determined by law; it is at the same time rational
and irrational. Therefore, the reason and the will founded upon it are
only valid for a short distance. The further we extend this rationally
chosen direction, the surer we may be that we are thereby excluding the
irrational possibilities of life, which have, however, just as good
a right to be lived. Aye, we even injure ourselves, since we cut off
the wealth of accidental eventualities by a too rigid and conscious
direction. It was certainly very expedient for man to be able to give
his life a direction; it would, therefore, be quite right to maintain
that the attainment of reasonableness was the greatest achievement of
mankind. But that is not to say that under all circumstances, this must
or will always continue to be the case. The present fearful catastrophic
world-war has tremendously upset the most optimistic upholder of
rationalism and culture.
In 1913 Ostwald wrote[236] as follows: "The whole world agrees that the
present state of armed peace is untenable, and is gradually becoming an
impossible condition. It demands tremendous sacrifices from individual
nations far surpassing the outlay for cultural purposes, without any
positive values being gained thereby. Therefore, if mankind could
discover ways and means of putting an end to these preparations for a
war _that will never come_, this conscripting of a considerable part
of the nation at the best and most capable age for training for war
purposes, if it could overcome all the innumerable other injuries caused
by the present customs, such an enormous saving of energy would be
effected, that an undreamt-of development of the evolution of culture
might be expected. For like a hand-to-hand fight, war is the oldest, and
also the most unsuitable of all possible means of solving a conflict
between wills, being indeed accompanied by the most deplorable waste of
energy. The complete setting aside of potential as well as of actual
warfare is, therefore, absolutely one of the most important tasks of
culture in our time, a real necessity from the point of view of energy."
But the irrationality of destiny ordained otherwise than the rationality
of the well-meaning thinker; since it not only determined to use the
piled-up weapons and soldiers, but much more than that, it brought about
a tremendous insane devastation and unparalleled slaughter. From this
catastrophe humanity may possibly draw the conclusion, that only one
side of fate can be mastered by rational intention.
What can be said of mankind in general applies also to individuals, for
mankind as a whole consists of nothing but individuals. And whatever
the psychology of mankind is, that is also the psychology of the
individual. We are experiencing in the world-war a fearful balancing-up
with the rational intentionality of organised culture. What is called
"will" in the individual, is termed "imperialism" among nations, for
the will is a demonstration of power over fate, that is, exclusion
of what is accidental. The organisation of culture is a rational and
"expedient" sublimation of free and indifferent energies, brought about
by design and intention. The same is the case in the individual. And
just as the hope of a universal international organisation of culture
has experienced a cruel right-about through this war, so also must
the individual, in the course of his life, often find that so-called
"disposable" energies do not suffer themselves to be disposed of.
I was once consulted by a business man of about forty-five, whose case
is a good illustration of the foregoing. He was a typical American
self-made man, who had worked himself up from the bottom. He had been
successful, and had founded a very extensive business. He had also
gradually organised the business in such a way that he could now retire
from its management. He had indeed resigned two years before I saw him.
Until then he had only lived for his business, concentrating all his
energy upon it, with that incredible intensity and one-sidedness that is
so peculiar to the successful American man of business. He had bought
himself a splendid country seat, where he thought he would "live,"
which he imagined to mean keeping horses, automobiles, playing golf and
tennis, attending and giving parties, etc. But he had reckoned without
his host. The energy that had become "disposable" did not enter into
these tempting prospects, but betook itself capriciously to quite other
ways. A couple of weeks after the commencement of his longed-for life
of bliss, he began to brood over peculiar vague physical sensations. A
few more weeks sufficed to plunge him into an unprecedented state of
hypochondria. His nerves broke down completely. He, who was physically
an uncommonly strong and exceptionally energetic man, became like a
whining child. And that put an end to all his paradise. He fell from
one apprehension to another, worrying himself almost to death. He
then consulted a celebrated specialist, who immediately perceived
quite rightly that there was nothing wrong with the man but lack of
employment. The patient saw the sense of this, and betook himself to
his former position. But to his great disappointment no interest for
his business presented itself. Neither the application of patience nor
determination availed to help. His energy would not by any means be
forced back into the business. His condition naturally became worse than
before. Energy that hitherto had been actively creative was now turned
back into himself, with fearfully destructive force. His creative genius
rose up, so to speak, in revolt against him, and instead of, as before,
producing great organisations in the world, his demon now created
equally clever systems of hypochondriac fallacies, by which the man was
absolutely crushed. When I saw him, he was already a hopeless moral
ruin. I tried to make clear to him that such a gigantic amount of energy
might indeed be withdrawn from business, but the problem remained as
to where it should go. The finest horses, the fastest automobiles, and
the most amusing parties are in themselves no inducement for energy,
although it is certainly quite rational to think that a man who has
devoted his whole life to serious work, has a natural right to enjoy
himself. This would necessarily be the case if things happened "humanly"
in destiny; first would come work, then well-earned leisure. But things
happen irrationally and inconveniently enough, energy requires a
congenial channel, otherwise it is dammed up and becomes destructive. My
arguments met with no response, as was indeed to be expected. Such an
advanced case can only be taken care of till death; it cannot be cured.
This case clearly illustrates the fact that it does not lie in our power
to transfer a "disposable" energy to whatever rationally chosen object
we may like. Exactly the same may be said of those apparently available
energies that are made available by the fact that the psychoanalytical
caustic has destroyed their unsuitable forms. These energies can be
arbitrarily applied, as has already been said, at the very most only
for a short time. They resist following the rationally presented
possibilities for any length of time. Psychic energy is indeed a
fastidious thing, that insists upon having its own conditions fulfilled.
There may be ever so much energy existing, but we cannot make it useful,
so long as we do not succeed in finding a congenial channel for it.
The whole of my research work for the last years has been concentrated
upon this question. The _first stage_ of this work was to discover
the extent to which the two theories discussed above were tenable.
The _second stage_ consisted in the recognition of the fact, that
these two theories correspond to two opposite psychological types,
which I have designated the introversion and the extroversion types.
William James[237] was struck by the existence of these two types
among thinkers. He differentiated them as the "tough-minded," and
the "tender-minded." Similarly, Ostwald[238] discovered an analogous
difference in the classical and romantic types among great scholars.
I am not therefore alone in my ideas about the types, as is testified
by mentioning only these two well-known names out of many others.
Historical researches have proved to me that not a few of the great
controversies in the history of thought were based upon the contrast
between the types. The most significant case of this kind is the
contrast between nominalism and realism, which, beginning with the
difference between the Platonic and the Megarian schools, descended
to scholastic philosophy, where Abelard won the immortal distinction
of at least having ventured an attempt to unite the two contradictory
standpoints in conceptualism. This conflict has continued down to the
present day, where it finds expression in the antagonism of spiritualism
and materialism.
Just as in the general history of thought, so too every individual has
a share in this contrast of types. Close investigation proves that
people of opposite types have an unconscious predilection for marrying
each other, that they may mutually complement one another. Each type
has one function that is specially well developed, the introvert using
his thought as the function of adaptation, thinking beforehand about
how he shall act; whilst the extrovert, on the contrary, feels his way
into the object by acting. To some extent he acts beforehand. Hence
by daily application the one has developed his thought, and the other
his feeling. In extreme cases the one limits himself to thinking and
observing, and the other to feeling and acting. It is true that the
introvert feels also, very deeply indeed, almost too deeply; that is
why an English investigator[239] has gone so far as to describe his as
"the emotional type." True, the emotion is there, but it all remains
inside, and the more passionate and deeper his feeling is, the quieter
is his outward demeanour. As the proverb puts it, "Still waters run
deep." Similarly, the extrovert _thinks_ also, but that likewise mostly
inside, whilst his feelings visibly go outside, that is why he is held
to be full of feeling whilst the introvert is considered cold and dry.
But as the feeling of the thinker goes inwards, it is not developed as
a function adapted to external situations, but remains in a relatively
undeveloped state. Similarly the thinking of one who feels remains also
relatively undeveloped.
But if comparatively well-adapted individuals are under consideration,
then the introvert will normally be found to have his feeling directed
outwards, and the result may be extraordinarily deceptive. He shows
feelings; he is amiable, sympathetic, even emotional. But a critical
examination of the expressions of his feelings reveals that they are
markedly conventional. They are not individualised. He shows to every
one, without any essential difference, the same friendliness and the
same sympathy; whilst the extrovert's expressions of feeling are
throughout delicately graded and individualised. With the introvert
the expression of feelings is really a gesture that is artificially
adopted and conventional. Similarly, the extrovert may apparently
think, and that even very clearly and scientifically. But upon closer
investigation, his thoughts are found to be really foreign property,
merely conventional forms which have been artificially acquired. They
lack anything individual and original, and are just as lukewarm and
colourless as the conventional feelings of the introvert. Under these
conventional disguises, quite other things are slumbering in both, which
occasionally when awakened by some overpowering effect, suddenly break
out to the astonishment and horror of the environment.
Most civilised people incline more to one type than the other. Taken
together they would supplement each other exceedingly well. That is why
they are so apt to marry one another, and so long as they are fully
occupied with adapting themselves to the necessities of life they suit
one another splendidly. But if the man has earned a competence, or if
a big legacy drop from the sky, terminating the external urgencies of
life, then they have time to occupy themselves with each other. Until
now they stood back to back, defending themselves against want. But
now they turn to each other expecting to understand one another; and
they make the discovery that they have never understood one another.
They speak different languages. Thus the conflict between the two types
of psychology begins. This conflict is venomous, violent and full of
mutual depreciation, even if it be conducted very quietly in the utmost
intimacy. _This is so because the value of the one is the worthlessness
of the other._ The one, starting from the standpoint of his valuable
thinking, takes for granted that the feelings of the other correspond
to his own inferior feelings, this because he knows absolutely nothing
of any other feelings. But the other, starting from the standpoint of
his valuable feelings, assumes that his partner has the same inferior
thought that he himself has. Evidently there is plenty of work here for
Goethe's Homunculus, who had to find out "why husband and wife get on so
badly." Now as many cases of neurosis have a basis in such differences,
I, as a physician, found myself obliged to relieve the Homunculus of
some of his ungrateful task. I am glad to be able to say that many a
sufferer has been helped in grave difficulties by the enlightenment I
could give.
The _third stage_ of the path of increasing understanding consisted
in formulating a theory of the psychology of types which would be of
practical use for the development of man. Viewed from the newly-gained
standpoint, there resulted, first of all, _a totally new theory of
psychogenic disturbances_.
The foundation of the facts remains the same: the first hypothesis of
every neurosis is the existence of an unconscious conflict. According to
Freud's theory, this is an erotic conflict, or to speak more exactly,
a battle of the moral consciousness against the unconscious infantile
sexual world of phantasy and its transference to external objects.
According to Adler's theory, it is a battle of the superiority of the
ego against all oppressive influences, whether from inside or outside.
But the new idea asserts that _the neurotic conflict always takes
place between the adapted function and the co-function that is
undifferentiated, and that lies to a great extent in the unconscious_;
therefore in the case of the introvert, between thought and unconscious
feeling, but in that of the extrovert, between feeling and unconscious
thought.[240] Another theory of the etiological moment results from
this. If a man who naturally adapts himself by thinking is faced by
a demand that cannot be met by thinking alone, but which requires
differentiated feeling, the traumatic or pathogenic conflict breaks
out. On the contrary, the critical moment comes to the man who adapts
by feeling when he is faced by a problem requiring differentiated
thought. The afore-mentioned case of the business man is a clear
example of this. The man was an introvert, who all through his life
had left every consideration of sentiment in the background, that is,
in the unconscious. But when, for the first time in his life, he found
himself in a situation in which nothing could be done except by means
of differentiated feeling, he failed utterly. At the same time, a very
instructive phenomenon occurred; his unconscious feelings manifested
themselves as _physical sensations_ of a vague nature. This fact
harmonises with a generally accepted experience in our psychology,
to wit, that undeveloped feelings partake of the character of vague
physical sensations, since undifferentiated feelings are as yet
identical with subjective physical sensations. Differentiated feelings
are of a more "abstract" objective nature. This phenomenon may well
be the unconscious basis of the earliest statement of psychological
types that is known to me; namely, the three types of the Valentinian
School. They held the undifferentiated type to be the so-called hylic
(material) man. He was ranked below the differentiated types, that is,
the psychic (soulful) man, who corresponds to the extroversion type;
and the pneumatic (spiritual) man, who corresponds to the introversion
type. For these gnostics the "pneumatikos" stood of course the highest.
Christianity, with its "psychic" (spiritual) nature (principle of love),
has indeed contested this privilege of the gnosis. But even this page
may be turned in the course of time: since, if the signs of the age are
not deceptive, we are now in the great final settlement of the Christian
epoch. We know that, evolution not being uniformly continuous, when one
form of creation has been outlived, the evolutionary tendency harks
back to resume that form which, after having made a beginning, was left
behind in an undeveloped state.
After this brief digression to generalities, let us return to our case.
If a similar disturbance were to take place in an extrovert, he would
have what are called hysterical symptoms, that is, symptoms that are
also of an apparently physical nature, which, as our theory indicates,
would this time represent the patient's unconscious undifferentiated
thought. As a matter of fact, we find also a widespread region of
phantasy as the basis of hysterical symptoms, of which many have
been described in detail in the literature of the subject. They are
phantasies of a pronounced sexual, that is physical complexion. But in
reality they are undifferentiated thoughts, which in common with the
undifferentiated feelings are to some extent physical, and therefore
appear as what may be called physical symptoms.
By taking up again here the thread that was dropped before, we can now
clearly see why it is precisely in the neurosis that those values which
are most lacking to the individual lie hidden. We might also now return
to the case of the young woman, and apply to it the newly-won insight.
She is an extrovert with an hysterical neurosis. Let us suppose that
this patient had been "analysed," that is, that the treatment having
made it clear to her what kind of unconscious thoughts lay behind her
symptoms, she had regained possession of the psychic energy which by
becoming unconscious had constituted the strength of the symptoms. The
following practical question now arises: what can be done with the
so-called available energy? It would be rational, and in accordance
with the psychological type of the invalid, to extrovert this energy
again, that is to transfer it to an object, as for instance to
philanthropic or some other useful activities. This way is possible only
in exceptional cases--there are energetic natures who do not shrink from
care and trouble in a useful cause, there are people who care immensely
about just such occupations--otherwise it is not feasible. For it must
not be forgotten, that in the case under consideration, the libido (that
is the technical expression for the psychic energy) has found its object
already unconsciously in the young Italian, or an appropriate real human
substitute. Under these circumstances such a desirable sublimation,
however natural, is out of the question. For the object of the energy
usually affords a better channel than an ethical activity, however
attractive. Unfortunately there are many people who always speak of a
person, not as he is, but as he would be if their desires for him were
realised. But the physician is necessarily concerned with the actual
personality, which will obdurately remain the same, until its real
character has been recognised on all sides. An analysis must necessarily
be based upon the recognition of naked reality, not upon any arbitrarily
selected phantasies about a person, however desirable.
The fact is that the so-called available energy unfortunately cannot be
arbitrarily directed as desired. It follows its own channel, one which
it had already found, even before we had quite released it from its
bondage to the unadapted form. For we now make the discovery that the
phantasies which were formerly occupied with the young Italian, have
been transferred to the physician himself. The physician has therefore
himself become the object of the unconscious libido. If this is not
the case, or if the patient will on no account acknowledge the fact of
transference, or again, if the physician either does not understand the
phenomenon at all, or does so wrongly, then violent resistances make
their appearance, which aim at completely breaking off relations with
the doctor. At this point patients leave and look for another doctor or
for people who "understand" them; or if they hopelessly relinquish this
search they go to pieces.
But if the transference to the physician takes place and is accepted,
a natural channel has thereby been found, which not only replaces the
former, but also makes a discharge of the energic process possible, and
provides a course that is relatively free from conflict. Therefore if
the libido is allowed its natural course, it will of its own accord find
its way into the transference. Where this is not the case, it is always
a question either of arbitrary rebellion against the laws of Nature, or
of some deficiency in the physician's work.
Into the transference every conceivable infantile phantasy is first of
all projected; these must then be subjected to the caustic, that is,
analytically dissolved. This was formerly called the _dissolution of the
transference_. Thereby the energy is freed from this unsuitable form
also, and once again we are confronted by the problem of disposable
energy. We shall find that an object affording the most favourable
channel has been chosen by Nature even before our search began.
V.--THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS
The fourth stage of our newly won insight is now reached. The analytical
dissolution of the infantile transference phantasies was continued until
it became sufficiently clear, even to the patient, that he was making
his physician into father, mother, uncle, guardian, teacher, friend or
any other kind of surrogate for parental authority conceivable. But,
as experience is constantly proving, further phantasies make their
appearance, representing the physician as saviour or as some other
divine being. Obviously this is in flagrant contradiction to the sane
reasoning of consciousness. Moreover, it appears that these divine
attributes considerably overstep the bounds of the Christian conception
in which we grew up. They even assume the guise of heathen allurements,
and, for instance, not infrequently assume the form of animals.
The transference is in itself nothing but a projection of unconscious
contents on to the analyst. At first it is the so-called superficial
contents that are projected. During this stage the physician is
interesting as a possible lover (somewhat after the manner of the young
Italian in our case). Later on, he is a representation of the father,
and is the symbol either of kindness or of severity, according to what
the patient formerly imputed to his real father. Occasionally the doctor
even appears to the patient as a kind of mother, which, though sounding
somewhat strange, really lies well within the bounds of possibility.
All these projections of phantasy have an underlying basis of personal
reminiscences.
But presently other forms of phantasy appear, bearing an extravagantly
effusive and impossible character. The physician now appears to
be endowed with uncanny qualities; he may be either a wizard or a
demoniacal criminal, or his counterpart of virtue, a saviour. Later on
he appears as an incomprehensible mixture of both sides. It should be
clearly understood that the physician does not appear to the patient's
consciousness in these forms, but that phantasies come up to the surface
representing the doctor in this guise. If, as is not seldom the case,
the patient cannot forthwith perceive that his view of the physician
is a projection of his own unconscious, then he will probably behave
rather foolishly. Difficulties often arise at this stage of analysis,
making severe demands upon the good will and patience of both physician
and patient. In a few exceptional cases, a patient cannot refrain
from disseminating the stupidest tales about the physician. Such
people cannot get it into their head that, as a matter of fact, their
phantasies originate in themselves, and have nothing or very little to
do with the physician's actual character. The pertinacity of this error
arises from the circumstance that there is no foundation of personal
memory for this particular kind of projection. It is occasionally
possible to prove that similar phantasies, for which neither parent gave
reasonable occasion, had at some time in childhood been attached to the
father or mother.
In one of his shorter books, Freud has shown how Leonardo da Vinci
was influenced in his later life by the fact that he had two mothers.
The fact of the two mothers (or the double descent) had indeed a
reality in Leonardo's case, but it plays a part with other artists as
well. Benvenuto Cellini had this phantasy of a double descent. It is
unquestionably a mythological theme; many heroes of legend have two
mothers. The phantasy is not founded upon the actual fact of the hero's
having two mothers, but is a widespread "primordial image" belonging
to the secrets of the universal history of the human mind. It does not
belong to the sphere of personal reminiscences.
In every individual, in addition to the personal memories, there are
also, in Jacob Burckhardt's excellent phrase, the great "primordial
images," the inherited potentialities of human imagination. They have
always been potentially latent in the structure of the brain. The fact
of this inheritance also explains the otherwise incredible phenomenon,
that the matter and themes of certain legends are met with all the
world over in identical forms. Further, it explains how it is that
persons who are mentally deranged are able to produce precisely the
same images and associations that are known to us from the study of old
manuscripts. I gave some examples of this in my book on "The Psychology
of the Unconscious." I do not hereby assert the _transmission of
representations_, but only of the _possibility of such representations_,
which is a very different thing.
It is therefore in this further stage of the transference that those
phantasies are produced that have no basis in personal reminiscence.
Here it is a matter of the manifestation of the deeper layers of the
unconscious, where the primordial universally-human images are lying
dormant.
This discovery leads to the fourth stage of the new conception: that is,
to the recognition of a _differentiation in the unconscious itself_.
We are now obliged to differentiate a personal unconscious and an
impersonal or super-personal unconscious. We also term the latter the
_absolute or collective_ unconscious, because it is quite detached
from what is personal, and because it is also absolutely universal,
wherefore its contents may be found in every head, which of course is
not the case with the personal contents.
The primordial images are quite the most ancient, universal, and deep
thoughts of mankind. They are feeling just as much as thought, and might
therefore be termed _original thought-feelings_.
We have therewith now found the object selected by the libido when it
was freed from the personal-infantile form of transference. Namely, that
it sinks down into the depths of the unconscious, reviving what has
been dormant there from immemorial ages. It has discovered the buried
treasure out of which mankind from time to time has drawn, raising
thence its gods and demons, and all those finest and most tremendous
thoughts without which man would cease to be man.
Let us take as an example one of the greatest thoughts to which the
nineteenth century gave birth--the idea of the _conservation of energy_.
_Robert Mayer_ is the originator of this idea. He was a physician, not
a physicist nor a natural philosopher, to either of whom the creation
of such an idea would have been more germane. It is of great importance
to realise that in the real sense of the word, Robert Mayer's idea
was not _created_. Neither was it brought about through the fusion
of the then-existent conceptions and scientific hypotheses. It grew
in the originator, and was conditioned by him. Robert Mayer wrote
(1841) to Griesinger as follows: "I by no means concocted the theory
at the writing-desk." He goes on to report about certain physiological
investigations that he made in 1840-41 as doctor on board ship, and
continues: "If one wishes to be enlightened about physiological
matters, some knowledge of physical processes is indispensable, unless
one prefers to work from the metaphysical side, which is immensely
distasteful to me. I therefore kept to physics, clinging to the subject
with such ardour that, although it may well seem ridiculous to say so,
I cared little about what part of the world we were in. I preferred to
remain aboard where I could work uninterruptedly, and where many an
hour gave me such a feeling of _being inspired_ in a way I can never
remember having experienced either before or since.
"A few flashes of thought that thrilled through me"--this was in the
harbour of Surabaja--"were immediately diligently pursued, leading again
in their turn to new subjects. Those times are passed, but subsequent
quiet examination _of what then emerged_, has taught me that it was
a truth which can _not only be subjectively felt_, but also proved
objectively; whether this could be done by _one who has so little
knowledge_ of physics as I have, is a matter which obviously, I must
leave undecided."
Heim, in his book on Energetics, expresses the opinion: "that Robert
Mayer's new thought did not gradually detach itself by dint of revolving
it in his mind, from the conceptions of power transmitted from the past,
_but belongs to those ideas that are intuitively conceived, which,
originating in other spheres of a mental kind, surprise thought, as it
were, compelling it to transform its inherited notions conformably with
those ideas_."
The question now arises, whence did this new idea that forced itself
upon consciousness with such elemental power spring? And whence did
it derive such strength that it was able to effect consciousness so
forcibly that it could be completely withdrawn from all the manifold
impressions of a first voyage in the tropics? These questions are not
easy to answer. If we apply our theory to this case the explanation
would run as follows: _The idea of energy and of its conservation must
be a primordial image that lay dormant in the absolute unconscious_.
This conclusion obviously compels us to prove that a similar primordial
image did really exist in the history of the human mind, and continued
to be effective through thousands of years. As a matter of fact,
evidence of this can be produced without difficulty. _Primitive
religions, in the most dissimilar regions of the earth, are founded upon
this image._ These are the so-called _dynamistic religions_, whose sole
and distinctive thought is the existence of some universal magical power
upon which everything depends. The well-known English scholars, Taylor
and Frazer, both wrongly interpreted this idea as animism. Primitive
peoples do not mean souls or spirits by their conception of power, but
in reality something that the American investigator _Lovejoy_[241] most
aptly terms "primitive energetics."
In an investigation appertaining to this subject, I showed that this
notion comprises the idea of soul, spirit, God, health, physical
strength, fertility, magic power, influence, might, prestige, curative
remedies, as well as certain states of mind which are characterised
by the setting loose of affects. Among certain Polynesians "Melungu"
(that is this primitive concept of energy) is spirit, soul, demoniacal
being, magic, prestige. If anything astonishing happens, the people
cry "Melungu." This notion of power is also the first rendering of the
concept of God among primitive peoples. The image has undergone many
variations in the course of history. In the Old Testament this magic
power is seen in the burning bush, and shines in the face of Moses.
It is manifest in the Gospels as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
as cloven tongues of fire from heaven. In Heraclitus it appears as
universal energy, as "eternally living fire"; for the Persians it is the
fiery brightness, haôma, divine mercy; for the Stoics it is heimarmene,
the power of destiny. In mediæval legend it is seen as the aura, or the
halo of the saint. It blazes forth in great flames from the hut where
the saint is lying in ecstasy. The saints reflect the sum of this power,
the storehouse of light, in their faces. According to ancient concepts
this power is the soul itself; the idea of its immortality contains
that of its _conservation_. The Buddhistic and primitive conception of
the metempsychosis (transmigration of souls) contains the idea of its
_unlimited capacity for transformation under constant conservation_.
This thought has obviously therefore been imprinted on the human brain
for untold ages. That is why it lies ready in the unconscious of every
one. Only certain conditions are needed in order to let it appear
again. These conditions were obviously fulfilled in the example of
Robert Mayer. The greatest and best thoughts form themselves upon these
primordial images, which are the ancient common property of humanity.
After this instance of the nascence of new ideas out of the treasury
of primordial images, we will resume the further delineation of the
process of transference. It was seen that the libido of the patient
seizes upon its new object in those apparently preposterous and
peculiar phantasies, namely the contents of the absolute unconscious.
As I already observed, the unacknowledged projection of primordial
images upon the physician constitutes a danger for further treatment
which should not be undervalued. The images contain not only every
beautiful and great thought and feeling of humanity, but also every
deed of shame and devilry of which human beings have ever been capable.
Now, if the patient cannot differentiate the physician's personality
from these projections, there is an end to mutual understanding, and
human relations become impossible. If however the patient avoids this
Charybdis, he falls into the Scylla of _introjecting_ these images,
that is, he does not ascribe their qualities to the physician but to
himself. This peril is just as great. If he projects, he vacillates
between an extravagant and morbid deification, and a spiteful contempt
of his physician. In the case of introjection, he falls into a ludicrous
self-deification or moral self-laceration. The mistake that he makes
in both cases consists in attributing the contents of the absolute
unconscious to himself personally. Thus he makes himself into both
God and devil. This is the psychological reason why human beings have
always needed demons, and could not live without gods. There is the
exception, of course, of a few specially clever specimens of the _homo
occidentalis_ of yesterday and the day before--supermen whose God is
dead, wherefore they themselves become gods. There is also the example
of Nietzsche, who confessedly required chloral in order to be able
to exist. These supermen even become rationalistic petty gods, with
thick skulls and cold hearts. The concept of God is simply a necessary
psychological function of an irrational nature that has altogether no
connection with the question of God's existence. This latter question
is one of the most fatuous that can be put. It is indeed sufficiently
evident that man cannot conceive a God, much less realise that he
actually exists, so little is he able to imagine a process that is
not causally conditioned. Theoretically, of course, no accidentality
can exist, that is certain, once and for all. On the other hand, in
practical life, we are continually stumbling upon accidental happenings.
It is similar with the existence of God; it is once and for all an
absurd problem. But the _consensus gentium_ has spoken of gods for
æons past, and will be speaking of them in æons to come. Beautiful and
perfect as man may think his reason, he may nevertheless assure himself
that it is only one of the possible mental functions, coinciding merely
with the corresponding side of the phenomena of the universe. All around
is the irrational, that which is not congruous with reason. And this
irrationalism is likewise a psychological function, namely the absolute
unconscious; whilst the function of consciousness is essentially
rational. Consciousness must have rational relations, first of all in
order to discover some order in the chaos of disordered individual
phenomena in the universe; and secondly, in order to labour at whatever
lies within the area of human possibility. We are laudably and usefully
endeavouring to exterminate so far as is practicable the chaos of
what is irrational, both in and around us. Apparently we are making
considerable progress with this process. A mental patient once said to
me, "Last night, doctor, I disinfected the whole heavens with sublimate,
and yet did not discover any God." Something of the kind has happened
to us. Heraclitus, the ancient, that really very wise man, discovered
the most wonderful of all psychological laws, namely, the _regulating
function of antithesis_. He termed this "enantiodromia" (clashing
together), by which he meant that at some time everything meets with
its opposite. (Here I beg to remind the reader of the case of the
American business man, which shows the enantiodromia most distinctly.)
The rational attitude of civilisation necessarily terminates in its
antithesis, namely in the irrational devastation of civilisation. Man
may not _identify_ himself with reason, for he is not wholly a rational
being, and never can or ever will become one. That is a fact of which
every pedant of civilisation should take note. What is irrational
cannot and may not be stamped out. The gods cannot and may not die.
Woe betide those men who have disinfected heaven with rationalism;
God-Almightiness has entered into them, because they would not admit God
as an absolute function. They are identified with their unconscious, and
are therefore its sport. (For where God is nearest, there the danger is
greatest.) Is the present war supposed to be a war of economics? That
is a neutral American "business-like" standpoint, that does not take
the blood, tears, unprecedented deeds of infamy and great distress into
account, and which completely ignores the fact that this war is really
an _epidemic of madness_. The several parties project their unconscious
upon each other, hence the mad confusion of ideas in every head. This is
the enantiodromia that occurs in the individual life of man, as well as
in that of peoples. The legend of the Tower of Babel turns out to be a
tenable truth.
Only he escapes from the cruel law of enantiodromia who knows how to
separate himself from the unconscious--not by repressing it, for then
it seizes him from behind--_but by presenting it visibly to himself as
something that is totally different from him_.
This gives the solution of the Scylla and Charybdis problem which
I described above. The patient must learn to differentiate in his
thoughts between what is the ego and what is the non-ego. The latter is
the collective psyche or absolute unconscious. By this means he will
acquire the material with which henceforward, for a long time, he will
have to come to terms. Thereby the energy, that before was invested
in unsuitable pathological forms, will have found its appropriate
sphere. In order to differentiate the psychological ego from the
psychological non-ego, man must necessarily stand _upon firm feet_
in his ego-function; that is, _he must fulfil his duty towards
life completely, so that he may in every respect be a vitally living
member of human society_. Anything that he neglects in this respect
descends into the unconscious and reinforces its position, so that he
is in danger of being swallowed up by it, if his ego-function is not
established. Severe penalties are attached to that. As indicated by old
Synesius, the "spiritualised soul (pneumatike psyché) becomes god and
demon, a state in which it suffers the divine penalties," that is, it
suffers being torn asunder by the Zagreus, an experience which Nietzsche
also underwent at the beginning of his insanity, where, in "Ecce Homo,"
the God whom he was despairingly resisting in front assailed him from
behind. Enantiodromia is the being torn asunder into the pairs of
opposites, which opposites are only proper to "the god," and therefore
also to the deified man, who owes likeness to God to his having
prevailed over his gods.
VI.--THE SYNTHETIC OR CONSTRUCTIVE METHOD
We now reach the fifth stage of progressive understanding. The coming
to terms with the unconscious is a technical performance to which
the name of _transcendental function_ has been given because a new
function is produced, which being based upon both real and imaginary,
or rational and irrational data, makes a bridge between the rational
and irrational functions of the psyche. The basis of the transcendental
function is a _new method of treating psychological materials_ such as
dreams and phantasies. The theories previously discussed were based upon
an exclusively causal-reductive procedure, which reduces the dream or
phantasy to its component reminiscences, and the instinctive processes
that underlie them. I have already stated the justification as well as
the limitations of this proceeding. It reaches the end of its usefulness
at the moment when the dream symbols no longer permit of a reduction
to personal reminiscences or aspirations; that is when the images
of the absolute unconscious begin to be produced. It would be quite
inappropriate to reduce these collective ideas to what is personal,
and not only inappropriate but even actually pernicious, a fact that
has been impressed upon me by disagreeable experiences. The values of
the images or symbols of the absolute unconscious are only disclosed if
they are subjected to a synthetic (not analytical) treatment. Just as
analysis (the causally reductive procedure) disintegrates the symbol
into its components, so the synthetic procedure synthesises the symbol
into a universal and comprehensible expression. The synthetic procedure
is by no means easy; I will therefore give an example, by means of which
I can explain the whole process.
A patient had the following dream. She was just at the critical juncture
between the analysis of the personal unconscious and the commencement
of the production of the absolute unconscious. "_I am on the point of
crossing a broad and rapid stream. There is no bridge, but I find a ford
where I can cross. As I am just on the point of doing so, a big crab
that lay hidden in the water seizes my foot and does not let it go._"
She awoke in fear. Associations with the dream were as follows:--
1. _Stream._--It forms a boundary that is difficult to cross. I must
surmount an obstacle; I suppose it refers to the fact that I am getting
on very slowly; I suppose I ought to reach the other side.
2. _Ford._--An opportunity for getting safely across, a possible
way; otherwise the stream would be too difficult. The possibility of
surmounting the obstacle lies in the analytical treatment.
3. _Crab._--The crab lay quite hidden in the water; I did not see it at
first. Cancer is a fearful incurable illness. (A series of recollections
of Mrs. X., who died of cancer, followed.) I am afraid of this illness.
A crab[242] is an animal that walks backwards; obviously it wants to
pull me down into the stream. It clutched me in a gruesome way, and
I was awfully afraid. What prevents my getting across? Oh yes, I had
another great scene with my friend.
It must be explained that there is something special about this
friendship. We have here an ardent attachment, bordering on the
homosexual. It has been going on for years. The friend is in many
respects like the patient, and is also nervous. They have pronounced
artistic interests in common. But the patient is the stronger
personality of the two. They are both nervous, and their mutual relation
being too engrossing, cuts them off too much from other possibilities of
life. In spite of an "ideal friendship" they have at times tremendous
scenes, owing to their mutual irritability. Evidently the unconscious
wishes to put some distance between them, but they refuse to pay
attention to it. A "scene" usually begins by one of them finding that
she does not yet understand the other well enough, and that they
ought to talk more openly together; whereupon both make enthusiastic
endeavours to talk things out. Misunderstandings supervene almost
directly, provoking fresh scenes, each worse than the last. The quarrel
was in its way and _faute de mieux_ a pleasure to both of them, which
they were unwilling to relinquish. My patient, especially, was unable
for a very long time to renounce the sweet pain of not being understood
by her best friend, although, as she said, every scene "tired her to
death." She had long since realised that this friendship had become
superfluous, and that it was only from mistaken ambition that she clung
to the belief that she could yet make something ideal out of it. The
patient had formerly had an extravagant, fantastic relation to her
mother, and after her mother's death had transferred her feelings to her
friend.
VII.--ANALYTICAL (CAUSAL-REDUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION.[243]
This interpretation may be summed up in a sentence: "I understand
that I ought to get to the other side of the stream (that is, give up
the relation with the friend), but I would much rather that my friend
did not let me out of her claws (embrace)." That is, expressed as an
_infantile wish_: Mother would like to attract me to herself again
by the well-known mode of enthusiastic embraces. The incompatibility
of the wish lies in the strong under-current of _homosexuality_, the
existence of which had been abundantly proved by obvious facts. The
crab seizes her foot. The patient having big, "manly" feet, she plays
a masculine part towards her friend, having also corresponding sexual
fantasies. The foot is known to have phallic significance. (Detailed
evidence of this is to be found in _Aigremont's_ writings.) The complete
interpretation would run as follows: The reason why she will not let
her friend go is because her unconscious homosexual wishes are set upon
her. As these wishes are morally and æsthetically incompatible with the
tendency of the conscious personality, they are repressed, and therefore
unconscious. The fear is an expression of this repressed wish.
This interpretation is exceedingly depreciative of the patient's
high-pitched conscious ideal of friendship. It is true at this point
in analysis she would no longer have taken this interpretation amiss.
Some time before certain facts had sufficiently convinced her of her
homosexual tendency, so that she was able to acknowledge the existence
of this inclination frankly, although it was of course painful for her
to do so. Therefore if, at this stage of the treatment, I had informed
her that this was the interpretation, I should not have encountered
resistances from her. She had already overcome the painfulness of this
unwelcome tendency by understanding it. But she would have said to me:
"Why do we analyse this dream at all? It is only repeating what I have
now known for a long while." It is true this interpretation does not
reveal anything new to the patient, and it is therefore uninteresting
and ineffective. This kind of interpretation would at the beginning of
the treatment have been impossible in this case, because the patient's
prudishness would under no circumstances have acknowledged it. The
"venom" of understanding had to be instilled very carefully, and in the
smallest of doses, until the patient gradually became more enlightened.
But when the analytical or causal-reductive interpretation, instead
of furnishing something new, persistently brings the same material in
different variations, then the moment has come when another mode of
interpretation is called for. The causal-reductive procedure has certain
drawbacks. First, it does not take strictly into account the patient's
associations--_e.g._ in this case the association of the illness
("cancer") with "crab" (Krebs = cancer). Second, the particular choice
of symbol remains obscure. For instance, why does the friend-mother
appear as a crab? A prettier and more plastic representation would have
been a nymph. ("Half dragged she him, half sank he down,"[244] etc.)
An octopus, a dragon, a serpent, or a fish could have performed the
same services. Third, the causal-reductive procedure completely ignores
that a dream is a subjective phenomenon, and that consequently even an
exhaustive interpretation can never connect the crab with the mother or
the friend, but only with the dreamer's idea of them. The whole dream
is the dreamer; she is the stream, the crossing, and the crab. That is
to say these details are expressions of psychological conditions and
tendencies in the subject's unconscious.
I have therefore introduced the following terminology. I call
interpretations in which the dream symbols are treated as
representations of the real objects _interpretation upon the objective
plane_. The opposite interpretation is that which connects every
fragment of the dream (_e.g._ all the persons who do anything) with the
dreamer himself. This is _interpretation upon the subjective plane_.
Objective interpretation is _analytical_, because it dissects the dream
contents into complexes of reminiscence, and finds their relation to
real conditions. Subjective interpretation is _synthetic_, because it
detaches the fundamental underlying complexes of reminiscence from their
actual causes, regarding them as tendencies or parts of the subject, and
reintegrating them with the subject. (In experiencing something I do not
merely experience the object, but in the first place myself, although
this is only the case if I render myself account of the experience.)
The synthetic or constructive procedure of interpretation[245] is
therefore based upon the version on the subjective plane.
VIII.--THE SYNTHETIC (CONSTRUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION.
The patient is unconscious of the fact that it is in herself that the
obstacle lies which should be overcome, the boundary that is difficult
to cross which impedes further progress. But it is possible to cross
the boundary. It is true that just here a peculiar and unexpected peril
threatens, namely, something "animal" (non-human or super-human) which
moves backwards and goes into the depths of the stream, wanting to draw
down the dreamer as a whole personality. This danger is, moreover,
like the deadly disease of cancer, which begins secretly somewhere,
and is incurable (overpowering). The patient imagines that her friend
hinders her, pulling her down. So long as this is her belief she must
perforce influence her friend, "draw her up," teach, improve, educate
her, and make futile and impractically idealistic efforts in order to
avoid being dragged down herself. Of course, the friend makes similar
endeavours, being in a like case with the patient. So both of them keep
jumping upon each other like fighting cocks, each trying to fly over
the other's head. The higher the point to which the one screws herself,
the higher must the other also try to get. Why? Because each thinks the
fault lies in the other, in the object. Interpretation of the dream on
the subjective plane brings deliverance from this absurdity, for it
shows the patient that she has something in herself that is hindering
her from crossing the boundary; that is, from getting out of the one
position or attitude into another. To interpret change of place as
change of attitude is supported by the mode of expression in certain
primitive languages, where, _e.g._, the phrase "I am on the point of
going," is "I am at the place of going." In order to understand the
language of dreams, we need plenty of parallels from the psychology of
primitive peoples, as well as from historical symbolism. This is so
because dreams originate in the unconscious, which contains the residual
potentialities of function of all preceding epochs of the history of the
evolution of man.
Obviously, in our interpretation everything now depends upon
understanding what is meant by the crab. We know that it symbolizes
something that comes to light in the friend (she connects the crab
with the friend), and also something that came to light in the mother.
Whether both mother and friend really have this quality in them is
irrelevant as regards the patient. The situation will only be changed
when the patient herself has changed. Nothing can be changed in the
mother because she is dead. The friend cannot be urged to alter; if
she wants to alter herself, that is her own affair. The fact that
the quality in question is associated with the mother indicates that
it is something infantile. What is there in common in the patient's
relation both to her mother and her friend? What is common to both is
a violently extravagant demand for love, the patient feeling herself
overwhelmed by its passion. This claim is an overpowering infantile
craving which is characteristically blind. What is in question here is
a part of her libido that has not been educated, differentiated, nor
humanized, retaining still the compulsive character of an instinct,
because it has not yet been tamed by domestication. An _animal_ is a
perfectly appropriate symbol for this rôle of libido. But why is the
animal a crab in this particular instance? The patient associates cancer
with it, of which disease Mrs. X. died at the age the patient has just
reached. It may, therefore, well be that this is an allusion to an
identification with Mrs. X. We must therefore make inquiries about this
Mrs. X. The patient relates the following facts about her: Mrs. X. was
widowed early; she was very cheerful and enjoyed life. She had a number
of adventures with men, especially with one particular man, a gifted
artist, who the patient herself knew personally and who always impressed
her as very fascinating and weird.
An identification can only result from an unrecognized unconscious
resemblance. Now what is the resemblance between our patient and
Mrs. X.? I was able here to remind the patient of a series of former
fantasies and dreams, which had shown plainly that she also had a
frivolous vein in her, although anxiously repressing it, because she
vaguely feared it might seduce her to an immoral life. We have now
gained a further essential contribution for a right understanding of the
"animal" rôle, which evidently represents an untamed, instinctive greed,
which in this case is directed to men. At the same time we understand
a further reason why she cannot let go of her friend. She must cling
to her in order not to fall a prey to this other tendency, which seems
so much more dangerous. By these means she remains at an infantile
homosexual stage, which serves her as a defence. (Experience proves this
erection of defences to be one of the most effective motives for the
retention of unadapted, infantile relations.) But in this missing libido
in the animal rôle lies her well-being, the germ of her future healthy
personality, which does not shrink from the hazards of human life.
But the patient had drawn another conclusion from the fate of Mrs. X.,
having conceived her severe illness and early death as a punishment
of fate for her gay life which the patient, although certainly not
confessing to this feeling, always envied her. When Mrs. X. died, the
patient pulled a long face, beneath which a "human, all too human,"
malicious satisfaction was hidden. As a punishment for this tendency
the patient, taking Mrs. X.'s example as a warning, deterred herself
from living and from further development, and burdened herself with the
misery of this unsatisfying friendship. Of course this concatenation
had not been consciously clear to her, otherwise she would never have
acted as she had done. The truth of this conclusion can be proved by the
material.
The history of this identification by no means ends here. The patient
subsequently emphasized the fact that Mrs. X. had a not inconsiderable
artistic capacity which developed only after her husband's death and
which led to her friendship with the artist. This fact seems to be
one of the essential incentives to the identification, if we call to
mind that the patient had already told us what a striking impression
she had received from the artist. A fascination of this kind is
never exclusively exercised by one person only upon the other. It is
a phenomenon of reciprocal relation between two persons in so far as
the fascinated person must provide a suitable predisposition. But
she must be unconscious of this predisposition, otherwise there will
be no fascination. Fascination is a phenomenon of compulsion which
lacks conscious ground; that is, it is not a process of the will, but
a phenomenon coming to the surface from the unconscious, and forcing
itself compulsorily upon consciousness. All compulsions arise from
unconscious motives. It must therefore be assumed that the patient
possesses a similar unconscious predisposition to that of the artist.
She becomes identified with this artist, and is also identified with him
_as man_. Here we are at once reminded of the analysis of the dream,
where we met an allusion to the "masculine" foot. As a matter of fact,
the patient plays a thoroughly masculine part towards her friend, being
the active one who continually takes the lead, commanding her friend and
occasionally even forcing her somewhat violently to some course that
only the patient desires. Her friend is distinctly feminine both in her
external appearance and otherwise, whilst the patient is also externally
of a somewhat masculine type. Her voice is stronger and deeper than
that of her friend. She now describes Mrs. X. as a very feminine woman,
her gentleness and amiability being comparable to that of her friend,
so she thinks. This gives us a new clue. The patient is obviously
playing towards her friend the artist's part towards Mrs. X. Thus she
unconsciously completes her identification with Mrs. X. and her lover.
In this way she is giving expression to her frivolous vein which she had
repressed so carefully. She is not living it consciously, however, but
is herself played upon by her own unconscious tendency.
We now know a great deal about the crab: it represents the inner
psychology of this untamed part of the libido. The unconscious
identifications always keep drawing her on. They have this power because
being unconscious they cannot be subjected to insight and correction.
The crab is the symbol of the unconscious contents. These contents are
always seducing the patient to retain her relation to the friend. (The
"crab goes backwards.") But the relation to the friend is synonymous
with illness, she became nervous through it (hence the association of
illness).
Strictly speaking, this really belongs to the analysis on the objective
plane. But we must not forget that we only arrive at understanding by
applying the _subjective_ interpretation, which thereby proves itself
to be an important heuristic principle. For practical purposes we might
rest quite satisfied with the result we have already reached. But we
seek here to satisfy all the requirements of the theory. Not all the
associations have yet been used; neither is the significance of the
choice of symbols yet demonstrated sufficiently.
We will now recur to the patient's remark that the crab lay hidden
under the water in the stream, and that she had not seen it at first.
She had not at first perceived the unconscious relations that have
just been elucidated; they lay hidden in the water. But the stream is
the obstacle preventing her from going across. It is precisely the
unconscious relations binding her to her friend that have been hindering
her. The unconscious was the obstacle. In this case, therefore, the
water signifies the unconscious, or, it were better to say, the
_being unconscious_ the being hidden, for the crab is also something
unconscious, namely, the portion of the libido that was hidden in the
unconscious.
IX.--THE DOMINANTS OF THE SUPER-PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS.
The task now lies before us of raising the unconscious data and their
relations that have been hitherto understood upon the objective plane,
to the _subjective_ plane. To this end we must once more separate them
from their objects, conceiving them as images, related in a subjective
way to function-complexes in the patient's own unconscious. Raised to
the subjective plane, Mrs. X. is the person who showed the patient the
way to do something that the patient herself feared while unconsciously
desiring it. Mrs. X. therefore represents that which the patient would
like to become, and yet does not quite want to. In a certain sense Mrs.
X. is a picture of the patient's future character. The fascinating
artist cannot be raised to the subjective plane, because the unconscious
artistic gift lying dormant in the patient has already been covered over
by Mrs. X. It would be quite right to say that the artist is the image
of the masculine element in the patient, which not being consciously
realised, is still lying in the unconscious. In a certain sense this
is indeed true, the patient actually deluding herself as regards this
matter. That is, she seems to herself to be particularly tender,
sensitive and feminine, with nothing in the least masculine about her.
She was indignantly amazed when I drew her attention to her masculine
traits. But the reason why she is fascinated by something mysterious in
the artist cannot be attributed to what is masculine in her. That seems
to be completely unknown to her. And yet it must be hiding somewhere,
for she has produced this feeling out of herself.
Whenever a part of libido similar to this cannot be found, experience
teaches us that it has always been _projected_. But into whom? Is it
still attached to the artist? He has long ago disappeared from her
horizon, and can hardly have taken the projection with him, because it
was firmly fixed in the patient's unconscious. A similar projection is
always actually present, that is, there must somewhere be some one upon
whom this amount of libido is actually projected, otherwise she would
have felt it consciously.
Thus we once more reach the objective plane, for we cannot discover
this missing projection in any other way. The patient does not know any
man except myself who means anything at all to her, and as her doctor I
mean a good deal to her. Therefore she has probably projected this part
upon me. It is true I had never noticed anything of the kind. But the
exquisitely deceptive rôles are never presented to the analyst on the
surface, coming to light always only outside the hour of treatment. I
therefore carefully inquire: "Tell me what do I seem like to you when
you are not with me? Am I just the same then?" Reply: "When I am with
you, you are very pleasant and kind; but when I am alone, or have not
seen you for rather a long time, then the picture I have in my mind of
you changes in an extraordinary way. Sometimes you seem quite idealized,
and then again different." She hesitates; I help by saying: "Yes, what
am I like then?" Reply: "Sometimes quite dangerous, sinister like an
evil magician or demon. I do not know how I get hold of such ideas. You
are not really a bit like that."
So this part was attached to me as part of a transference; that is
why it was lacking in her inventory. Therewith we recognize a further
important thing. I was confused with (identified with) the artist, and
in her unconscious fantasy she is Mrs. X. I was easily able to prove
this fact by means of material that had previously been brought to
light (sexual fantasies). But I myself then am the obstacle, the crab,
that is hindering her from getting across. The state of affairs would
be critical if at this particular point we were to limit ourselves to
the objective plane of interpretation. What would be the use of my
explaining: "But I am not this artist at all, I am not in the least
weird as he is, nor am I like an evil magician." That would leave the
patient quite unconvinced because she would know as well I do that the
projection would continue to exist all the same, and that it is really
I who am hindering her further progress. It is at this point that many
a treatment has come to a standstill. For there is no other way for
the patient here of escaping from the embrace of the unconscious, but
for the physician to raise himself to the subjective plane, where he
is to be regarded as an image. But an image of what? This is where the
greatest difficulty lies. The doctor will say: "An image of something
in the patient's unconscious." But the patient may object: "What, am
I to suppose myself to be a man, a mysteriously fascinating one to
boot, a wicked wizard and a demon? No, I cannot accept that; it is
nonsense. I'd sooner believe that you are all that." She is really, so
to speak, quite right. It is too preposterous to want to transfer such
things to herself. She cannot permit herself to be made into a demon,
any more than can the physician. Her eyes flash, a wicked expression
appears upon her face, a glimmer of an unknown hate never seen before,
something snake-like seeming to creep into her. I am suddenly faced
by the possibility of a fatal misunderstanding with her. What is it?
Is it disappointed love? Is she offended? Does she feel depreciated?
There seems to lurk something of the beast of prey, something really
demoniac in her glance. Is she then after all a demon? Or am I myself
the beast of prey, the demon, and is this a terrified victim sitting
before me, who is trying to defend herself with the brute force of
despair against my wicked spells? But either idea must be nonsense,
phantastical delusion. What have I come in contact with? What new string
is vibrating? But it is only for a passing moment. The expression upon
the patient's face becoming quiet again, she says, as if relieved: "It
is extraordinary. I feel as if you had touched the point which I could
never get over in relation to my friend. It is a horrible feeling,
something non-human, wicked, and cruel. I cannot describe how queer this
feeling is. At such moments it makes me hate and despise my friend,
although I struggle against it with all my might and main."
An explanatory light is thrown upon what has happened by this
observation. I have now taken the friend's place. The friendship has
been overcome, the ice of repression is broken. The patient has without
knowing it entered upon a new phase of her existence. I know that now
upon me will fall everything painful and bad in the relation to the
friend. So also will whatever was good in it, although in violent
conflict with the mysterious unknown quantity X, about which the patient
could never get clear. A new phase, therefore, of the transference
supervenes, which, however, does not as yet make clearly apparent what
the X that is projected upon me consists of.
It is quite certain, that the most troublesome misunderstandings
threaten if the patient should stick at this stage of the transference.
In that case she will necessarily treat me as she treated her friend;
that is the X will continually be somewhere in the air giving rise to
misunderstandings. The end would probably be that she would see the evil
demon in me, because she is quite unable to accept the fact that she
is herself the demon. All insoluble conflicts are brought about in this
way. And an insoluble conflict signifies a standstill in life.
Another possibility is, that the patient should disregard the obscure
point by applying her old preventative against this new difficulty. That
is, she would repress it again, instead of keeping it conscious, which
is the necessary and obvious demand of the whole method. Nothing is
gained by such repression; on the contrary, the X threatens more from
the unconscious where it is considerably more unpleasant.
Whenever such an unacceptable image emerges, one must decide whether
at bottom it is destined to represent a human quality or not.
"Magician" and "demon" may represent qualities that are described in
this particular fashion, in order that they may speedily be recognized
as _not human but mythological qualities_. Magician and demon being
mythological figures aptly express the unknown "non-human" feelings
which had surprised the patient. These attributes are not applicable
to a human personality; being as a rule judgments of character
_intuitively_ and not critically approved, which are projected upon our
fellow-beings, inevitably doing serious injury to human relations.
_Such attributes always indicate that contents of the super-personal or
absolute unconscious are being projected._ Neither demons nor wicked
magicians are reminiscences of personal experiences, although every one
has, of course, at some time or other heard or read of them. Although
one has heard of a rattle-snake, it would hardly be appropriate to
describe a lizard or a blind-worm as a rattle-snake, simply because
one was startled by their rustling. Similarly, one would hardly term
a fellow-being a demon, unless some kind of demoniacal influence were
closely associated with him. If, however, the demoniacal influence were
really part of his personal character, it would show itself everywhere,
and then this human being would be a demon, a kind of werwolf. But such
an ascription is mythology; in other words, it is from the collective
and not from the individual psyche. Inasmuch as through our unconscious
we have a share in the historical collective psyche, we naturally
dwell unconsciously in a world of werwolves, demons, magicians, etc.,
these being things which have always affected man most profoundly. We
have just as much a part in gods and devils, saviours and criminals.
But it would be absurd to want to ascribe to one's personal self the
possibilities that are potentially existing in the human unconscious.
It is, therefore, essential to make as clear a distinction as possible
between the personal and the impersonal assets of our psyche. This is
by no means intended to nullify the occasional great effects due to
the existence of the contents of the absolute unconscious; but these
contents of the collective psyche should be differentiated from those
belonging to the individual psyche. For simple-minded people, of course,
these things were never separated, the projection of gods, demons, etc.,
not having been understood as a psychological function were simply
accounted concretistical realities. Their projectional character was
never perceived. It was only with the advent of the epoch of scepticism
that it was realized that the gods did not really exist except as
projections. With that the matter was set at rest. But the psychological
function corresponding to it was by no means set at rest, for it lapsed
into the unconscious and began to poison men with a surplus of libido
that had hitherto been invested in the cult of idols or gods. Obviously,
the depreciation and repression of such a powerful function as that of
religion has serious consequences for the psychology of the individual.
The reflux of this libido strengthens the unconscious prodigiously,
so that it begins to exercise a powerful compulsory influence upon
consciousness and its archaic collective contents. One period of
scepticism came to a close with the horrors of the French Revolution.
At the present time we are again experiencing an ebullition of the
unconscious destructive powers of the collective psyche. The result is
an unparalleled general slaughter. That is just what the unconscious
was tending towards. This tendency had previously been inordinately
strengthened by the rationalism of modern life, which by depreciating
everything irrational, caused the function of irrationalism to sink into
the unconscious. But the function once in the unconscious will from
thence work unceasing havoc, like an incurable disease whose centre
cannot be eradicated. For then the individual and the nation alike are
compelled to live irrationally, and even to apply their highest idealism
and their best wit to make this madness of irrationalism as complete as
possible. We see examples of this on a small scale in our patient. She
turned from a possibility of life that seemed to her irrational (Mrs.
X.) in order to live it in a pathological form, to her own loss, and
with an unsuitable object.
There is, indeed, no possible alternative but to acknowledge
irrationalism as a psychological function that is necessary and always
existent. Its results are not to be taken as concrete realities (that
would involve repression), but as _psychological realities_. They
are realities because they are _effective_ things, that is, they are
_actualities_.
The collective unconscious is the sediment of all the experience of the
universe of all time, and is also an image of the universe that has
been in process of formation for untold ages. In the course of time
certain features have become prominent in this image, the so-called
_dominants_. These dominants are the ruling powers, the gods; that is,
the representations resulting from dominating laws and principles, from
average regularities in the issue of the images that the brain has
received as a consequence of secular processes.
In so far as the images formed in the brain are relatively faithful
portrayals of psychic happenings they will correspond to their
dominants; that is, their general characteristic features, made
prominent by the accumulation of similar experiences, will correspond
to certain physical fundamental facts that are also universal. Hence it
is possible to transfer unconscious images to physical events direct as
intuitive ideas; _e.g. ether_ the primeval breath or soul-substance
appears in man's conceptions the whole world over; so, too, _energy_,
the magic force, which is equally widespread.
On account of their connection with physical things the dominants
usually make their appearance as projections, appearing,
indeed--if the projections are unconscious--in the persons of the
immediate environment, as a rule in the form of abnormal under- or
over-valuations, which excite misunderstandings, conflict, infatuations,
and various kinds of folly. People say: "He makes a god of So-and-so,"
or "So-and-so is X.'s _bête noire_." They also give rise to the
formation of modern myths, that is, fantastic rumours, suspicions and
prejudices.
The dominants of the collective unconscious are therefore extremely
important things of significant effect, to which great attention should
be paid. They must not be repressed, but must be given most careful
consideration. They usually appear as projections, and since projections
are only attached where there is some external stimulus, it is very
difficult to appraise them aright, on account of the relation of the
unconscious images with the object. If some one projects the dominant
of "devil" into a fellow-being, this occurs because this other person
has something in him that makes the attachment of the devil dominant
possible. But that is by no means to say that this person is therefore,
so to speak, a devil; on the contrary, he may be a particularly good
fellow, but being antipathetic to the one who projects, a "devilish
effect" is brought about between the two. This does not mean that the
one who projects is a devil, although he must recognize that he too,
just as much, has something devilish in him, and has been gulled by
it, inasmuch as he projected it; but that does not make him a devil;
indeed, he may be just as decent a man as the other. In such a case the
appearance of the devil dominant means: the two persons are incompatible
(for the moment and for the near future), wherefore the unconscious
splits them asunder and holds them apart from each other.
One of the dominants that is almost always met in the analysis of
projections of collective unconscious contents is the "magical demon;"
it is of preponderating sinister effect. "The Golem," by _Meyrink_,
is a good example of this; also the Thibetan wizard in Meyrink's
"Fledermäusen," who lets the world-war loose by magic. Obviously Meyrink
formed this image independently and freely out of his unconscious,
by giving word and picture to a feeling similar to the one that my
patient had projected upon me. The dominant of magic also appears in
"Zarathustra," whilst in "Faust" it is, so to say, the hero himself.
The picture of this demon is the lowest and most elementary concept
of God. It is the dominant of the primitive tribal magic-man, or a
singularly gifted personality endowed with magic power. This figure
very frequently makes an appearance in my patient's unconscious as a
_dark-skinned being of Mongolian type_.
An important step forward has been taken by the recognition of the
dominants of the absolute unconscious. The magical or demoniac effect
of the fellow-being is made to disappear by the feeling being realised
as a definite projection of the absolute unconscious. On the other
hand, a completely new and unsuspected task now lies before us: namely,
the question in what way the ego should come to terms with this
psychological non-ego. Should one rest satisfied with having verified
the effective existence of unconscious dominants, leaving the matter to
take care of itself?
To leave it at this point would be the means of creating a permanent
state of dissociation in the subject, a conflict between the individual
psyche and the collective psyche. Upon the one side we should have the
differentiated modern ego, whilst upon the other a kind of uncivilized
negro representative of a thoroughly primitive state. That would mean
that we should have what really does exist, a crust of civilization over
a dark-skinned brute; the cleavage would be distinct and demonstrable
before our very eyes. But such a dissociation requires immediate
synthesis and cultivation of what is undeveloped. There must be a union
of these two aspects.
Before entering upon this new question let us first return to the
dream from which we started. The discussion has given us a broader
understanding of the dream, and especially of an essential part of it,
namely, the fear. This fear is a demoniac fear of the dominants of the
collective unconscious. We saw that the patient identifies herself
with Mrs. X., expressing thereby that she also has some relation to
the mysterious artist. It was apparent also that she identified the
physician (myself) with the artist; and further that when taken upon the
subjective plane, the image of the wizard dominants of the collective
unconscious represented me.
All this is covered in the dream by the symbol of the crab which walks
backwards. The crab stands for the living content of the unconscious
that can by no means be exhausted or rendered inoperative by analysis
on the objective plane. But what we were able to do was to _detach the
mythological or collective psychological contents from the objects
of consciousness, and to consolidate them as psychological realities
outside the individual psyche_.
So long as the absolute unconscious and the individual psyche are
coupled together without differentiation, no progress can be made,
or, as the dream expresses it, no boundary be crossed. If the dreamer
does nevertheless prepare to cross the boundary, the unconscious that
was hitherto unnoticed becomes animated, seizing her and dragging her
down. The dream and its material characterize the absolute unconscious,
on the one side as a lower animal living hidden in the depths of the
water; and on the other side, as a dangerous disease that can only be
cured by a timely operation. To what extent this characterization is
appropriate has already been seen. As was pointed out, the animal symbol
specially refers to what is _extra_ human, that is super-personal; for
the contents of the absolute unconscious are not merely the residue of
archaic human functions, but also the residue of functions of the animal
ancestry of mankind, whose duration of life was indeed vastly greater
than the relatively brief epoch of specifically human existence. If such
residues are active, they are apt, as nothing else is, not merely to
arrest the progress of development, but also to divert the libido into
regressive channels, until the quantity which the absolute unconscious
has activated has been absorbed. The energy becomes profitable again
after it has been consciously contrasted with the absolute unconscious,
a process which enables it to be converted into a valuable source from
which to draw. This transference of energy was established by religions
in a concretistic manner through cultural communication with the gods
(the dominants of the absolute unconscious). But these modes and customs
are too much at variance with our intellect and our moral sense for us
to be able to declare this solution of the problem as still binding,
or even possible. If, on the other hand, we apprehend the images of
the unconscious as collective unconscious dominants, therefore as
collective-psychological phenomena or functions, this hypothesis is
in no way opposed to our intellect and conscience. This solution is
rationally acceptable. We have thus gained the possibility of coming to
terms with the activated residues of our ancestral history. This mode
of settlement makes it possible to traverse the boundary line hitherto
limiting us, and is therefore appropriately termed the _transcendental
function_, which is synonymous with progressive development to a new
attitude. In the dream this development is indicated by the other side
of the stream.
The similarity to hero-myths is striking. The typical combat of the hero
with the monster (the unconscious content) frequently takes place on the
banks of some water; sometimes at a ford. This circumstance is prominent
in legends of Red Indians, as, for example, in Longfellow's "Hiawatha."
In the decisive battle the hero is swallowed by a monster (_cf._ story
of Jonah), as Frobenius[246] has shown by means of extensive material.
But inside the monster the hero begins to come to terms with the beast
in his own way: whilst the creature swims with him towards the sunrise,
he cuts off a valuable piece of the viscera, _e.g._ the heart, by which
the monster lived, that is, the valuable energy by which the unconscious
was activated. Through this deed he kills the monster, who then drifts
to land, where the hero, born anew through the transcendental function
(the "night-journey under the sea" of Frobenius), steps forth, often in
company with all those beings whom the monster had previously swallowed.
This enables the normal state to be restored, as the unconscious having
been robbed of its energy no longer occupies a preponderating position.
In this way the myth--which is the dream of a people--graphically
describes the problem with which our patient is concerned.[247]
The problem of how to come to terms with the absolute unconscious is a
question apart. I must content myself here with a general survey of the
new theory of the unconscious up to the transcendental function, leaving
the presentation of the transcendental function itself to a later work.
X.--THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TYPES OF INTROVERSION AND EXTROVERSION IN THE
ANALYTICAL PROCESS.
The description of the analysis of the unconscious would be incomplete
if a word were not said about the question whether this method is
equally applicable to the two types. As a matter of fact, both the
development and the conception of the unconscious are different for
each type. Although making every effort to find out a formulation that
shall be as universally valid as possible, we must emphatically impress
upon our minds the fact that the two modes of conception of the types
are essentially different; a universal formulation that is just, only
becomes possible when both standpoints are given equal consideration.
I do not conceal from myself the fact that this subject is of less
interest to the layman than to the specialist. Nevertheless, certain
aspects of the question are of such a general character that the layman
should not find the perusal of this last section entirely without
interest.
Let us first consider the concept of the unconscious. I have here
introduced the unconscious under the conception of a psychological
function, namely, the function of the sum of all those psychic contents
which do not reach the threshold of consciousness. I have divided
the unconscious materials into _personal_--that is to reminiscences
attributable to personal experiences, combinations and tendencies--and
into _impersonal_ collective contents, that is, those whose contents
cannot be attributed to personal experiences.
The contents of the psyche are fundamentally images indicating function
on the one hand, and upon the other objects and the world generally. The
conscious contains the recent object-images; the personal unconscious,
the object-images of the individual past, so far as they have either
been forgotten or repressed; whilst the absolute or collective
unconscious contains the inherited world-images generally, under the
form of primordial images or mythical themes. All psychic images have
two sides: the one, being directed towards the object, is as faithful
a likeness of the object as possible, framed without any intention or
obligation to be anything else. The other side is directed towards the
soul, that is towards the psychic function and the laws peculiar to it.
Let us take as an example, a primordial image out of a hero-myth. There
is in the West a demon ancestress with a large mouth. The hero creeps
into it, and at the same moment a certain little bird sings; the ancient
dame shuts her mouth with a bang, and the hero disappears.
The side of the image directed towards the physical object means, the
sun goes down in the evening into the mouth of the ocean. At this hour
a certain little bird sings (which is an objective fact), and the sun
disappears into the depths of the sea.
The side of the image directed towards the soul, that is the _idea_,
signifies: The energy contained in consciousness disappears (like the
sun in the evening) into the monster of the unconscious.
If we consider the collective-unconscious from the side of the
soul or idea, it is something entirely distinct, and it must be
differentiated, _abstracted_ from the object, if its contents are to
attain the perfection of an idea. If, on the other hand, we consider the
collective-unconscious from the side of the physical object, that is
as an image of the object, it is weaker and less clear than the object
itself, and can only be brought to perfection if it is objectified, that
is projected on to the object itself.
As previously explained, there are two types of human psychology that
can be clearly distinguished, viz. introversion and extroversion. The
introvert is characterised by the thought standpoint; the extrovert
by the feeling standpoint. As I showed, they are quite different in
their relation to the object: the introvert abstracting from the
object and thinking about it, whilst the extrovert goes to the object
and feels himself into it. The accent of value lies upon the ego for
the introvert, but upon the object for the extrovert. The former's
chief concern is the preservation of the ego; that of the latter the
preservation of the object. The two types will adopt a different
attitude towards the unconscious, namely, the introvert will and must
seize the idea-side of the unconscious image; the extrovert, on the
other hand, seizing the side of the physical reflection. The introvert
will purify as far as possible the idea-side from the "alloy" of the
concretistic admixture of the physical image, in order to arrive at the
abstract idea; whilst, on the other hand, the extrovert will purify the
physical image as far as possible from the "phantastic" admixture of the
enveloping ideas. The former, by raising himself to a world of idea,
will endeavour to overcome the disturbing influence of the unconscious;
whilst the latter will approach the object as near as possible and
project the unconscious image into the physical object, thus freeing
himself from the grip of the unconscious.
What for the extrovert is a phantastic and disturbing admixture in the
unconscious picture, is for the introvert precisely that which has the
most value, for it is the germ of the pure idea, and _vice versâ_; what
for the introvert are merely concretistical "imperfections," survivals
of a physical origin, are for the extrovert a most valuable hint, the
bridge by which the unconscious can be united with the object.
This description makes it manifest that the two types go contrary
ways in the course of the development of their unconscious, arriving
therefore at opposite extremes: the one at the idea, the other at the
object of his feeling. The psychological characteristics of the types
are eventually pushed to extremes, where according to the enantiodromic
law the moment has arrived when in each case the "other" function
enters into its fully acknowledged right, that is, feeling in the case
of the introvert, and thought in that of the extrovert. The introvert
attains the lacking function of autonomous feeling by means of a
differentiation and enhancement of his thought; whilst the extrovert,
on the other hand, attains his thinking by the way of an increasingly
differentiated love. These functions that hitherto were secondary are
found at first in the unconscious, gradually reaching consciousness in
the course of development. At first they are unconscious functions in a
state that is more or less incompatible with consciousness and have the
typical qualities of unconscious contents. These qualities are such as
are not tolerated in consciousness. The lunatic Schreber[248] says most
aptly that the language of God (the unconscious) is a somewhat archaic
but vigorous German, of which he gives a few striking examples. As the
contrary function that emerges from the unconscious into consciousness
differs to such an extent from what appears to be acceptable to
consciousness, the necessity arises of a technique for coming to terms
with the contrary function. It is impossible to accept the contrary
function as it stands, as it always drags extraneous qualities and
accompanying circumstances with it from the absolute unconscious.
Through the above-described development the extrovert has acquired an
adaptation to the object that is absolutely real and free from all
phantasies; he will therefore be able to turn his attention towards the
"alloy" which for the introvert was the valuable germ of idea. From this
he will then develop similar ideas to those which the introvert has
already developed. _Vice versâ_, the introvert will now be able to turn
his attention to those materials which before he was obliged to reject,
as being side-tracks on the road to physical reality; that is, he will
carry out the same clearing and winnowing in his feeling-relations, that
the extrovert has already completed.
The development of the contrary function that was hitherto unconscious,
leads to individuation beyond the type, and thereby to a new relation
to the world and mind. The process which begins with the complementation
of the types is the transcendental function, which leads to the new
adaptation by means of the clearing and winnowing of unconscious
feelings and thoughts that have been brought up by the contrary function
that had been neglected.
Following the old maxim: "naturam si sequemur ducem nunquam
aberrabimus," we have obeyed the natural impulse of the thinker to carry
the principle of thought through to its utmost perfection attainable, as
also that of the feeler, of carrying the principle of feeling through
to the end. By these means the salutary extreme was produced, to wit,
the hunger, the desire for the compensatory function. For, by means of
thought, the one is landed in a lifeless ice-cold world of crystalline
ideas; whereas, by means of feeling, the other reaches a limitless
ocean of never ending flood of sentiment. The former will, therefore,
yearn for living warmth of feeling, and the latter for the restrictive
precision and solidity of thought.
An enrichment of the individual is attained by this compensatory
process, giving him greater decision and the possibility of a harmony
that is complete in itself. The assimilation of the contrary function
discloses new inner springs, which guarantee to the individual
considerably greater independence from external conditions. This
acquisition is an indisputable advantage that none would like to
surrender in face of the fact so unavoidably connected with it, that a
new adaptation and orientation of this kind places the individual in
a certain contrast to the great bulk of people who yet have the old
attitude. This contrast is no drawback; it is rather a welcome and
effective spur to life and work, for thereby is created the channel
required by our psychic energy for its development.
XI.--GENERAL REMARKS ON THE THERAPY.
I have still to draw the reader's attention to an important fact.
Throughout the course of this paper, I have seemed to associate the
idea of disturbance or even of peril with the unconscious. But it would
give a false impression if we were only to emphasize the dangerous side
of the unconscious. _The unconscious is a source of danger when the
individual is not at one with it._ If we succeed in establishing the
function or attitude that I call transcendental, the disharmony ceases,
and we are permitted to enjoy the favourable side of the unconscious. In
such case the unconscious vouchsafes us that furtherance and assistance
which bountiful Nature is always ready to give to man in overflowing
abundance. The unconscious possesses possibilities of wisdom that are
completely closed to consciousness, for the unconscious has at its
disposal not only all the psychic contents that are under the threshold
because they had been forgotten or overlooked, but also the wisdom of
the experience of untold ages, deposited in the course of time and lying
potential in the human brain. The unconscious is continually active,
creating combinations of its materials; these serve to indicate the
future path of the individual. It creates prospective combinations just
as our consciousness does, only they are considerably superior to the
conscious combinations both in refinement and extent. The unconscious
may therefore be an unparalleled guide for human beings.
The reader must on no account suppose that the complicated psychological
changes described must all be passed through in every individual case.
In practice the treatment is adjusted according to the therapeutic
result attained. The particular result arrived at may be reached
at any stage of the treatment, quite apart from the seriousness or
duration of the malady. The treatment of a serious case may last a long
time, without the higher phases of the evolution ever being reached,
or needing to be reached. There are comparatively few people who,
after attaining the desired therapeutical result, pursue the further
stages of evolution for the sake of their own development. It is,
therefore, not the seriousness of the case which obliges one to pass
through the whole development. In any case, only those people attain
a higher degree of differentiation who are by nature destined and
called to it, that is, who have both a capacity and tendency towards
the higher differentiation. This is a matter in which people are
extremely different, just as among species of animals there are some
that are stationary and conservative, and others that are evolutionary.
Nature is aristocratic, but not in the sense of having reserved the
possibility of differentiation exclusively for those species that stand
high. Similarly, the possibility of the psychological development of
human beings is not reserved for specially _gifted_ individuals. In
other words: neither special intelligence nor any other talent is
necessary in order to achieve a far-reaching psychological development,
inasmuch as in this development moral qualities step in to supplement
where intellect does not suffice. But it must not be supposed under
any circumstances that the treatment consists in grafting general
formulas and complicated doctrines on to people; this is not so. Each
one can acquire that which he needs, after his own fashion and in his
own language. What I have here presented is only the intellectual
formulation of the subject, founded upon preliminary scientific study of
an empirical as well as a theoretical nature; but this formulation does
not become a subject of discussion in the ordinary practical analytical
work. The brief notes of cases that I have inserted give an approximate
idea of the practical side of analysis.
The reader should realize that our new understanding of psychology
has a side that is entirely practical, and another that is entirely
theoretical. It is not merely a practical method of treatment or
education, but it is also a scientific theory, that is closely related
to other co-ordinated sciences.
CONCLUSION.
In conclusion, I must beg the reader to pardon me for having ventured
to say so many new and abstruse things in such a brief compass. I lay
myself open to adverse criticism, because I conceive it to be the duty
of every one who isolates himself by taking his own path, to tell others
what he has found or discovered, whether it be a refreshing spring for
the thirsty, or a sandy desert of sterile error. The one helps, the
other warns. Not the opinion of any individual contemporary will decide
the truth and error of what has been discovered, but rather future
generations and destiny. There are things that are not yet true to-day,
perhaps we are not yet permitted to recognize them as true, although
they may be true to-morrow. Therefore every pioneer must take his own
path, alone but hopeful, with the open eyes of one who is conscious
of its solitude and of the perils of its dim precipices. Our age is
seeking a new spring of life. I found one and drank of it and the water
tasted good. That is all that I can or want to say. My intention and my
duty to society is fulfilled when I have described, as well as I can,
the way that led me to the spring; the reproaches of those who do not
follow this way have never troubled me, nor ever will. New ideas always
encounter resistance from the old. That always was and always will be
the case; it appertains to the self-regulation of mental progress.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 216: New Edition, 1917. Translated by Miss Dora Hecht.]
[Footnote 217: Bleuler, "Die Psychoanalyse Freuds." _Jahrbuch für
psychoanalytische Forschungen_, vol. II., 1910.]
[Footnote 218: Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other
Psychoneuroses." "Nervous and Mental Disease," Monograph series, No. 4.]
[Footnote 219: Freud, "Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre."
Deuticke: Wien.]
[Footnote 220: Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams," George Allen.]
[Footnote 221: Freud, "Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory."
Monograph Series.]
[Footnote 222: Cp. Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria."]
[Footnote 223: Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other
Psychoneuroses."]
[Footnote 224: For further particulars of this case see Jung, "The
Theory of Psychoanalysis."]
[Footnote 225: We may still apply to love the saying: "The heaven above,
the heaven below, The sky above, the sky below, All things above,
all things below, Succeed and prosper" (Old Mystic). Mephistopheles
expresses the idea when he describes himself as "Part of that power
which still produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill."]
[Footnote 226: "Love" is used in that larger sense of the word, which
indeed belongs to it by right; it does not mean "mere sexuality."]
[Footnote 227: Compare Jung, "Diagnostiche Associationsstudien."
Leipzig: J. A. Barth. 2 volumes.]
[Footnote 228: The theory of "Complexes" is set out in "Psychology of
Dementia præcox," Jung.]
[Footnote 229: Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams." James Allen.]
[Footnote 230: The rules of dream-analysis, the laws of the structure
of the dream and its symbolism, form almost a science; this is one of
the most important chapters of the psychology of the unconscious whose
comprehension requires very arduous study.]
[Footnote 231: Compare Jung, "The Psychology of the Unconscious."]
[Footnote 232: Thus spake Zarathustra, p. 40.]
[Footnote 233: The German "Auslebetheorie."]
[Footnote 234: "Ueber den nervösen Charakter."]
[Footnote 235: For a preliminary communication upon the subject see page
287.]
[Footnote 236: "The Philosophy of Values."]
[Footnote 237: "Pragmatism."]
[Footnote 238: "Grosse Männer" ("Great Men").]
[Footnote 239: _Furneaux Jordan_: "Character as seen in Body and
Parentage." London, 1896.]
[Footnote 240: I purposely describe only the two types here. Obviously,
the possibility of the existence of other types is not thereby excluded.
Other possibilities are known to us. I refrain from mentioning them,
with a view to limiting the material.]
[Footnote 241: The _Monist_, vol. xvi. p. 363.]
[Footnote 242: The German name for crab (Krebs) is the same as that for
cancer.]
[Footnote 243: A parallel conception of the two kinds of interpretation
is found in a commendable book by _Silberer_: "Probleme der Mystik und
ihrer Symbolik" ("Problems of Mysticism and their Symbolism").]
[Footnote 244: "Halb zog sie ihn, halb sank er hin," etc.]
[Footnote 245: I have also termed this procedure the "hermeneutic
method." See page 468-9.]
[Footnote 246: "Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes" ("The Age of the
Sun-god").]
[Footnote 247: I have treated the parallels of hero-myths in great
detail in "The Psychology of the Unconscious."]
[Footnote 248: "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" ("Memoirs of a
Neurasthenic Patient").]
CHAPTER XV
THE CONCEPTION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS[249]
I.--THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS
Since the breach with the Viennese school upon the question of the
fundamental explanatory principle of analysis--that is, the question
if it be sexuality or energy--our concepts have undergone considerable
development. After the prejudice concerning the explanatory basis had
been removed by the acceptance of a purely abstract view of it, the
nature of which was not anticipated, interest was directed to the
concept of the unconscious.
According to Freud's theory the contents of the unconscious are limited
to infantile wish-tendencies, which are repressed on account of the
incompatibility of their character. Repression is a process which
begins in early childhood under the moral influence of environment;
it continues throughout life. These repressions are done away with by
means of analysis, and the repressed wishes are made conscious. That
should theoretically empty the unconscious, and, so to say, do away with
it; but in reality the production of infantile sexual wish-fantasies
continues into old age.
According to this theory, the unconscious contains only those parts of
the personality which might just as well be conscious, and have really
only been repressed by the processes of civilisation. According to Freud
the essential content of the unconscious would therefore be _personal_.
But although, from such a view-point the infantile tendencies of the
unconscious are the more prominent, it would be a mistake to estimate
or define the unconscious from this alone, for it has another side.
Not only must the repressed materials be included in the periphery of
the unconscious, but also all the psychic material that does not reach
the threshold of consciousness. It is impossible to explain all these
materials by the principle of repression, for in that case by the
removal of the repression a phenomenal memory would be acquired, one
that never forgets anything. As a matter of fact repression exists, but
it is a special phenomenon. If a so-called bad memory were only the
consequence of repression, then those persons who have an excellent
memory should have no repression, that is, be incapable of being
neurotic. But experience teaches us that this is not the case. There
are, undoubtedly, cases with abnormally bad memories, where it is clear
that the main cause must be attributed to repression. But such cases are
comparatively rare.
We therefore emphatically say that the unconscious contains all that
part of the psyche that is found under the threshold, including
subliminal sense-perceptions, in addition to the repressed material.
We also know--not only on account of accumulated experience, but also
for theoretical reasons--that the unconscious must contain all the
material that has _not yet_ reached the level of consciousness. These
are the germs of future conscious contents. We have also every reason to
suppose that the unconscious is far from being quiescent, in the sense
that it is inactive, but that it is probably constantly busied with the
formation and re-formation of so-called unconscious phantasies. Only in
pathological cases should this activity be thought of as comparatively
autonomous, for normally it is co-ordinated with consciousness.
It may be assumed that all these contents are of a personal nature in
so far as they are acquisitions of the individual life. As this life
is limited, the number of acquisitions of the unconscious must also be
limited, wherefore an exhaustion of the contents of the unconscious
through analysis might be held to be possible. In other words, by the
analysis of the unconscious the inventory of unconscious contents might
be completed, possibly in the sense that the unconscious cannot produce
anything besides what is already known and accepted in the conscious.
Also, as has already been said, we should have to accept the fact that
the unconscious activity had thereby been paralysed, and that by the
removal of the repression we could stop the conscious contents from
descending into the unconscious. Experience teaches us that is only
possible to a very limited extent. We urge our patients to retain their
hold upon repressed contents that have been brought to consciousness,
and to insert them in their scheme of life. But, as we may daily
convince ourselves, this procedure seems to make no impression upon
the unconscious, inasmuch as it goes on producing apparently the same
phantasies, namely, the so-called infantile-sexual ones, which according
to the earlier theory were based upon personal repressions. If in such
cases analysis be systematically continued, an inventory of incompatible
wish-phantasies is gradually revealed, whose combinations amaze us.
In addition to all the sexual perversions every conceivable kind of
crime is discovered, as well as every conceivable heroic action and
great thought, whose existence in the analysed person no one would have
suspected.
In order to give an example of this, I would like to refer to Maeder's
Schizophrenic patient who called the world his picture-book. He was a
locksmith's apprentice who fell ill very early in life; he had never
been blessed with intellectual gifts. As regards his idea that the world
was his picture-book and that he was turning its pages over when he
looked about in the world, it is just Schopenhauer's world, conceived as
will and representation, expressed in primitive picture-language. This
idea has just as universal a character as Schopenhauer's. The difference
consists in the fact that the patient's notion has stood still at an
embryonic stage in a process of growth, whereas with Schopenhauer
the same idea has been changed from a mere image into an abstraction
expressed in terms that are universally valid.
It would be false to assume that the patient's idea had a personal
character and value. That would be to attribute to him the dignity of a
philosopher. But he alone is a philosopher who raises an image that has
naturally sprung up into an abstract idea, thereby translating it into
terms of universal validity. Schopenhauer's philosophical conception
is his personal value, whereas the notion of the patient has merely
an impersonal value of natural growth, in which personal proprietary
rights can only be acquired by making an abstraction of the images, and
translating them into terms that are universally valid. But it would be
wrong if an exaggerated sense of the value of this achievement led us
to ascribe to the philosopher the merit of having made or conceived the
original image itself. The primordial image has also sprung up naturally
in the philosopher, and is nothing but a part of the universal human
heritage in which, theoretically at least, every one has a share. The
golden apples come from the same tree whether they are gathered by a
locksmith's apprentice or a Schopenhauer.
The recognition of such primordial images obliges me to differentiate
between the contents of the unconscious; a differentiation of another
kind than that between the pre-conscious and unconscious, or between
the subconscious and unconscious. The justification for those
distinctions cannot be discussed here; they have a value of their own
and probably merit to be carried further as affording a point of view.
The differentiation which I propose follows obviously from what has
previously been said, namely, that in the so-called unconscious we must
differentiate a layer which may be termed the _personal unconscious_.
The materials contained in this layer are of a personal kind, inasmuch
as on the one hand they may be characterised as acquisitions of the
individual existence, and on the other as psychological factors which
might just as well be conscious. It is, for instance, comprehensible
that incompatible psychological elements succumb to repression on
the one hand and are therefore unconscious, but on the other hand
there exists the possibility of bringing the repressed contents
into consciousness and keeping them there, once they are known and
recognised. We recognise these materials as personal contents, because
we can prove their effects, their partial appearance, or their origin
to lie in our personal past. They are integral constituents of the
personality, and belong to a complete inventory of the same. They are
constituents whose omission in consciousness implies an inferiority
in one respect or another, not indeed an inferiority bearing the
psychological character of an organic deformity or a natural defect,
but rather the character of a neglect which arouses a moral reaction.
The feeling of moral inferiority always indicates that in the portion
omitted is something that according to the feelings should not be
missing; or in other words, could be conscious if we took sufficient
trouble about it. The sense of moral inferiority is not the result
of a collision with the universal, in a certain sense arbitrary,
moral law, but rather the result of a conflict with the personal ego,
which by reason of the psychic economy demands an adjustment of the
deficiency. Wherever a feeling of inferiority appears, it reveals not
only the presence of a demand for the assimilation of an unconscious
constituent, but also the possibility of such an assimilation. It is,
after all, a person's moral qualities that make him assimilate his
unconscious self and retain it in consciousness, whether he be forced to
it by a recognition of its necessity, or by a painful neurosis. He who
continues to tread this path of the realisation of his unconscious self,
necessarily transposes the content of the personal unconscious into
consciousness, whereby the periphery of the personality is considerably
enlarged.
II--THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE ASSIMILATION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS.
This process of assimilating the unconscious leads to remarkable
results. Some people build up from it an unmistakable, even unpleasantly
increased self-consciousness or self-confidence; they "know everything,"
and are completely aware of everything so far as their unconscious is
concerned. They think themselves accurately informed about everything
that comes up from the unconscious. Others are increasingly oppressed
by the contents of the unconscious, they lose their self-reliance or
their self-consciousness more and more, and come near to a state of
depressed resignation in regard to all the extraordinary things the
unconscious produces. The former undertake in the exuberance of their
self-confidence, a responsibility for their unconscious that goes much
too far, beyond every reasonable possibility; the latter ultimately
decline to accept any responsibility in the depressing recognition of
the powerlessness of the ego confronted by relentless Destiny, working
through the unconscious.
If we give the two types close analytical consideration, we shall
discover that behind the optimistic self-confidence of the former
there is hidden a just as deep, or rather a far deeper, helplessness;
a helplessness to which the conscious optimism acts as an unsuccessful
effort at compensation. Behind the pessimistic resignation of the
latter there is hidden a defiant desire for power, far exceeding in
self-confidence the conscious optimism of the former type.
This condition of the personality may well be expressed by the idea
of "God-Almightiness" (Gottähnlichkeit),[250] to which _Adler_ has
particularly drawn our attention.
When the devil wrote the serpent's words in the student's album, _Eritis
sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum_, he added:
"Follow the ancient text and the snake thou wast ordered to trample!
With all thy likeness to God, thou'lt yet be a sorry example."
The idea of "likeness to God," or "God-Almightiness," is not a
scientific one, although it characterises the psychological state of
affairs most exactly. Still we must examine whence this attitude comes,
and ask why it merits the name of "God-Almightiness." As the expression
denotes, the patient's abnormal condition is constituted by the fact
that he ascribes to himself qualities or values which obviously do not
belong to him, for "God-Almightiness" means being like the spirit which
is set above the human spirit.
If for psychological purposes we abstract from the hypostasis of
the God-idea, we find that this expression does not only include
every dynamic fact discussed in my book on "The Psychology of the
Unconscious,"[251] but also a certain mental function having a
collective character, which is of another order from that of the
individual character of the mind. In the same way as the individual is
not only an isolated and separate, but also a social being, so also the
human mind is not only something isolated and absolutely individual,
but also a collective function. And just as certain social functions or
impulses are, so to speak, opposed to the ego-centric interests of the
individual, so also the human mind has certain functions or tendencies
which, on account of their collective nature, are to some extent opposed
to the personal mental functions. This is due to the fact that every
human being is born with a highly differentiated brain, which gives him
the possibility of attaining a rich mental function that he has neither
acquired ontogenetically nor developed. In proportion as human brains
are similarly differentiated, the corresponding mental functions are
collective and universal. This circumstance explains the fact that the
unconscious of far-separated peoples and races possesses a remarkable
number of points of agreement. One example among many others which
has been demonstrated is the extraordinary unanimity shown by the
autochthonous forms and themes of myths.
The universal similarity of brains results in a universal possibility of
a similar mental function. This function is the collective psyche, which
is divided into _collective mind_ and _collective soul_.[252] In so far
as there exist differentiations corresponding to race, descent, or even
family, so, beyond the level of the "universal" collective psyche, we
find a collective psyche limited by race, descent, and family. To quote
_P. Janet_, the collective psyche contains the "parties inférieures"
of the mental function, that is, the part of the mental function
which, being fixed and automatic in its action, inherited and present
everywhere, is therefore super-personal or impersonal. The conscious
and the personal unconscious contain as personal differentiations the
"parties supérieures" of the mental function, therefore the part that
has been acquired and developed ontogenetically.
An individual therefore who joins the _a priori_ and unconsciously-given
collective psyche on to his ontogenetically acquired assets, enlarges
thereby the periphery of his personality in an unjustifiable way, with
the corresponding consequences. Inasmuch as the collective psyche
is the "partie inférieure" of the mental function, and therefore is
the fundamental structure underlying every personality, it weighs
heavily upon and depreciates the personality; a fact that is expressed
in the afore-mentioned stifling of self-confidence, and in the
unconscious increase of the ego-emphasis up to the point of a morbid
will to power. Inasmuch as the collective psyche ranks even above the
personality, because it is the mother foundation upon which all personal
differentiations are based, and because it is the common mental function
of the sum total of the individual, therefore its incorporation in the
personality may evoke inflation of self-confidence, an inflation which
is then compensated by an extraordinary sense of inferiority in the
unconscious.
_A dissolution of the pairs of opposites in the personality sets
in_ if, through the assimilation of the unconscious, the collective
psyche be included in the inventory of the personal mental functions.
Alongside the pairs of opposites already alluded to that are so
particularly evident in the neurotic, viz. megalomania and sense of
inferiority, there are also many other pairs, of which I will only
mention the specifically moral pair, that is, good and evil (_scientes
bonum et malum_). They accompany the increase or depreciation of
self-confidence. The specific virtues and vices of humanity are
contained in the collective psyche, just as everything else is. One
man ascribes all the collective virtue to himself as his own personal
merit; another accounts as personal guilt what is but collective
vice. Both are just as illusionary as the sense of greatness and of
inferiority, for imaginary virtues as well as imaginary vices are only
the pairs of moral opposites contained in the collective psyche, which
have become perceptible or have artificially been made conscious. How
far the collective psyche contains these pairs of opposites is shown
by primitive peoples, whose great virtue is praised by one observer;
whereas another observer of the same race reports only the worst
impressions. Both views are true of primitive man, whose personal
differentiation is only beginning; his mental function is essentially
collective. He is more or less identified with the collective psyche,
and therefore without any personal responsibility or inner conflict; his
virtues and vices are collective. Conflict only begins when a conscious
personal development of the mind has already started, whereby the reason
becomes aware of the irreconcilable nature of the pairs of opposites.
The struggle to repress is the consequence of this realisation. Man
wants to be good, therefore the bad must be repressed; this puts an end
to the paradise of the collective psyche.
The repression of the collective psyche, in so far as it was conscious,
was a necessity for the development of the personality, because
collective psychology and personal psychology are in a certain
sense irreconcilable. In the history of thought, whenever a fresh
psychological attitude acquires collective value the formation of
schisms begins. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the history
of religion. A collective point of view, although it may be necessary,
is always dangerous for the individual. It is dangerous because it
is apt to choke and smother personal differentiation. It has derived
this capacity from the collective psyche, which is itself a result of
psychological differentiation of the strong gregarious instincts of
humanity. Collective thought and feeling, and collective accomplishment,
are relatively easy in comparison with individual function and
performance; a fact that is only too prone to lead to a fining down
to the collective level, and is peculiarly disastrous to personal
development. The concomitant loss of personality is replaced--as
is always the case in psychology--by an unconscious all-compelling
binding to and identification with the collective psyche. It cannot
be denied, and should be warningly emphasized that in the analysis
of the unconscious, the collective psychology is merged into the
personal psychology, with the afore-mentioned unpleasant consequences.
These consequences are either bad for the individual's vital feeling
(Lebensgefühl), or they injure his fellow-beings if he have any power
over his environment. Being identified with the collective psyche he
will inevitably try to force the claims of his unconscious upon others,
for identification with the collective psyche is accompanied by a
feeling of universal validity ("God-Almightiness"), which disregards the
different psychology of his fellows.
The worst abuses of this kind may be removed by a clear understanding
and appreciation of the fact that there are totally different
psychological types, and that a psychology of one type cannot be forced
into the mould of another. It is indeed almost impossible for one
type to understand the other completely, and a perfect comprehension
of another's individuality is impossible. _Due regard for another's
individuality_ is not only advisable but is absolutely essential in
analysis, if the development of the other's personality is not to be
stifled. It should not be forgotten that the one type thinks that he is
leaving another person free when he grants him freedom of action, and
the other type when he grants him freedom of thought. In analysis both
must be conceded, in so far as reasons of self-preservation permit the
analyst to accord them. An excessive desire to understand or explain
things is just as useless and injurious as a lack of comprehension.
The collective natural propensities and primary forms of idea and
feeling which analysis of the unconscious has shown to be effective are
an acquisition for the conscious personality which cannot be admitted
unreservedly without prejudicial results.
In practical treatment[253] it is therefore of the utmost importance
to keep the aim of individual development constantly before us. If for
instance the collective psyche be conceived as a personal possession or
as a personal burden, an unbearable weight or strain is put upon the
personality. Hence we must make a clear distinction between the personal
and the collective psyche. In practice this distinction is not easy
because the personal grows out of the collective psyche, and is most
closely joined with it. It is therefore difficult to say which materials
are to be termed collective and which personal. There is no doubt, for
instance, that the archaic symbols so often found in phantasies and
dreams are collective factors. All primary propensities and forms of
thought and feeling are collective; so is everything about which men
are universally agreed, or which is universally understood, said or
done. Upon close consideration it is astonishing to note how much of
our so-called individual psychology is really collective; so much that
the individual element quite disappears. Individuation, however, is
an indispensable psychological requirement. The crushing predominance
of what is collective should make us realise what peculiar care and
attention must be given to the delicate plant "individuality," if it is
to develop.
Human beings have a capacity which is of the utmost use for purposes
of collectivism and most prejudicial to individuation, and that is
the capacity to _imitate_. Collective psychology cannot dispense with
imitation, without which the organization of the State and Society would
be impossible. Imitation includes the idea of suggestibility, suggestive
effect, and mental infection.
But we see daily how the mechanism of imitation is used, or rather
abused, for the purposes of personal differentiation; some prominent
personality, or peculiar trait or activity is simply imitated, which at
least brings about an external differentiation from the environment.
As a rule this delusive attempt to attain individual differentiation
by means of imitation comes to a standstill as mere affectation, the
individual remaining on the same plane as before, only a few degrees
more sterile than formerly, and under an unconscious compulsory bondage
to his environment.
In order to find out what is really individual in us, we should have to
give the matter deep thought, and we should certainly become aware how
exceedingly difficult such a discovery is.
III.--THE INDIVIDUAL AS AN EXCERPT OF THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE.
We now come to a problem the overlooking of which would cause the
greatest confusion.
As I said before, the immediate result of the analysis of the
unconscious is that additional personal portions of the unconscious are
incorporated into the conscious. I called those parts of the unconscious
which are repressed but capable of being made conscious, _the personal
unconscious_. I showed moreover that through the annexation of the
deeper layers of the unconscious, which I called the _impersonal
unconscious_, an extension of the personality is brought about which
leads to the state of God-Almightiness ("Gottähnlichkeit"). This state
is reached by a continuation of the analytical work, by means of which
we have already re-introduced what is repressed to consciousness. By
continuing analysis further we incorporate some distinctly impersonal
universal basic qualities of humanity with the personal consciousness,
which brings about the aforesaid enlargement, and this to some extent
may be described as an unpleasant consequence of analysis.
From this standpoint, the conscious personality seems to be a more or
less arbitrary excerpt of the collective psyche. It appears to consist
of a number of universal basic human qualities of which it is _à priori_
unconscious, and further of a series of impulses and forms which might
just as well have been conscious, but were more or less arbitrarily
repressed, in order to attain that excerpt of the collective psyche,
which we call personality. The term _persona_ is really an excellent
one, for persona was originally the mask which an actor wore, that
served to indicate the character in which he appeared. For if we really
venture to undertake to decide what psychic material must be accounted
personal and what impersonal, we shall soon reach a state of great
perplexity; for, in truth, we must make the same assertion regarding the
contents of the personality as we have already made with respect to the
impersonal unconscious, that is to say that it is _collective_, whereas
we can only concede _individuality to the bounds of the persona_, that
is to the particular choice of personal elements, and that only to a
very limited extent. It is only by virtue of the fact that the persona
is a more or less accidental or arbitrary excerpt of the collective
psyche that we can lapse into the error of deeming it to be _in toto_
individual, whereas as its name denotes, it is only a mask of the
collective psyche; _a mask which simulates individuality_, making others
and oneself believe that one is individual, whilst one is only acting a
part through which the collective psyche speaks.
If we analyse the persona we remove the mask and discover that what
appeared to be individual is at bottom collective. We thus trace
"the Little God of the World" back to his origin, that is, to a
personification of the collective psyche. Finally, to our astonishment,
we realise that the persona was only the mask of the collective psyche.
Whether we follow Freud and reduce the primary impulse to sexuality,
or Adler and reduce it to the elementary desire for power, or reduce
it to the general principle of the collective psyche which contains
the principles of both Freud and Adler, we arrive at the same result;
namely, the dissolution of the personal into the collective. Therefore
in every analysis that is continued sufficiently far, the moment arrives
when the aforesaid God-Almightiness must be realised. This condition
is often ushered in by peculiar symptoms; for instance, by dreams of
flying through space like a comet, of being either the earth, the sun,
or a star, or of being either extraordinarily big or small, of having
died, etc. Physical sensations also occur, such as sensations of being
too large for one's skin, or too fat; or hypnagogic feelings of endless
sinking or rising occur, of enlargement of the body or of dizziness.
This state is characterised psychologically by an extraordinary loss of
orientation about one's personality, about what one really is, or else
the individual has a positive but mistaken idea of that which he has
just become. Intolerance, dogmatism, self-conceit, self-depreciation,
contempt and belittling of "not analysed" fellow-beings, and also of
their opinions and activities, all very frequently occur. An increased
disposition to physical disorders may also occasionally be observed,
but this occurs only if pleasure be taken therein, thus prolonging this
stage unduly.
The wealth of the possibilities of the collective psyche is both
confusing and dazzling. The dissolution of the persona results in
the release of phantasy, which apparently is nothing else but the
functioning of the collective psyche. This release brings materials into
consciousness of whose existence we had no suspicion before. A rich mine
of mythological thought and feeling is revealed. It is very hard to hold
one's own against such an overwhelming impression. That is why this
phase must be reckoned one of the real dangers of analysis, a fact that
should not be concealed.
As may easily be understood, this condition is hardly bearable, and one
would like to put an end to it as soon as possible, for the analogy with
a mental derangement is too close. The essence of the most frequent form
of derangement--dementia præcox or schizophrenia--consists, as is well
known, in the fact that the unconscious to a large extent ejects and
replaces the conscious. The unconscious is given the value of reality,
being substituted for the reality function. The unconscious thoughts
become audible as voices, or visible as visions, or perceptible as
physical hallucinations, or they become fixed ideas of a kind that
supersede reality. In a similar, although not in the same way, by the
resolution of the persona of the collective psyche, the unconscious is
drawn into the conscious. The difference between this state of mind and
that of mental derangement consists in the fact that the unconscious is
brought up by the help of the conscious analysis; at least that is the
case in the beginning of analysis, when there are still strong cultural
resistances against the unconscious to be overcome. Later on, after the
removal of the barriers erected by time and custom, the unconscious
usually proceeds, so to say, in a peremptory manner, sometimes even
discharging itself in torrents into the consciousness. In this phase
the analogy with mental derangement is very close. But it would only
be a real mental disorder should the content of the unconscious _take
the place of the conscious reality_, that is, in other words, if the
contents of the unconscious were believed absolutely and without reserve.
IV.--THE ENDEAVOURS TO FREE THE INDIVIDUALITY FROM THE COLLECTIVE PSYCHE.
1. _The Regressive Restoration of the Persona._
The unbearableness of thus being identified with the collective psyche
forces us to find a radical solution. There are two ways open. The first
possibility is the regressive one of trying to restore the persona to
its former condition, by endeavouring to restrain the unconscious by the
application of a reductive theory; for instance, by declaring it to be
nothing but long-repressed and overdue infantile sexuality, for which
it would really be best to substitute the normal sexual function. This
solution is based upon the unmistakable sexualistic symbolism of the
language of the unconscious, and upon the concretistic interpretation
of the same. Or an attempt may be made to apply the power theory,
by conceiving the God-Almightiness as a "virile protest," and as an
infantile striving for power and self-preservation: a theory for which
support is found in the unmistakable pretensions to power that the
unconscious material contains. A further possibility would be to declare
the unconscious to be the archaic collective psychology of primitive
man, an explanation that would not only cover the sexualistic symbolism
and the "God-Almighty" aiming for power of the unconscious content, but
would also apparently do justice to the religious, philosophical, and
mythological aspects and tendencies of the unconscious content. In every
case the conclusion arrived at is the same, viz. that the unconscious is
nothing but this or that, which has already been adequately recognised
and acknowledged as infantile, useless, meaningless, impossible, and out
of date. There is nothing to be done but to shrug one's shoulders and
resign one's self to the inevitable.
To the patient there seems to be no alternative, if one wishes to
continue to live sensibly, but to restore in so far as is possible
that extract of the collective psyche termed persona, to lay the fact
of analysis silently aside, and do one's utmost to forget that one
possesses an unconscious. We shall find support in Faust's words:--
"The sphere of earth is known enough to me;
The view beyond is barred immutably:
A fool, who there his blinking eyes directeth,
And o'er his clouds of peers a place expecteth!
Firm let him stand, and look around him well!
This world means something to the capable.
Why needs he through Eternity to wend?
He here acquires what he can apprehend.
Thus let him wander down his earthly day;
When spirits haunt go quietly his way;
In marching onward, bliss and torment find,
Though every moment, with unsated mind!"
This would be a happy solution if one really could succeed in throwing
off the unconscious to such an extent as to withdraw the libido from
it, and so render it inoperative. But experience proves that energy
cannot be withdrawn from the unconscious; it continues operative, for
the unconscious contains and is indeed itself the source of libido,
from which issue the primary psychic elements, thought-feelings, or
feeling-thoughts--undifferentiated germs of idea and sentiment. It would
therefore be a delusion to believe that by means of some, so to say,
magical theory or method, the libido could be conclusively wrested from
the unconscious, or that it could be to a certain extent disconnected.
One may yield to this illusion for a time, but some day he will be
obliged to declare with Faust:--
"Now fills the air so many a haunting shape,
That no one knows how best he may escape.
What though one day with rational brightness beams,
The night entangles us in webs of dreams.
From our young fields of life we come, elate:
There croaks a bird; what croaks he? Evil fate!
By superstition constantly ensnared,
It grows to us and warns and is declared.
Intimidated thus we stand alone.--
The portal jars, yet entrance is there none.
Is any one here?
CARE: Yes! must be my reply.
FAUST: And, thou, who art thou, then?
CARE: Well--here am I.
FAUST: Avaunt!
CARE: _I am where I should be_:
Though no ear should choose to hear me,
Yet the shrinking heart must fear me;
Though transformed to mortal eyes,
Grimmest power I exercise."
The unconscious cannot be "analysed" to a finish, and thus brought to
a standstill. No one can wrest active force from it for any length of
time. Therefore to act according to the method just described is only
to deceive one's self, and is nothing but a new edition of an ordinary
repression.
2. _The Identification with the Collective Psyche._
The second way would be that of identification with the collective
psyche. That would mean the symptom of "God-Almightiness" developed
into a system; in other words, one would be the fortunate possessor of
the absolute truth, that had yet to be discovered; of the conclusive
knowledge, which would be the people's salvation. This attitude is
not necessarily megalomania ("Grössenwahn") in a direct form, but the
well-known milder form of having a prophetic mission. Weak minds which,
as is so often the case, have correspondingly an undue share of vanity
and misplaced naïveté at their disposal, run a considerable risk of
succumbing to this temptation. The obtaining access to the collective
psyche signifies a renewal of life for the individual, whether this
renewal of life be felt as something pleasant or unpleasant. It would
seem desirable to retain a hold upon this renewal: for one person,
because it increases his feeling for life ("Lebensgefühl"); for another,
because it promises a great accretion to his knowledge. Therefore both
of them, not wishing to deprive themselves of the rich values that lie
buried in the collective psyche, will endeavour by every means possible
to retain their newly gained union with the primal cause of life.
Identification appears to be the nearest way to it, for the merging of
the persona in the collective psyche is a veritable lure to unite one's
self with this "ocean of divinity," and, oblivious of the past, to
become absorbed in it. This piece of mysticism belongs to every finer
individual, just as the "yearning for the mother"--the looking back to
the source whence one originated--is innate in every one.
As I have demonstrated explicitly before,[254] there is a special value
and a special necessity hidden in the regressive longing--which, as is
well-known, Freud conceives as "infantile fixation" or as "incest-wish."
This necessity and longing is particularly emphasized in myths, where it
is always the strongest and best of people, in other words, the hero,
who follows the regressive longing and deliberately runs into danger of
letting himself be devoured by the monster of the maternal first cause.
But he is a hero only because, instead of letting himself be finally
devoured by the monster, he conquers it, and that not only once but
several times. It is only through the conquest of the collective psyche
that its true value can be attained, whether it be under the symbol
of capture of treasure, of an invincible weapon, of a magical means
of defence, or whatever else the myth devises as the most desirable
possession. Hence whoever identifies himself with the collective psyche,
also reaches the treasure which the dragon guards, but against his will
and to his own great injury, by thus allowing himself (mythologically
speaking) to be devoured by the monster and merged with it.
Identification with the collective psyche is therefore a failure;
this way ends just as disastrously as did the first, which led to the
severance of the persona from the collective psyche.
V.--LEADING PRINCIPLES FOR THE TREATMENT OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY.
In order to solve the problem how practical treatment can overcome the
assimilation of the collective psyche, we must first of all make quite
clear to ourselves what was the error of the two ways already described.
We saw that neither the one way nor the other led to any appropriate
result. The first way simply leads the patient back to the point of
departure, having lost the vital values contained in the collective
psyche. The second way leads him straight into the collective psyche,
having lost that detached human existence which alone renders possible a
bearable and satisfying life. There are on both sides values that should
not be lost to the individual.
The mistake is, therefore, neither in the collective psyche nor in the
individual psyche, _but in allowing the one to exclude the other_.
The monistic tendency assists this propensity, for it always suspects
and looks for _one_ principle everywhere. As a general psychological
tendency, monism is a peculiarity of differentiated feeling and thought,
corresponding to the keen desire to make the one or the other function
the supreme psychological principle. The introversion type only knows
the thought principle, and the extroversion type only that of feeling.
This psychological monism--or it would be better to say monotheism--has
the advantage of simplicity, and the disadvantage of one-sidedness. On
the one hand, it signifies the exclusion of the variety and true riches
of life; whilst on the other, it means the practicability of realizing
the ideals of the present day and of the near past. But it does not in
itself signify any actual possibility of human progress.
In the same way _rationalism_ tends towards exclusiveness. Its essence
is to exclude instantly whatever is opposed to its standpoint, whether
it be intellectually logical or emotionally so. In regard to reason
it is both monistic and autocratic. Special thanks are due to Bergson
for having broken a lance for the right of the irrational to exist.
Psychology will probably be obliged to acknowledge and to submit to a
plurality of principles, in spite of the fact that this does not suit
the scientific mind. Only so can psychology be saved from ship-wreck.
But with regard to individual psychology science must waive its claims.
For to speak of a scientific individual psychology is in itself a
_contradictio in adjecto_. It is necessarily always only the collective
part of an individual psychology that can be the subject of scientific
study, for the individual is--according to definition--something unique
and incomparable. A "scientific" individual psychology is a denial
of individual psychology. It may justly be suspected that individual
psychology is indeed a projection of the psychology of him who defines
it. Every individual psychology must have its own text-book, for the
universal text-book only contains collective psychology.
These remarks are intended to prepare for what has to be said about
the treatment of the aforesaid problem. The fundamental error of both
the afore-mentioned ways is simply that the subject is collectively
identified with the one or the other part of his psychology. His
psychology is individual as well as collective, but not in such a manner
as to merge the individual with what is collective, or the collective
with what is individual. The persona must be strictly separated from the
concept of the individual, in so far as the persona can be absolutely
merged with the collective. But what is individual is just that which
can never be absorbed in the collective, and is, too, never identical
with the collective. Therefore, an identification with the collective or
an arbitrary cutting-off from the collective is equivalent to illness;
it is pathological.
As has already been indicated, what is individual appears at first as
the particular selection of those elements of the collective psyche
that contribute to the composition of the persona. As I said before,
the components are not individual but collective. It is only their
combination, or the selection as a model of particular groups that
had already been combined, which is individual. That would be the
individual nucleus which is concealed by the personal mask. By the
particular differentiation of the persona, the resistance is shown of
the individuality to the collective psyche. By analysing the persona, we
transfer a greater value to the individuality, increasing thereby its
conflict with collectivity. This conflict obviously is a psychological
conflict in the individual. The dissolution of the compromise between
the two halves of a pair of opposites increases the effectiveness of
the contrast. This conflict does not exist within the sphere of purely
unconscious natural life, although the purely physiological life of the
individual also has to comply with collective demands.
The natural unconscious attitude is harmonious; the body, with its
capacities and needs, providing immediately indications and limitations,
that prevent intemperance and lack of proportion. A differentiated
psychological function, however, always inclines towards disproportion,
on account of the one-sidedness which is cultivated by the conscious
rationality of intention. What is called mental individuality, is,
also, an expression of the individual corporeity, being, so to speak,
identical with it. This sentence might obviously also be reversed,
a fact that does not materially alter the real psychological data
concerning the intimate relation of the individuality to the body. At
the same time, the body is also that which makes the subject resemble
all others to a great extent, although it is the individual body that is
differentiated from all others.
Similarly the mental or moral individuality differs from all others,
although in every respect it is so constituted as to place one person
on an equality with all others. Every living creature that is able
freely to develop itself individually without any coercion at all, will,
through the perfecting of its individuality, soonest realize the ideal
type of its species, and therefore, figuratively speaking, will have
collective validity.
The persona is always identical with a _typical_ attitude, in which
_one_ pyschological function dominates, _e.g._ feeling, or thought, or
intuition. This one-sidedness always causes the relative repression of
the other functions. In consequence of this circumstance, the persona
is hindering to the development of the individual. The dissolution of
the persona is, therefore, an indispensable condition of individuation.
It is, therefore, to some extent impossible to achieve individuation
by means of conscious intention; for conscious intention leads to a
conscious attitude, which excludes everything that "does not suit." But
the assimilation of the unconscious contents leads, on the contrary, to
a condition in which conscious intention is excluded, being replaced by
a process of development that appears to us irrational. This process
alone signifies individuation, its _product_ being individuality as
defined above, viz. as something individual that is at the same time
universal. So long as the persona exists individuality is repressed,
betraying itself at most by the particular selection of personal
requisites, of what might be called the actor's costumes. Only when the
unconscious is assimilated does the individuality become more prominent,
and with it also that uniting psychological phenomenon between the
ego and non-ego, expressed by the word _attitude_, is now no longer a
typical attitude but an individual one.
What is paradoxical in these formulations arises from the same cause
from which the conflict about the "universalia" formerly arose. The
phrase "animal nullumque animal genus est" makes the fundamental paradox
clearly comprehensible. What exists "really" is individual: that which
is universal is existing psychologically, but being caused by the
real-existing similarities of individual things. The individual is,
therefore, the individual thing that has, to a greater or less extent,
those attributes upon which the collective conception of "collectivity"
rests; and the more individual he is, the more he develops those
attributes that are the basis of a collective concept of human nature.
If a grotesque figure, suggested by the initial situation of our problem
be permitted, it is Buridan's ass between the two bundles of hay.
His questioning is obviously wrong: the question is not whether the
hay-bundle on the right or the left be the better one, or whether he
should begin to eat on the right or the left hand, _but what he himself
would like to do, what he is eager for_--that is the point. He is
thinking of the hay and not of himself, and therefore he does not know
what he really wants.
The question is: what at this moment is the natural direction of the
growth of this individual?
This question cannot be settled by any philosophy, religion or good
advice, but solely by an unprejudiced review of the psychological
germs of life which have resulted from the natural co-operation of the
conscious and unconscious on the one hand, and of the individual and the
collective on the other. One person looks for them in the conscious, and
another in the unconscious. But the conscious is only one side, and the
unconscious is only the other. For it should never be forgotten that
dreams are compensatory or complementary to consciousness. Were this not
the case, we should be obliged to regard dreams as a source of knowledge
superior to the conscious. This view would undoubtedly carry us back
to the mentality of the augur, and we should have to accept all the
consequences of such a superstitious attitude, unless, indeed, we look
upon dreams as valueless, as does the vulgar mind.
We find the _unifying function_ that we are seeking, _in the
phantasies_ in which everything that has any effectual determination
is present. But phantasies have a bad reputation among psychologists.
The psychoanalytical theories hitherto obtaining have treated them
accordingly. For both Freud and Adler the phantasy is nothing but a
so-called "symbolic" disguise of what both investigators suppose to be
the primary propensities and aims. But in opposition to these views it
should be emphasised--not for theoretical but for essentially practical
reasons--that the phantasy may indeed be thus causally explained
and depreciated, but that it nevertheless is the creative soil for
everything that has ever brought development to humanity. The phantasy
as a psychological function has a peculiar non-reducible value of its
own, whose roots are in both the conscious and the unconscious contents,
and in what is collective as well as in what is individual.
But whence comes the bad reputation of the phantasy? It owes that
reputation chiefly to the circumstance that it ought not to be taken
literally. It is worthless if understood concretistically. If we
understand semiotically, as Freud does, it is interesting from the
scientific standpoint. But if it be understood _hermeneutically, as an
actual symbol_, it provides us with the cue that we need in order to
develop our life in harmony with ourselves.
For the significance of a symbol is not that it is a disguised
indication of something that is generally known,[255] but that it is
an endeavour to elucidate by analogy what is as yet completely unknown
and only in process of formation.[256] The phantasy represents to us
that which is just developing under the form of a more or less apposite
analogy. By analytical reduction to something universally known, we
destroy the actual value of the symbol; but it is appropriate to its
value and meaning to give it an hermeneutical interpretation.
The essence of hermeneutics--an art that was formerly much
practised--consists in adding more analogies to that already given
by the symbol: in the first place, subjective analogies given by the
patient as they occur to him; and in the second place, objective
analogies provided by the analyst out of his general knowledge. The
initial symbol is much enlarged and enriched by this procedure, the
result being a highly complex and many-sided picture, which may now be
reduced to _tertia comparationis_. Thence result certain psychological
lines of development of an individual as well as collective nature.
No science upon earth could prove the accuracy of these lines; on the
contrary, rationalism could very easily prove that they are wrong. But
these lines vindicate their validity by their _value for life_. The
chief thing in practical treatment is that people should get a hold of
their own life, not that the principle of their life should be provable
or "right."
Of course, true to the spirit of scientific superstition _suggestion_
will be mooted. But it should long ago have been realised that a
suggestion is only accepted by one it suits. Beyond that there
is no suggestion, otherwise the treatment of neurosis would be
extremely simple, for we should only need to suggest health. This
pseudo-scientific talk about suggestion is based upon the unconscious
superstition that suggestion actually possesses some real magic power.
No one succumbs to suggestion unless from the very bottom of his heart
he be willing to co-operate.
By means of the hermeneutical treatment of the phantasies we arrive
at the synthesis of the individual with the collective psyche, put
theoretically, that is, but practically, one indispensable condition
is yet lacking. For it belongs to the regressive disposition of the
neurotic--a disposition in which he has been confirmed in the course of
his illness--to take neither himself nor the world seriously, but always
to rely on this or that method or circumstance to effect a cure, quite
apart from his own serious co-operation. "But you can't wash the dog
without getting his skin wet." No cure can be effected without unlimited
willingness and absolute seriousness on the part of the patient. There
are no magical cures for neurosis. Just as soon as we begin to elaborate
the symbolic outlines of the path, the patient must begin to walk
thereon. If he delude himself and shirk it, no cure can result. He must
really work and live according to what he has seen and recognised as
the direction for the time being of his individual life-line, and must
continue thereon until a distinct reaction of his unconscious shows him
that he is beginning in good faith to go a wrong way.
He who does not possess this moral function of faithfulness to himself
will never get rid of his neurosis; but he who has this faithfulness can
find the way out.
Neither physician nor patient must yield to the delusion that "being
analysed" is in itself sufficient to remove a neurosis. That would be
deception and self-delusion. Ultimately it is infallibly the moral
factor that decides between health and illness.
By the construction of the individual's life-line the ever-varying
trends and tendencies of his libido are made conscious. These life-lines
are not identical with the "directing fictions" discovered by Adler,
which are none other than arbitrary attempts to cut the persona off from
the collective psyche, and to give it independence. It might rather
be said that the "directing fiction" is an unsuccessful attempt to
construct a life-line. The unsuitability of the "directing fiction" is
also proved by the fact that the lines are tenaciously retained for much
too long a time. The hermeneutically constructed life-line is short, for
life follows no straight lines that indicate the future long beforehand,
for, as Nietzsche says, "All truth is crooked." Life-lines are therefore
neither principles nor ideals of universal validity, but points of view
and adaptations of ephemeral validity. An abatement of vital intensity,
a perceptible loss of libido, or an excessive passion or ecstasy--all
show that one such line is left, and that a new line begins, or rather
should begin. Sometimes it is enough to leave the revealing of the
new line to the unconscious; but this course should indeed not be
recommended to the neurotic under all circumstances, though there are
cases where what is needed is to learn to trust to so-called chance.
However, it is not advisable to let one's self drift for any length
of time; a watchful eye should at least be kept upon the reactions of
the unconscious, that is to say, upon the dreams: these indicate like a
barometer the one-sidedness of our attitude.[257] Therefore, I consider
it necessary, in contrast to some other analysts, for the patient after
analysis to remain in contact with the unconscious, if he would avoid
a relapse. That is why I am convinced that the real end of analysis is
reached when the patient has acquired adequate knowledge of the method
to remain in contact with the unconscious, and sufficient psychological
knowledge to be able to understand approximately his ever-changing
life-line; otherwise he is not in a position to follow the direction of
the libido currents in the unconscious, and thereby to gain conscious
support in the development of his individuality. Every serious case of
neurosis needs this weapon in order to maintain the cure.
In this sense analysis is not a method that is a medical monopoly, but
rather an art or technique or science of psychological life, which he
who has been cured must continue to foster, for the sake of his own
welfare and that of his environment. If he understands this aright he
will not pose as a psychoanalytical prophet nor as a public reformer,
but truly understanding the common weal, he will first himself reap
the benefit of the self-knowledge acquired in his treatment, and then
he will let the example of his life work what good it can, rather than
indulge in aggressive talk and missionary propaganda.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 249: Lecture given before the Zürich School for Analytical
Psychology, 1916.]
[Footnote 250: In a certain sense the "likeness to God" is always
_a priori_ present even before analysis, not only in the neurotic,
but also in the normal individual, with the difference only that the
normal individual is effectively separated from the perception of the
unconscious, whilst this separation becomes increasingly impossible to
the neurotic. In consequence of his special sensitiveness, the neurotic
is _a priori_ more closely affected by the processes of the unconscious
than is the normal person, wherefore the God-Almightiness becomes more
distinct in him than in the normal individual. By means of the knowledge
of the unconscious acquired through analysis the "God-likeness" is
increased.]
[Footnote 251: Pp. 69 and 95.]
[Footnote 252: The collective mind represents collective thought, the
collective soul represents collective feeling, and the _collective
psyche_ represents the general collective psychological function.]
[Footnote 253: I should here observe that I am intentionally refraining
from discussing our problem from the standpoint of the psychology
of types. A specialised and somewhat complicated investigation was
necessary in order to discover formulations appropriate to the types.
For instance, "person" means something totally different to the
extrovert from what it does to the introvert. I must content myself
here with pointing out the difficulties such a task would involve. In
the types, the conscious and real adapted function in childhood is
collective, but soon acquires a personal character, and may retain this
to the end, unless the individual feels impelled to develop his type
to the uttermost. If this happens, the conscious real adapted function
attains a degree of perfection which may claim universal validity
and therefore bears a collectivistic character, in contrast to its
originally collective character. According to this mode of expression
collective psyche would be identical with "herd soul" in the individual;
but the collectivistic psychology would be a highly differentiated
adaptation to society. For the introvert the conscious real adapted
function is _thinking_, which in the lower stages of development is
entirely personal, but has a tendency to acquire a universal character
of a collectivistic kind; his feeling remains distinctly personal so far
as it is conscious, and collective-archaic in so far as it has remained
unconscious or is repressed. The opposite applies to the _feeling_ and
thought of the extrovert. The introvert is always concerned with the
endeavour to preserve the integrity of his ego, which results in a
different attitude towards his own person from that of the extrovert,
whose adaptation is made through his feelings, even at the cost of his
own person. These few sentences indicate into what an extraordinarily
difficult situation we should have been led had we considered our
problem from the standpoint of the types.]
[Footnote 254: "Psychology of the Unconscious."]
[Footnote 255: That is, of a universal primary propensity or a universal
primal aim.]
[Footnote 256: Cp. _Silberer_: "Probleme der Mystic und ihrer Symbolik."
Wien, 1914. ("Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism.")]
[Footnote 257: It should be borne in mind that no moral function is to
be sought in this conception of dreams, nor do I look for it there.
This function is just as little "teleological" in the sense of a
philosophical teleology, that is to say of a set aim or purpose. It
is in the first place compensatory, because it presents a subliminal
picture of the actual situation. The phenomenon should first of all be
understood from a purely causal standpoint. But it would be unjust to
the essence of what is psychological if one were to consider it purely
causally. For it does not only tolerate, but also demand, a final
point of view. In other words, the question arises, what is the use of
bringing just this material to constellation? This is not to assert that
the final meaning of a phenomenon had already existed as an _a priori_
given purpose in the preparatory stages of the phenomenon. It would not
be permissible, according to the theory of cognition, to presuppose some
pre-existing purpose from the unmistakable final meaning of biological
mechanisms. But it would be narrow-minded if, with the justifiable
omission of the teleological conclusion, one wished also to give up the
point of view of finality. The utmost that can be said is, it is _as if_
there were some pre-existing purpose present. In psychology one must be
on one's guard against exclusive reliance either upon causality or upon
teleology.]
SUMMARY.
A. _Psychological Material must be divided into_ CONSCIOUS _and_
UNCONSCIOUS _Contents_.
1. The _conscious contents_ are partly _personal_, in so far as their
universal validity is not recognised; and partly _impersonal_, that is,
collective, in so far as their universal validity is recognised.
2. The _unconscious contents_ are partly _personal_, in so far as they
concern solely repressed materials of a personal nature, that have once
been relatively conscious and whose universal validity is therefore not
recognised when they are made conscious; partly _impersonal_, in so far
as the materials concerned are recognised as _impersonal_ and of purely
universal validity, of whose earlier even relative consciousness we have
no means of proof.
B. _The Composition of the Persona._
1. The conscious personal contents constitute the conscious personality,
the conscious ego.
2. The unconscious personal contents constitute the _self_, the
unconscious or subconscious ego.
3. The conscious and unconscious contents of a personal nature
constitute the persona.
C. _The Composition of the Collective Psyche._
1. The conscious and unconscious contents of an _impersonal_ or
collective nature compose the psychological _non-ego_, the _image of
the object_. These materials can appear analytically as projections of
feeling or of opinion, but they are _a priori_ collectively identical
with the object-imago, that is they appear as qualities of the object,
and are only _a posteriori_ recognised as subjective psychological
qualities.
2. The persona is that grouping of conscious and unconscious contents
which is opposed as ego to the non-ego. The general comparison
of personal contents of different individuals establishes their
far-reaching similarity, extending even to identity, by which the
_individual_ nature of personal contents, and therewith of the persona,
is for the most part suspended. To this extent the persona must be
considered an excerpt of the collective psyche, and also a component of
the collective psyche.
3. The collective psyche is therefore composed of the object-imago and
the persona.
D. _What is Individual._
1. What is individual appears partly as the principle that decides the
selection and limitation of the contents that are accepted as personal.
2. What is individual is the principle by which an increasing
differentiation from the collective psyche is made possible and enforced.
3. What is individual manifests itself partly as an impediment to
collective accomplishment, and as a resistance against collective
thinking and feeling.
4. What is individual is the uniqueness of the combination of universal
(collective) psychological elements.
E. _We must divide the Conscious and Unconscious Contents into
Individualistic and Collectivistic._
1. A content is individualistic whose developing tendency is directed
towards the differentiation from the collective.
2. A content is collectivistic whose developing tendency aims at
universal validity.
3. There are insufficient criteria by which to designate a given content
as simply individual or collective, for uniqueness is very difficult to
prove, although it is a perpetually and universally recurrent phenomenon.
4. The life-line of an individual is the resultant of the
individualistic and collectivistic tendency of the psychological process
at any given moment.
INDEX
_Aberrations of Marriage_ (Michaelis), 365
Abreaction, 242
Absolute unconscious, 430-36
Abstract feelings, 405
" idea, 438, 448
Abstraction, 293
Accidentalness, 398
Accoucheur, the analyst as, 268, 374
Acts, symptomatic (Freud), 281
Adaptation to father, 127, 160, 175
" mother, 125, 159, 171, 232
Adapted function, 405
Adler, viii, ix, 191, 223, 260-61, 290, 297-98, 330, 340, 343-44,
349, 352, 384-85, 390-91, 404, 458, 470
Alcohol, influence of, 12
Altruism, 269
Ambitendency, 200
Ambivalency, 200, 269
Amnesia of Ivenes, 68
" periodic, 9
Amnesic disturbances, 66-7
Anæsthesia, systematic, 68
Analysis not a reasoning method, 208
" prejudices against, 206-07
" sexualistic conception of, vii
" _v._ interpretation, 219
Analyst as accoucheur, 268, 374
" must be analysed, 244
Analytical material compared with poet's material, 214
" psychology, moral effect of, 375-76
Anamnesis not psychoanalysis, 207
Anna, little, 132-54
Antithesis, regulating function of, 415
Anxiety dreams, 160, 372
Apollo, Introversion, 295
Archaic view of life, x
"Arrangements" (Adler), 297, 390
Aschaffenburg, 352
Ass, Buridan's, 467
Assimilation by analogy, 223
Assimilation of unconscious, 449
Association, co-ordinance to father, 157
" familiar, 120-32, 159
" method, 80
Association-concordance (Kerner), 92
" test, calculation in, 109
" " guilt complex, 107
Attack, hysterical (Ivenes) ætiology of, 74
Attention, dispersion of, 46-8
_Attitudes passionelles_, 18
Augur, medical, 244, 467
Authority, faith in, 277
Autochthonous myths, 451
Auto-hypnosis, 77, 240
Automatic personalities (Ivenes), 82
" table movements, 49, 53, 57
" writing, 27, 49, 54, 57
Automatism, motor cryptomnesia, 91
" as hypnotist, 79
Automatisms, 13, 47, 49, 54
" of S. W., 20
Autonomous complexes, 375
Auto-suggestion, 51, 53, 61
" " (objective), 79
Azam, case of Albert X., 9
" " Felida, 66
Babel, tower of, 416
Baptism, the rite analysed, 215
Bayle, 315
Bergson, 231, 274, 293, 315, 348, 357, 464
Bernheim, 237
Binet, 2, 12, 47, 56, 59, 60, 85, 289, 353
Binet's definition of somnambulism, 49
Biological duties, 274
Bircher, 250
Birth, theories of child, 134
Bleuler, 5, 14, 201, 312, 354
Bleuler's theory of negativism, 201
Boileau's case, 9
Bonamaison's case, 76
Bourne, Ansel, case of, 9
Bourru and Burot, 66
Brains, similarity of, 451
Bresler's case, 89
Breuer, 236, 241
Breuer's case, 356-358
Brill, 175
Burgholzi, cases of mental disease analysed, 316
" " dementia præcox, 322, 328-35
Buridan's ass, 467
Calculation in association test, 109
Camuset, 66
Case, Azam's, 9, 66
" Boileau's, 9
" Bonamaison's, 76
" Bresler's, 89
" Breuer's, 356-58
" Dyce's, 84
" Flournoy's, 69
" Hoefelt's, 66
" Janet's, 55
" Kalk's, 65
" Macnish's, 11
" Mesnet's, 10-11
" Naef's, 8
" Pronst's, 9, 11
" Renaudin's, 67
" Schreber's, 343-46
" Weir Mitchell's, 64-5, 84
Case of Albert X. (Azam), 9
" American business man, 399
" Christ, 394
" Elise K., 3-7
" Felida (Azam), 66
" Helen Smith (Flournoy), 69
" little Anna, 132-54
" little Hans, 132
" Lucie (Janet), 55
" Mary Reynolds (Weir-Mitchell), 64-5, 84
" S. W., 16-45
Cases of dementia præcox, 322, 328-35
" mental disease analysed (Burgholzi's), 316
Catalepsy (Ivenes), 28
Catharsis, 374
Catholic Church, 271
Causal principle in science, 339
" view (Freud), 261
Cellini, Benvenuto, 63
Censor, Freud, 305
Change in character (Azam's case), 66
" " (Hoefelt's case), 66
" " (Ivenes), 84
" " (Kalk's case), 65
" " (Mary Reynolds), 64
" " (S. W.), 69
Charcot, 8, 356, 361
" classification of somnambulic states, 8
" trauma theory, 361
Chevreul, 50
Christ, religion of, 366
Christian science, 126, 207, 244, 249
Civilisation and neurosis, 224, 374
Claparède, 188, 232, 348
" (footnote), 287
Clark lectures, 94-156
Classification of dreams, 310
Co-function in unconscious, 405
Collective psyche, 431-32, 455-59, 472
" " identification with, 459, 462
" " treatment of, 463
" mind and soul, 451
" vices and virtues, 453
Comparison of dream-symbols with somnambulic personalities, 59
Compensation, unconscious, 201, 236, 280, 284, 285, 467
Complex, concealment, 117
" Electra, 228
" incompatibility, 202
" Kern, 228
" Œdipus, 228, 232
" resistance, 201
" sensibility, 203
Complexes, autonomous, 377
" function, 426
" physicians' own, 216, 243, 257
Comprehension by analogy, 223
Conflict moral, 225, 242, 247, 251
Content, manifest and latent of dream, 372
Conscious invention _v._ dream, 178
" material, use of in analysis, 216
Consciousness alternating, 11
" double, 1
Conservation of energy, 231, 411
Constellation, parental, 160-75
Constellations, familiar, 119-132
Converted _libido_, 141
Cook, Miss Florence, 37
Correspondence of Jung and Loy, 236-77
Counterparts of virtues, 389
Creative work of unconscious, additional, 85
Crucial points in Psychoanalysis, 236-77
Cryptomnesia, 78, 86, 87, 199
" Nietzsche example, 87
Cryptomnesic hallucinations, 91
" motor-automatism, 91
Darkness, effect of, on suggestibility, 59
Dawson Williams, Dr., 278
Deception, Ivenes' wilful, 44
" of doctor by patient, 260, 266-67
"Deep" Psychology, 354
Defence mechanism, 424
Deficiency, emotional, 2
Deficiency, intellectual, 2
" mental, 2
" neurasthenic, 14
" psychopathic, 3, 13
Definition of _libido_, 156, 288
Delbruck, 70
Delirium, hysterical, 7
Dementia præcox, 129, 143, 149, 151, 182, 201, 283, 312-18
_Depreciation_ by introverted type, 289
Depressions of puberty, 127
Dessoir, 85
Diagnosis of facts, 106-13
Diehl, 14
Differentiation of what is individual, 456
Dionysus, 183
" extraversion, 295
Dionysian orgies, 366
"Disposable" energy, 401
Distortion produced by resistances, 285
Dogma, 224
Dominants of unconscious, 432-33
Double consciousness, 1, 84
Dragon, symbol of collective psyche, 463
Dream-analysis the real instrument of the unconscious, 209, 373
Dreams, anxiety, 160, 372
" as myth, 436
" association method, 302
" classification of, 310
" compensatory character of, 278-286, 467
" conception of differing from Freud, 222
" content, manifest and latent, 372
" Freud's conception of, 222
" instances of analysed, 147, 193, 217, 219, 303
" many-sided, 217
" moral function of, 309, 471
" no arbitrary interpretation, 218
" no fixed symbols, 218, 221, 265, 308
" number, 191, 193, 197
" objective interpretation of, 421
" of crab analysed, 418
" St. Augustine's, 307
" subjective interpretation of, 421
" symbolism of, 308
" typical themes of, 310
Dualism in Ivenes' subconscious personalities, 79
Dubois, 208, 243, 255
Duplication of attributes, 182
Duty to children, parental, 153
Duties biological, 274
Ecce Homo, 381-84, 417
Eccentricities pre-exist illness, 282, 289
Ecstasy, 15, 20
" (Bettina Brentano), 75
Ego-complex, 80, 86
" " (Ivenes), 83
" function, 416
" instinct, 383
" powerlessness of, 450
" psychological, 434
Ego, second (Dessoir), 85
" somnambulic (Ivenes), 76
_Elan vital_, 231
Electra-complex, 228
Emotional type, Fourneau Jordan, 402
Empiricism, 291, 301
Enantiodromia, 415-17
Energic view point, 231
Energy as Melungu, 413
" conservation of, 411
" "disposable," 401
" primordial image of, 412
" psychic, 401
" transformation of, 413
Entoptic phenomena, 61
Enuresis nocturna, 170, 237, 239, 246
Epilepsy, 1
Epileptoid attacks, 14
Erler, 71
Erotic conflict, 364-65, 370
Esquirol, 315
_Etat second_, 8
Etiological moment of neurosis, 405
Exhaustive states, 13
Experiments by Dr. Fürst, 157-58
Extroversion, 288, 347, 391, 401-6, 437
" regressive, 288
Familial associations, 120-32, 159
" constellations, influence of, 127
Fanaticism, 283
Fascination, 425-27
Father, adaptation to, 127, 160, 175
Father-complex, 270
Faust analysed, 338-41, 384, 460-61
Fear of unconscious, 434
Fechner, 352
Feeling-thoughts, 461
Feelings of extrovert, 403-5
" introvert, 403-5
Felida, case of, 84
Féré, 12
Feuerbach, 346
Final view (Adler), 261
Finck (types), 296
Fixation, Freud's view of, 227
" infantile, 228, 462
Flournoy, 60, 78, 199, 345-46
" case of Helen Smith, 69
_Folie circulaire_, 67
Forel, 70, 261
Forel, _The Sexual Question_, 365
Frank, 236, 245, 249
Frazer, 413
Freud, 59, 73, 82, 104, 132-33, 156, 170, 191, 227, 241, 281, 297-98,
305-08, 319, 343-44, 349, 354-55, 359, 371, 373, 381, 404, 409,
445, 458
Freudian investigations, 133
Freud's case of paranoid dementia, 336-37
" conception of dreams, 222
" method, 339
" psychology of dreams, 300
" publications, opposition to, 355
" theory, 261
" " of infantile sexuality, 172
Frobenius, 310, 436
Function, adapted, 405
" co-, 405
" complexes, 426
" transcendental, 417, 436, 441, 468
Fürst's experiments, 119, 157-58
Future character (Felida), 84
" " (Mary Reynolds), 84
Gall, 315
Genesis of dreams, 212
Genius, 1
Gley, 50
Glossolalia, 89-91
" instances of, 28
God-Almightiness, 450, 457, 462
" " physical symptoms of, 458
God's existence, 415
" idea, 451
" primitive concept of, 434
" projection of, 432
Goethe, 12, 339, 384, 460-61
" psychic stimulation of, 75
Gottähnlichkeit, 450
Grandfathers I. and II. (Ivenes), 80
Grebelskaja, 337
Gross, 348
" (types), 296-97
Guilt complex, association test, 107
Guinon and Waltke, experiment of, 10, 47
Hallucination, cryptomnesia, 91
" hypnosis in production of, 58
_Hallucination téléologique_, 84
Hallucinations, 11, 15, 49, 58, 282
" Helen Smith's, 63, 64
" hypnagogic, 13, 23, 62
" hypnopompic, 23, 62
" in somnambulism, 60
" intuitive, 64
" negative, 68
Hallucinatory persons, why separated, 83
Hans, little, 132
Haôma, 413
Hecker, 64
Hedonism, viii
Hegel, 290
Heim, 412
Heimarmenê, 413
Herd-animal, man a, 263
" -soul, 455
Hermeneutics, 468-69
Hero, the, 462
" myth, 438
Hiawatha, 436
Hoch, 289
Hoche, 355
Hoefelt, spontaneous somnambulism, 66
Homunculus, 404
Homosexual tendencies, 165, 172, 420
Hypermnesia (footnote), 86
Hypnagogic activities, 23, 71, 204
" flashes, 22
Hypnopompical dreams, 23
Hypnosis in production of hallucination, 58
Hypnotic treatment, 6, 237
" " diametrically opposed to psychoanalysis, 207
Hypnotism, essential character of, 243
" in automatic writing, 54, 56
Hysteria, 1, 7
" case of, 385
" and extroversion, 406
Hysteric, extreme sensibility of, 85
Hysterical attack (Ivenes), ætiology of, 74
" " induced by automatism, 79
" deafness and paralysis (Breuer), 356
" delirium, 71
" dissociation, 81, 287
" forgetfulness, 72
Hysterical identification, 71
" somnambulism (case of Elise K.), 3
Hystero-epilepsy (Janet), 81
Hystero-epileptic attacks, 81
Hystero-hypnosis (Ivenes), 79
Idea, abstract, 438, 448
Identification with collective psyche, 420-25, 462-65
" " God, 337
" " reason, 416
Images, primordial, 410, 448
" psychic, 438
Imitation, 456
Imperialism, 399
Impersonal unconscious, 437
Importance of the unconscious, 278
" " types, 348
Incest-barrier, 230
" -wish, 462
Individual, the, a changing identity, ix
" metaphysical needs of, 223
Individuality, 473, 457, 465
Individuation, 440, 456
Infantile fixation, 228, 462
" milieu, influence of, 131
" transference, 298
Infantility in primitive people, 230
Inferiority, moral, 449
Inspiration, 15
Instances of dreams analysed, 217, 219
Instinct-ego, 383
Intelligence-complex, 114
Interpolations in dreams, 176
" in rumour, 176
" _v._ analysis, 219
Interpretation, causal reductive, 419
" objective, 421
" subjective, 421
" synthetic, 417
Interpretation of Viennese school, one-sided, 217
Introjection, 414
Introversion, 137, 140, 288, 347, 391, 437, 401-3
" neurosis in child, 140
Intuitive hallucinations, 64
Itten, 337
_Ivenes_, 33-34, 68-84
" journeys on other side, 34
" mystic character, 69
" oracular sayings, 36
" race-motherhood, 39
James, William, 290-92, 401
" " pragmatism, 348
Janet, 46, 74, 81, 104, 232, 234, 452
" automatic writing (case of Lucie), 55
" Lucie and Léonie, 66
" Léonie, 69
Janus face, 174
Jeanne d'Arc, 63, 84
" " visions of, 63
Jonah, 436
Jung, correspondence with Loy, 236-277
K., Miss Elise, case of, 15
Kadi, the, 390
Kalk's case, 65
Kant, 278, 303, 339
Katatonic dementia præcox, 324
" negativism, 202
Kern-complex, 228
Kerner, 87, 88
Kerner's book, 27, 35, 93
" _Prophetess of Prevorst_, 27, 69
Kræpelin, 352
Kraepelin-Aschaffenburg scheme, 157
Kraft-Ebing, 7
Lapses (case of S. W.), 20-23
Laughter, symptomatic, 388
Lebensgefühl, 462
Legrand du Saulle, 66
Lehmann, 50, 51
Leibniz, 278
Lethargy hysterical (Ivenes), 74
" " (Loewenfeld), 76
Let-instinct-live theory, 379
Libido, 231, 347-48, 407, 471
" animal rôle of, 423-26
" canalisation of, 260, 274
" defined, 156, 288
" emanates from unconscious, 461
" stored-up, 234
Life, archaic view of, x
Life-lines psychological, 470, 474
Literature of psychoanalysis, 154-55
Little Anna, 132-54
Little Hans, 132
Loewenfeld, 74-76
Longfellow, 436
Loy's correspondence with Jung, 236-77
Lumpf-theory, 147
Lying, pathological, 15, 70, 71
Macario, 64
Macnish's case, 11
Maeder, 337, 447
Man a herd animal, 263, 269
" hylic, etc., 405
Martian language (Helen Smith), 90
Masculinity, unconscious, 420, 427
Masochism, 165
Materia medica of filth, 243-44
Maury, 62
Mayer, Robert, 231, 411
Medical augur, 244
Medium, S. W. as, 18
Megalomania, 462
Megarian school of philosophy, 402
Melungu, 413
Memory, bad, due to repression, 446
Mental balance, 282
Mental deficiency (neurasthenic), 14
Mesnet's case, 10-11
Metaphysical needs of individual, 223
Metempsychosis, 413
Method of association, 370
Meynert, 316
Mind the, a Becoming, 341
" collective, 451
Mirror-writing, 54
Misreading, 17, 46, 48
Misunderstanding between types, 404
Mithras, religion of, 366
Moment, etiological, of neurosis, 405
Monism psychological, 464
Moral conflict, 225, 242, 247, 251
Moral effect of analytical psychology, 375-76
Mörchen, 14
Mother, adaptation to, 125, 159, 171, 232
Myers, automatic writing, 54
Mysticism, 462
Mystic science, S. W., 40-44
Myth, the, 436
" unanimity of autochthonous forms, forms of, 451
Mythology, 226
Naef's case, 8
Naïve and sentimental types, 294
Nancy school, 356
Nebuchadnezzar's dream discussed, 281
Necessity, vital, ix, 375
Negativism, 200-201
" causes of (Bleuler), 202
" katatonic, 202
Negativism, schizophrenic, 200
Nelken, 337
Neumann, 353
Neurasthenia, 1, 129
Neurosis, 256, 370, 375
" ætiology of, 234
" and civilisation, 224, 374
" cause of, 232, 404
" " outbreak of, 229
" counter-argument against husband, 129-31
" failure in adaptation, 234
" Freud's theory of, 227
" good effect of, 395
" introversion in child, 140
" no magical cures of, 470
" psychogenic in essence, 356
" sexual ætiology of, too narrow, 231
" the cause in present, 232
" used for power effects, 388
Neurotic, a bearer of social ideals, 271, 277
" regressive tendency of, 469
Neurotic's faith in authority, 268
" special task, 233
Nietzsche, 87, 88, 295-96, 310, 326, 343, 378, 381, 393, 414, 417, 470
Nominalism, 402
Non-ego, 416, 434
Nucleus-complex, 228
Number dreams, 292
Objective interpretation on plane of, 421
Occultism's premature conclusions, 85
Occultist literature, gnostic systems, 93
Œdipus-complex, 228, 232
Opposition to Freud's publications, 355
Ostwald, 292, 398, 402
Pairs of opposites, 417, 452
Paranoia, 128, 313
Paranoid dementia, Freud's case, 336-37
Parental duty to children, 153
" constellation, 160-75
_Parties supérieures_ (Janet), 232, 452
Pathological cheat, psychology of, 70
" dreaming of saints, 70
Patient and doctor, personal relation, 216-219
Patients' resistances, 117, 202-05, 216
Perseveration, 106, 111
Personality of doctor, 238, 243, 259
Personal unconscious, 437, 448
Persona, 457-66, 472
Persuasion methods, 237
Perversion, sexual, 447
Phales, 183
Phantasies, release of, 458, 447
" sexual, 228
" unifying function of, 468
Phenomena, entoptic, 61
" of double consciousness as character formations, 84
Philosophy world, 350
Physical sensations as evidence of unconscious feelings, 405
Physician as "father," 408
Physician's own complexes, 243, 257
Pick, 70, 71
Pinel, 315
Platonic school, 402
Power, evaluation, 274
" " (Adler), 340, 394
Power standpoint, Adler on, viii, ix
Predicate type, 125
Predisposition to neurosis, 233, 359
Press of ideas, 203
Preyer, 51
Primitive non-differentiation, 453
Primordial images, 410, 414, 448
Prism, parable of, 252
Problems of the day, sexual, 276, 367-77
Projection, 427-33
" on doctor, 273, 407-8
" of phantasies on to parents, 409
" to religions, 435
Prophetess of Prevorst, 27, 37, 69, 91-93
Proust's case, 9-11
Prudishness, 154
" case of, 119
Pseudologia phantastica, 72
Pseudological representation, 71
Psyche, collective, 431, 455, 458, 472
Psychic images, 438
" life of child, 132-56
" material unconscious, 279
Psychoanalysis a high moral task, 235
" defined, 206, 256
" literature of, 154-55
" prejudices against, 206-07
" technique of, 257
Psychoanalyst, education of, 244, 258, 266
Psychocatharsis, 237
Psychographic communications, 25
Psychological disturbances, new theory of, 404
" ego and non-ego, 434
" realities, consolation of, 435
Psychological types, study of, 287-98, 391
Psychology, deep (Bleuler), 354
" of dreams, 299-311
" of individual, 464
" of pathological cheat, 70
" of rumour, 176
Puberty, changes in character at, 67
" dreams of, 74, 178
" of psychopathic, 68
" somnambulic attacks at, 84
" want of balance at, 45
Race-motherhood (Ivenes), 39
Rapport effective with hysterics, 81, 287
Rationalism, 431, 464
" antithesis of, 416
Reaction-times, 98-102
" -type, 157
" " hysterical, 97
" " normal, 96
Realism, 402
Reasoning method of Dubois, 208
Reconstruction of life, 236
Reflection, power of, 397
Regression, 230, 232, 469
Regressive extroversion, 288
" introversion, 289
Reincarnation (Ivenes), 37-9
Renaudin's case, _Folie circulaire_, 67
Repressed contents to be retained in consciousness, 447
" thoughts, independent growth of, 82
Repression, 446
" new edition of, 461
Reproduction experiment, 116
Resistances, patients', 117, 202-05, 216
" productive of distortion, 285
Revenge, unconscious, 190
Revolution, French, 431
Reynolds, Mary, case of (change of character), 65
Ribot, 66
Richer, 66
Richet, 92
" definition of somnambulism, 49
Rieger, 66
Riegl, 293
Riklin, 149
Rumour, case of, 176
" interpolations in, 176
" not conscious invention, 178
S. W., case of, 16-45
Saints, pathological dreaming of, 70
Sallust, 231
Schiller, 294
Schisms, 453
Schizophrenia, 201, 312, 447, 459
" Bleuler's summary, 203
Schizophrenic introversion, 204
" splitting, 201
Scholasticism, 340, 352, 373
School, Megarian _v._ Platonic, 402
" the Nancy, 356
" " Valentinian, 405
" " Zürich, 355
Schoolmaster view, 264
Schopenhauer, 295, 368, 447-48
Schreber case, 337, 343, 346, 440
Schüle, 61
Semiotics, vii, 468
Semi-somnambulic states, 23
Semi-somnambulism (S. W.), 23, 37, 48-9
Sexual enlightenment of children, 152, 247
" morality, 380
" perversion, 447
" phantasies, 228
" problems of the day, 277, 367-77
_Sexual question_, Forel, 365
Sexual surrogates, 172
Sexuality, importance of infantile, 172
" primitive man's view of, 306
Sexualisation of thought, 204
Significance of the father, 156
" " " case 1 160
" " " " 2 162
" " " " 3 165
" " " " 4 170
" of number dreams, 191
Slips of tongue, 179
Smith, Helen, case of, 61, 63-64, 72, 91
Socrates, 332, 374
Somnambulic attacks, S. W., 28
" " origin of, 75
" dialogues, 18
" personalities, 30-33
Somnambulism, 2, 8, 16, 18, 240
Somnambulist's suggestibility, 92
" thought in plastic images, 60
Spielrein, 337
Standpoint, causal, final, viii
Stanley Hall, Dr., 94
Star-dwellers, 35, 36
Stekel, 191, 259, 261
Stereotypic acts, 282
Stimulus word, 101
" " repetition of, 105
Study of psychological types, 287-98, 391-403
Subconscious personality, how constructed, 55
" personalities, Grandfather I. and II., 80
Subjective interpretation of dreams, 421
" roots of dreams, 73
Sublimation, 140, 397-99
Sucking as sexual act, 231
Suggestibility, influence of darkness on, 59
" somnambulist's, 92
Suggestion, analysis not a method of, 207
" by analyst, 261, 265, 266, 456, 469
Superman, 414
Super-personal unconscious, 426
Superstition, scientific dread of, 211
" unconscious, 280
Swedenborg, 37
" visions of, 63
Symbol interpreted semiotically, vii, 468
" not fixed, 218, 221, 265, 308
" psychological, two aspects of, viii
" value of religious, xi
Symbolic meaning of sexual phantasies, 222
Symbolism, 198, 224, 337
" an experience, 222
" book of Tobias, 174
" chestnuts, meaning of, 183
" God and devil, 174
" of dreams, 59, 218, 308
" value of religious, 224
Sympathy (extraversion), 293
Symptomatic acts, 46, 179, 281
" laughter, 388
Synesius, 417
Synthetic procedure, 417
Systematic anæsthesia, 68
Table movements, 85
Table-turning, 17, 24, 50
Tachypnoea (case of S. W.), 19
Taylor, 413
Teleology, meaning in double consciousness, 84
Telepathic thought-reading, 266
Tender-minded and tough-minded, 290, 402
Theories new, as caustics, 394
" " of psychogenic disturbances, 404
" " reductive, 394
Thought of extroverts, 403
Thought-feelings, 411, 461
Thought-pressure, 204
Thought-reading, 85-92
Thought, somnambulic, in plastic images, 60
" transference, 24, 51, 56
Till Eulenspiegel, 387
Tongue, slips of, 179
Tower of Babel, 446
Transcendental function, 417, 436, 441
Transference, 245-46, 270, 289, 407-13, 429, 435
" infantile, 298
" positive and negative, 270-72
Trauma, sexual, 227, 242, 358, 361-62
" theory (Charcot), 361
Trumbull Ladd, 62
Truth, what is it, 252, 256
Twilight states, 71, 81
Type, complex, 114
" definition, 114
" extroverted, 288, 391, 439, 401
" introverted, 288, 391, 439, 401
" objective, 11
" predicate, 115
Types (Finck), 296
" (Gross), 296-97
" importance of, 348
" marriages between, 402
" naïve and sentimental, 294
" psychological, 287, 391, 439, 401
Tough and tender-minded, 290
Typical themes of dreams, 310
Unconscious, absolute, 435
" analysable to a finish, 461
" an extension of the individual, vi
" assimilation of, 449
" compensation, 284
" cannot be emptied, 447
" cause of neurosis, 404
" feelings as physical sensations, 405
" homosexuality, 420
" impersonal, 437, 472
" importance of the, 278
" personal, 437, 448, 456, 472
" personalities (Ivenes), 77
" prospective aspect of, 442
" psychic material, 279
" source of libido, 461
" " " wisdom, 442
" superstition, 280
" uprush of, 459
Understanding, prospective, 338, 442
Understanding, retrospective, 338
Unifying function of phantasies, 468
Value of religious symbolism, 224
"Values," 392, 396, 404
Viennese school, one-sided interpretations of, 217
Vices and virtues, collective, 453
Virtues, unconscious counterparts, 389
Vischer, 348-49
Visions, Benvenuto Cellini, 63
" hypnagogic, 63, 71
" of Jeanne d'Arc, 63
" of S. W., 21
" of Swedenborg, 63
Visual images, 60
" _v._ auditory hallucinations, 61
"Vital necessity," ix
Voisin, 66
Volitional meaning of dreams, 222
Wagner, 383
Wandering impulse, cases of, 9
War, vi, xi, 398, 399, 416
Warringer, 293-94
Washing mania, 246
Wernicke, 316
Westphal, 13
Will, 397-99
" to power, 381, 388, 458
Wisdom of unconscious, 442
Wish-phantasies, 447
Witch-sleep, 75
Word predicate, type defined, 158
Word-presentation, 53
Works of the Zürich school, 345-46
World-philosophy, 350
Wundt, 352
Zarathustra, 381
Zagreus, 417
Zschokke, 92
Zürich school, 355
" " works of, 345-46
* * * * *
THE END
_Baillière, Tindall & Cox, 8, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C._
* * * * *
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| |
| Transcriber notes: |
| |
| P.XXI. 'C. C.' changed to 'C. G.'. |
| P.22. 'Occasionlly' typo for 'Occasionally', changed. |
| P.23. 'third kind of taste' changed 'taste' to 'state'. |
| P.72. 'Our patent develops', 'patent' changed to 'patient'. |
| P.103. added '+ denotes' in footnote 9 for multiple footnote. |
| P.201. 'Pyschology' typo for 'Psychology', changed. |
| P.217. 'unnecessary' typo for 'unnecessary', changed. |
| P.305. Freud's view-point of casuality', changed 'casuality' to |
| 'causality'. |
| P.340. 'beween' typo for 'between', changed. |
| P.345. Placed footnote anchor after 'mythological formations', |
| but could be elsewhere on the page. It may be an independant |
| reference to the whole section. |
| P.384. 'castastrophe' typo for 'catastrophe', changed. |
| P.451. 'colective' typo for 'collective', changed. |
| P.471. 'devolopment' typo for 'development' changed. |
| P.482. in index, 'Hommunculus' is 'Homunculus' in the book, changed. |
| Fixed various punctuation. |
| Underscore before and after _text_ indicates italics. |
| |
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