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.dt The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Theory of Psychoanalysis, by Carl Gustav Jung
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The Theory of Psychoanalysis
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Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph
Series, No. 19
The Theory of Psychoanalysis
BY
DR. C. G. JUNG
of Zurich
NEW YORK
THE JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE
PUBLISHING COMPANY
1915
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NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE
MONOGRAPH SERIES
Edited by
Drs. SMITH ELY JELLIFFE and WM. A. WHITE
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(2d Edition.) $2.50.
By Prof. Sigmund Freud.
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Dr. C. G. Jung.
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Copyright, 1915, by
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
Publishing Company, New York
Press of
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Lancaster, Pa.
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.h2
CONTENTS
#Introduction 1:intro#
#CHAPTER I:chap1#
Consideration of Early Hypotheses 4
#CHAPTER II:chap2#
The Infantile Sexuality 17
#CHAPTER III:chap3#
The Conception of Libido 27
#CHAPTER IV:chap4#
The Etiological Significance of the Infantile Sexuality 45
#CHAPTER V:chap5#
The Unconscious 55
#CHAPTER VI:chap6#
The Dream 60
#CHAPTER VII:chap7#
The Content of the Unconscious 67
#CHAPTER VIII:chap8#
The Etiology of the Neuroses 72
#CHAPTER IX:chap9#
The Therapeutical Principles of Psychoanalysis 96
#CHAPTER X:chap10#
Some General Remarks on Psychoanalysis 111
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.h2 id=intro
INTRODUCTION
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In these lectures I have attempted to reconcile my practical
experiences in psychoanalysis with the existing theory, or rather,
with the approaches to such a theory. Here is my attitude towards
those principles which my honored teacher Sigmund Freud
has evolved from the experience of many decades. Since I have
long been closely connected with psychoanalysis, it will perhaps
be asked with astonishment how it is that I am now for the first
time defining my theoretical position. When, some ten years
ago, it came home to me what a vast distance Freud had already
travelled beyond the bounds of contemporary knowledge of
psycho-pathological phenomena, especially the psychology of the
complex mental processes, I no longer felt myself in a position to
exercise any real criticism. I did not possess the sorry mandarin-courage
of those people who—upon a basis of ignorance and
incapacity—consider themselves justified in “critical” rejections.
I thought one must first work modestly for years in such a field
before one might dare to criticize. The evil results of premature
and superficial criticism have certainly not been lacking.
A preponderating number of critics have attacked with as much
anger as ignorance. Psychoanalysis has flourished undisturbed
and has not troubled itself one jot or tittle about the unscientific
chatter that has buzzed around it. As everyone knows, this tree
has waxed mightily, and not in one world only, but alike in
Europe and in America. Official criticism participates in the
pitiable fate of Proktophantasmist and his lamentation in the
Walpurgis-night:
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“You still are here? Nay, ’tis a thing unheard!
Vanish at once! We’ve said the enlightening word.”
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Such criticism has omitted to take to heart the truth that all
that exists has sufficient right to its existence: no less is it with
psychoanalysis.
We will not fall into the error of our opponents, nor ignore
their existence nor deny their right to exist. But then this
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enjoins upon ourselves the duty of applying a proper criticism,
grounded upon a practical knowledge of the facts. To me it
seems that psychoanalysis stands in need of this weighing-up
from the inside.
It has been wrongly assumed that my attitude denotes a
“split” in the psychoanalytic movement. Such a schism can
only exist where faith is concerned. But psychoanalysis deals
with knowledge and its ever-changing formulations. I have
taken William James’ pragmatic rule as a plumb-line: “You
must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at
work within the stream of your experience. It appears less a
solution, then, than as a program for more work and more particularly
as an indication of the ways in which existing realities
may be changed. Theories thus become instruments, not answers
to enigmas, in which we can rest. We don’t lie back upon them,
we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature over again by
their aid.”
And so my criticism has not proceeded from academic arguments,
but from experiences which have forced themselves on
me during ten years earnest work in this sphere. I know that
my experience in no wise approaches Freud’s quite extraordinary
experience and insight, but none the less it seems to me that
certain of my formulations do present the observed facts more
adequately than is the case in Freud’s method of statement. At
any rate I have found, in my teaching, that the conceptions put
forward in these lectures have afforded peculiar aid in my endeavors
to help my pupils to an understanding of psychoanalysis.
With such experience I am naturally inclined to assent to the view
of Mr. Dooley, that witty humorist of the New York Times, when
he says, defining pragmatism: “Truth is truth ‘when it works.’”
I am indeed very far from regarding a modest and moderate
criticism as a “falling away” or a schism; on the contrary,
through it I hope to help on the flowering and fructification of
the psychoanalytic movement, and to open a path towards the
scientific treasures of psychoanalysis for those who have hitherto
been unable to possess themselves of psychoanalytic methods,
whether through lack of practical experience or through distaste
of the theoretical hypothesis.
For the opportunity to deliver these lectures I have to thank
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my friend Dr. Smith Ely Jelliffe, of New York, who kindly invited
me to take part in the “Extension Course” at Fordham
University. These lectures were given in September, 1912, in
New York.
I must here also express my best thanks to Dr. Gregory, of
Bellevue Hospital, for his ready support of my clinical demonstrations.
For the troublesome work of translation I am greatly indebted
to my assistant, Miss M. Moltzer, and to Mrs. Edith Eder and
Dr. Eder of London.
Only after the preparation of these lectures did Adler’s book,
“Ueber den nervösen Character,” become known to me, in the
summer of 1912. I recognize that he and I have reached similar
conclusions on various points, but here is not the place to go into
a more intimate discussion of the matter; that must take place
elsewhere.
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.h2 id=chap1
CHAPTER I | Consideration of Early Hypotheses
.sp 2
It is not an easy task to speak about psychoanalysis in these
days. I am not thinking, when I say this, of the fact that psychoanalysis
in general—it is my earnest conviction—is among the
most difficult scientific problems of the day. But even when we
put this cardinal fact aside, we find many serious difficulties
which interfere with the clear interpretation of the matter. I
am not capable of giving you a complete doctrine elaborated both
from the theoretical and the empirical standpoint. Psychoanalysis
has not yet reached such a point of development, although a great
amount of labor has been expended upon it. Neither can I give you
a description of its growth ab ovo, for you already have in your
country, with its great regard for all the progress of civilization, a
considerable literature on the subject. This literature has already
spread a general knowledge of psychoanalysis among those who
have a scientific interest in it.
You have had the opportunity of listening to Freud, the real
explorer and founder of this method, who has spoken in your own
country about this theory. As for myself, I have already had the
honor of speaking about this work in America. I have discussed
the experimental foundation of the theory of complexes and the
application of psychoanalysis to pedagogy.
It can be easily understood that under these circumstances I
fear to repeat what has already been said, or published in many
scientific journals in this country. A further difficulty lies in the
fact that in very many quarters there are already prevailing quite
extraordinary conceptions of our theory, conceptions which are
often absolutely wrong, and unfortunately wrong just in that
which touches the very essence of psychoanalysis. At times it
seems nearly impossible to grasp even the meaning of these errors,
and I am constantly astonished to find any one with a scientific
education ever arriving at ideas so divorced from all foundations
in fact. Obviously it would be of no importance to cite examples
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of these curiosities, and it will be more valuable to discuss here
those questions and problems of psychoanalysis which really
might provoke misunderstanding.
.sp 2
.h3
A Change in the Theory of Psychoanalysis
.sp 2
Although it has very often been repeated, it seems to be still
an unknown fact to many people, that in these last years the
theory of psychoanalysis has changed considerably. Those, for
instance, who have only read the first book, “Studies in Hysteria,”
by Breuer and Freud, still believe that psychoanalysis essentially
consists in the doctrine that hysteria, as well as other neuroses,
has its root in the so-called “traumata,” or shocks, of earliest childhood.
They continue to condemn this theory, and have no idea
that it is fifteen years since this conception was abandoned and
replaced by a totally different one. This change is of such great
importance in the whole development of psychoanalysis, as well
for its technique as for its theory, that I must give it in some
detail. That I may not weary you with the complete recitation of
cases already well known, I will only just refer to those in Breuer
and Freud’s book, which I shall assume are known to you, for
the book has been translated into English.[#] You will there have
read that case of Breuer’s, to which Freud referred in his lectures
at Clark University. You will have found that the hysterical
symptom has not some unknown organic source, but is based on
certain highly emotional psychic events, so-called injuries of the
heart, traumata or shocks. I think that now-a-days every careful
observer of hysteria will acknowledge from his own experience
that, at the root of this disease, such painful events are
to be found. This truth was already known to the physicians of
former days.
.sp 2
.h3
The Traumatic Theory
.sp 2
So far as I know it was really Charcot who, probably under
the influence of Page’s theory of nervous shock, made this observation
of theoretical value. Charcot knew, by means of hypnotism,
at that time not understood, that hysterical symptoms could
be called forth by suggestion as well as made to disappear through
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suggestion. Charcot believed that he saw something like this in
those cases of hysteria caused by accident, cases which became
more and more frequent. The shock can be compared with
hypnosis in Charcot’s sense. The emotion provoked by the shock
causes a momentary complete paralysis of will-power, during
which the remembrance of the trauma can be fixed as an auto-suggestion.
This conception gives us the original theory of
psychoanalysis. Etiological investigation had to prove whether
this mechanism, or a similar one, was also to be found in those
cases of hysteria which could not be called traumatic. This lack
of knowledge of the etiology of hysteria was supplied by the discovery
of Breuer and Freud. They proved that even in those
ordinary cases of hysteria which cannot be said to be caused by
shock the same trauma-element was to be found, and seemed to
have an etiological value. It is natural that Freud, a pupil of
Charcot, was inclined to suppose that this discovery in itself confirmed
the ideas of Charcot. Accordingly the theory elaborated out
of the experience of that period, mainly by Freud, received the
imprint of a traumatic etiology. The name of trauma-theory is
therefore justified; nevertheless this theory had also a new aspect.
I am not here speaking of the truly admirable profoundness and
precision of Freud’s analysis of symptoms, but of the relinquishing
of the conception of auto-suggestion, which was the dynamic
force in the original theory, and its substitution by a detailed
exposure of the psychological and psycho-physical effects caused
by the shock. The shock, the trauma, provokes a certain excitation
which, under normal circumstances, finds a natural outlet
(“abreagieren”). In hysteria it is only to a certain extent that
the excitation does find a natural outlet; a partial retention takes
place, the so-called blocking of the affect (“Affecteinklemmung”).
This amount of excitation, which can be compared with an
amount of potential energy, is transmuted by the mechanism of
conversion into “physical” symptoms.
The Cathartic Method.—According to this conception, therapy
had to find the means by which those retained emotions
could be brought to a mode of expression, thereby setting free
from the symptoms that amount of repressed and converted feeling.
Hence this was called the cleansing, or cathartic method;
its aim was to discharge the blocked emotions. From this it follows
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that analysis was then more or less closely concerned with
the symptoms, that is to say, the symptoms were analyzed—the
work of analysis began with the symptoms, a method abandoned
to-day. The cathartic method, and the theory on which it is
based, are, as you know, accepted by other colleagues, so far as
they are interested at all in psychoanalysis, and you will find some
appreciation and quotation of the theory, as well as of the method,
in several text-books.
.sp 2
.h3
The Traumatic Theory Criticized
.sp 2
Although, as a matter of fact, the discovery of Breuer and
Freud is certainly true, as can easily be proved by every case of
hysteria, several objections can be raised to the theory. It must
be acknowledged that their method shows with wonderful clearness
the connection between the actual symptoms and the shock,
as well as the psychological consequences which necessarily follow
from the traumatic event, but nevertheless, a doubt arises as
to the etiological significance of the so-called trauma or shock.
It is extremely difficult for any critical observer of hysteria
to admit that a neurosis, with all its complications, can be based
on events in the past, as it were on one emotional experience long
past. It is more or less fashionable at present to consider all
abnormal psychic conditions, in so far as they are of exogenic
growth, as the consequences of hereditary degeneration, and not
as essentially influenced by the psychology of the patient and the
environment. This conception is too narrow, and not justified
by the facts. To use an analogy, we know perfectly well how to
find the right middle course in dealing with the etiology of
tuberculosis. There are, of course, cases of tuberculosis where
in earliest childhood the germ of the disease falls upon a soil
predisposed by heredity, so that even in the most favorable conditions
the patient cannot escape his fate. None the less, there
are also cases where, under favorable conditions, illness can be
prevented, despite a predisposition to the disease. Nor must we
forget that there are still other cases without hereditary disposition
or individual inclination, and, in spite of this, fatal infection
occurs. All this holds equally true of the neuroses, where
matters are not essentially different in their method of procedure
than they are in general pathology. Neither a theory in which
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the predisposition is all-important, nor one in which the influence
of the environment is all-important, will ever suffice. It is true
the shock-theory can be said to give predominance to the predisposition,
even insisting that some past trauma is the condition
sine qua non of the neurosis. Yet Freud’s ingenious empiricism
presented even in the “Studies in Hysteria” some views, insufficiently
exploited at the time, which contained the elements of a
theory that perhaps more accentuates the value of environment
than inherited or traumatic predisposition.
.sp 2
.h3
The Conception of “Repression”
.sp 2
Freud synthesized these observations in a form that was to
extend far beyond the limits of the shock-theory. This conception
is the hypothesis of repression (“Verdrängung”). As you
know, by the word “repression” is understood the psychic
mechanism of the re-transportation of a conscious thought into
the unconscious sphere. We call this sphere the “unconscious”
and define it as the psyche of which we are not conscious. The
conception of repression was derived from the numerous observations
made upon neurotic patients who seemed to have the
capacity of forgetting important events or thoughts, and this to
such an extent that one might easily believe nothing had ever
happened. These observations can be constantly made by anyone
who comes into close psychological relations with his patients.
As a result of the Breuer and Freud studies, it was found that
a very special method was needed to call again into consciousness
those traumatic events long since forgotten. I wish to call attention
to this fact, since it is decidedly astonishing for a priori
we are not inclined to believe that valuable things can ever be
forgotten. For this reason several critics object that the reminiscences
which have been called into consciousness by certain
hypnotic processes are only suggested ones, and do not correspond
with reality. Even granting this, it would certainly not be
justifiable to regard this in itself as a condemnation of “repression,”
since there are and have been not a few cases where the
fact of repressed reminiscences can be proved by objective
demonstration. Even if we exclude this kind of proof, it is
possible to test the phenomena by experiment. The association-tests
provide us with the necessary experiences. Here we find
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the extraordinary fact that associations pertaining to complexes
saturated with emotion emerge with much greater difficulty into
consciousness, and are much more easily forgotten.
As my experiments on this subject were never reëxamined,
the conclusions were never adopted, until just lately, when
Wilhelm Peters, a disciple of Kraepelin, proved in general my
previous observation, namely, that painful events are very rarely
correctly reproduced (“die unlustbetonten Erlebnisse werden am
seltensten richtig reproduciert”).
As you see, the conception rests upon a firm empirical basis.
There is still another side of the question worth looking at. We
might ask if the repression has its root in a conscious determination
of the individual, or do the reminiscences disappear rather
passively without conscious knowledge on the part of the patient?
In Freud’s works you will find a series of excellent proofs of
the existence of a conscious tendency to repress what is painful.
Every psychoanalyst will know more than a dozen cases showing
clearly in their history one particular moment at least in
which the patient knows more or less clearly that he will not allow
himself to think of the repressed reminiscences. A patient once
gave this significant answer: “Je l’ai mis de côté” (I have put
it aside).
But, on the other hand, we must not forget that there are a
number of cases where it is impossible for us to show, even with
the most careful examination, the slightest trace of conscious
repression; in these cases it seems as if the mechanism of repression
were much more in the nature of a passive disappearance,
or even as if the impressions were dragged beneath the surface
by some force operating from below. From the first class of
cases we get the impression of complete mental development,
accompanied by a kind of cowardice in regard to their own feelings;
but among the second class of cases you may find patients
showing a more serious retardation of development. The
mechanism of repression seems here to be much more an automatic
one.
This difference is closely connected with the question I mentioned
before—that is, the question of the relative importance
of predisposition and environment. The first class of cases appears
to be mainly influenced by environment and education; in
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the other, predisposition seems to play the chief part. It is
pretty clear where treatment will have more effect. (As I have
already said, the conception of repression contains an element
which is in intrinsic contradiction with the shock-theory.) We
find, for instance, in the case of Miss Lucy R.,[#] described by
Freud, that the essential etiological moment is not to be found in
the traumatic scenes, but in the insufficient readiness of the
patient to set store upon the convictions passing through her
mind. But if we think of the later views we find in the “Selected
Papers on Hysteria,”[#] where Freud, forced through further experience,
supposes certain traumatic sexual events in early
childhood to be the source of the neurosis, then we get the impression
of an incongruity between the conception of repression
and that of shock. The conception of “repression” contains the
elements of an etiological theory of environment, while the conception
of “shock” is a theory of predisposition.
But at first the theory of neurosis developed along the lines
of the trauma conception. Pursuing Freud’s later investigations,
we see him coming to the conclusion that no such positive value
can be ascribed to the traumatic events of later life, as their
effects could only be conceivable if the particular predisposition
of the patient were taken into account. Evidently the enigma
was to be resolved just at this point. As the analytical work
progressed, the roots of hysterical symptoms were found in childhood;
they reached back from the present far into the past. The
further end of the chain threatened to get lost in the mists of
early childhood. But it was just there that reminiscences appeared
of certain scenes where sexual activities had been manifested
in an active or passive way, and these were unmistakably
connected with the events which provoked the neurosis. (For
further details of these events you must consult the works of
Freud, as well as the numerous analyses which have already been
published.)
.sp 2
.h3
The Theory of Sexual Trauma in Childhood
.sp 2
Hence arose the theory of sexual trauma in childhood which
provoked bitter opposition, not from theoretical objections against
the shock-theory in general, but against the element of sexuality
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in particular. In the first place, the idea that children might be
sexual, and that sexual thoughts might play any part with them,
aroused great antagonism. In the second place, the possibility
that hysteria had a sexual basis was most unwelcome, for the
sterile position that hysteria was either a reflex neurosis of the
uterus or arose from lack of sexual satisfaction had just been
given up. Naturally, therefore, the real value of Freud’s observations
was disputed. If critics had limited themselves to that
question, and had not adorned their opposition with moral indignation,
a calm discussion would have been possible. In Germany,
for instance, this method of attack made it impossible to get any
credit for Freud’s theory. As soon as the question of sexuality
was touched general resistance, as well as haughty contempt were
awakened. But in truth there was but one question at issue:
were Freud’s observations true or not? That alone could be of
importance to a really scientific mind. It is possible that these
observations do not seem very probable at first sight, but it is unjustifiable
to condemn them a priori as false. Wherever really
sincere and thorough investigations have been carried out it has
been possible to corroborate his observations. The fact of a
psychological chain of consequences has been absolutely confirmed,
although Freud’s original conception, that real traumatic
scenes were always to be found, has not been.
.sp 2
.h3
Theory of Sexual Trauma Abandoned
.sp 2
Freud himself abandoned his first presentation of the shock-theory
after further and more thorough investigation. He could
no longer retain his original view as to the reality of the sexual
shock. Excessive sexuality, sexual abuse of children, or very
early sexual activity in childhood, were later on seen to be of
secondary importance. You will perhaps be inclined to share the
suspicion of the critics that the results derived from analytic
researches were based on suggestion. There might be some justification
for this view if these assertions had been published broadcast
by some charlatan or ill-qualified person. But anyone who
has carefully read Freud’s works, and has himself similarly
sought to penetrate into the psychology of his patients, will know
that it is unjust to attribute to an intellect like Freud’s the crude
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mistakes of a journeyman. Such suggestions only redound to
the discredit of those who make them. Ever since then patients
have been examined by every possible means from which suggestion
could be absolutely excluded. And still the associations
described by Freud have been proved to be true in principle.
We are thus obliged in the first place to regard many of these
shocks of early childhood as phantoms, while other traumata have
objective reality. With this knowledge, at first somewhat confusing,
the etiological importance of the sexual trauma in childhood
declines, as it seems now quite irrelevant whether the
trauma really took place or not. Experience teaches us that
phantasy can be, so to speak, of the same traumatic value as real
shock. In the face of such facts, every physician who treats
hysteria will recall cases where the neurosis has indeed been
provoked by violent traumatic impressions. This observation
is only in apparent contradiction with our knowledge, already
referred to, of the unreality of traumatic events in childhood.
We know perfectly well that many persons suffer shocks in
childhood or in adult life who nevertheless get no neurosis.
Therefore the trauma has, ceteris paribus, no absolute etiological
importance, but owes its efficacy to the nature of the soil upon
which it falls.
.sp 2
.h3
The Predisposition for the Trauma
.sp 2
No neurosis will grow on an unprepared soil where no germ
of neurosis is already existing; the trauma will pass by without
leaving any permanent and effective mark. From this simple
consideration it is pretty clear that, to make it really effective, the
patient must meet the shock with a certain internal predisposition.
This internal predisposition is not to be understood as
meaning that totally obscure hereditary predisposition of which
we know so little, but as a psychological development which
reaches its apogee and its manifestation at the moment, and even
through, the trauma.
I will show you first of all by a concrete case the nature of
the trauma and its psychological predisposition. A young lady
suffered from severe hysteria after a sudden fright. She had
been attending a social gathering that evening and was on her way
home at midnight, accompanied by several acquaintances, when
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a carriage came behind her at full speed. Everyone else drew
aside, but she, paralyzed by fright, remained in the middle of the
street and ran just in front of the horses. The coachman cracked
his whip, cursed and swore without any result. She ran down
the whole length of the street, which led to a bridge. There her
strength failed her, and to escape the horses’ feet she thought, in
her extreme despair, of jumping into the water, but was prevented
in time by passers-by. This very same lady happened to
be present a little later on that bloody day, the 22d of January,
in St. Petersburg, when a street was cleared by soldiers’ volleys.
Right and left of her she saw people dying or falling down badly
wounded. Remaining perfectly calm and clear-minded, she caught
sight of a gate that gave her escape into another street.
These terrible moments did not agitate her, either at the time,
or later on. Whence it must follow that the intensity of the
trauma is of small pathogenic importance: the special conditions
form the essential factors. Here, then, we have the key by
which we are able to unlock at least one of the anterooms to the
understanding of predisposition. We must next ask what were
the special circumstances in this carriage-scene. The terror and
apprehension began as soon as the lady heard the horses’ foot-steps.
It seemed to her for a moment as if these betokened some
terrible fate, portending her death or something dreadful. Then
she lost consciousness. The real causation is somehow connected
with the horses. The predisposition of the patient, who
acts thus wildly at such a commonplace occurence, could perhaps
be found in the fact that horses had a special significance for her.
It might suffice, for instance, if she had been once concerned in
some dangerous accident with horses. This assumption does hold
good here. When she was seven years old, she was once out on a
carriage-drive with the coachman; the horses shied and approached
the steep river-bank at full speed. The coachman
jumped off his seat, and shouted to her to do the same, which she
was barely able to do, as she was frightened to death. Still, she
sprang down at the right moment, whilst the horses and carriage
were dashed down below.
It is unnecessary to prove that such an event must leave a
lasting impression behind. But still it does not offer any explanation
for the exaggerated reaction to an inadequate stimulus.
// File: 018.png
.pn +1
Up till now we only know that this later symptom had its prologue
in childhood, but the pathological side remains obscure.
To solve this enigma we require other experiences. The amnesia
which I will set forth fully later on shows clearly the disproportion
between the so-called shock and the part played by phantasy.
In this case phantasy must predominate to an extraordinary
extent to provoke such an effect. The shock in itself was too
insignificant. We are at first inclined to explain this incident by
the shock that took place in childhood, but it seems to me with
little success. It is difficult to understand why the effect of this
infantile trauma had remained latent so long, and why it only
now came to the surface. The patient must surely have had
opportunities enough during her lifetime of getting out of the
way of a carriage going full speed. The reminiscence of the
danger to her life seems to be quite insufficiently effective: the
real danger in which she was at that one moment in St. Petersburg
did not produce the slightest trace of neurosis, despite her
being predisposed by an impressive event in her childhood. The
whole of this traumatic event still lacks explanation; from the
point of view of the shock-theory we are hopelessly in the dark.
You must excuse me if I return so persistently to the shock-theory.
I consider this necessary, as now-a-days many people,
even those who regard us seriously, still keep to this standpoint.
Thus the opponents to psychoanalysis and those who never read
psychoanalytic articles, or do so quite superficially, get the impression
that in psychoanalysis the old shock-theory is still in
force.
The question arises: what are we to understand by this predisposition,
through which an insignificant event produces such a
pathological effect? This is the question of chief significance,
and we shall find that the same question plays an important rôle
in the theory of neurosis, for we have to understand why apparently
irrelevant events of the past are still producing such
effects that they are able to interfere in an impish and capricious
way with the normal reactions of actual life.
.sp 2
.h3
The Sexual Element in the Trauma
.sp 2
The early school of psychoanalysis, and its later disciples, did
all they could to find the origin of later effects in the special kind
// File: 019.png
.pn +1
of early traumatic events. Freud’s research penetrated most
deeply. He was the first, and it was he alone, who discovered
that a certain sexual element was connected with the shock. It is
just this sexual element which, speaking generally, we may consider
as unconscious, and it is to this that the traumatic effect is
generally due. The unconsciousness of sexuality in childhood
seems to throw a light upon the problem of the persistent constellation
of the primary traumatic event. The true emotional
meaning of the accident was all along hidden from the patient,
so that in consciousness this emotion was never brought into
play, the emotion never wore itself out, it was never used up.
We might perhaps explain the effect in the following way: this
persistent constellation was a kind of “suggestion à échéance,”
for it is unconscious and the action occurs only at the stipulated
moment.
It is hardly necessary to give detailed examples to prove that
the true nature of sexual manifestations during infancy is not
understood. Physicians know, for instance, how often a manifest
masturbation persisting up to adult life, especially in women,
is not understood as such. It is, therefore, easy to realize that
to a child the true nature of certain actions would be far less
conscious. And that is the reason why the real meaning of these
events, even in adult life, is still hidden from our consciousness.
In some cases, even, the traumatic events are themselves forgotten,
either because their sexual meaning is quite unknown to
the patient, or because their sexual character is inacceptable, being
too painful. It is what we call “repressed.”
As we have already mentioned, Freud’s observation, that the
admixture of a sexual element with the shock is essential for any
pathological effect, leads on to the theory of the infantile sexual
trauma.
This hypothesis may be thus expressed: the pathogenic event
is a sexual one. This conception forced its way with difficulty.
The general opinion that children have no sexuality in early life
made such an etiology inadmissible, and at first prevented its
acceptance.
.sp 2
.h3
The Infantile Sexual Phantasy
.sp 2
The change in the shock-theory already referred to, namely,
that in general the shock is not even real, but is essentially a
// File: 020.png
.pn +1
phantasy, did not make things better. On the contrary, still
worse, since we are forced to the conclusion that we find in the
infantile phantasy at least one positive sexual manifestation. It
is no longer some brutal accidental impression from the outside,
but a positive sexual manifestation created by the child itself, and
this very often with unmistakable clearness. Even real traumatic
events of an outspoken sexual type do not always happen
to a child quite without its coöperation, but are not infrequently
apparently prepared and brought about by the child itself.
Abraham stated this, proving his statement with evidence of the
greatest interest, and this, in connection with many other experiences
of the same kind, makes it very probable that even really
sexual scenes are frequently called forth and supported by the
peculiar psychological state of the child’s mind. Perfectly independently
from psychoanalytic investigation, medical criminology
has discovered striking parallels to this psychoanalytic statement.
.fn #
“Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses,” by Prof.
Sigmund Freud. Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series, No. 4.
.fn-
.fn #
Monograph No. 4, p. 14.
.fn-
.fn #
Ibid.
.fn-
// File: 021.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap2
CHAPTER II | The Infantile Sexuality
.sp 2
The precocious manifestations of sexual phantasy as cause of
the shock now seemed to be the source of neurosis. This, logically,
attributed to children a far more developed sexuality than
had been hitherto admitted. Many cases of precocious sexuality
had been recorded in literature long before the time of psychoanalysis.
For instance, a girl of two years old with normal menstruation,
or cases of boys of three and four and five years of
age having normal erections, and so far ready for cohabitation.
These were, however, curiosities. Great astonishment was
caused when Freud began to attribute to the child, not only ordinary
sexuality, but even polymorphic perverse sexuality; all this
based upon the most exhaustive investigation. People inclined
much too lightly to the superficial view, that all this was merely
suggested to the patients, and was a highly disputable artificial
product. Hence Freud’s[#] “Three Contributions to the Sexual
Theory” not only provoked opposition, but even violent indignation.
It is surely unnecessary to insist upon the fact that science
is not furthered by indignation, and that arguments of moral
resentment may perhaps please the moralist—that is his business—but
not a scientific man, for whom truth must be the guide,
and not moral indignation. If matters are really as Freud
describes them, all indignation is absurd; if they are not so, again
indignation will avail nothing. The conclusion as to what is the
truth can only be arrived at on the field of observation and research,
and nowhere else. The opponents of psychoanalysis with
certain honorable exceptions, display rather ludicrously a somewhat
pitifully inadequate realization of the situation. Although
the psychoanalytic school could unfortunately learn nothing from
their critics, as the criticism took no notice of its investigations,
and although it could not get any useful hints, because the psychoanalytic
// File: 022.png
.pn +1
method of investigation was, and still is unknown to
these critics, it remains a serious duty for our school to explain
thoroughly the contrast between the existing conceptions. It is
not our endeavor to put forward a paradoxical theory contradicting
all existing theories, but rather to introduce a certain
category of new observations into science. Therefore we regard
it as a duty to do whatever we can to promote agreement. It is
true, we must renounce all hope of obtaining the approval of
those who blindly oppose us, but we do hope to come to an understanding
with scientific men. This will be my endeavor now in
attempting to sketch the further intellectual development of the
psychoanalytic conception, so far as the so-called sexual theory
of the neuroses is concerned.
.sp 2
.h3
Objections to the Sexual Hypothesis
.sp 2
As I said, the finding of precocious sexual phantasies, which
seemed the source of the neurosis, forced Freud to the view of a
highly developed sexuality in infancy. As you know, the reality
of this observation has been contested by many, who maintain
that crude error, that narrow-minded delusion, misled Freud and
his whole school, alike in Europe and in America, so that the
Freudians saw things that never existed. They regarded them
as people in the grip of an intellectual epidemic. I have to admit
that I possess no way of defending myself against criticism of
this kind. The only thing I can do is to refer to my own work,
asking thoughtful persons if they discover there any clear indications
of madness. Moreover, I must maintain that science has
no right to start with the idea that certain facts do not exist. At
the most one can say: “This seems very improbable—we want
still more proofs and more research.” This is also our reply to
the objection: “It is impossible to discover anything trustworthy
by the psychoanalytic method, as this method is practically absurd.”
No one believed in Galileo’s telescope, and Columbus discovered
America on a false hypothesis. The psychoanalytic
method may be full of errors, but this should not prevent its use.
Many chronological and medical observations have been made
with inadequate instruments. We must regard the objections to
the method as pretexts until our opponents come to grip with the
// File: 023.png
.pn +1
facts. It is there a decision must be reached—not by wordy
warfare.
Our opponents also call hysteria a psychogenic disease. We
believe that we have discovered the etiological determinants of
this disease and we present, without fear, the results of our investigation
to open criticism. Whoever cannot accept our results
should publish his own analyses of cases. So far as I know, that
has never been done, at least not in European literature. Under
these circumstances, critics have no right to deny our conclusions
a priori. Our opponents have likewise cases of hysteria, and
those cases are surely as psychogenic as our own. There is
nothing to prevent their pointing out the psychological determinants.
The method is not the real question. Our opponents
content themselves with disputing and reviling our researches,
but they do not point out any better way.
Many other critics are more careful and more just, and do
admit that we have made many valuable observations, and that
the associations of ideas given by the psychoanalytic method will
very probably stand, but they maintain that our point of view is
wrong. The alleged sexual phantasies of childhood, with which
we are here chiefly concerned, must not be taken, they say, as
real sexual functions, being obviously something quite different,
since at the approach of puberty the characteristic peculiarities of
sexuality are acquired.
This objection, being calmly and reasonably made, deserves
to be taken seriously. Such objections must also have occurred
to every one who has taken up analytic work, and there is reason
enough for deep reflection.
.sp 2
.h3
The Conception of Sexuality
.sp 2
The first difficulty arises with the conception of sexuality. If
we take sexuality as meaning the fully-developed function, we
must confine this phenomenon to maturity, and then, of course, we
have no right to speak of sexuality in childhood. If we so limit
our conception, then we are confronted again with new and much
greater difficulties. The question arises, how then must we denominate
all those correlated biological phenomena pertaining to
the sexual functions sensu strictiori, as, for instance, pregnancy,
// File: 024.png
.pn +1
childbirth, natural selection, protection of the offspring, etc. It
seems to me that all this belongs to the conception of sexuality
as well, although a very distinguished colleague did once say,
“Childbirth is not a sexual act.” But if these things do pertain
to this concept of sexuality, then there must also belong innumerable
psychological phenomena. For we know that an incredible
number of the pure psychological functions are connected with
this sphere. I shall only mention the extraordinary importance
of phantasy in the preparation for the sexual function. Thus we
arrive rather at a biological conception of sexuality, which includes
both a series of psychological phenomena as well as a
series of physiological functions. If we might be allowed to
make use of an old but practical classification, we might identify
sexuality with the so-called instinct of the preservation of the
species, as opposed in some way to the instinct of self-preservation.
Looking at sexuality from this point of view, we shall not be
astonished to find that the root of the instinct of race-preservation,
so extraordinarily important in nature, goes much deeper
than the limited conception of sexuality would ever allow. Only
the more or less grown-up cat actually catches mice, but the
kitten plays at least as if it were catching mice. The young
dog’s playful indications of attempts at cohabitation begin long
before puberty. We have a right to suppose that mankind is no
exception to this rule, although we do not notice similar things on
the surface in our well brought-up children. Investigation of the
children of the lower classes proves that they are no exceptions
to the biological rule. It is of course infinitely more probable
that this most important instinct, that of the preservation of the
race, is already nascent in the earliest childhood, than that it falls
at one swoop from heaven, full-fledged, at the age of puberty.
The sexual organs also develop long before the slightest sign of
their future function can be noticed. Where the psychoanalytic
school speaks of sexuality, this wider conception of its function
must be linked to it, and we do not mean simply that physical
sensation and function generally designated by the term sexual.
It might be said that, in order to avoid any misunderstanding on
this point, the term sexuality should not be given to these preparatory
phenomena in childhood. This demand is surely not
justified, since the anatomical nomenclature is taken from the
// File: 025.png
.pn +1
fully-developed system, and special names are not generally given
to more or less rudimentary formations.
After all, the objections to the terminology do not spring so
much from objective arguments, as from those tendencies which
lie at the base of moral indignation. But then no objection can
be made to the sex-terminology of Freud, as he rightly gives to
the whole sexual development the general name of sexuality.
But certain conclusions have been drawn which, so far as I can
see, cannot be maintained.
.sp 2
.h3
The “Sexuality” of the Suckling
.sp 2
When we examine how far back in childhood the first traces
of sexuality reach, we have to admit implicitly that sexuality
already exists ab ovo, but only becomes manifest a long time after
intrauterine life. Freud is inclined to see in the function of
taking the mother’s breast already a kind of sexuality. Freud
was bitterly reproached for this view, but it must be admitted
that it is very ingenious, if we follow his hypothesis, that the
instinct of the preservation of the race has existed separately
from the instinct of self-preservation ab ovo and has undergone
a separate development. This way of thinking is not, however,
a biological one. It is not possible to separate the two ways of
manifestation of the hypothetical vital process, and to credit each
with a different order of development. If we limit ourselves to
judging by what we can actually observe, we must reckon with
the fact that everywhere in nature we see that the vital processes
in an individual consist for a considerable space of time in the
functions of nutrition and growth only. We see this very clearly
in many animals; for instance, in butterflies, which as caterpillars
pass an asexual existence of nutrition and growth. To
this stage of life we may allot both the intrauterine life and the
extrauterine time of suckling in man. This time is marked by
the absence of all sexual function; hence to speak of manifest
sexuality in the suckling would be a contradictio in adjecto.
The most we can do is to ask if, among the life-functions of
the suckling, there are any that have not the character of nutrition,
or of growth, and hence could be termed sexual. Freud
points out the unmistakable emotion and satisfaction of the child
while suckling, and compares this process with that of the sexual
// File: 026.png
.pn +1
act. This similarity leads him to assume the sexual quality in the
act of suckling. This conclusion is only admissible if it can be
proved that the tension of the need, and its gratification by a
release, is a sexual process. That the act of suckling has this
emotional mechanism proves, however, just the contrary. Therefore
we can only say this emotional mechanism is found both in
nutrition and in the sexual function. If Freud by analogy deduces
the sexual quality of sucking from this emotional mechanism,
then his biological empiricism would also justify the terminology
qualifying the sexual act as a function of nutrition. This
is unjustifiably exceeding the bounds in either case. It is evident
that the act of sucking cannot be qualified as sexual.
We are aware, however, of functions in the suckling stage
which have apparently nothing to do with the function of nutrition,
such as sucking the finger, and its many variations. This
is perhaps the place to discuss whether these things belong to the
sexual sphere. These acts do not subserve nutrition, but produce
pleasure. Of that there is no doubt, but nevertheless it is disputable
whether this pleasure which comes by sucking should be
called by analogy a sexual satisfaction. It might be called equally
pleasure by nutrition. This latter qualification has even the
further justification that the form and kind of pleasure belong
entirely to the function of nutrition. The hand which is used for
sucking finds in this way preparation for future use in feeding
one’s self. Under these circumstances nobody will be inclined
by a petitio principii to characterize the first manifestation of
human life as sexual. The statement which we make that the
act of sucking is attended by a feeling of satisfaction leaves us in
doubt whether the sucking does contain anything else but the
character of nutrition. We notice that the so-called bad habits
shown by a child as it grows up are closely linked with early
infantile sucking, such for instance as putting the finger in the
mouth, biting the nails, picking the nose, ears, etc. We see, too,
how closely these habits are connected with later masturbation.
By analogy, the conclusion that these infantile habits are the first
step to onanism, or to actions similar to onanism, and are therefore
of a well-marked sexual character cannot be denied: it is
perfectly justified. I have seen many cases in which a correlation
existed between these childish habits and later masturbation. If
// File: 027.png
.pn +1
this masturbation takes place in later childhood, before puberty,
it is nothing but an infantile bad habit. From the fact of the
correlation between masturbation and the other childish bad habits,
we conclude that these habits have a sexual character, in so far as
they are used to obtain physical satisfaction from the child’s own
body.
This new standpoint is comprehensible and perhaps necessary.
It is only a few steps from this point of view to regarding the
infant’s act of sucking as of a sexual character. As you know,
Freud took the few steps, but you have just heard me reject
them. We have come to a difficulty which is very hard to solve.
It would be relatively easy if we could accept two instincts side by
side, each an entity in itself. Then the act of sucking the breast
would be both an action of nutrition and a sexual act. This
seems to be Freud’s conception. We find in adults the two instincts
separated, yet existing side by side, or rather we find that
there are two manifestations, in hunger, and in the sexual instinct.
But at the sucking age, we find only the function of nutrition,
rewarded by both pleasure and satisfaction. Its sexual character
can only be argued by a petitio principii, for the facts show that
the act of sucking is the first to give pleasure, not the sexual
function. Obtaining pleasure is by no means identical with sexuality.
We deceive ourselves if we think that in the suckling both
instincts exist side by side, for then we project into the psyche
of the child the facts taken from the psychology of adults. The
existence of the two instincts side by side does not occur in suckling,
for one of these instincts has no existence as yet, or, if
existing, is quite rudimentary. If we are to regard the striving
for pleasure as something sexual, we might as well say paradoxically
that hunger is a sexual striving, for this instinct seeks
pleasure by satisfaction. If this were true, we should have to
give our opponents permission to apply the terminology of hunger
to sexuality. It would facilitate matters, were it possible to
maintain that both instincts existed side by side, but it contradicts
the observed facts and would lead to untenable consequences.
Before I try to resolve this opposition, I must first say something
more about Freud’s sexual theory, and its transformations.
// File: 028.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.h3
The Polymorphic Perverse Sexuality of Infancy
.sp 2
We have already reached the conclusion, setting out from the
idea of the shock being apparently due to sexual phantasies, that
the child must have, in contradiction to the views hitherto prevailing,
a nearly fully formed sexuality, and even a polymorphic perverse
sexuality. Its sexuality does not seem concentrated on the
genital functions or on the other sex, but is occupied with its own
body; whence it is said to be auto-erotic. If its sexual instinct is
directed to another person, no distinction, or but the very slightest,
is made as to sex. It can, therefore, be very easily homo-sexual.
In place of non-existing local sexual function there exists a series
of so-called bad habits, which from this standpoint look like a
series of perversities, since they have the closest analogy with the
later perversities. In consequence of this way of regarding the
subject, sexuality, whose nature is ordinarily regarded as a unit,
becomes decomposed into a multiplicity of isolated striving forces.
Freud then arrived at the conception of the so-called “erogenous
zones,” by which he understood mouth, skin, anus, etc. (It is,
of course, a universal tacit presumption that sexuality has its
origin in the sexual organs.)
The term “erogenous zone” reminds us of “spasmo-genic
zones,” and the underlying image is at all events the same; just as
the spasmo-genic zone is the place whence the spasm arises, so
the erogenous zone is the place whence arises an affluent to sexuality.
Based upon the model of the genital organs as the anatomical
origin of sexuality, the erogenous zones must be conceived as
being so many genitals out of which the streams of sexuality flow
together. This is the condition of the polymorphic perverse sexuality
of childhood. The expression “perverse” seems to be
justified by the close analogy with the later perversities which
present, so to speak, but a new edition of certain early infantile
perverse habits. They are very often connected with one or
other of the different erogenous zones, and are the cause of those
exchanges in sex, which are so characteristic for childhood.
According to this view, the later normal and monomorphic
sexuality is built up out of several components. The first division
is into homo- and hetero-sexual components, to which is
linked an auto-erotic component, as also there are components of
// File: 029.png
.pn +1
the different erogenous zones. This conception can be compared
with the position of physics before Robert Mayer, when only
isolated forces, having elementary qualities, were recognized,
whose interchanges were little understood. The law of the conservation
of energy brought order into the inter-relationship of
the forces, at the same time abolishing the conception of those
forces as absolute elements, but regarding them as interchangeable
manifestations of one and the same energy.
.sp 2
.h3
The Sexual Components as Energic Manifestations
.sp 2
Conceptions of great importance do not arise only in one brain,
but are floating in the air and dip here and there, appearing even
under other forms, and in other regions, where it is often very
difficult to recognize the common fundamental idea. Thus it
happened with the splitting up of sexuality into the polymorphic
perverse sexuality of childhood.
Experience forces us to accept a constant exchange of isolated
components as we notice more and more that, for instance, perversities
exist at the expense of normal sexuality, or that the
increase of certain kinds of sex-manifestations causes corresponding
deficiencies of another kind. To make the matter clearer, let
me give you an instance: A young man had a homo-sexual phase
lasting for some years, during which time women had no interest
for him. This abnormal condition changed gradually toward his
twentieth year and his erotic interest became more and more
normal. He began to take great interest in girls, and soon the last
traces of his homo-sexuality were conquered. This condition
lasted several years, and he had some successful love-affairs.
Then he wished to get married; he had here to suffer a great disappointment,
as the girl to whom he proposed refused him.
During the ensuing phase he absolutely abandoned the idea of
marriage. After that he experienced a dislike of all women, and
one day he discovered that he was again perfectly homo-sexual,
that is, young men had an unusually irritating influence upon him.
To regard sexuality as composed of a fixed hetero-sexual component,
and a like homo-sexual element, will never suffice to explain
this case, for the conception of the existence of fixed components
excludes any kind of transformation.
// File: 030.png
.pn +1
To understand the case, we have to admit a great mobility of
the sexual components, which even goes so far that one of the
components can practically disappear completely, whilst the other
comes to the front. If only substitution took place, if for instance
the homo-sexual component entered the unconscious, leaving the
field of consciousness to the hetero-sexual component, modern
scientific knowledge would lead us to conclude that equivalent
effects arose from the unconscious sphere. Those effects would
have to be conceived as resistances against the activity of the
hetero-sexual component, as a repugnance towards women.
Experience tells us nothing about this. There have been some
small traces of influences of this kind, but of such slight intensity
that they cannot be compared with the intensity of the former
homo-sexual component. On the conception that has been outlined,
it is also incomprehensible how this homo-sexual component,
regarded as so firmly fixed, can ever disappear without
leaving active traces. To explain things, the process of development
is called in, forgetting that this is only a word and explains
nothing. You see, therefore, the urgent necessity of an adequate
explanation of such a change of scene. For this we must have
a dynamic hypothesis. Such commutations are only conceivable
as dynamic or energic processes. I cannot conceive how manifestations
of functions can disappear if I do not accept a change
in the relation of one force to another. Freud’s theory did have
regard to this necessity in the conception of components. The
presumption of isolated functions existing side by side began to
be somewhat weakened, more in practice than theoretically. It
was replaced by an energic conception. The term chosen for this
conception is “libido.”
.fn #
No. 7 of this Monograph Series.
.fn-
// File: 031.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap3
CHAPTER III | The Conception of Libido
.sp 2
Freud had already introduced the idea of libido in his[#] “Three
Contributions to the Sexual Theory” in the following words:
“In biology, the fact that both mankind and animals have a
sexual want is expressed by the conception of the sexual desire.
This is done by analogy with the want of nourishment, so-called
hunger. Popular speech has no corresponding characterization
for the word ‘hunger,’ and so science uses the word ‘libido.’”
In Freud’s definition, the term “libido” appears as exclusively
a sexual desire. “Libido” as a medical term is certainly used
for sexual desire, and especially for sexual lust. But the classical
definition of this word as found in Cicero, Sallust, and others,
was not so exclusive. The word is there used in a more general
sense for every passionate desire. I only just mention this definition
here, as further on it plays an important part in our considerations,
and as it is important to know that the term “libido”
has really a much wider meaning than is associated with it
through medical language.
The idea of libido (while maintaining its sexual meaning in
the author’s sense as long as possible) offers us the dynamic value
which we are seeking in order to explain the shifting of the
psychological scenery. With this conception it is much simpler
to formulate the phenomena in question, instead of by the incomprehensible
substitution of the homo- by the hetero-sexual component.
We may say now that the libido has gradually withdrawn
from its homo-sexual manifestation and is transferred in the same
measure into a hetero-sexual manifestation. Thus the homo-sexual
component practically disappears. It remains only an
empty possibility, signifying nothing in itself. Its very existence,
therefore, is rightly denied by the laity, just as we doubt the
possibility that any man selected at random would turn out to be
a murderer. By the use of this conception of libido many relations
// File: 032.png
.pn +1
between the isolated sexual functions are now easily
explicable.
The early idea of the multiplicity of sexual components must
be given up: it savors too much of the ancient philosophical
notion of the faculties of the mind. Its place is taken by libido
which is capable of manifold applications. The earlier components
only represent possibilities of activities. With this
conception of libido, the original idea of a divided sexuality with
different roots is replaced by a dynamic unity, without which the
formerly important components remain but empty possibilities of
activities. This development in our conception is of great importance.
We have here the same process which Robert Mayer
introduced into dynamics. Just as the conception of the conservation
of energy removed their character as elements from
the forces, imparting to them the character of a manifestation
of energy, so the libido theory similarly removes from the sexual
components the idea of the mental “faculties” as elements
(“Seelen Vermögen”), and ascribes to them merely phenomenal
value. This conception represents the impression of reality far
more than the theory of components. With a libido-theory we
can easily explain the case of the young man. The disappointment
he met with, just at the time he had definitely decided on
a hetero-sexual life, drove his libido again from the hetero-sexual
manifestation into a homo-sexual form, thus calling forth his
entire homo-sexuality.
.sp 2
.h3
The Energic Theory of Libido
.sp 2
I must point out here that the analogy with the law of the
conservation of energy is very close. In both cases the question
arises when an effect of energy disappears, where is this energy
meanwhile, and where will it reemerge? Applying this point of
view as a heuristic principle to the psychology of human conduct,
we shall make some astonishing discoveries. Then we shall see
how the most heterogeneous phases of individual psychological
development are connected in an energic relationship. Every
time we see a person who is splenetic or has a morbid conviction,
or some exaggerated mental attitude, we know here is too much
libido, and the excess must have been taken away from somewhere
// File: 033.png
.pn +1
else where there is too little. From this standpoint, psychoanalysis
is that method which discovers those places or functions
where there is too little or too much libido, and restores the just
proportions. Thus the symptoms of a neurosis must be considered
as exaggerated and correspondingly disturbed functional
manifestations overflowing with libido. The energy which has
been used for this purpose has been taken away from somewhere
else, and it is the task of the psychoanalyst, to restore it whence
it was taken, or to bestow it where it was never before given.
Those complexes of symptoms which are mainly characterized
by lack of libido, for instance, the so-called apathetic conditions,
force us to reverse the question. Here we have to ask, where did
the libido go? The patient gives us the impression of having no
libido, and there are occasionally physicians who believe exactly
what the patients tell them. Such physicians have a primitive
way of thinking, like the savage who believes, when he sees an
eclipse of the sun, that the sun has been swallowed up and put
to death. But the sun is only hidden, and so it is with these
patients. Although the libido is there, it is not get-at-able, and
is inaccessible to the patient himself. Superficially, we have here
a lack of libido. It is the task of psychoanalysis to search for
that hidden place where the libido dwells, and where it is as a
rule inaccessible to the patient. The hidden place is the non-conscious,
which may also be called the unconscious, without
ascribing to it any mysterious significance.
.sp 2
.h3
The Conception of Unconscious Phantasy
.sp 2
Psychoanalytic experience has taught us that there are non-conscious
systems which, by analogy with conscious phantasies,
can be described as phantasy-systems of the unconscious. In
cases of neurotic apathy these phantasy systems of the unconscious
are the objects of the libido. We know well that, when
we speak of unconscious phantasy systems, we only speak figuratively.
We do not mean more by this than that we accept as an
indispensable postulate the conception of psychic entities existing
outside consciousness. Experience teaches us, we might say
daily, that there are unconscious psychic processes which influence
the disposition of the libido in a perceptible way. Those cases,
// File: 034.png
.pn +1
known to every psychiatrist in which complicated symptoms of
delusions emerge with relative great suddenness, show clearly
that there must be unconscious psychic development and preparation,
for we cannot regard them as having been just suddenly
formed when they entered consciousness.
.sp 2
.h3
The Sexual Terminology
.sp 2
I feel myself justified in making this digression concerning
the unconscious. I have done it to point out that, with regard to
shifting of the manifestations of the libido, we have to deal not
only with the conscious, but also with another factor, the unconscious,
whither the libido sometimes disappears. We have not
yet followed up the discussion of the further consequences which
result from the adoption of the libido-theory.
Freud has taught us, and we see it in the daily practice of
psychoanalysis, that in earlier childhood, instead of the normal
later sexuality, we find many tendencies which in later life are
called perversions. We have to admit that Freud has the right
to give to these tendencies a sexual terminology. Through the
introduction of the conception of the libido, we see that in adults
those elementary components which seemed to be the origin and
the source of normal sexuality, lose their importance, and are
reduced to mere potentialities. The effective power, their life
force, is to be found in the libido. Without libido these components
mean nothing. We saw that Freud gives to the conception
of libido an undoubted sexual definition, somewhat in the
sense of sexual desire. The general view is, that libido in this
sense only comes into being at the age of puberty. How are we
then to explain the fact that in Freud’s view a child has a
polymorphic-perverse sexuality, and that therefore, in children,
the libido brings into action not only one, but several possibilities?
If the libido, in Freud’s sense, begins its existence at
puberty, it could not be held accountable for earlier infantile
perversions. In that case, we should have to regard these infantile
perversions as “faculties of the mind,” in the sense of the
theory of components. Apart from the hopeless theoretical confusion
which would thus arise, we must not multiply explanatory
principles in accordance with the philosophical axiom: “principia
praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda.”
// File: 035.png
.pn +1
There is no other way but to agree that before and after
puberty it is the same libido. Hence, the perversities of childhood
have arisen exactly in the same way as those of adults.
Common sense will object to this, as obviously the sexual needs
of children cannot possibly be the same as those of adults. We
might admit, with Freud, that the libido before and after puberty
is the same, but is different in its intensity. Instead of the
intense post-pubertal sexual desire, there would be first a slight
sexual desire in childhood, with diminishing intensity until, as
we reach back to the first year, it is but a trace. We might admit
that we are biologically in agreement with this formulation. It
would then have to be also agreed that everything that falls into
the region of this enlarged conception of sexuality is already pre-existing
but in miniature; for instance, all those emotional manifestations
of psycho-sexuality: desire for affection, jealousy, and
many others, and by no means least, the neuroses of childhood.
It must, however, be admitted that these emotional manifestations
of childhood by no means make the impression of being in
miniature; their intensity can rival that of an affect among
adults. Nor must it be forgotten that experience has shown that
perverse manifestations of sexuality in childhood are often more
glaring, and indeed seem to have a greater development, than in
adults. If an adult under similar conditions had this apparently
excessive form of sexuality, which is practically normal in
children, we could rightly expect a total absence of normal sexuality,
and of many other important biological adaptations. An
adult is rightly called perverse when his libido is not used for
normal functions, and the same could be said of a child: it is
polymorphous perverse since it does not know normal sexual
functions.
These considerations suggest the idea that perhaps the amount
of libido is always the same, and that no increase first occur at
puberty. This somewhat audacious conception accords with the
example of the law of the conservation of energy, according to
which the quantity of energy remains always the same. It is
possible that the summit of maturity is reached when the infantile
diffuse applications of libido discharge themselves into the one
channel of definite sexuality, and thus lose themselves therein.
For the moment we must content ourselves with these suggestions,
// File: 036.png
.pn +1
for we must next pay attention to one point of criticism
concerning the quality of the infantile libido.
Many critics do not admit that the infantile libido is simply
less intense or is essentially of the same kind as the libido of
adults. The emotions among adults are correlated with the
genital functions. This is not the case in children, or it is only
so in miniature, or exceptionally, and this gives rise to an important
distinction, which must not be undervalued.
I believe such an objection is justified. There is really a considerable
difference between immature and fully developed functions,
as there is a difference between play and reality, between
shooting with blank and with loaded cartridges. That the
childish libido has the harmlessness demanded by common sense
cannot be contested. But of course none can deny that blank
shooting is shooting. We must get accustomed to the idea that
sexuality really exists, even before puberty, right back in early
childhood, and that we have no right to pretend that manifestations
of this immature sexuality are not sexual. This does not
indeed refute the objection, which, while recognizing the existence
of infantile sexuality in the form already described, yet denies
Freud’s claim to regard as sexual early infantile manifestations
such as sucking. We have mentioned already the motives which
induced Freud to enlarge the sexual terminology in such a way.
We mentioned, too, how this very act of sucking, for instance,
could be conceived from the standpoint of pleasure in the function
of nutrition, and that, on biological grounds, there was more
justification for this derivation than for Freud’s view. It might
be objected that these and similar activities of the oral zones are
found in later life in an undoubted sexual use. This only means
that these activities can in later life be used for sexual purposes,
but that does not tell us anything concerning the primitive sexual
nature of these forms. I must, therefore, admit that I find no
ground for regarding the activities of the suckling, which provoke
pleasure and satisfaction, from the standpoint of sexuality. Indeed
there are many objections against this conception. It seems
to me, in so far as I am capable of judging these difficult problems,
that from the standpoint of sexuality it is necessary to
divide human life into three phases.
// File: 037.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.h3
The Three Phases of Life
.sp 2
The first phase embraces the first years of life. I call this
part of life the pre-sexual stage. These years correspond to the
caterpillar-stage of butterflies, and are characterized almost exclusively
by the functions of nutrition and growth.
The second phase embraces the later years of childhood up to
puberty, and might be called the pre-pubertal stage.
The third phase is that of riper years, proceeding only from
puberty onwards, and could be called the time of maturity.
You cannot have failed to notice that we become conscious of
the greatest difficulty when we arrive at the question at what age
we must put the limit of the pre-sexual stage. I am ready to
confess my uncertainty with regard to this problem. If I survey
the psychoanalytical experiences with children, as yet insufficiently
numerous, at the same time keeping in mind the observations
made by Freud, it seems to me that the limit of this phase
lies between the third and fifth years. This, of course, with due
consideration for the greatest individual diversities. From various
aspects this is an important age. The child has emancipated
itself already from the helplessness of the baby, and a series of
important psychological functions have acquired a firm hold.
From this period on, the obscurity of the early infantile
“amnesia,” or the discontinuity of the early infantile consciousness,
begins to clear up through the sporadic continuity of
memory. It seems as if, at this age, a considerable step had
been made towards emancipation and the formation of a new and
independent personality. As far as we know, the first signs of
interest and activity which may fairly be called sexual fall into
this period, although these sexual indications have still the infantile
characteristics of harmlessness and naiveté. I think I
have sufficiently demonstrated why a sexual terminology cannot
be given to the pre-sexual stage, and so we may now consider the
other problems from the standpoint we have just reached. You
will remember that we dropped the problem of the libido in childhood,
because it seemed impossible to arrive at any clearness in
that way. But now we are obliged to take up the question again,
if only to see whether the energic conception harmonizes with the
principles just advanced. We saw, following Freud’s conception,
// File: 038.png
.pn +1
that the altered manifestations of the infantile sexuality, if compared
with those of maturity, are to be explained by the diminution
of sexuality in childhood.
.sp 2
.h3
The Sexual Definition of Libido Must be Abandoned
.sp 2
The intensity of the libido is said to be diminished relatively to
the early age. But we advanced just now several considerations
to show why it seems doubtful if we can regard the vital functions
of a child, sexuality excepted, as of less intensity than those
of adults. We can really say that, sexuality excepted, the emotional
phenomena, and, if nervous symptoms are present, then
these likewise are quite as intense as those of adults. On the
energic conception of the libido all these things are but manifestations
of the libido. But it becomes rather difficult to conceive
that the intensity of the libido can ever constitute the difference
between a mature and an immature sexuality. The explanation
of this difference seems rather to postulate a change in the localization
of the libido (if the expression be allowed). In contradistinction
to the medical definition the libido in children is
occupied far more with certain side-functions of a mental and
physiological nature than with local sexual functions. One is
here already tempted to remove from the term libido the predicate
“sexualis,” and thus to have done with the sexual definition
of the term given in Freud’s “Three Contributions.” This
necessity becomes imperative, when we put it in the form of a
question: The child in the first years of its life is intensely
living—suffering and enjoying—the question is, whether his
striving, his suffering, his enjoyment are by reason of his libido
sexualis? Freud has pronounced himself in favor of this supposition.
There is no need to repeat the reasons through which
I am compelled to accept the pre-sexual stage. The larva stage
possesses a libido of nutrition, if I may so express it, but not yet
the libido sexualis. It is thus we must put it, if we wish to keep
the energic conception which the libido theory offers us. I think
there is nothing for it but to abandon the sexual definition of
libido, or we shall lose what there is valuable in the libido theory,
that is, the energic conception. For a long time past the desire
to extend the meaning of libido, and to remove it from its narrow
// File: 039.png
.pn +1
and sexual limitations, has forced itself upon Freud’s school.
One was never weary of insisting that sexuality in the psychological
sense was not to be taken too literally, but in a broader
connotation; but exactly how, that remained obscure, and thus
too, sincere criticism remained unsatisfied.
I do not think I am going astray if I see the real value of the
libido theory in the energic conception, and not in its sexual
definition. Thanks to the former, we are in possession of a most
valuable heuristic principle. We owe to the energic conception
the possibility of dynamic ideas and relationships, which are of
inestimable value for us in the chaos of the psychic world. The
Freudians would be wrong not to listen to the voice of criticism,
which reproaches our conception of libido with mysticism and
inaccessibility. We deceived ourselves in believing that we could
ever make the libido sexualis the bearer of the energic conception
of the psychical life, and if many of Freud’s school still believe
they possess a well-defined and almost complete conception of
libido, they are not aware that this conception has been put to use
far beyond the bounds of its sexual definition. The critics are
right when they object to our theory of libido as explaining things
which cannot belong to its sphere. It must be admitted that
Freud’s school makes use of a conception of libido which passes
beyond the bounds of its primary definition. Indeed, this must
produce the impression that one is working with a mystical
principle.
.sp 2
.h3
The Problem of Libido in Dementia Præcox
.sp 2
I have sought to show these infringements in a special work,
“Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido,” and at the same time
the necessity for creating a new conception of libido, which shall
be in harmony with the energic conception. Freud himself was
forced to a discussion of his original conception of libido when
he tried to apply its energic point of view to a well-known case
of dementia præcox—the so-called Schreber case. In this case,
we had to deal, among other things, with that well-known problem
in the psychology of dementia præcox, the loss of adaptation
to reality, the peculiar phenomenon consisting in a special
tendency of these patients to construct an inner world of phantasy
of their own, surrendering for this purpose their adaptation
// File: 040.png
.pn +1
to reality. As a part of the phenomenon, the lack of sociability
or emotional rapport will be well known to you all, this
representing a striking disturbance of the function of reality.
Through considerable psychological study of these patients we
discovered, that this lack of adaptation to reality is compensated
by a progressive increase in the creation of phantasies. This
goes so far that the dream-world is for the patient more real than
external reality. The patient Schreber, described by Freud,
found for this phenomenon an excellent figurative description in
his delusion of the “end of the world.” His loss of reality is thus
very concretely represented. The dynamic conception of this
phenomenon is very clear. We say that the libido withdrew
itself more and more from the external world, consequently
entered the inner world, the world of phantasies, and had there
to create, as a compensation for the lost external world, a so-called
equivalent of reality. This compensation is built up piece
by piece, and it is most interesting to observe the psychological
materials of which this inner world is composed. This way of
conceiving the transposition and displacement of the libido has
been made by the every-day use of the term, its original pure
sexual meaning being very rarely recalled. In general, the word
“libido” is used practically in so harmless a sense that Claparède,
in a conversation, once remarked that we could as well use the
word “interest.”
The manner in which this expression is generally used has
given rise to a way of using the term that made it possible to
explain Schreber’s “end of the world” by withdrawal of the
libido. On this occasion, Freud recalled his original sexual
definition of the libido, and tried to arrive at an understanding
with the change which in the meantime had taken place. In his
article on Schreber, he discusses the question, whether what the
psychoanalytic school calls libido, and conceives of as “interest
from erotic sources” coincides with interest generally speaking.
You see that, putting the problem in this way, Freud asks the
question which Claparède practically answered. Freud discusses
the question here, whether the loss of reality noticed in dementia
præcox, to which I drew attention in my book,[#] “The Psychology
of Dementia Præcox,” is due entirely to the withdrawal of erotic
// File: 041.png
.pn +1
interest, or if this coincides with the so-called objective interest
in general. We can hardly agree that the normal “fonction du
réel” [Janet] is only maintained through erotic interest. The
fact is that, in many cases, reality vanishes altogether, and not a
trace of psychological adaptation can be found in these cases.
Reality is repressed, and replaced by phantasies created through
complexes. We are forced to say that not only the erotic
interests, but interests in general—that is, the whole adaptation
to reality—are lost. I formerly tried, in my “Psychology of
Dementia Præcox,” to get out of this difficulty by using the expression
“psychic energy,” because I could not base the theory of
dementia præcox on the theory of transference of the libido in its
sexual definition. My experience—at that time chiefly psychiatric—did
not permit me to understand this theory. Only later
did I learn to understand the correctness of the theory as regards
the neuroses by increased experience in hysteria and the compulsion
neurosis. As a matter of fact, an abnormal displacement
of libido, quite definitely sexual, does play a great part in
the neuroses. But although very characteristic repressions of
sexual libido do take place in certain neuroses, that loss of reality,
so typical for dementia præcox, never occurs. In dementia
præcox, so extreme is the loss of the function of reality that this
loss must also entail a loss of motive power, to which any sexual
nature must be absolutely denied, for it will not seem to anyone
that reality is a sexual function. If this were so, the withdrawal
of erotic interests in the neuroses would lead to a loss of reality—a
loss of reality indeed that could be compared with that in
dementia præcox. But, as I said before, this is not the case.
These facts have made it impossible for me to transfer Freud’s
libido theory to dementia præcox. Hence, my view is, that the
attempt made by Abraham, in his article “The Psycho-Sexual
Differences Between Hysteria and Dementia Præcox,” is from
the standpoint of Freud’s conception of libido theoretically untenable.
Abraham’s belief, that the paranoidal system, or the
symptomatology of dementia præcox, arises by the libido withdrawing
from the external world, cannot be justified if we take
“libido” according to Freud’s definition. For, as Freud has
clearly shown, a mere introversion or regression of the libido
leads always to a neurosis, and not to dementia præcox. It is
// File: 042.png
.pn +1
impossible to transfer the libido theory, with its sexual definition,
directly to dementia præcox, as this disease shows a loss of reality
not to be explained by the deficiency in erotic interests.
It gives me particular satisfaction that our master also, when
he placed his hand on the fragile material of paranoiac psychology,
felt himself compelled to doubt the applicability of his conception
of libido which had prevailed hitherto. My position of
reserve towards the ubiquity of sexuality which I allowed myself
to adopt in the preface to my “Psychology of Dementia Præcox”—although
with a complete recognition of the psychological
mechanism—was dictated by the conception of the libido theory
of that time. Its sexual definition did not enable me to explain
those disturbances of functions which affect the indefinite sphere
of the instinct of hunger, just as much as they do those of
sexuality. For a long time the libido theory seemed to me inapplicable
to dementia præcox.
.sp 2
.h3
The Genetic Conception of Libido
.sp 2
With greater experience in my analytical work, I noticed that
a slow change of my conception of libido had taken place. A
genetic conception of libido gradually took the place of the
descriptive definition of libido contained in Freud’s “Three
Contributions.” Thus it became possible for me to replace, by
the expression “psychic energy,” the term libido. The next step
was that I asked myself if now-a-days the function of reality
consists only to a very small extent of sexual libido, and to a
very large extent of other impulses. It is still a very important
question, considered from the phylogenetic standpoint, whether
the function of reality is not, at least very largely, of sexual
origin. It is impossible to answer this question directly, in so
far as the function of reality is concerned. We shall try to come
to some understanding by a side-path.
A superficial glance at the history of evolution suffices to teach
us that innumerable complicated functions, whose sexual character
must be denied, are originally nothing but derivations from
the instinct of propagation. As is well known, there has been
an important displacement in the fundamentals of propagation
during the ascent through the animal scale. The offspring has
// File: 043.png
.pn +1
been reduced in number, and the primitive uncertainty of impregnation
has been replaced by a quite assured impregnation,
and a more effective protection of offspring. The energy required
for the production of eggs and sperma has been transferred into
the creation of mechanisms of attraction, and mechanisms for the
protection of offspring. Here we find the first instincts of art in
animals, used for the instinct of propagation, and limited to the
rutting season. The original sexual character of these biological
institutions became lost with their organic fixation, and their
functional independence. None the less, there can be no doubt
as to their sexual origin, as, for instance, there is no doubt about
the original relation between sexuality and music, but it would
be a generalization as futile, as unesthetic, to include music under
the category of sexuality. Such a terminology would lead to the
consideration of the Cathedral of Cologne under mineralogy,
because it has been built with stones. Those quite ignorant of
the problems of evolution are much astonished to find how few
things there are in human life which cannot finally be reduced to
the instinct of propagation. It embraces nearly everything, I
think, that is dear and precious to us.
We have hitherto spoken of the libido as of the instinct of
reproduction, or the instinct of the preservation of the species,
and limited our conception to that libido which is opposed to
hunger, just as the instinct of the preservation of the species is
opposed to that of self-preservation. Of course in nature this
artificial distinction does not exist. Here we find only a continuous
instinct of life, a will to live, which tries to obtain the
propagation of the whole race by the preservation of the individual.
To this extent this conception coincides with that of
Schopenhauer’s “will,” as objectively we can only conceive a
movement as a manifestation of an internal desire. As we have
already boldly concluded that the libido, which originally subserved
the creation of eggs and seed, is now firmly organized in
the function of nest-building, and can no longer be employed
otherwise, we are similarly obliged to include in this conception
every desire, hunger no less. We have no warrant whatever for
differentiating essentially the desire to build nests from the
desire to eat.
I think you will already understand the position we have
// File: 044.png
.pn +1
reached with these considerations. We are about to follow up
the energic conception by putting the energic mode of action in
place of the purely formal functioning. Just as reciprocal actions,
well known in the old natural science, have been replaced by the
law of the conservation of energy, so here too, in the sphere of
psychology, we seek to replace the reciprocal activities of coordinated
psychical faculties by energy, conceived as one and
homogeneous. Thus we must bow to the criticism which reproaches
the psychoanalytic school for working with a mystical
conception of libido. I have to dispel this illusion that the whole
psychoanalytic school possesses a clearly conceived and obvious
conception of libido. I maintain that the conception of libido
with which we are working is not only not concrete or known,
but is an unknown X, a conceptual image, a token, and no
more real than the energy in the conceptual world of the physicist.
In this wise only can we escape those arbitrary transgressions of
the proper boundaries, which are always made when we want to
reduce coördinated forces to one another. Certain analogies of
the action of heat with the action of light are not to be explained
by saying that this tertium comparationis proves that the undulations
of heat are the same as the undulations of light; the conceptual
image of energy is the real point of comparison. If we
regard libido in this way we endeavor to simulate the progress
which has already been made in physics. The economy of
thought which physics has already obtained we strive after in
our libido theory. We conceive libido now simply as energy, so
that we are in the position to figure the manifold processes as
forms of energy. Thus, we replace the old reciprocal action by
relations of absolute equivalence. We shall not be astonished
if we are met with the cry of vitalism. But we are as far
removed from any belief in a specific vital power, as from any
other metaphysical assertion. We term libido that energy which
manifests itself by vital processes, which is subjectively perceived
as aspiration, longing and striving. We see in the diversity
of natural phenomena the desire, the libido, in the most
diverse applications and forms. In early childhood we find
libido at first wholly in the form of the instinct of nutrition, providing
for the development of the body. As the body develops,
there open up, successively, new spheres of influence for the
// File: 045.png
.pn +1
libido. The last, and, from its functional significance, most overpowering
sphere of influence, is sexuality, which at first seems
very closely connected with the function of nutrition. With that
you may compare the well-known influence on propagation of
the conditions of nutrition in the lower animals and plants.
In the sphere of sexuality, libido does take that form whose
enormous importance justifies us in the choice of the term
“libido,” in its strict sexual sense. Here for the first time libido
appears in the form of an undifferentiated sexual primitive
power, as an energy of growth, clearly forcing the individual
towards division, budding, etc. The clearest separation of the
two forms of libido is found among those animals where the
stage of nutrition is separated by the pupa stage from the stage
of sexuality. Out of this sexual primitive power, through which
one small creature produces millions of eggs and sperm, derivatives
have been developed by extraordinary restriction of fecundity,
the functions of which are maintained by a special differentiated
libido. This differentiated libido is henceforth
desexualized, for it is dissociated from its original function of
producing eggs and sperm, nor is there any possibility of restoring
it to its original function. The whole process of development
consists in the increasing absorption of the libido which only
created, originally, products of generation in the secondary functions
of attraction, and protection of offspring. This development
presupposes a quite different and much more complicated
relationship to reality, a true function of reality which is functionally
inseparable from the needs of reproduction. Thus the
altered mode of reproduction involves a correspondingly increased
adaptation to reality. This, of course, does not imply
that the function of reality is exclusively due to differentiation
in reproduction. I am aware that a large part of the instinct of
nutrition is connected with it. Thus we arrive at an insight into
certain primitive conditions of the function of reality. It would
be fundamentally wrong to pretend that the compelling source
is still a sexual one. It was largely a sexual one originally. The
process of absorption of the primitive libido into secondary functions
certainly always took place in the form of so-called
affluxes of sexual libido (“libidinöse Zuschüsse”).
That is to say, sexuality was diverted from its original destination,
// File: 046.png
.pn +1
a definite quantity was used up in the mechanisms of
mutual attraction and of protection of offspring. This transference
of sexual libido from the sexual sphere to associated functions
is still taking place (e. g., modern neo-Malthusianism is the
artificial continuation of the natural tendency). We call this
process sublimation, when this operation occurs without injury to
the adaptation of the individual; we call it repression—when the
attempt fails. From the descriptive standpoint psychoanalysis
accepts the multiplicity of instincts, and, among them, the instinct
of sexuality as a special phenomenon, moreover, it recognizes
certain affluxes of the libido to asexual instincts.
From the genetic standpoint it is otherwise. It regards the
multiplicity of instincts as issuing out of relative unity, the primitive
libido. It recognizes that definite quantities of the primitive
libido are split off, associated with the recently created functions,
and finally merged in them. From this standpoint we can say,
without any difficulty, that patients with dementia præcox withdraw
their “libido” from the external world and in consequence
suffer a loss of reality, which is compensated by an increase of the
phantasy-building activities.
We must now fit the new conception of libido into that theory
of sexuality in childhood which is of such great importance in the
theory of neurosis. Generally speaking, we first find the libido as
the energy of vital activities acting in the zone of the function of
nutrition. Through the rhythmical movements in the act of
sucking, nourishment is taken with all signs of satisfaction. As
the individual grows and his organs develop, the libido creates
new ways of desire, new activities and satisfactions. Now the
original model—rhythmic activity, creating pleasure and satisfaction—must
be transferred to other functions which have their
final goal in sexuality.
This transition is not made suddenly at puberty, but it takes
place gradually throughout the course of the greater part of childhood.
The libido can only very slowly and with great difficulty
detach itself from the characteristics of the function of nutrition,
in order to pass over into the characteristics of sexual function.
As far as I can see, we have two epochs during this transition,
the epoch of sucking and the epoch of the displaced rhythmic
activity. Considered solely from the point of view of its mode
// File: 047.png
.pn +1
of action, sucking clings entirely to the domain of the function
of nutrition, but it presents also a far wider aspect, it is no mere
function of nutrition, it is a rhythmical activity, with its goal in a
pleasure and satisfaction of its own, distinct from the obtaining
of nourishment. The hand comes into play as an accessory
organ. In the epoch of the displaced rhythmical activity it stands
out still more as an accessory organ, when the oral zone ceases to
give pleasure, which must now be obtained in other directions.
The possibilities are many. As a rule the other openings of the
body become the first objects of interest of the libido; then follow
the skin in general and certain places of predilection upon it.
The actions carried out at these places generally take the form
of rubbing, piercing, tugging, etc., accompanied by a certain
rhythm, and serve to produce pleasure. After a halt of greater
or less duration at these stations, the libido proceeds until it
arrives at the sexual zone, where it may next provoke the first
onanistic attempts. During its “march,” the libido carries over
not a little from the function of nutrition into the sexual zone;
this readily explains the numerous close associations between the
function of nutrition and the sexual function.
This “march” of the libido takes place at the time of the pre-sexual
stage, which is characterized by the fact that the libido
gradually relinquishes the special character of the instinct of
nutrition, and by degrees acquires the character of the sexual
instinct. At this stage we cannot yet speak of a true sexual
libido. Therefore we are obliged to qualify the polymorphous
perverse sexuality of early infancy differently. The polymorphism
of the tendencies of the libido at this time is to be explained
as the gradual movement of the libido away from the sphere of
the function of nutrition towards the sexual function.
The Infantile “Perversity.”—Thus rightly vanishes the term
“perverse”—so strongly contested by our opponents—for it provokes
a false idea.
When a chemical body breaks up into its elements, these elements
are the products of its disintegration, but it is not permissible
on that account to describe elements as entirely products of
disintegration. Perversities are disorders of fully-developed sexuality,
but are never precursors of sexuality, although there is undoubtedly
an analogy between the precursors and the products of
// File: 048.png
.pn +1
disintegration. The childish rudiments, no longer to be conceived
as perverse, but to be regarded as stages of development, change
gradually into normal sexuality, as the normal sexuality develops.
The more smoothly the libido withdraws from its provisional
positions, the more completely and the more quickly does the
formation of normal sexuality take place. It is proper to the
conception of normal sexuality that all those early infantile inclinations
which are not yet sexual should be given up. The less
this is the case, the more is sexuality threatened with perverse
development. The expression “perverse” is here used in its
right place. The fundamental condition of a perversity is an
infantile, imperfectly developed state of sexuality.
.fn #
No. 7 of this Monograph Series.
.fn-
.fn #
No. 3 of this Monograph Series.
.fn-
// File: 049.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap4
CHAPTER IV | The Etiological Significance of the Infantile Sexuality
.sp 2
Now that we have decided what is to be understood as infantile
sexuality, we can follow up the discussion of the theory of the
neuroses, which we began in the first lecture and then dropped.
We followed the theory of the neuroses up to the point where we
ran against Freud’s statement, that the tendency which brings a
traumatic event to a pathological activity, is a sexual one. From
our foregoing considerations we understand what is meant by a
sexual tendency. It is a standing still, a retardation in that
process whereby the libido frees itself from the manifestations
of the pre-sexual stage.
First of all, we must regard this disturbance as a fixation.
The libido, in its transition from the function of nutrition to the
sexual function, lingers unduly at certain stages. A disharmony
is created, since provisional and, as it were, worn-out activities,
persist at a period when they should have been overcome. This
formula is applicable to all those infantile characteristics so prevalent
among neurotic people that no attentive observer can have
overlooked them. In dementia præcox it is so obtrusive that a
symptom complex, hebephrenia, derives its name therefrom.
The matter is not ended, however, by saying that the libido
lingers in the preliminary stages, for while the libido thus lingers,
time does not stand still, and the development of the individual is
always proceeding apace. The physical maturation increases the
contrast and the disharmony between the persistent infantile manifestations,
and the demands of the later age, with its changed
conditions of life. In this way the foundation is laid for the dissociation
of the personality, and thereby to that conflict which is
the real basis of the neuroses. The more the libido is in arrears
in practice, the more intense will be the conflict. The traumatic
or pathogenic moment is the one which serves best to make this
conflict manifest. As Freud showed in his earlier works, one can
easily imagine a neurosis arising in this way.
// File: 050.png
.pn +1
This conception fitted in rather well with the views of Janet,
who ascribed neurosis to a certain defect. From this point of
view the neurosis could be regarded as a product of retardation
in the development of affectivity; and I can easily imagine
that this conception must seem selfevident to every one who is
inclined to derive the neuroses more or less directly from heredity
or congenital degeneration.
.sp 2
.h3
The Infantile Sexual Etiology Criticized
.sp 2
Unfortunately the reality is much more complicated. Let me
facilitate an insight into these complications by an example of a
case of hysteria. It will, I hope, enable me to demonstrate the
characteristic complication, so important for the theory of neurosis.
You will probably remember the case of the young lady
with hysteria, whom I mentioned at the beginning of my lectures.
We noticed the remarkable fact that this patient was unaffected
by situations which one might have expected to make a profound
impression and yet showed an unexpected extreme pathological
reaction to a quite everyday event. We took this occasion to
express our doubt as to the etiological significance of the shock,
and to investigate the so-called predisposition which rendered the
trauma effective. The result of that investigation led us to what
has just been mentioned, that it is by no means improbable that
the origin of the neurosis is due to a retardation of the affective
development.
You will now ask me what is to be understood by the retardation
of the affectivity of this hysteric. The patient lives in a
world of phantasy, which can only be regarded as infantile. It is
unnecessary to give a description of these phantasies, for you, as
neurologists or psychiatrists, have the opportunity daily to listen
to the childish prejudices, illusions and emotional pretensions to
which neurotic people give way. The disinclination to face stern
reality is the distinguishing trait of these phantasies—some lack
of earnestness, some trifling, which sometimes hides real difficulties
in a light-hearted manner, at others exaggerates trifles into
great troubles. We recognize at once that inadequate psychic
attitude towards reality which characterizes the child, its wavering
opinions and its deficient orientation in matters of the external
world. With such an infantile mental disposition all kinds of desires,
// File: 051.png
.pn +1
phantasies and illusions can grow luxuriantly, and this we
have to regard as the critical causation. Through such phantasies
people slip into an unreal attitude, preeminently ill-adapted to the
world, which is bound some day to lead to a catastrophe. When
we trace back the infantile phantasy of the patient to her earliest
childhood we find, it is true, many distinct, outstanding scenes
which might well serve to provide fresh food for this or that
variation in phantasy, but it would be vain to search for the so-called
traumatic motive, whence something abnormal might have
sprung, such an abnormal activity, let us say, as day-dreaming
itself. There are certainly to be found traumatic scenes, although
not in earliest childhood; the few scenes of earliest childhood
which were remembered seem not to be traumatic, being rather
accidental events, which passed by without leaving any effect on
her phantasy worth mentioning. The earliest phantasies arose
out of all sorts of vague and only partly understood impressions
received from her parents. Many peculiar feelings centered
around her father, vacillating between anxiety, horror, aversion,
disgust, love and enthusiasm. The case was like so many other
cases of hysteria, where no traumatic etiology can be found, but
which grows from the roots of a peculiar and premature activity
of phantasy which maintains permanently the character of infantilism.
You will object that in this case the scene with the shying
horses represents the trauma. It is clearly the model of that
night-scene which happened nineteen years later, where the
patient was incapable of avoiding the trotting horses. That she
wanted to plunge into the river has an analogy in the model scene,
where the horses and carriage fell into the river.
Since the latter traumatic moment she suffered from hysterical
fits. As I tried to show you, we do not find any trace of this
apparent etiology developed in the course of her phantasy life.
It seems as if the danger of losing her life, that first time, when
the horses shied, passed without leaving any emotional trace.
None of the events that occurred in the following years showed
any trace of that fright. In parenthesis let me add, that perhaps
it never happened at all. It may have even been a mere phantasy,
for I have only the assertions of the patient. All of a sudden,
some eighteen years later, this event becomes of importance and
// File: 052.png
.pn +1
is, so to say, reproduced and carried out in all its details. This
assumption is extremely unlikely, and becomes still more inconceivable
if we also bear in mind that the story of the shying
horses may not even be true. Be that as it may, it is and remains
almost unthinkable that an affect should remain buried for years
and then suddenly explode. In other cases there is exactly the
same state of affairs. I know, for instance, of a case in which
the shock of an earthquake, long recovered from, suddenly came
back as a lively fear of earthquakes, although this reminiscence
could not be explained by the external circumstances.
.sp 2
.h3
The Traumatic Theory—A False Way
.sp 2
It is a very suspicious circumstance that these patients frequently
show a pronounced tendency to account for their illnesses
by some long-past event, ingeniously withdrawing the attention of
the physician from the present moment towards some false track
in the past. This false track was the first one pursued by the
psychoanalytic theory. To this false hypothesis we owe an insight
into the understanding of the neurotic symptoms never
before reached, an insight we should not have gained if the investigation
had not chosen this path, really guided thither, however,
by the misleading tendencies of the patient.
I think that only a man who regards world-happenings as a
chain of more or less fortuitous contingencies, and therefore believes
that the guiding hand of the reason-endowed pedagogue is
permanently wanted, can ever imagine that this path, upon which
the patient leads the physician, has been a wrong one, from which
one ought to have warned men off with a sign-board. Besides
the deeper insight into psychological determination, we owe to the
so-called error the discovery of questions of immeasurable importance
regarding the basis of psychic processes. It is for us to
rejoice and be thankful that Freud had the courage to let himself
be guided along this path. Not thus is the progress of science
hindered, but rather through blind adherence to a provisional
formulation, through the typical conservatism of authority, the
vanity of learned men, their fear of making mistakes. This lack
of the martyr’s courage is far more injurious to the credit and
greatness of scientific knowledge than an honest error.
// File: 053.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.h3
Retardation of the Emotional Development
.sp 2
But let us return to our own case. The following question
arises: If the old trauma is not of etiological significance, then
the cause of the manifest neurosis is probably to be found in the
retardation of the emotional development. We must therefore
disregard the patient’s assertion that her hysterical crises date
from the fright from the shying horses, although this fright was
in fact the beginning of her evident illness. This event only
seems to be important, although it is not so in reality. This same
formula is valid for all the so-called shocks. They only seem to
be important because they are the starting-point of the external
expression of an abnormal condition. As explained in detail,
this abnormal condition is an anachronistic continuation of an
infantile stage of libido-development. These patients still retain
forms of the libido which they ought to have renounced long ago.
It is impossible to give a list, as it were, of these forms, for they
are of an extraordinary variety. The most common, which is
scarcely ever absent, is the excessive activity of phantasies, characterized
by an unconcerned exaggeration of subjective wishes.
This exaggerated activity is always a sign of want of proper employment
of the libido. The libido sticks fast to its use in phantasies,
instead of being employed in a more rigorous adaptation to
the real conditions of life.
.sp 2
.h3
Introversion
.sp 2
This state is called the state of introversion, the libido is used
for the psychical inner world instead of being applied to the external
world. A regular attendant symptom of this retardation
in the emotional development is the so-called parent-complex. If
the libido is not used entirely for the adaptation to reality, it is
always more or less introverted. The material content of the
psychic world is composed of reminiscences, giving it a vividness
of activity which in reality long since ceased to pertain thereto.
The consequence is, that these patients still live more or less in a
world which in truth belongs to the past. They fight with difficulties
which once played a part in their life, but which ought to
have been obliterated long ago. They still grieve over matters, or
rather they are still concerned with matters, which should have
// File: 054.png
.pn +1
long ago lost their importance for them. They divert themselves,
or distress themselves, with images which were once normally of
importance for them but are of no significance at their later age.
.sp 2
.h3
The Complex of the Parents
.sp 2
Amongst those influences most important during childhood,
the personalities of the parents play the most potent part. Even
if the parents have long been dead, and might and should have
lost all real importance, since the life-conditions of the patients
are perhaps totally changed, yet these parents are still somehow
present and as important as if they were still alive. Love and
admiration, resistance, repugnance, hate and revolt, still cling to
their figures, transfigured by affection and very often bearing
little resemblance to the past reality. It was this fact which
forced me to talk no longer of father and mother directly, but to
employ instead the term “image” (imago) of mother or of
father for these phantasies no longer deal with the real father
and the real mother, but with the subjective, and very often completely
altered creations of the imagination which prolong an
existence only in the patient’s mind.
The complex of the parents’ images, that is to say, the sum of
ideas connected with the parents, provides an important field of
employment for the introverted libido. I must mention in passing
that the complex has in itself but a shadowy existence in so
far as it is not invested with libido. Following the usage that
we arrived at in the “Diagnostische Associationsstudien,” the
word “complex” is used for a system of ideas already invested
with, and actuated by, libido. This system exists as a mere possibility,
ready for application, if not invested with libido either
temporarily or permanently.
The “Nucleus”-Complex.—At the time when the psychoanalytic
theory was still under the dominance of the trauma conception
and, in conformity with that view, inclined to look for
the causa efficiens of the neurosis in the past, the parent-complex
seemed to us to be the so-called root-complex—to employ Freud’s
term—or nucleus-complex (“Kerncomplex”).
The part which the parents played seemed to be so highly
determining that we were inclined to attribute to them all later
complications in the life of the patient. Some years ago I discussed
// File: 055.png
.pn +1
this view in my article[#] “Die Bedeutung des Vaters für
das Schicksal des Einzelnen.” (The importance of the father for
the fate of the individual.)
Here also we were guided by the patient’s tendency to revert
to the past, in accordance with the direction of his introverted
libido. Now indeed it was no longer the external, accidental
event which caused the pathogenic effect, but a psychological
effect which seemed to arise out of the individual’s difficulties in
adapting himself to the conditions of his familiar surroundings.
It was especially the disharmony between the parents on the one
hand and between the child and the parents on the other which
seemed favorable for creating currents in the child little compatible
with his individual course of life. In the article just
alluded to I have described some instances, taken from a wealth
of material, which show these characteristics very distinctly. The
influence of the parents does not come to an end, alas, with their
neurotic descendants’ blame of the family circumstances, or their
false education, as the basis of their illness, but it extends even
to certain actual events in the life and actions of the patient,
where such a determining influence could not have been expected.
The lively imitativeness which we find in savages as well as in
children can produce in certain rather sensitive children a
peculiar inner and unconscious identification with the parents;
that is to say, such a similar mental attitude that effects in real
life are sometimes produced which, even in detail, resemble the
personal experiences of the parents. For the empirical material
here, I must refer you to the literature. I should like to remind
you that one of my pupils, Dr. Emma Fürst, produced valuable
experimental proofs for the solution of this problem, to which
I referred in my lecture at Clark University.[#] In applying
association experiments to whole families, Dr. Fürst established
the great resemblance of reaction-type among all the members
of one family.
These experiments show that there very often exists an unconscious
parallelism of association between parents and children,
to be explained as an intense imitation or identification.
// File: 056.png
.pn +1
The results of these investigations show far-reaching psychological
tendencies in parallel directions, which readily explain
at times the astonishing conformity in their destinies. Our
destinies are as a rule the result of our psychological tendencies.
These facts allow us to understand why, not only the patient, but
even the theory which has been built on such investigations,
expresses the view, that the neurosis is the result of the characteristic
influence of the parents upon their children. This
view, moreover, is supported by the experiences which lie at the
basis of pedagogy: namely the assumption of the plasticity of
the child’s mind, which is freely compared with soft wax.
We know that the first impressions of childhood accompany
us throughout life, and that certain educational influences may
restrain people undisturbed all their lives within certain limits.
It is no miracle, indeed it is rather a frequent experience, that
under these circumstances a conflict has to break out between the
personality which is formed by the educational and other influences
of the infantile milieu and that one which can be described
as the real individual line of life. With this conflict all people
must meet, who are called upon to live an independent and
productive life.
Owing to the enormous influence of childhood on the later
development of character, you can perfectly understand why we
are inclined to ascribe the cause of a neurosis directly to the
influences of the infantile environment. I have to confess that I
have known cases in which any other explanation seemed to be
less reasonable. There are indeed parents whose own contradictory
neurotic behavior causes them to treat their children in
such an unreasonable way that the latter’s deterioration and illness
would seem to be unavoidable. Hence it is almost a rule
among nerve-specialists to remove neurotic children, whenever
possible, from the dangerous family atmosphere, and to send
them among more healthy influences, where, without any medical
treatment, they thrive much better than at home. There are
many neurotic patients who were clearly neurotic as children,
and who have never been free from illness. For such cases, the
conception which has been sketched holds generally good.
This knowledge, which seems to be provisionally definitive,
has been extended by the studies of Freud and the psychoanalytic
// File: 057.png
.pn +1
school. The relations between the patients and their parents have
been studied in detail in as much as these relations were regarded
as of etiological significance.
.sp 2
.h3
Infantile Mental Attitude
.sp 2
It was soon noticed that such patients lived still partly or
wholly in their childhood-world, although quite unconscious
themselves of this fact. It is a difficult task for psychoanalysis
so exactly to investigate the psychological mode of adaptation of
the patients as to be capable of putting its finger on the infantile
misunderstanding. We find among neurotics many who have
been spoiled as children. These cases give the best and clearest
example of the infantilism of their psychological mode of adaptation.
They start out in life expecting the same friendly reception,
tenderness and easy success, obtained with no trouble, to which
they have been accustomed by their parents in their youth. Even
very intelligent patients are not capable of seeing at once that they
owe the complications of their life and their neurosis to the trail
of their infantile emotional attitude. The small world of the
child, the familiar surroundings—these form the model of the
big world. The more intensely the family has stamped the child,
the more will it be inclined, as an adult, instinctively to see again
in the great world its former small world. Of course this must
not be taken as a conscious intellectual process. On the contrary,
the patient feels and sees the difference between now and then,
and tries to adapt himself as well as he can. Perhaps he will even
believe himself perfectly adapted, for he grasps the situation
intellectually, but that does not prevent the emotional from being
far behind the intellectual standpoint.
.sp 2
.h3
Unconscious Phantasy
.sp 2
It is unnecessary to trouble you with instances of this phenomenon.
It is an every-day experience that our emotions are
never at the level of our reasoning. It is exactly the same with
such a patient, only with greater intensity. He may perhaps believe
that, save for his neurosis, he is a normal person, and hence
adapted to the conditions of life. He does not suspect that he
has not relinquished certain childish pretensions, that he still
// File: 058.png
.pn +1
carries with him, in the background, expectations and illusions
which he has never rendered conscious to himself. He cultivates
all sorts of favorite phantasies, which seldom become conscious,
or at any rate, not very often, so that he himself does not know
that he has them. They very often exist only as emotional expectations,
hopes, prejudices, etc. We call these phantasies, unconscious
phantasies. Sometimes they dip into the peripheral
consciousness as quite fugitive thoughts, which disappear again a
moment later, so that the patient is unable to say whether he had
such phantasies or not. It is only during the psychoanalytic
treatment that most patients learn to observe and retain these
fleeting thoughts. Although most of the phantasies, once at
least, have been conscious in the form of fleeting thoughts and
only afterwards became unconscious, we have no right to call
them on that account “conscious,” as they are practically most of
the time unconscious. It is therefore right to designate them
“unconscious phantasies.” Of course there are also infantile
phantasies, which are perfectly conscious and which can be reproduced
at any time.
.fn #
Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologisch Forschungen,
Bd. I.
.fn-
.fn #
Am. Jour. Psychol., April, 1910.
.fn-
// File: 059.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap5
CHAPTER V | The Unconscious
.sp 2
The sphere of the unconscious infantile phantasies has become
the real object of psychoanalytic investigation. As we have
previously pointed out, this domain seems to retain the key to the
etiology of neurosis. In contradistinction with the trauma
theory, we are forced by the reasons already adduced to seek in
the family history for the basis of our present psychoanalytic
attitude. Those phantasy-systems which patients exhibit on mere
questioning are for the most part composed and elaborated like
a novel or a drama. Although they are greatly elaborated, they
are relatively of little value for the investigation of the unconscious.
Just because they are conscious, they have already deferred
over-much to the claims of etiquette and social morality.
Hence they have been purged of all personally painful and ugly
details, and are presentable to society, revealing very little. The
valuable, and much more important phantasies are not conscious
in the sense already defined, but are to be discovered through the
technique of psychoanalysis.
Without wishing to enter fully into the question of technique,
I must here meet an objection that is constantly heard. It is that
the so-called unconscious phantasies are only suggested to the
patient and only exist in the minds of psychoanalysts. This objection
belongs to that common class which ascribes to them the
crude mistakes of beginners. I think only those without psychological
experience and without historical psychological knowledge
are capable of making such criticisms. With a mere glimmering
of mythological knowledge, one cannot fail to notice the striking
parallels between the unconscious phantasies discovered by the
psychoanalytic school and mythological images. The objection
that our knowledge of mythology has been suggested to the patient
is groundless, for the psychoanalytic school first discovered the
unconscious phantasies, and only then became acquainted with
mythology. Mythology itself is obviously something outside the
path of the medical man. In so far as these phantasies are unconscious,
// File: 060.png
.pn +1
the patient of course knows nothing about their existence,
and it would be absurd to make direct inquiries about them.
Nevertheless it is often said, both by patients and by so-called
normal persons: “But if I had such phantasies, surely I would
know something about them.” But what is unconscious is, in
fact, something which one does not know. The opposition too
is perfectly convinced that such things as unconscious phantasies
could not exist. This a priori judgment is scholasticism, and has
no sensible grounds. We cannot possibly rest on the dogma that
consciousness only is mind, when we can convince ourselves daily
that our consciousness is only the stage. When the contents of
our consciousness appear they are already in a highly complex
form; the grouping of our thoughts from the elements supplied
by our memory is almost entirely unconscious. Therefore we
are obliged, whether we like it or not, to accept for the moment
the conception of an unconscious psychic sphere, even if only as
a mere negative, border-conception, just as Kant’s “thing in
itself.” As we perceive things which do not have their origin in
consciousness, we are obliged to give hypothetic contents to the
sphere of the non-conscious. We must suppose that the origin
of certain effects lies in the unconscious, just because they are
not conscious. The reproach of mysticism can scarcely be made
against this conception of the unconscious. We do not pretend
that we know anything positive, or can affirm anything, about the
psychic condition of the unconscious. Instead, we have substituted
symbols by following the way of designation and abstraction
we apply in consciousness.
On the axiom: Principia præter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda,
this kind of ideation is the only possible one. Hence
we speak about the effects of the unconscious, just as we do
about the phenomena of the conscious. Many people have been
shocked by Freud’s statement: “The unconscious can only wish,”
and this is regarded as an unheard of metaphysical assertion,
something like the principle of Hartman’s “Philosophy of the
Unconscious,” which apparently administers a rebuff to the
theory of cognition. This indignation only arises from the fact
that the critics, unknown to themselves, evidently start from a
metaphysical conception of the unconscious as being an “end per
se,” and naïvely project on to us their inadequate conception of
// File: 061.png
.pn +1
the unconscious. For us, the unconscious is no entity, but a
term, about whose metaphysical entity we do not permit ourselves
to form any idea. Here we contrast with those psychologists,
who, sitting at their desks, are as exactly informed about
the localization of the mind in the brain as they are informed
about the psychological correlation of the mental processes.
Whence they are able to declare positively that beyond the consciousness
there are but physiological processes of the cortex.
Such naiveté must not be imputed to the psychoanalyst. When
Freud says: “We can only wish,” he describes in symbolic terms
effects of which the origin is not known. From the standpoint
of our conscious thinking, these effects can only be considered as
analogous to wishes. The psychoanalytic school is, moreover,
aware that the discussion as to whether “wishing” is a sound
analogy can be re-opened at any time. Anyone who has more
information is welcome. Instead, the opponents content themselves
with denial of the phenomena, or if certain phenomena are
admitted, they abstain from all theoretical speculation. This last
point is readily to be understood, for it is not everyone’s business
to think theoretically. Even the man who has succeeded in freeing
himself from the dogma of the identity of the conscious self
and the psyche, thus admitting the possible existence of psychic
processes outside the conscious, is not justified in disputing or
maintaining psychic possibilities in the unconscious. The objection
is raised that the psychoanalytic school maintains certain
views without sufficient grounds, as if the literature did not
contain abundant, perhaps too abundant, discussion of cases, and
more than enough arguments. But they seem not to be sufficient
for the opponents. There must be a good deal of difference as
to the meaning of the term “sufficient” in respect to the validity
of the arguments. The question is: “Why does the psychoanalytic
school apparently set less store on the proof of their
formulas than the critics?” The reason is very simple. An
engineer who has built a bridge, and has worked out its bearing
capacity, wants no other proof for the success of its bearing
power. But the ordinary man, who has no notion how a bridge
is built, or what is the strength of the material used, will demand
quite different proofs as to the bearing capacity of the bridge,
for he has no confidence in the business. In the first place, it is
// File: 062.png
.pn +1
the critics’ complete ignorance of what is being done which provokes
their demand. In the second place, there are the unanswerable
theoretical misunderstandings: impossible for us to know
them all and understand them all. Just as we find, again and
again, in our patients new and astonishing misunderstandings
about the ways and the aim of the psychoanalytic method, so are
the critics inexhaustible in devising misunderstandings. You can
see in the discussion of our conception of the unconscious what
kind of false philosophical assumptions can prevent the understanding
of our terminology. It is comprehensible that those
who attribute to the unconscious involuntarily an absolute entity,
require quite different arguments, beyond our power to give.
Had we to prove immortality, we should have to collect many
more important arguments, than if we had merely to demonstrate
the existence of plasmodia in a malaria patient. The metaphysical
expectation still disturbs the scientific way of thinking,
so that problems of psychoanalysis cannot be considered in a
simple way. But I do not wish to be unjust to the critics, and I
will admit that the psychoanalytic school itself very often gives
rise to misunderstandings, although innocently enough. One of
the principal sources of these mistakes is the confusion in the
theoretical sphere. It is a pity, but we have no presentable
theory. But you would understand this, if you could see, in a
concrete case, with what difficulties we have to deal. In contradiction
to the opinion of nearly all critics, Freud is by no means
a theorist. He is an empiricist, of which fact anyone can easily
convince himself, if he is willing to busy himself somewhat more
deeply with Freud’s works, and if he tries to go into the cases as
Freud has done. Unfortunately, the critics are not willing. As
we have very often heard, it is too disgusting and too repulsive,
to observe cases in the same way as Freud has done. But who
will learn the nature of Freud’s method, if he allows himself to
be hindered by repulsion and disgust? Because they neglect to
apply themselves to the point of view adopted by Freud, perhaps
as a necessary working hypothesis, they come to the absurd supposition
that Freud is a theorist. They then readily agree that
Freud’s “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory” is a priori
invented by a merely speculative brain which afterwards suggests
everything into the patient. That is putting things upside down.
// File: 063.png
.pn +1
This gives the critics an easy task, and this is just what they want
to have. They pay no attention to the observations of the psychoanalysts,
conscientiously set forth in their histories of diseases,
but only to the theory, and to the formulation of technique. The
weak spot of psychoanalysis, however, is not found here, as
psychoanalysis is only empirical. Here you find but a large and
insufficiently cultivated field, in which the critics can exercise
themselves to their full satisfaction. There are many uncertainties,
and as many contradictions, in the sphere of this theory.
We were conscious of this long before the first critic began to
pay attention to our work.
// File: 064.png
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.sp 4
.h2 id=chap6
CHAPTER VI | The Dream
.sp 2
After this digression we will return to the question of the
unconscious phantasies which occupied us before. As we have
seen, nobody can dispute their existence, just as nobody can
assert their existence and their qualities forthwith. The question,
however, is just this: Can effects be observed in the consciousness
of unconscious origin, which can be described in conscious
symbolic signs or expressions? Can there be found, in the
conscious, effects which correspond with this expectation? The
psychoanalytic school believes it has discovered such effects. Let
me mention at once the principal phenomenon, the dream. Of
this it may be said that it appears in the consciousness as a complex
factor unconsciously constructed out of its elements. The
origin of the images in certain reminiscences of the earlier or of
the later past can be proved through the associations belonging to
the single images of the dream. We ask: “Where did you see
this?” or “Where did you hear that?” And through the usual
way of association come the reminiscences that certain parts of
the dream have been consciously experienced, some the day
before, some on former occasions. So far there will be general
agreement, for these things are well known. In so far, the dream
represents in general an incomprehensible composition of certain
elements not at first conscious, which are only recognized later
on by their associations. It is not that all parts of the dream are
recognizable, whence its conscious character could be deduced;
on the contrary, they are often, and indeed mostly, unrecognizable
at first. Only subsequently does it occur to us that we have
experienced in consciousness this or that part of the dream.
From this standpoint alone, we might regard the dream as an
effect of unconscious origin.
.sp 2
.h3
The Method of Dream Analysis
.sp 2
The technique for the exploration of the unconscious origin is
the one I mentioned before, used before Freud by every scientific
// File: 065.png
.pn +1
man who attempted to arrive at a psychological understanding of
dreams. We try simply to remember where the parts of the
dream arose. The psychoanalytic technique for the interpretation
of dreams is based on this very simple principle. It is a fact
that certain parts of the dream originate in daily life, that is, in
events which, on account of their slighter importance, would have
fallen into oblivion, and indeed were on the way to become definitely
unconscious. It is these parts of the dream that are the
effect of unconscious images and representations. People have
been shocked by this expression also. But we do not conceive
these things so concretely, not to say crudely, as do the critics.
Certainly this expression is nothing but a symbolism taken from
conscious psychology—we were never in any doubt as to that.
The expression is quite clear and answers very well as a symbol
of an unknown psychic fact.
As we mentioned before, we can conceive the unconscious only
by analogy with the conscious. We do not imagine that we understand
a thing when we have discovered a beautiful and rather
incomprehensible name. The principle of the psychoanalytic
technique is, as you see, extraordinarily simple. The further
procedure follows on in the same way. If we occupy ourselves
long with a dream, a thing which, apart from psychoanalysis,
naturally never happens, we are apt to find still more reminiscences
to the various different parts of the dream. We are not however
always successful in finding reminiscences to certain portions.
We have to put aside these dreams, or parts of dreams, whether
we will or no.
The collected reminiscences are called the “dream material.”
We treat this material by a universally valid scientific method.
If you ever have to work up experimental material, you compare
the individual units and classify them according to similarities.
You proceed exactly in the same way with dream-material; you
look for the common traits either of a formal or a substantial
nature.
Certain extremely common prejudices must be got rid of.
I have always noticed that the beginner is looking for one trait
or another and tries to make his material conform to his expectation.
This condition I noticed especially among those colleagues
who were formerly more or less passionate opponents of psychoanalysis,
// File: 066.png
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their opposition being based on well-known prejudices
and misunderstandings. When I had the chance of analyzing
them, whereby they obtained at last a real insight into the method,
the first mistake generally made in their own psychoanalytic work
was that they did violence to the material by their own preconceived
opinion. They gave vent to their former prejudice against
psychoanalysis in their attitude towards the material, which they
could not estimate objectively, but only according to their subjective
phantasies.
If one would have the courage to sift dream material, one
must not recoil from any parallel. The dream material generally
consists of very heterogeneous associations, out of which it is
sometimes very difficult to deduce the tertium comparationis. I
refrain from giving detailed examples, as it is quite impossible
to handle in a lecture the voluminous material of a dream. I
might call your attention to Rank’s[#] article in the Jahrbuch, “Ein
Traum der sich selber deutet” (A dream interpreted by itself).
There you will see what an extensive material must be taken into
consideration for comparison.
Hence, for the interpretation of the unconscious we proceed
in the same way as is universal when a conclusion is to be drawn
by classifying material. The objection is very often heard: Why
does the dream have an unconscious content at all? In my view,
this objection is as unscientific as possible. Every actual psychological
moment has its special history. Every sentence I pronounce
has, beside the intended meaning known to me another
historical meaning, and it is possible that its second meaning is
entirely different from its conscious meaning. I express myself
on purpose somewhat paradoxically. I do not mean that I could
explain every individual sentence in its historical meaning. This
is a thing easier to do in larger and more detailed contributions.
It will be clear to everyone, that a poem is, apart from its manifest
content, especially characteristic of the poet in regard to its
form, its content, and its manner of origin. Although the poet,
in his poem, gave expression to the mood of a moment, the literary
historian will find things in it and behind it which the poet
never foresaw. The analysis which the literary historian draws
from the poet’s material is exactly the method of psychoanalysis.
// File: 067.png
.pn +1
The psychoanalytic method, generally speaking, can be compared
with historical analysis and synthesis. Suppose, for instance,
we did not understand the meaning of baptism as practised
in our churches to-day. The priest tells us the baptism means
the admission of the child into the Christian community. But
this does not satisfy us. Why is the child sprinkled with water?
To understand this ceremony, we must choose out of the history
of rites, those human traditions which pertain to this subject, and
thus we get material for comparison, to be considered from different
standpoints.
I. The baptism means obviously an initiation ceremony, a consecration;
therefore all the traditions containing initiation rites
have to be consulted.
II. The baptism takes place with water. This special form
requires another series of traditions, namely, those rites where
water is used.
III. The person to be baptized is sprinkled with water. Here
are to be consulted all those rites where the initiated is sprinkled
or submerged, etc.
IV. All the reminiscences of folklore, the superstitious practices
must be remembered, which in any way run parallel with the
symbolism of the baptismal act.
In this way, we get a comparative scientific study of religion
as regards baptism. We accordingly discover the different elements
out of which the act of baptism has arisen. We ascertain
further its original meaning, and we become at the same time
acquainted with the rich world of myths that have contributed to
the foundations of religions, and thus we are enabled to understand
the manifold and profound meanings of baptism. The
analyst proceeds in the same way with the dream. He collects
the historical parallels to every part of the dream, even the
remotest, and he tries to reconstruct the psychological history of
the dream, with its fundamental meaning, exactly as in the analysis
of the act of baptism. Thus, through the monographic treatment
of the dream, we get a profound and beautiful insight into
that mysterious, fine and ingenious network of unconscious determination.
We get an insight, which as I said before, can only
be compared with the historical understanding of any act which
we had hitherto regarded in a superficial and one-sided way.
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.pn +1
This digression on the psychoanalytic method has seemed to
me to be unavoidable. I was obliged to give you an account of
the method and its position in methodology, by reason of all the
extensive misunderstandings which are constantly attempting to
discredit it. I do not doubt that there are superficial and improper
interpretations of the method. But an intelligent critic
ought never to allow this to be a reproach to the method itself,
any more than a bad surgeon should be urged as an objection to
the common validity of surgery. I do not doubt that some inaccurate
descriptions and conceptions of the psychoanalytic method
have arisen on the part of the psychoanalytic school itself. But
this is due to the fact that, because of their education in natural
science it is difficult for medical men to attain a full grasp of
historical or philological method, although they instinctively
handle it rightly.
The method I have described to you, in this general way, is
the method that I adopt and for which I assume the scientific
responsibility.
In my opinion it is absolutely reprehensible and unscientific
to question about dreams, or to try to interpret them directly.
This is not a methodological, but an arbitrary proceeding, which
is its own punishment, for it is as unproductive as every false
method.
If I have made the attempt to demonstrate to you the principle
of the psychoanalytic school by dream-analysis, it is because the
dream is one of the clearest instances of those contents of the
conscious, whose basis eludes any plain and direct understanding.
When anyone knocks in a nail with a hammer, to hang something
up, we can understand every detail of the action. But it is otherwise
with the act of baptism, where every phase is problematic.
We call these actions, of which the meaning and the aim is not
directly evident, symbolic actions or symbols. On the basis of
this reasoning, we call a dream symbolic, as a dream is a psychological
formation, of which the origin, meaning and aim are
obscure, inasmuch as it represents one of the purest products of
unconscious constellation. As Freud strikingly says: “The dream
is the via regia to the unconscious.” Besides the dream, we can
note many effects of unconscious constellation. We have in the
association-experiments a means for establishing exactly the influence
// File: 069.png
.pn +1
of the unconscious. We find those effects in the disturbances
of the experiment which I have called the “indicators
of the complex.” The task which the association-experiment
gives to the person experimented upon is so extraordinarily easy
and simple that even children can accomplish it without difficulty.
It is, therefore, very remarkable that so many disturbances of an
intentional action should be noted in this experiment. The only
reasons or causes of these disturbances which can usually be
shown, are the partly conscious, partly not-conscious constellations,
caused by the so-called complexes. In the greater number
of these disturbances, we can without difficulty establish the relation
to images of emotional complexes. We often need the psychoanalytic
method to explain these relations, that is, we have to
ask the person experimented upon or the patient, what associations
he can give to the disturbed reactions. We thus gain the
historical matter which serves as a basis for our judgment. The
intelligent objection has already been made that the person experimented
upon could say what he liked, in other words, any nonsense.
This objection is made, I believe, in the unconscious supposition
that the historian who collects the matter for his monograph
is an idiot, incapable of distinguishing real parallels from
apparent ones and true documents from crude falsifications.
The professional man has means at his disposal by which clumsy
mistakes can be avoided with certainty, and the slighter ones very
probably. The mistrust of our opponents is here really delightful.
For anyone who understands psychoanalytic work it is a
well-known fact that it is not so very difficult to see where there
is coherence, and where there is none. Moreover, in the first place
these fraudulent declarations are very significant of the person
experimented upon, and secondly, in general rather easily to be
recognized as fraudulent.
In association-experiments, we are able to recognize the very
intense effects produced by the unconscious in what are called
complex-interventions. These mistakes made in the association-experiment
are nothing but the prototypes of the mistakes made
in everyday life, which are for the greater part to be considered
as interventions. Freud brought together such material in his
book, “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.”
These include the so-called symptomatic actions, which from
// File: 070.png
.pn +1
another point of view might equally as well be called “symbolic
actions,” and the real failures to carry out actions, such as forgetting,
slips of the tongue, etc. All these phenomena are the effect
of unconscious constellations and therefore so many entrance-gates
into the domain of the unconscious. When such errors are
cumulative, they are designated as neurosis, which, from this
aspect, looks like a defective action and therefore the effect of
unconscious constellations or complex-interventions.
The association-experiment is thus not directly a means to
unlock the unconscious, but rather a technique for obtaining a
good selection of defective reactions, which can then be used by
psychoanalysis. At least, this is its most reliable form of application
at the present time. I may, however, mention that it is
possible that it may furnish other especially valuable facts which
would grant us some direct glimpses, but I do not consider this
problem sufficiently ripe to speak about. Investigations in this
direction are going on.
I hope that, through my explanation of our method, you may
have gained somewhat more confidence in its scientific character,
so that you will be by this time more inclined to agree that the
phantasies which have been hitherto discovered by means of
psychoanalytic work are not merely arbitrary suppositions and
illusions of psychoanalysts. Perhaps you are even inclined to
listen patiently to what those products of unconscious phantasies
can tell us.
.fn #
Jahrbuch für psychopath. u. psychoanalyt. Forschungen, Bd. II, p.
465.
.fn-
// File: 071.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap7
CHAPTER VII | The Content of the Unconscious
.sp 2
The phantasies of adults are, in so far as they are conscious,
of great diversity and strongly individual. It is therefore nearly
impossible to give a general description of them. But it is very
different when we enter by means of analysis into the world of
his unconscious phantasies. The diversities of the phantasies are
indeed very great, but we do not find those individual peculiarities
which we find in the conscious self. We meet here with more
typical material which is not infrequently repeated in a similar
form in different people. Constantly recurring, for instance, are
ideas which are variations of the thoughts we encounter in
religion and mythology. This fact is so convincing that we say
we have discovered in these phantasies the same mechanisms
which once created mythological and religious ideas. I should
have to enter very much into detail in order to give you adequate
examples. I must refer you for these problems to my work,
“Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido.” I will only mention
that, for instance, the central symbol of Christianity—self-sacrifice—plays
an important part in the phantasies of the unconscious.
The Viennese School describes this phenomenon by the
ambiguous term castration-complex. This paradoxical use of the
term follows from the particular attitude of this school toward
the question of unconscious sexuality. I have given special
attention to the problem in the book I have just mentioned; I
must here restrict myself to this incidental reference and hasten
to say something about the origin of the unconscious phantasy.
In the child’s unconsciousness, the phantasies are considerably
simplified, in relation to the proportions of the infantile surroundings.
Thanks to the united efforts of the psychoanalytic
school, we discovered that the most frequent phantasy of childhood
is the so-called Œdipus-complex. This designation also
seems as paradoxical as possible. We know that the tragic fate
of Œdipus consisted in his loving his mother and slaying his
father. This conflict of later life seems to be far remote from
// File: 072.png
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the child’s mind. To the uninitiated it seems inconceivable that
the child should have this conflict. After careful reflection it
will become clear that the tertium comparationis consists just in
this narrow limitation of the fate of Œdipus within the bounds
of the family. These limitations are very typical for the child,
for parents are never the boundary for the adult person to the
same extent. The Œdipus-complex represents an infantile conflict,
but with the exaggeration of the adult. The term Œdipus-complex
does not mean, naturally, that this conflict is considered
as occurring in the adult form, but in a corresponding form suitable
to childhood. The little son would like to have the mother
all to himself and to be rid of the father. As you know, little
children can sometimes force themselves between the parents in
the most jealous way. The wishes and aims get, in the unconscious,
a more concrete and a more drastic form. Children are
small primitive people and are therefore quickly ready to kill.
But as a child is, in general, harmless, so his apparently dangerous
wishes are, as a rule, also harmless. I say “as a rule,” as you
know that children, too, sometimes give way to their impulses to
murder, and this not always in any indirect fashion. But just as
the child, in general, is incapable of making systematic projects,
as little dangerous are his intentions to murder. The same holds
good of an Œdipus-view toward the mother. The small traces
of this phantasy in the conscious can easily be overlooked; therefore
nearly all parents are convinced that their children have no
Œdipus-complex. Parents as well as lovers are generally blind.
If I now say that the Œdipus-complex is in the first place only
a formula for the childish desire towards parents, and for the
conflict which this craving evokes, this statement of the situation
will be more readily accepted. The history of the Œdipus-phantasy
is of special interest, as it teaches us very much about
the development of the unconscious phantasies. Naturally, people
think that the problem of Œdipus is the problem of the son.
But this is, astonishingly enough, only an illusion. Under some
circumstances the libido-sexualis reaches that definite differentiation
of puberty corresponding to the sex of the individual relatively
late. The libido sexualis has before this time an undifferentiated
sexual character, which can be also termed bisexual.
Therefore it is not astonishing if little girls possess the Œdipus-complex
// File: 073.png
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too. As far as I can see, the first love of the child
belongs to the mother, no matter which its sex. If the love for
the mother at this stage is intense, the father is jealously kept
away as a rival. Of course, for the child itself, the mother has
in this early stage of childhood no sexual significance of any
importance. The term “Œdipus-complex” is in so far not
really suitable. At this stage the mother has still the significance
of a protecting, enveloping, food-providing being, who, on this
account, is a source of delight. I do not identify, as I explained
before, the feeling of delight eo ipso with sexuality. In earliest
childhood but a slight amount of sexuality is connected with this
feeling of delight. But, nevertheless, jealousy can play a great
part in it, as jealousy does not belong entirely to the sphere of
sexuality. The desire for food has much to do with the first
impulses of jealousy. Certainly, a relatively germinating eroticism
is also connected with it. This element gradually increases as
the years go on, so that the Œdipus-complex soon assumes its
classical form. In the case of the son, the conflict develops in a
more masculine and therefore more typical form, whilst in the
daughter, the typical affection for the father develops, with a
correspondingly jealous attitude toward the mother. We call this
complex, the Electra-complex. As everybody knows, Electra
took revenge on her mother for the murder of her husband,
because that mother had robbed her of her father.
Both phantasy-complexes develop with growing age, and reach
a new stage after puberty, when the emancipation from the parents
is more or less attained. The symbol of this time is the one
already previously mentioned; it is the symbol of self-sacrifice.
The more the sexuality develops the more the individual
is forced to leave his family and to acquire independence
and autonomy. By its history, the child is closely connected
with its family and specially with its parents. In consequence,
it is often with the greatest difficulty that the child is
able to free itself from its infantile surroundings. The Œdipus- and
Electra-complex give rise to a conflict, if adults cannot succeed
in spiritually freeing themselves; hence arises the possibility
of neurotic disturbance. The libido, which is already sexually
developed, takes possession of the form given by the complex
and produces feelings and phantasies which unmistakably show
// File: 074.png
.pn +1
the effective existence of the complex, till then perfectly unconscious.
The next consequence is the formation of intense resistances
against the immoral inner impulses which are derived from
the now active complexes. The conscious attitude arising out of
this can be of different kinds. Either the consequences are direct,
and then we notice in the son strong resistances against the father
and a typical affectionate and dependent attitude toward the
mother; or the consequences are indirect, that is to say, compensated,
and we notice, instead of the resistances toward the
father, a typical submissiveness here, and an irritated antagonistic
attitude toward the mother. It is possible that direct and compensated
consequences take place alternately. The same thing is
to be said of the Electra-complex. If the libido-sexualis were to
cleave fast to these particular forms of the conflict, murder and
incest would be the consequence of the Œdipus and Electra
conflicts. These consequences are naturally not found among
normal people, and not even among amoral (“moral” here
implying the possession of a rationalized and codified moral
system) primitive persons, or humanity would have become
extinct long ago. On the contrary, it is in the natural order of
things that what surrounds us daily and has surrounded us, loses
its compelling charm and thus forces the libido to search for new
objects, an important rule which prevents parricide and inbreeding.
The further development of the libido toward objects outside
the family is the absolutely normal and right way of proceeding,
and it is an abnormal and morbid phenomenon if the
libido remains, as it were, glued to the family. Some indications
of this phenomenon are nevertheless to be noticed in normal
people. A direct outcome of the infantile-complex is the unconscious
phantasy of self-sacrifice, which occurs after puberty, in
the succeeding stage of development. Of this I gave a detailed
example in my work, “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido.”
The phantasy of self-sacrifice means sacrificing infantile wishes.
I have shown this in the work just mentioned and in the same
place I have referred to the parallels in the history of religions.
.sp 2
.h3
The Problems of the Incest-Complex
.sp 2
Freud has a special conception of the incest-complex which
has given rise to heated controversy. He starts from the fact
// File: 075.png
.pn +1
that the Œdipus-complex is generally unconscious, and conceives
this as the result of a repression of a moral kind. It is possible
that I am not expressing myself quite correctly, when I give you
Freud’s view in these words. At any rate, according to him the
Œdipus-complex seems to be repressed, that is, seems to be
removed into the unconscious by a reaction from the conscious
tendencies. It almost looks as if the Œdipus-complex would
develop into consciousness if the development of the child were
to go on without restraint and if no cultural tendencies influenced
it. Freud calls this barrier, which prevents the Œdipus-complex
from ripening, the incest-barrier. He seems to believe, so far as
one can gather from his work, that the incest-barrier is the result
of experience, of the selective influence of reality, inasmuch as
the unconscious strives without restraint, and in an immediate
way, for its own satisfaction, without any consideration for
others. This conception is in harmony with the conception of
Schopenhauer, who says of the blind world-will that it is so
egoistic that a man could slay his brother merely to grease his
boots with his brother’s fat. Freud considers that the psychological
incest-barrier, as postulated by him, can be compared with
the incest-taboo which we find among inferior races. He further
believes that these prohibitions are a proof of the fact that men
really desired incest, for which reason laws were framed against
it even in very primitive cultural stages. He takes the tendency
towards incest to be an absolute concrete sexual wish, lacking
only the quality of consciousness. He calls this complex the
root-complex, or nucleus, of the neuroses, and is inclined, viewing
this as the original one, to reduce nearly the whole psychology
of the neuroses, as well as many other phenomena in the world
of mind, to this complex.
// File: 076.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap8
CHAPTER VIII | The Etiology of the Neuroses
.sp 2
With this conception of Freud’s we have to return to the
question of the etiology of the neuroses. We have seen that the
psychoanalytic theory began with a traumatic event in childhood,
which was only later on found to be a phantasy, at least
in many cases. In consequence, the theory became modified, and
tried to find in the development of abnormal phantasy the main
etiological significance. The investigation of the unconscious,
made by the collaboration of many workers, carried on over a
space of ten years, provided an extensive empirical material,
which demonstrated that the incest-complex was the beginning
of the morbid phantasies. But it was no longer thought that the
incest-complex was a special complex of neurotic people. It was
demonstrated to be a constituent of a normal infantile psyche
too. We cannot tell, by its mere existence, if this complex will
give rise to a neurosis or not. To become pathogenic, it must
give rise to a conflict; that is, the complex, which in itself is
harmless, has to become dynamic, and thus give rise to a conflict.
Herewith, we come to a new and important question. The
whole etiological problem is altered, if the infantile “root-complex”
is only a general form, which is not pathogenic in itself,
and requires, as we saw in our previous exposition, to be subsequently
set in action. Under these circumstances, we dig in
vain among the reminiscences of earliest childhood, as they give
us only the general forms of the later conflicts, but not the conflict
itself.
I believe the best thing I can do is to describe the further
development of the theory by demonstrating the case of that
young lady whose story you have heard in part in one of the
former lectures. You will probably remember that the shying
of the horses, by means of the anamnestic explanation, brought
back the reminiscence of a comparable scene in childhood. We
here discussed the trauma theory. We found that we had to
// File: 077.png
.pn +1
look for the real pathological element in the exaggerated phantasy,
which took its origin in a certain retardation of the psychic
sexual development. We have now to apply our theoretical
standpoint to the origin of this particular type of illness, so that
we may understand how, just at that moment, this event of her
childhood, which seemed to be of such potency, could come to
constellation.
The simplest way to come to an understanding of this important
event would be by making an exact inquiry into the circumstances
of the moment. The first thing I did was to question
the patient about the society in which she had been at that time,
and as to what was the farewell gathering to which she had been
just before. She had been at a farewell supper, given in honor
of her best friend, who was going to a foreign health-resort for
a nervous illness. We hear that this friend is happily married,
and is the mother of one child. We have some right to doubt
this assertion of her happiness. If she were really happily
married, she probably would not be nervous and would not need
a cure. When I put my question differently, I learned that my
patient had been brought back into the host’s house as soon as
she was overtaken by her friends, as this house was the nearest
place to bring her to in safety. In her exhausted condition she
received his hospitality. As the patient came to this part of her
history she suddenly broke off, was embarrassed, fidgetted and
tried to turn to another subject. Evidently we had now come upon
some disagreeable reminiscences, which suddenly presented themselves.
After the patient had overcome obstinate resistances, it
was admitted that something very remarkable had happened that
night. The host made her a passionate declaration of love, thus
giving rise to a situation that might well be considered difficult
and painful, considering the absence of the hostess. Ostensibly
this declaration came like a flash of lightning from a clear sky.
A small dose of criticism applied to this assertion will teach us
that these things never drop from the clouds, but have always
their previous history. It was the work of the following weeks
to dig out piecemeal a whole, long love-story.
I can thus roughly describe the picture I got at finally. As a
child the patient was thoroughly boyish, loved only turbulent
games for boys, laughed at her own sex, and flung aside all
// File: 078.png
.pn +1
feminine ways and occupations. After puberty, the time when
the sex-question should have come nearer to her, she began to
shun all society; she hated and despised, as it were, everything
which could remind her even remotely of the biological destination
of mankind, and lived in a world of phantasies which had
nothing in common with the rude reality. So she escaped, up to
her twenty-fourth year, all the little adventures, hopes and expectations
which ordinarily move a woman of this age. (In this
respect women are very often remarkably insincere towards
themselves and towards the physician.) But she became acquainted
with two men who were destined to destroy the thorny
hedge which had grown all around her. Mr. A. was the husband
of her best friend at the time; Mr. B. was the bachelor-friend
of this family. Both were to her taste. It seemed to her pretty
soon that Mr. B. was much more sympathetic to her, and from
this resulted a more intimate relationship between herself and
him, and the possibility of an engagement was discussed.
Through her relations with Mr. B., and through her friend, she
met Mr. A. frequently. In an inexplicable way his presence very
often excited her and made her nervous. Just at this time our
friend went to a big party. All her friends were there. She
became lost in thought, and played as in a dream with her ring,
which suddenly slipped from her hand and rolled under the
table. Both men tried to find it, and Mr. B. managed to get it.
With an expressive smile he put the ring back on her finger and
said: “You know what this means?” At that moment a strange
and irresistible feeling came over her, she tore the ring from her
finger and threw it out of the open window. Evidently a painful
moment ensued, and she soon left the company, feeling deeply
depressed. A short time later she found herself, for her holidays,
accidentally in the same health-resort where Mr. A. and his
wife were staying. Mrs. A. now became more and more nervous,
and, as she felt ill, had to stay frequently at home. The patient
often went out with Mr. A. alone. One day they were out in a
small boat. She was boisterously merry, and suddenly fell overboard.
Mr. A. saved her with great difficulty, and lifted her,
half unconscious, into the boat. He then kissed her. With this
romantic event the bonds were woven fast. To defend herself,
our patient tried energetically to get herself engaged to Mr. B.,
// File: 079.png
.pn +1
and to imagine that she loved him. Of course this queer play
did not escape the sharp eye of feminine jealousy. Mrs. A., her
friend, felt the secret, was worried by it, and her nervousness
grew proportionately. It became more and more necessary for
her to go to a foreign health-resort. The farewell-party was a
dangerous opportunity. The patient knew that her friend and
rival was going off the same evening, so Mr. A. would be alone.
Certainly she did not see this opportunity clearly, as women have
the notable capacity “to think” purely emotionally, and not intellectually.
For this reason, it seems to them as if they never
thought about certain matters at all, but as a matter of fact she had
a queer feeling all the evening. She felt extremely nervous, and
when Mrs. A. had been accompanied to the station and had gone,
the hysterical attack occurred on her way back. I asked her of
what she had been thinking, or what she felt at the actual moment
when the trotting horses came along. Her answer was, she had
only a frightful feeling, the feeling that something dreadful was
very near to her, which she could not escape. As you know, the
consequence was that the exhausted patient was brought back
into the house of the host, Mr. A. A simple human mind would
understand the situation without difficulty. An uninitiated person
would say: “Well, that is clear enough, she only intended to
return by one way or another to Mr. A.’s house,” but the psychologist
would reproach this layman for his incorrect way of
expressing himself, and would tell him that the patient was not
conscious of the motives of her behavior, and that it was, therefore,
not permissible to speak of the patient’s intention to return
to Mr. A.’s house.
There are, of course, learned psychologists who are capable of
furnishing many theoretical reasons for disputing the meaning of
this behavior. They base their reasons on the dogma of the
identity of consciousness and psyche. The psychology inaugurated
by Freud recognized long ago that it is impossible to estimate
psychological actions as to their final meaning by conscious
motives, but that the objective standard of their psychological
results has to be applied for their right evaluation. Now-a-days
it cannot be contested any longer that there are unconscious
tendencies too, which have a great influence on our modes of
reaction, and on the effects to which these in turn give rise.
// File: 080.png
.pn +1
What happened in Mr. A.’s house bears out this observation; our
patient made a sentimental scene, and Mr. A. was induced to
answer it with a declaration of love. Looked at in the light of
this last event, the whole previous history seems to be very ingeniously
directed towards just this end, but throughout the conscience
of the patient struggled consciously against it. Our theoretical
profit from this story is the clear perception that an unconscious
purpose or tendency has brought on to the stage the
scene of the fright from the horses, utilizing thus very possibly
that infantile reminiscence, where the shying horses galloped
towards the catastrophe. Reviewing the whole material, the
scene with the horses—the starting point of the illness—seems
now to be the keystone of a planned edifice. The fright, and the
apparent traumatic effect of the event in childhood, are only
brought on the stage in the peculiar way characteristic of hysteria.
But what is thus put on the stage has become almost a reality.
We know from hundreds of experiences that certain hysterical
pains are only put on the stage in order to reap certain advantages
from the sufferer’s surroundings. The patients not only
believe that they suffer, but their sufferings are, from a psychological
standpoint, as real as those due to organic causes; nevertheless,
they are but stage-effects.
.sp 2
.h3
The Regression of Libido
.sp 2
This utilization of reminiscences to put on the stage any illness,
or an apparent etiology, is called a regression of the libido.
The libido goes back to reminiscences, and makes them actual,
so that an apparent etiology is produced. In this case, by the old
theory, the fright from the horses would seem to be based on a
former shock. The resemblance between the two scenes is unmistakable,
and in both cases the patient’s fright is absolutely
real. At any rate, we have no reason to doubt her assertions in
this respect, as they are in full harmony with all other experiences.
The nervous asthma, the hysterical anxiety, the psychogenic
depressions and exaltations, the pains, the convulsions—they
are all very real, and that physician who has himself suffered
from a psychogenic symptom knows that it feels absolutely real.
Regressively re-lived reminiscences, even if they were but phantasies,
// File: 081.png
.pn +1
are as real as remembrances of events that have once
been real.
As the term “regression of libido” shows, we understand by
this retrograde mode of application of the libido, a retreat of the
libido to former stages. In our example, we are able to recognize
clearly the way the process of regression is carried on. At
that farewell party, which proved a good opportunity to be alone
with the host, the patient shrank from the idea of turning this
opportunity to her advantage, and yet was overpowered by her
desires, which she had never consciously realized up to that
moment. The libido was not used consciously for that definite
purpose, nor was this purpose ever acknowledged. The libido
had to carry it out through the unconscious, and through the pretext
of the fright caused by an apparently terrible danger. Her
feeling at the moment when the horses approached illustrates our
formula most clearly; she felt as if something inevitable had now
to happen.
The process of regression is beautifully demonstrated in an
illustration already used by Freud. The libido can be compared
with a stream which is dammed up as soon as its course meets
any impediment, whence arises an inundation. If this stream has
previously, in its upper reaches, excavated other channels, then
these channels will be filled up again by reason of the damming
below. To a certain extent they would appear to be real river
beds, filled with water as before, but at the same time, they only
have a temporary existence. It is not that the stream has permanently
chosen the old channels, but only for as long as the
impediment endures in the main stream. The affluents do not
always carry water, because they were from the first, as it were,
not independent streams, but only former stages of development
of the main river, or passing possibilities, to which an inundation
has given the opportunity for fresh existence. This illustration
can directly be transferred to the development of the application
of the libido. The definite direction, the main river, is not yet
found during the childish development of sexuality. The libido
goes instead into all possible by-paths, and only gradually does
the definite form develop. But the more the stream follows out
its main channel, the more the affluents will dry up and lose their
importance, leaving only traces of former activity. Similarly,
// File: 082.png
.pn +1
the importance of the childish precursors of sexuality disappears
completely as a rule, only leaving behind certain traces.
If in later life an impediment arises, so that the damming of
the libido reanimates the old by-paths, the condition thus excited
is properly a new one, and something abnormal.
The former condition of the child is normal usage of the
libido, whilst the return of the libido towards the childish past is
something abnormal. Therefore, in my opinion, it is an erroneous
terminology to call the infantile sexual manifestations “perversions,”
for it is not permissible to give normal manifestations
pathological terms. This erroneous usage seems to be responsible
for the confusion of the scientific public. The terms employed
in neurotic psychology have been misapplied here, under the assumption
that the abnormal by-paths of the libido discovered in
neurotic people are the same phenomena as are to be found in
children.
.sp 2
.h3
The Infantile Amnesia Criticized
.sp 2
The so-called amnesia of childhood, which plays an important
part in the “Three Contributions,” is a similar illegitimate
retrograde application from pathology. Amnesia is a pathological
condition, consisting in the repression of certain contents of
the conscious. This condition cannot possibly be the same as the
antegrade amnesia of children, which consists in an incapacity for
intentional reproduction, a condition we find also among savages.
This incapacity for reproduction dates from birth, and can be
understood on obvious anatomical and biological grounds. It
would be a strange hypothesis were we willing to regard this
totally different quality of early infantile consciousness as one to
be attributed to repression, in analogy with the condition in
neurosis. The amnesia of neurosis is punched out, as it were,
from the continuity of memory, but the remembrances of earlier
childhood exist in separate islands in the continuity of the non-memory.
This condition is the opposite in every sense of the
condition of neurosis, so that the expression “amnesia,” generally
used for this condition, is incorrect. The “amnesia of childhood”
is a conclusion a posteriori from the psychology of neurosis,
just as is the “polymorphic perverse” disposition of the
child.
// File: 083.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.h3
The Latent Sexual Period Criticized
.sp 2
This error in the theoretical conception is shown clearly in the
so-called latent sexual period of childhood. Freud has remarked
that the early infantile so-called sexual manifestations, which I
now call the phenomena of the pre-sexual stage, vanish after a
while, and only reappear much later. Everything that Freud
has termed the “suckling’s masturbation,” that is to say, all those
sexual-like actions of which we spoke before, are said to return
later as real onanism. Such a process of development would be
biologically unique. In conformity with this theory one would
have to say, for instance, that when a plant forms a bud, from
which a blossom begins to unfold, the blossom is taken back
again before it is fully developed, and is again hidden within the
bud, to reappear later on in the same form. This impossible supposition
is a consequence of the assertion that the early infantile
activities of the pre-sexual stage are sexual phenomena, and that
those manifestations, which resemble masturbation, are genuinely
acts of masturbation. In this way Freud had to assert that there
is a disappearance of sexuality, or, as he calls it, a latent sexual
period. What he calls a disappearance of sexuality is nothing
but the real beginning of sexuality, everything preceding was but
the fore-stage to which no real sexual character can be imputed.
In this way, the impossible phenomenon of the latent period is
very simply explained. This theory of the latent sexual period
is a striking instance of the incorrectness of the conception of the
early infantile sexuality. But there has been no error of observation.
On the contrary, the hypothesis of the latent sexual
period proves how exactly Freud noticed the apparent recommencement
of sexuality. The error lies in the conception. As
we saw before, the first mistake consists in a somewhat old-fashioned
conception of the multiplicity of instincts. If we accept
the idea of two or more instincts existing side by side, we
must naturally conclude that, if one instinct has not yet become
manifest, it is present in nuce in accordance with the theory of
pre-formation. In the physical sphere we should perhaps have
to say that, when a piece of iron passes from the condition of
heat to the condition of light, the light was already existent in
nuce (latent) in the heat. Such assumptions are arbitrary projections
// File: 084.png
.pn +1
of human ideas into transcendental regions, contravening
the prescription of the theory of cognition.
We have thus no right to speak of a sexual instinct existing
in nuce, as we then give an arbitrary explanation of phenomena
which can be explained otherwise, and in a more adequate
manner. We can speak of the manifestations of a nutrition instinct,
of the manifestations of a sexual instinct, etc., but we have
only the right to do so when the function has quite clearly reached
the surface. We only speak of light when the iron is visibly
luminous, but not when the iron is merely hot. Freud, as an
observer, sees clearly that the sexuality of neurotic people is not
entirely comparable with infantile sexuality, for there is a great
difference, for instance, between the uncleanliness of a child of
two years old and the uncleanliness of a katatonic patient of
forty. The former is a psychological and normal phenomenon;
the latter is extraordinarily pathological. Freud inserted a short
passage in his “Three Contributions” saying that the infantile
form of neurotic sexuality is either wholly, or at any rate partly,
due to a regression. That is, even in those cases where we might
say, these are still the same by-paths, we find that the function of
the by-paths is still increased by regression. Freud thus recognizes
that the infantile sexuality of neurotic people is for the
greater part a regressive phenomenon. That this must be so is
also shown through the further insight obtained from the investigations
of recent years, that the observations concerning the psychology
of the childhood of neurotic people hold equally good
for normal people. At any rate we can say that the history of
the development of infantile sexuality in persons with neurosis
differs but by a hair’s breadth from that of normal beings who
have escaped the attention of the expert appraiser. Striking
differences are exceptional.
.sp 2
.h3
Further Remarks on the Etiology of Neurosis
.sp 2
The more we penetrate into the heart of infantile development,
the more we receive the impression that as little can be
found there of etiological significance, as in the infantile shock.
Even with the acutest ferreting into history, we shall never discover
why people living on German soil had just such a fate, and
// File: 085.png
.pn +1
why the Gauls another. The further we get away, in analytical
investigations from the epoch of the manifest neurosis, the less
can we expect to find the real motive of the neurosis, since the
dynamic disproportions grow fainter and fainter the further we
go back into the past. In constructing our theory so as to deduce
the neurosis from causes in the distant past, we are first and
foremost obeying the impulse of our patients to withdraw themselves
as far as possible from the critical present. The pathogenic
conflict exists only in the present moment. It is just as if
a nation wanted to regard its miserable political conditions at the
actual moment as due to the past; as if the Germany of the 19th
century had attributed its political dismemberment and incapacity
to its suppression by the Romans, instead of having sought the
actual sources of her difficulties in the present. Only in the
actual present are the effective causes, and only here are the possibilities
of removing them.
.sp 2
.h3
The Etiological Significance of the Actual Present
.sp 2
A greater part of the psychoanalytic school is under the spell
of the conception that the conflicts of childhood are conditio sine
qua non for the neuroses. It is not only the theorist, who studies
the psychology of childhood from scientific interest, but the practical
man also, who believes that he has to turn the history of
infancy inside out to find there the dynamic source of the actual
neurosis—it were a fruitless enterprise if done under this presumption.
In the meantime, the most important factor escapes
the analyst, namely, the conflict and the claims of the present
time. In the case before us, we should not understand any of
the motives which produced the hysterical attacks if we looked
for them in earliest childhood. It is the form alone which those
reminiscences determine to a large extent, but the dynamic
originates from the present time. The insight into the actual
meaning of these motives is real understanding.
We can now understand why that moment was pathogenic,
as well as why it chose those particular symbols. Through the
conception of regression, the theory is freed from the narrow
formula of the importance of the events in childhood, and the
actual conflict thus gets that significance which, from an empirical
standpoint, belongs to it implicitly. Freud himself introduced
// File: 086.png
.pn +1
the conception of regression in his “Three Contributions,” acknowledging
rightly that our observations do not permit us to
seek the cause of neurosis exclusively in the past. If it is true,
then, that reminiscent matter becomes active again as a rule by
regression, we have to consider the following question: Have, perhaps,
the apparent effective results of reminiscences to be referred
in general to a regression of the libido? As I said before,
Freud suggested in his “Three Contributions,” that the infantilism
of neurotic sexuality was, for the greater part, due to the
regression of the libido. This statement deserves greater prominence
than it there received. Freud did give it this prominence
in his later works to a somewhat greater extent.
The recognition of the regression of the libido very largely
reduces the etiological significance of the events of childhood.
It has already seemed to us rather astonishing that the Œdipus-
or the Electra-complex should have a determining value in regard
to the onset of a neurosis, since these complexes exist in everyone.
They exist even with those persons who have never known
their own father and mother, but have been educated by their
step-parents. I have analyzed cases of this kind, and found that
the incest-complex was as well developed as in other patients. It
seems to us that this is good proof that the incest-complex is
much more a purely regressive production of phantasies than a
reality. From this standpoint, the events in childhood are only
significant for the neuroses in so far as they are revived later
through a regression of the libido. That this must be true to a
great extent is also shown by the fact that the infantile sexual
shock never causes hysteria, nor does the incest-complex, which
is common to everyone. The neurosis only begins as soon as
the incest-complex becomes actuated by regression.
So we come to the question, why does the libido make a
regression? To answer it we must study carefully under what
circumstances regression arises. In treating this problem with
my patients, I generally give the following example: While a
mountain climber is attempting the ascent of a certain peak, he
happens to meet with an insurmountable obstacle, let us say, some
precipitous rocky wall which cannot be surmounted. After having
vainly sought for another path, he will have to return and
regretfully abandon the climbing of that peak. He will say to
// File: 087.png
.pn +1
himself: “It is not in my power to surmount this difficulty, so
I will climb another easier mountain.” In this case, we find
there is a normal utilization of the libido. The man returns,
when he finds an insurmountable difficulty, and uses his libido,
which could not attain its original aim, for the ascent of another
mountain. Now let us imagine that this rocky wall was not
really unclimbable so far as his physique was concerned, but that
from mere nervousness he withdrew from this somewhat difficult
enterprise. In this case, there are two possibilities: I. The man
will be annoyed by his own cowardice, and will wish to prove
himself less timid on another occasion, or perhaps will even
admit that with his timidity he ought never to undertake such a
difficult ascent. At any rate, he will acknowledge that he has not
sufficient moral capacity for these difficulties. He therefore uses
that libido, which did not attain its original aim, for a useful
self-criticism, and for sketching a plan by which he may be able,
with due regard to his moral capacity, to realize his wish to
climb. II. The possibility is, that the man does not realize his
own cowardice, and declares off-hand that this mountain is
physically unattainable, although he is quite able to see that, with
sufficient courage, the obstacle could have been overcome. But
he prefers to deceive himself. Thus the psychological situation
which is of importance for our problem is created.
.sp 2
.h3
The Etiological Significance of Failure of Adaptation
.sp 2
Probably this man knows very well that it would have been
physically possible to overcome the difficulty, that he was only
morally incapable of doing so. He rejects this idea on account
of its painful nature. He is so conceited that he cannot admit to
himself his cowardice. He brags of his courage and prefers to
declare things impossible rather than his own courage inadequate.
But through this behavior he comes into opposition with his own
self: on the one hand he has a right view of the situation, on
the other he hides this knowledge from himself, behind the illusion
of his infallible courage. He represses the proper view, and
forcibly tries to impress his subjective, illusive opinion upon
reality. The result of this contradiction is that the libido is
divided, and that the two parts are directed against one another.
He opposes his wish to climb a mountain by his artificial self-created
// File: 088.png
.pn +1
opinion, that its ascent is impossible. He does not turn
to the real impossibility, but to an artificial one, to a self-given
limitation; thus he is in disharmony with himself, and from this
moment has an internal conflict. Now insight into his cowardice
will get the upper hand; now obstinacy and pride. In either case
the libido is engaged in a useless civil war. Thus the man becomes
incapable of any enterprise. He will never realize his
wish to climb a mountain, and he goes perfectly astray as to his
moral qualities. He is therefore less capable of performing his
work, he is not fully adapted, he can be compared to a neurotic
patient. The libido which withdrew from before this difficulty
has neither led to honest self-criticism, nor to a desperate struggle
to overcome the obstacle; it has only been used to maintain his
cheap pretence that the ascent was really impossible, even heroic
courage could have availed nothing. Such a reaction is called
an infantile reaction. It is very characteristic of children, and
of naïve minds, not to find the fault in their own shortcomings,
but in external circumstances, and to impute to these their own
subjective judgment. This man solves his problem in an infantile
way, that is, he replaces the suitable mode of adaptation of
our former case by a mode of adaptation belonging to the infantile
mind. This is regression. His libido withdraws from an
obstacle which cannot be surmounted, and replaces a real action
by an infantile illusion. These cases are very commonly met
with in practice among neurotics. I will remind you here of
those well-known cases in which young girls become hysterical
with curious suddenness just when they are called upon to
decide about their engagements. As an instance, I should like
to describe to you the case of two sisters, separated only by one
year in age. They were similar in capacities and characters; their
education was the same; they grew up in the same surroundings,
and under the influence of their parents. Both were healthy;
neither the one nor the other showed any nervous symptoms.
An attentive observer might have discovered that the elder
daughter was the more beloved by the parents. This affection
depended on a certain sensitiveness which this daughter showed.
She asked for more affection than the younger one, was also
somewhat precocious and more serious. Besides, she showed
some charming childish traits, just those things which, through
// File: 089.png
.pn +1
their slightly capricious and unbalanced character, make a personality
especially charming. No wonder that father and
mother had a great joy in their elder daughter. As both sisters
became of marriageable age, almost at the same time they became
intimately acquainted with two young men, and the possibility
of their marriages soon approached. As is generally the case,
certain difficulties existed. Both girls were young and had very
little experience of the world. Both men were relatively young
too, and in positions which might have been better; they were
only at the beginning of a career, but nevertheless, both were
capable young men. Both girls lived in a social atmosphere which
gave them the right to certain social expectations. It was a
situation in which a certain doubt as to the suitability of either
marriage was permissible. Moreover, both girls were insufficiently
acquainted with their prospective husbands, and were
therefore not quite sure of their love. There were many hesitations
and doubts. Here it was noticed that the elder girl always
showed greater waverings in her decisions. From these hesitations
some painful moments arose between the girls and the
young men, who naturally longed for more certainty. At such
moments the elder sister was much more excited than the younger
one. Several times she went weeping to her mother, complaining
of her own hesitation. The younger one was somewhat more
decided, and put an end to the unsettled situation by accepting
her suitor. She thus got over her difficulty and the further
events ran smoothly. As soon as the admirer of the elder sister
became aware that the younger one had put matters on a surer
footing, he rushed to his lady and begged in a somewhat passionate
way for her acceptance. His passion irritated and frightened
her a little, although she was really inclined to follow her sister’s
example. She answered in a somewhat haughty and offhand way.
He replied with sharp reproaches, causing her to get still more
excited. The end was a scene with tears, and he went away in
an angry mood. At home, he told the story to his mother, who
expressed the opinion that this girl was really unsuitable for him,
and that it would be perhaps better to choose some one else. The
girl, for her part, doubted very much if she really loved this man.
It suddenly seemed to her impossible to follow him to an unknown
destiny, and to be obliged to leave her beloved parents. From
// File: 090.png
.pn +1
that moment, she was depressed; she showed unmistakable signs
of the greatest jealousy towards her sister, but would neither see
nor admit that she was jealous. The former affectionate relations
with her parents changed also. Instead of her earlier
childlike affection, she betrayed a lamentable state of mind, which
increased sometimes to pronounced irritability; weeks of depression
ensued. Whilst the younger sister celebrated her wedding,
the elder went to a distant health-resort for a nervous intestinal
trouble. I shall not continue the history of the disease; it ended
in an ordinary hysteria.
In analyzing this case, great resistance to the sexual problem
was found. The resistance depended on many perverse phantasies,
the existence of which would not be admitted by the
patient. The question, whence arose such perverse phantasies,
so unexpected in a young girl, brought us to the discovery that
once as a child, eight years old, she had found herself suddenly
confronted in the street by an exhibitionist. She was rooted to
the spot by fright, and even much later ugly images persecuted
her in her dreams. Her younger sister was with her at the time.
The night after the patient told me this, she dreamed of a man
in a gray suit, who seemed about to do in front of her what the
exhibitionist had done. She awoke with a cry of terror. The
first association to the gray suit was a suit of her father’s, which
he had been wearing on an excursion which she made with him
when she was about six years old. This dream connects the
father, without any doubt, with the exhibitionist. This must be
done for some reason. Did something happen with the father,
which could possibly call forth this association? This problem
met with great resistance from the patient. But she could not
get rid of it. At the next sitting she reproduced some early
reminiscences, when she had noticed her father undressing himself.
Again, she came one day excited and terribly shaken, and
told me that she had had an abominable vision, absolutely distinct.
In bed at night, she felt herself again a child of two or three years
old, and she saw her father standing by her bed in an obscene
attitude. The story was gasped out piece by piece, obviously with
the greatest internal struggle. This was followed by violent
reproaches, of how dreadful it is that a father should ever behave
to his child in such a terrible manner.
// File: 091.png
.pn +1
Nothing is less probable than that the father really did this.
It is only a phantasy, probably first constructed in the course of
the analysis from that same need of discovering a cause which
once induced the physician to form the theory that hysteria was
only caused by such impressions. This case seemed to me suitable
to demonstrate the meaning of the theory of regression, and
to show at the same time the source of the theoretical mistakes
so far. We saw that both sisters were originally only slightly
different. From the moment of the engagement their ways were
totally separated. They seemed now to have quite different characters.
The one, vigorous in health, and enjoying life, was a
good and courageous woman, willing to undertake the natural
demands of life; the other was sad, ill-tempered, full of bitterness
and malice, disinclined to make any effort towards a reasonable
life, egotistical, quibbling, and a nuisance to all about her. This
striking difference was only brought out when the one sister
happily passed through the difficulties of her engagement, whilst
the other did not. For both, it hung to a certain extent only on a
hair, whether the affair would be broken off or not. The
younger one, somewhat calmer, was therefore more deliberate,
and able to find the right word at the right moment. The elder
one was more spoiled and more sensitive, consequently more influenced
by her emotions, and could not find the right word, nor
had she the courage to sacrifice her pride to put things straight
afterwards. This little circumstance had a very important effect.
Originally the conditions were much the same for both sisters.
The greater sensitiveness of the elder produced the difference.
The question now is: Whence arose this sensitiveness with its
unfortunate results? The analysis demonstrated the existence of
an extraordinarily developed sexuality of infantile phantastic
character; in addition, an incestuous phantasy towards the father.
We have a quick and easy solution of the problem of this sensitiveness,
if we admit that these phantasies had a lively, and therefore
effective existence. We might thus readily understand why
this girl was so sensitive. She was shut up in her own phantasies
and strongly attached to her father. Under these circumstances,
it would have been really a wonder had she been willing to love
and marry another man. The more we pursue our need for a
causation, and pursue the development of these phantasies back
// File: 092.png
.pn +1
to their beginning, the greater grow the difficulties of the analysis,
that is to say, the resistances as we call them. At the end we
should find that impressive scene, that obscene act, whose improbability
has already been established. This scene has exactly
the character of a subsequent phantastic formation. Therefore,
we have to conceive these difficulties, which we called “resistances,”
at least in this part of the analysis, as an opposition of
the patient against the formation of such phantasies, and not
as a resistance against the conscious admittance of a painful
remembrance.
You will ask with astonishment, to what aim the patient contrives
such a phantasy? You will even be inclined to suggest that
the physician forced the patient to invent it, otherwise she would
probably never have produced such an absurd idea. I do not
venture to doubt that there have been cases in which, by dint of
the physician’s desire to find a cause, especially under the influence
of the shock-theory, the patient has been brought to contrive
such phantasies. But the physician would never have come to
this theory, had he not followed the patient’s line of thought, thus
taking part in this retrograde movement of the libido which we
call regression. The physician, consequently, only carried right
through to its consequence what the patient was afraid to carry
out, namely, a regression, a falling back of the libido to its former
desires. The analysis, in following the libido-regression, does
not always follow the exact way marked by its historical development,
but very often rather a later phantasy, which only partly
depends on former realities. In our case, only some of the circumstances
are real, and it is but much later that they get their
great importance, namely, at the moment when the libido regresses.
Wherever the libido takes hold of a reminiscence, we
may expect that this reminiscence will be elaborated and altered,
as everything that is touched by the libido revives, takes on
dramatic form, and becomes systematized. We have to admit
that, in our case, almost the greater part of these phantasies became
significant subsequently, after the libido had made a regression,
after it had taken hold of everything that could be suitable,
and had made out of all this a phantasy. Then that phantasy,
keeping pace with the retrograde movement of the libido, came
back at last to the father and put upon him all the infantile
// File: 093.png
.pn +1
sexual desires. Even so it was thought in ancient times that the
golden age of Paradise lay in the past! In the case before us we
know that all the phantasies brought out by analysis did become
subsequently of importance. From this standpoint only, we are
not able to explain the beginning of the neurosis; we should constantly
move in a circle. The critical moment for this neurosis
was that in which the girl and man were inclined to love one
another, but in which an inopportune sensitiveness on the part of
the patient caused the opportunity to slip by.
The Conception of Sensitiveness.—We might say, and the
psychoanalytical conception inclines in this direction, that this
critical sensitiveness arises from some peculiar psychological personal
history, which determined this end. We know that such
sensitiveness in a psychogenic neurosis is always a symptom of a
discord within the subject’s self, a symptom of a struggle between
two divergent tendencies. Both tendencies have their own previous
psychological story. In this case, we are able to show that
this special resistance, the content of that critical sensitiveness,
is, as a matter of fact, connected in the patient’s previous history,
with certain infantile sexual manifestations, and also with that
so-called traumatic event—all things which are capable of casting
a shadow on sexuality. This would be so far plausible if the
sister of the patient had not lived more or less the same life, without
experiencing all these consequences. I mean, she did not
develop a neurosis. So we have to agree that the patient experienced
these things in a special way, perhaps more intensely
than the younger one. Perhaps also, the events of her earlier
childhood were to her of a disproportionate importance. But if
it had been the case to such a marked extent, something of it
would surely have been noticed earlier. In later youth, the
earlier events of childhood were as much forgotten by the patient
as by her sister. Another supposition is therefore possible. This
critical sensitiveness is not the consequence of the special previous
past history, but springs from something that had existed
all along. A careful observer of small children can notice, even
in early infancy, any unusual sensitiveness. I once analyzed a
hysterical patient who showed me a letter written by her mother
when this patient was two and a half years old. Her mother
wrote about her and her sister. The elder was always good-tempered
// File: 094.png
.pn +1
and enterprising, but the other was always in difficulties
with both people and things. The first one became in later
life hysterical, the other one katatonic. These far-reaching differences,
which go back into earliest childhood, cannot depend
on the more or less accidental events of life, but have to be considered
as being innate differences. From this point of view,
we cannot any longer pretend that her special previous psychological
history caused this sensitiveness at that critical moment;
it would be more correct to say: This innate sensitiveness is
manifested most distinctly in uncommon situations.
This surplus of sensitiveness is found very often as an enrichment
of a personality contributing even more to the charm of the
character than to its detriment. But in difficult and uncommon
situations the advantage very often turns into a disadvantage, as
the inopportunely excited emotion renders calm consideration impossible.
Nothing could be more incorrect than to consider this
sensitiveness as eo ipso a morbid constituent of a character. If
it really were so, we should have to regard at least one third of
humanity as pathological. Only if the consequences of this sensitiveness
are destructive to the individual have we a right to
consider this quality as abnormal.
Primary Sensitiveness and Regression.—We come to this difficulty
when we crudely oppose the two conceptions as to the significance
of the previous psychological history as we have done
here; in reality, the two are not mutually exclusive. A certain
innate sensitiveness leads to a special psychological history, to
special reactions to infantile events, which are not without their
own influence on the development of the childish conception of
life. Events bound up with powerful impressions can never pass
without leaving some trace on sensitive people. Some of these
often remain effective throughout life, and such events can exert
an apparently determining influence on the whole mental development.
Dirty and disillusional experiences in the domain of
sexuality are specially apt to frighten a sensitive person for years
and years. Under these conditions, the mere thought of sexuality
raises the greatest resistances. As the creation of the
shock-theory proved, we are too much inclined, in consequence of
our knowledge of such cases, to attribute the emotional development
of a person more or less to accidents. The earlier shock-theory
// File: 095.png
.pn +1
went too far in this respect. We must never forget that
the world is, in the first place, a subjective phenomenon. The
impressions we receive from these happenings are also our own
doing. It is not the case that the impressions are forced on us
unconditionally, but our disposition gives the value to the impressions.
A man with stored-up libido will as a rule have quite
different impressions, much more vivid impressions, than one
who organizes his libido into a rich activity. Such a sensitive
person will have a more profound impression from certain events
which might harmlessly pass over a less sensitive subject. Therefore,
in conjunction with the accidental impression, we have to
consider seriously the subjective conditions. Our former considerations,
and the observation of the concrete case especially,
show us that the important subjective condition is the regression.
It is shown by experience in practice, that the effect of regression
is so enormous, so important and so impressive, that we might
perhaps be inclined to attribute the effect of accidental events to
the mechanism of regression only. Without any doubt, there are
cases in which everything is dramatized, where even the traumatic
events are artefacts of the imagination, and in which the
few real events are subsequently entirely distorted through phantastic
elaboration. We can simply say, that there is not a single
case of neurosis, in which the emotional value of the preceding
event is not considerably aggravated through the regression of
libido, and even where great parts of the infantile development
seem to be of extraordinary importance, they only gain this
through regression.
As is always the case, truth is found in the middle. The
previous history has certainly a determining historic value, which
is reinforced by the regression. Sometimes the traumatic significance
of the previous history comes more into the foreground;
sometimes only the regressive meaning. These observations have
naturally to be applied to the infantile sexual events too. Obviously
there are cases in which brutal sexual accidents justify the
shadow thrown on sexuality, and explain thoroughly the later
resistance of the individual towards sexuality. Dreadful impressions
other than sexual can also sometimes leave behind a
permanent feeling of insecurity, which may determine the individual
in a hesitating attitude towards reality. Where real events
// File: 096.png
.pn +1
of undoubted traumatic potentiality are wanting—as is generally
the case with neurosis—there the mechanism of regression prevails.
Of course, you could object that we have no criterion for
the potential effect of the trauma or shock, as this is a highly
relative conception. It is not quite so; we have in the standard
of the average normal a criterion for the potential effect of a
shock. Whatever is capable of making a strong and persistent
impression upon a normal person must be considered as having
a determining influence for neurotics also. But we may not
straightway attribute any importance, even in neurosis, to impressions
which in a normal case would disappear and be forgotten.
In most of the cases where any event has an unexpected
traumatic influence, we shall find in all probability a regression,
that is to say, a secondary phantastic dramatization. The earlier
in childhood an impression is said to have arisen, the more suspicious
is its reality. Animals and primitive people have not that
readiness in reproducing memories from a single impression which
we find among civilized people. Very young children have by no
means that impressionability which we find in older children. A
certain higher development of the mental faculties is a necessary
condition for impressionability. Therefore we may agree that
the earlier a patient places some significant event in his childhood,
the more likely it will be a phantastic and regressive one.
Important impressions are only to be expected from later youth.
At any rate, we have generally to attribute to the events of
earliest childhood, that is, from the fifth year backwards, but a
regressive importance. Sometimes the regression does play an
overwhelming part in later years, but even then one must not
ascribe too little importance to accidental experiences. It is well
known that, in the later course of a neurosis, the accidental events
and the regression together form a vicious circle. The withdrawal
from the experiences of life leads to regression, and the
regression aggravates the resistances towards life.
In the conception of regression psychoanalysis has made one
of the most important discoveries which have been made in this
sphere. Not only has the earlier exposition of the genesis of
neurosis been already subverted, or at least widely modified, but,
at the same time, the actual conflict has received its proper
valuation.
// File: 097.png
.pn +1
.sp 2
.h3
The Significance of the Actual Conflict
.sp 2
In the case I have described, we saw that we could understand
the symptomatological dramatization as soon as it could be conceived
as an expression of the actual conflict. Here the psychoanalytic
theory agrees with the results of the association-experiments,
of which I spoke in my lectures[#] at Clark University.
The association-experiment, with a neurotic person, gives us a
series of references to certain conflicts of the actual life, which
we call complexes. These complexes contain those problems and
difficulties which have brought the patient into opposition with
himself. Generally we find a love-conflict of an obvious character.
From the standpoint of the association-experiment, neurosis
seems to be something quite different from what it appeared
from the standpoint of the earlier psychoanalytic theory. Considered
from the standpoint of the latter theory, neurosis seemed
to be a growth which had its roots in earliest childhood, and overgrew
the normal structure. Considered from the standpoint of
the association-experiment, neurosis seems to be a reaction from
an actual conflict, which is naturally found also among normal
people, but among them the conflict is solved without too great
difficulty. The neurotic remains in the grip of his conflict, and
his neurosis seems, more or less, to be the consequence of this
stagnation. So we may say that the result of the association-experiments
tell in favor of the theory of regression.
With the former historical conception of neurosis, we thought
we understood clearly why a neurotic person, with his powerful
parent-complex, had such great difficulty in adapting himself to
life. Now that we know that normal persons have the same
complex, and in principle have to pass through just the same
psychological development as a neurotic, we can no longer explain
neurosis as a certain development of phantasy-systems. The
really illuminating way to put the problem is a prospective one.
We do not ask any longer if the patient has a father- or a mother-complex,
or unconscious incest-phantasies which worry him.
To-day, we know that every one has such things. The belief
that only neurotics had these complexes was an error. We ask
now: What is the task which the patient does not wish to fulfil?
// File: 098.png
.pn +1
From which necessary difficulties of life does the patient try to
withdraw himself?
When people try always to adapt themselves to the conditions
of life, the libido is employed rightly and adequately. When
this is not the case, the libido is stored up and produces regressive
symptoms. The inadequate adaptation, that is to say, the abnormal
indecision of neurotics in face of difficulties, is easily
accounted for by their strong subjection to their phantasies, in
consequence of which reality seems to them, wholly or partly,
more unreal, valueless and uninteresting than to normal people.
These heightened phantasies are the results of innumerable
regressions. The ultimate and deepest root is the innate sensitiveness,
which causes difficulties even to the infant at the
mother’s breast, in the form of unnecessary irritation and resistances.
Call it sensitiveness or whatever you like, this unknown
element of predisposition is in every case of neurosis.
.sp 2
.h3
The Etiological Significance of Phantasy Criticized
.sp 2
The apparent etiological development of neurosis, discovered
by psychoanalysis, is in reality only the work of causally connected
phantasies, which the patient has created from that libido
which at times he did not employ in the biological adaptation.
Thus, these apparently etiological phantasies seem to be forms
of compensation, disguises, for an unfulfilled adaptation to reality.
The vicious circle previously mentioned between the withdrawing
in the face of difficulties and the regression into the world of
phantasies, is naturally well-suited to give the illusion of an
apparent striking causal relationship, so that both the patient and
the physician believe in it. In such a development accidental
experiences are only “extenuating circumstances.” I feel I
must make allowance for those critics who, on reading the history
of psychoanalytic patients, get the impression of phantastic
elaboration. Only they make the mistake of attributing the
phantastic artefacts and far-fetched arbitrary symbolism to the
suggestion and to the awful phantasy of the physician, instead of
to the unequalled fertility of phantasy on the part of the patient.
Of a truth, there is a good deal of artificial elaboration in the
phantasies of a psychoanalytic case. There are generally significant
// File: 099.png
.pn +1
signs of the patient’s active imagination. The critics are
not so wrong when they say that their neurotic patients have no
such phantasies. I have no doubt that patients are unconscious
of the greater part of their own phantasies. A phantasy only
“really” exists in the unconscious, when it has some notable
effect upon the conscious, e. g., in the form of a dream; otherwise,
we may say with a clear conscience that it is not real. Every
one who overlooks the frequently nearly imperceptible effects of
unconscious phantasies upon the conscious, or renounces the
fundamental, and technically incontestable analysis of dreams,
can easily overlook the phantasies of his patients altogether. We
are, therefore, inclined to smile when we hear this repeated objection.
But we must admit that there is some truth in it. The
regressive tendency of the patient is strengthened by the attention
bestowed on it, and directed to the unconscious, that is to
say, to the phantasies he discovers and forms during analysis.
We might even perhaps go so far as to say that, during the time
of analysis, this phantasy-production is greatly increased, as the
patient is strengthened in his regressive tendency, by the interest
taken by the physician and originates even more phantasies than
he did before. Hence, our critics have repeatedly stated that a
conscientious therapy of the neurosis should go in exactly the
opposite direction to that taken by psychoanalysis; in other words,
it has been the chief endeavor of therapy, hitherto, to extricate
the patient from his unhealthy phantasies and bring him back
again to real life.
.fn #
Am. Journ. Psych., April, 1910.
.fn-
// File: 100.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=chap9
CHAPTER IX | The Therapeutical Principles of Psychoanalysis
.sp 2
While the psychoanalyst, of course, knows of this therapeutic
tendency to extricate the patient from his unhealthy phantasies, he
also knows just how far this mere extricating of neurotic patients
from their phantasies goes. As physicians, we should never think
of preferring a difficult and complicated method, assailed by all
authorities, to a simple, clear and easy one without good reason.
I am perfectly well-acquainted with hypnotic suggestion, and
with Dubois’ method of persuasion, but I do not use these
methods, on account of their relative inadequacy. For the same
reason, I do not use the direct “ré-éducation de la volonté” as
the psychoanalytic method gives me better results.
In applying psychoanalysis we must grant the regressive
phantasies of the patient, for psychoanalysis has a much broader
outlook, as regards the valuation of symptoms, than have the
above psychotherapeutic methods. These all emanate from the
assertion that a neurosis is an absolute morbid formation.
The reigning school of neurology has never thought of considering
neurosis as a healing process also, and of attributing to
the neurotic formations a quite special teleological meaning.
Neurosis, like every other disease, is a compromise between the
morbid tendencies, and the normal function. Modern medicine
no longer considers fever as the illness itself, but a purposeful
reaction of the organism. Psychoanalysis, likewise, no longer
conceives a neurosis as eo ipso morbid, but as also having a
meaning and a purpose. From this there follows the more
reserved and expectant attitude of psychoanalysis towards
neurosis. Psychoanalysis does not judge the value of the symptoms,
but first tries to understand what tendencies lie beneath
these symptoms. If we were able to abolish a neurosis in the
same way, for instance, as a cancer is destroyed, then at the same
time there would be destroyed a great amount of available energy
also. We save this energy, that is, we make it serve the purposes
// File: 101.png
.pn +1
of the instinct for health, as soon as we can trace the meaning
of these symptoms; by taking part in the regressive movement of
the patient. Those unfamiliar with the essentials of psychoanalysis
will have some difficulty in understanding how a therapeutic
effect can come to pass when the physician takes part in
the pernicious phantasies of the patient. Not only critics, but
the patients also, doubt the therapeutic value of such a method,
which concentrates attention upon phantasies which the patient
rejects as worthless and reprehensible. The patients will often
tell you that their former physicians forbade them to occupy
themselves with their phantasies, and told them that they must
only consider that it is well with them, when they are free, if
but momentarily, from their awful torments. So, it seems strange
enough that it should be of any use to them, when the treatment
brings them back to the very thing from which they have tried
constantly to escape. The following answer may be made: all
depends upon the position which the patient takes up towards
his own phantasies. These phantasies have been hitherto, for the
patient, an absolutely passive and involuntary manifestation. As
we say, he was lost in his dreams. The patient’s so-called brooding
is an involuntary kind of dreaming too. What psychoanalysis
demands from a patient is only apparently the same. Only a
man who has a very superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis can
confuse this passive dreaming with the position taken up in
analysis. What psychoanalysis asks from the patient is just the
contrary of what the patient has always done. The patient can
be compared to a person who, unintentionally, has fallen into the
water and sunk, whilst psychoanalysis wants him to dive in, as
it was no mere chance which led him to fall in at just that spot.
There lies a sunken treasure, and only a diver can raise it.
The patient, judging his phantasies from the standpoint of
his reason, regards them as valueless and senseless; but, in
reality, the phantasies have their great influence on the patient
because they are of great importance. They are old, sunken
treasures, which can only be recovered by a diver, that is, the
patients, contrary to their wont, must now pay an active attention
to their inner life. Where they formerly dreamed, they
must now think, consciously and intentionally. This new way of
thinking about himself has about as much resemblance to the
// File: 102.png
.pn +1
patient’s former mental condition as a diver has to a drowning
man. The earlier joy in indulgence has now become a purpose
and an aim—that is, has become work. The patient, assisted by
the physician, occupies himself with his phantasies, not to lose
himself therein, but to uproot them, piece by piece, and to bring
them into daylight. He thus reaches an objective standpoint
towards his inner life, and everything he formerly loathed and
feared is now considered consciously. This contains the basis of
the whole psychoanalytic therapy. In consequence of his illness,
the patient stood, partially or totally, outside of real life. Consequently
he neglected many of his life’s duties, either in regard
to social work or to the ordinary daily tasks. If he wishes to be
well, he must return to the fulfilment of his particular obligations.
Let me say, by way of caution, that we are not to understand by
such “duties,” some general ethical postulates, but duties towards
himself. Nor does this mean that they are eo ipso egoistic interests,
since we are social beings as well, a matter too easily forgotten
by individualists. An ordinary person will feel very much
more comfortable sharing a common virtue than possessing an
individual vice, even if the latter is a very seductive one. They
must be already neurotic, or otherwise extraordinary people who
can be deluded by such particular interests. The neurotic fled
from his duties and his libido withdrew, at least partly, from the
tasks imposed by real life. In consequence, the libido became
introverted and directed towards an inner life. The libido followed
the path of regression: to a large extent phantasies replaced
reality, because the patient refused to overcome certain
real difficulties. Unconsciously the neurotic patient prefers—and
very often consciously too—his dreams and phantasies to reality.
To bring him back to real life and to the fulfilment of its necessary
duties, the analysis proceeds along the same false path of
regression which has been taken by his libido; so that the beginning
of psychoanalysis looks as if it were supporting the morbid
tendencies of the patient. But psychoanalysis follows these
phantasies, these wrong paths, in order to restore the libido, which
is the valuable part of the phantasies, to the conscious self and
to the duties of the moment. This can only be done by bringing
the phantasies into the light of day, and along with them the
libido bound up with them. We might leave these unconscious
// File: 103.png
.pn +1
phantasies to their shadowy existence, if no libido were attached
to them. It is unavoidable that the patient, feeling himself at
the beginning of analysis confirmed in his regressive tendencies,
leads his analytical interest, amid increasing resistances, down
to the depths of the shadowy world. We can easily understand
that any physician who is a normal person experiences the greatest
resistance towards the thoroughly morbid, regressive tendency
of the patient, since he feels quite certain that this tendency
is pathological. And this all the more because, as physician, he
believes he is right in refusing to give heed to his patient’s phantasies.
It is quite conceivable that the physician feels a repulsion
towards this tendency; it is undoubtedly repugnant to see how
a person is completely given up to such phantasies, finding only
himself of any importance and never ceasing to admire or despise
himself. The esthetic sense of normal people has, as a rule, little
pleasure in neurotic phantasies, even if it does not find them absolutely
repulsive. The psychoanalyst must put aside such esthetic
judgment, just as every physician must, who really tries to help
his patients. He may not fear any dirty work. Of course there
are a great many patients physically ill, who, without undergoing
an exact examination or local treatment, do recover by the use
of general physical, dietetic, or suggestive means. Severe cases
can, however, only be helped by a more exact examination and
therapy, based on a profound knowledge of the illness. Our
psychotherapeutic methods hitherto have been like these general
measures. In slight cases they did no harm; on the contrary,
they were often of great service. But for a great many patients
these measures have proved inadequate. If they really can be
helped, it will be by psychoanalysis, which is not to say that
psychoanalysis is a universal panacea. Such a sneer proceeds
only from ill-natured criticism. We know very well that psychoanalysis
fails in many cases. As everybody knows, we shall never
be able to cure all illnesses.
This “diving” work of analysis brings dirty matter piecemeal
out of the slime, which must then be cleansed before we can tell
its value. The dirty phantasies are valueless and are thrown
aside, but the libido actuating them is of value and this, after
cleansing, becomes serviceable again. To the psychoanalyst, as
to every specialist, it will sometimes seem that the phantasies have
// File: 104.png
.pn +1
also a value of their own, and not only by reason of the libido
linked with them. But their value is not, in the first instance, for
the patient. For the physician, these phantasies have a scientific
value, just as if is of special interest to the surgeon to know
whether the pus contained staphylococci or streptococci. To the
patient it is all the same, and for him, it is better that the doctor
conceal his scientific interest, in order not to tempt him to have
greater pleasure than necessary in his phantasies. The etiological
importance which is attached to these phantasies, incorrectly,
to my mind, explains why so much room is given up in psychoanalytic
literature to the extensive discussion of the various
sexual phantasies. Once if is known that absolutely nothing is
impossible in the sphere of sexual phantasy, the former estimate
of these phantasies will disappear, and therewith the endeavor to
discover in them an etiological import. Nor will the most extended
discussion of these cases ever be able to exhaust this
sphere.
Every case is theoretically inexhaustible. But in general the
production of phantasies ceases after a time. Naturally, we must
not conclude from this that the possibility of creating phantasies
is exhausted, but the cessation in their production only means
that there is then no more libido on the path of regression. The
end of the regressive movement is reached as soon as the libido
takes hold of the present real duties of life, and is used to solve
those problems. But there are cases, and these not a few, where
the patient continues longer than usual to produce endless phantastic
manifestations, either from his own pleasure in them or
from certain false expectations on the part of the doctor. Such
a mistake is especially easy for beginners, since, blinded by the
present psychoanalytical discussion, they keep their interest fixed
on these phantasies, because they seem to possess etiological significance.
They are therefore constantly at pains to fish up
phantasies of early childhood, vainly hoping to find thus the solution
of the neurotic difficulties. They do not see that the solution
lies in action, and in the fulfilment of certain necessary duties of
life. It will be objected that the neurosis is entirely due to the
incapacity of the patient to carry out these very demands of life,
and that therapy by the analysis of the unconscious ought to
enable him to do so, or at least, give him means to do so. The
// File: 105.png
.pn +1
objection put in this way is perfectly valid, but we have to add
that it is only so when the patient is really conscious of the duties
he has to fulfil, not only academically, in their general theoretical
outlines but in their most minute details. It is characteristic for
neurotic people to be wanting in this knowledge, although, because
of their intelligence, they are well aware of the general duties of
life, and struggle, perhaps only too hard, to fulfil the prescriptions
of current morality. But the much more important duties which
he ought to fulfil towards himself are to a great extent unknown
to the neurotic; sometimes even they are not known at all. It is
not enough, therefore, to follow the patient blindfold on the path
of regression, and to push him by an inopportune etiological interest
back into his infantile phantasies. I have often heard
from patients, with whom the psychoanalytic treatment has come
to a standstill: “The doctor believes I must have somewhere some
infantile trauma, or an infantile phantasy which I am still repressing.”
Apart from the cases where this supposition was really
true, I have seen cases in which the stoppage was caused by the
fact that the libido, hauled up by the analysis, sank back into the
depths again for want of employment. This was due to the
physician’s attention being directed entirely to the infantile phantasies,
and his failing therefore to see what duties of the moment
the patient had to fulfil. The consequence was that the libido
brought forth by analysis always sank back again, as no opportunity
for further activity was found.
There are many patients who, on their own account, discover
their life-tasks and abandon the production of regressive phantasies
pretty soon, because they prefer to live in reality, rather
than in their phantasies. It is a pity that this cannot be said of
all patients. A good many of them forsake for a long time, or
even forever, the fulfilment of their life-tasks, and prefer their
idle neurotic dreaming. I must again emphasize that we do not
understand by “dreaming” always a conscious phenomenon.
In accordance with these facts and these views, the character
of psychoanalysis has changed during the course of time. If the
first stage of psychoanalysis was perhaps a kind of surgery, which
would remove from the mind of the patient the foreign body,
the “blocked” affect, the later form has been a kind of historical
method, which tries to investigate carefully the genesis of the
// File: 106.png
.pn +1
neurosis, down to its smallest details, and to reduce it to its
earliest origins.
.sp 2
.h3
The Conception of Transference
.sp 2
This last method has unmistakably been due to strong scientific
interest, the traces of which are clearly seen in the delineations
of cases so far. Thanks to this, Freud was also able to discover
wherein lay the therapeutical effect of psychoanalysis.
Whilst formerly this was sought in the discharge of the traumatic
affect, it was now seen that the phantasies produced
were especially associated with the personality of the physician.
Freud calls this process transference (“Uebertragung”), owing
to the fact that the images of the parents (“imagines”) are
henceforth transferred to the physician, along with the infantile
attitude of mind adopted towards the parents. The transference
does not arise solely in the intellectual sphere, but the libido
bound up with the phantasy is transferred, together with the
phantasy itself, to the personality of the physician, so that the
physician replaces the parents to a certain extent. All the apparently
sexual phantasies which have been connected with the
parents are now connected with the physician, and the less this is
realized by the patient, the more he will be unconsciously bound
to his physician. This recognition is in many ways of prime
importance.
This process has an important biological value for the patient.
The less libido he gives to reality, the more exaggerated will be
his phantasies, and the more he will be cut off from the world.
Typical of neurotic people is their attitude of disharmony towards
reality, that is, their diminished capacity for adaptation. Through
the transference to the physician, a bridge is built, across which
the patient can get away from his family, into reality. In other
words, he can emerge from his infantile environment into the
world of grown-up people, for here the physician stands for a
part of the extra-familial world. But on the other hand, this
transference is a powerful hindrance to the progress of treatment,
for the patient assimilates the personality of the physician as if
he did stand for father or mother, and not for a part of the
extra-familial world. If the patient could acquire the image of
the physician as a part of the non-infantile world, he would gain
// File: 107.png
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a considerable advantage. But transference has the opposite
effect; hence the whole advantage of the new acquisition is neutralized.
The more the patient succeeds in regarding his doctor
as he does any other individual, the more he is able to consider
himself objectively, the greater becomes the advantage of transference.
The less he is able to consider his doctor in this way,
the more the physician is assimilated with the father, the less is
the advantage of the transference and the greater will be its harm.
The familial environment of the patient has only become increased
by an additional personality assimilated to his parents.
The patient himself is, as before, still in his childish surroundings,
and therefore maintains his infantile attitude of mind. In
this manner, all the advantages of transference can be lost.
There are patients who follow the analysis with the greatest
interest without making the slightest improvement, remaining
extraordinarily productive in phantasies, although the whole development
of their neurosis, even to the smallest details, has been
brought to light. A physician under the influence of the historical
view might be thus easily thrown into confusion, and
would have to ask himself: What is there in this case still to be
analyzed? Those are just the cases of which I spoke before,
where it is no longer a matter of the analysis of the historical
material, but we have now to face a practical problem, the overcoming
of the inadequate infantile attitude of mind. Of course,
the historical analysis would show repeatedly that the patient had
a childish attitude towards his physician, but it would not bring
us any solution of the question how that attitude could be changed.
To a certain extent, this serious disadvantage of transference is
found in every case. Gradually it has been proved that this part
of psychoanalysis is, considered from a scientific standpoint,
extraordinarily interesting and of great value, but in its practical
aspect, of less importance than that which has now to follow,
namely, the analysis of the transference.
.sp 2
.h3
Confession and Psychoanalysis
.sp 2
Before we enter into a more detailed consideration of this
practical part of psychoanalysis, I should like to mention a
parallelism between the first part of psychoanalysis and a historical
institution of our civilization. It is not difficult to guess
// File: 108.png
.pn +1
this parallelism. We find it in the religious institution called
confession. By nothing are people more cut off from fellowship
with others than by a secret borne about within them. It is not
that a secret actually cuts off a person from communicating with
his fellows, yet somehow personal secrets which are zealously
guarded do have this effect. “Sinful” deeds and thoughts, for
instance, are the secrets which separate one person from another.
Great relief is therefore gained by confessing them. This relief
is due to the re-admission of the individual to the community.
His loneliness, which was so difficult to bear, ceases. Herein lies
the essential value of the confession. But this confession means
at the same time, through the phenomenon of transference and its
unconscious phantasies, that the individual becomes tied to his
confessor. This was probably instinctively intended by the
Church. The fact that perhaps the greater part of humanity
wants to be guided, justifies the moral value attributed to this
institution by the Church. The priest is furnished with all the
attributes of paternal authority, and upon him rests the obligation
to guide his congregation, just as a father guides his children.
Thus the priest replaces the parents and to a certain extent frees
his people from their infantile bonds. In so far as the priest is a
highly moral personality, with a nobility of soul, and an adequate
culture, this institution may be commended as a splendid instance
of social control and education, which served humanity during
the space of two thousand years. So long as the Christian
Church of the Middle Ages was capable of being the guardian of
culture and science, in which rôle her success was, in part, due to
her wide toleration of the secular element, confession was an
admirable method for the education of the people. But confession
lost its greatest value, at least for the more educated, as
soon as the Church was unable to maintain her leadership over
the more emancipated portion of the community and became incapable,
through her rigidity, of following the intellectual life of
the nations.
The more highly educated men of to-day do not want to be
guided by a belief or a rigid dogma; they want to understand.
Therefore, they put aside everything that they do not understand,
and the religious symbol is very little accessible for general understanding.
The sacrificium intellectus is an act of violence, to
// File: 109.png
.pn +1
which the moral conscience of the highly developed man is
opposed. But in a large number of cases, transference to, and
dependence upon the analyst could be considered as a sufficient
end, with a definite therapeutic effect, if the analyst were in every
respect a great personality, capable and competent to guide the
patients given into his charge and to be a father of his people.
But a modern, mentally-developed person desires to guide himself,
and to stand on his own feet. He wants to take the helm in
his own hands; the steering has too long been done by others.
He wants to understand; in other words, he wants to be a
grown-up person. It is much easier to be guided, but this no
longer suits the well-educated of the present time, for they feel
the necessity of the moral independence demanded by the spirit
of our time. Modern humanity demands moral autonomy.
Psychoanalysis has to allow this claim, and refuses to guide and
to advise. The psychoanalytic physician knows his own shortcomings
too well, and therefore cannot believe that he can be
father and leader. His highest ambition must only consist in
educating his patients to become independent personalities, and in
freeing them from their unconscious dependency within infantile
limitations. Psychoanalysis has therefore to analyze the transference,
a task left untouched by the priest. In so doing, the
unconscious dependence upon the physician is cut off, and the
patient is put upon his own feet; this at least is the end at which
the physician aims.
.sp 2
.h3
The Analysis of the Transference
.sp 2
We have already seen that the transference brings about difficulties,
because the personality of the physician is assimilated
with the image of the patient’s parents. The first part of the
analysis, the investigation of the patient’s complexes, is rather
easy, chiefly because a man is relieved by ridding himself of his
secrets, difficulties and pains. In the second place, he experiences
a peculiar satisfaction from at last finding some one who shows
interest in all those things to which nobody hitherto would listen.
It is very agreeable to find a person, who tries to understand him,
and does not shrink back. In the third place, the expressed intention
of the physician, to understand him and to follow him
through all his erring ways, pathetically affects the patient. The
// File: 110.png
.pn +1
feeling of being understood is especially sweet to the solitary
souls who are forever longing for “understanding.” In this they
are insatiable. The beginning of the analysis is for these reasons
fairly easy and simple. The improvement so easily gained, and
the sometimes striking change in the patient’s condition of health
are a great temptation to the psychoanalytic beginner to slip into
a therapeutic optimism and an analytical superficiality, neither of
which would correspond to the seriousness and the difficulties of
the situation. The trumpeting of therapeutic successes is nowhere
more contemptible than in psychoanalysis, for no one is
better able to understand than a psychoanalyst how the so-called
result of the therapy depends on the coöperation of nature and
the patient himself. The psychoanalyst may rest content with
possessing an advanced scientific insight. The prevailing psychoanalytic
literature cannot be spared reproach that some of its
works do give a false impression as to its real nature. There are
therapeutical publications from which the uninitiated receive the
impression that psychoanalysis is more or less a clever trick, with
astonishing effects. The first part of analysis, where we try to
understand, and which, as we have seen before, offers much
relief to the patient’s feelings, is responsible for these illusions.
These incidental benefits help the phenomenon of transference.
The patient has long felt the need of help to free him from his
inward isolation and his lack of self-understanding. So he gives
way to his transference, after first struggling against it. For a
neurotic person, the transference is an ideal situation. He himself
makes no effort, and nevertheless another person meets him
halfway, with an apparent affectionate understanding; does not
even get annoyed or leave off his patient endeavors, although he
himself is sometimes stubborn and makes childish resistances.
By this means the strongest resistances are melted away, for the
interest of the physician meets the need of a better adaptation to
extra-familial reality. The patient obtains, through the transference,
not only his parents, who used to bestow great attention
upon him, but in addition he gets a relationship outside the family,
and thus fulfils a necessary duty of life. The therapeutical success
so often to be seen at the same time fortifies the patient’s
belief that this new-gained situation is an excellent one. Here we
can easily understand that the patient is not in the least inclined
// File: 111.png
.pn +1
to abandon this newly-found advantage. If it depended upon
him, he would be forever associated with his physician. In consequence,
he begins to produce all kinds of phantasies, in order to
find possible ways of maintaining the association with his physician.
He makes the greatest resistances towards his physician,
when the latter tries to dissolve the transference. At the same
time, we must not forget that for our patients the acquisition of a
relationship outside the family is one of the most important
duties of life, and one, moreover, which up to this moment they
had failed or but very imperfectly succeeded in accomplishing.
I must oppose myself energetically to the view that we always
mean by this relationship outside the family, a sexual relation in
its popular sense. This is the misunderstanding fallen into by so
many neurotic people, who believe that a right attitude toward
reality is only to be found by way of concrete sexuality. There
are even physicians, not psychoanalysts, who are of the same conviction.
But this is the primitive adaptation which we find among
uncivilized people under primitive conditions. If we lend uncritical
support to this tendency of neurotic people to adapt themselves
in an infantile way, we just encourage them in the infantilism
from which they are suffering. The neurotic patient has to
learn that higher adaptation which is demanded by life from
civilized and grown-up people. Whoever has a tendency to sink
lower, will proceed to do so; for this end he does not need psychoanalysis.
But we must be careful not to fall into the opposite
extreme and believe that we can create by analysis great personalities.
Psychoanalysis stands above traditional morality. It
follows no arbitrary moral standard. It is only a means to bring
to light the individual trends, and to develop and harmonize them
as perfectly as possible.
Analysis must be a biological method, that is, a method which
tries to connect the highest subjective well-being with the most
valuable biological activity. The best result for a person who
passes through analysis, is that he becomes at the end what he
really is, in harmony with himself, neither bad nor good, but an
ordinary human being. Psychoanalysis cannot be considered
a method of education, if by education is understood the possibility
of shaping a tree to a highly artificial form. But whoever
has the higher conception of education will most prize that
// File: 112.png
.pn +1
educational method which can cultivate a tree so that it shall
fulfil to perfection its own natural conditions of growth. We
yield too much to the ridiculous fear that we are at bottom quite
impossible beings, and that if everyone were to appear as he
really is a dreadful social catastrophe would result. The individualistic
thinkers of our day insist on understanding by
“people as they really are,” only the discontented, anarchistic
and egotistic element in humanity; they quite forget that this
same humanity has created those well-established forms of our
civilization which possess greater strength and solidity than all
the anarchistic under-currents.
When we try to dissolve the transference we have to fight
against powers which have not only neurotic value, but also
universal normal significance. When we try to bring the patient
to the dissolution of his transference, we are asking more from
him than is generally asked of the average man; we ask that he
should subdue himself wholly. Only certain religions have made
such a claim on humanity, and it is this demand which makes the
second part of analysis so difficult.
The technique that we have to employ for the analysis of the
transference is exactly the same as that before described.
Naturally the problem as to what the patient must do with the
libido which is now withdrawn from the physician comes to the
fore. Here again, there is great danger for the beginner, as he
will be inclined to suggest, or to give suggestive advice. This
would be extremely pleasant for the patient in every respect, and
therefore fatal.
.sp 2
.h3
The Problem of Self-Analysis
.sp 2
I think here is the place to say something about the indispensable
conditions of the psychology of the psychoanalyst himself.
Psychoanalysis is by no means an instrument applied to the
patient only; it is self-evident that it must be applied to the
psychoanalyst first. I believe that it is not only a moral, but a
professional duty also, for the physician to submit himself to the
psychoanalytic process, in order to clean his mind from his own
unconscious interferences. Even if he is entitled to trust to his
own personal honesty, that will not suffice to save him from the
misleading influences of his own unconscious. The unconscious
// File: 113.png
.pn +1
is unknown, even to the most frank and honest person. Without
analysis the physician will inevitably be blindfolded in all those
places where he meets his own complexes; this is a situation of
dangerous importance in the analysis of transference. Do not
forget that the complexes of a neurotic are only the complexes of
all human beings, the psychoanalyst included. Through the interference
of your own hidden wishes you will do the greatest harm
to your patients. The psychoanalyst must never forget that the
final aim of psychoanalysis is the personal freedom and moral
independence of the patient.
.sp 2
.h3
The Analysis of Dreams
.sp 2
Here, as everywhere in analysis, we have to follow the patient
along the line of his own impulses, even if the path seems to be a
wrong one. Error is just as important a condition of mental
progress as truth. In this second step of analysis, with all its
hidden precipices and sand-banks, we owe a great deal to dreams.
At the beginning of analysis dreams chiefly helped in discovering
phantasies; here they guide us, in a most valuable way, to the
application of the libido. Freud’s work laid the foundation of an
immense increase in our knowledge in regard to the interpretation
of the dream’s content, through its historical material and
its tendency to express wishes. He showed us how dreams open
the way to the acquisition of unconscious material. In accordance
with his genius for the purely historical method, he apprises
us chiefly of the analytical relations. Although this method is
incontestably of the greatest importance, we ought not to take up
this standpoint exclusively, as such an historical conception does
not sufficiently take account of the teleological meaning of dreams.
Conscious thinking would be quite insufficiently characterized,
if we considered it only from its historical determinants. For its
complete valuation, we have unquestionably to consider its teleological
or prospective meaning as well. If we pursued the history
of the English Parliament back to its first origin, we should certainly
arrive at a perfect understanding of its development, and
the determination of its present form. But we should know
nothing about its prospective function, that is, about the work
which it has to accomplish now, and in the future. The same
// File: 114.png
.pn +1
thing is to be said about dreams. Their prospective function has
been valued only by superstitious peoples and times, but probably
there is much truth in their view. Not that we pretend that
dreams have any prophetic foreboding, but we suggest, that there
might be a possibility of discovering in their unconscious material
those future combinations which are subliminal just because they
have not reached the distinctiveness or the intensity which consciousness
requires. Here I am thinking of those indistinct
presentments of the future which we sometimes have, which are
nothing else than subliminal combinations, the objective value of
which we are not able to apperceive. The future tendencies of
the patient are elaborated by this indirect analysis, and, if this
work is successful, the convalescent passes out of treatment and
out of his half-infantile state of transference into life, which has
been inwardly carefully prepared for, which has been chosen by
himself, and to which, after many deliberations, he has at last
made up his mind.
// File: 115.png
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.sp 4
.h2 id=chap10
CHAPTER X | Some General Remarks on Psychoanalysis
.sp 2
As may easily be understood, psychoanalysis will never do for
polyclinic work, and will therefore always remain in the hands of
those few who, because of their innate and trained psychological
faculties, are particularly apt and have a special liking for this
profession. Just as not every physician makes a good surgeon,
so neither will every one make a good psychoanalyst. The predominant
psychological character of psychoanalytic work will
make it difficult for doctors to monopolize it. Sooner or later
other faculties will master it, either for practical uses or for its
theoretical interest. Of course the treatment must remain confined
entirely to the hands of responsible scientific people.
So long as official science excludes psychoanalysis from general
discussion, as pure nonsense, we cannot be astonished if those
belonging to other faculties master this material even before the
medical profession. And this will occur the more because psychoanalysis
is a general psychological method of investigation,
as well as a heuristic principle of the first rank in all departments
of mental science (“Geisteswissenschaften”). Chiefly through
the work of the Zürich School, the possibility of applying psychoanalysis
to the domain of the mental diseases has been demonstrated.
Psychoanalytical investigation of dementia præcox, for
instance, brought us the most valuable insight into the psychological
structure of this remarkable disease. It would lead me too
far were I to demonstrate to you the results of those investigations.
The theory of the psychological determinants of this
disease is already in itself a vast territory. Even if I had to treat
but the symbolic problems of dementia præcox I should be obliged
to lay before you so much material, that I could not possibly
master it within the limits of these lectures, which must give a
general survey.
The question of dementia præcox has become so extraordinarily
complicated because of the quite recent incursion on the
// File: 116.png
.pn +1
part of psychoanalysis into the domains of mythology and comparative
religion, whence we have derived a deeper insight into
ethical psychological symbolism. Those who are well-acquainted
with the symbolism of dreams and of dementia præcox have been
greatly impressed by the striking parallelism between modern
individual symbols and those found in folk-lore. The extraordinary
parallelism between ethnic symbolism and that of
dementia præcox is remarkably clear. This fact induced me to
make an extended comparative investigation of individual and
ethnic symbolism, the results of which have been recently published.[#]
This complication of psychology with the problem of
mythology makes it impossible for me to demonstrate to you my
conception of dementia præcox. For the same reasons, I must
forego the discussion of the results of psychoanalytic investigation
in the domain of mythology and comparative religions. It
would be impossible to do this without setting forth all the
material belonging to it. The main result of these investigations
is, for the moment, the knowledge of the far-reaching parallelisms
between the ethnical and the individual symbolisms. From the
present position of this work, we can scarcely conceive what a
vast perspective may result from this comparative ethnopsychology.
Through the study of mythology, the psychoanalytical
knowledge of the nature of the unconscious processes we may
expect to be enormously enriched and deepened.
I must limit myself, if I am to give you in the course of my
lectures a more or less general presentation of the psychoanalytic
school. A detailed elaboration of this method and its theory
would have demanded an enormous display of cases, whose
delineation would have detracted from a comprehensive view of
the whole. But to give you an insight into the concrete proceedings
of psychoanalytic treatment, I decided to bring before you
a short analysis of a girl of eleven years of age. The case was
analyzed by my assistant, Miss Mary Moltzer. In the first place,
I must mention that this case is by no means typical, either in the
length of its time, or in the course of its general analysis; it is
just as little so as an individual is characteristic for all other
people. Nowhere is the abstraction of universal rules more difficult
than in psychoanalysis, for which reason it is better to abstain
// File: 117.png
.pn +1
from too many rules. We must never forget that, notwithstanding
the great uniformity of complexes and conflicts, every case
is unique. For every individual is unique. Every case demands
from the physician an individual interest, and in every case you
will find the course of analysis different. In describing this case,
I offer you a small section of the vast diverse psychological
world, showing all those apparently bizarre and arbitrary peculiarities
scattered over human life by the whims of so-called
chance. I have no intention of withholding any of the minute
psychoanalytic details, as I do not want to make you believe that
psychoanalysis is a method with rigid laws. The scientific interest
of the investigator inclines him to find rules and categories, in
which the most living of all things alive can be included. But
the physician as well as the observer, free from all formulas,
ought to have an open eye for the whole lawless wealth of living
reality. In this way I will endeavor to present to you this case,
and I hope also to succeed in demonstrating to you how differently
an analysis develops from what might have been expected
from purely theoretical considerations.
.sp 2
.h3
A Case of Neurosis in a Child
.sp 2
The case in question is that of an intelligent girl of eleven
years of age, of good family. The history of the disease is as
follows:
.sp 2
.h4
Anamnesis
.sp 2
She had to leave school several times on account of sudden
sickness and headache, and was obliged to go to bed. In the
morning she sometimes refused to get up and go to school. She
suffered from bad dreams, was capricious and not to be counted
upon.
I informed the mother, who came to consult me, that these
things were neurotic signs, and that some special circumstance
must be hidden there, necessitating an interrogation of the child.
This supposition was not arbitrary, for every attentive observer
knows that if children are restless or in bad temper, there is
always something painful worrying them. If it were not painful,
they would tell it, and they would not be worried over it. Of
course, I am only speaking of those cases having a psychogenic
// File: 118.png
.pn +1
cause. The child confessed to her mother the following story:
She had a favorite teacher, of whom she was very fond. During
this last term she had fallen back somewhat, through working
insufficiently, and she believed she had rather fallen in the
estimation of her teacher. She then began to feel sick during
his lessons. She felt not only estranged from her teacher, but
even somewhat hostile. She directed all her friendly feelings to
a poor boy with whom she usually shared the bread which she
took to school. Later on she gave him money, so that he could
buy bread for himself. In a conversation with this boy she made
fun of her teacher and called him a goat. The boy attached
himself more and more to her, and considered that he had the
right to levy a tax on her occasionally in the form of a little
present of money. She now became greatly alarmed lest the boy
might tell her teacher that she turned him into ridicule and called
him a “goat,” and she promised him two francs if he would give
his solemn word never to tell anything to her teacher. From that
moment the boy began to exploit her; he demanded money with
threats and persecuted her with his demands on the way to school.
This made her perfectly miserable. Her attacks of sickness are
closely connected with all this story. But after the affair had
been disposed of by this confession, her peace of mind was not
restored as might have been expected.
We very often see, as I have said, that the mere relation of a
painful affair can have an important therapeutical effect. Generally
this does not last very long, although on occasion such a
favorable effect can maintain itself for a long time. Such a confession
is naturally a long way from being an analysis. But
there are nerve-specialists nowadays who believe that an analysis
is only a somewhat more extensive anamnesis or confession.
A little while later the child had an attack of coughing and
missed school for one day. After that she went to school for
one day and felt perfectly well. On the third day, a renewed
attack of coughing came on, with pains on the left side, fever and
vomiting. Her temperature, accurately taken, showed 39.4° C.,
about 103° F. The doctor feared pneumonia. But the next day
everything had passed away. She felt quite well and not the
slightest sign of fever or sickness was to be noted.
But still our little patient wept the whole time and did not wish
// File: 119.png
.pn +1
to get up. From this strange course of events I suspected some
serious neurosis, and I therefore advised treatment by analysis.
.sp 2
.h4
Analytic Treatment
.sp 2
First interview: The little girl seemed to be nervous and constrained,
having a disagreeable forced laugh. Miss Moltzer, who
analyzed her, gave her first of all an opportunity of talking about
her staying in bed. We learn that she liked it immensely, as she
always had some society. Everybody came to see her; also her
mother read to her out of a book which contained the story of
a prince who was ill, but who recovered when his wish was fulfilled,
the wish being that his little friend, a poor boy, might be
allowed to stay with him.
The obvious relation between this story and her own little
love-story, as well as its connection with her own illness, was
pointed out to her, whereupon she began to cry and say she would
prefer to go to the other children and play with them, otherwise
they would run off. This was at once allowed, and away she
ran, but came back again, after a short while, somewhat embarrassed.
It was explained to her that she did not run away because
she was afraid her playmates would go, but that she herself
wanted to get off because of resistances.
At the second interview she was less anxious and repressed.
They happened to speak about the teacher, but then she was
embarrassed. She seemed to be ashamed at the end, and she
timidly confessed that she liked her teacher very much. It was
then explained to her that she need not be ashamed of that; on
the contrary, her love for him could be a valuable stimulus to
make her do her very best in his lessons. “So I may love him?”
asked the little patient with a happier face.
This explanation justified the child in the choice of the object
of her affection. It seems as if she had been ashamed of admitting
her feelings for her teacher. It is not easy to explain why
this should be so. Our present conception tells us that the libido
has great difficulty in taking hold of a personality outside the
family, because it still finds itself in incestuous bonds,—a very
plausible view indeed, from which it is difficult to withdraw.
But we must point out here that her libido was placed with much
// File: 120.png
.pn +1
intensity upon the poor boy, who was also someone outside the
family; whence we must conclude that the difficulty was not to
be found in the transference of the libido outside the family, but
in some other circumstance. The love of the teacher betokens
a difficult task; it demands much more than her love for the little
boy, which does not require any moral effort on her part. This
indication in the analysis that her love for her teacher would
enable her to do her utmost brings the child back to her real
duty, namely, her adaptation to her teacher.
The libido retires from before such a necessary task, for the
very human reason of indolence, which is highly developed, not
only in children, but also in primitive people. Primitive laziness
and indolence are the first resistances to the efforts towards
adaptation. The libido which is not used for this purpose becomes
stagnant and will make the inevitable regression to former
objects or modes of employment. It is thus that the incest-complex
is revived in such a striking way. The libido avoids
the object which is so difficult to attain and demands such great
efforts, and turns towards the easier ones, and finally to the
easiest of all, namely, the infantile phantasies, which thus become
real incest-phantasies. The fact that, wherever there is present
a disturbance of psychological adaptation, one finds an exaggerated
development of incest-phantasies, must be conceived, as I
have pointed out, as a regressive phenomenon. That is to say,
the incest-phantasy is of secondary and not of causal significance,
while the primary cause is the resistance of human nature against
any kind of exertion. The drawing back from certain duties is
not to be explained by saying that man prefers the incestuous
condition, but he has to fall back into it, because he shuns exertion;
otherwise it would have to be said that the aversion from
conscious effort must be taken as identical with the preference
for incestuous relations. This would be obvious nonsense, for
not only primitive man, but animals too, have a pronounced dislike
for all intentional efforts, and pay homage to absolute laziness,
until circumstances force them into action. We cannot
pretend, either in very primitive people or in animals, that their
preference for incestuous relations causes aversion towards
efforts of adaptation, as in those cases there can be no question
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of “incestuous” relations. This would presuppose a differentiation
of parents and non-parents.
Characteristically, the child expressed her joy at being
allowed to love her teacher, but not at being allowed to do her
utmost for him. That she might love her teacher is what she
understood at once, because it suited her best. Her relief was
caused by the information that she was right in loving him, even
though she did not especially exert herself before.
The conversation ran on to the story of the extortion, which
is now again told in details. We hear further that she had tried
to force open her savings-bank, and as she could not succeed in
doing so, she wanted to steal the key from her mother. She
expressed herself thus about the whole matter: she ridiculed her
teacher because he was much kinder to the other girls than to
her. But it was true that she did not do very well in his lessons,
especially at arithmetic. Once she did not understand something,
was afraid to ask, for fear she might lose his esteem, and consequently
she made many mistakes and did really lose it. It is
pretty clear that her position towards her teacher became consequently
very unsatisfactory. About this time it happened that a
young girl in her class was sent home because she was sick. Soon
after, the same thing happened to herself. In this way, she tried
to get away from the school which had become uncongenial to
her. The loss of her teacher’s respect led her on the one hand
to insult him and on the other into the affair with the little boy,
obviously as a compensation for the lost relationship with the
teacher. The explanation which was given here was a simple
hint: she would be rendering a service to her teacher if she took
pains to understand the lessons by sensible questions.
I can add here that this hint, given in the analysis, had a good
effect; from that moment the little girl became one of the best of
pupils, and missed no more arithmetic lessons.
We must call attention to the fact that the story of the boy’s
extortion shows constraint and a lack of freedom. This phenomenon
exactly follows the rule. As soon as anyone permits
his libido to draw back from necessary tasks, it becomes autonomous
and chooses, without regard to the protests of the subject,
its own way, and pursues it obstinately. It is a general fact, that
a lazy and inactive life is highly susceptible to the coercion of the
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libido, that is to say, to all kinds of terrors and involuntary obligations.
The anxieties and superstitions of savages furnish us
with the best illustrations; but our own history of civilization,
especially the civilization and customs of the ancients, abounds
with confirmations. Non-employment of the libido makes it
autonomous, but we must not believe either that we are able to
save ourselves permanently from the coercion of the libido by
making forced efforts. To a certain limited extent we are able
to set conscious tasks to our libido, but other natural tasks are
chosen by the libido itself, and that is what the libido exists for.
If we avoid those tasks, the most active life can become useless,
for we have to deal with the whole of the conditions of our human
nature. Innumerable cases of neurasthenia from overwork can
be traced back to this cause, for work done amid internal conflicts
creates nervous exhaustion.
At the third interview the little girl related a dream she had
had when she was five years old, and by which she was greatly
impressed. She says, “I’ll never forget this dream.” The dream
runs as follows: “I am in a wood with my little brother and we
are looking for strawberries. Then a wolf came and jumped at
me. I took to a staircase, the wolf after me. I fall down and
the wolf bites my leg. I awoke in terror.”
Before we go into the associations given by our little patient,
I will try to form an arbitrary opinion about the possible content
of the dream, and then compare our result afterwards with the
associations given by the child. The beginning of the dream
reminds us of the well-known German fairy-tale of Little Red-Ridinghood,
which is, of course, known to the child. The wolf
ate the grandmother first, then took her shape, and afterwards
ate Little Red-Ridinghood. But the hunter killed the wolf, cut
open the belly and Little Red-Ridinghood sprang out safe and
sound. This motive is found in a great many fairy-tales, widespread
over the whole world, and it is the motive of the biblical
story of Jonah. The original significance is astro-mythological:
the sun is swallowed up by the sea, and in the morning is born
again out of the water. Of course, the whole of astro-mythology
is at the root but psychology, unconscious psychology, projected on
to the heavens, for myths have never been and are never made consciously,
but arise from man’s unconscious. For this reason, we
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sometimes find that marvellous, striking similarity or identity in
the forms of myths, even among races that have been separated
from each other since eternity as it were. This explains the
universal dissemination of the symbol of the cross, perfectly
independent of Christianity, of which America, as is well known,
furnishes us especially interesting instances. It is impossible to
agree, that myths have been made to explain meteorological or
astronomical processes. Myths are, first of all, manifestations
of unconscious currents, similar to dreams.[#] These currents are
caused by the libido in its unconscious forms. The material
which comes to the surface is infantile material, hence, phantasies
connected with the incest-complex. Without difficulty we
can find in all the so-called sun-myths infantile theories about
generation, childbirth and incestuous relations. In the fairy-tale
of Little Red-Ridinghood, we find the phantasy that the mother
has to eat something which is similar to a child, and that the child
is born by cutting open the mother’s body. This phantasy is one
of the most universal, to be found everywhere.
We can conclude, from these universal psychological observations,
that the child, in its dream, elaborates the problem of
generation and childbirth. As to the wolf, the father probably
has to be put in its place, for the child unconsciously assigns to
the father any act of violence towards the mother. This anticipation
can be based on innumerable myths which deal with the
problem of any act of violence towards the mother. In reference
to the mythological parallelism, let me direct your attention to
Boas’s collection, where you will find a beautiful set of Indian
legends; also to the work of Frobenius, “Das Zeitaltes Sonnengottes”;
and, finally, to the works of Abraham, Rank, Riklin,
Jones, Freud, Spielrein, and my own investigations in my
“Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido.”
After having made these general observations for theoretical
reasons, which, of course, were not made in the concrete case,
we will go back to see what the child has to tell in regard to her
dream. Of course the child speaks of her dream just as she
likes, without being influenced in any way whatever. The little
girl begins with the bite in her leg, and relates, that she had once
been told by a woman who had had a baby, that she could still
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show the place where the stork had bitten her. This mode of
expression is, in Switzerland, a universally known variant of the
symbolism of generation and birth. Here we find a perfect
parallelism between our interpretation and the associations of the
child. The first associations which have been brought by the
child, without being influenced in any way, are connected with
the problem which, for theoretical reasons, was suggested by ourselves.
I know well that the innumerable cases, published in our
psychoanalytic literature, where the patients have certainly not
been influenced, have not prevented the critics’ contention, that we
suggest our own interpretations to our patients. This case will
not, therefore, convince anyone who is determined to find crude
mistakes or, much worse still—fabrications.
After our little patient had finished her first association, she
was asked, “What did the wolf suggest?” She answered, “I
think of my father, when he is angry.” This association also
coincides with our theoretical observations. It might be objected
that the observation was made just for this purpose and for
nothing else, and has therefore no general validity. I believe
that this objection vanishes of itself as soon as the corresponding
psychoanalytic and mythological knowledge has been acquired.
The validity of an hypothesis can only be confirmed by positive
knowledge; otherwise it is impossible to confirm it. We have
seen by the first association that the wolf has been replaced by
the stork. The associations given to the wolf bring the father.
In the common myth, the stork stands for the father, as the
father brings children. The apparent contradiction, which could
be noticed here between the fairy-tale, where the wolf represents
the mother, and the dream, in which the wolf stands for the
father, is of no importance for the dream. I must renounce here
any attempt at a detailed explanation. I have treated this problem
of bisexual symbols in the work already referred to. You
know that in the legend of Romulus and Remus, both animals
were raised to the rank of parents, the bird Picus and the wolf.
The fear of the wolf in the dream is therefore fear of her
father. The little patient explains her fear of her father by his
severity towards her. He had also told her that we only have
bad dreams when we have been doing wrong. Later, she once
asked her father, “But what does Mamma do wrong? She has
very often frightful dreams.”
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The father once slapped her fingers because she was sucking
them. Was this her naughtiness? Scarcely, because sucking the
fingers is an anachronistic infantile habit, of little interest at her
age. It only seems to annoy her father, for which he will punish
and hit her. In this way, she relieves her conscience of the unconfessed
and much more serious sin. It comes out, that she has
induced a number of other girls to perform mutual masturbation.
These sexual tendencies have caused the fear of the father.
Still, we must not forget that she had this dream in her fifth year.
At that time these sins had not been committed. Hence we must
regard this affair with the other girls as a reason for her present
fear of her father; but that does not explain the earlier fear.
But still, we may expect it was something of a similar nature,
some unconscious sexual wish, corresponding to the psychology
of the forbidden action previously mentioned. The moral value
and character of this wish is even more unconscious with the child
than with adults. To understand what had made an impression
on the child, we have to ask what happened in her fifth year.
Her youngest brother was born at that time. Even then her
father had made her nervous. The associations previously referred
to give us an undoubted connection between her sexual
inclinations and her anxiety. The sexual problem, which nature
connects with positive feelings of delight, is in the dream brought
to the surface in the form of fear, apparently on account of the
bad father, who represents moral education. This dream illustrates
the first impressive appearance of the sexual problem,
obviously suggested by the recent birth of the little brother, just
such an occasion when experience teaches us that these questions
become vital.
Just because the sexual problem is closely connected with certain
pleasurable physical sensations, which education tries to
reduce and break off, it can apparently only manifest itself hidden
under the cloak of moral anxiety as to sin. This explanation certainly
seems rather plausible, but it is superficial, it is insufficient.
It attributes the difficulties to the moral education, on the unproved
assumption that education can cause such a neurosis.
We hereby leave out of consideration the fact that there are
people who have become neurotic and suffer from morbid fears
without having had a trace of moral education. Moreover, the
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moral law is not merely an evil, which has to be resisted, but a
necessity, born out of the utmost needs of humanity. The moral
law is only an outward manifestation of the innate human impulse
to dominate and tame oneself. The origin of the impulse towards
domestication or civilization is lost in the unfathomable depths of
the history of evolution, and can never be conceived as the consequence
of certain laws imposed from without. Man himself,
obeying his instincts, created laws. Therefore, we shall never
understand the reasons for the repression of sexuality in the child
if we only take into account the moral influences of education.
The main reasons are to be found much deeper, in human nature
itself, in its perhaps tragic contradiction between civilization and
nature, or between individual consciousness and the general conscience
of the community. I cannot enter into these questions
now; in my other work, I have tried to do so. Naturally, it
would be of no value to give a child a notion of the higher philosophical
aspects of the problem; that would probably not have the
slightest effect.
The child wants, first of all, to be relieved from the idea that
she is doing wrong in being interested in the generation of life.
By the analytic explanation of this complex it is made clear to
the child how much pleasure and curiosity she really takes in the
problem of generation, and how her groundless fear is the inversion
of her repressed desire. The affair of her masturbation
meets with a tolerant understanding and the discussion is limited
to drawing the child’s attention to the aimlessness of her action.
At the same time it is explained to her that her sexual actions are
mainly the consequences of her curiosity, which might be satisfied
in a better way. Her great fear of her father corresponds, probably,
with as great an expectation, which, in consequence of the
birth of her little brother, is closely connected with the problem
of generation. Through this explanation, the child is declared to
be justified in her curiosity and the greater part of her moral conflict
is eliminated.
Fourth Interview. The little girl is now much nicer and much
more confiding. Her former unnatural and constrained manner
has vanished. She brings a dream which she dreamed after the
last sitting. It runs: “I am as tall as a church-tower and can
see into every house. At my feet are very small children, as
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small as flowers are. A policeman comes. I say to him, ‘If
you dare to make any remark, I shall take your sword and cut
off your head.’”
In the analysis of this dream she makes the following remarks:
“I would like to be taller than my father, for then he will have to
obey me.” The first association with policeman was father. He
is a military man and has, of course, a sword. The dream clearly
fulfils her wish. In the form of a tower, she is much bigger than
her father, and if he dares to make a remark, he will be decapitated.
The dream fulfils the natural wish of the child to be
a grown-up person, and to have children playing at her feet,
symbolized in the dream by the small children. With this dream
she overcomes her great fear of her father; that means an important
improvement with regard to her personal freedom, and
her certainty of feeling.
But incidentally there is here also a theoretical gain; we may
consider this dream to be a clear example of the compensating and
teleological function of dreams which was especially pointed out
by Maeder. Such a dream must leave with the dreamer an increased
sense of the value of her own personality, which is of
much importance for personal well-being. It does not matter
that the symbols of the dream are not perceived by the consciousness
of the child, as conscious perception is not necessary to
derive from symbols their corresponding emotional effect. We
have to do here with knowledge derived from intuition; in other
words, it is that kind of perception on which at all times the effect
produced by religious symbols has depended. Here no conscious
understanding has been needed; the feelings are affected by means
of emotional intuition.
Fifth Interview. In the fifth sitting, the child brings a dream
which she had dreamt meanwhile. “I am with my whole family
on the roof. The windows of the houses on the other side of the
valley radiate like fire. The rising sun is reflected. Suddenly I
notice that the house at the corner of our street is, as a fact, on
fire. The fire comes nearer and nearer; at last our house is also
on fire. I take flight into the street and my mother throws several
things to me. I hold out my apron, and among other things my
doll is thrown to me. I notice that the stones of our house are
burning, but the wood remains untouched.”
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The analysis of this dream presents peculiar difficulties and
therefore required two sittings. It would lead me too far to
sketch to you all the material this dream brought forth. I have
to limit myself to what is most necessary. The associations
which deal with the real meaning of the dream belong to the
remarkable image which tells us that the stones of the house are
on fire, while the wood remains untouched. It is sometimes
worth while, especially with longer dreams, to take out the most
striking parts and to analyze them first. This proceeding is not
the typical one, but it is justified by the practical desire to shorten
matters. The little patient makes the observation that this part
of the dream is like a fairy-tale. Through examples it was made
plain to her that fairy-tales always have a meaning. She objects:
“But not all fairy-tales have one. For instance, the tale of the
Sleeping Beauty. What could that mean?” The explanation
was as follows: “The Sleeping Beauty had to wait for one hundred
years in an enchanted sleep until she could be freed. Only
he who was able to overcome all the difficulties through love, and
had the courage to break through the thorny hedge, was able to
deliver her. So one must often wait a long while to obtain what
one longs for.”
This explanation is as much in harmony with the capacity of
childish understanding, as it is perfectly consonant with the history
of the motive of this fairy-tale. The motive of the Sleeping
Beauty shows clearly its relation to an ancient myth of Spring
and fertility, and contains at the same time a problem which has
a remarkably close affinity to the psychological situation of the
precocious girl of eleven.
This motive of the Sleeping Beauty belongs to a whole cycle
of legends in which a virgin, closely guarded by a dragon, is delivered
by a hero. Without entering into the interpretation of
this myth, I want to bring into prominence the astronomical or
meteorological components which are very clearly demonstrated
in the Edda. In the form of a virgin, the Earth is kept prisoner
by the winter, covered in ice and snow. The young Spring-Sun,
in the form of a hero, delivers her out of her frosty prison, where
she has been longing for her deliverer.
The association given by the little girl was chosen by her
simply to give an example of a fairy-tale without a meaning, and
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was not, in the first place, conceived as having any relation with
the house on fire. To this part of the dream, she only made the
observation: “It is quite marvellous, just like a fairy-tale.” She
meant to say it was impossible, as the idea of burning stones is to
her something impossible, some nonsense, or something like a
fairy-tale. The observation made a propos of this shows her that
an impossibility and a fairy-tale are only partly identical, since
a fairy-tale certainly has much meaning. Although this particular
fairy-tale, from the casual way in which it was mentioned, seemed
to have no apparent relation to the dream, we have to pay special
attention to it, as it was given spontaneously in the course of the
interpretation of the dream. The unconscious suggested this
example, which cannot be accidental, but must be in some way
significant for the present situation. In interpreting dreams we
have to pay attention to such apparent accidents, since in psychology
we find no blind chances, much as we are inclined to think
these things accidental. From the critics, you may hear this objection
as often as you like, but for a really scientific mind there
are only causal relationships and no accidents. From the fact
that the little girl chose the example of the Sleeping Beauty we
may conclude that there was some fundamental reason underlying
this in the psychology of the child. This reason is a comparison,
or partial identification, of herself with the Sleeping Beauty; in
other words, there is in the soul of the child a complex, which
manifests itself in the form of the motive of the Sleeping Beauty.
The explanation, which I mentioned before, which was given to
the child, was in harmony with this conclusion.
Notwithstanding she is not quite satisfied, and doubts that all
fairy-tales have a meaning. She brings another instance of a
fairy-tale, that cannot be understood. She brings the story of
little Snow-White, who, in the sleep of death, lies enclosed in a
coffin of glass. It is not difficult to see that this fairy-tale belongs
to the same kind of myths to which the Sleeping Beauty belongs.
The story of little Snow-White in her glass-coffin is at the same
time very remarkable in regard to the myth of the seasons. This
mythical material chosen by the little girl has reference to an
intuitive comparison with the earth, held fast by the winter’s cold,
awaiting the liberating sun of spring.
This second example affirms the first one and its explanation.
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It would be difficult to pretend here that this second example,
which accentuates the meaning of the first, has been suggested by
the explanation given. The fact that the little girl brought up the
story of little Snow-White, as another example of the senselessness
of fairy-tales, proves that she did not understand her identification
with little Snow-White and the Sleeping Beauty. Therefore
we may expect that little Snow-White arose from the same
unconscious sources as the Sleeping Beauty, that is, a complex
consisting of the expectation of coming events, which are
altogether comparable with the deliverance of the earth from the
prison of winter and its fertilization through the sunbeams of
spring.
As may, perhaps, be known, the symbol of the bull has been
given from time immemorial to the fertile spring sun, as the bull
embodies the mightiest procreative power. Although without
further consideration, it is not easy to find any relation between
the insight indirectly gained and the dream, we will hold to what
we have found and proceed with the dream. The next part described
by the little girl is receiving the doll in her apron. The
first association given tells us that her attitude and the whole
situation in the dream is like a picture very well known to her,
representing a stork flying above a village; children are in the
street, holding their aprons, looking up and shouting to him; the
stork must bring them a little baby. The little patient adds the
observation that several times she wished to have a little brother
or sister herself. This material, given spontaneously by the child,
stands in a clear and valuable relationship to the motive of the
myths. We notice here that the dream is indeed concerned with
the problem of the awakening instinct of generation. Nothing of
this has been said to the little girl. After a little pause, she
brings, abruptly, this association: “Once, when I was five years
old, I thought I was in the street and that a bicyclist passed over
my stomach.” This highly improbable story proved to be, as it
might be expected, a phantasy, which had become a paramnesia.
Nothing of this kind had ever happened, but we came to know
that at school the little girls lay cross-wise over each other’s
bodies, and trampled with their legs.
Whoever has read the analyses of children published by
Freud and myself will observe the same “leit-motif” of trampling;
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to this must be attributed a sexual undercurrent. This conception
demonstrated in our former work agrees with the next
association of our little patient: “I should prefer a real child to
a doll.”
This most remarkable material brought by the child in connection
with the phantasy of the stork, refers to typical childish
attempts at the sexual theory, and betrays where we have to look
for the actual phantasies of the child.
It is of interest to know, that this “motive of trampling” can
be illustrated through mythology. I have brought together the
proofs in my work on the libido theory. The utilization of these
early infantile phantasies in the dream, the existence of the
paramnesia of the bicyclist, and the expectation expressed by the
motive of the Sleeping Beauty show that the interests of the
child dwell chiefly on certain problems which must be solved.
Probably the fact that the libido has been attracted by the problem
of generation has been the reason of her lack of attention at
school, through which she fell behind. This problem is very
often seen in girls between the ages of twelve and thirteen. I
could demonstrate this to you by some special cases published
under the title of “Beitrag zur Psychologie des Gerüchtes” in the
Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse. The frequent occurrence of the
problem at this age is the cause of the indecent talk among all
sorts of children and the attempts at mutual enlightenment, which
are naturally far from beautiful, and which so very often spoil
the child’s imagination. Not the most careful protection can
prevent children from some day discovering the great secret, and
then probably in the dirtiest way. Therefore it would be much
better if children could learn about certain important secrets of
life in a clean way and at suitable times, so that they would not
need to be enlightened by their playmates, too often in very
ugly ways.
In the eighth interview the little girl began by remarking that
she had understood perfectly why it was still impossible for her to
have a child and therefore she had renounced all idea of it. But
she does not make a good impression this time. We get to know
that she has told her teacher a falsehood. She had been late to
school, and told her teacher that she was late because she was
obliged to accompany her father. But in reality, she had been
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lazy, got up too late and was thus late for school. She told a lie,
and was afraid of losing the teacher’s favor by telling the truth.
This sudden moral defect in our little patient requires an explanation.
According to the fundamentals of psychoanalysis, this
sudden and striking weakness can only follow from the patient’s
not drawing the logical consequences from the analysis but rather
looking for other easier possibilities.
In other words, we have to do here with a case in which the
analysis brought the libido apparently to the surface, so that an
improvement of the personality could have occurred. But for
some reason or other, the adaptation was not made, and the
libido returned to its former regressive paths.
The ninth interview proved that this was indeed the case. Our
patient withheld an important piece of evidence in her ideas of
sexuality, and one which contradicted the psychoanalytic explanation
of sexual maturity. She suppressed the rumor current in
the school that a girl of eleven had a baby with a boy of the same
age. This rumor was proved to be based on no facts, but was a
phantasy, fulfiling the secret wishes of this age. Rumors appear
often to originate in this kind of way, as I tried to show in the
above-mentioned demonstration of such a case. They serve to
give vent to the unconscious phantasies, and in fulfiling this
function correspond to dreams as well as to myths. This rumor
keeps another way open: she need not wait so long, it is possible
to have a child even at eleven. The contradiction between the
accepted rumor and the analytic explanation creates resistances
towards the analysis, so that it is forthwith depreciated. All the
other statements and information fall to the ground at the same
time; for the time being, doubt and a feeling of uncertainty have
taken their place. The libido has again taken possession of its
former ways, it has made a regression. This is the moment of
the relapse.
The tenth sitting added important details to the story of her
sexual problem. First came a remarkable fragment of a dream:
“I am with other children in an open field in the wood, surrounded
by beautiful pine trees. It begins to rain, to lighten
and to thunder. It is growing dark. Suddenly I see a stork in
the air.”
Before I enter into an analysis of this dream, I should like to
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point out its beautiful parallel with certain mythological presentations.
This astonishing coincidence of thunderstorm and stork
has, of course, to those acquainted with the works of Adalbert
Kuhn and Steinthal nothing remarkable. The thunderstorm has
had, from ancient times, the meaning of the fertilizing of the
earth, the cohabitation of the father Heaven and the mother
Earth, to which Abraham[#] has recently again called attention, in
which the lightning takes the place of the winged phallus. The
stork is just the same thing, a winged phallus, the psychosexual
meaning of which is known to every child. But the psychosexual
meaning of the thunderstorm is not known to everyone. In view
of the psychological situation just described, we must attribute to
the stork a psychosexual meaning. That the thunderstorm is connected
with the stork and has also a psychosexual meaning, seems
at first scarcely acceptable. But when we remember that psychoanalytic
observation has shown an enormous number of mythological
associations with the unconscious mental images, we may
suppose that some psychosexual meaning is also present in this
case. We know from other experiences that those unconscious
strata which, in former times, produced mythological forms, are
still in action among modern people and are still incessantly
productive. But this production is limited to the realm of
dreams and the symptomatology of the neuroses and the psychoses,
for the correction, through reality, is so much increased
in the modern mind that it prevents their projection into reality.
We will return to the dream analysis. The associations which
lead us to the heart of this image begin with the idea of rain
during the thunderstorm. Her actual words were: “I think of
water. My uncle was drowned in water—it must be dreadful to
be kept under water, so in the dark. But the child must be also
drowned in the water. Does it drink the water that is in the
stomach? It is very strange, when I was ill Mamma sent my
water to the doctor. I thought perhaps he would mix something
with it, perhaps some syrup, out of which children grow. I think
one has to drink it.”
With unquestionable clearness we see from this set of associations
that even the child associates psychosexual, and even typical
ideas of fructification with the rain during the thunderstorm.
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Here again, we see that marvellous parallelism between
mythology and the individual phantasies of our own day. This
series of associations contains such an abundance of symbolic
relationships, that we could easily write a whole dissertation about
it. The child herself splendidly interpreted the symbolism of
drowning as a pregnancy-phantasy, an explanation given long ago
in psychoanalytic literature.
Eleventh interview. The next sitting was occupied with the
spontaneous infantile theories about fructification and child-birth.
The child thought that the urine of the man went into the body
of the woman, and from this the embryo would grow. Hence the
child was in the water from the beginning, that is to say, in urine.
Another version was, the urine was drunk in the doctor’s syrup,
so that the child would grow in the head. The head had then to
be split open, to help the growth of the child, and one wore hats
to cover this up. She illustrated this by a little drawing, representing
a child-birth through the head. The child again had still
a smaller child on the head, and so on. This is an archaic idea
and highly mythological. I would remind you of the birth of
Pallas, who came out of the father’s head.
We find striking mythological proofs of the fertilizing significance
of the urine in the songs of Rudra in the Rigveda.
Here should be mentioned something the mother added, that
once the little girl, before analysis, suggested she saw a puppet
on the head of her little brother, a phantasy with which the origin
of this theory of child-birth might be connected. The little illustration
made by the patient has remarkable affinity with certain
pictures found among the Bataks of Dutch India. They are the
so-called magic wands or ancestral statues, on which the members
of families are represented, one standing on the top of the other.
The explanation of these wands, given by the Bataks themselves,
and regarded as nonsense, has a marvellous analogy with the
infantile mental attitude. Schultz, who wrote about these wands,
says: “The assertion, that these figures represent the members
of a family who have committed incest, were bitten by a snake,
entwined with another, and met a common death in their criminal
embrace, is widely disseminated and obviously due to the position
of the figures.”
The explanation has a parallel in our presuppositions as to our
// File: 135.png
.pn +1
little patient. We saw from the first dream that her sexual phantasy
centers round the father; the psychological condition is here
the same as with the Bataks, being found in the idea of incestuous
relationship.
Still a third version is the growth of the child in the intestinal
canal. The child tried several times to provoke nausea and
vomiting, in accordance with her phantasy that the child is born
through vomiting. In the closet she had arranged also pressure-exercises,
in order to press out the child. Under these circumstances,
we cannot be astonished that the first and principal symptoms
of the manifest neurosis were nausea-symptoms.
We have come so far with our analysis that we are now able
to throw a glance over the case as a whole.
We found, behind the neurotic symptoms, complicated emotional
processes, which were undoubtedly connected with the
symptoms. If it may be allowed to draw some general conclusions
from this limited material, we could construct the course
of the neurosis in the following way.
At the gradual approach of puberty, the libido of the child
assumed rather an emotional than a practical attitude towards
reality. She began to be very much taken with her teacher, but
the sentimental self-indulgence, evinced in her riotous phantasies,
played a greater part than the thought of the increased endeavors
which such love ought really to have demanded of her. For this
reason, her attention and her work left much to be desired. The
former pleasant relationship with her favorite teacher was
troubled. The teacher was annoyed, and the little girl, who had
been made somewhat conceited by her home-conditions, was
resentful, instead of trying to improve in her work. In consequence
her libido withdrew from her teacher, as well as from her
work, and fell into the characteristic forced dependence on the
little boy, who on his side made the most of the situation. Then
the resistances against school seized the first opportunity, which
was suggested by the case of the little girl who had to be sent
home on account of sickness. Our little patient followed this
child’s example. Once away from school, the way was open to
her phantasies. By the regression of the libido, these symptom-making
phantasies became awakened to a real activity, and were
given an importance they had never had before, for they had
// File: 136.png
.pn +1
never previously played such an important part. Now they
become apparently of much importance and seemed to be the very
reason why the libido regressed to them. It might be said that
the child, in consequence of its essentially phantasy-building
nature, saw her father too much in her teacher, and thus developed
incestuous resistances towards the latter. As I have already
stated, I hold that it is simpler and more probable to accept the
view that, during a certain period, it was convenient for her to
see the teacher as the father. As she preferred to follow the
hidden presentiments of puberty rather than her duties towards
the school and her teacher, she allowed her libido to fall on the
little boy, from whom, as we saw, she awaited some mysterious
advantages. Even if analysis had demonstrated it as a fact that
she had had incestuous resistances against her teacher on account
of the transference of the father-image, those resistances would
only have been secondary phantasies, that had become inflated.
At any rate, indolence would still have been the primum movens.
In the analysis she learned about the two ways of life, the way
of phantasy, of regression, and the way of reality, wherein lay her
present child’s duties. In her the two were dissociated, and
consequently she was at strife with herself. As the analysis was
adapted to the regressive tendency of the libido, the existence of
an extreme sexual curiosity, connected with certain very definite
problems, was discovered. The libido, imprisoned in this phantastical
labyrinth, was brought back into useful application by
means of the psychological explanation of the incorrect infantile
phantasies. The child thus got an insight into her own attitude
towards reality with all its possibilities. The result was that she
was able to take an objective-critical attitude towards her immature
puberty-desires, and was able to give up these and all other
impossibilities in favor of the use of her libido in possible directions,
in her work and in obtaining the good-will of her teacher.
In this case, analysis brought great peace of mind, as well as a
pronounced intellectual improvement. After a short time her
teacher himself stated that the little girl was one of the best
pupils in her class.
I hope that by the exposition of this brief instance of the
course of an analysis, I have succeeded in giving you an insight
not only into the concrete procedure of treatment, and into the
// File: 137.png
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technical difficulties, but no less into the beauty of the human
mind and its endless problems. I intentionally brought into
prominence the parallelism with mythology, to indicate the universally
possible applications of psychoanalysis. At the same
time, I should like to refer to the further importance of this position.
We may see in the predominance of the mythological in the
mind of a child, a distinct hint of the gradual development of the
individual mind out of the collective knowledge or the collective
feeling of earliest childhood, which gave rise to the old theory of
a condition of perfect knowledge before and after individual
existence.
In the same way we might see, in the marvellous analogy between
the phantasies of dementia præcox and mythological symbolisms,
a reason for the widespread superstition that an insane
person is possessed of a demon, and has some divine knowledge.
With these hints, I have reached the present standpoint of investigation,
and I have at least sketched those facts and working
hypotheses which are characteristic for my present and future
work.
.fn #
“Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido,” Wien, 1912.
.fn-
.fn #
Abraham, “Dreams and Myths,” No. 15 of the Monograph Series.
.fn-
.fn #
“Dreams and Myths,” No. 15 of the Monograph Series.
.fn-
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INDEX
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.ix
Abreagieren, #5#
Actual conflict, #92#, #93#
Actual present, #81#
Adaptation, failure of, #83#
Amnesia, infantile, #78#
Analysis of dreams, #60#, #109#
Analysis of transference, #105#
Association-experiment, #66#
Breuer, #5#
Cathartic method, #6#
Change in the theory of psychoanalysis, #5#
Charcot, #5#
Child, neurosis in, #113#
Childhood, sexual trauma in, #10#
Complex, Electra, #69#
Complex, Oedipus, #67#
Complex, incest, #70#
Complex of the parents, #50#
Conception of libido, #27#
Conception of sensitiveness, #89#
Conception of sexuality, #19#
Conception of transference, #102#
Confession and psychoanalysis, #103#
Conflict, actual, #92#, #93#
Content of the unconscious, #67#
Criticism, #1#
Criticized, infantile sexual etiology, #46#
Dementia præcox, #111#
Dementia præcox, libido in, #35#
Dream analysis, #60#, #109#
Dream, the, #60#
Dreams, teleological meaning of, #109#
Early hypothesis, #4#
Electra-complex, #69#
// File: 139.png
Energic theory of libido, #28#
Environment and predisposition, #9#
Etiology of the neuroses, #72#, #80#
Failure of adaptation, #83#
Finger, sucking of, #22#
Freud, #5#
Genetic conception of libido, #38#
Hypothesis, early, #4#
Incest-complex, #70#
Infancy, the polymorphic sexuality of, #24#
Infantile amnesia, #78#
Infantile mental attitude, #53#
Infantile perversity, #43#
Infantile reaction, #84#
Infantile sexuality, #17#
Infantile sexual etiology criticized, #46#
Infantile sexual phantasy, #15#
Introversion, #49#
Latent sexual period, #79#
Libido, #26#, #27#
Libido in dementia præcox, #35#
Libido, energic theory of, #28#
Libido, genetic conception of, #38#
Libido, regression of, #76#
Libido, the sexual definition, #34#
Life, three phases of, #33#
Little Red-Ridinghood, #119#
Masturbation, #22#
Method, cathartic, #6#
Naughtiness, #121#
Neurosis in a child, #113#
// File: 140.png
Neuroses, etiology of, #72#, #80#
Nucleus-complex, #50#
Objections to the sexual hypothesis, #18#
Oedipus-complex, #67#
Perversity, infantile, #43#
Phantasy criticized, #94#
Phantasy, infantile sexual, #17#
Phantasy, unconscious, #29#, #53#
Polymorphic perverse sexuality of infancy, #24#
Pragmatic rule, #2#
Predisposition and environment, #9#
Predisposition for the trauma, #12#
Present, actual, #81#
Problem of self-analysis, #108#
Psychoanalysis and confession, #103#
Psychoanalysis, remarks on, #111#
Psychoanalysis, therapeutic principles of, #96#
Psychopathology of everyday life, #65#
Regression of the libido, #76#
Regression and sensitiveness, #90#
Remarks on psychoanalysis, #111#
Repression, #8#
Robert Mayer, #28#
Romulus and Remus, #120#
Schopenhauer’s will, #39#
Self-analysis, problem of, #108#
Sensitiveness, conception of, #89#
Sensitiveness and regression, #90#
Sexual definition of libido, #34#
Sexual element in the trauma, #14#
// File: 141.png
Sexual period, latent, #79#
Sexual hypothesis, objections to, #18#
Sexual trauma in childhood, #10#
Sexuality, the conception of, #19#
Sexuality, infantile, #17#
Sexuality of the suckling, #21#
Sexual terminology, #30#
Sleeping Beauty, #124#
Snow-White, #125#
Spring-Sun, #124#
Stork, #129#
Sucking the finger, #22#
Suckling, sexuality of, #21#
Symbolism, #112#
Teleological meaning of dreams, #109#
Terminology, sexual, #30#
The dream, #60#
Theory, change in, #5#
Theory criticized, traumatic, #7#
Theory, traumatic, #5#, #48#
Therapeutic principles of psychoanalysis, #96#
Three contributions to the sexual theory, #17#
Three phases of life, #33#
Thunderstorm, #129#
Transference, analysis of, #105#
Transference, conception of, #102#
Trauma, predisposition for, #12#
Trauma, sexual element in, #14#
Traumatic theory, #5#, #48#
Traumatic theory criticized, #7#
Unconscious, #55#
Unconscious, content of, #67#
Unconscious phantasy, #29#, #53#
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