Some General Remarks on Psychoanalysis
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 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.[11] 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 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.
A Case of Neurosis in a Child
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:
Anamnesis
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 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 to get
up. From this strange course of events I suspected some serious
neurosis, and I therefore advised treatment by analysis.
Analytic Treatment
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 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 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 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 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.[12] 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 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.”
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 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 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._”
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 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. 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; 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 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 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[13] 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.
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 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 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 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.
Footnote 11:
“Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido,” Wien, 1912.
Footnote 12:
Abraham, “Dreams and Myths,” No. 15 of the Monograph Series.
Footnote 13:
“Dreams and Myths,” No. 15 of the Monograph Series.
INDEX
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
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
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
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
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are
referenced.