Project Gutenberg's Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology, by C. G.

Jung

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

Title: Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology

Author: C. G. Jung

Editor: Constance E. Long

Release Date: February 10, 2015 [EBook #48225]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED PAPERS--ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY ***

Produced by Sami Sieranoja, Jane Robins and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
 COLLECTED PAPERS
ON

ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY

BY

C. G. JUNG, M.D., LL.D.,

FORMERLY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ZÜRICH.

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION

Edited by DR. CONSTANCE E. LONG,

MEDICAL OFFICER, EDUCATION BOARD; MEMBER ADVISORY COMMITTEE

INSURANCE ACT;
EX-PRESIDENT ASSOCIATION OF REGISTERED MEDICAL WOMEN, ETC.

SECOND EDITION (REPRINTED)

LONDON
 BAILLIÈRE, TINDALL AND COX
8, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN

1920

[All rights reserved]

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.

 EDITOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The following papers have been gathered together from various sources, and are now available for
the first time to English readers. The subject of psychoanalysis is much in evidence, and is likely
to occupy still more attention in the near future, as the psychological content of the psychoses and
neuroses is more generally appreciated and understood. It is of importance, therefore, that the
fundamental writings of both the Viennese and Zürich Schools should be accessible for study.
Several of Freud's works have already been translated into English. Dr. Jung's "Wandlungen und
Symbole der Libido" was published in America in 1916 under the title of "The Psychology of the
Unconscious." That work, read in conjunction with these papers, offers a fairly complete picture of
the scientific and philosophic standpoint of the leader of the Zürich School. It is the task of the
future to judge and expand the findings of both schools, and to work at the development of the new
psychology, which is still in its infancy.
It will be a relief to many students of the unconscious to see it in another aspect than that of "a
wild beast couched, waiting its hour to spring." Some readers have gathered that view of it from
the writings of the Viennese School, a view which is at most that dangerous thing "a half-truth."
In the papers appearing for the first time in this edition (Chapters XIV. and XV.), Dr. Jung
develops his ideas of introversion and extroversion, a contribution of the first importance to
psychology. He agrees with Freud in regarding the neuroses to be the result of repression, but
differs in his view as to the origin of repression. He finds this to lie not in sexuality per se, but
rather in man's natural tendency to adapt to the demands of life one-sidedly, according to his type
of mentality. The born extrovert adapts by means of feeling, thought being under repression and
relatively infantile. The introvert's natural adaptation is by means of thought; feeling being more or
less repressed remains undeveloped. In either type the neglected co-function is behind the adapted
function. This inequality operating in the unconscious, brings about a conflict, which in certain
subjects amounts to a neurosis, and in others produces a limitation of individual development. This
view shifts the interpretation of repression on to a much more comprehensive basis than that of
sexuality, although there can scarcely be a repression that does not include this instinct on account
of its deep and far-reaching importance in man.
There is no doubt that some even scientific persons have a certain fear of whither the study of the
unconscious may lead. These fearful persons should be reminded that they possess an unconscious
in spite of themselves, and that they share it in common with every human being. It is an extension
of the individual. To study it is to deepen the self. All new discoveries have at one stage been
called dangerous, and all new philosophies have been deemed heresies. It is as though we would
once more consign radium to its dust-heaps, lest some day the new radiancy should over-power
mankind. Indeed this particular thing has proved at once most dangerous and most precious. Man
must learn to use his treasure, and in using it to submit to its own laws, which can only become
known when it is handled and investigated.
Those who read this book with the attention it requires, will find they gain an impression of many
new truths. The second edition is issued towards the end of the third year of the Great European
war, at a time when much we have valued and held sacred is in the melting-pot. But we believe
that out of the crucible new forms will arise. The study of psychoanalysis produces something of
the effect of a war in the psyche; indeed, we need to make conscious this war in the inner things of
the mind and soul if we would be delivered in the future from war in the external world. There is a
parallelism between individual and international neurosis. In the pain of the upheaval, one
recognises the birth-pangs of newer, and let us hope, truer thought, and more natural adaptations.
We need a renewal of our philosophy of life to replace much that has perished in the general
cataclysm, and it is because I see in the analytical psychology, which grows out of a scientific
study of the unconscious, the germs of such a new construction, that I have gathered the following
essays together. The translation is the work of various hands, the names of the different translators
being given in a footnote at the beginning of each essay; for the editing I am responsible. The
essays are, as far as possible, printed in chronological order, and those readers who are sufficiently
interested will be able to discern in them the gradual development of Dr. Jung's present position in
psychoanalysis.
CONSTANCE E. LONG.

2, Harley Place, W.
June, 1917.
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
In agreement with my honoured collaborator, Dr. C. E. Long, I have made certain additions to the
second edition. It should especially be mentioned that a new chapter upon "The Concept of the
Unconscious" has been added. This is a lecture I gave early in 1916 before the Zürich Union for
Analytical Psychology. It gives a general orientation of a most important problem in practical
analysis, viz. of the relation of the psychological ego to the psychological non-ego. Chapter XIV.
has been fundamentally altered, and I have used the opportunity to incorporate an article that
should describe the results of more recent researches. In accordance with my usual mode of
working, the description is as generalised as possible. My habit in my daily practical work is to
confine myself for some time to studying my human material. I then abstract as generalised a
formula as possible from the data collected, obtaining from it a point of view and applying it in my
practical work, until it has either been confirmed, modified, or else abandoned. If it has been
confirmed, I publish it as a general view-point, without giving the empirical material. I only
introduce the material amassed in the course of my practice in the form of example or illustration.
I therefore beg the reader not to consider the views I present as mere fabrications of my brain.
They are, as a matter of fact, the results of extensive experience and ripe reflection.
These additions will enable the reader of the second edition to become familiar with the recent
views of the Zürich School.
As regards the criticism encountered by the first edition of this work, I was pleased to find my
writings were received with much more open-mindedness among English critics than was the case
in Germany, where they are met with the silence born of contempt. I am particularly grateful to Dr.
Agnes Savill for an exceptionally understanding criticism in the Medical Press. My thanks are also
due to Dr. T. W. Mitchell for an exhaustive review in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research. This critic takes exception to my heresy respecting causality. He considers that I am
entering upon a perilous, because unscientific, course, when I question the sole validity of the
causal view-point in psychology. I sympathise with him, but in my opinion the nature of the
human mind compels us to take the final point of view. For it cannot be disputed that,
psychologically speaking, we are living and working, day by day, according to the principle of
directed aim or purpose, as well as that of causality. A psychological theory must necessarily adapt
itself to this fact. What is plainly directed towards a goal cannot be given an exclusively causalistic
explanation, otherwise we should be led to the conclusion expressed in Moleschott's famous
enunciation: "Man is, what he eats." We must always bear the fact in mind that causality is a point
of view. It affirms the inevitable and immutable relation of a series of events: a-b-d-z. Since this
relation is fixed, and according to the view-point must necessarily be so, looked at logically the
order may also be reversed. Finality is also a view-point, that is justified empirically solely by the
existence of series of events, wherein the causal connection is indeed evident, but the meaning of
which only becomes intelligible as producing final effect. Ordinary daily life furnishes the best
instances of this. The causal explanation must be mechanistic, if we are not to postulate a
metaphysical entity as first cause. For instance, if we adopt Freud's sexual theory and assign
primary importance psychologically to the function of the genital glands, the brain is viewed as an
appendage of the genital glands. If we approach the Viennese idea of sexuality with all its vague
omnipotence, and trace it in a strictly scientific manner down to its psychological basis, we shall
arrive at the first cause, according to which psychic life is for the most, or the most important part,
tension and relaxation of the genital glands. If we assume for the moment that this mechanistic
explanation be "true," it would be the sort of truth which is exceptionally tiresome and rigidly
limited in scope. A similar statement would be that the genital glands cannot function without
adequate nourishment, with its inference that sexuality is an appendage-function of nutrition! The
truth contained in this is really an important chapter in the biology of lower forms of life.
But if we wish to work in a really psychological way, we shall want to know the meaning of
psychological phenomena. After learning the kinds of steel the various parts of a locomotive are
made of, and from what ironworks and mines they come, we do not really know anything about
the locomotive's function, that is to say, its meaning. But "function" as conceived by modern
science is by no means solely a causal concept; it is especially a final or "teleological" one. For it
is utterly impossible to consider the soul from the causal view-point only; we are obliged to
consider it also from the final point of view. As Dr. Mitchell also points out, it is impossible for us
to think of the causal determination conjointly with a final connection. That would be an obvious
contradiction. But our theory of cognition does not need to remain on a pre-Kantian level. It is well
known that Kant showed very clearly that the mechanistic and the teleological view-points are not
constituent (objective) principles, in some degree qualities of the object, but that they are purely
regulative (subjective) principles of thought, and as such they are not mutually inconsistent. I can,
for example, easily conceive the following thesis and antithesis:—

Thesis: Everything came into existence according to mechanistic laws.

Antithesis: Some things did not come into existence according to mechanistic laws only.

Kant says to this: Reason cannot prove either of these principles, because a priori purely empirical
laws of nature cannot give us a determinative principle regarding the potentiality of things.
As a matter of fact, modern physics has necessarily been converted from the idea of pure
mechanism to the final concept of the conservation of energy, because the mechanistic explanation
only recognises reversible processes, whereas the actual truth is that the process of nature is
irreversible. This fact led to the concept of an energy that tends towards relief of tension, and
therewith also towards a definite final state.
Obviously, I consider both these points of view necessary, the causal as well as the final, but would
at the same time lay stress upon the fact that since Kant's time we have come to know that the two
view-points are not antagonistic if they are regarded as regulative principles of thought, and not as
constituent principles of the process of nature itself.
When speaking of the reviews, I must also mention those that seem to me beside the mark. I was
once more struck by the fact that certain critics cannot distinguish between the theoretical
explanation given by the author, and the phantastic ideas provided by the patient. One of my critics
makes this confusion when discussing "Number Dreams." The associations to the quotation from
the Bible in Chapter V. are, as every attentive reader must readily perceive, not arbitrary
explanations of my own, but a cryptomnesic conglomeration emanating, not from my brain at all,
but from that of the patient. Surely it is not difficult to perceive upon reflection that this
conglomeration of numbers corresponds exactly to that unconscious psychological function from
which proceeded all the mysticism of numbers, Pythagoric, Kabbalistic, and so forth, existent from
untold ages.
I am grateful to my serious reviewers, and should like here to also express my thanks to Mrs.
Harold F. McCormick for her generous help in the production of this book.
C. G. JUNG.
June, 1917.
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
This volume contains a selection of articles and pamphlets on analytical psychology written at
intervals during the past fourteen years. These years have seen the development of a new
discipline, and as is usual in such a case, have involved many changes of view-point, of concept,
and of formulation.
It is not my intention to give a presentation of the fundamental concepts of analytical psychology
in this book; it throws some light, however, on a certain line of development which is especially
characteristic of the Zürich School of psychoanalysis.
As is well known, the merit of the discovery of the new analytical method of general psychology
belongs to Professor Freud of Vienna. His original view-points had to undergo many essential
modifications, some of them owing to the work done at Zürich, in spite of the fact that he himself
is far from agreeing with the standpoint of this school.
I am unable to explain fully the fundamental differences between the two schools, but would
indicate the following points: The Vienna School takes the standpoint of an exclusive sexualistic
conception, while that of the Zürich School is symbolistic. The Vienna School interprets the
psychological symbol semiotically, as a sign or token of certain primitive psychosexual processes.
Its method is analytical and causal.
The Zürich School recognises the scientific feasibility of such a conception, but denies its
exclusive validity, for it does not interpret the psychological symbol semiotically only, but also
symbolistically, that is, it attributes a positive value to the symbol.
The value does not depend merely on historical causes; its chief importance lies in the fact that it
has a meaning for the actual present, and for the future, in their psychological aspects. For to the
Zürich School the symbol is not merely a sign of something repressed and concealed, but is at the
same time an attempt to comprehend and to point out the way of the further psychological
development of the individual. Thus we add a prospective import to the retrospective value of the
symbol.
The method of the Zürich School is therefore not only analytical and causal, but also synthetic and
prospective, in recognition that the human mind is characterised by "causæ" and also by "fines"
(aims). The latter fact needs particular emphasis, because there are two types of psychology, the
one following the principle of hedonism, and the other following the principle of power. Scientific
materialism is pertinent to the former type, and the philosophy of Nietzsche to the latter. The
principle of the Freudian theory is hedonism, while that of Adler (one of Freud's earliest personal
pupils) is founded upon the principle of power.
The Zürich School, recognising the existence of these two types (also remarked by the late
Professor William James), considers that the views of Freud and Adler are one-sided, and only
valid within the limits of their corresponding type. Both principles exist within every individual,
but not in equal proportions.
Thus, it is obvious that each psychological symbol has two aspects, and should be interpreted
according to the two principles. Freud and Adler interpret in the analytical and causal way,
reducing to the infantile and primitive. Thus with Freud the conception of the "aim" is the
fulfilment of desire, with Adler it is the usurpation of power. Both authors take the standpoint in
their practical analytical work which brings to view only infantile and gross egoistic aims.
The Zürich School is convinced of the fact that within the limits of a diseased mental attitude the
psychology is such as Freud and Adler describe. It is, indeed, just on account of such impossible
and childish psychology that the individual is in a state of inward dissociation and hence neurotic.
The Zürich School, therefore, in agreement with them so far, also reduces the psychological
symbol (the phantasy products of the patient) to the fundamental infantile hedonism, or to the
infantile desire for power. But Freud and Adler content themselves with the result of mere
reduction, according to their scientific biologism and naturalism.
But here a very important question arises. Can man obey the fundamental and primitive impulses
of his nature without gravely injuring himself or his fellow beings? He cannot assert either his
sexual desire or his desire for power unlimitedly, and the limits are moreover very restricted. The
Zürich School has in view also the final result of analysis, and regards the fundamental thoughts
and impulses of the unconscious, as symbols, indicative of a definite line of future development.
We must admit there is, however, no scientific justification for such a procedure, because our
present-day science is based as a whole upon causality. But causality is only one principle, and
psychology essentially cannot be exhausted by causal methods only, because the mind lives by
aims as well. Besides this disputable philosophical argument, we have another of much greater
value in favour of our hypothesis, namely, that of vital necessity. It is impossible to live according
to the intimations of infantile hedonism, or according to a childish desire for power. If these are to
be retained they must be taken symbolically. Out of the symbolic application of infantile trends, an
attitude evolves which may be termed philosophic or religious, and these terms characterise
sufficiently the lines of further development of the individual. The individual is not only an
established and unchangeable complex of psychological facts, but also an extremely changeable
entity. By exclusive reduction to causes, the primitive trends of a personality are reinforced; this is
only helpful when at the same time these primitive tendencies are balanced by recognition of their
symbolic value. Analysis and reduction lead to causal truth; this by itself does not help living, but
brings about resignation and hopelessness. On the other hand, the recognition of the intrinsic value
of a symbol leads to constructive truth and helps us to live. It induces hopefulness and furthers the
possibility of future development.
The functional importance of the symbol is clearly shown in the history of civilisation. For
thousands of years the religious symbol proved a most efficacious means in the moral education of
mankind. Only a prejudiced mind could deny such an obvious fact. Concrete values cannot take
the place of the symbol; only new and more efficient symbols can be substituted for those that are
antiquated and outworn, such as have lost their efficacy through the progress of intellectual
analysis and understanding. The further development of mankind can only be brought about by
means of symbols which represent something far in advance of himself, and whose intellectual
meanings cannot yet be grasped entirely. The individual unconscious produces such symbols, and
they are of the greatest possible value in the moral development of the personality.
Man almost invariably has philosophic and religious views of the meaning of the world and of his
own life. There are some who are proud to have none. These are exceptions outside the common
path of mankind; they miss an important function which has proved itself to be indispensable to
the human mind.
In such cases we find in the unconscious, instead of modern symbolism, an antiquated archaic
view of the world and of life. If a requisite psychological function is not represented in the sphere
of consciousness, it exists in the unconscious in the form of an archaic or embryonic prototype.
This brief résumé may show what the reader cannot find in this collection of papers. The essays
are stations on the way of the more general views developed above.
C. G. JUNG.
Zürich,
. January, 1916.
 CONTENTS
PAGE
Editor's Preface to Second Edition v
Author's Preface to Second Edition ix
Author's Preface to First Edition xiii

CHAPTER I
On the Psychology and Pathology of so-called Occult Phenomena 1

Difficulty of demarcation in borderline cases between epilepsy, hysteria, and mental

deficiency—Somnambulism an hysterical manifestation—A case of spontaneous
somnambulism, with some characters of protracted hysterical delirium—Other cases quoted
—Charcot's classification of somnambulism—Naef's and Azam's cases of periodic amnesia—
Proust's and Boileau's wandering-impulse cases—William James' case of Rev. Ansel Bourne
—Other examples showing changes in consciousness—Hypnagogic hallucinations—
Neurasthenic mental deficiency, Bleuler's case—Summing up of Miss Elsie K.'s case—Need
of further scientific investigation in the field of psychological peculiarities.

Case of Somnambulism in a Person with Neuropathic Inheritance

(Spiritualistic Medium) 16

History of case—Accidental discovery of her mediumistic powers—Her somnambulic

attacks, "attitudes passionelles," catalepsy, tachypnœa, trance speeches, etc.—Ecstasies—Her
conviction of the reality of her visions—Her dreams, hypnagogic and hypnopompic visions—
The elevation of her somnambulic character—Mental thought transference—S. W.'s double
life—Psychographic communications—Description of séances—The Prophetess of Prevorst
—Automatic writing—The two grandfathers—Appearance of other somnambulic
personalities.

Development of the Somnambulic Personalities 30

The psychograph and spiritualistic wonders—The grandfather the medium's "guide" or

"control"—Ulrich von Gerbenstein—The somnambulic personalities have access to the
medium's memory—Ivenes—S. W.'s amnesia for her ecstasies—Later séances—Her journeys
on the other side—Oracular sayings—Conventi—Ivenes' dignity and superiority to her
"guides"—Her previous incarnations—Her race-motherhood.

Mystic Science and Mystic System of Powers 40

 Her growing wilful deception—The waking state—Her peculiarities—Instability—Hysterical
tendencies—Misreading—Errors of dispersion of attention discussed.

Semi-Somnambulism 48
Automatisms 49

Table movements—Unconscious motor phenomena—Verbal suggestion and auto-suggestion

—The experimenter's participation—The medium's unconscious response—Thought-reading
—Table-tilting experiment, illustrated—Experiments with beginners—Myers' experiments in
automatic writing—Janet's conversation with Lucie's subconsciousness—Example of the way
the subconscious personality is constructed—Hallucinations appear with deepening hypnosis;
some contributing factors—Comparison between dream symbols and appearance of
somnambulic personalities—Extension of the unconscious sphere—The somnambulist's
thinking is in plastic images, which are made objective in hallucinations—Why visual and not
auditory hallucinations occur—Origin of hypnagogic hallucinations—Those of Jeanne d'Arc
and others.

The Change in Character 64

Noticeable in S. W.'s case, also in Mary Reynolds'—Association with amnesic disturbances—

Influence of puberty in our case—S. W.'s systematic anæsthesia—Ivenes not so much a case
of double consciousness as one in which she dreams herself into a higher ideal state—Similar
pathological dreaming found in the lives of saints—Mechanism of hysterical identification—
S. W.'s dreams break out explosively—Their origin and meaning, and their subjective roots.

Relation to the Hysterical Attack 75

In considering the origin of attack, two moments, viz. irruption of hypnosis, and the psychic
stimulation, must be taken into account—In susceptible subjects relatively small stimuli
suffice to bring about somnambulism—Our case approaches to hysterical lethargy—The
automatisms transform lethargy into hypnosis—Her ego-consciousness is identical in all
states—Secondary somnambulic personalities split off from the primary unconscious
personality—All group themselves under two types, the gay-hilarious, and serio-religious—
The automatic speaking occurs—This facilitates the study of the subconscious personalities—
Their share of the consciousness—The irruption of the hypnosis is complicated by an
hysterical attack—The automatism arising in the motor area plays the part of hypnotist—
When the hypnotism flows over into the visual sphere the hysterical attack occurs—
Grandfathers I. and II.—Hysterical dissociations belong to the superficial layers of the ego-
complex—There are layers beyond the reach of dissociation—Effect of the hysterical attack.

Relationship to the Unconscious Personality 82

The serio-religious and the gay-hilarious explained by the anamnesis—Two halves of S. W.'s
character—She is conscious of the painful contrast—She seeks a middle way—Her
aspirations bring her to the puberty dream of the ideal Ivenes—The repressed ideas begin an
autonomous existence—This corroborates Freud's disclosures concerning dreams—The
relation of the somnambulic ego-complex and the waking consciousness.

Course 83
 The progress of this affection reached its maximum in 4-8 weeks—Thenceforth a decline in
the plasticity of the phenomena—All degrees of somnambulism were observable—Her
manifest character improved—Similar improvements seen in certain cases of double
consciousness—Conception that this phenomenon has a teleological meaning for the future
personality—As seen in Jeanne d'Arc and Mary Reynolds II.

The Unconscious Additional Creative Work 84

S. W. shows primary susceptibility of the unconscious—Binet affirms the susceptibility of the

hysteric is fifty times greater than that of normal—Cryptomnesia, a second additional creation
—Cryptomnesic picture may enter consciousness intra-physically—Unconscious plagiarism
explained—Zarathustra example—Glossolalia—Helen Smith's Martian language—The
names in Ivenes' mystic system show rudimentary glossolalia—The Cryptomnesic picture
may enter consciousness as a hallucination—Or arrive at consciousness by motor automatism
—By automatisms regions formerly sealed are made accessible—Hypermnesia—Thought-
reading a prototype for extraordinary intuitive knowledge of somnambulists and some normal
persons—Association-concordance—Possibility that concept and feeling are not always
clearly separated in the unconscious—S. W.'s mentality must be regarded as extraordinary.

CHAPTER II
The Association Method 94

Lecture I.—Formula for test—Disturbances of reaction as complex-indicators—Discovery

of a culprit by means of test—Disturbances of reaction show emotional rather than
intellectual causes—Principal types—Value of the experiment in dealing with neurotics.

Lecture II.—Familiar Constellations 119

Dr. Fürst's researches—Effect of environment and education on reactions—Effect of parental

discord on children—Unconscious tendency to repetition of parental mistakes—Case of
pathological association-concordance between mother and daughter—Neurosis, a counter-
argument against the personality with which the patient is most nearly concerned—How to
free the individual from unconscious attachments to the milieu.

Lecture III.—Experiences concerning the Psychic Life of the Child 132

Importance of emotional processes in children—Little Anna's questions—Arrival of the baby

brother—Anna's embarrassment and hostility—Introversion of the child—Of the adolescent
—Her pathological interest in the Messina earthquake—The meaning of her fear—Anna's
theories of birth—Meaning of her questions—Her father tells her something of origin of her
little brother—Her fears now subside—The unconscious meaning of the child's wish to sit up
late—Anna's equivalent to the "lumpf-theory" of little Hans—The stork-theory again—
Author's remarks on the sexual enlightenment of the child.
 CHAPTER III
The Significance of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual 156

Psychosexual relationship of child to father—Fürst's experiments quoted—The association

experiment typical for man's psychological life—Adaptation to father—Father-complex
productive of neurosis—Father-complex in man with masochistic and homosexual trends—
Peasant woman "her father's favourite," tragic effect of the unconscious constellation—Case
of eight-year-old boy with enuresis—Enuresis a sexual surrogate—Importance of infantile
sexuality in life—Hence necessity for psychoanalytic investigation—The Jewish religion and
the father-complex—Parental power guides the child like a higher controlling fate—The
conflict for the development of the individual—Father-complex in Book of Tobias.

CHAPTER IV
A Contribution to the Psychology of Rumour 176

Investigation of a rumour in a girls' school—The rumour arose from a dream—Teacher's

suspicions—Was the rumour an invention and not, as alleged, the recital of a dream?—
Interpolations in dreams—Collection of evidence—Duplication of persons an expression of
their significance both in dreams and in dementia præcox—The additions and interpolations
represent intensive unconscious participation—Hearsay evidence—Remarks.

Epicrisis 188

The dream is analysed by rumour—Psychoanalysis explains the construction of rumour—The

dream gives the watchword for the unconscious—It brings to expression the ready-prepared
sexual complexes—Marie X.'s unsatisfactory conduct brought her under reproof—Her
indignation and repressed feelings lead to the dream—She uses this as an instrument of
revenge against the teacher—More investigation needed in the field of rumour.

CHAPTER V
On the Significance of Number-Dreams 191

Symbolism of numbers has acquired fresh interest from Freud's investigations—Example of

number dream of middle-aged man—How the number originates—A second dream also
contains a number—Analysis—The wife's dream "Luke 137"—This dream is an example of
cryptomnesia.

CHAPTER VI
A Criticism of Bleuler's "Theory of Schizophrenic Negativism" 200

Bleuler's concept of ambivalency and ambitendency—Every tendency balanced by its

opposite—Schizophrenic negativism—Bleuler's summary of its causes—The painfulness of
the complex necessitates a censorship of its expression—Thought disturbance the result of a
complex—Thought pressure due to schizophrenic introversion—Resistance springs from
peculiar sexual development—Schizophrenia shows a preponderance of introversion
mechanisms—The value of the complex theory concept.

CHAPTER VII
Psychoanalysis 206

Doctors know too little of psychology, and psychologists of medicine—Strong prejudice

aroused by Freud's conception of the importance of the sexual moment—The commoner
prejudices discussed—Psychoanalysis not a method of suggestion or reasoning—The
unconscious content is reached via the conscious—Case of neurotic man with ergophobia for
professional work—Case of neurotic woman who wants another child—Resistances against
the analyst—Dream analysis the efficacious instrument of analysis—The scientist's fear of
superstition—The genesis of dreams—Dream material is collected according to scientific
method—The rite of baptism analysed—When the unconscious material fails, use the
conscious—The physician's own complexes a hindrance—Interpretations of Viennese School
too one-sided—Sexual phantasies both realistic and symbolic—The dream the subliminal
picture of the individual's present psychology—Symbolism a process of comprehension by
analogy—Analysis helps the neurotic to exchange his unconscious conflict for the real
conflict of life.

CHAPTER VIII
On Psychoanalysis 226

Difficulties of public discussion—Competence to form an opinion presupposes a knowledge

of the fundamental literature—The abandoned trauma theory—Fixation—The importance of
the infantile past—Analysis discloses existence of innumerable unconscious phantasies—
Œdipus complex—Fixation discussed—The critical moment for the outbreak of the neurosis
—Predisposition—Author's energic view point—Application of the libido to the obstacle—
Repression—Neurosis an act of adaptation that has failed—The energic view does not alter
the technique of analysis—Analysis re-establishes the connection between the conscious and
unconscious—Is a constructive task of great importance.
 CHAPTER IX
On Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis 236
Letter I.—Loÿ 236

The dream a means of re-establishing the moral equipoise—The dreamer finds therein the
material for reconstruction—Methods discussed—The part played by "faith in the doctor"—
Abreaction.

Letter II.—Jung 238

For the patient any method that works is good, though some more valuable than others—The
doctor must choose what commends itself to his scientific conscience—Why the author gave
up the use of hypnotism—Three cases quoted—Breuer and Freud's method a great advance in
psychic treatment—Evolution of author's views—Importance of conception that behind the
neurosis lies a moral conflict—Divergence from Freud's sexual theory of neurosis—The
doctor's responsibility for the cleanliness of his own hands—Necessity that the psychoanalyst
should be analysed—He is successful in so far as he has succeeded in his own moral
development.

Letter III.—Loÿ 244

Opportunism v. scientific honour—Psychoanalysis no more than hypnotism gets rid of

"transference"—Cases of enuresis nocturna, and of washing-mania treated by hypnosis—On
what grounds should such useful treatment be dispensed with?—The difficulty of finding a
rational solution for the moral conflict—The doctor's dilemma of the two consciences.

Letter IV.—Jung 248

Author's standpoint that of the scientist, not practical physician—The analyst works in spite
of the transference—Psychoanalysis not the only way—Sometimes less efficacious than any
known method—Cases must be selected—For the author and his patients it is the best way—
The real solution of the moral conflict comes from within, and then only because the patient
has been brought to a new standpoint.

Letter. V.—Loÿ 252

"What is truth?"—Parable of the prism—All man attains is relative truth—Fanaticism is the

enemy to science—Psychoanalysis a method of dealing with basic motives of the human soul
—Must not each case be treated individually?—Morals are above all relative.

Letter VI.—Jung 256

Definition of psychoanalysis—Technique—So-called chance is the law—Rules well-nigh

impossible—The patients' unconscious is the analysts' best confederate—Questions of
morality and education find solutions for themselves in later stages of analysis.

Letter VII.—Loÿ 258

 Contradictions in psychoanalytic literature—Should the doctor canalise the patient's libido?—
Does he not indirectly suggest dreams to patient?

Letter VIII.—Jung 261

Different view-points in psychoanalysis—Vide Freud's causality and Adler's finality—

Discussion of meaning of transference—The meaning of "line of least resistance"—Man as a
herd-animal—Rich endowment with social sense—Should take pleasure in life—Error as
necessary to progress as truth—Patient must be trained in independence—Analyst is caught
in his own net if he makes hard-and-fast rules—Through the analyst's suggestion only the
outer form, never the content, is determined—The patient may mislead the doctor, but this is
disadvantageous and delays him.

Letter IX.—Loÿ 267

The line of least resistance is a compromise with all necessities—The analyst as accoucheur
—The neurotic's faith in authority—Altruism innate in man—He advances in response to his
own law.

Letter X.—Jung 270

Transference is the central problem of analysis—It may be positive or negative—Projection

of infantile phantasies on the doctor—Biological "duties"—The psyche does not only react,
but gives its individual reply—We have an actual sexual problem to-day—Evidences thereof
—We have no real sexual morality, only a legal attitude—Our moral views are too
undifferentiated—The neurotic is ill not because he has lost his faith in morality, but because
he has not found the new authority in himself.

CHAPTER X
On the Importance of the Unconscious in Psychopathology 278

Content of the unconscious—Defined as sum of all psychical processes below the threshold
of consciousness—Answer to question how does the unconscious behave in neurosis found in
its effect on normal consciousness—Example of a merchant—Compensating function of the
unconscious—Symptomatic acts—Nebuchadnezzar's dream discussed—Intuitive ideas, and
insane manifestations both emanate from the unconscious—Eccentricities pre-exist a
breakdown—In mental disorder unconscious processes break-through into consciousness and
disturb equilibrium—True also in fanaticism—Pathological compensation in case of paranoia
—Unconscious processes have to struggle against resistances in the conscious mind—
Distortion—In morbid conditions the function of the unconscious is one of compensation.

CHAPTER XI
A Contribution to the Study of Psychological Types 287

Striking contrast between hysteria and dementia præcox—Extroversion and Introversion—

Repression—Hysterical transference and repression the mechanism of extroversion—
Depreciation of the external world the mechanism of introversion—The nervous temperament
pre-exists the illness—Examples of the two types from literature—James's Tough and Tender-
minded—Warringer's Sympathy and Abstraction—Schiller's Naïf and Sentimental—
Nietzsche's Apollien and Dionysian—Gross's Weakness and Reinforcement of Consecutive
Function—Freud and Adler's Causalism and Finality—The fundamental need for further
study of the two types.

CHAPTER XII
The Psychology of Dreams 299

Psychic structure of dream contrasted with that of conscious thought—Why a dream seems
meaningless—Freud's empirical evidence—Technique, analysis of a dream—The causal and
teleological view of the dream—A typical dream with mythological content—Compensating
function of dreams—Phallic symbols.

CHAPTER XIII
The Content of the Psychoses 312

Discussion of psychological v. physical origin of mental disease—Mediæval conception of

madness as work of evil spirits—Development of materialistic idea that diseases of the mind
are diseases of the brain—Psychiatrists have come to regard function as accessory to the
organ—Analysis of patients entering Burgholzi Asylum—A quarter only show lesions of the
brain—The psychiatry of the future must advance by way of psychology—Cases of dementia
præcox illustrating recent methods in psychiatry—The development of the outbreak at a
moment of great emotion—Delusions determined by deficiencies in the patient's personality
—Difficulties of investigation—Temporary remission of mental symptoms proves that reason
survives in spite of preoccupation with diseased thoughts—Case of dementia præcox,
showing exceeding richness of phantasy formations, and the continuity of ideas.

Part II. 336

Freud's case of paranoid dementia—(Schreber case)—Two ways of regarding Goethe's

"Faust"—Retrospective and prospective understanding—The scientific mind thinks causally
—This is but one half of comprehension—Pathological and mythological formations, both
structures of the imagination—Flournoy's case—Misunderstanding of author's analysis of it
—Adaptations only possible to the introverted type by means of a world-philosophy—The
extroverted type always arrives at a general theory subsequently—Psychasthenia is the
neurosis of introversion, hysteria of extroversion—These diseases typify the general attitude
 of the types to the phenomena of the external world—The extreme difference in type a great
obstacle to common understanding—The general result of the constructive method is a
subjective view, not a scientific theory.

CHAPTER XIV
Foreword to New Edition 352

Adler's views more fully discussed—The psychological events of the war force the problems
of the unconscious on society—The psychology of individuals corresponds to the psychology
of nations.

The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes 354

I. The Beginning of Psychoanalysis

The evolution of psychology—How little it has had to offer to the psychiatrist till Freud's
discoveries—The origin and reception of psychoanalysis—The prejudiced attitude of certain
physicians—Freud's view that his best work arouses greatest resistances—The Nancy School
—Breuer's first case—"The talking cure"—The English "shock theory"—Followed by the
trauma theory—Discussion of predisposition—Author's case of hysteria following fright from
horses—The pathogenic importance of the hidden erotic conflict.

II. The Sexual Theory 367

Humanity evolves its own restrictions on sexuality for the sake of the advance of civilisation
—The presence of a grave sexual problem testifies to the need of more differentiated
conceptions—The erotic conflict largely unconscious—Neurosis represents the unsuccessful
attempt of the individual to solve the problem in his own case—To understand the idea of the
dream as a wish-fulfilment the manifest and latent content must be taken in review—The
nature of unconscious wishes—Dream analysis leads to the deepest recesses of the
unconscious—The analyst compared to the accoucheur—The highest development of the
individual is sometimes in complete conflict with the herd-morality—Psychoanalysis
provides the patient with a philosophy of life founded upon insight—Man has within himself
the essence of morals—Both the moral and immoral man must accept the corrective of the
unconscious—Our sexual morality too undifferentiated—Freud's sexual theory right to a
point but too one-sided.

III. The Other Viewpoint: the Will to Power 381

The superman—Nietzsche's failure to justify his theories by his life—His view also too one-
sided—Adler's theory of neurosis founded upon the principle of power—Case of hysteria
discussed from the standpoint of unconscious motivation.

IV. The Two Types of Psychology 391

 Thinking the natural adaptive function for introvert, feeling for the extrovert—The sexual
theory promulgated from the standpoint of feeling, the power theory from that of thought—
Criticism of both theories indispensable—Symptoms of neurosis are aims at a new synthesis
of life—Definition of positive value as energy in a useful form—In neurosis energy is located
in an inferior form—Sublimation a transference of sexual energy to another sphere—Destiny
often frustrates purely rational sublimations—Rationalism, the world-war an example of its
breakdown—So-called "disposable energy"—Case of American business-man—The types
have different problems—The feelings of the introvert relatively conventional and
undifferentiated—The thinking of the extrovert colourless and dry—The types apt to marry,
but not to understand one another—The theories of the types led to a new theory of
psychogenic disturbances—Neurosis postulates the existence of an unconscious conflict—
New theory declares it to lie between the natural conscious function and the repressed
undifferentiated co-function—Repressed feelings of introvert projected as vague physical
symptoms—Repressed thought of extrovert projected as hysterical symptoms—In analysis
the libido liberated from the unconscious phantasies is projected on to the physician—It finds
its way into the transference, which in turn is dissolved—The new channel for the libido is
already found.

V. The Personal and the Impersonal Unconscious 408

Transference a projection of unconscious contents on to the physician—Contents of the

unconscious at first personal, later impersonal—Primordial images—A differentiation of the
unconscious contents necessary—The deepest layers are now designated impersonal,
absolute, collective, or super-personal—The libido now liberated in analysis sinks down into
the unconscious, reviving original "thought-feelings"—Example in Mayer's idea of
conservation of energy—The world-wide existence of the primordial images—The concept of
God—Enantiodromia, the world-war an example of this—In analysis the pairs of opposites
are torn asunder—This necessitates that patients learn to differentiate between the ego and
non-ego.

VI. The Synthetic or Constructive Method 417

The transcendental function, a new way of regarding the psychological materials as a bridge
between the two sides of the psyche—Example of method of synthesis of symbols of absolute
unconscious—Dream of the crab.

VII. Analytical (Causal-reductive) Interpretation 419

The unconscious homosexual tendencies—The causal-reductive method does not strictly

follow the patient's own associations—It does not interpret the dream as subjective
phenomenon—Interpretation on both objective and subjective planes necessary.

VIII. The Synthetic (Constructive) Interpretation 422

Homosexuality in this case an unconscious defence against acceptance of "more dangerous"

tendencies—Fascination an unconscious compulsion—"Identifications" have power so long
as they remain unconscious—Union of subjective and objective view of dream gives its full
meaning.
IX. The Dominants of the Super-personal Unconscious 426

Projection in relation to transference—Projection of certain attributes not explicable on the

ground of personal contents, but must be referred to the super-personal—Collective
unconscious is sediment of all the experience of the universe throughout time—Certain
features that have become prominent, e.g. gods and demons, are called "dominants" and have
a character of universal psychological truth—These dominants become conscious as
projections, explaining infatuations, incompatibilities, unconscious conflicts, etc.—The
"magical demon" is the most primitive concept of God—Analysis traces home these
projections to the non-ego—Fear belongs to the dominants of the collective unconscious—
The next step is the detachment of these projections from the objects of consciousness—This
liberates energy for further progress—The transcendental function—The hero-myth
symbolises this differentiation of ego from non-ego.

X. The Development of the Types of Introversion and Extroversion 437

The types apprehend life by opposite methods—All psychic images have two sides, one
directed towards the object, the other towards the soul (idea)—The feelings of the introvert
are under repression, the thoughts of the extrovert—Analytical development of the
unconscious brings out the secondary function in each type—The pairs of opposites being
thus demonstrated need for synthesis arises—This is a compensatory process leading to
enrichment of the individual.

XI. General Remarks on the Therapy 441

The unconscious is a source of danger when the individual is not at one with it—It also
creates harmonious prospective combinations which can be an effective source of wisdom for
the individual—The use of the phantasies in conjunction with conscious elaboration is the
transcendental function—Not every individual passes through all the stages described—For
some the end of analysis is reached when the cure is achieved—Others are under a moral
necessity to reach a full psychological development.

Conclusion 443

CHAPTER XV
The Concept of the Unconscious 445
I. The Distinction between the Personal and Impersonal Unconscious.

Development of concepts—Removal of repression does not empty the unconscious—

Repression is a special phenomenon—The unconscious contains not only repressed material,
but subliminal sense-impressions which have never reached consciousness—It is constantly
busied with new phantasy formation—Patients are urged to retain their hold on repressed
materials that analysis has brought into consciousness—Prolonged analysis reveals contents
other than those of a personal nature—Necessity to differentiate a layer called the "personal"
unconscious whose materials originate in the personal past—Their omission from
 consciousness constitutes a defect or neglect—The moral reaction against this neglect shows
they could become conscious if sufficient trouble were taken—The gradual transference of
the personal unconscious contents into consciousness extends the periphery of consciousness.

II. The Consequences of Assimilation of the Unconscious 449

First result is increased self-consciousness—May lead to a sense of God-Almightiness in one

type, or to overwhelming self-depreciation in the other—A result of ascribing to oneself
qualities or vices that do not belong individually but collectively—The collective pysche
divided into collective mind and collective soul—The collective contains the "parties
inférieures" of Janet; the conscious and personal unconscious contains the "parties
supérieures"—Incorporation of the impersonal unconscious leads to a dissolution of the pairs
of opposites—As seen in neurotic, who combines megalomania and sense of inferiority in
extreme degree—Primitive man possesses the collective vices and virtues in an
undifferentiated way—Mental conflict only begins with conscious personal development—
Desire to be good brings about repression of the bad—Collective view-point, though
necessary, is dangerous to individuality—Collective psyche is the result of psychological
differentiation of the gregarious instincts—Dangers of identification with collective psyche—
Recognition of the different psychology of the types a safeguard, promoting a proper respect
for individuality of the opposite type—Individuation hampered by man's suggestibility and
tendency to imitation.

III. The Individual as an Excerpt of the Collective Psyche 456

The personal unconscious contains repressed materials capable of becoming conscious—By

also incorporating the impersonal contents the state of God-Almightiness is brought about—
The "persona" a mask for the collective psyche—Development of God-Almightiness,
physical concomitants—Dissolution of the persona results in release of phantasy—Analogy
with mental derangement—Difference consists in that the unconscious is at first deliberately
brought into consciousness by consent, and later that it is recognised as having psychic
validity only.

IV. Endeavours to free the Individuality from the Collective Psyche 459

(i) The Regressive Restoration of the Persona—Three ways open, (a) Regressive application
of a reductive theory; (b) application of God-Almightiness as a "virile protest;" (c)
recognition of the primitive archaic collective psychology in man—Temptation to solve the
difficulty by forgetting one has an unconscious—This does not work—The unconscious
cannot be deprived of libido, nor its activity stilled for any length of time.
(ii) Identification with the Collective Psyche—God-Almightiness developed into a system—
Identification increases feeling for life or sense of power, according to the type—This,
mystically understood, is the "yearning for the mother" of the hero-myth, or the "incest-wish"
of Freud—It is the collective psyche that has to be overcome—Identification with the
collective psyche is a failure because being lost in it, a bearable or satisfactory life is
impossible.

V. Leading Principles for the Treatment of Collective Psyche 468

 Neither regressive restoration of the persona, nor identification with collective psyche solves
the problem—Psychology will have to admit a plurality of principles—Only the collective
part of individual psychology can be the subject of scientific study—What belongs to the
psychology of the individual requires its own text-book—The persona must be strictly
separated from the concept of the individual—What is individual is the remnant which can
never be merged into the collective—Analysis of the persona transfers greater value on to the
individuality, increasing its conflict with collectivity—The persona is identical with a one-
sided attitude, being a typical attitude in which thought or feeling or intuition dominates,
causing relative repression of the other functions—Dissolution of persona indispensable to
individuation—The more individual a person is the more he assimilates and develops those
attributes that are the basis of a collective concept of human nature—Unifying function
between the conscious and unconscious, between the collective and individual is found in the
phantasies—Phantasy the creative soil for everything that has brought development to
humanity—Phantasy not to be taken literally but hermeneutically—Hermeneutics adds
analogies to those already given—Hermeneutical interpretation indicates the means of
synthesis of the individual, provided as soon as the symbolic outlines of the path are
understood they are followed up—Co-operation and honest endeavour essential to cure—The
moral factor determines the cure—"Life-lines" have a short and ephemeral value—Dreams
are compensatory to conscious thinking—Watch must be kept for dreams indicative of causes
of error—Hence the patient must remain in contact with the unconscious—End of analysis
reached when enough psychological insight and mastery of technique is acquired to enable
individual to follow his ever-changing life-line, and to retain hold on the libido currents
which give conscious support to his individuality.

Summary 472
Index 475
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
 CHAPTER I
ON THE PSYCHOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF SO-
CALLED OCCULT PHENOMENA[1]
In that wide field of psychopathic deficiency where Science has demarcated
the diseases of epilepsy, hysteria and neurasthenia, we meet scattered
observations concerning certain rare states of consciousness as to whose
meaning authors are not yet agreed. These observations spring up
sporadically in the literature on narcolepsy, lethargy, automatisme
ambulatoire, periodic amnesia, double consciousness, somnambulism,
pathological dreamy states, pathological lying, etc.
These states are sometimes attributed to epilepsy, sometimes to hysteria,
sometimes to exhaustion of the nervous system, or neurasthenia, sometimes
they are allowed all the dignity of a disease sui generis. Patients
occasionally work through a whole graduated scale of diagnoses, from
epilepsy, through hysteria, up to simulation. In practice, on the one hand,
these conditions can only be separated with great difficulty from the so-
called neuroses, sometimes even are indistinguishable from them; on the
other, certain features in the region of pathological deficiency present more
than a mere analogical relationship not only with phenomena of normal
psychology, but also with the psychology of the supernormal, of genius.
Various as are the individual phenomena in this region, there is certainly no
case that cannot be connected by some intermediate example with the other
typical cases. This relationship in the pictures presented by hysteria and
epilepsy is very close. Recently the view has even been maintained that
there is no clean-cut frontier between epilepsy and hysteria, and that a
difference is only to be noted in extreme cases. Steffens says, for example[2]
—"We are forced to the conclusion that in essence hysteria and epilepsy are
not fundamentally different, that the cause of the disease is the same, but is
manifest in a diverse form, in different intensity and permanence."
The demarcation of hysteria and certain borderline cases of epilepsy from
congenital and acquired psychopathic mental deficiency likewise presents
the greatest difficulties. The symptoms of one or other disease everywhere
invade the neighbouring realm, so violence is done to the facts when they
are split off and considered as belonging to one or other realm. The
demarcation of psychopathic mental deficiency from the normal is an
absolutely impossible task, the difference is everywhere only "more or
less." The classification in the region of mental deficiency itself is
confronted by the same difficulty. At best, certain classes can be separated
off which crystallise round some well-marked nucleus through having
peculiarly typical features. Turning away from the two large groups of
intellectual and emotional deficiency, there remain those deficiencies
coloured pre-eminently by hysteria or epilepsy (epileptoid) or neurasthenia,
which are not notably deficiency of the intellect or of feeling. It is
essentially in this region, insusceptible of any absolute classification, that
the above-named conditions play their part. As is well known, they can
appear as part manifestations of a typical epilepsy or hysteria, or can exist
separately in the realm of psychopathic mental deficiency, where their
qualifications of epileptic or hysterical are often due to the non-essential
accessory features. It is thus the rule to place somnambulism among
hysterical diseases, because it is occasionally a phenomenon of severe
hysteria, or because mild so-called hysterical symptoms may accompany it.
Binet says: "Il n'y a pas une somnambulisme, état nerveux toujours
identique à lui-même, il y a des somnambulismes." As one of the
manifestations of a severe hysteria, somnambulism is not an unknown
phenomenon, but as a pathological entity, as a disease sui generis, it must
be somewhat rare, to judge by its infrequency in German literature on the
subject. So-called spontaneous somnambulism, resting upon a foundation of
hysterically-tinged psychopathic deficiency, is not a very common
occurrence and it is worth while to devote closer study to these cases, for
they occasionally present a mass of interesting particulars.
Case of Miss Elise K., aged 40, single; book-keeper in a large business; no
hereditary taint, except that it is alleged a brother became slightly nervous
after family misfortune and illness. Well educated, of a cheerful, joyous
nature, not of a saving disposition, always occupied with some big idea. She
was very kind-hearted and gentle, did a great deal both for her parents, who
were living in very modest circumstances, and for strangers. Nevertheless
she was not happy, because she thought she did not understand herself. She
had always enjoyed good health till a few years ago, when she is said to
have been treated for dilatation of the stomach and tapeworm. During this
illness her hair became rapidly white, later she had typhoid fever. An
engagement was terminated by the death of her fiancé from paralysis. She
had been very nervous for a year and a half. In the summer of 1897 she
went away for change of air and treatment by hydropathy. She herself says
that for about a year she has had moments during work when her thoughts
seem to stand still, but she does not fall asleep. Nevertheless she makes no
mistakes in the accounts at such times. She has often been to the wrong
street and then suddenly noticed that she was not in the right place. She has
had no giddiness or attacks of fainting. Formerly menstruation occurred
regularly every four weeks, and without any pain, but since she has been
nervous and overworked it has come every fourteen days. For a long time
she has suffered from constant headache. As accountant and book-keeper in
a large establishment, the patient has had very strenuous work, which she
performs well and conscientiously. In addition to the strenuous character of
her work, in the last year she had various new worries. Her brother was
suddenly divorced. In addition to her own work, she looked after his
housekeeping, nursed him and his child in a serious illness, and so on. To
recuperate, she took a journey on the 13th September to see a woman friend
in South Germany. The great joy at seeing her friend from whom she had
been long separated, and her participation in some festivities, deprived her
of her rest. On the 15th, she and her friend drank half a bottle of claret. This
was contrary to her usual habit. They then went for a walk in a cemetery,
where she began to tear up flowers and to scratch at the graves. She
remembered absolutely nothing of this afterwards. On the 16th she
remained with her friend without anything of importance happening. On the
17th her friend brought her to Zürich. An acquaintance came with her to the
Asylum; on the way she spoke quite sensibly, but was very tired. Outside
the Asylum they met three boys, whom she described as the "three dead
people she had dug up." She then wanted to go to the neighbouring
cemetery, but was persuaded to come to the Asylum.
She is small, delicately formed, slightly anæmic. The heart is slightly
enlarged to the left, there are no murmurs, but some reduplication of the
sounds, the mitral being markedly accentuated. The liver dulness reaches to
the border of the ribs. Patella-reflex is somewhat increased, but otherwise
no tendon-reflexes. There is neither anæsthesia, analgesia, nor paralysis.
Rough examination of the field of vision with the hands shows no
contraction. The patient's hair is a very light yellow-white colour; on the
whole she looks her age. She gives her history and tells recent events quite
clearly, but has no recollection of what took place in the cemetery at C. or
outside the Asylum. During the night of the 17th-18th she spoke to the
attendant and declared she saw the whole room full of dead people—
looking like skeletons. She was not at all frightened, but was rather
surprised that the attendant did not see them too. Once she ran to the
window, but was otherwise quiet. The next morning, while still in bed, she
saw skeletons, but not in the afternoon. The following night at four o'clock
she awoke and heard the dead children in the neighbouring cemetery cry
out that they had been buried alive. She wanted to go out to dig them up,
but allowed herself to be restrained. Next morning at seven o'clock she was
still delirious, but recalled accurately the events in the cemetery at C. and
those on approaching the Asylum. She stated that at C. she wanted to dig up
the dead children who were calling her. She had only torn up the flowers to
free the graves and to be able to get at them. In this state Professor Bleuler
explained to her that later on, when in a normal state again, she would
remember everything. The patient slept in the morning, afterwards was
quite clear, and felt herself relatively well. She did indeed remember the
attacks, but maintained a remarkable indifference towards them. The
following nights, with the exception of those of the 22nd and the 25th
September, she again had slight attacks of delirium, when once more she
had to deal with the dead. The details of the attacks differed, however.
Twice she saw the dead in her bed, but she did not appear to be afraid of
them, she got out of bed frequently, however, because she did not want "to
inconvenience the dead"; several times she wanted to leave the room.
After a few nights free from attacks there was a slight one on the 30th Sept.,
when she called the dead from the window. During the day her mind was
clear. On the 3rd of October she saw a whole crowd of skeletons in the
drawingroom, as she afterwards related, during full consciousness.
Although she doubted the reality of the skeletons, she could not convince
herself that it was a hallucination. The following night, between twelve and
one o'clock—the earlier attacks were usually about this time—she was
obsessed with the idea of dead people for about ten minutes. She sat up in
bed, stared at a corner and said: "Well, come!—but they're not all there.
Come along! Why don't you come? The room is big enough, there's room
for all; when all are there, I'll come too." Then she lay down with the
words: "Now they're all there," and fell asleep again. In the morning she
had not the slightest recollection of any of these attacks. Very short attacks
occurred in the nights of the 4th, 6th, 9th, 13th and 15th of October,
between twelve and one o'clock. The last three occurred during the
menstrual period. The attendant spoke to her several times, showed her the
lighted street-lamps, and trees; but she did not react to this conversation.
Since then the attacks have altogether ceased. The patient has complained
about a number of troubles which she had had all along. She suffered much
from headache the morning after the attacks. She said it was unbearable.
Five grains of Sacch. lactis promptly alleviated this; then she complained of
pains in both fore-arms, which she described as if it were a teno-synovitis.
She regarded the bulging of the muscles in flexion as a swelling, and asked
to be massaged. Nothing could be seen objectively, and no attention being
paid to it, the trouble disappeared. She complained exceedingly and for a
long time about the thickening of a toenail, even after the thickened part
had been removed. Sleep was often disturbed. She would not give her
consent to be hypnotised for the night-attacks. Finally on account of
headache and disturbed sleep she agreed to hypnotic treatment. She proved
a good subject, and at the first sitting fell into deep sleep with analgesia and
amnesia.
In November she was again asked whether she could now remember the
attack on the 19th September which it had been suggested that she would
recall. It gave her great trouble to recollect it, and in the end she could only
state the chief facts, she had forgotten the details.
It should be added that the patient was not superstitious, and in her healthy
days had never particularly interested herself in the supernatural. During the
whole course of treatment, which ended on the 14th November, great
indifference was evinced both to the illness and the cure. Next spring the
patient returned for out-patient treatment of the headache, which had come
back during the very hard work of these months. Apart from this symptom
her condition left nothing to be desired. It was demonstrated that she had no
remembrance of the attacks of the previous autumn, not even of those of the
19th September and earlier. On the other hand, in hypnosis she could
recount the proceedings in the cemetery and during the nightly
disturbances.
By the peculiar hallucination and by its appearance our case recalls the
conditions which V. Kraft-Ebing has described as "protracted states of
hysterical delirium." He says: "Such conditions of delirium occur in the
slighter cases of hysteria. Protracted hysterical delirium is built upon a
foundation of temporary exhaustion. Excitement seems to determine an
outbreak, and it readily recurs. Most frequently there is persecution-
delirium with very violent anxiety, sometimes of a religious or erotic
character. Hallucinations of all the senses are not rare, but illusions of sight,
smell and feeling are the commonest, and most important. The visual
hallucinations are especially visions of animals, pictures of corpses,
phantastic processions in which dead persons, devils and ghosts swarm. The
illusions of hearing are simply sounds (shrieks, howlings, claps of thunder)
or local hallucinations, frequently with a sexual content."
This patient's visions of corpses, occurring almost always in attacks, recall
the states occasionally seen in hystero-epilepsy. There likewise occur
specific visions which, in contrast with protracted delirium, are connected
with single attacks.
(1) A lady 30 years of age with grande hystérie had twilight states in which
as a rule she was troubled by terrible hallucinations; she saw her children
carried away from her, wild beasts eating them up, and so on. She has
amnesia for the content of the individual attacks.[3]
(2) A girl of 17, likewise a semi-hysteric, saw in her attacks the corpse of
her dead mother approaching her to draw her to her. Patient has amnesia for
the attacks.[4]
These are cases of severe hysteria wherein consciousness rests upon a
profound stage of dreaming. The nature of the attack and the stability of the
hallucination alone show a certain kinship with our case, which in this
respect has numerous analogies with the corresponding states of hysteria.
For instance, with those cases where a psychical shock (rape, etc.) was the
occasion for the outbreak of hysterical attacks, and where at times the
original incident is lived over again, stereotyped in the hallucination. But
our case gets its specific mould from the identity of the consciousness in the
different attacks. It is an "Etat Second" with its own memory and separated
from the waking state by complete amnesia. This differentiates it from the
above-mentioned twilight states and links it to the so-called somnambulic
conditions.
Charcot[5] divides the somnambulic states into two chief classes:—
1. Delirium with well-marked incoordination of representation and action.
2. Delirium with co-ordinated action. This approaches the waking state.
Our case belongs to the latter class.
If by somnambulism be understood a state of systematised partial waking,[6]
any critical review of this affection must take account of those exceptional
cases of recurrent amnesias which have been observed now and again.
These, apart from nocturnal ambulism, are the simplest conditions of
systematised partial waking. Naef's case is certainly the most remarkable in
the literature. It deals with a gentleman of 32, with a very bad family
history presenting numerous signs of degeneration, partly functional, partly
organic. In consequence of over-work at the age of 17 he had a peculiar
twilight state with delusions, which lasted some days and was cured with a
sudden recovery of memory. Later he was subject to frequent attacks of
giddiness and palpitation of the heart and vomiting; but these attacks were
never attended by loss of consciousness. At the termination of some
feverish illness he suddenly travelled from Australia to Zürich, where he
lived for some weeks in careless cheerfulness, and only came to himself
when he read in the paper of his sudden disappearance from Australia. He
had a total and retrograde amnesia for the several months which included
the journey to Australia, his sojourn there and the return journey.
Azam[7] has published a case of periodic amnesia. Albert X., 12-1/2 years
old, of hysterical disposition, was several times attacked in the course of a
few years by conditions of amnesia in which he forgot reading, writing and
arithmetic, even at times his own language, for several weeks at a stretch.
The intervals were normal.
Proust[8] has published a case of Automatisme ambulatoire with pronounced
hysteria which differs from Naef's in the repeated occurrence of the attacks.
An educated man, 30 years old, exhibits all the signs of grande hystérie; he
is very suggestible, has from time to time, under the influence of
excitement, attacks of amnesia which last from two days to several weeks.
During these states he wanders about, visits relatives, destroys various
objects, incurs debts, and has even been convicted of "picking pockets."
Boileau describes a similar case[9] of wandering-impulse. A widow of 22,
highly hysterical, became terrified at the prospect of a necessary operation
for salpingitis; she left the hospital and fell into a state of somnambulism,
from which she awoke three days later with total amnesia. During these
three days she had travelled a distance of about 60 kilometres to fetch her
child.
William James has described a case of an "ambulatory sort."[10]
The Rev. Ansel Bourne, an itinerant preacher, 30 years of age,
psychopathic, had on a few occasions attacks of loss of consciousness
lasting one hour. One day (January 17, 1887) he suddenly disappeared from
Greene, after having taken 551 dollars out of the bank. He remained hidden
for two months. During this time he had taken a little shop under the name
of H. J. Browne in Norriston, Pa., and had carefully attended to all
purchases, although he had never done this sort of work before. On March
14, 1887, he suddenly awoke and went back home, and had complete
amnesia for the interval.
Mesnet[11] publishes the following case:—
F., 27 years old, sergeant in the African regiment, was wounded in the
parietal bone at Bazeilles. Suffered for a year from hemiplegia, which
disappeared when the wound healed. During the course of his illness the
patient had attacks of somnambulism, with marked limitation of
consciousness; all the senses were paralysed, with the exception of taste and
a small portion of the visual sense. The movements were co-ordinated, but
obstacles in the way of their performance were overcome with difficulty.
During the attacks he had an absurd collecting-mania. By various
manipulations one could demonstrate a hallucinatory content in his
consciousness; for instance, when a stick was put in his hand he would feel
himself transported to a battle scene, would place himself on guard, see the
enemy approaching, etc.
Guinon and Sophie Waltke[12] made the following experiments on hysterics:
—
A blue glass was held in front of the eyes of a female patient during a
hysterical attack; she regularly saw the picture of her mother in the blue sky.
A red glass showed her a bleeding wound, a yellow one an orange-seller or
a lady with a yellow dress.
Mesnet's case reminds one of the cases of occasional attacks of shrinkage of
memory.
MacNish[13] communicates a similar case.
An apparently healthy young lady suddenly fell into an abnormally long
and deep sleep—it is said without prodromal symptoms. On awaking she
had forgotten the words for and the knowledge of the simplest things. She
had again to learn to read, write, and count; her progress was rapid in this
re-learning. After a second attack she again woke in her normal state, but
without recollection of the period when she had forgotten things. These
states alternated for more than four years, during which consciousness
showed continuity within the two states, but was separated by an amnesia
from the consciousness of the normal state.
These selected cases of various forms of changes of consciousness all throw
a certain light upon our case. Naef's case presents two hysteriform eclipses
of memory, one of which is marked by the appearance of delusions, and the
other by its long duration, contraction of the field of consciousness, and
desire to wander. The peculiar associated impulses are specially clear in the
cases of Proust and Mesnet. In our case the impulsive tearing up of the
flowers, the digging up of the graves, form a parallel. The continuity of
consciousness which the patient presents in the individual attacks recalls the
behaviour of the consciousness in MacNish's case; hence our case may be
regarded as a transient phenomenon of alternating consciousness. The
dreamlike hallucinatory content of the limited consciousness in our case
does not, however, justify an unqualified assignment to this group of double
consciousness. The hallucinations in the second state show a certain
creativeness which seems to be conditioned by the auto-suggestibility of
this state. In Mesnet's case we noticed the appearance of hallucinatory
processes from simple stimulation of touch. The patient's subconsciousness
employs simple perceptions for the automatic construction of complicated
scenes which then take possession of the limited consciousness. A
somewhat similar view must be taken about our patient's hallucinations; at
least, the external conditions which gave rise to the appearance of the
hallucinations seem to strengthen our supposition. The walk in the cemetery
induces the vision of the skeletons; the meeting with the three boys arouses
the hallucination of children buried alive whose voices the patient hears at
night-time. She arrived at the cemetery in a somnambulic state, which on
this occasion was specially intense in consequence of her having taken
alcohol. She performed actions almost instinctively about which her
subconsciousness nevertheless did receive certain impressions. (The part
played here by alcohol must not be underestimated. We know from
experience that it does not only act adversely upon these conditions, but,
like every other narcotic, it gives rise to a certain increase of suggestibility.)
The impressions received in somnambulism subconsciously form
independent growths, and finally reach perception as hallucinations. Thus
our case closely corresponds to those somnambulic dream-states which
have recently been subjected to a penetrating study in England and France.
These lapses of memory, which at first seem without content, gain a content
by means of accidental auto-suggestion, and this content builds itself up
automatically to a certain extent. It achieves no further development,
probably on account of the improvement now beginning, and finally it
disappears altogether as recovery sets in. Binet and Féré have made
numerous experiments on the implanting of suggestions in states of partial
sleep. They have shown, for example, that when a pencil is put in the
anæsthetic hand of a hysteric, letters of great length are written
automatically whose contents are unknown to the patient's consciousness.
Cutaneous stimuli in anæsthetic regions are sometimes perceived as visual
images, or at least as vivid associated visual presentations. These
independent transmutations of simple stimuli must be regarded as primary
phenomena in the formation of somnambulic dream-pictures. Analogous
manifestations occur in exceptional cases within the sphere of waking
consciousness. Goethe,[14] for instance, states that when he sat down,
lowered his head and vividly conjured up the image of a flower, he saw it
undergoing changes of its own accord, as if entering into new combinations.
In half-waking states these manifestations are relatively frequent in the so-
called hypnagogic hallucinations. The automatisms which the Goethe
example illustrates are differentiated from the truly somnambulic, inasmuch
as the primary presentation is a conscious one in this case; the further
development of the automatism is maintained within the definite limits of
the original presentation, that is, within the purely motor or visual region.
If the primary presentation disappears, or if it is never conscious at all, and
if the automatic development overlaps neighbouring regions, we lose every
possibility of a demarcation between waking automatisms and those of the
somnambulic state; this will occur, for instance, if the presentation of a
hand plucking the flower gets joined to the perception of the flower or the
presentation of the smell of the flower. We can then only differentiate it by
the more or less. In one case we then speak of the "waking hallucinations of
the normal," in the other, of the dream-vision of the somnambulists. The
interpretation of our patient's attacks as hysterical becomes more certain by
the demonstration of a probably psychogenic origin of the hallucination.
This is confirmed by her troubles, headache and teno-synovitis, which have
shown themselves amenable to suggestive treatment. The ætiological factor
alone is not sufficient for the diagnosis of hysteria; it might really be
expected a priori that in the course of a disease which is so suitably treated
by rest, as in the treatment of an exhaustion-state, features would be
observed here and there which could be interpreted as manifestations of
exhaustion. The question arises whether the early lapses and later
somnambulic attacks could not be conceived as states of exhaustion, so-
called "neurasthenic crises." We know that in the realm of psychopathic
mental deficiency there can arise the most diverse epileptoid accidents,
whose classification under epilepsy or hysteria is at least doubtful. To quote
C. Westphal: "On the basis of numerous observations, I maintain that the
so-called epileptoid attacks form one of the most universal and commonest
symptoms in the group of diseases which we reckon among the mental
diseases and neuropathies; the mere appearance of one or more epileptic or
epileptoid attacks is not decisive for its course and prognosis. As
mentioned, I have used the concept of epileptoid in the widest sense for the
attack itself."[15]
The epileptoid moments of our case are not far to seek; the objection can,
however, be raised that the colouring of the whole picture is hysterical in
the extreme. Against this, however, it must be stated that every
somnambulism is not eo ipso hysterical. Occasionally states occur in typical
epilepsy which to experts seem parallel with somnambulic states,[16] or
which can only be distinguished by the existence of genuine convulsions.
[17]

As Diehl shows,[18] in neurasthenic mental deficiency crises also occur

which often confuse the diagnosis. A definite presentation-content can even
create a stereotyped repetition in the individual crisis. Lately Mörchen has
published a case of epileptoid neurasthenic twilight state.[19]
I am indebted to Professor Bleuler for the report of the following case:—
An educated gentleman of middle age—without epileptic antecedents—had
exhausted himself by many years of over-strenuous mental work. Without
other prodromal symptoms (such as depression, etc.) he attempted suicide
during a holiday; in a peculiar twilight state he suddenly threw himself into
the water from a bank, in sight of many persons. He was at once pulled out
and retained but a fleeting remembrance of the occurrence.
Bearing these observations in mind, neurasthenia must be allowed to
account for a considerable share in the attacks of our patient, Miss E. K.
The headaches and the teno-synovitis point to the existence of a relatively
mild hysteria, generally latent, but becoming manifest under the influence
of exhaustion. The genesis of this peculiar illness explains the relationship
which has been described between epilepsy, hysteria and neurasthenia.
Summary.—Miss Elise K. is a psychopathic defective with a tendency to
hysteria. Under the influence of nervous exhaustion she suffers from attacks
of epileptoid giddiness whose interpretation is uncertain at first sight. Under
the influence of an unusually large dose of alcohol the attacks develop into
definite somnambulism with hallucinations, which are limited in the same
way as dreams to accidental external perceptions. When the nervous
exhaustion is cured the hysterical manifestations disappear.
In the region of psychopathic deficiency with hysterical colouring, we
encounter numerous phenomena which show, as in this case, symptoms of
diverse defined diseases, which cannot be attributed with certainty to any
one of them. These phenomena are partially recognised to be independent;
for instance, pathological lying, pathological reveries, etc. Many of these
states, however, still await thorough scientific investigation; at present they
belong more or less to the domain of scientific gossip. Persons with habitual
hallucinations, and also the inspired, exhibit these states; they draw the
attention of the crowd to themselves, now as poet or artist, now as saviour,
prophet or founder of a new sect.
The genesis of the peculiar frame of mind of these persons is for the most
part lost in obscurity, for it is only very rarely that one of these remarkable
personalities can be subjected to exact observation. In view of the often
great historical importance of these persons, it is much to be wished that we
had some scientific material which would enable us to gain a closer insight
into the psychological development of their peculiarities. Apart from the
now practically useless productions of the pneumatological school at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, German scientific literature is very
poor in this respect; indeed, there seems to be real aversion from
investigation in this field. For the facts so far gathered we are indebted
almost exclusively to the labours of French and English workers. It seems at
least desirable that our literature should be enlarged in this respect. These
considerations have induced me to publish some observations which will
perhaps help to further our knowledge concerning the relationship of
hysterical twilight-states and enlarge the problems of normal psychology.

Case of Somnambulism in a Person with Neuropathic Inheritance

(Spiritualistic Medium).
The following case was under my observation in the years 1899 and 1900.
As I was not in medical attendance upon Miss S. W., a physical
examination for hysterical stigmata unfortunately could not be made. I kept
a complete diary of the séances, which I filled up after each sitting. The
following report is a condensed account from these notes. Out of regard for
Miss S. W. and her family a few unimportant dates have been altered and a
few details omitted from the story, which for the most part is composed of
very intimate matters.
Miss S. W., 15½ years old. Reformed Church. The paternal grandfather was
highly intelligent, a clergyman with frequent waking hallucinations
(generally visions, often whole dramatic scenes with dialogues, etc.). A
brother of the grandfather was an imbecile eccentric, who also saw visions.
A sister of the grandfather, a peculiar, odd character. The paternal
grandmother after some fever in her 20th year (typhoid?) had a trance
which lasted three days, from which she did not awake until the crown of
her head had been burned by a red-hot iron. During states of excitement
later on she had fainting fits which were nearly always followed by a brief
somnambulism during which she uttered prophesies. Her father was
likewise a peculiar, original personality with bizarre ideas. All three had
waking hallucinations (second-sight, forebodings, etc.). A third brother was
also eccentric and odd, talented but one-sided. The mother has an inherited
mental defect often bordering on psychosis. The sister is a hysteric and
visionary and a second sister suffers from "nervous heart attacks." Miss S.
W. is slenderly built, skull somewhat rachitic, without pronounced
hydrocephalus, face rather pale, eyes dark with a peculiar penetrating look.
She has had no serious illnesses. At school she passed for average, showed
little interest, was inattentive. As a rule her behaviour was rather reserved,
sometimes giving place, however, to exuberant joy and exaltation. Of
average intelligence, without special gifts, neither musical nor fond of
books, her preference is for handwork—and day dreaming. She was often
absent-minded, misread in a peculiar way when reading aloud, instead of
the word Ziege (goat), for instance, said Gais, instead of Treppe (stair),
Stege; this occurred so often that her brothers and sisters laughed at her.
There were no other abnormalities; there were no serious hysterical
manifestations. Her family were artisans and business people with very
limited interests. Books of mystical content were never permitted in the
family. Her education was faulty; there were numerous brothers and sisters
and thus the education was given indiscriminately, and in addition the
children had to suffer a great deal from the inconsequent and vulgar, indeed
sometimes rough, treatment of their mother. The father, a very busy
business man, could not pay much attention to his children, and died when
S. W. was not yet grown up. Under these uncomfortable conditions it is no
wonder that S. W. felt herself shut in and unhappy. She was often afraid to
go home, and preferred to be anywhere rather than there. She was left a
great deal with playmates and grew up in this way without much polish.
The level of her education is relatively low and her interests
correspondingly limited. Her knowledge of literature is also very limited.
She knows the common school songs by heart, songs of Schiller and Goethe
and a few other poets, as well as fragments from a song book and the
psalms. Newspaper stories represent her highest level in prose. Up to the
time of her somnambulism she had never read any books of a serious
nature. At home and from friends she heard about table-turning and began
to take an interest in it. She asked to be allowed to take part in such
experiments, and her desire was soon gratified. In July 1899, she took part a
few times in table-turnings with some friends and her brothers and sisters,
but in joke. It was then discovered that she was an excellent "medium."
Some communications of a serious nature arrived which were received with
general astonishment. Their pastoral tone was surprising. The spirit said he
was the grandfather of the medium. As I was acquainted with the family I
was able to take part in these experiments. At the beginning of August,
1899, the first attacks of somnambulism took place in my presence. They
took the following course: S. W. became very pale, slowly sank to the
ground, or into a chair, shut her eyes, became cataleptic, drew several deep
breaths, and began to speak. In this stage she was generally quite relaxed;
the reflexes of the lids remained, as did also tactile sensation. She was
sensitive to unexpected noises and full of fear, especially in the initial stage.
She did not react when called by name. In somnambulic dialogues she
copied in a remarkably clever way her dead relations and acquaintances,
with all their peculiarities, so that she made a lasting impression upon
unprejudiced persons. She also so closely imitated persons whom she only
knew from descriptions that no one could deny her at least considerable
talent as an actress. Gradually gestures were added to the simple speech,
which finally led to "attitudes passionelles" and complete dramatic scenes.
She took up postures of prayer and rapture, with staring eyes, and spoke
with impassionate and glowing rhetoric. She then made use exclusively of a
literary German which she spoke with an ease and assurance quite contrary
to her usual uncertain and embarrassed manner in the waking state. Her
movements were free and of a noble grace, depicting most beautifully her
varying emotions. Her attitude during these states was always changing and
diverse in the different attacks. Now she would lie for ten minutes to two
hours on the sofa or the ground, motionless, with closed eyes; now she
assumed a half-sitting posture and spoke with changed tone and speech;
now she would stand up, going through every possible pantomimic gesture.
Her speech was equally diversified and without rule. Now she spoke in the
first person, but never for long, generally to prophesy her next attack; now
she spoke of herself (and this was the most usual) in the third person. She
then acted as some other person, either some dead acquaintance or some
chance person, whose part she consistently carried out according to the
characteristics she herself conceived. At the end of the ecstasy there usually
followed a cataleptic state with flexibilitas cerea, which gradually passed
over into the waking state. The waxy anæmic pallor which was an almost
constant feature of the attacks made one really anxious; it sometimes
occurred at the beginning of the attack, but often in the second half only.
The pulse was then small but regular and of normal frequency; the
breathing gentle, shallow, or almost imperceptible. As already stated, S. W.
often predicted her attacks beforehand; just before the attacks she had
strange sensations, became excited, rather anxious, and occasionally
expressed thoughts of death: "she will probably die in one of these attacks;
during the attack her soul only hangs to her body by a thread, so that often
the body could scarcely go on living." Once after the cataleptic attack
tachypnœa lasting two minutes was observed, with a respiration rate of 100
per minute. At first the attacks occurred spontaneously, afterwards S. W.
could provoke them by sitting in a dark corner and covering her face with
her hands. Frequently the experiment did not succeed. She had so-called
"good" and "bad" days. The question of amnesia after the attacks is
unfortunately very obscure. This much is certain, that after each attack she
was quite accurately orientated as to what she had gone through "during the
rapture." It is, however, uncertain how much she remembered of the
conversations in which she served as medium, and of changes in her
surroundings during the attack. It often seemed that she did have a fleeting
recollection, for directly after waking she would ask: "Who was here?
Wasn't X or Y here? What did he say?" She also showed that she was
superficially aware of the content of the conversations. She thus often
remarked that the spirits had communicated to her before waking what they
had said. But frequently this was not the case. If, at her request, the contents
of the trance speeches were repeated to her she was often annoyed about
them. She was then often sad and depressed for hours together, especially
when any unpleasant indiscretions had occurred. She would then rail
against the spirits and assert that next time she would beg her guides to
keep such spirits far away. Her indignation was not feigned, for in the
waking state she could but poorly control herself and her emotions, so that
every mood was at once mirrored in her face. At times she seemed only
slightly or not at all aware of the external proceedings during the attack.
She seldom noticed when any one left the room or came in. Once she
forbade me to enter the room when she was awaiting special
communications which she wished to keep secret from me. Nevertheless I
went in, and sat down with the three other sitters and listened to everything.
Her eyes were open and she spoke to those present without noticing me.
She only noticed me when I began to speak, which gave rise to a storm of
indignation. She remembered better, but still apparently only in indefinite
outlines, the remarks of those taking part which referred to the trance
speeches or directly to herself. I could never discover any definite rapport in
this connection.
In addition to these great attacks which seemed to follow a certain law in
their course, S. W. produced a great number of other automatisms.
Premonitions, forebodings, unaccountable moods and rapidly changing
fancies were all in the day's work. I never observed simple states of sleep.
On the other hand, I soon noticed that in the middle of a lively conversation
S. W. became quite confused and spoke without meaning in a peculiar
monotonous way, and looked in front of her dreamily with half-closed eyes.
These lapses usually lasted but a few minutes. Then she would suddenly
proceed: "Yes, what did you say?" At first she would not give any
particulars about these lapses, she would reply off-hand that she was a little
giddy, had a headache, and so on. Later she simply said: "they were there
again," meaning her spirits. She was subjected to the lapses much against
her will; she often tried to defend herself: "I do not want to, not now, come
some other time; you seem to think I only exist for you." She had these
lapses in the streets, in business, in fact anywhere. If this happened to her in
the street, she leaned against a house and waited till the attack was over.
During these attacks, whose intensity was most variable, she had visions;
frequently also, especially during the attacks where she turned extremely
pale, she "wandered"; or as she expressed it, lost her body, and got away to
distant places whither her spirits led her. Distant journeys during ecstasy
strained her exceedingly; she was often exhausted for hours after, and many
times complained that the spirits had again deprived her of much power,
such overstrain was now too much for her; the spirits must get another
medium, etc. Once she was hysterically blind for half an hour after one of
these ecstasies. Her gait was hesitating, feeling her way; she had to be led;
she did not see the candle which was on the table. The pupils reacted.
Visions occurred in great numbers without proper "lapses" (designating by
this word only the higher grade of distraction of attention). At first the
visions only occurred at the beginning of the sleep. Once after S. W. had
gone to bed the room became lighted up, and out of the general foggy light
there appeared white glittering figures. They were throughout concealed in
white veil-like robes, the women had a head-covering like a turban, and a
girdle. Afterwards (according to the statements of S. W.), "the spirits were
already there" when she went to bed. Finally she also saw the figures in
bright daylight, though still somewhat blurred and only for a short time,
provided there were no proper lapses, in which case the figures became
solid enough to take hold of. But S. W. always preferred darkness.
According to her account the content of the vision was for the most part of a
pleasant kind. Gazing at the beautiful figures she received a feeling of
delicious blessedness. More rarely there were terrible visions of a dæmonic
nature. These were entirely confined to the night or to dark rooms.
Occasionally S. W. saw black figures in the neighbouring streets or in her
room; once out in the dark courtyard she saw a terrible copper-red face
which suddenly stared at her and frightened her. I could not learn anything
satisfactory about the first occurrence of the vision. She states that once at
night, in her fifth or sixth year, she saw her "guide," her grandfather (whom
she had never known). I could not get any objective confirmation from her
relatives of this early vision. Nothing of the kind is said to have happened
until her first séance. With the exception of the hypnagogic brightness and
the flashes, there were no rudimentary hallucinations, but from the
beginning they were of a systematic nature, involving all the sense-organs
equally. So far as concerns the intellectual reaction to these phenomena it is
remarkable with what curious sincerity she regarded her dreams. Her entire
somnambulic development, the innumerable puzzling events, seemed to her
quite natural. She looked at her whole past in this light. Every striking event
of earlier years stood to her in necessary and clear relationship to her
present condition. She was happy in the consciousness of having found her
real life-task. Naturally she was unswervingly convinced of the reality of
her visions. I often tried to present her with some sceptical explanation, but
she invariably turned this aside; in her usual condition she did not clearly
grasp a reasoned explanation, and in the semi-somnambulic state she
regarded it as senseless in view of the facts staring her in the face. She once
said: "I do not know if what the spirits say and teach me is true, neither do I
know if they are those by whose names they call themselves, but that my
spirits exist there is no question. I see them before me, I can touch them, I
speak to them about everything I wish, as naturally as I'm now talking to
you. They must be real." She absolutely would not listen to the idea that the
manifestations were a kind of illness. Doubts about her health or about the
reality of her dream would distress her deeply; she felt so hurt by my
remarks that when I was present she became reserved, and for a long time
refused to experiment if I was there; hence I took care not to express my
doubts and thoughts aloud. From her immediate relatives and acquaintances
she received undivided allegiance and admiration—they asked her advice
about all kinds of things. In time she obtained such an influence upon her
followers that three of her brothers and sisters likewise began to have
hallucinations of a similar kind. Their hallucinations generally began as
night-dreams of a very vivid and dramatic kind; these gradually extended
into the waking time, partly hypnagogic, partly hypnopompic. A married
sister had extraordinary vivid dreams which developed from night to night,
and these appeared in the waking consciousness; at first as obscure
illusions, next as real hallucinations, but they never reached the plastic
clearness of S. W.'s visions. For instance, she once saw in a dream a black
dæmonic figure at her bedside in animated conversation with a white,
beautiful figure, which tried to restrain the black one; nevertheless the black
one seized her and tried to choke her, then she awoke. Bending over her she
then saw a black shadow with a human contour, and near by a white cloudy
figure. The vision only disappeared when she lighted a candle. Similar
visions were repeated dozens of times. The visions of the other two sisters
were of a similar kind, but less intense.
This particular type of attack with the complete visions and ideas had
developed in the course of less than a month, but never afterwards exceeded
these limits. What was later added to these was but the extension of all
those thoughts and cycles of visions which to a certain extent were already
indicated quite at the beginning. As well as the "great" attacks and the lesser
ones, there must also be noted a third kind of state comparable to "lapse"
states. These are the semi-somnambulic states. They appeared at the
beginning or at the end of the "great" attacks, but also appeared without any
connection with them. They developed gradually in the course of the first
month. It is not possible to give a more precise account of the time of their
appearance. In this state a fixed gaze, brilliant eyes, and a certain dignity
and stateliness of movement are noticeable. In this phase S. W. is herself,
her own somnambulic ego.
She is fully orientated to the external world, but seems to stand with one
foot, as it were, in her dream-world. She sees and hears her spirits, sees how
they walk about in the room among those who form the circle, and stand
first by one person, then by another. She is in possession of a clear
remembrance of her visions, her journeys and the instructions she receives.
She speaks quietly, clearly and firmly and is always in a serious, almost
religious frame of mind. Her bearing indicates a deeply religious mood, free
from all pietistic flavour, her speech is singularly uninfluenced by her
guide's jargon compounded of Bible and tract. Her solemn behaviour has a
suffering, rather pitiful aspect. She is painfully conscious of the great
differences between her ideal world at night and the rough reality of the
day. This state stands in sharp contrast to her waking existence; there is here
no trace of that unstable and inharmonious creature, that extravagant
nervous temperament which is so characteristic for the rest of her
relationships. Speaking with her, you get the impression of speaking with a
much older person who has attained through numerous experiences to a
sure harmonious footing. In this state she produced her best results, whilst
her romances correspond more closely to the conditions of her waking
interests. The semi-somnambulism usually appears spontaneously, mostly
during the table experiments, which sometimes announced by this means
that S. W. was beginning to know beforehand every automatic
communication from the table. She then usually stopped the table-turning
and after a short time passed more or less suddenly into an ecstatic state. S.
W. showed herself to be very sensitive. She could divine and reply to
simple questions thought of by a member of the circle who was not a
"medium," if only the latter would lay a hand on the table or on her hand.
Genuine thought-transference without direct or indirect contact could never
be achieved. In juxtaposition with the obvious development of her whole
personality the continued existence of her earlier ordinary character was all
the more startling. She imparted with unconcealed pleasure all the little
childish experiences, the flirtations and love-secrets, all the rudeness and
lack of education of her parents and contemporaries. To every one who did
not know her secret she was a girl of fifteen and a half, in no respect unlike
a thousand other such girls. So much the greater was people's astonishment
when they got to know her in her other aspect. Her near relatives could not
at first grasp this change: to some extent they never altogether understood
it, so there was often bitter strife in the family, some of them taking sides
for and others against S. W., either with enthusiastic over-valuation or with
contemptuous censure of "superstition." Thus did S. W., during the time I
watched her closely, lead a curious, contradictory life, a real "double life"
with two personalities existing side by side or closely following upon one
another and contending for the mastery. I now give some of the most
interesting details of the sittings in chronological order.
First and second sittings, August, 1899. S. W. at once undertook to lead the
"communications." The "psychograph," for which an upturned glass
tumbler was used, on which two fingers of the right hand were laid, moved
quick as lightning from letter to letter. (Slips of paper, marked with letter
and numbers, had been arranged in a circle round the glass.) It was
communicated that the "medium's" grandfather was present and would
speak to us. There then followed many communications in quick sequence,
of a most religious, edifying nature, in part in properly made words, partly
in words with the letters transposed, and partly in a series of reversed
letters. The last words and sentences were produced so quickly that it was
not possible to follow without first inverting the letters. The
communications were once interrupted in abrupt fashion by a new
communication, which announced the presence of the writer's grandfather.
On this occasion the jesting observation was made: "Evidently the two
'spirits' get on very badly together." During this attempt darkness came on.
Suddenly S. W. became very disturbed, sprang up in terror, fell on her knees
and cried "There, there, do you not see that light, that star there?" and
pointed to a dark corner of the room. She became more and more disturbed,
and called for a light in terror. She was pale, wept, "it was all so strange, she
did not know in the least what was the matter with her." When a candle was
brought she became calm again. The experiments were now stopped.
At the next sitting, which took place in the evening, two days later, similar
communications from S. W.'s grandfather were obtained. When darkness
fell S. W. suddenly leaned back on the sofa, grew pale, almost shut her
eyes, and lay there motionless. The eyeballs were turned upwards, the lid-
reflex was present as well as tactile sensation. The breathing was gentle,
almost imperceptible. The pulse small and weak. This attack lasted about
half an hour, when S. W. suddenly sighed and got up. The extreme pallor,
which had lasted throughout the whole attack, now gave place to her usual
pale pink colour. She was somewhat confused and distraught, indicated that
she had seen all sorts of things, but would tell nothing. Only after urgent
questioning would she relate that in an extraordinary waking condition she
had seen her grandfather arm-in-arm with the writer's grandfather. The two
had gone rapidly by in an open carriage, side by side.
III. In the third séance, which took place some days later, there was a
similar attack of more than half an hour's duration. S. W. afterwards told of
many white, transfigured forms who each gave her a flower of special
symbolic significance. Most of them were dead relatives. Concerning the
exact content of their talk she maintained an obstinate silence.
IV. After S. W. had entered into the somnambulic state she began to make
curious movements with her lips, and made swallowing gurgling noises.
Then she whispered very softly and unintelligibly. When this had lasted
some minutes she suddenly began to speak in an altered deep voice. She
spoke of herself in the third person. "She is not here, she has gone away."
There followed several communications of a religious kind. From the
content and the way of speaking it was easy to conclude that she was
imitating her grandfather, who had been a clergyman. The content of the
talk did not rise above the mental level of the "communications." The tone
of the voice was somewhat forced, and only became natural when, in the
course of the talk, the voice approximated to the medium's own.
(In later sittings the voice was only altered for a few moments when a new
spirit manifested itself.)
Afterwards there was amnesia for the trance-conversation. She gave hints
about a sojourn in the other world, and she spoke of an undreamed-of
blessedness which she felt. It must be further noted that her conversation in
the attack occurred quite spontaneously, and was not in response to any
suggestions.
Directly after this séance S. W. became acquainted with the book of
Justinus Kerner, "Die Seherin von Prevorst." She began thereupon to
magnetise herself towards the end of the attack, partly by means of regular
passes, partly by curious circles and figures of eight, which she described
symmetrically with both arms. She did this, she said, to disperse the severe
headaches which occurred after the attacks. In the August séances, not
detailed here, there were in addition to the grandfather numerous spirits of
other relatives who did not produce anything very remarkable. Each time
when a new one came on the scene the movement of the glass was changed
in a striking way; it generally ran along the rows of letters, touching one or
other of them, but no sense could be made of it. The orthography was very
uncertain and arbitrary, and the first sentences were frequently
incomprehensible or broken up into a meaningless medley of letters.
Generally automatic writing suddenly began at this point. Sometimes
automatic writing was attempted during complete darkness. The movements
began with violent backward jerks of the whole arm, so that the paper was
pierced by the pencil. The first attempt at writing consisted of numerous
strokes and zigzag lines about 8 cm. high. In later attempts there came first
unreadable words, in large handwriting, which gradually became smaller
and clearer. It was not essentially different from the medium's own. The
grandfather was again the controlling spirit.
V. Somnambulic attacks in September, 1899. S. W. sits upon the sofa, leans
back, shuts her eyes, breathes lightly and regularly. She gradually becomes
cataleptic, the catalepsy disappears after about two minutes, when she lies
in an apparently quiet sleep with complete muscular relaxation. She
suddenly begins to speak in a subdued voice: "No! you take the red, I'll take
the white, you can take the green, and you the blue. Are you ready? We will
go now." (A pause of several minutes during which her face assumes a
corpse-like pallor. Her hands feel cold and are very bloodless.) She
suddenly calls out with a loud, solemn voice: "Albert, Albert, Albert," then
whispering: "Now you speak," followed by a longer pause, when the pallor
of the face attains the highest possible degree. Again, in a loud solemn
voice, "Albert, Albert, do you not believe your father? I tell you many
errors are contained in N.'s teaching. Think about it." Pause. The pallor of
the face decreases. "He's very frightened. He could not speak any more."
(These words in her usual conversational tone.) Pause. "He will certainly
think about it," S. W. now speaks again in the same tone, in a strange idiom
which sounds like French or Italian, now recalling the former, now the
latter. She speaks fluently, rapidly, and with charm. It is possible to
understand a few words but not to remember the whole, because the
language is so strange. From time to time certain words recur, as wena,
wenes, wenai, wene, etc. The absolute naturalness of the proceedings is
bewildering. From time to time she pauses as if some one were answering
her. Suddenly she speaks in German, "Is time already up?" (In a troubled
voice.) "Must I go already? Goodbye, goodbye." With the last words there
passes over her face an indescribable expression of ecstatic blessedness.
She raises her arms, opens her eyes,—hitherto closed,—looks radiantly
upwards. She remains a moment thus, then her arms sink slackly, her eyes
shut, the expression of her face is tired and exhausted. After a short
cataleptic stage she awakes with a sigh. She looks around astonished: "I've
slept again, haven't I?" She is told she has been talking during the sleep,
whereupon she becomes much annoyed, and this increases when she learns
she has spoken in a foreign tongue. "But didn't I tell the spirits I don't want
it? It mustn't be. It exhausts me too much." Begins to cry. "Oh, God! Oh,
God! must then everything, everything, come back again like last time? Is
nothing spared me?" The next day at the same time there was another
attack. When S. W. has fallen asleep Ulrich von Gerbenstein suddenly
announces himself. He is an entertaining chatterer, speaks very fluently in
high German with a North-German accent. Asked what S. W. is now doing,
after much circumlocution he explains that she is far away, and he is
meanwhile here to look after her body, the circulation of the blood, the
respiration, etc. He must take care that meanwhile no black person takes
possession of her and harms her. Upon urgent questioning he relates that S.
W. has gone with the others to Japan, to appear to a distant relative and to
restrain him from a stupid marriage. He then announces in a whisper the
exact moment when the manifestation takes place. Forbidden any
conversation for a few minutes, he points to the sudden pallor occurring in
S. W., remarking that materialisation at such a great distance is at the cost
of correspondingly great force. He then orders cold bandages to the head to
alleviate the severe headache which would occur afterwards. As the colour
of the face gradually becomes more natural the conversation grows livelier.
All kinds of childish jokes and trivialities are uttered; suddenly U. von G.
says, "I see them coming, but they are still very far off; I see them there like
a star." S. W. points to the North. We are naturally astonished, and ask why
they do not come from the East, whereto U. von G. laughingly retorts: "Oh,
but they come the direct way over the North Pole. I am going now;
farewell." Immediately after S. W. sighs, wakes up, is ill-tempered,
complains of extremely bad headache. She saw U. von G. standing by her
body; what had he told us? She gets angry about the "silly chatter" from
which he cannot refrain.
VI. Begins in the usual way. Extreme pallor; lies stretched out, scarcely
breathing. Speaks suddenly, with loud, solemn voice: "Yes, be frightened; I
am; I warn you against N.'s teaching. See, in hope is everything that
belongs to faith. You would like to know who I am. God gives where one
least expects it. Do you not know me?" Then unintelligible whispering;
after a few minutes she awakes.
VII. S. W. soon falls asleep; lies stretched out on the sofa. Is very pale. Says
nothing, sighs deeply from time to time. Casts up her eyes, rises, sits on the
sofa, bends forward, speaks softly: "You have sinned grievously, have fallen
far." Bends forward still, as if speaking to some one who kneels before her.
She stands up, turns to the right, stretches out her hands, and points to the
spot over which she has been bending. "Will you forgive her?" she asks,
loudly. "Do not forgive men, but their spirits. Not she, but her human body
has sinned." Then she kneels down, remains quite still for about ten minutes
in the attitude of prayer. Then she gets up suddenly, looks to heaven with
ecstatic expression, and then throws herself again on her knees, with her
face bowed on her hands, whispering incomprehensible words. She remains
rigid in this position several minutes. Then she gets up, looks again
upwards with a radiant countenance, and lies down on the sofa; soon after
she wakes.

Development of the Somnambulic Personalities.

At the beginning of many séances the glass was allowed to move by itself,
when occasionally the advice followed in stereotyped fashion: "You must
ask."
Since convinced spiritualists took part in the séances, all kinds of
spiritualistic wonders were of course demanded, and especially the
"protecting spirits." In reply, sometimes names of well-known dead people
were produced, sometimes unknown names, e.g. Berthe de Valours,
Elizabeth von Thierfelsenburg, Ulrich von Gerbenstein, etc. The controlling
spirit was almost without exception the medium's grandfather, who once
explained: "he loved her more than any one in this world because he had
protected her from childhood up, and knew all her thoughts." This
personality produced a flood of Biblical maxims, edifying observations, and
song-book verses; the following is a specimen:—
 In true believing,
To faith in God cling ever nigh,
Thy heavenly comfort never leaving,
Which having, man can never die.
Refuge in God is peace for ever,
When earthly cares oppress the mind;
Who from the heart can pray is never
Bowed down by fate, howe'er unkind.

Numerous similar elaborations betrayed by their banal, unctuous contents their origin in some
tract or other. When S. W. had to speak in ecstasy, lively dialogues developed between the
circle-members and the somnambulic personality. The content of the answers received is
essentially just the same commonplace edifying stuff as that of the psychographic
communications. The character of this personality is distinguished by its dry and tedious
solemnity, rigorous conventionality and pietistic virtue (which is not consistent with the
historic reality). The grandfather is the medium's guide and protector. During the ecstatic state
he gives all kinds of advice, prophesies later attacks and the visions she will see on waking,
etc. He orders cold bandages, gives directions concerning the medium's lying down or the
date of the séances. His relationship to the medium is an extremely tender one. In liveliest
contrast to this heavy dream-person stands a personality, appearing first sporadically, in the
psychographic communications of the first séance. It soon disclosed itself as the dead brother
of a Mr. R., who was then taking part in the séance. This dead brother, Mr. P. R., was full of
commonplaces about brotherly love towards his living brother. He evaded particular
questions in all manner of ways. But he developed a quite astonishing eloquence towards the
ladies of the circle and in particular offered his allegiance to one whom Mr. P. R. had never
known when alive. He affirmed that he had already cared very much for her in his lifetime,
had often met her in the street without knowing who she was, and was now uncommonly
delighted to become acquainted with her in this unusual manner. With such insipid
compliments, scornful remarks to the men, harmless childish jokes, etc., he took up a large
part of the séance. Several of the members found fault with the frivolity and banality of this
"spirit," whereupon he disappeared for one or two séances, but soon reappeared, at first well-
behaved, often indeed uttering Christian maxims, but soon dropping back into the old tone.
Besides these two sharply differentiated personalities, others appeared who varied but little
from the grandfather's type; they were mostly dead relatives of the medium. The general
atmosphere of the first two months' séances was accordingly solemnly edifying, disturbed
only from time to time by Mr. P. R.'s trivial chatter. Some weeks after the beginning of the
séances, Mr. R. left our circle, whereupon a remarkable change took place in Mr. P. R.'s
conversation. He became monosyllabic, came less often, and after a few séances vanished
altogether, later on he reappeared but with great infrequency, and for the most part only when
the medium was alone with the particular lady mentioned. Then a new personality forced
himself into the foreground; in contrast to Mr. P. R., who always spoke the Swiss dialect, this
gentleman adopted an affected North-German way of speaking. In all else he was an exact
copy of Mr. P. R. His eloquence was somewhat remarkable, since S. W. had only a very
scanty knowledge of high German, whilst this new personality, who called himself Ulrich von
Gerbenstein, spoke an almost faultless German, rich in charming phrases and compliments.
[20]

Ulrich von Gerbenstein was a witty chatterer, full of repartee, an idler, a great admirer of the
ladies, frivolous, and most superficial.
During the winter of 1899-1900 he gradually came to dominate the situation more and more,
and took over one by one all the above-mentioned functions of the grandfather, so that under
his influence the serious character of the séances disappeared.
All suggestions to the contrary proved unavailing, and at last the séances had on this account
to be suspended for longer and longer intervals. There is a peculiarity common to all these
somnambulic personalities which must be noted. They have access to the medium's memory,
even to the unconscious portion, they are also au courant with the visions which she has in
the ecstatic state, but they have only the most superficial knowledge of her phantasies during
the ecstasy. Of the somnambulic dreams they know only what they occasionally pick up from
the members of the circle. On doubtful points they can give no information, or only such as
contradicts the medium's explanations. The stereotyped answer to these questions runs: "Ask
Ivenes."[21] "Ivenes knows." From the examples given of different ecstatic moments it is clear
that the medium's consciousness is by no means idle during the trance, but develops a striking
and multiplex phantastic activity. For the reconstruction of S. W.'s somnambulic self we have
to depend altogether upon her several statements; for in the first place her spontaneous
utterances connecting her with the waking self are few, and often irrelevant, and in the second
very many of these ecstatic states go by without gesture, and without speech, so that no
conclusions as to the inner happenings can afterwards be drawn from the external
appearances. S. W. is almost totally amnesic for the automatic phenomena during ecstasy as
far as they come within the territory of the new personalities of her ego. Of all the other
phenomena, such as loud talking, babbling, etc., which are directly connected with her own
ego she usually has a clear remembrance. But in every case there is complete amnesia only
during the first few minutes after the ecstasy. Within the first half-hour, during which there
usually prevails a kind of semi-somnambulism with a dreamlike manner, hallucinations, etc.,
the amnesia gradually disappears, whilst fragmentary memories emerge of what has occurred,
but in a quite irregular and arbitrary fashion.
The later séances were usually begun by our hands being joined and laid on the table,
whereon the table at once began to move. Meanwhile S. W. gradually became somnambulic,
took her hands from the table, lay back on the sofa, and fell into the ecstatic sleep. She
sometimes related her experiences to us afterwards, but showed herself very reticent if
strangers were present. After the very first ecstasy she indicated that she played a
distinguished rôle among the spirits. She had a special name, as had each of the spirits; hers
was Ivenes; her grandfather looked after her with particular care. In the ecstasy with the
flower-vision we learnt her special secret, hidden till then beneath the deepest silence. During
the séances in which her spirit spoke she made long journeys, mostly to relatives, to whom
she said she appeared, or she found herself on the Other Side, in "That space between the
stars which people think is empty, but in which there are really very many spirit-worlds." In
the semi-somnambulic state which frequently followed her attacks, she once described, in
peculiar poetic fashion, a landscape on the Other Side, "a wondrous, moon-lit valley, set aside
for the races not yet born." She represented her somnambulic ego as being almost completely
released from the body. It is a fully-grown but small, black-haired woman, of pronounced
Jewish type, clothed in white garments, her head covered with a turban. She understands and
speaks the language of the spirits, "for spirits still, from old human custom, do speak to one
another, although they do not really need to, since they mutually understand one another's
thoughts." She "does not really always talk with the spirits, but just looks at them, and so
understands their thoughts." She travels in the company of four or five spirits, dead relatives,
and visits her living relatives and acquaintances in order to investigate their life and their way
of thinking; she further visits all places which lie within the radius of these spectral
inhabitants. From her acquaintanceship with Kerner's book, she discovered and improved
upon the ideas of the black spirits who are kept enchanted in certain places, or exist partly
beneath the earth's surface (compare the "Seherin von Prevorst"). This activity caused her
much trouble and pain; in and after the ecstasy she complained of suffocating feelings, violent
headache, etc. But every fortnight, on Wednesdays, she could pass the whole night in the
garden on the Other Side in the company of holy spirits. There she was taught everything
concerning the forces of the world, the endless complicated relationships and affinities of
human beings, and all besides about the laws of reincarnation, the inhabitants of the stars, etc.
Unfortunately only the system of the world-forces and reincarnation achieved any expression.
As to the other matters she only let fall disconnected observations. For example, once she
returned from a railway journey in an extremely disturbed state. It was thought at first
something unpleasant had happened, till she managed to compose herself, and said, "A star-
inhabitant had sat opposite to her in the train." From the description which she gave of this
being, I recognised a well-known elderly merchant I happened to know, who has a rather
unsympathetic face. In connection with this experience she related all kinds of peculiarities of
these star-dwellers; they have no god-like souls, as men have, they pursue no science, no
philosophy, but in technical arts they are far more advanced than men. Thus on Mars a flying-
machine has long been in existence; the whole of Mars is covered with canals, these canals
are cleverly excavated lakes and serve for irrigation. The canals are quite superficial; the
water in them is very shallow. The excavating caused the inhabitants of Mars no particular
trouble, for the soil there is lighter than the earth's. The canals are nowhere bridged, but that
does not prevent communication, for everything travels by flying-machine. Wars no longer
occur on the stars, for no differences of opinion exist. The star-dwellers have not human
bodies, but the most laughable ones possible, such as one would never imagine. Human
spirits who are allowed to travel on the Other Side may not set foot on the stars. Equally,
wandering star-dwellers may not come to the earth, but must remain at a distance of twenty-
five metres above the earth's surface. Should they transgress they remain in the power of the
earth, and must assume human bodies, and are only set free again after their natural death. As
men, they are cold, hard-hearted, cruel. S. W. recognises them by a singular expression in
which the "Spiritual" is lacking, and by their hairless, eyebrowless, sharply-cut faces.
Napoleon was a star-dweller.
In her journeys she does not see the places through which she hastens. She has a feeling of
floating, and the spirits tell her when she is at the right spot. Then, as a rule, she only sees the
face and upper part of the person to whom she is supposed to appear, or whom she wishes to
see. She can seldom say in what kind of surroundings she sees this person. Occasionally she
saw me, but only my head without any surroundings. She occupied herself much with the
enchanting of spirits, and for this purpose she wrote oracular sayings in a foreign tongue, on
slips of paper which she concealed in all sorts of queer places. An Italian murderer,
presumably living in my house, and whom she called Conventi, was specially displeasing to
her. She tried several times to cast a spell upon him, and without my knowledge hid several
papers about, on which messages were written; these were later found by chance. One such,
written in red ink, was as follows:

Conventi
Marche. 4 govi
Ivenes.

Conventi, go
orden, Astaf
vent.

Gen palus, vent allis

ton prost afta ben genallis.

Unfortunately, I never obtained any interpretation of this. S. W. was quite inaccessible in this
matter. Occasionally the somnambulic Ivenes speaks directly to the public. She does so in
dignified fashion, rather precociously, but she is not wearisomely unctuous and impossibly
twaddling as are her two guides; she is a serious, mature person, devout and pious, full of
womanly tenderness and great modesty, always yielding to the judgments of others. This
expression of plaintive emotion and melancholy resignation is peculiar to her. She looks
beyond this world, and unwillingly returns to reality; she bemoans her hard lot, and her
unsympathetic family surroundings. Associated with this there is something elevated about
her; she commands her spirits, despises the twaddling chatter of Gerbenstein, consoles others,
directs those in distress, warns and protects them from dangers to body and soul. She is the
intermediary for the entire intellectual output of all manifestations, but she herself ascribes it
to the direction of the spirits. It is Ivenes who entirely controls S. W.'s semi-somnambulic
state.
In semi-somnambulism S. W. gave some of those taking part in the séances the opportunity to
compare her with the "Seherin von Prevorst" (Prophetess of Prevorst). This suggestion was
not without results. S. W. gave hints of earlier existences which she had already lived
through, and after a few weeks she suddenly disclosed a whole system of reincarnations,
although she had never before mentioned anything of the kind. Ivenes is a spiritual being who
is something more than the spirits of other human beings. Every human spirit must
incorporate himself twice in the course of the centuries. But Ivenes must incorporate herself
at least once every two hundred years; besides herself only two other persons have
participated in this fate, namely, Swedenborg and Miss Florence Cook (Crookes's famous
medium). S. W. calls these two personages her brother and sister. She gave no information
about their pre-existences. In the beginning of the nineteenth century Ivenes was Frau Hauffe,
the Prophetess of Prevorst; at the end of the eighteenth century, a clergyman's wife in central
Germany (locality unknown). As the latter she was seduced by Goethe and bore him a child.
In the fifteenth century she was a Saxon countess, and had the poetic name of
Thierfelsenburg. Ulrich von Gerbenstein is a relative from that line. The interval of 300 years,
and her adventure with Goethe, must be atoned for by the sorrows of the Prophetess of
Prevorst. In the thirteenth century she was a noblewoman of Southern France, called de
Valours, and was burnt as a witch. From the thirteenth century to the Christian persecution
under Nero there were numerous reincarnations of which S. W. could give no detailed
account. In the Christian persecution under Nero she played a martyr's part. Then comes a
period of obscurity till the time of David, when Ivenes was an ordinary Jewess. After her
death she received from Astaf, an angel from a high heaven, the mandate for her future
wonderful career. In all her pre-existences she was a medium and an intermediary in the
intercourse between this side and the other. Her brothers and sisters are equally old and have
the like vocation. In her various pre-existences she was sometimes married, and in this way
gradually founded a whole system of relationships with whose endless complicated inter-
relations she occupied herself in many ecstasies. Thus, for example, about the eighth century
she was the mother of her earthly father and, moreover, of her grandfather, and mine. Hence
the striking friendship of these two old gentlemen, otherwise strangers. As Mme. de Valours
she was the present writer's mother. When she was burnt as a witch the writer took it much to
heart, and went into a cloister at Rouen, wore a grey habit, became Prior, wrote a work on
Botany and died at over eighty years of age. In the refectory of the cloister there hung a
picture of Mme. de Valours, in which she was depicted in a half-reclining position. (S. W. in
the semi-somnambulic state often took this position on the sofa. It corresponds exactly to that
of Mme. Recamier in David's well-known picture.) A gentleman who often took part in the
séances, who had some slight resemblance to the writer, was also one of her sons from that
period. Around this core of relationship there grouped themselves, more or less intimately
connected, all the persons in any way related or known to her. One came from the fifteenth
century, another—a cousin—from the eighteenth century, and so on.
From the three great family stocks grew by far the greater part of the present European
peoples. She and her brothers and sisters are descended from Adam, who arose by
materialisation; the other then-existing families, from whom Cain took his wife, were
descended from apes. S. W. produced from this circle of relationship an extensive family-
gossip, a very flood of romantic stories, piquant adventures, etc. Sometimes the target of her
romances was a lady acquaintance of the writer's who for some undiscoverable reason was
peculiarly antipathetic to her. She declared that this lady was an incarnation of a celebrated
Parisian poisoner, who had achieved great notoriety in the eighteenth century. She maintained
that this lady still continued her dangerous work, but in a much more ingenious way than
formerly; through the inspiration of the wicked spirits who accompany her she had discovered
a liquid which when merely exposed to the air attracted tubercle bacilli and formed a splendid
developing medium for them. By means of this liquid, which she was wont to mix with the
food, the lady had brought about the death of her husband (who had indeed died of
tuberculosis); also one of her lovers, and of her own brother, for the sake of his inheritance.
Her eldest son was an illegitimate child by her lover. As a widow she had secretly borne to
another lover an illegitimate child, and finally she had had an unnatural relationship with her
own brother (who was later on poisoned). In this way S. W. spun innumerable stories, in
which she believed quite implicitly. The persons of these stories appeared in the drama of her
visions, as did the lady before referred to, going through the pantomime of making confession
and receiving absolution of sins. Everything interesting occurring in her surroundings was
incorporated in this system of romances, and given an order in the network of relationships
with a more or less exact statement as to their pre-existences and the spirits influencing them.
It fared thus with all who made S. W.'s acquaintance: they were valued at a second or first
incarnation, according as they possessed a marked or indefinite character. They were
generally described as relatives, and always exactly in the same definite way. Only
subsequently, often several weeks later, after an ecstasy, there would make its appearance a
new complicated romance which explained the striking relationship through pre-existences or
through illegitimate relations. Persons sympathetic to S. W. were usually very near relatives.
Most of these family romances were very carefully made up, so that to contradict them was
impossible. They were always worked out with a quite bewildering certainty, and surprised
one by an extremely clever evaluation of certain details which she had noticed or taken from
somewhere. For the most part the romances had a ghastly character, murder by poison and
dagger, seduction and divorce, forgery of wills, played the chief rôle.

Mystic Science.—In reference to scientific questions S. W. put forward numerous

suggestions. Generally towards the end of the séances there was talk and debate about various
subjects of scientific and spiritistic nature. S. W. never took part in the discussion, but
generally sat dreamily in a corner in a semi-somnambulic state. She listened to one and
another, taking hold of the talk in a half-dream, but she could never relate anything
connectedly; if asked about it only partial explanations were given. In the course of the winter
hints emerged in various séances: "The spirits taught her about the world-forces and the
strange revelations from the other side, yet she would not tell anything now." Once she tried
to give a description, but only said: "On one side was the light, on the other the power of
attraction." Finally, in March 1900, when for some time nothing had been heard of the
teachings at the séances, she announced suddenly with a joyful face that she had now
received everything from the spirits. She drew out a long narrow strip of paper upon which
were numerous names. Although I asked for it she would not let it leave her hands, but
dictated the following scheme to me.
 Fig. 1.
I can remember clearly that in the course of the winter of 1895 we spoke several times in S.
W.'s presence of the forces of attraction and repulsion in connection with Kant's "Natural
History of the Heavens"; we spoke also of the "Law of the Conservation of Energy," of the
different forces of energy, and of the question whether the force of gravity was perhaps a
form of movement. From this talk S. W. had plainly created the foundation of her mystic
system. She gave the following explanation: The natural forces are arranged in seven circles.
Outside these circles are three more, in which unknown forces intermediate between energy
and matter are found. Matter is found in seven circles which surround ten inner ones. In the
centre stands the primary force, which is the original cause of creation and is a spiritual force.
The first circle which surrounds the primary force is matter which is not really a force and
does not arise from the primary force, but it unites with the primary force and from this union
the first descendants are the spiritual forces; on the one hand the Good or Light Powers, on
the other the Dark Powers. The Power Magnesor consists most of primary force; the Power
Connesor, in which the dark might of matter is greatest, contains the least. The further
outwards the primary force streams forth, the weaker it becomes, but weaker too becomes the
power of matter, since its power is greatest where the collision with the primary power is
most violent, i.e. in the Power Connesor. Within the circles there are fresh analogous forces of
equal strength but making in the opposite direction. The system can also be described in a
single series beginning with primary force, Magnesor, Cafor, etc., proceeding from left to
right on the scheme and ascending with Tusa, Endos, ending with Connesor; only then the
survey of the grade of intensity is made more difficult. Every force in the outer circle is
combined from the nearest adjacent forces of the inner circle.
1. The Magnesor Group.—The so-called powers of Light descend in direct line from
Magnesor, but slightly influenced by the dark side. The powers Magnesor and Cafor form
together the so-called Life Force, which is no single power but is differently combined in
animals and plants. Between Magnesor and Cafor there exists the Life Force of Man. Morally
good men and those mediums who bring about interviews of good spirits on the earth have
most Magnesor. Somewhere about the middle there stand the life forces of animals, and in
Cafor that of plants. Nothing is known about Hefa, or rather S. W. can give no information.
Persus is the fundamental power which comes to light in the phenomenon of the forces of
locomotion. Its recognisable forces are Warmth, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, and two
unknown forces, one of which only exists in comets. Of the powers of the seventh circle S.
W. could only point out north and south magnetism and positive and negative electricity.
Deka is unknown. Smar is of peculiar significance, to be indicated below; it leads to—
2. Hypnos Group.—Hypnos and Hyfonismus are powers which only dwell within certain
beings, in those who are in a position to exert a magnetic influence upon others. Athialowi is
the sexual instinct. Chemical affinity is directly derived from it. In the ninth circle under it
arises indolence (that is the line of Smar). Svens and Kara are of unknown significance. Pusa
corresponds to Smar in the opposite sense.
3. The Connesor Group.—Connesor is the opposite pole of Magnesor. It is the dark and
wicked power equal in intensity to the good power of light. While the good power creates,
this one turns into the opposite. Endos is an elemental power of minerals. From these
(significance unknown) gravitation proceeds, which on its side is designated as the elemental
force of the forces of resistance that occur in phenomena (gravity, capillarity, adhesion and
cohesion). Nakus is the secret power of a rare stone which controls the effect of snake poison.
The two powers Smar and Pusa have a special importance. According to S. W., Smar
develops in the bodies of morally good men at the moment of death. This power enables the
soul to rise to the powers of light. Pusa behaves in the opposite way, for it is the power which
conducts morally bad people to the dark side in the state of Connesor.
In the sixth circle the visible world begins, which only appears to be so sharply divided from
the other side in consequence of the fickleness of our organs of sense. In reality the transition
is a very gradual one, and there are people who live on a higher stage of knowledge because
their perceptions and sensations are more delicate than those of others. Great seers are
enabled to see manifestations of force where ordinary people can perceive nothing. S. W. sees
Magnesor as a white or bluish vapour, which chiefly develops when good spirits are near.
Connesor is a dark vapour-like fluid, which, like Magnesor, develops on the appearance of
"black" spirits. For instance, the night before the beginning of great visions the shiny vapour
of Magnesor spreads in thick layers, out of which, the good spirits grow to visible white
forces. It is just the same with Connesor. But these powers have their different mediums. S.
W. is a Magnesor medium, as were the Prophetess of Prevorst and Swedenborg. The
materialisation mediums of the spiritualists are mostly Connesor mediums, because
materialisation takes place much more easily through Connesor on account of its close
connection with the properties of matter. In the summer of 1900 S. W. tried several times to
produce the circles of matter, but she never arrived at other than vague and incomprehensible
hints and afterwards spoke no more about this.
Conclusion.—The really interesting and valuable séances came to an end with the production
of the system of powers. Before this a gradual decline in the vividness of the ecstasies was
noticeable. Ulrich von Gerbenstein came increasingly to the front, and filled up the séances
with his childish chatter. The visions which S. W. had in the meantime likewise seem to have
lost vividness and plasticity of formation, for S. W. was afterwards only able to feel pleasant
sensations in the presence of good spirits, and disagreeableness in that of bad spirits. Nothing
new was produced. There was something of uncertainty in the trance talks, as if feeling and
seeking for the impression which she was making upon the audience, together with an
increasing staleness in the content. In the outward behaviour of S. W. there arose also a
marked shyness and uncertainty, so that the impression of wilful deception became ever
stronger. The writer therefore soon withdrew from the séances. S. W. experimented
afterwards in other circles, and six months after my leaving was caught cheating in flagranti
delicto. She wanted to arouse again by spiritualistic experiments the lost belief in her
supernatural powers; she concealed small objects in her dress, throwing them up in the air
during the dark séance. With this her part was played out. Since then, eighteen months have
passed during which I have not seen S. W. I have learnt from an observer who knew her in the
earlier days, that she has now and again strange states of short duration during which she is
very pale and silent, and has a fixed glittering look. I did not hear any more of visions. She is
said not to take part any longer in spiritualistic séances. S. W. is now in a large business, and
according to all accounts is an industrious and responsible person who does her work eagerly
and cleverly, giving entire satisfaction. According to the account of trustworthy persons, her
character has much improved; she has become quieter, more regular and sympathetic. No
other abnormalities have appeared in her. This case, in spite of its incompleteness, contains a
mass of psychological problems whose exposition goes far beyond the limits of this little
work. We must therefore be satisfied with a mere sketch of the various striking
manifestations. For the sake of a more lucid exposition it seems better to review the various
states separately.
1. The Waking State.—Here the patient shows various peculiarities. As we have seen, at
school she was often distracted, lost herself in a peculiar way, was moody; her behaviour
changes inconsequently, now quiet, shy, reserved, now lively, noisy and talkative. She cannot
be called unintelligent, but she strikes one sometimes as narrow-minded, sometimes as having
isolated intelligent moments. Her memory is good on the whole, but owing to her distraction
it is much impaired. Thus, despite much discussion and reading of Kerner's "Seherin von
Prevorst," for many weeks, she does not know, if directly asked, whether the author's name is
Koerner or Kerner, nor the name of the Prophetess. All the same, when it occasionally comes
up, the name Kerner is correctly written in the automatic communications. In general it may
be said that her character has something extremely impulsive, incomprehensible, protean.
Deducting the want of balance due to puberty, there remains a pathological residue which
expresses itself in reactions which follow no rule and a bizarre unaccountable character. This
character may be called déséquilibré, or unstable. Its specific mould is derived from traits
which can certainly be regarded as hysterical. This is decidedly so in the conditions of
distraction. As Janet[22] maintains, the foundation of hysterical anæsthesia is the loss of
attention. He was able to prove in youthful hysterics "a striking indifference and distracted
attention in the whole region of the emotional life." Misreading is a notable instance, which
beautifully illustrates hysterical dispersion of attention. The psychology of this process may
perhaps be viewed as follows: during reading aloud attention becomes paralysed for this act
and is directed towards some other object. Meanwhile the reading is continued mechanically,
the sense impressions are received as before, but in consequence of the dispersion the
excitability of the perceptive centre is lowered, so that the strength of the sense impression is
no longer adequate to fix the attention in such a way that perception as such is conducted
along the motor speech route; thus all the inflowing associations which at once unite with any
new sense impression are repressed. The further psychological mechanism permits of only
two possible explanations: (1) The admission of the sense impression is received
unconsciously (because of the increase of threshold stimulus), in the perceptive centre just
below the threshold of consciousness, and consequently is not incorporated in the attention
and conducted back to the speech route. It only reaches verbal expression through the
intervention of the nearest associations, in our case through the dialect expression[23] for the
object. (2) The sense impression is perceived consciously, but at the moment of its entrance
into the speech route it reaches a territory whose excitability is diminished by the dispersion
of attention. At this place the dialect word is substituted by association for the motor speech
image, and it is uttered as such. In either case it is certain that it is the acoustic dispersed
attention which fails to correct the error. Which of the two explanations is correct cannot be
proved in this case; probably both approach the truth, for the dispersion of attention seems to
be general, and in each case concerns more than one of the centres engaged in the act of
reading aloud. In our case this phenomenon has a special value, for we have here a quite
elementary automatic phenomenon. It may be called hysterical in so far as in this concrete
case a state of exhaustion and intoxication, with its parallel manifestations, can be excluded.
A healthy person only exceptionally allows himself to be so engaged by an object that he fails
to correct the errors of a dispersed attention—those of the kind described. The frequency of
these occurrences in the patient point to a considerable limitation of the field of
consciousness, in so far as she can only master a relative minimum of elementary sensations
flowing in at the same time. If we wish to describe more exactly the psychological state of the
"psychic shady side," we might call it either a sleeping or a dream-state, according as
passivity or activity predominated. There is, at all events, a pathological dream-state of very
rudimentary extension and intensity and its genesis is spontaneous; dream-states arising
spontaneously, with the production of automatisms, are generally regarded as hysterical on
the whole. It must be pointed out that these instances of misreading occurred frequently in our
subject, and that the term hysterical is employed in this sense; so far as we know, it is only on
a foundation of hysterical constitution that spontaneous states of partial sleep or dreams occur
frequently.
Binet[24] has studied experimentally the automatic substitution of some adjacent association
in his hysterics. If he pricked the anæsthetic hand of the patient without his noticing the prick,
he thought of "points"; if the anæsthetic finger was moved, he thought of "sticks" or
"columns." When the anæsthetic hand, concealed from the patient's sight by a screen, writes
"Salpêtrière," she sees in front of her the word "Salpêtrière" in white writing on a black
ground. This recalls the experiments above referred to of Guinon and Sophie Waltke.
We thus find in our subject, at a time when there was nothing to indicate the later phenomena,
rudimentary automatisms, fragments of dream manifestations, which imply in themselves the
possibility that some day more than one association would creep in between the perception of
the dispersed attention and consciousness. The misreading shows us, moreover, a certain
automatic independence of the psychical elements. This occasionally expands to a more or
less fleeting dispersion of attention, although with very slight results which are never in any
way striking or suspicious; this dispersedness approximates to that of the physiological
dream. The misreading can be thus conceived as a prodromal symptom of the later events;
especially as its psychology is prototypical for the mechanism of somnambulic dreams, which
are indeed nothing but a many-sided multiplication and manifold variation of the elementary
processes reviewed above. I never succeeded in demonstrating during my observations
similar rudimentary automatisms. It would seem that in course of time the states of dispersed
attention, to a certain extent beneath the surface of consciousness, at first of low degree have
grown into these remarkable somnambulic attacks; hence they disappeared during the waking
state, which was free from attacks. So far as concerns the development of the patient's
character, beyond a certain not very extensive ripening, no remarkable change could be
demonstrated during the observations lasting nearly two years. More remarkable is the fact
that in the two years since the cessation (complete?) of the somnambulic attacks, a
considerable change in character has taken place. We shall have occasion later on to speak of
the importance of this observation.
Semi-Somnambulism.—In S. W.'s case the following condition was indicated by the term
semi-somnambulism. For some time after and before the actual somnambulic attack the
patient finds herself in a state whose most salient feature can best be described as
"preoccupation." She only lends half an ear to the conversation around her, answers at
random, often gets absorbed in all manner of hallucinations; her face is solemn, her look
ecstatic, visionary, ardent. Closer observation discloses a far-reaching alteration of the entire
character. She is now serious, dignified; when she speaks her subject is always an extremely
serious one. In this condition she can talk so seriously, forcibly and convincingly, that one is
tempted to ask oneself if this is really a girl of fifteen and a half. One has the impression of a
mature woman possessed of considerable dramatic talent. The reason for this seriousness, this
solemnity of behaviour, is given in her explanation that at these times she stands at the
frontier of this world and the other, and associates just as truly with the spirits of the dead as
with living people. And, indeed, her conversation is usually divided between answers to real
objective questions and hallucinatory ones. I call this state semi-somnambulism because it
coincides with Richet's own definition. He[25] says: "La conscience de cet individu persiste
dans son intégrité apparente, toutefois des opérations très compliquées vont s'accomplir en
dehors de la conscience sans que le moi volontaire et conscient paraisse ressentir une
modification quelconque. Une autre personne sera en lui qui agira, pensera, voudra, sans que
la conscience, c'est à dire le moi réfléchi conscient, aît la moindre notion."
Binet[26] says of this term: "Le terme indique la parenté de cet état avec le somnambulisme
véritable, et en suite il laisse comprendre que la vie somnambulique qui se manifeste durant la
veille est réduite, déprimée, par la conscience normale qui la recouvre."

Automatisms.
Semi-somnambulism is characterised by the continuity of consciousness with that of the
waking state and by the appearance of various automatisms which give evidence of an
activity of the subconscious self, independent of that of consciousness.
Our case shows the following automatic phenomena:

(1) Automatic movements of the table.

 (2) Automatic writing.
(3) Hallucinations.

1. Automatic Movements of the Table.—Before the patient came under my observation she
had been influenced by the suggestion of "table-turning," which she had first come across as a
game. As soon as she entered the circle there appeared communications from members of her
family which showed her to be a medium. I could only find out that, as soon as ever her hand
was placed on the table, the typical movements began. The resulting communications have no
interest for us. But the automatic character of the act itself deserves some discussion, for we
may, without more ado, set aside the imputation that there was any question of intentional and
voluntary pushing or pulling on the part of the patient.
As we know from the investigations of Chevreul,[27] Gley, Lehmann and others, unconscious
motor phenomena are not only of frequent occurrence among hysterical persons, and those
pathologically inclined in other directions, but they are also relatively easily produced in
normal persons who show no other spontaneous automatisms. I have made many experiments
on these lines, and can confirm this observation. In the great majority of instances all that is
required is enough patience to put up with an hour of quiet waiting. In most subjects, motor
automatisms will be obtained in a more or less high degree if contra-suggestions do not
intervene as obstacles. In a relatively small percentage the phenomena arise spontaneously,
i.e. directly under the influence of verbal suggestion or of some earlier auto-suggestion. In
this instance the case is powerfully affected by suggestion. In general, the particular
predisposition is subject to all those laws which also hold good for normal hypnosis.
Nevertheless, certain special circumstances are to be taken into account, conditioned by the
peculiarity of the case. It is not a question of a total hypnosis, but of a partial one, limited
entirely to the motor area of the arm, like the cerebral anæsthesia produced by "magnetic
passes" for a painful spot in the body. We touch the spot in question employing verbal
suggestion or making use of some existing auto-suggestion, using the tactile stimulus which
we know acts suggestively, to bring about the desired partial hypnosis. In accordance with
this procedure, refractory subjects can be brought easily enough to an exhibition of
automatism. The experimenter intentionally gives the table a slight push, or, better, a series of
rhythmic but very slight taps. After a short time he notices that the oscillations become
stronger, that they continue although he has interrupted his own intentional movements. The
experiment has succeeded, the subject has unsuspectingly taken up the suggestion. By this
procedure much more is obtained than by verbal suggestion. In very receptive persons and in
all those cases where movement seems to arise spontaneously, the purposeful tremulous
movements,[28] not perceptible by the subject, assume the rôle of agent provocateur.
In this way persons who, by themselves, have never obtained automatic movements of a
coarse calibre, sometimes assume the unconscious guidance of the table-movements,
provided that the tremors are strong and that the medium understands their meaning. In this
case the medium takes control of the slight oscillations and returns them considerably
strengthened, but rarely at exactly the same instant, generally a few seconds later, in this way
revealing the agent's conscious or unconscious thought. By means of this simple mechanism
there may arise those cases of thought-reading so bewildering at first sight. A very simple
experiment, that succeeds in many cases even with unpractised persons, will serve to illustrate
this. The experimenter thinks, say, of the number four, and then waits, his hands quietly
resting on the table, until he feels that the table makes the first inclination to announce the
number thought of. He lifts his hands off the table immediately, and the number four will be
correctly tilted out. It is advisable in this experiment to place the table upon a soft thick
carpet. By close attention the experimenter will occasionally notice a movement of the table
which is thus represented.

Fig. 2.

(1) Purposeful tremors too slight to be perceived by the subject.

(2) Several very small but perceptible oscillations of the table which indicate that the
subject is responding to them.
(3) The big movements (tilts) of the table, giving the number four that was thought of.
(ab) Denotes the moment when the operator's hands are removed.

This experiment succeeds excellently with well-disposed but inexperienced subjects. After a
little practice the phenomenon indicated is wont to disappear, since by practice the number is
read and reproduced directly from the purposeful movements.[29]
In a responsive medium these purposeful tremors of the experimenter act just as the
intentional taps in the experiment cited above; they are received, strengthened and
reproduced, although slightly wavering. Still they are perceptible and hence act suggestively
as slight tactile stimuli, and by the increase of partial hypnosis give rise to great automatic
movements. This experiment illustrates in the clearest way the increase step by step of auto-
suggestion. Along the path of this auto-suggestion are developed all the automatic phenomena
of a motor nature. How the intellectual content gradually mingles in with the purely motor
need scarcely be elucidated after this discussion. There is no need of a special suggestion for
the evoking of intellectual phenomena. From the outset it is a question of word-presentation,
at least from the side of the experimenter. After the first aimless motor irrelevancies of the
unpractised subject, some word-products or the intentions of the experimenter are soon
reproduced. Objectively the occurrence of an intellectual content must be understood as
follows:—
By the gradual increase of auto-suggestion the motor-range of the arm becomes isolated from
consciousness, that is to say, the perception of the slight movement-impulse is concealed from
consciousness.[30]
By the knowledge gained from consciousness that some intellectual content is possible, there
results a collateral excitation in the speech-area as the means immediately at hand for
intellectual notification. The motor part of word-presentation is necessarily chiefly concerned
with this aiming at notification.[31] In this way we understand the unconscious flowing over
of speech-impulse to the motor-area[32] and conversely the gradual penetration of partial
hypnosis into the speech-area.
In numerous experiments with beginners, as a rule I have observed at the beginning of
intellectual phenomena a relatively large number of completely meaningless words, also often
a series of meaningless single letters. Later on, all kinds of absurdities are produced, e.g.
words or entire sentences with the letters irregularly misplaced or with the order of the letters
all reversed—a kind of mirror-writing. The appearance of the letter or word indicates a new
suggestion; some sort of association is involuntarily joined to it, which is then realised.
Remarkably enough, these are not generally the conscious associations, but quite unexpected
ones, a circumstance showing that a considerable part of the speech-area is already
hypnotically isolated. The recognition of this automatism again forms a fruitful suggestion,
since invariably at this moment the feeling of strangeness arises, if it is not already present in
the pure motor-automatism. The question, "Who is doing this?" "Who is speaking?", is the
suggestion for the synthesis of the unconscious personality which as a rule does not like being
kept waiting too long. Any name is introduced, generally one charged with emotion, and the
automatic splitting of the personality is accomplished. How accidental and how vacillating
this synthesis is at its beginning, the following reports from the literature show. Myers[33]
communicates the following interesting observation on a Mr. A., a member of the Society for
Psychical Research, who was making experiments on himself in automatic writing.

Third Day.
Question: What is man?
Answer: TEFI H HASL ESBLE LIES.
Is that an anagram? Yes.
How many words does it contain? Five.
What is the first word? SEE.
What is the second word? SEEEE.
See? Shall I interpret it myself? Try to.

Mr. A. found this solution: "Life is less able." He was astonished at this intellectual
information, which seemed to him to prove the existence of an intelligence independent of his
own. Therefore he went on to ask:
 Who are you? Clelia.
Are you a woman? Yes.
Have you ever lived upon the earth? No.
Will you come to life? Yes.
When? In six years.
Why are you conversing with me? E if Clelia el.
Mr. A. interpreted this answer as: I Clelia feel.

Fourth Day.
Question: Am I the one who asks the questions? Yes.
Is Clelia there? No.
Who is here then? Nobody.
Does Clelia exist at all? No.
With whom then was I speaking yesterday? With no one.

Janet[34] conducted the following conversation with the subconsciousness of Lucie, who,
meanwhile, was engaged in conversation with another observer. "M'entendez-vous?" asks
Janet. Lucie answers by automatic writing, "Non." "Mais pour répondre il faut entendre?"
"Oui, absolument." "Alors comment faites-vous?" "Je ne sais." "Il faut bien qu'il y ait
quelqu'un qui m'entend?" "Oui." "Qui cela! Autre que Lucie. Eh bien! Une autre personne.
Voulez-vous que nous lui donnions un nom?" "Non." "Si, ce sera plus commode," "Eh bien,
Adrienne!" "Alors, Adrienne, m'entendez-vous?" "Oui."
From these quotations it will be seen in what way the subconscious personality is constructed.
It owes its origin purely to suggestive questions meeting a certain disposition of the medium.
The explanation is the result of the disintegration of the psychical complex; the feeling of the
strangeness of such automatisms then comes in to help, as soon as conscious attention is
directed to the automatic act. Binet[35] remarks on this experiment of Janet's: "Il faut bien
remarquer que si la personnalité d'Adrienne a pu se créer, c'est qu'elle a rencontré une
possibilité psychologique; en d'autres termes, il y avait là des phénomènes désagrégés vivant
séparés de la conscience normale du sujet." The individualisation of the subconsciousness
always denotes a considerable further step of great suggestive influence upon the further
formation of automatisms.[36] So, too, we must regard the origin of the unconscious
personalities in our case.
The objection that there is simulation in automatic table-turning may well be given up, when
one considers the phenomenon of thought-reading from the purposeful tremors which the
patient offered in such plenitude. Rapid, conscious thought-reading demands at the least an
extraordinary degree of practice, which it has been shown the patient did not possess. By
means of the purposeful tremors whole conversations can be carried on, as in our case. In the
same way the suggestibility of the subconscious can be proved objectively if, for instance, the
experimenter with his hand on the table desires that the hand of the medium should no longer
be able to move the table or the glass; contrary to all expectation and to the liveliest
astonishment of the subject, the table will immediately remain immovable. Naturally any
other desired suggestions can be realised, provided they do not overstep by their innervations
the region of partial hypnosis; this proves at the same time the limited nature of the hypnosis.
Suggestions for the legs and the other arm will thus not be obeyed. Table-turning was not an
automatism which belonged exclusively to the patient's semi-somnambulism: on the contrary,
it occurred in the most pronounced form in the waking state, and in most cases then passed
over into semi-somnambulism, the appearance of this being generally announced by
hallucinations, as it was at the first sitting.
2. Automatic Writing.—A second automatic phenomenon, which at the outset corresponds to
a higher degree of partial hypnosis, is automatic writing. It is, according to my experience,
much rarer and more difficult to produce than table-turning. As in table-turning, it is again a
matter of a primary suggestion, to the conscious when sensibility is retained, to the
unconscious when it is obliterated. The suggestion is, however, not a simple one, for it
already bears in itself an intellectual element. "To write" means "to write something." This
special element of the suggestion, which extends beyond the merely motor, often conditions a
certain perplexity on the part of the subject, giving rise to slight contrary suggestions which
hinder the appearance of the automatisms. I have observed in a few cases that the suggestion
is realised, despite its relative venturesomeness (e.g. one directed towards the waking
consciousness of a so-called normal person). However, it takes place in a peculiar way; it first
displaces the purely motor part of the central system concerned in hypnosis, and the deeper
hypnosis is then reached by auto-suggestion from the motor phenomenon, analogous to the
procedure in table-turning described above. The subject,[37] who has a pencil in his hand, is
purposely engaged in conversation whilst his attention is diverted from the writing. The hand
begins to make movements, beginning with many upward strokes and zigzag lines, or a
simple line is made. Occasionally it happens that the pencil does not touch the paper, but
writes in the air. These movements must be conceived as purely motor phenomena, which
correspond to the expression of the motor element in the presentation "write." This
phenomenon is somewhat rare; generally single letters are first written, and what was said
above of table-turning holds true of their combination into words and sentences. True mirror-
writing is also observed here and there. In the majority of cases, and perhaps in all
experiments with beginners who are not under some very special suggestion, the automatic
writing is that of the subject. Occasionally its character may be greatly changed,[38] but this is
secondary, and is always to be regarded as a symptom of the intruding synthesis of a
subconscious personality.
 Fig. 3.
As stated, the patient's automatic writing never came to any very great
development. In these experiments, generally carried out in darkness, she
passed over into semi-somnambulism, or into ecstasy. The automatic
writing had thus the same effect as the preliminary table-turning.
3. The Hallucinations.—The nature of the passing into somnambulism in
the second séance is of psychological importance. As stated, the automatic
phenomena were progressing favourably when darkness came on. The most
interesting event of this séance, so far, was the brusque interruption of the
communication from the grandfather, which was the starting-point of
various debates amongst the members of the circle. These two momentous
occurrences, the darkness and the striking event, seem to have been the
foundation for a rapid deepening of hypnosis, in consequence of which the
hallucinations could be developed. The psychological mechanism of this
process seems to be as follows. The influence of darkness upon the
suggestibility of the sense-organs is well known.[39] Binet[40] states that it
has a special influence on hysterics, producing a state of sleepiness. As is
clear from the foregoing, the patient was in a state of partial hypnosis and
had constituted herself one with the unconscious personality in closest
relationship to her in the domain of speech. The automatic expression of
this personality is interrupted most unexpectedly by a new person, of whose
existence no one had any suspicion. Whence came this cleavage? Obviously
the eager expectation of this first séance had very much occupied the
patient. Her reminiscences of me and my family had probably grouped
themselves around this expectation; hence these suddenly come to light at
the climax of the automatic expression. That it was just my grandfather and
no one else—not, e.g., my deceased father, who, as she knew, was much
closer to me than the grandfather whom I had never known—perhaps
suggests where the origin of this new person is to be sought. It is probably a
dissociation of the personality already present which seized upon the
material next at hand for its expression, namely, upon the associations
concerning myself. How far this is parallel to the experiences revealed by
dream investigation (Freud's[41]) must remain undecided, for we have no
means of judging how far the effect mentioned can be considered a
"repressed" one. From the brusque interruption of the new personality, we
may conclude that the presentations concerned were very vivid, with
corresponding intensity of expectation. This perhaps was an attempt to
overcome a certain maidenly shyness and embarrassment. This event
reminds us vividly of the manner in which the dream presents to
consciousness, by a more or less transparent symbolism, things one has
never said to oneself clearly and openly. We do not know when this
dissociation of the new personality occurred, whether it had been slowly
prepared in the unconscious, or whether it first occurred in the séance. In
any case, this event meant a considerable increase in the extension of the
unconscious sphere rendered accessible through the hypnosis. At the same
time this event must be regarded as powerfully suggestive in regard to the
impression which it made upon the waking consciousness of the patient.
For the perception of this unexpected intervention of a new power must
inevitably excite a feeling of the strangeness of the automatisms, and would
easily suggest the thought that an independent spirit is here making itself
known. Hence the intelligible association that she would finally be able to
see this spirit. The situation that ensued at the second séance is to be
explained by the coincidence of this energising suggestion with the
heightened suggestibility conditioned by the darkness. The hypnosis, and
with it the series of dissociated presentations, break through to the visual
area, and the expression of the unconscious, hitherto purely motor, is made
objective, according to the measure of the specific energy of the new
system, in the shape of visual images with the character of hallucinations;
not as a mere accompanying phenomenon of the word-automatism, but as a
substituted function. The explanation of the situation that arose in the first
séance, at that time unexpected and inexplicable, is no longer presented in
words, but as a descriptive allegorical vision. The sentence "they do not
hate one another, but are friends," is expressed in a picture. We often
encounter events of this kind in somnambulism. The thinking of
somnambulists is given in plastic images which constantly break into this or
that sense-sphere and are made objective in hallucinations. The process of
reflection sinks into the subconscious; only its end-results arise to
consciousness either as presentations vividly tinged by the senses, or
directly as hallucinations. In our case the same thing occurred as in the
patient whose anæsthetic hand Binet pricked nine times, making her think
of the figure 9; or as in Flournoy's[42] Helen Smith, who, when asked during
business-hours about certain patterns, suddenly saw the number of days
(18) for which they had been lent, at a length of 20 mm. in front of her. The
further question arises, why does the automatism appear in the visual and
not in the acoustic sphere? There are several grounds for this choice of the
visual sphere.
(1) The patient is not gifted acoustically; she is, for instance, very
unmusical.
(2) There was no stillness corresponding to the darkness which might have
favoured the appearance of sounds; there was a lively conversation.
(3) The increased conviction of the near presence of spirits, because the
automatism felt so strange, could easily have aroused the idea that a spirit
might be seen, thus causing a slight excitation of the visual sphere.
(4) The entoptic phenomena in darkness favoured the occurrence of
hallucinations.
The reasons (3) and (4)—the entoptic phenomena in the darkness and the
probable excitation of the visual sphere—are of decisive importance for the
appearance of hallucinations. The entoptic phenomena in this case play the
same rôle in the auto-suggestion, the production of the automatism, as the
slight tactile stimuli in hypnosis of the motor centre. As stated, flashes
preceded the first hallucinatory twilight-state. Obviously attention was
already at a high pitch, and directed to visual perceptions, so that the retina's
own light, usually very weak, was seen with great intensity. The part played
by entoptic perceptions of light in the origin of hallucinations deserves
further consideration. Schüle[43] says: "The swarming of light and colour
which stimulates and animates the field of vision, although in the dark,
supplies the material for phantastic figures in the air before falling asleep.
As we know, absolute darkness is never seen; a few particles of the dark
field of vision are always illumined; flecks of light move here and there,
and combine into all kinds of figures; it only needs a moderately active
imagination to create out of them, as one does out of clouds, certain known
figures. The power of reasoning, fading as one falls asleep, leaves phantasy
free play to construct very vivid figures. In the place of the light spots,
haziness and changing colours of the dark visual field, there arise definite
outlines of objects."[44]
In this way hypnagogic hallucinations arise. The chief rôle naturally
belongs to the imagination, hence imaginative people in particular are
subject to hypnagogic hallucinations.[45] The hypnopompic hallucinations
described by Myers arise in the same way.
It is highly probable that hypnagogic pictures are identical with the dream-
pictures of normal sleep—forming their visual foundation. Maury[46] has
proved from self-observation that the pictures which hovered around him
hypnagogically were also the objects of the dreams that followed. G.
Trumbull Ladd[47] has shown this even more convincingly. By practice he
succeeded in waking himself suddenly two to five minutes after falling
asleep. He then observed that the figures dancing before the retina at times
represented the same contours as the pictures just dreamed of. He even
states that nearly every visual dream is shaped by the retina's own light-
figures. In our case the fantastic rendering of these pictures was favoured by
the situation. We must not underrate the influence of the over-excited
expectation which allowed the dull retina-light to appear with increased
intensity.[48] The further formation of the retinal appearances follows in
accordance with the predominating presentations. That hallucinations
appear in this way has been also observed in other visionaries. Jeanne
d'Arc[49] first saw a cloud of light, and only after some time there stepped
forth St. Michael, St. Catherine and St. Margaret. For a whole hour
Swedenborg[50] saw nothing but illuminated spheres and fiery flames. He
felt a mighty change in the brain, which seemed to him "release of light."
After the space of one hour he suddenly saw red figures which he regarded
as angels and spirits. The sun visions of Benvenuto Cellini[51] in Engelsburg
are probably of the same nature. A student who frequently saw apparitions
stated: "When these apparitions come, at first I only see single masses of
light and at the same time am conscious of a dull noise in the ears.
Gradually these contours become clear figures."
The appearance of hallucinations occurred in a quite classical way in
Flournoy's Helen Smith. I quote the cases in question from his article.[52]
"18 Mars. Tentative d'expérience dans l'obscurité. Mlle. Smith voit un
ballon tantôt luminieux, tantôt s'obscurcissant.
"25 Mars. Mlle. Smith commence à distinguer de vagues lueurs, de longs
rubans blancs, s'agitant du plancher au plafond, puis enfin une magnifique
étoile qui dans l'obscurité s'est montrée à elle seule pendant toute la séance.
"1 Avril. Mlle. Smith se sent très agitée, elle a des frissons, est partiellement
glacée. Elle est très inquiète et voit tout à coup se balançant au-dessus de la
table une figure grimaçante et très laide avec de longs cheveux rouges. Elle
voit alors un magnifique bouquet de roses de nuances diverses; tout à coup
elle voit sortir de dessous le bouquet un petit serpent, qui, rampant
doucement, vient sentir les fleurs, les regarde," etc.
Helen Smith[53] says in regard to the origin of her vision of March:
"La lueur rouge persista autour de moi et je me suis trouvée entourée de
fleurs extraordinaires."
At all times the complex hallucinations of visionaries have occupied a
peculiar place in scientific criticism. Macario[54] early separated these so-
called intuition-hallucinations from others, since he maintains that they
occur in persons of an eager mind, deep understanding and high nervous
excitability. Hecker[55] expresses himself similarly but more
enthusiastically.
His view is that their condition is "the congenital high development of the
spiritual organ which calls into active, free and mobile play the life of the
imagination, bringing it spontaneous activity." These hallucinations are
"precursors or signs of mighty spiritual power." The vision is "an increased
excitation which is harmoniously adapted to the most complete health of
mind and body." The complex hallucinations do not belong to the waking
state, but prefer as a rule a partial waking state. The visionary is buried in
his vision even to complete annihilation. Flournoy was also always able to
prove in the visions of H.S. "un certain degré d'obnubilation." In our case
the vision is complicated by a state of sleep whose peculiarities we shall
review later.
 The Change in Character.
The most striking characteristic of the second stage in our case is the
change in character. We meet many cases in the literature which have
offered the symptom of spontaneous character-change. The first case in a
scientific publication is Weir-Mitchell's[56] case of Mary Reynolds.
This was the case of a young woman living in Pennsylvania in 1811. After a
deep sleep of about twenty hours she had totally forgotten her entire past
and everything she had learnt; even the words she spoke had lost their
meaning. She no longer knew her relatives. Slowly she re-learnt to read and
write, but her writing was from right to left. More striking still was the
change in her character. Instead of being melancholy, she was now cheerful
in the extreme. Instead of being reserved, she was buoyant and sociable.
Formerly taciturn and retiring, she was now merry and jocose. Her
disposition was totally changed.[57]
In this state she renounced her former retired life and liked to undertake
adventurous excursions unarmed, through wood and mountain, on foot and
horseback. In one of these excursions she encountered a large black bear,
which she took for a pig. The bear raised himself on his hind legs and
gnashed his teeth at her. As she could not drive her horse on any further, she
took an ordinary stick and hit the bear until it took to flight. Five weeks
later, after a deep sleep, she returned to her earlier state with amnesia for the
interval. These states alternated for about sixteen years. But her last twenty-
five years Mary Reynolds passed exclusively in her second state.
Schroeder von der Kalk[58] reports on the following case: The patient
became ill at the age of sixteen with periodic amnesia, after a previous
tedious illness of three years. Sometimes in the morning after waking she
passed through a peculiar choreic state, during which she made rhythmical
movements with her arms. Throughout the whole day she would then
exhibit a childish, silly behaviour and lost all her educated capabilities.
(When normal she is very intelligent, well-read, speaks French well.) In the
second state she begins to speak faulty French. On the second day she is
again at times normal. The two states are completely separated by amnesia.
[59]
Hoefelt[60] reports on a case of spontaneous somnambulism in a girl who, in
her normal state, was submissive and modest, but in somnambulism was
impertinent, rude and violent. Azam's[61] Felida was, in her normal state,
depressed, inhibited, timid; and in the second state lively, confident,
enterprising to recklessness. The second state gradually became the chief
one, and finally so far suppressed the first state that the patient called her
normal states, lasting now but a short time, "crises." The amnesic attacks
had begun at 14½. In time the second state became milder and there was a
certain approximation between the character of the two states. A very
striking example of change in character is that worked out by Camuset,
Ribot, Legrand du Saulle, Richer, Voisin, and put together by Bourru and
Burot.[62] It is that of Louis V., a severe male hysteric with amnesic
alternating character. In the first stage he is rude, cheeky, querulous, greedy,
thievish, inconsiderate. In the second state he is an agreeable, sympathetic
character, industrious, docile and obedient. This amnesic change of
character has been used by Paul Lindau[63] in his drama "Der Andere" (The
Other One).
Rieger[64] reports on a case parallel to Lindau's criminal lawyer. The
unconscious personalities of Janet's Lucie and Léonie (Janet, l.c.) and
Morton Prince's[65] may also be regarded as parallel with our case. There
are, however, therapeutic artificial products whose importance lies in the
domain of the dissociation of consciousness and of memory.
In the above cases, the second state is always separated from the first by an
amnesic dissociation, and the change in character is, at times, accompanied
by a break in the continuity of consciousness. In our case there is no
amnesic disturbance; the passage from the first to the second stage follows
quite gradually and the continuity of consciousness remains. The patient
carries out in her waking state everything, otherwise unknown to her, from
the field of the unconscious that she has experienced during hallucinations
in the second stage.
Periodic changes in personality without amnesic dissociation are found in
the region of folie circulaire, but are rarely seen in hysterics, as
Renaudin's[66] case shows. A young man, whose behaviour had always been
excellent, suddenly began to display the worst tendencies. There were no
symptoms of insanity, but, on the other hand, the whole surface of the body
was anæsthetic. This state showed periodic intervals, and in the same way
the patient's character was subject to vacillations. As soon as the anæsthesia
disappeared he was manageable and friendly. When the anæsthesia returned
he was overcome by the worst instincts, which, it was observed, even
included the wish to murder.
Remembering that our patient's age at the beginning of the disturbances was
14-1/2, that is, the age of puberty had just been reached, one must suppose
that there was some connection between the disturbances and the
physiological character-changes at puberty. "There appears in the
consciousness of the individual during this period of life a new group of
sensations, together with the feelings and ideas arising therefrom; this
continuous pressure of unaccustomed mental states makes itself constantly
felt because the cause is always at work; the states are co-ordinated because
they arise from one and the same source, and must little by little bring about
deep-seated changes in the ego."[67] Vacillating moods are easily
recognisable; the confused new, strong feelings, the inclination towards
idealism, to exalted religiosity and mysticism, side by side with the falling
back into childishness, all this gives to adolescence its prevailing character.
At this epoch the human being first makes clumsy attempts at independence
in every direction; for the first time uses for his own purposes all that
family and school have contributed hitherto; he conceives ideals, constructs
far-reaching plans for the future, lives in dreams whose content is ambitious
and egotistic. This is all physiological. The puberty of a psychopathic is a
crisis of more serious import. Not only do the psychophysical changes run a
stormy course, but features of a hereditary degenerate character become
fixed. In the child these do not appear at all, or but sporadically. For the
explanation of our case we are bound to consider a specific disturbance of
puberty. The reasons for this view will appear from a further study of the
second personality. (For the sake of brevity we shall call the second
personality Ivenes—as the patient baptised her higher ego).
Ivenes is the exact continuation of the everyday ego. She includes the whole
of her conscious content. In the semi-somnambulic state her intercourse
with the real external world is analogous to that of the waking state, that is,
she is influenced by recurrent hallucinations, but no more than persons who
are subject to non-confusional psychotic hallucinations. The continuity of
Ivenes obviously extends to the hysterical attack with its dramatic scenes,
visionary events, etc. During the attack itself she is generally isolated from
the external world; she does not notice what is going on around her, does
not know that she is talking loudly, etc. But she has no amnesia for the
dream-content of her attack. Amnesia for her motor expressions and for the
changes in her surroundings is not always present. That this is dependent
upon the degree of intensity of her somnambulic state and that there is
sometimes partial paralysis of individual sense organs is proved by the
occasion when she did not notice me; her eyes were then open, and most
probably she saw the others, although she only perceived me when I spoke
to her. This is a case of so-called systematised anæsthesia (negative
hallucination) which is often observed in hysterics.
Flournoy,[68] for instance, reports of Helen Smith that during the séances
she suddenly ceased to see those taking part, although she still heard their
voices and felt their touch; sometimes she no longer heard, although she
saw the movements of the lips of the speakers, etc.
Ivenes is just the continuation of the waking self. She contains the entire
consciousness of S. W.'s waking state. Her remarkable behaviour tells
decidedly against any analogy with cases of double consciousness. The
characteristics of Ivenes contrast favourably with the patient's ordinary self.
She is a calmer, more composed personality; her pleasing modesty and
accuracy, her uniform intelligence, her confident way of talking must be
regarded as an improvement of the whole being; thus far there is analogy
with Janet's Léonie. But this is the extent of the similarity. Apart from the
amnesia, they are divided by a deep psychological difference. Léonie II. is
the healthier, the more normal; she has regained her natural capabilities, she
shows remarkable improvement upon her chronic condition of hysteria.
Ivenes rather gives the impression of a more artificial product; there is
something thought out; despite all her excellences she gives the impression
of playing a part excellently; her world-sorrow, her yearning for the other
side of things, are not merely piety but the attributes of saintliness. Ivenes is
no mere human, but a mystic being who only partly belongs to reality. The
mournful features, the attachment to sorrow, her mysterious fate, lead us to
the historic prototype of Ivenes—Justinus Kerner's "Prophetess of
Prevorst." Kerner's book must be taken as known, and therefore I omit any
references to these common traits. But Ivenes is no copy of the prophetess;
she lacks the resignation and the saintly piety of the latter. The prophetess is
merely used by her as a study for her own original conception. The patient
pours her own soul into the rôle of the prophetess, thus seeking to create an
ideal of virtue and perfection. She anticipates her future. She incarnates in
Ivenes what she wishes to be in twenty years—the assured, influential,
wise, gracious, pious lady. It is in the construction of the second person that
there lies the far-reaching difference between Léonie II. and Ivenes. Both
are psychogenic. But Léonie I. receives in Léonie II. what really belongs to
her, while S. W. builds up a person beyond herself. It cannot be said "she
deceives herself" into, but that "she dreams herself" into the higher ideal
state.[69]
The realisation of this dream recalls vividly the psychology of the
pathological cheat. Delbruck[70] and Forel[71] have indicated the importance
of auto-suggestion in the formation of pathological cheating and reverie.
Pick[72] regards intense auto-suggestibility as the first symptom of the
hysterical dreamer, making possible the realisation of the "day-dream." One
of Pick's patients dreamt that she was in a morally dangerous situation, and
finally carried out an attempt at rape on herself; she lay on the floor naked
and fastened herself to a table and chairs. Or some dramatic person will be
created with whom the patient enters into correspondence by letter, as in
Bohn's case.[73] The patient dreamt herself into an engagement with a
totally imaginary lawyer in Nice, from whom she received letters which she
had herself written in disguised handwriting. This pathological dreaming,
with auto-suggestive deceptions of memory amounting to real delusions and
hallucinations, is pre-eminently to be found in the lives of many saints.[74]
It is only a step from the dreamlike images strongly stamped by the senses
to the true complex hallucinations.[75] In Pick's case, for instance, one sees
that the patient, who persuades herself that she is the Empress Elizabeth,
gradually loses herself in her dreams to such an extent that her condition
must be regarded as a true "twilight" state. Later it passes over into
hysterical delirium, when her dream-phantasies become typical
hallucinations. The pathological liar, who becomes involved through his
phantasies, behaves exactly like a child who loses himself in his play, or
like the actor who loses himself in his part.[76] There is here no fundamental
distinction from somnambulic dissociation of personality, but only a
difference of degree, which rests upon the intensity of the primary auto-
suggestibility or disintegration of the psychic elements. The more
consciousness becomes dissociated, the greater becomes the plasticity of
the dream situation, the less becomes the amount of conscious lying and of
consciousness in general. This being carried away by interest in the object
is what Freud calls hysterical identification. For instance, to Erler's[77]
acutely hysterical patient there appeared hypnagogically little riders made
of paper, who so took possession of her imagination that she had the feeling
of being herself one of them. Similar phenomena normally occur to us in
dreams in general, in which we think like "hysterics."[78]
The complete abandonment to the interesting image explains also the
wonderful naturalness of pseudological or somnambulic representation—a
degree unattainable in conscious acting. The less waking consciousness
intervenes by reflection and reasoning, the more certain and convincing
becomes the objectivation of the dream, e.g. the roof-climbing of
somnambulists.
Our case has another analogy with pseudologia phantastica: The
development of the phantasies during the attacks. Many cases are known in
the literature where the pathological lying comes on in attacks and during
serious hysterical trouble.[79]
Our patient develops her systems exclusively in the attack. In her normal
state she is quite incapable of giving any new ideas or explanations; she
must either transpose herself into somnambulism or await its spontaneous
appearance. This exhausts the affinity to pseudologia phantastica and to
pathological dream-states.
Our patient's state is even differentiated from pathological dreaming, since
it could never be proved that her dream-weavings had at any time
previously been the objects of her interest during the day. Her dreams occur
explosively, break forth with bewildering completeness from the darkness
of the unconscious. Exactly the same was the case in Flournoy's Helen
Smith. In many cases (see below), however, links with the perceptions of
the normal states can be demonstrated: it seems therefore probable that the
roots of every dream were originally images with an emotional
accentuation, which, however, only occupied waking consciousness for a
short time.[80] We must allow that in the origin of such dreams hysterical
forgetfulness[81] plays a part not to be underestimated.
Many images are buried which would be sufficient to put the consciousness
on guard; associated classes of ideas are lost and go on spinning their web
in the unconscious, thanks to the psychic dissociation; this is a process
which we meet again in the genesis of our dreams.
"Our conscious reflection teaches us that when exercising attention we
pursue a definite course. But if that course leads us to an idea which does
not meet with our approval, we discontinue and cease to apply our
attention. Now, apparently, the chain of thought thus started and abandoned,
may go on without regaining attention unless it reaches a spot of especially
marked intensity, which compels renewed attention. An initial rejection,
perhaps consciously brought about by the judgment on the ground of
incorrectness or unfitness for the actual purpose of the mental act, may
therefore account for the fact that a mental process continues unnoticed by
consciousness until the onset of sleep."[82]
In this way we may explain the apparently sudden and direct appearance of
dream-states. The entire carrying over of the conscious personality into the
dream-rôle involves indirectly the development of simultaneous
automatisms. "Une seconde condition peut amener la division de
conscience; ce n'est pas une altération de la sensibilité, c'est une attitude
particulière de l'esprit, la concentration de l'attention pour un point unique;
il résulte de cet état de concentration que l'esprit devient distrait pour la
reste et en quelque sorte insensible, ce qui ouvre la carrière aux actions
automatiques, et ces actions peuvent prendre un caractère psychique et
constituer des intelligences parasites, vivant côte à côte avec la personnalité
normale qui ne les connaît pas."[83]
Our subject's romances throw a most significant light on the subjective
roots of her dreams. They swarm with secret and open love-affairs, with
illegitimate births and other sexual insinuations. The central point of all
these ambiguous stories is a lady whom she dislikes, who is gradually made
to assume the form of her polar opposite, and whilst Ivenes becomes the
pinnacle of virtue, this lady is a sink of iniquity. But her reincarnation
doctrines, in which she appears as the mother of countless thousands,
arises in its naïve nakedness from an exuberant phantasy which is, of
course, very characteristic of the period of puberty. It is the woman's
premonition of the sexual feeling, the dream of fruitfulness, which the
patient has turned into these monstrous ideas. We shall not go wrong if we
seek for the curious form of the disease in the teeming sexuality of this too-
rich soil. Viewed from this standpoint, the whole creation of Ivenes, with
her enormous family, is nothing but a dream of sexual wish-fulfilment,
differentiated from the dream of a night only in that it persists for months
and years.

Relation to the Hysterical Attack.

So far one point in S. W.'s history has remained unexplained, and that is her
attack. In the second séance she was suddenly seized with a sort of fainting
fit, from which she awoke with a recollection of various hallucinations.
According to her own statement, she had not lost consciousness for a
moment. Judging from the external symptoms and the course of the attack,
one is inclined to regard it as a narcolepsy, or rather a lethargy; such, for
example, as Loewenfeld has described, and the more readily as we know
that previously one member of her family (her grandmother) has had an
attack of lethargy. It is possible to imagine that the lethargic disposition
(Loewenfeld) had descended to our subject. In spiritualistic séances it is not
usual to see hysterical convulsions. Our subject showed no sort of
convulsive symptoms, but in their place, perhaps, the peculiar sleeping-
states. Ætiologically, at the outset, two moments must be taken into
consideration:
1. The irruption of hypnosis.
2. The psychic stimulation.
1. Irruption of Partial Hypnosis.—Janet observes that the subconscious
automatisms have a hypnotic influence and can bring about complete
somnambulism.[84]
He made the following experiment: While the patient, who was in the
completely waking state, was engaged in conversation by a second
observer, Janet stationed himself behind her and by means of whispered
suggestions made her unconsciously move her hand and by written signs
give an answer to questions. Suddenly the patient broke off the
conversation, turned round and with her supraliminal consciousness
continued the previously subconscious talk with Janet. She had fallen into
hypnotic somnambulism.[85]
There is here a state of affairs similar to our patient's. But it must be noted
that, for certain reasons discussed later, the sleeping state is not to be
regarded as hypnotic. We therefore come to the question of—
2. The Psychic Stimulation.—It is told of Bettina Brentano that the first
time she met Goethe she suddenly fell asleep on his knee.[86]
This ecstatic sleep in the midst of extremest torture, the so-called "witch-
sleep," is well known in the history of trials for witchcraft.[87]
With susceptible subjects relatively insignificant stimuli suffice to bring
about the somnambulic state. Thus a sensitive lady had to have a splinter
cut out of her finger. Without any kind of bodily change she suddenly saw
herself sitting by the side of a brook in a beautiful meadow, plucking
flowers. This condition lasted as long as the slight operation and then
disappeared spontaneously.[88]
Loewenfeld[89] has noticed unintentional inducement of hysterical lethargy
through hypnosis.
Our case has certain resemblances to hysterical lethargy[90] as described by
Loewenfeld, viz. the shallow breathing, the diminution of the pulse, the
corpse-like pallor of the face, and further the peculiar feeling of dying and
the thoughts of death.[91]
The retention of one sense is not inconsistent with lethargy: thus in certain
cases of trance the sense of hearing remains.[92]
In Bonamaison's[93] case not only was the sense of touch retained, but the
senses of hearing and smell were quickened. The hallucinatory content and
loud speaking is also met with in persons with hallucinations in lethargy.[94]
Usually there prevails total amnesia for the lethargic interval.
Loewenfeld's[95] case D. had, however, a fleeting recollection; in
Bonamaison's case there was no amnesia. Lethargic patients do not prove
susceptible to the usual waking stimuli, but Loewenfeld succeeded with his
patient St. in turning the lethargy into hypnosis by means of mesmeric
passes, thus combining it with the rest of consciousness during the attack.
[96]Our patient showed herself absolutely insusceptible in the beginning of
the lethargy, but later on she began to speak spontaneously, was incapable
of giving any attention when her somnambulic ego was speaking, but could
attend when it was one of her automatic personalities. In this last case it is
probable that the hypnotic effect of the automatisms succeeded in achieving
a partial transformation of the lethargy into hypnosis. When we consider
that, according to Loewenfeld's view, the lethargic disposition must not be
"too readily identified with the peculiar condition of the nervous apparatus
in hysteria," then the idea of the family heredity of this disposition in our
case becomes not a little probable. The disease is much complicated by
these attacks.
So far we have seen that the patient's consciousness of her ego is identical
in all the states. We have discussed two secondary complexes of
consciousness and have followed them into the somnambulic attack, where
they appear as the patient's vision when she had lost her motor activity
during the attack. During the next attacks she was impervious to any
external incidents, but on the other hand developed, within the twilight
state, all the more intense activity, in the form of visions. It seems that many
secondary series of ideas must have split off quite early from the primary
unconscious personality, for already, after the first two séances, "spirits"
appeared by the dozen. The names were inexhaustible in variety, but the
differences between the personalities were soon exhausted and it became
apparent that they could all be subsumed under two types, the serio-
religious type and the gay-hilarious. So far it was really only a matter of
two different unconscious personalities, which appeared under different
names but had no essential differences. The older type, the grandfather, who
had initiated the automatisms, also first began to make use of the twilight
state. I am not able to remember any suggestion which might have given
rise to the automatic speaking. According to the preceding view, the attack
in such circumstances might be regarded as a partial auto-hypnosis. The
ego-consciousness which remains and, as a result of its isolation from the
external world, occupies itself entirely with its hallucinations, is what is left
over of the waking consciousness. Thus the automatism has a wide field for
its activity. The independence of the individual central spheres which we
have proved at the beginning to be present in the patient, makes the
automatic act of speaking appear intelligible. Just as the dreamer on
occasion speaks in his sleep, so, too, a man in his waking hours may
accompany intensive thought with an unconscious whisper.[97] The peculiar
movements of the speech-musculature are to be noted. They have also been
observed in other somnambulists.[98]
These clumsy attempts must be directly paralleled with the unintelligent
and clumsy movements of the table or glass, and most probably correspond
to the preliminary activity of the motor portion of the presentation; that is to
say, a stimulus limited to the motor-centre which has not previously been
subordinated to any higher system. Whether the like occurs in persons who
talk in their dreams, I do not know. But it has been observed in hypnotised
persons.[99]
Since the convenient medium of speech was used as the means of
communication, the study of the subconscious personalities was
considerably lightened. Their intellectual compass is a relatively mediocre
one. Their knowledge is greater than that of the waking patient, including
also a few occasional details, such as the birthdays of dead strangers and the
like. The source of these is more or less obscure, since the patient does not
know whence in the ordinary way she could have procured the knowledge
of these facts. These are cases of so-called cryptomnesia, which are too
unimportant to deserve more extended notice. The intelligence of the two
subconscious persons is very slight; they produce banalities almost
exclusively, but their relation to the conscious ego of the patient when in the
somnambulic state is interesting. They are invariably aware of everything
that takes place during ecstasy and occasionally they render an exact report
from minute to minute.[100]
The subconscious persons only know the patient's phantastic changes of
thought very superficially; they do not understand these and cannot answer
a single question concerning the situation. Their stereotyped reference to
Ivenes is: "Ask Ivenes." This observation reveals a dualism in the character
of the subconscious personalities difficult to explain; for the grandfather,
who gives information by automatic speech, also appears to Ivenes and,
according to her account, teaches her about the objects in question. How is
it that, when the grandfather speaks through the patient's mouth, he knows
nothing of the very things which he himself teaches her in the ecstasies?
We must again return to the discussion of the first appearance of the
hallucinations. We picture the vision, then, as an irruption of hypnosis into
the visual sphere. That irruption does not lead to a "normal" hypnosis, but
to a "hystero-hypnosis," that is, the simple hypnosis is complicated by a
hysterical attack.
It is not a rare occurrence in the domain of hypnotism for normal hypnosis
to be disturbed, or rather to be replaced by the unexpected appearance of
hysterical somnambulism; the hypnotist in many cases then loses rapport
with the patient. In our case the automatism arising in the motor area plays
the part of hypnotist; the suggestions proceeding from it (called objective
auto-suggestions) hypnotise the neighbouring areas in which a certain
susceptibility has arisen. At the moment when the hypnotism flows over
into the visual sphere, the hysterical attack occurs which, as remarked,
effects a very deep-reaching change in a large portion of the psychical
region. We must now suppose that the automatism stands in the same
relationship to the attack as the hypnotist to a pathological hypnosis; its
influence upon the further structure of the situation is lost. The
hallucinatory appearance of the hypnotised personality, or rather of the
suggested idea, may be regarded as the last effect upon the somnambulic
personality. Thenceforward the hypnotist becomes only a figure with whom
the somnambulic personality occupies itself independently: he can only
state what is going on and is no longer the conditio sine qua non of the
content of the somnambulic attack. The independent ego-complex of the
attack, in our case Ivenes, has now the upper hand. She groups her own
mental products around the personality of the hypnotiser, that is, of the
grandfather, now degraded to a mere image. In this way we are enabled to
understand the dualism in the character of the grandfather. The grandfather
I. who speaks directly to those present, is a totally different person and a
mere spectator of his double, grandfather II., who appears as Ivenes'
teacher. Grandfather I. maintains energetically that both are one and the
same person, and that I. has all the knowledge which II. possesses, and is
only prevented from giving information by the difficulties of speech. (The
dissociation was of course not realized by the patient, who took both to be
one person.) Grandfather I., if closely examined, however, is not altogether
wrong, judging from one fact which seems to make for the identity of I. and
II., viz. that they are never both present together. When I. speaks
automatically, II. is not present; Ivenes remarks on his absence. Similarly,
during the ecstasy, when she is with II., she cannot say where I. is, or she
may learn only on returning from an imaginary journey that meanwhile I.
has been guarding her body. Conversely I. never says that he is going on a
journey with Ivenes and never explains anything to her. This behaviour
should be noted, for if I. is really separate from II., there seems no reason
why he should not speak automatically at the same time that II. appears, and
be present with II. in the ecstasy. Although this might have been supposed
possible, as a matter of fact it was never observed. How is this dilemma to
be resolved? At all events there exists an identity of I. and II., but it does
not lie in the region of the personality under discussion; it lies in the basis
common to both; that is, in the personality of the subject which in deepest
essence is one and indivisible. Here we come across the characteristic of all
hysterical dissociations of consciousness. They are disturbances which only
belong to the superficial, and none reaches so deep as to attack the strong-
knit foundation of the ego-complex.
In many such cases we can find the bridge which, although often well-
concealed, spans the apparently impassable abyss. For instance, by
suggestion, one of four cards is made invisible to a hypnotised person; he
thereupon names the other three. A pencil is placed in his hand with the
instruction to write down all the cards lying there; he correctly adds the
fourth one.[101]
In the aura of his hystero-epileptic attacks a patient of Janet's[102] invariably
had a vision of a conflagration, and whenever he saw an open fire he had an
attack; indeed, the sight of a lighted match was sufficient to bring about an
attack. The patient's visual field on the left side was limited to 30°, the right
eye was shut. The left eye was fixed in the middle of a perimeter whilst a
lighted match was held at 80°. The hystero-epileptic attack took place
immediately. Despite the extensive amnesia in many cases of double
consciousness, the patients' behaviour does not correspond to the degree of
their ignorance, but it seems rather as if a deeper instinct guided their
actions in accordance with their former knowledge. Not only this relatively
slight amnesic dissociation, but the severe amnesia of the epileptic twilight-
state, formerly regarded as irreparabile damnum, does not suffice to cut the
inmost threads which bind the ego-complex in the twilight-state to the
normal ego. In one case the content of the twilight-state could be grafted on
to the waking ego-complex.[103]
Making use of these experiments for our case, we obtain the helpful
hypothesis that those layers of the unconscious beyond reach of the
dissociation endeavour to present the unity of automatic personality. This
endeavour is shattered in the deeper-seated and more elemental disturbance
of the hysterical attack,[104] which prevents a more complete synthesis by
the tacking on of associations which are to a certain extent the most original
individual property of supraliminal personality. As the Ivenes dream
emerged it was fitted on to the figures accidentally in the field of vision, and
henceforth remains associated with them.

Relationship to the Unconscious Personality.

As we have seen, the numerous personalities become grouped round two
types, the grandfather and Ulrich von Gerbenstein. The first produces
exclusively sanctimonious religiosity and gives edifying moral precepts.
The latter is, in one word, a "flapper," in whom there is nothing male except
the name. We must here add from the anamnesis that at fifteen the patient
was confirmed by a very bigoted clergyman, and at home she is
occasionally the recipient of sanctimonious moral talks. The grandfather
represents this side of her past, Gerbenstein the other half; hence the curious
contrast. Here we have personified the chief characteristics of her past. On
the one hand the sanctimonious person with a narrow education, on the
other the boisterousness of a lively girl of fifteen who often overshoots the
mark.[105] We find both sets of traits mixed in the patient in sharp contrast.
At times she is anxious, shy, and extremely reserved; at others boisterous to
a degree. She is herself often most painfully aware of these contradictions.
This circumstance gives us the key to the source of the two unconscious
personalities. The patient is obviously seeking a middle path between the
two extremes; she endeavours to repress them and strains after some ideal
condition. These strainings bring her to the puberty dream of the ideal
Ivenes, beside whose figure the unacknowledged trends of her character
recede into the background. They are not lost, however, but as repressed
ideas, analogous to the Ivenes idea, begin an independent existence as
automatic personalities.
S. W.'s behaviour recalls vividly Freud's[106] investigations into dreams
which disclose the independent growth of repressed thoughts. We can now
comprehend why the hallucinatory persons are separated from those who
write and speak automatically. The former teach Ivenes the secrets of the
Other Side, they relate all those phantastic tales about the extraordinariness
of her personality, they create scenes where Ivenes can appear dramatically
with the attributes of power, wisdom and virtue. These are nothing but
dramatic dissociations of her dream-self. The latter, the automatic persons,
are the ones to be overcome, they must have no part in Ivenes. With the
spirit-companions of Ivenes they have only the name in common. A priori,
it is not to be expected that in a case like ours, where these divisions are
never clearly defined, that two such characteristic individualities should
disappear entirely from a somnambulic ego-complex having so close a
relation with the waking consciousness. And in fact, we do meet them in
part in those ecstatic penitential scenes and in part in the romances
crammed with more or less banal, mischievous gossip.

Course.
It only remains to say a few words about the course of this strange
affection. The process reached its maximum in four to eight weeks. The
descriptions given of Ivenes and of the unconscious personalities belong
generally to this period. Thenceforth a gradual decline was noticeable; the
ecstasies grew meaningless and the influence of Gerbenstein became more
powerful. The phenomena gradually lost their distinctive features, the
characters which were at first well demarcated became by degrees
inextricably mixed. The psychological contribution grew smaller and
smaller until finally the whole story assumed a marked effect of fabrication.
Ivenes herself was much concerned about this decline; she became
painfully uncertain, spoke cautiously, feeling her way, and allowed her
character to appear undisguised. The somnambulic attacks decreased in
frequency and intensity. All degrees from somnambulism to conscious lying
were observable. Thus the curtain fell. The patient has since gone abroad.
We should not underestimate the importance of the fact that her character
has become pleasanter and more stable. Here we may recall the cases cited
in which the second state gradually replaced the first state. Perhaps this is a
similar phenomenon.
It is well known that somnambulic manifestations sometimes begin at
puberty.[107] The attacks of somnambulism in Dyce's case[108] began
immediately before puberty and lasted just till its termination. The
somnambulism of H. Smith is likewise closely connected with puberty.[109]
Schroeder von der Kalk's patient was 16 years old at the time of her illness;
Felida 14-1/2, etc. We know also that at this period the future character is
formed and fixed. In the case of Felida and of Mary Reynolds we saw that
the character in state II. replaced that of state I. It is not therefore
unthinkable that these phenomena of double consciousness are nothing but
character-formations for the future personality, or their attempts to burst
forth. In consequence of special difficulties (unfavourable external
conditions, psychopathic disposition of the nervous system, etc.), these new
formations, or attempts thereat, become bound up with peculiar
disturbances of consciousness. Occasionally the somnambulism, in view of
the difficulties that oppose the future character, takes on a marked
teleological meaning, for it gives the individual, who might otherwise be
defeated, the means of victory. Here I am thinking first of all of Jeanne
d'Arc, whose extraordinary courage recalls the deeds of Mary Reynolds' II.
This is perhaps the place to point out the similar function of the
"hallucination téléologique" of which the public reads occasionally,
although it has not yet been submitted to a scientific study.

The Unconscious Additional Creative Work.

We have now discussed all the essential manifestations offered by our case
which are of significance for its inner structure. Certain accompanying
manifestations may be briefly considered: the unconscious additional
creative work. Here we shall encounter a not altogether unjustifiable
scepticism on the part of the representative of science. Dessoir's conception
of a second ego met with much opposition, and was rejected, as too
impossible in many directions. As is known, occultism has proclaimed a
pre-eminent right to this field and has drawn premature conclusions from
doubtful observations. We are indeed very far from being in a position to
state anything conclusive, since we have at present only most inadequate
material. Therefore if we touch on the field of the unconscious additional
creative work, it is only that we may do justice to all sides of our case. By
unconscious addition we understand that automatic process whose result
does not penetrate to the conscious psychic activity of the individual. To
this region above all belongs thought-reading through table movements. I
do not know whether there are people who can divine a whole long train of
thought by means of inductions from the intentional tremulous movements.
It is, however, certain that, assuming this to be possible, such persons must
be availing themselves of a routine achieved after endless practice. But in
our case long practice can be excluded without more ado, and there is
nothing left but to accept a primary susceptibility of the unconscious, far
exceeding that of the conscious.
This supposition is supported by numerous observations on somnambulists.
I will mention only Binet's[110] experiments, where little letters or some
such thing, or little complicated figures in relief were laid on the anæsthetic
skin of the back of the hand or the neck, and the unconscious perceptions
were then recorded by means of signs. On the basis of these experiments he
came to the following conclusion: "D'après les calculs que j'ai pu faire, la
sensibilité inconsciente d'une hystérique est à certains moments cinquante
fois plus fine que celle d'une personne normale." A second additional
creation coming under consideration in our case and in numerous other
somnambulists, is that condition which French investigators call
"cryptomnesia."[111] By this term is meant the becoming conscious of a
memory-picture which cannot be regarded as in itself primary, but at most
is secondary, by means of subsequent recalling or abstract reasoning. It is
characteristic of cryptomnesia that the picture which emerges does not bear
the obvious mark of the memory-picture, is not, that is to say, bound up
with the idiosyncratic super-conscious ego-complex.
Three ways may be distinguished in which the cryptomnesic picture is
brought to consciousness.
1. The picture enters consciousness without any intervention of the sense-
spheres (intra-psychically). It is an inrushing idea whose causal sequence is
hidden within the individual. In so far cryptomnesia is quite an everyday
occurrence, concerned with the deepest normal psychic events. How often it
misleads the investigator, the author or the composer into believing his
ideas original, whilst the critic quite well recognises their source! Generally
the individuality of the representation protects the author from the
accusation of plagiarism and proves his good faith; still, cases do occur of
unconscious verbal reproduction. Should the passage in question contain
some remarkable idea, the accusation of plagiarism, more or less conscious,
is justified. After all, a valuable idea is linked by numerous associations
with the ego-complex; at different times, in different situations, it has
already been meditated upon and thus leads by innumerable links in all
directions. It can therefore never so disappear from consciousness that its
continuity could be entirely lost from the sphere of conscious memory. We
have, however, a criterion by which we can always recognise objectively
intra-psychic cryptomnesia. The cryptomnesic presentation is linked to the
ego-complex by the minimum of associations. The reason for this lies in the
relation of the individual to the particular object, in the disproportion of
interest to object. Two possibilities occur: (1) The object is worthy of
interest but the interest is slight in consequence of dispersion or want of
understanding; (2) The object is not worthy of interest, consequently the
interest is slight. In both cases an extremely labile connection with
consciousness arises which leads to a rapid forgetting. The slight bridge is
soon destroyed and the acquired presentation sinks into the unconscious,
where it is no longer accessible to consciousness. Should it enter
consciousness by means of cryptomnesia, the feeling of strangeness, of its
being an original creation, will cling to it because the path by which it
entered the subconscious has become undiscoverable. Strangeness and
original creation are, moreover, closely allied to one another if one recalls
the numerous witnesses in belles-lettres to the nature of genius
("possession" by genius).[112]
Apart from certain striking cases of this kind, where it is doubtful whether it
is a cryptomnesia or an original creation, there are some cases in which a
passage of no essential content is reproduced, and that almost verbally, as in
the following example:—

About that time when Zarathustra lived on the blissful islands, it came
to pass that a ship cast anchor at that island on which the smoking
mountain standeth; and the sailors of that ship went ashore in order to
shoot rabbits! But about the hour of noon, when the captain and his
men had mustered again, they suddenly saw a man come through the
air unto them, and a voice said distinctly: "It is time! It is high time!"
But when that person was nighest unto them (he passed by them flying
 quickly like a shadow, in the direction in which the volcano was
situated) they recognised with the greatest confusion that it was
Zarathustra. For all of them, except the captain, had seen him before,
and they loved him, as the folk love, blending love and awe in equal
parts. "Lo! there," said the old steersman, "Zarathustra goeth unto
hell!"
An extract of awe-inspiring import from the log of the ship "Sphinx" in
the year 1686, in the Mediterranean.
Just. Kerner, "Blätter aus Prevorst," vol. IV., p, 57.
The four captains and a merchant, Mr. Bell, went ashore on the island
of Mount Stromboli to shoot rabbits. At three o'clock they called the
crew together to go aboard, when, to their inexpressible astonishment,
they saw two men flying rapidly over them through the air. One was
dressed in black, the other in grey. They approached them very closely,
in the greatest haste; to their greatest dismay they descended amid the
burning flames into the crater of the terrible volcano, Mount
Stromboli. They recognised the pair as acquaintances from London.

Frau E. Förster-Nietzsche, the poet's sister, told me, in reply to my inquiry,

that Nietzsche took up Just. Kerner between the age of twelve and fifteen,
when stopping with his grandfather, Pastor Oehler, in Pobler, but certainly
never afterwards. It could never have been the poet's intention to commit a
plagiarism from a ship's log; if this had been the case, he would certainly
have omitted the very prosaic "to shoot rabbits," which was, moreover,
quite unessential to the situation. In the poetical sketch of Zarathustra's
journey into Hell there was obviously interpolated, half or wholly
unconsciously, that forgotten impression from his youth.
This is an instance which shows all the peculiarities of cryptomnesia. A
quite unessential detail, which deserves nothing but speedy forgetting, is
reproduced with almost verbal fidelity, whilst the chief part of the narrative
is, one cannot say altered, but recreated quite distinctively. To the
distinctive core, the idea of the journey to Hell, there is added a detail, the
old, forgotten impression of a similar situation. The original is so absurd
that the youth, who read everything, probably skipped through it, and
certainly had no deep interest in it. Here we get the required minimum of
associated links, for we cannot easily conceive a greater jump, than from
that old, absurd story to Nietzsche's consciousness in the year 1883. If we
picture to ourselves Nietzsche's mood at the time when "Zarathustra" was
composed,[113] and think of the ecstasy that at more than one point
approached the pathological, we shall comprehend the abnormal
reminiscence. The second of the two possibilities mentioned, the acceptance
of some object, not itself uninteresting, in a state of dispersion or half
interest from lack of understanding, and its cryptomnesic reproduction we
find chiefly in somnambulists; it is also found in the literary chronicles
dealing with dying celebrities.[114]
Amid the exhaustive selection of these phenomena we are chiefly
concerned with talking in a foreign tongue, the so-called glossolalia. This
phenomenon is mentioned everywhere when it is a question of similar
ecstatic conditions. In the New Testament, in the Acta Sanctorum,[115] in the
Witchcraft Trials, more recently in the Prophetess of Prevorst, in Judge
Edmond's daughter Laura, in Flournoy's Helen Smith. The last is unique
from the point of view of investigation; it is found also in Bresler's[116] case,
which is probably identical with Blumhardt's[117] Gottlieben Dittus. As
Flournoy shows, glossolalia is, so far as it really is independent speech, a
cryptomnesic phenomenon, [Greek: Kat' exochên]. The reader should
consult Flournoy's most interesting exposition.
In our case glossolalia was only once observed, when the only
understandable words were the scattered variations on the word "vena." The
source of this word is clear. A few days previously the patient had dipped
into an anatomical atlas for the study of the veins of the face, which were
given in Latin. She had used the word "vena" in her dreams, as happens
occasionally to normal persons. The remaining words and sentences in a
foreign language betray, at the first glance, their derivation from French, in
which the patient was somewhat fluent. Unfortunately I am without the
more accurate translations of the various sentences, because the patient
would not give them; but we may hold that it was a phenomenon similar to
Helen Smith's Martian language. Flournoy found that the Martian language
was nothing but a childish translation from French; the words were changed
but the syntax remained the same. Even more probable is the view that the
patient simply ranged next to each other meaningless words that rang
strangely, without any true word-formation;[118] she borrowed certain
characteristic sounds from French and Italian and combined them into a
kind of language, just as Helen Smith completed the lacunæ in the real
Sanscrit words by products of her own resembling that language. The
curious names of the mystical system can be reduced, for the most part, to
known roots. The writer vividly recalls the botanical schemes found in
every school atlas; the internal resemblance of the relationship of the
planets to the sun is also pretty clear; we shall not be going astray if we see
in the names reminiscences from popular astronomy. Thus can be explained
the names Persus, Fenus, Nenus, Sirum, Surus, Fixus, and Pix, as the
childlike distortions of Perseus, Venus, Sirius and Fixed Star, analogous to
the Vena variations. Magnesor vividly recalls Magnetism, whose mystic
significance the patient knew from the Prophetess of Prevorst. In Connesor,
the contrary to Magnesor, the prefix "con" is probably the French "contre."
Hypnos and Hyfonismus recall hypnosis and hypnotism (German
hypnotismus), about which there are the most superstitious ideas circulating
in lay circles. The most used suffixes in "us" and "os" are the signs by
which as a rule people decide the difference between Latin and Greek. The
other names probably spring from similar accidents to which we have no
clues. The rudimentary glossolalia of our case has not any title to be a
classical instance of cryptomnesia, for it only consisted in the unconscious
use of various impressions, partly optical, party acoustic, and all very close
at hand.
2. The cryptomnesic image arrives at consciousness through the senses (as
a hallucination). Helen Smith is the classic example of this kind. I refer to
the case mentioned on the date "18 Mars."[119]
3. The image arrives at consciousness by motor automatism. H. Smith had
lost her valuable brooch, which she was anxiously looking for everywhere.
Ten days later her guide Leopold informed her by means of the table where
the brooch was. Thus informed, she found it at night-time in the open field,
covered by sand.[120] Strictly speaking, in cryptomnesia there is not any
additional creation in the true sense of the word, since the conscious
memory experiences no increase of its function, but only an enrichment of
its content. By the automatism certain regions are merely made accessible
to consciousness in an indirect way, which were formerly sealed against it.
But the unconscious does not thereby accomplish any creation which
exceeds the capacity of consciousness qualitatively or quantitatively.
Cryptomnesia is only an apparent additional creation, in contrast to
hypermnesia, which actually represents an increase of function.[121]
We have spoken above of a receptivity of the unconscious greater than that
of the consciousness, chiefly in regard to the simple attempts at thought-
reading of numbers. As mentioned, not only our somnambulist but a
relatively large number of normal persons are able to guess from the
tremors lengthy thought-sequences, if they are not too complicated. These
experiments are, so to speak, the prototype of those rarer and incomparably
more astonishing cases of intuitive knowledge displayed at times by
somnambulists.[122] Zschokke[123] in his "Introspection" has shown us that
these phenomena do not belong only to the domain of somnambulism, but
occur among non-somnambulic persons. The formation of such knowledge
seems to be arrived at in various ways: first and foremost there is the
fineness, already noted, of unconscious perceptions; then must be
emphasised the importance of the enormous suggestibility of
somnambulists. The somnambulist not only incorporates every suggestive
idea to some extent, but actually lives in the suggestion, in the person of his
doctor or observer, with that abandonment characteristic of the suggestible
hysteric. The relation of Frau Hauffe to Kerner is a striking example of this.
That in such cases there is a high degree of association-concordance can
cause no astonishment; a condition which Richet might have taken more
account of in his experiments in thought-transference. Finally there are
cases of somnambulic additional creative work which are not to be
explained solely by hyperæsthesia of the unconscious activity of the senses
and association-concordance, but presuppose a highly developed
intellectual activity of the unconscious. The deciphering of the purposive
tremors demand an extreme sensitiveness and delicacy of feeling, both
psychological and physiological, to combine the individual perceptions into
a complete unity of thought, if it is at all permissible to make an analogy
between the processes of cognition in the realm of the unconscious and the
conscious. The possibility must always be considered that in the
unconscious, feeling and concept are not clearly separated, perhaps even
are one. The intellectual elevation which certain somnambulists display in
ecstasy, though a rare thing, is none the less one that has sometimes been
observed.[124] I would designate the scheme composed by our patient as just
one of those pieces of creative work that exceed the normal intelligence. We
have already seen whence one portion of this scheme probably came. A
second source is no doubt the life-crisis of Frau Hauffe, portrayed in
Kerner's book. The external form seems to be determined by these
adventitious facts. As already observed in the presentation of the case, the
idea of dualism arises from the conversations picked up piecemeal by the
patient during those dreamy states occurring after her ecstasies. This
exhausts my knowledge of the sources of S. W.'s creations. Whence arose
the root-idea the patient is unable to say. I naturally examined occultistic
literature pertinent to the subject, and discovered a store of parallels with
her gnostic system from different centuries scattered through all kinds of
work mostly quite inaccessible to the patient. Moreover, at her youthful age,
and with her surroundings, the possibility of any such study is quite
excluded. A brief survey of the system in the light of her own explanations
shows how much intelligence was used in its construction. How highly the
intellectual work is to be estimated is a matter of opinion. In any case,
considering her youth, her mentality must be regarded as quite
extraordinary.
 CHAPTER II
THE ASSOCIATION METHOD

Lecture I[125]
When you honoured me with an invitation to lecture at Clark University, a
wish was expressed that I should speak about my methods of work, and
especially about the psychology of childhood. I hope to accomplish this
task in the following manner:—
In my first lecture I will give to you the view points of my association
methods; in my second I will discuss the significance of the familiar
constellations; while in my third lecture I shall enter more fully into the
psychology of the child.
I might confine myself exclusively to my theoretical views, but I believe it
will be better to illustrate my lectures with as many practical examples as
possible. We will therefore occupy ourselves first with the association test
which has been of great value to me both practically and theoretically. The
history of the association method in vogue in psychology, as well as the
method itself, is, of course, so familiar to you that there is no need to
enlarge upon it. For practical purposes I make use of the following formula:
—

1. head
2. green
3. water
4. to sing
5. dead
6. long
7. ship
8. to pay
9. window
10. friendly
11. to cook
12. to ask
13. cold
14. stem
15. to dance
16. village
17. lake
18. sick
19. pride
20. to cook
21. ink
22. angry
23. needle
24. to swim
25. voyage
26. blue
27. lamp
28. to sin
29. bread
30. rich
31. tree
32. to prick
33. pity

34. yellow
35. mountain
36. to die
37. salt
38. new
39. custom
40. to pray
41. money
42. foolish
43. pamphlet
44. despise
45. finger
46. expensive
47. bird
48. to fall
49. book
50. unjust
51. frog
52. to part
53. hunger
54. white
55. child
56. to take care
57. lead pencil
58. sad
59. plum
60. to marry
61. house
62. dear
63. glass
64. to quarrel
65. fur
66. big

67. carrot
68. to paint
69. part
70. old
71. flower
72. to beat
73. box
74. wild
75. family
76. to wash
77. cow
78. friend
79. luck
80. lie
81. deportment
 82. narrow
83. brother
84. to fear
85. stork
86. false
87. anxiety
88. to kiss
89. bride
90. pure
91. door
92. to choose
93. hay
94. contented
95. ridicule
96. to sleep
97. month
98. nice
99. woman
100. to abuse

This formula has been constructed after many years of experience. The
words are chosen and partially arranged in such a manner as to strike easily
almost all complexes which occur in practice. As shown above, there is a
regulated mixing of the grammatical qualities of the words. For this there
are definite reasons.[126]
Before the experiment begins the test person receives the following
instruction: "Answer as quickly as possible with the first word that occurs
to your mind." This instruction is so simple that it can easily be followed.
The work itself, moreover, appears extremely easy, so that it might be
expected any one could accomplish it with the greatest facility and
promptitude. But, contrary to expectation, the behaviour is quite otherwise.

I.—An Example of a Normal Reaction Type.

Stimulus Reaction Time.
Reaction. Reproduction.
word. Unit 0·2 second.
head 9 foot part of the body
green 11 blouse
water 14 clear light
to sing 6 children
dead 11 do not like
long 6 short I, tall
ship 7 forth
to pay 9 bills
window 9 room
friendly 10 children
table 9 chair room
to ask 10 all kinds
cold 7 warm
stem 6 flower
to dance 9 I.. like
lake 8 Zürich
sick 8 sister
pride 6 people
to cook 7 woman
ink 5 black
angry 10 children people
needle 9 to prick
to swim 10 healthy
voyage 9 England
blue 10 pretty like
lamp 6 light
to sin 8 much people
bread 10 good like, necessary
rich 9 nice
tree 6 green
to prick 9 need

II.—An Example of an Hysterical Reaction Type.

Stimulus Reaction Time.
Reaction. Reproduction.
word. Unit 0·2 second.
needle 7 to sew
to swim 9 water ship [127]
[128]

voyage 35 to ride, motion, voyager

blue 10 colour
lamp 7 to burn

to sin 22 this idea is totally

strange to me, I do not
recognize it
bread 10 to eat
rich[129] 50 money, I don't know possession
brown 6 nature green
to prick 9 needle
pity 12 feeling
yellow 9 colour
mountain 8 high
to die 8 to perish
salt 15 salty (laughs) I don't
know NaCl
new 15 old as an opposite
custom 10 good barbaric
to pray 12 Deity
money 10 wealth
foolish 12 narrow minded, restricted
pamphlet 10 paper
despise 30 that is a complicated, too
foolish
finger 8 hand, not only hand, but
also foot, a joint,
member, extremity
dear 14 to pay (laughs)
bird 8 to fly
to fall 30 _tomber_, I will say no
more, what do you
mean by fall?
book 6 to read
unjust 8 just
frog 11 quack
to part 30 what does that mean?
hunger 10 to eat
white 12 colour, everything
possible, light
child 10 little, I did not hear
well, _bébé_
to take care 14 attention
lead pencil 8 to draw, everything
possible can be drawn
sad 9 to weep, that is not to be
always the case
plum 16 to eat a plum, pluck what fruit
do you mean by it? Is
that symbolic?
to marry 27 how can you? reunion, union union, alliance

The following diagrams illustrate the reaction times in an association

experiment in four normal test-persons. The height of each column denotes
the length of the reaction time.
 Fig. 4.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 6.

Fig. 7.
The succeeding diagram shows the course of the reaction time in hysterical
individuals. The light cross-hatched columns denote the places where the
test-person was unable to react (so-called failures to react).
Fig. 8.

Fig. 9.
 Fig. 10.
The first thing that strikes us is the fact that many test-persons show a
marked prolongation of the reaction time. This would seem to be suggestive
of intellectual difficulties,—wrongly however, for we are often dealing with
very intelligent persons of fluent speech. The explanation lies rather in the
emotions. In order to understand the matter, comprehensively, we must bear
in mind that the association experiments cannot deal with a separated
psychic function, for any psychic occurrence is never a thing in itself, but is
always the resultant of the entire psychological past. The association
experiment, too, is not merely a method for the reproduction of separated
word couplets, but it is a kind of pastime, a conversation between
experimenter and test-person. In a certain sense it is still more than that.
Words really represent condensed actions, situations, and things. When I
give a stimulus word to the test-person, which denotes an action, it is as if I
represented to him the action itself, and asked him, "How do you behave
towards it? What do you think of it? What would you do in this situation?"
If I were a magician, I should cause the situation corresponding to the
stimulus word to appear in reality, and placing the test-person in its midst, I
should then study his manner of reaction. The result of my stimulus words
would thus undoubtedly approach infinitely nearer perfection. But as we are
not magicians, we must be contented with the linguistic substitutes for
reality; at the same time we must not forget that the stimulus word will
almost without exception conjure up its corresponding situation. All
depends on how the test-person reacts to this situation. The word "bride" or
"bridegroom" will not evoke a simple reaction in a young lady; but the
reaction will be deeply influenced by the strong feeling tones evoked, the
more so if the experimenter be a man. It thus happens that the test-person is
often unable to react quickly and smoothly to all stimulus words. There are
certain stimulus words which denote actions, situations, or things, about
which the test-person cannot think quickly and surely, and this fact is
demonstrated in the association experiments. The examples which I have
just given show an abundance of long reaction times and other disturbances.
In this case the reaction to the stimulus word is in some way impeded, that
is, the adaptation to the stimulus word is disturbed. The stimulus words
therefore act upon us just as reality acts; indeed, a person who shows such
great disturbances to the stimulus words, is in a certain sense but
imperfectly adapted to reality. Disease itself is an imperfect adaptation;
hence in this case we are dealing with something morbid in the psyche,—
with something which is either temporarily or persistently pathological in
character, that is, we are dealing with a psychoneurosis, with a functional
disturbance of the mind. This rule, however, as we shall see later, is not
without its exceptions.
Let us, in the first place, continue the discussion concerning the prolonged
reaction time. It often happens that the test-person actually does not know
what to answer to the stimulus word. He waives any reaction, and for the
moment he totally fails to obey the original instructions, and shows himself
incapable of adapting himself to the experimenter. If this phenomenon
occurs frequently in an experiment, it signifies a high degree of disturbance
in adjustment. I would call attention to the fact that it is quite indifferent
what reason the test-person gives for the refusal. Some find that too many
ideas suddenly occur to them; others, that they suffer from a deficiency of
ideas. In most cases, however, the difficulties first perceived are so
deterrent that they actually give up the whole reaction. The following
example shows a case of hysteria with many failures of reaction:—
Stimulus Reaction Time.
Reaction. Reproduction.
word. Unit 0·2 second.
to sing 9 nice +[130]
dead 15 awful ?
long[131] 40 the time, the journey ?
ship[132] +
to pay 11 money
window 10 big high
friendly 50 a man human
to cook 10 soup +
ink 9 black or blue +
angry bad
needle 9 to sew +
lamp 14 light +
to sin
bread 15 to eat +
rich[133][134] 40 good, convenient +
yellow 18 paper colour
mountain 10 high +
to die 15 awful +
salt[135] 25 salty +
new good, nice
custom[136]
to pray
money[137] 35 to buy, one is able +
pamphlet 16 to write +
to despise[138] 22 people +
finger
dear 12 thing +
bird 12 sings or flies +
In example II. we find a characteristic phenomenon. The test-person is not
content with the requirements of the instruction, that is, she is not satisfied
with one word, but reacts with many words. She apparently does more and
better than the instruction requires, but in so doing she does not fulfil the
requirements of the instruction. Thus she reacts:—custom—good—
barbaric; foolish—narrow minded—restricted; family—big—small—
everything possible.
These examples show in the first place that many other words connect
themselves with the reaction word. The test person is unable to suppress the
ideas which subsequently occur to her. She also pursues a certain tendency
which perhaps is more exactly expressed in the following reaction: new—
old—as an opposite. The addition of "as an opposite" denotes that the test-
person has the desire to add something explanatory or supplementary. This
tendency is also shown in the following reaction: finger—not only hand,
also foot—a limb—member—extremity.
Here we have a whole series of supplements. It seems as if the reaction
were not sufficient for the test-person, something else must always be
added, as if what has already been said were incorrect or in some way
imperfect. This feeling is what Janet designates the "sentiment
d'incomplétude," but this by no means explains everything. I go somewhat
deeply into this phenomenon because it is very frequently met with in
neurotic individuals. It is not merely a small and unimportant subsidiary
manifestation demonstrable in an insignificant experiment, but rather an
elemental and universal manifestation which plays a rôle in other ways in
the psychic life of neurotics.
By his desire to supplement, the test-person betrays a tendency to give the
experimenter more than he wants, he actually makes great efforts to find
further mental occurrences in order finally to discover something quite
satisfactory. If we translate this observation into the psychology of everyday
life, it signifies that the test-person has a constant tendency to give to others
more feeling than is required and expected. According to Freud, this is a
sign of a reinforced object-libido, that is, it is a compensation for an inner
want of satisfaction and voidness of feeling. This elementary observation
therefore displays one of the characteristics of hysterics, namely, the
tendency to allow themselves to be carried away by everything, to attach
themselves enthusiastically to everything, and always to promise too much
and hence perform too little. Patients with this symptom are, in my
experience, always hard to deal with; at first they are enthusiastically
enamoured of the physician, for a time going so far as to accept everything
he says blindly; but they soon merge into an equally blind resistance against
him, thus rendering any educative influence absolutely impossible.
We see therefore in this type of reaction an expression of a tendency to give
more than is asked or expected. This tendency betrays itself also in other
failures to follow the instruction:—

to quarrel—angry—different things—I always quarrel at home;

to marry—how can you marry?—reunion—union;
plum—to eat—to pluck—what do you mean by it?—is it symbolic?
to sin—this idea is quite strange to me, I do not recognise it.

These reactions show that the test-person gets away altogether from the
situation of the experiment. For the instruction was, that he should answer
only with the first word which occurs to him. But here we note that the
stimulus words act with excessive strength, that they are taken as if they
were direct personal questions. The test-person entirely forgets that we deal
with mere words which stand in print before us, but finds a personal
meaning in them; he tries to divine their intention and defend himself
against them, thus altogether forgetting the original instructions.
This elementary observation discloses another common peculiarity of
hysterics, namely, that of taking everything personally, of never being able
to remain objective, and of allowing themselves to be carried away by
momentary impressions; this again shows the characteristics of the
enhanced object-libido.
Yet another sign of impeded adaptation is the often occurring repetition of
the stimulus words. The test-persons repeat the stimulus word as if they had
not heard or understood it distinctly. They repeat it just as we repeat a
difficult question in order to grasp it better before answering. This same
tendency is shown in the experiment. The questions are repeated because
the stimulus words act on hysterical individuals in much the same way as
difficult personal questions. In principle it is the same phenomenon as the
subsequent completion of the reaction.
In many experiments we observe that the same reaction constantly
reappears to the most varied stimulus words. These words seem to possess a
special reproduction tendency, and it is very interesting to examine their
relationship to the test-person. For example, I have observed a case in
which the patient repeated the word "short" a great many times and often in
places where it had no meaning. The test-person could not directly state the
reason for the repetition of the word "short." From experience I knew that
such predicates always relate either to the test-person himself or to the
person nearest to him. I assumed that in this word "short" he designated
himself, and that in this way he helped to express something very painful to
him. The test-person is of very small stature. He is the youngest of four
brothers, who, in contrast to himself, are all tall. He was always the "child"
in the family; he was nicknamed "Short" and was treated by all as the "little
one." This resulted in a total loss of self-confidence. Although he was
intelligent, and despite long study, he could not decide to present himself
for examination; he finally became impotent, and merged into a psychosis
in which, whenever he was alone, he took delight in walking about in his
room on his toes in order to appear taller. The word "short," therefore, stood
to him for a great many painful experiences. This is usually the case with
the perseverated words; they always contain something of importance for
the individual psychology of the test-person.
The signs thus far discussed are not found spread about in an arbitrary way
through the whole experiment, but are seen in very definite places, namely,
where the stimulus words strike against emotionally accentuated
complexes. This observation is the foundation of the so-called "diagnosis of
facts" (Tatbestandsdiagnostik). This method is employed to discover, by
means of an association experiment, which is the culprit among a number of
persons suspected of a crime. That this is possible I will demonstrate by the
brief recital of a concrete case.
On the 6th of February, 1908, our supervisor reported to me that a nurse
complained to her of having been robbed during the forenoon of the
previous day. The facts were as follows: The nurse kept her money,
amounting to 70 francs, in a pocket-book which she had placed in her
cupboard where she also kept her clothes. The cupboard contained two
compartments, of which one belonged to the nurse who was robbed, and the
other to the head nurse. These two nurses and a third one, who was an
intimate friend of the head nurse, slept in the room where the cupboard was.
This room was in a section which was occupied in common by six nurses
who had at all times free access to the room. Given such a state of affairs it
is not to be wondered that the supervisor shrugged her shoulders when I
asked her whom she most suspected.
Further investigation showed that on the day of the theft, the above-
mentioned friend of the head nurse was slightly indisposed and remained
the whole morning in the room in bed. Hence, unless she herself was the
thief, the theft could have taken place only in the afternoon. Of four other
nurses upon whom suspicion could possibly fall, there was one who
attended regularly to the cleaning of the room in question, while the
remaining three had nothing to do in it, nor was it shown that any of them
had spent any time there on the previous day.
It was therefore natural that the last three nurses should be regarded for the
time being as less implicated, so I began by subjecting the first three to the
experiment.
From the information I had obtained of the case, I knew that the cupboard
was locked but that the key was kept near by in a very conspicuous place,
that on opening the cupboard the first thing which would strike the eye was
a fur boa, and, moreover, that the pocket-book was between some linen in
an inconspicuous place. The pocket-book was of dark reddish leather, and
contained the following objects: a 50-franc banknote, a 20-franc piece,
some centimes, a small silver watch-chain, a stencil used in the lunatic
asylum to mark the kitchen utensils, and a small receipt from Dosenbach's
shoeshop in Zürich.
Besides the plaintiff, only the head nurse knew the exact particulars of the
deed, for as soon as the former missed her money she immediately asked
the head nurse to help her find it, thus the head nurse had been able to learn
the smallest details, which naturally rendered the experiment still more
difficult, for she was precisely the one most suspected. The conditions for
the experiment were better for the others, since they knew nothing
concerning the particulars of the deed, and some not even that a theft had
been committed. As critical stimulus words I selected the name of the
robbed nurse, plus the following words: cupboard, door, open, key,
yesterday, banknote, gold, 70, 50, 20, money, watch, pocket-book, chain,
silver, to hide, fur, dark reddish, leather, centimes, stencil, receipt,
Dosenbach. Besides these words which referred directly to the deed, I took
also the following, which had a special effective value: theft, to take, to
steal, suspicion, blame, court, police, to lie, to fear, to discover, to arrest,
innocent.
The objection is often made to the last species of words that they may
produce a strong affective resentment even in innocent persons, and for that
reason one cannot attribute to them any comparative value. Nevertheless, it
may always be questioned whether the affective resentment of an innocent
person will have the same effect on the association as that of a guilty one,
and that question can only be authoritatively answered by experience. Until
the contrary is demonstrated, I maintain that words of the above-mentioned
type may profitably be used.
I distributed these critical words among twice as many indifferent stimulus
words in such a manner that each critical word was followed by two
indifferent ones. As a rule it is well to follow up the critical words by
indifferent words in order that the action of the first may be clearly
distinguished. But one may also follow up one critical word by another,
especially if one wishes to bring into relief the action of the second. Thus I
placed together "darkish red" and "leather," and "chain" and "silver."
After this preparatory work I undertook the experiment with the three
above-mentioned nurses. Following the order of the experiment, I shall
denote the friend of the head nurse by the letter A, the head nurse by B, and
the nurse who attended to the cleaning of the room by C. As examinations
of this kind can be rendered into a foreign tongue only with the greatest
difficulty, I will content myself with presenting the general results, and with
giving some examples. I first undertook the experiment with A, and judging
by the circumstances she appeared only slightly moved. B was next
examined; she showed marked excitement, her pulse being 120 per minute
immediately after the experiment. The last to be examined was C. She was
the most tranquil of the three; she displayed but little embarrassment, and
only in the course of the experiment did it occur to her that she was
suspected of stealing, a fact which manifestly disturbed her towards the end
of the experiment.
The general impression from the examination spoke strongly against the
head nurse B. It seemed to me that she evinced a very "suspicious," or I
might almost say, "impudent" countenance. With the definite idea of finding
in her the guilty one I set about adding up the results. You will see that I
was wrong in my surmise and that the test proved my error.
One can make use of many special methods of computing, but they are not
all equally good and equally exact. (One must always resort to calculation,
as appearances are enormously deceptive.) The method which is most to be
recommended is that of the probable average of the reaction time. It shows
at a glance the difficulties which the person in the experiment had to
overcome in the reaction.
The technique of this calculation is very simple. The probable average is the
middle number of the various reaction times arranged in a series. The
reaction times are, for example,[139] placed in the following manner: 5, 5, 5,
7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 12, 13, 14. The number found in the middle (8) is the
probable average of this series.
The probable averages of the reaction are:
 A B C
10·0 12·0 13·5.
No conclusions can be drawn from this result. But the average reaction
times calculated separately for the indifferent reactions, for the critical, and
for those immediately following the critical (post-critical) are more
interesting.
From this example we see that whereas A has the shortest reaction time for
the indifferent reactions, she shows in comparison to the other two persons
of the experiment, the longest time for the critical reactions.

The Probable Average of the Reaction Time.

for A B C
Indifferent reactions 10·0 11·0 12·0
Critical reactions 16·0 13·0 15·0
Post-critical reactions 10·0 11·0 13·0
The difference between the reaction times, let us say between the indifferent
and the critical, is 6 for A, 2 for B, and 3 for C, that is, it is more than
double for A when compared with the other two persons.
In the same way we can calculate how many complex indicators there are
on an average for the indifferent, critical, etc., reactions.

The Average Complex-Indicators for each Reaction.

for A B C
Indifferent reactions 0·6 0·9 0·8
Critical reactions 1·3 0·9 1·2
Post-critical reactions 0·6 1·0 0·8
The difference between the indifferent and critical reactions for A = 0·7, for
B = 0, for C = 0·4. A is again the highest.
Another question to consider is, the proportion of imperfect reactions in
each case.
The result for A = 34%, for B = 28%, and for C = 30%.
Here, too, A reaches the highest value, and in this, I believe, we see the
characteristic moment of the guilt-complex in A. I am, however, unable to
explain here circumstantially the reasons why I maintain that memory
errors are related to an emotional complex, as this would lead me beyond
the limits of the present work. I therefore refer the reader to my work
"Ueber die Reproductionsstörrungen im Associationsexperiment" (IX
Beitrag der Diagnost. Associat. Studien).[140]
As it often happens that an association of strong feeling tone produces in
the experiment a perseveration, with the result that not only the critical
association, but also two or three successive associations are imperfectly
reproduced, it will be very interesting to see how many imperfect
reproductions are so arranged in the series in our cases. The result of
computation shows that the imperfect reproductions thus arranged in series
are for A 64·7%, for B 55·5%, and for C 30·0%.
Again we find that A has the greatest percentage. To be sure, this may
partially depend on the fact that A also possesses the greatest number of
imperfect reproductions. Given a small number of reactions, it is usual that
the greater the total number of the same, the more the imperfect reactions
will occur in groups. But this cannot account for the high proportion in our
case, where, on the other hand, B and C have not a much smaller number of
imperfect reactions when compared to A. It is significant that C with her
slight emotions during the experiment shows the minimum of imperfect
reproductions arranged in series.
As imperfect reproductions are also complex indicators, it is necessary to
see how they distribute themselves in respect to the indifferent, critical, etc.,
reactions.
It is hardly necessary to bring into prominence the differences between the
indifferent and the critical reactions of the various subjects as shown by the
resulting numbers of the table. In this respect, too, A occupies first place.

Imperfect Reproductions which Occur.

in A B C
 Indifferent reactions 10 12 11
Critical reactions 19 9 12
Post-critical reactions 5 7 7
Naturally, here, too, there is a probability that the greater the number of the
imperfect reproductions the greater is their number in the critical reactions.
If we suppose that the imperfect reproductions are distributed regularly and
without choice, among all the reactions, there will be a greater number of
them for A (in comparison with B and C) even as reactions to critical
words, since A has the greater number of imperfect reproductions.
Admitting such a uniform distribution of the imperfect reproductions, it is
easy to calculate how many we ought to expect to belong to each individual
kind of reaction.
From this calculation it appears that the disturbances of reproductions
which concern the critical reactions for A greatly surpass the number
expected, for C they are 0·9 higher, while for B they are lower.

Imperfect Reproductions.
Which may be expected Which really occur
Post- Post-
Indifferent Critical Indifferent Critical
For critical critical
Reactions. Reactions. Reactions. Reactions.
Reactions. Reactions.
A 11·2 12·5 10·2 10 19 5
B 9·2 10·3 8·4 12 9 7
C 9·9 11·1 9·0 11 12 7
All this points to the fact that in the subject A the critical stimulus words
acted with the greatest intensity, and hence the greatest suspicion falls on A.
Practically relying on the test one may assume the probability of this
person's guilt. The same evening A made a complete confession of the theft,
and thus the success of the experiment was confirmed.
Such a result is undoubtedly of scientific interest and worthy of serious
consideration. There is much in experimental psychology which is of less
use than the material exemplified in this test. Putting the theoretical interest
altogether aside, we have here something that is not to be despised from a
practical point of view, to wit, a culprit has been brought to light in a much
easier and shorter way than is customary. What has been possible once or
twice ought to be possible again, and it is well worth while to investigate
some means of rendering the method increasingly capable of rapid and sure
results.
This application of the experiment shows that it is possible to strike a
concealed, indeed an unconscious complex by means of a stimulus word;
and conversely we may assume with great certainty that behind a reaction
which shows a complex indicator there is a hidden complex, even though
the test-person strongly denies it. One must get rid of the idea that educated
and intelligent test-persons are able to see and admit their own complexes.
Every human mind contains much that is unacknowledged and hence
unconscious as such; and no one can boast that he stands completely above
his complexes. Those who persist in maintaining that they can, are not
aware of the spectacles upon their noses.

It has long been thought that the association experiment enables one to
distinguish certain intellectual types. That is not the case. The experiment
does not give us any particular insight into the purely intellectual, but rather
into the emotional processes. To be sure we can erect certain types of
reaction; they are not, however, based on intellectual peculiarities, but
depend entirely on the proportionate emotional states. Educated test-
persons usually show superficial and linguistically deep-rooted
associations, whereas the uneducated form more valuable associations and
often of ingenious significance. This behaviour would be paradoxical from
an intellectual view-point. The meaningful associations of the uneducated
are not really the product of intellectual thinking, but are simply the results
of a special emotional state. The whole thing is more important to the
uneducated, his emotion is greater, and for that reason he pays more
attention to the experiment than the educated person, and his associations
are therefore more significant. Apart from those determined by education,
we have to consider three principal individual types:

1. An objective type with undisturbed reactions.

 2. A so-called complex-type with many disturbances in the experiment
occasioned by the constellation of a complex.
3. A so-called definition-type. The peculiarity of this type consists in
the fact that the reaction always gives an explanation or a definition of
the content of the stimulus word; e.g.:

apple,—a tree-fruit;
table,—a piece of household furniture;
to promenade,—an activity;
father,—chief of the family.

This type is chiefly found in stupid persons, and it is therefore quite usual in
imbecility. But it can also be found in persons who are not really stupid, but
who do not wish to be taken as stupid. Thus a young student from whom
associations were taken by an older intelligent woman student reacted
altogether with definitions. The test-person was of the opinion that it was an
examination in intelligence, and therefore directed most of his attention to
the significance of the stimulus words; his associations, therefore, looked
like those of an idiot. All idiots, however, do not react with definitions;
probably only those react in this way who would like to appear smarter than
they are, that is, those to whom their stupidity is painful. I call this
widespread complex the "intelligence-complex." A normal test-person
reacts in a most overdrawn manner as follows:

anxiety—heart anguish;
to kiss—love's unfolding;
to kiss—perception of friendship.

This type gives a constrained and unnatural impression. The test-persons

wish to be more than they are, they wish to exert more influence than they
really have. Hence we see that persons with an intelligence-complex are
usually unnatural and constrained; that they are always somewhat stilted, or
flowery; they show a predilection for complicated foreign words, high-
sounding quotations, and other intellectual ornaments. In this way they wish
to influence their fellow-beings, they wish to impress others with their
apparent education and intelligence, and thus to compensate for their
painful feeling of stupidity. The definition-type is closely related to the
predicate-type, or, to express it more precisely, to the predicate-type
expressing personal judgment (Wertprädikattypus). For example:

flower—pretty;
money—convenient;
animal—ugly;
knife—dangerous;
death—ghastly.

In the definition type the intellectual significance of the stimulus word is

rendered prominent, but in the predicate type its emotional significance.
There are predicate-types which show great exaggeration where reactions
such as the following appear:

piano—horrible;
to sing—heavenly;
mother—ardently loved;
father—something good, nice, holy.

In the definition-type an absolutely intellectual make-up is manifested or

rather simulated, but here there is a very emotional one. Yet, just as the
definition-type really conceals a lack of intelligence, so the excessive
emotional expression conceals or overcompensates an emotional deficiency.
This conclusion is very interestingly illustrated by the following discovery:
—On investigating the influence of the familiar milieus on the association-
type it was found that young people seldom possess a predicate-type, but
that, on the other hand, the predicate-type increases in frequency with
advancing age. In women the increase of the predicate-type begins a little
after the 40th year, and in men after the 60th. That is the precise time when,
owing to the deficiency of sexuality, there actually occurs considerable
emotional loss. If a test-person evinces a distinct predicate-type, it may
always be inferred that a marked internal emotional deficiency is thereby
compensated. Still, one cannot reason conversely, namely, that an inner
emotional deficiency must produce a predicate-type, no more than that
idiocy directly produces a definition-type. A predicate-type can also betray
itself through the external behaviour, as, for example, through a particular
affectation, enthusiastic exclamations, an embellished behaviour, and the
constrained sounding language so often observed in society.
The complex-type shows no particular tendency except the concealment of
a complex, whereas the definition and predicate types betray a positive
tendency to exert in some way a definite influence on the experimenter. But
whereas the definition-type tends to bring to light its intelligence, the
predicate-type displays its emotion. I need hardly add of what importance
such determinations are for the diagnosis of character.
After finishing an association experiment I usually add another of a
different kind, the so-called reproduction experiment. I repeat the same
stimulus words and ask the test-persons whether they still remember their
former reactions. In many instances the memory fails, and as experience
shows, these locations are stimulus words which touched an emotionally
accentuated complex, or stimulus words immediately following such
critical words.
This phenomenon has been designated as paradoxical and contrary to all
experience. For it is known that emotionally accentuated things are better
retained in memory than indifferent things. This is quite true, but it does not
hold for the linguistic expression of an emotionally accentuated content. On
the contrary, one very easily forgets what he has said under emotion, one is
even apt to contradict himself about it. Indeed, the efficacy of cross-
examinations in court depends on this fact. The reproduction method
therefore serves to render still more prominent the complex stimulus. In
normal persons we usually find a limited number of false reproductions,
seldom more than 19-20 per cent., while in abnormal persons, especially in
hysterics, we often find from 20-40 per cent. of false reproductions. The
reproduction certainty is therefore in certain cases a measure for the
emotivity of the test-person.

By far the larger number of neurotics show a pronounced tendency to cover

up their intimate affairs in impenetrable darkness, even from the doctor, so
that he finds it very difficult to form a proper picture of the patient's
psychology. In such cases I am greatly assisted by the association
experiment. When the experiment is finished, I first look over the general
course of the reaction times. I see a great many very prolonged intervals;
this means that the patient can only adjust himself with difficulty, that his
psychological functions proceed with marked internal frictions with
resistances. The greater number of neurotics react only under great and very
definite resistances; there are, however, others in whom the average
reaction times are as short as in the normal, and in whom the other complex
indicators are lacking, but, despite that fact, they undoubtedly present
neurotic symptoms. These rare cases are especially found among very
intelligent and educated persons, chronic patients who, after many years of
practice, have learned to control their outward behaviour and therefore
outwardly display very little if any trace of their neuroses. The superficial
observer would take them for normal, yet in some places they show
disturbances which betray the repressed complex.
After examining the reaction times I turn my attention to the type of the
association to ascertain with what type I am dealing. If it is a predicate-type
I draw the conclusions which I have detailed above; if it is a complex type I
try to ascertain the nature of the complex. With the necessary experience
one can readily emancipate one's judgment from the test-person's
statements and almost without any previous knowledge of the test-persons
it is possible under certain circumstances to read the most intimate
complexes from the results of the experiment. I look at first for the
reproduction words and put them together, and then I look for the stimulus
words which show the greatest disturbances. In many cases merely
assorting these words suffices to unearth the complex. In some cases it is
necessary to put a question here and there. The matter is well illustrated by
the following concrete example:
It concerns an educated woman of 30 years of age, married three years
previously. Since her marriage she has suffered from episodic excitement in
which she is violently jealous of her husband. The marriage is a happy one
in every other respect, and it should be noted that the husband gives no
cause for the jealousy. The patient is sure that she loves him and that her
excited states are groundless. She cannot imagine whence these excited
states originate, and feels quite perplexed over them. It is to be noted that
she is a catholic and has been brought up religiously, while her husband is a
protestant. This difference of religion did not admittedly play any part. A
more thorough anamnesis showed the existence of an extreme prudishness.
Thus, for example, no one was allowed to talk in the patient's presence
about her sister's childbirth, because the sexual moment suggested therein
caused her the greatest excitement. She always undressed in the adjoining
room and never in her husband's presence, etc. At the age of 27 she was
supposed to have had no idea how children were born. The associations
gave the results shown in the accompanying chart.
The stimulus words characterised by marked disturbances are the following:
yellow, to pray, to separate, to marry, to quarrel, old, family, happiness,
false, fear, to kiss, bride, to choose, contented. The strongest disturbances
are found in the following stimulus words: to pray, to marry, happiness,
false, fear, and contented. These words, therefore, more than any others,
seem to strike the complex. The conclusions that can be drawn from this is
that she is not indifferent to the fact that her husband is a protestant, that she
again thinks of praying, believes there is something wrong with marriage,
that she is false, entertains fancies of faithlessness, is afraid (of the
husband? of the future?), she is not contented with her choice (to choose)
and she thinks of separation. The patient therefore has a separation
complex, for she is very discontented with her married life. When I told her
this result she was affected and at first attempted to deny it, then to mince
over it, but finally she admitted everything I said and added more. She
reproduced a large number of fancies of faithlessness, reproaches against
her husband, etc. Her prudishness and jealousy were merely a projection of
her own sexual wishes on her husband. Because she was faithless in her
fancies and did not admit it to herself she was jealous of her husband.

For the stimulus words corresponding to the numbers, see the list on
pages 94 and 95.
The blue columns represent failures of reproductions, the green ones
represent repetitions of stimulus words, and the yellow columns show
those associations in which the patient either laughed or made
mistakes, using many words instead of one. The height of the columns
represent the length of the reaction time.
[To face p. 118.
It is impossible in a lecture to give a review of all the manifold uses of the
association experiment. I must content myself with having demonstrated to
you a few of its chief uses.

Lecture II
THE FAMILIAL CONSTELLATIONS
Ladies and Gentlemen: As you have seen, there are manifold ways in which
the association experiment may be employed in practical psychology. I
should like to speak to you to-day about another use of this experiment
which is primarily of theoretical significance. My pupil, Miss Fürst, M.D.,
made the following researches: she applied the association experiment to 24
families, consisting altogether of 100 test-persons; the resulting material
amounted to 22,200 associations. This material was elaborated in the
following manner: Fifteen separate groups were formed according to
logical-linguistic standards, and the associations were arranged as follows:
Husband Wife Difference
I.Co-ordination 6·5 0·5 6
II.Sub and supraordination 7 — 7
III.Contrast — — —
IV.Predicate expressing a personal judgment 8·5 95·0 86·5
V.Simple predicate 21·0 3·5 17·5
Relations of the verb to the
VI. 15·5 0·5 15·0
subject or complement
VII.Designation of time, etc. 11·0 — 11·0
VIII.Definition 11·0 — 11·0
IX.Coexistence 1·5 — 1·5
X.Identity 0·5 0·5 —
XI.Motor-speech combination 12·0 — 12·0
XII.Composition of words — — —
XIII.Completion of words — — —
XIV.Clang associations — — —
XV.Defective reactions — — —
Total — — 173·5
173·5
Average difference —— = 11·5
15
As can be seen from this example, I utilise the difference to demonstrate the
degree of the analogy. In order to find a basis for the sum of the
resemblance I have calculated the differences among all Dr. Fürst's test-
persons, not related among themselves, by comparing every female test-
person with all the other unrelated females; the same has been done for the
male test-persons.
The most marked difference is found in those cases where the two test-
persons compared have no associative quality in common. All the groups
are calculated in percentages, the greatest difference possible being 200/15
= 13·3 per cent.

I. The average difference of male unrelated test-persons is 5·9 per cent., and
that of females of the same group is 6 per cent.
II. The average difference between male related test-persons is 4·1 per cent.,
and that between female related tests-persons is 3·8 per cent. From these
numbers we see that relatives show a tendency to agreement in the reaction
type.
III. Difference between fathers and children = 4·2.
" " mothers " " = 3·5.
The reaction types of children come nearer to the type of the mother than to
the father.
IV. Difference between fathers and their sons = 3·1.
" " " " " daughters = 4·9.
" " mothers " " sons = 4·7.
 " " " " " daughters = 3·0.

Fig. 11.
Tracing A. —— father; ..... mother; ++++ daughter.
I. Assoc. by co-ordination; II. sub and supraordination; III. contrast,
etc. (see previous page).
V. Difference between brothers = 4·7.
" " sisters = 5·1.
If the married sisters are omitted from the comparison we get the following
result:
Difference of unmarried sisters = 3·8. These observations show distinctly
that marriage destroys more or less the original agreement, as the husband
belongs to a different type.
Difference between unmarried brothers = 4·8.
Marriage seems to exert no influence on the association forms in men.
Nevertheless, the material which we have at our disposal is not as yet
enough to allow us to draw definite conclusions.
VI. Difference between husband and wife = 4·7.

Fig. 12.
Tracing B. —— husband; ..... wife.
This number sums up inadequately the different and very unequal values;
that is to say, there are some cases which show extreme difference and some
which show marked concordance.
The different results are shown in the tracings (Figs. 11-15).
In the tracings I have marked the number of associations of each quality
perpendicularly in percentages. The Roman letters written horizontally
represent the forms of association indicated in the above tables.
Tracing A. The father (black line) shows an objective type, while the
mother and daughter show the pure predicate type with a pronounced
subjective tendency.
Tracing B. The husband and wife agree well in the predicate objective type,
the predicate subjective being somewhat more numerous in the wife.
Tracing C. A very nice agreement between a father and his two daughters.

Fig. 13.
Tracing C. —— father; ..... 1st daughter; ++++ 2nd daughter.
Tracing D. Two sisters living together. The dotted line represents the
married sister.
 Fig. 14.
Tracing D. —— single sister; ..... married sister.
Tracing E. Husband and wife. The wife is a sister of the two women of
tracing D. She approaches very closely to the type of her husband. Her
tracing is the direct opposite of that of her sisters.

Fig. 15.
Tracing E. —— husband; ..... wife.
The similarity of the associations is often very extraordinary. I will
reproduce here the associations of a mother and daughter.
Stimulus Word. Mother. Daughter.
to pay attention diligent pupil pupil
law command of God Moses
dear child father and mother
great God father
potato bulbous root bulbous root
family many persons 5 persons
strange traveller traveller
brother dear to me dear
to kiss mother mother
burn great pain painful
door wide big
hay dry dry
month many days 31 days
air cool moist
coal sooty black
fruit sweet sweet
merry happy child child
One might indeed think that in this experiment, where full scope is given to
chance, individuality would become a factor of the utmost importance, and
that therefore one might expect a very great diversity and lawlessness of
associations. But as we see the opposite is the case. Thus the daughter lives
contentedly in the same circle of ideas as her mother, not only in her
thought but in her form of expression; indeed, she even uses the same
words. What could be regarded as more inconsequent, inconstant, and
lawless than a fancy, a rapidly passing thought? It is not lawless, however,
neither is it free, but closely determined within the limits of the milieu. If,
therefore, even the superficial and manifestly most inconsequent formations
of the intellect are altogether subject to the milieu-constellation, what must
we not expect for the more important conditions of the mind, for the
emotions, wishes, hopes, and intentions? Let us consider a concrete
example, illustrated by tracing A.
The mother is 45 years old and the daughter 16 years. Both have a very
distinct predicate-type expressing personal judgment, both differ from the
father in the most striking manner. The father is a drunkard and a
demoralised creature. We can thus readily understand that his wife
experiences an emotional voidness which she naturally betrays by her
enhanced predicate-type. The same causes cannot, however, operate in the
case of the daughter, for, in the first place, she is not married to a drunkard,
and, in the second, life with all its hopes and promises still lies before her. It
is distinctly unnatural for the daughter to show an extreme predicate-type
expressing personal judgment. She responds to the stimuli of the
environment just like her mother. But whereas in the mother the type is in a
way a natural consequence of her unhappy condition of life, this condition
is entirely lacking in the daughter. The daughter simply imitates the mother;
she merely appears like the mother. Let us consider what this can signify for
a young girl. If a young girl reacts to the world like an old woman,
disappointed in life, this at once shows unnaturalness and constraint. But
more serious consequences are possible. As you know the predicate-type is
a manifestation of intensive emotions; the emotions are always involved.
Thus we cannot prevent ourselves from responding inwardly, at least, to the
feelings and passions of our immediate environment; we allow ourselves to
be infected and carried away by it. Originally the effects and their physical
manifestations had a biological significance; i.e. they were a protective
mechanism for the individual and the whole herd. If we manifest emotions,
we can with certainty expect to receive emotions in return. That is the
feeling of the predicate-type. What the 45-year-old woman lacks in
emotions, i.e. in love in her marriage relations she seeks to obtain in the
outside world, and for that reason she is an ardent participant in the
Christian Science movement. If the daughter imitates this situation she
copies her mother, she seeks to obtain emotions from the outside. But for a
girl of sixteen such an emotional state is, to say the least, quite dangerous;
like her mother, she reacts to her environment as a sufferer soliciting
sympathy. Such an emotional state is no longer dangerous in the mother, but
for obvious reasons it is quite dangerous in the daughter. Once freed from
her father and mother she will be like her mother, i.e. she will be a suffering
woman craving for inner gratification. She will thus be exposed to the great
danger of falling a victim to brutality and of marrying a brute and inebriate
like her father.
This conception is of importance in the consideration of the influence of
environment and education. The example shows what passes over from the
mother to the child. It is not the good and pious precepts, nor is it any other
inculcation of pedagogic truths that have a moulding influence upon the
character of the developing child, but what most influences him is the
peculiarly affective state which is totally unknown to his parents and
educators. The concealed discord between the parents, the secret worry, the
repressed hidden wishes, all these produce in the individual a certain
affective state with its objective signs which slowly but surely, though
unconsciously, works its way into the child's mind, producing therein the
same conditions and hence the same reactions to external stimuli. We know
the depressing effect mournful and melancholic persons have upon us. A
restless and nervous individual infects his surroundings with unrest and
dissatisfaction, a grumbler with his discontent, etc. Since grown-up persons
are so sensitive to surrounding influences, we should certainly expect this to
be even more noticeable among children, whose minds are as soft and
plastic as wax. The father and mother impress deeply into the child's mind
the seal of their personality; the more sensitive and mouldable the child the
deeper is the impression. Thus things that are never even spoken about are
reflected in the child. The child imitates the gesture, and just as the gesture
of the parent is the expression of an emotional state, so in turn the gesture
gradually produces in the child a similar feeling, as it feels itself, so to
speak, into the gesture. Just as the parents adapt themselves to the world, so
does the child. At the age of puberty when it begins to free itself from the
spell of the family, it enters into life with, so to say, a surface adaptation
entirely in keeping with that of the father and mother. The frequent and
often very deep depressions of puberty emanate from this; they are
symptoms which are rooted in the difficulty of new adjustment. The
youthful person at first tries to separate himself as much as possible from
his family; he may even estrange himself from it, but inwardly this only ties
him the more firmly to the parental image. I cite the case of a young
neurotic who ran away from his parents; he was estranged from, and almost
hostile to them, but he admitted to me that he possessed a special sanctum;
it was a strong box containing his old childhood books, old dried flowers,
stones, and even small bottles of water from the well at his home and from
a river along which he walked with his parents, etc.
The first attempts to assume friendship and love are constellated in the
strongest manner possible by the relation to parents, and here one can
usually observe how powerful are the influences of the familiar
constellations. It is not rare, for instance, for a healthy man whose mother
was hysterical to marry a hysteric, or for the daughter of an alcoholic to
choose an alcoholic for her husband. I was once consulted by an intelligent
and educated young woman of twenty-six who suffered from a peculiar
symptom. She thought that her eyes now and then took on a strange
expression which exerted a disagreeable influence on men. If she then
looked at a man he became self-conscious, turned away and said something
rapidly to his neighbour, at which both were either embarrassed or inclined
to laugh. The patient was convinced that her look excited indecent thoughts
in the men. It was impossible to convince her of the falsity of her
conviction. This symptom immediately aroused in me the suspicion that I
dealt with a case of paranoia rather than with a neurosis. But as was shown
only three days later by the further course of the treatment, I was mistaken,
for the symptom promptly disappeared after it had been explained by
analysis. It originated in the following manner: The lady had a lover who
deserted her in a very marked manner. She felt utterly forsaken; she
withdrew from all society and pleasure, and entertained suicidal ideas. In
her seclusion there accumulated unadmitted and repressed erotic wishes
which she unconsciously projected on men whenever she was in their
company. This gave rise to the conviction that her look excited erotic
wishes in men. Further investigation showed that her deserting lover was a
lunatic, which she had not apparently observed. I expressed my surprise at
her unsuitable choice, and added that she must have had a certain
predilection for loving mentally abnormal persons. This she denied, stating
that she had once before been engaged to be married to a normal man. He,
too, deserted her; and on further investigation it was found that he, too, had
been in an insane asylum shortly before,—another lunatic! This seemed to
me to confirm with sufficient certainty my belief that she had an
unconscious tendency to choose insane persons. Whence originated this
strange taste? Her father was an eccentric character, and in later years
entirely estranged from his family. Her whole love had therefore been
turned away from her father to a brother eight years her senior; him she
loved and honoured as a father, and this brother became hopelessly insane
at the age of fourteen. That was apparently the model from which the
patient could never free herself, after which she chose her lovers, and
through which she had to become unhappy. Her neurosis which gave the
impression of insanity, probably originated from this infantile model. We
must take into consideration that we are dealing in this case with a highly
educated and intelligent lady, who did not pass carelessly over her mental
experiences, who indeed reflected much over her unhappiness, without,
however, having any idea whence her misfortune originated.
There are things which unconsciously appear to us as a matter of course,
and it is for this reason that we do not see them truly, but attribute
everything to the so-called congenital character. I could cite any number of
examples of this kind. Every patient furnishes contributions to this subject
of the determination of destiny through the influence of the familiar milieu.
In every neurotic we see how the constellation of the infantile milieu
influences not only the character of the neurosis, but also life's destiny, even
in its minute details. The unhappy choice of a profession, and innumerable
matrimonial failures can be traced to this constellation. There are, however,
cases where the profession has been well chosen, where the husband or wife
leaves nothing to be desired, and where still the person does not feel well
but works and lives under constant difficulties. Such cases often appear
under the guise of chronic neurasthenia. Here the difficulty is due to the fact
that the mind is unconsciously split into two parts of divergent tendencies
which are impeding each other; one part lives with the husband or with the
profession, while the other lives unconsciously in the past with the father or
mother. I have treated a lady who, after suffering many years from a severe
neurosis, merged into a dementia præcox. The neurotic affection began with
her marriage. This lady's husband was kind, educated, well to do, and in
every respect suitable for her; his character showed nothing that would in
any way interfere with a happy marriage. The marriage was nevertheless
unhappy, all congenial companionship being excluded because the wife was
neurotic.
The important heuristic axiom of every psychoanalysis reads as follows: If
a person develops a neurosis this neurosis contains the counter-argument
against the relation of the patient to the individual with whom he is most
intimately connected. A neurosis in the husband loudly proclaims that he
has intensive resistances and contrary tendencies against his wife; if the
wife has a neurosis she has a tendency which diverges from her husband. If
the person is unmarried the neurosis is then directed against the lover or the
sweetheart or against the parents. Every neurotic naturally strives against
this relentless formulation of the content of his neurosis, and he often
refuses to recognise it at any cost, but still it is always justified. To be sure,
the conflict is not on the surface, but must generally be revealed through a
painstaking psychoanalysis.
The history of our patient reads as follows:
The father had a powerful personality. She was his favourite daughter, and
entertained for him a boundless veneration. At the age of seventeen she for
the first time fell in love with a young man. At that time she twice dreamt
the same dream, the impression of which never left her in all her later years;
she even imputed a mystic significance to it, and often recalled it with
religious dread. In the dream she saw a tall, masculine figure with a very
beautiful white beard; at this sight she was permeated with a feeling of awe
and delight as if she experienced the presence of God Himself. This dream
made the deepest impression on her, and she was constrained to think of it
again and again. The love affair of that period proved to be one of little
warmth, and was soon given up. Later the patient married her present
husband. Though she loved her husband she was led continually to compare
him with her deceased father; this comparison always proved unfavourable
to her husband. Whatever the husband said, intended, or did, was subjected
to this standard and always with the same result: "My father would have
done all this better and differently." Our patient's life with her husband was
not happy, she could neither respect nor love him sufficiently; she was
inwardly dissatisfied. She gradually developed a fervent piety, and at the
same time violent hysterical symptoms supervened. She began by going
into raptures now over this and now over that clergyman; she was looking
everywhere for a spiritual friend, and estranged herself more and more from
her husband. The mental trouble manifested itself about ten years after
marriage. In her diseased state she refused to have anything to do with her
husband and child; she imagined herself pregnant by another man. In brief,
the resistances against her husband, which hitherto had been laboriously
repressed, came out quite openly, and among other things manifested
themselves in insults of the gravest kind directed against him.
In this case we see how a neurosis appeared, as it were, at the moment of
marriage, i.e. this neurosis expresses the counter-argument against the
husband. What is the counter-argument? The counter-argument is the father
of the patient, for she verified her belief daily that her husband was not the
equal of her father. When the patient first fell in love there had appeared a
symptom in the form of an extremely impressive dream or vision. She saw
the man with the very beautiful white beard. Who was this man? On
directing her attention to the beautiful white beard she immediately
recognised the phantom. It was of course her father. Thus every time the
patient merged into a love affair the picture of her father inopportunely
appeared and prevented her from adjusting herself psychologically to her
husband.
I purposely chose this case as an illustration because it is simple, obvious,
and quite typical of many marriages which are crippled through the neurosis
of the wife. The cause of the unhappiness always lies in a too firm
attachment to the parents. The infantile relationship has not been given up.
We find here one of the most important tasks of pedagogy, namely, the
solution of the problem how to free the growing individual from his
unconscious attachments to the influences of the infantile milieu, in such a
manner that he may retain whatever there is in it that is suitable and reject
whatever is unsuitable. To solve this difficult question on the part of the
child seems to me impossible at present. We know as yet too little about the
child's emotional processes. The first and only real contribution to the
literature on this subject has in fact appeared during the present year. It is
the analysis of a five-year-old boy published by Freud.
The difficulties on the part of the child are very great. They should not,
however, be so great on the part of the parents. In many ways the parents
could manage the love of children more carefully, more indulgently, and
more intelligently. The sins committed against favourite children by the
undue love of the parents could perhaps be avoided through a wider
knowledge of the child's mind. For many reasons I find it impossible to say
anything of general validity concerning the bringing up of children as it is
affected by this problem. We are as yet very far from general prescriptions
and rules; indeed we are still in the realm of casuistry. Unfortunately, our
knowledge of the finer mental processes in the child is so meagre that we
are not yet in any position to say where the greatest trouble lies, whether in
the parents, in the child, or in the conception of the milieu. Only
psychoanalyses of the kind that Professor Freud has published in the
Jahrbuch, 1909,[141] will help us out of this difficulty. Such comprehensive
and profound observations should act as a strong inducement to all teachers
to occupy themselves with Freud's psychology. This psychology offers
more values for practical pedagogy than the physiological psychology of
the present.

Lecture III
EXPERIENCES CONCERNING THE PSYCHIC LIFE OF
THE CHILD[142]
Ladies and Gentlemen: In our last lecture we saw how important the
emotional processes of childhood are for later life. In to-day's lecture I
should like to give you some insight into the psychic life of the child
through the analysis of a four-year-old girl. It is much to be regretted that
there are few among you who have had the opportunity of reading the
analysis of "Little Hans" (Kleiner Hans), which was published by Freud
during the current year.[143] I ought to begin by giving you the content of
that analysis, so that you might be in a position to compare Freud's results
with those obtained by me, and observe the marked, and astonishing
similarity between the unconscious creations of the two children. Without a
knowledge of the fundamental analysis of Freud, much in the report of the
following case will appear strange, incomprehensible, and perhaps
unacceptable to you. I beg you, however, to defer your final judgment and
to enter upon the consideration of these new subjects with a kindly
disposition, for such pioneer work in virgin soil requires not only the
greatest patience on the part of the investigator, but also the unprejudiced
attention of his audience. Because the Freudian investigations apparently
involve a discussion of the most intimate secrets of sexuality many people
have had a feeling of repulsion against them, and have therefore rejected
everything as a matter of course without any real disproof. This,
unfortunately, has almost always been the fate of Freud's doctrines up to the
present. One must not come to the consideration of these matters with the
firm conviction that they do not exist, for it may easily happen that for the
prejudiced they really do not exist. One should perhaps assume the author's
point of view for the moment and investigate these phenomena under his
guidance. Only in this way can the correctness or otherwise of our
observations be affirmed. We may err, as all human beings err. But the
continual holding up to us of our mistakes—perhaps they are worse than
mistakes—does not help us to see things more distinctly. We should prefer
to see wherein we err. That should be demonstrated to us in our own sphere
of experience. Thus far, however, no one has succeeded in meeting us on
our own ground, nor in giving us a different conception of the things which
we ourselves see. We still have to complain that our critics persist in
maintaining complete ignorance about the matters in question. The only
reason for this is that they have never taken the trouble to become
thoroughly acquainted with our method; had they done this they would have
understood us.
The little girl to whose sagacity and intellectual vivacity we are indebted for
the following observations is a healthy, lively child of emotional
temperament. She has never been seriously ill, and never, even in the realm
of the nervous system, had there been observed any symptoms prior to this
investigation. In the report which follows we shall have to waive any
connected description, for it is made up of anecdotes which treat of one
experience out of a whole cycle of similar ones, and which cannot,
therefore, be arranged scientifically and systematically, but must rather be
described somewhat in the form of a story. We cannot as yet dispense with
this manner of description in our analytical psychology, for we are still far
from being able in all cases to separate with unerring certainty what is
curious from what is typical.

When the little daughter, whom we will call Anna, was about three years
old, she once had the following conversation with her grandmother:

Anna: "Grandma, why are your eyes so dim?"

Grandma: "Because I am old."
A.: "But you will become young again."
G.: "No, do you know, I shall become older and older, and then I shall
die."
 A.: "Well, and then?"
G.: "Then I shall be an angel."
A.: "And then will you be a little baby again?"

The child found here a welcome opportunity for the provisional solution of
a problem. For some time before she had been in the habit of asking her
mother whether she would ever have a living doll, a little child, a little
brother. This naturally included the question as to the origin of children. As
such questions appeared only spontaneously and indirectly, the parents
attached no significance to them, but responded to them as lightly and in
appearance as carelessly as the child seemed to ask them. Thus she once
received from her father the pretty story that children are brought by the
stork. Anna had already heard somewhere a more serious version, namely,
that children, are little angels living in heaven, and are brought from heaven
by the stork. This theory seems to have become the starting point for the
investigating activity of the little one. From the conversation with the
grandmother it could be seen that this theory was capable of wide
application, namely, it not only solved in a comforting manner the painful
idea of parting and dying, but at the same time also the riddle of the origin
of children. Such solutions which kill at least two birds with one stone were
formerly tenaciously adhered to in science, and cannot be removed from the
mind of the child without a certain amount of shock.
Just as the birth of a little sister was the turning point in the history of
"Little Hans," so in this case it was the birth of a brother, which happened
when Anna had reached the age of four years. The pregnancy of the mother
apparently remained unnoticed; i.e. the child never expressed herself on this
subject. On the evening before the birth, when labour pains were beginning,
the child was in her father's room. He took her on his knee and said, "Tell
me, what would you say if you should get a little brother to-night?" "I
would kill him" was the prompt answer. The expression "to kill" looks very
serious, but in reality it is quite harmless, for "to kill" and "to die" in child
language signify only to remove, either in the active or in the passive sense,
as has already been pointed out a number of times by Freud. "To kill" as
used by the child is a harmless word, especially so when we know that the
child uses the word "kill" quite promiscuously for all possible kinds of
destruction, removal, demolition, etc. It is, nevertheless, worth while to note
this tendency (see the analysis of Kleiner Hans, p. 5).
The birth occurred early in the morning, and later the father entered the
room where Anna slept. She awoke as he came in. He imparted to her the
news of the advent of a little brother, which she took with surprise and
strained facial expression. The father took her in his arms and carried her
into the lying-in room. She first threw a rapid glance at her somewhat pale
mother and then displayed something like a mixture of embarrassment and
suspicion as if thinking, "Now what else is going to happen?" (Father's
impression.) She displayed hardly any pleasure at the sight of the new
arrival, so that the cool reception she gave it caused general disappointment.
During the forenoon she kept very noticeably away from her mother; this
was the more striking as she was usually much attached to her. But once
when her mother was alone she ran into the room, embraced her and said,
"Well, aren't you going to die now?" Now a part of the conflict in the child's
psyche is revealed to us. Though the stork theory was never really taken
seriously, she accepted the fruitful re-birth hypothesis, according to which a
person by dying helps a child into life. Accordingly the mother, too, must
die; why, then, should the newborn child, against whom she already felt
childish jealousy, cause her pleasure? It was for this reason that she had to
seek a favourable opportunity of reassuring herself as to whether the mother
was to die, or rather was moved to express the hope that she would not die.
With this happy issue, however, the re-birth theory sustained a severe
shock. How was it possible now to explain the birth of her little brother and
the origin of children in general? There still remained the stork theory
which, though never expressly rejected, had been implicitly waived through
the assumption of the re-birth theory. The explanations next attempted
unfortunately remained hidden from the parents as the child went to stay
with her grandmother for a few weeks. From the latter's report the stork
theory was often discussed, and was naturally reinforced by the concurrence
of those about her.
When Anna returned to her parents, she again, on meeting her mother,
evinced the same mixture of embarrassment and suspicion which she had
displayed after the birth. The impression, though inexplicable, was quite
unmistakable to both parents. Her behaviour towards the baby was very
nice. During her absence a nurse had come into the house who, on account
of her uniform, made a deep impression on Anna; to be sure, the impression
at first was quite unfavourable as she evinced the greatest hostility to her.
Thus nothing could induce her to allow herself to be undressed and put to
sleep by this nurse. Whence this resistance originated was soon shown in an
angry scene near the cradle of the little brother in which Anna shouted at
the nurse, "This is not your little brother, he is mine!" Gradually, however,
she became reconciled to the nurse, and began to play nurse herself; she had
to have her white cap and apron, and "nursed" now her little brother, and
now her doll.
In contrast to her former mood she became unmistakably mournful and
dreamy. She often sat for a long time under the table singing stories and
making rhymes, which were partially incomprehensible but sometimes
contained the "nurse" theme ("I am a nurse of the green cross"). Some of
the stories, however, distinctly showed a painful feeling striving for
expression.
Here we meet with a new and important feature in the little one's life: that
is, we meet with reveries, even a tendency towards poetic fancies and
melancholic attacks. All of them things which we are wont first to
encounter at a later period of life, at a time when the youth or maiden is
preparing to sever the family tie and to enter independently upon life, but is
still held back by an inward, painful feeling of homesickness for the warmth
of the parental hearth. At such a time the youth begins to replace what is
lacking with poetic fancies in order to compensate for the deficiency. To
approximate the psychology of a four-year-old child to that of the youth
approaching puberty will at first sight seem paradoxical; the relationship
lies, however, not in the age but rather in the mechanism. The elegiac
reveries express the fact that a part of that love which formerly belonged,
and should belong, to a real object, is now introverted, that is, it is turned
inward into the subject and there produces an increased imaginative
activity. What is the origin of this introversion? Is it a psychological
manifestation peculiar to this age, or does it owe its origin to a conflict?
This is explained in the following occurrence. It often happened that Anna
was disobedient to her mother, she was insolent, saying, "I am going back
to grandma."
Mother: "But I shall be sad when you leave me."
Anna: "Oh, but you have my little brother."
This reaction towards the mother shows what the little one was really
aiming at with her threats to go away again; she apparently wished to hear
what her mother would say to her proposal, that is, to see what attitude her
mother would actually assume to her, whether her little brother had not
ousted her altogether from her mother's regard. One must, however, give no
credence to this little trickster. For the child could readily see and feel that,
despite the existence of the little brother, there was nothing essentially
lacking to her in her mother's love. The reproach to which she subjects her
mother is therefore unjustified, and to the trained ear this is betrayed by a
slightly affected tone. Such an unmistakable tone does not expect to be
taken seriously and hence it obtrudes itself more vehemently. The reproach
as such cannot be taken seriously by the mother, for it was only the
forerunner of other and this time more serious resistances. Not long after
the conversation narrated above, the following scene took place:

Mother: "Come, we are going into the garden now!"

Anna: "You are telling lies, take care if you are not telling the truth."
M.: "What are you thinking of? I am telling the truth."
A.: "No, you are not telling the truth."
M.: "You will soon see that I am telling the truth: we are going into the
garden now."
A.: "Indeed, is that true? Is that really true? Are you not lying?"

Scenes of this kind were repeated a number of times. This time the tone was
more rude and more vehement, and at the same time the accent on the word
"lie" betrayed something special which the parents did not understand;
indeed, at first they attributed too little significance to the spontaneous
utterances of the child. In this they merely did what education usually does
in general, ex officio. We usually pay little heed to children in every stage of
life; in all essential matters, they are treated as not responsible, and in all
unessential ma tters, they are trained with an automatic precision.
Under resistances there always lies a question, a conflict, of which we hear
later and on other occasions. But usually one forgets to connect the thing
heard with the resistances. Thus, on another occasion, Anna put to her
mother the following questions:—

Anna: "I should like to become a nurse when I grow big—why did you
not become a nurse?"
Mother: "Why, as I have become a mother I have children to nurse
anyway."
A. (Reflecting): "Indeed, shall I be a lady like you, and shall I talk to
you then?"

The mother's answer again shows whither the child's question was really
directed. Apparently Anna, too, would like to have a child to "nurse" just as
the nurse has. Where the nurse got the little child is quite clear. Anna, too,
could get a child in the same way if she were big. Why did not the mother
become such a nurse, that is to say, how did she get a child if not in the
same way as the nurse? Like the nurse, Anna, too, could get a child, but
how that fact might be changed in the future or how she might come to
resemble her mother in the matter of getting children is not clear to her.
From this resulted the thoughtful question, "Indeed, shall I be a lady like
you? Shall I be quite different?" The stork theory evidently had come to
naught, the dying theory met a similar fate; hence she now thinks one may
get a child in the same way, as, for example, the nurse got hers. She, too,
could get one in this natural way, but how about the mother who is no nurse
and still has children? Looking at the matter from this point of view, Anna
asks: "Why did you not become a nurse?" namely, "why have you not got
your child in the natural way?" This peculiar indirect manner of questioning
is typical, and evidently corresponds with the child's hazy grasp of the
problem, unless we assume a certain diplomatic uncertainty prompted by a
desire to evade direct questioning. We shall later find an illustration of this
possibility. Anna is evidently confronted with the question "Where does the
child come from?" The stork did not bring it; mother did not die; nor did
mother get it in the same way as the nurse. She has, however, asked this
question before and received the information from her father that the stork
brings children; this is positively untrue, she can never be deceived on this
point. Accordingly, papa and mama and all the others lie. This readily
explains her suspicion at the childbirth and her discrediting of her mother.
But it also explains another point, namely, the elegiac reveries which we
have attributed to a partial introversion. We know now what was the real
object from which love was removed and uselessly introverted, namely, it
had to be taken from the parents who deceived her and refused to tell her
the truth. (What can this be which must not be uttered? What is going on
here?) Such were the parenthetic questions of the child, and the answer was:
Evidently this must be something to be concealed, perhaps something
dangerous. Attempts to make her talk and to draw out the truth by means of
artful questions were futile, so resistance is placed against resistance, and
the introversion of love begins. It is evident that the capacity for
sublimation in a four-year-old child is still too slightly developed to be
capable of performing more than symptomatic services. The mind,
therefore, depends on another compensation, namely, it resorts to one of the
relinquished infantile devices for securing love by force, preferably that of
crying and calling the mother at night. This had been diligently practised
and exhausted during her first year. It now returns, and corresponding to the
period of life has become well determined and equipped with recent
impressions. It was just after the earthquakes in Messina, and this event was
discussed at the table. Anna was extremely interested in everything, she
repeatedly asked her grandmother to tell her how the earth shook, how the
houses fell in and many people lost their lives. After this she had nocturnal
fears, she could not be alone, her mother had to go to her and stay with her;
otherwise she feared that an earthquake would happen, that the house would
fall and kill her. During the day, too, she was much occupied with such
thoughts. While walking with her mother she annoyed her with such
questions as, "Will the house be standing when we return home? Are you
sure there is no earthquake at home? Will papa still be living?" About every
stone lying in the road she asked whether it was from an earthquake. A
building in course of erection was a house destroyed by the earthquake, etc.
Finally, she began to cry out frequently at night that the earthquake was
coming and that she heard the thunder. Each evening she had to be
solemnly assured that there was no earthquake coming.
Many means of calming her were tried, thus she was told, for example, that
earthquakes only occur where there are volcanoes. But then she had to be
satisfied that the mountains surrounding the city were not volcanoes. This
reasoning led the child by degrees to a desire for learning, as strong as it
was unnatural at her age, which showed itself in a demand that all the
geological atlases and text-books should be brought to her from her father's
library. For hours she rummaged through these works looking for pictures
of volcanoes and earthquakes, and asking questions continually. Here we
are confronted by an energetic effort to sublimate the fear into an eager
desire for knowledge, which at this age made a decidedly premature
exaction. But how many a gifted child suffering in exactly the same way
with such problems, is "cosseted" through this untimely sublimation, by no
means to its advantage. For, by favouring sublimation at this age one is
merely strengthening manifestation of neurosis. The root of the eager desire
for knowledge is fear, and fear is the expression of converted libido; that is,
it is the expression of an introversion which has become neurotic, which at
this age is neither necessary nor favourable for the development of the
child.
Whither this eager desire for knowledge was ultimately directed is
explained by a series of questions which arose almost daily. "Why is Sophie
(a younger sister) younger than I?" "Where was Freddie (the little brother)
before? Was he in heaven? What was he doing there? Why did he come
down just now, why not before?"
This state of affairs led the father to decide that the mother should tell the
child when occasion offered the truth concerning the origin of the little
brother. This having been done, Anna soon thereafter asked about the stork.
Her mother told her that the story of the stork was not true, but that Freddie
grew inside his mother like the flowers in a plant. At first he was very little,
and then he became bigger and bigger as a plant does. She listened
attentively without the slightest surprise, and then asked, "But did he come
out all by himself?"

Mother: "Yes."
Anna: "But he cannot walk!"
Sophie: "Then he crawled out."

Anna, overhearing her little sister's answer: "Is there a hole here? (pointing
to the breast) or did he come out of the mouth? Who came out of the
nurse?" She then interrupted herself and exclaimed, "No, no, the stork
brought baby brother down from heaven." She soon left the subject and
again wished to see pictures of volcanoes. During the evening following
this conversation she was calm. The sudden explanation produced in the
child a whole series of ideas, which manifested themselves in certain
questions. New unexpected perspectives were opened; she rapidly
approached the main problem, namely, the question, "Where did the baby
come out?" Was it from a hole in the breast or from the mouth? Both
suppositions are entirely qualified to form acceptable theories. We even
meet with recently married women who still entertain the theory of the hole
in the abdominal wall or of the Cæsarean section; this is supposed to betray
a very unusual degree of innocence. But as a matter of fact it is not
innocence; we are always dealing in such cases with infantile sexual
activities, which in later life have brought the vias naturales into ill repute.
It may be asked where the child got the absurd idea that there is a hole in
the breast, or that the birth takes place through the mouth. Why did she not
select one of the natural openings existing in the pelvis from which things
come out daily? The explanation is simple. Very shortly before, our little
one had invoked some educational criticism from her mother by a
heightened interest in both openings with their remarkable excretions,—an
interest not always in accord with the requirements of cleanliness and
decorum. Then for the first time she became acquainted with the
exceptional laws relating to these bodily regions and, being a sensitive
child, she soon learned that there was something here to be tabooed. This
region, therefore, must not be referred to. Anna had simply shown herself
docile and had so adjusted herself to the cultural demands that she thought
(at least spoke) of the simplest things last. The incorrect theories substituted
for correct laws sometimes persist for years until brusque explanations
come from without. It is, therefore, no wonder that such theories, the
forming of and adherence to which are favoured even by parents and
educationalists should later become determinants for important symptoms
in a neurosis, or of delusions in a psychosis, just as I have shown that in
dementia præcox[144] what has existed in the mind for years always remains
somewhere, though it may be hidden under compensations of a seemingly
different kind.
But even before this question was settled as to where the child really comes
out a new problem obtruded itself, viz. the children came out of the mother,
but how is it with the nurse? Did some one come out of her too? This
question was followed by the remark, "No, no, the stork brought down baby
brother from heaven." What is there peculiar about the fact that nobody
came out of the nurse? We recall that Anna identified herself with the nurse,
and planned to become a nurse later, for she, too, would like to have a child,
and she could have one as well as the nurse. But now when it is known that
the little brother grew in mama, how is it now?
This disquieting question is averted by a quick return to the stork-angel
theory which has never been really believed and which after a few trials is
at last definitely abandoned. Two questions, however, remain in the air. The
first reads as follows: Where does the child come out? The second, a
considerably more difficult one, reads: How does it happen that mama has
children while the nurse and the servants do not? All these questions did not
at first manifest themselves.
On the day following the explanation, while at dinner, Anna spontaneously
remarked: "My brother is in Italy, and has a house of cloth and glass, but it
does not tumble down."
In this case, as in the others, it was impossible to ask for an explanation; the
resistances were too great and Anna could not be drawn into conversation.
This former officious and pretty explanation is very significant. For some
three months the two sisters had been building a stereotyped fanciful
conception of a "big brother." This brother knows everything, he can do and
has everything, he has been and is in every place where the children are not;
he is owner of great cows, oxen, horses, dogs; everything is his, etc. Every
one has such a "big brother." We must not look far for the origin of this
fancy; the model for it is the father who seems to correspond to this
conception; he seems to be like a brother to mama. The children, too, have
their similar powerful "brother." This brother is very brave; he is at present
in dangerous Italy and inhabits an impossible fragile house, and it does not
tumble down. For the child this realises an important wish: the earthquake
is no longer to be dangerous; in consequence the child's fear disappeared
and did not return. The fear of earthquakes now entirely vanished. Instead
of calling her father to her bed to conjure away the fear, she now became
very affectionate and begged him every night to kiss her.
In order to test this new state of affairs the father showed her pictures
illustrating volcanoes and earthquake devastations. Anna remained
unaffected, she examined the pictures with indifference, remarking, "These
people are dead; I have already seen that quite often." The picture of a
volcanic eruption no longer had any attraction for her. Thus all her scientific
interest collapsed and vanished as suddenly as it came. During the days
following the explanation Anna had quite important matters to occupy
herself with; she disseminated her newly acquired knowledge among those
about her in the following manner: She began by again circumstantially
affirming what had been told her, viz. that Freddy, her younger sister, and
herself had grown in her mother, that papa and mama grew in their mothers,
and that the servants likewise grew in their respective mothers. By frequent
questions she tested the true basis of her knowledge, for her suspicion was
aroused in no small measure, so that it needed many confirmations to
remove all her uncertainties.
On one occasion the trustworthiness of the theory threatened to go to
pieces. About a week after the explanation, the father was taken ill with
influenza and had to remain in bed during the forenoon. The children knew
nothing about this, and Anna, coming into the parents' bedroom, saw what
was quite unusual, namely, that her father was remaining in bed. She again
took on a peculiar surprised expression; she remained at a distance from the
bed and would not come nearer; she was apparently again reserved and
suspicious. But suddenly she burst out with the question, "Why are you in
bed; have you a plant in your inside too?"
The father naturally had to laugh. He calmed her, however, by assuring her
that children never grow in the father, that only women can have children,
and not men; thereupon the child again became friendly. But though the
surface was calm the problems continued to work in the dark. A few days
later, while at dinner, Anna related the following dream: "I dreamed last
night of Noah's ark." The father then asked her what she had dreamed about
it, but Anna's answer was sheer nonsense. In such cases it is necessary only
to wait and pay attention. A few minutes later she said to her mother, "I
dreamed last night about Noah's ark, and there were a lot of little animals in
it." Another pause. She then began her story for the third time. "I dreamed
last night about Noah's ark, and there were a lot of baby animals in it, and
underneath there was a lid and that opened and all the baby animals fell
out."
The children really had a Noah's ark, but its opening, a lid, was on the roof
and not underneath. In this way she delicately intimated that the story of the
birth from mouth or breast is incorrect, and that she had some inkling where
the children came out.
A few weeks then passed without any noteworthy occurrences. On one
occasion she related the following dream: "I dreamed about papa and
mama; they had been sitting late in the study, and we children were there
too." On the face of this we find a wish of the children to be allowed to sit
up as long as the parents. This wish is here realised, or rather it is utilised to
express a more important wish, namely, to be present in the evening when
the parents are alone; of course, quite innocently, it was in the study where
she has seen all the interesting books, and where she has satiated her thirst
for knowledge; i.e. she was really seeking an answer to the burning
question, whence the little brother came. If the children were there they
would find out.[145] A few days later Anna had a terrifying dream from
which she awoke crying, "The earthquake is coming, the house has begun
to shake." Her mother went to her and calmed her by saying that the
earthquake was not coming, that everything was quiet, and that everybody
was asleep. Whereupon Anna said: "I would like to see the spring, when all
the little flowers are coming out and the whole lawn is full of flowers; I
would like to see Freddy, he has such a dear little face. What is papa
doing? What is he saying?" The mother said, "He is asleep, and isn't saying
anything now." Little Anna then remarked with a sarcastic smile: "He will
surely be sick again to-morrow."
This text should be read backwards. The last sentence was not meant
seriously, as it was uttered in a mocking tone. When the father was sick the
last time, Anna suspected that he had a "plant in his inside." The sarcasm
signifies: "To-morrow papa is surely going to have a child." But this also is
not meant seriously. Papa is not going to have a child; mama alone has
children; perhaps she will have another child to-morrow; but where from?
"What does papa do?" The formulation of the difficult problem seems here
to come to the surface. It reads: What does papa really do if he does not
bear children? The little one is very anxious to have a solution for all these
problems; she would like to know how Freddy came into the world, she
would like to see how the little flowers come out of the earth in the spring,
and these wishes are hidden behind the fear of earthquakes.
After this intermezzo Anna slept quietly until morning. In the morning her
mother asked her what she had dreamed. She did not at first recall anything,
and then said: "I dreamed that I could make the summer, and then some one
threw a Punch[146] down into the closet."
This peculiar dream apparently has two different scenes which are separated
by "then." The second part draws its material from the recent wish to
possess a Punch, that is, to have a boy doll just as mama has a little boy.
Some one threw Punch down into the closet; one often lets other things fall
down into the water closet. It is just like this that the children, too, come
out. We have here an analogy to the "Lumpf-theory" of little Hans.[147]
Whenever several scenes are found in one dream, each scene ordinarily
represents a particular variation of the complex elaboration. Here
accordingly the first part is only a variation of the theme found in the
second part. The meaning of "to see the spring" or "to see the little flowers
come out" we have already remarked. Anna now dreams that she can make
the summer, that is she can bring it about that the little flowers shall come
out. She herself can make a little child, and the second part of the dream
represents this just as one makes a motion in the w.c. Here we find the
egoistic wish which is behind the seemingly objective interest of the
previous night's conversation.
A few days later the mother was visited by a lady who expected soon to
become a mother. The children seemed to take no interest in the matter, but
the next day they amused themselves with the following play which was
directed by the elder girl; they took all the newspapers they could find in
their father's paper-basket and stuffed them under their clothes, so that the
imitation was unmistakable. During the night little Anna had another
dream: "I dreamed about a woman in the city; she had a very big stomach."
The chief actor in a dream is always the dreamer himself under some
definite aspect; thus the childish play of the day before is fully solved.
Not long after, Anna surprised her mother with the following performance:
She stuck her doll under her clothes, then pulled it out slowly head
downwards, and at the same time remarked, "Look, the baby is coming out,
now it is all out." By this means Anna tells her mother, "You see, thus I
apprehend the problem of birth. What do you think of it? Is that right?" The
play is really meant to be a question, for, as we shall see later, this idea had
to be officially confirmed. That rumination on this problem by no means
ended here, is shown by the occasional ideas conceived during the
following weeks. Thus she repeated the same play a few days later with her
Teddy Bear, who stands in the relation of an especially beloved doll. One
day, looking at a rose, she said to her grandmother, "See, the rose is getting
a baby." As her grandmother did not quite understand her, she pointed to the
enlarged calyx and said, "Don't you see it is quite fat here?"
Anna once quarrelled with her younger sister, and the latter exclaimed
angrily, "I will kill you." Whereupon Anna answered, "When I am dead you
will be all alone; then you will have to pray to God for a live baby." But the
scene soon changed: Anna was the angel, and the younger sister was forced
to kneel before her and pray to her that she should present to her a living
child. In this way Anna became the child-dispensing mother.
Oranges were once served at table. Anna impatiently asked for one and
said, "I am going to take an orange and swallow it all down into my
stomach, and then I shall get a baby." Who does not think here of fairy tales
in which childless women become pregnant by swallowing fruit, fish, and
similar things?[148] In this way Anna sought to solve the problem how the
children actually come into the mother. She thus enters into a formulation
which hitherto had not been defined with so much clearness. The solution
follows in the form of an analogy, which is quite characteristic of the
archaic thinking of the child. (In the adult, too, there is a kind of thinking by
metaphor which belongs to the stratum lying immediately below
consciousness; dreams bring the analogies to the surface; the same may be
observed also in dementia præcox.) In German as well as in numerous
foreign fairy tales one frequently finds such characteristic childish
comparisons. Fairy tales seem to be the myths of the child, and therefore
contain among other things the mythology which the child weaves
concerning the sexual processes. The spell of the fairy tale poetry, which is
felt even by the adult, is explained by the fact that some of the old theories
are still alive in our unconscious minds. We experience a strange, peculiar
and familiar feeling when a conception of our remotest youth is again
stimulated. Without becoming conscious it merely sends into consciousness
a feeble copy of its original emotional strength.
The problem how the child gets into the mother was difficult to solve. As
the only way of taking things into the body is through the mouth, it could
evidently be assumed that the mother ate something like a fruit, which then
grows inside her. But then comes another difficulty, namely, it is clear
enough what the mother produces, but it is not yet clear what the father is
good for.
What does the father do? Anna now occupied herself exclusively with this
question. One morning she ran into the parents' bedroom while they were
dressing, she jumped into her father's bed, lay face downwards, kicked with
her legs and called at the same time, "Look! does papa do that?" The
analogy to the horse of "little Hans" which raised such disturbance with its
legs, is very surprising.
With this last performance the problem seemed to be at rest entirely, at least
the parents found no opportunity to make any pertinent observations. That
the problem should come to a standstill just here is not at all surprising, for
this is really its most difficult part. Moreover, we know from experience
that not many children go beyond these limits during the period of
childhood. The problem is almost too difficult for the childish mind, which
still lacks much knowledge necessary to its solution.
This standstill lasted about five months, during which no phobias or other
signs of complex-elaboration appeared. After this lapse of time there
appeared premonitory signs of some new incidents. Anna's family lived at
that time in the country near a lake where the mother and children could
bathe. As Anna was afraid to wade farther into the water than knee-deep,
her father once put her into the water, which led to an outburst of crying. In
the evening while going to bed Anna asked her mother, "Do you not believe
that father wanted to drown me?" A few days later there was another
outburst of crying. She continued to stand in the gardener's way until he
finally placed her in a newly dug hole. Anna cried bitterly, and afterwards
maintained that the gardener wished to bury her. Finally she awoke during
the night with fearful crying. Her mother went to her in the adjoining room
and quieted her. She had dreamed that "a train passed and then fell in a
heap."
This tallies with the "stage coach" of "little Hans." These incidents showed
clearly enough that fear was again in the air, i.e. that a resistance had again
arisen preventing transference to the parents, and that therefore a great part
of her love was converted into fear. This time suspicion was not directed
against the mother, but against the father, who she was sure must know the
secret, but would never let anything out. What could the father be doing or
keeping secret? To the child this secret appeared as something dangerous,
so that she felt the worst might be expected from the father. (This feeling of
childish anxiety with the father as object we see again most distinctly in
adults, especially in dementia præcox, which lifts the veil of obscurity from
many unconscious processes, as though it were following psychoanalytic
principles.) It was for this reason that Anna came to the apparently absurd
conclusion that her father wanted to drown her. At the same time her fear
contained the thought that the object of the father had some relation to a
dangerous action. This stream of thought is no arbitrary interpretation.
Anna meanwhile grew a little older and her interest in her father took on a
special colouring which is hard to describe. Language has no words to
describe the quite unique kind of tender curiosity which shone in the child's
eyes.
Anna once took marked delight in assisting the gardener while he was
sowing grass, without apparently divulging the profound significance of her
play. About a fortnight later she began to observe with great pleasure the
young grass sprouting. On one of these occasions she asked her mother the
following question: "Tell me, how did the eyes grow into the head?" The
mother told her that she did not know. Anna, however, continued to ask
whether God or her papa could tell this? The mother then referred her to her
father, who might tell her how the eyes grew into the head. A few days later
there was a family reunion at tea. When the guests had departed, the father
remained at the table reading the paper and Anna also remained. Suddenly
approaching her father she said, "Tell me, how did the eyes grow into the
head?"
Father: "They did not grow into the head; they were there from the
beginning and grew with the head."
A.: "Were not the eyes planted?"
F.: "No, they grew in the head like the nose."
A.: "Did the mouth and the ears grow in the same way? and the hair, too?"
F.: "Yes, they all grew in the same way."
A.: "And the hair, too? But the mousies came into the world naked. Where
was the hair before? Aren't there little seeds for it?"
F.: "No; you see, the hair really came out of little grains which are like
seeds, but these were already in the skin long before and nobody sowed
them." The father was now getting concerned; he knew whither the little
one's thoughts were directed, but he did not wish to overthrow, for the sake
of a former false application, the opportunely established seed-theory which
she had most fortunately gathered from nature; but the child spoke with an
unwonted seriousness which demanded consideration.
Anna (evidently disappointed, and in a distressed tone): "But how did
Freddy get into mama? Who stuck him in? and who stuck you into your
mama? Where did he come out from?"
From this sudden storm of questions the father chose the last for his first
answer. "Just think, you know well enough that Freddy is a boy; boys
become men and girls women. Only women and not men can have children;
now just think, where could Freddy come out from?"
A. (Laughs joyfully and points to her genitals): "Did he come out here?"
Father: "Yes, of course, you certainly must have thought of this before?"
A. (Overlooking the question): "But how did Freddy get into mama? Did
anybody plant him? Was the seed planted?"
This very precise question could no longer be evaded by the father. He
explained to the child, who listened with the greatest attention, that the
mother is like the soil and the father like the gardener; that the father
provides the seed which grows in the mother, and thus gives origin to a
baby. This answer gave extraordinary satisfaction; she immediately ran to
her mother and said, "Papa has told me everything, now I know it all." She
did not, however, tell what she knew.
The new knowledge was, however, put into play the following day. Anna
went to her mother and said, "Think, mama, papa told me how Freddy was
a little angel and was brought from heaven by a stork." The mother was
naturally surprised and said, "No, you are mistaken, papa surely never told
you such a thing!" whereupon the little one laughed and ran away.
This was apparently a mode of revenge. Her mother did not wish or was not
able to tell her how the eyes grew into the head, hence she did not know
how Freddy got into her. It was for this reason that she again tried her with
the old story.

I wish to impress firmly upon parents and educationists this instructive

example of child psychology. In the learned psychological discussions on
the child's psyche we hear nothing about those parts which are so important
for the health and naturalness of our children, nor do we hear more about
the child's emotions and conflicts; and yet they play a most important rôle.
It very often happens that children are erroneously treated as quite
imprudent and irrational beings. Thus on indulgently remarking to an
intelligent father, whose four-year-old daughter masturbated excessively,
that care should be exercised in the presence of the child who slept in the
same room as the parents, I received the indignant reply, "I can absolutely
assure you that the child knows nothing about sexual matters." This recalls
that distinguished old neurologist who wished to deny the attribute "sexual"
to a childbirth phantasy which was represented in a dreamy state.
On the other hand, a child evincing neurotic talent exaggerated by neurosis
may be urged on by solicitous parents. How easy and tempting it would
have been, e.g. in the present case, to admire, excite, and develop
prematurely the child's eager desire for learning, and thereby develop an
unnatural blasé state and a precociousness masking a neurosis! In such
cases the parents must look after their own complexes and complex
tendencies and not make capital out of them at the expense of the child. The
idea should be dismissed once for all that children are to be held in bondage
by their parents or that they are their toys. They are characteristic and new
beings. In the matter of enlightenment on sexual things it can be affirmed
that they suffer from the preconceived opinion that the truth is harmful.
Many neurologists are of opinion that even in grown-ups enlightenment on
their own psychosexual processes is harmful and even immoral. Would not
the same persons perhaps refuse to admit the existence of the genitals
themselves?
One should not, however, go from this extreme of prudishness to the
opposite one, namely that of enlightenment à tout prix, which may turn out
as foolish as it is disagreeable. In this matter I believe much discretion is
advisable; still if children come upon an idea, they should be deceived no
more than adults.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that I have shown you what complicated
psychic processes psychoanalytic investigation reveals in the child, and
how great is the significance of these processes for the mental health as well
as for the general psychic development of the child. What I have been
unable to show is the universal validity of these observations.
Unfortunately, I am not in a position to demonstrate this, for I do not know
myself how much of it is universally valid. Only by accumulation of such
observations and further penetration into the problems broached shall we
gain a complete insight into the laws of psychical development. It is to be
regretted that we are at present still far from this goal. But I confidently
hope that educators and practical psychologists, whether physicians or
deep-thinking parents, will not leave us too long unassisted in this
immensely important and interesting field.

Literature.
1. Freud. "Die Traumdeutung," II Auflage. Deuticke, Wien, 1909.
2. —— ——. "Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre," Band
I & II. Deuticke, Wien.
3. —— ——. "Analyse der Phobie eines 5 jahrigen Knaben,"
Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische u. Psychopathologische Forschungen,
Band I. Deuticke, Wien, 1908.
4. Freud. "Der Inhalt der Psychose," Freud's Shriften zur angewandten
Seelenkunde. Deuticke, 1908.
5. Jung. "Diagnostische Associationsstudien," Band I. Barth, Leipzig,
1906.
6. —— ——. "Die Psychologische Diagnose des Thatbestandes." Carl
Marhold, Halle, 1906.

7. Jung. "Die Bedeutung des Vaters für das Schicksal des Einzelnen."
Deuticke, Wien, 1908.
8. Jung. "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox," translated by Peterson
and Brill, Journal of Mental and Nervous Diseases, Monograph Series,
No. 2.
9. Fürst. "Statistische Untersuchungen über Wortassoziationen und
über familiäre Übereinstimmung im Reactionstypus bei
Ungebildeten," X. Beitrag der Diagnost. Assoc. Studien, vol. II.
10. Brill. "Psychological Factors in Dementia Præcox," Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, vol. III., No. 4.
11. —— ——. "A case of Schizophrenia," American Journal of
Insanity, vol. LXVI., No. 1.
12. "Le Nuove Vedute della Psicologia Criminale," Rivista de
Psicologia Applicata, 1908, No. 4.
13. "L'Analyse des Rêves," Année Psychologique, 1909, Tome XV.
14. "Associations d'idées Familiales," Archives de Psychologie, T.
VII., No. 26.
 CHAPTER III
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FATHER IN THE DESTINY
OF THE INDIVIDUAL[149]
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.
Freud has pointed out in many places[150] with unmistakable clearness that
the psychosexual relationship of the child towards his parents, particularly
towards the father, possesses an overwhelming importance in the content of
any later neurosis. This relationship is in fact the infantile channel par
excellence in which the libido flows back[151] when it encounters any
obstacles in later years, thus revivifying long-forgotten dreams of
childhood. It is ever so in life when we draw back before too great an
obstacle—the menace of some severe disappointment or the risk of some
too far-reaching decision—the energy stored up for the solution of the task
flows back impotent; the by-streams once relinquished as inadequate are
again filled up. He who has missed the happiness of woman's love falls
back, as a substitute, upon some gushing friendship, upon masturbation,
upon religiosity; should he be a neurotic he plunges still further back into
the conditions of childhood which have never been quite forsaken, to which
even the normal is fettered by more than one link—he returns to the
relationship to father and mother. Every psychoanalysis carried out at all
thoroughly shows this regression more or less plainly. One peculiarity
which stands out in the works and views of Freud is that the relationship to
the father is seen to possess an overwhelming importance. This importance
of the father in the moulding of the child's psycho-sexuality may also be
discovered in a quite other and remote field, in the investigation of the
family.[152] The most recent thorough investigations demonstrate the
predominating influence of the father often lasting for centuries. The
mother seems of less importance in the family.[153] If this is true for
heredity on the physical side how much more should we expect from the
psychological influences emanating from the father? These experiences,
and those gained more particularly in an analysis carried out conjointly with
Dr. Otto Gross, have impressed upon me the soundness of this view. The
problem has been considerably advanced and deepened by the
investigations of my pupil, Dr. Emma Fürst, into familial resemblances in
the reaction-type.[154] Fürst made association experiments on one hundred
persons belonging to twenty-four families. Of this extensive material, only
the results in nine families and thirty-seven persons (all uneducated) have
been worked out and published. But the painstaking calculations do already
permit some valuable conclusions. The associations are classified on the
Kræpelin-aschaffenburg scheme as simplified and modified by myself; the
difference is then calculated between each group of qualities of the subjects
experimented upon and the corresponding group of every other subject
experimented upon. Thus we finally get the differentiation of the mean in
reaction-type. The following is the result:—

Non-related men differ among themselves by 5·9.

Non-related women differ among themselves by 6·0.
Related men differ among themselves by 4·1.
Related women differ among themselves by 3·8.

Relatives, and especially related women, have therefore, on the average,

resemblance in reaction-type. This fact means that the psychological
adaptation of relatives differs but slightly.
An investigation into the various relationships gave the following:—
The mean difference of the husband and wife amounts to 4·7. The mean
deviation of this mean is, however, 3·7, a very high figure, which signifies
that the mean figure 4·7 is composed of very heterogeneous figures; there
are married couples in whom the reaction type is very close and others in
whom it is very slight. On the whole, however, father and son, mother and
daughter stand remarkably close.
The difference between father and son amounts to 3·1.
The difference between mother and daughter amounts to 3·0.
With the exception of a few cases of married couples (where the difference
fell to 1·4) these are the lowest differences. In Fürst's work there was a case
where the difference between the forty-five year old mother and her sixteen
year old daughter was only 0·5. But it was just in this case that the mother
and daughter differed from the father's type by 11·8. The father is a coarse,
stupid man, an alcoholic; the mother goes in for Christian Science. This
corresponds with the fact that mother and daughter exhibit an extreme
word-predicate type,[155] which is, in my experience, important
semeiotically for the diagnosis of insufficiency in the sexual object. The
word-predicate type transparently applies an excessive amount of emotion
externally and displays emotions with the unconscious, but nevertheless
obvious, endeavour to awaken echoing emotions in the experimenter. This
view closely corresponds with the fact that in Fürst's material the number of
word-predicates increases with the age of the subjects experimented upon.
The fact of the extreme similarity between the reaction-type of the offspring
and the parents is matter for thought. The association experiment is nothing
but a small section from the psychological life of a man. At bottom daily
life is nothing but an extensive and many-varied association experiment; in
essence we react in life just as we do in the experiments. Although this truth
is evident, still it requires a certain consideration and limitation. Let us take
as an instance the case of the unhappy mother of forty-five years and her
unmarried daughter of sixteen. The extreme word-predicate type of the
mother is, without doubt, the precipitate of a whole life of disappointed
hopes and wishes. One is not in the least surprised at the word-predicate
type here. But the daughter of sixteen has really not yet lived at all; her real
sexual object has not yet been found, and yet she reacts as if she were her
mother with endless disillusions behind her. She has the mother's
adaptation, and in so far she is identified with the mother. There is ample
evidence that the mother's adaptation must be attributed to her relationship
to the father. But the daughter is not married to the father and therefore does
not need this adaptation. She has taken it over from the influence of her
milieu, and later on will try to adapt herself to the world with this familial
disharmony. In so far as an ill-assorted marriage is unsuitable, the
adaptation resulting from it is unsuitable.
Clearly such a fate has many possibilities. To adapt herself to life, this girl
either will have to surmount the obstacles of her familial milieu, or, unable
to free herself from them, she will succumb to the fate to which such an
adaptation predisposes her. Deep within, unnoticed by any one, there may
go on a glossing over of the infantile disharmony, or a development of the
negative of the parents' character, accompanied by hindrances and conflicts
to which she herself has no clue. Or, growing up, she will come into painful
conflict with that world of actualities to which she is so ill-adapted till one
stroke of fate after another gradually opens her eyes to the fact that it is
herself, infantile and maladjusted, that is amiss. The source of infantile
adaptation to the parents is naturally the affective condition on both sides;
the psycho-sexuality of the parents on one side and that of the child on the
other. It is a kind of psychical infection; we know that it is not logical truth,
but affects and their psychical expressions[156] which are here the effective
forces. It is these that, with the power of the herd-instinct, press into the
mind of the child, there fashioning and moulding it. In the plastic years
between one and five there have to be worked out all the essential formative
lines which fit exactly into the parental mould. Psychoanalytic experience
teaches us that, as a rule, the first signs of the later conflict between the
parental constellation and individual independence, of the struggle between
repression and libido (Freud), occur before the fifth year.
The few following histories will show how this parental constellation
obstructs the adaptation of the offspring. It must suffice to present only the
chief events of these, that is the events of sexuality.
Case 1.—A well-preserved woman of 55; dressed poorly but carefully in
black with a certain elegance, the hair carefully dressed; a polite, obviously
affected manner, precise in speech, a devotee. The patient might be the wife
of a minor official or shopkeeper. She informs me, blushing and dropping
her eyes, that she is the divorced wife of a common peasant. She has come
to the hospital on account of depression, night terrors, palpitations, slight
nervous twitchings in the arms, thus presenting the typical features of a
slight climacteric neurosis. To complete the picture, she adds that she
suffers from severe anxiety-dreams; in her dreams some man seems to be
pursuing her, wild animals attack her, and so on.
Her anamnesis begins with the family history. (So far as possible I give her
own words.) Her father was a fine, stately, rather corpulent man of
imposing appearance. He was very happy in his marriage, for her mother
worshipped him. He was a clever man, a master-mechanic, and held a
dignified and honourable position. There were only two children, the
patient and an elder sister. The sister was the mother's, and the patient her
father's favourite. When the patient was five years old the father died
suddenly from a stroke, at the age of forty-two. The patient felt herself very
isolated and was from that time treated by the mother and the elder sister as
the Cinderella. She noticed clearly enough that her mother preferred her
sister to herself. Her mother remained a widow, her respect for her husband
being too great to allow her to marry a second time. She preserved his
memory "like a religious cult" and brought up her children in this way.
Later on the sister married, relatively young; the patient did not marry till
twenty-four. She never cared for young men, they all seemed insipid; her
mind turned always to more mature men. When about twenty she became
acquainted with a stately gentleman rather over forty, to whom she was
much drawn. For various reasons the friendship was broken off. At twenty-
four she became acquainted with a widower who had two children. He was
a fine, stately, somewhat corpulent man, and had an imposing presence, like
her father; he was forty-four. She married him and respected him
enormously. The marriage was childless; the children by the first marriage
died from an infectious disease. After four years of married life her husband
also died. For eighteen years she remained his faithful widow. But at forty-
six (just before the menopause) she experienced a great need of love. As
she had no acquaintances she went to a matrimonial agency and married the
first comer, a peasant of some sixty years who had been already twice
divorced on account of brutality and perverseness; the patient knew this
before marriage. She remained five unbearable years with him, when she
also obtained a divorce. The neurosis set in a little later.
No further discussion will be required for those with psychoanalytic
experience; the case is too obvious. For those unversed in psychoanalysis
let me point out that up to her forty-sixth year the patient did but reproduce
most faithfully the milieu of her earliest youth. The sexuality which
announced itself so late and so drastically, even here only led to a
deteriorated edition of the father-surrogate; to this she is brought by this
late-blossoming sexuality. Despite repression, the neurosis betrays the ever-
fluctuating eroticism of the aging woman who still wants to please
(affectation) but dares not acknowledge her sexuality.
Case 2.—A man of thirty-four of small build and with a sensible, kindly
expression. He is easily embarrassed, blushes often. He came for treatment
on account of "nervousness." He says he is very irritable, readily fatigued,
has nervous indigestion, is often deeply depressed so that he has thought of
suicide.
Before coming to me for treatment he sent me a circumstantial
autobiography, or rather a history of his illness, in order to prepare me for
his visit. His story began: "My father was a very big and strong man." This
sentence awakened my curiosity; I turned over a page and there read:
"When I was fifteen a big lad of nineteen took me into the wood and
indecently assaulted me."
The numerous gaps in the patient's story induced me to obtain a more exact
anamnesis from him, which produced the following remarkable facts.
The patient is the youngest of three brothers. His father, a big, red-haired
man, was formerly a soldier in the Papal Swiss Guard, and then became a
policeman. He was a strict, gruff old soldier, who brought up his sons with
military precision; he commanded them, did not call them by name, but
whistled to them. He had spent his youth in Rome, where he acquired
syphilis, from the consequences of which he still suffered in old age. He
was fond of talking about his adventures in early life. His eldest son
(considerably older than the patient) was exactly like him, he was big,
strong and had reddish hair. The mother was a feeble woman, prematurely
aged; exhausted and tired of life, she died at forty when the patient was
eight years old. He preserved a tender and beautiful memory of his mother.
When he went to school he was always the whipping-boy and always the
object of his schoolfellows' mockery. The patient considers that his peculiar
dialect was to blame for this. Later he was apprenticed to a severe and
unkind master, under most trying conditions, from which all the other
apprentices had run away, finding them intolerable. Here he held out for
over two years. At fifteen the assault already mentioned took place, in
addition to some other slighter homosexual experiences. Then fate sent him
to France. There he made the acquaintance of a man from the South of
France, a great boaster and Don Juan. He dragged the patient into a brothel;
he went unwilling and out of fear. He was impotent there. Later he went to
Paris, where his brother, a master-mason, the replica of his father, was
leading a dissolute life. There the patient remained a long time, badly paid
and helping his sister-in-law out of pity. The brother often took him along to
a brothel, where the patient was always impotent. Here the brother asked
him to make over to him his inheritance, 6000 francs. He first consulted his
second brother, who was also in Paris, who urgently tried to dissuade him
from giving the money to his brother, because it would only be squandered.
Nevertheless the patient gave his all to his brother, who indeed soon
squandered it. And the second brother, who would have dissuaded him, was
also let in for 500 francs. To my astonished question why he had so light-
heartedly given the money to his brother without any guarantee, he replied:
he had asked for it, he was not a bit sorry about the money; he would give
him another 6000 francs if he had it. The eldest brother came to grief
altogether and his wife divorced him. The patient returned to Switzerland
and remained for a year without regular employment, often suffering from
hunger. During this time he made the acquaintance of a family where he
became a frequent visitor. The husband belonged to some peculiar sect; he
was a hypocrite and neglected his family. The wife was elderly, ill and
weak, and moreover pregnant. There were six children and great poverty.
The patient developed warm affection for this woman and divided with her
the little he possessed. She brought him her troubles, and said she felt sure
she would die in childbed. Then he promised her (he who possessed
nothing) to take charge of the children himself and bring them up. The wife
did die in childbed. The orphanage-board interfered, however, and allowed
him only one child. So he had a child but no family, and naturally could not
bring it up by himself. He thus came to think of marrying. But as he had
never been in love with any woman he was in great perplexity. It then
occurred to him that his elder brother was divorced from his wife, and he
resolved to marry her. He wrote his intention to her in Paris. She was
seventeen years older than he, but not disinclined to the plan. She invited
him to come to Paris to talk matters over. On the eve of this journey fate,
however, willed that he should run a big iron nail into his foot so that he
could not travel. After a little while, when the wound was healed, he went
to Paris, and found that he had imagined his sister-in-law, and now his
fiancée, to be younger and prettier than she really was. The wedding took
place, and three months later the first coitus, at his wife's initiative. He
himself had no desire for it. They brought up the child together, he in the
Swiss and she in the French way, for she was a French woman. At the age
of nine the child was run over and killed by a cyclist. The patient then felt
very lonely and dismal at home. He proposed to his wife that she should
adopt a young girl, whereupon she broke out into a fury of jealousy. Then
for the first time he fell in love with a young girl, whilst at the same time
the neurosis started, with deep depression and nervous exhaustion, for
meanwhile his life at home had become a hell.
My proposition to separate from his wife was refused out of hand, because
he could not take upon himself to make the old woman unhappy on his
account. He clearly prefers to be tormented still further; for it would seem
that the recollection of his youth is more precious to him than any present
joys.
In this case also the whole movement of a life takes place in the magic
circle of the familial constellation. The relation to the father is the strongest
and most momentous issue; its masochistic homosexual colouring stands
out clearly everywhere. Even the unhappy marriage is determined in every
way through the father, for the patient marries the divorced wife of his
eldest brother, which is as if he married his mother. His wife is also the
representative of the mother-surrogate, of the friend who died in childbed.
The neurosis started at the moment when the libido had obviously
withdrawn from this relationship of infantile constellation, and approached,
for the first time, the sexual end determined by the individual. In this, as in
the previous case, the familial constellation proves to be by far the stronger;
the narrow field vouchsafed by a neurosis is all that remains for the display
of individuality.
Case 3.—A thirty-six year old peasant woman, of average intelligence,
healthy appearance and robust build, mother of three healthy children.
Comfortable family circumstances. Patient comes to the hospital for
treatment for the following reasons: for some weeks she has been terribly
wretched and anxious, has been sleeping badly, has terrifying dreams, and
suffers also during the day from anxiety and depression. All these things are
admittedly without foundation, she herself is surprised at them, and must
admit her husband is perfectly right when he insists they are all "stuff and
nonsense." All the same she cannot get away from them. Strange ideas
come to her too; she is going to die and is going to hell. She gets on very
well with her husband.
The psychoanalytic examination of the case immediately brought the
following: some weeks before, she happened to take up some religious
tracts which had long lain about the house unread. There she read that
swearers would go to hell. She took this very much to heart, and has since
thought it incumbent on her to prevent people swearing or she herself will
go to hell. About a fortnight before she read these tracts, her father, who
lived with her, suddenly died from a stroke. She was not actually present at
his death, but arrived when he was already dead. Her terror and grief were
very great.
In the days following the death she thought much about it all, wondering
why her father had to meet his end so abruptly. In the midst of such
meditations it suddenly occurred to her that the last words she had heard her
father say were: "I also am one of those who have fallen from the cart into
the devil's clutches." The remembrance filled her with grief, and she
recalled how often her father had sworn savagely. She wondered then
whether there really were a life after death, and whether her father were in
heaven or hell. During these musings she came across the tracts and began
to read them, getting to the place where it said that swearers go to hell.
Then came upon her great fear and terror; she overwhelmed herself with
reproaches, she ought to have stopped her father's swearing, deserved
punishment for her neglect. She would die and would be condemned to hell.
Henceforth she was full of sorrow, moody, tormented her husband with this
obsessive idea, and renounced all joy and happiness.
The patient's life-history (reproduced partly in her own words) is as follows:
—
She is the youngest of five brothers and sisters and was always her father's
favourite. The father gave her everything she wanted if he possibly could.
For instance, if she wanted a new dress and her mother refused it, she could
be sure her father would bring her one next time he went to town. The
mother died rather early. At twenty-four the patient married the man of her
choice, against her father's wishes. The father simply disapproved of her
choice although he had nothing particular against the man. After the
wedding she made her father come and live with them. That seemed a
matter of course, she said, since the other relations had never suggested
having him with them. The father was a quarrelsome swearer and drunkard.
Husband and father-in-law, as may easily be imagined, got on extremely
badly together. The patient would always meekly fetch her father spirits
from the inn, although this gave rise perpetually to anger and altercations.
But she finds her husband "all right." He is a good, patient fellow with only
one failing: he does not obey her father enough; she finds that
incomprehensible, and would rather have her husband knuckle under to her
father. All said and done, father is still father. In the frequent quarrels she
always took her father's part. But she has nothing to say against her husband
and he is usually right in his protests, but one must help one's father.
Soon it began to seem to her that she had sinned against her father by
marrying against his will, and she often felt, after one of these incessant
wrangles, that her love for her husband had quite vanished. And since her
father's death it is impossible to love her husband any longer, for his
disobedience was the most frequent occasion of her father's fits of raging
and swearing. At one time the quarrelling became too painful for the
husband, and he induced his wife to find rooms for her father elsewhere,
where he lived for two years. During this time husband and wife lived
together peaceably and happily. But by degrees the patient began to
reproach herself for letting her father live alone; in spite of everything he
was her father. And in the end, despite the husband's protests, she fetched
him home again because, as she said, in truth she did love her father better
than her husband. Scarcely was the old man back in the house before strife
was renewed. And so it went on till the father's sudden death.
After this recital she broke out into a whole series of lamentations: she must
separate from her husband: she would have done it long ago if it were not
for the children. She had indeed done an ill-deed, committed a very great
sin when she married her husband against her father's wish. She ought to
have taken the man whom her father had wanted her to have. He certainly
would have obeyed her father and then everything would have been right.
Oh, her husband was not by a long way so kind as her father, she could do
anything with her father, but not with her husband. Her father had given her
everything she wanted. Now she would best of all like to die, so that she
might be with her father.
When this outburst was over, I inquired eagerly on what grounds she had
refused the husband her father had suggested to her.
The father, a small peasant on a lean little farm, had taken as a servant, just
at the time when his youngest daughter came into the world, a miserable
little boy, a foundling. The boy developed in most unpleasant fashion: he
was so stupid that he could not learn to read or write or even speak quite
properly. He was an absolute idiot. As he approached manhood there
developed on his neck a series of ulcers, some of which opened and
continually discharged pus, giving such a dirty, ugly creature a horrible
appearance. His intelligence did not grow with his years, so he stayed on as
servant in the peasant's house without any recognised wage.
To this youth the father wanted to marry his favourite daughter.
The girl, fortunately, had not been disposed to yield, but now she regretted
it, since this idiot would unquestionably have been more obedient to her
father than her good man had been.
Here, as in the foregoing case, it must be clearly understood that the patient
is not at all weak-minded. Both possess normal intelligence, which
unfortunately the blinkers of the infantile constellation prevent their using.
That appears with quite remarkable clearness in this patient's life-story. The
father's authority is never questioned! It makes not the least difference that
he is a quarrelsome drunkard, the obvious cause of all the quarrels and
disturbances; on the contrary, the lawful husband must give way to the
bogey, and at last our patient even comes to regret that her father did not
succeed in completely destroying her life's happiness. So now she sets
about doing that herself through her neurosis, which compels in her the
wish to die, that she may go to hell, whither, be it noted, the father has
already betaken himself.
If we are ever disposed to see some demonic power at work controlling
mortal destiny, surely we can see it here in these melancholy silent tragedies
working themselves out slowly, torturingly, in the sick souls of our
neurotics. Some, step by step, continually struggling against the unseen
powers, do free themselves from the clutches of the demon who forces his
unsuspecting victims from one savage mischance to another: others rise up
and win to freedom, only to be dragged back later to the old paths, caught in
the noose of the neurosis. You cannot even maintain that these unhappy
people are neurotic or "degenerates." If we normal people examine our lives
from the psychoanalytic standpoint, we too perceive how a mighty hand
guides us insensibly to our destiny and not always is this hand a kindly one.
[157] We often call it the hand of God or of the Devil, for the power of the
infantile constellation has become mighty during the course of the centuries
in affording support and proof to all the religions.
But all this does not go so far as to say that we must cast the blame of
inherited sins upon our parents. A sensitive child whose intuition is only too
quick in reflecting in his own soul all the excesses of his parents must lay
the blame for his fate on his own characteristics. But, as our last case
shows, this is not always so, for the parents can (and unfortunately only too
often do) fortify the evil in the child's soul, preying upon the child's
ignorance to make him the slave of their complexes. In our case this attempt
on the part of the father is quite obvious. It is perfectly clear why he wanted
to marry his daughter to this brutish creature: he wanted to keep her and
make her his slave for ever. What he did is but a crass exaggeration of what
is done by thousands of so-called respectable, educated people, who have
their own share in this educational dust-heap of enforced discipline. The
fathers who allow their children no independent possession of their own
emotions, who fondle their daughters with ill-concealed eroticism and
tyrannical passion, who keep their sons in leading-strings, force them into
callings and finally marry them off "suitably," and the mothers who even in
the cradle excite their children with unhealthy tenderness, later on make
them into slavish puppets, and then at last, out of jealousy, destroy their
children's love-life fundamentally, they all act not otherwise than this stupid
and brutal boor.
It will be asked, wherein lies the parents' magic power to bind their children
to themselves, as with iron fetters, often for the whole of their lives? The
psychoanalyst knows that it is nothing but the sexuality on both sides.
We are always trying not to admit the child's sexuality. That view only
comes from wilful ignorance, which happens to be very prevalent again just
now.[158]
I have not given any real analysis of these cases. We therefore do not know
what happened within the hearts of these puppets of fate when they were
children. A profound insight into a child's mind as it grows and lives,
hitherto unattainable, is given in Freud's contribution to the first half-yearly
volume of Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische u. Psychopathologische
Forschungen. If I venture, after Freud's masterly presentation, to offer
another small contribution to the study of the child-mind it is because the
psychoanalytic records of cases seem to me always valuable.
Case 4.—An eight year old boy, intelligent, rather delicate-looking, is
brought to me by his mother, on account of enuresis. During the
consultation the child always hangs on to his mother, a pretty, youthful
woman. The parents' marriage is a happy one, but the father is strict, and the
boy (the eldest child) is rather afraid of him. The mother compensates for
the father's strictness by corresponding tenderness, to which the boy
responds so much that he never gets away from his mother's apron-strings.
He never plays with his schoolfellows, never goes alone into the street
unless he has to go to school. He fears the boys' roughness and violence and
plays thoughtful games at home or helps his mother with housework. He is
extremely jealous of his father. He cannot bear it when the father shows
tenderness to the mother.
I took the boy aside and asked him about his dreams.
He dreams very often of a black snake which wants to bite his face. Then he
cries out, and his mother has to come from the next room to his bedside.
In the evening he goes quietly to bed. But when he falls asleep it seems to
him that a wicked black man with a sabre or gun lies on his bed—a tall,
thin man who wants to kill him.
His parents sleep in the adjoining room. It often seems to him that
something dreadful is going on there, as if there are great black snakes or
wicked men who want to kill his Mamma. Then he has to cry out and his
mother comes to comfort him.
Every time he wets his bed he calls his mother, who has to settle him down
again in dry things.
The father is a tall thin man. Every morning he stands at the washstand
naked in full view of the child, to perform a thorough ablution. The child
also tells me that at night he is often suddenly waked from sleep by a
strange sound in the next room; then he is always horribly afraid as if
something dreadful were going on in there, some struggle—but his mother
quiets him, says there's nothing to be afraid of.
It is not difficult to see whence comes the black snake and who the wicked
man is, and what is happening in the next room. It is equally easy to
understand the boy's aim when he calls out for his mother: he is jealous and
separates her from the father. This he does also in the daytime whenever he
sees his father caressing her. So far the boy is simply his father's rival for
his mother's love.
But now comes the circumstance that the snake and the bad man also
threaten him, there happens to him the same thing as to his mother in the
next room. Thus he identifies himself with his mother and proposes a
similar relationship for himself with his father. That is owing to his
homosexual component which feels like a woman towards the father. What
enuresis signifies in this case is, from the Freudian standpoint, not difficult
to understand. The micturition dream throws light upon it. Let me refer to
an analysis of the same kind in my article: "L'analyse des rêves, Année
psychologique" (1909). Enuresis must be regarded as an infantile sex-
surrogate; in the dream-life of adults too it is easily used as a cloak for the
urge of sexual desire.
This little example shows what goes on in the mind of an eight year old
boy, when he is in a position of too much dependence upon his parents, but
the blame is also partly due to the too strict father and the too indulgent
mother.
The infantile attitude here, it is evident, is nothing but infantile sexuality. If
now we survey all the far-reaching possibilities of the infantile
constellation, we are forced to say that in essence our life's fate is identical
with the fate of our sexuality. If Freud and his school devote themselves
first and foremost to tracing out the individual's sexuality it is certainly not
in order to excite piquant sensations, but to gain a deeper insight into the
driving forces that determine that individual's fate. In this we are not saying
too much, rather understating the case. If we can strip off the veils
shrouding the problems of individual destiny, we can afterwards widen our
view from the history of the individual to the history of nations. And first of
all we can look at the history of religions, at the history of the phantasy-
systems of whole peoples and epochs. The religion of the Old Testament
elevated the paterfamilias to the Jehovah of the Jews whom the people had
to obey in fear and dread. The Patriarchs are an intermediate stage towards
the deity. The neurotic fear and dread of the Jewish religion, the imperfect,
not to say unsuccessful attempt at the sublimation of a still too barbarous
people, gave rise to the excessive severity of the Mosaic Law, the
ceremonial constraint of the neurotic.[159]
Only the prophets succeeded in freeing themselves from this constraint; in
them the identification with Jehovah, the complete sublimation, is
successful. They became the fathers of the people. Christ, the fulfilment of
prophecy, put an end to this fear of God and taught mankind that the true
relation to the Godhead is "love." Thus he destroyed the ceremonial
constraint of the Law and gave the example of a personal loving
relationship to God. The later imperfect sublimation of the Christian Mass
leads again to the ceremonial of the Church from which occasionally the
minds capable of sublimation among the saints and reformers have been
able to free themselves. Not without cause therefore does modern theology
speak of "inner" or "personal" experiences as having great enfranchising
power, for always the ardour of love transmutes the dread and constraint
into a higher, freer type of feeling.
What we see in the development of the world-process, the original source of
the changes in the Godhead, we see also in the individual. Parental power
guides the child like a higher controlling fate. But when he begins to grow
up, there begins also the conflict between the infantile constellation and the
individuality, the parental influence dating from the prehistoric (infantile)
period is repressed, sinks into the unconscious but is not thereby eliminated;
by invisible threads it directs the individual creations of the ripening mind
as they appear. Like everything that has passed into the unconscious, the
infantile constellation sends up into consciousness dim, foreboding feelings,
feelings of mysterious guidance and opposing influences. Here are the roots
of the first religious sublimations. In the place of the father, with his
constellating virtues and faults, there appears, on the one hand, an
altogether sublime deity, on the other the devil, in modern times for the
most part largely whittled away by the perception of one's own moral
responsibility. Elevated love is attributed to the former, a lower sexuality to
the latter. As soon as we approach the territory of the neurosis, the antithesis
is stretched to the utmost limit. God becomes the symbol of the most
complete sexual repression, the Devil the symbol of sexual lust. Thus it is
that the conscious expression of the father-constellation, like every
expression of an unconscious complex when it appears in consciousness,
gets its Janus-face, its positive and its negative components. A curious,
beautiful example of this crafty play of the unconscious is seen in the love-
episode in the Book of Tobias. Sarah, the daughter of Raguel in Ecbatana,
desires to marry; but her evil fate wills it that seven times, one after another,
she chooses a husband who dies on the marriage-night. The evil spirit
Asmodi, by whom she is persecuted, kills these husbands. She prays to
Jehovah to let her die rather than suffer this shame again. She is despised
even by her father's maid-servants. The eighth bridegroom, Tobias, is sent
to her by God. He too is led into the bridal-chamber. Then the old Raguel,
who has only pretended to go to bed, gets up again and goes out and digs
his son-in-law's grave beforehand, and in the morning sends a maid to the
bridal-chamber to make sure of the expected death. But this time Asmodi's
part is played out, Tobias is alive.
Unfortunately medical etiquette forbids me to give a case of hysteria which
fits in exactly with the above instance, except that there were not seven
husbands, but only three, ominously chosen under all the signs of the
infantile constellation. Our first case too comes under this category and in
our third we see the old peasant at work preparing to dedicate his daughter
to a like fate.
As a pious and obedient daughter (compare her beautiful prayer in chapter
iii.) Sarah has brought about the usual sublimation and cleavage of the
father-complex and on the one side has elevated her childish love to the
adoration of God, on the other has turned the obsessive force of her father's
attraction into the persecuting demon Asmodi. The legend is so beautifully
worked out that it displays the father in his twofold aspect, on the one hand
as the inconsolable father of the bride, on the other as the secret digger of
his son-in-law's grave, whose fate he foresees. This beautiful fable has
become a cherished paradigm for my analysis, for by no means infrequent
are such cases where the father-demon has laid his hand upon his daughter,
so that her whole life long, even when she does marry, there is never a true
union, because her husband's image never succeeds in obliterating the
unconscious and eternally operative infantile father-ideal. This is valid not
only for daughters, but equally for sons. A fine instance of such a father-
constellation is given in Dr. Brill's recently published: "Psychological
factors in dementia præcox. An analysis."[160]
In my experience the father is usually the decisive and dangerous object of
the child's phantasy, and if ever it happens to be the mother, I have been
able to discover behind her a grandfather to whom she belonged in her
heart.
I must leave this question open: my experience does not go far enough to
warrant a decision. It is to be hoped that the experience of the coming years
will sink deeper shafts into this still dark land which I have been able but
momentarily to light up, and will discover to us more of the secret
workshop of that fate-deciding demon of whom Horace says:
"Scit Genius natale comes qui temperat astrum,
Naturæ deus humanæ, mortalis in unum,
Quodque caput, vultu mutabilis, albus et ater."
 CHAPTER IV
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RUMOUR[161]
About a year ago the school authorities in N. asked me to give a professional opinion as to the
mental condition of Marie X., a thirteen year old schoolgirl. Marie had been expelled from
school because she had been instrumental in originating an ugly rumour, spreading gossip
about her class-teacher. The punishment hit the child, and especially her parents, very hard, so
that the school authorities were inclined to readmit her if protected by a medical opinion. The
facts were as follows:—
The teacher had heard indirectly that the girls were attributing some equivocal sexual story to
him. On investigation it was found that Marie X. had one day related a dream to three girl-
friends which ran somewhat as follows:—
"The class was going to the swimming-baths. I had to go to the boys' because there was no
more room. Then we swam a long way out in the lake (asked 'who did so': 'Lina P., the
teacher, and myself'). A steamer came along. The teacher asked us if we wished to get into it.
We came to K. A wedding was just going on there (asked 'whose': 'a friend of the teacher's').
We were also to take part in it. Then we went for a journey (who? 'I, Lina P., and the teacher').
It was like a honeymoon journey. We came to Andermatt, and there was no more room in the
hotel, so we were obliged to pass the night in a barn. The woman got a child there, and the
teacher became the godfather."
When I examined the child she told this dream. The teacher had likewise related the dream in
writing. In this earlier version the obvious blanks after the word "steamer" in the above text
were filled up as follows: "We got up. Soon we felt cold. An old man gave us a blouse which
the teacher put on." On the other hand, there was an omission of the passage about finding no
room in the hotel and being obliged to pass the night in the barn.
The child told the dream immediately, not only to her three friends but also to her mother. The
mother repeated it to me with only trifling differences from the two versions given above.
The teacher, in his further investigations, carried out with deepest misgivings, failed, like
myself, to get indications of any more dangerous material. There is therefore a strong
probability that the original recital could not have run very differently. (The passage about the
cold and the blouse seems to be an early interpolation, for it is an attempt to supply a logical
relationship. Coming out of the water one is wet, has on only a bathing dress, and is therefore
unable to take part in a wedding before putting on some clothes.) At first, of course, the
teacher would not allow that the whole affair had arisen only out of a dream. He rather
suspected it to be an invention. He was, however, obliged to admit that the innocent telling of
the dream was apparently a fact, and that it was unnatural to regard the child as capable of
such guile as to indicate some sexual equivocation in this disguised form. For a time he
wavered between the view that it was a question of cunning invention, and the view that it
was really a question of a dream, innocent in itself, which had been understood by the other
children in a sexual way. When his first indignation wore off he concluded that Marie X.'s
guilt could not be so great, and that her phantasies and those of her companions had
contributed to the rumour. He then did something really valuable. He placed Marie's
companions under supervision, and made them all write out what they had heard of the
dream.
Before turning our attention to this, let us cast a glance at the dream analytically. In the first
place, we must accept the facts and agree with the teacher that we have to do with a dream
and not with an invention; for the latter the ambiguity is too great. Conscious invention tries
to create unbroken transitions; the dream takes no account of this, but sets to work regardless
of gaps, which, as we have seen, here give occasion for interpolations during the conscious
revision. The gaps are very significant. In the swimming-bath there is no picture of
undressing, being unclothed, nor any detailed description of their being together in the water.
The omission of being dressed on the ship is compensated for by the above-mentioned
interpolation, but only for the teacher, thus indicating that his nakedness was in most urgent
need of cover. The detailed description of the wedding is wanting, and the transition from the
steamer to the wedding is abrupt. The reason for stopping overnight in the barn at Andermatt
is not to be found at first. The parallel to this is, however, the want of room in the swimming-
bath, which made it necessary to go into the men's department; in the hotel the want of room
again emphasises the separation of the sexes. The picture of the barn is most insufficiently
filled out. The birth suddenly follows and quite without sequence. The teacher as godfather is
extremely equivocal. Marie's rôle in the whole story is throughout of secondary importance,
indeed she is only a spectator.
All this has the appearance of a genuine dream, and those of my readers who have a wide
experience of the dreams of girls of this age will assuredly confirm this view. Hence the
meaning of the dream is so simple that we may quietly leave its interpretation to her school-
companions, whose declarations are as follows:

Aural Witnesses.
Witness I.—"M. dreamed that she and Lina P. had gone swimming with our teacher. After
they had swum out in the lake pretty far, M. said she could not swim any further as her foot
hurt her so much. The teacher said she might sit on my[162] back. M. got up and they swam
out. After a time a steamer came along and they got up on it. Our teacher seems to have had a
rope by which he tied M. and L. together and dragged them out into the lake. They travelled
thus as far as Z., where they stepped out. But now they had no clothes on. The teacher bought
a jacket whilst M. and L. got a long, thick veil, and all three walked up the street along the
lake. This was when the wedding was going on. Presently they met the party. The bride had
on a blue silk dress but no veil. She asked M. and L. if they would be kind enough to give her
their veil. M. and L. gave it, and in return they were allowed to go to the wedding. They went
into the Sun Inn. Afterwards they went a honeymoon journey to Andermatt; I do not know
now whether they went to the Inn at A. or at Z. There they got coffee, potatoes, honey, and
butter."
"I must not say any more, only the teacher finally was made godfather."
Remarks.—The roundabout story concerning the want of room in the swimming-bath is
absent; Marie goes direct with her teacher to the bath. Their persons are more closely bound
together in the water by means of the rope fastening the teacher and the two girls together.
The ambiguity of the "getting up" in the first story has other consequences here, for the part
about the steamer in the first story now occurs in two places; in the first the teacher takes
Marie on his back. The delightful little slip "she could sit on my back" (instead of his), shows
the real part taken by the narrator herself in this scene. This makes it clear why the dream
brings the steamer somewhat abruptly into action, in order to give an innocent, harmless turn
to the equivocal "getting up" instead of another which is common, for instance, in music-hall
songs. The passage about the want of clothing, the uncertainty of which has been already
noticed, arouses the special interest of the narrator. The teacher buys a jacket, the girls get a
long veil (such as one only wears in case of death or at weddings). That the latter is meant is
shown by the remark that the bride had none (it is the bride who wears the veil). The narrator,
a girl-friend of Marie, here helps the dreamer to dream further: the possession of the veil
designates the bride or the brides, Marie and Lina. Whatever is shocking or immoral in this
situation is relieved by the girls giving up the veil; it then takes an innocent turn. The narrator
follows the same mechanism in the cloaking of the equivocal scene at Andermatt; there is
nothing but nice food, coffee, potatoes, honey, butter, a turning back to the infantile life
according to the well-known method. The conclusion is apparently very abrupt: the teacher
becomes a godfather.
Witness II.—M. dreamt she had gone bathing with L. P. and the teacher. Far out in the lake M.
said to the teacher that her leg was hurting her very much. Then the teacher said she could get
up on him. I don't know now whether the last sentence was really so told, but I think so. As
there was just then a ship on the lake the teacher said she should swim as far as the ship and
then get in. I don't remember exactly how it went on. Then the teacher or M., I don't really
remember which, said they would get out at Z. and run home. Then the teacher called out to
two gentlemen who had just been bathing there, that they might carry the children to land.
Then L. P. sat up on one man, and M. on the other fat man, and the teacher held on to the fat
man's leg and swam after them. Arrived on land they ran home. On the way the teacher met
his friend who had a wedding. M. said: "It was then the fashion to go on foot, not in a
carriage." Then the bride said she must now go along also. Then the teacher said it would be
nice if the two girls gave the bride their black veils, which they had got on the way. I can't
now remember how. The children gave it her, and the bride said they were really dear
generous children. Then they went on further and put up at the Sun Hotel. There they got
something to eat, I don't know exactly what. Then they went to a barn and danced. All the
men had taken off their coats except the teacher. Then the bride said he ought to take off his
coat also. Then the teacher hesitated but finally did so. Then the teacher was.... Then the
teacher said he was cold. I must not tell any more; it is improper. That's all I heard of the
dream.
Remarks.—The narrator pays special attention to the getting up, but is uncertain whether in
the original it referred to getting up on the teacher or the steamer. This uncertainty is,
however, amply compensated for by the elaborate invention of the two strangers who take the
girls upon their backs. The getting up is too valuable a thought for the narrator to surrender,
but she is troubled by the idea of the teacher seeing the object. The want of clothing likewise
arouses much interest. The bride's veil has, it is true, become the black veil of mourning
(naturally in order to conceal anything indelicate). There is not only no innocent twisting, but
it is conspicuously virtuous ("dear, generous children"); the amoral wish has become changed
into virtue which receives special emphasis, arousing suspicion as does every accentuated
virtue.
This narrator exuberantly fills in the blanks in the scene of the barn: the men take off their
coats; the teacher also, and is therefore ... i.e. naked and hence cold. Whereupon it becomes
too improper.
The narrator has correctly recognised the parallels which were suspected in the criticisms of
the original dream; she has filled in the scene about the undressing which belongs to the
bathing, for it must finally come out that the girls are together with the naked teacher.
Witness III.—M. told me she had dreamt: Once I went to the baths but there was no room for
me. The teacher took me into his dressing-room. I undressed and went bathing. I swam until I
reached the bank. Then I met the teacher. He said would I not like to swim across the lake
with him. I went, and L. P. also. We swam out and were soon in the middle of the lake. I did
not want to swim any further. Now I can't remember it exactly. Soon a ship came up, and we
got up on the ship. The teacher said, "I am cold," and a sailor gave us an old shirt. The three
of us each tore a piece of the shirt away. I fastened it round the neck. Then we left the ship
and swam away towards K.
L. P. and I did not want to go further, and two fat men took us upon their backs. In K. we got
a veil which we put on. In K. we went into the street. The teacher met his friend who invited
us to the wedding. We went to the Sun and played games. We also danced the polonaise; now
I don't remember exactly. Then we went for a honeymoon journey to Andermatt. The teacher
had no money with him, and stole some chestnuts in Andermatt. The teacher said, "I am so
glad that I can travel with my two pupils." Then there is something improper which I will not
write. The dream is now finished.
Remarks.—The undressing together now takes place in the narrow space of the dressing-room
at the baths. The want of dress on the ship gives occasion to a further variant. (The old shirt
torn in three.) In consequence of great uncertainty the getting up on the teacher is not
mentioned. Instead, the two girls get up on two fat men. As "fat" becomes so prominent it
should be noted that the teacher is more than a little plump. The setting is thoroughly typical;
each one has a teacher. The duplication or multiplication of the persons is an expression of
their significance, i.e. of the stored-up libido.[163] (Compare the duplication of the attribute in
dementia præcox in my "Psychology of Dementia Præcox.") In cults and mythologies the
significance of this duplication is very striking. (Cp. the Trinity and the two mystical formulas
of confession: "Isis una quæ es omnia. Hermes omnia solus et ter unus.") Proverbially we say
he eats, drinks, or sleeps "for two." The multiplication of the personality expresses also an
analogy or comparison—my friend has the same "ætiological value" (Freud) as myself. In
dementia præcox, or schizophrenia, to use Bleuler's wider and better term, the multiplication
of the personality is mainly the expression of the stored-up libido, for it is invariably the
person to whom the patient has transference who is subjected to this multiplication. ("There
are two professors N." "Oh, you are also Dr. J.; this morning another came to see me who
called himself Dr. J.") It seems that, corresponding to the general tendency in schizophrenia,
this splitting is an analytic degradation whose motive is to prevent the arousing of too violent
impressions. A final significance of the multiplication of personality which, however, does
not come exactly under this concept is the raising of some attribute of the person to a living
figure. A simple instance is Dionysos and his companion Phales, wherein Phales is the
equivalent of Phallos, the personification of the penis of Dionysos. The so-called attendants
of Dionysos (Satyri, Sileni, Mænades, Mimallones, etc.) consist of the personification of the
attributes of Dionysos.
The scene in Andermatt is portrayed with a nice wit, or more properly speaking, dreamt
further: "The teacher steals chestnuts," that is equivalent to saying he does what is prohibited.
By chestnuts is meant roasted chestnuts, which on account of the incision are known as a
female sexual symbol. Thus the remark of the teacher, that he was especially glad to travel
with his pupils, following directly upon the theft of the chestnuts, becomes intelligible. This
theft of the chestnuts is certainly a personal interpolation, for it does not occur in any of the
other accounts. It shows how intensive was the inner participation of the school companions
of Marie X. in the dream, resting upon similar ætiological requirements.
This is the last of the aural witnesses. The story of the veil, the pain in the feet, are items
which we may perhaps suspect to have been suggested in the original narrative. Other
interpolations are, however, absolutely personal, and are due to independent inner
participation in the meaning of the dream.

Hearsay Evidence.
(I.) The whole school had to go bathing with the teacher. M. X. had no place in the bath in
which to undress. Then the teacher said: "You can come into my room and undress with me."
She must have felt very uncomfortable. When both were undressed they went into the lake.
The teacher took a long rope and wound it round M. Then they both swam far out. But M. got
tired, and then the teacher took her upon his back. Then M. saw Lina P.; she called out to her,
Come along with me, and Lina came. Then they all swam out still farther. They met a ship.
Then the teacher asked, "May we get in? these girls are tired." The boat stopped, and they
could all get up. I do not know exactly how they came ashore again at K. Then the teacher got
an old night-shirt. He put it on. Then he met an old friend who was celebrating his wedding.
The teacher, M. and L. were invited. The wedding was celebrated at the Crown in K. They
wanted to play the polonaise. The teacher said he would not accompany them. Then the
others said he might as well. He did it with M. The teacher said: "I shall not go home again to
my wife and children. I love you best, M." She was greatly pleased. After the wedding there
was the honeymoon journey. The teacher, M. and L. had to accompany the others also. The
journey was to Milan. Afterwards they went to Andermatt, where they could find no place to
sleep. They went to a barn, where they could stop the night all together. I must not say any
more because it becomes highly improper.
Remarks.—The undressing in the swimming-bath is properly detailed. The union in the water
receives a further simplification for which the story of the rope led the way; the teacher
fastens himself to Marie. Lina P. is not mentioned at all; she only comes later when Marie is
already sitting upon the teacher. The dress is here a jacket. The wedding ceremony contains a
very direct meaning. "The teacher will not go home any more to wife and child." Marie is the
darling. In the barn they all found a place together, and then it becomes highly improper.
(II.) It was said that she had gone with the school to the swimming-baths to bathe. But as the
baths were over-full the teacher had called her to come to him. We swam out to the lake, and
L. P. followed us. Then the teacher took a string and bound us to one another. I do not know
now exactly how they again got separated. But after a long time they suddenly arrived at Z.
There a scene is said to have taken place which I would rather not tell, for if it were true it
would be too disgraceful; also now I don't know exactly how it is said to have been, for I was
very tired, only I also heard that M. X. is said to have told how she was always to remain with
our teacher, and he again and again caressed her as his favourite pupil. If I knew exactly I
would also say the other thing, but my sister only said something about a little child which
was born there, and of which the teacher was said to have been the godfather.
Remarks.—Note that in this story the improper scene is inserted in the place of the wedding
ceremony, where it is as apposite as at the end, for the attentive reader will certainly have
already observed that the improper scene could have taken place in the swimming-bath
dressing-room. The procedure has been adopted which is so frequent in dreams as a whole;
the final thoughts of a long series of dream images contain exactly what the first image of the
series was trying to represent. The censor pushes the complex away as long as possible
through ever-renewed disguises, displacements, innocent renderings, etc. It does not take
place in the bathing-room, in the water the "getting up" does not occur, on landing it is not on
the teacher's back that the girls are sitting, it is another pair who are married in the barn,
another girl has the child, and the teacher is only—godfather. All these images and situations
are, however, directed to pick out the complex, the desire for coitus. Nevertheless the action
still occurs at the back of all these metamorphoses, and the result is the birth placed at the end
of the scene.
(III.) Marie said: the teacher had a wedding with his wife, and they went to the "Crown" and
danced with one another. M. said a lot of wild things which I cannot repeat or write about, for
it is too embarrassing.
Remarks.—Here everything is too improper to be told. Note that the marriage takes place
with the wife.
(IV.) ... that the teacher and M. once went bathing, and he asked M. whether she wanted to
come along too. She said "yes." When they had gone out together they met L. P., and the
teacher asked whether she wished to come along. And they went out farther. Then I also
heard that she said that the teacher said L. P. and she were the favourite pupils. She also told
us that the teacher was in his swimming drawers. Then they went to a wedding, and the bride
got a little child.
Remarks.—The personal relationship to the teacher is strongly emphasised (the "favourite
pupils"), likewise the want of clothing ("swimming drawers").
(V.) M. and L. P. went bathing with the teacher. When M. and L. P. and the teacher had swum
a little way, M. said: "I cannot go any further, teacher, my foot hurts me." Then the teacher
said she should sit on his back, which M. did. Then a small steamer came along, and the
teacher got into the ship. The teacher had also two ropes, and he fastened both children to the
ship. Then they went together to Z. and got out there. Then the teacher bought himself a
dressing jacket and put it on, and the children had put a cloth over themselves. The teacher
had a bride, and they were in a barn. Both children were with the teacher and the bride in the
barn, and danced. I must not write the other thing, for it is too awful.
Remarks.—Here Marie sits upon the teacher's back. The teacher fastens the two children by
ropes to the ship, from which it can be seen how easily ship is put for teacher. The jacket
again emerges as the piece of clothing. It was the teacher's own wedding, and what is
improper comes after the dance.
(VI.) The teacher is said to have gone bathing with the whole school. M. could not find any
room, and she cried. The teacher is said to have told M. she could come into his dressing-
room.
"I must leave out something here and there," said my sister, "for it is a long story." But she
told me something more which I must tell in order to speak the truth. When they were in the
bath the teacher asked M. if she wished to swim out into the lake with him. To which she
replied, "If I go along, you come also." Then we swam until about half-way. Then M. got
tired, and then the teacher pulled her by a cord. At K. they went on land, and from there to Z.
(The teacher was all the time dressed as in the bath.) There we met a friend, whose wedding it
was. We were invited by this friend. After the ceremony there was a honeymoon journey, and
we came to Milan. We had to pass one night in a barn where something occurred which I
cannot say. The teacher said we were his favourite pupils, and he also kissed M.
Remarks.—The excuse "I must leave out something here and there" replaces the undressing.
The teacher's want of clothing is emphasised. The journey to Milan is a typical honeymoon.
This passage also seems to be an independent fancy, due to some personal participation.
Marie clearly figures as the loved one.
(VII.) The whole school and the teacher went bathing. They all went into one room. The
teacher also. M. alone had no place, and the teacher said to her, "I have still room," she went.
Then the teacher said, "Lie on my back, I will swim out into the lake with you." I must not
write any more, for it is improper; I can hardly say it at all. Beyond the improper part which
followed I do not know any more of the dream.
Remarks.—The narrator approaches the basis. Marie is to lie upon the teacher's back in the
bathing compartment. Beyond the improper part she cannot give any more of the dream.
(VIII.) The whole school went bathing. M. had no room and was invited by the teacher into
his compartment. The teacher swam out with her and told her that she was his darling or
something like that. When they got ashore at Z. a friend was just having a wedding and he
invited them both in their swimming costumes. The teacher found an old dressing jacket and
put it over the swimming drawers. He (the teacher) also kissed M. and said he would not
return home to his wife any more. They were also both invited on the honeymoon journey. On
the journey they passed Andermatt, where they could not find any place to sleep, and so had
to sleep in the hay. There was a woman; the dreadful part now comes, it is not at all right to
make something serious into mockery and laughter. This woman got a small child. I will not
say any more now, for it becomes too dreadful.
Remarks.—The narrator is thoroughgoing. (He told her simply she was his darling. He kissed
her and said he would not go home to his wife.) The vexation about the silly tattling which
breaks through at the end suggests some peculiarity in the narrator. From subsequent
investigation it was found that this girl was the only one of the witnesses who had been early
and intentionally given an explanation about sex by her mother.

Epicrisis.
So far as the interpretation of the dream is concerned, there is nothing for me to add; the
children have taken care of all the essentials, leaving practically nothing over for
psychoanalytic interpretation. Rumour has analysed and interpreted the dream. So far as I
know rumour has not hitherto been investigated in this new capacity. This case certainly
makes it appear worth while to fathom the psychology of rumour. In the presentation of the
material I have purposely restricted myself to the psychoanalytic point of view, although I do
not deny that my material offers numerous openings for the invaluable researches of the
followers of Stern, Claparède, and others.
The material enables us to understand the structure of the rumour, but psychoanalysis cannot
rest satisfied with that. The why and wherefore of the whole manifestation demands further
knowledge. As we have seen, the teacher, astonished by this rumour, was left puzzled by the
problem, wondering as to its cause and effect. How can a dream which is notoriously
incorrect and meaningless (for teachers are, as is well known, grounded in psychology)
produce such effects, such malicious gossip? Faced by this, the teacher seems to have
instinctively hit upon the correct answer. The effect of the dream can only be explained by its
being "le vrai mot de la situation," i.e. that the dream formed the fit expression for something
that was already in the air. It was the spark which fell into the powder magazine. The material
contains all the proofs essential for this view. I have repeatedly drawn attention to their own
unrecognised participation in the dream by Marie's school-companions, and the special points
of interest where any of them have added their own phantasies or dreams. The class consists
of girls between twelve and thirteen years of age, who therefore are in the midst of the
prodromata of puberty. The dreamer Marie X. is herself physically almost completely
developed sexually, and in this respect ahead of her class; she is therefore a leader who has
given the watchword for the unconscious, and thus brought to expression the sexual
complexes of her companions which were lying there ready prepared.
As can be easily understood, the occasion was most painful to the teacher. The supposition
that therein lay some secret motive of the schoolgirls is justified by the psychoanalytic axiom
—judge actions by their results rather than by their conscious motives.[164] Consequently it
would be probable that Marie X. had been especially troublesome to her teacher. Marie at first
liked this teacher most of all. In the course of the latter half-year her position had, however,
changed. She had become dreamy and inattentive, and towards the dusk of evening was afraid
to go into the streets for fear of bad men. She talked several times to her companions about
sexual things in a somewhat obscene way; her mother asked me anxiously how she should
explain the approaching menstruation to her daughter. On account of this alteration in conduct
Marie had forfeited the good opinion of her teacher, as was clearly evidenced for the first
time by a school report, which she and some of her friends had received a few days before the
outbreak of the rumour. The disappointment was so great that the girls had imagined all kinds
of fancied acts of revenge against the teacher; for instance, they might push him on to the
lines so that the train would run over him, etc. Marie was especially to the fore in these
murderous phantasies. On the night of this great outburst of anger, when her former liking for
her teacher seemed quite forgotten, that repressed part of herself announced itself in the
dream, and fulfilled its desire for sexual union with the teacher—as a compensation for the
hate which had filled the day.
On waking, the dream became a subtle instrument of her hatred, because the wish-idea was
also that of her school companions, as it always is in rumours of this kind. Revenge certainly
had its triumph, but the recoil upon Marie herself was still more severe. Such is the rule when
our impulses are given over to the unconscious. Marie X. was expelled from school, but upon
my report she was allowed to return to it.
I am well aware that this little communication is inadequate and unsatisfactory from the point
of view of exact science. Had the original story been accurately verified we should have
clearly demonstrated what we have now been only able to suggest. This case therefore only
posits a question, and it remains for happier observers to collect convincing experiences in
this field.
 CHAPTER V
ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMBER-DREAMS[165]
The symbolism of numbers which greatly engaged the imaginative philosophy of earlier
centuries has again acquired a fresh interest from the analytic investigations of Freud and his
school. But in the material of number-dreams we no longer discover conscious puzzles of
symbolic concatenations of numbers but the unconscious roots of the symbolism of numbers.
There is scarcely anything quite fundamentally new to offer in this sphere since the
presentations of Freud, Adler and Stekel. It must here suffice to corroborate their experiences
by recording parallel cases. I have had under observation a few cases of this kind which are
worth reporting for their general interest.
The first three instances are from a middle-aged married man whose conflict of the moment
was an extra-conjugal love affair. The piece of the dream from which I take the symbolised
number is: in front of the manager his general subscription. The manager comments on the
high number of the subscription. It reads 2477.
The analysis of the dream brings out a rather ungentlemanly reckoning up of the expense of
the affair, which is foreign to the generous nature of the dreamer, and which the unconscious
makes use of as a resistance to this affair. The preliminary interpretation is, therefore, that the
number has some financial importance and origin. A rough estimate of the expenses so far
leads to a number which in fact approaches 2477 francs; a more exact reckoning, however,
gives 2387 francs, which could be only arbitrarily translated into 2477. I then left the numbers
to the free association of the patient; it occurs to him that the figure in the dream should be
divided as 24-77. Perhaps it is a telephone number; this supposition proves incorrect. The
next association is that it is the total of some numbers. A reminiscence then occurs to him that
he once told me that he had celebrated the 100th birthday of his mother and himself when his
mother was 65 and he was 35 years old. (Their birthdays are on the same day.)
In this way the patient arrived at the following series of associations:—
He is born on 26 II.
His mistress 28 VIII.
His wife 1 III.
His mother (his father is long dead) 26 II.
His two children 29 IV.
and 13 VII.
The patient is born II. 75.
His mistress VIII. 85.
He is now 36 years old, his mistress 25.
If this series of associations is written in the usual figures, the following addition is arrived at:
—
26. II. = 262
28. VIII. = 288
1. III. = 13
26. II. = 262
29. IV. = 294
13. VII. = 137
II. 75.= 275
VIII. 85= 885
25= 25
36= 36
——
2477
This series, which includes all the members of his family, gives the number 2477.
This construction led to a deeper layer of the dream's meaning. The patient is most closely
united to his family, but on the other hand very much in love. This situation provokes a severe
conflict. The detailed description of the manager's appearance (which I leave out for the sake
of brevity) pointed to the analyst, from whom the patient rightly fears and desires firm control
and criticism of his condition of dependence and bondage.
The dream which followed soon afterwards, reported in brief, runs: The analyst asks the
patient what he actually does at his mistress'? to which the patient replied he plays there, and
that indeed on a very high number, on 152. The analyst remarks: "You are sadly cheated."
The analysis displayed again a repressed tendency to reckon up the expense of the affair. The
amount spent monthly was close on 152 francs, it was from 148-158 francs. The remark that
he was being cheated alludes to the point at issue in the difficulties of the patient with his
mistress. She maintains that he had deflowered her; he, on the contrary, is firmly convinced
that she was not a virgin, and that she had already been seduced by some one else at the time
when he was seeking her favours and she was refusing him. The expression "number" leads
to the associations: number of the gloves, calibre-number. From there the next step was to the
fact that he recognized, at the first coitus, a noticeable width of the opening instead of the
expected resistance of the hymen. To him, this is proof of the deception. The unconscious
naturally makes use of this opportunity as an effective means of opposition to the
relationship. 152 proves at first refractory to further analysis. The number on a subsequent
occasion aroused the really not remote association, "house-number." Then came this series of
associations. When the patient first knew her the lady lived at X Street No. 17, then Y Street
No. 129, then Z Street No. 48.
Here the patient thought that he had clearly gone far beyond 152, the total being 194. It then
occurred to him that the lady had removed from No. 48 Z Street at his instigation for certain
reasons; it must therefore run 194 - 48 = 146. She now lives in A Street No. 6, therefore 146
+ 6 = 152.
The following dream was obtained during a later part of the analysis. The patient dreamt that
he had received an account from the analyst in which he was charged interest for delay in
payment from the period September 3rd to 29th. The interest on the total of 315 francs was 1
franc.
Under this reproach of meanness and avariciousness levelled at the analyst, the patient
covered, as analysis proved, a violent unconscious envy. Diverse things in the life of the
analyst can arouse the patient's envy; one fact here in particular had recently made a marked
impression. His physician had received an addition to the family. The disturbed relations
between the patient and his wife unfortunately does not permit such an expectation in his
case. Hence his ground for envy and invidious comparisons.
As before, the analysis of 315 produces a separation into 3—1—5. To three he associates—
his doctor has three children, just lately there is one in addition. He himself would have five
children were all living; as it is he has 3 - 1 = 2 living; for three of the children were stillborn.
The symbolism of the numbers is not exhausted by these associations.
The patient remarks that the period from 3rd to 29th September contains twenty-six days. His
next thought is to add this and the other figures of the dream:

26
315
1
___
342
___

With 342 he carries out the same operation as on 315, splitting it into 3—4—2. Whereas
before it came out that his doctor had three children, and then had another, and the patient had
five, now it runs: the doctor had three children, and now has four, patient has only two. He
remarks on this that the second figure sounds like a rectification in contrast with the wish-
fulfilment of the first.
The patient, who had discovered this explanation for himself without my help, declared
himself satisfied. His physician, however, was not; to him it seemed that the above
disclosures did not exhaust the rich possibilities that determined the unconscious images. The
patient had, for instance, added to the figure five that of the stillborn children; one was born
in the 9th month and two in the 7th. He also emphasised the fact that his wife had had two
miscarriages, one in the 5th week and the other in the 7th. Adding these figures together we
get the determination of the number 26.
Child of7 months
" "7 "
" "9 "
__
23 "
2 miscarriages (5 + 7 weeks)3 "
__
 26"
__
It seems as if the number twenty-six were determined by the number of the lost times of
pregnancy. This time (twenty-six days) denotes, in the dream, a delay for which the patient
was charged one franc interest. He has, in fact, suffered a delay through the lost pregnancies,
for his doctor has, during the time the patient has known him, surpassed him with one child.
One franc must be one child. We have already seen the tendency of the patient to add together
all his children, even the dead ones, in order to outdo his rival. The thought that his physician
had outdone him by one child could easily react immediately upon the determination of 1. We
will therefore follow up this tendency of the patient and carry on his play with figures, by
adding to the figure 26 the two complete pregnancies of nine months each.
26 + 9 + 9 = 44
If we follow the tendency to split up the numbers we get 2 + 6 and 4 + 4, two groups of
figures which have only this in common, that each group gives 8 by addition. These numbers
are, as we must notice, composed entirely of the months of pregnancy given by the patient.
Compare with them those groups of figures which contain the information as to the doctor's
fecundity, viz. 315 and 342; it is to be noted that the resemblance lies in their sum-total giving
9 : 9 - 8 = 1. It looks as if here likewise the notion about the differentiation of 1 were carried
out. As the patient remarked, 315 seems thus a wish-fulfilment, 342 on the other hand a
rectification. An ingenious fancy playing round will discover the following difference
between the two numbers:
3 × 1 × 5 = 15. 3 × 4 × 2 = 24. 24 - 15 = 9
Here again we come upon the important figure 9, which neatly combines the reckoning of the
pregnancies and births.
It is difficult to say where the borderline of play begins; necessarily so, for the unconscious
product is the creation of a sportive fancy, of that psychic impulse out of which play itself
arises. It is repugnant to the scientific mind to have serious dealings with this element of play,
which on all sides loses itself in the vague. But it must be never forgotten that the human
mind has for thousands of years amused itself with just this kind of game; it were therefore
nothing wonderful if this historic past again compelled admission in dream to similar
tendencies. The patient pursues in his waking life similar phantastic tendencies about figures,
as is seen in the fact already mentioned of the celebration of the 100th birthday. Their
presence in the dream therefore need not surprise us. In a single example of unconscious
determination exact proofs are often lacking, but the sum of our experiences entitles us to rely
upon the accuracy of the individual discoveries. In the investigation of free creative phantasy
we are in the region, almost more than anywhere else, of broad empiricism; a high measure of
discretion as to the accuracy of individual results is consequently required, but this in nowise
obliges us to pass over in silence what is active and living, for fear of being execrated as
unscientific. There must be no parleying with the superstition-phobia of the modern mind; for
this itself is a means by which the secrets of the unconscious are kept veiled.
It is of special interest to see how the problems of the patient are mirrored in the unconscious
of his wife. His wife had the following dream: She dreamt, and this is the whole dream: "Luke
137." The analysis of the number gives the following. To 1 she associates: The doctor has
another child. He had three. If all her children were living she would have 7; now she has
only 3 - 1 = 2. But she desires 1 + 3 + 7 = 11 (a twin number, 1 and 1), which expresses her
wish that her two children had been pairs of twins, for then she would have reached the same
number of children as the doctor. Her mother once had twins. The hope of getting a child by
her husband is very precarious; this had for a long time turned her ideas in the unconscious
towards a second marriage. Other phantasies pictured her as "done with," i.e. having reached
the climacteric at 44. She is now 33 years old, therefore in 11 years she will have reached her
44th year. This is an important period as her father died in his 44th year. Her phantasy of the
44th year contains the idea of the death of her father. The emphasis on the death of her father
corresponds to the repressed phantasy of the death of her husband, who is the obstacle to a
second marriage. At this place the material belonging to the dream "Luke 137" comes in to
solve the conflict. The dreamer is, one soon discovers, in no wise well up in her Bible, she
has not read it for an incredible time, she is not at all religious. It would be therefore quite
purposeless to have recourse to associations here. The dreamer's ignorance of her Bible is so
great that she did not even know that the citation "Luke 137" could only refer to the Gospel of
St. Luke. When she turned up the New Testament she came to the Acts of the Apostles. As
chapter i. has only 26 verses and not 37, she took the 7th verse, "It is not for you to know the
times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power."
But if we turn to Luke i. 37, we find the Annunciation of the Virgin.
Verse 35. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the
Son of God.
Verse 36. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and
this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.
Verse 37. For with God nothing shall be impossible.
The necessary continuation of the analysis of "Luke 137" demanded the looking up of Luke
xiii. 7, where it says:
Verse 6. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit
thereon, and found none.
Verse 7. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come
seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?
The fig-tree, which from antiquity has been a symbol of the male genital, is to be cut down on
account of its unfruitfulness. This passage is in complete accord with innumerable sadistic
phantasies of the dreamer, concerned with the cutting or biting off of the penis. The relation
to her husband's unfruitful organ is obvious. That she withdraws her libido from her husband
is clear for he is impotent as regard herself; it is equally clear that she undergoes regression to
the father ("which the father hath put in his own power") and identifies herself with her
mother who had twins.[166] By thus advancing her age the dreamer places her husband in
regard to herself in the position of a son or boy, of an age at which impotency is normal.
Furthermore, the desire to overcome her husband is easily understood from, and amply
evidenced in her earlier analysis. It is therefore only a confirmation of what has been already
said, if, following up the matter of "Luke 137," we find in Luke vii. verse 12, Now when he
came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his
mother, and she was a widow. (13) And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her,
and said unto her, Weep not. (14) And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him
stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.
In the particular psychological situation of the dreamer, the allusion to the resurrection
presents a delightful meaning as the cure of her husband's impotency. Then the whole
problem would be solved. There is no need for me to point out in so many words the
numerous wish-fulfilments contained in this material; they are obvious to the reader.
The important combination of the symbol "Luke 137" must be conceived as cryptomnesia,
since the dreamer is quite unversed in the Bible. Both Flournoy[167] and myself[168] have
already drawn attention to the important effects of this phenomenon. So far as one can be
humanly certain, the question of any manipulation of the material with intent to deceive does
not come into consideration in this case. Those well posted in psychoanalysis will be able to
allay any such suspicion simply from the disposition and setting of the material as a whole.
 CHAPTER VI
A CRITICISM OF BLEULER'S "THEORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIC
NEGATIVISM"[169]
Bleuler's work contains a noteworthy clinical analysis of "Negativism." Besides giving a very
precise and discerning summary of the various manifestations of negativism, the author
presents us with a new psychological conception well worthy of attention, viz. the concept of
ambivalency and of ambitendency, thus formulating the psychological axiom that every
tendency is balanced by its opposite tendency (to this must be added that positive action is
produced by a comparatively small leaning to one side of the scale). Similarly all other
tendencies, under the stress of emotions, are balanced by their opposites—thus giving an
ambivalent character to their expression. This theory rests on clinical observation of katatonic
negativism, which more than proves the existence of contrasting tendencies and values. These
facts are well known to psychoanalysis, where they are summed up under the concept of
resistance. But this must not be taken as meaning that every positive psychic action simply
calls up its opposite. One may easily gain the impression from Bleuler's work that his
standpoint is that, cum grano salis, the conception or the tendency of the Schizophrenic is
always accompanied by its opposite. For instance, Bleuler says:—
1. "Disposing causes of negativistic phenomena are: the ambitendency by which every
impulse is accompanied by its opposite."
2. "Ambivalency, which gives two opposed emotional expressions to the same idea, and
would regard that idea as positive and negative at the same time."
3. "The schizophrenic splitting of the psyche prevents any final summing up of the conflicting
and corresponding psychisms, so that the unsuitable impulse can be realised just as much as
the right one, and the negative thought substituted for the right one." "On this theory, negative
manifestations may directly arise, since non-selected positive and negative psychisms may
stand for one another," and so on.
If we investigate psychoanalytically a case of obvious ambivalency, i.e. of a more or less
unexpected negative reaction instead of a positive one, we find that there is a strict sequence
of psychological causes conditioning negative reaction. The tendency of this sequence is to
disturb the intention of the contrasting or opposite series, that is to say, it is resistance set up
by a complex. This fact, which has not yet been refuted by any other observations, seems to
me to contradict the above-mentioned formulæ. (For confirmation, see my "Psychology of
Dementia Præcox," p. 103.) Psychoanalysis has proved conclusively that a resistance always
has an intention and a meaning; that there is no such thing as a capricious playing with
contrasts. The systematic character of resistance holds good, as I believe I have proved, even
in schizophrenia. So long as this position, founded upon a great variety of experience, is not
disproved by any other observations, the theory of negativism must adapt itself to it. Bleuler
in a sense supports this when he says: "For the most part the negative reaction does not
simply appear as accidental, but is actually preferred to the right one." This is an admission
that negativism is of the nature of resistance. Once admit this, and the primary importance of
ambivalency disappears so far as negativism is concerned. The tendency to resistance remains
as the only fundamental principle. Ambivalency can in no sense be put on all fours with the
"schizophrenic splitting of the psyche," but must be regarded as a concept which gives
expression to the universal and ever-present inner association of pairs of opposites. (One of
the most remarkable examples of this is the "contrary meaning of root-words." See Freud's
"Essay on Dreams," Jahrbuch, vol. II., p. 179.) The same thing applies to ambitendency.
Neither is specific of schizophrenia, but applies equally to the neuroses and the normal. All
that is specific to katatonic negativism is the intentional contrast, i.e. the resistance. From this
explanation we see that resistance is something different from ambivalency; it is the dynamic
factor which makes manifest the everywhere latent ambivalency. What is characteristic of the
diseased mind is not ambivalency but resistance. This implies the existence of a conflict
between two opposite tendencies which has succeeded in raising the normally present
ambivalency into a struggle of opposing components. (Freud has very aptly called this, "The
separation of pairs of opposites.") In other words it is a conflict of wills, bringing about the
neurotic condition of "disharmony within the self." This condition is the only "splitting of the
psyche" known to us, and is not so much to be regarded as a predisposing cause, but rather as
a manifestation resulting from the inner conflict—the "incompatibility of the complex"
(Riklin).
Resistance, as the fundamental fact of schizophrenic dissociation, thus becomes something
which, in contra-distinction to ambivalency, is not eo ipso identical with the concept of the
state of feeling, but is a secondary and supplementary one, with its own special and quasi
independent psychological development; and this is identical with the necessary previous
history of the complex in every case. It follows that the theory of negativism coincides with
the theory of the complex, as the complex is the cause of the resistance.
Bleuler summarises the causes of negativism as follows:

(a) The autistic retirement of the patient into his own phantasies.
(b) The existence of a life-wound (complex) which must be protected from injury.
(c) The misconception of the environment and of its meaning.
(d) The directly hostile relation to environment.
(e) The pathological irritability of schizophrenics.
(f) The "press of ideas," and other aggravations of action and thought.
(g) Sexuality with its ambivalency on the emotional plane is often one of the roots of
negative reaction.

(a) Autistic withdrawal into one's own phantasies[170] is what I formerly designated as the
obvious overgrowth of the phantasies of the complex. The strengthening of the complex is
coincident with the increase of the resistance.
(b) The life-wound (Lebenswund) is the complex which, as a matter of course, is present in
every case of schizophrenia, and of necessity always carries with it the phenomena of autism
or auto-erotism (introversion), for complexes and involuntary egocentricity are inseparable
reciprocities. Points (a) and (b) are therefore identical. (Cf. "Psychology of Dementia
Præcox," chapters ii. and iii.)
(c) It is proved that the misconception of environment is an assimilation of the complex.
(d) The hostile relation to environment is the maximum of resistance as psychoanalysis
clearly shows. (d) goes with (a).
(e) "Irritability" proves itself psychoanalytically to be one of the commonest results of the
complex. I designated it complex-sensibility. Its generalised form (if one may use such an
expression) manifests itself as a damming up of the affect (= damming of the libido),
consequent on increased resistance. So-called neurasthenia is a classical example of this.
(f) Under the term "press of ideas," and similar intellectual troubles, may be classified the
"want of clearness and logic of the schizophrenic thinking," which Bleuler considers a
predisposing cause. I have, as I may presume is known, expressed myself with much reserve
on what he regards as the premeditation of the schizophrenic adjustment. Further and wider
experience has taught me that the laws of the Freudian psychology of dreams and the theory
of the neuroses must be turned towards the obscurities of schizophrenic thinking. The
painfulness of the elaborated complex necessitates a censorship of its expression.[171] This
principle has to be applied to schizophrenic disturbance in thinking; and until it has been
proved that this principle is not applicable to schizophrenia, there is no justification for setting
up a new principle; i.e. to postulate that schizophrenic disturbance of ideas is something
primary. Investigations of hypnagogic activity, as well as association reactions in states of
concentrated attention, give psychical results which up to now are indistinguishable from the
mental conditions in schizophrenia. For example excessive relaxation of attention suffices to
conjure up images as like as two peas to the phantasies and expressions of schizophrenia. It
will be remembered that I have attributed the notorious disturbances of attention in
schizophrenia to the special character of the complex; an idea which my experience since
1906 have further confirmed. There are good reasons for believing specific schizophrenic
thought-disturbance to be the result of a complex.
Now as regards the symptoms of thought-pressure, it is first and foremost a thought-
compulsion, which, as Freud has shown, is first a thought-complex and secondly a
sexualisation of the thought. Then to the symptom of thought-pressure there is superadded at
least a demoniac impulse such as may be observed in every vigorous release or production of
libido.
Thought-pressure, on closer examination, is seen to be a result of schizophrenic introversion,
which necessarily leads to a sexualisation of the thought; i.e. to an autonomy of the complex.
[172]

(g) The transition to sexuality appears from the psychoanalytical standpoint difficult to
understand. If we consider that the development of resistance coincides in every case with the
history of the complex we must ask ourselves: Is the complex sexual or not? (It goes without
saying thatwe must understand sexuality in its proper sense of psycho-sexuality.) To this
question psychoanalysis gives the invariable answer: Resistance always springs from a
peculiar sexual development. The latter leads in the well-known manner to conflict, i.e. to the
complex. Every case of schizophrenia which has so far been analysed confirms this. It can
therefore claim at least to be a working hypothesis, and one to be followed up. In the present
state of our knowledge, it is therefore not easy to see why Bleuler only allows to sexuality a
quasi-determining influence on the phenomena of negativism; for psychoanalysis
demonstrates that the cause of negativism is resistance; and that with schizophrenia, as with
all other neuroses, this arises from the peculiar sexual development.
It can scarcely be doubted to-day that schizophrenia, with its preponderance of the
mechanisms of introversion, possesses the same mechanism as any other "psycho-neurosis."
In my opinion, at any rate, its peculiar symptoms (apart from the clinical and anatomical
standpoints) are only to be studied by psychoanalysis, i.e. when the investigation is mainly
directed to the genetic impetus. I have, therefore, endeavoured to indicate how Bleuler's
hypothesis stands in the light of the theory of complexes; I feel myself bound to emphasise
the complex-theory in this relation, and am not disposed to surrender this conception, which
is as illuminating as it was difficult to evolve.
 CHAPTER VII
PSYCHOANALYSIS[173]
Psychoanalysis is not only scientific, but also technical in character; and from results
technical in their nature, has been developed a new psychological science which might be
called "analytical psychology."
Psychologists and doctors in general are by no means conversant with this particular branch
of psychology, owing to the fact that its technical foundations are as yet comparatively
unknown to them. Reason for this may be found in that the new method is exquisitely
psychological, and therefore belongs neither to the realm of medicine nor to that of
experimental psychology. The medical man has, as a rule, but little knowledge of psychology;
and the psychologist has no medical knowledge. There is therefore a lack of suitable soil in
which to plant the spirit of this new method. Furthermore, the method itself appears to many
persons so arbitrary that they cannot reconcile it with their scientific conscience. The
conceptions of Freud, the founder of this method, laid particular stress upon the sexual factor;
this fact has aroused strong prejudice, and many scientific men are repelled merely by this
feeling. I need hardly remark that such an antipathy is not a logical ground for rejecting a new
method. The facts being so, it is obvious that the psychoanalyst should discuss the principles
rather than the results of his method, when he speaks in public; for he who does not
acknowledge the scientific character of the method cannot acknowledge the scientific
character of its results.
Before I enter into the principles of the psychoanalytic method, I must mention two common
prejudices against it.
The first of these is that psychoanalysis is nothing but a somewhat deep and complicated form
of anamnesis. Now it is well known that the anamnesis is based upon the evidence supplied
by the patient's family, and upon his own conscious self-knowledge, revealed in reply to
direct questions. The psychoanalyst naturally develops his anamnesic data as carefully as any
other specialist; but this is merely the patient's history, and must not be confused with
analysis. Analysis is the reduction of an actual conscious content of a so-called accidental
nature, into its psychological determinants. This process has nothing to do with the anamnesic
reconstruction of the history of the illness.
The second prejudice, which is based, as a rule, upon a superficial knowledge of
psychoanalytic literature, is that psychoanalysis is a method of suggestion, by which a faith or
doctrine of living is imposed upon the patient, thereby effecting a cure in the manner of
mental healing or Christian Science. Many analysts, especially those who have worked in
psychoanalysis for a long time, previously used therapeutic suggestion, and are therefore
familiar with its workings. They know that the psychoanalyst's method of working is
diametrically opposed to that of the hypnotist. In direct contrast with therapeutic suggestion,
the psychoanalyst does not attempt to force anything upon his patient which the latter does
not see himself, and find reasonable with his own understanding. Faced with the constant
desire on the part of the neurotic patient to receive suggestions and advice, the analyst just as
constantly endeavours to lead him away from this passive receptive attitude, and make him
use his common sense and powers of criticism, that equipped with these he may become
fitted to meet the problems of life independently. We have often been accused of forcing
interpretations upon patients, interpretations that were frequently quite arbitrary in character. I
wish that one of these critics would make the attempt to force such arbitrary interpretations
upon my patients, who are often persons of great intelligence and high culture, and who are,
indeed, not infrequently my own colleagues. The impossibility of such an undertaking would
soon be laid bare. In psychoanalysis we are dependent upon the patient and his judgment, for
the reason that the very nature of analysis consists in leading him to a knowledge of his own
self. The principles of psychoanalysis are so entirely different from those of therapeutic
suggestion that they are not comparable.
An attempt has also been made to compare analysis with the reasoning method of Dubois,
which is in itself a rational process. This comparison does not however hold good, for the
psychoanalyst strictly avoids argument and persuasion with his patients. He must naturally
listen to and take note of the conscious problems and conflicts of his patient, but not for the
purpose of fulfilling his desire to obtain advice or direction with regard to his conduct. The
problems of a neurotic patient cannot be solved by advice and conscious argument. I do not
doubt that good advice at the right time can produce good results; but I do not know whence
one can obtain the belief that the psychoanalyst can always give the right advice at the right
time. The neurotic conflict is frequently, indeed as a rule, of such a character that advice
cannot possibly be given. Furthermore, it is well known that the patient only desires
authoritative advice in order that he may cast aside the burden of responsibility, referring
himself and others to the opinion of the higher authority.
In direct contrast to all previous methods, psychoanalysis endeavours to overcome the
disorders of the neurotic psyche through the subconscious, not through the conscious self. In
this work we naturally have need of the patient's conscious content, for his subconsciousness
can only be reached viâ the conscious. The material furnished by the anamnesis is the source
from which our work starts. The detailed recital usually furnishes many valuable clues which
make the psychogenic origin of the symptoms clear to the patient. This work is naturally only
necessary where the patient is convinced that his neurosis is organic in its origin. But even in
those cases where the patient is convinced from the very first of the psychic nature of his
illness, a critical survey of the history is very advantageous, since it discloses to him a
psychological concatenation of ideas of which he was unaware. In this manner those
problems which need special discussion are frequently brought to the surface. Work of this
kind may occupy many sittings. Finally the explanation of the conscious material reaches an
end, in so far as neither the patient nor the doctor can add anything to it that is decisive in
character. Under the most favourable circumstances the end comes with the formulation of
the problem which proved itself to be impossible of solution. Let us take, for instance, the
case of a man who was once well, but who became a neurotic between the age of 35 and 40.
His position in life is assured, and he has a wife and children. Parallel with his neurosis he
developed an intense resistance towards his professional work. He observed that the first
symptoms of neurosis became noticeable when he had to overcome a certain difficulty in
regard to it. Later on his symptoms became aggravated with each successive difficulty that
arose. An amelioration in his neurosis occurred whenever fortune favoured him in his
professional work. The problem that results from a critical discussion of the anamnesis is as
follows:—
The patient is aware that if he could improve his work, the mere satisfaction that would result
could bring about the much-desired improvement in his neurotic condition. He cannot,
however, make his work more efficient because of his great resistance against it. This
problem cannot be solved by any reasoning process.
Let us take another case. A woman of 40, the mother of four children, became neurotic four
years ago after the death of one of her children. A new period of pregnancy, followed by the
birth of another child, produced a great improvement in her condition. The patient now lived
in the thought that it would be a great help to her if she could have yet another child.
Believing, however, that this could not happen, she attempted to devote her energies to
philanthropic interests. But she failed to obtain the least satisfaction from this work. She
observed a distinct alleviation of her complaint whenever she succeeded in giving real, living
interest to any matter, but she felt entirely incapable of discovering anything that could bring
her lasting interest and satisfaction. It is clear that no process of reasoning can solve this
problem.
Here psychoanalysis must begin with the endeavour to solve the problem as to what prevents
the patient from developing interests above and beyond her longing for a child.
Since we cannot assume that we know from the very beginning what the solution of such
problems is, we must at this point trust to the clues furnished us by the individuality of the
patient. Neither conscious questioning nor rational advice can aid us in the discovery of these
clues, for the causes which prevent us from finding them are hidden from her consciousness.
There is, therefore, no clearly indicated path by which to reach these subconscious
inhibitions. The only rule that psychoanalysis lays down for our guidance in this respect, is to
let the patient speak of that which occurs to him at the moment. The analyst must observe
carefully what the patient says and, in the first instance, take due note thereof without
attempting to force his own opinions upon him. Thus we observe that the patient whom I first
mentioned begins by talking about his marriage, which we hitherto had reason to regard as
normal. We now learn that he constantly has difficulties with his wife, and that he does not
understand her in the least. This knowledge causes the physician to remark that the patient's
professional work is clearly not his only problem; but that his conjugal relations are also in
need of revision. This starts a train of thought in which many further ideas occur to the
patient, concerning his married life. Hereupon follow ideas about the love affairs he had
before his marriage. These experiences, related in detail, show that the patient was always
somewhat peculiar in his more intimate relations with women, and that this peculiarity took
the form of a certain childish egoism. This is a new and surprising point of view for him, and
explains to him many of his misfortunes with women.
We cannot in every case get so far as this on the simple principle of letting
the patient talk; few patients have their psychic material so much on the
surface. Furthermore, many persons have a positive resistance against
speaking freely about what occurs to them on the spur of the moment; it is
often too painful to tell the doctor whom perhaps they do not entirely trust;
in other cases because apparently nothing occurs to them, they force
themselves to speak of matters about which they are more or less
indifferent. This habit of not talking to the point by no means proves that
patients consciously conceal their unpleasant contents, for such irrelevant
speaking can occur quite unconsciously. In such cases it sometimes helps
the patient if he is told that he must not force himself, that he must only
seize upon the very first thoughts that present themselves, no matter how
unimportant or ridiculous they may seem. In certain cases even these
instructions are of no use, and then the doctor is obliged to have recourse to
other expedients. One of these is the employment of the association test,
which usually gives excellent information as to the chief momentary
tendencies of the individual.
A second expedient is dream analysis; this is the real instrument of
psychoanalysis. We have already experienced so much opposition to dream
analysis that a brief exposition of its principles is necessary. The
interpretation of dreams, as well as the meaning given to them, is, as we
know, in bad odour. It is not long since that oneirocritics were practised and
believed in; nor is the time long past when even the most enlightened
human beings were entirely under the ban of superstition. It is therefore
comprehensible that our age should still retain a certain lively fear of those
superstitions which have but recently been partially overcome. To this
timidity in regard to superstition, the opposition to dream analysis is in a
large measure due; but analysis is in no wise to blame for this. We do not
select the dream as our object because we pay it the homage of superstitious
admiration, but because it is a psychic product that is independent of the
patient's consciousness. We ask for the patient's free thoughts, but he gives
us little, or nothing; or at best something forced or irrelevant. Dreams are
free thoughts, free phantasies, they are not forced, and they are psychic
phenomena just as much as thoughts are.
It may be said of the dream that it enters into the consciousness as a
complex structure, the connection between the elements of which is not
conscious. Only by afterwards joining associations to the separate pictures
of the dream, can the origin of these pictures, in certain recollections of the
near and more remote past, be proved. One asks oneself: "Where have I
seen or heard that?" And by the same process of free association comes the
memory that one has actually experienced certain parts of the dream, some
of them yesterday, some at an earlier date. This is well known, and every
one will probably agree to it. Thus far the dream presents itself, as a rule, as
an incomprehensible composition of certain elements which are not in the
first instance conscious, but which are later recognised by the process of
free association. This might be disputed on the ground that it is an a priori
statement. I must remark, however, that this conception conforms to the
only generally recognised working hypothesis as to the genesis of dreams,
namely, the derivation of the dream from experiences and thoughts of the
recent past. We are, therefore, upon known ground. Not that certain dream
parts have under all circumstances been known to the individual, so that one
might ascribe to them the character of being conscious; on the contrary,
they are frequently, even generally, unrecognisable. Not until later do we
remember having consciously experienced this or that dream part. We may
therefore regard the dream from this point of view as a product that comes
from a subconscious origin. The technical unfolding of these subconscious
sources is a mode of procedure that has always been instinctively
employed. One simply tries to remember whence the dream parts come.
Upon this most simple principle the psychoanalytic method of solving
dreams is based. It is a fact that certain dream parts are derived from our
waking life and, indeed, from experiences which, owing to their notorious
lack of importance, would frequently have been consigned to certain
oblivion, and were therefore well on their way towards becoming definitely
subconscious. Such dream parts are the results of subconscious
representations (images).
The principles according to which psychoanalysis solves dreams are
therefore exceedingly simple, and have really been known for a long time.
The further procedure follows the same path logically and consistently. If
one spends considerable time over a dream, which really never happens
outside psychoanalysis, one can succeed in finding more and more
recollections for the separate dream parts. It is, however, not always
possible to discover recollections for certain other parts; and then one must
leave them for the time being, whether one likes it or not. When I speak of
"recollections" I naturally do not mean merely memories of certain concrete
experiences, but also of their inter-related meanings. The collected
recollections are known as the dream material. With this material one
proceeds according to a scientific method that is universally valid. If one
has any experimental material to work up, one compares its separate parts
and arranges them according to their similarities. Exactly the same course is
pursued in dealing with the dream material; one gathers together its
common characteristics, whether these be formal or material. In doing this
one must absolutely get rid of certain prejudices. I have always observed
that the beginner expects to find some tendency or other according to which
he endeavours to mould his material. I have noticed this particularly in the
cases of colleagues who were previously more or less violent opponents of
psychoanalysis, owing to their well-known prejudices and
misunderstandings. When fate willed that I should analyse them, and they
consequently gained at last an insight into the method of analysis, it was
demonstrated that the first mistake which they had been apt to make in their
own psychoanalytic practice was that they forced the material into accord
with their own preconceived opinions; that is, they allowed their former
attitude towards psychoanalysis, which they were not able to appreciate
objectively, but only according to subjective phantasies, to have its
influence upon their material. If one goes so far as to venture upon the task
of examining the dream material, one must permit no comparison to
frighten one away. The material consists, as a general rule, of very unequal
images, from which it is under some circumstances most difficult to obtain
the "tertium comparationis." I must forego giving you detailed examples of
this, since it is quite impossible to introduce such extensive material into a
lecture.
One pursues, then, the same method in classifying the unconscious content,
as is used everywhere in comparing materials for the purpose of drawing
conclusions from them. One objection has often been made, namely: why
should the dream have a subconscious content at all? This objection is
unscientific in my opinion. Every psychological moment has its own
history. Every sentence that I utter has, besides the meaning consciously
intended by me, a meaning that is historical; and this last may be entirely
different from the conscious meaning. I am purposely expressing myself
somewhat paradoxically. I certainly should not take it upon myself to
explain each sentence according to its individual-historical meaning. That is
easier in the case of larger and more complex formations. Every one is
certainly convinced of the fact that a poem—in addition to its manifest
contents—is also particularly characteristic of its author, in its form,
subject-matter, and the history of its origin. Whereas the poet gave skilful
expression to a fleeting mood in his song, the historian of literature sees in
it and beyond it, things which the poet would never have suspected. The
analysis which the literary critic makes of the subject-matter furnished by
the poet may be compared with psychoanalysis in its method, even to the
very errors which occur therein. The psychoanalytic method may be aptly
compared with historical analysis and synthesis. Let us assume, for
instance, that we do not understand the meaning of the rite of baptism as it
is practised in our churches to-day. The priest tells us that baptism means
the reception of the child into the Christian community. But we are not
satisfied with this. Why should the child be sprinkled with water, etc.? In
order that we may understand this rite we must gather together materials for
comparison from the history of the rite, that is, from the memories of
mankind appertaining to it; and this must be done from various points of
view.
Firstly—Baptism is clearly a rite of initiation, a consecration. Therefore
those memories, above all, must be assembled which preserve the rites of
initiation.
Secondly—The act of baptism is performed with water. This especial form
of procedure proves the necessity of welding together another chain of
memories concerning rites in which water was used.
Thirdly—The child is sprinkled with water when it is christened. In this
case we must gather together all the forms of the rite, where the neophyte is
sprinkled or where the child is submerged, etc.
Fourthly—We must recollect all the reminiscences in mythology and all the
superstitious customs which are in any respect similar to the symbolic act of
baptism.
In this manner we obtain a comparative study of the act of baptism. Thus
we ascertain the elements from which baptism is derived; we further
ascertain its original meaning, and at the same time make the acquaintance
of a world rich in religious mythology, which makes clear to us all the
multifarious and derived meanings of the act of baptism. Thus the analyst
deals with the dream. He gathers together historical parallels for each dream
part, even though they be very remote and attempts to construct the
psychological history of the dream and the meanings that underlie it. By
this monographic elaboration of the dream one gains, exactly as in the
analysis of the act of baptism, a deep insight into the wonderfully subtle and
significant network of subconscious determinations; an insight which, as I
have said, can only be compared with the historical understanding of an act
that we used only to consider from a very one-sided and superficial point of
view.
I cannot disguise the fact that in practice, especially at the beginning of an
analysis, we do not in all cases make complete and ideal analyses of
dreams, but that we more generally continue to gather together the dream
associations until the problem which the patient hides from us becomes so
clear that even he can recognize it. This problem is then subjected to
conscious elaboration until it is cleared up as far as possible, and once again
we stand before a question that cannot be answered.
You will now ask what course is to be pursued when the patient does not
dream at all; I can assure you that hitherto all patients, even those who
claimed never to have dreamed before, began to dream when they went
through analysis. But on the other hand it frequently occurs that patients
who began by dreaming vividly are suddenly no longer able to remember
their dreams. The empirical and practical rule, which I have hitherto
regarded as binding, is that the patient, if he does not dream, has sufficient
conscious material, which he keeps back for certain reasons. A common
reason is: "I am in the doctor's hands and am quite willing to be treated by
him. But the doctor must do the work, I shall remain passive in the matter."
Sometimes the resistances are of a more serious character. For instance,
persons who cannot admit certain morally grave sides to their characters,
project their deficiencies upon the doctor by calmly presuming that he is
more or less deficient morally, and that for this reason they cannot
communicate certain unpleasant things to him. If, then a patient does not
dream from the beginning or ceases to dream he retains material which is
susceptible of conscious elaboration. Here the personal relation between the
doctor and his patient may be regarded as the chief hindrance. It can
prevent them both, the doctor as well as the patient, from seeing the
situation clearly. We must not forget that, as the doctor shows, and must
show, a searching interest in the psychology of his patient, so, too, the
patient, if he has an active mind, gains some familiarity with the
psychology of the doctor and assumes a corresponding attitude towards
him. Thus the doctor is blind to the mental attitude of the patient to the
exact extent that he does not see himself and his own subconscious
problems. Therefore I maintain that a doctor must be analysed before he
practises analysis. Otherwise the practice of analysis can easily be a great
disappointment to him, because he can, under certain circumstances, reach a
point where further progress is impossible, a situation which may make him
lose his head. He is then readily inclined to assume that psychoanalysis is
nonsense, so as to avoid the admission that he has run his vessel ashore. If
you are sure of your own psychology you can confidently tell your patient
that he does not dream because there is still conscious material to be
disposed of. I say that one must be sure of one's self in such cases, for the
opinions and unsparing criticisms to which one sometimes has to submit,
can be excessively disturbing to one who is unprepared to meet them. The
immediate consequence of such a loss of personal balance on the part of the
doctor is that he begins to argue with his patient, in order to maintain his
influence over him; and this, of course, renders all further analysis
impossible.
I have told you that, in the first instance, dreams need only be used as
sources of material for analysis. At the beginning of an analysis it is not
only unnecessary, but also unwise, to make a so-called complete
interpretation of a dream; for it is very difficult indeed to make a complete
and really exhaustive interpretation. The interpretations of dreams that one
sometimes reads in psychoanalytic publications are often one-sided, and not
infrequently contestable formulations. I include among these certain one-
sided sexual reductions of the Viennese school. In view of the
comprehensive many-sidedness of the dream material one must beware,
above all, of one-sided formulations. The many-sidedness of the meaning of
a dream, not its singleness of meaning, is of the utmost value, especially at
the beginning of the psychoanalytic treatment. Thus, for instance, a patient
had the following dream not long after her treatment had begun: "She was
in a hotel in a strange city. Suddenly a fire broke out; and her husband and
her father, who were with her, helped her in the work of saving others." The
patient was intelligent, extraordinarily sceptical, and absolutely convinced
that dream analysis was nonsense. I had difficulty in inducing her to give
dream analysis even one trial. Indeed I saw at once that I could not inform
my patient of the real content of the dream under these circumstances
because her resistances were much too great. I selected the fire, the most
conspicuous occurrence of the dream, as the starting point for obtaining her
free associations. The patient told me that she had recently read in a
newspaper that a certain hotel in Z. had been burnt down; that she
remembered the hotel because she had once lived in it. At the hotel she had
made the acquaintance of a man, and from this acquaintance a somewhat
questionable love affair developed. In connection with this story the fact
came out that she had already had quite a number of similar adventures, all
of which had a certain frivolous character. This important bit of past history
was brought out by the first free association with a dream-part. It would
have been impossible in this case to make clear to the patient the very
striking meaning of the dream. With her frivolous mental attitude, of which
her scepticism was only a special instance, she could have calmly repelled
any attempt of this kind. But after the frivolity of her mental attitude was
recognised and proved to her, by the material that she herself had furnished,
it was possible to analyse the dreams which followed much more
thoroughly.
It is, therefore, advisable in the beginning to make use of dreams for the
purpose of reaching the important subconscious material by means of the
patient's free associations in connection with them. This is the best and most
cautious method, especially for those who are just beginning to practise
analysis. An arbitrary translation of the dreams is absolutely unadvisable.
That would be a superstitious practice based on the acceptance of well-
established symbolic meanings. But there are no fixed symbolic meanings.
There are certain symbols that recur frequently, but we are not able to get
beyond general statements. For instance, it is quite incorrect to assume that
the snake, when it appears in dreams, has a merely phallic meaning; just as
incorrect as it is to deny that it may have a phallic meaning in some cases.
Every symbol has more than one meaning. I can therefore not admit the
correctness of exclusively sexual interpretations, such as appear in some
psychoanalytic publications, for my experience has made me regard them as
one-sided and therefore insufficient. As an example of this I will tell you a
very simple dream of a young patient of mine. It was as follows: "I was
going up a flight of stairs with my mother and sister. When we reached the
top I was told that my sister was soon to have a child."
I shall now show you how, on the strength of the hitherto prevailing point of
view, this dream may be translated so that it receives a sexual meaning. We
know that the incest phantasy plays a prominent part in the life of a
neurotic. Hence the picture "with my mother and sister" might be regarded
as an allusion in this direction. The "stairs" have a sexual meaning that is
supposedly well established; they represent the sexual act because of the
rhythmic climbing of steps. The child that my patient's sister is expecting is
nothing but the logical result of these premises. The dream, translated thus,
would be a clear fulfilment of infantile desires which as we know play an
important part in Freud's theory of dreams.
Now I have analysed this with the aid of the following process of reasoning:
If I say that the stairs are a symbol for the sexual act, whence do I obtain the
right to regard the mother, the sister, and the child as concrete; that is, as not
symbolic? If, on the strength of the claim that dream pictures are symbolic,
I give to certain of these pictures the value of symbols, what right have I to
exempt certain other dream parts from this process? If, therefore, I attach
symbolic value to the ascent of the stairs, I must also attach a symbolic
value to the pictures that represent the mother, the sister, and the child.
Therefore I did not translate the dream, but really analysed it. The result
was surprising. I will give you the free associations with the separate
dream-parts, word for word, so that you can form your own opinions
concerning the material. I should state in advance that the young man had
finished his studies at the university a few months previously; that he found
the choice of a profession too difficult to make; and that he thereupon
became a neurotic. In consequence of this he gave up his work. His neurosis
took, among other things, a decidedly homosexual form.
The patient's associations with his mother are as follows: "I have not seen
her for a long time, a very long time. I really ought to reproach myself for
this. It is wrong of me to neglect her so." "Mother," then, stands here for
something which is neglected in an inexcusable manner. I said to the
patient: "What is that?" And he replied, with considerable embarrassment,
"My work."
With his sister he associated as follows: "It is years since I have seen her. I
long to see her again. Whenever I think of her I recall the time when I took
leave of her. I kissed her with real affection; and at that moment I
understood for the first time what love for a woman can mean." It is at once
clear to the patient that his sister represents "love for woman."
With the stairs he has this association: "Climbing upwards; getting to the
top; making a success of life; being grown up; being great." The child
brings him the ideas: "New born; a revival; a regeneration; to become a new
man."
One only has to hear this material in order to understand at once that the
patient's dream is not so much the fulfilment of infantile desires, as it is the
expression of biological duties which he has hitherto neglected because of
his infantilism. Biological justice, which is inexorable, sometimes compels
the human being to atone in his dreams for the duties which he has
neglected in real life.
This dream is a typical example of the prospective and teleological function
of dreams in general, a function that has been especially emphasised by my
colleague Dr. Maeder. If we adhered to the one-sidedness of sexual
interpretation, the real meaning of the dream would escape us. Sexuality in
dreams is, in the first instance, a means of expression, and by no means
always the meaning and the object of the dream. The unfolding of the
prospective or teleological meaning of dreams is of particular importance as
soon as analysis is so far advanced that the eyes of the patient are more
easily turned upon the future, than upon his inner life and upon the past.
In connection with the application of symbolism, we can also learn from the
example furnished us by this dream, that there can be no fixed and
unalterable dream symbols, but at best a frequent repetition of fairly general
meanings. So far as the so-called sexual meaning of dreams, in particular, is
concerned, my experience has led me to lay down the following practical
rules:
If dream analysis at the beginning of the treatment shows that the dream has
an undoubted sexual meaning, this meaning is to be taken realistically; that
is, it is proved thereby that the sexual problem itself must be subjected to a
careful revision. If, for instance, an incest phantasy is clearly shown to be a
latent content of the dream, one must subject the patient's infantile relations
towards his parents and his brothers and sisters, as well as his relations
towards other persons who are fitted to play the part of his father or mother
in his mind, to a careful examination on this basis. But if a dream that
comes in a later stage of the analysis has, let us say, an incest phantasy as its
essential content, a phantasy that we have reason to consider disposed of,
concrete value must not be attached to it under all circumstances; it must be
regarded as symbolic. In this case symbolic value, not concrete value, must
be attached to the sexual phantasy. If we did not go beyond the concrete
value in this case, we should keep reducing the patient to sexuality, and this
would arrest the progress of the development of his personality. The
patient's salvation is not to be found by thrusting him back again into
primitive sexuality; this would leave him on a low plane of civilisation
whence he could never obtain freedom and complete restoration to health.
Retrogression to a state of barbarism is no advantage at all for a civilised
human being.
The above-mentioned formula, according to which the sexuality of a dream
is a symbolic or analogous expression, naturally also holds good in the case
of dreams occurring in the beginning of an analysis. But the practical
reasons that have induced us not to take into consideration the symbolic
value of this sexual phantasy, owe their existence to the fact that a genuine
realistic value must be given to the abnormal sexual phantasies of a
neurotic, in so far as the latter suffers himself to be influenced in his actions
by these phantasies. Experience teaches us that these phantasies not only
hinder him from adapting himself suitably to his situation, but that they also
lead him to all manner of really sexual acts, and occasionally even to incest.
Under these circumstances, it would be of little use to consider the symbolic
content of the dream only; the concrete content must first be disposed of.
These arguments are based upon a different conception of the dream from
that put forward by Freud; for, indeed, my experience has forced me to a
different conception. According to Freud, the dream is in its essence a
symbolic veil for repressed desires which are in conflict with the ideals of
the personality. I am obliged to regard the dream structure from a different
point of view. The dream for me is, in the first instance, the subliminal
picture of the psychological condition of the individual in his waking state.
It presents a résumé of the subliminal association material which is brought
together by the momentary psychological situation. The volitional meaning
of the dream which Freud calls the repressed desire, is, for me, essentially a
means of expression. The activity of the consciousness, speaking
biologically, represents the psychological effort which the individual makes
in adapting himself to the conditions of life. His consciousness endeavours
to adjust itself to the necessities of the moment, or, to put it differently:
there are tasks ahead of the individual, which he must overcome. In many
cases the solution is unknown; and for this reason the consciousness always
tries to find the solution by the way of analogous experience. We always try
to grasp what is unknown and in the future, according to our mental
understanding of what has gone before. Now we have no reasons for
assuming that the unconscious follows other laws than those which apply to
conscious thought. The unconscious, like the conscious, gathers itself about
the biological problems and endeavours to find solutions for these by
analogy with what has gone before, just as much as the conscious does.
Whenever we wish to assimilate something that is unknown, we arrive at it
by a process of comparison. A simple example of this is the well-known
fact that, when America was discovered by the Spaniards, the Indians took
the horses of the conquerors, which were strange to them, for large pigs,
because pigs were familiar to their experience. This is the mental process
which we always employ in recognising unknown things; and this is the
essential reason for the existence of symbolism. It is a process of
comprehension by means of analogy. The apparently repressed desires,
contained in the dream, are volitional tendencies which serve as language-
material for subconscious expression. So far as this particular point is
concerned, I am in full accord with the views of Adler, another member of
Freud's school. With reference to the fact that subconscious materials of
expression are volitional elements or tendencies, I may say that this is
dependent upon the archaic nature of dream thinking, a problem with which
I have already dealt in previous researches.[174]
Owing to our different conception of the structure of the dream, the further
course of analysis also gains a different complexion from that which it had
until now. The symbolic valuation given to sexual phantasies in the later
stages of analysis necessarily leads less to the reduction of the patient's
personality into primitive tendencies, than to the extension and further
development of his mental attitude; that is, it tends to make his thinking
richer and deeper, thus giving him what has always been one of the most
powerful weapons that a human being can have in his struggle to adapt
himself to life. By following this new course logically, I have come to the
conclusion that these religious and philosophical motive forces—the so-
called metaphysical needs of the human being—must receive positive
consideration at the hands of the analyst. Though he must not destroy the
motive forces that underlie them, by reducing them to their primitive,
sexual roots, he must make them serve biological ends as psychologically
valuable factors. Thus these instincts assume once more those functions that
have been theirs from time immemorial.
Just as primitive man was able, with the aid of religious and philosophical
symbol, to free himself from his original state, so, too, the neurotic can
shake off his illness in a similar way. It is hardly necessary for me to say,
that I do not mean by this, that the belief in a religious or philosophical
dogma should be thrust upon the patient; I mean simply that he has to
reassume that psychological attitude which, in an earlier civilisation, was
characterised by the living belief in a religious or philosophical dogma. But
the religious-philosophical attitude does not necessarily correspond to the
belief in a dogma. A dogma is a transitory intellectual formulation; it is the
result of the religious-philosophical attitude, and is dependent upon time
and circumstances. This attitude is itself an achievement of civilization; it is
a function that is exceedingly valuable from a biological point of view, for
it gives rise to the incentives that force human beings to do creative work
for the benefit of a future age, and, if necessary, to sacrifice themselves for
the welfare of the species.
Thus the human being attains the same sense of unity and totality, the same
confidence, the same capacity for self-sacrifice in his conscious existence
that belongs unconsciously and instinctively to wild animals. Every
reduction, every digression from the course that has been laid down for the
development of civilisation does nothing more than turn the human being
into a crippled animal; it never makes a so-called natural man of him. My
numerous successes and failures in the course of my analytic practice have
convinced me of the invariable correctness of this psychological
orientation. We do not help the neurotic patient by freeing him from the
demand made by civilisation; we can only help him by inducing him to take
an active part in the strenuous task of carrying on the development of
civilisation. The suffering which he undergoes in performing this duty takes
the place of his neurosis. But, whereas the neurosis and the complaints that
accompany it are never followed by the delicious feeling of good work well
done, of duty fearlessly performed, the suffering that comes from useful
work, and from victory over real difficulties, brings with it those moments
of peace and satisfaction which give the human being the priceless feeling
that he has really lived his life.
 CHAPTER VIII
ON PSYCHOANALYSIS[175]
After many years' experience I now know that it is extremely difficult to
discuss psychoanalysis at public meetings and at congresses. There are so
many misconceptions of the matter, so many prejudices against certain
psychoanalytic views, that it becomes an almost impossible task to reach
mutual understanding in public discussion. I have always found a quiet
conversation on the subject much more useful and fruitful than heated
discussions coram publico. However, having been honoured by an
invitation from the Committee of this Congress as a representative of the
psychoanalytic movement, I will do my best to discuss some of the
fundamental theoretical conceptions of psychoanalysis. I must limit myself
to this part of the subject because I am quite unable to place before my
audience all that psychoanalysis means and strives for, all its various
applications, its psychology, its theoretical tendencies, its importance for
the realm of the so-called "Geisteswissenschaften," e.g. Mythology,
Comparative Religion, Philosophy, &c. But if I am to discuss certain
theoretical problems fundamental to psychoanalysis, I must presuppose my
audience to be well acquainted with the development and main results of
psychoanalytic researches. Unfortunately, it often happens that people
believe themselves entitled to judge psychoanalysis who have not even read
the literature. It is my firm conviction that no one is competent to form a
judgment concerning the subject until he has studied the fundamental works
on psychoanalysis.
In spite of the fact that Freud's theory of neurosis has been worked out in
great detail, it cannot be said to be, on the whole, very clear or easily
accessible. This justifies my giving you a very short abstract of his
fundamental views concerning the theory of neurosis.
You are aware that the original theory that hysteria and the related neuroses
take their origin in a trauma or shock of sexual character in early childhood,
was given up about fifteen years ago. It soon became obvious that the
sexual trauma could not be the real cause of a neurosis, since trauma is
found so universally; there is scarcely a human being who has not had some
sexual shock in early youth, and yet comparatively few have incurred a
neurosis in later life. Freud himself soon became aware that several of the
patients who related an early traumatic event, had only invented the story of
a so-called trauma; it had never taken place in reality, and was a mere
creation of phantasy. Moreover, on further investigation it became quite
obvious that even a trauma which had actually occurred was not always
responsible for the whole of the neurosis, although it does sometimes look
as if the structure of the neurosis depended entirely upon the trauma. If a
neurosis were the inevitable consequence of a trauma it would be quite
incomprehensible why neurotics are not incomparably more numerous.
This apparently heightened shock-effect was clearly based upon the
exaggerated and morbid phantasy of the patient. Freud also saw that this
same phantasy manifested itself in relatively early bad habits, which he
called infantile perversities. His new conception of the ætiology of a
neurosis was based upon this further understanding and traced the neurosis
back to some sexual activity in early infancy; this conception led on to his
recent view that the neurotic is "fixed" to a certain period of his early
infancy, because he still seems to preserve some trace of it, direct or
indirect, in his mental attitude. Freud also makes the attempt to classify or
to differentiate the neuroses, including dementia præcox, according to the
stage of the infantile development in which the fixation took place.
From the standpoint of this theory, the neurotic appears to be entirely
dependent upon his infantile past, and all his troubles in later life, his moral
conflicts, and deficiencies, seem to be derived from the powerful influence
of that period. The therapy and its main preoccupation are in full accord
with this view, and are chiefly concerned with the unravelling of this
infantile fixation, which is understood as an unconscious attachment of the
sexual libido to certain infantile phantasies and habits.
This is, so far as I can see, the essence of Freud's theory. But this
conception neglects the following important question: What is the cause of
this fixation of the libido to the old infantile phantasies and habits? We have
to remember that almost all persons have at some time had infantile
phantasies and habits exactly corresponding to those of a neurotic, but they
do not become fixed to them; consequently, they do not become neurotic
later on. The ætiological secret of the neurosis, therefore, does not consist in
the mere existence of infantile phantasies, but lies in the so-called fixation.
The manifold statements of the existence of infantile sexual phantasies in
neurotic cases are worthless, in so far as they attribute an ætiological value
to them, for the same phantasies can be found in normal individuals as well,
a fact which I have often proved. It is only the fixation which seems to be
characteristic. It is important to demand the nature of the proofs of the real
existence of this infantile fixation. Freud, an absolutely sincere and
thorough empiricist, would never have evolved this hypothesis had he not
had sufficient grounds for it. The grounds are found in the results of the
psychoanalytic investigations of the unconscious. Psychoanalysis discloses
the unconscious existence of manifold phantasies, which have their end root
in the infantile past and turn around the so-called "Kern-complex," or
nucleus-complex, which may be designated in male individuals as the
Œdipus-complex and in females as the Electra-complex. These terms
convey their own meaning exactly. The whole tragic fate of Œdipus and
Electra took place within the narrow confines of the family, just as the
child's fate lies wholly within the family boundaries. Hence the Œdipus
conflict is very characteristic of an infantile conflict, so also is the Electra
conflict. The existence of these conflicts in infancy is largely proven by
means of psychoanalytic experience. It is in the realm of this complex that
the fixation is supposed to have taken place. Through the highly potent and
effective existence of the nucleus-complex in the unconscious of neurotics,
Freud was led to the hypothesis, that the neurotic has a peculiar fixation or
attachment to it. Not the mere existence of this complex—for everybody
has it in the unconscious—but the very strong attachment to it is what is
typical of the neurotic. He is far more influenced by this complex than the
normal person; many examples in confirmation of this statement will be
found in every one of the recent psychoanalytic histories of neurotic cases.
We must admit that this conception is a very plausible one, because the
hypothesis of fixation is based upon the well-known fact, that certain
periods of human life, and particularly infancy, do sometimes leave
determining traces for ever. The only question is whether this principle is a
sufficient explanation or not. If we examine persons who have been
neurotic from infancy it seems to be confirmed, for we see the nucleus-
complex as a permanent and powerful activity throughout the whole life.
But if we take cases which never show any considerable traces of neurosis
except at the particular time when they break down, and there are many
such, this principle becomes doubtful. If there is such a thing as fixation, it
is not permissible to base upon it a new hypothesis, claiming that at times
during certain epochs of life the fixation becomes loosened and ineffective,
while at others it suddenly becomes strengthened and effective. In such
cases we find the nucleus-complex as active and as potent as in those which
apparently support the theory of fixation. Here a critical attitude is
peculiarly justifiable, when we consider the often-repeated observation that
the moment of the outbreak of the disease is by no means indifferent; as a
rule it is most critical. It usually occurs at the moment when a new
psychological adjustment, that is, a new adaptation, is demanded. Such
moments facilitate the outbreak of a neurosis, as every experienced
neurologist knows. This fact seems to me extremely significant. If the
fixation were indeed real we should expect to find its influence constant, i.e.
a neurosis continuous throughout life. This is obviously not the case. The
psychological determination of a neurosis is only partially due to an early
infantile predisposition; it is due to a certain actual cause as well. And if we
carefully examine the kind of infantile phantasies and events to which the
neurotic individual is attached, we shall be obliged to agree that there is
nothing in them specific for neurosis. Normal individuals have pretty much
the same kind of internal and external experiences, and are attached to them
to an even astonishing degree, without developing a neurosis. You will find
primitive people, especially, very much bound to their infantility. It now
begins to look as if this so-called fixation were a normal phenomenon, and
that the importance of infancy for the later mental attitude is natural and
prevails everywhere. The fact that the neurotic seems to be markedly
influenced by his infantile conflicts, shows that it is less a matter of fixation
than of a peculiar use which he makes of his infantile past. It looks as if he
exaggerated its importance, and attributed a very great artificial value to it
(Adler, a pupil of Freud's, expresses a very similar view). It would be unjust
to say that Freud confined himself to the hypothesis of fixation; he also was
conscious of the impression I have just discussed. He called this
phenomenon of reactivation or secondary exaggeration of infantile
reminiscences "regression." But in Freud's conception it appears as if the
incestuous desires of the Œdipus-complex were the real cause of the
regression to infantile phantasies. If this were the case, we should have to
postulate an unexpected intensity of the primary incestuous tendencies. This
view led Freud to his recent comparison between the so-called
psychological "incest-barrier" in children and the "incest-taboo" in
primitive man. He supposes that a real incestuous desire has led the
primitive man to the invention of a protective law; while to me it looks as if
the incest-taboo is one among numerous taboos of all sorts, and due to the
typical superstitious fear of primitive man, a fear existing independently of
incest and its interdiction. I am able to attribute as little particular strength
to incestuous desires in childhood as in primitive humanity. I do not even
seek the reason for regression in primary incestuous or any other sexual
desires. I must state that a purely sexual ætiology of neurosis seems to me
much too narrow. I base this criticism upon no prejudice against sexuality,
but upon an intimate acquaintance with the whole problem.
Therefore I suggest that the psychoanalytic theory should be liberated from
the purely sexual standpoint. In place of it I should like to introduce an
energic view-point into the psychology of neurosis.
All psychological phenomena can be considered as manifestations of
energy, in the same way as all physical phenomena are already understood
as energic manifestations since Robert Mayer discovered the law of the
conservation of energy. This energy is subjectively and psychologically
conceived as desire. I call it libido, using the word in the original meaning
of this term, which is by no means only sexual. Sallustius applies the term
exactly in the way we do here: "Magis in armis et militaribus equis, quam
in scortis et conviviis libidinem habebant."
From a broader standpoint libido can be understood as vital energy in
general, or as Bergson's élan vital. The first manifestation of this energy in
the suckling is the instinct of nutrition. From this stage the libido slowly
develops through manifold varieties of the act of sucking into the sexual
function. Hence I do not consider the act of sucking as a sexual act. The
pleasure in sucking can certainly not be considered as sexual pleasure, but
as pleasure in nutrition, for it is nowhere proved that pleasure is sexual in
itself. This process of development continues into adult life and is
connected with a constantly increased adaptation to the external world.
Whenever the libido, in the process of adaptation, meets an obstacle, an
accumulation takes place which normally gives rise to an increased effort to
overcome the obstacle. But if the obstacle seems to be insurmountable, and
the individual renounces the overcoming of it, the stored-up libido makes a
regression. In place of being employed in the increased effort, the libido
now gives up the present task and returns to a former and more primitive
way of adaptation. We meet with the best examples of such regressions very
frequently in hysterical cases where a disappointment in love or marriage
gives rise to the neurosis. There we find the well-known disturbances of
nutrition, resistance against eating, dyspeptic symptoms of all sorts, etc. In
these cases the regressive libido, turning away from its application to the
work of adaptation, holds sway over the function of nutrition and provokes
considerable disturbance. Such cases are obvious examples of regression.
Similar effects of regression are to be found in cases where there are no
troubles in the function of nutrition, and here we readily find a regressive
revival of reminiscences of a time long past. We find a revival of the images
of the parents, of the Œdipus-complex. Here things and events of infancy—
never before important—suddenly become so. They are regressively
reanimated. Take away the obstacle in the path of life and this whole system
of infantile phantasies at once breaks down and becomes again as inactive
and as ineffective as before. But do not let us forget that, to a certain extent,
it is at work influencing us always and everywhere. I cannot forbear to
mention that this view comes very near Janet's hypothesis of the
substitution of the "parties supérieures" of a function by its "parties
inférieures." I would also remind you of Claparède's conception of neurotic
symptoms as emotional reflexes of a primitive nature.
Therefore I no longer find the cause of a neurosis in the past, but in the
present. I ask, what is the necessary task which the patient will not
accomplish? The whole list of his infantile phantasies does not give me any
sufficient ætiological explanation, because I know that these phantasies are
only puffed up by the regressive libido, which has not found its natural
outlet into a new form of adjustment to the demands of life.
You may ask why the neurotic has a special inclination not to accomplish
his necessary tasks. Here let me point out that no living being adjusts itself
easily and smoothly to new conditions. The principle of the minimum of
effort is valid everywhere.
A sensitive and somewhat inharmonious character, as a neurotic always is,
will meet special difficulties and perhaps more unusual tasks in life than a
normal individual, who as a rule has only to follow the well-established line
of an ordinary life. For the neurotic there is no established way, for his aims
and tasks are apt to be of a highly individual character. He tries to follow
the more or less uncontrolled and half-conscious way of normal people, not
fully realizing his own critical and very different nature, which imposes
upon him more effort than the normal person is required to exert. There are
neurotics who have shown their increased sensitiveness and their resistance
against adaptation in the very first weeks of life, in their difficulty in taking
the mother's breast, and in their exaggerated nervous reactions, &c. For this
portion of a neurotic predisposition it will always be impossible to find a
psychological ætiology, for it is anterior to all psychology. But this
predisposition—you may call it "congenital sensitiveness" or by what name
you like—is the cause of the first resistances against adaptation. In such
case, the way of adaptation being blocked, the biological energy we call
libido does not find its appropriate outlet or activity and therefore replaces
an up-to-date and suitable form of adaptation by an abnormal or primitive
one.
In neurosis we speak of an infantile attitude or the predominance of
infantile phantasies and desires. In so far as infantile impressions and
desires are of obvious importance in normal people they are equally
influential in neurosis, but they have here no ætiological significance, they
are reactions merely, being chiefly secondary and regressive phenomena. It
is perfectly true, as Freud states, that infantile phantasies determine the
form and further development of neurosis, but this is not ætiology. Even
when we find perverted sexual phantasies of which we can prove the
existence in childhood, we cannot consider them of ætiological
significance. A neurosis is not really originated by infantile sexual
phantasies and the same must be said of the sexualism of neurotic phantasy
in general. It is not a primary phenomenon based upon a perverted sexual
disposition, but merely secondary and a consequence of a failure to apply
the stored-up libido in a suitable way. I realize that this is a very old view,
but this does not prevent its being true. The fact that the patient himself
very often believes that this infantile phantasy is the real cause of the
neurosis, does not prove that he is right in his belief, or that a theory
following the same belief is right either. It may look as if it were so, and I
must confess that indeed very many cases do have that appearance. At all
events, it is perfectly easy to understand how Freud came to this view.
Every one having any psychoanalytic experience will agree with me here.
To sum up: I cannot see the real ætiology of a neurosis in the various
manifestations of infantile sexual development and their corresponding
phantasies. The fact that they are exaggerated and put into the foreground in
neurosis is a consequence of the stored-up energy or libido. The
psychological trouble in neurosis, and neurosis itself, can be considered as
an act of adaptation that has failed. This formulation might reconcile
certain views of Janet's with Freud's view, that a neurosis is—under a
certain aspect—an attempt at self-cure; a view which can be and has been
applied to many diseases.
Here the question arises whether it is still advisable to bring to light all the
patient's phantasies by analysis, if we now consider them as of no
ætiological significance. Psychoanalysis hitherto has proceeded to the
unravelling of these phantasies because they were considered to be
ætiologically significant. My altered view concerning the theory of neurosis
does not change the procedure of psychoanalysis. The technique remains
the same. We no longer imagine we are unearthing the end-root of the
disease, but we have to pull up the sexual phantasies because the energy
which the patient needs for his health, that is, for his adaptation, is attached
to them. By means of psychoanalysis the connexion between the conscious
and the libido in the unconscious is re-established. Thus you restore this
unconscious libido to the command of conscious intention. Only in this way
can the formerly split-off energy become again applicable to the
accomplishment of the necessary tasks of life. Considered from this
standpoint, psychoanalysis no longer appears to be a mere reduction of the
individual to his primitive sexual wishes, but it becomes clear that, if rightly
understood, it is a highly moral task of immense educational value.
 CHAPTER IX
ON SOME CRUCIAL POINTS IN PSYCHOANALYSIS[176]
Correspondence between Dr. Jung and Dr. Loÿ appearing in
"Psychotherapeutische Zeitfragen." Published by Dr. Loÿ,
Sanatorium L'abri, Territet-Montreux, Switzerland, 1914.

From Dr. Loÿ.

12th January, 1913.
What you said at our last conversation was extraordinarily stimulating. I
was expecting you to throw light upon the interpretation of my own and my
patients' dreams from the standpoint of Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams."
Instead, you put before me an entirely new conception: the dream as a
means of re-establishing the moral equipoise, fashioned in the realm below
the threshold of consciousness. That indeed is a fruitful conception. But still
more fruitful appears to me your other suggestion. You regard the problems
of psychoanalysis as much deeper than I had ever thought: it is no longer
merely a question of getting rid of troublesome pathological symptoms; the
analysed person gets to understand not his anxiety-experiences alone, but
his whole self most completely, and by means of this understanding he can
build up and fashion his whole life anew. But he himself must be the
builder, the Analyst only furnishes him with the necessary tools.
To begin with, I would ask you to consider what justification there is for the
original procedure of Breuer and Freud, now entirely given up both by
Freud himself and by you, but practised by Frank, for instance, as his only
method: I mean "the abreaction of the inhibited effects under light
hypnosis." Why have you given up the cathartic method? More particularly,
has light hypnosis in psychocatharsis a different value from suggestion
during sleep, long customary in treatment by suggestion? that is, has it only
the value which the suggestionist contributes, or does it claim to possess
only the value which the patient's belief bestows upon it? Or, again, is
suggestion in the waking-state equivalent to suggestion in hypnoidal states?
This Bernheim now asserts to be the case, after having used suggestion for
many years exclusively in hypnosis. You will tell me we must talk of
psychoanalysis, not of suggestion. But I really mean this: is not the
suggestion, by means of which the psychocatharsis in the hypnoidal state
produces therapeutic effects, (modified naturally, by the patients' age, etc.)
the main factor in the therapeutic success of the psychocatharsis? Frank, in
his "Affektstörungen," says: "these partial adjustments of effect,
suggestibility and suggestion, are almost altogether omitted in the
psychocathartic treatment in light sleep, in so far as the content of the
reproduced presentations is concerned." Is that really true? Frank himself
adds: "How can meditation upon the dreams of youth in itself lead to the
discharge of the stored-up anxiety, whether in hypnoidal states or under any
other conditions? Must one not suppose, with much greater probability, that
the anxiety-states would become more pronounced through such
concentration upon them?" [I have noticed that myself, and much more than
I at all liked.] One does indeed say to the patient: "First we must stir up,
then afterwards comes peace." And it does come. But does it not come in
spite of the stirring-up process, because gradually, by means of frequent
talks under light hypnosis, the patient gets such confidence in the doctor
that he becomes susceptible to direct suggestion, and that produces at first
improvement and finally, cure? I go still further: in an analysis in the
waking-state, is not the patient's belief that the method employed will cure
him, coupled with his ever-growing trust in the doctor, a main cause of his
cure? And I ask even further: in every systematically carried-out therapeutic
treatment, is not faith in it, trust in the doctor, a main factor in its success? I
will not indeed say the only factor, for one cannot deny that the physical,
dietetic and chemical procedures, when properly selected, have a real effect
in securing a cure, over and above the obvious effect of their indirect
suggestion.
 II

From Dr. Jung.

28th January, 1913.
With regard to your question as to the applicability of the cathartic method,
the following is my standpoint: every method is good if it serves its
purpose, including every method of suggestion, even Christian Science,
Mental Healing, etc. "A truth is a truth, when it works." It is quite another
question whether a scientific physician can answer for it to his conscience
should he sell little bottles of Lourdes-water because that suggestion is at
times very useful. Even the so-called highly scientific suggestion-therapy
employs the wares of the medicine-man and the exorcising Schaman. And
please, why should it not? The public is not even now much more advanced
and continues to expect miracles from the doctor. And truly those doctors
should be deemed clever—worldly-wise in every respect—who understand
the art of investing themselves with the halo of the medicine-man. Not only
have they the biggest practices—they have also the best results. This is
simply because countless physical maladies (leaving out of count the
neuroses) are complicated and burdened with psychic elements to an extent
scarcely yet suspected. The medical exorcist's whole behaviour betrays his
full valuation of the psychic element when he gives the patient the
opportunity of fixing his faith firmly upon the doctor's mysterious
personality. Thus does he win the sick man's mind, which henceforth helps
him indeed to restore his body also to health. The cure works best when the
doctor really believes in his own formulæ, otherwise he may be overcome
by scientific doubt and so lose the correct, convincing tone. I, too, for a
time practised hypnotic suggestion enthusiastically. But there befell me
three dubious incidents which I want you to note:—
1. Once there came to me to be hypnotised for various neurotic troubles a
withered peasant-woman of some fifty years old. She was not easy to
hypnotise, was very restless, kept opening her eyes—but at last I did
succeed. When I waked her after about half an hour she seized my hand and
with many words testified to her overflowing gratitude. I said: "But you are
by no means cured yet, so keep your thanks till the end of the treatment."
She: "I am not thanking you for that, but—(blushing and whispering)—
because you have been so decent." So she said, looked at me with a sort of
tender admiration and departed. I gazed long at the spot where she had
stood—and asked myself, confounded, "So decent?"—good heavens! surely
she hadn't imagined, somehow or other.... This glimpse made me suspect
for the first time that possibly the loose-minded person, by means of that
notorious feminine (I should at that time have said "animal") directness of
instinct, understood more about the essence of hypnotism than I with all my
knowledge of the scientific profundity of the text-books. Therein lay my
harmlessness.
2. Next came a pretty, coquettish, seventeen-year-old girl with a harassed,
suspicious mother. The young daughter had suffered since early girlhood
from enuresis nocturna, which, among other difficulties, hindered her from
going to a boarding-school abroad.
At once I thought of the old woman and her wisdom. I tried to hypnotise the
girl; she laughed affectedly and prevented hypnosis for twenty minutes. Of
course I kept quiet and thought: I know why you laugh; you have already
fallen in love with me, but I will give you proof of my decency in gratitude
for your wasting my time with your challenging laughter. I succeeded in
hypnotising her. Success followed at once. The enuresis stopped, and I
therefore informed the young lady later that, instead of Wednesday, I would
not see her again for hypnosis till the following Saturday. On Saturday she
arrived with a cross countenance, presaging failure. The enuresis had come
back again. I remembered my wise old woman, and asked: "When did the
enuresis return?" She (unsuspecting), "Wednesday night." I thought to
myself, There it is again, she wants to show me that I simply must see her
on Wednesdays too; not to see me for a whole long week is too much for a
tender, loving heart. But I was quite resolved to give no help to such
annoying romancing, so I said, "To continue the hypnosis would be quite
wrong under these circumstances. We must drop it for quite three weeks, to
give the enuresis a chance to stop. Then come again for treatment." In my
malicious heart I knew I should then be on my holiday and so the course of
hypnotic treatment would come to an end. After the holidays my locum
tenens told me the young lady had been there with the news that the
enuresis had vanished, but her disappointment at not seeing me was very
keen. The old woman was right, thought I.
3. The third case gave my joy in suggestion its death-blow. This was the
manner of it. She was a lady of sixty-five who came stumbling into the
consulting-room with a crutch. She had suffered from pain in the knee-joint
for seventeen years, and this at times kept her in bed for many weeks. No
doctor had been able to cure her, and she had tried every possible remedy of
present-day medicine. After I had suffered the stream of her narrative to
flow over me for some ten minutes, I said, "I will try to hypnotise you,
perhaps that will do you good." She, "Oh yes, please do!" leaned her head
on one side and fell asleep before ever I said or did anything. She passed
into somnambulism and showed every form of hypnosis you could possibly
desire. After half an hour I had the greatest difficulty in waking her; when
at last she was awake she jumped up: "I am well, I am all right, you have
cured me." I tried to make timid objections, but her praises drowned me.
She could really walk. Then I blushed and said, embarrassed, to my
colleagues: "Look! behold the wondrously successful hypnotic therapy."
That day saw the death of my connection with treatment by suggestion; the
therapeutic praise won by this case shamed and humiliated me. When, a
year later, at the beginning of my hypnotic course, the good old lady
returned, this time with the pain in her back, I was already sunk in hopeless
cynicism; I saw written on her forehead that she had just read the notice of
the re-opening of my clinic in the newspaper, that vexatious romanticism
had provided her with a convenient pain in the back so that she might have
a pretext for seeing me, and again let herself be cured in the same theatrical
fashion. This proved true in every particular.
As you will understand, a man possessed of scientific conscience cannot
endure such cases without embarrassment. There ripened in me the resolve
to renounce suggestion altogether rather than to allow myself passively to
be transformed into a miracle-worker. I wanted to understand what really
went on in the souls of people. It suddenly seemed to me incredibly childish
to think of dispelling an illness with charms, and that this should be the only
result of our scientific endeavours for a psychotherapy. Thus for me the
discovery of Breuer and Freud was a veritable deliverance. I took up their
method with unalloyed enthusiasm and soon recognised how right Freud
was, when at a very early date, indeed so far back as the Studien ueber
Hysterie, he began to direct a searchlight upon the accompanying
circumstances of the so-called trauma. I too soon discovered that certainly
some traumata with an obvious etiological tinge are opportunely present.
But the greater number appeared highly improbable. So many of them
seemed so insignificant, even so normal, that at most one could regard them
as just providing the opportunity for the neurosis to appear. But what
especially spurred my criticism was the fact that so many traumata were
simply inventions of phantasy which had never really existed. This
perception was enough to make me sceptical about the whole trauma-
theory. (But I have dealt with these matters in detail in my lectures on the
theory of psychoanalysis).[177] I could no longer suppose that the hundred
and one cathartic experiences of a phantastically puffed-up or entirely
invented trauma were anything but the effect of suggestion. It is well
enough if it helps. If one only had not a scientific conscience and that
impulsion towards the truth! I found in many cases, especially when dealing
with more mentally gifted patients, that I must recognise the therapeutic
limitations of this method. It is, of course, a definite plan, and convenient
for the doctor, since it makes no particular demands upon his intellect for
new adaptations. The theory and practice are both of the pleasantest
simplicity: "The neurosis is caused by a trauma. The trauma is abreacted."
When the abreaction takes place under hypnotism, or with other magical
accessories (dark room, peculiar lighting, and the rest), I remember once
more the wise old woman, who opened my eyes not merely to the magic
influence of the mesmeric gestures, but also to the essential character of
hypnotism itself. But what alienated me once for all from this relatively
efficacious indirect method of suggestion, based as it is upon an equally
efficacious false theory, was the perception I obtained at the same time that,
behind the confused deceptive intricacies of neurotic phantasies, there
stands a conflict, which may be best described as a moral one. With this
there began for me a new era of understanding. Research and therapy now
coincided in the attempt to discover the causes and the rational solution of
this conflict. That is what psychoanalysis meant to me. Whilst I had been
getting this insight, Freud had built up his sexual theory of the neurosis, and
therewith had brought forward an enormous number of questions for
discussion, all of which I thought deserved the profoundest consideration.
Thus I have had the good fortune of co-operating with Freud for a long
time, and working with him in the investigation of the problem of sexuality
in neurosis. You, perhaps, know from some of my earlier work that I was
always dubious somewhat concerning the significance of sexuality.[178] This
has now become the exact point where I am no longer altogether of Freud's
opinion.
I have preferred to answer your questions in rather non-sequent fashion.
Whatever is still unanswered, let me now repeat: light hypnosis and
complete hypnosis are but varying grades of intensity of unconscious
attraction towards the hypnotist. Who can here venture to draw sharp
distinctions? To a critical intelligence it is unthinkable that suggestibility
and suggestion can be excluded in the cathartic method. They are present
everywhere and are universal human attributes, even with Dubois and the
psychoanalysts who think they work on purely rational lines. No technique,
no self-deception avails here—the doctor works, nolens volens—and
perhaps primarily—by means of his personality, that is by suggestion. In the
cathartic treatment, what is of far more importance to the patient than the
conjuring up of old phantasies is the being so often with the doctor, and
having confidence and belief in him personally, and in his method. The
belief, the self-confidence, perhaps also the devotion with which the doctor
does his work, are far more important things to the patient (imponderabilia
though they be) than the recalling of old traumata.[179]
Ultimately we shall some day know from the history of medicine
everything that has ever been of service; then perhaps at last we may come
to the really desirable therapy, to psychotherapy. Did not even the old
materia medica of filth have brilliant cures?—cures which only faded away
with the belief in it!
Because I recognise that the patient does attempt to lay hold of the doctor's
personality, in spite of all possible rational safeguards, I have formulated
the demand that the psychotherapeutist shall be held just as responsible for
the cleanness of his own hands as is the surgeon. I hold it to be an
absolutely indispensable preliminary that the psychoanalyst should himself
first undergo an analysis, for his personality is one of the chief factors in the
cure.
Patients read the doctor's character intuitively and they should find in him a
human being, with faults indeed, but also a man who has striven at every
point to fulfil his own human duties in the fullest sense. I think that this is
the first healing factor. Many times I have had the opportunity of seeing that
the analyst is successful with his treatment just in so far as he has succeeded
in his own moral development. I think this answer will satisfy your
question.

III

From Dr. Loÿ.

2nd February, 1913.
You answer several of my questions in a decidedly affirmative sense. You
take it as proved that in the cures by the cathartic method the main rôle is
played by faith in the doctor and in his method, and not by the "abreaction"
of real or imaginary traumata. I also. Equally I am at one with your view
that the cures of the old materia medica of filth, as well as the Lourdes
cures, or those of the Mental Healers, Christian Scientists and
Persuasionists, are to be attributed to faith in the miracle-worker, rather than
to any of the methods employed.
Now comes the ticklish point: the augur can remain an augur so long as he
himself believes the will of the gods is made manifest by the entrails of the
sacrificial beast. When he no longer believes, he has to ask himself: Shall I
continue to use my augur's authority to further the welfare of the State, or
shall I make use of my newer, and (I hope) truer convictions of to-day?
Both ways are possible. The first is called opportunism; the second the
pursuit of truth, and scientific honour. For a doctor, the first way brings
perhaps therapeutic success and fame; the second, reproach: such a man is
not taken seriously. What I esteem most highly in Freud and his school is
just this passionate desire for truth. But again, it is precisely here that
people pronounce a different verdict: "It is impossible for the busy
practitioner to keep pace with the development of the views of this
investigator and his initiates." (Frank, "Affektstörungen Einleitung.")
One can easily disregard this little quip, but one must take more seriously
one's self-criticism. We may have to ask ourselves whether, since science is
an undivided, ever-flowing stream, we are justified in relinquishing on
conscientious grounds any method or combination of methods by means of
which we know cures can be achieved?
Looking more closely at the fundamental grounds of your aversion to the
use of hypnosis (or semi-hypnosis, the degree matters nothing) in treatment
by suggestion, (which as a matter of fact every doctor and every therapeutic
method makes use of willy-nilly, no matter what it is called), it is clear that
what has disgusted you in hypnotism is at bottom nothing but the so-called
"transference" to the doctor, which you, with your unalloyed psychoanalytic
treatment, can get rid of as little as any one else, for indeed it plays a chief
part in the success of the treatment. Your insistence that the psychoanalyst
must be answerable for the cleanness of his own hands—(here I agree with
you unreservedly)——is an inevitable conclusion. But, after all, does
anything more "augurish" really cling to the use made of hypnosis in
psychotherapeutic treatment, than to the quite inevitable use made of the
"transference to the doctor" for therapeutic ends? In either case we must
perforce "take shares" in faith as a healing agent. As for the feeling which
the patient—whether man or woman—entertains for the doctor, is there
never anything in the background save conscious or unconscious sexual
desire? In many cases your view is most certainly correct; more than one
woman has been frank enough to confess that the beginning of hypnosis
was accompanied by voluptuous pleasure. But this is not true in all
instances—or how would you explain the underlying feeling in the
hypnotising of one animal by another, e.g. snake and bird? Surely you can
say that there the feeling of fear reigns, fear which is an inversion of the
libido, such as comes upon the bride in that hypnoidal state before she
yields to her husband wherein pure sexual desire rules, though possibly it
contains an element of fear. However this may be, from your three cases I
cannot draw any ethical distinction between the "unconscious readiness
towards the hypnotist" and the "transference to the doctor" which should
avail to condemn a combination of hypnotism and psychoanalysis as a
method of treatment. You will ask why I cling to the use of hypnotism; or
rather of hypnoidal states. Because I think there are cases that can be much
more rapidly cured thereby, than through a purely psychoanalytic treatment.
For example, in no more than five or six interviews I cured a fifteen-year-
old girl who had suffered from enuresis nocturna from infancy, but was
otherwise thoroughly healthy, gifted, and pre-eminent at school: she had
previously tried all sorts of treatment without any result.
Perhaps I ought to have sought out the psychoanalytic connexion between
the enuresis and her psychosexual attitude and explained it to her, etc., but I
could not, she had only the short Easter holidays for treatment: so I just
hypnotised her and the tiresome trouble vanished. It was a lasting cure.
In psychoanalysis I use hypnosis to help the patient to overcome
"resistances."
Further, I use light hypnosis in association with psychoanalysis, to hasten
the advance when the "re-education" stage comes.
For example, a patient afflicted with washing-mania was sent to me after a
year's psychocathartic treatment by Dr. X. The symbolic meaning of her
washing-ceremonial was first made plain to her; she became more and more
agitated during the "abreaction" of alleged traumata in childhood, because
she had persuaded herself by auto-suggestion that she was too old to be
cured, that she saw no "images," etc. So I used hypnosis to help her to
diminish the number of her washings, "so that the anxiety-feeling would be
banished"; and to train her to throw things on the ground and pick them up
again without washing her hands afterwards, etc.
In view of these considerations, if you feel disposed to go further into the matter, I should be
grateful if you would furnish me with more convincing reasons why hypnotic treatment must
be dispensed with; and explain how to do without it, or with what to replace it in such cases.
Were I convinced, I would give it up as you have done, but what convinced you has, so far,
not convinced me. Si duo faciunt idem, non est idem.
Now I want to consider another important matter to which you alluded, but only cursorily,
and to put one question: behind the neurotic phantasies there stands, you say, almost always
(or always) a moral conflict which belongs to the present moment. That is perfectly clear to
me. Research and therapy coincide; their task is to search out the foundations and the rational
solution of the conflict. Good. But can the rational solution always be found? "Reasons of
expediency" so often bar the way, varying with the type of patient, for instance children,
young girls and women from "pious" catholic or protestant families. Again that accursed
opportunism! A colleague of mine was perfectly right when he began to give sexual
enlightenment to a young French patient, a boy who was indulging in masturbation.
Whereupon, like one possessed, in rushed a bigoted grandmother, and a disagreeable sequel
ensued. How to act in these and similar cases? What to do in cases where there arises a moral
conflict between love and duty (a conflict in married life)?—or in general between instinct
and moral duty? What to do in the case of a girl afflicted with hysterical or anxiety
symptoms, needing love and having no chance to marry, either because she cannot find a
suitable man or because, being "well-connected," she wants to remain chaste? Simply try to
get rid of the symptoms by suggestion? But that is wrong as soon as one knows of a better
way. How to reconcile these two consciences: that of the man who does not want to confine
his fidelity to truth within his own four walls; and that of the doctor who must cure, or if he
dare not cure according to his real convictions (owing to opportunist-motives), must at least
procure some alleviation? We live in the present, but with the ideas and ideals of the future.
That is our conflict. How resolve it?

IV

From Dr. Jung.

4th February, 1913.
You have put me in some perplexity by the questions in your yesterday's letter. You have
rightly grasped the spirit which dictated my last. I am glad you, too, recognise this spirit.
There are not very many who can boast of such tolerance. I should deceive myself if I
regarded my standpoint as that of a practical physician. First and foremost I am a scientist;
naturally that gives me a different outlook upon many problems. In my last letter I certainly
left out of count the doctor's practical needs, but chiefly that I might show you on what
grounds we might be moved to relinquish hypnotic therapy. To remove the first objection at
once, let me say that I did not give up hypnotism because I desired to avoid dealing with the
basic motives of the human soul, but rather because I wanted to battle with them directly and
openly. When once I understood what kind of forces play a part in hypnotism I gave it up,
simply to get rid of all the indirect advantages of this method. As we psychoanalysts see
regretfully every day—and our patients also—we do not work with the "transference to the
doctor,"[180] but against it and in spite of it. It is just not upon the faith of the sick man that we
can build, but upon his criticism. So much would I say at the outset upon this delicate
question.
As your letter shows, we are at one in regard to the theoretical aspect of treatment by
suggestion. So we can now apply ourselves to the further task of coming to mutual
understanding about the practical question.
Your remarks on the physician's dilemma—whether to be magician or scientist—bring us to
the heart of the discussion. I strive to be no fanatic—although there are not a few who
reproach me with fanaticism. I contend not for the application of the psychoanalytic method
solely and at all costs, but for the recognition of every method of investigation and treatment.
I was a medical practitioner quite long enough to realise that practice obeys, and should obey,
other laws than does the search after truth. One might almost say practice must first and
foremost submit to the laws of opportunism. The scientist does great injustice to the
practitioner if he reproaches him for not using the "one true" scientific method. As I said to
you in my last letter: "A truth is a truth, when it works." But on the other hand, the
practitioner must not reproach the scientist if in his search for truth and for newer and better
methods, he makes trial of unusual ways. After all, it is not the practitioner but the
investigator, and the latter's patient, who will have to bear any injury that may arise. The
practitioner must certainly use those methods which he knows how to use to greatest
advantage, and which give him the best relative results. My tolerance, indeed, extends, as you
see, even to Christian Science. But I deem it most uncalled for that Frank, a practising doctor,
should depreciate research in which he cannot participate, and particularly the very line of
research to which he owes his own method. It is surely time to cease this running down of
every new idea. No one asks Frank and all whom he represents to become psychoanalysts; we
grant them the right to their existence, why should they always seek to cut ours short?
As my own "cures" show you, I do not doubt the effect of suggestion. Only I had the idea that
I could perhaps discover something still better. This hope has been amply justified. Not for
ever shall it be said—

"The good attained is oft of fairer still

The enemy, calling it vain illusion, falsehood's snare."

I confess frankly were I doing your work I should often be in difficulties if I relied only on
psychoanalysis. I can scarcely imagine a general practice, especially in a sanatorium, with no
other means than psychoanalysis. At Dr. Bircher's sanatorium in Zürich the principle of
psychoanalysis is adopted completely by several of the assistants, but a whole series of other
important educative influences are also brought to bear upon the patients, without which
matters would probably go very badly. In my own purely psychoanalytic practice I have often
regretted that I could not avail myself of the other methods of re-education that are naturally
at hand in an institution—this, of course, only in special cases where one is dealing with
extremely uncontrolled, uneducated persons. Which of us has shown any disposition to assert
that we have discovered a panacea? There are cases in which psychoanalysis operates less
effectively than any other known method. But who has ever claimed psychoanalysis should
be employed in every sort of case, and on every occasion? Only a fanatic could maintain such
a view. Patients for whom psychoanalysis is suitable have to be selected. I unhesitatingly send
cases I think unsuitable to other doctors. As a matter of fact this does not happen often,
because patients have a way of sorting themselves out. Those who go to an analyst usually
know quite well why they go to him and not to some one else. However, there are very many
neurotics well suited for psychoanalysis. In these matters every scheme must be looked at in
due perspective. It is never quite wise to try to batter down a stone wall with your head.
Whether simple hypnotism, the cathartic treatment, or psychoanalysis shall be used, must be
determined by the conditions of the case and the preference of the particular doctor. Every
doctor will obtain the best results with the instrument he knows best.
But, barring exceptions, I must say definitely that for me, and for my patients also,
psychoanalysis proves itself better than any other method. This is not merely a matter of
feeling; from manifold experiences I know many cases can indeed be cured by
psychoanalysis which are refractory to all other methods of treatment. I have many colleagues
whose experience is the same, even men engaged exclusively in practice. It is scarcely to be
supposed that a method altogether contemptible would meet with so much support.
When once psychoanalysis has been applied in a suitable case, it is imperative that rational
solutions of the conflicts should be found. The objection is at once advanced that many
conflicts are intrinsically incapable of solution. That view is sometimes taken because only an
external solution is thought of—and that, at bottom, is no real solution at all. If a man cannot
get on with his wife he naturally thinks the conflict would be solved if he were to marry some
one else. If such marriages are examined they are seen to be no solution whatsoever. The old
Adam enters upon the new marriage and bungles it just as badly as he did the earlier one. A
real solution comes only from within, and only then because the patient has been brought to a
new standpoint.
Where an external solution is possible no psychoanalysis is necessary; in seeking an internal
solution we encounter the peculiar virtues of psychoanalysis. The conflict between "love and
duty" must be solved upon that particular plane of character where "love and duty" are no
longer in opposition, for indeed they really are not so. The familiar conflict between "instinct
and conventional morality" must be solved in such a way that both factors are taken
satisfactorily into account, and this is only possible through a change of character. This
change psychoanalysis can bring about. In such cases external solutions are worse than none
at all. Naturally the particular situation dictates which road the doctor must ultimately follow,
and what is then his duty. I regard the conscience-searching question of the doctor's
remaining true to his scientific convictions as rather unimportant in comparison with the
incomparably weightier question as to how he can best help his patient. The doctor must, on
occasion, be able to play the augur. Mundus vult decipi—but the cure is no deception. It is
true that there is a conflict between ideal conviction and concrete possibility. But we should ill
prepare the ground for the seed of the future, were we to forget the tasks of the present, and
sought only to cultivate ideals. That is but idle dreaming. Do not forget that Kepler cast
horoscopes for money, and that countless artists have been condemned to work for wages.
 V.

From Dr. Loÿ.

9th February, 1913.
The selfsame passion for truth possesses us both when we think of pure research, and the
same desire to cure when we are considering therapy. For the scientist, as for the doctor, we
desire the fullest freedom in all directions, fullest freedom to select and use the methods
which promise the best fulfilment of their ends at any moment. Here we are at one; but there
remains a postulate we must establish to the satisfaction of others if we want recognition for
our views.
First and foremost there is a question that must be answered, an old question asked already in
the Gospels: What is Truth? I think clear definitions of fundamental ideas are most necessary.
How shall we contrive a working definition of the conception "Truth"? Perhaps an allegory
may help us.
Imagine a gigantic prism extending in front of the sun, so that its rays are broken up, but
suppose man entirely ignorant of this fact. I exclude the invisible, chemical and ultra-violet
rays. Men who live in a blue-lit region will say: "The sun sends forth blue light only." They
are right and yet they are wrong: from their standpoint they are capable of perceiving only a
fragment of truth. And so too with the inhabitants of the red, yellow, and in-between regions.
And they will all scourge and slay one another to force their belief in their fragment upon the
others—till, grown wiser through travelling in each others' regions, they come to the
harmonious agreement that the sun sends out light of varying colours. That comprehends
more truth, but it is not yet the Truth. Only when the giant lens shall have recombined the
split-up rays, and when the invisible, chemical and heat rays have given proof of their own
specific effects, will a view more in accordance with the facts be able to arise, and men will
perceive that the sun emits white light which is split up by the prism into differing rays with
different peculiarities, which rays can be recombined by the lens into one mass of white light.
This example shows sufficiently well that the road to Truth leads through far-reaching and
comparative observations, the results of which must be controlled by the help of freely chosen
experiments, until well-grounded hypotheses and theories can be put forward; but these
hypotheses and theories will fall to the ground as soon as a single new observation or
experiment contradicts them.
The way is difficult, and in the end all man ever attains to is relative truth. But such relative
truth suffices for the time being, if it serves to explain the most important actual
concatenations of the past, to light up present problems, to predict those of the future, so that
we are then in a position to achieve adaptation through our knowledge. But absolute truth
could be accessible only to omniscience, aware of all possible concatenations and
combinations; that is not possible, for the concatenations and their combinations are infinite.
Accordingly, we shall never know more than an approximate truth. Should new relationships
be discovered, new combinations built up, then the picture changes, and with it the entire
possibilities in knowledge and power. To what revolutions in daily life does not every new
scientific discovery lead: how absurdly little was the beginning of our first ideas of electricity,
how inconceivably great the results! Time and again it is necessary to repeat this
commonplace, because one sees how life is always made bitter for the innovators in every
scientific field, and now is it being made especially so for the disciples of the psychoanalytic
school. Of course, every one admits the truth of this platitude so long as it is a matter of
"academic" discussion, but only so long; just as soon as a concrete case has to be considered,
sympathies and antipathies rush into the foreground and darken judgment. And therefore the
scientist must fight tirelessly, appealing to logic and honour, for freedom of research in every
field, and must not permit authority, of no matter what political or religious tinge, to advance
reasons of opportunism to destroy or restrict this freedom; opportunist reasons may be and are
in place elsewhere, not here. Finally we must completely disavow that maxim of the Middle
Ages: "Philosophia ancilla Theologiæ," and no less, too, the war-cries of the university class-
rooms with their partisanship of one or other religious or political party. All fanaticism is the
enemy of science, which must above all things be independent.
And when we turn from the search for Truth back once more to therapeutics, we see
immediately that here too we are in agreement. In practice expediency must rule: the doctor
from the yellow region must adapt himself to the sick in the yellow region, as must the doctor
in the blue region, to his patients; both have the same object in view. And the doctor who
lives in the white light of the sun must take into consideration the past experiences of his
patients from the yellow or blue region, in spite of, or perhaps rather because of, his own
wider knowledge. In such cases the way to healing will be long and difficult, may indeed lead
more easily into a cul-de-sac, than in cases where he has to do with patients who, like
himself, have already come to a knowledge of the white sunlight, or, one might say, when his
patient-material has "already sorted itself out." With such sorted-out material the
psychoanalyst can employ psychoanalysis exclusively; and may deem himself happy in that
he need not "play the augur." Now, what are these psychoanalytic methods? If I understand
you aright, from beginning to end it is a question of dealing directly and openly with the basic
forces of the human soul, so that the analysed person, be he sick or sound or in some stage
between—for health and sickness flow over by imperceptible degrees into one another—shall
gradually have his eyes opened to the drama that is being acted within him. He has to come to
an understanding of the development of the hostile automatisms of his personality, and by
means of this understanding he must gradually learn to free himself from them; he must learn,
too, how to employ and strengthen the favourable automatisms. He must learn to make his
self-knowledge real, and of practical use, to control his soul's workings so that a balance may
be established between the spheres of emotion and reason. And what share in all this has the
physician's suggestion? I can scarcely believe that suggestion can be altogether avoided till
the patient feels himself really free. Such freedom, it goes without saying, is the main thing to
strive for, and it must be active. The sick man who simply obeys a suggestion, obeys it only
just so long as the "transference to the doctor" remains potent.
But if he wishes to be able to adjust himself to all circumstances he must have fortified
himself "from within." He should no longer need the crutches of faith, but be capable of
encountering all theoretical and practical problems squarely, and of solving them by himself.
That is surely your view? Or have I not understood correctly?
I next ask, must not every single case be treated differently, of course within the limits of the
psychoanalytic method? For if every case is a case by itself, it must indeed demand individual
treatment.
"Il n'y a pas de maladies, il n'y a que des malades," said a French doctor whose name escapes
me. But on broad lines, what course, from a technical point of view, does analysis take, and
what deviations occur most frequently? That I would gladly learn from you. I take for granted
that all "augurs' tricks," darkened rooms, masquerading, chloroform, are out of the question.
Psychoanalysis—purged so far as is humanly possible from suggestive influence—appears to
have an essential difference from Dubois' psychotherapy. With Dubois, from the beginning
conversation about the past is forbidden, and "the moral reasons for recovery" placed in the
forefront; whilst psychoanalysis uses the subconscious material from the patient's past as well
as present, for present self-understanding. Another difference lies in the conception of
morality: morals are above all "relative." But what essential forms shall they assume at those
moments when one can hardly avoid suggestion? You will say, the occasion must decide.
Agreed, as regards older people, or adults, who have to live in an unenlightened milieu. But if
one is dealing with children, the seed of the future, is it not a sacred duty to enlighten them as
to the shaky foundations of the so-called "moral" conceptions of the past, which have only a
dogmatic basis; is it not a duty to educate them into full freedom by courageously unveiling
Truth? I ask this not so much with regard to the analysing doctor as to the teacher. May not
the creation of free schools be looked for as one task for the psychoanalyst?

VI.

From Dr. Jung.

11th February, 1913.
The idea of the relativity of "Truth" has been current for ages, but whether true or not, it does
not stand in the way of anything save the beliefs of dogma and authority.
You ask me, or indeed tell me—what psychoanalysis is. Before considering your views,
permit me first to try and mark out the territory and definition of psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis is primarily just a method—but a method complying with all the rigorous
demands insisted upon to-day by the conception "method." Let it be made plain at once that
psychoanalysis is not an anamnesis, as those who know everything without learning are
pleased to believe. It is essentially a method for the exploration of the unconscious
associations, into which no question of the conscious self enters. Again, it is not a kind of
examination of the nature of an intelligence test, though this mistake is common in certain
circles. It is no cathartic method, abreacting real and phantastic "traumata," with or without
hypnosis. Psychoanalysis is a method which makes possible the analytic reduction of the
psychic content to its simplest expression, and the discovery of the line of least resistance in
the development of a harmonious personality. In neurosis, straightforward direction of life's
energies is lacking, because opposing tendencies traverse and hinder psychological
adaptation. Psychoanalysis, so far as our present knowledge of it goes, thus appears to be
simply a rational nerve-therapy.
For the technical application of psychoanalysis no programme can be formulated. There are
only general principles, and, for the individual case, working rules. (Here let me refer you to
Freud's work in volume I. of the Internationale Zeitschrift für Ärztliche Psychoanalyse.) My
one working rule is to conduct the analysis as a perfectly ordinary, sensible conversation, and
to avoid all appearance of medical magic.
The leading principle of the psychoanalytic technique is to analyse the psychic material which
offers itself then and there. Every interference on the part of the analyst, with the object of
inducing the analysis to follow some systematic course, is a gross mistake in technique. So-
called chance is the law and the order of psychoanalysis.
Naturally in the beginning of the analysis the anamnesis and the diagnosis come first. The
subsequent analytic process develops quite differently in every case. To give rules is well-
nigh impossible. All one can say is that very frequently, quite at the beginning, a series of
resistances have to be overcome, resistances against both method and man. Patients having no
idea of psychoanalysis must first be given some understanding of the method. In those who
already know something of it there are very often many misconceptions to set right, and
frequently one has to deal also with many reproaches cast by scientific criticism. In either
case the misconceptions rest upon arbitrary interpretations, superficiality, or complete
ignorance of the facts.
If the patient is himself a doctor his special knowledge may prove extremely tiresome. To
intelligent colleagues it is best to give a complete theoretic exposition. With foolish and
limited persons you begin quietly with analysis. In the unconscious of such folk there is a
confederate that never refuses help. From the analysis of the very earliest dreams the
emptiness of the criticism is obvious; and ultimately of the whole beautiful edifice of
supposedly scientific scepticism nothing remains, save a little heap of personal vanity. I have
had amusing experiences here.
It is best to let the patient talk freely and to confine oneself to pointing out connexions here
and there. When the conscious material is exhausted we come to the dreams, which furnish us
with the subliminal material. If people have no dreams, as they allege, or if they forget them,
there is usually still some conscious material that ought to be produced and discussed, but is
kept back owing to resistances. When the conscious is emptied then come the dreams, which
are indeed, as you know, the chief material of the analysis.
How the "Analysis" is to be made and what is to be said to patients depends, firstly, upon the
material to be dealt with; secondly, on the doctor's skill; and, thirdly, on the patient's capacity.
I must insist that no one ought to undertake analysis except on the basis of a sound
knowledge of the subject; that necessitates an intimate understanding of the existing
literature. Without this, the work may be bungled.
I do not know what else to tell you beforehand. I must wait for further questions. In regard to
questions of morality and education let me say that these belong to the later stages of the
analysis, wherein they find—or should find—solutions for themselves. You cannot compile
recipes out of psychoanalysis.
 VII

From Dr. Loÿ.

10th February, 1913.
You write that a solid knowledge of the psychoanalytic literature is necessary for initiation
into psychoanalysis. I should agree, but with a certain reservation: the more one reads, the
more one notices how many contradictions there are among the different writers, and less and
less does one know—until one has had sufficient personal experience—to which view to give
adherence, since quite frequently assertions are made without any proof. For example, I had
thought (strengthened in the view by my own experience of suggestion-therapy) that the
transference to the doctor might be an essential condition in the patient's cure. But you write:
"We psychoanalysts do not build upon the patient's faith, rather do we have to deal with his
criticism." And Stekel writes, on the other hand (Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, 3rd year,
vol. IV., p. 176, "Ausgänge der psychoanalytischen Kuren"): "Love for the doctor can become
a power essential to recovery. Neurotics never get well for love of themselves. They recover
out of love for the doctor. They give him that pleasure." Here again, surely, stress is laid on
the power of suggestion? And yet Stekel too thinks he is a psychoanalyst pure and simple. On
the other hand, you say in your letter of Jan. 20th that "the doctor's personality is one of the
main factors in the cure." Should not this expression be translated: "When the doctor inspires
respect in the patient and is worthy of his love, the patient will gladly follow his example and
endeavour to recover from his neurosis and fulfil his human duties in the widest sense"? I
think one can only emerge from all this uncertainty by means of much personal experience,
which will indicate also which way best suits one's own personality and brings the greatest
therapeutic success. This is a further reason for undergoing analysis oneself, to recognise
fully what one is. I was decidedly in agreement with your definition of psychoanalysis in its
first (negative) portion: psychoanalysis is neither an anamnesis nor a method of examination
after the fashion of a test for intelligence, nor yet a psychocatharsis. In your second (positive)
part, however, your definition: "Psychoanalysis is a method of discovering the line of least
resistance to the harmonious development of the whole personality," seems to me valid for
the patient's inertia, but not for the releasing of the sublimated libido with a view to the new
direction of life. You consider that the neurosis causes a lack of singleness of aim in life,
because opposing tendencies hinder psychic adaptation. True, but will not this psychic
adaptation eventuate quite differently according as the patient, when well, directs his life
either to the avoidance of pain merely (line of least resistance) or to the achievement of the
greatest pleasure?—In the first case he would be more passive, he would merely reconcile
himself "to the emptiness of reality" (Stekel, loc. cit., p. 187). In the second he would be
"filled with enthusiasm" for something or other or some person or other. But what will
determine this choice of his as to whether he will be passive rather than active in his "second
life"? In your view, will the determining factor manifest itself spontaneously in the course of
the analysis, and must the doctor carefully avoid swaying the balance to one side or other by
his influence? Or must he, if he does not renounce the right to canalise the patient's libido in
some particular direction, renounce the right to be called a psychoanalyst, and is he to be
regarded as "moderate" or altogether as "wild"?[181] (Cf. Furtmüller, "Wandlungen in der
Freudschen Schule," Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, vols. IV., V., 3rd year, p. 191.) But I
think you have already answered this question, since in your last letter you write: "Every
interference on the part of the analyst is a gross mistake in technique. So-called chance is the
law and the order of psychoanalysis." But, torn from its context, perhaps this does not quite
give your whole meaning. With regard to detailed explanation of the psychoanalytic method
before the beginning of the analysis, I think you agree with Freud and Stekel: give too little
rather than too much. For the knowledge instilled into a patient remains more or less half-
knowledge, and half-knowledge engenders "the desire to know better" (than the analyst),
which only impedes progress. So, after brief explanation, first "let the patient talk," then and
there point out connexions, then after the exhaustion of the conscious material, take dreams.
But there another difficulty confronts me which I have already pointed out in our talks: you
find the patient adapting himself to the doctor's tone, language, jargon, whether from
conscious imitation, transference, or even resistance, when he can fight the analyst with his
own weapons; how then can you possibly prevent his beginning to produce all manner of
phantasies as supposedly real traumata of early childhood, and dreams supposedly
spontaneous which are in reality, though not designedly, directly or indirectly suggested? I
then told you that Forel ("Der Hypnotismus") made his patients dream just what he wanted,
and I have myself easily repeated the experiment. But if the analyst desires to suggest
nothing, should he remain silent for the most part and let the patient speak—except that in
interpreting dreams he may lay before the patient his own interpretation?

VIII

From Dr. Jung.

18th February, 1913.
I cannot but agree with your observation that confusion reigns in psychoanalytic literature.
Just at this moment different points of view are developing in the theoretical conception of
the analytic results; not to mention many individual deviations. Over against Freud's almost
purely causal conception, there has developed, apparently in absolute contradiction, Adler's
purely final view, but in reality the latter is an essential complement of Freud's theory. I hold
rather to a middle course, taking into account both standpoints. That discord still reigns round
the ultimate questions of psychoanalysis need not surprise us when we consider the difficulty.
The problem of the therapeutic effect of psychoanalysis is bound up in particular with
supremely difficult questions, so that it would indeed be astonishing if we had yet reached
final certitude. Stekel's statement to which you refer is very characteristic. What he says about
love for the doctor is obviously true, but it is a simple affirmation, and not a goal or plumb-
line of the analytic therapy. If his statement were the goal, many cures, it is true, would be
possible, but also many calamities might result which are avoidable. But the aim is so to
educate the patient that he will get well for his own sake and by reason of his own
determination, rather than to procure his doctor some sort of advantage; though of course it
would be absurd from the therapeutic standpoint not to allow the patient to get better because
in doing so he does the doctor a good turn also. It suffices if the patient knows it. But we must
not prescribe for him which path he should take to recovery. Naturally it seems to me (from
the psychoanalytic standpoint) an inadmissible use of suggestive influence if the patient is
compelled to get better out of love for the doctor. And indeed such compulsion may
sometimes take bitter revenge. The "you must and shall be saved" is no more to be
commended in nerve-therapy than in any other department of life. It contradicts the principle
of analytic treatment, which shuns all coercion and desires to let everything grow up from
within. I do not, as you know, object to influencing by use of suggestion in general, but
merely to a doubtful motivation. If the doctor demands that his patient shall get well from
love of himself, the patient may easily reckon on reciprocal services and will without doubt
try to extort them. I can but utter a warning against any such method. A far stronger motive
for recovery—also a far healthier and ethically more valuable one—consists in the patient's
thorough insight into the real state of affairs, the recognition of how things are now and how
they ought to be. The man of any sort of worth will then discern that he can hardly sit down at
ease in the quagmire of his neurosis.
With your rendering of what I said about the healing power of personality I cannot entirely
agree. I wrote that the doctor's personality has a power for healing because the patient reads
the doctor's personality: not that he produces a cure through love of the doctor. The doctor
cannot prevent the patient's beginning to behave himself towards his conflicts just as the
doctor himself behaves, for nothing is finer than a neurotic's intuition. But every strong
transference serves this same purpose. If the doctor makes himself charming, he buys off
from the patient a series of resistances which he should have overcome, and whose
overcoming will certainly have to be gone through later on. Nothing is won by this technique;
at most the beginning of the analysis is made easy for the patient (though this is not quite
without its use in certain cases). To be able to crawl through a barbed wire fence without
some enticing end in view testifies to an ascetic strength of will which you can expect neither
from the ordinary person nor from the neurotic. Even the Christian religion, whose moral
demands certainly reached a great height, thought it no scorn to represent the near approach
of the Kingdom of Heaven as goal and reward of earthly pain. In my view, the doctor may
well speak of the rewards which follow the toils of analysis. But he must not depict himself or
his friendship, in hints or promises, as reward, if he is not seriously determined to keep his
word.
In regard to your criticism of my outline-definition of the conception of psychoanalysis, it
must be observed that the road over the steep mountain is the line of least resistance only
when a ferocious bull waits for you in the pleasant valley-road. In other words, the line of
least resistance is a compromise with all demands, and not with inertia alone. It is prejudice
to think that the line of least resistance coincides with the path of inertia. (That's what we
thought in the days when we dawdled over Latin exercises.) Inertia is only an immediate
advantage and leads to consequences which produce the worst resistances; as a whole, it does
not lie in the direction of least resistance. Life along the line of least resistance is not
synonymous with a man's regardless pursuit of his own egoistic desires. He who lives thus
soon painfully perceives that he is not moving along the line of least resistance, for he is also
a social being, and not merely a bundle of egoistic instincts, as some people rather like to
depict him. This is best seen among primitive men and herd-animals, who all have a richly
developed social sense. Without it, indeed, the herd could not exist at all. Man as herd-animal
has therefore by no manner of means to subject himself to laws enforced on him from
without; he carries his social imperatives within himself, a priori, as an inborn necessity. As
you see, I here put myself in decided opposition to certain views—I think quite unjustified—
which have been put forth here and there inside the psychoanalytic movement.
So the line of least resistance does not signify eo ipso the avoidance of unpleasure so much as
the just balancing of unpleasure and pleasure. Painful activity by itself leads to no result but
exhaustion. Man must be able to take pleasure in his life, or the struggle of life has no reward.
What direction the patient's future life should take is not ours to judge. We must not imagine
we know better than his own nature—or we prove ourselves educators of the worst kind.
Psychoanalysis is but a means of removing stones from the path, and in no way a method (as
hypnotism often pretends to be) of putting anything into the patient which was not there
before. So we renounce any attempt to give a direction, and occupy ourselves only with
setting in proper relief all that analysis brings into the light of day, in order that the patient
may see clearly, and be in a position to draw the appropriate conclusions. Anything that he
has not himself won, he does not in the long run believe in; and all that he has received from
authority keeps him still infantile. He must rather be put in such a position as will enable him
to take control of his own life. It is the art of the psychoanalyst to follow the patient's
apparently mistaken paths without prejudice, and thus to discover his strayed and separated
sheep. Working on a system, according to a preconceived scheme, we spoil the best results of
the analysis. So I hold fast to the maxim you quote from me: "Every interference on the part
of the analyst is a gross mistake in technique. So-called chance is the law and the order of
psychoanalysis."
You surely recognise that the schoolmaster-view never releases us from the attempt to correct
Nature and the desire to force upon her our limited "truths." In nerve-therapy we get so many
wonderful experiences—unforeseen and impossible to foresee—that surely we ought to
dismiss all hope of being infallibly able to point out the right path. The roundabout way and
even the wrong way are necessary. If you deny this you must also deny that the errors in the
history of the whole world have been necessary. That indeed were a world-conception fit for a
schoolmaster. For psychoanalysis this view suits not at all.
The question as to how much the analyst involuntarily suggests to the patient is a very ticklish
one. Undoubtedly that has a much more important place than psychoanalysts have till now
admitted. Experience has convinced us that the patient rapidly avails himself of the ideas won
through the analysis, and of whatever comes to light through the shaping of the dreams. You
may obtain all manner of such impressions from Stekel's book: "Die Sprache des Traumes"
("The Language of the Dream"). I had once a most instructive experience: a very intelligent
lady had from the beginning extreme transference phantasies which appeared in well-
recognised erotic forms. Nevertheless she entirely declined to admit their existence. Of course
she was betrayed by the dreams in which my own person was hidden behind some other
figure, and often difficult to unveil. A long series of such dreams forced me at last to say: "So
you see it is always like that, and the person of whom one has really dreamt is replaced and
hidden by some one else in the manifest dream." Till then the patient had obstinately
contested this point. But this time she could no longer evade it, and had to admit my rule—
but only that she might play me a trick. Next day she brought me a dream in which she and I
appeared in a manifest lascivious situation. I was naturally perplexed and thought of my rule.
Her first association to the dream was the malicious question: "It's always true, isn't it, that
the person of whom one is really dreaming is replaced by some one else in the manifest
dream-content?"
Clearly, she had made use of her experience to find a protective formula by means of which
she secured the open expression of her phantasies in an apparently innocent way.
This example aptly shows how patients avail themselves of insight gained during analysis;
they use it symbolically. You get caught in your own net if you give credence to the idea of
unalterable, permanent symbols. That has already happened to more than one psychoanalyst.
It is therefore fallacious to try to prove any particular theory from the dreams arising in the
course of analysis. For this purpose the only conclusive dreams are those derived from
demonstrably uninfluenced persons. In such cases one would only have to exclude the
possibility of telepathic thought-reading. But if you concede this possibility you will have to
subject very many things to a rigorous re-examination and, among others, many judicial
verdicts.
But although we must do full justice to the force of suggestion, we must not overrate it. The
patient is no empty sack into which you may stuff whatever you like; on the contrary, he
brings his own predetermined contents which strive obstinately against suggestion and always
obtrude themselves afresh. Through analytic "suggestions," only the outward form is
determined, never the content—this is always being freshly impressed upon my notice. The
form is the unlimited, the ever-changing; but the content is fixed, and only to be assailed
slowly and with great difficulty. Were it not so, suggestion-therapy would be in every respect
the most effective, profitable, and easiest therapy,—a real panacea. That, alas! it is not, as
every honourable hypnotist will freely admit.
To return to your question as to how far it is conceivable that patients may deceive the doctor
by making use—perhaps involuntarily—of his expressions: this is indeed a very serious
problem. The analyst must exercise all possible care and practise unsparing self-criticism if
he would avoid, as far as possible, being led into error by patients' dreams. It may be admitted
that they almost always use modes of expression in their dreams learnt in analysis—some
more, some less. Interpretations of earlier symbols will themselves be used again as fresh
symbols in later dreams. It happens not seldom, for instance, that sexual situations which
appear in symbolic form in the earlier dreams, will appear "undisguised" in later ones, and
here again they are the symbolic expression of ideas of another character capable of further
analysis. The not infrequent dream of incestuous cohabitation is by no means an
"undisguised" content, but a dream as freshly symbolic and capable of analysis as all others.
You surely only reach the paradoxical view that such a dream is "undisguised" if you are
pledged to the sexual theory of neurosis.
That the patient may mislead the doctor for a longer or shorter time by means of deliberate
deception and misrepresentation is possible; just as occasionally happens in all other
departments of medicine. Therewith the patient injures himself most, since he has to pay for
every deception or suppression, with aggravated or additional symptoms. Deceptions are so
obviously disadvantageous to himself that in the end he can scarcely avoid the definite
relinquishment of such a course.
The technique of analysis we can best postpone for oral discussion.

IX

From Dr. Loÿ.

23rd February, 1913.
From your letter of 16th February I want first to single out the end, where you so admirably
assign to its proper place the power of suggestion in psychoanalysis: "The patient is no empty
sack, into which you can cram what you will; he brings his own predetermined content with
him, with which one has always to reckon afresh." With this I fully agree, my own experience
confirms it. And you add: "This content remains untouched by involuntary analytical
suggestion, but its form is altered, proteus-fashion, beyond measure." So it becomes a matter
of a sort of "mimicry" by which the patient seeks to escape the analyst, who is driving him
into a corner and therefore for the moment seems to him an enemy. Until at last, through the
joint work of patient and analyst—the former spontaneously yielding up his psychic content,
the latter only interpreting and explaining—the analysis succeeds in bringing so much light
into the darkness of the patient's psyche that he can see the true relationships and, without any
preconceived plan of the analyst's, can himself draw the right conclusions and apply them to
his future life. This new life will betake itself along the line of least resistance—or should we
not rather say, the least resistances, as a "compromise with all the necessities," in a just
balancing of pleasure and unpleasure? It is not we who must arbitrarily seek to determine how
matters stand for the patient and what will benefit him; his own nature decides. In other
words, we must assume the rôle of the accoucheur who can bring out into the light of day a
child already alive, but who must avoid a series of mistakes if the child is to remain able to
live and the mother is not to be injured. All this is very clear to me, since it is only the
application to the psychoanalytic method of a general principle which should have universal
validity: never do violence to Nature. Hence I also see that the psychoanalyst must follow his
patient's apparently "wrong roads" if the patient is ever to arrive at his own convictions and
be freed once and for all from infantile reliance on authority. We ourselves as individuals
have learnt or can only learn by making mistakes how to avoid them for the future, and
mankind as a whole has created the conditions of its present and future stages of development
quite as much by frequent travel along wrong paths as along the right road. Have not many
neurotics—I do not know if you will agree, but I think so—become ill partly for the very
reason that their infantile faith in authority has fallen to pieces? Now they stand before the
wreckage of their faith, weeping over it, in dire distress because they cannot find a substitute
which shall show them clearly whither their life's course should now turn. So they remain
stuck fast betwixt infancy which they must unwillingly renounce, and the serious duties of the
present and future (the moral conflict). I see, particularly in such cases, you are right in saying
it is a mistake to seek to replace the lost faith in authority by another similar faith, certain to
be useful only so long as the belief lasts. This applies to the deliberate use of suggestion in
psychoanalysis, and the building upon the transference to the doctor as the object of the
analytic therapy. I am no longer in doubt about your maxim: "Every interference on the
analyst's part is a gross mistake in technique. So-called chance is the law and the order of
psychoanalysis." Further, I am entirely in agreement with you when you say that altruism
necessarily must be innate in man considered as a herd-animal. The contrary would be the
thing to be wondered at.
I should be much disposed to agree that not the egoistic, but the altruistic instincts are
primary. Love and trust of the child for the mother who feeds it, nurses, cherishes and pets it,
—love of the man for his wife, regarded as the going out towards another's personality,—love
for offspring, care for it,—love for kinsfolk, etc. The egoistic instincts owe their origin to the
desire for exclusive possession of all that surrounds love, the desire to possess the mother
exclusively, in opposition to the father and the brothers and sisters, the desire to have a
woman for himself alone, the desire to possess exclusively ornaments, clothing, etc. But
perhaps you will say I am paradoxical and that the instincts, egoistic or altruistic, arise
together in the heart of man, and that every instinct is ambivalent in nature. But I have to ask
if the feelings and instincts are really ambivalent? Are they exactly bipolar? Are the qualities
of all emotions altogether comparable? Is love really the opposite of hate?
However that may be, in any case it is well that man bears the social law within himself, as an
inborn imperative; otherwise our civilised humanity would fare badly, having to subject
themselves to laws imposed on them from outside only: they would be impervious to the
inheritance of the earlier religious faiths, and would soon fall into complete anarchy. Man
would then have to ask himself whether it would not be better to maintain by force an
extreme belief in religious authority such as prevailed in the Middle Ages. For the benefits of
civilisation, which strove to grant every individual as much outward freedom as was
consistent with the freedom of others, would be well worth the sacrifice of free research. But
the age of this use of force against nature is past, civilised man has left this wrong track
behind, not arbitrarily, but obeying an inner necessity, and we may look joyfully towards the
future. Mankind, advancing in knowledge, will find its way across the ruins of faith in
authority to the moral autonomy of the individual.

From Dr. Jung.

March, 1913.
At various places in your letters it has struck me that the problem of "transference" seems to
you particularly critical. Your feeling is entirely justified. The transference is indeed at
present the central problem of analysis.
You know that Freud regards the transference as the projection of infantile phantasies upon
the doctor. To this extent the transference is an infantile-erotic relationship. All the same,
viewed from the outside, superficially, the thing by no means always looks like an infantile-
erotic situation. As long as it is a question of the so-called "positive" transference, the
infantile-erotic character can usually be recognised without difficulty. But if it is a "negative"
transference, you can see nothing but violent resistances which sometimes veil themselves in
seemingly critical or sceptical dress. In a certain sense the determining factor in such
circumstances is the patient's relation to authority, that is, in the last resort, to the father. In
both forms of transference the doctor is treated as if he were the father—according to the
situation either tenderly or with hostility. In this view the transference has the force of a
resistance as soon as it becomes a question of resolving the infantile attitude. But this form of
transference must be destroyed, inasmuch as the object of analysis is the patient's moral
autonomy. A lofty aim, you will say. Indeed lofty, and far off, but still not altogether so
remote, since it actually corresponds to one of the predominating tendencies of our stage of
civilisation, namely, that urge towards individualisation by which our whole epoch deserves
to be characterised. (Cf. Müller-Lyer: "Die Familie.") If a man does not believe in this
orientation and still bows before the scientific causal view-point, he will, of course, be
disposed merely to resolve this hostility, and to let the patient remain in a positive relationship
towards the father, thus expressing the ideal of an earlier epoch of civilisation. It is
commonly recognised that the Catholic Church represents one of the most powerful
organisations based upon this earlier tendency. I cannot venture to doubt that there are very
many individuals who feel happier under compulsion from others than when forced to
discipline themselves. (Cf. Shaw: "Man and Superman.") None the less, we do our neurotic
patients a grievous wrong if we try to force them all into the category of the unfree. Among
neurotics, there are not a few who do not require any reminders of their social duties and
obligations; rather are they born or destined to become the bearers of new social ideals. They
are neurotic so long as they bow down to authority and refuse the freedom to which they are
destined. Whilst we look at life only retrospectively, as is the case in the Viennese
psychoanalytic writings, we shall never do justice to this type of case and never bring the
longed-for deliverance. For in that fashion we can only educate them to become obedient
children, and thereby strengthen the very forces that have made them ill—their conservative
retardation and their submissiveness to authority. Up to a certain point this is the right way to
take with the infantile resistance which cannot yet reconcile itself with authority. But the
power which edged them out from their retrograde dependence on the father is not at all a
childish desire for insubordination, but the powerful urge towards the development of an
individual personality, and this struggle is their imperative life's task. Adler's psychology does
much greater justice to this situation than Freud's.
In the one case (that of infantile intractability) the positive transference signifies a highly
important achievement, heralding cure; in the other (infantile submissiveness) it portends a
dangerous backsliding, a convenient evasion of life's duty. The negative transference
represents in the first case an increased resistance, thus a backsliding and an evasion of duty,
but in the second it is an advance of healing significance. (For the two types, cf. Adler's
"Trotz und Gehorsam.")
The transference then is, as you see, to be judged quite differently in different cases.
The psychological process of "transference"—be it negative or positive—consists in the
libido entrenching itself, as it were, round the personality of the doctor, the doctor accordingly
representing certain emotional values. (As you know, by libido I understand very much what
Antiquity meant by the cosmogenic principle of Eros; in modern terminology simply
"psychic energy.") The patient is bound to the doctor, be it in affection, be it in opposition,
and cannot fail to follow and imitate the doctor's psychic adaptations. To this he finds himself
urgently compelled. And with the best will in the world and all technical skill, the doctor
cannot prevent him, for intuition works surely and instinctively, in despite of the conscious
judgment, be it never so strong. Were the doctor himself neurotic, and inadequate in response
to the demands of the external life, or inharmonious within, the patient would copy the defect
and build it up into the fabric of his own presentations: you may imagine the result.
Accordingly I cannot regard the transference as merely the transference of infantile-erotic
phantasies; no doubt that is what it is from one standpoint, but I see also in it, as I said in an
earlier letter, the process of the growth of feeling and adaptation. From this standpoint the
infantile erotic phantasies, in spite of their indisputable reality, appear rather as material for
comparison or as analogous pictures of something not understood as yet, than as independent
desires. This seems to me the real reason of their being unconscious. The patient, not
knowing the right attitude, tries to grasp at a right relationship to the doctor by way of
comparison and analogy with his infantile experiences. It is not surprising that he gropes back
for just the most intimate relations of his childhood, to discover the appropriate formula for
his attitude to the doctor, for this relationship also is very intimate, and to some extent
different from the sexual relationship, just as is that of the child towards its parents. This
relationship—child to parent—which Christianity has everywhere set up as the symbolic
formula for human relationships, provides a way of restoring to the patient that directness of
ordinary human emotion of which he had been deprived through the inroad of sexual and
social values (from the standpoint of power, etc.). The purely sexual, more or less primitive
and barbaric valuation, operates in far-reaching ways against a direct, simple human
relationship, and thereupon a blocking of the libido occurs which easily gives rise to neurotic
formations. By means of analysis of the infantile portion of the transference-phantasies, the
patient is brought back to the remembrance of his childhood's relationship, and this—stripped
of its infantile qualities—gives him a beautiful, clear picture of direct human intercourse as
opposed to the purely sexual valuation. I cannot regard it as other than a misconception to
judge the childish relationship retrospectively and therefore as exclusively a sexual one, even
though a certain sexual content can in no wise be denied to it.
Recapitulating, let me say this much of the positive transference:—
The patient's libido fastens upon the person of the doctor, taking the shape of expectation,
hope, interest, trust, friendship and love. Then the transference produces the projection upon
the doctor of infantile phantasies, often of predominatingly erotic tinge. At this stage the
transference is usually of a decidedly sexual character, in spite of the sexual component
remaining relatively unconscious. But this phase of feeling serves the higher aspect of the
growth of human feeling as a bridge, whereby the patient becomes conscious of the
defectiveness of his own adaptation, through his recognition of the doctor's attitude, which is
accepted as one suitable to life's demands, and normal in its human relationships. By help of
the analysis, and the recalling of his childish relationships, the road is seen which leads right
out of those exclusively sexual or "power" evaluations of social surroundings which were
acquired in puberty and strongly reinforced by social prejudices. This road leads on towards a
purely human relation and intimacy, not derived solely from the existence of a sexual or
power-relation, but depending much more upon a regard for personality. That is the road to
freedom which the doctor must show his patient.
Here indeed I must not omit to say that the obstinate clinging to the sexual valuation would
not be maintained so tenaciously if it had not also a very deep significance for that period of
life in which propagation is of primary importance. The discovery of the value of human
personality belongs to a riper age. For young people the search for the valuable personality is
very often merely a cloak for the evasion of their biological duty. On the other hand, an older
person's exaggerated looking back towards the sexual valuation of youth, is an undiscerning
and often cowardly and convenient retreat from a duty which demands the recognition of
personal values and his own enrolment among the ranks of the priesthood of a newer
civilisation. The young neurotic shrinks back in terror from the extension of his tasks in life,
the old from the dwindling and shrinking of the treasures he has attained.
This conception of the transference is, you will have noted, most intimately connected with
the acceptance of the idea of biological "duties." By this term you must understand those
tendencies or motives in human beings giving rise to civilisation, as inevitably as in the bird
they give rise to the exquisitely woven nest, and in the stag to the production of antlers. The
purely causal, not to say materialistic conception of the immediately preceding decades,
would conceive the organic formation as the reaction of living matter, and this doubtless
provides a position heuristically useful, but, as far as any real understanding goes, leads only
to a more or less ingenious and apparent reduction and postponement of the problem. Let me
refer you to Bergson's excellent criticism of this conception. From external forces but half the
result, at most, could ensue; the other half lies within the individual disposition of the living
material, without which it is obvious the specific reaction-formation could never be achieved.
This principle must be applied also in psychology. The psyche does not only react; it also
gives its own individual reply to the influences at work upon it, and at least half the resulting
configuration and its existing disposition is due to this. Civilisation is never, and again never,
to be regarded as merely reaction to environment. That shallow explanation we may abandon
peacefully to the past century. It is just these very dispositions which we must regard as
imperative in the psychological sphere; it is easy to get convincing proof daily of their
compulsive power. What I call "biological duty" is identical with these dispositions.
In conclusion, I must deal with a matter which seems to have caused you uneasiness, namely,
the moral question. Among our patients we see many so-called immoral tendencies, therefore
the thought involuntarily forces itself upon the psychotherapist as to how things would go if
all these desires were to be gratified. You will have discerned already from my earlier letters
that these desires must not be estimated too literally. As a rule it is rather a matter of
unmeasured and exaggerated demands, arising out of the patient's stored-up libido, which
have usurped a prominent position, usually quite against his own wish. In most cases the
canalisation of the libido for the fulfilment of life's simple duties, suffices to reduce these
exaggerated desires to zero. But in some cases it must be recognised that such "immoral"
tendencies are in no way removed by analysis; on the contrary, they appear more often and
more clearly, hence it becomes plain that they belong to the individual's biological duties.
And this is particularly true of certain sexual claims, whose aim is an individual valuation of
sexuality. This is not a question for pathology, it is a social question of to-day which
peremptorily demands an ethical solution. For many it is a biological duty to work for the
solution of this question, to discover some sort of practical solution. (Nature, it is well known,
does not content herself with theories.) To-day we have no real sexual morality, only a legal
attitude towards sexuality; just as the early Middle Ages had no genuine morality for financial
transactions, but only prejudices and a legal standpoint. We are not yet sufficiently advanced
in the domain of free sexual activity to distinguish between a moral and an immoral
relationship. We have a clear expression of this in the customary treatment, or rather ill-
treatment, of unmarried motherhood. For a great deal of sickening hypocrisy, for the high tide
of prostitution, and for the prevalence of sexual diseases, we may thank both our barbarous,
undifferentiated legal judgments about the sexual situation, and our inability to develop a
finer moral perception of the immense psychologic differences that may exist in free sexual
activity.
This reference to the existence of an exceedingly complicated and significant problem may
suffice to explain why we by no means seldom meet with individuals among our patients who
are quite specially called, because of their spiritual and social gifts, to take an active part in
the work of civilisation—for this they are biologically destined. We must never forget that
what to-day is deemed a moral law will to-morrow be cast into the melting-pot and
transformed, so that in the near or distant future it may serve as the basis of a new ethical
structure. This much we ought to have learnt from the history of civilisation, that the forms of
morality belong to the category of transitory things. The finest psychological tact is required
with these critical natures, so that the dangerous corners of infantile irresponsibility,
indolence and uncontrolledness may be turned, and a pure, untroubled vision of the
possibility of a moral autonomous activity made possible. Five per cent. on money lent is fair
interest, twenty per cent. is despicable usury. That point of view we have to apply equally to
the sexual situation.
So it comes about that there are many neurotics whose innermost delicacy of feeling prevents
their being at one with present-day morality, and they cannot adapt themselves to civilisation
as long as their moral code has gaps in it, the filling up of which is a crying need of the age.
We deceive ourselves greatly if we suppose that many married women are neurotic only
because they are unsatisfied sexually or because they have not found the right man, or
because they still have a fixation to their infantile sexuality. The real ground of the neurosis
is, in many cases, the inability to recognise the work that is waiting for them, of helping to
build up a new civilisation. We are all far too much at the standpoint of the "nothing-but"
psychology; we persist in thinking we can squeeze the new future which is pressing in at the
door into the framework of the old and the known. And thus the view is only of the present,
never of the future. But it was of most profound psychological significance when Christianity
first discovered, in the orientation towards the future, a redeeming principle for mankind. In
the past nothing can be altered, and in the present little, but the future is ours and capable of
raising life's intensity to its highest pitch. A little space of youth belongs to us, all the rest of
life belongs to our children.
Thus does your question as to the significance of the loss of faith in authority answer itself.
The neurotic is ill not because he has lost his old faith, but because he has not yet found a new
form for his finest aspirations.
 CHAPTER X
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS IN
PSYCHOPATHOLOGY[182]
When we speak of a thing as being "unconscious" we must not forget that
from the point of view of the functioning of the brain a thing may be
unconscious to us in two ways—physiologically or psychologically. I shall
only deal with the subject from the latter point of view. So that for our
purposes we may define the unconscious as "the sum of all those
psychological events which are not apperceived, and so are unconscious."
The unconscious contains all those psychic events which, because of the
lack of the necessary intensity of their functioning, are unable to pass the
threshold which divides the conscious from the unconscious; so that they
remain in effect below the surface of the conscious, and flit by in subliminal
phantom forms.
It has been known to psychologists since the time of Leibniz that the
elements—that is to say, the ideas and feelings which go to make up the
conscious mind, the so-called conscious content—are of a complex nature,
and rest upon far simpler and altogether unconscious elements; it is the
combination of these which gives the element of consciousness. Leibniz has
already mentioned the perceptions insensibles—those vague perceptions
which Kant called "shadowy" representations, which could only attain to
consciousness in an indirect manner. Later philosophers assigned the first
place to the unconscious, as the foundation upon which the conscious was
built.
But this is not the place to consider the many speculative theories nor the
endless philosophical discussions concerning the nature and quality of the
unconscious. We must be satisfied with the definition already given, which
will prove quite sufficient for our purpose, namely the conception of the
unconscious as the sum of all psychical processes below the threshold of
consciousness.
The question of the importance of the unconscious for psychopathology
may be briefly put as follows: "In what manner may we expect to find
unconscious psychic material behave in cases of psychosis and neurosis?"
In order to get a better grasp of the situation in connexion with mental
disorders, we may profitably consider first how unconscious psychic
material behaves in the case of normal people, especially trying to visualize
what in normal men is apt to be unconscious. As a preliminary to this
knowledge we must get a complete understanding of what is contained in
the conscious mind; and then, by a process of elimination we may expect to
find what is contained in the unconscious, for obviously—per exclusionem
—what is in the conscious cannot be unconscious. For this purpose we
examine all activities, interests, passions, cares, and joys, which are
conscious to the individual. All that we are thus able to discover becomes,
ipso facto, of no further moment as a content of the unconscious, and we
may then expect to find only those things contained in the unconscious
which we have not found in the conscious mind.
Let us take a concrete example: A merchant, who is happily married, father
of two children, thorough and painstaking in his business affairs, and at the
same time trying in a reasonable degree to improve his position in the
world, carries himself with self-respect, is enlightened in religious matters,
and even belongs to a society for the discussion of liberal ideas.
What can we reasonably consider to be the content of the unconscious in
the case of such an individual?
Considered from the above theoretical standpoint, everything in the
personality that is not contained in the conscious mind should be found in
the unconscious. Let us agree, then, that this man consciously considers
himself to possess all the fine attributes we have just described—no more,
no less. Then it must obviously result that he is entirely unaware that a man
may be not merely industrious, thorough, and painstaking, but that he may
also be careless, indifferent, untrustworthy; for some of these last attributes
are the common heritage of mankind and may be found to be an essential
component of every character. This worthy merchant forgets that quite
recently he allowed several letters to remain unanswered which he could
easily have answered at once. He forgets, too, that he failed to bring a book
home which his wife has asked him to get at the book-stall, where she had
previously ordered it, although he might easily have made a note of her
wish. But such occurrences are common with him. Therefore we are
obliged to conclude that he is also lazy and untrustworthy. He is convinced
that he is a thoroughly loyal subject; but for all that he failed to declare the
whole of his income to the assessor, and when they raise his taxes, he votes
for the Socialists.
He believes himself to be an independent thinker, yet a little while back he
undertook a big deal on the Stock Exchange, and when he came to enter the
details of the transaction in his books he noticed with considerable
misgivings that it fell upon a Friday, the 13th of the month. Therefore, he is
also superstitious and not free in his thinking.
So here we are not at all surprised to find these compensating vices to be an
essential content of the unconscious. Obviously, therefore, the reverse is
true—namely, that unconscious virtues compensate for conscious
deficiencies. The law which ought to follow as the result of such deductions
would appear to be quite simple—to wit, the conscious spendthrift is
unconsciously a miser; the philanthropist is unconsciously an egoist and
misanthrope. But, unfortunately, it is not quite so easy as that, although
there is a basis of truth in this simple rule. For there are essential hereditary
dispositions of a latent or manifest nature which upset the simple rule of
compensation, and which vary greatly in individual cases. From entirely
different motives a man may, for instance, be a philanthropist, but the
manner of his philanthropy depends upon his originally inherited
disposition, and the way in which the philanthropic attitude is compensated
depends upon his motives. It is not sufficient simply to know that a certain
person is philanthropic in order to diagnose an unconscious egoism. For we
must also bring to such a diagnosis a careful study of the motives involved.
In the case of normal people the principal function of the unconscious is to
effect a compensation and thus produce a balance. All extreme conscious
tendencies are softened and toned down through an effective opposite
impulse in the unconscious. This compensating agency, as I have tried to
show in the case of the merchant, maintains itself through certain
unconscious, inconsequent activities, as it were, which Freud has very well
described as symptomatic acts (Symptom-handlungen).
To Freud we owe thanks also for having called attention to the importance
of dreams, for by means of them, also, we are able to learn much about this
compensating function. There is a fine historical example of this in the
well-known dream of Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth chapter of the Book of
Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar at the height of his power had a dream
which foretold his downfall. He dreamed of a tree which had raised its head
even up to heaven and now must be hewn down. This is a dream which is
obviously a counterpoise to the exaggerated feeling of royal power.
Now considering states in which the mental balance is disturbed, we can
easily see, from what has preceded, wherein lies the importance of the
unconscious for psychopathology. Let us ponder the question of where and
in what manner the unconscious manifests itself in abnormal mental
conditions. The way in which the unconscious works is most clearly seen in
disturbances of a psychogenic nature, such as hysteria, compulsion
neurosis, etc.
We have known for a long time that certain symptoms of these disturbances
are produced by unconscious psychic events. Just as clear, but less
recognised, are the manifestations of the unconscious in actually insane
patients. As the intuitive ideas of normal men do not spring from logical
combinations of the conscious mind, so the hallucinations and delusions of
the insane arise, not out of conscious but out of unconscious processes.
Formerly, when we held a more materialistic view of psychiatry we were
inclined to believe that all delusions, hallucinations, stereotypic acts, etc.,
were provoked by morbid processes in the brain cells. Such a theory,
however, ignores that delusions, hallucinations, etc., are also to be met with
in certain functional disturbances, and not only in the case of functional
disturbances, but also in the case of normal people. Primitive people may
have visions and hear strange voices without having their mental processes
at all disturbed. To seek to ascribe symptoms of that nature directly to a
disease of the brain cells I hold to be superficial and unwarranted.
Hallucinations show very plainly how a part of the unconscious content can
force itself across the threshold of the conscious. The same is true of a
delusion whose appearance is at once strange and unexpected by the
patient.
The expression "mental balance" is no mere figure of speech, for its
disturbance is a real disturbance of that equilibrium which actually exists
between the unconscious and conscious content to a greater extent than has
heretofore been recognised or understood. As a matter of fact, it amounts to
this—that the normal functioning of the unconscious processes breaks
through into the conscious mind in an abnormal manner, and thereby
disturbs the adaptation of the individual to his environment.
If we study attentively the history of any such person coming under our
observation, we shall often find that he has been living for a considerable
time in a sort of peculiar individual isolation, more or less shut off from the
world of reality. This constrained condition of aloofness may be traced back
to certain innate or early acquired peculiarities, which show themselves in
the events of his life. For instance, in the histories of those suffering from
dementia præcox we often hear such a remark as this: "He was always of a
pensive disposition, and much shut up in himself. After his mother died he
cut himself off still more from the world, shunning his friends and
acquaintances." Or again, we may hear, "Even as a child he devised many
peculiar inventions; and later, when he became an engineer, he occupied
himself with most ambitious schemes."
Without discussing the matter further it must be plain that a counterpoise is
produced in the unconscious as a compensation to the one-sidedness of the
conscious attitude. In the first case we may expect to find an increasing
pressing forward in the unconscious, of a wish for human intercourse, a
longing for mother, friends, relatives; while in the second case self-criticism
will try to establish a correcting balance. Among normal people a condition
never arises so one-sided that the natural corrective tendencies of the
unconscious entirely lose their value in the affairs of everyday life; but in
the case of abnormal people, it is eminently characteristic that the
individual entirely fails to recognise the compensating influences which
arise in the unconscious. He even continues to accentuate his one-sidedness;
this is in accord with the well-known psychological fact that the worst
enemy of the wolf is the wolf-hound, the greatest despiser of the negro is
the mulatto, and that the biggest fanatic is the convert; for I should be a
fanatic were I to attack a thing outwardly which inwardly I am obliged to
concede as right.
The mentally unbalanced man tries to defend himself against his own
unconscious, that is to say, he battles against his own compensating
influences. The man already dwelling in a sort of atmosphere of isolation,
continues to remove himself further and further from the world of reality,
and the ambitious engineer strives by increasingly morbid exaggerations of
invention to disprove the correctness of his own compensating powers of
self-criticism. As a result of this a condition of excitation is produced, from
which results a great lack of harmony between the conscious and
unconscious attitudes. The pairs of opposites are torn asunder, the resulting
division or strife leads to disaster, for the unconscious soon begins to
intrude itself violently upon the conscious processes. Then odd and peculiar
thoughts and moods supervene, and not infrequently incipient forms of
hallucination, which clearly bear the stamp of the internal conflict.
These corrective impulses or compensations which now break through into
the conscious mind, should theoretically be the beginning of the healing
process, because through them the previously isolated attitude should
apparently be relieved. But in reality this does not result, for the reason that
the unconscious corrective impulses which thus succeed in making
themselves apparent to the conscious mind, do so in a form that is
altogether unacceptable to consciousness.
The isolated individual begins to hear strange voices, which accuse him of
murder and all sorts of crimes. These voices drive him to desperation and in
the resulting agitation he attempts to get into contact with the surrounding
milieu, and does what he formerly had anxiously avoided. The
compensation, to be sure, is reached, but to the detriment of the individual.
The pathological inventor, who is unable to profit by his previous failures,
by refusing to recognise the value of his own self-criticism, becomes the
creator of still more preposterous designs. He wishes to accomplish the
impossible but falls into the absurd. After a while he notices that people talk
about him, make unfavourable remarks about him, and even scoff at him.
He believes a far-reaching conspiracy exists to frustrate his discoveries and
render them objects of ridicule. By this means his unconscious brings about
the same results that his self-criticism could have attained, but again only to
the detriment of the individual, because the criticism is projected into his
surroundings.
An especially typical form of unconscious compensation—to give a further
example—is the paranoia of the alcoholic. The alcoholic loses his love for
his wife; the unconscious compensation tries to lead him back again to his
duty, but only partially succeeds, for it causes him to become jealous of his
wife as if he still loved her. As we know, he may even go so far as to kill
both his wife and himself, merely out of jealousy. In other words, his love
for his wife has not been entirely lost, it has simply become subliminal; but
from the realm of the unconscious it can now only reappear in the form of
jealousy.
We see something of a similar nature in the case of religious converts. One
who turns from protestantism to catholicism has, as is well known, the
tendency to be somewhat fanatical. His protestantism is not entirely
relinquished, but has merely disappeared into the unconscious, where it is
constantly at work as a counter-argument against the newly acquired
catholicism. Therefore the new convert feels himself constrained to defend
the faith he has adopted in a more or less fanatical way. It is exactly the
same in the case of the paranoiac, who feels himself constantly constrained
to defend himself against all external criticism, because his delusional
system is too much threatened from within.
The strange manner in which these compensating influences break through
into the conscious mind derives its peculiarities from the fact that they have
to struggle against the resistances already existing in the conscious mind,
and therefore present themselves to the patient's mind in a thoroughly
distorted manner. And secondly, these compensating equivalents are
obliged necessarily to present themselves in the language of the
unconscious—that is, in material of a heterogeneous and subliminal nature.
For all the material of the conscious mind which is of no further value, and
can find no suitable employment, becomes subliminal, such as all those
forgotten infantile and phantastic creations that have ever entered the heads
of men, of which only the legends and myths still remain. For certain
reasons which I cannot discuss further here, this latter material is frequently
found in dementia præcox.
I hope I may have been able to give in this brief contribution, which I feel
to be unfortunately incomplete, a glimpse of the situation as it presents
itself to me of the importance of the unconscious in psychopathology. It
would be impossible in a short discourse to give an adequate idea of all the
work that has already been done in this field.
To sum up, I may say that the function of the unconscious in conditions of
mental disturbance is essentially a compensation of the content of the
conscious mind. But because of the characteristic condition of one-
sidedness of the conscious striving in all such cases, the compensating
correctives are rendered useless. It is, however, inevitable that these
unconscious tendencies break through into the conscious mind, but in
adapting themselves to the character of the one-sided conscious aims, it is
only possible for them to appear in a distorted and unacceptable form.
 CHAPTER XI
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES[183]
It is well known that in their general physiognomy hysteria and dementia
præcox present a striking contrast, which is seen particularly in the attitude
of the sufferers towards the external world. The reactions provoked in the
hysteric surpass the normal level of intensity of feeling, whilst this level is
not reached at all by the precocious dement. The picture presented by these
contrasted illnesses is one of exaggerated emotivity in the one, and extreme
apathy in the other, with regard to the environment. In their personal
relations this difference is very marked. Abstraction creates some
exceptions here, for we remain in affective rapport with our hysterical
patients, which is not the case in dementia præcox.
The opposition between these two nosological types is also seen in the rest
of their symptomatology. From the intellectual point of view the products of
hysterical imagination may be accounted for in a very natural and human
way in each individual case by the antecedents and individual history of the
patient; while the inventions of the precocious dement, on the contrary, are
more nearly related to dreams than to normal consciousness, and they
display moreover an incontestably archaic tendency, wherein mythological
creations of primitive imagination are more in evidence than the personal
memories of the patient. From the physical point of view we do not find in
dementia præcox those symptoms so common in the hysteric, which
simulate well known or severe organic affections.
All this clearly indicates that hysteria is characterised by a centrifugal
tendency of the libido,[184] whilst in dementia præcox its tendency is
centripetal. The reverse occurs, however, where the illness has fully
established its compensatory effects. In the hysteric the libido is always
hampered in its movements of expansion and forced to regress upon itself;
one observes that such individuals cease to partake in the common life, are
wrapped up in their phantasies, keep their beds, or are unable to live outside
their sick-rooms, etc. The precocious dement, on the contrary, during the
incubation of his illness turns away from the outer world in order to
withdraw into himself; but when the period of morbid compensation
arrives, he seems constrained to draw attention to himself, and to force
himself upon the notice of those around him, by his extravagant,
insupportable, or directly aggressive conduct.
I propose to use the terms "extroversion" and "introversion" to describe
these two opposite directions of the libido, further qualifying them,
however, as "regressive" in morbid cases where phantasies, fictions, or
phantastic interpretations, inspired by emotivity, falsify the perceptions of
the subject about things, or about himself. We say that he is extroverted
when he gives his fundamental interest to the outer or objective world, and
attributes an all-important and essential value to it: he is introverted, on the
contrary, when the objective world suffers a sort of depreciation, or want of
consideration, for the sake of the exaltation of the individual himself, who
then monopolising all the interest, grows to believe no one but himself
worthy of consideration. I will call "regressive extroversion" the
phenomenon which Freud calls "transference" (Übertragung), by which the
hysteric projects into the objective world the illusions, or subjective values
of his feelings. In the same way I shall call "regressive introversion," the
opposite pathological phenomenon which we find in dementia præcox,
where the subject himself suffers these phantastical transfigurations.
It is obvious that these two contrary movements of the libido, as simple
psychic mechanisms, may play a part alternately in the same individual,
since after all they serve the same purpose by different methods—namely,
to minister to his well-being. Freud has taught us that in the mechanism of
hysterical transference the individual aims at getting rid of disagreeable
memories or impressions, in order to free himself from painful complexes,
by a process of "repression." Conversely in the mechanism of introversion,
the personality tends to concentrate itself upon its complexes, and with
them, to isolate itself from external reality, by a process which is not
properly speaking "repression," but which would be better rendered perhaps
by the term "depreciation" (Entwertung) of the objective world.
The existence of two mental affections so opposite in character as hysteria
and dementia præcox, in which the contrast rests on the almost exclusive
supremacy of extroversion or introversion, suggests that these two
psychological types may exist equally well in normal persons, who may be
characterised by the relative predominance of one or other of the two
mechanisms. Psychiatrists know very well that before either illness is fully
declared, patients already present the characteristic type, traces of which are
to be found from the earliest years of life. As Binet pointed out so well, the
neurotic only accentuates and shews in relief the characteristic traits of his
personality. One knows, of course, that the hysterical character is not
simply the product of the illness, but pre-existed it in a measure. And Hoch
has shown by his researches into the histories of his dementia præcox
patients, that this is also the case with them; dissociations or eccentricities
were present before the onset of the illness. If this is so, one may certainly
expect to meet the same contrast between psychological temperaments
outside the sphere of pathology. It is moreover easy to cull from literature
numerous examples which bear witness to the actual existence of these two
opposite types of mentality. Without pretending to exhaust the subject, I
will give a few striking examples.
In my opinion, we owe the best observations on this subject to the
philosophy of William James.[185] He lays down the principle that no matter
what may be the temperament of a "professional philosopher," it is this
temperament which he feels himself forced to express and to justify in his
philosophy. And starting from this idea, which is altogether in accord with
the spirit of psychoanalysis, divides philosophers into two classes: the
"tender-minded," who are only interested in the inner life and spiritual
things; and the "tough-minded," who lay most stress on material things and
objective reality. We see that these two classes are actuated by exactly
opposite tendencies of the libido: the "tender-minded" represent
introversion, the "tough-minded" extroversion.
James says that the tender-minded are characterised by rationalism; they are
men of principles and of systems, they aspire to dominate experience and to
transcend it by abstract reasoning, by their logical deductions, and purely
rational conceptions. They care little for facts, and the multiplicity of
phenomena hardly embarrasses them at all: they forcibly fit data into their
ideal constructions, and reduce everything to their a priori premises. This
was the method of Hegel in settling beforehand the number of the planets.
In the domain of mental pathology we again meet this kind of philosopher
in paranoiacs, who, without being disquieted by the flat contradictions
presented by experience, impose their delirious conceptions on the universe,
and find means of interpreting everything, and according to Adler
"arranging" everything, in conformity with their morbidly preconceived
system.
The other traits which James depicts in this type follow naturally from its
fundamental character. The tender-minded man, he says, is intellectual,
idealist, optimist, religious, partisan of free-will, a monist, and a dogmatist.
All these qualities betray the almost exclusive concentration of the libido
upon the intellectual life. This concentration upon the inner world of
thought is nothing else than introversion. In so far as experience plays a
rôle with these philosophers, it serves only as an allurement or fillip to
abstraction, in response to the imperative need to fit forcibly all the chaos of
the universe within well-defined limits, which are, in the last resort, the
creation of a spirit obedient to its subjective values.
The tough-minded man is positivist and empiricist. He regards only matters
of fact. Experience is his master, his exclusive guide and inspiration. It is
only empirical phenomena demonstrable in the outside world which count.
Thought is merely a reaction to external experience. In the eyes of these
philosophers principles are never of such value as facts; they can only
reflect and describe the sequence of phenomena and cannot construct a
system. Thus their theories are exposed to contradiction under the
overwhelming accumulation of empirical material. Psychic reality for the
positivist limits itself to the observation and experience of pleasure and
pain; he does not go beyond that, nor does he recognise the rights of
philosophical thought. Remaining on the ever-changing surface of the
phenomenal world, he partakes himself of its instability; carried away in the
chaotic tumult of the universe, he sees all its aspects, all its theoretical and
practical possibilities, but he never arrives at the unity or the fixity of a
settled system, which alone could satisfy the idealist or tender-minded. The
positivist depreciates all values in reducing them to elements lower than
themselves; he explains the higher by the lower, and dethrones it, by
showing that it is "nothing but such another thing," which has no value in
itself.
From these general characteristics, the others which James points out
logically follow. The positivist is a sensualist, giving greater value to the
specific realm of the senses than to reflection which transcends it. He is a
materialist and a pessimist, for he knows only too well the hopeless
uncertainty of the course of things. He is irreligious, not being in a state to
hold firmly to the realities of the inner world as opposed to the pressure of
external facts; he is a determinist and fatalist, only able to show resignation;
a pluralist, incapable of all synthesis; and finally a sceptic, as a last and
inevitable consequence of all the rest.
The expressions, therefore, used by James, show clearly that the diversity of
types is the result of a different localisation of the libido; this libido is the
magic power in the depth of our being, which, following the personality,
carries it sometimes towards internal life, and sometimes towards the
objective world. James compares, for example, the religious subjectivism of
the idealist, and the quasi-religious attitude of the contemporary empiricist:
"Our esteem for facts has not neutralised in us all religiousness. It is itself
almost religious. Our scientific temper is devout."[186]
A second parallel is furnished by Wilhelm Ostwald,[187] who divides
"savants" and men of genius into classics and romantics. The latter are
distinguished by their rapid reactions, their extremely prompt and abundant
production of ideas and projects, some of which are badly digested and of
doubtful value. They are admirable and brilliant masters, loving to teach, of
a contagious ardour and enthusiasm, which attracts many pupils, and makes
them founders of schools, exercising great personal influence. Herein our
type of extroversion is easily recognised. The classics of Ostwald are, on
the contrary, slow to react; they produce with much difficulty, are little
capable of teaching or of exercising direct personal influence, and lacking
enthusiasm are paralysed by their own severe criticism, living apart and
absorbed in themselves, making scarcely any disciples, but producing
works of finished perfection which often bring them posthumous fame. All
these characteristics correspond to introversion.
We find a further very valuable example in the æsthetic theory of Warringer.
Borrowing from A. Riegl his expression "Volonté d'art absolue" to express
the internal force which inspires the artist, he distinguishes two forms, viz.
sympathy (Einfühlung) and abstraction; and the term which he employs
indicates that here, too, we witness the activity of the push of the libido, the
stirring of the élan vital. "In the same way," says Warringer, "as the
sympathetic impulse finds its satisfaction in organic beauty, so abstract
impulse discovers beauty in the inorganic, which is the negation of all life,
in crystallised forms, and in a general manner wherever the severity of
abstract law reigns." Whilst sympathy represents the warmth of passion
which carries it into the presence of the object in order to assimilate it and
penetrate it with emotional values; abstraction, on the other hand, despoils
the object of all that could recall life, and grasps it by purely intellectual
thought, crystallised and fixed into the rigid forms of law,—the universal,
the typical. Bergson also makes use of these images of crystallisation,
solidification, etc., to illustrate the essence of intellectual abstraction.
Warringer's "abstraction" represents the process which I have already
remarked as a consequence of introversion, namely, the exaltation of the
intellect, in the place of the depreciated reality of the external world.
"Sympathy" corresponds in fact to extroversion, for, as Lipps has pointed
out, "What I perceive sympathetically in an object is, in a general manner
life, and life is power, internal work, effort, and execution. To live, in a
word, is to act, and to act is to experience intimately the force which we
give out; experience creates activity, which is essentially of a spontaneous
character." "Æsthetic enjoyment," said Warringer, "is the enjoyment of one's
own self projected into the "object," a formula which corresponds
absolutely with our definition of transference. This æsthetic conception
does not refer to the positivist in James's sense; it is rather the attitude of the
idealist for whom psychological reality only is interesting, and worthy of
consideration." Warringer adds, "what is essential lies not in the gradation
of the feeling, but pre-eminently in the feeling itself; that is to say, the inner
movement, the intimate life, the unfolding of the subject's own activity; the
value of a line or of a form, depends in our eyes on the biological value it
holds for us; that which gives beauty is solely our own vital feeling, which
we unconsciously project into it." This view corresponds exactly with my
own way of understanding the theory of the libido, in attempting to keep the
true balance between the two psychological opposites of introversion and
extroversion.
The polar opposite of sympathy is abstraction. The impulse of abstraction is
conceived by Warringer "as the result of a great internal conflict of the
human soul in the presence of the external world, and from the religious
standpoint, it corresponds to a strong transcendental colouring of all the
representations man has made to himself of reality." We recognise clearly in
this definition the primordial tendency to introversion. To the introverted
type the universe does not appear beautiful and desirable, but disquieting,
and even dangerous; it is a manifestation against which the subject puts
himself on the defensive; he entrenches himself in his inner fastness, and
fortifies himself therein by the invention of geometrical figures, full of
repose, perfectly clear even in their minutest details, the primitive magic
power of which assures him of domination over the surrounding world.
"The need of abstraction is the origin of all art," says Warringer. Here is a
great principle, which gains weighty confirmation from the fact that
precocious dements reproduce forms and figures which present the closest
analogy to those of primitive humanity, not only in their thoughts but also
in their drawings.
We should recall that Schiller had already tried to formulate the same
presentation in what he calls the naïve and sentimental types. The latter is in
quest of nature, whilst the former is itself "all nature." Schiller also saw that
these two types result from the predominance of psychological mechanisms
which might be met with in one and the same individual. "It is not only in
the same poet," he said, "but even in the same work that these two types of
mentality are found united.... The naïve poet pursues only nature and
feeling in their simplicity, and all his effort is limited to the imitation and
reproduction of reality. The sentimental poet, on the contrary, reflects the
impression he receives from objects. The object here is allied to an idea,
and the poetic power of the work depends on this alliance." These
quotations shew what types Schiller had in view, and one recognises their
fundamental identity with those with which we are here dealing.
We find another instance in Nietzsche's contrast between the minds of
Apollo and of Dionysus. The example which Nietzsche uses to illustrate
this contrast is instructive—namely, that between a dream and intoxication.
In a dream the individual is shut up in himself, in intoxication, on the
contrary, he forgets himself to the highest degree, and, set free from his self-
consciousness, plunges into the multiplicity of the objective world. To
depict Apollo, Nietzsche borrows the words of Schopenhauer, "As upon a
tumultuous sea, which disgorges and swallows by turns, lost to view in the
mountains of foaming waves, the mariner remains seated tranquilly on his
plank, full of confidence in his frail barque; so individual man, in a world of
troubles, lives passive and serene, relying with confidence on the principle
of 'individuation.'" "Yes," continues Nietzsche, "we might say that the
unshakeable confidence in this principle, and the calm security of those
whom it has inspired, have found in Apollo their most sublime expression,
and we may always recognise in him the most splendid and divine
personification of the principle of making an individual." The Apollien
state, as Nietzsche conceives it, is consequently the withdrawal into oneself,
that is, introversion. Conversely in the Dionysian state, psychic
intoxication, indicates in his view the unloosening of a torrent of libido
which expends itself upon things. "This is not only," says Nietzsche, "the
alliance of man with man, which finds itself confirmed afresh under the
Dionysian enchantment; it is alienated Nature, hostile or enslaved, which
also celebrates her reconciliation with her prodigal child,—man.
Spontaneously Earth offers her gifts and the wild beasts from rock and
desert draw near peacefully. The car of Dionysus is lost under flowers and
garlands; panthers and tigers approach under his yoke."
If we change Beethoven's "Hymn of Praise" into a picture, and giving rein
to our imagination, contemplate the millions of beings prostrated and
trembling in the dust, at such a moment the Dionysian intoxication will be
near at hand. Then is the slave free; then all the rigid and hostile barriers
which poverty and arbitrary or insolent custom have established between
man and man are broken down. Now, by means of this gospel of universal
harmony, each feels himself not only reunited, reconciled, fused with his
neighbour, but actually identified with him, as if the veil of "Maïa was torn
away, nothing remaining of it but a few shreds floating before the mystery
of the Primordial Unity."[188] It would be superfluous to add comment to
these quotations.
In concluding this series of examples culled outside my own special
domain, I will quote the linguistic hypothesis of Finck,[189] where we also
see the duality in question. The structure of language, according to Finck,
presents two principal types: in one the subject is generally conceived as
active: "I see him," "I strike him down;" in the other the subject experiences
and feels, and it is the object which acts: "He appears to me," "He succumbs
to me." The first type clearly shews the libido as going out of the subject,—
this is a centrifugal movement; the second as coming out of the object,—
this movement is centripetal. We meet with this latter introverted type
especially in the primitive languages of the Esquimaux.
In the domain of psychiatry also these two types have been described by
Otto Gross,[190] who distinguishes two forms of mental debility: the one a
diffuse and shallow consciousness, the other a concentrated and deep
consciousness. The first is characterised by weakness of the consecutive
function, the second by its excessive reinforcement. Gross has recognised
that the consecutive function is in intimate relation with affectivity, from
which we might infer that he is dealing once more with our two
psychological types. The relation he establishes between maniac depressive
insanity and the state of diffuse or extended and shallow mental disease
shows that the latter represents the extroverted type; and the relation
between the psychology of the paranoiac and repressed mentality, indicates
the identity of the former with the introverted type.
After the foregoing considerations no one will be astonished to find that in
the domain of psychoanalysis we also have to reckon with the existence of
these two psychological types.
On the one side we meet with a theory which is essentially reductive,
pluralist, causal and sensualist; this is Freud's standpoint. This theory limits
itself rigidly to empirical facts, and traces back complexes to their
antecedents and their elemental factors. It regards the psychological life as
being only an effect, a reaction to the environment, and accords the greatest
rôle and the largest place to sensation. On the other side we have the
diametrically opposed theory of Adler[191] which is an entirely
philosophical and finalistic one. In it phenomena are not reducible to earlier
and very primitive factors, but are conceived as "arrangements," the
outcome of intentions and of ends of an extremely complex nature. It is no
longer the view of causality but of finality which dominates researches: the
history of the patient and the concrete influences of the environment are of
much less importance than the dominating principles, the "fictions
directrices," of the individual. It is not essential for him to depend upon the
object, and to find in it his fill of subjective enjoyment, but to protect his
own individuality and to guarantee it against the hostile influences of the
environment.
Whilst Freud's psychology has for its predominant note the centrifugal
tendency, which demands its happiness and satisfaction in the objective
world, in that of Adler the chief rôle belongs to the centripetal movement,
which tends to the supremacy of the subject, to his triumph and his liberty,
as opposed to the overwhelming forces of existence. The expedient to
which the type described by Freud has recourse is "infantile transference,"
by means of which he projects phantasy into the object and finds a
compensation for the difficulties of life in this transfiguration. In the type
described by Adler what is characteristic is, on the contrary, the "virile
protest," personal resistance, the efficacious safeguard which the individual
provides for himself, in affirming and stubbornly enclosing himself in his
dominating ideas.
The difficult task of elaborating a psychology which should pay equal
attention to the two types of mentality belongs to the future.
 CHAPTER XII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DREAMS[192]
A dream is a psychic structure which at first sight appears to be in striking
contrast with conscious thought, because judging by its form and substance
it apparently does not lie within the continuity of development of the
conscious contents, it is not integral to it, but is a mere external and
apparently accidental occurrence. Its mode of genesis is in itself sufficient
to isolate a dream from the other contents of the conscious, for it is a
survival of a peculiar psychic activity which takes place during sleep, and
does not originate in the manifest and clearly logical and emotional
continuity of the event experienced.
But a careful observer should have no difficulty in discovering that a dream
is not entirely severed from the continuity of the conscious, for in almost
every dream certain details are found which have their origin in the
impressions, thoughts, or states of mind of one of the preceding days. In so
far a certain continuity does exist, albeit a retrograde one. But any one
keenly interested in the dream problem cannot have failed to observe that a
dream has also a progressive continuity—if such an expression be permitted
—since dreams occasionally exert a remarkable influence upon the
conscious mental life, even of persons who cannot be considered
superstitious or particularly abnormal. These occasional after-effects are
usually seen in a more or less distinct change in the dreamer's frame of
mind.
It is probably in consequence of this loose connection with the other
conscious contents, that the recollected dream is so extremely unstable.
Many dreams baffle all attempts at reproduction, even immediately after
waking; others can only be remembered with doubtful accuracy, and
comparatively few can be termed really distinct and clearly reproduceable.
This peculiar reaction with regard to recollection may be understood by
considering the characteristics of the various elements combined in a
dream. The combination of ideas in dreams is essentially phantastic; they
are linked together in a sequence which, as a rule, is quite foreign to our
current way of thinking, and in striking contrast to the logical sequence of
ideas which we consider to be a special characteristic of conscious mental
processes.
It is to this characteristic that dreams owe the common epithet of
"meaningless." Before pronouncing this verdict, we must reflect that
dreams and their chains of ideas are something that we do not understand.
Such a verdict would therefore be merely a projection of our non-
comprehension upon its object. But that would not prevent its own peculiar
meaning being inherent in a dream.
In spite of the fact that for centuries endeavours have been made to extract a
prophetic meaning from dreams, Freud's discovery is practically the first
successful attempt to find their real significance. His work merits the term
"scientific," because he has evolved a technique which, not only he, but
many other investigators also assert achieves its object, namely, the
understanding of the meaning of the dream. This meaning is not identical
with the one which the manifest dream content seems to indicate.
This is not the place for a critical discussion of Freud's psychology of
dreams. But I will try to give a brief summary of what may be regarded as
more or less established facts of dream psychology to-day.
The first question we must discuss is, whence do we deduce the justification
for attributing to dreams any other significance than the one indicated in the
unsatisfying fragmentary meaning of the manifest dream content?
As regards this point a particularly weighty argument is the fact that Freud
discovered the hidden meaning of dreams by empiric and not deductive
methods. A further argument in favour of a possible hidden, as opposed to
the manifest meaning of dreams, is obtained by comparing dream-
phantasies with other phantasies (day-dreams and the like) in one and the
same individual. It is not difficult to conceive that such day-phantasies have
not merely a superficial, concrete meaning, but also a deeper psychological
meaning. It is solely on account of the brevity that I must impose upon
myself, that I do not submit materials in proof of this. But I should like to
point out that what may be said about the meaning of phantasies, is well
illustrated by an old and widely diffused type of imaginative story, of which
Æsop's Fables are typical examples, wherein, for instance, the story is some
objectively impossible phantasy about the deeds of a lion and an ass. The
concrete superficial meaning of the fable is an impossible phantasm, but the
hidden moral meaning is plain upon reflection. It is characteristic that
children are pleased and satisfied with the exoteric meaning of the story.
However, the best argument for the existence of a hidden meaning in
dreams is provided by conscientious application of the technical procedure
to solve the manifest dream content.
This brings us to our second main point, viz.—the question of analytic
procedure. Here again I desire neither to defend nor to criticise Freud's
views and discoveries, but rather to confine myself to what seem to me to
be firmly established facts.
The fact that a dream is a psychic structure, does not give us the slightest
ground for assuming that it obeys laws and designs other than those
applicable to any other psychic structure. According to the maxim:
principia explicandi prœter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda, we have
to treat dreams, in analysis, just as any other psychic structure, until
experience teaches us some better way.
We know that every psychic construction considered from the standpoint of
causality, is the resultant of previous psychic contents. Moreover, we know
also that every psychic structure, considered from the standpoint of finality,
has its own peculiar meaning and purpose in the actual psychic process.
This standard must also be applied to dreams. When, therefore, we seek a
psychological explanation of a dream, we must first know what were the
preceding experiences out of which it is combined. We must trace the
antecedents of every element in the dream picture. For example: some one
dreams "that he is walking in a street, a child is running in front of him,
who is suddenly run over by a motor-car." We will trace the antecedents of
this dream-picture, with the aid of the dreamer's recollections.
He recognises the street as one down which he had walked on the previous
day. The child he acknowledges as his brother's child, whom he had seen on
the previous evening when visiting his brother. The motor accident reminds
him of an accident that had actually occurred a few days before, but of
which he had only read an account in a newspaper. Popular opinion is
known to be satisfied with this kind of explanation. People say: "Oh, that is
why I dreamt such and such a thing!"
Obviously this explanation is absolutely unsatisfactory from a scientific
standpoint. The dreamer walked down many streets on the previous day;
why was this particular one selected? He had read about several accidents;
why did he select just this one? The mere disclosure of an antecedent is by
no means sufficient; for a plausible determination of the dream presentation
can only be obtained from the competition of various determinants. The
collection of additional material proceeds, according to the principle of
recollection that has been called the Association Method. The result, as will
easily be understood, is the admission of a mass of multifarious and quite
heterogeneous material, having apparently nothing in common but the fact
of its evident associative connection with the dream contents, since it has
been reproduced by means of this content.
How far the collection of such material should go, is an important question
from the technical point of view. Since the entire psychic content of a life
may be ultimately disclosed from any single starting point, theoretically the
whole previous life-experience might be found in every dream. But we only
need to assemble just so much material as is absolutely necessary in order
to comprehend the dream's meaning. The limitation of the material is
obviously an arbitrary proceeding, according to that principle of Kant's
whereby to comprehend is "to perceive to the extent necessary for our
purpose." For instance, when undertaking a survey of the causes of the
French Revolution, we could, in amassing our material, include not only the
history of medieval France but also that of Rome and Greece, which
certainly would not be "necessary for our purpose," since we can
comprehend the historical genesis of the Revolution from much more
limited material.
Except for the aforesaid arbitrary limitation, the collecting of material lies
outside the investigator's discretion. The material gathered must now be
sifted and examined, according to principles which are always applied to
the examination of historical or any empirical scientific material. The
method is an essentially comparative one, that obviously cannot be applied
automatically, but is largely dependent upon the skill and aim of the
investigator.
When a psychological fact has to be explained, it must be remembered that
psychological data necessitate a twofold point of view, namely, that of
causality and that of finality. I use the word finality intentionally, in order to
avoid confusion with the idea of "teleology." I use finality to denote
immanent psychological teleology. In so far as we apply the view point of
causality to the material that has been associated with the dream, we reduce
the manifest dream content to certain fundamental tendencies or ideas.
These, as one would expect, are elementary and universal in character.
For instance, a young patient dreams as follows: "I am standing in a strange
garden, and pluck an apple from a tree. I look about cautiously, to make
sure no one sees me."
The associated dream material is a memory of having once, when a boy,
plucked a couple of pears surreptitiously from another person's garden.
The feeling of having a bad conscience, which is a prominent feature in the
dream, reminds him of a situation he experienced on the previous day. He
met a young lady in the street—a casual acquaintance—and exchanged a
few words with her. At that moment a gentleman passed whom he knew,
whereupon our patient was suddenly seized with a curious feeling of
embarrassment, as if he had done something wrong. He associated the apple
with the scene in Paradise, together with the fact that he had never really
understood why the eating of the forbidden fruit should have been fraught
with such dire consequences for our first parents. This had always made
him feel angry; it seemed to him an unjust act of God, for God had made
men as they were, with all their curiosity and greed.
Another association was, that sometimes his father had punished him for
certain things in a way that seemed to him incomprehensible. The worst
punishment had been bestowed after he had secretly watched girls bathing.
That led up to the confession that he had recently begun a love affair with a
housemaid, but had not yet carried it through to a conclusion. On the day
before the dream he had had a rendezvous with her.
Upon reviewing this material we see that the dream contains a very
transparent reference to the last-named incident. The connecting associative
material shows that the apple episode is palpably meant for an erotic scene.
For various other reasons, too, it may be considered extremely probable that
this experience of the previous day is operative even in this dream. In the
dream the young man plucks the apple of Paradise, which in reality he has
not yet plucked. The remainder of the material associated with the dream is
concerned with another experience of the previous day, namely, with the
peculiar feeling of a bad conscience, which seized the dreamer when he was
talking to his casual lady acquaintance; this, again, was connected with the
fall of man in Paradise, and finally with an erotic misdemeanour of his
childhood, for which his father had punished him severely. All these
associations are linked together by the idea of guilt.
In the first place we will consider this material from Freud's view-point of
causality; in other words, we will "interpret" it, to use Freud's expression. A
wish has been left unfulfilled from the day before the dream. In the dream
this wish is realised in the symbolical apple scene. But why is this
realisation disguised and hidden under a symbolic image instead of being
expressed in a distinctly sexual thought? Freud would refer to the
unmistakable sense of guilt shown up by the material, and say the morality
that has been inculcated in the young man from childhood is bent on
repressing such wishes, and to that end brands the natural craving as
immoral and reprehensible. The suppressed immoral thought can therefore
only achieve expression by means of a symbol. As these thoughts are
incompatible with the moral content of the conscious ego, a psychic factor
adopted by Freud called the Censor, prevents this wish from passing
undisguised into consciousness.
Reviewing the dream from the standpoint of finality, which I contrast with
that of Freud, does not—as I wish to establish explicitly—involve a denial
of the dream's causæ, but rather a different interpretation of the associative
material collected around the dream. The material facts remain the same,
but the standard by which they are measured is altered. The question may
be formulated simply as follows: What is this dream's purpose? What
should it effect? These questions are not arbitrary, in as much as they may
be applied to every psychic activity. Everywhere the question of the "why"
and "wherefore" may be raised.
It is clear that the material added by the dream to the previous day's erotic
experience, chiefly emphasises the sense of guilt in the erotic act. The same
association has already been shown to be operative in another experience of
the previous day, in the meeting with his casual lady acquaintance, when
the feeling of a bad conscience was automatically and inexplicably aroused,
as if, in that instance, too, the young man had done something wrong. This
experience also plays a part in the dream, which is even intensified by the
association of additional, appropriate material; the erotic experience of the
day before, being depicted by the story of the Fall which was followed by
such a severe punishment.
I maintain that there exists in the dreamer an unconscious propensity or
tendency to conceive his erotic experiences as guilty. It is most
characteristic that the association with the Fall of Man should ensue, the
young man having never really grasped why the punishment should have
been so drastic. This association throws light upon the reasons why the
dreamer did not think simply, "I am doing what is not right." Obviously he
does not know that he might condemn his own conduct as morally wrong.
This is actually the case. His conscious belief is that his conduct does not
matter in the least morally, as all his friends were acting in the same way;
besides, for other reasons too, is unable to understand why a fuss should be
made about it.
Whether this dream should be considered full or void of meaning depends
upon a very important question, viz. whether the standpoint of morality,
handed down to us through the ages by our forefathers is held to be full or
void of meaning. I do not wish to wander off into a philosophical discussion
of this question, but would merely observe that mankind must obviously
have had very strong reasons for devising this morality, otherwise it would
be truly incomprehensible why such restraints should be imposed upon one
of man's strongest cravings. If we attach due value to this fact, we are
bound to pronounce this dream to be full of meaning, for it reveals to the
young man the necessity of facing his erotic conduct boldly from the view
point of morality. Primitive races have in some respects extremely strict
legislation concerning sexuality. This fact proves that sexual morality is a
not-to-be-neglected factor in the soul's higher functions, but deserves to be
taken fully into account. In the case in question it should be added, that the
young man—influenced by his friends' example—somewhat thoughtlessly
let himself be guided exclusively by his erotic cravings, unmindful of the
fact that man is a morally responsible being and must perforce submit—
voluntarily or involuntarily—to a morality that he himself has created.
In this dream we can discern a compensating function of the unconscious,
consisting in the fact that those thoughts, propensities, and tendencies of a
human personality, which in conscious life are too seldom recognised, come
spontaneously into action in the sleeping state, when to a large extent the
conscious process is disconnected.
The question might certainly be raised, of what use is this to the dreamer if
he does not understand the dream?
To this I must remark that to understand is not an exclusively intellectual
process, for—as experience proves—man may be influenced—nay, even
very effectually convinced—by innumerable things, of which he has no
intellectual understanding. I will merely remind my readers of the efficacy
of religious symbols.
The example given above might suggest the thought that the function of
dreams is a distinctly "moral" one. Such it appears to be in this case, but if
we recall the formula according to which dreams contain the subliminal
materials of a given moment, we cannot speak simply of a "moral" function.
For it is worthy of note that the dreams of those persons whose actions are
morally unexceptionable, bring materials to light that might well be
characterised as "immoral" in the current meaning of that term. Thus it is
significant that St. Augustine was glad that God did not hold him
responsible for his dreams. The unconscious is the unknown of a given
moment, therefore it is not surprising that all those aspects that are essential
for a totally different point of view should be added by dreams to the
conscious psychological factors of a given moment. It is evident that this
function of dreams signifies a psychological adjustment, a compensation
essential for properly balanced action. In the conscious process of reflection
it is indispensable that, so far as possible, we should realise all the aspects
and consequences of a problem, in order to find the right solution. This
process is continued automatically in the more or less unconscious state of
sleep, wherever—as our previous experience seems to show—all those
other points of view occur to the dreamer (at least by way of allusion) that
during the day were underestimated or even totally ignored; in other words,
were comparatively unconscious.
As regards the much-discussed symbolism of dreams, the value attached to
it varies according to whether the standpoint of causality or of finality is
adopted. According to Freud's causal view point it proceeds from a craving,
viz. from the suppressed dream-wish. This craving is always somewhat
simple and primitive, and is able to disguise itself under manifold forms.
For instance, the young man in question might just as well have dreamt that
he had to open a door with a key, or that he had to travel by aeroplane, or
that he was kissing his mother, etc. From this standpoint all those things
would have had the same meaning. In this way, the typical adherents of
Freud's school have come to the point of interpreting—to give a gross
instance—almost all long objects in dreams as phallic symbols.
From the view-point of finality, the various dream pictures have each their
own peculiar value. For instance, if the young man, instead of dreaming of
the apple scene, had dreamt he had to open a door with a key, the altered
dream picture would have furnished associative material of an essentially
different character; that, again, would have resulted in the conscious
situation being supplemented by associations of a totally different kind from
those connected with the apple scene. From this point of view, it is the
diversity of the dream's mode of expression that is full of meaning, and not
the uniformity in its significance. The causal view-point tends by its very
nature towards uniformity of meaning, that is, towards a fixed significance
of symbols. On the other hand, the final view-point perceives in an altered
dream picture, the expression of an altered psychological situation. It
recognises no fixed meaning of symbols. From this standpoint all the dream
pictures are important in themselves, each one having a special significance
of its own, to which it owes its inclusion in the dream. Keeping to our
previous example, we see that from the standpoint of finality the symbol in
this dream is approximately equivalent to a parable; it does not conceal, but
it teaches. The apple scene recalls vividly the sense of guilt, at the same
time disguising the real deed of our first parents.
It is obvious we reach very dissimilar interpretations of the meaning of the
dream, according to the point of view adopted. The question now arises,
which is the better or truer version? After all, for us therapeuts it is a
practical and not a merely theoretical necessity that leads us to seek for
some comprehension of the meaning of dreams. In treating our patients we
must for practical reasons endeavour to lay hold of any means that will
enable us to train them effectually. It should be quite evident from the
foregoing example, that the material associated with the dream has opened
up a question calculated to make many matters clear to the young man,
which, hitherto, he has heedlessly overlooked. But by disregarding these
things he was really overlooking something in himself, for he possesses a
moral standard and a moral need just like any other man. By trying to live
without taking this fact into consideration, his life is one-sided and
incomplete, so to say inco-ordinate; with the same consequences for the
psychological life as a one-sided and incomplete diet would have for the
physical. In order to develop a person's individuality and independence to
the uttermost, we need to bring to fruition all those functions that have
hitherto attained but little conscious development or none at all. In order to
achieve this aim, we must for therapeutic reasons enter into all those
unconscious aspects of things brought forward by the dream material. This
makes it abundantly clear that the view-point of finality is singularly
important as an aid to the practical development of the individual.
The view-point of causality is obviously more in accord with the scientific
spirit of our time, with its strictly causalistic reasoning. Much may be said
for Freud's view as a scientific explanation of dream psychology. But I must
dispute its completeness, for the psyche cannot be conceived merely from
the causal aspect, but necessitates also a final view-point. Only a
combination of both points of view—which has not yet been attained to the
satisfaction of the scientific mind, owing to great difficulties both of a
practical and theoretical nature—can give us a more complete conception of
the essence of dreams.

I would like to treat briefly of some further problems of dream psychology,

that border on the general discussion of dreams. Firstly, as to the
classification of dreams; I do not wish to overestimate either the practical or
theoretical significance of this question. I investigate yearly some 1500-
2000 dreams, and this experience enables me to state that typical dreams
actually do exist. But they are not very frequent, and from the view-point of
finality they lose much of the importance which attaches to them as a result
of the fixed significance of symbols according to the causal view-point. It
seems to me that the typical themes of dreams are of far greater importance,
for they permit of a comparison with the themes of mythology. Many of
these mythological themes—in the study of which Frobenius has rendered
notable service—are also found in dreams, often with precisely the same
significance. Unfortunately the limited time at my disposal, does not permit
me to lay detailed materials before you: this has been done elsewhere.[193]
But I desire to emphasise the fact that the comparison of the typical themes
of dreams with those of mythology obviously suggests the idea (already put
forward by Nietzsche) that from a phylogenetic point of view dream-
thought should be conceived as an older form of thought. Instead of
multiplying examples in explanation of my meaning, I will briefly refer you
to our specimen dream. As you remember, that dream introduced the apple
scene as a typical representation of erotic guilt. The gist of its purport is: "I
am doing wrong in acting like this." But it is characteristic that a dream
never expresses itself in a logically abstract way, but always in the language
of parable or simile. This peculiarity is also a characteristic feature of
primitive languages, whose flowery idioms always strike us. If you call to
mind the writings of ancient literature—e.g. the language of simile in the
Bible—you will find that what nowadays is expressed by means of abstract
expressions, could then only be expressed by means of simile. Even such a
philosopher as Plato did not disdain to express certain fundamental ideas by
means of concrete simile.
Just as the body bears traces of its phylogenetic development, so also does
the human mind. There is therefore nothing surprising in the possibility of
the allegories of our dreams being a survival of archaic modes of thought.
The theft of the apple in our example is a typical theme of dreams, often
recurring with various modifications. It is also a well-known theme in
mythology, and is found not only in the story of the Garden of Eden, but in
numerous myths and fables of all ages and climes. It is one of those
universally human symbols, which can reappear in any one, at any time.
Thus, dream psychology opens up a way to a general comparative
psychology, from which we hope to attain the same sort of understanding of
the development and structure of the human soul, as comparative anatomy
has given us concerning the human body.
 CHAPTER XIII
THE CONTENT OF THE PSYCHOSES[194]

Introduction
My short sketch on the Content of the Psychoses which first appeared in the series of
"Schriften zur Angewandten Seelenkunde" under Freud's editorship was designed to give the
non-professional but interested public some insight into the psychological point of view of
recent psychiatry. I chose by way of example a case of the mental disorder known as
Dementia Præcox, which Bleuler calls Schizophrenia. Statistically this extensive group
contains by far the largest number of cases of psychosis. Many psychiatrists would prefer to
limit it, and accordingly make use of other nomenclature and classification. From the
psychological standpoint the change of name is unimportant, for it is of less value to know
what a thing is called than to know what it is. The cases of mental disorder sketched in this
essay belong to well-known and frequently occurring types, familiar to the alienist. The facts
will not be altered if these disorders are called by some other name than dementia præcox.
I have presented my view of the psychological basis in a work[195] whose scientific validity
has been contested upon all sorts of grounds. For me it is sufficient justification that a
psychiatrist of Bleuler's standing has fully accepted, in his great monograph on the disease, all
the essential points in my work. The difference between us is as to the question whether, in
relation to the anatomical basis, the psychological disorders should be regarded as primary or
secondary. The resolution of this weighty question depends upon the general problem as to
whether the prevailing dogma in psychiatry—"disorders of the mind are disorders of the
brain"—presents a final truth or not. This dogma leads to absolute sterility as soon as
universal validity is ascribed to it. There are undoubted psychogenic mental diseases (the so-
called hysterical) which are properly regarded as functional in contrast with organic diseases
which rest upon demonstrable anatomical changes. Disorders of the brain should only be
called organic when the psychic symptoms depend upon an undoubtedly primary disease of
the brain. Now in dementia præcox this is by no means a settled question. Definite anatomical
changes are present, but we are very far from being able to relate the psychological symptoms
to these changes. We have, at least, positive information as to the functional nature of early
schizophrenic conditions; moreover the organic character of paranoia and many paranoid
forms is still in great uncertainty. This being so it is worth while to inquire whether
manifestations of degeneration could not also be provoked by psychological disturbance of
function. Such an idea is only incomprehensible to those who smuggle materialistic
preconceptions into their scientific theories. This question does not even rest upon some
fundamental and arbitrary spiritualism, but upon the following simple reflection. Instead of
assuming that some hereditary disposition, or a toxæmia, gives rise directly to organic
processes of disease, I incline to the view that upon the basis of predisposition, whose nature
is at present unknown to us, there arises a non-adaptable psychological function which can
proceed to develop into manifest mental disorder; this may secondarily determine organic
degeneration with its own train of symptoms. In favour of this conception is the fact that we
have no proof of the primary nature of the organic disorder, but overwhelming proofs exist of
a primary psychological fault in function, whose history can be traced back to the patient's
childhood. In perfect agreement with this conception is the fact that analytic practice has
given us experience of cases where patients on the borderline of dementia præcox have been
brought back to normal life.
Even if anatomical lesions or organic symptoms were constantly present, science ought not to
imagine the psychological standpoint could advisedly be neglected, or the undoubted
psychological relationship be given up as unimportant. If, for instance, carcinoma were to
prove an infectious disease the peculiar growth and degenerative process of carcinomatous
cells would still be a constant factor requiring investigation on its own account. But, as I have
said, the correlation between the anatomical findings and the psychological picture of the
disease is so loose that it is extremely desirable to study the psychological side of it
thoroughly.

Part I
Psychiatry is the stepchild of medicine. All the other branches of medicine have one great
advantage over it—the scientific methods can be applied; there are things to be seen, and felt,
physical and chemical methods of investigation to be followed: the microscope shows the
dreaded bacillus, the surgeon's knife halts at no difficulty and gives us glimpses of most
inaccessible organs of vital importance. Psychiatry, which engages in the exploration of the
mind, stands ever at the door seeking in vain to weigh and measure as in the other
departments of science. We have long known that we have to do with a definite organ, the
brain; but only beyond the brain, beyond the morphological basis do we reach what is
important for us—the mind; as indefinable as it ever was, still eluding any explanation, no
matter how ingenious. Former ages, endowing the mind with substance, and personifying
every incomprehensible occurrence in nature, regarded mental disorder as the work of evil
spirits; the patient was looked upon as one possessed, and the methods of treatment were such
as fitted this conception. This mediæval conception occasionally gains credence and
expression even to-day. A classical example is the driving out of the devil which the elder
Pastor Blumhardt carried out successfully in the famous case of Gottlieb in Deltus.[196] To the
honour of the Middle Ages let it also be said that there are to be found early evidences of a
sound rationalism. In the sixteenth century at the Julius Hospital in Würzburg mental patients
were already treated side by side with others physically ill, and the treatment seems to have
been really humane. With the opening of the modern era, and with the dawn of the first
scientific ideas, the original barbaric personification of the unknown Great Power gradually
disappeared. A change arose in the conception of mental disease in favour of a more
philosophic moral attitude. The old view that every misfortune was the revenge of the
offended gods returned new-clothed to fit the times. Just as physical diseases can, in many
cases, be regarded as self-inflicted on account of negligence, mental diseases were likewise
considered to be due to some moral injury, or sin. Behind this conception the angry godhead
also stood. Such views played a great rôle, right up to the beginning of last century, especially
in Germany. In France, however, about the same time a new idea was appearing, destined to
sway psychiatry for a hundred years. Pinel, whose statue fittingly stands at the gateway of the
Salpetrière in Paris, took away the chains from the insane and thus freed them from the
symbol of the criminal. In a very real way he formulated for the world the humane and
scientific conception of modern times. A little later Esquirol and Bayle discovered that certain
forms of insanity ended in death, after a relatively short time, and that certain constant
changes in the brain could be demonstrated post mortem. Esquirol had described as an entity
general paralysis of the insane, or as it was popularly called "softening of the brain," a disease
which is always bound up with chronic inflammatory degeneration of the cerebral matter.
Thus was laid the foundation of the dogma which you will find repeated in every text-book of
psychiatry, viz. "diseases of the mind are diseases of the brain." Confirmation of this
conception was added about the same time by Gall's discoveries which traced partial or
complete loss of the power of speech—a psychical capacity—to a lesion in the region of the
left lower frontal convolution. Somewhat later this view proved to be of general applicability.
Innumerable cases of extreme idiocy or other intense mental disorders were found to be
caused by tumours of the brain. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Wernicke (recently
deceased) localised the speech centre in the left temporal lobe. This epoch-making discovery
raised hopes to the highest pitch. It was expected that at no distant day every characteristic
and every psychical activity would be assigned a place in the cortical grey matter. Gradually,
increased attempts were made to trace the primary mental changes in the psychoses back to
certain parallel changes in the brain. Meynert, the famous Viennese psychiatrist, described a
formal scheme in which the alteration in blood-supply in certain regions was to play the chief
part in the origin of the psychoses. Wernicke made a similar but far more ingenious attempt at
a morphological explanation of psychical disorders. The visible result of this tendency is seen
in the fact that even the smallest and least renowned asylum has, to-day, its anatomical
laboratory where cerebral sections are cut, stained, and microscoped. Our numerous
psychiatric journals are full of morphological contributions, investigations into the structure
and distribution of cells in the cortex, and other varying source of disorders in the different
mental diseases.
Psychiatry has come into fame as gross materialism. And quite rightly, for it is on the road—
or rather reached it long ago—to put the organ, the instrument, above function. Function has
become the dependent accessory of its organs, the mind the dependent accessory of the brain.
In modern mental therapy the mind has been the loser, whilst great progress has been made in
cerebral anatomy; of the mind we know less than nothing. Current psychiatry behaves like a
man who thinks he can unriddle the meaning and importance of a building by a mineralogical
investigation of its stones. Let us attempt to realise in which mental diseases obvious changes
in the brain are found, and what is their proportion.
In the last four years we have received 1325 patients at Burgholzi;[197] 331 a year. Of these 9
per cent. suffered from congenital psychic anomalies. By this is understood a certain inborn
defect of the psyche. Of these 9 per cent., about a quarter were imbeciles. Here we meet
certain changes in the brain such as microcephalus, hydrocephalus, malformations or absence
of portions of the brain. The remaining three-quarters of these congenital defects present no
typical changes in the brain.
Three per cent. of our patients suffer from epileptic mental troubles. In the course of epilepsy
there arises gradually a typical degeneration of the brain. The degeneration is, however, only
discoverable in severe cases and when the disease has existed for some time. If the attacks
have only existed for a relatively short time, not more than a few years, the brain as a rule
shows nothing. Seventeen per cent. of our patients suffer from progressive paralysis and
senile dementia. Both diseases present characteristic changes in the brain. In paralysis there is
most extensive shrinkage of the brain, so that the cortex is often reduced by one half. The
frontal portions of the brain more especially, may be reduced to a third of the normal weight.
There is a similar destruction of substance in senile decay.
Fourteen per cent. of the patients annually received are cases of poisoning, at least 13 per
cent. of these being due to alcohol. As a rule in slight cases nothing is to be found in the
brain; in only a relatively few severe cases is there shrinkage of the cortex, generally of slight
degree. The number of these severe cases amounts to less than 1 per cent. of the yearly cases
of alcoholism.
Six per cent. of the patients suffer from so-called maniacal depressive insanity which includes
the maniacs and the melancholics. The essence of this disease is readily intelligible to the
public. Melancholia is a condition of abnormal sadness without disorder of intelligence or
memory. Mania is the opposite, the rule being an abnormally excited state with great
restlessness; likewise without deep disturbance of intelligence and memory. In this disease
there are no demonstrable morphological changes in the brain.
Forty-five per cent. of the patients suffer from the real and common mental disease called
dementia præcox. The name is a very unhappy one, for the dementia is not always
precocious, nor in all cases is there dementia. Unfortunately the disease is too often incurable;
even in the best cases, in those that recover, where the outside public would not observe any
abnormality, there is always present some defect in the emotional life. The picture presented
by the disease is extraordinarily diverse; generally there is some disorder of feeling,
frequently delusions and hallucinations. As a rule there is nothing to be found in the brain.
Even in cases of a most severe type, lasting for years, an intact brain is not infrequently found
post mortem. In a few cases only certain slight changes are present which, however, cannot as
yet be reduced to any law.
To sum up: in round figures a quarter of our insane patients show more or less clearly
extensive changes and destruction of the brain, while three-fourths have a brain which seems
to be generally unimpaired or at most exhibit such changes as give no explanation of the
psychological disturbance.
These figures offer the best possible proof that the purely morphological view-point of
modern psychiatry leads only very indirectly, if at all, to the understanding of the mental
disorder, which is our aim. We must take into account the fact that those mental diseases
which show the most marked disturbances of the brain end in death; for this reason the
chronic inmates of the asylum form its real population, consisting of some 70 to 80 per cent.
of cases of dementia præcox, that is, of patients in whom anatomical changes are practically
non-existent. The psychiatry of the future must come to grips with the core of the thing; the
path is thus made clear—it can only be by way of psychology. Hence in our Zürich clinic we
have entirely discarded the anatomical view and turned to the psychological investigation of
insanity. As most of our patients suffer from dementia præcox we were naturally concerned
with this as our chief problem.
The older asylum physicians paid great attention to the psychological precursors of mental
disorder, just as the public still does, following a true instinct. We accepted this hint and
carefully investigated the previous psychological history wherever possible. Our trouble was
richly rewarded, for we often found, to our surprise, that the disease broke out at a moment of
some great emotion which, in its turn, had arisen in a so-called normal way. We found,
moreover, that in the mental disease which ensued a number of symptoms occurred which it
was quite labour in vain to study from the morphological standpoint. These same symptoms,
however, were comprehensible when considered from the standpoint of the individual's
previous history. Freud's fundamental investigations into the psychology of hysteria and
dreams afforded us the greatest stimulus and help in our work.
A few instances of the latest method in psychiatry will make the subject clearer than mere dry
theory. In order to bring home to you the difference in our conception I will first describe the
medical history in the older fashion, and subsequently give the solution characteristic of the
new departure.
The case to be considered is that of a cook aged 32; she had no hereditary taint, was always
industrious and conscientious, and had never been noticeable for eccentric behaviour or the
like. Quite recently she became acquainted with a young man whom she wished to marry.
From that time on she began to show certain peculiarities. She often spoke of his not liking
her much, was frequently out of sorts, ill-tempered, and sat alone brooding; once she
ornamented her Sunday hat very strikingly with red and green feathers, another day she
bought a pair of pince-nez in order to wear them when she went out walking with her fiancé.
One day the sudden idea that her teeth were rather ugly would not let her rest, and she
resolved to get a plate, although there was no absolute need. She had all her teeth out under
an anæsthetic. The night after the operation she suddenly had a severe anxiety-attack. She
cried and moaned that she was damned for ever, for she had committed a great sin; she should
not have allowed her teeth to be extracted. People must pray for her, that God might pardon
her sin. In vain her friends attempted to talk her out of her fears, to assure her that the
extraction of teeth was really no sin; it availed nothing. At day-break she became somewhat
quieter; she worked throughout the day. On following nights the attacks were repeated. When
consulted by the patient I found her quiet, but she wore a rather vacant expression. I talked to
her about the operation, and she assured me it was not so dreadful to have teeth extracted, but
still it was a great sin, from which position, despite every persuasion, she could not be moved.
She continually repeated in plaintive, pathetic tones, "I should not have allowed my teeth to
be extracted; oh yes, that was a great sin which God will never forgive me." She gave the
impression of real insanity. A few days later her condition grew worse, and she had to be
brought into the asylum. The anxiety-attack had extended and was persistent, and the mental
disorder lasted for months.
The history shows a series of entirely unrelated symptoms. Why all the queer story of the hat
and pince-nez? Why those anxiety-attacks? Why this delusion that the extraction of her teeth
was an unpardonable sin? Nothing here is clear. The morphologically-minded psychiatrist
would say: This is just a typical case of dementia præcox; it is the essence of insanity, of
madness, to talk of nothing but mysteries; the standpoint of the diseased mind towards the
world is displaced, is "mad." What is no sin for the normal, the patient finds a sin. It is a
bizarre delusion characteristic of dementia præcox. The extravagant lamentation about this
supposed sin is what is known as "inadequate"[198] emotional emphasis. The queer
ornamentation of the hat, the pince-nez, are bizarre notions such as are very common in these
patients. Somewhere in the brain certain cells have fallen into disorder, and manufacture
illogical, senseless ideas of one kind and another which are quite without psychological
meaning. The patient is obviously a hereditary degenerate with a weak brain, having a kink
which is the origin of the disorder. For some reason or other the disease has suddenly broken
out. It could just as easily have broken out at any other time. Perhaps we should have had to
capitulate to these arguments had real psychological analysis not come to our aid. In filling up
the certificate required for her removal to the asylum, it transpired that many years ago she
had had an affair which terminated; her lover left her with an illegitimate child. Nobody had
been told of this. When she was again in love a dilemma arose, and she asked herself, What
will this new lover say about it? At first she postponed the marriage, becoming more and
more worried, and then the eccentricities began. To understand these we must immerse
ourselves in the psychology of a naïve soul. If we have to disclose some painful secret to a
beloved person we try first to strengthen his love in order to obtain beforehand a guarantee of
his forgiveness. We do it by flattery or by caresses, or we try to impress the value of our own
personality in order to raise it in the eyes of the other. Our patient decked herself out with
beautiful feathers, which to her simple taste seemed precious. The wearing of "pince-nez"
increases the respect of children even of a mature age. And who does not know people who
will have their teeth extracted, out of pure vanity, in order that they may wear a plate to
improve their appearance?
After such an operation most people have a slight, nervous reaction, and then everything
becomes more difficult to bear. This was, as a matter of fact, just the moment when the
catastrophe did occur, in her terror lest her fiancé should break with her when he heard of her
previous life. That was the first anxiety-attack. Just as the patient had not acknowledged her
secret in all these years, so she now sought to guard it, and shifted the fear in her guilty
conscience on to the extraction of the teeth; she thus followed a method well known to us, for
when we dare not acknowledge some great sin we deplore some small sin with the greater
emphasis.
The problem seemed insoluble to the weak and sensitive mind of the patient, hence the affect
became insurmountably great; this is the mental desire as presented from the psychological
side. The series of apparently meaningless events, the so-called madness, have now a
meaning; a significance appertains to the delusions, making the patient more human to us.
Here is a person like ourselves, beset by universal human problems, no longer merely a
cerebral machine thrown out of gear. Hitherto we thought that the insane patient revealed
nothing to us by symptoms, save the senseless products of his disordered cerebral cells, but
that was academic wisdom reeking of the study. When we penetrate into the human secrets of
our patients, we recognise mental disease to be an unusual reaction to emotional problems
which are in no wise foreign to ourselves, and the delusion discloses the psychological
system upon which it is based.
The light which shines forth from this conception seems to us so enormously powerful
because it forces us into the innermost depths of that tremendous disorder which is most
common in our asylums, and hitherto least understood; by reason of the craziness of the
symptoms it is the type that strikes the public as madness in excelsis.
The case which I have just sketched is a simple one. It is transparent. My second example is
somewhat more complicated. It is the case of a man between 30 and 40 years of age; he is a
foreign archæologist of great learning and most unusual intelligence. He was a precocious
boy of quite excellent character, great sensitiveness and rare gifts. Physically he was small,
always weakly, and a stammerer. He grew up and was educated abroad, and afterwards
studied for several terms at B——. So far there had been no disorder of any kind. On the
completion of his university career he became zealously absorbed in his archæological work,
which gradually engulfed him to such an extent that he was dead to the world and all its
pleasures. He worked incessantly, and buried himself entirely in his books. He became quite
unsociable; before, awkward and shy in society, he now fled from it altogether, and saw no
one beyond a few friends. He thus led the life of a hermit devoted entirely to science. A few
years later, on a holiday tour, he revisited B——, where he remained a few days. He walked a
great deal in the environs of the town. His few acquaintances now found him somewhat
strange, taciturn, and nervous. After a somewhat protracted walk he seemed tired, and said
that he did not feel very well. He then remarked he must get himself hypnotised, he felt his
nerves unsteady. On top of this he was attacked by physical illness, viz. inflammation of the
lungs. Very soon a peculiar state of excitement supervened which led to suicidal ideas. He
was brought to the asylum, where for weeks he remained in an extremely excited state. He
was completely deranged, and did not know where he was; he spoke in broken sentences
which no one could understand. He was often so excited and aggressive that it took several
attendants to hold him. He gradually became quieter, and one day came to himself, as if
waking out of a long, confused dream. He soon completely regained his health, and was
discharged as cured. He returned to his home and again immersed himself in books. In the
following years he published several remarkable works, but, as before, his life was that of a
hermit living entirely in his books and dead to the world. He then gradually acquired the
name of a dried-up misanthrope, lost to all meaning of the beauty of life. A few years after his
first illness a brief holiday brought him again to B——. As before he took his solitary walks
in the environs. One day he was suddenly overcome by a faint feeling, and lay down in the
street. He was carried into a neighbouring house where he immediately became extremely
excited. He began to perform gymnastics, jumped over the rails of the bed, turned somersaults
in the room, began to declaim in a loud, voice, sang his own improvisations, etc. He was
again brought to the asylum. The excitement continued. He extolled his wonderful muscles,
his beautiful figure, his enormous strength. He believed that he had discovered a natural law
by which a wonderful voice could be developed. He regarded himself as a great singer, and a
marvellous reciter, and at the same time he was a great inspired poet and composer to whom
verse and melody came spontaneously.
All this was in pitiable and very remarkable contrast to reality. He is a small weakly man of
unimposing build, with poorly developed muscles betraying at the first glance the atrophying
effect of his studious life. He is unmusical, his voice is weak and he sings out of tune; he is a
bad speaker, because of his stutter. For weeks he occupied himself in the asylum with peculiar
jumping, and contortions of the body which he called gymnastics, he sang and declaimed.
Then he became more quiet and dreamy, often stared thoughtfully in front of him for a long
time, now and then sang a love song which, despite its want of musical expression, betrayed a
pretty feeling for love's aspirations. This also was in complete contrast with the dryness and
isolation of his normal life. He gradually became accessible for lengthy conversations.
We will break off the history of the disease here, and sum up what is furnished so far by
observation of the patient.
In the first illness the delirium broke out unexpectedly, and was followed by a mental disorder
with confused ideas and violence which lasted for several weeks. Complete recovery
appeared to have taken place. Six years later there was a sudden outbreak of mania, grandiose
delusions, bizarre actions, followed by a twilight-stage gradually leading to recovery. Here we
again see a typical case of dementia præcox, of the katatonic variety, especially characterised
by peculiar movements and actions. In psychiatry the views obtaining at present would regard
this as localised cellular disease of some part of the cortex, exhibiting confusional states,
delusions of grandeur, peculiar contortions of the muscles, or twilight-states, which taken all
together have as little psychological meaning as the bizarre shapes of a drop of lead thrown
into water.
This is not my view. It was certainly no accidental freak of the brain-cells that created the
dramatic contrasts shown in the second illness. We can see that these contrasts, the so-called
grandiose delusions, were very subtly determined by the deficiencies in the patient's
personality. Without doubt, any one of us would naturally regard these deficiencies seriously
in ourselves. Who would not have the desire to find compensation for the aridness of his
profession and of his life in the joys of poetry and music and to restore to his body the natural
power and beauty stolen from it by the study's atmosphere? Do we not recall with envy the
energy of a Demosthenes who, despite his stammering, became a great orator? If our patient
thus fulfilled the obvious gaps in his physical and mental life by delusional wishes, the
supposition is warranted that the whispered love-song which he sang from time to time filled
up a painful blank in his being, which became more painful the more it was concealed. The
explanation is not far to seek. It is simply the old story, born anew in every human soul, in a
guise befitting the destined creature's highest sensibilities.
When our patient was a student he learnt to know and love a girl-student. Together they made
many excursions in the environs of the town, but his exceeding timidity and bashfulness (the
lot of the stammerer) never permitted him an opportunity of getting out the appropriate
words. Moreover, he was poor and had nothing to offer her but hopes. The time came for the
termination of his studies; she went away, and he also, and they never saw one another again.
And not long afterwards he heard she had married some one else. Then he relinquished his
hopes, but he did not know that Eros never emancipates his slaves.
He buried himself in abstract learning, not to forget, but to work for her in his thoughts. He
wanted to keep the love in his heart quite secret, and never to betray that secret. He would
dedicate his works to her without her ever knowing it. The compromise succeeded, but not for
long. Once he travelled through the town where he heard she lived—it seems to have been an
accident that he travelled through that town. He did not leave the train, which only made a
short halt there. From the window he saw standing in the distance a young woman with a
little child, and thought it was she. Impossible to say whether it was really so or not. He does
not think he felt any peculiar feeling at that moment; anyway he gave himself no trouble to
ascertain whether it was she, which makes the presumption strong that it was not really she.
The unconscious wanted to be left in peace with its illusion. Shortly afterwards he again came
to B——, the place of old memories. Then he felt something strange stir in his soul, an
uneasy feeling, akin to Nietzsche's—
 "Not for long shalt thou thirst, O burning heart!
There is promise in the air,
Winds come to me from unknown mouths—
The healing coolness comes."

Civilised man no longer believes in demons, he calls in the doctor. Our patient wanted to be
hypnotised. Then madness overcame him. What was going on in him?
He answered this question in broken sentences, with long pauses, in that twilight-stage that
heralds convalescence. I give as faithfully as may be his own words. When he fell ill he
suddenly lost the well-regulated world and found himself in the chaos of an overmastering
dream, a sea of blood and fire; the world was out of joint; everywhere conflagration, volcanic
outbreaks, earthquakes, mountains fell in, followed by enormous battles where the peoples
fell upon one another; he became involved more and more in the battle of nature, he was right
in the midst of those fighting, wrestling, defending himself, enduring unutterable misery and
pain; gradually he was exalted and strengthened by a strange calming feeling that some one
was watching his struggles, that his loved one saw all from afar. That was the time when he
showed real violence to the attendants. He felt his strength increasing and saw himself at the
head of great armies which he would lead to victory. Then more great battles and at length
victory. He would try to get his loved one as prize of victory. As he drew near her the illness
ceased, and he awoke from a long dream.
His daily life again began to follow the regular routine. He shut himself up in his work and
forgot the abyss within himself. A few years later he is again at B—— Demon or Destiny?
Again he followed the old trail and again was overborne by old memories. But this time he
was not immersed in the depths of confusion. He remained orientated and en rapport with his
surroundings. The struggle was considerably milder, but he did gymnastics, practised the arts,
and made good his deficiencies; then followed the dreamy stage with the love-songs,
corresponding to the period of victory in the first psychosis. In this state, according to his own
words, he had a dreamlike feeling as if he stood upon the borders of two worlds and knew not
whether truth stood on the right or on the left. He told me, "It is said she is married, but I
believe she is not, but is still waiting for me; I feel that it must be so. It is ever to me as if she
were not married, and as if success were yet attainable."
Our patient here portrayed but a pale copy of the scene in the first attack of psychosis, when
he, the victor, stood before his mistress. In the course of a few weeks after this conversation
the scientific interests of the patient again began to predominate. He spoke with obvious
unwillingness about his intimate life, he repressed it more and more, and finally turned away
from it as if it did not belong to himself. Thus gradually the gate of the under-world became
closed. There remained nothing but a certain tense expression, and a look which, though fixed
on the outer world, was turned inwards at the same time; and this alone hinted at the silent
activity of the unconscious, preparing new solutions for his insoluble problem. This is the so-
called cure in dementia præcox.
Hitherto we psychiatrists used not to be able to suppress a laugh when we read an artist's
attempts to portray a psychosis. These attempts have been generally regarded as quite useless,
for the writer introduces into his conception of the psychosis psychological relationships quite
foreign to the clinical picture of the disease. But the artist has not simply proceeded to copy a
case out of a psychiatric text-book; he knows as a rule better than the psychiatrist.
The case which I have sketched is not unique, it is typical of a whole class for which the artist
Spitteler has created a model of universal validity; the model is Imago. I may take for granted
that you know his book of that name. The psychological gulf, however, between the creation
of the artist and the insane person is great. The world of the artist is one of solved problems;
the world of reality, that of unsolved problems. The mental patient is a faithful image of this
reality. His solutions are unsatisfying illusions, his cure a temporary giving up of the problem,
which yet goes on working in the depths of the unconscious, and at the appointed time again
rises to the surface and creates new illusions with new scenery; part of the history of mankind
is here seen abridged.
Psychological analysis is far from being able to explain in complete and illuminating fashion
all cases of the disease with which we are here concerned. On the contrary, the majority
remain obscure and difficult to understand, and chiefly because only a certain proportion of
patients recover. Our last patient is noteworthy because his return to a normal state afforded
us a survey of the period of his illness. Unfortunately the advantage of this standpoint is not
always possible to us, for a great number of persons never find their way back from their
dreams. They are lost in the maze of a magic garden where the same old story is repeated
again and again in a timeless present. For patients the hands of the clock of the world remain
stationary; there is no time, no further development. It makes no difference to them whether
they dream for two days or thirty years. I had a patient in my ward who was five years
without uttering a word, in bed, and entirely buried in himself. For years I visited him twice
daily, and as I reached his bedside I could see at once that there was no change. One day I
was just about to leave the room when a voice I did not recognise called out—"Who are you?
What do you want here?" I saw with astonishment that it was the dumb patient who had
suddenly regained his voice, and obviously his senses also. I told him I was his doctor,
whereupon he asked angrily, why was he kept a prisoner here, and why did no one ever speak
to him? He said this in an injured voice just like a normal person whom one had neglected for
a couple of days. I informed him that he had been in bed quite speechless for five years and
had responded to nothing, whereat he looked at me fixedly and without understanding.
Naturally I tried to discover what had gone on in him during these five years, but could learn
nothing. Another patient with a similar symptom, when asked why he had remained silent for
years, maintained, "Because I wanted to spare the German language."[199] These examples
show that it is often impossible to lift the veil of the secret, for the patients themselves have
neither interest nor pleasure in explaining their strange experiences, in which as a rule they
realise nothing peculiar.
Occasionally the symptoms themselves are a sign-post to the understanding of the psychology
of the disease.
We had a patient who was for thirty-five years an inmate at Burghölzli. For decades she lay in
bed, she never spoke or reacted to anything, her head was always bowed, her back bent and
the knees somewhat drawn up. She was always making peculiar rubbing movements with her
hands, so as to give rise during the course of years to thick horny patches on her hands. She
kept the thumb and index finger of her right hand together as in the movement of sewing.
When she died I tried to discover what she had been formerly. Nobody in the asylum recalled
ever having seen her out of bed. Only our chief attendant had a memory of having seen her
sitting in the same attitude as that she afterwards took up in bed, at which time she was
making rapid movements of extension of the arm across the right knee; it was said of her that
she was sewing shoes, later that she was polishing shoes. As time went on the movements
became more limited till finally there remained but a slight rubbing movement, and only the
finger and thumb retained the sewing position. In vain I consulted our old attendant, she knew
nothing about the patient's previous history. When the seventy-year-old brother came to the
funeral I asked him what had been the cause of his sister's illness; he told me that she had had
a love-affair, but for various reasons it had come to nothing. The girl had taken this so to heart
that she became low-spirited. In answer to a query about her lover it was found that he was a
shoemaker.
Unless you see here some strange play of accident, you must agree that the patient had kept
the memory-picture of her lover unaltered in her heart for thirty-five years.
One might easily think that these patients who give an impression of imbecility are only
burnt-out ruins of humanity. But such is probably not the case. One can often prove directly
that such patients register everything going on around them even with a certain curiosity, and
have an excellent memory for it all. This is the reason why many patients become for a time
pretty sensible again, and develop mental powers which one believed they had long since lost.
Such intervals occur occasionally during serious physical disease, or just before death. We
had a patient with whom it was impossible to carry on a sane conversation; he only produced
a mad medley of delusions and words. He once fell seriously ill physically, and I expected it
would be very difficult to treat him. Not at all. He was quite changed, he became friendly and
amiable, and carried out all his doctor's orders patiently and gratefully. His eyes lost their evil
darting looks, and shone quietly and understandingly. One morning I came to his room with
the usual greeting: "Good morning. How are you getting on?" The patient answered me in the
well-known way: "There again comes one of the dog and monkey troupe wanting to play the
Saviour." Then I knew his physical trouble was over. From that moment the whole of his
reason was as if "blown away" again.
From these observations we see that reason still survives, but is pushed away into some
corner by the complete preoccupation of the mind with diseased thoughts.
Why is the mind compelled to exhaust itself in the elaboration of diseased nonsense? On this
difficult question our new insight throws considerable light. To-day we can say that the
pathological images dominate the interests of the patient so completely, because they are
simply derivatives of the most important questions that used to occupy the person when
normal—what in insanity is now an incomprehensible maze of symptoms used to be fields of
vital interest to the former personality.
I will cite as an example a patient who was twenty years in the asylum. She was always a
puzzle to the physicians, for the absurdity of her delusions exceeded anything that the boldest
imagination could create.
She was a dressmaker by trade, born in 1845, of very poor family. Her sister early went
wrong and was finally lost in the swamp of prostitution. The patient herself led an
industrious, respectable, reserved life. She fell ill in 1886 in her 39th year—at the threshold of
the age when so many a dream is brought to naught. Her illness consisted in delusions and
hallucinations which increased rapidly, and soon became so absurd that no one could
understand her wishes and complaints. In 1887 she came to the asylum. In 1888 her
statements, so far as the delusions were concerned, were not intelligible. She maintained such
monstrous things as that: "At night her spinal marrow had been torn out; pains in the back had
been caused by substances that went through the walls and were covered with magnetism."
"The monopoly fixed the sorrows which are not in the body and do not fly about in the air."
"Excursions are made by breathing in chemistry, and by suffocation regions are destroyed."
In 1892 the patient styled herself the "Bank Note Monopoly, Queen of the Orphans,
Proprietress of the Burghölzli Asylum;" she said: "Naples and I must provide the world with
macaroni" (Nudel).
In 1896 she became "Germania and Helvetia from exclusively pure butter"; she also said, "I
am Noah's Ark, the boat of salvation and respect."
Since then the disease has greatly increased; her last creation is the delusion that she is the
"lily red sea monster and the blue one."
These instances will show you how far the incomprehensibility of such pathological
formations go. Our patient was for years the classic example of meaningless delusional ideas
in dementia præcox; and many hundreds of medical students have received from the
demonstration of this case a permanent impression of the sinister power of insanity. But even
this case has not withstood the newer technique of psychoanalysis. What the patient says is
not at all meaningless; it is full of significance, so that he who has the key can understand
without overmuch difficulty.
Time does not allow me to describe the technique by means of which I succeeded in lifting
the veil of her secret. I must content myself by giving a few examples to make the strange
changes of thought and of speech in this patient clear to you.
She said of herself that she was Socrates. The analysis of this delusion presented the
following ideas: Socrates was the wisest man, the man of greatest learning; he was
infamously accused, and had to die in prison at the hands of strange men. She was the best
dressmaker, but "never unnecessarily cut a thread, and never allowed a piece of material to lie
about on the floor." She worked ceaselessly, and now she has been falsely accused, wicked
men have shut her up, and she will have to die in the asylum.
Therefore she is Socrates; this is, as you see, simple metaphor, based upon obvious analogy.
Take another example: "I am the finest professor and the finest artist in the world."
The analysis furnishes the remarks that she is the best dressmaker and chooses the most
beautiful models which show up well and waste little material; she puts on the trimming only
where it can be seen. She is a professor, and an artist in her work. She makes the best clothes
and calls them absurdly "The Schnecke Museum-clothes." Her customers are only such
persons as frequent the Schnecke House and the Museum (the Schnecke House is the
aristocratic club. It is near the Museum and the Library, another rendezvous of the aristocratic
set of Zürich), for she is the best dressmaker and makes only Schnecke Museum[200] clothing.
The patient also calls herself Mary Stuart. Analysis showed the same analogy as with
Socrates: innocent suffering and death of a heroine.
"I am the Lorelei." Analysis: This is an old and well-known song: "I know not what it
means," etc. Whenever she wants to speak about her affairs people do not understand her, and
say they don't know what it means; hence she is the Lorelei.
"I am Switzerland." Analysis: Switzerland is free, no one can rob Switzerland of her freedom.
The patient does not belong to the asylum, she would be free like Switzerland, hence she is
Switzerland.
"I am a crane." Analysis: In the "Cranes of Ibykus" it is said: "Whosoever is free of sin and
fault shall preserve the pure soul of a child." She has been brought innocent to the asylum and
has never committed a crime—hence she is a crane.
"I am Schiller's Bell." Analysis: Schiller's Bell is the greatest work of the great master. She is
the best and most industrious dressmaker, and has achieved the highest rung in the art of
dressmaking—hence she is Schiller's Bell.
"I am Hufeland." Analysis: Hufeland was the best doctor. She suffers intolerably in the
asylum and is moreover treated by the worst doctors. She is, however, so prominent a
personality that she had a claim to the best doctors, that is to a doctor like Hufeland—hence
she is Hufeland.
The patient used the expression "I am" in a very arbitrary way. Sometimes it meant "it
belongs to me" or "it is proper for me"; sometimes it means "I should have." This is seen from
the following analysis:
"I am the master-key." Analysis: The master-key is the key that opens all the doors of the
asylum. Properly, according to all rights, the patient should long since have obtained this key
for she has been for many years "the proprietress of the Burghölzli Asylum." She expresses
this reflection very much simplified in the sentence, "I am the master-key."
The chief content of her delusions is concentrated in the following words:—
"I am the monopoly." Analysis: The patient means the banknote monopoly, which has
belonged to her for some time. She believes that she possesses the monopoly of the entire
bank notes of the world, thus creating enormous riches for herself, in compensation for the
poverty and lowliness of her lot. Her parents died early; hence she is the Queen of the
Orphans. Her parents lived and died in great poverty. Her blessings are extended to them also,
the dreamlike delusions of the patient benefit them in many ways. She says textually: "My
parents are clothed by me, my sorely-tried mother, full of sorrow—I sat with her at table—
covered in white with superfluity."
This is another of these malleable hallucinations which the patient had daily. It is one of those
scenes of wish-fulfilment, with poverty on one side and riches on the other, recalling
Hauptmann's Hannele; more especially that scene where Gottwald says: "She was clothed in
rags—now she is bedeckt in silken robes; and she ran about barefoot—now she has shoes of
glass to her feet. Soon she will live in a golden castle and eat each day of baked meats. Here
has she lived on cold potatoes...."
The wish-fulfilments of our patient go even further. Switzerland has to furnish her with an
income of 150,000 francs. The Director of the Burghölzli owes her 80,000 francs damages for
wrongful incarceration. She is the proprietress of a distant island with silver mines, the
"mightiest silver island in the world." Therefore she is also the greatest orator, possesses the
most wonderful eloquence, for, as she says, "Speech is silver, silence gold." To her all the
beautiful landed estates belong—all the rich quarters, towns and lands, she is the proprietress
of a world, even a "threefold proprietress of the world." Whilst poor Hannele was only
elevated to the side of the Heavenly Bridegroom, our patient has the "Key of Heaven," she is
not only the honoured earthly queens Mary Stuart and Queen Louise of Prussia, but she is
also the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of God as well as the Godhead. Even in this earthly
world where she was but a poor, ill-regarded homely dressmaker she attained fulfilments of
her human wishes, for she had taken three husbands from the best families in the town and
her fourth was the Emperor Francis. From these marriages there were two phantom children
—a little boy and a little girl. Just as she clothed, fed and feasted her parents, so she provided
for the future of her children. To her son she bequeathed the great bazaar of Zürich, therefore
her son is a "Zur," for the proprietor of a Bazaar is a "Zur." The daughter resembles her
mother; hence she becomes the proprietress of the asylum and takes her mother's place so that
the mother is released from captivity. The daughter therefore receives the title of "Agency of
Socrates," for she replaces Socrates in captivity.
These instances by no means exhaust the delusional fancies of the patient. But they will give
you some idea, I hope, of the richness of her inner life although she was apparently so dull
and apathetic, or, as was said imbecile, and sat for twenty years in her workroom, where she
mechanically repaired her linen, occasionally uttering a complex of meaningless fragments
which no one had hitherto been able to understand. Her odd lack of words can now be seen in
another light; they are fragments of enigmatical inscriptions, of fairy-story phantasies, which
have escaped from the hard world to found a world of their own. Here the tables are ever
laden, and a thousand feasts are celebrated in golden palaces. The patient can only spare a
few mysterious symbols for the gloomy dim shores of reality; they need not be understood,
for our understanding has not been necessary for her for this long time.
Nor is this patient at all unique. She is one of a type. Similar phantasies are always found in
patients of this kind, though not always in such profusion.
The parallels with Hauptmann's Hannele show that here likewise the artist has shown us the
way with the free creation of his own phantasy. From this coincidence, which is not
accidental, we may conclude that there is something common both to the artist and the insane
and not to them alone. Every human being has also within himself that restless creative
phantasy which is ever engaged in assuaging the harshness of reality. Whoever gives himself
unsparingly and carefully to self-observation, will realise that there dwells within him
something which would gladly hide and cover up all that is difficult and questionable in life,
and thus procure an easy and free path. Insanity grants the upper hand to this something.
When once it is uppermost, reality is more or less quickly driven out. It becomes a distant
dream, and the dream which enchains the patient wholly or in part, and often for life, has now
the attributes of reality. We normal persons, who have to do entirely with reality, see only the
products of disordered fancy, but not the wealth of that side of the mind which is turned away
from us. Unfortunately only too often no further knowledge reaches us of the things which
are transpiring on that other side, because all the bridges are broken down which unite this
side with that.
We do not know to-day whether these new views are of universal or only of limited validity;
the more carefully and perseveringly we examine our patients, the more we shall meet cases,
which, despite apparent total imbecility, will yet afford us at least some fragmentary insight
into the obscurities of the psychical life. This life is far removed from that mental poverty
which the prevailing theories were compelled to accept.
However far we are from being able to understand fully the concatenations of that obscure
world, at least we may maintain, with complete assurance, that in dementia præcox there is no
symptom which can be described as psychologically baseless and meaningless. The most
absurd things are in reality symbols of ideas which are not only generally understandable, but
also universally operative in the human heart. In insanity we do not discover anything new
and unknown, but we look at the foundation of our own being, the source of those life-
problems in which we are all engaged.

Part II.[201]
The number of psychoanalytic investigations into the psychology of dementia præcox has
considerably increased since the publication of my book upon the subject.[202] When, in 1903,
I made the first analysis of a case of dementia præcox, there dawned on me a premonition of
the possibilities of future discoveries in this sphere. This has been confirmed.
Freud first submitted a case of paranoid dementia to closer psychological investigation.[203]
This he was enabled to do by means of an analytic technique perfected through his rich
experiences with neurotics. He selected the famous autobiography of P. Schreber,
"Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken." The patient could not be analysed personally, but
having published his most interesting autobiography all the material wanted for an analysis
was to be found in it.
In this study Freud shows out of what infantile forms of thought and instincts the delusional
system was built up. The peculiar delusions which the patient had about his doctor whom he
identified with God or with a god-like being, and certain other surprising and really
blasphemous ideas, Freud was able to reduce most ingeniously to his infantile relationship to
his father. This case also presented similar bizarre and grotesque concatenations of ideas to
the one I have described. As the author himself says, his work confines itself to the task of
pointing out those universally existent and undifferentiated foundations out of which we may
say every psychological formation is historically developed.[204] This reductive analytical
process did not, however, furnish such enlightening results in regard to the rich and surprising
symbolism in patients of this kind as we had been accustomed to expect from the same
method in the realm of the psychology of hysteria. In reading certain works of the Zürich
school, for example, Maeder,[205] Spielrein,[206] Nelken,[207] Grebelskaja,[208] Itten,[209] one is
powerfully impressed by the enormous symbol-formation in dementia præcox.
Some of the authors still proceed essentially by the method of analytic reduction, tracing back
the complicated delusional formation into its simpler and more universal components, as I
have done in the preceding pages. One cannot, however, resist the feeling that this method
hardly does justice to the fulness and the almost overpowering wealth of phantastic symbol-
formation, although it does undoubtedly throw a light upon the subject in certain directions.
Let me illustrate with an example. We should be thankful for a commentary upon "Faust"
which traced back all the diverse material of Part II. to its historical sources, or for a
psychological analysis of Part I. which pointed out how the dramatic conflict corresponds to a
personal conflict in the soul of the poet; we should be glad of an exposition which pointed out
how this subjective conflict is itself based upon those ultimate and universal human things
which are nowise foreign to us since we all carry the seeds of them in our hearts.
Nevertheless we should be a little disappointed. We do not read "Faust" just in order to
discover that also we are, in all things, "human, all too human." Alas, we know that but too
well already. Let any one who has not yet learnt it go for a little while out into the world and
look at it without preconceptions and with open eyes. He will turn back from the might and
power of the "too human," hungrily he will pick up his "Faust," not to find again what he has
just left, but to learn how a man like Goethe shakes off these elemental human things and
finds freedom for his soul. When we once know who was the "Proktophantasmist," to what
chronological events the mass of symbols in Part II. relates, how it is all intimately bound up
with the poet's own soul and conditioned by it, we come to regard this determination as less
important than the problem itself—what does the poet mean by his symbolic creation?
Proceeding purely reductively, one discovers the final meaning in these universal human
things; and demands nothing further from an explanation than that the unknown and
complicated shall be reduced to the known and simple. I should like to designate this kind of
understanding as retrospective understanding. But there is another kind of understanding,
which is not analytic reduction, but is of a synthetic or constructive nature. I would designate
this prospective understanding, and the corresponding method as the Constructive method.
It is common knowledge that present-day scientific explanation rests upon the basis of the
causal principle. Scientific explanation is causal explanation. We are therefore naturally
inclined, whenever we think scientifically, to explain causally, to understand a thing and to
regard it as explained whenever it is reduced analytically to its cause and general principle. In
so far Freud's psychological method of interpretation is strictly scientific.
If we apply this method to "Faust" it must become clear that something more is required for a
true understanding. It will even seem to us that we have not gathered the poet's deepest
meaning if we only see in it universal foregone human conclusions. What we really want to
find out is how this man has redeemed himself as an individual, and when we arrive at this
comprehension then we shall also understand the symbol given by Goethe. It is true we may
then fall into the error that we understand Goethe himself. But let us be cautious and modest,
simply saying we have thereby arrived at an understanding of ourselves. I am thinking here of
Kant's thought-compelling definition of comprehension, as "the realisation of a thing to the
extent which is sufficient for our purpose."
This understanding is, it is true, subjective, and therefore not scientific for those to whom
science and explanation by the causal principle are identical. But the validity of this
identification is open to question. In the sphere of psychology I must emphasise my doubt on
this point.
We speak of "objective" understanding when we have given a causal explanation. But at
bottom, understanding is a subjective process upon which we confer the quality "objective"
really only to differentiate it from another kind of understanding which is also a
psychological and subjective process, but upon which, without further ado, we bestow the
quality "subjective." The attitude of to-day only grants scientific value to "objective"
understanding on account of its universal validity. This standpoint is incontestably correct
wherever it is not a question of the psychological process itself, and hence it is valid in all
sciences apart from pure psychology.
To interpret Faust objectively, i.e. from the causal standpoint, is as though a man were to
consider a sculpture from the historical, technical and—last but not least—from the
mineralogical standpoint. But where lurks the real meaning of the wondrous work? Where is
the answer to that most important question: what aim had the artist in mind, and how are we
ourselves to understand his work subjectively? To the scientific spirit this seems an idle
question which anyhow has nothing to do with science. It comes furthermore into collision
with the causal principle, for it is a purely speculative constructive view. And the modern
world has overthrown this spirit of scholasticism.
But if we would approach to an understanding of psychological things we must remember the
fact of the subjective conditioning of all knowledge. The world is as we see it and not simply
objective; this holds true even more of the mind. Of course it is possible to look at the mind
objectively, just as at Faust, or a Gothic Cathedral. In this objective conception there is
comprised the whole worth and worthlessness of current experimental psychology and
psychoanalysis. The scientific mind, thinking causally, is incapable of understanding what is
ahead; it only understands what is past, that is, retrospective. Like Ahriman, the Persian devil,
it has the gift of After-Knowledge. But this spirit is only one half of a complete
comprehension. The other more important half is prospective or constructive; if we are not
able to understand what lies ahead, then nothing is understood. If psychoanalysis, following
Freud's orientation, should succeed in presenting an uninterrupted and conclusive connection
between Goethe's infantile sexual development and his work, or, following Adler, between
the infantile struggle for power and the adult Goethe and his work, an interesting proposition
would have been solved—we should have learnt how a masterpiece can be reduced to the
simplest thinkable elements, which are universal, and to be found working within the depths
of everything and everybody. But did Goethe construct his work to this end? Was it his
intention that it should be thus conceived?
It must be sufficiently clear that such an understanding, though undoubtedly scientific, would
be entirely, utterly, beside the mark. This statement is valid for psychology in general. To
understand the psyche causally, means to understand but half of it. The causal understanding
of Faust enlightens us as to how it became a finished work of art, but reveals nothing of the
living meaning of the poet. That meaning only lives if we experience it, in and through
ourselves. In so far as our actual present life is for us something essentially new and not a
repetition of all that has gone before, the great value of such a work is to be seen, not in its
causal development, but in its living reality for our own lives. We should be indeed
depreciating a work like Faust if we were only to regard it as something that has been
perfected and finished; it is only understood when conceived as a becoming and as an ever
new-experiencing.
Thus we must regard the human psyche. Only on one side is the mind a Has Been, and as
such subordinate to the causal principle. On the other side the mind is a Becoming that can
only be grasped synthetically or constructively. The causal standpoint asks how it is this
actual mind has become what it appears to-day? The constructive standpoint asks how a
bridge can be built from this actual psyche to its own future?
Just as the causal method finally reaches the general principles of human psychology by the
analysis and reduction of individual events, so does the constructive standpoint reach aims
that are general by the synthesis of individual tendencies. The mind is a point of passage and
thus necessarily determined from two sides. On the one side it offers a picture of the
precipitate of the past, and on the other side a picture of the germinating knowledge of all that
is to come, in so far as the psyche creates its own future.
What has been is, on the one hand, the result and apex of all that was—as such it appears to
the causal standpoint; on the other hand, it is an expression of all that is to be. The future is
only apparently like the past, but in its essence always new and unique, (the causal standpoint
would like to invert this sentence) thus the actual formula is incomplete, germlike so to say, in
relation to what is to be.
To get any conception of this expression of what is to be we are forced to apply a constructive
interest to it. I almost felt myself tempted to say, "a scientific interest." But modern science is
identical with the causal principle. So long as we consider the actual mind causally, that is
scientifically, we elude the mind as a Becoming. This other side of the psyche can never be
grasped by the exclusive use of the causal principle, but only by means of the constructive
standpoint. The causal standpoint reduces things to their elements, the constructive standpoint
elaborates them into something higher and more complicated. This latter standpoint is
necessarily a speculative one.
Constructive understanding is, however, differentiated from scholastic speculation because it
imposes no general validity, but only subjective validity. When the speculative philosopher
believes he has comprehended the world once for all by his System, he deceives himself; he
has only comprehended himself and then naïvely projected that view upon the world. In
reaction against this, the scientific method of the modern world has almost put an end to
speculation and gone to the other extreme. It would create an "objective" psychology. In
opposition to such efforts, the stress which Freud has placed upon individual psychology is of
immortal merit. The extraordinary importance of the subjective in the development of the
objective mental process was thus first brought adequately into prominence.
Subjective speculation lays no claim to universal validity, it is identical with constructive
understanding. It is a subjective creation, which, looked at externally, easily seems to be a so-
called infantile phantasy, or at least an unmistakable derivative of it; from an objective
standpoint it must be judged as such, in so far as objective is regarded as identical with
scientific or causal. Looked at from within, however, constructive understanding means
redemption.
"Creation—that is the great redemption from suffering and easiness of living."[210]

Starting from these considerations as to the psychology of those mental patients to whom the
Schreber case belongs, we must, from the "objective-scientific" standpoint, reduce the
structural phantasy of the patient to its simple and most generally valid elements. This Freud
had done. But that is only half of the work to be done. The other half is the constructive
understanding of Schreber's system. The question is: What end, what freedom, did the patient
hope to achieve by the creation of his system?
The scientific thinker of to-day will regard this question as inappropriate. The psychiatrist
will certainly smile at it, for he is thoroughly assured of the universal validity of his
causalism, he knows the psyche merely as something that is made, descendent, reactive. Not
uncommonly there lurks the unconscious prejudice that the psyche is a brain-secretion.
Looking at such a morbid system without preconception, and asking ourselves what goal this
delusional system is aiming at, we see, in fact, firstly, that it is endeavouring to get at
something, and secondly, that the patient also devotes all his will-power to the service of the
system. There are patients who develop their delusions with scientific thoroughness, often
dragging in an immense material of comparison and proof. Schreber certainly belongs to this
class. Others do not proceed so thoroughly and learnedly, but content themselves with
heaping up synonymous expressions for that at which they are aiming. The case of the patient
I have described, who assumes all kinds of titles, is a good instance of this.
The patient's unmistakable striving to express something through and by means of his
delusion Freud conceives retrospectively, as the satisfaction of his infantile wishes by means
of imagination. Adler reduces it to the desire for power.
For him the delusion-formation is a "manly protest," a means of gaining security for himself
against his menaced superiority. Thus characterised, this struggle is likewise infantile and the
means employed—the delusional creation—is infantile because insufficient for its purpose;
one can therefore understand why Freud declines to accept Adler's point of view. Freud,
rightly on the whole, subsumes this infantile struggle for power under the concept of the
infantile wish.
The constructive standpoint is different. Here the delusional system is neither infantile nor,
upon the whole, eo ipso pathological but subjective, and hence justified within the scope of
the subjective. The constructive standpoint absolutely denies the conception that the
subjective phantasy-creation is merely an infantile wish, symbolically veiled; or that it is
merely that in a higher degree; it denies that it is a convulsive and egoistic adhesion to the
fiction of its own superiority, in so far as these are to be regarded as finalistic explanations.
The subjective activity of the mind can be judged from without, just as one can, in the end, so
judge everything. But this judgment is inadequate, because it is the very essence of the
subjective that it cannot be judged objectively. We cannot measure distance in pints. The
subjective can be only understood and judged subjectively, that is, constructively. Any other
judgment is unfair and does not meet the question.
The absolute credit which the constructive standpoint confers upon the subjective, naturally
seems to the "scientific" spirit as an utter violation of reason. But this scientific spirit can only
take up arms against it so long as the constructive is not avowedly subjective. The
constructive comprehension also analyses, but it does not reduce. It decomposes the delusion
into typical components. What is to be regarded as the type at a given time is shown from the
attainment of experience and knowledge reached at that time.
Even the most individual delusional systems are not absolutely unique, occurring only once,
for they offer striking and obvious analogies with other systems. From the comparative
analysis of many systems the typical formations are drawn. If one can speak of reduction at
all, it is only a question of reduction to general type, but not to some universal principle
obtained inductively or deductively, such as "Sexuality" or "Struggle for Power." This
paralleling with other typical formations only serves for a widening of the basis upon which
the construction is to be built. If one were to proceed entirely subjectively one would go on
constructing in the language of the patient and in his mental range. One would arrive at some
structure which was illuminating to the patient and to the investigator of the case but not to
the outer scientific public. The public would be unable to enter into the peculiarities of the
speech and thought of the individual case in question without further help.
The works of the Zürich school referred to contain careful and detailed
expositions of individual material. In these materials there are very many
typical formations which are unmistakably analogies with mythological
formations[211]. There arose from the perception of this relationship a new
and valuable source for comparative study. The acceptance of the
possibility of such a comparison will not be granted immediately, but the
question is only whether the materials to be compared really are similar or
not. It will also be contended that pathological and mythological formations
are not immediately comparable. But this objection must not be raised a
priori, for only a conscientious comparison can determine whether any true
parallelism exists or not. At the present moment all we know is that they are
both structures of the imagination which, like all such products, rest
essentially upon the activity of the unconscious. Experience must teach us
whether such a comparison is valid. The results hitherto obtained are so
encouraging that further work along these lines seems to me most hopeful
and important. I made practical use of the constructive method in a case
which Flournoy published in the Archives de Psychologie, although he
offered no opinion as to its nature at that time.
The case dealt with a rather neurotic young lady who, in Flournoy's
publication, described how surprised she was at the connected phantasy-
formations which penetrated from the unconscious into the conscious. I
subjected these phantasies, which the lady herself reproduced in some
detail, to my constructive methods and gave the results of these
investigations in my book, "The Psychology of the Unconscious."
This book has, I regret to say, met with many perhaps inevitable
misunderstandings. But I have had one precious consolation, for my book
received the approval of Flournoy himself, who published the original case
which he knew personally. It is to be hoped that later works will make the
standpoint of the Zürich school intelligible to a wider public. Whoever, by
the help of this work, has taken the trouble to grasp the essence of the
constructive method, will readily imagine how great are the difficulties of
investigation, and how much greater still are the difficulties of objective
presentation of such investigations.
Among the many difficulties and opportunities for misunderstanding I
should like to adduce one difficulty which is especially characteristic. In an
intensive study of Schreber's or any similar case, it will be discovered that
these patients are consumed by the desire for a new world-philosophy
which may be of the most bizarre kind. Their aim is obviously to create a
system such as will help them in the assimilation of unknown psychical
phenomena, i.e. enable them to adapt their own unconscious to the world.
This arrangement produces a subjective system which must be considered
as a necessary transition-stage on the path to the adaptation of their
personality in regard to the world in general. But the patient remains
stationary at this transitory stage and assumes his subjective view is the
world's, hence he remains ill. He cannot free himself from his subjectivism
and does not find the link to objective thinking, i.e. to society. He does not
reach the real summit of self-understanding, for he remains with a merely
subjective understanding of himself. But a mere subjective understanding is
not real and adequate. As Feuerbach says: Understanding is only real when
it is in accord with that of some other rational beings. Then it becomes
objective[212] and the link with life is reached.
I am convinced that not a few will raise the objection that in the first place
the psychological process of adaptation does not proceed by the method of
first creating a world-philosophy; secondly, that it is in itself a sign of
unhealthy mental disposition even to make the attempt to adapt oneself by
way of a "world-philosophy."
Undoubtedly there are innumerable persons who are capable of adaptation
without creating any preliminary philosophy. If they ever arrive at any
general theory of the world it is always subsequently. But, on the other
hand, there are just as many who are only able to adapt themselves by
means of a preliminary intellectual formulation. To everything which they
do not understand they are unable to adapt themselves. Generally it comes
about that they do adapt themselves just in so far as they can grasp the
situation intellectually. To this latter group seem to belong all those patients
to whom we have been giving our consideration.
Medical experience has taught us that there are two large groups of
functional nervous disorders. The one embraces all those forms of disease
which are designated hysterical, the other all those forms which the French
school has designated psychasthenic. Although the line of demarcation is
rather uncertain, one can mark off two psychological types which are
obviously different; their psychology is diametrically opposed. I have called
these—the Introverted and Extroverted types. The hysteric belongs to the
type of Extroversion, the psychasthenic to the type of Introversion, as does
dementia præcox, in so far as we know it to-day. This terminology,
Introversion and Extroversion, is bound up with my way of regarding
mental phenomena as forms of energy. I postulate a hypothetical
fundamental striving which I designate libido.[213] In the classical use of the
word, libido never had an exclusively sexual connotation as it has in
medicine. The word interest, as Claparède once suggested to me, could be
used in this special sense, if this expression had to-day a less extensive
application. Bergson's concept, élan vital, would also serve if this
expression were less biological and more psychological. Libido is intended
to be an energising expression for psychological values. The psychological
value is something active and determining; hence it can be regarded from
the energic standpoint without any pretence of exact measurement.
The introverted type is characterised by the fact that his libido is turned
towards his own personality to a certain extent—he finds within himself the
unconditioned value. The extroverted type has his libido to a certain extent
externally; he finds the unconditioned value outside himself. The introvert
regards everything from the aspect of his own personality; the extrovert is
dependent upon the value of his object. I must emphasise the statement that
this question of types is the question of our psychology, and that every
further advance must probably proceed by way of this question. The
difference between these types is almost alarming in extent. So far there is
only one small preliminary communication by myself[214] on this theory of
type, which is particularly important for the conception of dementia
præcox. On the psychiatric side Gross[215] has called attention to the
existence of two psychological types. His two types are (1) those with
limited but deep consciousness, and (2) those with broad but superficial
consciousness. The former correspond to my introverted and the latter to
my extroverted type. In my article I have collected some other instances
among which I would especially call attention to the striking description of
the two types given by William James in his book on "Pragmatism." Fr. Th.
Vischer has differentiated the two types very wittily by her division of the
learned into "reason-mongers," and "matter-mongers." In the sphere of
psychoanalysis Freud follows the psychology of Extraversion, Adler that of
Introversion. The irreconcilable opposition between the views of Freud and
those of Adler (see especially his book "Über den nervösen Charakter") is
readily explained by the existence of two diametrically opposed
psychological types which view the same things from entirely different
aspects. An Extrovert can hardly, or only with great difficulty, come to any
understanding with an Introvert, on any delicate psychological question.
An Extrovert can hardly conceive the necessity which compels the Introvert
to conquer the world by means of a system. And yet this necessity exists,
otherwise we should have no philosophical systems and dogmas, presumed
to be universally valid. Civilised humanity would be only empiricists and
the sciences only the experimental sciences. Causalism and empiricism are
undoubtedly mighty forces in our present-day mental life but it may come
to be otherwise.
This difference in type is the first great obstacle which stands in the way of
an understanding concerning fundamental conceptions of our psychology. A
second objection arises from the circumstance that the constructive method,
faithful to itself, must adapt itself to the lines of the delusion. The direction
along which the patient develops his morbid thoughts has to be accepted
seriously, and followed out to its end; the investigator thus places himself at
the standpoint of the psychosis. This procedure may expose him to the
suspicion of being deranged himself; or at least risks a misunderstanding
which is considered terribly disgraceful—he may himself have some world-
philosophy! The confirmation of such a possibility is as bad as being
"unscientific." But every one has a world-philosophy though not every one
knows he has. And those who do not know it have simply an unconscious
and therefore inadequate and archaic philosophy. But everything
psychological that is allowed to remain in the mind neglected and not
developed, remains in a primitive state. A striking instance of how universal
theories are influenced by unconscious archaic points of view has been
furnished by a famous German historian whose name matters to us not at
all. This historian took it for granted that once upon a time people
propagated themselves through incest, for in the first human families the
brother was assigned to the sister. This theory is wholly based upon his still
unconscious belief in Adam and Eve as the first and only parents of
mankind. It is on the whole better to discover for oneself a modern world-
philosophy, or at least to make use of some decent system which will
prevent any errors of that kind.
One could put up with being despised as the possessor of a world-
philosophy; but there is a greater danger. The public may come to believe
the philosophy, beaten out by the constructive method, is to be regarded as a
theoretical and objectively valid insight into the meaning of the world in
general.
I must now again point out that it is an obstinate, scholastic
misunderstanding not to be able to distinguish between a world-philosophy
which is only psychological, and an extra-psychological theory, which
concerns the objective thing. It is absolutely essential that the student of the
results of the constructive method should be able to draw this distinction. In
its first results the constructive method does not produce anything that
could be called a scientific theory; it furnishes the psychological lines of
development, a path so to say. I must here refer the reader to my book,
"Psychology of the Unconscious."
The analytic reductive method has the advantage of being much simpler
than the constructive method. The former reduces to well-known universal
elements of an extremely simple nature. The latter has, with extremely
complicated material, to construct the further path to some often unknown
end. This obliges the psychologist to take full account of all those forces
which are at work in the human mind. The reductive method strives to
replace the religious and philosophical needs of man, by their more
elementary components, following the principle of the "nothing but," as
James so aptly calls it. But to construct aright, we must accept the
developed aspirations as indispensable components, essential elements, of
spiritual growth. Such work extends far beyond empirical concepts but that
is in accordance with the nature of the human soul which has never hitherto
rested content with experience alone. Everything new in the human mind
proceeds from speculation. Mental development proceeds by way of
speculation, never by way of limitation to mere experience. I realise that my
views are parallel with those of Bergson, and that in my book the concept of
the libido which I have given, is a concept parallel to that of "élan vital";
my constructive method corresponds to Bergson's "intuitive method." I,
however, confine myself to the psychological side and to practical work.
When I first read Bergson a year and a half ago I discovered to my great
pleasure everything which I had worked out practically, but expressed by
him in consummate language and in a wonderfully clear philosophic style.
Working speculatively with psychological material there is a risk of being
sacrificed to the general misunderstanding which bestows the value of an
objective theory upon the line of psychological evolution thus elaborated.
So many people feel themselves in this way at pains to find grounds
whether such a theory is correct or not. Those who are particularly brilliant
even discover that the fundamental concepts can be traced back to
Heraclitus or some one even earlier. Let me confide to these knowing folk
that the fundamental ideas employed in the constructive method stretch
back even beyond any historical philosophy, viz. to the dynamic "views" of
primitive peoples. If the result of the constructive method were scientific
theory, it would go very ill with it, for then it would be a falling back to the
deepest superstition. But since the constructive method results in something
far removed from scientific theory the great antiquity of the basic concepts
therein must speak in favour of its extreme correctness. Not until the
constructive method has presented us with much practical experience can
we come to the construction of a scientific theory, a theory of the
psychological lines of development. But we must first of all content
ourselves with confirming these lines individually.

FOREWORD TO CHAPTER XIV

This essay was originally written in 1913, when I limited myself entirely to
presenting an essential part of the psychological point of view inaugurated
by Freud. A few months ago my Swiss publisher asked for a second and
revised edition. The many and great changes which the last few years have
brought about in our understanding of the psychology of the unconscious
necessitated a substantial enlargement of my essay. In this new edition some
expositions about Freud's theories are shortened, whilst Adler's
psychological views are more fully considered, and—so far as the scope of
this paper permits—a general outline of my own views are given. I must at
the outset draw the reader's attention to the fact that this is no longer an easy
"popular" scientific paper, but a presentation making great demands upon
the patience and attention of the reader. The material is extremely
complicated and difficult. I do not for a moment deceive myself into
thinking this contribution is in any way conclusive or adequately
convincing. Only detailed scientific treatises about the various problems
touched upon in these pages could really do justice to the subject. Any one
who wishes to go deeply into the questions that are raised here must be
referred to the special literature of the subject. My attention is solely to give
the orientation in regard to the newest concepts of the inner nature of
unconscious psychology. I consider the subject of the unconscious to be
specially important and opportune at this moment. In my opinion, it would
be a great loss if this problem, concerning every one so closely as it does,
were to disappear from the horizon of the educated lay public, by being
interned in some inaccessible specialised scientific journal. The
psychological events that accompany the present war—the incredible
brutalisation of public opinion, the epidemic of mutual calumnies, the
unsuspected mania for destruction, the unexampled flood of mendacity, and
man's incapacity to arrest the bloody demon—are they not, one and all,
better adapted than anything else, to force obtrusively the problem of the
chaotic unconscious—which slumbers uneasily beneath the ordered world
of consciousness,—before the eyes of every thinking individual? This war
has inexorably shown to the man of culture that he is still a barbarian. It
testifies also what an iron scourge awaits him, if ever again it should occur
to him to make his neighbour responsible for his own bad qualities. The
psychology of the individual corresponds to the psychology of nations.
What nations do, each individual does also, and as long as the individual
does it, the nation will do it too. A metamorphosis in the attitude of the
individual is the only possible beginning of a transformation in the
psychology of the nation. The great problems of humanity have never been
solved by universal laws, but always and only by a remodelling of the
attitude of the individual. If ever there was a time when self-examination
was the absolutely indispensable and the only right thing, it is now, in the
present catastrophic epoch. But he who bethinks himself about his own
being strikes against the confines of the unconscious, which indeed contains
precisely that which it is most needful for him to know.
C. G. Jung.
Küsnacht-Zürich,
March, 1917.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE UNCONSCIOUS
PROCESSES[216]
Being a Survey of the Modern Theory and Method of Analytical Psychology

I.—The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis

In common with other sciences, psychology had to go through its
scholastic-philosophic stage, and to some extent this has lasted on into the
present time. This philosophic psychology has incurred our condemnation
in that it decides ex cathedra what is the nature of the soul, and whence and
how it derives its attributes. The spirit of modern scientific investigation has
summarily disposed of all these phantasies and in their place has established
an exact empiric method. We owe to this our present-day experimental
psychology or "psychophysiology," as the French call it. This new direction
originated with Fechner, that Janus-minded spirit, who in his remarkable
Psychophysik (1860) embarked on the mighty enterprise of introducing the
physical standpoint into the conception of psychical phenomena. The whole
idea of this work—and not least its astonishing mistakes—proved most
fruitful in results. For Wundt, Fechner's young contemporary, carried on his
work, and it is Wundt's great erudition, enormous power of work and genius
for elaborating methods of experimental research, which have given to
modern psychology its prevailing direction.
Until quite recently experimental psychology remained essentially
academic. The first notable attempt to utilise some few at any rate of its
innumerable experimental methods in the service of practical psychology
came from the psychiatrists of the former Heidelberg school (Kræpelin,
Aschaffenburg, etc.); it is quite intelligible that the psychotherapists should
be the first to feel the urgent need for more exact knowledge of psychic
processes.
Next came pedagogy, making its own demands upon psychology. Out of
this has recently grown up an "experimental pedagogy," and in this field
Neumann in Germany and Binet in France have rendered signal services.
The physician, the so-called "nerve-specialist," has the most urgent need of
psychological knowledge if he would really help his patients, for neurotic
disturbances, such as hysteria, and all things classed as "nervousness," are
of psychic origin, and necessarily demand psychic treatment. Cold water,
light, air, electricity, magnetism, etc., are only effective temporarily, and
quite often are of no use at all. They are frequently introduced into
treatment in a not very commendable fashion, simply because reliance is
placed upon their suggestive effect. But it is in his soul that the patient is
really sick; in those most complicated and lofty functions which we
scarcely dare to include in the province of medicine. The doctor must
needs, in such a case, be a psychologist, must needs understand the human
soul. He cannot evade the urgent demand upon him. So he naturally turns
for help to psychology, since his psychiatry text-books have nothing to offer
him. But modern experimental psychology is very far from being able to
afford him any connected insight into the most vital psychic processes, that
is not its aim. As far as possible it tries to isolate those simple elementary
phenomena which border on the physiological, and then study them in an
isolated state. It quite ignores the infinite variation and movement of the
mental life of the individual, and accordingly, its knowledge and its facts
are so many isolated details, uninspired by any comprehensive idea capable
of bringing them into co-ordination. Hence it comes about that the inquirer
after the secrets of the human soul, learns rather less than nothing from
experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact
science, take off his scholar's gown, say farewell to his study, and then,
strong in manly courage, set out to wander through the world; alike through
the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, through dreary
outlying taverns, through brothels and gambling-halls, into elegant
drawing-rooms, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revival
gatherings of strange religious sects, experiencing in his own person love
and hate and every kind of suffering. He would return laden with richer
knowledge than his yard-long text-books could ever have given him, and
thus equipped, he can indeed be a physician to his patients, for he
understands the soul of man. He may be pardoned if his respect for the
"corner-stones" of experimental psychology is no longer very considerable.
There is a great gulf fixed between what science calls "psychology," on the
one hand, and what the practice of everyday life expects from psychology
on the other.
This need became the starting-point of a new psychology whose inception
we owe first and foremost to the genius of Sigmund Freud, of Vienna, to his
researches into functional nervous disease. The new type of psychology
might be described as "analytical psychology." Professor Bleuler has coined
the name "Deep Psychology,"[217] to indicate that the Freudian psychology
takes as its province the deeper regions, the "hinterland" of the soul, the
"unconscious." Freud names his method of investigation "psychoanalysis."
Before we approach the matter more closely, we must first consider the
relationship of the new psychology to the earlier science. Here we
encounter a singular little farce which once again proves the truth of
Anatole France's apothegm: "Les savants ne sont pas curieux."
The first important piece of work[218] in this new field awakened only the
faintest echo, in spite of the fact that it offered a new and fundamental
conception of the neuroses. Certain writers expressed their approbation, and
then, on the next page, proceeded to explain their cases of hysteria in the
good old way. It was much as if a man should subscribe fully to the idea of
the earth's being spherical, and yet continue to represent it as flat. Freud's
next publications[219] were practically unnoticed, although they contributed
findings of immeasurable importance to the domain of psychiatry. When in
1900 he produced the first real psychological elucidation of the dream[220]
(previously there had reigned over this territory a suitable nocturnal
darkness), he was ridiculed; and when in the middle of the last decade he
began to illumine the psychology of sexuality itself,[221] and at the same
time the "Zürich school" decided to range itself on his side, a storm of
abuse, sometimes of the coarsest kind, burst upon him, nor has it yet ceased
to rage. At the last South-West German Congress of alienists in Baden-
Baden, the adherents of the new psychology had the pleasure of hearing
Hoche, University Professor of Psychiatry at Freiburg in Breisgau, describe
the movement in a long and much-applauded address, as an outbreak of
mental aberration among doctors. The old proverb: "Medicus medicum non
decimat" was here quite put to shame. How carefully the question had been
studied was shewn by the naïve remark of one of the most distinguished
neurologists of Paris, which I myself heard at the International Congress in
1907: "It is true I have not read Freud's works (he did not happen to know
any German!), but as for his theories, they are nothing but a mauvaise
plaisanterie." Freud, dignified, masterly, once said to me, I first became
clearly conscious of the value of my discoveries when they were met
everywhere with resistance and anger; since that time I have judged the
value of my work according to the degree of opposition provoked. It is
against my sexual theory that the greatest indignation is felt, so it would
seem therein lies my best work. Perhaps after all the real benefactors of
mankind are its false teachers, for opposition to the false doctrine pushes
men willy nilly into truth. Your truth-teller is a pernicious fellow, he drives
men into error."
The reader must now calmly accept the idea that in this psychology he is
dealing with something quite unique, if not indeed with some altogether
irrational, sectarian, or occult wisdom; for what else could possibly provoke
all the scientific authorities to turn away on the very threshold and utterly
refuse to cross it?
Accordingly, we must look more closely into this psychology. As long ago
as Charcot's time it was recognised that neurotic symptoms are
"psychogenic," that is, that they have their origin in the psyche. It was also
known, thanks mainly to the work of the Nancy School, that every
hysterical symptom can be exactly reproduced by means of suggestion. But
how a hysterical system arises, and its relationship to psychic causes, were
altogether unknown. In the beginning of the eighties Dr. Breuer, an old
Viennese doctor, made a discovery[222] which was really the true starting-
point of the new psychology. He had a very intelligent young patient (a
woman) suffering from hysteria, who exhibited the following symptoms
among others: A spastic paralysis of the right arm, occasional disturbances
of consciousness or twilight-states, and loss of the power of speech in so far
as she no longer retained any knowledge of her mother-tongue, and could
only express herself in English (so-called systematic aphasia). They sought
at that time, and still seek, in such a case to establish some theory of
anatomical disturbance, although there was just as little disturbance in the
arm-centre in the brain as in that of any normal man who boxes another's
ears. The symptomatology of hysteria is full of anatomical impossibilities;
such as the case of the lady who had lost her hearing completely through
some hysterical malady. None the less she often used to sing, and once
when she was singing her doctor sat down at the piano unnoticed by her and
softly accompanied her. Passing from one strophe to another he suddenly
altered the key, and she, quite unconscious of what she was doing, sang on
in the altered key. Thus she heard—yet did not hear. The various forms of
systematic blindness present similar phenomena. We have the case of a man
suffering from complete hysterical blindness. In the course of the treatment
he recovers his sight, but at first, and for some long time, only partially: he
could see everything with one exception—people's heads. He saw all the
people around him without heads. Thus he saw—yet did not see. From a
large number of like experiences it has long been concluded that it is only
the patient's consciousness which does not see, does not hear, but the sense-
function has nothing at all the matter with it. This state of affairs is directly
contradictory to the essence of an organic disturbance, which always
materially involves the function.
After this digression let us return to Breuer's case. Since there was no
organic cause for the disturbance, the case was clearly to be regarded as
hysterical, that is, psychogenic. Dr. Breuer had noticed that if during her
twilight-states (whether spontaneous or artificially induced) he let the
patient freely express the reminiscences and phantasies that thronged in
upon her, her condition was afterwards much improved for some hours. He
made systematic use of this observation in her further treatment. The patient
herself invented the appropriate name for it of "talking cure" or, in jest,
"chimney sweeping."
Her illness began whilst she was nursing her dying father. It is easy to
understand that her phantasies busied themselves mainly with this
disturbing time. In the twilight-states memories of this period reappeared
with photographic fidelity, distinct in every detail: no waking recollection is
ever so plastically and exactly reproduced. The term hypermnesia is applied
to this heightening of the power of memory, which occurs without difficulty
in certain states of contracted consciousness. Remarkable things now came
to light. Out of the many things told, one ran somewhat as follows.[223]
On a certain night she was in a state of great anxiety about her father's high
temperature. She sat by his bed, waiting for the surgeon who was coming
from Vienna to perform an operation. Her mother had gone out of the room
for a little while, and Anna (the patient) sat by the bed, with her right arm
hanging over the back of her chair. She fell into a kind of waking-dream in
which she saw a black snake come out from the wall and approach the sick
man, prepared to bite. (It is very probable that some real snakes had been
seen in the fields behind the house, and that she had been frightened by
them; this would furnish the material for her hallucination.) She wanted to
drive the creature away, but felt paralysed; her right arm, hanging over the
chair, had "gone to sleep," was anæsthetic and paretic, and as she looked
her fingers turned into little snakes with death's heads (the nails). Probably
she tried to drive the snake away with her paralysed right hand, and thereby
the anæsthesia and paralysis became associated with the snake-
hallucination. Even after the snake had disappeared, her terror remained
great. She tried to pray, but found she had no words in any language, until
at length she managed to remember some English nursery rhymes, and then
she could go on thinking and praying in that language.
This was the actual scene in which the paralysis and speech-disturbance
arose; the describing it served to remove the speech-trouble, and in this
same fashion the case was finally completely cured.
I must restrict myself to this one instance. In Breuer and Freud's book there
is a wealth of similar examples. It is easy to understand that scenes such as
these make a very strong impression, and accordingly there is an inclination
to attribute a causal significance to them in the genesis of the symptoms.
The then current conception of hysteria, arising from the English "nervous
shock" theory, which Charcot strongly supported, came in conveniently to
elucidate Breuer's discovery, hence arose the trauma-theory maintaining
that the hysterical symptom and in so far as the symptoms comprise the
disease, hysteria itself, arises from some psychic injury (or trauma), the
effect of which is retained in the unconscious indefinitely. Freud, working
as Breuer's colleague, amply confirmed this discovery. It was fully
demonstrated that not one out of the many hundred hysterical symptoms
came down ready made from heaven; they had already been conditioned by
past psychic experiences. To some extent, therefore, this new conception
opened up a field of very important empirical work. But Freud's tireless
spirit of inquiry could not long rest content at this superficial layer, since
already there obtruded deeper and more difficult problems. It is obvious
enough that moments of great fear and anxiety, such as Breuer's patient
went through, would leave behind a lasting effect, but how is it that these
happenings are themselves already deeply stamped with the mark of
morbidity? Must we suppose that the trying sick-nursing in itself produce
such a result? If so, such effects should occur much more frequently, for
there are, unfortunately, many trying cases of sick-nursing, and the nurse's
nervous constitution is by no means always of the soundest. To this problem
medicine gives its admirable answer; the "x" in the calculation is
predisposition; there is a tendency to these things. But for Freud the
problem was, what exactly constitutes this predisposition? This question led
logically to an investigation of all that had preceded the psychic trauma. It
is a matter of common observation that distressing scenes have markedly
different effects upon the different participants, and that things which to
some are quite indifferent or even pleasant, such as frogs, mice, snakes,
cats, excite the greatest aversion in others. There are the cases of women
who can calmly be present at a very bad operation, but who tremble all over
with horror and nausea at the touch of a cat. By way of illustration let me
give the case of a young lady suffering from severe hysteria following a
sudden fright.[224] She had been at a social gathering, and was on her way
home at midnight accompanied by several acquaintances, when a carriage
came up behind them at full speed. All the others moved out of the way, but
she, beside herself with fright, ran down the middle of the road just in front
of the horses. The coachman cracked his whip and cursed and swore in
vain. She ran down the whole length of the street till a bridge was reached.
There her strength failed her, and to escape the horses' feet in her despair
she would have jumped into the water had not passers-by prevented her.
This same lady happened to be in Petrograd during that sanguinary
Revolution of the 22nd of January, and saw a street cleared by the volleys
of soldiers. All around her people were dropping down dead or wounded,
but she retained her calmness and self-possession, and caught sight of a
door which gave her escape into another street. These terrible moments
agitated her neither at the time nor later on. She was quite well afterwards,
indeed felt better than usual.
Essentially similar reactions can quite often be observed. Hence it follows
that the intensity of the trauma is of small pathogenic importance; the
peculiar circumstances determine its pathogenic effect. Here, then, we have
the key which enables us to unlock at least one of the anterooms to an
understanding of predisposition. We must now ask what were the unusual
circumstances in this carriage scene? The terror and apprehension began as
soon as the lady heard the trampling horses. For a moment she thought this
portended some terrible fate, her death, or something equally frightful; the
next, she lost all sense of what she was doing.
This powerful impression was evidently connected in some way with the
horses. The predisposition of the patient to react in such an exaggerated
fashion to a not very remarkable incident, might result from the fact that
horses had some special significance for her. It might be suspected that she
had experienced some dangerous accident with them; this actually turned
out to be the case. When a child of about seven years old she was out for a
drive with the coachman; the horses shied and galloped at full speed
towards a steep river-bank. The coachman jumped down, and shouted to her
to do the same, but in her extreme terror she could scarcely bring herself to
obey. She did, however, just manage to jump out in the nick of time, whilst
the horses and carriage were dashed to pieces below. No proof is needed
that such an experience must leave a lasting impression behind it. But it
does not offer any explanation for such an exaggerated reaction to an
inadequate stimulus. So far we only know that this later symptom had its
prologue in childhood, but its pathological aspect remains obscure. To
penetrate into the heart of such a mystery it was necessary to accumulate
further material. And the greater our experience the clearer does it become
that in all cases with such traumatic experiences analysed up to the present,
there co-exists a special kind of disturbance which can only be described as
a derangement in the sphere of love. Not all of us give due credit to the
anomalous nature of love, reaching high as heaven, sinking low as hell,
uniting in itself all extremes of good and evil, of lofty and low.[225]
As soon as Freud recognised this, a decisive change came about in his view.
In his earlier researches, whilst more or less dominated by Charcot's
trauma-theory, he had sought for the origin of the neurosis in actual
traumatic experiences; but now the centre of gravity shifted to a very
different point. This is best demonstrated by reference to our case; we can
understand that horses might easily play a significant part in the patient's
life, but it is not clear why there should be this later reaction, so
exaggerated, so uncalled for. It is not her fear of horses which forms the
morbid factor in this curious story; to get at the real truth we must
remember our empirical conclusion, that, side by side with traumatic
experiences, there is also invariably present some disturbance in the sphere
of love. We must now go on to inquire whether perhaps there is anything
unsatisfactory in this respect in the case under review.
Our patient has a young man friend, to whom she is thinking of becoming
engaged, she loves him and expects to be happy with him. At first nothing
more is discoverable; but the investigator must not let himself be deterred
by a negative result in the beginning of this preliminary questioning. When
the direct way does not lead to the desired end, an indirect way may be
taken. We accordingly turn our attention back to that strange moment when
she ran away in front of the horses. We inquire who were her companions
and what kind of social gathering was it, and find it was a farewell-party to
her best friend, on her departure to a foreign health-resort on account of a
nervous breakdown. We are told this friend is happily married and is the
mother of one child. We may well doubt the assertion that she is happy. If
she really were so, it is hardly to be supposed she would be "nervous" and
in need of a cure. When I attacked the situation from a different vantage-
ground, I learnt that our patient—after this episode—had been taken by her
friends to the nearest safe place—her host's house. In her exhausted state he
took charge of her. When the patient came to this part of her story, she
suddenly broke off, was embarrassed, fidgeted and tried to turn the subject.
Evidently some disagreeable reminiscences had suddenly cropped up. After
obstinate resistances had been overcome, she admitted something very
strange had happened that night. Her host had made her a passionate
declaration of love, thus occasioning a situation that, in the absence of his
wife, might well be considered both painful and difficult. Ostensibly this
declaration came upon her like a "bolt from the blue." But a small dose of
criticism applied to such an assertion soon apprises us that these things
never do drop suddenly from the sky; they always have their previous
history. It was a task of the following weeks to dig out piecemeal a long
love-story. I will attempt to sketch in the picture as it appeared finally.
As a child the patient was a thorough tomboy, loved boys' boisterous
games, laughed at her own sex, and would have nothing to do with feminine
ways or occupations. After puberty, just when the sex-issue should have
meant much to her, she began to shun all society; she seemingly hated and
despised everything which could remind her even remotely of the biological
destiny of mankind, and lived in a world of phantasy which had nothing in
common with rude reality. Thus, till her twenty-fourth year, she escaped all
the little adventures, hopes and expectations which ordinarily move a girl at
this age. But finally she got to know the two men who were destined to
destroy the thorny hedge which had grown up around her. Mr. A. was her
best friend's husband; Mr. B. was their bachelor-friend. She liked both; but
pretty soon found B. the more sympathetic, and an intimacy grew up
between them which made an engagement seem likely. Through her
friendship with him and with Mrs. A., she often met Mr. A. His presence
excited her inexplicably, made her nervous. Just at this time she went to a
big party. All her friends were there. She became lost in thought, and in a
reverie was playing with her ring, when suddenly it slipped out of her hand
and rolled under the table. Both men tried to find it and Mr. B. managed to
get it. With a meaning smile he put the ring back on her finger, and said,
"You know what that means!" Overcome by some strange, irresistible
feeling, she tore the ring from her finger and flung it out of the open
window. Naturally a painful moment for all ensued, and she soon went
away, much depressed. A little while after, so-called chance brought her for
her summer holidays to the health-resort where A. and his wife were
staying. It was then that Mrs. A. began to suffer from nerve-trouble, and
frequently felt too unwell to leave the house. So our patient could often go
out for walks alone with A. One day they were out in a small boat. She was
boisterously merry and fell overboard. Mr. A. saved her with difficulty as
she could not swim, and he managed to lift her into the boat in a half-
unconscious state. Then he kissed her. This romantic event wove fast the
bonds between them. In self-defence she did her best to get herself engaged
to B. and to persuade herself that she loved him. Of course this queer
comedy could not escape the sharp eye of feminine jealousy. Mrs. A., her
friend, guessed the secret, and was so much upset by it that her nervous
condition grew bad enough to necessitate her trying a cure at a foreign
health-resort. At the farewell gathering the demon came to our patient and
whispered: "To-night he will be alone, something must happen to you so
that you can go to his house." And so indeed it came about; her strange
behaviour made her friends take her to his house, and thus she achieved her
desire.
After this explanation the reader will probably be inclined to assume that
only diabolical subtlety could think out and set in motion such a chain of
circumstances. There is no doubt about the subtlety, but the moral
evaluation is less certain. I desire to lay special emphasis upon the fact that
the patient was in no sense conscious of the motives of this dramatic
performance. The incident apparently just came about of itself without any
conscious motive whatsoever. But the whole previous history makes it
perfectly clear that everything was most ingeniously directed towards the
other aim; whilst the conscious self was apparently working to bring about
the engagement to Mr. B., the unconscious compulsion to take the other
road was still stronger.
So once more we must return to our original question, whence comes the
pathological, the peculiar and exaggerated reaction to the trauma? Relying
on a conclusion obtained from other analogous experiences, we ventured
the conjecture that in the present case we had to do with a disturbance in the
love-life, in addition to the trauma. This supposition was thoroughly borne
out; the trauma, which was apparently the cause of the illness, was merely
the occasion for some factor, till then unconscious, to manifest itself. This
was the significant erotic conflict. With this finding the trauma loses its
pathogenic significance and is replaced by a much deeper and more
comprehensive conception, which regards the erotic conflict as the
pathogenic agent. This conception may be described as the sexual theory of
the neurosis.
I am often asked why it is just the erotic conflict rather than any other
which is the cause of the neurosis. There is but one answer to this. No one
asserts that this ought necessarily to be the case, but as a simple matter of
fact it is always found to be so, notwithstanding all the cousins and aunts,
godparents, and teachers, who rage against it. Despite all the indignant
assertions to the contrary, the problem and conflicts of love are of
fundamental importance for humanity,[226] and with increasingly careful
study, it comes out ever more clearly that the love-life is of immensely
greater importance than the individual suspects.
As a consequence of the recognition that the true root of the neurosis is not
the trauma, but the hidden erotic conflict, the trauma loses its pathogenic
significance.

II.—The Sexual Theory.

Thus, it will be seen, the theory had to be shifted on to an entirely different
basis, for the investigation now had to face the erotic conflict itself. Our
example shows that this contains extremely abnormal elements and cannot,
primâ facie, be compared with an ordinary love conflict. It is surprising,
indeed hardly credible, that only the postulated affection should be
conscious, whilst the real passion remained unknown to the patient. But in
this case it is beyond dispute that the real erotic relation remained
unillumined, whilst the field of consciousness was dominated by the
assumption. If we try to formulate this fact, something like the following
proposition results: in a neurosis, two erotic tendencies exist which stand in
extreme opposition to one another, and one at least is unconscious. Against
this formula the objection can be raised that it has obviously been derived
from this one particular case, and is therefore lacking in general validity.
The criticism will be the more readily urged because no one unpossessed of
special reasons is willing to admit that the erotic conflict is of universal
prevalence. On the contrary, it is assumed that this conflict belongs more
properly to the sphere of novels, since it is generally depicted as something
in the nature of such wild adventures as are described by Karin Michaelis in
her "Aberrations of Marriage," or by Forel in "The Sexual Question." But
indeed this is not the case; for we know the wildest and most moving
dramas are not played on the stage, but every day in the hearts of ordinary
men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to
the world, save through the symbol of a nervous breakdown, nothing of the
conflicts that rage within them. But what is so difficult for the layman to
grasp is the fact that in most cases patients have no suspicion whatever of
the internecine war raging in their unconscious. But remembering that there
are many people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall
be less surprised at the realisation that there are also people who are utterly
unaware of their actual conflicts.
If the reader is now inclined to admit the possible existence of pathogenic,
and perhaps even of unconscious conflicts, he will certainly protest that
they are not erotic conflicts. If this kind reader should happen himself to be
somewhat nervous, the mere suggestion will arouse his indignation, for we
are all inclined, as a result of our education in school and at home, to cross
ourselves three times where we meet such words as "erotic" and "sexual"—
and so we are conveniently able to think that nothing of that nature exists,
or at least very seldom, and at a great distance from ourselves. But it is just
this attitude which in the first instance brings about neurotic conflicts.
We recognise that the course of civilisation consists in the progressive
mastering of the animal element in man; it is a process of domestication
which cannot be carried through without rebellion on the part of the animal
nature still thirsting for its liberty. Humanity forces itself to endure the
restrictions of the civilising process; but from time to time there comes a
frenzied bursting of all bonds. Antiquity had experience of it in that wave of
Dionysian orgies, surging hither from the East, which became an essentially
characteristic element of antique culture. Its spirit was partly instrumental in
causing the numerous sects and philosophic schools of the last century
before Christ, to develop the Stoic ideal into asceticism; and in producing
from the polytheistic chaos of those times, the ascetic twin-religions of
Mithras and of Christ. A second clearly marked wave of the Dionysian
impulse towards freedom swept over the Western world during the
Renaissance. It is difficult to judge of one's own time, but we gain some
insight if we note how the Arts are developing, what is the prevailing type
of public taste, what men read and write, what societies they found, what
"questions" are the order of the day, and against what the Philistines are
fighting. We find in the long list of our present social problems that the
sexual question occupies by no means the last place. It agitates men and
women who would shake the foundations of sexual morality, and throw off
the burden of moral shame which past centuries have heaped upon Eros.
The existence of these aspirations and endeavours cannot be simply denied,
or declared indefensible; they exist and are therefore presumably not
without justification. It is both more interesting and more useful to study
carefully the basic causes of these movements than to chime in with the
lamentations of the professional mourners over morals, who prophesy with
unction the moral downfall of humanity. The moralist least of all trusts
God, for he thinks that the beautiful tree of humanity can only thrive by dint
of being pruned, bound, and trained on a trellis, whereas Father-Sun and
Mother-Earth have combined to make it grow joyfully in accordance with
its own laws, which are full of the deepest meaning.
Serious people are aware that a very real sexual problem does exist at the
present time. The rapid development of the towns, coupled with methods of
work brought about by the extraordinary division of labour, the increasing
industrialisation of the country and the growing security of life, combine to
deprive humanity of many opportunities of expending emotional energy.
Think of the life of the peasant, whose work so rich and full of change,
affords him unconscious satisfaction by means of its symbolic content; a
like satisfaction the factory-hand and the clerk can never know. Think of a
life with nature; of those wonderful moments when, as lord and fructifier,
man drives the plough through the earth, and with kingly gesture scatters
the seed of the future harvest; see his justifiable awe before the destructive
power of the elements, his joy in the fruitfulness of his wife, who gives him
daughters and sons, who mean to him increased working power and
enhanced prosperity. Alas! from all this we town-dwellers, we modern
machines, are far, far removed.
Must we not admit that we are already deprived of the most natural and
most beautiful of all satisfactions, since we can no longer contemplate the
arrival of our own seed, the "blessing" of children, with unmixed pleasure?
Marriages where no artifices are resorted to are rare. Is this not an all-
important departure from the joys which Mother Nature gave her first-born
sons? Can such a state of affairs bring satisfaction? Note how men slink to
their work, watch their faces at an early morning hour in the tram-cars. One
of them makes his little wheels, and another writes trivial things which do
not interest him. What wonder is it if such men belong to as many clubs as
there are days in the week, and that among women little societies flourish,
where they pour out on some particular hero or cause those unsatisfied
desires which the man dulls at his restaurant or club, imbibing beer and
playing at being important? To these sources of dissatisfaction is added a
more serious factor. Nature has provided defenceless, weaponless man with
a great amount of energy to enable him not merely to bear passively the
grave dangers of existence, but also to conquer them. Mother Nature has
equipped her son for tremendous hardships and has placed a costly
premium on the overcoming of them, as Schopenhauer quite understood
when he said that "happiness is really but the termination of unhappiness."
Civilized people are, as a rule, shielded from the immediately pressing
dangers, and they are therefore daily tempted to excess, for in man the
animal always becomes rampant when he is not constrained by fierce
necessity. Are we then indeed unrestrained? In what orgiastic festivals do
we dispose of the surplus of vital power? Our moral views do not permit us
that outlet.
But reckon up in how many directions we are met by unsatisfied longings;
the denial of procreation and begetting, for which purpose nature has
endowed us with great energy; the unending monotony of our highly
developed modern methods of "division of labour," which excludes any
interest in the work itself; and above all our effortless security against war,
lawlessness, robbery, epidemics, infant and woman mortality—all this gives
a sum of surplus energy which must needs find an outlet. But how? A
relatively few create quasi-natural dangers for themselves in reckless sport;
many more, seeking to find some equivalent for their more primitive
energy, take to alcoholic excess; others expend themselves in the rush of
money-making, or in the morbid performance of duties, in perpetual over-
work. By such means they try to escape a dangerous storing-up of energy
which might force mad outlets for itself. It is for such reasons that we have
to-day a sexual question. It is in this direction that men's energy would like
to expend itself as it has done from time immemorial in periods of security
and abundance. Under such circumstances it is not only rabbits that
multiply; men and women, too, become the sport of these accesses of
nature: the sport, because their moral views have confined them in a narrow
cage, the excessive narrowness of which was not felt so long as harsh
external necessity pressed upon them with even greater constraint. But now
the man of the cities finds the space too circumscribed. He is surrounded by
alluring temptation, and like an invisible procureur there slinks through
society the knowledge of preventive methods which evade all
consequences. Why then moral restraint? Out of religious consideration for
an angry God? Apart from the prevalence of widespread unbelief, even the
believing man might quietly ask himself whether, if he himself were God,
he would punish the youthful erotic uncontrol of John and Mary with twice
twenty-four years of imprisonment and seething in boiling oil. Such ideas
are no longer compatible with our decorous conception of God. The God of
our time is necessarily much too tolerant to make a great fuss over it;
(knavishness and hypocrisy are a thousand times worse). In this way the
somewhat ascetic and hypocritical sexual morality of our time has had the
ground cut from under its feet. Or is it the case that we are now protected
from dissoluteness by superior wisdom, recognition of the nothingness of
human happenings? Unfortunately we are very far from that; rather does the
hypnotic power of tradition keep us in bonds, and through cowardice and
thoughtlessness and habit the herd goes tramping on in this same path. But
man possesses in the unconscious a fine scent for the spirit of his time; he
has an inkling of his own possibilities and he feels in his innermost heart
the instability of the foundations of present-day morality, no longer
supported by living religious conviction. It is thus the greater number of the
erotic conflicts of our time originate. Instinct thirsting for liberty thrusts
itself up against the yielding barriers of morality: men are tempted, they
desire and do not desire. And because they will not and cannot think out to
its logical conclusion what it is they really desire, their erotic conflict is
largely unconscious; whence comes neurosis. Neurosis then is most
intimately bound up with the problem of our times and represents an
unsuccessful attempt of the individual to solve the general problem in his
own person. Neurosis is a tearing in two of the inner self. For most men the
reason of this cleavage is the fact that their conscious self desires to hold to
its moral ideal, whilst the unconscious strives after the amoral ideal,
steadfastly rejected by the conscious self. People of this kind would like to
appear more decent than they really are. But the conflict is often of an
opposite kind. There are those who do not outwardly live a decent life at all
and do not place the slightest constraint upon their sexuality, but in reality
this is a sinful pose assumed for goodness knows what reasons, for down
below they have a decorous soul which has somehow gone astray in their
unconscious, just as has the real immoral nature in the case of apparently
moral people. Extremes of conduct always arouse suspicions of the opposite
tendencies in the unconscious.
It was necessary to make this general statement in order to elucidate the
idea of the "erotic conflict" in analytical psychology, for it is the key to the
conception of neurosis. We can now proceed to consider the psychoanalytic
technique. Obviously the main problem is, how to arrive by the shortest and
best path at a knowledge of the patient's "unconscious." The method first
used was hypnotism, the patient being questioned, on the production of
spontaneous phantasies observed while in a state of hypnotic concentration.
This method is still occasionally used, but in comparison with the present
technique is primitive and frequently unsatisfactory. A second method,
evolved by the Psychiatric Clinic, Zürich, was the so-called association
method,[227] which is chiefly of theoretic, experimental value. Its result is
an extensive, though superficial orientation, concerning the unconscious
conflict ("complex").[228] The more penetrating method is that of dream-
analysis whose discovery belongs to Sigmund Freud.[229]
Of the dream it can be said that "the stone which the builders rejected has
become the head of the corner." It is only in modern times that the dream
(that fleeting and seemingly insignificant product of the soul), has met with
such complete contempt. Formerly it was esteemed, as a harbinger of fate, a
warning or a consolation, a messenger of the gods. Now we use it as a
messenger of the unconscious; it must disclose to us the secrets which our
unconscious self enviously hides from our consciousness, and it does so
with astonishing completeness.
On analytical investigation it becomes plain that the dream, as we
remember it, is only a façade which conceals the contents within the house.
But if, observing certain technical rules, we get the dreamer to talk about
the details of his dream, it soon appears that his free associations group
themselves in certain directions and round certain topics. These appear to
be of personal significance, and have a meaning which at first sight would
not be suspected. Careful comparison shows that they are in close and
subtle symbolic connection with the dream-façade.[230] This particular
complex of ideas in which all the threads of the dream unite, is the conflict
for which we are seeking; is its particular form at the moment, conditioned
by the immediate circumstances. What is painful and incompatible is in this
way so covered up or split that we can call it a wish-fulfilment; but we must
immediately add that the wishes fulfilled in the dream do not seem at first
sight to be our wishes, but rather the very opposite. For instance, a daughter
loves her mother tenderly, but she dreams that her mother is dead; this
causes her great grief. Such dreams, where apparently there is no trace of
any wish-fulfilment are innumerable, and are a constant stumbling-block to
our learned critics, for—incredible dictu—they still cannot grasp the simple
distinction between the manifest and the latent content of the dream. We
must guard against such an error; the conflict dealt with in the dream is an
unconscious one, and equally so also is the manner its solution. Our
dreamer has, as a matter of fact, the wish to get away from her mother—
expressed in the language of the unconscious, she wants her mother to die.
Now we know that a certain section of the unconscious contains all our lost
memories, and also all those infantile impulses that cannot find any
application in adult life—a series, that is, of ruthless childish desires. We
may say that for the most part the unconscious bears an infantile stamp; like
the child's simple wish: "Daddy, when Mummie is dead, will you marry
me?" In a dream that infantile expression of a wish is the substitute for a
recent wish to marry, which is painful to the dreamer for reasons still
undiscovered. This thought, or rather the seriousness of its corresponding
intention, is said to be "repressed into the unconscious" and must there
necessarily express itself in an infantile way, for the material which is at the
disposal of the unconscious consists chiefly of infantile memories. As the
latest researches of the Zürich school have shown,[231] these are not only
infantile memories but also "racial" memories, extending far beyond the
limits of individual existence.
Important desires which have not been sufficiently gratified, or have been
"repressed," during the day find their symbolic substitution in dreams.
Because moral tendencies usually predominate in waking hours, these
ungratified desires which strive to realise themselves symbolically in the
dream are, as rule, erotic ones. It is, therefore, somewhat rash to tell dreams
before one who understands, for the symbolism is often extremely
transparent to him who knows the rules! The clearest in this respect are
"anxiety-dreams" which are so common, and which invariably symbolise a
strong erotic desire.
Often the dream apparently deals with quite irrelevant details, thereby
making a ridiculous impression; or else it is so unintelligible that we are
simply amazed at it, and accordingly have to overcome considerable
resistance in ourselves before we can set to work seriously to unravel its
symbolic weaving by patient work. But when at last we penetrate into its
real meaning we find ourselves at a bound in the very heart of the dreamer's
secrets, and find to our astonishment that an apparently senseless dream is
quite full of sense, and deals with extraordinarily important and serious
problems of the soul. Having acquired this knowledge we cannot refrain
from giving rather more credit to the old superstitions concerning the
meaning of dreams for which our rationalising tendencies, until lately, had
no use.
As Freud says: "Dream-analysis is the via regia to the unconscious."
Dream-analysis leads us into the deepest personal secrets, and it is therefore
an invaluable instrument in the hand of the psychotherapist and educator.
The objections of the opponents of this method are based, as might be
expected, upon argument, which (setting aside undercurrents of personal
feeling) show the bias of present-day Scholasticism. It so happens that it is
just the analysis of dreams which mercilessly uncovers the deceptive morals
and hypocritical affectations of man, and shows him the under side of his
character; can we wonder if many feel that their toes have been rather
painfully trodden upon? In connection with the dream-analysis I am always
reminded of the striking statue of Carnal Pleasure in Bâle Cathedral, which
shows in front the sweet smile of archaic sculpture, but behind is covered
with toads and serpents. Dream-analysis reverses the figure and for once
shows the other side. The ethical value of this reality-correction
(Wirklichkeitscorrectur) cannot be disputed. It is a painful but extremely
useful operation, which makes great demands on both physician and
patient.
Psychoanalysis, in so far as we are considering it as a therapeutic technique,
consists mainly of the analysis of many dreams; the dreams in the course of
the treatment bringing up successively the contents of the unconscious in
order that they may be subjected to the disinfecting power of daylight, and
in this process many a valuable thing believed to have been lost is found
again. It is not surprising that for those persons who have adopted a certain
pose towards themselves, psychoanalysis is at times a real torture, since in
accordance with the old mystic saying, "Give all thou hast, then only shalt
thou receive," there is first the necessity to get rid of almost all the dearly
cherished illusions, to permit the advent of something deeper, finer, and
greater, for only through the mystery of self-sacrifice is it possible to be
"born-again." It is indeed ancient wisdom which again sees the daylight in
psychoanalytic treatment, and it is a curious thing that this kind of psychic
re-education proves to be necessary at the height of our modern culture; this
education which in more than one respect can be compared to the technique
of Socrates, even though psychoanalysis penetrates to much greater depths.
We always find in a patient some conflict, which at a particular point, is
connected with the great problems of society; so that when the analysis has
arrived at this point the apparently individual conflict is revealed as a
universal conflict of the environment and the epoch. Neurosis is thus,
strictly speaking, nothing but an individual attempt, however unsuccessful,
at a solution of the general problem; it must be so, for a general problem, a
"question," is not an end in itself; it only exists in the hearts and heads of
individual men and women. The "question" which troubles the patient is—
whether you like it or not—the "sexual" question, or more precisely, the
problem of present-day sexual morality. His increased demands upon life
and the joy of life, upon glowing reality, can stand the necessary limitations
which reality sets, but not the arbitrary, ill-supported prohibitions of
present-day morals, which would curb too much the creative spirit rising up
from the depths of the darkness of the beasts that perish. For the neurotic
has in him the soul of a child that can but ill-endure arbitrary limitations of
which it does not see the meaning; it tries to adopt the moral standard, but
thereby only falls into deeper disunion and distress within itself. On the one
hand it tries to suppress itself, and on the other to free itself—this is the
struggle that is called Neurosis. If this conflict were altogether clear to
consciousness it would of course never give rise to neurotic symptoms;
these only arise when we cannot see the other side of our character, and the
urgency of the problems of that other side. In these circumstances
symptoms arise which partially express what is unrecognised in the soul.
The symptom is, therefore, an indirect expression of unrecognised desires,
which, were they conscious, would be in violent opposition to the sufferer's
moral views. As we have already said, this dark side of the soul does not
come within the purview of consciousness, and therefore the patient cannot
deal with it, correct it, resign himself to it, or renounce it, for he cannot be
said to possess the unconscious impulses. By being repressed from the
hierarchy of the conscious soul, they have become autonomous complexes
which can be brought again under control by analysis of the unconscious,
though not without great resistance. There are a great many patients whose
great boast it is that the erotic conflict does not exist for them; they are sure
that the sexual question is nonsense, that they have, so to say, no sexuality.
These people do not see that other things of unknown origin cumber their
path, such as hysterical whims, underhand tricks, from which they make
themselves, or those nearest them, suffer; nervous stomach-catarrh, pain
here and there, irritability without reason, and a whole host of nervous
symptoms. All which things show what is wrong with them, for relatively,
only a few specially favoured by fate, avoid the great conflict.
Analytical psychology has already been reproached with setting at liberty
the animal instincts of men, hitherto happily repressed, and causing thereby
untold harm. This childish apprehension clearly proves how little trust is
put in the efficacy of present-day moral principles. It is pretended that only
morals can restrain men from dissoluteness; a much more efficient
regulator, however, is necessity, which sets much more real and convincing
bounds than any moral principles. It is true that analysis liberates animal
instincts, but not, as some have said, just in order to let them loose, but
rather to make them available for higher application, in so far as this is
possible to the particular individual, and in so far as such "sublimated"
application is required. Under all circumstances it is an advantage to be in
full possession of one's own personality, for otherwise the repressed desires
will get in the way in a most serious manner, and overthrow us just in that
place where we are most vulnerable. It is surely better that a man learn to
tolerate himself, and instead of making war on himself convert his inner
difficulties into real experiences, rather than uselessly repeat them again
and again in phantasy. Then at least he lives, and does not merely consume
himself in fruitless struggles. But when men are educated to recognise the
baser side of their own natures, it may be hoped they will learn to
understand and love their fellow-men better too. A decrease of hypocrisy
and an increase of tolerance towards oneself, can have only good results in
tolerance towards one's neighbours, for men are only too easily disposed to
extend to others the unfairness and violence which they do to their own
natures.
Freud's theory of repression does, indeed, seem to postulate the existence
only of people who, being too moral, are continually repressing the
immorality of their natural instincts. According to this idea, the immoral
man who allows his natural instincts an unbridled existence should be proof
against neurosis. But daily experience proves this is obviously not the case;
he may be just as neurotic as other men. If we analyse him, we find that it is
simply his decency that has been repressed. Therefore, when an immoral
man is neurotic, he represents what Nietzsche appropriately described as
"the pale criminal," a man who does not stand upon the same level as his
deed.[232]
The opinion may be held, that in such a case the repressed remnants of
decency are merely infantile traditional legacies, that impose unnecessary
fetters upon natural instincts, for which reason they should be eradicated.
The principle "écraser l'infâme" would be the natural culmination of such
an absolute let-instinct-live theory.[233] That would obviously be quite
phantastic and nonsensical. It should, indeed, never be forgotten—and the
Freudian School needs this reminder—that morality was not brought down
upon tables of stone from Sinai and forced upon the people, but that
morality is a function of the human soul, which is as old as humanity itself.
Morality is not inculcated from without. Man has it primarily within
himself—not the law indeed, but the essence of morals.
After all, does a more moral view-point exist than the let-instinct-live
theory? Is there a more heroic morality than this? That is why Nietzsche,
the heroic, is especially partial to it. It is natural and inborn cowardice that
makes people say, "God preserve me from following my instincts," thinking
that they thus prove their high moral standard. They do not understand that
following one's bent is really much too costly for them, too strenuous, too
dangerous, and finally it cuts somewhat against that sense of decency which
most people associate rather with taste than with a categorical imperative.
The unpardonable fault of the let-instinct-live theory is, that it is much too
heroic, too idealogic for the multitude.
There is, therefore, probably no other way for the immoral man but to
accept the moral corrective of his unconscious, just as he who is moral must
come to terms as best he may, with his demons of the netherworld. It cannot
be gainsaid that the Freudian School is so convinced of the fundamental,
and even exclusive importance of sexuality in neurosis, that it has been
courageous enough to face the consequences of its convictions by
heroically attacking the sexual morality of the present day. Many different
opinions prevail upon this subject. What is significant is, that the problem
of sexual morality is being widely discussed at the present time. This is
doubtless both useful and necessary, for hitherto we have not really had any
sexual morality at all, but merely a low barbaric view, quite insufficiently
differentiated. In the Middle Ages, usury was considered absolutely
despicable, for at that time the morality of finance was not casuistically
differentiated; there was nothing but a kind of lump-morality. So nowadays,
there exists nothing but sexual morality in the lump. A girl who has an
illegitimate child is condemned, without any inquiry as to whether she is a
decent person or not. Any form of love that has no legal sanction is
immoral, no matter whether it occurs between thoughtful people of value or
irresponsible scamps. People are still barbarically hypnotised by the thing
itself, to such an extent that they forget the individual.
Therefore the discussion of and attack upon sexual morality of the present
day signifies at bottom, a moral deed, constraining people towards a
differentiated and really ethical conception of the subject.
As already stated, Freud sees the great conflict between the ego and natural
instinct chiefly under its sexual aspect. This aspect does exist, but a big
query should be placed behind its actuality. The question is whether what
appears in a sexual form must always essentially be sexuality? It is
conceivable that one instinct may disguise itself under another. Freud
himself has supplied several notable instances of such a disguise, proving
therewith, convincingly, that many of the deeds and aims of human kind
are, at bottom, nothing but somewhat figurative expressions substituted, on
account of embarrassment, in place of important elementary things. The
substitution is not seen through on account of reasons of mutual
consideration. There is nothing to hinder certain elementary things being
also pushed conveniently into the foreground, in place of more necessary
but less pleasant ones, under the illusion that the elementary things only are
really in question.
The theory of sexuality although one-sided is absolutely right up to a
certain point. It would, therefore, be just as false to repudiate it as to accept
it as universally valid.

III.—The other Viewpoint: the Will to Power.

We have so far considered the problem of the psychology of unconscious
processes mainly from the point of view of Freud. We have thereby
doubtless gained an inkling of a real truth, which perhaps our pride, our
consciousness of civilisation, tries to deny, although something else in us
affirms it. This situation is extremely irritating to some people, arousing
resistances, and at the same time they are terror-stricken by it, a fact which
they are most unwilling to acknowledge. There is something terrible in
admitting this conflict, for it is an acknowledgment of being swayed by
instinct. Has it ever been understood what it means to confess to the sway
of instinct? Nietzsche desired to be so swayed and advocated it most
seriously. He even sacrificed himself throughout his whole life, with rare
passion, to the idea of the Superman, that is to the idea of the man who,
obeying his instincts, transcends even his very self. And what was the
course of his life? It turned out as Nietzsche himself prophesied in the
passage in "Zarathustra" relating to the fatal fall of the rope-dancer, of the
man who did not want to be "surpassed." Zarathustra says to the dying rope-
dancer: "Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body." And later, the
dwarf says to Zarathustra: "Oh, Zarathustra, thou stone of wisdom! Thou
threwest thyself high, but every thrown-stone must fall! Condemned of
thyself, and to thine own stoning: oh, Zarathustra, far indeed threwest thou
the stone—but upon thyself will it recoil!"
When he cried his "ecce homo" over himself, it was again too late, and the
crucifixion of the soul began even before the body was dead. He who thus
taught yea-saying to the instincts of life, must have his own career looked at
critically, in order to discover the effects of this teaching upon the teacher.
But if we consider his life from this point of view, we must say that
Nietzsche lived beyond instinct, in the lofty atmosphere of heroic
"sublimity." This height could only be maintained by means of most careful
diet, choice climate and above all by many opiates. Finally, the tension of
this living shattered his brain. He spoke of yea-saying, but lived the nay.
His horror of people, especially of the animal man, who lives by instinct,
was too great. He could not swallow the toad of which he so often dreamt,
and which he feared he must yet gulp down. The Zarathustrian lion roared
all the "higher" men, who craved for life, back into the cavernous depths of
the unconscious. That is why his life does not convince us of the truth of his
teaching. The "higher man" should be able to sleep without chloral, and be
competent to live in Naumburg or Basle despite "the fogs and shadows." He
wants woman and offspring; he needs to feel he has some value and
position in the herd, he longs for innumerable commonplaces, and not least
for what is humdrum: it is this instinct that Nietzsche did not recognise; it
is, in other words, the natural animal instinct for life.
But how did he live if it was not from natural impulse? Should Nietzsche
really be accused of a practical denial of his natural instincts? He would
hardly agree to that; indeed he might even prove, and that without difficulty,
that he really was following his instincts in the highest sense. But we may
well ask how is it possible that human instincts could have led him so far
from humanity, into absolute isolation, into an aloofness from the herd
which he supported with loathing and disgust? One would have thought that
instinct would have united, would have coupled and begot, that it would
tend towards pleasure and good cheer, towards gratification of all sensual
desires. But we have quite overlooked the fact that this is only one of the
possible directions of instinct. There exists not only the instinct for the
preservation of the species (the sexual instinct), but also the instinct for the
preservation of the self.
Nietzsche obviously speaks of this latter instinct, that is of the will to
power. Whatever other kinds of instinct may exist are for him only a
consequence of the will to power. Viewed from the standpoint of Freud's
sexual-psychology this is a gross error, a misconception of biology, a bad
choice made by a decadent neurotic human being. For it would be easy for
any adherent of sexual psychology to prove that all that was too lofty, too
heroic, in Nietzsche's conception of the world and of life, was nothing but a
consequence of the repression and misconception of "instinct," that is of the
instinct that this psychology considers fundamental.
This brings us to the question of perception, or rather it were better to say of
the various lenses through which the world may be perceived. For it would
hardly be permissible to pronounce a judgment on a life like Nietzsche's. It
was lived with rare consistency, from the beginning to the fateful end, in
accordance with his underlying natural fundamental instinct for power. It
would hardly do to pronounce it to be merely figurative, otherwise we
should make the same unjust condemnation that Nietzsche pronounced
upon his polar opposite Richard Wagner, of whom he said, "Everything in
him is false; what is genuine is hidden or disguised. He is an actor, in every
bad and good meaning of the word." Why this judgment? Wagner is a
precise representative of that other fundamental instinct, which Nietzsche
overlooked, and upon which Freud's psychology is based. If we inquire
whether the other main instinct—that of power—was unconsidered by
Freud, we shall find that he has included it under the name of the "ego
instinct." But these ego instincts drag out an obscure existence, according to
his psychology, alongside the broad, all-too-broad, development of the
sexual theme. In reality, however, human nature wages a cruel and hardly-
to-be-ended warfare between the ego-principle and that of formless instinct.
The ego is all barriers; instinct, on the other hand, is without any limits.
Both principles are equally powerful. In a certain sense men may account
themselves fortunate in being conscious of only one instinct: therefore he
who is wise avoids getting to know the other. But if, after all, he does get to
know the other instinct, he is indeed a lost man. For then he enters upon the
Faustian conflict. Goethe has shown us in the first part of "Faust" what the
acceptance of instinct involves, and in the second part, what the acceptance
of the ego and of his gruesome unconscious world would signify.
Everything that is insignificant, petty, and cowardly in us shrinks from it,
and would avoid it—and there is one admirable means of doing so. Namely,
by discovering that the other thing in us is "another fellow," a live man who
actually thinks, feels, does and desires all the things that are despicable and
odious. In this way the bogey is seized, and the battle against him is begun
to our satisfaction. Hence arise, also, those chronic idiosyncrasies of which
the history of morals has preserved a few examples for us. The instance of
Nietzsche contra Wagner, already cited, is particularly transparent. But
ordinary human life is crammed full of such cases. It is by these ingenuous
devices that man saves himself from the Faustian catastrophe for which he
evidently lacks both courage and strength. But a sincere man knows that
even his bitterest opponent, or any number of them, does not by any means
equal his one worst adversary, that is his other self who "bides within his
breast." Nietzsche unconsciously had Wagner in himself, that is why he
envied him his Parsifal. But even worse, he was a Saul and also had Paul
within. That is why Nietzsche became a stigmatised outcast of the Spirit; he
had like Saul to experience Christification when "the other self" inspired
him with his "ecce homo." Which man in him "broke down before the
cross," Wagner or Nietzsche?
It was ordained by destiny that one of Freud's earliest pupils, Adler,[234]
should formulate a view of neurosis as founded exclusively upon the
principle of power. It is interesting and even fascinating to observe how
totally different the same things appear when viewed in another light. In
order to emphasise the main contrast, I would like at once to draw attention
to the fact that, according to Freud, everything is a strictly causal
consequence of previously-occurring facts; Adler, on the contrary, sees
everything as a finally conditioned arrangement. To take a simple example:
A young woman begins to have attacks of terror. She wakes at night from
some nightmare with a piercing cry; calming herself with difficulty, she
clings to her husband, imploring him not to leave her, making him repeat
again and again that he loves her, etc. Gradually a nervous asthma develops,
attacks of which also come on during the day.
In such a case, the Freudian system begins at once to burrow in the inner
causality of the illness: What did the initial anxiety-dreams contain. She
recalls wild bulls, lions, tigers, bad men. What does the patient associate
with them? She told a story of something that had happened to her when
she was still single. It ran as follows: She was staying at a summer-resort in
the mountains, a great deal of tennis was played, the usual acquaintances
being made. There was a young Italian who played particularly well, and
who also knew how to handle the guitar in the evenings. A harmless
flirtation developed, leading once to a moon-light walk. On this occasion,
the Italian temperament "unexpectedly" broke through, running away with
the young man to the great terror of the unsuspecting girl. He "looked at her
with such a look," that she could never forget it. This look follows her even
in her dreams; the wild animals that persecuted her had it. As a matter of
fact, does this look originally come from the Italian? Another reminiscence
enlightens us. The patient had lost her father through an accident, when she
was about fourteen years old. The father was a man of the world, and
travelled a great deal. Not long before his death he took her to Paris, where,
among other things, they visited the Follies Bergères. Something happened
there that at the time made a deep impression upon her. As they were
leaving the theatre, a rouged female suddenly pressed close up to her father
in an impertinent way. She looked at her father in fear as to what he would
do—and then she saw that look, that animal glare in his eyes. An
inexplicable something clung to her day and night. From this moment her
attitude to her father was quite changed. At one instant she was irritable and
full of venomous moods, at another she loved him extravagantly; then
causeless fits of crying suddenly began, and, for a time, whenever her father
was at home, she was tormented by terrible choking at table, with apparent
attacks of suffocation, which were usually followed by voicelessness lasting
from one to two days. When the news of her father's sudden death arrived,
she was overcome by uncontrolled grief ending in hysterical laughter. But
she soon calmed down, her condition improving quickly, and the neurotic
symptoms disappearing almost completely. It seemed as if a veil of
forgetfulness had descended over the past. Only the experience with the
Italian roused something in her of which she was afraid. She had broken off
completely with the young man. A few years later she married. The present
neurosis only began after the birth of her second child, that is at the moment
when she discovered that her husband took a certain tender interest in
another woman.
This history raises a number of questions. For instance, what do we know
about the mother? It should be said of her that she was very nervous, and
had tried many kinds of sanatoria and systems of cure. She also had
symptoms of fear and nervous asthma. The relations between her and her
husband had been very strained as far back as the patient could remember.
The mother did not understand the father; the daughter always felt that she
understood him better. She was moreover her father's declared favourite,
being inwardly correspondingly cool towards her mother.
These facts are indications for a survey of the meaning of the illness.
Behind the present symptoms phantasies are operative, connected in the
first place with the young Italian, but further clearly referring to the father,
whose unhappy marriage furnished the little daughter with an early
opportunity of acquiring a position that really should have been filled by
her mother. Behind this conquest there lies, of course, a phantasy of being
the woman who was really suited to her father. The first attack of neurosis
broke out at the moment when this phantasy received a violent shock,
presumably similar to that the mother had once experienced (a fact that was,
however, unknown to the child). The symptoms are easily comprehensible
as the expression of disappointed and rejected love. The choking is based
upon a sensation of tightening in the throat that is a well-known
accompanying phenomenon of violent effects which we cannot quite
"swallow." The metaphors of language often refer to similar physiological
occurrences. When the father died, it seemed that her consciousness
sorrowed deeply but her unconscious laughed, after the manner of Till
Eulenspiegel, who was sad when he went downhill but was jolly when
climbing laboriously, happy in anticipation of what was coming. When the
father was at home the girl was low-spirited and ill, but whenever he was
away she felt much better. Herein she resembles numerous husbands and
wives who as yet are mutually hiding from each other the secret that they
are not under all circumstances indispensable to one another.
That the unconscious had some right to laugh was shown by the subsequent
period of good health. She succeeded in letting all that had passed retire
behind the trap-door. The experience with the Italian, however, threatened
to bring the netherworld up again. But she quickly pulled the handle and
shut the door. She remained quite well until the dragon of neurosis came
creeping in, just when she imagined herself to be already safely out of her
troubles, in the so-to-say perfected state of wife and mother. Sexual
psychology finds the cause of the neurosis in the fact that the patient is not
at bottom free from the father. This forces her to resuscitate her former
experience at the moment when she discovered in the Italian the very same
disturbing something that had formerly made such a deep impression upon
her when perceived in her father. These recollections were naturally revived
by the analogous experience with another man, and formed the starting-
point of the neurosis. It might therefore be said that the content and cause of
the neurosis lay in the conflict between the phantastic infantile-erotic
relation to the father on the one hand, and her love for the husband on the
other.
But if we now consider the course of the same illness from the standpoint of
the other instinct, that is, of the will to power, a different complexion is put
upon the matter. Her parents' unhappy marriage afforded an excellent
opportunity for the exhibition of childish instinct for power. The instinct for
power desires that, under all circumstances, the ego should be "on top,"
whether by straight or crooked means. At all costs the integrity of the
personality must be preserved.
Every attempt, even what appears to be an attempt of the surroundings, to
bring about the slightest subjection of the individual, is retorted to by the
"masculine protest," as Adler expresses it. The mother's disappointment and
her taking refuge in a neurosis brought about an opportunity for the
development of power and the attainment of a dominating position. Love
and excellence of conduct are, as everybody knows, extremely well-adapted
weapons for the purposes of the instinct for power. Virtue is not seldom
made the means of forcing recognition from others. Already as a child she
knew how to obtain a privileged position with her father by means of
specially pleasing and amiable behaviour, even occasionally to supplant her
mother. This was not out of love for her father, although love was a good
means of obtaining the coveted superiority. The hysterical laughter at the
death of her father is a striking proof of this fact. One is inclined to consider
such an explanation as a deplorable depreciation of love, if not actually a
malicious insinuation. But let us pause a moment, reflect, and look at the
world as it really is. Have we never seen those innumerable people who
love, and believe in their love, only until its purpose is achieved, and who
then turn away as if they had never loved? And, after all, does not Nature
herself do the same? In fact, is a "purposeless" love possible? If so, it
belongs to the highest human virtues, which confessedly are extremely rare.
Perhaps there is a general disposition to reflect as little as possible about the
nature and purpose of love; discoveries might be made which would show
the value of one's own love to be less considerable than we had supposed.
However, it were dangerous to life to subtract anything from the value of
fundamental instincts, perhaps specially so to-day, when we seem to have
only a minimum of values left.
So the patient had an attack of hysterical laughter at the death of her father;
she had finally arrived at the top. It was hysterical laughter, therefore a
psychogenic symptom, that is, something proceeding from unconscious
motives and not from those of the conscious ego. That is a difference that
should not be underrated, for it enables us to recognise whence and how
human virtues arise. Their contraries led to hell, that is, in modern terms, to
the unconscious, where the counterparts of our conscious virtue have long
been gathering. That is why our very virtue makes us desire to know
nothing of the unconscious; indeed, it is even the summit of virtuous
wisdom to maintain that there is no unconscious at all. But unfortunately we
are all in a like predicament with Brother Medardus in E. T. A. Hoffman's
"The Elixir of the Devil": somewhere or other there exists a sinister, terrible
brother, our own incarnate counterpart bound to us by flesh and blood, who
comprehends everything, maliciously hoarding whatever we most desire
should disappear beneath the table.
The first outbreak of neurosis occurred in our patient at the moment when
she became aware of the fact that there was something in her father which
she did not control. And then it dawned upon her of what use her mother's
neurosis was. When one meets with an obstacle that cannot be overcome by
sensible and charming means, there yet exists an arrangement hitherto
unknown to her which her mother had been beforehand in discovering, and
that is neurosis. That is the reason why she now imitates her mother. But,
the astonished reader asks, what is supposed to be the use of neurosis?
What does it effect? Whoever has had a pronounced case of neurosis in his
immediate environment, knows all that can be "effected" by a neurosis. In
fact, there is altogether no better means of tyrannising over a whole
household than by a striking neurosis. Heart attacks, choking fits,
convulsions of all kinds achieve enormous effects, that can hardly be
surpassed. Picture the fountains of pity let loose, the sublime anxiety of the
dear kind parents, the hurried running to and fro of the servants, the
incessant sounding of the call to the telephone, the hasty arrival of the
physicians, the delicacy of the diagnosis, the detailed examinations, the
lengthy courses of treatment, the considerable expense; and there, in the
midst of all the uproar, lies the innocent sufferer, to whom the household is
even overflowingly grateful, when he has recovered from the "spasms."
The girl discovered this incomparable "arrangement" (to use Adler's term),
applying it on occasion when the father was there with success. It became
unnecessary when the father died, for now she was finally uppermost. The
Italian was soon dismissed, because he laid too much stress upon her
femininity by an inopportune reminder of his manliness. When the way
opened to the possibility of a suitable marriage, she loved, adapting herself
without any complaint to the deplorable rôle of the queen bee. As long as
she held the position of admired superiority, everything went splendidly.
But when her husband evinced a small outside interest, she was obliged
again to have recourse to the extremely efficacious "arrangement," that is,
to the indirect application of power, because she had once again come upon
that thing—this time in her husband—that had already previously
withdrawn her father from her influence.
That is how the matter appears from the standpoint of the psychology of
power. I fear that the reader will feel as did the Kadi, before whom the
counsel of one party spoke first. When he had ended, the Kadi said: "Thou
hast spoken well. I perceive that thou art right." Then spoke the counsel for
the other party, and when he had ended, the Kadi scratched himself behind
his ear and said: "Thou hast spoken well. I perceive that thou also art right."
There is no doubt that the instinct for power plays a most extraordinary
part. It is true that the complexes of neurotic symptoms are also exquisite
"arrangements," that inexorably realise their aims with incredible obstinacy
and unequalled cunning. The neurosis is final; that is, it is directed towards
an aim. Adler merits considerable distinction for having demonstrated this.
Which of the two points of view is right? That is a question that might well
cause much brain-racking. For the two explanations cannot be simply
combined, being absolutely contradictory. In one case, it is love and its
course that is the principal and decisive fact; and in the other case, it is the
power of the ego. In the first case the ego is merely a kind of appendage to
the passion for love; and in the second love is upon occasion merely a
means to the end, that of gaining the upper hand. Whoever has the power of
the ego most at heart rebels against the former conception, whilst he who
cares most about love, will never be able to be reconciled to the latter.

IV.—The Two Types of Psychology.

It is at this point that our most recent researches may suitably be introduced.
We have found, in the first place, that there are two types of human
psychology.[235] In the one type the fundamental function is feeling, and in
the other it is thought. The one feels his way into the object, the other thinks
about it. The one adapts himself to his surroundings by feeling, thinking
coming later; whilst the other adapts himself by means of thought, preceded
by understanding. The one who feels his way transfers himself to some
extent to the object; whilst the other withdraws himself from the object to
some extent, or pauses before it and reflects about it. The first we called the
extroverted type, because in the main he goes outside himself to the object,
the latter is called the introverted type, because in a major degree he turns
away from the object, withdrawing into himself and thinking about it.
These remarks only give the broadest outline of the two types. But even this
quite inadequate sketch enables us to recognise that the two theories are the
outcome of the contrast between the two types. The sexual theory is
promulgated from the standpoint of feeling, the power theory from that of
thought; for the extrovert always places the accent upon the feelings that are
connected with the object, whereas the introvert always puts the accent
upon the ego, and is as much detached by thought from the object as
possible.
The irreconcilable contradictions of the two theories are now to be
understood, because both theories are the product of a one-sided
psychology. We find an instance of the contrast of types in Nietzsche and
Wagner. The dissension between the two is due to the contrast in their ideas
of psychological values. What is most prized by the one is "affectation" for
the other, and is deemed false to the very core. Each depreciates the other.
If we apply the sexual theory to an extrovert it tallies with the facts of the
case; but if we apply it to an introvert, we simply maltreat and do violence
to his psychology. The same applies to the contrary case. The relative
rightness of the two hostile theories is explained by the fact that each one
draws its material from cases that prove the correctness of the theory. There
is a remnant of persons whom neither theory fits—has not every rule its
exceptions?
Criticism of both theories is indispensable. Recognition of facts showed the
necessity of overcoming their contrast, and of evolving a theory that should
do justice not only to one or the other type, but equally to both.
Even the layman will to some extent have been struck by the fact that in
spite of their correctness both theories really have a very unpleasant
character and one not altogether pertinent under all circumstances to the
strict views of science. The sexual theory is unæsthetic and unsatisfying
intellectually. The power theory, on the other hand, is decidedly venomous.
Both inevitably reduce high-flown ideals, heroic attitudes, pathos, and deep
convictions, in a painful manner to a reality which is hackneyed and trite;
that is, if these theories are applied to such things—but they should
certainly not be so applied. Both theories are really only therapeutic
instruments out of the tool-chest of the physician, whose sharp and
merciless knife cuts out all that is pernicious and diseased. It was just such a
misapplication of theory Nietzsche tried with his destructive criticism of
ideals. He regarded ideals as rampant diseases of the soul of humanity; as
indeed they really are. However, in the hands of a good physician who
really knows the human soul, who, as Nietzsche says, "has a finger for the
slightest shade," who applies the treatment only to what is really diseased in
a soul—in such hands both theories prove wholesome caustics. The
application must be adapted to the individual case. It is a dangerous therapy
in the hands of those who do not understand how to deal out the treatment.
These applications of criticism do good when there is something that should
and must be destroyed, dissolved or brought low, but can easily damage
what is being built up, or growing in response to life's requirements.
Both theories might, therefore, be allowed to pass without attack, in so far
as they, like medicinal poisons, are entrusted to the safe hands of the
physician. But fate has ordained that they should not remain solely in the
care of those who are qualified to use them. First of all they naturally
became known to the medical public. Every practising physician has an
indefinitely high percentage of neurotics among his patients; he is therefore
more or less obliged to look out for new and suitable systems of treatment.
He ultimately lights upon the difficult method of psychoanalysis. He is at
first not competent for this, for how should he have learnt about the secrets
of the human soul? Certainly not through his academic studies. The
smattering of psychiatry that he acquired for his examination barely suffices
to enable him to recognise the symptoms of the commonest mental
disturbances, and is far from giving him any sufficient insight into the
human soul. He is, therefore, practically quite unprepared to apply the
analytic method. An unusually far-reaching knowledge of the soul is indeed
necessary in order to be able to apply this caustic treatment with advantage.
One must be in a position to differentiate elements that are diseased and
should be discarded, from those which are valuable and should be retained.
This is plainly a matter of great difficulty. Any one who wishes to get a
vivid impression of the way in which a psychologysing physician may
unwarrantably violate a patient through an ignoble pseudo-scientific
prejudice, should read what Moebius has written about Nietzsche. Or he
may study various psychiatric writings about the "case of Christ," and will
surely not hesitate to lament the lot of the patient whose fate it is to meet
with such "understanding." Psychoanalysis—greatly to the regret of the
medical man who, however, had not accepted it—then passed over into the
hands of the teaching profession. This is right: for it is really, when rightly
understood and handled, an educational method, and one of the social
sciences. I would, however, never personally recommend that Freud's
purely sexual analysis should be exclusively applied as an educational
method. It might do much harm because of its one-sidedness. In order to
make psychoanalysis available for educational purposes, all the
metamorphoses that have been the work of the last few years were needed.
The method had to be expanded from a general psychological point of view.
But the two theories of which I have spoken are not general theories. They
are, as I have said, caustics to be applied, so to say, "locally," for they are
both destructive and reductive. They explain to the patient that his
symptoms come from here or there, and are "nothing but" this or that. It
would be very unjust to wish to maintain that this reductive theory is wrong
in a given case, but when exalted into a general explanation of the nature of
the soul—whether sick or healthy—a reductive theory becomes impossible.
For the human soul, whether it be sick or healthy, cannot be merely
reductively explained. Sexuality it is true is always and everywhere present;
the instinct for power certainly does penetrate the heights and the depths of
the soul; but the soul itself is not solely either the one or the other, or even
both together, it is also that which it has made and will make out of them
both. A person is only half understood when one knows how everything in
him came about. Only a dead man can be explained in terms of the past, a
living one must be otherwise explained. Life is not made up of yesterdays
only, nor is it understood nor explained by reducing to-day to yesterday.
Life has also a to-morrow, and to-day is only understood if we are able to
add the indications of to-morrow to our knowledge of what was yesterday.
This holds good for all expressions of psychological life, even for
symptoms of disease. Symptoms of neurosis are not merely consequences
of causes that once have been, whether they were "infantile sexuality" or
"infantile instinct for power." They are endeavours towards a new synthesis
of life. It must immediately be added, however, they are endeavours that
have miscarried. None the less they are attempts; they represent the
germinal striving which has both meaning and value. They are embryos that
failed to achieve life, owing to unpropitious conditions of an internal and
external nature.
The reader will now probably propound the question: What possible value
and meaning can a neurosis have? Is it not a most useless and repulsive pest
of humanity? Can being nervous do anybody good? Possibly, in a way
similar to that of flies and other vermin, which were created by God in
order that man might exercise the useful virtue of patience. Stupid as this
thought is from the standpoint of natural science, it might be quite shrewd
from that of psychology; that is, if we substitute "nervous symptoms" in the
place of "vermin." Even Nietzsche, who had an uncommon disdain for
anything stupid and trite in thought, more than once acknowledged how
much he owed to his illness. I have known more than one person who
attributed all his usefulness, and the justification for his existence even, to a
neurosis, that hindered all decisive stupidities of his life, compelling him to
lead an existence which developed what was valuable in him; material that
would have been crushed had not the neurosis with its iron grip forced the
man to keep to the place where he really belonged. There are people the
meaning of whose life—whose real significance—lies in the unconscious;
in consciousness lies only all that is vain and delusive. With others the
reverse is the case, and for them the neurosis has another significance. An
extended reduction is appropriate to the one, but emphatically unsuitable to
the other.
The reader will now, indeed, be inclined to agree to the possibility of certain
cases of neurosis having such a significance but will nevertheless be ready
to deny an expediency that is so far-reaching and full of meaning to
ordinary cases of this illness. What value, for instance, might there be in the
afore-mentioned case of asthma and hysterical attacks of fear? I confess that
the value here is not so obvious, especially if the case be looked at from the
standpoint of a reductive theory, that is, from that of a chronique
scandaleuse of the psychological development of an individual.
We perceive that both the theories hitherto discussed have this one point in
common, viz. they relentlessly disclose everything that is valueless in
people. They are theories, or rather hypotheses, which explain wherein the
cause of the sickness lies. They are accordingly concerned not with the
values of a person, but with his lack of value that makes itself evident in a
disturbing way. From this point of view, it is possible to be reconciled to
both standpoints.
A "value" is a possibility by means of which energy may attain
development. But in so far as a negative value is also a possibility through
which energy may attain development—as may, for instance, be clearly
seen in the very considerable manifestations of energy shown in neurosis—
it also stands for a value, albeit it brings about manifestations of energy
which are useless and harmful. In itself energy is neither useful nor harmful,
neither full of value nor lacking in it; it is indifferent, everything depending
upon the form into which it enters. The form gives the quality to the energy.
On the other side, mere form without energy is also indifferent. Therefore in
order to bring about a positive value, on the one hand energy is necessary,
and upon the other a valuable form. In a neurosis psychic energy is
undoubtedly present, but in an inferior and not realisable form. Both the
analytic methods that have been discussed above are of service only as
solvents of this inferior form. They prove themselves good here as caustics.
By these methods we gain energy that is certainly free, but which, being as
yet unapplied, is indifferent. Hitherto the supposition prevailed, that this
newly acquired energy was at the patient's conscious disposal, that he might
apply it in any way he liked. In so far as it was thought that the energy was
nothing but the sexual impulse, people spoke of a sublimated application of
the same, under the presumption that the patient could, without further ado,
transfer what was thought of as sexual energy into a "sublimation"; that is,
into a non-sexual form of use. It might, for instance, be transferred to the
cultivation of an art, or to some other good or useful activity. According to
this concept, the patient had the possibility of deciding, either arbitrarily or
from inclination, how his energy should be sublimated.
This conception may be accorded a justification for its existence, in so far
as it is at all possible for a human being to assign a definite direction to his
life, in which its course should run. But we know that there is no human
forethought nor philosophy which can enable us to give our lives a
prescribed direction, except for quite a short distance. Destiny lies before
us, perplexing us, and teeming with possibilities, and yet only one of these
many possibilities is our own particular right way. Who should presume to
designate the one possibility beforehand, even though he have the most
complete knowledge of his own character that a man can have? Much can
certainly be attained by means of will-power. But having regard to the fate
of certain personalities with particularly strong wills, it is entirely
misleading for us to want at all costs to change our own fate by power of
will. Our will is a function that is directed by our powers of reflection; it
depends, therefore, upon how our powers of reflection are constituted. In
order to deserve its name reflection must be rational, that is, according to
reason. But has it ever been proved, or can it ever be proved, that life and
destiny harmonise with our human reason, that is, that they are exclusively
rational? On the contrary, we have ground for supposing that they are also
irrational, that is to say, that in the last resort they too are based in regions
beyond the human reason. The irrationality of the great process is shown by
its so-called accidentalness, which perforce we ought to deny, since,
obviously, we cannot think of a process not being causally and necessarily
conditioned. But actually, accidentality exists everywhere, and does so
indeed so obtrusively that we might as well pocket our causal philosophy!
The rich store of life both is, and is not, determined by law; it is at the same
time rational and irrational. Therefore, the reason and the will founded upon
it are only valid for a short distance. The further we extend this rationally
chosen direction, the surer we may be that we are thereby excluding the
irrational possibilities of life, which have, however, just as good a right to
be lived. Aye, we even injure ourselves, since we cut off the wealth of
accidental eventualities by a too rigid and conscious direction. It was
certainly very expedient for man to be able to give his life a direction; it
would, therefore, be quite right to maintain that the attainment of
reasonableness was the greatest achievement of mankind. But that is not to
say that under all circumstances, this must or will always continue to be the
case. The present fearful catastrophic world-war has tremendously upset the
most optimistic upholder of rationalism and culture.
In 1913 Ostwald wrote[236] as follows: "The whole world agrees that the
present state of armed peace is untenable, and is gradually becoming an
impossible condition. It demands tremendous sacrifices from individual
nations far surpassing the outlay for cultural purposes, without any positive
values being gained thereby. Therefore, if mankind could discover ways and
means of putting an end to these preparations for a war that will never
come, this conscripting of a considerable part of the nation at the best and
most capable age for training for war purposes, if it could overcome all the
innumerable other injuries caused by the present customs, such an
enormous saving of energy would be effected, that an undreamt-of
development of the evolution of culture might be expected. For like a hand-
to-hand fight, war is the oldest, and also the most unsuitable of all possible
means of solving a conflict between wills, being indeed accompanied by the
most deplorable waste of energy. The complete setting aside of potential as
well as of actual warfare is, therefore, absolutely one of the most important
tasks of culture in our time, a real necessity from the point of view of
energy."
But the irrationality of destiny ordained otherwise than the rationality of the
well-meaning thinker; since it not only determined to use the piled-up
weapons and soldiers, but much more than that, it brought about a
tremendous insane devastation and unparalleled slaughter. From this
catastrophe humanity may possibly draw the conclusion, that only one side
of fate can be mastered by rational intention.
What can be said of mankind in general applies also to individuals, for
mankind as a whole consists of nothing but individuals. And whatever the
psychology of mankind is, that is also the psychology of the individual. We
are experiencing in the world-war a fearful balancing-up with the rational
intentionality of organised culture. What is called "will" in the individual, is
termed "imperialism" among nations, for the will is a demonstration of
power over fate, that is, exclusion of what is accidental. The organisation of
culture is a rational and "expedient" sublimation of free and indifferent
energies, brought about by design and intention. The same is the case in the
individual. And just as the hope of a universal international organisation of
culture has experienced a cruel right-about through this war, so also must
the individual, in the course of his life, often find that so-called "disposable"
energies do not suffer themselves to be disposed of.
I was once consulted by a business man of about forty-five, whose case is a
good illustration of the foregoing. He was a typical American self-made
man, who had worked himself up from the bottom. He had been successful,
and had founded a very extensive business. He had also gradually organised
the business in such a way that he could now retire from its management.
He had indeed resigned two years before I saw him. Until then he had only
lived for his business, concentrating all his energy upon it, with that
incredible intensity and one-sidedness that is so peculiar to the successful
American man of business. He had bought himself a splendid country seat,
where he thought he would "live," which he imagined to mean keeping
horses, automobiles, playing golf and tennis, attending and giving parties,
etc. But he had reckoned without his host. The energy that had become
"disposable" did not enter into these tempting prospects, but betook itself
capriciously to quite other ways. A couple of weeks after the
commencement of his longed-for life of bliss, he began to brood over
peculiar vague physical sensations. A few more weeks sufficed to plunge
him into an unprecedented state of hypochondria. His nerves broke down
completely. He, who was physically an uncommonly strong and
exceptionally energetic man, became like a whining child. And that put an
end to all his paradise. He fell from one apprehension to another, worrying
himself almost to death. He then consulted a celebrated specialist, who
immediately perceived quite rightly that there was nothing wrong with the
man but lack of employment. The patient saw the sense of this, and betook
himself to his former position. But to his great disappointment no interest
for his business presented itself. Neither the application of patience nor
determination availed to help. His energy would not by any means be
forced back into the business. His condition naturally became worse than
before. Energy that hitherto had been actively creative was now turned back
into himself, with fearfully destructive force. His creative genius rose up, so
to speak, in revolt against him, and instead of, as before, producing great
organisations in the world, his demon now created equally clever systems of
hypochondriac fallacies, by which the man was absolutely crushed. When I
saw him, he was already a hopeless moral ruin. I tried to make clear to him
that such a gigantic amount of energy might indeed be withdrawn from
business, but the problem remained as to where it should go. The finest
horses, the fastest automobiles, and the most amusing parties are in
themselves no inducement for energy, although it is certainly quite rational
to think that a man who has devoted his whole life to serious work, has a
natural right to enjoy himself. This would necessarily be the case if things
happened "humanly" in destiny; first would come work, then well-earned
leisure. But things happen irrationally and inconveniently enough, energy
requires a congenial channel, otherwise it is dammed up and becomes
destructive. My arguments met with no response, as was indeed to be
expected. Such an advanced case can only be taken care of till death; it
cannot be cured.
This case clearly illustrates the fact that it does not lie in our power to
transfer a "disposable" energy to whatever rationally chosen object we may
like. Exactly the same may be said of those apparently available energies
that are made available by the fact that the psychoanalytical caustic has
destroyed their unsuitable forms. These energies can be arbitrarily applied,
as has already been said, at the very most only for a short time. They resist
following the rationally presented possibilities for any length of time.
Psychic energy is indeed a fastidious thing, that insists upon having its own
conditions fulfilled. There may be ever so much energy existing, but we
cannot make it useful, so long as we do not succeed in finding a congenial
channel for it.
The whole of my research work for the last years has been concentrated
upon this question. The first stage of this work was to discover the extent to
which the two theories discussed above were tenable. The second stage
consisted in the recognition of the fact, that these two theories correspond to
two opposite psychological types, which I have designated the introversion
and the extroversion types. William James[237] was struck by the existence
of these two types among thinkers. He differentiated them as the "tough-
minded," and the "tender-minded." Similarly, Ostwald[238] discovered an
analogous difference in the classical and romantic types among great
scholars. I am not therefore alone in my ideas about the types, as is testified
by mentioning only these two well-known names out of many others.
Historical researches have proved to me that not a few of the great
controversies in the history of thought were based upon the contrast
between the types. The most significant case of this kind is the contrast
between nominalism and realism, which, beginning with the difference
between the Platonic and the Megarian schools, descended to scholastic
philosophy, where Abelard won the immortal distinction of at least having
ventured an attempt to unite the two contradictory standpoints in
conceptualism. This conflict has continued down to the present day, where
it finds expression in the antagonism of spiritualism and materialism.
Just as in the general history of thought, so too every individual has a share
in this contrast of types. Close investigation proves that people of opposite
types have an unconscious predilection for marrying each other, that they
may mutually complement one another. Each type has one function that is
specially well developed, the introvert using his thought as the function of
adaptation, thinking beforehand about how he shall act; whilst the extrovert,
on the contrary, feels his way into the object by acting. To some extent he
acts beforehand. Hence by daily application the one has developed his
thought, and the other his feeling. In extreme cases the one limits himself to
thinking and observing, and the other to feeling and acting. It is true that the
introvert feels also, very deeply indeed, almost too deeply; that is why an
English investigator[239] has gone so far as to describe his as "the emotional
type." True, the emotion is there, but it all remains inside, and the more
passionate and deeper his feeling is, the quieter is his outward demeanour.
As the proverb puts it, "Still waters run deep." Similarly, the extrovert
thinks also, but that likewise mostly inside, whilst his feelings visibly go
outside, that is why he is held to be full of feeling whilst the introvert is
considered cold and dry. But as the feeling of the thinker goes inwards, it is
not developed as a function adapted to external situations, but remains in a
relatively undeveloped state. Similarly the thinking of one who feels
remains also relatively undeveloped.
But if comparatively well-adapted individuals are under consideration, then
the introvert will normally be found to have his feeling directed outwards,
and the result may be extraordinarily deceptive. He shows feelings; he is
amiable, sympathetic, even emotional. But a critical examination of the
expressions of his feelings reveals that they are markedly conventional.
They are not individualised. He shows to every one, without any essential
difference, the same friendliness and the same sympathy; whilst the
extrovert's expressions of feeling are throughout delicately graded and
individualised. With the introvert the expression of feelings is really a
gesture that is artificially adopted and conventional. Similarly, the extrovert
may apparently think, and that even very clearly and scientifically. But
upon closer investigation, his thoughts are found to be really foreign
property, merely conventional forms which have been artificially acquired.
They lack anything individual and original, and are just as lukewarm and
colourless as the conventional feelings of the introvert. Under these
conventional disguises, quite other things are slumbering in both, which
occasionally when awakened by some overpowering effect, suddenly break
out to the astonishment and horror of the environment.
Most civilised people incline more to one type than the other. Taken
together they would supplement each other exceedingly well. That is why
they are so apt to marry one another, and so long as they are fully occupied
with adapting themselves to the necessities of life they suit one another
splendidly. But if the man has earned a competence, or if a big legacy drop
from the sky, terminating the external urgencies of life, then they have time
to occupy themselves with each other. Until now they stood back to back,
defending themselves against want. But now they turn to each other
expecting to understand one another; and they make the discovery that they
have never understood one another. They speak different languages. Thus
the conflict between the two types of psychology begins. This conflict is
venomous, violent and full of mutual depreciation, even if it be conducted
very quietly in the utmost intimacy. This is so because the value of the one
is the worthlessness of the other. The one, starting from the standpoint of his
valuable thinking, takes for granted that the feelings of the other correspond
to his own inferior feelings, this because he knows absolutely nothing of
any other feelings. But the other, starting from the standpoint of his
valuable feelings, assumes that his partner has the same inferior thought
that he himself has. Evidently there is plenty of work here for Goethe's
Homunculus, who had to find out "why husband and wife get on so badly."
Now as many cases of neurosis have a basis in such differences, I, as a
physician, found myself obliged to relieve the Homunculus of some of his
ungrateful task. I am glad to be able to say that many a sufferer has been
helped in grave difficulties by the enlightenment I could give.
The third stage of the path of increasing understanding consisted in
formulating a theory of the psychology of types which would be of practical
use for the development of man. Viewed from the newly-gained standpoint,
there resulted, first of all, a totally new theory of psychogenic disturbances.
The foundation of the facts remains the same: the first hypothesis of every
neurosis is the existence of an unconscious conflict. According to Freud's
theory, this is an erotic conflict, or to speak more exactly, a battle of the
moral consciousness against the unconscious infantile sexual world of
phantasy and its transference to external objects. According to Adler's
theory, it is a battle of the superiority of the ego against all oppressive
influences, whether from inside or outside.
But the new idea asserts that the neurotic conflict always takes place
between the adapted function and the co-function that is undifferentiated,
and that lies to a great extent in the unconscious; therefore in the case of
the introvert, between thought and unconscious feeling, but in that of the
extrovert, between feeling and unconscious thought.[240] Another theory of
the etiological moment results from this. If a man who naturally adapts
himself by thinking is faced by a demand that cannot be met by thinking
alone, but which requires differentiated feeling, the traumatic or pathogenic
conflict breaks out. On the contrary, the critical moment comes to the man
who adapts by feeling when he is faced by a problem requiring
differentiated thought. The afore-mentioned case of the business man is a
clear example of this. The man was an introvert, who all through his life
had left every consideration of sentiment in the background, that is, in the
unconscious. But when, for the first time in his life, he found himself in a
situation in which nothing could be done except by means of differentiated
feeling, he failed utterly. At the same time, a very instructive phenomenon
occurred; his unconscious feelings manifested themselves as physical
sensations of a vague nature. This fact harmonises with a generally
accepted experience in our psychology, to wit, that undeveloped feelings
partake of the character of vague physical sensations, since undifferentiated
feelings are as yet identical with subjective physical sensations.
Differentiated feelings are of a more "abstract" objective nature. This
phenomenon may well be the unconscious basis of the earliest statement of
psychological types that is known to me; namely, the three types of the
Valentinian School. They held the undifferentiated type to be the so-called
hylic (material) man. He was ranked below the differentiated types, that is,
the psychic (soulful) man, who corresponds to the extroversion type; and
the pneumatic (spiritual) man, who corresponds to the introversion type.
For these gnostics the "pneumatikos" stood of course the highest.
Christianity, with its "psychic" (spiritual) nature (principle of love), has
indeed contested this privilege of the gnosis. But even this page may be
turned in the course of time: since, if the signs of the age are not deceptive,
we are now in the great final settlement of the Christian epoch. We know
that, evolution not being uniformly continuous, when one form of creation
has been outlived, the evolutionary tendency harks back to resume that
form which, after having made a beginning, was left behind in an
undeveloped state.
After this brief digression to generalities, let us return to our case. If a
similar disturbance were to take place in an extrovert, he would have what
are called hysterical symptoms, that is, symptoms that are also of an
apparently physical nature, which, as our theory indicates, would this time
represent the patient's unconscious undifferentiated thought. As a matter of
fact, we find also a widespread region of phantasy as the basis of hysterical
symptoms, of which many have been described in detail in the literature of
the subject. They are phantasies of a pronounced sexual, that is physical
complexion. But in reality they are undifferentiated thoughts, which in
common with the undifferentiated feelings are to some extent physical, and
therefore appear as what may be called physical symptoms.
By taking up again here the thread that was dropped before, we can now
clearly see why it is precisely in the neurosis that those values which are
most lacking to the individual lie hidden. We might also now return to the
case of the young woman, and apply to it the newly-won insight. She is an
extrovert with an hysterical neurosis. Let us suppose that this patient had
been "analysed," that is, that the treatment having made it clear to her what
kind of unconscious thoughts lay behind her symptoms, she had regained
possession of the psychic energy which by becoming unconscious had
constituted the strength of the symptoms. The following practical question
now arises: what can be done with the so-called available energy? It would
be rational, and in accordance with the psychological type of the invalid, to
extrovert this energy again, that is to transfer it to an object, as for instance
to philanthropic or some other useful activities. This way is possible only in
exceptional cases—there are energetic natures who do not shrink from care
and trouble in a useful cause, there are people who care immensely about
just such occupations—otherwise it is not feasible. For it must not be
forgotten, that in the case under consideration, the libido (that is the
technical expression for the psychic energy) has found its object already
unconsciously in the young Italian, or an appropriate real human substitute.
Under these circumstances such a desirable sublimation, however natural, is
out of the question. For the object of the energy usually affords a better
channel than an ethical activity, however attractive. Unfortunately there are
many people who always speak of a person, not as he is, but as he would be
if their desires for him were realised. But the physician is necessarily
concerned with the actual personality, which will obdurately remain the
same, until its real character has been recognised on all sides. An analysis
must necessarily be based upon the recognition of naked reality, not upon
any arbitrarily selected phantasies about a person, however desirable.
The fact is that the so-called available energy unfortunately cannot be
arbitrarily directed as desired. It follows its own channel, one which it had
already found, even before we had quite released it from its bondage to the
unadapted form. For we now make the discovery that the phantasies which
were formerly occupied with the young Italian, have been transferred to the
physician himself. The physician has therefore himself become the object of
the unconscious libido. If this is not the case, or if the patient will on no
account acknowledge the fact of transference, or again, if the physician
either does not understand the phenomenon at all, or does so wrongly, then
violent resistances make their appearance, which aim at completely
breaking off relations with the doctor. At this point patients leave and look
for another doctor or for people who "understand" them; or if they
hopelessly relinquish this search they go to pieces.
But if the transference to the physician takes place and is accepted, a natural
channel has thereby been found, which not only replaces the former, but
also makes a discharge of the energic process possible, and provides a
course that is relatively free from conflict. Therefore if the libido is allowed
its natural course, it will of its own accord find its way into the transference.
Where this is not the case, it is always a question either of arbitrary
rebellion against the laws of Nature, or of some deficiency in the
physician's work.
Into the transference every conceivable infantile phantasy is first of all
projected; these must then be subjected to the caustic, that is, analytically
dissolved. This was formerly called the dissolution of the transference.
Thereby the energy is freed from this unsuitable form also, and once again
we are confronted by the problem of disposable energy. We shall find that
an object affording the most favourable channel has been chosen by Nature
even before our search began.

V.—The Personal and the Impersonal Unconscious

The fourth stage of our newly won insight is now reached. The analytical
dissolution of the infantile transference phantasies was continued until it
became sufficiently clear, even to the patient, that he was making his
physician into father, mother, uncle, guardian, teacher, friend or any other
kind of surrogate for parental authority conceivable. But, as experience is
constantly proving, further phantasies make their appearance, representing
the physician as saviour or as some other divine being. Obviously this is in
flagrant contradiction to the sane reasoning of consciousness. Moreover, it
appears that these divine attributes considerably overstep the bounds of the
Christian conception in which we grew up. They even assume the guise of
heathen allurements, and, for instance, not infrequently assume the form of
animals.
The transference is in itself nothing but a projection of unconscious
contents on to the analyst. At first it is the so-called superficial contents that
are projected. During this stage the physician is interesting as a possible
lover (somewhat after the manner of the young Italian in our case). Later
on, he is a representation of the father, and is the symbol either of kindness
or of severity, according to what the patient formerly imputed to his real
father. Occasionally the doctor even appears to the patient as a kind of
mother, which, though sounding somewhat strange, really lies well within
the bounds of possibility. All these projections of phantasy have an
underlying basis of personal reminiscences.
But presently other forms of phantasy appear, bearing an extravagantly
effusive and impossible character. The physician now appears to be
endowed with uncanny qualities; he may be either a wizard or a demoniacal
criminal, or his counterpart of virtue, a saviour. Later on he appears as an
incomprehensible mixture of both sides. It should be clearly understood that
the physician does not appear to the patient's consciousness in these forms,
but that phantasies come up to the surface representing the doctor in this
guise. If, as is not seldom the case, the patient cannot forthwith perceive
that his view of the physician is a projection of his own unconscious, then
he will probably behave rather foolishly. Difficulties often arise at this stage
of analysis, making severe demands upon the good will and patience of
both physician and patient. In a few exceptional cases, a patient cannot
refrain from disseminating the stupidest tales about the physician. Such
people cannot get it into their head that, as a matter of fact, their phantasies
originate in themselves, and have nothing or very little to do with the
physician's actual character. The pertinacity of this error arises from the
circumstance that there is no foundation of personal memory for this
particular kind of projection. It is occasionally possible to prove that similar
phantasies, for which neither parent gave reasonable occasion, had at some
time in childhood been attached to the father or mother.
In one of his shorter books, Freud has shown how Leonardo da Vinci was
influenced in his later life by the fact that he had two mothers. The fact of
the two mothers (or the double descent) had indeed a reality in Leonardo's
case, but it plays a part with other artists as well. Benvenuto Cellini had this
phantasy of a double descent. It is unquestionably a mythological theme;
many heroes of legend have two mothers. The phantasy is not founded upon
the actual fact of the hero's having two mothers, but is a widespread
"primordial image" belonging to the secrets of the universal history of the
human mind. It does not belong to the sphere of personal reminiscences.
In every individual, in addition to the personal memories, there are also, in
Jacob Burckhardt's excellent phrase, the great "primordial images," the
inherited potentialities of human imagination. They have always been
potentially latent in the structure of the brain. The fact of this inheritance
also explains the otherwise incredible phenomenon, that the matter and
themes of certain legends are met with all the world over in identical forms.
Further, it explains how it is that persons who are mentally deranged are
able to produce precisely the same images and associations that are known
to us from the study of old manuscripts. I gave some examples of this in my
book on "The Psychology of the Unconscious." I do not hereby assert the
transmission of representations, but only of the possibility of such
representations, which is a very different thing.
It is therefore in this further stage of the transference that those phantasies
are produced that have no basis in personal reminiscence. Here it is a matter
of the manifestation of the deeper layers of the unconscious, where the
primordial universally-human images are lying dormant.
This discovery leads to the fourth stage of the new conception: that is, to the
recognition of a differentiation in the unconscious itself. We are now
obliged to differentiate a personal unconscious and an impersonal or super-
personal unconscious. We also term the latter the absolute or collective
unconscious, because it is quite detached from what is personal, and
because it is also absolutely universal, wherefore its contents may be found
in every head, which of course is not the case with the personal contents.
The primordial images are quite the most ancient, universal, and deep
thoughts of mankind. They are feeling just as much as thought, and might
therefore be termed original thought-feelings.
We have therewith now found the object selected by the libido when it was
freed from the personal-infantile form of transference. Namely, that it sinks
down into the depths of the unconscious, reviving what has been dormant
there from immemorial ages. It has discovered the buried treasure out of
which mankind from time to time has drawn, raising thence its gods and
demons, and all those finest and most tremendous thoughts without which
man would cease to be man.
Let us take as an example one of the greatest thoughts to which the
nineteenth century gave birth—the idea of the conservation of energy.
Robert Mayer is the originator of this idea. He was a physician, not a
physicist nor a natural philosopher, to either of whom the creation of such
an idea would have been more germane. It is of great importance to realise
that in the real sense of the word, Robert Mayer's idea was not created.
Neither was it brought about through the fusion of the then-existent
conceptions and scientific hypotheses. It grew in the originator, and was
conditioned by him. Robert Mayer wrote (1841) to Griesinger as follows: "I
by no means concocted the theory at the writing-desk." He goes on to report
about certain physiological investigations that he made in 1840-41 as doctor
on board ship, and continues: "If one wishes to be enlightened about
physiological matters, some knowledge of physical processes is
indispensable, unless one prefers to work from the metaphysical side, which
is immensely distasteful to me. I therefore kept to physics, clinging to the
subject with such ardour that, although it may well seem ridiculous to say
so, I cared little about what part of the world we were in. I preferred to
remain aboard where I could work uninterruptedly, and where many an hour
gave me such a feeling of being inspired in a way I can never remember
having experienced either before or since.
"A few flashes of thought that thrilled through me"—this was in the harbour
of Surabaja—"were immediately diligently pursued, leading again in their
turn to new subjects. Those times are passed, but subsequent quiet
examination of what then emerged, has taught me that it was a truth which
can not only be subjectively felt, but also proved objectively; whether this
could be done by one who has so little knowledge of physics as I have, is a
matter which obviously, I must leave undecided."
Heim, in his book on Energetics, expresses the opinion: "that Robert
Mayer's new thought did not gradually detach itself by dint of revolving it
in his mind, from the conceptions of power transmitted from the past, but
belongs to those ideas that are intuitively conceived, which, originating in
other spheres of a mental kind, surprise thought, as it were, compelling it to
transform its inherited notions conformably with those ideas."
The question now arises, whence did this new idea that forced itself upon
consciousness with such elemental power spring? And whence did it derive
such strength that it was able to effect consciousness so forcibly that it
could be completely withdrawn from all the manifold impressions of a first
voyage in the tropics? These questions are not easy to answer. If we apply
our theory to this case the explanation would run as follows: The idea of
energy and of its conservation must be a primordial image that lay dormant
in the absolute unconscious. This conclusion obviously compels us to prove
that a similar primordial image did really exist in the history of the human
mind, and continued to be effective through thousands of years. As a matter
of fact, evidence of this can be produced without difficulty. Primitive
religions, in the most dissimilar regions of the earth, are founded upon this
image. These are the so-called dynamistic religions, whose sole and
distinctive thought is the existence of some universal magical power upon
which everything depends. The well-known English scholars, Taylor and
Frazer, both wrongly interpreted this idea as animism. Primitive peoples do
not mean souls or spirits by their conception of power, but in reality
something that the American investigator Lovejoy[241] most aptly terms
"primitive energetics."
In an investigation appertaining to this subject, I showed that this notion
comprises the idea of soul, spirit, God, health, physical strength, fertility,
magic power, influence, might, prestige, curative remedies, as well as
certain states of mind which are characterised by the setting loose of affects.
Among certain Polynesians "Melungu" (that is this primitive concept of
energy) is spirit, soul, demoniacal being, magic, prestige. If anything
astonishing happens, the people cry "Melungu." This notion of power is
also the first rendering of the concept of God among primitive peoples. The
image has undergone many variations in the course of history. In the Old
Testament this magic power is seen in the burning bush, and shines in the
face of Moses. It is manifest in the Gospels as the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, as cloven tongues of fire from heaven. In Heraclitus it appears as
universal energy, as "eternally living fire"; for the Persians it is the fiery
brightness, haôma, divine mercy; for the Stoics it is heimarmene, the power
of destiny. In mediæval legend it is seen as the aura, or the halo of the saint.
It blazes forth in great flames from the hut where the saint is lying in
ecstasy. The saints reflect the sum of this power, the storehouse of light, in
their faces. According to ancient concepts this power is the soul itself; the
idea of its immortality contains that of its conservation. The Buddhistic and
primitive conception of the metempsychosis (transmigration of souls)
contains the idea of its unlimited capacity for transformation under
constant conservation.
This thought has obviously therefore been imprinted on the human brain for
untold ages. That is why it lies ready in the unconscious of every one. Only
certain conditions are needed in order to let it appear again. These
conditions were obviously fulfilled in the example of Robert Mayer. The
greatest and best thoughts form themselves upon these primordial images,
which are the ancient common property of humanity.
After this instance of the nascence of new ideas out of the treasury of
primordial images, we will resume the further delineation of the process of
transference. It was seen that the libido of the patient seizes upon its new
object in those apparently preposterous and peculiar phantasies, namely the
contents of the absolute unconscious. As I already observed, the
unacknowledged projection of primordial images upon the physician
constitutes a danger for further treatment which should not be undervalued.
The images contain not only every beautiful and great thought and feeling
of humanity, but also every deed of shame and devilry of which human
beings have ever been capable. Now, if the patient cannot differentiate the
physician's personality from these projections, there is an end to mutual
understanding, and human relations become impossible. If however the
patient avoids this Charybdis, he falls into the Scylla of introjecting these
images, that is, he does not ascribe their qualities to the physician but to
himself. This peril is just as great. If he projects, he vacillates between an
extravagant and morbid deification, and a spiteful contempt of his
physician. In the case of introjection, he falls into a ludicrous self-
deification or moral self-laceration. The mistake that he makes in both cases
consists in attributing the contents of the absolute unconscious to himself
personally. Thus he makes himself into both God and devil. This is the
psychological reason why human beings have always needed demons, and
could not live without gods. There is the exception, of course, of a few
specially clever specimens of the homo occidentalis of yesterday and the
day before—supermen whose God is dead, wherefore they themselves
become gods. There is also the example of Nietzsche, who confessedly
required chloral in order to be able to exist. These supermen even become
rationalistic petty gods, with thick skulls and cold hearts. The concept of
God is simply a necessary psychological function of an irrational nature that
has altogether no connection with the question of God's existence. This
latter question is one of the most fatuous that can be put. It is indeed
sufficiently evident that man cannot conceive a God, much less realise that
he actually exists, so little is he able to imagine a process that is not
causally conditioned. Theoretically, of course, no accidentality can exist,
that is certain, once and for all. On the other hand, in practical life, we are
continually stumbling upon accidental happenings. It is similar with the
existence of God; it is once and for all an absurd problem. But the
consensus gentium has spoken of gods for æons past, and will be speaking
of them in æons to come. Beautiful and perfect as man may think his
reason, he may nevertheless assure himself that it is only one of the possible
mental functions, coinciding merely with the corresponding side of the
phenomena of the universe. All around is the irrational, that which is not
congruous with reason. And this irrationalism is likewise a psychological
function, namely the absolute unconscious; whilst the function of
consciousness is essentially rational. Consciousness must have rational
relations, first of all in order to discover some order in the chaos of
disordered individual phenomena in the universe; and secondly, in order to
labour at whatever lies within the area of human possibility. We are
laudably and usefully endeavouring to exterminate so far as is practicable
the chaos of what is irrational, both in and around us. Apparently we are
making considerable progress with this process. A mental patient once said
to me, "Last night, doctor, I disinfected the whole heavens with sublimate,
and yet did not discover any God." Something of the kind has happened to
us. Heraclitus, the ancient, that really very wise man, discovered the most
wonderful of all psychological laws, namely, the regulating function of
antithesis. He termed this "enantiodromia" (clashing together), by which he
meant that at some time everything meets with its opposite. (Here I beg to
remind the reader of the case of the American business man, which shows
the enantiodromia most distinctly.) The rational attitude of civilisation
necessarily terminates in its antithesis, namely in the irrational devastation
of civilisation. Man may not identify himself with reason, for he is not
wholly a rational being, and never can or ever will become one. That is a
fact of which every pedant of civilisation should take note. What is
irrational cannot and may not be stamped out. The gods cannot and may not
die. Woe betide those men who have disinfected heaven with rationalism;
God-Almightiness has entered into them, because they would not admit
God as an absolute function. They are identified with their unconscious, and
are therefore its sport. (For where God is nearest, there the danger is
greatest.) Is the present war supposed to be a war of economics? That is a
neutral American "business-like" standpoint, that does not take the blood,
tears, unprecedented deeds of infamy and great distress into account, and
which completely ignores the fact that this war is really an epidemic of
madness. The several parties project their unconscious upon each other,
hence the mad confusion of ideas in every head. This is the enantiodromia
that occurs in the individual life of man, as well as in that of peoples. The
legend of the Tower of Babel turns out to be a tenable truth.
Only he escapes from the cruel law of enantiodromia who knows how to
separate himself from the unconscious—not by repressing it, for then it
seizes him from behind—but by presenting it visibly to himself as
something that is totally different from him.
This gives the solution of the Scylla and Charybdis problem which I
described above. The patient must learn to differentiate in his thoughts
between what is the ego and what is the non-ego. The latter is the collective
psyche or absolute unconscious. By this means he will acquire the material
with which henceforward, for a long time, he will have to come to terms.
Thereby the energy, that before was invested in unsuitable pathological
forms, will have found its appropriate sphere. In order to differentiate the
psychological ego from the psychological non-ego, man must necessarily
stand upon firm feet in his ego-function; that is, he must fulfil his duty
towards life completely, so that he may in every respect be a vitally living
member of human society. Anything that he neglects in this respect
descends into the unconscious and reinforces its position, so that he is in
danger of being swallowed up by it, if his ego-function is not established.
Severe penalties are attached to that. As indicated by old Synesius, the
"spiritualised soul (pneumatike psyché) becomes god and demon, a state in
which it suffers the divine penalties," that is, it suffers being torn asunder by
the Zagreus, an experience which Nietzsche also underwent at the
beginning of his insanity, where, in "Ecce Homo," the God whom he was
despairingly resisting in front assailed him from behind. Enantiodromia is
the being torn asunder into the pairs of opposites, which opposites are only
proper to "the god," and therefore also to the deified man, who owes
likeness to God to his having prevailed over his gods.
VI.—The Synthetic or Constructive Method
We now reach the fifth stage of progressive understanding. The coming to
terms with the unconscious is a technical performance to which the name of
transcendental function has been given because a new function is produced,
which being based upon both real and imaginary, or rational and irrational
data, makes a bridge between the rational and irrational functions of the
psyche. The basis of the transcendental function is a new method of treating
psychological materials such as dreams and phantasies. The theories
previously discussed were based upon an exclusively causal-reductive
procedure, which reduces the dream or phantasy to its component
reminiscences, and the instinctive processes that underlie them. I have
already stated the justification as well as the limitations of this proceeding.
It reaches the end of its usefulness at the moment when the dream symbols
no longer permit of a reduction to personal reminiscences or aspirations;
that is when the images of the absolute unconscious begin to be produced. It
would be quite inappropriate to reduce these collective ideas to what is
personal, and not only inappropriate but even actually pernicious, a fact that
has been impressed upon me by disagreeable experiences. The values of the
images or symbols of the absolute unconscious are only disclosed if they
are subjected to a synthetic (not analytical) treatment. Just as analysis (the
causally reductive procedure) disintegrates the symbol into its components,
so the synthetic procedure synthesises the symbol into a universal and
comprehensible expression. The synthetic procedure is by no means easy; I
will therefore give an example, by means of which I can explain the whole
process.
A patient had the following dream. She was just at the critical juncture
between the analysis of the personal unconscious and the commencement of
the production of the absolute unconscious. "I am on the point of crossing a
broad and rapid stream. There is no bridge, but I find a ford where I can
cross. As I am just on the point of doing so, a big crab that lay hidden in the
water seizes my foot and does not let it go." She awoke in fear. Associations
with the dream were as follows:—
1. Stream.—It forms a boundary that is difficult to cross. I must surmount
an obstacle; I suppose it refers to the fact that I am getting on very slowly; I
suppose I ought to reach the other side.
2. Ford.—An opportunity for getting safely across, a possible way;
otherwise the stream would be too difficult. The possibility of surmounting
the obstacle lies in the analytical treatment.
3. Crab.—The crab lay quite hidden in the water; I did not see it at first.
Cancer is a fearful incurable illness. (A series of recollections of Mrs. X.,
who died of cancer, followed.) I am afraid of this illness. A crab[242] is an
animal that walks backwards; obviously it wants to pull me down into the
stream. It clutched me in a gruesome way, and I was awfully afraid. What
prevents my getting across? Oh yes, I had another great scene with my
friend.
It must be explained that there is something special about this friendship.
We have here an ardent attachment, bordering on the homosexual. It has
been going on for years. The friend is in many respects like the patient, and
is also nervous. They have pronounced artistic interests in common. But the
patient is the stronger personality of the two. They are both nervous, and
their mutual relation being too engrossing, cuts them off too much from
other possibilities of life. In spite of an "ideal friendship" they have at times
tremendous scenes, owing to their mutual irritability. Evidently the
unconscious wishes to put some distance between them, but they refuse to
pay attention to it. A "scene" usually begins by one of them finding that she
does not yet understand the other well enough, and that they ought to talk
more openly together; whereupon both make enthusiastic endeavours to talk
things out. Misunderstandings supervene almost directly, provoking fresh
scenes, each worse than the last. The quarrel was in its way and faute de
mieux a pleasure to both of them, which they were unwilling to relinquish.
My patient, especially, was unable for a very long time to renounce the
sweet pain of not being understood by her best friend, although, as she said,
every scene "tired her to death." She had long since realised that this
friendship had become superfluous, and that it was only from mistaken
ambition that she clung to the belief that she could yet make something
ideal out of it. The patient had formerly had an extravagant, fantastic
relation to her mother, and after her mother's death had transferred her
feelings to her friend.

VII.—Analytical (Causal-reductive) Interpretation.[243]

This interpretation may be summed up in a sentence: "I understand that I
ought to get to the other side of the stream (that is, give up the relation with
the friend), but I would much rather that my friend did not let me out of her
claws (embrace)." That is, expressed as an infantile wish: Mother would
like to attract me to herself again by the well-known mode of enthusiastic
embraces. The incompatibility of the wish lies in the strong under-current of
homosexuality, the existence of which had been abundantly proved by
obvious facts. The crab seizes her foot. The patient having big, "manly"
feet, she plays a masculine part towards her friend, having also
corresponding sexual fantasies. The foot is known to have phallic
significance. (Detailed evidence of this is to be found in Aigremont's
writings.) The complete interpretation would run as follows: The reason
why she will not let her friend go is because her unconscious homosexual
wishes are set upon her. As these wishes are morally and æsthetically
incompatible with the tendency of the conscious personality, they are
repressed, and therefore unconscious. The fear is an expression of this
repressed wish.
This interpretation is exceedingly depreciative of the patient's high-pitched
conscious ideal of friendship. It is true at this point in analysis she would no
longer have taken this interpretation amiss. Some time before certain facts
had sufficiently convinced her of her homosexual tendency, so that she was
able to acknowledge the existence of this inclination frankly, although it
was of course painful for her to do so. Therefore if, at this stage of the
treatment, I had informed her that this was the interpretation, I should not
have encountered resistances from her. She had already overcome the
painfulness of this unwelcome tendency by understanding it. But she would
have said to me: "Why do we analyse this dream at all? It is only repeating
what I have now known for a long while." It is true this interpretation does
not reveal anything new to the patient, and it is therefore uninteresting and
ineffective. This kind of interpretation would at the beginning of the
treatment have been impossible in this case, because the patient's
prudishness would under no circumstances have acknowledged it. The
"venom" of understanding had to be instilled very carefully, and in the
smallest of doses, until the patient gradually became more enlightened. But
when the analytical or causal-reductive interpretation, instead of furnishing
something new, persistently brings the same material in different variations,
then the moment has come when another mode of interpretation is called
for. The causal-reductive procedure has certain drawbacks. First, it does not
take strictly into account the patient's associations—e.g. in this case the
association of the illness ("cancer") with "crab" (Krebs = cancer). Second,
the particular choice of symbol remains obscure. For instance, why does the
friend-mother appear as a crab? A prettier and more plastic representation
would have been a nymph. ("Half dragged she him, half sank he down,"[244]
etc.) An octopus, a dragon, a serpent, or a fish could have performed the
same services. Third, the causal-reductive procedure completely ignores
that a dream is a subjective phenomenon, and that consequently even an
exhaustive interpretation can never connect the crab with the mother or the
friend, but only with the dreamer's idea of them. The whole dream is the
dreamer; she is the stream, the crossing, and the crab. That is to say these
details are expressions of psychological conditions and tendencies in the
subject's unconscious.
I have therefore introduced the following terminology. I call interpretations
in which the dream symbols are treated as representations of the real objects
interpretation upon the objective plane. The opposite interpretation is that
which connects every fragment of the dream (e.g. all the persons who do
anything) with the dreamer himself. This is interpretation upon the
subjective plane. Objective interpretation is analytical, because it dissects
the dream contents into complexes of reminiscence, and finds their relation
to real conditions. Subjective interpretation is synthetic, because it detaches
the fundamental underlying complexes of reminiscence from their actual
causes, regarding them as tendencies or parts of the subject, and
reintegrating them with the subject. (In experiencing something I do not
merely experience the object, but in the first place myself, although this is
only the case if I render myself account of the experience.)
The synthetic or constructive procedure of interpretation[245] is therefore
based upon the version on the subjective plane.

VIII.—The Synthetic (Constructive) Interpretation.

The patient is unconscious of the fact that it is in herself that the obstacle
lies which should be overcome, the boundary that is difficult to cross which
impedes further progress. But it is possible to cross the boundary. It is true
that just here a peculiar and unexpected peril threatens, namely, something
"animal" (non-human or super-human) which moves backwards and goes
into the depths of the stream, wanting to draw down the dreamer as a whole
personality. This danger is, moreover, like the deadly disease of cancer,
which begins secretly somewhere, and is incurable (overpowering). The
patient imagines that her friend hinders her, pulling her down. So long as
this is her belief she must perforce influence her friend, "draw her up,"
teach, improve, educate her, and make futile and impractically idealistic
efforts in order to avoid being dragged down herself. Of course, the friend
makes similar endeavours, being in a like case with the patient. So both of
them keep jumping upon each other like fighting cocks, each trying to fly
over the other's head. The higher the point to which the one screws herself,
the higher must the other also try to get. Why? Because each thinks the fault
lies in the other, in the object. Interpretation of the dream on the subjective
plane brings deliverance from this absurdity, for it shows the patient that
she has something in herself that is hindering her from crossing the
boundary; that is, from getting out of the one position or attitude into
another. To interpret change of place as change of attitude is supported by
the mode of expression in certain primitive languages, where, e.g., the
phrase "I am on the point of going," is "I am at the place of going." In order
to understand the language of dreams, we need plenty of parallels from the
psychology of primitive peoples, as well as from historical symbolism. This
is so because dreams originate in the unconscious, which contains the
residual potentialities of function of all preceding epochs of the history of
the evolution of man.
Obviously, in our interpretation everything now depends upon
understanding what is meant by the crab. We know that it symbolizes
something that comes to light in the friend (she connects the crab with the
friend), and also something that came to light in the mother. Whether both
mother and friend really have this quality in them is irrelevant as regards
the patient. The situation will only be changed when the patient herself has
changed. Nothing can be changed in the mother because she is dead. The
friend cannot be urged to alter; if she wants to alter herself, that is her own
affair. The fact that the quality in question is associated with the mother
indicates that it is something infantile. What is there in common in the
patient's relation both to her mother and her friend? What is common to
both is a violently extravagant demand for love, the patient feeling herself
overwhelmed by its passion. This claim is an overpowering infantile
craving which is characteristically blind. What is in question here is a part
of her libido that has not been educated, differentiated, nor humanized,
retaining still the compulsive character of an instinct, because it has not yet
been tamed by domestication. An animal is a perfectly appropriate symbol
for this rôle of libido. But why is the animal a crab in this particular
instance? The patient associates cancer with it, of which disease Mrs. X.
died at the age the patient has just reached. It may, therefore, well be that
this is an allusion to an identification with Mrs. X. We must therefore make
inquiries about this Mrs. X. The patient relates the following facts about
her: Mrs. X. was widowed early; she was very cheerful and enjoyed life.
She had a number of adventures with men, especially with one particular
man, a gifted artist, who the patient herself knew personally and who
always impressed her as very fascinating and weird.
An identification can only result from an unrecognized unconscious
resemblance. Now what is the resemblance between our patient and Mrs.
X.? I was able here to remind the patient of a series of former fantasies and
dreams, which had shown plainly that she also had a frivolous vein in her,
although anxiously repressing it, because she vaguely feared it might
seduce her to an immoral life. We have now gained a further essential
contribution for a right understanding of the "animal" rôle, which evidently
represents an untamed, instinctive greed, which in this case is directed to
men. At the same time we understand a further reason why she cannot let
go of her friend. She must cling to her in order not to fall a prey to this other
tendency, which seems so much more dangerous. By these means she
remains at an infantile homosexual stage, which serves her as a defence.
(Experience proves this erection of defences to be one of the most effective
motives for the retention of unadapted, infantile relations.) But in this
missing libido in the animal rôle lies her well-being, the germ of her future
healthy personality, which does not shrink from the hazards of human life.
But the patient had drawn another conclusion from the fate of Mrs. X.,
having conceived her severe illness and early death as a punishment of fate
for her gay life which the patient, although certainly not confessing to this
feeling, always envied her. When Mrs. X. died, the patient pulled a long
face, beneath which a "human, all too human," malicious satisfaction was
hidden. As a punishment for this tendency the patient, taking Mrs. X.'s
example as a warning, deterred herself from living and from further
development, and burdened herself with the misery of this unsatisfying
friendship. Of course this concatenation had not been consciously clear to
her, otherwise she would never have acted as she had done. The truth of this
conclusion can be proved by the material.
The history of this identification by no means ends here. The patient
subsequently emphasized the fact that Mrs. X. had a not inconsiderable
artistic capacity which developed only after her husband's death and which
led to her friendship with the artist. This fact seems to be one of the
essential incentives to the identification, if we call to mind that the patient
had already told us what a striking impression she had received from the
artist. A fascination of this kind is never exclusively exercised by one
person only upon the other. It is a phenomenon of reciprocal relation
between two persons in so far as the fascinated person must provide a
suitable predisposition. But she must be unconscious of this predisposition,
otherwise there will be no fascination. Fascination is a phenomenon of
compulsion which lacks conscious ground; that is, it is not a process of the
will, but a phenomenon coming to the surface from the unconscious, and
forcing itself compulsorily upon consciousness. All compulsions arise from
unconscious motives. It must therefore be assumed that the patient
possesses a similar unconscious predisposition to that of the artist. She
becomes identified with this artist, and is also identified with him as man.
Here we are at once reminded of the analysis of the dream, where we met
an allusion to the "masculine" foot. As a matter of fact, the patient plays a
thoroughly masculine part towards her friend, being the active one who
continually takes the lead, commanding her friend and occasionally even
forcing her somewhat violently to some course that only the patient desires.
Her friend is distinctly feminine both in her external appearance and
otherwise, whilst the patient is also externally of a somewhat masculine
type. Her voice is stronger and deeper than that of her friend. She now
describes Mrs. X. as a very feminine woman, her gentleness and amiability
being comparable to that of her friend, so she thinks. This gives us a new
clue. The patient is obviously playing towards her friend the artist's part
towards Mrs. X. Thus she unconsciously completes her identification with
Mrs. X. and her lover. In this way she is giving expression to her frivolous
vein which she had repressed so carefully. She is not living it consciously,
however, but is herself played upon by her own unconscious tendency.
We now know a great deal about the crab: it represents the inner
psychology of this untamed part of the libido. The unconscious
identifications always keep drawing her on. They have this power because
being unconscious they cannot be subjected to insight and correction. The
crab is the symbol of the unconscious contents. These contents are always
seducing the patient to retain her relation to the friend. (The "crab goes
backwards.") But the relation to the friend is synonymous with illness, she
became nervous through it (hence the association of illness).
Strictly speaking, this really belongs to the analysis on the objective plane.
But we must not forget that we only arrive at understanding by applying the
subjective interpretation, which thereby proves itself to be an important
heuristic principle. For practical purposes we might rest quite satisfied with
the result we have already reached. But we seek here to satisfy all the
requirements of the theory. Not all the associations have yet been used;
neither is the significance of the choice of symbols yet demonstrated
sufficiently.
We will now recur to the patient's remark that the crab lay hidden under the
water in the stream, and that she had not seen it at first. She had not at first
perceived the unconscious relations that have just been elucidated; they lay
hidden in the water. But the stream is the obstacle preventing her from
going across. It is precisely the unconscious relations binding her to her
friend that have been hindering her. The unconscious was the obstacle. In
this case, therefore, the water signifies the unconscious, or, it were better to
say, the being unconscious the being hidden, for the crab is also something
unconscious, namely, the portion of the libido that was hidden in the
unconscious.

IX.—The Dominants of the Super-Personal Unconscious.

The task now lies before us of raising the unconscious data and their
relations that have been hitherto understood upon the objective plane, to the
subjective plane. To this end we must once more separate them from their
objects, conceiving them as images, related in a subjective way to function-
complexes in the patient's own unconscious. Raised to the subjective plane,
Mrs. X. is the person who showed the patient the way to do something that
the patient herself feared while unconsciously desiring it. Mrs. X. therefore
represents that which the patient would like to become, and yet does not
quite want to. In a certain sense Mrs. X. is a picture of the patient's future
character. The fascinating artist cannot be raised to the subjective plane,
because the unconscious artistic gift lying dormant in the patient has
already been covered over by Mrs. X. It would be quite right to say that the
artist is the image of the masculine element in the patient, which not being
consciously realised, is still lying in the unconscious. In a certain sense this
is indeed true, the patient actually deluding herself as regards this matter.
That is, she seems to herself to be particularly tender, sensitive and
feminine, with nothing in the least masculine about her. She was
indignantly amazed when I drew her attention to her masculine traits. But
the reason why she is fascinated by something mysterious in the artist
cannot be attributed to what is masculine in her. That seems to be
completely unknown to her. And yet it must be hiding somewhere, for she
has produced this feeling out of herself.
Whenever a part of libido similar to this cannot be found, experience
teaches us that it has always been projected. But into whom? Is it still
attached to the artist? He has long ago disappeared from her horizon, and
can hardly have taken the projection with him, because it was firmly fixed
in the patient's unconscious. A similar projection is always actually present,
that is, there must somewhere be some one upon whom this amount of
libido is actually projected, otherwise she would have felt it consciously.
Thus we once more reach the objective plane, for we cannot discover this
missing projection in any other way. The patient does not know any man
except myself who means anything at all to her, and as her doctor I mean a
good deal to her. Therefore she has probably projected this part upon me. It
is true I had never noticed anything of the kind. But the exquisitely
deceptive rôles are never presented to the analyst on the surface, coming to
light always only outside the hour of treatment. I therefore carefully
inquire: "Tell me what do I seem like to you when you are not with me? Am
I just the same then?" Reply: "When I am with you, you are very pleasant
and kind; but when I am alone, or have not seen you for rather a long time,
then the picture I have in my mind of you changes in an extraordinary way.
Sometimes you seem quite idealized, and then again different." She
hesitates; I help by saying: "Yes, what am I like then?" Reply: "Sometimes
quite dangerous, sinister like an evil magician or demon. I do not know how
I get hold of such ideas. You are not really a bit like that."
So this part was attached to me as part of a transference; that is why it was
lacking in her inventory. Therewith we recognize a further important thing.
I was confused with (identified with) the artist, and in her unconscious
fantasy she is Mrs. X. I was easily able to prove this fact by means of
material that had previously been brought to light (sexual fantasies). But I
myself then am the obstacle, the crab, that is hindering her from getting
across. The state of affairs would be critical if at this particular point we
were to limit ourselves to the objective plane of interpretation. What would
be the use of my explaining: "But I am not this artist at all, I am not in the
least weird as he is, nor am I like an evil magician." That would leave the
patient quite unconvinced because she would know as well I do that the
projection would continue to exist all the same, and that it is really I who
am hindering her further progress. It is at this point that many a treatment
has come to a standstill. For there is no other way for the patient here of
escaping from the embrace of the unconscious, but for the physician to raise
himself to the subjective plane, where he is to be regarded as an image. But
an image of what? This is where the greatest difficulty lies. The doctor will
say: "An image of something in the patient's unconscious." But the patient
may object: "What, am I to suppose myself to be a man, a mysteriously
fascinating one to boot, a wicked wizard and a demon? No, I cannot accept
that; it is nonsense. I'd sooner believe that you are all that." She is really, so
to speak, quite right. It is too preposterous to want to transfer such things to
herself. She cannot permit herself to be made into a demon, any more than
can the physician. Her eyes flash, a wicked expression appears upon her
face, a glimmer of an unknown hate never seen before, something snake-
like seeming to creep into her. I am suddenly faced by the possibility of a
fatal misunderstanding with her. What is it? Is it disappointed love? Is she
offended? Does she feel depreciated? There seems to lurk something of the
beast of prey, something really demoniac in her glance. Is she then after all
a demon? Or am I myself the beast of prey, the demon, and is this a terrified
victim sitting before me, who is trying to defend herself with the brute force
of despair against my wicked spells? But either idea must be nonsense,
phantastical delusion. What have I come in contact with? What new string
is vibrating? But it is only for a passing moment. The expression upon the
patient's face becoming quiet again, she says, as if relieved: "It is
extraordinary. I feel as if you had touched the point which I could never get
over in relation to my friend. It is a horrible feeling, something non-human,
wicked, and cruel. I cannot describe how queer this feeling is. At such
moments it makes me hate and despise my friend, although I struggle
against it with all my might and main."
An explanatory light is thrown upon what has happened by this observation.
I have now taken the friend's place. The friendship has been overcome, the
ice of repression is broken. The patient has without knowing it entered upon
a new phase of her existence. I know that now upon me will fall everything
painful and bad in the relation to the friend. So also will whatever was good
in it, although in violent conflict with the mysterious unknown quantity X,
about which the patient could never get clear. A new phase, therefore, of the
transference supervenes, which, however, does not as yet make clearly
apparent what the X that is projected upon me consists of.
It is quite certain, that the most troublesome misunderstandings threaten if
the patient should stick at this stage of the transference. In that case she will
necessarily treat me as she treated her friend; that is the X will continually
be somewhere in the air giving rise to misunderstandings. The end would
probably be that she would see the evil demon in me, because she is quite
unable to accept the fact that she is herself the demon. All insoluble
conflicts are brought about in this way. And an insoluble conflict signifies a
standstill in life.
Another possibility is, that the patient should disregard the obscure point by
applying her old preventative against this new difficulty. That is, she would
repress it again, instead of keeping it conscious, which is the necessary and
obvious demand of the whole method. Nothing is gained by such
repression; on the contrary, the X threatens more from the unconscious
where it is considerably more unpleasant.
Whenever such an unacceptable image emerges, one must decide whether
at bottom it is destined to represent a human quality or not. "Magician" and
"demon" may represent qualities that are described in this particular
fashion, in order that they may speedily be recognized as not human but
mythological qualities. Magician and demon being mythological figures
aptly express the unknown "non-human" feelings which had surprised the
patient. These attributes are not applicable to a human personality; being as
a rule judgments of character intuitively and not critically approved, which
are projected upon our fellow-beings, inevitably doing serious injury to
human relations.
Such attributes always indicate that contents of the super-personal or
absolute unconscious are being projected. Neither demons nor wicked
magicians are reminiscences of personal experiences, although every one
has, of course, at some time or other heard or read of them. Although one
has heard of a rattle-snake, it would hardly be appropriate to describe a
lizard or a blind-worm as a rattle-snake, simply because one was startled by
their rustling. Similarly, one would hardly term a fellow-being a demon,
unless some kind of demoniacal influence were closely associated with him.
If, however, the demoniacal influence were really part of his personal
character, it would show itself everywhere, and then this human being
would be a demon, a kind of werwolf. But such an ascription is mythology;
in other words, it is from the collective and not from the individual psyche.
Inasmuch as through our unconscious we have a share in the historical
collective psyche, we naturally dwell unconsciously in a world of
werwolves, demons, magicians, etc., these being things which have always
affected man most profoundly. We have just as much a part in gods and
devils, saviours and criminals. But it would be absurd to want to ascribe to
one's personal self the possibilities that are potentially existing in the human
unconscious. It is, therefore, essential to make as clear a distinction as
possible between the personal and the impersonal assets of our psyche. This
is by no means intended to nullify the occasional great effects due to the
existence of the contents of the absolute unconscious; but these contents of
the collective psyche should be differentiated from those belonging to the
individual psyche. For simple-minded people, of course, these things were
never separated, the projection of gods, demons, etc., not having been
understood as a psychological function were simply accounted
concretistical realities. Their projectional character was never perceived. It
was only with the advent of the epoch of scepticism that it was realized that
the gods did not really exist except as projections. With that the matter was
set at rest. But the psychological function corresponding to it was by no
means set at rest, for it lapsed into the unconscious and began to poison
men with a surplus of libido that had hitherto been invested in the cult of
idols or gods. Obviously, the depreciation and repression of such a powerful
function as that of religion has serious consequences for the psychology of
the individual. The reflux of this libido strengthens the unconscious
prodigiously, so that it begins to exercise a powerful compulsory influence
upon consciousness and its archaic collective contents. One period of
scepticism came to a close with the horrors of the French Revolution. At the
present time we are again experiencing an ebullition of the unconscious
destructive powers of the collective psyche. The result is an unparalleled
general slaughter. That is just what the unconscious was tending towards.
This tendency had previously been inordinately strengthened by the
rationalism of modern life, which by depreciating everything irrational,
caused the function of irrationalism to sink into the unconscious. But the
function once in the unconscious will from thence work unceasing havoc,
like an incurable disease whose centre cannot be eradicated. For then the
individual and the nation alike are compelled to live irrationally, and even
to apply their highest idealism and their best wit to make this madness of
irrationalism as complete as possible. We see examples of this on a small
scale in our patient. She turned from a possibility of life that seemed to her
irrational (Mrs. X.) in order to live it in a pathological form, to her own
loss, and with an unsuitable object.
There is, indeed, no possible alternative but to acknowledge irrationalism as
a psychological function that is necessary and always existent. Its results
are not to be taken as concrete realities (that would involve repression), but
as psychological realities. They are realities because they are effective
things, that is, they are actualities.
The collective unconscious is the sediment of all the experience of the
universe of all time, and is also an image of the universe that has been in
process of formation for untold ages. In the course of time certain features
have become prominent in this image, the so-called dominants. These
dominants are the ruling powers, the gods; that is, the representations
resulting from dominating laws and principles, from average regularities in
the issue of the images that the brain has received as a consequence of
secular processes.
In so far as the images formed in the brain are relatively faithful portrayals
of psychic happenings they will correspond to their dominants; that is, their
general characteristic features, made prominent by the accumulation of
similar experiences, will correspond to certain physical fundamental facts
that are also universal. Hence it is possible to transfer unconscious images
to physical events direct as intuitive ideas; e.g. ether the primeval breath or
soul-substance appears in man's conceptions the whole world over; so, too,
energy, the magic force, which is equally widespread.
On account of their connection with physical things the dominants usually
make their appearance as projections, appearing, indeed—if the projections
are unconscious—in the persons of the immediate environment, as a rule in
the form of abnormal under- or over-valuations, which excite
misunderstandings, conflict, infatuations, and various kinds of folly. People
say: "He makes a god of So-and-so," or "So-and-so is X.'s bête noire." They
also give rise to the formation of modern myths, that is, fantastic rumours,
suspicions and prejudices.
The dominants of the collective unconscious are therefore extremely
important things of significant effect, to which great attention should be
paid. They must not be repressed, but must be given most careful
consideration. They usually appear as projections, and since projections are
only attached where there is some external stimulus, it is very difficult to
appraise them aright, on account of the relation of the unconscious images
with the object. If some one projects the dominant of "devil" into a fellow-
being, this occurs because this other person has something in him that
makes the attachment of the devil dominant possible. But that is by no
means to say that this person is therefore, so to speak, a devil; on the
contrary, he may be a particularly good fellow, but being antipathetic to the
one who projects, a "devilish effect" is brought about between the two. This
does not mean that the one who projects is a devil, although he must
recognize that he too, just as much, has something devilish in him, and has
been gulled by it, inasmuch as he projected it; but that does not make him a
devil; indeed, he may be just as decent a man as the other. In such a case the
appearance of the devil dominant means: the two persons are incompatible
(for the moment and for the near future), wherefore the unconscious splits
them asunder and holds them apart from each other.
One of the dominants that is almost always met in the analysis of
projections of collective unconscious contents is the "magical demon;" it is
of preponderating sinister effect. "The Golem," by Meyrink, is a good
example of this; also the Thibetan wizard in Meyrink's "Fledermäusen,"
who lets the world-war loose by magic. Obviously Meyrink formed this
image independently and freely out of his unconscious, by giving word and
picture to a feeling similar to the one that my patient had projected upon
me. The dominant of magic also appears in "Zarathustra," whilst in "Faust"
it is, so to say, the hero himself.
The picture of this demon is the lowest and most elementary concept of
God. It is the dominant of the primitive tribal magic-man, or a singularly
gifted personality endowed with magic power. This figure very frequently
makes an appearance in my patient's unconscious as a dark-skinned being of
Mongolian type.
An important step forward has been taken by the recognition of the
dominants of the absolute unconscious. The magical or demoniac effect of
the fellow-being is made to disappear by the feeling being realised as a
definite projection of the absolute unconscious. On the other hand, a
completely new and unsuspected task now lies before us: namely, the
question in what way the ego should come to terms with this psychological
non-ego. Should one rest satisfied with having verified the effective
existence of unconscious dominants, leaving the matter to take care of
itself?
To leave it at this point would be the means of creating a permanent state of
dissociation in the subject, a conflict between the individual psyche and the
collective psyche. Upon the one side we should have the differentiated
modern ego, whilst upon the other a kind of uncivilized negro
representative of a thoroughly primitive state. That would mean that we
should have what really does exist, a crust of civilization over a dark-
skinned brute; the cleavage would be distinct and demonstrable before our
very eyes. But such a dissociation requires immediate synthesis and
cultivation of what is undeveloped. There must be a union of these two
aspects.
Before entering upon this new question let us first return to the dream from
which we started. The discussion has given us a broader understanding of
the dream, and especially of an essential part of it, namely, the fear. This
fear is a demoniac fear of the dominants of the collective unconscious. We
saw that the patient identifies herself with Mrs. X., expressing thereby that
she also has some relation to the mysterious artist. It was apparent also that
she identified the physician (myself) with the artist; and further that when
taken upon the subjective plane, the image of the wizard dominants of the
collective unconscious represented me.
All this is covered in the dream by the symbol of the crab which walks
backwards. The crab stands for the living content of the unconscious that
can by no means be exhausted or rendered inoperative by analysis on the
objective plane. But what we were able to do was to detach the
mythological or collective psychological contents from the objects of
consciousness, and to consolidate them as psychological realities outside
the individual psyche.
So long as the absolute unconscious and the individual psyche are coupled
together without differentiation, no progress can be made, or, as the dream
expresses it, no boundary be crossed. If the dreamer does nevertheless
prepare to cross the boundary, the unconscious that was hitherto unnoticed
becomes animated, seizing her and dragging her down. The dream and its
material characterize the absolute unconscious, on the one side as a lower
animal living hidden in the depths of the water; and on the other side, as a
dangerous disease that can only be cured by a timely operation. To what
extent this characterization is appropriate has already been seen. As was
pointed out, the animal symbol specially refers to what is extra human, that
is super-personal; for the contents of the absolute unconscious are not
merely the residue of archaic human functions, but also the residue of
functions of the animal ancestry of mankind, whose duration of life was
indeed vastly greater than the relatively brief epoch of specifically human
existence. If such residues are active, they are apt, as nothing else is, not
merely to arrest the progress of development, but also to divert the libido
into regressive channels, until the quantity which the absolute unconscious
has activated has been absorbed. The energy becomes profitable again after
it has been consciously contrasted with the absolute unconscious, a process
which enables it to be converted into a valuable source from which to draw.
This transference of energy was established by religions in a concretistic
manner through cultural communication with the gods (the dominants of
the absolute unconscious). But these modes and customs are too much at
variance with our intellect and our moral sense for us to be able to declare
this solution of the problem as still binding, or even possible. If, on the
other hand, we apprehend the images of the unconscious as collective
unconscious dominants, therefore as collective-psychological phenomena or
functions, this hypothesis is in no way opposed to our intellect and
conscience. This solution is rationally acceptable. We have thus gained the
possibility of coming to terms with the activated residues of our ancestral
history. This mode of settlement makes it possible to traverse the boundary
line hitherto limiting us, and is therefore appropriately termed the
transcendental function, which is synonymous with progressive
development to a new attitude. In the dream this development is indicated
by the other side of the stream.
The similarity to hero-myths is striking. The typical combat of the hero with
the monster (the unconscious content) frequently takes place on the banks
of some water; sometimes at a ford. This circumstance is prominent in
legends of Red Indians, as, for example, in Longfellow's "Hiawatha." In the
decisive battle the hero is swallowed by a monster (cf. story of Jonah), as
Frobenius[246] has shown by means of extensive material. But inside the
monster the hero begins to come to terms with the beast in his own way:
whilst the creature swims with him towards the sunrise, he cuts off a
valuable piece of the viscera, e.g. the heart, by which the monster lived, that
is, the valuable energy by which the unconscious was activated. Through
this deed he kills the monster, who then drifts to land, where the hero, born
anew through the transcendental function (the "night-journey under the sea"
of Frobenius), steps forth, often in company with all those beings whom the
monster had previously swallowed. This enables the normal state to be
restored, as the unconscious having been robbed of its energy no longer
occupies a preponderating position. In this way the myth—which is the
dream of a people—graphically describes the problem with which our
patient is concerned.[247]
The problem of how to come to terms with the absolute unconscious is a
question apart. I must content myself here with a general survey of the new
theory of the unconscious up to the transcendental function, leaving the
presentation of the transcendental function itself to a later work.

X.—The Development of the Types of Introversion and

Extroversion in the Analytical Process.
The description of the analysis of the unconscious would be incomplete if a
word were not said about the question whether this method is equally
applicable to the two types. As a matter of fact, both the development and
the conception of the unconscious are different for each type. Although
making every effort to find out a formulation that shall be as universally
valid as possible, we must emphatically impress upon our minds the fact
that the two modes of conception of the types are essentially different; a
universal formulation that is just, only becomes possible when both
standpoints are given equal consideration. I do not conceal from myself the
fact that this subject is of less interest to the layman than to the specialist.
Nevertheless, certain aspects of the question are of such a general character
that the layman should not find the perusal of this last section entirely
without interest.
Let us first consider the concept of the unconscious. I have here introduced
the unconscious under the conception of a psychological function, namely,
the function of the sum of all those psychic contents which do not reach the
threshold of consciousness. I have divided the unconscious materials into
personal—that is to reminiscences attributable to personal experiences,
combinations and tendencies—and into impersonal collective contents, that
is, those whose contents cannot be attributed to personal experiences.
The contents of the psyche are fundamentally images indicating function on
the one hand, and upon the other objects and the world generally. The
conscious contains the recent object-images; the personal unconscious, the
object-images of the individual past, so far as they have either been
forgotten or repressed; whilst the absolute or collective unconscious
contains the inherited world-images generally, under the form of primordial
images or mythical themes. All psychic images have two sides: the one,
being directed towards the object, is as faithful a likeness of the object as
possible, framed without any intention or obligation to be anything else.
The other side is directed towards the soul, that is towards the psychic
function and the laws peculiar to it.
Let us take as an example, a primordial image out of a hero-myth. There is
in the West a demon ancestress with a large mouth. The hero creeps into it,
and at the same moment a certain little bird sings; the ancient dame shuts
her mouth with a bang, and the hero disappears.
The side of the image directed towards the physical object means, the sun
goes down in the evening into the mouth of the ocean. At this hour a certain
little bird sings (which is an objective fact), and the sun disappears into the
depths of the sea.
The side of the image directed towards the soul, that is the idea, signifies:
The energy contained in consciousness disappears (like the sun in the
evening) into the monster of the unconscious.
If we consider the collective-unconscious from the side of the soul or idea,
it is something entirely distinct, and it must be differentiated, abstracted
from the object, if its contents are to attain the perfection of an idea. If, on
the other hand, we consider the collective-unconscious from the side of the
physical object, that is as an image of the object, it is weaker and less clear
than the object itself, and can only be brought to perfection if it is
objectified, that is projected on to the object itself.
As previously explained, there are two types of human psychology that can
be clearly distinguished, viz. introversion and extroversion. The introvert is
characterised by the thought standpoint; the extrovert by the feeling
standpoint. As I showed, they are quite different in their relation to the
object: the introvert abstracting from the object and thinking about it, whilst
the extrovert goes to the object and feels himself into it. The accent of value
lies upon the ego for the introvert, but upon the object for the extrovert. The
former's chief concern is the preservation of the ego; that of the latter the
preservation of the object. The two types will adopt a different attitude
towards the unconscious, namely, the introvert will and must seize the idea-
side of the unconscious image; the extrovert, on the other hand, seizing the
side of the physical reflection. The introvert will purify as far as possible
the idea-side from the "alloy" of the concretistic admixture of the physical
image, in order to arrive at the abstract idea; whilst, on the other hand, the
extrovert will purify the physical image as far as possible from the
"phantastic" admixture of the enveloping ideas. The former, by raising
himself to a world of idea, will endeavour to overcome the disturbing
influence of the unconscious; whilst the latter will approach the object as
near as possible and project the unconscious image into the physical object,
thus freeing himself from the grip of the unconscious.
What for the extrovert is a phantastic and disturbing admixture in the
unconscious picture, is for the introvert precisely that which has the most
value, for it is the germ of the pure idea, and vice versâ; what for the
introvert are merely concretistical "imperfections," survivals of a physical
origin, are for the extrovert a most valuable hint, the bridge by which the
unconscious can be united with the object.
This description makes it manifest that the two types go contrary ways in
the course of the development of their unconscious, arriving therefore at
opposite extremes: the one at the idea, the other at the object of his feeling.
The psychological characteristics of the types are eventually pushed to
extremes, where according to the enantiodromic law the moment has
arrived when in each case the "other" function enters into its fully
acknowledged right, that is, feeling in the case of the introvert, and thought
in that of the extrovert. The introvert attains the lacking function of
autonomous feeling by means of a differentiation and enhancement of his
thought; whilst the extrovert, on the other hand, attains his thinking by the
way of an increasingly differentiated love. These functions that hitherto
were secondary are found at first in the unconscious, gradually reaching
consciousness in the course of development. At first they are unconscious
functions in a state that is more or less incompatible with consciousness and
have the typical qualities of unconscious contents. These qualities are such
as are not tolerated in consciousness. The lunatic Schreber[248] says most
aptly that the language of God (the unconscious) is a somewhat archaic but
vigorous German, of which he gives a few striking examples. As the
contrary function that emerges from the unconscious into consciousness
differs to such an extent from what appears to be acceptable to
consciousness, the necessity arises of a technique for coming to terms with
the contrary function. It is impossible to accept the contrary function as it
stands, as it always drags extraneous qualities and accompanying
circumstances with it from the absolute unconscious. Through the above-
described development the extrovert has acquired an adaptation to the
object that is absolutely real and free from all phantasies; he will therefore
be able to turn his attention towards the "alloy" which for the introvert was
the valuable germ of idea. From this he will then develop similar ideas to
those which the introvert has already developed. Vice versâ, the introvert
will now be able to turn his attention to those materials which before he was
obliged to reject, as being side-tracks on the road to physical reality; that is,
he will carry out the same clearing and winnowing in his feeling-relations,
that the extrovert has already completed.
The development of the contrary function that was hitherto unconscious,
leads to individuation beyond the type, and thereby to a new relation to the
world and mind. The process which begins with the complementation of the
types is the transcendental function, which leads to the new adaptation by
means of the clearing and winnowing of unconscious feelings and thoughts
that have been brought up by the contrary function that had been neglected.
Following the old maxim: "naturam si sequemur ducem nunquam
aberrabimus," we have obeyed the natural impulse of the thinker to carry
the principle of thought through to its utmost perfection attainable, as also
that of the feeler, of carrying the principle of feeling through to the end. By
these means the salutary extreme was produced, to wit, the hunger, the
desire for the compensatory function. For, by means of thought, the one is
landed in a lifeless ice-cold world of crystalline ideas; whereas, by means of
feeling, the other reaches a limitless ocean of never ending flood of
sentiment. The former will, therefore, yearn for living warmth of feeling,
and the latter for the restrictive precision and solidity of thought.
An enrichment of the individual is attained by this compensatory process,
giving him greater decision and the possibility of a harmony that is
complete in itself. The assimilation of the contrary function discloses new
inner springs, which guarantee to the individual considerably greater
independence from external conditions. This acquisition is an indisputable
advantage that none would like to surrender in face of the fact so
unavoidably connected with it, that a new adaptation and orientation of this
kind places the individual in a certain contrast to the great bulk of people
who yet have the old attitude. This contrast is no drawback; it is rather a
welcome and effective spur to life and work, for thereby is created the
channel required by our psychic energy for its development.

XI.—General Remarks on the Therapy.

I have still to draw the reader's attention to an important fact. Throughout
the course of this paper, I have seemed to associate the idea of disturbance
or even of peril with the unconscious. But it would give a false impression
if we were only to emphasize the dangerous side of the unconscious. The
unconscious is a source of danger when the individual is not at one with it.
If we succeed in establishing the function or attitude that I call
transcendental, the disharmony ceases, and we are permitted to enjoy the
favourable side of the unconscious. In such case the unconscious
vouchsafes us that furtherance and assistance which bountiful Nature is
always ready to give to man in overflowing abundance. The unconscious
possesses possibilities of wisdom that are completely closed to
consciousness, for the unconscious has at its disposal not only all the
psychic contents that are under the threshold because they had been
forgotten or overlooked, but also the wisdom of the experience of untold
ages, deposited in the course of time and lying potential in the human brain.
The unconscious is continually active, creating combinations of its
materials; these serve to indicate the future path of the individual. It creates
prospective combinations just as our consciousness does, only they are
considerably superior to the conscious combinations both in refinement and
extent. The unconscious may therefore be an unparalleled guide for human
beings.
The reader must on no account suppose that the complicated psychological
changes described must all be passed through in every individual case. In
practice the treatment is adjusted according to the therapeutic result
attained. The particular result arrived at may be reached at any stage of the
treatment, quite apart from the seriousness or duration of the malady. The
treatment of a serious case may last a long time, without the higher phases
of the evolution ever being reached, or needing to be reached. There are
comparatively few people who, after attaining the desired therapeutical
result, pursue the further stages of evolution for the sake of their own
development. It is, therefore, not the seriousness of the case which obliges
one to pass through the whole development. In any case, only those people
attain a higher degree of differentiation who are by nature destined and
called to it, that is, who have both a capacity and tendency towards the
higher differentiation. This is a matter in which people are extremely
different, just as among species of animals there are some that are stationary
and conservative, and others that are evolutionary. Nature is aristocratic, but
not in the sense of having reserved the possibility of differentiation
exclusively for those species that stand high. Similarly, the possibility of the
psychological development of human beings is not reserved for specially
gifted individuals. In other words: neither special intelligence nor any other
talent is necessary in order to achieve a far-reaching psychological
development, inasmuch as in this development moral qualities step in to
supplement where intellect does not suffice. But it must not be supposed
under any circumstances that the treatment consists in grafting general
formulas and complicated doctrines on to people; this is not so. Each one
can acquire that which he needs, after his own fashion and in his own
language. What I have here presented is only the intellectual formulation of
the subject, founded upon preliminary scientific study of an empirical as
well as a theoretical nature; but this formulation does not become a subject
of discussion in the ordinary practical analytical work. The brief notes of
cases that I have inserted give an approximate idea of the practical side of
analysis.
The reader should realize that our new understanding of psychology has a
side that is entirely practical, and another that is entirely theoretical. It is not
merely a practical method of treatment or education, but it is also a
scientific theory, that is closely related to other co-ordinated sciences.

Conclusion.
In conclusion, I must beg the reader to pardon me for having ventured to
say so many new and abstruse things in such a brief compass. I lay myself
open to adverse criticism, because I conceive it to be the duty of every one
who isolates himself by taking his own path, to tell others what he has
found or discovered, whether it be a refreshing spring for the thirsty, or a
sandy desert of sterile error. The one helps, the other warns. Not the opinion
of any individual contemporary will decide the truth and error of what has
been discovered, but rather future generations and destiny. There are things
that are not yet true to-day, perhaps we are not yet permitted to recognize
them as true, although they may be true to-morrow. Therefore every pioneer
must take his own path, alone but hopeful, with the open eyes of one who is
conscious of its solitude and of the perils of its dim precipices. Our age is
seeking a new spring of life. I found one and drank of it and the water tasted
good. That is all that I can or want to say. My intention and my duty to
society is fulfilled when I have described, as well as I can, the way that led
me to the spring; the reproaches of those who do not follow this way have
never troubled me, nor ever will. New ideas always encounter resistance
from the old. That always was and always will be the case; it appertains to
the self-regulation of mental progress.
 CHAPTER XV
THE CONCEPTION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS[249]

I.—The Distinction between the Personal and the Impersonal Unconscious

Since the breach with the Viennese school upon the question of the fundamental explanatory
principle of analysis—that is, the question if it be sexuality or energy—our concepts have
undergone considerable development. After the prejudice concerning the explanatory basis
had been removed by the acceptance of a purely abstract view of it, the nature of which was
not anticipated, interest was directed to the concept of the unconscious.
According to Freud's theory the contents of the unconscious are limited to infantile wish-
tendencies, which are repressed on account of the incompatibility of their character.
Repression is a process which begins in early childhood under the moral influence of
environment; it continues throughout life. These repressions are done away with by means of
analysis, and the repressed wishes are made conscious. That should theoretically empty the
unconscious, and, so to say, do away with it; but in reality the production of infantile sexual
wish-fantasies continues into old age.
According to this theory, the unconscious contains only those parts of the personality which
might just as well be conscious, and have really only been repressed by the processes of
civilisation. According to Freud the essential content of the unconscious would therefore be
personal. But although, from such a view-point the infantile tendencies of the unconscious
are the more prominent, it would be a mistake to estimate or define the unconscious from this
alone, for it has another side.
Not only must the repressed materials be included in the periphery of the unconscious, but
also all the psychic material that does not reach the threshold of consciousness. It is
impossible to explain all these materials by the principle of repression, for in that case by the
removal of the repression a phenomenal memory would be acquired, one that never forgets
anything. As a matter of fact repression exists, but it is a special phenomenon. If a so-called
bad memory were only the consequence of repression, then those persons who have an
excellent memory should have no repression, that is, be incapable of being neurotic. But
experience teaches us that this is not the case. There are, undoubtedly, cases with abnormally
bad memories, where it is clear that the main cause must be attributed to repression. But such
cases are comparatively rare.
We therefore emphatically say that the unconscious contains all that part of the psyche that is
found under the threshold, including subliminal sense-perceptions, in addition to the
repressed material. We also know—not only on account of accumulated experience, but also
for theoretical reasons—that the unconscious must contain all the material that has not yet
reached the level of consciousness. These are the germs of future conscious contents. We
have also every reason to suppose that the unconscious is far from being quiescent, in the
sense that it is inactive, but that it is probably constantly busied with the formation and re-
formation of so-called unconscious phantasies. Only in pathological cases should this activity
be thought of as comparatively autonomous, for normally it is co-ordinated with
consciousness.
It may be assumed that all these contents are of a personal nature in so far as they are
acquisitions of the individual life. As this life is limited, the number of acquisitions of the
unconscious must also be limited, wherefore an exhaustion of the contents of the unconscious
through analysis might be held to be possible. In other words, by the analysis of the
unconscious the inventory of unconscious contents might be completed, possibly in the sense
that the unconscious cannot produce anything besides what is already known and accepted in
the conscious. Also, as has already been said, we should have to accept the fact that the
unconscious activity had thereby been paralysed, and that by the removal of the repression we
could stop the conscious contents from descending into the unconscious. Experience teaches
us that is only possible to a very limited extent. We urge our patients to retain their hold upon
repressed contents that have been brought to consciousness, and to insert them in their
scheme of life. But, as we may daily convince ourselves, this procedure seems to make no
impression upon the unconscious, inasmuch as it goes on producing apparently the same
phantasies, namely, the so-called infantile-sexual ones, which according to the earlier theory
were based upon personal repressions. If in such cases analysis be systematically continued,
an inventory of incompatible wish-phantasies is gradually revealed, whose combinations
amaze us. In addition to all the sexual perversions every conceivable kind of crime is
discovered, as well as every conceivable heroic action and great thought, whose existence in
the analysed person no one would have suspected.
In order to give an example of this, I would like to refer to Maeder's Schizophrenic patient
who called the world his picture-book. He was a locksmith's apprentice who fell ill very early
in life; he had never been blessed with intellectual gifts. As regards his idea that the world
was his picture-book and that he was turning its pages over when he looked about in the
world, it is just Schopenhauer's world, conceived as will and representation, expressed in
primitive picture-language. This idea has just as universal a character as Schopenhauer's. The
difference consists in the fact that the patient's notion has stood still at an embryonic stage in
a process of growth, whereas with Schopenhauer the same idea has been changed from a
mere image into an abstraction expressed in terms that are universally valid.
It would be false to assume that the patient's idea had a personal character and value. That
would be to attribute to him the dignity of a philosopher. But he alone is a philosopher who
raises an image that has naturally sprung up into an abstract idea, thereby translating it into
terms of universal validity. Schopenhauer's philosophical conception is his personal value,
whereas the notion of the patient has merely an impersonal value of natural growth, in which
personal proprietary rights can only be acquired by making an abstraction of the images, and
translating them into terms that are universally valid. But it would be wrong if an exaggerated
sense of the value of this achievement led us to ascribe to the philosopher the merit of having
made or conceived the original image itself. The primordial image has also sprung up
naturally in the philosopher, and is nothing but a part of the universal human heritage in
which, theoretically at least, every one has a share. The golden apples come from the same
tree whether they are gathered by a locksmith's apprentice or a Schopenhauer.
The recognition of such primordial images obliges me to differentiate between the contents of
the unconscious; a differentiation of another kind than that between the pre-conscious and
unconscious, or between the subconscious and unconscious. The justification for those
distinctions cannot be discussed here; they have a value of their own and probably merit to be
carried further as affording a point of view. The differentiation which I propose follows
obviously from what has previously been said, namely, that in the so-called unconscious we
must differentiate a layer which may be termed the personal unconscious. The materials
contained in this layer are of a personal kind, inasmuch as on the one hand they may be
characterised as acquisitions of the individual existence, and on the other as psychological
factors which might just as well be conscious. It is, for instance, comprehensible that
incompatible psychological elements succumb to repression on the one hand and are therefore
unconscious, but on the other hand there exists the possibility of bringing the repressed
contents into consciousness and keeping them there, once they are known and recognised. We
recognise these materials as personal contents, because we can prove their effects, their
partial appearance, or their origin to lie in our personal past. They are integral constituents of
the personality, and belong to a complete inventory of the same. They are constituents whose
omission in consciousness implies an inferiority in one respect or another, not indeed an
inferiority bearing the psychological character of an organic deformity or a natural defect, but
rather the character of a neglect which arouses a moral reaction. The feeling of moral
inferiority always indicates that in the portion omitted is something that according to the
feelings should not be missing; or in other words, could be conscious if we took sufficient
trouble about it. The sense of moral inferiority is not the result of a collision with the
universal, in a certain sense arbitrary, moral law, but rather the result of a conflict with the
personal ego, which by reason of the psychic economy demands an adjustment of the
deficiency. Wherever a feeling of inferiority appears, it reveals not only the presence of a
demand for the assimilation of an unconscious constituent, but also the possibility of such an
assimilation. It is, after all, a person's moral qualities that make him assimilate his
unconscious self and retain it in consciousness, whether he be forced to it by a recognition of
its necessity, or by a painful neurosis. He who continues to tread this path of the realisation of
his unconscious self, necessarily transposes the content of the personal unconscious into
consciousness, whereby the periphery of the personality is considerably enlarged.

II—The Consequences of the Assimilation of the Unconscious.

This process of assimilating the unconscious leads to remarkable results. Some people build
up from it an unmistakable, even unpleasantly increased self-consciousness or self-
confidence; they "know everything," and are completely aware of everything so far as their
unconscious is concerned. They think themselves accurately informed about everything that
comes up from the unconscious. Others are increasingly oppressed by the contents of the
unconscious, they lose their self-reliance or their self-consciousness more and more, and
come near to a state of depressed resignation in regard to all the extraordinary things the
unconscious produces. The former undertake in the exuberance of their self-confidence, a
responsibility for their unconscious that goes much too far, beyond every reasonable
possibility; the latter ultimately decline to accept any responsibility in the depressing
recognition of the powerlessness of the ego confronted by relentless Destiny, working through
the unconscious.
If we give the two types close analytical consideration, we shall discover that behind the
optimistic self-confidence of the former there is hidden a just as deep, or rather a far deeper,
helplessness; a helplessness to which the conscious optimism acts as an unsuccessful effort at
compensation. Behind the pessimistic resignation of the latter there is hidden a defiant desire
for power, far exceeding in self-confidence the conscious optimism of the former type.
This condition of the personality may well be expressed by the idea of "God-Almightiness"
(Gottähnlichkeit),[250] to which Adler has particularly drawn our attention.
When the devil wrote the serpent's words in the student's album, Eritis sicut Deus scientes
bonum et malum, he added:

"Follow the ancient text and the snake thou wast ordered to trample!
With all thy likeness to God, thou'lt yet be a sorry example."

The idea of "likeness to God," or "God-Almightiness," is not a scientific one, although it

characterises the psychological state of affairs most exactly. Still we must examine whence
this attitude comes, and ask why it merits the name of "God-Almightiness." As the expression
denotes, the patient's abnormal condition is constituted by the fact that he ascribes to himself
qualities or values which obviously do not belong to him, for "God-Almightiness" means
being like the spirit which is set above the human spirit.
If for psychological purposes we abstract from the hypostasis of the God-idea, we find that
this expression does not only include every dynamic fact discussed in my book on "The
Psychology of the Unconscious,"[251] but also a certain mental function having a collective
character, which is of another order from that of the individual character of the mind. In the
same way as the individual is not only an isolated and separate, but also a social being, so
also the human mind is not only something isolated and absolutely individual, but also a
collective function. And just as certain social functions or impulses are, so to speak, opposed
to the ego-centric interests of the individual, so also the human mind has certain functions or
tendencies which, on account of their collective nature, are to some extent opposed to the
personal mental functions. This is due to the fact that every human being is born with a highly
differentiated brain, which gives him the possibility of attaining a rich mental function that he
has neither acquired ontogenetically nor developed. In proportion as human brains are
similarly differentiated, the corresponding mental functions are collective and universal. This
circumstance explains the fact that the unconscious of far-separated peoples and races
possesses a remarkable number of points of agreement. One example among many others
which has been demonstrated is the extraordinary unanimity shown by the autochthonous
forms and themes of myths.
The universal similarity of brains results in a universal possibility of a similar mental
function. This function is the collective psyche, which is divided into collective mind and
collective soul.[252] In so far as there exist differentiations corresponding to race, descent, or
even family, so, beyond the level of the "universal" collective psyche, we find a collective
psyche limited by race, descent, and family. To quote P. Janet, the collective psyche contains
the "parties inférieures" of the mental function, that is, the part of the mental function which,
being fixed and automatic in its action, inherited and present everywhere, is therefore super-
personal or impersonal. The conscious and the personal unconscious contain as personal
differentiations the "parties supérieures" of the mental function, therefore the part that has
been acquired and developed ontogenetically.
An individual therefore who joins the a priori and unconsciously-given collective psyche on
to his ontogenetically acquired assets, enlarges thereby the periphery of his personality in an
unjustifiable way, with the corresponding consequences. Inasmuch as the collective psyche is
the "partie inférieure" of the mental function, and therefore is the fundamental structure
underlying every personality, it weighs heavily upon and depreciates the personality; a fact
that is expressed in the afore-mentioned stifling of self-confidence, and in the unconscious
increase of the ego-emphasis up to the point of a morbid will to power. Inasmuch as the
collective psyche ranks even above the personality, because it is the mother foundation upon
which all personal differentiations are based, and because it is the common mental function of
the sum total of the individual, therefore its incorporation in the personality may evoke
inflation of self-confidence, an inflation which is then compensated by an extraordinary sense
of inferiority in the unconscious.
A dissolution of the pairs of opposites in the personality sets in if, through the assimilation of
the unconscious, the collective psyche be included in the inventory of the personal mental
functions. Alongside the pairs of opposites already alluded to that are so particularly evident
in the neurotic, viz. megalomania and sense of inferiority, there are also many other pairs, of
which I will only mention the specifically moral pair, that is, good and evil (scientes bonum et
malum). They accompany the increase or depreciation of self-confidence. The specific virtues
and vices of humanity are contained in the collective psyche, just as everything else is. One
man ascribes all the collective virtue to himself as his own personal merit; another accounts
as personal guilt what is but collective vice. Both are just as illusionary as the sense of
greatness and of inferiority, for imaginary virtues as well as imaginary vices are only the pairs
of moral opposites contained in the collective psyche, which have become perceptible or have
artificially been made conscious. How far the collective psyche contains these pairs of
opposites is shown by primitive peoples, whose great virtue is praised by one observer;
whereas another observer of the same race reports only the worst impressions. Both views are
true of primitive man, whose personal differentiation is only beginning; his mental function is
essentially collective. He is more or less identified with the collective psyche, and therefore
without any personal responsibility or inner conflict; his virtues and vices are collective.
Conflict only begins when a conscious personal development of the mind has already started,
whereby the reason becomes aware of the irreconcilable nature of the pairs of opposites. The
struggle to repress is the consequence of this realisation. Man wants to be good, therefore the
bad must be repressed; this puts an end to the paradise of the collective psyche.
The repression of the collective psyche, in so far as it was conscious, was a necessity for the
development of the personality, because collective psychology and personal psychology are
in a certain sense irreconcilable. In the history of thought, whenever a fresh psychological
attitude acquires collective value the formation of schisms begins. Nowhere is this more
clearly seen than in the history of religion. A collective point of view, although it may be
necessary, is always dangerous for the individual. It is dangerous because it is apt to choke
and smother personal differentiation. It has derived this capacity from the collective psyche,
which is itself a result of psychological differentiation of the strong gregarious instincts of
humanity. Collective thought and feeling, and collective accomplishment, are relatively easy
in comparison with individual function and performance; a fact that is only too prone to lead
to a fining down to the collective level, and is peculiarly disastrous to personal development.
The concomitant loss of personality is replaced—as is always the case in psychology—by an
unconscious all-compelling binding to and identification with the collective psyche. It cannot
be denied, and should be warningly emphasized that in the analysis of the unconscious, the
collective psychology is merged into the personal psychology, with the afore-mentioned
unpleasant consequences. These consequences are either bad for the individual's vital feeling
(Lebensgefühl), or they injure his fellow-beings if he have any power over his environment.
Being identified with the collective psyche he will inevitably try to force the claims of his
unconscious upon others, for identification with the collective psyche is accompanied by a
feeling of universal validity ("God-Almightiness"), which disregards the different psychology
of his fellows.
The worst abuses of this kind may be removed by a clear understanding and appreciation of
the fact that there are totally different psychological types, and that a psychology of one type
cannot be forced into the mould of another. It is indeed almost impossible for one type to
understand the other completely, and a perfect comprehension of another's individuality is
impossible. Due regard for another's individuality is not only advisable but is absolutely
essential in analysis, if the development of the other's personality is not to be stifled. It should
not be forgotten that the one type thinks that he is leaving another person free when he grants
him freedom of action, and the other type when he grants him freedom of thought. In analysis
both must be conceded, in so far as reasons of self-preservation permit the analyst to accord
them. An excessive desire to understand or explain things is just as useless and injurious as a
lack of comprehension.
The collective natural propensities and primary forms of idea and feeling which analysis of
the unconscious has shown to be effective are an acquisition for the conscious personality
which cannot be admitted unreservedly without prejudicial results.
In practical treatment[253] it is therefore of the utmost importance to keep the aim of
individual development constantly before us. If for instance the collective psyche be
conceived as a personal possession or as a personal burden, an unbearable weight or strain is
put upon the personality. Hence we must make a clear distinction between the personal and
the collective psyche. In practice this distinction is not easy because the personal grows out of
the collective psyche, and is most closely joined with it. It is therefore difficult to say which
materials are to be termed collective and which personal. There is no doubt, for instance, that
the archaic symbols so often found in phantasies and dreams are collective factors. All
primary propensities and forms of thought and feeling are collective; so is everything about
which men are universally agreed, or which is universally understood, said or done. Upon
close consideration it is astonishing to note how much of our so-called individual psychology
is really collective; so much that the individual element quite disappears. Individuation,
however, is an indispensable psychological requirement. The crushing predominance of what
is collective should make us realise what peculiar care and attention must be given to the
delicate plant "individuality," if it is to develop.
Human beings have a capacity which is of the utmost use for purposes of collectivism and
most prejudicial to individuation, and that is the capacity to imitate. Collective psychology
cannot dispense with imitation, without which the organization of the State and Society
would be impossible. Imitation includes the idea of suggestibility, suggestive effect, and
mental infection.
But we see daily how the mechanism of imitation is used, or rather abused, for the purposes
of personal differentiation; some prominent personality, or peculiar trait or activity is simply
imitated, which at least brings about an external differentiation from the environment. As a
rule this delusive attempt to attain individual differentiation by means of imitation comes to a
standstill as mere affectation, the individual remaining on the same plane as before, only a
few degrees more sterile than formerly, and under an unconscious compulsory bondage to his
environment.
In order to find out what is really individual in us, we should have to give the matter deep
thought, and we should certainly become aware how exceedingly difficult such a discovery is.

III.—The Individual as an Excerpt of the Collective Psyche.

We now come to a problem the overlooking of which would cause the greatest confusion.
As I said before, the immediate result of the analysis of the unconscious is that additional
personal portions of the unconscious are incorporated into the conscious. I called those parts
of the unconscious which are repressed but capable of being made conscious, the personal
unconscious. I showed moreover that through the annexation of the deeper layers of the
unconscious, which I called the impersonal unconscious, an extension of the personality is
brought about which leads to the state of God-Almightiness ("Gottähnlichkeit"). This state is
reached by a continuation of the analytical work, by means of which we have already re-
introduced what is repressed to consciousness. By continuing analysis further we incorporate
some distinctly impersonal universal basic qualities of humanity with the personal
consciousness, which brings about the aforesaid enlargement, and this to some extent may be
described as an unpleasant consequence of analysis.
From this standpoint, the conscious personality seems to be a more or less arbitrary excerpt of
the collective psyche. It appears to consist of a number of universal basic human qualities of
which it is à priori unconscious, and further of a series of impulses and forms which might
just as well have been conscious, but were more or less arbitrarily repressed, in order to attain
that excerpt of the collective psyche, which we call personality. The term persona is really an
excellent one, for persona was originally the mask which an actor wore, that served to
indicate the character in which he appeared. For if we really venture to undertake to decide
what psychic material must be accounted personal and what impersonal, we shall soon reach
a state of great perplexity; for, in truth, we must make the same assertion regarding the
contents of the personality as we have already made with respect to the impersonal
unconscious, that is to say that it is collective, whereas we can only concede individuality to
the bounds of the persona, that is to the particular choice of personal elements, and that only
to a very limited extent. It is only by virtue of the fact that the persona is a more or less
accidental or arbitrary excerpt of the collective psyche that we can lapse into the error of
deeming it to be in toto individual, whereas as its name denotes, it is only a mask of the
collective psyche; a mask which simulates individuality, making others and oneself believe
that one is individual, whilst one is only acting a part through which the collective psyche
speaks.
If we analyse the persona we remove the mask and discover that what appeared to be
individual is at bottom collective. We thus trace "the Little God of the World" back to his
origin, that is, to a personification of the collective psyche. Finally, to our astonishment, we
realise that the persona was only the mask of the collective psyche. Whether we follow Freud
and reduce the primary impulse to sexuality, or Adler and reduce it to the elementary desire
for power, or reduce it to the general principle of the collective psyche which contains the
principles of both Freud and Adler, we arrive at the same result; namely, the dissolution of the
personal into the collective. Therefore in every analysis that is continued sufficiently far, the
moment arrives when the aforesaid God-Almightiness must be realised. This condition is
often ushered in by peculiar symptoms; for instance, by dreams of flying through space like a
comet, of being either the earth, the sun, or a star, or of being either extraordinarily big or
small, of having died, etc. Physical sensations also occur, such as sensations of being too
large for one's skin, or too fat; or hypnagogic feelings of endless sinking or rising occur, of
enlargement of the body or of dizziness. This state is characterised psychologically by an
extraordinary loss of orientation about one's personality, about what one really is, or else the
individual has a positive but mistaken idea of that which he has just become. Intolerance,
dogmatism, self-conceit, self-depreciation, contempt and belittling of "not analysed" fellow-
beings, and also of their opinions and activities, all very frequently occur. An increased
disposition to physical disorders may also occasionally be observed, but this occurs only if
pleasure be taken therein, thus prolonging this stage unduly.
The wealth of the possibilities of the collective psyche is both confusing and dazzling. The
dissolution of the persona results in the release of phantasy, which apparently is nothing else
but the functioning of the collective psyche. This release brings materials into consciousness
of whose existence we had no suspicion before. A rich mine of mythological thought and
feeling is revealed. It is very hard to hold one's own against such an overwhelming
impression. That is why this phase must be reckoned one of the real dangers of analysis, a
fact that should not be concealed.
As may easily be understood, this condition is hardly bearable, and one would like to put an
end to it as soon as possible, for the analogy with a mental derangement is too close. The
essence of the most frequent form of derangement—dementia præcox or schizophrenia—
consists, as is well known, in the fact that the unconscious to a large extent ejects and replaces
the conscious. The unconscious is given the value of reality, being substituted for the reality
function. The unconscious thoughts become audible as voices, or visible as visions, or
perceptible as physical hallucinations, or they become fixed ideas of a kind that supersede
reality. In a similar, although not in the same way, by the resolution of the persona of the
collective psyche, the unconscious is drawn into the conscious. The difference between this
state of mind and that of mental derangement consists in the fact that the unconscious is
brought up by the help of the conscious analysis; at least that is the case in the beginning of
analysis, when there are still strong cultural resistances against the unconscious to be
overcome. Later on, after the removal of the barriers erected by time and custom, the
unconscious usually proceeds, so to say, in a peremptory manner, sometimes even discharging
itself in torrents into the consciousness. In this phase the analogy with mental derangement is
very close. But it would only be a real mental disorder should the content of the unconscious
take the place of the conscious reality, that is, in other words, if the contents of the
unconscious were believed absolutely and without reserve.
IV.—The Endeavours to free the Individuality from the Collective Psyche.
1. The Regressive Restoration of the Persona.
The unbearableness of thus being identified with the collective psyche forces us to find a
radical solution. There are two ways open. The first possibility is the regressive one of trying
to restore the persona to its former condition, by endeavouring to restrain the unconscious by
the application of a reductive theory; for instance, by declaring it to be nothing but long-
repressed and overdue infantile sexuality, for which it would really be best to substitute the
normal sexual function. This solution is based upon the unmistakable sexualistic symbolism
of the language of the unconscious, and upon the concretistic interpretation of the same. Or an
attempt may be made to apply the power theory, by conceiving the God-Almightiness as a
"virile protest," and as an infantile striving for power and self-preservation: a theory for
which support is found in the unmistakable pretensions to power that the unconscious
material contains. A further possibility would be to declare the unconscious to be the archaic
collective psychology of primitive man, an explanation that would not only cover the
sexualistic symbolism and the "God-Almighty" aiming for power of the unconscious content,
but would also apparently do justice to the religious, philosophical, and mythological aspects
and tendencies of the unconscious content. In every case the conclusion arrived at is the same,
viz. that the unconscious is nothing but this or that, which has already been adequately
recognised and acknowledged as infantile, useless, meaningless, impossible, and out of date.
There is nothing to be done but to shrug one's shoulders and resign one's self to the inevitable.
To the patient there seems to be no alternative, if one wishes to continue to live sensibly, but
to restore in so far as is possible that extract of the collective psyche termed persona, to lay
the fact of analysis silently aside, and do one's utmost to forget that one possesses an
unconscious. We shall find support in Faust's words:—

"The sphere of earth is known enough to me;

The view beyond is barred immutably:
A fool, who there his blinking eyes directeth,
And o'er his clouds of peers a place expecteth!
Firm let him stand, and look around him well!
This world means something to the capable.
Why needs he through Eternity to wend?
He here acquires what he can apprehend.
Thus let him wander down his earthly day;
When spirits haunt go quietly his way;
In marching onward, bliss and torment find,
Though every moment, with unsated mind!"

This would be a happy solution if one really could succeed in throwing off the unconscious to
such an extent as to withdraw the libido from it, and so render it inoperative. But experience
proves that energy cannot be withdrawn from the unconscious; it continues operative, for the
unconscious contains and is indeed itself the source of libido, from which issue the primary
psychic elements, thought-feelings, or feeling-thoughts—undifferentiated germs of idea and
sentiment. It would therefore be a delusion to believe that by means of some, so to say,
magical theory or method, the libido could be conclusively wrested from the unconscious, or
that it could be to a certain extent disconnected. One may yield to this illusion for a time, but
some day he will be obliged to declare with Faust:—

"Now fills the air so many a haunting shape,

That no one knows how best he may escape.
What though one day with rational brightness beams,
The night entangles us in webs of dreams.
From our young fields of life we come, elate:
There croaks a bird; what croaks he? Evil fate!
By superstition constantly ensnared,
It grows to us and warns and is declared.
Intimidated thus we stand alone.—
The portal jars, yet entrance is there none.
Is any one here?

Care: Yes! must be my reply.

Faust: And, thou, who art thou, then?

Care: Well—here am I.

Faust: Avaunt!

Care: I am where I should be:

Though no ear should choose to hear me,
Yet the shrinking heart must fear me;
Though transformed to mortal eyes,
Grimmest power I exercise."

The unconscious cannot be "analysed" to a finish, and thus brought to a standstill. No one can
wrest active force from it for any length of time. Therefore to act according to the method just
described is only to deceive one's self, and is nothing but a new edition of an ordinary
repression.
2. The Identification with the Collective Psyche.
The second way would be that of identification with the collective psyche. That would mean
the symptom of "God-Almightiness" developed into a system; in other words, one would be
the fortunate possessor of the absolute truth, that had yet to be discovered; of the conclusive
knowledge, which would be the people's salvation. This attitude is not necessarily
megalomania ("Grössenwahn") in a direct form, but the well-known milder form of having a
prophetic mission. Weak minds which, as is so often the case, have correspondingly an undue
share of vanity and misplaced naïveté at their disposal, run a considerable risk of succumbing
to this temptation. The obtaining access to the collective psyche signifies a renewal of life for
the individual, whether this renewal of life be felt as something pleasant or unpleasant. It
would seem desirable to retain a hold upon this renewal: for one person, because it increases
his feeling for life ("Lebensgefühl"); for another, because it promises a great accretion to his
knowledge. Therefore both of them, not wishing to deprive themselves of the rich values that
lie buried in the collective psyche, will endeavour by every means possible to retain their
newly gained union with the primal cause of life. Identification appears to be the nearest way
to it, for the merging of the persona in the collective psyche is a veritable lure to unite one's
self with this "ocean of divinity," and, oblivious of the past, to become absorbed in it. This
piece of mysticism belongs to every finer individual, just as the "yearning for the mother"—
the looking back to the source whence one originated—is innate in every one.
As I have demonstrated explicitly before,[254] there is a special value and a special necessity
hidden in the regressive longing—which, as is well-known, Freud conceives as "infantile
fixation" or as "incest-wish." This necessity and longing is particularly emphasized in myths,
where it is always the strongest and best of people, in other words, the hero, who follows the
regressive longing and deliberately runs into danger of letting himself be devoured by the
monster of the maternal first cause. But he is a hero only because, instead of letting himself
be finally devoured by the monster, he conquers it, and that not only once but several times. It
is only through the conquest of the collective psyche that its true value can be attained,
whether it be under the symbol of capture of treasure, of an invincible weapon, of a magical
means of defence, or whatever else the myth devises as the most desirable possession. Hence
whoever identifies himself with the collective psyche, also reaches the treasure which the
dragon guards, but against his will and to his own great injury, by thus allowing himself
(mythologically speaking) to be devoured by the monster and merged with it.
Identification with the collective psyche is therefore a failure; this way ends just as
disastrously as did the first, which led to the severance of the persona from the collective
psyche.

V.—Leading Principles for the Treatment of Collective Identity.

In order to solve the problem how practical treatment can overcome the assimilation of the
collective psyche, we must first of all make quite clear to ourselves what was the error of the
two ways already described. We saw that neither the one way nor the other led to any
appropriate result. The first way simply leads the patient back to the point of departure,
having lost the vital values contained in the collective psyche. The second way leads him
straight into the collective psyche, having lost that detached human existence which alone
renders possible a bearable and satisfying life. There are on both sides values that should not
be lost to the individual.
The mistake is, therefore, neither in the collective psyche nor in the individual psyche, but in
allowing the one to exclude the other. The monistic tendency assists this propensity, for it
always suspects and looks for one principle everywhere. As a general psychological tendency,
monism is a peculiarity of differentiated feeling and thought, corresponding to the keen desire
to make the one or the other function the supreme psychological principle. The introversion
type only knows the thought principle, and the extroversion type only that of feeling. This
psychological monism—or it would be better to say monotheism—has the advantage of
simplicity, and the disadvantage of one-sidedness. On the one hand, it signifies the exclusion
of the variety and true riches of life; whilst on the other, it means the practicability of
realizing the ideals of the present day and of the near past. But it does not in itself signify any
actual possibility of human progress.
In the same way rationalism tends towards exclusiveness. Its essence is to exclude instantly
whatever is opposed to its standpoint, whether it be intellectually logical or emotionally so. In
regard to reason it is both monistic and autocratic. Special thanks are due to Bergson for
having broken a lance for the right of the irrational to exist. Psychology will probably be
obliged to acknowledge and to submit to a plurality of principles, in spite of the fact that this
does not suit the scientific mind. Only so can psychology be saved from ship-wreck.
But with regard to individual psychology science must waive its claims. For to speak of a
scientific individual psychology is in itself a contradictio in adjecto. It is necessarily always
only the collective part of an individual psychology that can be the subject of scientific study,
for the individual is—according to definition—something unique and incomparable. A
"scientific" individual psychology is a denial of individual psychology. It may justly be
suspected that individual psychology is indeed a projection of the psychology of him who
defines it. Every individual psychology must have its own text-book, for the universal text-
book only contains collective psychology.
These remarks are intended to prepare for what has to be said about the treatment of the
aforesaid problem. The fundamental error of both the afore-mentioned ways is simply that the
subject is collectively identified with the one or the other part of his psychology. His
psychology is individual as well as collective, but not in such a manner as to merge the
individual with what is collective, or the collective with what is individual. The persona must
be strictly separated from the concept of the individual, in so far as the persona can be
absolutely merged with the collective. But what is individual is just that which can never be
absorbed in the collective, and is, too, never identical with the collective. Therefore, an
identification with the collective or an arbitrary cutting-off from the collective is equivalent to
illness; it is pathological.
As has already been indicated, what is individual appears at first as the particular selection of
those elements of the collective psyche that contribute to the composition of the persona. As I
said before, the components are not individual but collective. It is only their combination, or
the selection as a model of particular groups that had already been combined, which is
individual. That would be the individual nucleus which is concealed by the personal mask. By
the particular differentiation of the persona, the resistance is shown of the individuality to the
collective psyche. By analysing the persona, we transfer a greater value to the individuality,
increasing thereby its conflict with collectivity. This conflict obviously is a psychological
conflict in the individual. The dissolution of the compromise between the two halves of a pair
of opposites increases the effectiveness of the contrast. This conflict does not exist within the
sphere of purely unconscious natural life, although the purely physiological life of the
individual also has to comply with collective demands.
The natural unconscious attitude is harmonious; the body, with its capacities and needs,
providing immediately indications and limitations, that prevent intemperance and lack of
proportion. A differentiated psychological function, however, always inclines towards
disproportion, on account of the one-sidedness which is cultivated by the conscious
rationality of intention. What is called mental individuality, is, also, an expression of the
individual corporeity, being, so to speak, identical with it. This sentence might obviously also
be reversed, a fact that does not materially alter the real psychological data concerning the
intimate relation of the individuality to the body. At the same time, the body is also that which
makes the subject resemble all others to a great extent, although it is the individual body that
is differentiated from all others.
Similarly the mental or moral individuality differs from all others, although in every respect it
is so constituted as to place one person on an equality with all others. Every living creature
that is able freely to develop itself individually without any coercion at all, will, through the
perfecting of its individuality, soonest realize the ideal type of its species, and therefore,
figuratively speaking, will have collective validity.
The persona is always identical with a typical attitude, in which one pyschological function
dominates, e.g. feeling, or thought, or intuition. This one-sidedness always causes the relative
repression of the other functions. In consequence of this circumstance, the persona is
hindering to the development of the individual. The dissolution of the persona is, therefore, an
indispensable condition of individuation. It is, therefore, to some extent impossible to achieve
individuation by means of conscious intention; for conscious intention leads to a conscious
attitude, which excludes everything that "does not suit." But the assimilation of the
unconscious contents leads, on the contrary, to a condition in which conscious intention is
excluded, being replaced by a process of development that appears to us irrational. This
process alone signifies individuation, its product being individuality as defined above, viz. as
something individual that is at the same time universal. So long as the persona exists
individuality is repressed, betraying itself at most by the particular selection of personal
requisites, of what might be called the actor's costumes. Only when the unconscious is
assimilated does the individuality become more prominent, and with it also that uniting
psychological phenomenon between the ego and non-ego, expressed by the word attitude, is
now no longer a typical attitude but an individual one.
What is paradoxical in these formulations arises from the same cause from which the conflict
about the "universalia" formerly arose. The phrase "animal nullumque animal genus est"
makes the fundamental paradox clearly comprehensible. What exists "really" is individual:
that which is universal is existing psychologically, but being caused by the real-existing
similarities of individual things. The individual is, therefore, the individual thing that has, to a
greater or less extent, those attributes upon which the collective conception of "collectivity"
rests; and the more individual he is, the more he develops those attributes that are the basis of
a collective concept of human nature.
If a grotesque figure, suggested by the initial situation of our problem be permitted, it is
Buridan's ass between the two bundles of hay. His questioning is obviously wrong: the
question is not whether the hay-bundle on the right or the left be the better one, or whether he
should begin to eat on the right or the left hand, but what he himself would like to do, what he
is eager for—that is the point. He is thinking of the hay and not of himself, and therefore he
does not know what he really wants.
The question is: what at this moment is the natural direction of the growth of this individual?
This question cannot be settled by any philosophy, religion or good advice, but solely by an
unprejudiced review of the psychological germs of life which have resulted from the natural
co-operation of the conscious and unconscious on the one hand, and of the individual and the
collective on the other. One person looks for them in the conscious, and another in the
unconscious. But the conscious is only one side, and the unconscious is only the other. For it
should never be forgotten that dreams are compensatory or complementary to consciousness.
Were this not the case, we should be obliged to regard dreams as a source of knowledge
superior to the conscious. This view would undoubtedly carry us back to the mentality of the
augur, and we should have to accept all the consequences of such a superstitious attitude,
unless, indeed, we look upon dreams as valueless, as does the vulgar mind.
We find the unifying function that we are seeking, in the phantasies in which everything that
has any effectual determination is present. But phantasies have a bad reputation among
psychologists. The psychoanalytical theories hitherto obtaining have treated them
accordingly. For both Freud and Adler the phantasy is nothing but a so-called "symbolic"
disguise of what both investigators suppose to be the primary propensities and aims. But in
opposition to these views it should be emphasised—not for theoretical but for essentially
practical reasons—that the phantasy may indeed be thus causally explained and depreciated,
but that it nevertheless is the creative soil for everything that has ever brought development to
humanity. The phantasy as a psychological function has a peculiar non-reducible value of its
own, whose roots are in both the conscious and the unconscious contents, and in what is
collective as well as in what is individual.
But whence comes the bad reputation of the phantasy? It owes that reputation chiefly to the
circumstance that it ought not to be taken literally. It is worthless if understood
concretistically. If we understand semiotically, as Freud does, it is interesting from the
scientific standpoint. But if it be understood hermeneutically, as an actual symbol, it provides
us with the cue that we need in order to develop our life in harmony with ourselves.
For the significance of a symbol is not that it is a disguised indication of something that is
generally known,[255] but that it is an endeavour to elucidate by analogy what is as yet
completely unknown and only in process of formation.[256] The phantasy represents to us that
which is just developing under the form of a more or less apposite analogy. By analytical
reduction to something universally known, we destroy the actual value of the symbol; but it is
appropriate to its value and meaning to give it an hermeneutical interpretation.
The essence of hermeneutics—an art that was formerly much practised—consists in adding
more analogies to that already given by the symbol: in the first place, subjective analogies
given by the patient as they occur to him; and in the second place, objective analogies
provided by the analyst out of his general knowledge. The initial symbol is much enlarged
and enriched by this procedure, the result being a highly complex and many-sided picture,
which may now be reduced to tertia comparationis. Thence result certain psychological lines
of development of an individual as well as collective nature. No science upon earth could
prove the accuracy of these lines; on the contrary, rationalism could very easily prove that
they are wrong. But these lines vindicate their validity by their value for life. The chief thing
in practical treatment is that people should get a hold of their own life, not that the principle
of their life should be provable or "right."
Of course, true to the spirit of scientific superstition suggestion will be mooted. But it should
long ago have been realised that a suggestion is only accepted by one it suits. Beyond that
there is no suggestion, otherwise the treatment of neurosis would be extremely simple, for we
should only need to suggest health. This pseudo-scientific talk about suggestion is based upon
the unconscious superstition that suggestion actually possesses some real magic power. No
one succumbs to suggestion unless from the very bottom of his heart he be willing to co-
operate.
By means of the hermeneutical treatment of the phantasies we arrive at the synthesis of the
individual with the collective psyche, put theoretically, that is, but practically, one
indispensable condition is yet lacking. For it belongs to the regressive disposition of the
neurotic—a disposition in which he has been confirmed in the course of his illness—to take
neither himself nor the world seriously, but always to rely on this or that method or
circumstance to effect a cure, quite apart from his own serious co-operation. "But you can't
wash the dog without getting his skin wet." No cure can be effected without unlimited
willingness and absolute seriousness on the part of the patient. There are no magical cures for
neurosis. Just as soon as we begin to elaborate the symbolic outlines of the path, the patient
must begin to walk thereon. If he delude himself and shirk it, no cure can result. He must
really work and live according to what he has seen and recognised as the direction for the
time being of his individual life-line, and must continue thereon until a distinct reaction of his
unconscious shows him that he is beginning in good faith to go a wrong way.
He who does not possess this moral function of faithfulness to himself will never get rid of
his neurosis; but he who has this faithfulness can find the way out.
Neither physician nor patient must yield to the delusion that "being analysed" is in itself
sufficient to remove a neurosis. That would be deception and self-delusion. Ultimately it is
infallibly the moral factor that decides between health and illness.
By the construction of the individual's life-line the ever-varying trends and tendencies of his
libido are made conscious. These life-lines are not identical with the "directing fictions"
discovered by Adler, which are none other than arbitrary attempts to cut the persona off from
the collective psyche, and to give it independence. It might rather be said that the "directing
fiction" is an unsuccessful attempt to construct a life-line. The unsuitability of the "directing
fiction" is also proved by the fact that the lines are tenaciously retained for much too long a
time. The hermeneutically constructed life-line is short, for life follows no straight lines that
indicate the future long beforehand, for, as Nietzsche says, "All truth is crooked." Life-lines
are therefore neither principles nor ideals of universal validity, but points of view and
adaptations of ephemeral validity. An abatement of vital intensity, a perceptible loss of libido,
or an excessive passion or ecstasy—all show that one such line is left, and that a new line
begins, or rather should begin. Sometimes it is enough to leave the revealing of the new line
to the unconscious; but this course should indeed not be recommended to the neurotic under
all circumstances, though there are cases where what is needed is to learn to trust to so-called
chance. However, it is not advisable to let one's self drift for any length of time; a watchful
eye should at least be kept upon the reactions of the unconscious, that is to say, upon the
dreams: these indicate like a barometer the one-sidedness of our attitude.[257] Therefore, I
consider it necessary, in contrast to some other analysts, for the patient after analysis to
remain in contact with the unconscious, if he would avoid a relapse. That is why I am
convinced that the real end of analysis is reached when the patient has acquired adequate
knowledge of the method to remain in contact with the unconscious, and sufficient
psychological knowledge to be able to understand approximately his ever-changing life-line;
otherwise he is not in a position to follow the direction of the libido currents in the
unconscious, and thereby to gain conscious support in the development of his individuality.
Every serious case of neurosis needs this weapon in order to maintain the cure.
In this sense analysis is not a method that is a medical monopoly, but rather an art or
technique or science of psychological life, which he who has been cured must continue to
foster, for the sake of his own welfare and that of his environment. If he understands this
aright he will not pose as a psychoanalytical prophet nor as a public reformer, but truly
understanding the common weal, he will first himself reap the benefit of the self-knowledge
acquired in his treatment, and then he will let the example of his life work what good it can,
rather than indulge in aggressive talk and missionary propaganda.

Summary.
A. Psychological Material must be divided into Conscious and Unconscious Contents.
1. The conscious contents are partly personal, in so far as their universal validity is not
recognised; and partly impersonal, that is, collective, in so far as their universal validity is
recognised.
2. The unconscious contents are partly personal, in so far as they concern solely repressed
materials of a personal nature, that have once been relatively conscious and whose universal
validity is therefore not recognised when they are made conscious; partly impersonal, in so
far as the materials concerned are recognised as impersonal and of purely universal validity,
of whose earlier even relative consciousness we have no means of proof.

B. The Composition of the Persona.

1. The conscious personal contents constitute the conscious personality, the conscious ego.
2. The unconscious personal contents constitute the self, the unconscious or subconscious
ego.
3. The conscious and unconscious contents of a personal nature constitute the persona.

C. The Composition of the Collective Psyche.

1. The conscious and unconscious contents of an impersonal or collective nature compose the
psychological non-ego, the image of the object. These materials can appear analytically as
projections of feeling or of opinion, but they are a priori collectively identical with the
object-imago, that is they appear as qualities of the object, and are only a posteriori
recognised as subjective psychological qualities.
2. The persona is that grouping of conscious and unconscious contents which is opposed as
ego to the non-ego. The general comparison of personal contents of different individuals
establishes their far-reaching similarity, extending even to identity, by which the individual
nature of personal contents, and therewith of the persona, is for the most part suspended. To
this extent the persona must be considered an excerpt of the collective psyche, and also a
component of the collective psyche.
3. The collective psyche is therefore composed of the object-imago and the persona.

D. What is Individual.
1. What is individual appears partly as the principle that decides the selection and limitation
of the contents that are accepted as personal.
2. What is individual is the principle by which an increasing differentiation from the
collective psyche is made possible and enforced.
3. What is individual manifests itself partly as an impediment to collective accomplishment,
and as a resistance against collective thinking and feeling.
4. What is individual is the uniqueness of the combination of universal (collective)
psychological elements.

E. We must divide the Conscious and Unconscious Contents into Individualistic and
Collectivistic.
1. A content is individualistic whose developing tendency is directed towards the
differentiation from the collective.
2. A content is collectivistic whose developing tendency aims at universal validity.
3. There are insufficient criteria by which to designate a given content as simply individual or
collective, for uniqueness is very difficult to prove, although it is a perpetually and
universally recurrent phenomenon.
4. The life-line of an individual is the resultant of the individualistic and collectivistic
tendency of the psychological process at any given moment.
INDEX
Aberrations of Marriage (Michaelis), 365
Abreaction, 242
Absolute unconscious, 430-36
Abstract feelings, 405
" idea, 438, 448
Abstraction, 293
Accidentalness, 398
Accoucheur, the analyst as, 268, 374
Acts, symptomatic (Freud), 281
Adaptation to father, 127, 160, 175
" mother, 125, 159, 171, 232
Adapted function, 405
Adler, viii, ix, 191, 223, 260-61, 290, 297-98, 330, 340, 343-44, 349,
352, 384-85, 390-91, 404, 458, 470
Alcohol, influence of, 12
Altruism, 269
Ambitendency, 200
Ambivalency, 200, 269
Amnesia of Ivenes, 68
" periodic, 9
Amnesic disturbances, 66-7
Anæsthesia, systematic, 68
Analysis not a reasoning method, 208
" prejudices against, 206-07
" sexualistic conception of, vii
" v. interpretation, 219
Analyst as accoucheur, 268, 374
" must be analysed, 244
Analytical material compared with poet's material, 214
" psychology, moral effect of, 375-76
Anamnesis not psychoanalysis, 207
Anna, little, 132-54
Antithesis, regulating function of, 415
Anxiety dreams, 160, 372
Apollo, Introversion, 295
Archaic view of life, x
"Arrangements" (Adler), 297, 390
Aschaffenburg, 352
Ass, Buridan's, 467
Assimilation by analogy, 223
Assimilation of unconscious, 449
Association, co-ordinance to father, 157
" familiar, 120-32, 159
" method, 80
Association-concordance (Kerner), 92
" test, calculation in, 109
" " guilt complex, 107
Attack, hysterical (Ivenes) ætiology of, 74
Attention, dispersion of, 46-8
Attitudes passionelles, 18
Augur, medical, 244, 467
Authority, faith in, 277
Autochthonous myths, 451
Auto-hypnosis, 77, 240
Automatic personalities (Ivenes), 82
" table movements, 49, 53, 57
 " writing, 27, 49, 54, 57
Automatism, motor cryptomnesia, 91
" as hypnotist, 79
Automatisms, 13, 47, 49, 54
" of S. W., 20
Autonomous complexes, 375
Auto-suggestion, 51, 53, 61
" " (objective), 79
Azam, case of Albert X., 9
" " Felida, 66

Babel, tower of, 416

Baptism, the rite analysed, 215
Bayle, 315
Bergson, 231, 274, 293, 315, 348, 357, 464
Bernheim, 237
Binet, 2, 12, 47, 56, 59, 60, 85, 289, 353
Binet's definition of somnambulism, 49
Biological duties, 274
Bircher, 250
Birth, theories of child, 134
Bleuler, 5, 14, 201, 312, 354
Bleuler's theory of negativism, 201
Boileau's case, 9
Bonamaison's case, 76
Bourne, Ansel, case of, 9
Bourru and Burot, 66
Brains, similarity of, 451
Bresler's case, 89
Breuer, 236, 241
Breuer's case, 356-358
Brill, 175
Burgholzi, cases of mental disease analysed, 316
" " dementia præcox, 322, 328-35
Buridan's ass, 467

Calculation in association test, 109

Camuset, 66
Case, Azam's, 9, 66
" Boileau's, 9
" Bonamaison's, 76
" Bresler's, 89
" Breuer's, 356-58
" Dyce's, 84
" Flournoy's, 69
" Hoefelt's, 66
" Janet's, 55
" Kalk's, 65
" Macnish's, 11
" Mesnet's, 10-11
" Naef's, 8
" Pronst's, 9, 11
" Renaudin's, 67
" Schreber's, 343-46
" Weir Mitchell's, 64-5, 84
Case of Albert X. (Azam), 9
" American business man, 399
" Christ, 394
" Elise K., 3-7
" Felida (Azam), 66
" Helen Smith (Flournoy), 69
" little Anna, 132-54
 " little Hans, 132
" Lucie (Janet), 55
" Mary Reynolds (Weir-Mitchell), 64-5, 84
" S. W., 16-45
Cases of dementia præcox, 322, 328-35
" mental disease analysed (Burgholzi's), 316
Catalepsy (Ivenes), 28
Catharsis, 374
Catholic Church, 271
Causal principle in science, 339
" view (Freud), 261
Cellini, Benvenuto, 63
Censor, Freud, 305
Change in character (Azam's case), 66
" " (Hoefelt's case), 66
" " (Ivenes), 84
" " (Kalk's case), 65
" " (Mary Reynolds), 64
" " (S. W.), 69
Charcot, 8, 356, 361
" classification of somnambulic states, 8
" trauma theory, 361
Chevreul, 50
Christ, religion of, 366
Christian science, 126, 207, 244, 249
Civilisation and neurosis, 224, 374
Claparède, 188, 232, 348
" (footnote), 287
Clark lectures, 94-156
Classification of dreams, 310
Co-function in unconscious, 405
Collective psyche, 431-32, 455-59, 472
" " identification with, 459, 462
" " treatment of, 463
" mind and soul, 451
" vices and virtues, 453
Comparison of dream-symbols with somnambulic personalities, 59
Compensation, unconscious, 201, 236, 280, 284, 285, 467
Complex, concealment, 117
" Electra, 228
" incompatibility, 202
" Kern, 228
" Œdipus, 228, 232
" resistance, 201
" sensibility, 203
Complexes, autonomous, 377
" function, 426
" physicians' own, 216, 243, 257
Comprehension by analogy, 223
Conflict moral, 225, 242, 247, 251
Content, manifest and latent of dream, 372
Conscious invention v. dream, 178
" material, use of in analysis, 216
Consciousness alternating, 11
" double, 1
Conservation of energy, 231, 411
Constellation, parental, 160-75
Constellations, familiar, 119-132
Converted libido, 141
Cook, Miss Florence, 37
Correspondence of Jung and Loÿ, 236-77
Counterparts of virtues, 389
Creative work of unconscious, additional, 85
Crucial points in Psychoanalysis, 236-77
Cryptomnesia, 78, 86, 87, 199
" Nietzsche example, 87
Cryptomnesic hallucinations, 91
" motor-automatism, 91

Darkness, effect of, on suggestibility, 59

Dawson Williams, Dr., 278
Deception, Ivenes' wilful, 44
" of doctor by patient, 260, 266-67
"Deep" Psychology, 354
Defence mechanism, 424
Deficiency, emotional, 2
Deficiency, intellectual, 2
" mental, 2
" neurasthenic, 14
" psychopathic, 3, 13
Definition of libido, 156, 288
Delbruck, 70
Delirium, hysterical, 7
Dementia præcox, 129, 143, 149, 151, 182, 201, 283, 312-18
Depreciation by introverted type, 289
Depressions of puberty, 127
Dessoir, 85
Diagnosis of facts, 106-13
Diehl, 14
Differentiation of what is individual, 456
Dionysus, 183
" extraversion, 295
Dionysian orgies, 366
"Disposable" energy, 401
Distortion produced by resistances, 285
Dogma, 224
Dominants of unconscious, 432-33
Double consciousness, 1, 84
Dragon, symbol of collective psyche, 463
Dream-analysis the real instrument of the unconscious, 209, 373
Dreams, anxiety, 160, 372
" as myth, 436
" association method, 302
" classification of, 310
" compensatory character of, 278-286, 467
" conception of differing from Freud, 222
" content, manifest and latent, 372
" Freud's conception of, 222
" instances of analysed, 147, 193, 217, 219, 303
" many-sided, 217
" moral function of, 309, 471
" no arbitrary interpretation, 218
" no fixed symbols, 218, 221, 265, 308
" number, 191, 193, 197
" objective interpretation of, 421
" of crab analysed, 418
" St. Augustine's, 307
" subjective interpretation of, 421
" symbolism of, 308
" typical themes of, 310
Dualism in Ivenes' subconscious personalities, 79
Dubois, 208, 243, 255
Duplication of attributes, 182
Duty to children, parental, 153
Duties biological, 274

Ecce Homo, 381-84, 417

Eccentricities pre-exist illness, 282, 289
Ecstasy, 15, 20
" (Bettina Brentano), 75
Ego-complex, 80, 86
" " (Ivenes), 83
" function, 416
" instinct, 383
" powerlessness of, 450
" psychological, 434
Ego, second (Dessoir), 85
" somnambulic (Ivenes), 76
Elan vital, 231
Electra-complex, 228
Emotional type, Fourneau Jordan, 402
Empiricism, 291, 301
Enantiodromia, 415-17
Energic view point, 231
Energy as Melungu, 413
" conservation of, 411
" "disposable," 401
" primordial image of, 412
" psychic, 401
" transformation of, 413
Entoptic phenomena, 61
Enuresis nocturna, 170, 237, 239, 246
Epilepsy, 1
Epileptoid attacks, 14
Erler, 71
Erotic conflict, 364-65, 370
Esquirol, 315
Etat second, 8
Etiological moment of neurosis, 405
Exhaustive states, 13
Experiments by Dr. Fürst, 157-58
Extroversion, 288, 347, 391, 401-6, 437
" regressive, 288

Familial associations, 120-32, 159

" constellations, influence of, 127
Fanaticism, 283
Fascination, 425-27
Father, adaptation to, 127, 160, 175
Father-complex, 270
Faust analysed, 338-41, 384, 460-61
Fear of unconscious, 434
Fechner, 352
Feeling-thoughts, 461
Feelings of extrovert, 403-5
" introvert, 403-5
Felida, case of, 84
Féré, 12
Feuerbach, 346
Final view (Adler), 261
Finck (types), 296
Fixation, Freud's view of, 227
" infantile, 228, 462
Flournoy, 60, 78, 199, 345-46
" case of Helen Smith, 69
Folie circulaire, 67
Forel, 70, 261
Forel, The Sexual Question, 365
Frank, 236, 245, 249
Frazer, 413
Freud, 59, 73, 82, 104, 132-33, 156, 170, 191, 227, 241, 281, 297-98,
305-08, 319, 343-44, 349, 354-55, 359, 371, 373, 381, 404, 409, 445,
458
Freudian investigations, 133
Freud's case of paranoid dementia, 336-37
" conception of dreams, 222
" method, 339
" psychology of dreams, 300
" publications, opposition to, 355
" theory, 261
" " of infantile sexuality, 172
Frobenius, 310, 436
Function, adapted, 405
" co-, 405
" complexes, 426
" transcendental, 417, 436, 441, 468
Fürst's experiments, 119, 157-58
Future character (Felida), 84
" " (Mary Reynolds), 84

Gall, 315
Genesis of dreams, 212
Genius, 1
Gley, 50
Glossolalia, 89-91
" instances of, 28
God-Almightiness, 450, 457, 462
" " physical symptoms of, 458
God's existence, 415
" idea, 451
" primitive concept of, 434
 " projection of, 432
Goethe, 12, 339, 384, 460-61
" psychic stimulation of, 75
Gottähnlichkeit, 450
Grandfathers I. and II. (Ivenes), 80
Grebelskaja, 337
Gross, 348
" (types), 296-97
Guilt complex, association test, 107
Guinon and Waltke, experiment of, 10, 47

Hallucination, cryptomnesia, 91
" hypnosis in production of, 58
Hallucination téléologique, 84
Hallucinations, 11, 15, 49, 58, 282
" Helen Smith's, 63, 64
" hypnagogic, 13, 23, 62
" hypnopompic, 23, 62
" in somnambulism, 60
" intuitive, 64
" negative, 68
Hallucinatory persons, why separated, 83
Hans, little, 132
Haôma, 413
Hecker, 64
Hedonism, viii
Hegel, 290
Heim, 412
Heimarmenê, 413
Herd-animal, man a, 263
" -soul, 455
Hermeneutics, 468-69
Hero, the, 462
" myth, 438
Hiawatha, 436
Hoch, 289
Hoche, 355
Hoefelt, spontaneous somnambulism, 66
Homunculus, 404
Homosexual tendencies, 165, 172, 420
Hypermnesia (footnote), 86
Hypnagogic activities, 23, 71, 204
" flashes, 22
Hypnopompical dreams, 23
Hypnosis in production of hallucination, 58
Hypnotic treatment, 6, 237
" " diametrically opposed to psychoanalysis, 207
Hypnotism, essential character of, 243
" in automatic writing, 54, 56
Hysteria, 1, 7
" case of, 385
" and extroversion, 406
Hysteric, extreme sensibility of, 85
Hysterical attack (Ivenes), ætiology of, 74
" " induced by automatism, 79
" deafness and paralysis (Breuer), 356
" delirium, 71
" dissociation, 81, 287
" forgetfulness, 72
Hysterical identification, 71
" somnambulism (case of Elise K.), 3
Hystero-epilepsy (Janet), 81
Hystero-epileptic attacks, 81
Hystero-hypnosis (Ivenes), 79

Idea, abstract, 438, 448

Identification with collective psyche, 420-25, 462-65
" " God, 337
" " reason, 416
Images, primordial, 410, 448
" psychic, 438
Imitation, 456
Imperialism, 399
Impersonal unconscious, 437
Importance of the unconscious, 278
" " types, 348
Incest-barrier, 230
" -wish, 462
Individual, the, a changing identity, ix
" metaphysical needs of, 223
Individuality, 473, 457, 465
Individuation, 440, 456
Infantile fixation, 228, 462
" milieu, influence of, 131
" transference, 298
Infantility in primitive people, 230
Inferiority, moral, 449
Inspiration, 15
Instances of dreams analysed, 217, 219
Instinct-ego, 383
Intelligence-complex, 114
Interpolations in dreams, 176
" in rumour, 176
" v. analysis, 219
Interpretation, causal reductive, 419
" objective, 421
" subjective, 421
" synthetic, 417
Interpretation of Viennese school, one-sided, 217
Introjection, 414
Introversion, 137, 140, 288, 347, 391, 437, 401-3
" neurosis in child, 140
Intuitive hallucinations, 64
Itten, 337
Ivenes, 33-34, 68-84
" journeys on other side, 34
" mystic character, 69
" oracular sayings, 36
" race-motherhood, 39

James, William, 290-92, 401

" " pragmatism, 348
Janet, 46, 74, 81, 104, 232, 234, 452
" automatic writing (case of Lucie), 55
" Lucie and Léonie, 66
" Léonie, 69
Janus face, 174
Jeanne d'Arc, 63, 84
" " visions of, 63
Jonah, 436
Jung, correspondence with Loÿ, 236-277

K., Miss Elise, case of, 15

Kadi, the, 390
Kalk's case, 65
Kant, 278, 303, 339
Katatonic dementia præcox, 324
" negativism, 202
Kern-complex, 228
Kerner, 87, 88
Kerner's book, 27, 35, 93
" Prophetess of Prevorst, 27, 69
Kræpelin, 352
Kraepelin-Aschaffenburg scheme, 157
Kraft-Ebing, 7

Lapses (case of S. W.), 20-23

Laughter, symptomatic, 388
Lebensgefühl, 462
Legrand du Saulle, 66
Lehmann, 50, 51
Leibniz, 278
Lethargy hysterical (Ivenes), 74
" " (Loewenfeld), 76
Let-instinct-live theory, 379
Libido, 231, 347-48, 407, 471
" animal rôle of, 423-26
" canalisation of, 260, 274
 " defined, 156, 288
" emanates from unconscious, 461
" stored-up, 234
Life, archaic view of, x
Life-lines psychological, 470, 474
Literature of psychoanalysis, 154-55
Little Anna, 132-54
Little Hans, 132
Loewenfeld, 74-76
Longfellow, 436
Loÿ's correspondence with Jung, 236-77
Lumpf-theory, 147
Lying, pathological, 15, 70, 71

Macario, 64
Macnish's case, 11
Maeder, 337, 447
Man a herd animal, 263, 269
" hylic, etc., 405
Martian language (Helen Smith), 90
Masculinity, unconscious, 420, 427
Masochism, 165
Materia medica of filth, 243-44
Maury, 62
Mayer, Robert, 231, 411
Medical augur, 244
Medium, S. W. as, 18
Megalomania, 462
Megarian school of philosophy, 402
Melungu, 413
Memory, bad, due to repression, 446
Mental balance, 282
Mental deficiency (neurasthenic), 14
Mesnet's case, 10-11
Metaphysical needs of individual, 223
Metempsychosis, 413
Method of association, 370
Meynert, 316
Mind the, a Becoming, 341
" collective, 451
Mirror-writing, 54
Misreading, 17, 46, 48
Misunderstanding between types, 404
Mithras, religion of, 366
Moment, etiological, of neurosis, 405
Monism psychological, 464
Moral conflict, 225, 242, 247, 251
Moral effect of analytical psychology, 375-76
Mörchen, 14
Mother, adaptation to, 125, 159, 171, 232
Myers, automatic writing, 54
Mysticism, 462
Mystic science, S. W., 40-44
Myth, the, 436
" unanimity of autochthonous forms, forms of, 451
Mythology, 226

Naef's case, 8
Naïve and sentimental types, 294
Nancy school, 356
Nebuchadnezzar's dream discussed, 281
Necessity, vital, ix, 375
Negativism, 200-201
" causes of (Bleuler), 202
" katatonic, 202
Negativism, schizophrenic, 200
Nelken, 337
Neumann, 353
Neurasthenia, 1, 129
Neurosis, 256, 370, 375
" ætiology of, 234
" and civilisation, 224, 374
" cause of, 232, 404
" " outbreak of, 229
" counter-argument against husband, 129-31
" failure in adaptation, 234
" Freud's theory of, 227
" good effect of, 395
" introversion in child, 140
" no magical cures of, 470
" psychogenic in essence, 356
" sexual ætiology of, too narrow, 231
" the cause in present, 232
" used for power effects, 388
Neurotic, a bearer of social ideals, 271, 277
" regressive tendency of, 469
Neurotic's faith in authority, 268
 " special task, 233
Nietzsche, 87, 88, 295-96, 310, 326, 343, 378, 381, 393, 414, 417, 470
Nominalism, 402
Non-ego, 416, 434
Nucleus-complex, 228
Number dreams, 292

Objective interpretation on plane of, 421

Occultism's premature conclusions, 85
Occultist literature, gnostic systems, 93
Œdipus-complex, 228, 232
Opposition to Freud's publications, 355
Ostwald, 292, 398, 402

Pairs of opposites, 417, 452

Paranoia, 128, 313
Paranoid dementia, Freud's case, 336-37
Parental duty to children, 153
" constellation, 160-75
Parties supérieures (Janet), 232, 452
Pathological cheat, psychology of, 70
" dreaming of saints, 70
Patient and doctor, personal relation, 216-219
Patients' resistances, 117, 202-05, 216
Perseveration, 106, 111
Personality of doctor, 238, 243, 259
Personal unconscious, 437, 448
Persona, 457-66, 472
Persuasion methods, 237
Perversion, sexual, 447
Phales, 183
Phantasies, release of, 458, 447
" sexual, 228
" unifying function of, 468
Phenomena, entoptic, 61
" of double consciousness as character formations, 84
Philosophy world, 350
Physical sensations as evidence of unconscious feelings, 405
Physician as "father," 408
Physician's own complexes, 243, 257
Pick, 70, 71
Pinel, 315
Platonic school, 402
Power, evaluation, 274
" " (Adler), 340, 394
Power standpoint, Adler on, viii, ix
Predicate type, 125
Predisposition to neurosis, 233, 359
Press of ideas, 203
Preyer, 51
Primitive non-differentiation, 453
Primordial images, 410, 414, 448
Prism, parable of, 252
Problems of the day, sexual, 276, 367-77
Projection, 427-33
" on doctor, 273, 407-8
" of phantasies on to parents, 409
" to religions, 435
Prophetess of Prevorst, 27, 37, 69, 91-93
Proust's case, 9-11
Prudishness, 154
" case of, 119
Pseudologia phantastica, 72
Pseudological representation, 71
Psyche, collective, 431, 455, 458, 472
Psychic images, 438
" life of child, 132-56
" material unconscious, 279
Psychoanalysis a high moral task, 235
" defined, 206, 256
" literature of, 154-55
" prejudices against, 206-07
" technique of, 257
Psychoanalyst, education of, 244, 258, 266
Psychocatharsis, 237
Psychographic communications, 25
Psychological disturbances, new theory of, 404
" ego and non-ego, 434
" realities, consolation of, 435
Psychological types, study of, 287-98, 391
Psychology, deep (Bleuler), 354
" of dreams, 299-311
" of individual, 464
" of pathological cheat, 70
" of rumour, 176
Puberty, changes in character at, 67
" dreams of, 74, 178
" of psychopathic, 68
 " somnambulic attacks at, 84
" want of balance at, 45

Race-motherhood (Ivenes), 39
Rapport effective with hysterics, 81, 287
Rationalism, 431, 464
" antithesis of, 416
Reaction-times, 98-102
" -type, 157
" " hysterical, 97
" " normal, 96
Realism, 402
Reasoning method of Dubois, 208
Reconstruction of life, 236
Reflection, power of, 397
Regression, 230, 232, 469
Regressive extroversion, 288
" introversion, 289
Reincarnation (Ivenes), 37-9
Renaudin's case, Folie circulaire, 67
Repressed contents to be retained in consciousness, 447
" thoughts, independent growth of, 82
Repression, 446
" new edition of, 461
Reproduction experiment, 116
Resistances, patients', 117, 202-05, 216
" productive of distortion, 285
Revenge, unconscious, 190
Revolution, French, 431
Reynolds, Mary, case of (change of character), 65
Ribot, 66
Richer, 66
Richet, 92
" definition of somnambulism, 49
Rieger, 66
Riegl, 293
Riklin, 149
Rumour, case of, 176
" interpolations in, 176
" not conscious invention, 178

S. W., case of, 16-45

Saints, pathological dreaming of, 70
Sallust, 231
Schiller, 294
Schisms, 453
Schizophrenia, 201, 312, 447, 459
" Bleuler's summary, 203
Schizophrenic introversion, 204
" splitting, 201
Scholasticism, 340, 352, 373
School, Megarian v. Platonic, 402
" the Nancy, 356
" " Valentinian, 405
" " Zürich, 355
Schoolmaster view, 264
Schopenhauer, 295, 368, 447-48
Schreber case, 337, 343, 346, 440
Schüle, 61
Semiotics, vii, 468
Semi-somnambulic states, 23
Semi-somnambulism (S. W.), 23, 37, 48-9
Sexual enlightenment of children, 152, 247
" morality, 380
" perversion, 447
" phantasies, 228
" problems of the day, 277, 367-77
Sexual question, Forel, 365
Sexual surrogates, 172
Sexuality, importance of infantile, 172
" primitive man's view of, 306
Sexualisation of thought, 204
Significance of the father, 156
" " " case 1 160
" " " " 2 162
" " " " 3 165
" " " " 4 170
" of number dreams, 191
Slips of tongue, 179
Smith, Helen, case of, 61, 63-64, 72, 91
Socrates, 332, 374
Somnambulic attacks, S. W., 28
" " origin of, 75
" dialogues, 18
" personalities, 30-33
Somnambulism, 2, 8, 16, 18, 240
Somnambulist's suggestibility, 92
" thought in plastic images, 60
Spielrein, 337
Standpoint, causal, final, viii
Stanley Hall, Dr., 94
Star-dwellers, 35, 36
Stekel, 191, 259, 261
Stereotypic acts, 282
Stimulus word, 101
" " repetition of, 105
Study of psychological types, 287-98, 391-403
Subconscious personality, how constructed, 55
" personalities, Grandfather I. and II., 80
Subjective interpretation of dreams, 421
" roots of dreams, 73
Sublimation, 140, 397-99
Sucking as sexual act, 231
Suggestibility, influence of darkness on, 59
" somnambulist's, 92
Suggestion, analysis not a method of, 207
" by analyst, 261, 265, 266, 456, 469
Superman, 414
Super-personal unconscious, 426
Superstition, scientific dread of, 211
" unconscious, 280
Swedenborg, 37
" visions of, 63
Symbol interpreted semiotically, vii, 468
" not fixed, 218, 221, 265, 308
" psychological, two aspects of, viii
" value of religious, xi
Symbolic meaning of sexual phantasies, 222
Symbolism, 198, 224, 337
" an experience, 222
" book of Tobias, 174
" chestnuts, meaning of, 183
" God and devil, 174
" of dreams, 59, 218, 308
" value of religious, 224
Sympathy (extraversion), 293
Symptomatic acts, 46, 179, 281
" laughter, 388
Synesius, 417
Synthetic procedure, 417
Systematic anæsthesia, 68

Table movements, 85
Table-turning, 17, 24, 50
Tachypnœa (case of S. W.), 19
Taylor, 413
Teleology, meaning in double consciousness, 84
Telepathic thought-reading, 266
Tender-minded and tough-minded, 290, 402
Theories new, as caustics, 394
" " of psychogenic disturbances, 404
" " reductive, 394
Thought of extroverts, 403
Thought-feelings, 411, 461
Thought-pressure, 204
Thought-reading, 85-92
Thought, somnambulic, in plastic images, 60
" transference, 24, 51, 56
Till Eulenspiegel, 387
Tongue, slips of, 179
Tower of Babel, 446
Transcendental function, 417, 436, 441
Transference, 245-46, 270, 289, 407-13, 429, 435
" infantile, 298
" positive and negative, 270-72
Trauma, sexual, 227, 242, 358, 361-62
" theory (Charcot), 361
Trumbull Ladd, 62
Truth, what is it, 252, 256
Twilight states, 71, 81
Type, complex, 114
" definition, 114
" extroverted, 288, 391, 439, 401
" introverted, 288, 391, 439, 401
" objective, 11
" predicate, 115
Types (Finck), 296
" (Gross), 296-97
" importance of, 348
" marriages between, 402
" naïve and sentimental, 294
" psychological, 287, 391, 439, 401
Tough and tender-minded, 290
Typical themes of dreams, 310

Unconscious, absolute, 435

" analysable to a finish, 461
" an extension of the individual, vi
 " assimilation of, 449
" compensation, 284
" cannot be emptied, 447
" cause of neurosis, 404
" feelings as physical sensations, 405
" homosexuality, 420
" impersonal, 437, 472
" importance of the, 278
" personal, 437, 448, 456, 472
" personalities (Ivenes), 77
" prospective aspect of, 442
" psychic material, 279
" source of libido, 461
" " " wisdom, 442
" superstition, 280
" uprush of, 459
Understanding, prospective, 338, 442
Understanding, retrospective, 338
Unifying function of phantasies, 468

Value of religious symbolism, 224

"Values," 392, 396, 404
Viennese school, one-sided interpretations of, 217
Vices and virtues, collective, 453
Virtues, unconscious counterparts, 389
Vischer, 348-49
Visions, Benvenuto Cellini, 63
" hypnagogic, 63, 71
" of Jeanne d'Arc, 63
" of S. W., 21
" of Swedenborg, 63
Visual images, 60
" v. auditory hallucinations, 61
"Vital necessity," ix
Voisin, 66
Volitional meaning of dreams, 222

Wagner, 383
Wandering impulse, cases of, 9
War, vi, xi, 398, 399, 416
Warringer, 293-94
Washing mania, 246
Wernicke, 316
Westphal, 13
Will, 397-99
" to power, 381, 388, 458
Wisdom of unconscious, 442
Wish-phantasies, 447
Witch-sleep, 75
Word predicate, type defined, 158
Word-presentation, 53
Works of the Zürich school, 345-46
World-philosophy, 350
Wundt, 352

Zarathustra, 381
Zagreus, 417
Zschokke, 92
Zürich school, 355
" " works of, 345-46
 THE END
Baillière, Tindall & Cox, 8, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, W.C.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Thesis published in 1902. Translator, M. D. Eder, M.D.
[2] Arch. f. Psych., XXXIII. p. 928.
[3] Richer, "Études cliniques sur l'hystéro-épilepsie," p. 483.
[4] Idem, l.c., p. 487; cp. also Erler, Allg. Zeitschrift f. Psychiatrie, XXXV. p. 28;
also Culerre, Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XLVI., Litteraturbericht 356.
[5] Charcot and Guinon, "Progrès méd.," 1891.
[6] "Somnambulism must be conceived as systematised partial waking, in which a
limited, connected presentation-complex takes place. Contrary presentations do
not occur, at the same time the mental activity is carried on with increased energy
within the limited sphere of the waking" (Lowenfeld, "Hypnotism," 1901, p. 289).
[7] Azam, "Hypnotisme—Double conscience," etc., Paris, 1887. For similar cases,
cf. Forbes Winslow, "On Obscure Diseases," p. 335.
[8] Trib. méd., March, 1890.
[9] Annal. méd. psychol., Jan., Feb., 1892.
[10] "Principles of Psychology," p. 391.
[11] Mesnet, "De l'automatisme de la mémoire et du souvenir dans le
somnambulisme pathologique." Union médicale, Juillet, 1874. Cf. Binet, "Les
Altérations de la personnalité," p. 37. Cf. also Mesnet, "Somnambulisme spontané
dans ses rapports avec l'hystérie," Arch. de Neurol., Nr. 69, 1892.
[12] Arch. de Neur., Mai, 1891.
[13] "Philosophy of Sleep," 1830. Cf. Binet, "Les Altérations," etc.
[14] Goethe: Zur Naturwissenschaft in Allgemeinen. "I was able, when I closed my
eyes and bent my head, to conjure the imaginary picture of a flower. This flower
did not retain its first shape for a single instant, but unfolded out of itself new
flowers composed of coloured petals and green leaves. They were not natural
flowers, but phantastic ones. They were as regular in shape as a sculptor's rosettes.
It was impossible to fix the creation which sprang up, nevertheless the dream-
image lasted as long as I desired it to last; it neither faded nor grew stronger."
[15] C. Westphal, "Die Agoraphobie," Arch. f. Psych., III. p. 158.
[16] Pick, Arch. f. Psych., XV. p. 202.
[17] Allgem. Zeitschr. f. Psych., XXI. p. 78.
[18] "Neurasthenische Krisen," Münch. Med. Wochenschr., März, 1902, "When the
patients first describe their crises they generally give a picture that makes us think
of epileptic depression. I have often been deceived in this way."
[19] Mörchen, "Ueber Dämmerzustände," Marburg, 1901, Fall. 32, p. 75.
[20] It must be noted that a frequent guest in S. W.'s home was a gentleman who
spoke high German.
[21] Ivenes is the mystical name of the medium's somnambulic self.
[22] "The Major Symptoms of Hysteria." New York: The Macmillan Company.
[23] See page 17.
[24] Binet, "Les altérations de la personnalité."
[25] Richet, Rev. Phil., 1884, II. p. 650.
[26] Binet, "Les altérations de la personnalité," p. 139.
[27] Complete references in Binet, "Les altérations," p. 197, footnote.
[28] As is known, during the waking-state the hands and arms are never quite still,
but are constantly subjected to fine tremors. Preyer, Lehmann, and others have
proved that these movements are influenced in a high degree by the predominant
presentations. Preyer shows that the outstretched hand drew small, more or less
faithful, copies of figures which were vividly presented. These purposeful tremors
can be demonstrated in a very simple way by experiments with the pendulum.
[29] Cf. Preyer, "Die Erklärung des Gedankenlesens," Leipzig, 1886.
[30] Analogous to certain hypnotic experiments in the waking state. Cf. Janet's
experiment when by a whispered suggestion he induced a patient to lie flat on the
ground without being aware of it ("L'Automatisme").
[31] Charcot's scheme of word-picture combination: 1, Auditory image. 2, Visual
image. 3, Motor image., Speech image., Writing image. In Gilbert Ballet, "Die
innerliche Sprache," Leipzig and Wien, 1890.
[32] Bain says, "Thought is a suppressed word or a suppressed act" ("The Senses
and the Intellect").
[33] Proceedings of S.P.R., 1885. "Automatic writing."
[34] Pierre Janet, "L'Automatisme Psychologique," p. 317, Paris, 1889.
[35] "Les Altérations," p. 132.
[36] "Une fois baptisé, le personnage inconscient est plus déterminé et plus net, il
montre mieux ses caractères psychologiques" (Janet, "L'Automatisme," p. 318).
[37] Cf. the corresponding experiments of Binet and Féré. See Binet, "Les
Altérations."
[38] Cf. Corresponding tests by Flournoy: "Des Indes à la planète Mara. Etude sur
un cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie." Paris and Genève, 1900.
[39] Cf. Hagen, "Zur Theorie des Hallucinationen," Allg. Zeitschrift f. Psych.,
XXV. 10.
[40] Binet, "Les Altérations," p. 157.
[41] "Die Traumdeutung," 1900. ["The Interpretation of Dreams," translated by Dr.
A. A. Brill. London: Allen & Unwin, 1918.]
[42] Flournoy, l.c., p. 55.
[43] Schüle, "Handbuch," p. 134.
[44] J. Müller, quoted Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XXV. 41.
[45] Spinoza hypnopompically saw a "nigrum et scabiosum Brasilianum."—J.
Müller, l.c.
In Goethe's "The Elective Affinities," at times in the half darkness Ottilie saw the
figure of Edward in a dimly-lit spot. Compare also Cardanus, "imagines videbam
ab imo lecti, quasi e parvulis annulis arcisque constantes, arborum, belluarum,
hominum, oppidorum, instructarum acierum, bellicorum et musicorum
instrumentorum aliorumque huius generis adscendentes, vicissimque
descendentes, aliis atque aliis succedentibus" (Hieronymus Cardanus, "De
subtilitate rerum").
[46] "Le sommeil et les rêves," p. 134.
[47] G. Trumbull Ladd, "Contribution to the Psychology of Visual Dreams," Mind,
April, 1892.
[48] Hecker says of the same condition, "There is a simple elemental vision, even
without sense presentation, through over-excitation of mental activity, not leading
to phantastic imagery, that is the vision of light free from form, a manifestation of
the visual organs stimulated from within" ("Ueber Visionen," Berlin, 1848).
[49] Jules Quicherat, "Procès de condamnation et de réhabilitation de Jeanne
d'Arc, dite La Pucelle," etc.
[50] Hagen, l.c., p. 57.
[51] Goethe, "Benvenuto Cellini."
[52] Flournoy, l.c., p. 32 ff.
[53] Flournoy, l.c., p. 51.
[54] Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., IV. 139.
[55] Ibid., VI. 285.
[56] Coll. Physicians of Philadelphia, April 4, 1888. Also Harper's Magazine,
1869. Abstracted in extenso in William James's "Principles of Psychology," 1891,
p. 391 ff.
[57] Cf. Emminghaus, "Allg. Psychopathologie," p. 129, Ogier Ward's case.
[58] Schroeder von der Kalk, "Pathologie und Therapie der Geisteskrankheiten," p.
31: Braunschweig, 1863. Quoted in Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XXII., p. 405.
[59] Cf. Donath, "Ueber Suggestibilität," Wiener mediz. Presse, 1832, No. 31.
Quoted Arch. f. Psych., XXXII., p. 335.
[60] Hoefelt. Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XLIX., p. 200.
[61] Azam, "Hypnotisme, Double Conscience," etc.
[62] Bourru et Burot, "Changements de Personnnalité," 1888.
[63] Moll, "Zeit. f. Hypn.," I., 306.
[64] Rieger, "Der Hypnotismus," 1884, p. 190 ff.
[65] Morton Prince, "An Experimental Study of Visions," Brain, 1898.
[66] Quoted by Ribot, "Die Persönlichkeit."
[67] Ibid., p. 69.
[68] Flournoy, l.c., p. 59.
[69] "Les rêves somnambuliques, sortes de romans de l'imagination subliminale,
analogues à ces histoires continues, que tant de gens se racontent à eux-mêmes et
dont ils sont généralement les héros dans leurs moments de far niente ou
d'occupations routinières qui n'offrent qu'un faible obstacle aux rêveries
intérieures. Constructions fantaisistes, millefois reprises et poursuivies, rarement
achevées, où la folle du logis se donne libre carrière et prend sa revanche du terne
et plat terre à terre des réalités quotidiennes." (Flournoy, l.c., p. 8).
[70] Delbruck, "Die Pathologische Lüge."
[71] Forel, "Hypnotisme."
[72] Pick, "Ueber Path. Träumerei und ihre Beziehung zur Hysterie," Jahr. f.
Psych. und Neur., XIV., p. 280.
[73] Bohn, "Ein Fall von doppelten Bewusstsein Diss." Breslau, 1898.
[74] Görres, l.c.
[75] Cf. Behr, Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., LVI., 918, and Ballet, l.c., p. 44.
[76] Cf. Redlich, Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., LVII., 66.
[77] Erler, Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XXXV., 21.
[78] Binet, "Les hystériques ne sont pas pour nous que des sujets d'élection
agrandissant des phénomènes qu'on doit nécessairement retrouver à quelque degré
chez une foule d'autres personnes qui ne sont ni atteintes ni même effleurées par la
nêvrose hystérique". ("Les altérations," p. 29)
[79] Delbrück, l.c., and Redlich, l.c. Cf. the development of delusions in epileptic
stupor mentioned by Mörchen, "Essay on Stupor," pp. 51 and 59, 1901.
[80] Cf. Flournoy's very interesting supposition as to the origin of the Hindu cycle
of H.S.: "Je ne serais pas étonné que la remarque de Martes sur la beauté des
femmes du Kanara ait été le clou, l'atome crochu, qui a piqué l'attention
subliminale et l'a très naturellement rivée sur cette unique passage avec les deux ou
trois lignes consécutives, à l'exclusion de tout le contexte environnant beaucoup
moins intérressant" (L.c., p. 285).
[81] Janet says, "From forgetfulness there arises frequently, even if not invariably,
the so-called lying of hysteria. The same explanation holds good of a hysteric's
whims, changes of mood, ingratitude—in a word, of his inconstancy. The link
between the past and present, which gives to the whole personality its seriousness
and poise, depends to a large extent upon memory" ("Mental States," etc., p. 67).
[82] Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams," p. 469.
[83] Binet, l.c., p. 84.
[84] "Une autre considération rapproche encore ces deux états, c'est que les actes
subconscients ont un effet en quelque sorte hypnotisant et contribuant par eux-
mêmes à amener le somnambulisme" ("L'Automatisme," p. 329).
[85] Janet, l.c., p. 329.
[86] In literature Gustave Flaubert has made use of a similar falling asleep at the
moment of extreme excitement in his novel "Salambo." When the hero, after many
struggles, has at last captured Salambo, he suddenly falls asleep just as he touches
her virginal bosom.
[87] Perhaps the cases of paralysis of the emotions also belong here. Cf. Baetz,
Allg. Zeitsch. f. Psych., LVIII., p. 717.
[88] Allg. Zeitsch. f. Psych., XXX., p. 17.
[89] Arch. f. Psych., XXIII., p. 59.
[90] Cf. here Flournoy, l.c., 65.
[91] Arch. f. Psych., XXII., p. 737.
[92] Ibid., 734.
[93] Bonamaison, "Un cas remarquable d'Hypnose spontanée," etc.—Rev. de
l'Hypnotisme, Fév. 1890, p. 234.
[94] Arch. f. Psych., XXII., 737.
[95] Ibid.
[96] Ibid., XXIII., p. 59 ff.
[97] Cf. Lehman's investigations of involuntary whispering, "Aberglaube und
Zauberei," 1898, p. 385 ff.
[98] Thus Flournoy writes, "Dans un premier essai Léopold (H.S.'s control-spirit)
ne réussit qu'à donner ses intimations et sa pronunciation à Helen: après une
séance où elle avait vivement souffert dans la bouche et le cou comme si on lui
travaillait ou lui enlevait les organes vocaux, elle se mit à causer très
naturellement."
[99] Loewenfeld, Arch. f. Psych., XXIII., 60.
[100] This behaviour recalls Flournoy's observations: "Whilst H.S. as a
somnambule speaks as Marie Antoinette, the arms of H.S. do not belong to the
somnambulic personality, but to the automatism Leopold, who converses by
gestures with the observer" (Flournoy, l.c., p. 125).
[101] Dessoir, "Das Doppel-Ich," II. Aufl., 1896, p. 29.
[102] Janet, "L'anesthésie hystérique," Arch. d'Neur., 69, 1892.
[103] Graeter, Zeit. f. Hypnotismus, VIII., p. 129.
[104] The hysterical attack is not a purely psychical process. By the psychic
processes only a pre-formed mechanism is set free, which has nothing to do with
psychic processes in and for themselves (Karplus, Jahr. f. Psych., XVII.).
[105] Carl Hauptmann, in his drama "Die Bergschmiede," has made use of the
objectivation of certain linked association-complexes. In this play the treasure-
seeker is met on a gloomy night by a hallucination of his entire better self.
[106] Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams." See also Breuer and Freud's "Studies
on Hysteria," 1895.
[107] Pelman, Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XXI., p. 74.
[108] Allg. Zeit. f. Psych., XXII., p. 407.
[109] Flournoy, l.c., p. 28.
[110] Binet, "Les Altérations," p. 125. Cf. also Loewenfeld's statements on the
subject in "Hypnotismus," 1901.
[111] Cryptomnesia must not be regarded as synonymous with Hypermnesia; by
the latter term is meant the abnormal quickening of the power of recollection
which reproduces the memory-pictures as such.
[112] "Has any one at the end of the nineteenth century any clear conception of
what the poets in vigorous ages called inspiration? If not, I will describe it. The
slight remnant of superstition by itself would scarcely have sufficed to reject the
idea of being merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely the medium of
superior forces. The concept revelation in the sense that quite suddenly, with
ineffable certainty and delicacy, something is seen, something is heard, something
convulsing and breaking into one's inmost self, does but describe the fact. You
hear—you do not seek; you accept—asking not who is the giver. Like lightning,
flashes the thought, compelling without hesitation as to form—I have had no
choice" (Nietzsche's "Works," vol. III., p. 482.).
[113] "There is an ecstasy so great that the immense strain of it is sometimes
relaxed by a flood of tears, during which one's steps now involuntarily rush, and
anon involuntarily lag. There is the feeling that one is utterly out of hand, with the
very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and titillations
descending to one's very toes;—there is a depth of happiness in which the most
painful and gloomy parts do not act as antitheses to the rest, but are produced and
required as necessary shades of colour in such an overflow of light" (Nietzsche,
"Ecce Homo," vol. XVII. of English translation, by A. M. Ludovici, p. 103).
[114] Eckermann, "Conversations with Goethe," vol. III.
[115] Cf. Goerres, "Die christliche Mystik."
[116] Bresler, "Kulturhistorischer Beitrag zur Hysterie," Allg. Zeits. f. Psych. LIII.,
p. 333.
[117] Zündel, "Biographie Blumhardt's."
[118] "Le baragouin rapide et confus dont on ne peut jamais obtenir la
signification, probablement parce qu'il n'en a en effet aucune, n'est qu'un pseudo-
langage (p. 193) analogue au baragouinage par lequel les enfants se donnent
parfois dans leurs jeux l'illusion qu'ils parlent chinois, indien ou 'sauvage'" (p. 152,
Flournoy, l.c.).
[119] See p. 63.
[120] Flournoy, l.c., p. 378.
[121] For a case of this kind see Krafft Ebing, "Lehrbuch," 4th edition, p. 578.
[122] The limitation of the associative processes and the concentration of attention
upon a definite sphere of presentation can also lead to the development of new
ideas, which no effort of will in the waking state would have been able to
accomplish (Loewenfeld, "Hypnotismus," p. 289).
[123] Zschokke, "Eine Selbstschau," III., Aufl. Aarau, 1843, p. 227 ff.
[124] Gilles de la Tourette says, "We have seen somnambulic girls, poor,
uneducated, quite stupid in the waking state, whose whole appearance altered so
soon as they were sent to sleep. Whilst previously they were boring, now they are
lively, alert, sometimes even witty" (Cf. Loewenfeld, l.c., p. 132).
[125] Lectures delivered at the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the
opening of Clark University, September, 1909; translated from the German by Dr.
A. A. Brill, of New York. Reprinted by kind permission of Dr. Stanley Hall.
[126] The selection of these stimulus words was naturally made for the German
language only, and would probably have to be considerably changed for the
English language.
[127] Denotes misunderstanding.
[128] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[129] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[130] + denotes Reproduced unchanged.
[131] Denotes misunderstanding.
[132] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[133] Denotes misunderstanding.
[134] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[135] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[136] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[137] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[138] Denotes repetition of the stimulus words.
[139] Reaction times are always given in fifths of a second.
[140] "Studies in Word Association," in course of publication.
[141] "Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen,"
Band I. Deuticke, Wien, 1902.
[142] This lecture was originally published in the "Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische
und Psychopathologische Forschungen," Band II.
[143] "Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen,"
Band I. Deuticke, Wien, 1902.
[144] Jung: "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox," translated by Peterson and
Brill. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, Monograph Series, No. 3.
[145] This wish to sit up with the father and mother until late at night often plays a
great part later in a neurosis.
[146] A doll from Punch and Judy.
[147] See analysis of a five-year-old boy, Jahrbuch f. Psychoanalytische u.
Psychopathologische Forschungen, vol. I.
[148] Franz Riklin, "Fulfilment of Wishes and Symbolism in Fairy Tales."
[149] Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen,
vol. I., 1909. Translator, Dr. M. D. Eder.
[150] Freud, especially "The Interpretation of Dreams."
[151] Libido is what earlier psychologists called "will" or "tendency." The
Freudian expression is denominatio a potiori. Jahrbuch, vol. I., p. 155, 1909.
[152] Sommer, "Familienforschung und Vererbungslehre." Barth, Leipzig, 1907.
Joerger, "Die Familie, Zero," Arch. für Rassen u. Gesellschaftsbiologie, 1905. M.
Ziermer (pseudonym), "Genealogische Studien über die Vererbung geistiger
Eigenschaften," ibid., 1908.
[153] For the importance of the mother, see "The Psychology of the Unconscious."
C. G. Jung. Moffart, Yard and Co., New York.
[154] E. Fürst, "Statistische Untersuchungen über Wortassoziationen und über
familiäre Übereinstimmung im Reaktionstypus bei Ungebildeten. Beitrag der
diagnostischen Assoziationsstudien herausgegeben von Dr. C. G. Jung," Journal
für Psychologie und Neurologie, Bd. II., 1907. (Reprinted in volume two of the
Joint Reports.)
[155] By this type I understand reactions where the response to the stimulus-word
is a predicate subjectively accentuated instead of an objective relation, e.g.,
Flower, pleasant; frog, horrible; piano, terrible; salt, bad; singing, sweet; cooking,
useful (see p. 124).
[156] Cf. Vigouroux et Jaqueliers, "La contagion mentale," Chapitre VI. Doin,
Paris, 1905.
[157] Between whiles we believe ourselves masters of our acts at any given
moment. But when we look back along our life's path and fix our eyes chiefly
upon our unfortunate steps and their consequences, often we cannot understand
how we came to do this and leave that undone, and it seems as if some power
outside ourselves had directed our steps. Shakespeare says;

"Fate show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;

What is decreed must be, and be this so!"

Schopenhauer, "Ueber die anscheinende Absichtlichkeit im Schicksale des

Einzelnen. Parerga und Paralipomena."
[158] This was seen in the Amsterdam Congress of 1907, where a prominent
French savant assured us that the Freudian theory was but "une plaisanterie." This
gentleman has demonstrably neither read Freud's latest works nor mine, he knows
less about the subject than a little child. This opinion, so admirably grounded,
ended with the applause of a well-known German professor. One can but bow
before such thoroughness. At the same Congress another well-known German
neurologist immortalised his name with the following intellectual reasoning: "If
hysteria on Freud's conception does indeed rest on repressed affects, then the
whole German army must be hysterical."
[159] Cf. Freud, "Zeitschrift für Religionspsychologie," 1907.
[160] Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol. III., p. 219, 1908.
[161] "Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse," 1911, vol. I., p. 81.
[162] Author's italics.
[163] This also holds good for any objects that are repeated.
[164] See "The Association Method," Lecture III.
[165] "Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse," 1911, p. 567. Translator, Dr. M. D. Eder.
[166] The husband's principal conflict is a pronounced mother-complex.
[167] Flournoy, "Des Indes à la Planète Mars." Idem: "Nouvelles observations sur
un cas de somnambulisme," Arch. de Pyschol., vol. I.
[168] See chapter I, p. 86.
[169] "Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen,"
vol. III. 1912. Translator, Dr. M. D. Eder.
[170] Autism (Bleuler) = Auto-erotism (Freud). For some time I have employed
the concept of introversion for this condition.
[171] Hence the replacing of the complex by its corresponding symbol.
[172] See "Psychology of Dementia Præcox," chapters iv. and v.
[173] Reprinted from the Transactions of the Psycho-Medical Society, August 5th,
1913.
[174] See "Psychology of the Unconscious."
[175] Paper given before the 17th International Medical Congress, London, 1913.
[176] Translated by Mrs. Edith Eder.
[177] "Psychoanalysis." Nervous and Mental Disease, No. 19. Monograph series.
[178] See Author's preface to "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox."
[179] Thus a patient, who had been treated by a young colleague without very
much result, once said to me: "Certainly I made great progress with him, and I am
much better than I was. He tried to analyse my dreams. It's true he never
understood them, but he took so much trouble over them. He is really a good
doctor."
[180] Defined in the Freudian sense, as the transference to the doctor of infantile
and sexual phantasies. A more advanced conception of the transference perceives
in it the important process of emotional approach [Einfühlung] which at first
makes use of infantile and sexual analogies.
[181] "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses." Monograph Series,
No. 4, last edition.
[182] Paper given before the Section of Neurology and Psychological Medicine,
Aberdeen, 1914. Reprinted from the British Medical Journal, by kind permission
of the Editor, Dr. Dawson Williams.
[183] Delivered at the Psychoanalytical Congress, Munich, 1913. Translated from
Archives de Psychologie, by kind permission of the Editor, Dr. Claparède.
Translator, C. E. Long.
[184] "The concept of energy is that which comes nearest to the concept of libido.
Libido can perhaps be described as "effect," or "capacity for effect." It is capable
of transformation from one form to another. The metamorphosis can be sudden, as
when one function replaces another in a moment of danger; or it can be gradual, as
we see it in the process of sublimation, where the libido is led over a long and
difficult path through a variety of forms into a different function."—Mary
Moltzer.
[185] "Pragmatism," Chapter I.
[186] "Pragmatism," ch. i., p. 14.
[187] W. Ostwald "Grosse Männer," Leipzig, 1910 (11th Lecture, "Classics and
Romanticists"). See also his contribution, "A propos de la Biologie du Savant,"
Bibliothèque Universelle, Oct., 1910.
[188] Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy," trans. Wm. A. Haussmann.
[189] Finck, "Der deutsche Sprachbon als Aus druck, deutscher Weltanschauung."
Marburg, 1899.
[190] Gross, "Die zerebrale Sekundärfonktion." Leipsig, 1902.
[191] Adler, "Über den nervösen Charakter." Wiesbaden, 1912.
[192] This lecture was prepared for the Berne Medical Congress, 1914, postponed
on the outbreak of war. Translator, Dora Hecht.
[193] "The Psychology of the Unconscious" ("Wandlungen und Symbole der
Libido"). Moffat, Yard & Co.
[194] First Edition, 1908 = Part I. (unaltered); Second Edition, 1914 = Part II.
Translator, M. D. Eder.
[195] "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox," translated by Brill and Peterson,
Monograph Series of the Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, New York.
[196] Bresler, "Kulturhistorischer Beitrag zur Hysterie." Allg. Zeitschrift für
Psychiatrie, Bd. LIII., p. 333. Zündel, "Biographie Blumhardts."
[197] Central Asylum and University Psychiatric Clinic in Zürich.
[198] In psychiatry "inadequate" is employed to denote disproportion between
feeling and idea whether in excess or the reverse.
[199] I am indebted for this example to my colleague Dr. Abraham of Berlin.
[200] As one might say in England, "a Bond Street dressmaker."
[201] This is an addition to the second edition, 1914.
[202] "The Psychology of Dementia Præcox."
[203] Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische Forschung, vol. III. pp. 9 and 558.
[204] Comp. also Ferenczi: "Über die Rolle der Homosexualität in der
Pathogenese der Paranoia," Jahrb., III., p. 101.
[205] Maeder: "Psychologische Untersuchungen an Dementia præcox Kranken,"
Jahrbuch f. psychoanalyt. Forsch., II., p. 185.
[206] Spielrein: "Über den psychologischen Inhalt eines Falles von Schizophrene,"
l.c., III., p. 329 ff.
[207] Nelken: "Analytische Beobachtungen über Phantasien eines Schizophrenen,"
l.c., IV., p. 505 ff.
[208] Grebelskaja: "Psychologische Analyse eines Paranoiden," l.c., IV., p. 116 ff.
[209] Itten: "Beiträge zur Psychologie der Dementia præcox," l.c., p. V., 1 ff.
[210] Nietzsche, "Thus spake Zarathustra."
[211] "Quelques faits d'imagination créatrice subconsciente," Miss Miller, vol. V.,
p. 36.
[212] Here "objective" understanding is not identical with causal understanding.
[213] This energy may also be designated as hormé. Hormé is a Greek word
[Greek: hormê]—force, attack, press, impetuosity, violence, urgency, zeal. It is
related to Bergson's "élan vital." The concept hormé is an energic expression for
psychological values.
[214] See p. 287.
[215] "Die zerebrale Sekundärfunktion." Leipzig, 1902.
[216] New Edition, 1917. Translated by Miss Dora Hecht.
[217] Bleuler, "Die Psychoanalyse Freuds." Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische
Forschungen, vol. II., 1910.
[218] Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses."
"Nervous and Mental Disease," Monograph series, No. 4.
[219] Freud, "Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre." Deuticke: Wien.
[220] Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams," George Allen.
[221] Freud, "Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory." Monograph Series.
[222] Cp. Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria."
[223] Breuer and Freud, "Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses."
[224] For further particulars of this case see Jung, "The Theory of
Psychoanalysis."
[225] We may still apply to love the saying: "The heaven above, the heaven below,
The sky above, the sky below, All things above, all things below, Succeed and
prosper" (Old Mystic). Mephistopheles expresses the idea when he describes
himself as "Part of that power which still produceth good, whilst ever scheming
ill."
[226] "Love" is used in that larger sense of the word, which indeed belongs to it by
right; it does not mean "mere sexuality."
[227] Compare Jung, "Diagnostiche Associationsstudien." Leipzig: J. A. Barth. 2
volumes.
[228] The theory of "Complexes" is set out in "Psychology of Dementia præcox,"
Jung.
[229] Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams." James Allen.
[230] The rules of dream-analysis, the laws of the structure of the dream and its
symbolism, form almost a science; this is one of the most important chapters of the
psychology of the unconscious whose comprehension requires very arduous study.
[231] Compare Jung, "The Psychology of the Unconscious."
[232] Thus spake Zarathustra, p. 40.
[233] The German "Auslebetheorie."
[234] "Ueber den nervösen Charakter."
[235] For a preliminary communication upon the subject see page 287.
[236] "The Philosophy of Values."
[237] "Pragmatism."
[238] "Grosse Männer" ("Great Men").
[239] Furneaux Jordan: "Character as seen in Body and Parentage." London,
1896.
[240] I purposely describe only the two types here. Obviously, the possibility of
the existence of other types is not thereby excluded. Other possibilities are known
to us. I refrain from mentioning them, with a view to limiting the material.
[241] The Monist, vol. xvi. p. 363.
[242] The German name for crab (Krebs) is the same as that for cancer.
[243] A parallel conception of the two kinds of interpretation is found in a
commendable book by Silberer: "Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik"
("Problems of Mysticism and their Symbolism").
[244] "Halb zog sie ihn, halb sank er hin," etc.
[245] I have also termed this procedure the "hermeneutic method." See page 468-
9.
[246] "Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes" ("The Age of the Sun-god").
[247] I have treated the parallels of hero-myths in great detail in "The Psychology
of the Unconscious."
[248] "Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken" ("Memoirs of a Neurasthenic
Patient").
[249] Lecture given before the Zürich School for Analytical Psychology, 1916.
[250] In a certain sense the "likeness to God" is always a priori present even
before analysis, not only in the neurotic, but also in the normal individual, with the
difference only that the normal individual is effectively separated from the
perception of the unconscious, whilst this separation becomes increasingly
impossible to the neurotic. In consequence of his special sensitiveness, the neurotic
is a priori more closely affected by the processes of the unconscious than is the
normal person, wherefore the God-Almightiness becomes more distinct in him
than in the normal individual. By means of the knowledge of the unconscious
acquired through analysis the "God-likeness" is increased.
[251] Pp. 69 and 95.
[252] The collective mind represents collective thought, the collective soul
represents collective feeling, and the collective psyche represents the general
collective psychological function.
[253] I should here observe that I am intentionally refraining from discussing our
problem from the standpoint of the psychology of types. A specialised and
somewhat complicated investigation was necessary in order to discover
formulations appropriate to the types. For instance, "person" means something
totally different to the extrovert from what it does to the introvert. I must content
myself here with pointing out the difficulties such a task would involve. In the
types, the conscious and real adapted function in childhood is collective, but soon
acquires a personal character, and may retain this to the end, unless the individual
feels impelled to develop his type to the uttermost. If this happens, the conscious
real adapted function attains a degree of perfection which may claim universal
validity and therefore bears a collectivistic character, in contrast to its originally
collective character. According to this mode of expression collective psyche would
be identical with "herd soul" in the individual; but the collectivistic psychology
would be a highly differentiated adaptation to society. For the introvert the
conscious real adapted function is thinking, which in the lower stages of
development is entirely personal, but has a tendency to acquire a universal
character of a collectivistic kind; his feeling remains distinctly personal so far as it
is conscious, and collective-archaic in so far as it has remained unconscious or is
repressed. The opposite applies to the feeling and thought of the extrovert. The
introvert is always concerned with the endeavour to preserve the integrity of his
ego, which results in a different attitude towards his own person from that of the
extrovert, whose adaptation is made through his feelings, even at the cost of his
own person. These few sentences indicate into what an extraordinarily difficult
situation we should have been led had we considered our problem from the
standpoint of the types.
[254] "Psychology of the Unconscious."
[255] That is, of a universal primary propensity or a universal primal aim.
[256] Cp. Silberer: "Probleme der Mystic und ihrer Symbolik." Wien, 1914.
("Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism.")
[257] It should be borne in mind that no moral function is to be sought in this
conception of dreams, nor do I look for it there. This function is just as little
"teleological" in the sense of a philosophical teleology, that is to say of a set aim or
purpose. It is in the first place compensatory, because it presents a subliminal
picture of the actual situation. The phenomenon should first of all be understood
from a purely causal standpoint. But it would be unjust to the essence of what is
psychological if one were to consider it purely causally. For it does not only
tolerate, but also demand, a final point of view. In other words, the question arises,
what is the use of bringing just this material to constellation? This is not to assert
that the final meaning of a phenomenon had already existed as an a priori given
purpose in the preparatory stages of the phenomenon. It would not be permissible,
according to the theory of cognition, to presuppose some pre-existing purpose
from the unmistakable final meaning of biological mechanisms. But it would be
narrow-minded if, with the justifiable omission of the teleological conclusion, one
wished also to give up the point of view of finality. The utmost that can be said is,
it is as if there were some pre-existing purpose present. In psychology one must be
on one's guard against exclusive reliance either upon causality or upon teleology.
 Transcriber notes:
P.XXI. 'C. C.' changed to 'C. G.'.
P.22. 'Occasionlly' typo for 'Occasionally', changed.
P.23. 'third kind of taste' changed 'taste' to 'state'.
P.72. 'Our patent develops', 'patent' changed to 'patient'.
P.103. added '+ denotes' in footnote 9 for multiple footnote.
P.201. 'Pyschology' typo for 'Psychology', changed.
P.217. 'unnecessary' typo for 'unnecessary', changed.
P.305. 'casuality' typo for 'causality', changed.
P.340. 'beween' typo for 'between', changed.
P.345. Placed footnote anchor after 'mythological formations', but could be
elsewhere on the page. It may be an independant reference to the whole
section.
P.384. 'castastrophe' typo for 'catastrophe', changed.
P.451. 'colective' typo for 'collective', changed.
P.471. 'devolopment' typo for 'development' changed.
P.482. in index, 'Hommunculus' is 'Homunculus' in the book, changed.
Fixed various punctuation.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Papers on Analytical

Psychology, by C. G. Jung

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED PAPERS--ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY ***

***** This file should be named 48225-h.htm or 48225-h.zip *****

This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/4/8/2/2/48225/

Produced by Sami Sieranoja, Jane Robins and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm

electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the

Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
are located before using this ebook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is

derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted

with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm

License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this

electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing

access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that

* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation."

* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
works.

* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.

* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable

effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right

of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a

defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of

electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit

501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the

mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:

Dr. Gregory B. Newby

Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg

Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide

spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating

charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we

have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make

any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project

Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed

editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.