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10 Part 1 - The Theory of Psychoanalysis - Carl Jung · Logic Library

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Chapter ten, Part one, some general remarks on psychoanalysis. As may easily
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be understood, psychoanalysis will never do for polyclinic work, and will therefore always
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remain in the hands of those few who, because of their innate and trained
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psychological faculties, are particularly apt and have a special liking for this profession.
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Just as not every physician makes a good surgeon, so neither will everyone make
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a good psychoanalyst. The predominant psychological character of psychoanalytic work will make it difficult
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for doctors to monopolize it, sooner or later other faculties will master it,
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either for practical uses or for its theoretical interest. Of course, the treatment
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must remain confined entirely to the hands of responsible scientific people. So long as
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official science excludes eychoanalysis from general discussion as pure nonsense, we cannot be astonished
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if those belonging to other faculties master this material even before the medical profession.
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And this will occur the more because psychoanalysis, as a general psychological method of
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investigation, as well as a heuristic principle of the first rank in all departments
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of mental science, guist of this and shaften chiefly through the work of the
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Zurich School. The possibility of applying psychoanalysis to the domain of the mental diseases
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has been demonstrated. Psychoanalytical investigation of dementia Precox, for instance, brought us
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the most valuable insight into the psychological structure of this remarkable disease. It would
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lead me too far were I to demonstrate to you the results of those investigations.
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The theory of the psychological determinants of this disease is already in itself a
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vast territory, even if I had to treat but the symbolic problems of dementia
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Precox, as should be obliged to lay before you so much material that I
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could not possibly master it within the limits of these lectures which must give a
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general survey. The question of dementia Precox has become so extraordinarily complicated because of
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the quite recent incursion on the part of psychoanalysis into the domains of mythology and
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comparative religion. Whence we have derived a deeper insight into ethic psychological symbolism.
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Those who are well acquainted with the symbolism of dreams and of dementia Precox have
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been greatly impressed by the striking parallelism between modern individual symbols and those found in
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folklore. The extraordinary parallelism between ethnic symbolism and that of dementia Precox is remarkably
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clear this fact to make an extended comparative investigation of individual and ethnic symbolism,
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the results of which have been recently published. This complication of psychology with the
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problem of mythology makes it impossible for me to demonstrate to you my conception of
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dementia precox. For the same reasons, I must forego the discussion of the
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results of psychoanalytic investigation in the domain of mythology and comparative religions. It would
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be impossible to do this without setting forth all the material belonging to it.
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The main result of these investigations is, for the moment, the knowledge of
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the far reaching parallelisms between the ethnical and the individual symbolisms. From the present
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position of this work, we can scarcely conceive what a vast perspective may result
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from this comparative ethno psychology. Through the study of mythology the psychoanalytical knowledge of
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the nature of the unconscious processes, we may expect to be enormously enriched and
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deepened. I must limit myself if I am to give you, in the
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course of my lectures a more or less general presentation of the psychoanalytics school.
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A detailed elaboration of this method and its theory would have demanded an enormous display
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of cases whose delineation would have detracted from a comprehensive view of the whole.
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But to give you an insight into the concrete proceedings of psychoanalytic treatment, I
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decided to bring before you a short analysis of a girl of eleven years of
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age. The case was analyzed by my assistant, Miss Mary Moltzer. In
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the first place, I must mention that this case is by no means typical,
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either in the length of its time or in the course of its general
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analysis. It is just as little so as an individual is characteristic for all
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other people. Nowhere is the abstraction of universal rules more difficult than in psychoanalysis,
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for which reason it is better to abstain from to many rules. We
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must never forget that, notwithstanding the great uniformity of complexes and conflicts, every
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case is unique, for every individual is unique. Every case demands from the
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physician an individual interest, and in every case you will find the course of
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analysis different. In describing this case, I offer you a small section of
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the vast, everse psychological world, showing all those apparently bizarre and arbitrary peculiarities
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scattered over human life by the whims of so called chance. I have no
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intention of withholding any of the minute psychoanalytic details, as I do not want
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to make you believe that psychoanalysis is a method with rigid laws. The scientific
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interest of the investigator inclines him to find rules in categories in which the most
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living of all things alive can be included. But the physician, as well
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as the observer, free from all formulas, ought to have an open eye
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for the whole lawless wealth of living reality. In this way, I will
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endeavor to present you this case, and I hope also to succeed in demonstrating
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to you how differently an analysis develops from what might have been expected from purely
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theoretical considerations. A case of neurosis and a child. The case in question
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is that of an intelligent girl of eleven years of age, of good family.
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The history of the diseases as follows, and a nieces. She had
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to leave school several times on account of sudden sickness and headache, and was
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obliged to go to bed in the morning. She sometimes refused to get up
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and go to school. She suffered from bad dreams, was capricious and not
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to be counted upon. I informed the mother who came to consult me,
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that these things were neurotic signs, and that some special circumstance must be hidden
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there, necessitating an interrogation of the child. This supposition was not arbitrary,
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for every attentive observer knows that if children are restless or in bad temper,
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there is always something painful worrying them. If it were not painful, they
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would tell it and they would not be worried over it. Of course,
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I'm only speaking of those cases having a psychogenic cause. The child confessed her
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mother the following story. She had a favorite teacher of whom she was very
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fond. During this last term, she had fallen back somewhat through working insufficiently,
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and she believed she had rather fallen in the estimation of her teacher.
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She then began to feel sick during his lessons. She felt not only a
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strange from her teacher, but even somewhat hostile. She directed all her friendly
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feelings to a poor boy with whom she usually shared the bread which she took
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to school. Later on, she gave him money so that he could buy
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bread for himself. In a conversation with his boy, she made fun of
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her teacher and called him a goat. The boy attached himself more and more
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to her, and considered that he had the right to levy attacks on her,
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occasionally in the form of a little present of money. She now became
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greatly alarmed lest the boy might tell her teacher that she turned him into ridicule,
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called him a goat, And she promised him two francs if he would
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give his solemn word never to tell anything to her teacher. From that moment,
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the boy began to exploit her. He demanded money with threats, and
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persecuted her with his demands on the way to school. This made her perfectly
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miserable. Our attacks of sickness are closely connected with all this story. But
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after the affair had been disposed of by this confession, her peace of mind
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was not restored as might have been expected. We very often see, as
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I have said, that the mere relation of a painful affair can have an
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important therapeutical effect. Generally, this does not last very long, although on
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occasion such a favorable effect can maintain itself for a long time. Such a
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confession is naturally a long way from being an analysis, but there are nerve
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specialists nowadays who believe that an analysis is only a somewhat more extensive anamnesis or
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confession. A little while later, the child had an attack of coughing and
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misschool for one day. After that, she went to school for one day
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and felt perfectly well. On the third day, a renewed attack of coughing
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came on, with pains on the left side, fever, and vomiting.
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Her temperature accurately taken showed thirty nine point four degrees celsius about one hundred and
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three degrees fahrenheit. The doctor feared pneumonia, but the next day everything had
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passed away. She felt quite well, and not the slightest sign of fever
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or sickness was to be noted. But still our little patient reaped the whole
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time and did not wish to get up from this strange course of events.
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I suspected some serious neurosis and I therefore advised treatment by analysis. Analytic treatment.
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First interview, the little girl seemed to be nervous and constrained, having
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a disagreeable forced laugh. Miss Molser, who analyzed her, gave her,
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first of all, an opportunity of talking about her staying in bed. We
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learned that she liked it immensely, as she always had some society. Everybody
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came to see her. Also, her mother read to her out of a
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book which contained the story of a prince who was ill, but who recovered
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when his wish was fulfilled, the wish being that his little friend, a
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poor boy, might be allowed to stay with him. The obvious relation between
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this story and her own little love story, as well as its connection with
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her own illness, was pointed out to her, whereupon she began to cry
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and say she would prefer to go to the other children and play with them,
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otherwise they would run off. This was at once allowed in a way.
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She ran, but came back again after a short while, somewhat embarrassed.
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It was explained to her that she did not run away because she was
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afraid her playmates would go, but that she herself wanted to get off because
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of resistances At the second interview, she was less anxious and oppressed. They
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happened to speak about the teacher, but then she was embarrassed. She seemed
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to be ashamed at the end, and she timidly confessed that she liked her
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teacher very much. It was then explained to her that she need not be
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ashamed of that. On the contrary, her love for him could be a
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valuable stimulus to make her do her very best in his lessons. So I
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may love him, asked the little patient with a happier face. This explanation
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justified the child in the choice of the object of her affection. It seems
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as if she had been ashamed of admitting her feelings for her teacher. It
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is not easy to explain why there should be so. Our present conception tells
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us that the libido has great difficulty in taking hold of a personality outside the
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family, because it still finds itself in incestuous bonds, a very plausible view,
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indeed, from which it is difficult to withdraw. But we must point
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out here that her libido was placed with much intensity upon the poor boy,
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who was also someone outside the family. Whence we must conclude that the difficulty
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was not to be found in the transference of the libido outside the family,
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but in some other circumstance. The love of the teacher betokens a difficult task.
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It demands much more than her love for the little boy, which does
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not require any moral effort on our parts. This indication of the analysis that
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her love for her teacher would enable her to do her utmost brings the child
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back to her real duty, namely, her adaptation to her teacher. The
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libida requires from before such a necessary task for the very human reason of indolence,
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which is highly developed not only in children, but also in primitive people.
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Primitive laziness and indolence are the first resistances to the efforts towards adaptation.
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The libida, which is not used for this purpose, becomes stagnant and will
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make the inevitable regression to former objects or modes of employment. It is thus
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that the incest complex is revived in such a striking way. The libida avoids
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the object which is so difficult to attain and demands such great efforts, and
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turns towards the easier ones and finding to the easiest of all, namely the
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infantile fantasies. Which thus become real incest fantasies. The fact that wherever there
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is present a disturbance of psychological adaptation one finds an exaggerated development of incest fantasies
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must be conceived, as I have pointed out, as a regressive phenomenon.
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That is to say, the incest fantasy is of secondary and not of causal
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significance, while the primary cause is the resistance of human nature against any kind
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of exertion. The drawing back from certain duties is not to be explained by
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saying that man prefers the incestuous condition, but he has to fall back into
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it because he shuns exertion. Otherwise it would have to be said that the
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aversion from conscious effort must be taken as identical with the preference for incestuous relations.
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This would be obvious nonsense, for not only primitive man but animals to
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have a pronounced dislike for all intentional efforts and pay homage to absolute laziness until
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circumstances force them into action. We cannot pretend, either in very primitive people
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or in animals, that they are Preference for incestuous relations causes aversion towards efforts
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of adaptation, as in those cases there can be no question of incestuous relations.
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This would presuppose a differentiation of parents and non parents. Characteristically, the
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child expressed her joy at being allowed to love her teacher, but not at
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being allowed to do her utmost for him. That she might love her teachers
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what she understood at once, because it suited her best. Her relief was
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caused by the information that she was right in loving him, even though she
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did not especially exert herself. Before the conversation ran on to the story of
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the extortion, which is now again told in details. We hear further that
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she had tried to force open her savings bank, and she could not succeed
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in doing so, she wanted to steal the key from her mother. She
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expressed herself thus about the whole matter. She ridiculed her teacher because he was
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much kinder to the other girls than to her, But it was true that
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she did not do very well well in his lessons, especially at arithmetic.
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Once she did not understand something, was afraid to ask for fear she might
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lose his esteem, and consequently she made many mistakes and did really lose it.
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It is pretty clear that her position towards her teacher became consequently very unsatisfactory.
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About this time, it happened that a young girl in her class was
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sent home because she was sick. Soon after, the same thing happened to
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herself. In this way, she tried to get away from the school,
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which had become uncongenial to her. The loss of her teacher's respect led her,
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on the one hand to insult him, and on the other into the
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affair with the little boy, obviously as a compensation for the lost relationship with
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the teacher. The explanation which was given here was a simple hint. She
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would be rendering a service to her teacher if she took pains to understand the
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lessons by sensible questions. I can add here that this hint, even in
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the analysis, had a good effect. From that moment, the little girl
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became one of the best of pupils and miss no more arithmetic lessons. We
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must call attention to the fact that the story of the boy's extortion shows constraint
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and a lack of freedom. The phenomenon exactly follows the rule. As soon
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as anyone permits his libida to draw back from necessary tasks, it becomes autonomous
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and chooses without regard to the protests of the subject its own way, and
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pursues it obstinately. It is a general fact that a lazy and inactive life
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is highly susceptible to the coercion of the libido, that is to say,
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to all kinds of terrors and involuntary obligations. The anxieties and superstitions of savages
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furnish us with the best illustrations, but our own history of civilization, especially
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the civilization and customs of the ancients, abounds with confirmations. Non employment of
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the libida makes it autonomous. But we must not believe either that we are
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able to save ourselves prominently from the coercion of the libido by making forced efforts.
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To a certain limited extent, we are able to set conscious tasks to
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our libido. But other natural tasks are chosen by the libido itself, and
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that is what the libido exists. For If we avoid those tasks, the
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most active life can become useless, for we have to deal with the whole
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of the conditions of our human nature. Innumerable cases of neurasthenia from overwork can
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be traced back to this cause. For work done amid internal conflicts creates nervous
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exhaustion. At the third interview, the little girl related a dream she had
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had when she was five years old, and by which she was greatly impressed.
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She says, I'll never forget this dream. The dream runs as follows.
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I am in a wood with my little brother, and we are looking
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for strawberries. Then a wolf came and jumped at me. I took to
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a staircase. The wolf after me. I fall down and the wolf bites
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my leg. I awoke in terror. Before we go into the association given
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by our little patient, I will try to form an arbitrary opinion about the
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possible content of the dream, and then compare our result afterwards with the associations
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given by the child. The beginning of the dream reminds us of the well
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known German fairy tale of Little Red riding Hood, which is of course known
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to the child. The wolf ate the grandmother first, then took her shape,
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and afterwards ate Little Red riding Hood. But the hunter killed, the
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wolf got open the belly, and Little Red riding Hood sprang out safe and
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sound. This motive is found in a great many fairy tales. Why it
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spread over the whole world, and it is the motive of the biblical story
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of Jonah. The original significance is astro mythological. The sun is swallowed up
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by the sea, and in the morning is born again out of the water.
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Of course, the whole of astro mythology is at the root but psychology,
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unconscious psychology projected onto the heavens. For myths have never been or never
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made consciously, but arise from man's unconscious. For this reason we sometimes find
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that marvelous striking similarity or identity in the forms of myths, even among races
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that have been separated from each other since eternity. As it were, this
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explains the universal dissemination of the symbol of the Cross, perfectly independent of Christianity,
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of which America, as is well known, furnish as us especially interesting
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instances. It is impossible to agree that myths have been made to explain meteorological
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or astronomical processes. Myths are, first of all, manifestations of unconscious currents,
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similar to dreams. These currents are caused by the libido in its unconscious
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forms. The material which comes to the service is infantile material. Fantasies connected
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with the incest complex. Without difficulty, we can find in all the so
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called some myths infantile theories about generation, childbirth and incestuous relations. In the
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fairy Tale of Little Red Writinghood we find the fantasy that the mother has to
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eat something which is similar to a child, and that the child is born
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by cutting open the mother's body. This fantasy is one of the most universal
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to be found everywhere. We can conclude from these universal psychological observations that the
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child in its dream elaborates the problem of generation and childbirth. As to the
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wolf, the father probably has to be put in its place, for the
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child unconsciously assigns to the father any act of violence towards the mother. This
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anticipation can be based on innumerable myths which deal with the problem of any act
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of violence towards the mother. In reference to the mythological parallelism. Let me
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direct your attention to bo as Is collection, where you will find a beautiful
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set of Indian legends. Also to the work of Frobenius da Tutus sonin gottess
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and Finding, to the works of Abraham rank ricklan Jones freud Spiel Rhyme,
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and in my own investigations in my bond Lungen owned Symbola de libido. After
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having made these general observations for theoretical reasons, which of course were not made
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in the concrete case, we will go back to see what the child has
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to tell in regard to her dream. Of course, the child speaks of
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her dream just as she likes, without being influenced in any way. Whatever.
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The little girl begins with the bite in her leg and relates that she
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had once been told by a woman who had had a baby that she could
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still show the place where the stork had bitten her. This mode of expression
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is, in Switzerland a universally known variant of that symbolism of generation and birth.
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Here we find a perfect parallelism between our interpretation and the associations of the
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child. The first associations, which have been brought by the child without being
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influenced in any way, are connected with the problem which, for theoretical reasons,
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was suggested by ourselves. I know well that the innumerable cases published in
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our psychoanalytic literature where the patients have certainly not been influenced, have not prevented
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the critic's contention that we suggest our own interpretation to our patients. This case
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will not therefore convince anyone who is determined to find crude mistakes or much worse
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still, fabrications. After our little patient finished her first association, she was
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asked, what did the wolf suggest? She answered, I think of my
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father when he is angry. This association also coincides with our theoretical observations.
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It might be objected that the observation was made just for this purpose and for
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nothing else, and has therefore no general validity. I believe that this objection
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banishes of itself as soon as the corresponding psychoanalytic and mythological knowledge has been acquired.
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The validity of an hypothesis can only be confirmed by positive knowledge, otherwise
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it is impossible to confirm it. We have seen by the first association that
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the wolf has been replaced by the stork. The associations given to the wolf
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bring the father. In the common myth, the stork stands for the father,
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as the father brings children. The apparent contradiction which could be noticed here
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between the fairy tale where the wolf represents the mother and the dream in which
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the wolf stands for the father, is of no importance for the dream.
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I must renounce here any attempt at a detailed explanation. I've treated this problem
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of bisexual symbols in the work already referred to. You know that in the
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legend of Rominus and Remus, both animals were raised to the rank of parents,
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the bird Picus and the wolf. The fear of the wolf in the
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dream is therefore fear of her father. The little patient explains her fear of
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her father by his severity towards her. He had also told her that we
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only have bad dreams when we have been doing wrong. Later, she once
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asked her father, but what does mamma do wrong? She is very often
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frightful dreams. The father once slapped her fingers because she was sucking them.
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Was this her naughtiness? Scarcely because sucking the fingers is an anachronistic, infantile
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habit of little interest at her age, It only seems to annoy her father,
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for which she will punish and hit her. In this way, she
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relieves her conscience of the unconfessed and much more serious sin. It comes out
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that she has induced a number of other girls to perform mutual masturbation. These
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sexual tendencies have caused the fear of the father. Still, we must not
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forget that she had this dream in her fifth year. At that time these
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sins had not been committed. Hence, we must regard this affair with the
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other girls as a reason for her present fear of her father. But that
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does not explain the earlier fear. But still we may expect it with something
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of a similar nature, some unconscious sexual wish corresponding to the psychology of the
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forbidden action previously mentioned. The moral value and character of this wish is even
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more unconscious with the child than with adults. To understand what had made an
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impression on the child, we have to ask what happened in her fifth year.
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Her youngest brother was born at that time. Even then her father had
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made her nervous. The associations previously referred to give us an undoubted connection between
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her sexual inclinations and her anxiety. The sexual problem, which nature connects with
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positive feelings of delight, is in the dream, brought to the surface in
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the form of fear, apparently on account of the bad father, who represents
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moral education. This dream illustrates the first impressive appearance of the sexual problem obviously
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suggested by the recent birth of the little brother. Just such an occasion.
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Win experience teaches us that these questions become vital just because the sexual problem is
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closely connected with certain pleasurable physical sensations which education tries to reduce and break off.
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It can apparently only manifest itself hidden under the cloak of moral anxiety.
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As to sin. This explanation certainly seems rather plausible, but it is superficial.
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It is insufficient. It attributes the difficulties to the moral education on the
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unproved assumption that education can cause such a neurosis. We hereby leave out of
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consideration the fact that there are people who have become neurotic and suffer from morbid
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fears without having had a trace of moral education. Moreover, the moral law
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is not merely an evil which has to be resisted, but a necessity born
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out of the utmost needs of humanity. The moral law is only an outward
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manifestation of the innate human impulse to dominate and tame one self. The origin
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of the impulse towards domestication or civilization is lost in the unfathomable depths of the
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history of evolution, and can never be conceived as the consequence of certain laws
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imposed from without, man himself, obeying his instincts created laws. Therefore,
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we shall never understand the reasons for the repression of sexuality in the child if
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we only take into account the moral influences of education. The main reasons are
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to be found much deeper in human nature itself, in its perhaps tragic contradiction
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between civilization and nature, or between individual consciousness and the general conscience of the
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community. I cannot enter into these questions now in my other work. I've
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tried to do so. Naturally, it would be of no value to give
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a child the notion of the higher philosophical aspects of the problem. That would
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probably not have the slightest effect of Chapter ten, Part one