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.