Here, as everywhere in analysis, we have to follow the patient along the line of his own impulses, even if the path seems to be a wrong one. Error is just as important a condition of mental progress as truth. In this second step of analysis, with all its hidden precipices and sand-banks, we owe a great deal to dreams. At the beginning of analysis dreams chiefly helped in discovering phantasies; here they guide us, in a most valuable way, to the application of the libido. Freud’s work laid the foundation of an immense increase in our knowledge in regard to the interpretation of the dream’s content, through its historical material and its tendency to express wishes. He showed us how dreams open the way to the acquisition of unconscious material. In accordance with his genius for the purely historical method, he apprises us chiefly of the analytical relations. Although this method is incontestably of the greatest importance, we ought not to take up this standpoint exclusively, as such an historical conception does not sufficiently take account of the teleological meaning of dreams.
Conscious thinking would be quite insufficiently characterized, if we considered it only from its historical determinants. For its complete valuation, we have unquestionably to consider its teleological or prospective meaning as well. If we pursued the history of the English Parliament back to its first origin, we should certainly arrive at a perfect understanding of its development, and the determination of its present form. But we should know nothing about its prospective function, that is, about the work which it has to accomplish now, and in the future. The same thing is to be said about dreams. Their prospective function has been valued only by superstitious peoples and times, but probably there is much truth in their view. Not that we pretend that dreams have any prophetic foreboding, but we suggest, that there might be a possibility of discovering in their unconscious material those future combinations which are subliminal just because they have not reached the distinctiveness or the intensity which consciousness requires. Here I am thinking of those indistinct presentments of the future which we sometimes have, which are nothing else than subliminal combinations, the objective value of which we are not able to apperceive. The future tendencies of the patient are elaborated by this indirect analysis, and, if this work is successful, the convalescent passes out of treatment and out of his half-infantile state of transference into life, which has been inwardly carefully prepared for, which has been chosen by himself, and to which, after many deliberations, he has at last made up his mind.
CHAPTER X
Some General Remarks on Psychoanalysis
As may easily be understood, psychoanalysis will never do for polyclinic work, and will therefore always remain in the hands of those few who, because of their innate and trained psychological faculties, are particularly apt and have a special liking for this profession. Just as not every physician makes a good surgeon, so neither will every one make a good psychoanalyst. The predominant psychological character of psychoanalytic work will make it difficult for doctors to monopolize it. Sooner or later other faculties will master it, either for practical uses or for its theoretical interest. Of course the treatment must remain confined entirely to the hands of responsible scientific people.
So long as official science excludes psychoanalysis from general discussion, as pure nonsense, we cannot be astonished if those belonging to other faculties master this material even before the medical profession. And this will occur the more because psychoanalysis is a general psychological method of investigation, as well as a heuristic principle of the first rank in all departments of mental science (“Geisteswissenschaften”). Chiefly through the work of the Zürich School, the possibility of applying psychoanalysis to the domain of the mental diseases has been demonstrated. Psychoanalytical investigation of dementia præcox, for instance, brought us the most valuable insight into the psychological structure of this remarkable disease. It would lead me too far were I to demonstrate to you the results of those investigations. The theory of the psychological determinants of this disease is already in itself a vast territory. Even if I had to treat but the symbolic problems of dementia præcox I should be obliged to lay before you so much material, that I could not possibly master it within the limits of these lectures, which must give a general survey.
The question of dementia præcox has become so extraordinarily complicated because of the quite recent incursion on the part of psychoanalysis into the domains of mythology and comparative religion, whence we have derived a deeper insight into ethical psychological symbolism. Those who are well-acquainted with the symbolism of dreams and of dementia præcox have been greatly impressed by the striking parallelism between modern individual symbols and those found in folk-lore. The extraordinary parallelism between ethnic symbolism and that of dementia præcox is remarkably clear. This fact induced me to make an extended comparative investigation of individual and ethnic symbolism, the results of which have been recently published.[[11]] This complication of psychology with the problem of mythology makes it impossible for me to demonstrate to you my conception of dementia præcox. For the same reasons, I must forego the discussion of the results of psychoanalytic investigation in the domain of mythology and comparative religions. It would be impossible to do this without setting forth all the material belonging to it. The main result of these investigations is, for the moment, the knowledge of the far-reaching parallelisms between the ethnical and the individual symbolisms. From the present position of this work, we can scarcely conceive what a vast perspective may result from this comparative ethnopsychology. Through the study of mythology, the psychoanalytical knowledge of the nature of the unconscious processes we may expect to be enormously enriched and deepened.
I must limit myself, if I am to give you in the course of my lectures a more or less general presentation of the psychoanalytic school. A detailed elaboration of this method and its theory would have demanded an enormous display of cases, whose delineation would have detracted from a comprehensive view of the whole. But to give you an insight into the concrete proceedings of psychoanalytic treatment, I decided to bring before you a short analysis of a girl of eleven years of age. The case was analyzed by my assistant, Miss Mary Moltzer. In the first place, I must mention that this case is by no means typical, either in the length of its time, or in the course of its general analysis; it is just as little so as an individual is characteristic for all other people. Nowhere is the abstraction of universal rules more difficult than in psychoanalysis, for which reason it is better to abstain from too many rules. We must never forget that, notwithstanding the great uniformity of complexes and conflicts, every case is unique. For every individual is unique. Every case demands from the physician an individual interest, and in every case you will find the course of analysis different. In describing this case, I offer you a small section of the vast diverse psychological world, showing all those apparently bizarre and arbitrary peculiarities scattered over human life by the whims of so-called chance. I have no intention of withholding any of the minute psychoanalytic details, as I do not want to make you believe that psychoanalysis is a method with rigid laws. The scientific interest of the investigator inclines him to find rules and categories, in which the most living of all things alive can be included. But the physician as well as the observer, free from all formulas, ought to have an open eye for the whole lawless wealth of living reality. In this way I will endeavor to present to you this case, and I hope also to succeed in demonstrating to you how differently an analysis develops from what might have been expected from purely theoretical considerations.
A Case of Neurosis in a Child
The case in question is that of an intelligent girl of eleven years of age, of good family. The history of the disease is as follows: