The Theory of Psychoanalysis

by C. G. Jung

The libido retires from before such a necessary task, for the very human reason of indolence, which is highly developed, not only in children, but also in primitive people. Primitive laziness and indolence are the first resistances to the efforts towards adaptation. The libido which is not used for this purpose becomes stagnant and will make the inevitable regression to former objects or modes of employment. It is thus that the incest-complex is revived in such a striking way. The libido avoids the object which is so difficult to attain and demands such great efforts, and turns towards the easier ones, and finally to the easiest of all, namely, the infantile phantasies, which thus become real incest-phantasies. The fact that, wherever there is present a disturbance of psychological adaptation, one finds an exaggerated development of incest-phantasies, must be conceived, as I have pointed out, as a regressive phenomenon. That is to say, the incest-phantasy is of secondary and not of causal significance, while the primary cause is the resistance of human nature against any kind of exertion. The drawing back from certain duties is not to be explained by saying that man prefers the incestuous condition, but he has to fall back into it, because he shuns exertion; otherwise it would have to be said that the aversion from conscious effort must be taken as identical with the preference for incestuous relations. This would be obvious nonsense, for not only primitive man, but animals too, have a pronounced dislike for all intentional efforts, and pay homage to absolute laziness, until circumstances force them into action. We cannot pretend, either in very primitive people or in animals, that their preference for incestuous relations causes aversion towards efforts of adaptation, as in those cases there can be no question of “incestuous” relations. This would presuppose a differentiation of parents and non-parents.

Characteristically, the child expressed her joy at being allowed to love her teacher, but not at being allowed to do her utmost for him. That she might love her teacher is what she understood at once, because it suited her best. Her relief was caused by the information that she was right in loving him, even though she did not especially exert herself before.

The conversation ran on to the story of the extortion, which is now again told in details. We hear further that she had tried to force open her savings-bank, and as she could not succeed in doing so, she wanted to steal the key from her mother. She expressed herself thus about the whole matter: she ridiculed her teacher because he was much kinder to the other girls than to her. But it was true that she did not do very well in his lessons, especially at arithmetic. Once she did not understand something, was afraid to ask, for fear she might lose his esteem, and consequently she made many mistakes and did really lose it. It is pretty clear that her position towards her teacher became consequently very unsatisfactory. About this time it happened that a young girl in her class was sent home because she was sick. Soon after, the same thing happened to herself. In this way, she tried to get away from the school which had become uncongenial to her. The loss of her teacher’s respect led her on the one hand to insult him and on the other into the affair with the little boy, obviously as a compensation for the lost relationship with the teacher. The explanation which was given here was a simple hint: she would be rendering a service to her teacher if she took pains to understand the lessons by sensible questions.

I can add here that this hint, given in the analysis, had a good effect; from that moment the little girl became one of the best of pupils, and missed no more arithmetic lessons.

We must call attention to the fact that the story of the boy’s extortion shows constraint and a lack of freedom. This phenomenon exactly follows the rule. As soon as anyone permits his libido to draw back from necessary tasks, it becomes autonomous and chooses, without regard to the protests of the subject, its own way, and pursues it obstinately. It is a general fact, that a lazy and inactive life is highly susceptible to the coercion of the libido, that is to say, to all kinds of terrors and involuntary obligations. The anxieties and superstitions of savages furnish us with the best illustrations; but our own history of civilization, especially the civilization and customs of the ancients, abounds with confirmations. Non-employment of the libido makes it autonomous, but we must not believe either that we are able to save ourselves permanently from the coercion of the libido by making forced efforts. To a certain limited extent we are able to set conscious tasks to our libido, but other natural tasks are chosen by the libido itself, and that is what the libido exists for. If we avoid those tasks, the most active life can become useless, for we have to deal with the whole of the conditions of our human nature. Innumerable cases of neurasthenia from overwork can be traced back to this cause, for work done amid internal conflicts creates nervous exhaustion.

At the third interview the little girl related a dream she had had when she was five years old, and by which she was greatly impressed. She says, “I’ll never forget this dream.” The dream runs as follows: “I am in a wood with my little brother and we are looking for strawberries. Then a wolf came and jumped at me. I took to a staircase, the wolf after me. I fall down and the wolf bites my leg. I awoke in terror.”

Before we go into the associations given by our little patient, I will try to form an arbitrary opinion about the possible content of the dream, and then compare our result afterwards with the associations given by the child. The beginning of the dream reminds us of the well-known German fairy-tale of Little Red-Ridinghood, which is, of course, known to the child. The wolf ate the grandmother first, then took her shape, and afterwards ate Little Red-Ridinghood. But the hunter killed the wolf, cut open the belly and Little Red-Ridinghood sprang out safe and sound. This motive is found in a great many fairy-tales, widespread over the whole world, and it is the motive of the biblical story of Jonah. The original significance is astro-mythological: the sun is swallowed up by the sea, and in the morning is born again out of the water. Of course, the whole of astro-mythology is at the root but psychology, unconscious psychology, projected on to the heavens, for myths have never been and are never made consciously, but arise from man’s unconscious. For this reason, we sometimes find that marvellous, striking similarity or identity in the forms of myths, even among races that have been separated from each other since eternity as it were. This explains the universal dissemination of the symbol of the cross, perfectly independent of Christianity, of which America, as is well known, furnishes us especially interesting instances. It is impossible to agree, that myths have been made to explain meteorological or astronomical processes. Myths are, first of all, manifestations of unconscious currents, similar to dreams.[^[12]] These currents are caused by the libido in its unconscious forms. The material which comes to the surface is infantile material, hence, phantasies connected with the incest-complex. Without difficulty we can find in all the so-called sun-myths infantile theories about generation, childbirth and incestuous relations. In the fairy-tale of Little Red-Ridinghood, we find the phantasy that the mother has to eat something which is similar to a child, and that the child is born by cutting open the mother’s body. This phantasy is one of the most universal, to be found everywhere.

We can conclude, from these universal psychological observations, that the child, in its dream, elaborates the problem of generation and childbirth. As to the wolf, the father probably has to be put in its place, for the child unconsciously assigns to the father any act of violence towards the mother. This anticipation can be based on innumerable myths which deal with the problem of any act of violence towards the mother. In reference to the mythological parallelism, let me direct your attention to Boas’s collection, where you will find a beautiful set of Indian legends; also to the work of Frobenius, “Das Zeitaltes Sonnengottes”; and, finally, to the works of Abraham, Rank, Riklin, Jones, Freud, Spielrein, and my own investigations in my “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido.”

After having made these general observations for theoretical reasons, which, of course, were not made in the concrete case, we will go back to see what the child has to tell in regard to her dream. Of course the child speaks of her dream just as she likes, without being influenced in any way whatever. The little girl begins with the bite in her leg, and relates, that she had once been told by a woman who had had a baby, that she could still show the place where the stork had bitten her. This mode of expression is, in Switzerland, a universally known variant of the symbolism of generation and birth. Here we find a perfect parallelism between our interpretation and the associations of the child. The first associations which have been brought by the child, without being influenced in any way, are connected with the problem which, for theoretical reasons, was suggested by ourselves. I know well that the innumerable cases, published in our psychoanalytic literature, where the patients have certainly not been influenced, have not prevented the critics’ contention, that we suggest our own interpretations to our patients. This case will not, therefore, convince anyone who is determined to find crude mistakes or, much worse still—fabrications.

After our little patient had finished her first association, she was asked, “What did the wolf suggest?” She answered, “I think of my father, when he is angry.” This association also coincides with our theoretical observations. It might be objected that the observation was made just for this purpose and for nothing else, and has therefore no general validity. I believe that this objection vanishes of itself as soon as the corresponding psychoanalytic and mythological knowledge has been acquired. The validity of an hypothesis can only be confirmed by positive knowledge; otherwise it is impossible to confirm it. We have seen by the first association that the wolf has been replaced by the stork. The associations given to the wolf bring the father. In the common myth, the stork stands for the father, as the father brings children. The apparent contradiction, which could be noticed here between the fairy-tale, where the wolf represents the mother, and the dream, in which the wolf stands for the father, is of no importance for the dream. I must renounce here any attempt at a detailed explanation. I have treated this problem of bisexual symbols in the work already referred to. You know that in the legend of Romulus and Remus, both animals were raised to the rank of parents, the bird Picus and the wolf.