Hence to a patient who is unable to recall in what year, month or day a certain event took place, enumerate the years during which it might have occurred as well as the names of the twelve months and the thirty-one days of the month, and assure him that at the right number or name his eyes will open themselves or that he will feel which number is the correct one. In most cases the patients really decide on a definite date and frequently enough (as in the case of Mrs. Cäcilie N.) it could be ascertained from existing notes of that time that the date was correctly recognized. At other times and in different patients it was shown from the connection of the recollected facts that the dates thus found were incontestable. A patient, for instance, after a date was found by enumerating for her the dates, remarked, “This is my father’s birthday,” and added “Of course I expected this episode [about which we spoke] because it was my father’s birthday.”
I can only slightly touch upon this theme. The conclusion which I wished to draw from all these experiences is that the pathogenic important experiences with all their concomitant circumstances are faithfully retained in memory, even where they seem forgotten, as when the patient seems unable to recall them.[[14]]
After this long but unavoidable digression I now return to the history of Miss Lucy R. As aforesaid, she did not merge into somnambulism when an attempt was made to hypnotize her, but lay calmly in a degree of mild suggestibility, her eyes constantly closed, the features immobile, the limbs without motion. I asked her whether she remembered on what occasion the smell perception of burned pastry originated.—“Oh, yes, I know it well. It was about two months ago, two days before my birthday. I was with the children (two girls) in the school room playing and teaching them to cook, when a letter just left by the letter carrier was brought in. From its postmark and handwriting I recognized it as one sent to me by my mother from Glasgow and I wished to open it and read it. The children then came running over, pulled the letter out of my hand and exclaimed, ‘No you must not read it now, it is probably a congratulatory letter for your birthday and we will keep it for you until then.’ While the children were thus playing there was a sudden diffusion of an intense odor. The children forgot the pastry which they were cooking and it became burned. Since then I have been troubled by this odor, it is really always present but is more marked during excitement.”
“Do you see this scene distinctly before you?”—“As clearly as I experienced it.”—“What was there in it that so excited you?”—“I was touched by the affection which the children displayed towards me.”—“But weren’t they always so affectionate?”—“Yes, but I just got the letter from my mother.”—“I can’t understand in what way the affection of the little ones and the letter from the mother contrasted, a thing which you appear to intimate.”—“I had the intention of going to my mother and my heart became heavy at the thought of leaving those dear children.”—“What is the matter with your mother? Was she so lonesome that she wanted you, or was she sick just then and you expected some news?”—“No, she is delicate but not really sick, and has a companion with her.”—“Why then were you obliged to leave the children?”—“This house had become unbearable to me. The housekeeper, the cook, and the French maid seemed to be under the impression that I was too proud for my position. They united in intriguing against me and told the grandfather of the children all sorts of things about me, and when I complained to both gentlemen I did not receive the support which I expected. I then tendered my resignation to the master (father of the children) but he was very friendly, asking me to reconsider it for two weeks before taking any definite steps. It was while I was in that state of indecision that the incident occurred. I thought that I would leave the house but have remained.”—“Aside from the attachment of the children is there anything particular which attracts you to them?”—“Yes, my mother is distantly related to their mother and when the latter was on her death bed I promised her to do my utmost in caring for the children, that I would not forsake them, and be a mother to them, and this promise I broke when offering my resignation.”
The analysis of the subjective sensation of smell seemed completed. It was once objective and intimately connected with an experience, a small scene, in which contrary affects conflicted, sorrow at forsaking the children, and the mortification which despite all urged her to this decision. Her mother’s letter naturally recalled the motives of this decision because she thought of returning to her mother. The conflict of the affects raised this moment to a trauma and the sensation of smell which was connected with it remained as its symbol. The only thing to be explained was the fact that out of all the sensory perceptions of that scene, the perception of smell was selected as the symbol, but I was already prepared to use the chronic nasal affliction as an explanation. On being directly questioned she stated that just at that time she suffered from a severe coryza and could scarcely smell anything but in her excitement she perceived the odor of burned pastry, it penetrated the organically motived anosmia.
As plausible as this sounded it did not satisfy me; there seemed to be something lacking. There was no acceptable reason wherefore this series of excitements and this conflict of affects should have led to hysteria. Why did it not all remain on a normal psychological basis? In other words, what justified the conversion under discussion? Why did she not recall the scenes themselves instead of the sensations connected with them which she preferred as symbols for her recollection? Such questions might seem superfluous and impertinent when dealing with old hysterias in whom the mechanism of conversion was habitual, but this girl first acquired hysteria through this trauma, or at least through this slight distress.
From the analysis of similar cases I already knew that where hysteria is to be newly acquired one psychic determinant is indispensible; namely, that some presentation must intentionally be repressed from consciousness and excluded from associative elaboration.
In this intentional repression I also find the reason for the conversion of the sum of excitement, be it partial or total. The sum of excitement which is not to enter into psychic association more readily finds the wrong road to bodily innervation. The reason for the repression itself could only be a disagreeable feeling, the incompatibility of one of the repressible ideas with the ruling presentation-mass of the ego. The repressed presentation then avenges itself by becoming pathogenic.
From this I concluded that Miss Lucy R. merged into that moment of hysterical conversion, which must have been under the determinations of that trauma which she intentionally left in the darkness and which she took pains to forget. On considering her attachment for the children and her sensitiveness towards the other persons of the household, there remained but one interpretation which I was bold enough to impart to her. I told her that I did not believe that all these things were simply due to her affection for the children, but that I thought that she was rather in love with her master, perhaps unwittingly, that she really nurtured the hope of taking the place of the mother, and it was for that reason that she became so sensitive towards the servants with whom she had lived peacefully for years. She feared lest they would notice something of her hope and scoff at her.
She answered in her laconic manner: “Yes, I believe it is so.”—“But if you knew that you were in love with the master, why did you not tell me so?”—“But I did not know it, or rather, I did not wish to know it. I wished to crowd it out of my mind, never to think of it, and of late I have been successful.”[[15]]