PSCHOANALYSIS ITS THEORIES AND PRACTICAL APPLICATION BY AP A; ' BRILL

THIRD EDITION, THOROUGHLY REVISED,

PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON W. B. SAUNDERS COMPANY 1922

M N

B

594174

TO MY ESTEEMED TEACHER

PROFESSOR DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL. D.

WHOSE IDEAS ARE HEREIN REPRODUCED THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

Microsoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/3edpsychoanalysisit00briluoft

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

Since the appearance of the last edition of this work, psychoanalysis has made unprecedented progress both as a therapeutic agent and as an expounder and interpreter of subjects and phenomena which are not strictly medical. As a result of its successful application to a large number of psychoneuroses precipitated by the war, psychoanalysis has gained many new adherents among physicians who were hitherto unacquainted with it. In other scientific fields it has opened up new vistas in biology, psychology, belle lettres, sociology, and the allied sciences; this is shown by the numerous works, references, and discussions in the literature on these subjects. As pleasing as this is one cannot altogether ignore some of the discordant notes, and disregarding the foolish ranting hurled at psychoanalysis now and then by ignorant individuals, one is struck by some misunderstanding even among those who are se- riously interested in the subject. As most of these difficulties arise from a lack of understanding of the psycho- sexual problems, a knowledge of which is predisposed in all students of psychoanalysis, new material was added with a view of clarifying some of the specific sexual phenomena, especially masturbation and homosexuality. The other new chapter on Paraphrenia, deals with a class of rather mild psychoses, which the average physician rarely recog- nizes, and upon which psychoanalysis throws considerable

2 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

light. The rest of the material consists of new cases and illustrations referring to various problems treated in the book.

It is the writer's wish that this edition, for the tardiness of which he alone is responsible, will continue to stimulate sympathetic interest in the great works of Professor Freud.

A. A. Brill. New York City. January, 1922.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Adhering to the original object of this book, as set forth in the first preface, it was thought best to add to this volume new illustrative material of a practical and instructive char- acter. This was effected by the insertion of analyzed dreams, interesting cases, and two new chapters. In addi- tion, the book has been thoroughly revised and greatly enlarged by many supplements. The new material com- prises discussions on artificial dreams, the unconscious factors in neuroses, collecting manias, pathologic homo- sexuality, and fairy tales as a determinant of dreams and neurotic symptoms. At the suggestion of many readers a glossary of psychoanalytic and psychosexual terms was added.

Although there has been an enormous increase in the psychoanalytic literature since the appearance of the first edition no need was felt for modifying any of its essential principles. The new material either confirmed Freud's theories or provoked discussions of a purely academic nature which cannot here be entered into. Our local critics have not changed; they are constantly rehashing what was said abroad, and what was adequately answered long ago.* They have not offered a single new idea of their own. Such

♦Those who are interested may read Bleuler: Die Psychanalyse Freud's; Jahrb. f. Psychoanal. und Psychopathol. Forschungen, Bd. 11, 1911; and Ibid.: Kritik der Freudschen Theorien, Allegemeine Zeit- schrift fur Psychiatrie, LXX, 5.

4 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

blind criticism will not stem the progressive advance of the Freudian views. Indeed, the psychoanalytic theories have been accepted in part or wholly by some of the leading active psychiatrists in this country and abroad. To quote Jones: "Assent has been given to the chief of Freud's con- clusions by such men of scientific eminence and sane judg- ment as Professors Bleuler, August Hoch, Jung, Adolph Meyer, and Putnam. * Many other names of equal promi- nence could now be added. Any one conversant with medical and lay literature readily sees the great significance of Freud's psychologic principles in modern thought, and the influence of psychoanalysis on the treatment of nervous and mental cases.

As gratifying as this is, attention must be called to one great danger, the danger of the psychoanalytic method in untrained hands. The necessary training and other requisites for this work have been discussed in the preface to the first edition, but, in view of later developments, it will not be amiss to emphasize a few more points.

As psychoanalysis deals with mental factors, it is only just to expect that those employing it should have a training in psychiatry and neurology. The normal and abnormal men- tal trends and reactions of each patient must be known be- fore psychoanalysis is undertaken, and these can only be correctly diagnosed by those trained in mental work; for not every nervous and mental case lends itself to analysis, and proper selection of cases would obviate many failures and criticisms. The writer has seen much harm done to patients by "wild psychoanalysts," who had no conception

* "Reflections on Some Criticisms of the Psycho-analytic Method of Treatment," American Journal of the Medical Sciences, July, 1911.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 5

of what they are doing. Those who wish to take up psycho- analytic work should proceed in the same manner as in any other specialty. The reading of some theoretic works about the eye or throat does not make an ophthalmologist or laryngologist, nor does theoretic knowledge make a psycho- analyst. It must be remembered that all the pioneers in this field have been neurologists and psychiatrists first. To practice psychoanalysis without previous training in men- tal work is as dangerous as practicing surgery without a knowledge of anatomy; and, as in surgery, no definite rules can be laid down, one must be guided by what he finds; proficiency depends on a sound preparation and much experience.

As the two new chapters have originally appeared in the New York Medical Journal, I am indebted to the editor for permitting me to use the same.

A. A. Brill.

New York City.

PREFACE

Like many others in the field of nervous and mental work, I received my training in the State Hospital for the insane. It was my fortune to enter the hospital service at a very important period of its development. Dr. Frederick Peterson was then president of the Commission in Lunacy, and it was mainly through his untiring energy that the New York State hospitals were thoroughly modern- ized and put on a firm scientific basis. It was also mostly through his efforts that Dr. Adolf Meyer became director of the Pathological Institute at Ward's Island, N. Y.

The advent of Dr. Meyer marks a new epoch in the N. Y. State hospital service. An accomplished neuro- pathologist and psychiatrist of long experience, he soon instilled new life and interest into the work by giving regular courses of lectures and demonstrations to the interns on the theories and methods then in vogue. The old way of writing a one line note about the patient's mental and physical condition every three or six months had to stop despite the grumbling of the "old timers," and we were required to make frequent and comprehensive examinations of our patients and note carefully what we found. These examinations were made in accordance with a scheme thoroughly worked out by Dr. Adolf Meyer, the underlying principles of which were the teachings of Kraepelin, Wernicke and Ziehen. This good work has continued up to the present with excellent results. Since I left the state service I have visited and worked in some

7

8 PREFACE

of the best psychiatric clinics in Europe, and I am glad to say that all things considered the work of the New York State Hospitals compares very favorably with the work done in most of the hospitals abroad.

What I say in reference to the N. Y. State hospitals can be readily applied with some modifications to most of the hospitals for the insane in this country. It is well known that within the last ten to twelve years the manage- ment and treatment of the insane in this country have undergone a marked transformation, which is of great benefit to the patient, the doctor and the public. The State hospitals are now treating the patients as patients in the true sense of the word; they are rapidly filling up an enormous gap in the medical profession by training doctors to treat the insane, and they are gradually abolishing the popular prejudices against hospitals for the insane. The medical schools, too, are now paying more though not enough attention to mental diseases; and last, but not least, excellent and commendable work is being done by the Social Service Departments and the National Society for Mental Hygiene.

The progressive evolution in the study of mental dis- eases has called attention to another neglected field in which the most important work is still to be done. I refer to the so-called " borderline' ' cases, the neuroses and mild psychoses which never reach the State hospitals, but form the greatest proportion of clinic and dispensary practice. In the ten years from 1900-1909, 21,290 patients were examined by the assistants in the neurological depart- ment of the Vanderbilt Clinic, N. Y., and about 25% of this number were diagnosed as neurasthenia, psychasthenia,

PREFACE 9

hysteria, and as mild forms of the functional psychoses.* Although I am not ready to give statistics, I do not hesitate to assert that the same conditions prevail in almost every clinic and dispensary. A striking feature in these border- line cases is the fact that the great majority run a chronic course. Up to within recent years no real effort has been made to understand these unfortunates. It is gratifying to note, however, that a complete change has taken place in this direction. Physicians now realize that the old adage mens sana in corpore sano is not to be taken in the strict sense, and hence do not rely on physical treatment alone. All enlightened and progressive physicians recog- nize psychotherapy as an important therapeutic agent in the treatment of these borderline cases of mental diseases.

Now as there is a demand for psychotherapy, the ques- tion naturally arises as to which is the method of prefer- ence. Without entering into the merits and demerits of the different systems of psychotherapy, admitting that in competent hands they are all good and useful, and that I myself employ them in selected cases, I do not hesitate to assert that psychoanalysis is the most rational and effective method of psychic therapy. I say this after having prac- tised for years the existing psychotherapeutic methods. Psychoanalysis is the only system of psychotherapy that deals with the neuroses as entities instead of treating symptoms, as do hypnotism, suggestion and persuasion. To hypnotize a patient because he suffers from obsessions or phobias is equivalent to treating the cough or fever regardless of the disease of which it is but one of the mani-

* Jelliffe and Brill: Statistical Summary of Cases in Department of Neurology, Vanderbilt Clinic, for Ten Years, 1900 to 1909, Journal Nervous and Mental Diseases, July, 1911.

j 10 PREFACE

festations. Hypnotism takes no cognizance of personality, it simply imposes blind obedience which at best lasts until worn off. Psychoanalysis always concerns itself with the individual as a personality and enters into the deepest recesses of the mind. It is for that reason that the results of psychoanalysis are most effective; and it is only through psychoanalysis that we can hope to gain a real insight into the neuroses and psychoses, a thing of prime importance in the study of mental prophylaxis.

These assertions are not based merely on the reading of a few scattered papers, but on about six years of hard work and almost constant occupation with the subject. For it is only through hard work and long experience that one can acquire a thorough knowledge of Freud's psychol- ogy. Recently I had the pleasure of talking to some who claimed to have used psychoanalysis in the treatment of patients, and who spoke rather discouragingly, saying that it produced no result. Thus one endeavored to cure a case of so-called congenital homosexuality in about a dozen sessions. Another stated that although he ques- tioned a young woman for hours about sex she showed no improvement in her hysteria.

Such statements readily show the gross misunderstand- ing of the work. For it is not the treatment of a few hours, weeks or even months that cures; it is the psychic elaboration accomplished during a long period by one thoroughly conversant with the work. I do not think that it is too much to ask of one who wishes to make use of a certain technical method that he should first learn its basic principles. One cannot expect to become proficient in psychoanalysis unless he has mastered at least

PREFACE 1 1

Freud's theories of the neuroses, the interpretation of dreams, the theories on sex, the psychopathology of every- day life, and his book on wit, and last but not least has had a training in nervous and mental work. Besides these qualifications one must know how to select his cases. It has been wrongly supposed that we claim to be able to cure everything. Neither Freud nor any of his pupils has ever advanced such claims. On the contrary, Freud has repeatedly emphasized that psychoanalysis has a limited field, and that it should be used only in limited cases. Let us hear what he says:

"The former value of the person should not be over- looked in the disease, and you should refuse a patient wjio does not possess a certain degree of education, and whose character is not in a measure reliable. We must not forget that there are also healthy persons who are good for nothing, and that if they show a mere touch of the neurosis, one is only too much inclined to blame the dis- ease for incapacitating such inferior persons. I maintain that the neurosis does not in any way stamp its bearer as a de*genere, but that, frequently enough, it is found in the same individual associated with the manifestations of degeneration. The analytic psychotherapy is, therefore, no procedure for the treatment of neuropathic degenera- tion— on the contrary it is limited by it. It is also not to be applied in persons who are not prompted by their own suffering to seek treatment, but subject themselves to it by order of their relatives.

"If one wishes to take a safe course he should limit his selection to persons of a normal state. Psychoses, con- fusional states, and marked (I might say toxic) depres-

12 PREFACE

sions, are unsuitable for analysis, at least as it is practised to-day. I do not think it at all impossible that with the proper changes in the procedure it will be possible to disre- gard this contraindication, and thus claim a psychotherapy for the psychoses.

"The age of the patient also plays a part in the selec- tion for the psychoanalytic treatment. Persons near or over the age of fifty lack, on the one hand, the plasticity of the psychic processes upon which the therapy depends — old people are no longer educable — and on the other hand, the material which has to be elaborated and the duration of the treatment are immensely increased. The earliest age limit is to be individually determined; youthful persons, even before puberty, are excellent subjects for analysis.

"One should not attempt psychoanalysis when it is a question of rapidly removing a threatening manifestation, as, for example, in the case of an hysterical anorexia."*

From my own experience I fully agree with Freud, and I would add: do not analyze your relatives, and when in private practice do not analyze any patient without receiving some compensation for it.

As the actual working method will be described later, I shall confine myself here to a few facts, which, although strictly speaking belong to the epilogue, may nevertheless be worth mentioning in this connection. With the begin- ning of the analysis I investigate the patient's dream life. I instruct him to write down his dreams on awakening. This is very important because dreams give us the most reliable information concerning the individual, and they

* Freud: Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses, 2d Ed., p. 181. Trans, by A. A. Brill, Jour. Ner. and Men. Dis. Pub. Co.

PREFACE 13

invariably show some relation to the symptoms. I never attempt, however, to analyze a dream before knowing the patient for at least two weeks. Dreams cannot be analyzed unless one has the full cooperation of the dreamer, and this is only possible after a certain rapport has been established between the doctor and the patient. It is this rapport, or the transference* as we will call it, with which one must start. Nothing can be done without it, and unless this is properly managed little can be done for the patient. One may get excellent results in surgery or in any other specialty without seeing the patient's face, but psychoanalysis presupposes an intimate acquaintance- ship. There must be a mutual understanding and liking between doctor and patient. One must, however, be on his guard lest the transference be carried too far. One must remember that one is dealing with people whose libido is striving for fixation, and care and tact must there- fore be exercised to remain good friends only. One must remember the intimate relationship existing between love and hatred, and that one can be readily changed into the other. There are few neurotics, or for that matter normal beings, who remain absolutely indifferent. They either like or dislike. In one of his essays, Charles Lamb tells of two men who never met before who began to fight as soon as they looked at each other. This sounds very strange to us, though it is comprehensible in savages, children and animals. As is known, neurotics are dominated by

* Freud: Zur Dynamik der ttbertragung, Zentralb. f. Psycho- analyse, 2. Jahrgang, Heft 1 und 4. Stekel: Die verschiedenen Formen der tlbertragung, Zentralb. f. Psychoanalyse, 2. Jahrgang. Ferenczi: Introjection und ttbertragung, Jahrbuch f. Psychoanalyst. u. Psychopath., 1910, Bd. i, p. 451. Jones: The Action x>f Suggestion in Psychotherapy, Jour, of Abnormal Psychol., January, 1910.

14 PREFACE

their infantile or repressed material, they suffer from a failure in repression; hence behave in a way like children.

It is hardly necessary to mention that we are criticised for delving into sexuality. This is quite true, but is it a question wheter it merits criticism. Our critics seem to have no conception of Freud's idea of sexuality. To us the term is very broad, it really comprises the whole love-life of the individual. As soon as we enter into the intimate life of the patient we are sure to find sex in some form, indeed the surest indication of an abnormal sexual life is an apparent absence of the sexual factors. It is natur- ally advisable to be very careful in approaching the subject so as not to shock the patient. Moreover, psychoanalysis presupposes a knowledge of not only Freud's theories of sex, but also a broad knowledge of psychosexuality in general. Only those who are themselves free from all sexual resistances and who can discuss sex in a pure- minded manner should do psychoanalytic work.

In conclusion I wish to say that the main object of this book is to present the practical application of Freud's theories in one volume, hoping thereby not only to remove many false conceptions entertained concerning psycho- analysis, but to stimulate further interest in Freud's original works.

As some of the material given here has been published before in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, the American Journal of Insanity, the N. Y. Medical Journal, the Medical Record, and the N. Y. State Journal of Medi- cine, I take this opportunity to express my thanks to the editors of these journals for allowing me to utilize the same. A. A. Brill.

New York City.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I pAaB

The Psychoneuroses 17

CHAPTER II

PSTCHOPATHOLOQY OP EVERY-DAY LlPE 40

CHAPTER III Dreams 7g

CHAPTER IV The Actual Neuroses 127

CHAPTER V Masturbation 146

CHAPTER VI The Compulsion Neuroses (Obsessions, Doubts, Phobias). . . 163

CHAPTER VII

The Unconscious Factors in the Neuroses 184

CHAPTER VIII Psychoanalysis and the Psychoses 199

CHAPTER IX Studies in Paraphrenia or the Milder Psychotic States. . . 250

CHAPTER X Psychological Mechanisms of Paranoia 270

CHAPTER XI

Homosexuality 289

15

16 CONTENTS

CHAPTER XII page

Hysterical Fancies and Dreamy States 310

CHAPTER XIII The (Edipus Complex 329

CHAPTER XIV The Only or Favorite Child in Adult Life 348

CHAPTER XV

Fairy Tales as a Determinant op Dreams and Neurotic Symptoms. Their Relation to Active and Passive Algolagnia 363

CHAPTER XVI Anal Eroticism and Character 390

CHAPTER XVII Freud's Theory op Wit 400

Glossary 450

Index 455

PSYCHOANALYSIS

ITS THEORIES AND PRACTICAL APPLICATION

CHAPTER I

THE PSYCHONEUROSES

The Development of Freud's Conception of the Psycho- neuroses and Psychoses, Their Relation to the Psychology of Dreams, Sex and the Psy- chopathology of Every-day Life

The psychoneuroses, the step-children of medicine, have of late received more attention in medical literature than before. Both here and abroad it has been realized that there is a large group of diseases, the so-called border line cases in mental diseases, the understanding and treatment of which have been sadly neglected, and it is gratifying to know that at least some steps have been taken to meet these deficiencies. The wave of psychotherapy which has swept the continent has also made its presence felt in this country through its numerous discussions in both lay and professional journals. Abroad its adherents claim brilliant results; one need only review the numerous works of the Nancy and other schools to be convinced that psycho- therapy is no empty term, but an actual branch of medi- 2 17

18 PSYCHOANALYSIS

cine, and that in the psychoneuroses it is the only effective remedial agent.

Yet, whereas all schools agree that the psychoneuroses should be treated by psychotherapy, they all disagree as to the nature of the psychoneuroses. One need only scan the recent works to see what diverse views are expressed by the different investigators on the subject. These diversities, in my opinion, are due to the fact that most of the investigators in question have ignored one important factor, namely, individual psychology. Without individ- ual psychology the riddle of the neuroses, like the riddle of the psychoses, must remain unsolved.

Among the different views expressed on the neuroses those of Freud stand out most conspicuously. No recent theories in medicine or psychology have evoked so many controversies and discussions. After years of careful and painstaking labor Freud evolved not only a system of psychotherapy, but a new psychology. Unlike all other investigators he discarded all generalities and confined himself to the individual. The individual factors which had escaped the notice of other investigators he found to be of the utmost importance in the psychogenetic devel- opment of personality.

As early as 1895 Breuer and Freud published the "Studien liber Hysteric" They found that hysterical symptoms like neuralgias, paralyses, epileptiform attacks, etc., could be traced to actual psychic traumata which the patient could not consciously recall, but which could be readily demonstrated when the patient was put in the hypnotic state. In other words, they found that the hysterical manifestations were not accidental, but had an

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 19

actual cause. The connection between cause and effect was often quite obvious; thus, "A very sick child falls asleep and the mother exerts all her will power to make no noise to awaken it, but just, because of this effort she emits a clicking sound with her tongue (hysterical counter- will) which was repeated on another occasion when she wished to be absolutely quiet. This developed into a regu- lar tic which lasted for years. "l In some cases the connec- tion is not so simple, there being only a symbolic relation between the cause and the hysterical phenomena; thus, psychic pain may cause a neuralgia and moral disgust may cause vomiting. Breuer and Freud then concluded that these psychic traumata, or the memory of them act like foreign bodies in consciousness, and even long after their occurrence continue to influence like causative factors. To quote Freud, "The hysteric suffers mostly from reminis- cences."2 Their symptoms are remnants and memory symbols for certain (traumatic) events. A deeper under- standing of these symbolisms will perhaps be gained by comparing them with memory symbols of other spheres. Thus the statues and monuments with which we embel- lish our big cities are such memory symbols. l * If you should take a walk through London you would find a richly decorated Gothic column in front of Charing Cross, one of the largest railroad stations of the city. On the occasion of removing to Westminster the remains of his beloved queen, Eleanor, one of the old Plantagenet kings in the XIII century ordered that Gothic crosses be erected at every station where the funeral procession halted, and Charing Cross is the last of the monuments commemorating this funeral procession. In another place in the city not far

20 PSYCHOANALYSIS

from London Bridge you will notice a modern lofty column which is briefly referred to as 'The Monument. ' It is supposed to commemorate the big fire which started near there in 1666 and destroyed a large part of the city. These monuments, therefore, like the hysterical symptoms, are memory symbols. So far the comparison is justified. But what would you think of a Londoner who would even to-day halt in grief before the monument of the funeral procession of Queen Eleanor instead of continuing on his way with the required haste of modern business conditions? Or what would you think of another who would stop before 'The Monument' and bewail the conflagration of his beloved native city? Yet hysteric and neurotic individuals behave exactly like these two impractical Londoners. Not only do they recall the long forgotten painful events, but. they cling to them with all their emotions. They cannot get away from the past and neglect for it the reality of the present. This fixation of the psychic life on the pathogenic traumas is one of the most important, and, from a practical view- point, one of the most significant characters of the neurosis."3

That the hysterical symptoms are only reminiscences was proven by the fact that the individual hysterical symptoms disappeared without returning if one succeeded in thoroughly awakening the memories of the causal process with its accompanying affects and if the patient circumstantially discussed the process, giving free play to the affect. The reason for the strangulation of the emo- tion was because at the time of its occurrence it could not be adequately worked off. We all know that it is not always possible to give vent to our feelings, and that

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 21

an insult retaliated leaves quite a different impression than one that has to be swallowed.

The treatment called "catharsis" consisted in recon- ducting the sum of excitement from its false paths to the original conscious idea and then working it off by means of intellectual labor and speech. The patient was hypnotized and questioned about the origin of the symptoms and while recalling the original injuries, either in hypnosis or the normal state the hemmed-in emotions were discharged and the symptoms disappeared. This is the so-called "abreagirung" — abreaction — which means to work off some- thing by living through it again. It was noticed that the affect appeared with special intensity during the reproduc- tion of the scenes which gave origin to the symptom and completely disappeared with their termination. On the other hand, no result was noticed when the scenes evoked were not accompanied by any emotional feeling.

This is rather a brief review of the conceptions originally expressed by Breuer and Freud. It is from these principles that Freud developed his present conceptions of the psychoneuroses and his revolutionary psychology.

When Freud continued to practice his cathartic treat- ment he was confronted with one special difficulty. He found that not all persons were hypnotizable and as hypnosis was absolutely essential for the broadening of the patient's consciousness, many patients had to be given up as they could not be hypnotized. He even went so far as to take one of these patients to Bernheim, at Nancy, but after applying all his skill Bernheim had to admit that

22 PSYCHOANALYSIS

he, too, could not hypnotize the patient. * This and a num- ber of other reasons caused Freud to avoid hypnotism and to adopt a new procedure which he calls the psychoanalytic method.

On asking the patients in the waking state whether they remembered the first motive of the symptom in question, some knew nothing while others recalled something rather vaguely. Freud then applied the same method which Bernheim used in awaking the manifestly forgotten impres- sions produced during somnambulism. He found that by urging and assuring the patients that they did remember and telling them that all they had to do was to concentrate their attention and repeat the thoughts which would occur to them they finally recalled the pathogenic ideas without hypnotism. But as this urging necessitated much exertion on his part, and showed him that he had to overcome great resistance in the patient, he formulated the following theory: " Through my psychic work I had to overcome a psychic force in the patient which hindered the pathogenic idea from becoming conscious."4 The resistance was due to the fact that the ideas which had to be disinterred were all of a \j nature adapted to provoke the affects of shame, reproach, mental pain and a feeling of injury — they were altogether of that kind which one would not like to experience, and prefers to forget.

This gave rise to Freud's idea of repression; the patho- genic idea being of a painful nature is incompatible with the ego, and is therefore treated by it as non-arrive. The patient wishes to know nothing about it, he wishes

* That not every person can be hypnotized has been long acknow- ledged by all experienced observers in this field.

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 23

to forget it. But as this repression, or fogetting, never succeeds completely, the pathogenic idea continues to strive to come to the surface, and is constantly inhibited by the psychic censor. This struggle of the two opposing forces results in a compromise. Each foregoes a part of the original demand, thus meeting the other half way, and the result of this mutual accommodation is then trans- formed into a hysterical symptom, usually by the process of conversion. In this manner the ego frees itself from opposition, the original painful idea or unattainable wish is forgotten, and instead it becomes burdened with a memory symbol which remains in consciousness as an unadjusted motor or sensory innervation. We thus see that the main character of hysteria is not the splitting of consciousness as asserted by Janet and his school, but the ability to con- vert the sum of strangulated emotion either totally orj~ partially, into that motor or sensory innervation which is more or less connected with the traumatic event. In brief the study of the psychoneuroses shows conclusively that there was a failure in the repression of the idea con- cerning the unattainable wish. To be sure the painful idea is crowded out of consciousness and memory, and the individual thus spares himself a great deal of pain, but the repressed wish remains in the unconscious and lurks for an opportunity to become active. When it succeeds it brings to the surface a distorted and strange substitutive forma- tion which soon becomes connected with the same pain the individual got rid of through the repression. This sub- stitutive formation is the symptom and in hysteria it is produced by the process of conversion.

There are, however, predisposed persons in whom there

24 • PSYCHOANALYSIS

is no adaptation for conversion. Here, if an unbearable idea enters consciousness it meets with the same contrary- forces as those mentioned above, the affect becomes de- tached from the idea, but instead of being converted into the physical, it remains in the psychic sphere. The weak- ened unbearable idea remains apart from all association in consciousness, but its detached affect or the sum of excite- ment allies itself to another indifferent idea,5 which on account of this "false" connection becomes an obsession; or the unbearable idea is so changed that the patient does not recognize it. He no longer thinks of the painful or disagreeable, but instead he is burdened with an obsession, the absurdity of which he realizes, but from which he can- not rid himself. The advantage thus gained by the ego in the transposition or dislocation of the affect is not as great as in the hysterical conversion of psychic excite- ment into somatic innervation. The affect remains un- changed and undiminished, but the unbearable idea is suppressed from memory.

The same mechanism holds true for the origin of phobias, and both come under the heading of compulsion neurosis. It was found that the unbearable ideas underlying the compulsion neurosis (obsessions, doubts and phobias), also have their origin in the sexual life. In the words of Freud, "the obsession represents a compensation or sub- stitute for the unbearable sexual idea and takes its place in consciousness."6

Both hysteria and compulsion neurosis belong to the de- fense neuropsychoses; their symptoms originate through the psychic mechanism of defense, that is, through the attempt to repress a painful idea which was incompatible with the

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 25

ego of the patient. In both neuroses the idea is robbed of its affect, and excluded from associative elaboration, re- maining, however, in consciousness.

There is still another far more forceful and more suc- cessful form of defense, wherein the ego misplaces the incompatible idea with its emotion and acts as though the painful idea had never come to pass. When this occurs the person merges into a psychosis which may be called " hallucinatory confusion." To illustrate this form of defense I will cite a case which, through the kindness of Dr. M. S. Gregory, I saw in the psychopathic pavilion of Belle vue Hospital. It concerned a young married man of about thirty years, a New Yorker, who, being out of work, tried his fortune as a farm-hand up the state. Things did not go as smoothly as he expected, and one day the farmer gave him a rather severe thrashing, and dis- missed him without paying him his salary. He sought redress, but could get none so that he had to walk to New York City penniless. When he returned home he made a number of attempts to obtain justice for himself, but was told that he could do nothing. He kept on brooding over it for some time, when one day he suddenly became excited and confused. He became boisterous, cursing the farmer, and accompanied his utterances by violently kicking the bedstead and the pillows. He imagined that he was punching the farmer. He was so excited and confused that his wife sent for the police who took him to the psycho- pathic pavilion of Bellevue Hospital.

Here the idea was so painful that the individual was unable to resign himself to it, and in the tremendous effort to retaliate the ego tore itself away from actuality, but as

26 PSYCHOANALYSIS

the painful idea was inseparably connected with reality the ego had to exclude itself wholly from it and resort to hallucinations. Such cases give us an insight into the nature of psychoses. Thanks to the genius of Freud and the Zurich school7 stimulated by Bleuler we no longer fear to face the hitherto considered perplexities of the insane mind. As will be shown later every insane utterance, every morbid perception, has a definite meaning and a definite raison d'Ure when analyzed. Truly there is method in madness.

In tracing the psychic traumas which are supposed to be at the basis of hysterical symptoms or compulsion neuroses, one invariably comes to sexual experiences of childhood. This is so conspicuous that it led Freud to lay great stress on the sexual impulse and to formulate the following sentence: "In a normal vita sexualis no neurosis is possible."8 This, I know, sounds rather strange, but I would like to call attention to the fact that the sexual impulse is one of our strongest impulses. It is the one impulse that must be subjected to the greatest amount of repression and for that reason it has always been the weakest point in our cultural development. It must also be borne in mind that Freud's conception of sex is very broad. It is just as broad as our English word "love" or the Greek word "eros," and does not at all limit itself to gross sexuality. Moreover, it must be remem- bered that sexuality is more complicated than one thinks. Hypocrisy and prudishness have from time immemorial tabooed all things sexual; the word itself carries with it the ideas of lewdness and loathing. As a result of this the ignorance displayed in matters sexual is appalling.

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 27

That accounts for the righteous indignation evinced by so many physicians, especially of the older schools who never had any instruction in sex except in the treatment of venereal diseases. They do not realize that the vast field of psychosexuality which is surely as important as the somatic parts of sex, is absolutely unknown to them. What does the average laymen or physician know about the problems of masturbation, homosexuality and the other perversions? Nothing worth while. He knows just as little about the normal psychosexual development which can easily change into abnormal sex. Whatever is, has a reason and it is the duty of every scientific worker to view the cold facts honestly and fearlessly. Much unhappiness and misery would be eradicated if we would not leave the poor sexually distressed victims to charlatans and quacks who add to their misery and often drive them to suicide. Thus we are led to believe that there is no sexuality be- fore a certain age, the age of puberty, yet when we look back to our own youth we find that long before that age we were subjected to certain feelings which were unmistak- ably of a sexual nature. Freud maintains that sex is born with us, that it manifests itself in infancy, and that its development shows three distinct divisions, an infantile, a latency and an adolescent period. "It seems certain," he says/' "that the newborn child brings with it the germs of sexual feelings which continue to develop for some time and then succumb to a progressive suppression, which is, in turn, broken through by the proper advance of sexual development and which can be checked by individual idiosyncrasies."9 He also tells us that the sexual impulse in man consists of many components and partial impulses,

28 PSYCHOANALYSIS

and that many essential contributions to the sexual excite- ment are furnished by the peripheral excitement of certain parts of the body, such as the genitals, mouth, anus and bladder outlets. All these so-called erogenous zones are active in infancy but only some of them go to make up the sexual life. The first libidinous manifestations are of an autoerotic character, and the sexual manifestations dis- played by the child are the almost universal infantile mas- turbation which serves to prepare the genitals for their future functions; thumbsucking, according to many observers, connects directly or indirectly with autoerotic sexual activities.10 I have studied a number of patients who retained this autoerotic sexual manifestation until late in life and I could definitely ascertain that it was a sexual activity pure and simple. In a number of cases thumbsucking continued until masturbation started and in a few cases both were practised together. I know a young widow of thirty-five years who, in spite of all efforts to break herself of the habit, sucked her thumb until she married at twenty-five years and resumed it with the be- ginning of her widowhood. She told me she had no diffi- culty in stopping it soon after marriage, but that it returned a few weeks after her husband's death. Another apparently normal woman who sucked her thumb until a few months after marriage returned to it eleven years later when her husband became impotent. I have recently seen an old man of 74 years who suffered from senile dementia and was also aphasic. His memory for recent events as well as his impressibility were almost gone but his past reminis- cences which he reproduced in characteristic senile way were erotically tinged. He was very childish in his emo-

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 29

tional output and almost constantly sucked his thumb when left to himself. His children aptly designated this action as a return to his second childhood.

The anus and the bladder outlets are also erogenous zones of infantile life, and neurotics often retain them as such in later life.11 Thus Z., twenty years old, had an uncontrollable desire to withhold his urine. He stated that there was much pleasure in the discomfort and that that was the reason for indulging in it. His mother told me that he wet the bed to the age of fifteen, and that as a child he would remain on the chamber for hours before he could be made to move his bowels.

The autoerotic sexual manifestations gradually disappear in the normal individual, and the growing child must more and more depend on the outside world for his pleasureable outlets. At the age of puberty he consciously demands a love object.

Besides the manifestations evinced through the erogenous zones the child shows those components which are desig- nated as partial impulses. Among these we have the impulse for looking, touching, showing off, and for cruelty which manifest themselves somewhat independently of the erogenous zones and later enter into intimate relationship with the sexual life; but along with the erogenous sexual activity they are noticeable even in the infantile years as separate and independent strivings. In later life the infantile sexual manifestations are repressed and sub- jected to the primacy of the genitals which serve the functions of procreation. Most of the energies emanating from them are then deflected from the sexual and directed to important social aims. This is the so-called process of

30 PSYCHOANALYSIS

sublimation. Thus, sublimation of the homosexual com- ponent gives origin to the psychic process of loathing and morality; the sublimation of the infantile sexual curiosity and exhibitionism gives rise to shame, and the sublimation of the sadistic and masochistic components to pity, disgust, and similar feelings. These reactions formed during the sexual latency period — from the fourth year to the beginning of puberty, eleven — make up the character of the person and later give us a good indication of his early sexual life. I regret that I am unable to discuss here more fully the sexual theories expounded by Freud; those who are interested in the subject should study his interest- ing and profound book, "Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex." I will merely add that after carefully studying sexual development in its relation to normal and neurotic individuals, Freud concluded that the constitu- tional sexual predisposition of the child is "polymorphous- perverse" in our sense, and that from this constitution the so-called normal behavior of the sexual function results through a repression of certain components. The child has no conception of moral or esthetic feelings, and it is only after the primitive impulses are repressed that the normal being evolves. By referring to the infantile char- acter of sexuality one can note the relation between normal sexuality, perversions, and neuroses. Normal sexuality results through the repression of certain partial impulses and components of the infantile predisposition and through a subordination of the rest under the primacy of the genital zones. Thus a normal adult can obtain pleasure through looking and touching but these acts are quite different from similar acts observed in children who have not yet been

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 31

subjected to the force of civilization. The perversions correspond to disturbances of this relationship due to a superior compulsive-like development of some of the partial impulses, as when the normal sexual curiosity develops into the voyeur, while the neuroses can be traced to a marked repression of the libidinous strivings. However, it must be remembered that the symptoms do not by any means result only at the expense of the so-called normal sexual impulse (at least, not exclusively or preponderately), but they represent the converted expression of impulses which might be designated as perverse if they could mani- fest themselves directly in phantasies and acts without deviating from consciousness. The symptoms are, there- fore, partially formed at the cost of abnormal sexuality. "The neurosis is, so to say, the negative of the perversion."12 Thus the constant sufferer from hysterical disturbances of hearing may have repressed a strong sex pleasure ob- tained formerly through his sense of hearing.

Moreover, there is a congenital variation in the sexual constitution of persons, the existence of which can naturally be established only through its later manifestations. It manifests itself in a preponderance of one or another of the manifold sources of the sexual feeling and it must always come to expression in the final result even if it should remain within normal limits. To be sure, certain varia- tions of the original disposition even without further aid must necessarily lead to the formation of an abnormal sexual life. This may be called "degenerative" and considered as an expression of hereditary deterioration. In this connection Freud states that in more than half of the severe cases of hysteria, compulsion neuroses, etc.,

32 PSYCHOANALYSIS

treated by him by psychotherapy he positively succeeded in demonstrating syphilis in their fathers before marriage. The patients showed absolutely no sign of hereditary lues, so that the abnormal sexual constitution was to be considered as the last off-shoot of the luetic heredity. In my own cases I found even less than a third in which syphilis could be demonstrated in parents.

If in the course of development certain strong com- ponents experience a repression the following result takes place: the sexual excitations are produced as usual, but are prevented from attaining their aim by psychic hin- drances and are driven off into many other paths until they express themselves in symptoms. The sexual life of such persons begins like that of perverts. A consider- able part of their childhood is filled up with what one would call later, perverse sexual activity which occasionally extends far beyond the period of maturity, and then for some inner reasons a repressive change results before or after puberty and henceforth there appears a neurosis instead of a perversion. And, confining ourselves for the present to hysteria, it may be said that hysteria is the result of a conflict between the libido and the sexual repression, and that the hysterical symptoms have the value of a com- promise between both psychic streams. We must bear in mind that it is the mental conflict which is the essential causative factor and not the sexual factor as such. The resultant compromise of such conflict generally causes the sexual wishes to be consciously rejected and uncon- sciously accepted. The wish is then repressed, but the sum of excitement finds its way into bodily innervation and forms the hysterical symptom.

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 33

Let me cite an example:

A married woman of forty-nine years who suffered from hysteria for more than twenty-two years showed as one of her symptoms a very painful contracted and paralyzed right arm which had been so for more than three years. The muscles of the arm and shoulder region were completely anesthetic and deep needle pricks were not perceived, but the slightest attempt to straighten out the member was most painful. Indeed the pain was the chief symptom. It would be impossible for me to give here the full analysis of the symptom. I will merely mention some of the psychic constellations.

Due to a number of sexual traumas sustained in childhood all sexual feelings were repressed and, as a result, she was totally frigid when she was married. Indeed, coitus was both painful and disgusting to her. This produced marked marital unhappiness. Her husband failed to understand her condition, and what made matters worse was the fact that he found her masturbating in her sleep. When he first noticed it he was very indignant and tried to call her to account for it, but she continued to sleep; he tried to arouse her, but she did not respond. He thought at first that she was shamming, but finally concluded that "she had a fit" and reported the matter to the family physician. This somnambulistic state during which she masturbated was repeated on an average of five to six times a week. There was complete amnesia for this action. She at first refused to believe it, but she was finally convinced of it by her own sister, who saw her mas- turbate on the occasion of sleeping with her. She then sought the aid of a physician who gave her large doses of bromide and advised her to wear a sock over her hand and firmly tie her arm in complete flexion. While she was being treated for her masturbation it was reported to her that her husband carried on some illicit relations with one of the girls she employed. She absolutely refused to believe this, and no amount of urging on the part of her husband's own relatives could induce her to dismiss this girl. The latter was the daughter of a very poor woman, and it was out of compassion that she took her into her millinery establishment and taught her the profession. This state of affairs continued for months. She was extremely jealous, yet her pride would not allow her to take any action in the matter. It was after a quarrel about some other matters, during which her husband 3

34 PSYCHOANALYSIS

grasped her by the right arm, that it became painful and developed into the condition noted above. As she was the moving spirit in the millinery establishment the business had to be given up, as she was totally incapacitated by her malady.

Here we see the conflict was between the libido and the repression. The repressed sexual feelings made her con- sciously frigid, but unconsciously passionate. When her masturbation was brought to her consciousness she took all the precautions to stop it, but as usual she was unsuccessful. Her husband's faithlessness gave rise to another conflict. Her pride gained the upper hand and she absolutely refused to believe what everyone else saw and what she herself could not fail to see. When her husband grasped her by this arm, which was the cause of so much mental pain — it was the one with which she masturbated — the conversion took place. The symp- tom, as Freud puts it, was the result of a compromise between two opposing affects, one of which strove to bring to a realization a partial impulse or a component of the sexual constitution, while the other strove to sup- press it.13 This symptom, as we see, served a double purpose. It stopped the masturbation and incapacitated her to such an extent that her business had to be given up and the girl who caused her so many pangs had to go. The pain was also the punishment for the underlying sexual desire. She never masturbated with her left hand, nor has she ever been seen masturbating since she was cured by psychoanalysis.

In analyzing neurotic symptoms Freud found that the dream played a great part in the individual's life. This gave origin to the epoch-making book, "The Interpretation

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 35

of Dreams."* The dream is not at all absurd and sense- less, but has a definite meaning when analyzed, and in the experienced hand it is the most valuable instrument for penetrating the mind. In the neurotic patient the subject of his dream often refers to the origin of the neurosis, i.e., to the repressed material, but because of the many- distortions and transformations only few and hidden associations show allusions to the repressed experience. Psychoanalysis explains the different components of the dream and thus reveals the repressed ideas which are at the basis of the neurosis. The dream is divided into manifest and latent thoughts. The former are remembered by the dreamer on awakening, while the latter represent the thoughts of the dream, before they were subjected to the distortion. When the translation is complete we find that the latent thoughts of the dream contain the fulfilment of a repressed wish.14 The same holds true of psychoneurotic symptoms. In the words of Freud, "The hysterical symptom, like all other psychic formations, is the expression of a wish fulfilment."15

In the same way the repression continues to evince itself in normal conscious life; in other words, the wish fulfilment normally manifests itself during the waking state just as it does in the dream and in the neurotic symptoms. This can be seen readily if we analyze the abnormal or the so-called accidental actions of every-day life. In his very interesting and instructive book, " Psycho- pathology of Every Day Life,"16 Freud shows that mere lapses of memory, speech and writing, as well as the com-

♦Translated by A. A. Brill. George Allen, London, and the Mac- millan Co., New York.

36 PSYCHOANALYSIS

mon mistakes, are not at all accidental, but when analyzed have a reason. Thus, the forgetting of a name which we have once known implies that either directly or indirectly there is something painful or disagreeable connected with it. A mistake in talking usually reveals the speaker's real mean- ing. In other words, the repression influences our waking state just as it does the dream and the psychoneurotic symptoms. Just like the latent thought of the dream, the psychoneurotic symptom represents a fulfilled wish, and both the dream and the neurosis seem incomprehensible until explained by psychoanalysis. To illustrate how complex some of these mechanisms are I will cite a brief analysis of an obsession.

One of my patients, a young man twenty-six years old, suffered from a typical compulsion neurosis, the main symptom being an obsessive action which consisted in a rapid upward movement of his arms, as though holding back or pushing up something. This action became very annoying to him and his family. He was often compelled to do it in public, and it interfered with his work as a diamond cutter. Be- fore proceeding with the analysis I will mention something concerning the technique.

On analyzing psychoneurotic symptoms the patient is required to lie on his back on a lounge and the physician sits behind the patient's head at the head of the lounge. The object of this position is to avoid all muscular exertion and distraction, thus allowing a thorough concentration of attention on the patient's own psychic activities. We then ask the patient to tell all he knows of the symptom and we usually find a number of memory gaps. These he is urged to fill in by concentration of attention on the subject and by repeating all thoughts originating in this connection. Before proceeding we must have the pa-

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 37

tient's promise that he will frankly repeat to us all the thoughts occurring to him in the order of their sequence, even thoughts that are unimportant, painful or embarras- sing. This is Freud's method of free association. We are also alive to the fact that the psychoneurotic symptom is often a symbolic expression of the original repressed thoughts and we therefore resort to Freud's method of interpretation, that is, we look for symbolic expression, psychopathological actions and make use of the analysis of dreams. For unless one has mastered the triad of Freud's psychology, "The Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex," "Psycho- pathology of Every Day Life," and "The Interpretation of Dreams," one is unable to use or judge Freud's psycho- analytic method. With this digression we will now return to our patient.

On being questioned concerning his obsessive action it was found that it concealed the obsessive thought " God may get into me." This thought obsessed him for months, and realizing the absurdity of it, he was ashamed to tell it to anybody. This was then followed by the obsessive action described above which was a protective mechanism against the thought and signified "I will pull Him out again." As the word "God" seemed to be the most important word in the obses- sion I asked him to concentrate his mind on this word and tell me all the associations it recalled to him. He gave the following: "God — father — I am always bothered by the foolish thought that God will get into me." He suddenly stopped and on being urged to continue he said that something just occurred to him which had nothing to do with the thought of God and which he would not like to tell unless it was absolutely necessary. On being told to continue he stated that it recalled to him that about six months ago while being at work a fellow workingman asked him to look out of the window where he saw two dogs in the act of copulation and remarked: How would you like to be the top dog? This was very embarrassing to him. He turned his eyes away from the scene, but he could not banish a number of thoughts and fancies which then came to his mind. One thought

38 PSYCHOANALYSIS

was "How would it be to get into the dog?" He soon repressed these thoughts and kept on repeating to himself "I will not get into the dog, the dog may get into me." Now if the word dog is read backward you will find that it spells God and gives the key to the whole obsession.

For years this patient was in the habit of turning words about. He showed me a diary, which was filled with mirror writing which he used because he did not want anyone in the house to know his affairs. We note that he at first consciously changed the idea "to get into the dog" into "the dog may get into me," and as the idea was disagreeable it was repressed and the word "dog" was then unconsciously changed into God. This completed the obsession.*

As will be shown later the same mechanisms are found in dreams, in the neologisms of the insane and in the normal. I am sure that the majority of my readers are aware of the fact that the Sesrun Club is the nurses' club, but perhaps few know that the Yvel Jewelry company is the Levy Jewelry company. The basis of both crypto- grams is a painful idea. Nurses' Club neither looks nor sounds as dignified as Sesrun Club, which may pass as a millionaires' organization, and the Yvel Jewelry company looks better and is perhaps more profitable than would be the Levy Jewelry company.

This is a very simple example of the psychoanalysis of an obsession, perhaps too simple to impress some of you with the gravity of the work, but we cannot change the workings of the mind. Those who analyze psychoneurotic symptoms and the utterances of the insane can always find mechanisms. Do not, however, think that the analyses of this obsession and the afore-described hysterical paralysis were as simple as I presented them. I merely give you the result obtained after weeks and months of painstaking work. It would have been impossible

*For detailed description of compulsion neurosis see Chapter IV.

THE PSYCHONEUROSES 39

to give here the full analysis on any of the cases, as an entire volume would be required for a detailed account of any one. Indeed, psychoanalysis takes time; the treatment of a chronic case usually takes from six months to a few years, but the most refractory chronic cases have been cured by this treatment. Both cases mentioned were cured by psychoanalysis after everything else was tried in vain.

In order to demonstrate the close connection between the so called normal and abnormal activities, I shall next confine myself to the discussion of those faulty actions which although found in normal individuals, nevertheless show the same mechanisms as dreams and symptoms. References

1. Freud: Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psyche-neuroses, p. 2, Trans, by A. A. Brill, Monograph Series Mental and Nervous Dis. Pub. Co., 3d Ed.

2. L. ft, p. 5.

3. Freud: Ueber Psychoanalyse, Deuticke, Wien, 1910.

4. Freud: Selected Papers, p. 87.

5. Freud: L. c, p. 125.

6. L. ft, p. 126.

7. Cf. Chap. VIII.

8. Selected Papers, p. 188.

9. Freud : Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, p. 38. Trans, by A. A. Brill, Monograph Series.

10. Cf. Holt, Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, p. 739, Second Edition.

11. Cf. Chap. XVI.

12. Freud: L. ft, p. 27. See also Chapter VIV.

13. Selected Papers, p. 198.

14. Cf. Chap. III.

15. Freud: L. c, 197.

16. Freud: Psychopathology of Every Day Life. Trans, by A. A. Brill, T. Fisher Unwin, London. The MacMillan Co., N. Y.

CHAPTER II

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE

Freud's Conception of Consciousness, Unconscious and Foreconscious

"Men's little ways are usually more interesting and often more instructive than their grand manners. When they are off guard they frequently show to better advantage than when they are on parade." — Dr. Henry Van Dyke.

In my discussion of the psychoneurotic mechanisms I have attempted to show that they are the result of a conflict between two psychic streams of contrary tendencies, each striving for expression, the ultimate outcome of which is a compromise between them. Each has to make con- cessions, thus meeting the other half way, and the result of this mutual accommodation is then a dream or a psycho- neurotic symptom which represents the fulfilment of a wish. These mechanisms are not conscious, but rather unconscious processes. Unconscious, according to Freud, includes all those psychic manifestations of which the person is unaware. He actually does not discover them, and they can only be brought to the surface by analysis. The unconscious is made up of the repressed material, that is, the sum total of those psychic processes which have been crowded out of consciousness from the very beginning of childhood. Thus, all the primitive impulses that have been curbed and inhibited with the development

of the individual are in a state of repression. They form

40

PSYCHOPATHOLOGT OF EVERT-DAY LIFE 41

points of crystallization for the later repressions which mainly consist of erotic material. The later experiences are naturally not subjected to the same amount of repres- sion as the earlier and more primitive ones, hence some of them may remain in what Freud calls the foreconscious.

As will be shown later the dream is the function of two .separate systems. One subjects the activity of the other to a critique, which results in an exclusion from consciousness. The criticizing system is in closer relation to consciousness than the one criticized. The former, the foreconscious, stands like a screen between the unconscious and conscious- ness. Both are unconscious in the psychological sense, but the unconscious is incapable of consciousness without exter- nal aid, while the foreconscious can reach consciousness after it fulfils certain conditions regarding censorship. It is the latter that directs our waking life and determines our volun- tary conscious actions. Consciousness, as such, plays a very small part, and is conceived by Freud as a sensory organ for the perception of psychic qualities. The repressed material or the unconscious consists of wishes which are always active and strive for expression whenever they have an opportunity to unite with affects from conscious life. They thus determine all our actions, and our character is mainly based on memory traces of those repressed impres- sions that have influenced us most strongly — those of our early youth — which almost never become conscious.

Besides the infantile repressions we also have the later repressions that are made up of painful and intolerable thoughts which are intentionally crowded out of conscious- ness. The individual intentionally strives to forget them and he seemingly succeeds. This is a protective mechanism

42 PSYCHOANALYSIS

for the good of the organism, for what would happen to us if we were always confronted by the numberless painful and disagreeable incidents of life? However, what we imagine to be forgotten remains in the unconscious in a repressed state and forms a complex. The complex remains in an inert state until incited by some association. Thus, an elderly woman experiences a feeling of uneasiness whenever she by chance sees a red-haired person. She is unable to account for it, and of late it has especially annoyed her because one of the members of her club happens to be of the Titian type. Analysis showed that forty-eight years ago she had a very unpleasant experience with a red-haired schoolmate. She was not at all cognizant of this incident each time she felt that "sense of uneasiness" and was wont to attribute it to the popular prejudice. But as she considers herself above such prejudice she could not understand her rude manners toward the woman of the Titian type. It was only after a lengthy analysis, after all the resistances were broken, that the original incident became conscious to her. An- other interesting example reported to me by Dr. Christian Brinton is the following: A scholarly gentleman of eighty seven years showed all his life an extreme aversion to yellow colors. Besides being a litterateur of high standing he was also a recognized connoisseur of art and his blind dislike for yellow in any painting struck his friends as peculiar. One day when this subject came up his son who is learned in psy- choanalysis asked his father for "continuous association" to yellow. It was soon found that when the old man was seven years old he and an older boy discovered in a barn a hen's nest containing old eggs. The older boy threw some of these mal-odorous eggs at him which not only caused

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 43

him considerable disgust but also punishment from his parents because his clothes were besmirched with yellow rotten eggs. This example not only demonstrates the tenacioushess of impressions — it was definitely ascertained that the old gentleman did not recall this episode for over eighty years — but also unconscious resistances.

These resistances are always active and only during sleep do they partially slacken. It is then that the repressed material comes to the surface in the form of dreams, but as the resistances never lose their full power, they distort everything that passes them to such an extent that the dreamer cannot recognize his repressed thoughts or his unattainable wishes. But it is not only in the abnormal states and in the dream that the repression strives to fulfil wishes. We find that the same influences are also evinced in our waking states in psychopathological actions of every-day life.

By psychopathological actions we understand those incorrect psychic activities which the individual daily performs, but of which he is not conscious at the time being. Among these different manifestations may be mentioned lapses of memory, of talking, writing, mistakes, etc.1

Among the lapses of memory we may have the common occurrences of forgetting names, of forgetting words in poetry or foreign words. In all these cases we must first assume that the person in question does not suffer from any nervous or mental affection producing qualitative or quantitative memory disturbances and that the things forgotten have once been well known. Everyone is familiar with the feeling of being unable to recall a name

44 PSYCHOANALYSIS

or a word. We think of a person whose name we knew well, but try as hard as we may the name cannot be recalled. We see the person in our mind's eye. We think of hundreds of incidents and associations connected with him, but despite that his name cannot be recalled. Often other names occur to us which we immediately recognize as false, yet they persist in thrusting themselves into our minds. This may continue for hours or days until the correct name comes unexpectedly or we ask some- one for it. We never think of the cause of our forgetting because it is so self-evident nor do we try to find why we suddenly recalled this long-sought-for name or word.

Freud tells us that the reason for this forgetting is, in many cases, due to its direct or indirect association with something repressed — that is, something disagreeable or painful. This has been fully confirmed by such observ- ers as Bleuler, Jones and others. Personally I can state that in every case amenable to analysis I could corroborate Freud's observation. The following examples will serve as illustrations:

I. FORGETTING OF NAMES

(a) A young newspaper man to whom I explained Freud's ideas concerning the forgetting of names insisted that this could not be true and to prove bis assertion he related the following incident:

"My friend Jack left the city recently and the other day I wrote him a letter. On addressing the envelope I failed to remember his surname. I began with 'Jack* and for the life of me I could not proceed. After at least five minutes thinking I finally recalled that his surname was Murphy. Now as he is my best friend I fail to see the disagreeable or painful connection." I then proceeded to analyze it by the "continuous association" method. I asked him to concen-

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 45

trate his mind on the word Murphy and tell me all the associations it evoked. He produced the following: "Murphy recalls my friend Jack. We went to school together and have been friends since." He then continued to give a number of incidents connected with their school life, all of which were of a rather pleasant nature and added: "You see, I could talk about Jack and myself for hours." Asked whether he knew any other Murphy he was at first pretty sure that he did not, but he soon recalled his friend's brother for whom he entertained great regard. After awhile he recalled another Murphy, Mr. Murphy, of Tammany fame. He dislikes Tammany Hall and its leader "as every good Republican does, but that is no reason for forgetting Jack's name." He then continued to associate freely from one idea to another until he suddenly broke into laughter and then remarked: "It is funny that I did not think of it before. I now remember another Murphy, a newspaper man whom I know very well." Asked to tell something about him he said: "This is the only man I hate" and then delivered a long tirade against this Mr. Murphy.

We can now understand why he could not recall his friend's name. The name Murphy was under repression because it represented a person whom he hated. His own friend's name was also Murphy, but to him it was always Jack. He always called him Jack and in his mind it was Jack and not Murphy. He never corresponded with him before. This was the first time he was obliged to use Jack's surname. He could not recall it (1) because it was directly connected with something unpleasant to him and (2) he could not resign himself to give Jack the name of the man he hated.

The last mechanism is often observed in such slips of the tongue as the following: While conversing Mrs. S., inquiring about a mutual friend, said: "How is Mrs. Brown?" She was immediately corrected by a "You mean Mrs. Blank" to which she replied "Yes, Mrs.

46 PSYCHOANALYSIS

Blank. I made a mistake." There was only one reason, I thought, why she called Mrs. Blank by her maiden name which was Brown and to test my theory I said: "What is wrong with Mr. Blank?" She thoughtlessly answered a0h, I don't like him," and then becoming conscious of what she said she showed her embarrassment by blushing, but she added consciously "I never liked him; I am sorry she married him."

Here the mistake showed her dislike for Mr. Blank. The repression fulfills her wish in not recognizing the marriage by continuing to use the maiden name. It is of quite different significance, however, if the lady herself continues to use her maiden name after marriage. Freud mentions the case of a lady who years before her divorce continued to use her maiden name in signing documents, etc.

(6) While reading one day the text recalled to me a case which I had published years before. I desired to make a marginal note to that effect when I suddenly found that I could not recall the name of my patient. This patient was under my personal care for months and the features of the case were such that I had daily spent hours with him, so that it was the more remarkable that I could not recall the name. As usual I made a great effort to recall it and it was only after some time that I thought of Freud's theories and decided to test them by analyzing this lapse of memory. The case in question had presented so many un- usual and interesting aspects that I was advised to publish it. After a painstaking preparation I was ready to send it to the publisher when I was informed that my senior had decided to read a paper on this very subject before a medical society and that I was to have this paper ready for

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 47

him on a certain date. My feelings on hearing this can readily be imagined. The thought of having labored for days and of some one else getting the credit for it caused me indignation and depression. My colleagues sympathized with me, but all they could do was to make merry over it. This continued until the day before the meeting when I was informed that owing to unforeseen circumstances I was to attend this meeting myself and read the paper. I read this paper as directed, but very few of the members knew the true circumstances of the matter. Most of them thought that I was merely sent to read the paper. The reports of the meeting as given in the different medical journals gave the name of my senior as the reader of the paper. The reader will pardon my indulging in person- alities. It is indispensable in psychoanalysis and here it serves to show the marked displeasure and pain which caused the repression.

When one attempts to follow Freud's method of "free association" he soon finds himself in a maze. The longer he proceeds the more complicated the problem seems to become and to the inexperienced it appears like an endless confusion. Now and then our thoughts, as it were, stop. We call this an "obstruction" or a "blocking" and experience teaches us that this phenomenon generally accom- panies or precedes some important complex. In analyz- ing psychoneurotic symptoms the patients often stop and say "That's all. I cannot think of anything else." After considerable urging they finally, perhaps after blushing, laughing or stammering, do think of something else. Fre- quently the mind makes use of symbolic expressions and ambiguous terms which the physician must always be

48 PSYCHOANALYSIS

alive to. All these are due to the inhibitions of the psychic censor against the painful and disagreeable thoughts.

On beginning to discover by analysis the name of my patient I soon found myself in a very complicated milieu. I distinctly saw his features in my mind. I reviewed all the circumstances connected with the case and noted all my associations. Page after page was filled and time flew faster than it seemed. I suddenly found that I had spent five hours of assiduous application and filled over two dozen pages, but was seemingly as far from getting the name as when I first started. Frequently my thoughts stopped only to start anew. I was most desirous not only of recalling the name, but of testing Freud's theory, as it was my first attempt. It would be useless and impossible to recall the different associations, but the following will suffice to explain the analysis: On seeing the patient in my mind's eye the name Appenzeller presented itself to me. Appenzeller was one of my patients in the psychiatri- cal clinic at Zurich where I was an assistant physician at the time of the analysis. There was no resemblance between the two patients except that my New York patient was a psychic epileptic and Appenzeller suffered from motor epilepsy, yet the latter name persistently emerged from the association mass. The scenes connected with my New York patient as well as numerous other hospital experiences continued to pass in a panoramic review. Some were especially persistent and vivid, recurring with greater frequency than the others. Thus, one scene, an actual occurrence, was especially vivid. It recalled a forest fire near the hospital. I stood watching the fire with my senior, Dr. Z., who played such a great part in the

FSYCH0PATH0L0GY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 49

episode, and Dr. X. joined me. Many rabbits driven out by the fire were shot. While thus standing Dr. Z. turned to a hospital attendant and asked him for his shotgun as a rabbit was seen running from the under- brush. He waited for the animal to come within range and then got ready to fire, remarking: "Let me see whether I can get this rabbit." A crack was heard, but the rabbit scampered away. Dr. X. and I looked at each other smilingly, but quickly changed countenance when Dr. Z. turned to us and said "My finger slipped on account of the rain." This scene persistently recurred from time to time, but I attached no more weight to it than to the hun- dreds of others. Yet whenever my supply of associations seemed to be exhausted and I started over again, the name of Appenzeller and this scene continually reappeared. I finally tired of the whole process and thought of giving it up, but despite my willingness to do so I could not banish the numerous scenes from my mind. While thus con- templating I again saw the rabbit scene and heard Dr. Z. say, "Let me see whether I can get this rabbit," and just then the name of the patient suddenly came to me. It was "Lapin" which is the French for rabbit.

It can readily be seen that had I been keen enough it would have saved me hours of |labor for during the analysis this scene occurred twenty-eight times more than any other. But owing to my inexperience at the time and my intense desire to get the name I overlooked the very thing Freud lays so much stress upon — that is, the symbolic expressions, etc. This whole rabbit scene symbolizes the Lapin episode. Dr. Z. attempted to get the rabbit (Lapin) but missed it. To be sure, it must be

50 PSYCHOANALYSIS

remembered that although I am conversant with French, in my mind Lapin was always translated into rabbit because I think in English. In fact I distinctly recall that I had frequently translated mentally the name Lapin into rabbit. If we now bear in mind the French pronuncia- tion of Lapin we can understand why Appenzeller con- tinued to substitute itself. The first part — Appen — phonetically resembles Lapin — Appen, Lapen. Further- more, both patients suffered from epilepsy. The case clearly shows how a name may be repressed on account of a disagreeable experience.

(c) A colleague who was acquainted with Freud's theories asked me to help him recall the name of one of his patients whom he treated almost daily for three months up to five weeks before he spoke to me. He was thinking of him on his way to see me and was surprised to have forgotten the name. Analysis gave the following associa- tions: "He is a broker who was once well to do. For three months he was under my care. I cured him of a grave illness. He has not paid me for treatment, though he promised long ago to do so. The last time he came to see me he wanted me to sign some papers for him which I refused to do as I did not care to make any false state- ments. Since then I have not heard from him. It now occurs to me that the name ends with 'son/" He then gave a number of names ending with "son" all of which he recognized as incorrect. Again the patient's ingrati- tude. "When I cured him he was grateful. He kept on saying that he would never forget what I had done for him and that as soon as he returned to business he would pay me what he owed me" — sudden blocking — then recalled

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 51

his own ingratitude. He, too, is under obligations to a distant relative whom he dislikes, but to whom he owes much. He received a letter six weeks before, requesting the loan of a sum of money, but after reading it he mislaid it and never thought of it again. His relative's name is Brown — suddenly recalls his former patient's name "Bronson."

Here the forgetfulness was determined not so much by his patient's action as by the disagreeable feeling con- nected with his own affair. He was under obligations to Mr. Brown. He really should have sent him the money requested but "times are bad" and, strange to say, he mislaid the letter and never thought of it. In this connec- tion it may be mentioned that this is the usual mechanism of mislaying. Things which we really value we never mislay.

(d) A man was urged by his wife to attend a social function in which he not only took no interest, but which he was sure would actually bore him. Yielding to his wife's entreaties he began to take his dress suit from the trunk when he suddenly thought of shaving. After accomplishing this he returned to the trunk and found it locked. Despite a long, earnest search, the key could not be found. A locksmith could not be found on Sunday evening so that the couple had to send their regrets. On having the trunk opened the next morning the lost key was found within. The husband had absentmindedly dropped the key into the trunk and sprung the lock. He assured me that this was wholly unintentional and uncon- scious. It must, however, be borne in mind that he did not wish to go. There was a motive, as we .see, in the mislaying. A lover never misplaces a letter from his

52 PSYCHOANALYSIS

sweetheart nor does he ever mislay or forget to mail a letter written to her. We only mislay what we do not want. We are more apt to mislay letters containing bills than checks.

(e) The same mechanism comes into play in the mis- sending of letters. One of my patients was corresponding with a woman to whom he was favorably disposed. One day he received a letter from her which, on opening, he found was meant for another man who was also one of her admirers. In this letter she refused a proposal made by the latter. The mistake served to show my patient that he was not her only admirer and thus stirred him to greater activities. At the same time it showed the other fellow why he was rejected as the letter which he received and which was meant for my patient was a very amorous epistle.

The last two examples may also be classified under erro- neously carried-out intentions, another good example of which is the following:

(/) A young married woman requested me to explain to her why, instead of pushing the button to light her room, she pushed the button for the waiter. The explanation was not difficult. This lady lived in one of the big hotels while she was in New York being treated by me. The afternoon before the episode she with two other ladies went to a fashionable public the Dansant and were very disap- pointed. After paying a high admission fee they found the place almost deserted and no one to dance with. One of her friends remarked: "The waiter is the only interesting person here." She was not more fortunate the following day. The people she met were uninteresting and bored

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 53

her. It was in this state of mind that she returned to the hotel late in the afternoon and made the mistake mentioned. It is significant that although she started out with the in- tention of lighting her room she failed to notice that her room remained dark, and only recalled her intention after she was surprised by a visit from the waiter. Her erro- neously carried-out action had a motive — the "waiter was the only interesting person to whom she could talk."

n. FORGETTING A RESOLUTION IS DUE TO SIMILAR CAUSES

(a) While absorbed in reading S. interrupted himself, opened a box containing numerous books, pamphlets and papers and began to rummage through them. He soon stopped, however, not knowing what he was looking for. He was sure that he wanted something from the box, but he could not recall what it was. He looked over many things, but did not recognize what he wanted. On trying to recall the motive for opening the box he was attracted by the open book which he left on the table and then thought that there must have been something in what he was just reading which caused him to open the box. With this in view he began to re-read the page and plainly recalled its contents as far as he had read, the last sentence being, "We feel more than we know." It was while thinking of this sentence that he stopped and opened the box. On freely associating to this last sen- tence he obtained the following: "We feel more than we can ever know. I feel that I ought to marry, but I do not know whether I really should. I used to feel that my fiancee did not really love me, but, as a matter of fact, I was not sure of it. I worried much over it, but it was

54 PSYCHOANALYSIS

merely a lover's doubt. I am now sure of her love. She wants to marry as soon as I return and wishes to have an elaborate church wedding which I dislike. But perhaps that will not come to pass. Something might happen. I have recently read of the stormy seas. An accident might happen to me while crossing the ocean," (feeling of fear and jealousy) and the thought "after all I may also be a specter bridegroom" suddenly recalled that he had been looking for Washington Irving's "Sketch Book."

This incident occurred while S. was abroad and his fiancee was in the United States. While abroad he was asked to translate for a foreign periodical a short story from English literature and he selected the Specter Bridegroom from Washington Irving's "Sketch Book." The day before the incident recounted above he had received a letter from the editor of the Revue telling him that under separate cover he was sending the proof sheets of the translation for correction. He thought of looking for the "Sketch Book" which he had in the box, but failed to do so just then. It was while unconsciously ruminating over the above cited sentence that the Specter Bridegroom came to his mind and he set out to find it, but as he unconsciously identified himself with Count von Altenberg, the unfortunate hero of Irving's sketch, who was killed while on his way to his bride, the painful thought was quickly repressed, taking with it all the concomitant associations.

(6) A confrere tells me the following experience: He started to make a call on a patient in a certain street, but instead of going there he called upon another patient. The reason for this was very simple. Patient number one

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 55

paid his bill every January, while patient number two paid for each visit. That morning the doctor was in need of money, hence he would have preferred to go to patient number two.

(c) One of my patients, a music teacher, told me a similar experience. On going to see a pupil in New York City he unexpectedly landed in Brooklyn. The music teacher carried on a secret love affair with his pupil's sister and was accustomed to see her every evening after the lesson. He usually gave the lesson in the evening, but this time he was told to come in the morning. He knew well that he would not see her in the morning because she would be at work, but he did not like to refuse lest it might arouse suspicion. On going to give the lesson he simply rode too far, "having been absorbed in his newspaper." As it was too late to return from Brooklyn and give the lesson in the morning he was forced to postpone it till the evening. He assured me that he really intended to go to his pupil's house.

(d) Another patient invited two ladies to spend an evening at the theater. It was decided by the ladies to see the play "Alias Jimmy Valentine." On getting into the cab he unconsciously ordered the driver to take them to another theater and did not notice his mistake until they arrived at the wrong theater. Then it was too late to rectify it. Here it was the case of a homosexual person who was in constant fear of the law and who disliked to see a play dealing with convicts and prisons. The theater to which he ordered the driver to take him presented the play "The Three Daughters of Mons. Dupont," which deals with a selfish father who was finally brought to

56 PSYCHOANALYSIS

reason by his own children. He disliked his own father and was constantly trying to show him how to live prop- erly. His mistakes served to exchange a disagreeable for an enjoyable evening.

These examples show that forgetting a resolution is exactly the same as forgetting to recall a name or word — that is, it is always determined by a painful motive.

IH. MISTAKES IN SPEAKING, READING AND WRITING

Mistakes in speaking show a similar mechanism. The disturbing influence is either a single unconsciously re- maining thought which manifests itself through the mis- take and can often be discovered only after detailed analy- sis, or it is a general psychic motive directed against the whole thing spoken.

(a) At a private theatrical rehearsal the hero, instead of saying "I love you, Emma," said "I love you, Helen." The latter was the name of the girl with whom he was really in love.

(b) Recently an acquaintance asked me to introduce him to one of my friends who was about to leave for Europe. I did not like to do it, but I could not possibly refuse. After hesitating for awhile I said "Come around next Sunday and I'll take you to his office." My wife, who was near, interposed with "Why, he sails Saturday." I immediately corrected myself, saying "I meant Friday." Here the mistake was the answer to the thought, " I wonder how I can avoid this." Fortunately my acquaintance knew nothing of Freud's mechanisms.

(c) A lady, talking about her husband with whom she lived a very unhappy life because he was addicted to

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 57

drink, said among other things, "I can never discuss with him any intelligent topic because he is so full," meaning "dull."

(d) A friend described to me a nervous patient and wished me to know whether I could benefit him. I re- marked "I believe that in time I could remove all his symptoms by psychoanalysis because it is a durable case," wishing to say "curable." It was not merely the sound association between the two words which caused the mistake. From the description I diagnosed the case as chronic hysteria and experience teaches that such cases generally require a very protracted treatment, hence durable.

(e) A young man, talking about an old woman who was foolishly in love with him, said "lam thinking seriously of burying her" instead of marrying. Here the lapsus linguae betrays his inner feelings in the matter. He would marry this old and wealthy woman if he should know that she would soon die and leave him her money.

(/") A woman wishing to say that her brother had recently lost in weight and that he weighed only 175 pounds, said: "And now he weighs only $1.75." The slip becomes clear when we know that her brother was at the time being tried for bankruptcy.

(g) While walking one night with a friend we acci- dentally met a colleague, Dr. P. whom I had not seen for years and of whose private life I knew nothing. We were naturally very pleased to meet again and on my invitation he accompanied us to a cafe where we spent about two hours in pleasant conversation. To my question as to whether he was married he gave a negative answer and added, "Why should a man like me marry?"

58 PSYCHOANALYSIS

On leaving the cafe* he suddenly turned to me and said: "I should like to know what you would do in a case like this. I know a nurse who was named as co-respondent in a divorce case. The wife sued the husband for divorce and named her as co-respondent and he got the divorce." I interrupted him saying "You mean she got the divorce." He immediately corrected himself, saying, "Yes, she got the divorce" and continued to tell how the excitement of the trial had affected this nurse to such an extent that she became nervous and took to drink. He wanted me to advise him how to treat her, etc.

As soon as I corrected his mistake I asked him to explain it, but, as is usually the case, he was surprised at my ques- tion. He wanted to know whether a person had no right to make mistakes in talking. I explained to him that there is a reason for every mistake and that if he had not told me that he was unmarried I would say that he was the hero of the divorce case in question and that the mistake showed that he wished he had obtained the divorce instead of his wife; so as not to be obliged to pay the alimony and to be permitted to marry again in New York City. He stoutly denied my interpretation, but his emotional agitation, followed by loud laughter, only strengthened my suspicions. To my appeal that he should tell the truth for science sake, he said " Unless you wish me to lie you must believe that I was never married and hence your psychoanalytic interpretation is all wrong." He, however, added that it was dangerous to be with a person who paid attention to such little things. Then he suddenly remembered that he had another appointment and left us.

Both my friend Dr. Frink and I were convinced that my

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OP EVERY-DAY LIFE 59

interpretation of his lapsus linguae was correct and I decided to corroborate or disprove it by further investigation. The next day I found a neighbor, an old friend of Dr. P., who confirmed my interpretation in every particular. The divorce was granted to Dr. P.'s wife a few weeks before and a nurse was named as co-respondent. A few weeks later I met Dr. P. and he told me that he was thoroughly convinced of the Freudian mechanisms.

(h) A homosexual whom I treated for some time and who considered himself cured made this mistake on leaving my office: instead of saying "I shall now go to the Hotel Robespierre" he said, "I shall now go to the Hotel St. Pierre." I noticed his mistake and asked him whether he knew of a hotel in New York City by the name of St. Pierre. He stated that he had never heard of a hotel named the St. Pierre and that he meant to say the Hotel Robespierre.

The analysis furnished the following associations: "St. Pierre — St. Peter — Rome — adoration," — he recalled having seen the devout kiss the toe of St. Peter while he was in the Cathedral at Rome — from Rome he went to Pompei where he saw some remnants of the old phallic worship — the big toe recalled one of his phallic symbols (as a child he was a toe sucker) — he then thought of fellatio which, he said, no longer had any attraction for him as he was now heterosexual and very pleased over it — he then stopped and again thought of St. Peter and Rome and said: "They stand for the old order of things, strict adherence to the old orthodox religion — they are against all reforms — Robes- pierre reminds me of revolution, complete change of the order of things, including religion— they stopped worship-

60 PSYCHOANALYSIS

ping Christ and worshipped instead the Goddess of Reason, a woman of questionable reputation.' '

His stock of associations was exhausted and I did not urge him to continue as I could now interpret his mistake in speaking. When he was about to leave my office he intended to visit his mistress who lived in the Hotel Robes- pierre. His mistake showed his unconscious resistance to heterosexuality. He would still prefer to cling to the "older order of things," of worshipping the man rather than the woman.

(i) My traveling companion, who for some reason, took particular pleasure in railing at the medical profession, remarked once, "The most appropriate name for a doctor I ever heard of I read in this morning's Sun. It was Dr. Slayers, etc." I became interested and asked him to show me the article and to his surprise the name was not Slayers, but Salyers. Here his unconscious thought "Doctors are butchers" took advantage of the close simi- larity of the words and caused this metathesis.

(j) A young bride who was obliged to remain at home on Sunday morning and transcribe her husband's manu- script instead of attending church, as was her custom, wrote Bridle March instead of Bridal March and parson instead of person.

(k) On re-reading an abstract which I made from a foreign journal I was surprised to find that instead of writing "Markuse even went so far as to recommend sexual intercourse as a therapeutic agent for unmarried women" I wrote "the great Markuse, etc." I then re- called that while reading about Markuse's very bold recommendation I was most surprised and said to myself

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 61

"Such courage could only be evinced by either a very great or an eccentric man" and knowing the scientific attainments of Markuse I readily eliminated the second part of the postulate. Having decided that he was a great man my unconscious thought found it easy to pro- duce by metathesis from Markuse the Greek word Makros (long, big, great).

(I) A gentleman of leisure who up to the age of forty did nothing constructive decided to change his ways after he was analyzed. About six months after I discharged him as cured he wrote me a letter in which he said: "I am really making a strong effort to find some suitable vocation,' ' he betrayed his resistances to work by writing "vacation" instead of "vocation."

Mistakes in printing are of a similar nature. As a classical example of this type may be cited the "Wicked Bible" so-called from the fact that the negative was left out of the Seventh Commandment. This authorized edition of the Bible was published in London in 1631 and it is said that the printer had to pay a fine of two thousand pounds for the omission.

IV. SYMBOLIC ACTIONS

Symbolic actions, according to Freud, are those per- formances which a person does unconsciously and auto- matically and which he considers as meaningless, indifferent and accidental when his attention is called to them. Such actions, depending on their determinations, are either simple or complicated and manifest themselves in either such insignificant acts as scribbling aimlessly with one's lead pencil, jingling the coins in one's pocket, kneading of soft substances, etc., or in more complicated acts. All

62 PSYCHOANALYSIS

such performances generally conceal sense and meaning for which any other outlet is closed.

Symbolic or accidental actions can be observed both among normal and abnormal persons. They are of special interest to the doctor who finds many valuable hints for the interpretation of symptoms and to the student of human nature to whom they tell volumes. The popular saying "actions speak louder than words" is especially true of the manifestly insignificant and accidental ones. Such actions often refer to a person's complexes, which show a tendency to become split off from consciousness and repressed into the unconscious. We are wont to look at everything under the guise of a particular complex. Thus the misreading of Slayer for Salyer is an example of complex constellation. This gentleman had some unpleasant experiences with a doctor, hence the misreading is merely a symbolic expres- sion of his repressed complex. Such complex symbols are expressed in peculiar complicated acts. Jung cites the case of a young lady who "when promenading wished to take along a baby carriage. The reason for this, as she blushingly admitted, was because she desired to be looked upon as married. I know an old maid who wears a wedding ring, especially when traveling. Her reason for wearing it is "because it was my grandmother's. Other examples of symbolic actions are the following:

(a) A woman song writer and poet who led a very un- happy life continued to write on the happiness of matri- mony and just before she obtained a divorce she gave out a song entitled "How to Keep a Husband." Another writer on "The Home Beautiful" recently asked the court to divorce her from her husband.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OP EVERY-DAY LIFE 63

(6) A noted artist and writer of sonnets on the happiness of perfect marriage forsook his first wife for an affinity, maltreated his second wife, for which he was arrested and punished, and now that he is finally divorced, he is going through similar experiences with a third wife.

(c) The patient to be mentioned below, while despairing of his life because he imagined himself afflicted with an incurable disease, continued to occupy himself with Ibsen's " When We Dead Awaken."

(d) A New York embezzler who was discovered by detectives in a Philadelphia public library was found reading a book entitled "Will I Ever Go Back?"

(e) The selection of Washington Irving's Spectre Bride- groom for translation in the aforementioned example is another symbolic action of this kind. Names of com- mercial houses and institutions often betray similar mechan- isms. Thus, Sesrun and Yvel mentioned above belong to this type. Similar examples are the following: A hotel for colored people at a neighboring summer resort bears the significant name of "The White Isle." The home for the blind is named "The Light House," and our street-cleaners are called "White Wings." Selections of certain profes- sions are usually symbolic actions. Thus, I know an actress and a lawyer who are very bad stutterers: here the pro- fessions serve to conceal the real defect, for no one would ever think that an actress or a lawyer could lack the most essential requirement of their callings. It is said that our blind senator greets people with the stereotyped expression, " Glad to see you," and always holds some note-paper in his hands while addressing an audience.

64 PSYCHOANALYSIS

When I became interested in this question I asked some of my confreres how they came to study medicine and I received very interesting answers of which I will mention two. Dr. W. stated that since his early youth he thought of studying medicine. As an infant, he became afflicted with infantile paralysis, the effects of which he still shows, and as [the doctors could not help him he thought of finding a cure himself. Dr. B. could give no definite reason, but finally recalled that when he was very young he overheard a conversation between his mother and another woman. The latter asked his mother in what month he was born and on being told that it was October she dryly remarked "He will be either a doctor, a butcher or a murderer. He will have to shed blood. " As he did not care to adopt the last two professions he became a doctor. Some may thing that the compromise includes them all. I can definitely assert that in this case it was an unconscious process.*

It is interesting to see what part such symbolic actions play in every-day life.

(a) A young married woman asked her husband for money to make some purchases on their way home. While talking she suddenly threw away the ten dollar bill as though it were a valueless piece of paper. Her husband noticed it and picked it up without her perceiving it. Not until she reached the store did she notice that she had lost the bill. This woman was wont to con- tribute ten dollars monthly to a charitable society before

*For other unconscious motives underlying the selection of certain vocations, see my book Fundamental Conceptions of Psychoanalysis, p. 315. Harcourt Brace and Co., New York, 1921.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 65

her marriage. While promenading she spoke to her husband about it and he said that it would be best to stop it for the time being, to which she had to acquiesce. It was after this conversation that she threw away the bill. This action was the equivalent of the thought "You do not allow me to give it to charity so I throw it away so that some poor person may find it." That is, it was meant as a sacrifice.

(b) A woman continued to oversalt everything she cooked for her husband. At the same time she persis- tently forgot to place salt on the table. By this she meant to express "I am in love, but you are not." For it is said that when a woman is in love she oversalts the food. In fact she always talked of her husband's indiffer- ences and her ardent love.

Some symbolic actions continue to manifest themselves for long periods, sometimes for life, and are considered personal characteristics of the individual evincing them. Such activities are very often only reactions of some re- pressed impulses and are either the symbolic expressions of the repressed wishes or represent contrasts of the same. A good example of the last type is the woman to be men- tioned later who insisted upon paying cash for everything. Another example of this kind was a young man of twenty- eight years who was very religious and over-scrupulous in everything. In fact his relatives and intimate friends con- sidered him "a bit too religious and over-conscientious." Examination showed that his outward expression of piety and conscientiousness was a contrast manifestation of his unconscious. For years he had been struggling with sexual temptations. He saw sex where no, one else

66 PSYCHOANALYSIS

did. He went through the usual conflicts of the mastur- bator, the struggles against illicit sex and finally thought he was victorious. For two years before he came to me, he led what he called "a pure life.'' He shunned the society of women and his moral sensitiveness verged on eccentricity. A few examples obtained from himself will show his personality. When a woman addressed him and asked to be directed to a certain street he turned his head away from her fearing that she might arouse sex fancies. He was once present at a social gathering at which a dispute arose between a young man and a young woman as to who was the taller of the two. To settle this they stood back to back and asked the others to express judgment. He became excited over this and left the room. He thought that their action was immoral. Yet while he was an ardent member of the church and was held up as a model young man he spent hours in disreputable neighborhoods. In fact his time was divided between the church and the slums. To be sure his object in frequenting these places was "to do good." He wished "to eradicate the canker that eats its way into innocent minds." To effect this he would allow himself to be accosted by prostitutes and then have them arrested. On a few occasions he really yielded to temptation which naturally increased his zeal for "eradicating the canker." In reality, however, he did all these things because he unconsciously desired them and his every-day piety was a symbolic contrast expression.

Some apparent accidents which may result in injury or may even end fatally may be included under symbolic actions. Prof. Freud and others have reported such cases

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 67

and of the many actions of this type studied by me I shall report the following:

A young woman of twenty-seven was actively courted by two men. A. was jovial, very attractive, but unsteady. He was willing and at times even anxious to love much but laughed at the idea of marrying her. She was "madly in love " with him. B. was an old friend, tried and found true, very patient. He bored her. After a few years of conflict, during which she did not know what to do — she could neither reject one nor the other — she heard rumors that A. was very interested in another woman. Indeed, she became convinced that A. was never serious with her and that she may as well resign herself to it; but all her friends knew how much she loved him, and that she has repeatedly threatened to kill herself in the event of his finding another girl. After brooding over the situation for a few weeks she met with a serious accident in which she was severely burned. She was dressed in neglige", and while carrying a sterno lamp she somehow set fire to her gown. But it so happened that she had filled the bath tub a few minutes before, so she jumped into it screaming, attracting the attention of her old friend, B., who was waiting to visit her. He and others came to her assistance, extinguished the fire, leaving her with pretty severe burns. As soon as I heard of it I suspected that it was a symbolic action, and on investigation I found that that morning she received a letter from A., but as she promised me not to communicate with him or receive any communications from him, she was about to send it back to him. It was a great struggle; she was very anxious to know what he wrote, but she sol- emnly promised me and her friends to cut all communica-

68 PSYCHOANALYSIS

tions between her and him. It was while holding this letter that the accident happened, which incidentally burned the letter. The accident solved her conflict; she did not send the letter back to him, nor did she read it herself. In this way she had not altogether severed her relationship with him. On the other hand, she redeemed herself with her friends by actually sustaining some physical injury, which might have resulted fatally. Her injuries were symbolic of the suicide with which she threatened her friends. As a matter of fact, she was invalided for about two months, during which time she lost all affection for A.

Symbolic actions of long duration which are the direct results of repressed wishes furnish a wide field for collect- ing-manias or peculiar hobbies. I do not refer to those who confine their activities to the collection of valuable or scientific objects such as books, paintings, etc., but I mean those persons who collect things without any definite aim, who can give no reason for their activity and whose collections as such are of no scientific value. I can best explain what I mean by giving the following examples :

(a) An unmarried woman of thirty-six years took a great interest in mushrooms. She not only took her vacation during the mushroom season so as to be able to study and gather them, but she also collected many works on the subject, especially those containing colored charts. She had no scientific interest in the subject and could give no reason for her action. She only knew that mushrooms fascinated her. Analysis showed that she began to take an interest in mushrooms a few years

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 69

before while she was on her vacation. She passed a restless night, having been troubled by many nightmares. While taking a walk early in the morning she found some mushrooms. This was the beginning of her interest in mushrooms. Further investigation showed that at the time she resisted many sexual temptations which would also account for her insomnia and nightmares.2 The interest for mushrooms was aroused by their resemblance to the penis. Phallus is the scientific name for some species of mushrooms.

(6) Some years ago while traveling in Europe I hap- pened to be in the same railroad compartment with a western gentleman. He was a hail-fellow-well-met so we soon became acquainted. He was a man of means who was traveling for his health and discovering that I was a physician he soon became confidential. He told me that he was suffering from a nervous disease and asked me to recommend him some professor in Paris. We were together for about twelve hours and as we had to pass two boundary lines I noticed that he carried with him a small suit case which he guarded very carefully. It was filled with stick-pins of all descriptions which he bought as souvenirs in every European city of importance. To my remark that he must have a great many very good friends to buy for them so many stickpins he replied that they were not meant to be given away. He stated that he would not be foolish enough to give away so many valuable presents, but that he collected them for his pleasure. "Some people," he said, "when they travel collect pictures. I made up my mind to collect stickpins." He did not know just why he collected them.

70 PSYCHOANALYSIS

"I bought a few for myself, " he said, "and then I just kept it up."

As I said before the man came to Europe to seek relief from a nervous trouble. When he asked me to recom- mend him some professor I was compelled to ask him to explain his ailment as I could not see anything organic- ally wrong with him. He then told me that he has been suffering for years from psychic impotence and that he had consulted many specialists in the United States without obtaining any relief and that he met with no better success in Europe. He described his malady in the following words: "I have the desire, and I have erec- tions when I am alone, and sometimes I can even have an erection when I am with a woman, but I can't stick it in. When I try this the erection fades." May we not assume that his collection of stick-pins was an unconscious activity to get that which he most desired in reality?

In this connection the following letter will be of interest; it was sent to me by a gentleman with permission for publica- tion after he read the first edition of this book:

"Dear Doctor Brill:

"The fascinating habit of making odd collections becomes signifi- cant to one's mind after reading in your book about the man who col- lected stick-pins. While you are making a collection of collections you may care to have an odd one — a true tale from pioneer days of Indiana.

"My grandfather (1813-1896) was born and reared a strict Scotch Presbyterian and played the part all his life. According to his own word — whispered to a few in the old days — he was quite a boy among the girls and sewed some wild oats. He reared a family of nine, was a strict disciplinarian, a regular churchman, thrifty, active, a good farmer and horse-trader, and lived well. He was also known as a man of pronounced amorous tendencies. Even after he was seventy years old he worried his old rheumatic wife with his youthful actions until

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 71

she fairly cried out. After her death he began to visit some " white- trash" family where there was a girl who received men for compen- sation. He intended to move this family on his farm, when his son H. got "wind" of it and set fire to the log cabin. He married a second time a few years before his death a well-preserved woman of nearly seventy years. This did not prevent him from fondling the breasts of the hired girls whenever he was able to do so.

"When the old home was broken up and grandfather left the old place to his sons, they found tons of horseshoes about the old shop. As a child I looked upon that old shop and the collection of horseshoes with wonder. Grandfather would pick up horseshoes everywhere in the* public road, and even when found on strange farms. He was never known to sell them, and had thousands safely stored in the garret.

"Did every horseshoe represent one or more thoughts of a lady's 'seat of love* to this dear old Scotch churchman?"

Whether our correspondent's question can be answered negatively or affirmatively must remain open, but there are many points in the case favoring the assumption that this collecting mania was a symbolic action on the part of the old gentleman. He unconsciously collected what he desired so much in reality.

Those who object to this analysis as being far-fetched, arguing that the horseshoe is a well-known popular talisman for good luck, may be reminded of the origin of this popular belief. Inman3 states: "It was the universal practice among the Arabs of northern Africa to stick up over the door of their houses or tents the genital parts of a cow, mare or female camel, as a talisman to avert the influence of the evil eye. The figure of this organ being less definite than that of the male, it has assumed in symbolism very various forms. The commonest substitution for the part itself has been a horseshoe, which is to this day fastened over many of the doors of stables and shippons in the

72 PSYCHOANALYSIS

country, and was formerly supposed to protect the cattle from witchcraft."

Other collecting manias that came to my notice were those of three men who collected very old furniture. As far as I could discover there was no special object in these collec- tions; the old furniture was bought and stored away. These three collectors were old bachelors who were strongly attached to their mother ideals; they all lived in the past and never expected to marry.

Some of the collections reported to me were extremely bizarre. Thus, I heard of a very intelligent man who col- lected the cheap collar buttons one finds in laundered shirts. He asked his friends to save those buttons for him, and I was told that he is the happy possessor of many boxes filled with such collar buttons. Another man is collecting corks. He is supposed to possess many thousands, which he guards very jealously. A young girl of seventeen years is an ardent collector of candlesticks. An elderly woman sud- denly decided a few years ago to collect pocketbooks; she possesses hundreds of pocketbooks from which she would not part. My informer tells me that this woman could offer no explanation for her strange collecting activity. A similar case of a woman who collects pitchers was recently reported in the New York Times, under the title of " In the House of the Thousand Pitchers."

Collectors of the type here described are not indigenous to our own age; it seems that they have always existed. Pelman,4 who devotes some space to the subject, reports many odd cases of which I shall mention the following:

A naval officer collected uniform buttons; a man collected corkscrews for thirty years; the obstetrician Braun collected

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 73

pubic hair, which he skilfully acquired while examining his patients. The most curious collection was left by Countess Chavan Narischkin. It consisted of a great many bed-pans belonging to historical characters, for which she paid fabu- lous sums. Among the bed-pans of her collection were those of Ann of Austria, Diana of Poitiers, Mary Stuart, Marie Antionette, Pompadour, Du Barry, Catherine II of Russia and many others.

The meaning of such collecting manias is often apparent; there is no doubt that they are all symbolic actions. The collecting mania is an activity motivated by the uncon- scious. It is a reaction to an inner feeling of voidness con- cerning some particular craving. This is best seen among the insane, who often show the collecting mania in a very pronounced form. Those who are actively engaged in the practice of psychiatry know how troublesome such patients are. They constantly fill their pockets, the lining of their clothes with rubbish of all descriptions. They have to be searched from day to day, otherwise they accumulate heaps of rubbish, and they act like children whose toys are taken away when they are deprived of these senseless collections. When they are at home they often fill whole rooms with pieces of paper, glass, stones, rags and similar useless objects. The last few cases observed by me showing such a collecting mania were all controlled by delusions of poverty. One of these patients, a woman of means, collected such rubbish and locked it up in her safe. When I asked her why she collected all these things, she said: "Every little thing counts." The mental deterioration in such patients blurs their sense of value, and they thus blindly follow the im- pulse. This impulse may be a reaction to delusions of pov-

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erty, or an expression of insatiableness found in children which one often finds in mentally deteriorated patients.

Music, too, is used to give expression to one's complexes. While doing some experimental work in the same laboratory with Dr. L. he continued to whistle for hours an old melody. It was the refrain from the old song "Don't Be Angry, that cannot be." Having been acquainted with the con- tents of this song I wondered whether his mechanical whistling expressed the feeling of a rejected love. On asking him why he whistled so much he characteristically replied "I don't know myself." I then asked him whether he knew what he was whistling, but he assured me that he did not. "It is some street song," he said. "I have a habit of whistling while I work." I then told him the words and jokingly asked him whether he had been rejected by the girl he loved. He emphatically denied it, but his emotional reactions only strengthened my suspicion so that I continued my investigations. That evening we met at a cafe* and after I had gained his confidence, he disburdened his heart. Only the evening before he had proposed and had been rejected.

These examples show that there is nothing arbitrary or fortuitous in our actions. No matter how trivial or Voluntary, analysis always shows that this action is fully determined by unconscious motives. Those who believe in a free will naturally dispute this theory, but it is always possible to demonstrate to their own satisfaction that whatever they consider a voluntary act done with a free will is nevertheless unconsciously determined by definite motives. One of my unbelieving patients forgot his umbrella in my office and then asked me to explain this

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 75

forgetting. " Surely," he said, " I did not wish to lose a new umbrella." I fully agreed with him for if he wanted to lose it he would have left it elsewhere. He came to see me daily and as the rain ceased during his visit he could leave it until his next visit. Moreover, every psychoanalyst knows that patients who are pleased with the treatment often forget things at the doctor's office. This simply means that they expect and wish to return. We never forget anything valuable where we do not wish to return. The same holds true for losing things. We never lose what we value highly and, other things being equal, whatever we lose we usually don't want. A distant relative of Prof. Freud, who on account of f amity jealousy, disputed his theories, spoke one day very disparagingly about his theory of wit. I observed that he had no conception of the subject in question and did not hesitate to tell him this. His excuse was that he could not read the whole book because he lost it. Here, of course, the losing was inten- tional. An excellent example of definite determinism is related by Dr. Ernest Jones. One of his unbelieving acquaintances produced the number 986 and defied him to connect it with anything of special interest in the mind. Jones made use of the free-association method and the acquaintance recalled the following associations: Six years before on a very hot day he had seen a joke in an evening newspaper which stated that the thermometer had stood 986° Fahrenheit, evidently an exaggeration of 98.6° Fahren- heit. Jones was curious to know why this memory had per- sisted with such vividness as to be so readily brought out, for with most persons it surely would have been forgotten beyond recall unless it became associated with

76 PSYCHOANALYSIS

some other mental experience of more significance. The next thought was the general reflection that the conception of heat had always greatly impressed him, that heat was the most important thing in the universe, the source of life and so on. Jones thought that the young man's prosaic attitude needed some explanation and he therefore pressed him for more associations. The next thought was of a factory stack which he could see from his bedroom window. He often stood watching the flame and smoke issuing out of it in the evening and reflecting on the deplorable waste of energy. "Heat, flame, the source of life, the waste of vital energy issuing from an upright hollow tube — it was not hard to divine from such associations that the ideas of heat and fire were unconsciously linked in his mind with the idea of love, as is so frequent in symbolic thinking, and that there was a strong masturbation complex present, a con- clusion that he presently confirmed. His choice of a number was therefore far from being a free one, being in fact related to a very significant personal constellation."

As an example of how one takes up innocent associations for the purpose of giving vent to one's complexes I will relate the following episode:

A husband read a joke in some periodical which struck him as being particularly funny so that he laughed heartily at it and then repeated it to his wife. The joke was something like this: Teacher (to class of boys): "Having more than one wife is polygamy. Now, Johnny, if a man has only one wife what would you call thatV Johnny: "Monotony,''9 To the surprise of the husband his wife was not at all affected by the joke. Indeed she couldn't see why he laughed so much over it. A few days later

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERY-DAY LIFE 77

while visiting a friend the conversation turned to the general topic of man's fickleness and so on. The wife wistfully remarked: "I know exactly in what channels Frank's (husband) mind runs" and to explain herself she repeated the aforementioned joke, but when she came to Johnny's answer she said "Monopoly" instead of "monotony."

The mistake here corrects the tendency of the joke. She disliked to hear her husband laugh over a joke the underlying thought of which was to the effect that one wife means monotony. She realized that his hearty laughter signified his agreement with the thought under- lying the joke. It pained her to think that her husband should find her monotonous and laugh at a joke that suggested polygamy. Her mistake cleverly expressed her disapproval of the idea implied by the joke and at the same time shows in what she believed. She wanted a monopoly on her husband.

Such complex indicators expressed in every-day con- versations and actions are not rare. The careful observer finds them everywhere. For nothing can be concealed. Repressed thoughts forever strive to come to the surface and just as the insane realize their ideals in their insanities, we realize their wishes through our dreams and in the "little ways" of every-day life.

References

1. Freud: Psychopathology of Every-day Life, trans, by A. A. Brill. T. Fisher Unwin, London.

2. Jones: On the Nightmare, Am. Jour, of Insanity, Jan., 1910.

3. Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, p. 114.

4. Psychische Grenzzustande. Cohen, Bonn, 1910.

5. Jones: Papers on Psycho-analysis, p. 41. Balliere Tindal & Cox, London 1918.

CHAPTER III

DREAMS

Their Structure and Mechanism, Technique of Interpreta- tion, Symbolism and their Relation to the Neuroses and Psychoses

"Der made Gebundene der in Fesseln liegt kann nicht erwachen, der mude Gebundene trdumt von Freiheit" — Hauptmann.

From time immemorial dreams have been the subject of much interest and speculation. Since the early Greek period numerous theories about dreams have been pro- pounded and entertained in the realms of religion and of science, but not until within recent years has investigation of dreams proceeded on a true psychological basis. It would be superfluous and quite impossible to review here the many curious theories held at different epochs in the world's history concerning dreams; suffice it to say that ancients and moderns differ very little in their views. The ancient Greeks believed that the dream was an inspira- tion of the gods, that it was simply a warning or prophecy of things to come and hence always gave credence to it. Kindred thoughts are expressed in the Bible. Joseph interpreted all dreams as a foreboding of the future, "what God is about to do he showeth unto Pharoah;" and as the Scriptures inform us steps were immediately taken to prepare for the approaching famine. These views

have come down to us traditionally and disregarding

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here the numerous scientific and pseudo-scientific theories, we may say that the present popular belief in dreams differs in no wise from that of the classical Greeks and the ancient Egyptians. Every race and religion still looks upon dreams as something supernatural and objective, as an inspiration coming from above; and the laity still continues to believe in their importance. The gambler dreams his horses or lottery numbers, the Indian medicine man his remedies, and not seldom we hear even of "dreams coming true."

Modern psychology has continued the work of ancient writers and as a result we have numerous valuable con- tributions to the problem of dreams; numerous attempts have been made to show the relation of dreams to normal and abnormal life,1 but so far as I know no author has solved the problem so ingeniously and successfully as Professor Freud.2 As mentioned previously, in developing his psychology of the psychoneuroses, Freud found that dreams played a very important part in the psyche of the individual. The dream is not a senseless jumble, but a perfect mechanism and when analyzed it is found to contain the hidden fulfilment of a repressed wish; it always treats of the inmost thoughts of personality and for that reason gives us the best access to the unconscious. No psychoanalysis is complete, nay possible, without the analysis of dreams. The dream not only helps us to interpret symptoms, but is often an invaluable instrument in diagnosis and treat- ment. The causative factors of the neuroses and the psychoses are extremely vague and mostly unconscious to the patient, and it is by means of dreams that the underlying etiological factors are often disclosed.

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In order to understand the mechanism of dreams it will be necessary to bear in mind Freud's conception of repression.3 To forget is a part of human nature; this is so obvious that we never even stop to think about it. Yet when we examine the things forgotten we soon find that there is a method in forgetting; our forgetting seems to follow a kind of selection. It was Freud who first called attention to the motives of forgetting. If we exclude organic brain disturbances, we find that we are most apt to forget painful or disagreeable impressions. This forgetting, as everyone knows, is purposeful and desired. The individual strives at all times to rid him- self of the unbearable either by settling the situation in question when possible or by directly crowding it out of his mind. When we meet with mishaps or failures to which we cannot adequately react, we grieve over them for a time and then make desperate efforts to forget them — that is, we repress them. Moreover, phantasies which as will be shown later, are wishes consciously entertained, and common to both normal and abnormal persons, may be of a disagreeable nature, or present something ud attain- able and must therefore be repressed. It often happens that such phantasies are repressed before they are really grasped by full consciousness. Habitual day dreamers often state that they are only vaguely conscious of what they are dreaming. The repressed material, or, the complexes are pushed into the unconscious and there they remain in a dormant state.4 Now and then they are recalled by some association, but like disturbed ghosts they soon return to their resting place. The experimental work of the Zurich school has likewise shown that they

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can be artificially evoked. In this country this has also been corroborated by many observers. Continuous repres- sion is not, however, always possible, and as I shall show later whenever there is a failure in repression a splitting of consciousness may result. The repressed complexes or past emotional experiences then strive for expression and the resultant psychic conflict may produce a psychosis or- neurosis. In brief both normal and neurotic individuals resort to a certain amount of repression. In the former this usually remains inert, manifesting itself only now and then in psychopathological actions or dreams, while in the latter it may form in addition symptoms of neuroses or psychoses.6 But no matter in what form the repression comes to the surface — whether in the form of dreams, in psychoneurotic symptoms, or in the utterances or other manifestations of the insane — it is always so distorted as to be unrecognizable to the individual. Neither the patient nor the persons of his environment have any idea that the resultant illness has any connection with his past experiences.

What causes this concealment or distortion? When we examine the literature of the past and present we observe that writers frequently resort to all sorts of detours, euphemisms and symbolisms when they wish to express something which would sound either harsh or objectionable to polite society. Thus we find that the words "thigh" and "staff" are often used in the Bible to express that part which represents the male* and nowadays journalism makes use of exactly the same devices. Witness the car- toons and jokes in the daily papers.7 We all know that many of the jokes of our best comedians would be con-

*See Genesis xxrv, 2, and lxvii, 29; Hebrews xi, 21.

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sidered extremely offensive if direct expression were given to their underlying thoughts. The reason why such mech- anisms are necessary is quite obvious. It is the fear of the censor. We all know what would happen to the comedian who, instead of uttering some innocent quibble as "Willie Rose, rose, because he sat on a pin" would venture to give the bare underlying thought. This censor is the product of civilization and has been established by society for its own protection, the stricter the censor the more concealed and funnier are the means of representation. The distor- tions in dreams and in psychotic symptoms are also the work of the psychic censor. This, too, is a protective mechanism for the good of the organism and the older the individual or the race the greater is the censorship; primi- tives and children have no need for distortions. One might say that children and primitives act in accordance with their true feelings, when a child wants something, it makes an immediate effort to procure it but, as it grows older and dreams about the things that it cannot get, one has no difficulty in seeing the wish.

The formation of dreams is brought about by the working of the two psychic forces (streams or systems), one of which forms the wish of the dream, while the other exerts its censorship on this wish and thus produces the distortion. The reason for our belief in this second psychic force possessing the power of censoring is as follows: The latent thoughts of the dream are not known until the dream has been subjected to analysis. What we remember on awakening are the manifest contents of the dream emanating from the former. We can there- fore assume that the admission to consciousness is the

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prerogative of the second psychic system. Nothing from the first system can reach consciousness without having passed through the second system, and the latter allows nothing to pass without exercising its prerogative of censoring. At the point of transition between the two systems we have the psychic censor, which after exercising its function allows to pass only that which is agreeable to it or concealed from it and restrains everything else. Whatever is rejected by the censor remains in a state of repression. As was shown this psychic censor is nothing but the inhibitions formed throughout our whole life by our civilizing religious and ethical training.

As mentioned before the dream is divided into the manifest and the latent dream contents. The former comprise all the delusive sensory impressions which are recalled by the dreamer on awakening; while the latter comprise the fundamental thoughts of the dream as they existed before being subjected to the distortion of the psychic censor. The manifest content of the dream seems absurd and incoherent, but by psychoanalysis it can readily be translated into the latent thoughts, which always show the fulfilment of a wish.

When we watch the development of a human being especially during the first few years of its existence, we are particularly impressed with one fact, to wit: that the child is insatiable in its desires. As soon as the child sees the light of this world it makes known its wants and as soon as it grows older they become proportionately greater. At first these desires are very simple, but with ad- vancing age they become more complicated. Thus a child of a few days old cries when hungry or uncomfortable,- while at

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a later age it may cry because it is not rocked to sleep or because it is not allowed to suck its thumb. Here we no longer deal with necessary wants, but with pleasurable desires; for the child could fall asleep without being rocked and could get along without thumb sucking. When we observe a child at about the age of two, or at an older age, we can clearly see that it is a constant pleasure seeker. All its activities as expressed in playing and other manifes- tations are directed toward the realization of both neces- sary and pleasurable desires, especially the latter, and the older the child becomes the more its wants. It would be no exaggeration to assume that if this condition were allowed to continue, the whole world would be too small to supply the wants of a single individual. This idea is very well expressed in a pretty fable which I read years ago, I believe in Socin's Arabic Grammar. The story tells that Alexander of Macedon, while traveling after his numerous victories, one day came unexpectedly to a strange place. He wanted to enter, but the door was locked. He knocked on the door and asked to be admitted. After being ignored for some time he was finally told that he was at the door of Paradise and that no mortal could enter there. "But I am Alexander the Great," he remonstrated. "At least give me some memento that I may be able to say I was here." A hand was extended through the door and gave him a human eye. Alexander was chagrined and baffled. He could not understand the significance of the souvenir. In his distress he appealed to the wise men of his entourage and after considerable study and rumination one of these — the wisest of them all — undertook to solve the riddle. He ordered that a scale be brought and he placed the eye upon

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one side of it. He placed Alexander's jewels upon the other. The eye was heavier. More gold and jewels were placed on the other side, but the eye still outweighed the treasurers. To the surprise and consternation of Alexander the Great no amount of precious stones or gold was heavy enough to counterbalance the eye. The scale containing it bore down steadily. The wise man thereupon covered the eye with some earth and, behold! the scales turned. The eye balanced no more than its actual weight. The explanation by the wise man was as follows: the eye uncovered signifies the living eye, the covered eye signifies one dead. While man lives he is insatiable; the more the eye sees the more it desires. Once it is covered with earth it has no need of anything. This souvenir was therefore intended as a rebuke to Alexander's unbridled ambition. That this moral lesson left little impression on the insa- tiable conqueror is shown by the fact that he died of his insane excesses at the early age of thirty-two years.

To-day there are no more worlds to conquer, but we are all Alexanders, none the less. Each of us who is not afflicted with the emotional deterioration of the Schizo- phrenic is dominated by ambitions and never can be per- fectly contented. And were it not for the severe checking the individual constantly experiences from the very begin- ning of his childhood, which causes him to give up most of his desires, it would be impossible to live in any society, savage or enlightened.

This inhibiting process begins in childhood and is con- tinued throughout life. Thus a child of fifteen months cries for a bird kept by her parents as a pet. She is not satisfied with merely looking at it and hearing it sing,

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but she wants to touch and handle it. As this would be detrimental to the well being of the bird she is made to forego this pleasure in spite of her bitter crying. A little girl of four years wants toys belonging to other children. She is very unhappy and irritable because she cannot get them, but with her mother's help, she finally abandons this desire. At an earlier age this same child uncere- moniously appropriated other children's toys and it was only after being punished that she desisted from this highway robbery and developed the sense of property. So, throughout the whole course of our existence, society (religion and ethics) teaches us to curb our desires and to give up much of what we want. We want very much and we get comparatively little, but we never stop wanting. When we try to examine how children learn to give up their desires we are soon struck by the fact that they never really give up anything entirely. A girl of four years after being told by her mother that she cannot get a certain toy which she saw in the hand of another child, brooded over it for a while and then drew on the sidewalk with chalk what she thought was a picture of this toy and played with it as though it were the real toy. The little girl of fifteen months forgets the bird and is always appeased when she gets a wooden bird or a picture book of birds. You all know how boys ride on sticks for want of horses and that nearly all the games played by children represent unattainable desires. Nor do we see those actions only in early life when the child cannot differentiate between fiction and reality. If we continue to observe we find that these same children as they grow older and know that a stick is not a horse and that a

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drawing of a toy is not a real toy, nevertheless still en- deavor to attain in fancy what they want. Thus a little boy goes to the Zoological garden where he sees tigers. He remarks that he would like to have a few tigers. His father laughs at him and points out that he would have no room for them in the apartment if he had them. The boy then dreams that he had five little tigers in a bird cage hanging in his room. Such examples show that the human mind possesses the faculty of overcoming difficulties and attains its desires in spite of the obstacles raised by nature and society or rather by reality. This mode of coping with reality forms the basis of Prof. Freud's theory of wish fulfilment. In brief this theory states that whatever is denied us in reality we can nevertheless realize in some other way. In his sleep the poor man has much money, the prisoner his freedom, the lame man runs races, and the ambitious man sees himself at the goal of his ambition. In other words, the dream when analyzed represents the realization of a wish; its motive is a wish.

In this respect dreams are divided into three classes: 1. Those which represent an unrepressed wish as fulfilled, as seen in the so-called convenience dream and in chil- dren's dreams. For example, we often dream of enjoying cold fresh water after a supper of sardines, olives or other salty food. The thirst incites the dream which tries to appease the sleeper so as to avoid disturbance of sleep. A boy of five dreams of finding pennies and nickels and on awakening expresses his disappointment by crying for his money. A little girl of four dreams of chocolate almonds and on awakening insists that someone has taken her "big box of chocolate almonds.", 2. Those

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which represent the realization of a repressed wish in an entirely concealed forrn. examples of which I shall give later. 3. Those which represent the realization of a repressed wish in a form insufficiently or only partially concealed. The last group of dreams is generally accom- panied by anxiety, which interrupts the dream and takes the place of the distortion found in the second group. Dreams accompanied by anxiety are of a gross sexual nature; the ideation causing the anxiety in the dream once be- longed to a wish which was later subjected to repression.8 There are some dreams of a painful nature which are not, however, perceived as such by the dreamer. These merely show the insignificance and lack of psychic validity of the dream, but they do not show a true wish. Thus, one of my patients dreamed that she saw her oldest boy laid out in a casket, and yet she was totally unconcerned about it. Having been told previously that a dream represents the hidden fulfilment of a wish she now insisted that this theory must be wrong, as she would never entertain any such wish regarding her boy. Psychoanalysis, however, revealed the following facts: her husband had died and left her with two children; she had then married a widower with two children. They were very happy, but as they already had four children they could not afford to rear any more. She has frequently expressed the wish "to have an offspring as the result of her second marriage, as it would strengthen the union, but having four children in the family, this was out of the question." The dream fulfils her wish by show- ing her that there are only three children in the family.

A man of thirty dreamed that he saw his brother's head split open and bleeding and was not at all worried about it.

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He, too, objected to the theory of wish fulfilment. Analysis showed that he referred to his brother M., a boy of sixteen years, whom he had thought incorrigible. He had read recently an article in a Sunday newspaper saying that bad boys could be cured by trephining the skull and exposing the brain — which at once caused him to think of his brother. The dream realized his wish by showing him his brother with his brain exposed.

Recently a patient came to me and disputed the theory of wish fulfilment. To prove his assertion he stated that the night before he had dreamed that he had syphilis. I could readily prove that the dream showed the realiza- tion of a wish. This patient was being treated by me for psychosexual impotence and the day before his dream we discussed promiscuous sexuality. I called his attention to the dangers of infection and spoke about proper pre- cautions, etc. He grimly remarked "There is no danger of my becoming infected. I couldn't if I tried." The dream realized his wish that he could become infected; meaning that he would be no longer sexually impotent.

Still another patient suffering from the same disease dreamed that he was bald. He too objected to the theory of wish realization inasmuch as he is only thirty- five years old and he surely would not like to be bald. I told him that except with children and so-called conveni- ence dreams, a dream should never be judged by the mani- fest content. When he began to give "free associations" to the dream he suddenly thought of a smutty joke which he was unwilling to reproduce. I insisted that he should tell me everything, otherwise the analysis would have to be dropped. The joke is credited to one of our witty states-

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men and tells how at a social gathering a young lady heard this statesman use the word "eunuch." Not knowing the meaning of the word she then turned to the statesman afid said " Mr. X — ,1 heard you use the word 'eunuch.' What is a eunuch?' The statesman was embarrassed and hesitatingly answered" A eunuch is a balled (bald) man." The young lady looked at his head and said "Then you are a eunuch. "Oh, no," he replied, "I am too bald (two balled)." My patient heard this joke the day before the dream and he laugh- ed very heartily over it, but his loud and prolonged laughter was only hiding his inner pain, for this smutty joke brought to mind his own complex; he was a eunuch himself. The dream was, therefore, a reaction of this mental pain and showed him that he was not a eunuch. He is too bald (two balled) like the statesman in the story. The other determinants are the identification of the bald head with the head of the penis, an identification which I have repeatedly observed in dreams and psychoses. One of my patients, a young praecox, had one mannerism which was shown by a constant rubbing of the top of the head. After doing this for a few months he had a good-sized tonsure which was rapidly increasing. I could definitely ascertain that the patient went through a form of masturba- tion. When he was admitted to the hospital he mastur- bated frequently and shamelessly so that he had to be constantly watched by the attendants. He gradually began to rub his left hand, then his arm and finally the top of his head. It was a clear presentation of the mechanism of displacement from below to above so often observed in conscious and especially unconscious mental actions. Another determinant for the baldness in this dream is the

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fact that, like sexual impotence, baldness, too, is considered as a sign of physical weakness and senile decay. These examples show that even dreams which are, in the manifest content, the opposite of wishes, nevertheless contain a wish when we find the latent content.

The dreams just given show well what the Junction of the dream is. In all of them the dreamer had a problem to solve. Consciously or unconsciously the dreamers were absorbed and worried by the problems involved and the effort was made to solve them or realize the unattainable. In other words the actual thoughts had to be subjected to many delicate processes before they assumed the form of the manifest dream. How is that accomplished?

The transformation of the latent into the manifest content of the dream is effected as follows by the so-called "dream work:" During our waking state a number of thought structures are constantly being formed. This activity is never finished during the day, and the sum of energy required for the production of these thoughts would be sufficient to hold the interest of the individual to such an extent as to interfere with sleep. This tension can only be set free by granting the individual his wishes, that is to say, the day remnants which contain these wishes must be changed into dreams which realize the dreamers strivings and thus remove the elements threaten^ ing disturbance of sleep. The dream is, therefore, the guardian of sleep. But in order that the dream work may act properly the day remnants must be capable of wish formation, for it is the wish that forms the nucleus of the dream.

When we compare the latent thoughts of the dream with

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its manifest content we find that the former is per- fectly comprehensible as soon as we discover it, while the latter is usually incomprehensible and absurd and comparable to hieroglyphics or a rebus. We are also struck by the marked condensation, which takes place in the transformation of the thought into the content of the dream.* The manifest dream when written may fill a few lines, while the analysis containing the thoughts underlying the dream usually fills many pages. This condensation is effected by the omission and the subse- quent compression of syllables, words, pictures or situa- tions which have been present in the thoughts underlying the dream. This accounts for the many gaps, absurdities and neologisms in the manifest content of the dream. Thus, one of my German speaking patients saw a monkey in his dream, and by freely associating to the word "monkey" we got monkey — chimpanzee — Schimpfen Sie McKenzie (which may be translated here by "Give it to him, McKenzie ") . This recalled a quarrel between two laborers, McKenzie and X. the day before the dream. The patient actually heard this very exclamation, "Give it to him, McKenzie," and as a diligent student of English he imme- diately translated it into the above German sentence. This is further determined by the fact that the features of the pugnacious McKenzie made him think of a monkey and that the quarrel took place near a zoological garden. It is through this process of condensation that the mani- fest thoughts of the dream are " over determined." The individual thoughts of the dream are not only repre- sented in the dream by many elements, but the elements *Condensation is a fusion of events, pictures and elements of speech.

DREAMS 93

of the dream are manifoldly determined by the thoughts of the dream. In the analysis of dreams one often finds all kinds of composites such as composite pictures and collective personalities, all of which are produced by this process of condensation.

Another effect of the dream work is brought about by the process of displacement. Thus the elements which seem most conspicuous in the content of the dream do not necessarily have corresponding importance in the thoughts of the dream. An insignificant element may represent the main thought and vice versa, events, thoughts, sentences, words and pictures may be turned around. By the process of overdetermination the psychic validity of the main element may be displaced or transferred to some triviality. The same process is met in the obsessions of neurotics.9 The formation of the dream is chiefly due to these two processes of displacement and condensation.

Besides the processes of condensation and displace- ment which we have found so effective in the transfor- mation of the latent into the manifest thoughts we must take into account two other factors, viz., the manner of representation and the secondary elaboration, to which I shall only allude. There is no intellectual activity in the dream. What in the manifest content impresses us as a process of reasoning or judgment is not due to the work of the dream, but has reached the manifest content from the thoughts of the dream to which it properly be- longed. Logical relationships are not represented in the dream. The dream makes use of visual pictures, which are reproduced by similarity, identification and symboliza- tion. Thus a dreamer, wishing to express that his. business

*£

4.

94 PSYCHOANALYSIS

competitor was getting the better of him, dreams that he and his competitor are running to catch a steamer and that the latter is way ahead of him. Their business was carried on by steamer transportation. The affects are not influenced by the dream work, though they are very often displaced. The dream also omits all the "ifs" and "buts" and whatever may be in the subjunctive mood in our waking state is transferred into the indicative present in the dream. This accounts for the fact that in the dream the blind see, the lame run and the poor are wealthy. The "If I were" is changed in the dream into "I am."

To illustrate the relation of the dream to the neurosis I shall cite the following case:

Case: Miss G., twenty-eight years old, American, came to me in January, 1908, because she had been "very nervous" for about three months. Her family history showed that her father died of nephritis and had a "stroke" (left hemiplegia) a few months before he died. She had been well until three months before. Since then she had suffered from insomnia, irritability, loss of appetite, constipation, headache, uncalled for worry, crying spells and anxious expectation. Her mother stated that she had entirely changed, that she expressed pessimistic ideas, often repeating that she would like to die. Exami- nation showed all the symptoms enumerated. The patient was pretty, she showed no stigmata and was above the average in intelli- gence. While reciting her story she showed the typical belle indiffer- ence often found in hysteria. She smiled when I asked her why she felt so depressed and could give no reason for it. She knew that she really had nothing to worry about and that she had everything to live for, yet she could not "shake off the blue feeling." One of the most distressing thoughts was that something might happen to her mother. To those acquainted with the language of hysteria this means just the opposite. It was merely a reaction of the wish that she might lose her mother, and, as we shall see later, there was a reason for that wish. Physically there was nothing worth mentioning. I diagnosticated the case as a mild anxiety hysteria10 with imperfect conversion.

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I saw her a number of times, but made no progress in the treatment. To my question she always answered " I feel about the same." I then thought of psychoanalysis and with that in view I asked her to write out her dreams and bring them to me. She was sure that she never dreamed except when her stomach was out of order, but promised to comply with my request if ever she should and one day brought me the following dream :

11 1 dreamed that I was in a lonely country place and was anxious to reach my home in Liconow or Liconor Bay, but could not get there. Every time I made a move there was a wall in the way. It looked like a street full of walls. My legs were as heavy as lead. I could only walk very slowly as if I were very weak or very old. Then there was a flock of chickens, but that seemed to be in a crowded city street, and they — the chickens — ran after me and the biggest of all said something like "Come with me into the dark."

This dream seems absurd enough and as the dreamer remarked, "It is so ridiculous that I am ashamed to tell it. Whoever heard of such a thing as chickens talking ?" She was assured that it must mean something and the analysis proceeded.

It would be too long and immaterial for the purposes of this work to give here the whole analysis which, when recorded, covered over eight pages of foolscap. Only the principal associations and symbolic expressions neces- sary to explain the dream will be enumerated.

On asking the dreamer what the most vivid part of the dream was she answered that it was the second part relating to the chickens. When asked to repeat the thoughts evoked by concentrating her mind on the word "chickens" she gave the following: "I could only see the biggest chicken, all the others seemed blurred; it was unusually big and had a very long neck and it spoke to me — The street recalls where I used to go to school — I

96 PSYCHOANALYSIS

graduated from public school when I was thirteen — The block was always crowded with children from school" — she then began to blush and laugh and when asked to explain her actions said: "It recalls the happy school days when I was young and had no worries — I even had a beau, a pupil from the male department. There was a male and female department in the same school and most of my girl friends had beaux — we used to meet after school hours and walk home together. My beau's name was F. He was lanky and thin and the girls used to tease me about him. Whenever they saw him coming they said, 'Belle, here comes your chicken' — that was his nickname among the boys. On being asked if she now understood who the chicken in the dream was she laughingly said: "You don't mean to say that the chicken with the long neck was Mr. F?" When asked if she still kept up her acquaintance with Mr. F. she stated that she had not seen him for the last few months, but prior to that she saw him quite often. On further analysis it was found that this early schoolday love was still kept up. He had proposed to her no less than three times, but she had never given him any definite answer. She only "liked " him and her family opposed him on account of his financial position. The last time she met him was at a military ball. He was an officer of a military organization and "he looked quite handsome in his smart uniform." He danced with her and "was very kind," but he did not propose. She frankly admitted that she looked for a fourth proposal at this ball and that she was quite ready to accept him. She had heard only recently that he was paying attention to another young lady, a thing which caused her considerable

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annoyance — to put it in her own words, "I can only blame myself and I will have to forget it."

We see that the most impossible and ludicrous part of the dream, that is, "the talking of the chicken," is now quite plain. The "chicken" is simply the nickname of Mr. F., who is the hero of the dream. There were other chickens, but they were blurred, that is, there were other young suitors, but they were relegated to the background.

The chicken said "Come with me into the dark." The wrord "dark" evoked the following associations: indis- tinct— obscure — mystery — marriage. She recalled that after her father's death her mother once spoke sympathet- ically of Mr. F. saying "Money is not all," and philoso- phized on marriage in the following remarks: "You will never know a man until you have eaten a peck of salt with him" and "Marriage is a mystery." These words made a deep impression on her and the last Biblical quotation frequently recurred to her. We then see that in her mind the word "dark" was used synonymously with mystery and marriage, and hence we can under- stand its meaning in the chicken's speech. Briefly stated it was the fourth proposal of Mr. F.

The first part of the dream reads, "I was in a lonely country place, etc. " She stated that she recalled the beautiful country around H. Bay where she had been the preceding summer. She could not quite understand what Liconow or Liconor Bay meant and gave the following associations : Liconow — Lucknow — meaning a painting representing the famous battle of Lucknow which she had recently seen. The soldiers recalled the military organization at whose ball she had met Mr F. The word "Liconor " suggested by sound

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association Lucarno and Lugano, two places which she had visited while abroad two years before. H. Bay often recalled the beautiful Italian lakes, Lucarno and Lugano, whither she hoped to go on her honeymoon. Finally, Liconor Bay resolved itself into LIK-ONOR BAY which, by sound association, can be readily recognized as "like, honor and obey." If "like" is substituted by "love" it gives the familiar formula well known to all maidens seriously comtemplating matrimony. The dreamer used "like," because, as aforesaid, she thought she only " liked. " Such condensations of words and ideas are not at all rare in dreams.

If we now rewrite the first sentence it will read as fol- lows: " I was in a lonely country place and was anxious to reach my home in 'LIKe (love), hONOR, and oBEY,'" that is, "I was lonely and anxious to get married."

The next sentence reads "But could not, etc." She stated that her legs "were as heavy as lead," she was alone and was afraid that something might happen, but she was unable to make any headway. The sensation of inhibition experienced in dreams, like the inability to make any headway when one most desires to do so, sig- nifies a marked mental conflict. Here, too, it merely shows the great mental conflict in our dreamer's mind. She is anxious to marry. She " likes' ' Mr. F. Moreover, she is of an advanced age and, as the dream shows, she could walk only very slowly as if "she were weak or very old," that is, the difficulties on the road to matrimony increase with advancing age. She is weak and old, that is, she is an "old maid," an expression by which she often jocosely referred to herself in her waking state. All of

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these arguments are in favor of accepting Mr. F., but then her family is opposed to him. He is a nice enough young man, but he is unable to care for her in a manner befitting her station in life.

The dream continues: "Every time I made a move there was a wall in the way, it looked like a street full of walls, etc.,J A street full of walls signifies Wall street, hence money — that was the real obstacle. When told of the interpretation she laughingly remarked "That's it exactly. I even thought very seriously of helping him along, as Pa left me some money, but then everything is invested in Wall street and there is a tacit understanding among ourselves that the whole estate shall be left intact until mother's death."

We now understand the latent thoughts of the dream. The first part can be translated as follows: I am twenty- eight years old, an old maid, and I am anxious to marry Mr. F., but then he is not rich enough to take care of me. I perhaps can help him financially. In the second part we find the wish realization, as here Mr. F. actually pro- poses to her for the fourth time.

These were the actual thoughts which had occupied our dreamer's mind for the past months and which, as she quite frankly admitted, she tried hard to forget. It is quite obvious that the dream deals here with the thoughts which a young lady would not consciously disclose even to her physician, and we can also understand why she was "ashamed to tell it" because she understood it uncon- sciously, though not consciously. The dream never deals with trivialities, and, no matter how simple and innocent it may seem, the analysis invariably shows that

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the thoughts behind it belong to the inmost recesses of personality. This accounts for the many resistances encountered during the analysis. The psychic censor constantly inhibits the painful or disagreeable complexes from becoming conscious and is also responsible for the rapid forgetting of dreams on awakening. *

Dreams often help us to make a correct diagnosis. This is especially true in the anxiety states and homo- sexuality. People who are subject to nightmares or who have anxiety dreams usually suffer from lack of sexual gratification. I do not mean merely the gross sexual, but I use the word in the Freudian sense. We must be very careful in our examination, otherwise we may make mistakes. Thus a married woman suffered from a pronounced anxiety hysteria and was subject to frequent nightmares, but on being questioned she stated that her sexual life was normal. A few weeks later I discovered that she was suffering from frigidity and although she was married six years she never experienced an orgasm or any pleasure in coitus.

I have made many diagnoses of homosexuality from the patient's dreams. Many homosexuals go to doctors, but do not tell them the true state of affairs. They are usually sensitive and not knowing how the physician will look upon them they complain of something else. Thus, a homosexual whom I saw in the Vanderbilt clinic com-

*Not infrequently patients "stop dreaming ' ' altogether. On telling one of my patients that the sudden forgetting of all his dreams was due to an unconscious resistance, he remarked: "I'll get you some dreams tomorrow if I have to stay awake the whole night." His words only confirmed my diagnosis, for no one can stay awake the whole night and dream at the same time.

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plained of pain in the thigh. His dream told me the true story. The patient unconsciously displaced his trouble to his thigh because he did not dare tell his real malady. It also happens that the patients do not know that they are homosexual. This is usually the case with women, but I have seen at least two men who were ignorant of their being homosexual. Their dreams first called my attention to the fact. But it should be remembered that one is not to judge by the manifest content of the dream as does Nacke,11 for a dream may not show anything of the gross homo- sexual in its manifest content and still be a homosexual dream. This is shown by the following dream brought to me by a man of thirty-five years: "I saw two men. One looked at an open newspaper and the other watched him sidewise} reading his thoughts like a detective. Suddenly the latter stabbed the man with the newspaper by plunging a dagger into his heart. Great commotion — crowd."

After reading the dream as it was written by the patient immediately on awakening three hours before, I asked him to tell me the dream from memory. He reproduced the dream correctly, but made one mistake; instead of saying that the dagger was plunged into the heart he said that it was plunged into the back. My object in asking him to reproduce the dream was this: From the association experiments of the Zurich school12 we know that a failure of reproduction is a complex indicator; that is, whenever the answer is forgotten it shows that the word or passage in question is of marked emotional accen- tuation and contains something cryptic. It has the same mechanism as the lapsus linguae or any other mistake. Now let us take up the analysis: A crowd in the dream

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signifies a secret. The two men were readily identified as the dreamer himself and a young man with whom he spent the evening of the night of the dream. The dreamer was treated for homosexuality — passive pederasty — and the murderer of the dream is a young man with whom he is secretly in love. Those of my readers who may be ac- quainted with dream analysis know that the dagger is a symbol for the penis. Women suffering from lack of sexual gratification often dream of being attacked with knives, daggers, etc. Here the dream shows the realiza- tion of a wish to act as a passive pederast for the young man he loves. The stabbing taking place in the heart shows the familiar mechanism of displacement from below to above. The lower part of the body being tabooed, the action is transferred to the upper part; but the mis- take very nicely pointed to the patient's true wish; the dagger was plunged into the back.13

Other examples showing how dreams solve the problems of the neuroses are the following:

An unmarried woman, Z., of thirty years, was treated by me for hysteria. One of the distressing symptoms was morning nausea with occasional vomiting from which she was suffering from periods of two and three months for the last five years. She stated that she was treated for it during all these years, but without success. I soon concluded that the symptom was hysterical and paid no particular attention to it as it was only one out of many others. One day she told me the following dream :

1. "I dreamed that Mgt. and I were pregnant and in some way or other I thought that birds were connected with this pregnancy.

2. " Then I dreamed of looking down on my own or some one's else bare toes. Each toe became the head of a man as I looked and they all seemed to be smiling or laughing. One of the heads looked like S. V.y a male acquaintance."

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A few facts before proceeding with the analysis, z. was bi-sexual and since the age of sixteen years had many homosexual amours. Mgt. was her friend with whom she had been in love for years. Mgt. was aware of it and as she is not homosexual they were forced to remain apart. They saw each other now and then and were very friendly. Z. came to me in 1910 and at that time she suffered from fits of depression following periodic debauches of masturbation. Mgt. was the object of her masturbatic fancies.

When I asked her to focus her attention on the idea of pregnancy and repeat her associations she stated that there was a time were she was in mortal dread of being preg- nant. At the age of nine years she was seduced by a farm hand and had sexual relations with him. When she was ten years old she heard that girls became pregnant as a result of such relations and she was terrified at the thought of it because she imagined that she was pregnant and that her parents would discover her relations with this man. Her first sexual instructions were received at a very early age. An older child called her attention to the sexual acts of the poultry which she watched with great interest. She imagined that women laid eggs like chickens. The day of the dream she yearned for a child. She spoke with Mgt. about the voidness in their lives and both agreed that they would be contented if they each had a child. She herself had had this wish for years as she is very fond of children. Birds to her mean chickens. She was brought up on a farm and the poultry was always referred to as birds. The first part of the dream, therefore, realized the wish that she and Mgt. were pregnant and the second part of the dream, as will be seen, shows who was responsible for it. When asked to associate to the word "toes" she thought of a foot as this brought to her mind that when she carried

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on her affair with the farm-hand he was in the habit of touching her with his bare feet in forbidden places while the family was sitting around the table. The toe is also a symbol for the penis. The toes resolved themselves into the heads of laughing men and one looked like S. V. She dislikes the latter because he has a "dirty mind.,, He has the reputation of being a libertine. He is, therefore, the right man in the right place and, though she consciously rejects him, he is accepted by her unconsciously. There are many more subtler determinants for this dream which I am forced to omit here.

At the age of twenty-four she discovered for the first time that pregnancy was accompanied by morning nausea and vomiting. Some time after she began to suffer from the nausea and vomiting. The symptom was therefore the expression of a wish realization and I could definitely show that it came on when the wish was especially strong. With the analysis the symptoms disappeared.

A young married Englishman suffering from a compulsion neurosis was obsessed by the thought of socialism. The obsession came on during the notorious McNamara trial and persisted with increasing vigor until he came to see me a few months ago. No matter in what surrounding he was, whether at his desk or in the theater, he would have to discuss with himself socialism. He would wake up mornings with the question "Is socialism a correct theory, is socialism a true theory of economics ?" and he would then argue for and against it. He would read books and pamphlets on the subject, but could never come to any decision. While talking with friends the idea would obtrude itself: "It will be terrible when the government will control every- thing and some new conditions will come into being which will influence me materially. I wonder whether the president is convinced of the truth of the socialistic doctrines, etc." While attending a play he would be bothered by the idea that it was wrong for him to spend money on luxuries when there were other persons starving. Indeed

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the patient stated that there was not half an hour when he was free from thoughts on socialism. With the characteristic arguments of folie raisonant he went through the most absurd and abstruse argu- mentations. Lest there should be some misunderstanding I will state that ordinarily the patient had no interest at all in socialism; he professed Catholicism and was quite conservative in his ideas. He realized the absurdity of his compulsive thinking, but was power- less to control it.

After coming to me for a few weeks he brought the following dream: "Bernard Shaw, the writer, was the guest at some affair and I was there, too. There was another man there who, when he removed his peculiar wig, I noticed was the humorous writer 0."

The determinants of the dream were as follows: A few days before he had read that the Governor General of Jamaica is a socialist and that he once shocked the English aristocracy by inviting Bernard Shaw to one of his social gatherings. The day before the dream he had read a refer- ence to Brieux's play "Damaged Goods," a play dealing with sex to which Bernard Shaw wrote a preface. On con- tinuing the association he recalled the story of "Man and Superman," Shaw's play; how everyone was shocked be- cause a girl was supposed to have been pregnant and how the hero, Tanner, defended her saying that she was going to perform the noblest function of womanhood. He, too, is liberal on the question of sex. The lady's name was Violet. His wife's name is Viola.

According to the rules of association there must have been a close relationship between the sexual lives of Shaw's heroine and his wife and further investigation actually showed that this was so. In brief he admitted that for some time before marriage they led a sexual life and that on a few occasions she had reason to fear pregnancy. The subject of pregnancy came up again the night before

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the dream because he imagined that his wife was getting stout. He stated that he did not have the slightest apprehension about it as the proper precautions were taken; that everything was well when he left home a few weeks ago (he returned the day before the dream). He refused to proceed with the associations, but upon being urged he reproduced a rather intimate scene between himself and his wife. For some reason he was depressed and kept on asking his wife "Aren't you all mine, aren't you all mine?" and despite all her assurance he asked the question over and over again. I told him that judging from this scene one would think that he was not sure of his wife's fidelity. He readily admitted that while it did not enter his mind during this scene, he has entertained ideas of jealousy since he first became acquainted with his wife. To my question he answered that he is not jealous of any particular man, that the idea is vague and that he suppresses it as soon as it crosses his mind. He then recalled that before he met his wife he was inter- ested in another girl to whom his parents objected. His mother said that "she was a rag on every bush," meaning that she was owned by a great many men. This recalled to him that while he was separated from his wife he met a great many women who were "a rag on every bush." He did not yield to temptation, but entertained a great many forbidden fancies.

The associations making up the elements of the dream thus far reproduced brought to light a complex of marked emotional feeling, the content of which was jealousy. He suspected his wife of infidelity, but he had no particular person in mind. It was simply a general jealousy.

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When asked about Mr. 0. in the dream he stated that he did not know it was Mr. 0 until he removed his wig. He is not acquainted personally with O., but knows him by sight. He heard that although O. is married he does not disdain light flirtations when he is away from his wife. He excuses O.'s actions by saying that he belongs to a rather passionate type of man. His description of 0. corresponds to himself and when I called his attention to it he at once corroborated it by saying that he was aware of the remarkable resemblance between them and that strangers have noticed it. When I asked him about the wig he stated that 0. recently wrote a pseudoscientific paper on hair culture. For many delicate reasons which cannot be explained he himself had of late something to do with hair.

These associations, as well as others that need not be mentioned, not only explain the dream fragment but also the obsession. The dream deals with the most intimate factors of the dreamer's life. In brief he is not sure of his wife, and although he is an admirer of Shaw he is not quite willing to accept his views on sex. He does not believe in freedom of sex, he wants his wife to have no other man beside himself. While he was separated from her he was restrained in his temptation by the thought that he had no right to practise what he would abhor in his wife. He does not believe in collective ownership when it concerns his own wife. In the dream, however, he identifies himself with 0., who, according to his belief, is quite free in his marital views. In other words, what's right for the goose is not necessarily so for the gander. This conflict which has existed since his betrothal, and

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is very painful to him, therefore appears under the obses- sion of socialism which, to our patient, is "collective owner- ship, common possession.'7 The truth of this assumption was confirmed by the fact that the obsession disappeared as soon as its true meaning became known to the patient.

I saw Miss A. for the first time in August, 1911, when she was re- ferred to me by Dr. Morton Prince, of Boston. At that time she suffered from fits of depression and despondency, which were the results of sexual conflicts. She was bisexually predisposed, more homo- than hetero-sexual, and before coming to us had gone through a number of unhappy homosexual affairs. Due to her unrequited libido she masturbated rather excessively, and suffered from the usual conflicts of the chronic masturbator. The conditions were not favorable for a regular course of psychoanalytic treatment, so I saw her only a few times a month, and after a few months she left me very much improved. She returned about six months later, and since then I have seen her periodically two or three times a month. I shall not enter into the various mechanisms at play, as I have no intention of describing the case as such. I will simply state that besides the symptoms mentioned she showed many others of a hysterical char- acter, and I will here describe the analysis of one of the symptoms.

When she came to me last fall she told me she was getting along very well, except for the following complaint: she imagined that she had cancer in the right breast. She had no definite pain, but felt a peculiar annoying f eeling. There was no growth or mark of any kind to justify the slightest suspicion, as is usual in such cases. She herself realized that she had no cancer, still she could not shake off her obsessive fear. I tried to get some light on the subject, but I could discover nothing important. A few weeks later she brought me the following dream :

" I dreamed that I was inspecting a cellar belonging to an Italian woman. The cellar was, or we were, exposed to the view of a man. It seemed that I knew that in the cellar there was gold or some other valuable thing. I saw this man watching me. I went down and he followed me. He was tall, young, rather well dressed, but brutal looking. I was sure that he intended to do me some harm in order to get the gold or valuables, and I managed to call, 'Police! Police! Police!' I was surprised that I could call out

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at all as I was very badly frightened. Then I called, ' Help! Help! Help!' but my voice could not carry very far. Then the man quickly plunged a stiletto into my right breast, just below the fleshy part. I felt a sickening sensation and began to swoon. I then reached my hand up and began to pull out the dagger. I could hear the queer noise it made separating from the bones and flesh, and felt a wet feeling around it. I pulled it only a Utile way when I woke up."

As soon as she began to focus her attention on the dream she dimly recalled that she had a similar dream before she perceived the feeling in the chest, which was later formed into the cancer obsession. This led me to think that we dealt here with a resolution dream, that the dreamer resolved to do a certain thing, and the dream continued to represent it as realized because it was not accomplished. Now let us see what the dream represents as fulfilled. The associations to cellar were the lower part of the house, filthy cellars in tenements, a dark, mysterious opening, the female genitals. This was also corroborated by the fact that she was aware in the dream that the cellar contained some gold or other valuable thing. The description of the man corresponds to the type of man that plays a part in her fancies. She is very masochistic and of the very petite type, and a "tall, young, rather well-dressed, but brutal looking man," would just suit her. This is shown in the dream by the fact that she was sure that he in- tended to do her some harm in order to get the gold or valuables. The stiletto and the stabbing in the breast are symbolic of coitus, and show the mechanism of displacement from below to above. This is further determined by the fact that at the age of nine years the dreamer had sexual relations with a man of the type described in the dream. The dream is, therefore, a symbolic expression of coitus, which played a very great part in the dreamer's mind at that time. The feeling in the breast, or the phobia, was the remnant of the dream, which, through conversion, became a hysterical symptom and symbolized pregnancy, which was her strongest wish. This case shows the influence of dreams on waking life, as described by Jones,14 and dreams as determinants of the form of symptoms as described by Waterman15 and others. The symptom disappeared with the analysis.

It is not only in diagnosing gross neurotic symptoms that the dream is of service, but it also helps us to diagnose

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and cure so-called peculiar traits of character. To illustrate this I will cite the following case:

A young married woman of twenty-six years consulted me and decided to come to me for regular psychoanalytic treatment. When she was about to leave she wished to pay me for the consultation. I told her that it was my custom to send monthly statements to my patients and that she might wait until the end of the month before paying me. She thanked me for my offer, but emphatically declared that she would pay at the end of each consultation, adding that she always pays cash, be it to the doctor, druggist, grocer, milliner or dressmaker. Knowing that she was a woman of means I naturally thought it strange and I remarked something to that effect. She then told me that all her friends and acquaintances, including her husband, think that she is peculiar in this respect, but that does not alter her desire not to "run up any bills" and to pay cash for every- thing. She came to me daily except Sunday and always paid before leaving. After coming to me for a week or two she once forgot to pay, but within a few minutes she returned excitedly and although I was busy with the next patient she insisted upon seeing me. She was very profuse in her apologies despite my assuring her that there was no need for her returning, let alone for apologizing. The following week the same thing happened again with the same results. A week later she actually forgot to pay and did not recall it until she returned home. She telephoned, however, and insisted upon sending my fee to me by special delivery.

Considering the financial experiences we physicians sometimes have with patients I should have had no cause for complaint and that was exactly what one of my colleagues who is interested in psychoanalysis thought. But when I asked him the meaning of the patient's extreme scrupulosity he stated that judging by the fact that she had forgotten to pay on a number of occasions it would seem that she was not quite pleased with the treatment and hence did not like to pay for it. His reasoning was in accordance with psychoanalytic experience as we are taught that there is no accidental forgetting and that there is always a purpose in forgetting. We usually forget what we do not wish to remember. But I pointed out to him that both she herself and her friends assert that this feeling — "the terrible honesty," as one friend called it — has existed since girlhood so that it could not

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have any special bearing on her feeling toward the treatment. More- over, I was very sure that she was satisfied with the progress she was making in the treatment. A few weeks later she brought the following dream :"I was invited to tea at the house of J., but I did not go. Instead I went with a large party of school girls on some sort of picnic. When it came to be 7 o'clock I was sorry that J. had been waiting for me all the afternoon and knew that I ought to telephone her. I went out to telephone and found that I had no money. I saw a gold piece lying before me. I knew to whom it belonged, in fact people were looking for it, but as I needed money to telephone I did not give it up. I knew I was a thief and I was sorry, but I kept the money just the same. Then I began to borrow everything — money, gloves, etc. — and people all seemed to be afraid I would not return the things I borrowed."

For many reasons I am only giving a fragment of a long dream, but it will suffice to demonstrate what I wish to point out. The dream was determined by the following experiences of the day before: She was invited to a tea and did not like to go. She received a letter from a school- mate inviting her to visit her. She had some conversation about money matters with her husband. There were many associations which I shall omit as not absolutely necessary and will confine myself to those directly bearing on the complex. When I asked her to focus her attention on the gold piece she suddenly became very emotional. She begged me not to press her to tell me this particular thought as it was very painful, etc., etc. After much argument and protest she gave the following associations: Her mother was not faithful to her father, and as he was frequently away on business she entertained many intrigues. It was when my patient was a little girl of about seven or eight years that she came into the room unobserved by her mother and saw the latter going through the pockets of one of her paramours who was too intoxicated to protest. She

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left as she entered, but she never forgave her mother for it. She said nothing, but for a long time she felt a strong resentment and aversion toward her mother. Never- theless, shortly after while at school she imitated her mother by stealing a few pennies from a classmate's pocket. She was never discovered and she never stole anything else and soon thereafter, at the age of ten or eleven years, became a model of honesty.

This dream may be called a contrast dream as it shows the reverse side of the person and explains that our dream- er's "terrible honesty" is simply a reaction to her un- conscious dishonesty. This patient identified herself with her mother in almost every respect. She led the same life as her mother and treated her husband just as her mother treated her father. The picture would have been the same had she continued to show a tendency to dis- honesty, but as this was repressed, the reaction had to be a scrupulous honesty. Like the character in Ibsen's "Pillars of Society" she had "to hold up the banner of the ideal." That accounts for the fact that she often forgot to pay, as she actually desired. For some time before the analysis of this dream she would pay in advance to make sure that she would not forget. The conversation with her husband was about her allowance. She asked for more and he granted her request. Owing to the fact that she was at the time in love with another man her conscience pricked her and she said to herself: "I am nothing but a thief and I have no right to his money." This was the main determinant of the dream. After every- thing was analyzed and her unconscious complex was laid bare to her she was quite willing to "run up" a bill with me.

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Having referred so often to symbols in dreams it will not be amiss to say a few words about symbolism in general. Madeline Pelletier defines a symbol as "a false perception of a marked relation of identity or analogy between two objects which, in reality, present only a vague analogy." This definition is confirmed by the study of philology. Primitive writing consisted of a collection of symbols; the Egyptians, for example, used figures to represent ideas and the original alphabet consisted of a collection of sym- bols. Thus the original letter B did not stand for the consonant, but it was a picture of a crude outline of a house and meant to represent the idea "house." With the advance of civilization the alphabetic symbols lost their original meaning and became consonants and vowels. Symbols, therefore, represent a lower form of thinking for they identify objects which have only a very remote analogy. Children and primitive races still make use of this form of expression. Thus a child calls a stick a horse simply because it can ride on it. The analogy between the stick and the horse is very remote indeed. As the child grows older and becomes able to discriminate and compare it no longer forms such vague analogies. The symbols that we use in our daily life though more complex and specialized are symbols none the less. The Statue of Liberty, the cross, the masonic emblems, the barber's pole, are examples of this nature. Language is full of symbols. A symbol is a form of short-hand writing. One word may express an idea or have many meanings, e.g., the word "green" may represent a color or stand for the idea hope. Religion swarms with symbolisms and the more primitive the form the more prolific the symbolism.

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It has also been found that diminished attention favors a lower form of thinking and that a disturbance of attention causes shallow reaction types. This accounts for sym- bolization in hallucinations, delusions, dreams, wit and poetry;* that is, one is apt to find symbols in all those pro- ductions that come from unconscious mentation. When we have our full attention and can compare and discriminate we are not likely to form any remote analogies. On the other hand, whenever these factors are disturbed or absent, as in dreams and psychoses, and under certain conditions even in the waking state, we make use of symbols. In this connection the following experience related by an acquaintance will be of interest: While walking with two friends their attention was attracted by a big bird in the distant height. One of them suggested that it was a crow and remarked that it was rather unusual to see this bird in the city. As it came nearer they were sure that it was a stray or escaped eagle, and finally it turned out to be a flying machine. The reason for these mistakes at first was the inability to judge and discriminate, and had they left before the machine came near enough to afford the oppor- tunity for proper comparison and judgment they would have been convinced that they saw a crow or an eagle. During my service in the Clinic of Psychiatry at Zurich I was often present while my former chief Prof. Bleuler examined the patients. One of the tests, principally for attention, was to expose pictures very rapidly and ask the patient to tell what he saw. The pictures used were from

* An excellent paper on Poetry and Dreams was published by Pro- fessor F. C. Prescott in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. VII, 1 and 2.

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a booklet containing over two hundred pictures, both simple and complex, of everything imaginable. Among the pictures of the vegetables was the asparagus, and when- ever this was rapidly exposed the patients almost always believed that it was the penis. I have repeated this same test hundreds of times with the same result. The patients are shown more than ninety pictures before they get to the picture of the asparagus and whether the answers are correct or not they are usually given promptly. When the asparagus is shown they invariably hesitate; some give no answer at all; their expression, however, plainly betrays their thoughts. Others claim that they have not seen distinctly enough, and some of the bolder ones simply laugh. It is also interesting to watch their fea- tures when they discover the real picture. Some are plainly disappointed, others are very relieved, and, lately, one patient exclaimed, "I didn't know I was so evil-minded." They all admitted that they first thought of the penis. Here the mistake is plainly due to an inability to discrimi- nate between two objects having a vague resemblance, and is caused by insufficient attention owing to the rapid exposure. It is such vague analogies which, when found in dreams we call symbols, which have given cause to so much controversy . Those who find it so strange should remember that we are not even pioneers in the use of symbolism, but like in a great many other things we pay attention to some- thing which our opponents never think worth examining. Anyone making a real effort can find symbolisms in e^ery psychosis; to be sure nothing can be discovered by super- ficial questioning, sometimes resorted to by our biased critics. Besides the necessary knowledge, experience and

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skill, it requires considerable time. Those who are too lazy to investigate naturally find it easier to deny and sneer, yet symbolisms exist. This fact often finds corroboration from convincing sources. In this connection the following quotation from one who himself went through the expe- rience will be of interest16:

"There was, however, another reason for my frequent re- fusal to take food, in my belief that the detectives had resorted to a more subtle method of detection. They now intended by each article of food to suggest a certain idea, and I was expected to recognize the idea thus suggested. Conviction or acquittal depended upon my correct inter- pretation of their symbols, and my interpretation was to be signified by my eating or not eating the several kinds of food placed before me. To have eaten a burnt crust of bread would have been a confession of arson. Why? Simply because the charred crust suggested fire; and as bread is the staff of life, would it not be an inevitable deduction that life had been destroyed — destroyed by fire — and that I was the destroyer? On one day to eat a given article of food meant confession; the next day, or the next meal, a refusal to eat it meant confession. This complication of logic made it doubly difficult for me to keep from incriminating myself and others."

Such statements, which are almost always found in the anamnesis of every patient, convince one of the truth of symbolisms.

That so many symbolic expressions in dreams are sexual is not at all surprising when we consider the extent of sex repression and the enormous symbolization of sex in the waking state. Let those who object to sexual symbols in

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dreams reflect for a moment and they will soon find any number of sex symbols in their own conscious minds. Be- cause sex is the strongest impulse we possess it has been sub- jected to constant suppression, and for that reason one finds it both symbolized and undisguised in the unconcious and in literature. When the poet says, " And Maidens, be- coming bottles, cry aloud for corks" (Pope — The Rape of the Lock), he uses gross sexual symbols concerning which there can be no mistake. I have found the very same and similar symbols in many dreams. In the unconscious pro- ductions there is no limit to sexual symbolization. Klein- paul justly remarked "Man sexualizes the universe." An examination of our colloquialisms, stage wit, popular songs, etc., will convince one of the truth of this statement. In his interesting book, "Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism," Inman says:17

"As civilization advanced, the gross symbols of creative power were cast aside, and priestly ingenuity was taxed to the utmost in inventing a crowd of less obvious emblems, which should represent the ancient ideas in a decorous manner. The old belief was retained, but in a mysterious or sublimated form. As symbols of the male, or active element in creation, the sun, light, fire, a torch, the phallus or linga, an erect serpent, a tall straight tree, especially the palm and the fir or pine, were adopted. Equally useful for symbolism were a tall upright stone (menhir), a cone, a pyramid, a thumb or finger pointed straight, a mast, a rod, a trident, a narrow bottle or amphora, a bow, an arrow, a lance, a horse, a bull, a lion and many other animals con- spicuous for masculine power. As symbols of the female, the passive though fruitful element in creation, the crescent

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moon, the earth, darkness, water, and its emblem a triangle with its apex downward, "the yoni," a shallow vessel or cup for pouring fluid into (cratera) a ring or oval, a lozenge, any- narrow cleft, either natural or artificial, an arch or doorway, were employed. In the same category of symbols came a ship or boat, the female date-palm bearing fruit, a cow with her calf by her side, the fish, fruits having many seeds, such as the pomegranate, a shell (concha), a cavern, a garden, a fountain, a bower, a rose, a fig and other things of suggestive form, etc."

To illustrate how the dream makes use of symbolisms I will cite the following dreams: A woman of forty years related this dream: "J saw my son L. jammed in the fire- place and tried to get him out, but I couldn't I was awfully frightened and called out, 'Papa, papa.'" She laughingly added, "You will probably find something sexual in it."

When the dreamer finds it necessary to add such a re- mark it is always well to think of the saying, "Many a truth is said in jest." When I questioned her about the dream, she stated that "papa" in the dream did not mean her father but her lodger, who is so nicknamed. As she could give no associations to "fireplace" I took it to be a symbol for the vagina. The other facts are as follows: This woman has been a grass widow for years and suffered much from lack of sexual gratification. She was anxious to enter into an amour with "Papa," but was deterred by the fear of pregnancy. She had an affair before and had to go through a rather bad abortion. Her son who was in the fireplace in the dream is nineteen years old. She recalled that when she became pregnant with him she

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went through a severe hysterical attack. She was afraid of pregnancy and childbirth and implored her family physician to produce an abortion. He refused to help her so she herself tried everything she knew of, but to no avail. The dream, therefore, repeats an incident of nineteen years ago. At that time her son was Jammed in the "fireplace" and she couldn't get him out. For the previous few weeks she was occupied with a similar situation. She often said to herself "if he (Papa) would take care, I would have nothing to fear." In the dream she actually calls upon him to do this, but the erstwhile embryo is replaced by her son as he is now.

The following dream symbolizes a popular saying: Miss £. dreamed that she " passed a very tall building, from which smoke came out. Then some flames burst forth. I could feel the awful heat."

Analysis: Miss S. is not very fortunate in love. She is well edu- cated, intelligent and good-looking, but a little too reserved to suit the average young man. She had many admirers, but for some reason or other the eligible man either failed to appear or made little progress toward matrimony. The day before the dream she visited a friend, who jokingly teased her about T., one of her admirers. She heard that he was a "steady caller," as she put it, and wanted to know when the engagement would be announced, and so on. Miss S. was embar- rassed, and protested that there was no truth in the rumor, that it was nothing but idle gossip. Secretly, however, she cherished the thought that T. might marry her. The conversation ended with the signifi- cant remark from her friend: "Where there's smoke there must be fire." The dream fulfils her wish. The very tall building is herself— she is very tall. She sees the smoke, then the flames and can feel the awful heat. The saying, "Where there is smoke there is fire," is simply visualized by the dream, and as the dreamer is the chief actor of the dream she is the tall building. A building or house, as is well known, is an old symbol for the body.* We often speak of the body as the house we live in. Fire and heat are symbols of love. The

*Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 319.

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dream thus shows that it is not mere gossip, but that there is not only smoke but fire.

This symbolic dream was brought by a young married woman, and reads as follows: " Mr. E. sent two stick-pins, one to my husband and one to my sister, and I was angry because he didn't send me one. There was also something about a brush." When I asked the patient to tell me something about Mr. E. she stated that he was her husband's friend, that she was very fond of him, but that she did not like his outspoken plain way of expression. Thus, she went on to say, "The last time I saw him was at the theater. He sat next to me, and his excuse for coming late was that he witnessed a cow dropping a calf." Being an overmodest woman, she was very much shocked to hear him tell this. When I remonstrated with her that a married woman ought not to be shocked by such news, she said that she was not the only woman tak- ing exceptions to his way of talking, and that although a perfect gentle- man he had the reputation of being very fond of the ladies. When I asked her to tell me about her sister, L., she said she meant the one who married recently a man much younger than herself, who is a mere boy. She then volunteered the information that she took her sister to Doctor X. (a well-known gynecologist), and as her sister does not think much of doctors, she found it very difficult to get her to go to a physi- cian for examination. When I asked her what was wrong with her sister, she finally told me that she first suspected pregnancy, but that after the examination the doctor told her that her sister was still a virgin and that there must be something wrong with her husband. K I add that her own husband suffered from a relative impotence, we can understand why Mr. E., who symbolizes the virile man, sends her sister and her own husband stick-pins.* We have still to explain the last part of the dream in which there was something about a brush. When I drew her into conversation, I discovered that when some of the more interested members of the family suspected pregnancy they were not at all pleased. The young husband was in no position to take care of his wife, let alone of children, and one of the cousins, hearing that she was going to be examined by a doctor, said to my patient, " If the doctor finds that she is in the family way get him to brush it out." We can now see that this dream, too, is a symbolic representation of hidden wishes, and how nicely the associations tell the story. Mr. E., the virile ladies' man; the reminiscence of the cow and calf, which shows

*For a similar symbolization of stick-pins, cf. p. 69.

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that the dream deals with childbirth; the stick-pins, which symbolize the male member, and the brush which stands for abortion, all these were very important factors in my patient's life.

The symbolism in the dream is the same to-day as it was in the Biblical times when Joseph acted the part of the oneiroscopist, and as we still see it in the dream books. But, whereas the ancients and the laity of to-day ignore their own subjective mind and seek interpretation from magicians and dream books, we allow the dreamer to interpret his own dreams and to find the symbolisms in his own mind. What we do is simply to call his atten- tion to the different connections which he himself generally cannot see because of his own critique, prejudices and resistances.

We also differ from the ancients and laity by not seeing in the dream the future, but rather the past. Yet, in a way, the dream is also related to the future inasmuch as its fulfilled wish represents what we are striving for. This, in my opinion, explains the ancient and modern super- stition regarding the future realization of dreams. It has its origin in incidents resembling the dream of Miss G. and those of the children mentioned before. Thus both children forced their parents to fulfil their wishes. In order to appease her little girl the mother had to procure for her some chocolate almonds and the boy did not stop crying until his mother gave him the money of his dream.

There are dreams which continue to manifest themselves for weeks and months until the wish they contain is actually realized. A chronic alcoholic showing delusions of jealously disliked a dog