 Chapter 8, Part 2 of the Theory of Psychoanalysis by Carl Gustav Jung. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8, Part 2. The etiological significance of failure of adaptation. Probably this man knows very well that it would have been physically possible to overcome the difficulty that he was only morally incapable of doing so. He rejects this idea on account of his painful nature. He is so conceited that he cannot admit to himself his cowardice. He brags of his courage and prefers to declare things impossible rather than his own courage inadequate. But through this behavior he comes into opposition with his own self. On the one hand, he has a right view of the situation. On the other, he hides this knowledge from himself behind the illusion of his infallible courage. He represses the proper view and forcibly tries to impress his subjective, elusive opinion upon reality. The result of this contradiction is that the libido is divided and that the two parts are directed against one another. He opposes his wish to climb a mountain by his artificial self-created opinion that his assent is impossible. He does not turn to the real impossibility but to an artificial one, to a self-given limitation. Thus he is in disharmony with himself and from this moment has an internal conflict. Now insight into his cowardice will get the upper hand, now obstinacy and pride. In either case the libido is engaged in a useless civil war. If the man becomes incapable of any enterprise he will never realize his wish to climb a mountain and he goes perfectly astray as to his moral qualities. He is therefore less capable of performing his work. He is not fully adapted. He can be compared to a neurotic patient. The libido which withdrew from before this difficulty has neither led to honest self-criticism nor to a desperate struggle to overcome the obstacle. It has only been used to maintain his cheap pretense that the assent was really impossible. Even heroic courage could have availed nothing. Such a reaction is called an infantile reaction. It is very characteristic of children and of naive minds not to find the fault in their own shortcomings but in external circumstances and to impute to these their own subjective judgment. This man solves his problem in an infantile way that is he replaces the suitable mode of adaptation of our former case by a mode of adaptation belonging to the infantile mind. This is regression. His libido withdraws from an obstacle which cannot be surmounted and replaces a real action by an infantile illusion. These cases are very commonly met with in practice among neurotics. I will remind you here of those well-known cases in which young girls become hysterical with curious suddenness just when they are called upon to decide about their engagements. As an instance I should like to describe to you the case of two sisters separated only by one year in age. They were similar in capacities and characters. Their education was the same. They grew up in the same surroundings and under the influence of their parents. Both were healthy neither the one nor the other showed any nervous symptoms. An attentive observer might have discovered that the elder daughter was the more beloved by the parents. This affection depended on a certain sensitiveness which this daughter showed. She asked for more affection than the younger one was also somewhat precocious and more serious. Besides she showed some charming childish traits just those things which through their slightly capricious and unbalanced character make a personality especially charming. No wonder that father and mother had a great joy in their elder daughter as both sisters became of marriageable age almost at the same time they became intimately acquainted with two young men and the possibility of their marriages soon approached. As is generally the case certain difficulties existed both girls were young and had very little experience of the world. Both men were relatively young too and in positions which might have been better. They were only at the beginning of a career but nevertheless both were capable young men. Both girls lived in a social atmosphere which gave them the right to certain social expectations. It was a situation in which a certain doubt as to the suitability of either marriage was permissible. Moreover both girls were insufficiently acquainted with their prospective husbands and were therefore not quite sure of their love. There were many hesitations and doubts. Here it was noticed that the elder girl always showed greater waverings in her decisions. From these hesitations some painful moments arose between the girls and the young men who naturally longed for more certainty. At such moments the elder sister was much more excited than the younger one. Several times she went weeping to her mother complaining of her own hesitation. The younger one was somewhat more decided and put an end to the unsettled situation by accepting her suitor. She thus got over her difficulty and the further events ran smoothly. As soon as the admirer of the elder sister became aware that the younger one had put matters on her sure footing. He rushed to his lady and begged in a somewhat passionate way for her acceptance. His passion irritated and frightened her a little although she was really inclined to follow her sister's example. She answered in a somewhat haughty and offhand way. He replied with sharper approaches causing her to get still more excited. The end was a scene with tears and he went away in an angry mood. At home he told the story to his mother who expressed the opinion that this girl was really unsuitable for him and that it would be perhaps better to choose someone else. The girl for her part doubted very much if she really loved this man. It suddenly seemed to her impossible to follow him to an unknown destiny and to be obliged to leave her beloved parents. From that moment she was depressed. She showed unmistakable signs of the greatest jealousy towards her sister but would neither see nor admit that she was jealous. The former affectionate relations with her parents changed also. Instead of her earlier childlike affection she portrayed a lamentable state of mind which increased sometimes true pronounced irritability. Weeks of depression ensued whilst the young sister celebrated her wedding. The elder went to a distant health resort for a nervous intestinal trouble. I shall not continue the history of the disease. It ended in an ordinary hysteria. In analyzing this case great resistance to the sexual problem was found. The resistance depended on many perverse fantasies. The existence of which would not be admitted by the patient. The question whence arose such perverse fantasies so unexpected in a young girl brought us to the discovery that once as a child, eight years old, she had found herself suddenly confronted in the street by an exhibitionist. She was rooted to the spot by fright and even much later ugly images persecuted her in her dreams. Her younger sister was with her at the time. The night after the patient told me this she dreamed of a man in a gray suit who seemed about to do in front of her what the exhibitionist had done. She awoke with a cry of terror. The first association to the gray suit was a suit of her father's which he had been wearing on an excursion which he made with him when she was about six years old. This dream connects the father without any doubt with the exhibitionist. This must be done for some reason. Did something happen with the father which could possibly call forth this association? This problem met with great resistance from the patient but she could not get rid of it. In the next sitting she reproduced some early reminiscences when she had noticed her father undressing himself. Again she came one day excited and terribly shaken and told me that she had had an abominable vision, absolutely distinct. In bed at night she felt herself again a child of two or three years old and she saw her father standing by her bed in an obscene attitude. The story was gasped out piece by piece obviously with the greatest internal struggle. This was followed by violent reproaches of how dreadful it is that a father should ever behave to his child in such a terrible manner. Nothing is less probable than that the father really did this. It is only a fantasy probably first constructed in the course of the analysis from that same need of discovering a cause which once induced the physician to form the theory that hysteria was only caused by such impressions. This case seemed to me suitable to demonstrate the meaning of the theory of regression and to show at the same time the source of the theoretical mistakes so far. We saw that both sisters were originally only slightly different. From the moment of the engagement their ways were totally separated. They seemed now to have quite different characters. The one vigorous in health and enjoying life was a good and courageous woman willing to undertake the natural demands of life. The other was sad, ill tempered, full of bitterness and malice disinclined to make any effort towards a reasonable life, egotistical, quibbling and a nuisance to all about her. This striking difference was only brought out when the one sister happily passed through the difficulties of her engagement whilst the other did not. For both it hung to a certain extent only on her hair, whether the affair would be broken off or not. The younger one's somewhat calmer was therefore more deliberate and able to find the right word at the right moment. The older one was more spoiled and more sensitive, consequently more influenced by her emotions and could not find the right word nor had she the courage to sacrifice her pride to put things straight afterwards. This little circumstance had a very important effect. Originally the conditions were much the same for both sisters. The greater sensitiveness of the elder produced the difference. The question now is, whence arose this sensitiveness with its unfortunate results? The analysis demonstrated the existence of an extraordinarily developed sexuality of infantile, fantastic character, in addition an incestuous fantasy towards the father. We have a quick and easy solution of the problem of this sensitiveness if we admit that these fantasies had a lively and therefore effective existence. We might thus readily understand why this girl was so sensitive she was shut up in her own fantasies and strongly attached to her father. Under these circumstances it would have been really a wonder had she been willing to love and marry another man. The more we pursue our need for our causation and pursue the development of these fantasies back to their beginning, the greater grow the difficulties of the analysis. That is to say the resistances as we call them. At the end we should find that impressive scene, that obscene act whose improbability has already been established. This scene is exactly the character of a subsequent fantastic formation. Therefore we have to conceive these difficulties which we call resistances at least in this part of the analysis as an opposition of the patient against the formation of such fantasies and not as a resistance against the conscience admittance of a painful remembrance. You will ask with astonishment to what aim the patient contrives such a fantasy. You will even be inclined to suggest that the physician forced the patient to invent it otherwise she would probably never have produced such an absurd idea. I do not venture to doubt that there have been cases in which by dint of the decisions the desire to find a cause, especially under the influence of the shock theory the patient has been brought to contrive such fantasies but the physician would never have come to this theory had he not followed the patient's line of thought thus taking part in this retrograde movement of the libido which we call regression. The physician consequently only carried right through to its consequence what the patient was afraid to carry out namely a regression of falling back of the libido to its former desires. The analysis and following the libido regression does not always follow the exact way marked by its historical development but very often rather a later fantasy which only partly depends on former realities. In our case only some of the circumstances are real and it is much later that they get their great importance namely at the moment when the libido regresses wherever the libido takes hold of a reminiscence we may expect that this reminiscence will be elaborated and altered as everything that is touched by the libido revised takes on dramatic form and becomes systematized. We have to admit that in our case almost the greater part of these fantasies became significant subsequently after the libido had made a regression after it had taken hold of everything that could be suitable and had made out of all this a fantasy. Then that fantasy keeping pace with the retrograde movement of the libido came back at last to the father and put upon him all the infantile and sexual desires even so it was thought in ancient times that the golden age of paradise lay in the past. In the case before us we know that all the fantasies brought out by analysis did become subsequently of importance. From this standpoint only we are not able to explain the beginning of the neurosis. We should constantly move in a circle. The critical moment for this neurosis was that in which the girl and man were inclined to love one another but in which an opportune sensitiveness on the part of the patient caused the opportunity to slip by. The conception of sensitiveness we might say and the psychoanalytical conception inclines in this direction that this critical sensitiveness arises from some peculiar psychological personal history which determined this end. We know that such sensitiveness in a psychogenic neurosis is always a symptom of the discord within the subject self, a symptom of a struggle between two divergent tendencies. Both tendencies have their own previous psychological story. In this case we are able to show that this special resistance, the content of that critical sensitiveness is as a matter of fact connected in that patient's previous history with certain infantile sexual manifestations and also with that so-called traumatic event, all things which are capable of casting a shadow on sexuality. This would be so far plausible if the sister of the patient had not lived more or less the same life without experiencing all these consequences. I mean, she did not develop neurosis so we have to agree that the patient experienced these things in a special way, perhaps more intensely than the younger one. Perhaps also the events of her earlier childhood were to her of a disproportionate importance. But if it had been the case to such a marked extent, something of it would surely have been noticed earlier. In later youth the earlier events of childhood were as much forgotten by the patient as by her sister. Another supposition is therefore possible. This critical sensitiveness is not the consequence of the special previous past history but springs from something that had existed all along. A careful observer of small children can notice even in early infancy any unusual sensitiveness. I once analyzed a historical patient who showed me a letter written by her mother when this patient was two and a half years old. Her mother wrote about her and her sister. The elder was always good tempered and enterprising but the other was always in difficulties with both people and things. The first one became in later life hysterical, the other one catatonic. These far-reaching differences which go back into earliest childhood cannot depend on the more or less accidental events of life but have to be considered as being innate differences. From this point of view we cannot any longer pretend that her special previous psychological history caused this sensitiveness at that critical moment. It would be more correct to say this innate sensitiveness is manifested most distinctly in uncommon situations. This surplus of sensitiveness is found very often as an enrichment of a personality contributing even more to the charm of the character than to its detriment but in difficult and uncommon situations the advantage very often turns into a disadvantage as the inopportunely excited emotion renders calm considerations impossible. Nothing could be more incorrect than to consider this sensitiveness as A. O. Ipso a morbid constituent of a character. If it really were so we should have to regard at least one third of humanity as pathological. Only if the consequences of this sensitiveness are destructive to the individual have we a right to consider this quality as abnormal. Primary sensitiveness and regression we come to this difficulty when we crudely oppose the two conceptions as to the significance of the previous psychological history as we have done here. In reality the two are not mutually exclusive. A certain innate sensitiveness leads to a special psychological history to special reactions to infantile events which are not without their own influence on the development of the childish conception of life. Events bound up with powerful impressions can never pass without leaving some trace on sensitive people. Some of these often remain effective throughout life and such events can exert an apparently determining influence on the whole mental development. Dirty and disillusional experiences in the domain of sexuality are especially apt to frighten a sensitive person for years and years. Under these conditions the mere thought of sexuality raises the greatest resistances. As the creation of the shock theory proved we are too much inclined in consequence of our knowledge of such cases to attribute the emotional development of a person more or less to accidents. The earlier shock theory went too far in this respect. We must never forget that the world is in the first place a subjective phenomenon. The impressions we receive from these happenings are also our own doing. It is not the case that the impressions are forced on us unconditionally but our disposition gives the value to the impressions. A man with stored up libido will as a rule have quite different impressions much more vivid impressions than one who organizes his libido into a rich activity. Such a sensitive person will have a more profound impression from certain events which might harmlessly pass over a less sensitive subject. Therefore in conjunction with the accidental impression we have to consider seriously the subjective conditions. Our former considerations and the observation of the concrete case especially show us that the important subjective condition is the regression. It is shown by experience and practice that the effective regression is so enormous, so important and so impressive that we might perhaps be inclined to attribute the effective accidental events to the mechanism of regression only. Without any doubt there are cases in which everything is dramatized where even the traumatic events are artifacts of the imagination in which the few real events are subsequently entirely distorted through fantastic elaboration. We can simply say that there is not a single case of neurosis in which the emotional value of the preceding event is not considerably aggravated through the regression of libido and even where great parts of the infantile development seem to be of extraordinary importance. They only gain this through regression. As is always the case, truth is found in the middle. The previous history is certainly determining historic value which is reinforced by the regression. Sometimes the traumatic significance of the previous history comes more into the foreground, sometimes only the regressive meaning. These observations have naturally to be applied to the infantile sexual events too. Obviously there are cases in which brutal sexual accidents justify the shadow thrown on sexuality and explain thoroughly the later resistance of the individual towards sexuality. Dreadful impressions other than sexual can also sometimes leave behind a permanent feeling of insecurity which may determine the individual in a hesitating attitude towards reality where real events of undoubted traumatic potentiality are wanting as is generally the case with neurosis. They are the mechanism of regression prevails. Of course you could object that we have no criterion for the potential effect of the trauma or shock as this is a highly relative conception. It is not quite so. We have to consider the average normal a criterion for the potential effect of a shock. Whatever is capable of making a strong and persistent impression upon a normal person must be considered as having a determining influence for neurotics also. But we may not straight way attribute any importance even in neurosis to impressions which in a normal case would disappear and be forgotten. In most of the cases where any event has an unexpected traumatic influence we shall find in all probability that is to say a secondary fantastic dramatization. The earlier in childhood an impression is said to have arisen. The more suspicious is its reality. Animals and primitive people have not that readiness in reproducing memories from a single impression which we find among civilized people. Very young children have by no means that impressionability which we find in older children a certain higher development of that mental faculties as a necessary condition for impressionability. Therefore we may agree that the earlier a patient places some significant event in his childhood the more likely it will be a fantastic and regressive one. Important depressions are only to be expected from later youth. At any rate we have generally to attribute to the events of earliest childhood that is from the fifth year backwards but regressive importance. Sometimes the regression does play an overwhelming part in later years and does not describe too little importance to accidental experiences. It is well known that in the later course about neurosis the accidental events and the regression together form a vicious circle. The withdrawal from the experiences of life leads to regression and the regression aggravates the resistances towards life. In the conception of regression psychoanalysis has made one of the most important discoveries which have been made in this sphere not only has the earlier exposition of the genesis of neurosis been already subverted or at least widely modified but at the same time the actual conflict has received its proper evaluation. The significance of the actual conflict in the case I have described we saw that we could understand the centromatological dramatization as soon as it could be conceived as an expression of the actual conflict. Here the psychoanalytic theory agrees with the results of the association experiments at Clark University. The association experiment with a neurotic person gives us a series of references to certain conflicts of the actual life which we call complexes. These complexes contain those problems and difficulties which have brought the patient into opposition with himself. Generally we find a love conflict of an obvious character. From the standpoint of the association experiment neurosis seems to be something quite different from what appeared from the standpoint of the earlier psychoanalytic theory. Considered from the standpoint of the latter theory neurosis seemed to be a growth which had its roots in earliest childhood and overgrew the normal structure. Considered from the standpoint of the association experiment neurosis seems to be a reaction from an actual conflict which is naturally found also among normal people but among them the conflict is solved without too great difficulty. The neurotic remains in the grip of his conflict and his neurosis seems more or less to be the consequence of this stagnation. So we may say that the results of the association experiments tell in favor of the theory of regression. With the former historical conception of neurosis we thought we understood clearly why a neurotic person with his powerful parent complex had such great difficulty in adapting himself to life. Now that we know that normal persons have the same complex and in principle have to pass through just the same psychological development as a neurotic we can no longer explain neurosis as a certain development of fantasy systems. The really illuminating way to put the problem is a prospective one. We do not ask any longer if the patient has a father or a mother complex or unconscious incest fantasies which worry him. Today we know that everyone has such things to believe that only neurotics had these complexes was an error. We ask now what is the task which the patient does not wish to fulfill from which necessary difficulties of life does the patient try to withdraw himself. When people try always to adapt themselves to the conditions of life the libido is employed rightly inadequately. When this is not the case the libido is stored up and produces regressive symptoms. The inadequate adaptation that is to say the abnormal indecision of neurotics in face of difficulties is easily accounted for by their strong subjection to their fantasies in consequence of which reality seems to them only or partly more unreal, valueless and uninteresting than to normal people. These heightened fantasies are the results of innumerable regressions. The ultimate and deepest root is the innate sensitiveness which causes difficulties even to the infant at the mother's breast in the form of unnecessary irritation and resistances call it sensitiveness or whatever you like this unknown element of predisposition is in every case of neurosis. The etiological significance of fantasy criticized the apparent etiological development of neurosis discovered by psychoanalysis is in reality only the work of causally connected fantasies which the patient has created from that libido which at times he did not employ in the biological adaptation thus these apparently etiological fantasies seem to be forms of compensation disguises for an unfulfilled adaptation to reality. The vicious circle previously mentioned between the withdrawing in the face of difficulties and the regression into the world of fantasies is naturally well suited to give the illusion of an apparent striking causal relationship so that both the patient and the physician believe in it. In such a development accidental experiences are only extenuating circumstances I feel I must make allowance for those critics who on reading the history of psychoanalytic patients get the impression of fantastic elaboration only they make the mistake of attributing the fantastic artifacts and far-fetched arbitrary symbolism to the suggestion and to the awful fantasy of the physician instead of to the unequal fertility of fantasy on the part of the patient of a truth there is a good deal of artificial elaboration in the fantasies about psychoanalytic case there are generally significant signs of the patient's active imagination the critics are not so wrong when they say that their neurotic patients have no such fantasies I have no doubt that patients are unconscious of the greater part of their own fantasies a fantasy only really exists in the unconscious when it has some notable effect upon the conscious for example in the form of a dream otherwise we may say with a clear conscience that it is not real everyone who overlooks the frequently nearly imperceptible effects of unconscious fantasies upon the conscious or renounces their fundamental and technically incontestable analysis of dreams can easily overlook the fantasies of his patients all together we are therefore inclined to smile when we hear this repeated objection but we must admit that there is some truth in it the regressive tendency of the patient is strengthened by the attention bestowed on it and directed to the unconscious that is to say to the fantasies he discovers and forms during analysis we might even perhaps go so far as to say that during that time when it comes to critical analysis this fantasy production is greatly increased as the patient is strengthened in his regressive tendency by the interest taken by the physician and then originates even more fantasies than he did before hence our critics have repeatedly stated that a conscientious therapy of the neurosis should go in exactly the opposite direction to that taken by psychoanalysis in other words it has been the chief endeavor of therapy hitherto to extricate the patient from his unhealthy fantasies and bring him back again to real life in the chapter 8 part 2 chapter 9 of the theory of psychoanalysis by Carl Gustav Jung this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 9 the therapeutic principles of psychoanalysis while the psychoanalyst of course knows of this therapeutic tendency to extricate the patient from his unhealthy fantasies he also knows just how far this mere extricating of neurotic patients from their fantasies goes has physicians we should never think of preferring a difficult and complicated method assailed by all authorities to a simple clear and easy one for no good reason I'm perfectly well acquainted with hypnotic suggestion and with Dubois method of persuasion but I do not use these methods on account of their relative inadequacy for the same reason I do not use the direct ray ducation de la volonté as the psychoanalytic method gives me better results in applying psychoanalysis we must grant the regressive fantasies of the patient for psychoanalysis has a much broader outlook as regards the valuation of symptoms than have the above psycho therapeutic methods these all emanate from the assertion that a neurosis is an absolute morbid formation the reigning school of neurology has never thought of considering neurosis as a healing process also and of attributing to the neurotic formations a quite special teleological meaning neurosis like every other disease is a compromise between the morbid tendencies and the normal function modern medicine no longer considers fever as the illness itself but a purposeful reaction of the organism psychoanalysis likewise no longer conceives a neurosis as an ayo ipso morbid but as also having a meaning and a purpose from this there follows the more reserved and expectant attitude of psychoanalysis towards neurosis psychoanalysis does not judge the value of the symptoms but first tries to understand what tendencies lie beneath these symptoms if we were able to abolish a neurosis in the same way for instance as the cancer is destroyed then at the same time there would be destroyed a great amount of available energy also we save this energy that is we make it serve the purposes of the instinct for health as soon as we can trace the meaning of these symptoms by taking part in their regressive movement of the patient those unfamiliar with the essentials of psychoanalysis will have some difficulty in understanding how a therapeutic effect can come to pass when the physician takes part in the pernicious fantasies of the patient not only critics but the patients also doubt the therapeutic value of such a method which concentrates attention upon fantasies which the patient rejects as worthless and reprehensible the patients will often tell you that their former physicians forbade them to occupy themselves with their fantasies and told them that they must only consider that it is well with them when they are free but momentarily from their awful torments so it seems strange enough that it should be of any use to them when the treatment brings them back to the very thing from which they have tried constantly to escape the following answer may be made all depends upon the position which the patient takes up towards his own fantasies these fantasies have been hitherto for the patient an absolutely passive and involuntary manifestation as we say he was lost in his dreams the patient's so-called brooding and involuntary kind of dreaming too what psychoanalysis demands from a patient is only apparently the same only a man who has a very superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis can confuse this passive dreaming with the position taken up in analysis what psychoanalysis asks from the patient is just the contrary of what the patient has always done the patient can be compared to a person who unintentionally has fallen into the water and sunk whilst psychoanalysis wants him to dive in as it was no mere chance which led him to fall in at just that spot there lies a sunken treasure and only a diver can raise it the patient judging his fantasies from the standpoint of his reason regards them as valueless and senseless but in reality the fantasies have their great influence on the patient because they are of great importance they are old sunken treasures which can only be recovered by a diver that is the patients contrary to their want must now pay inactive attention to their inner life where they formally dreamed they must now think consciously and intentionally this new way of thinking about himself has about as much resemblance to the patient's former mental condition as a diver has to a drowning man the earlier joy indulgence has now become a purpose and a name that is has become work the patient assisted by the physician occupies himself with his fantasies not to lose himself therein but to uproot them piece by piece and to bring them into daylight he thus reaches an objective standpoint towards his inner life and everything he formally loathed and feared is now considered consciously this contains the basis of the whole psychoanalytic therapy in consequence of his illness the patient stood partially or totally outside of real life consequently he neglected many of his life's duties either in regard to social work or to the ordinary daily tasks if he wishes to be well he must return to the fulfillment of his particular obligations let me say by way of caution that we are not to understand by such duties some general ethical postulates but duties towards himself nor does this mean that they are a oh if so egoistic interests since we are social beings as well a matter too easily forgotten by individual lists and the ordinary person will feel very much more comfortable sharing a common virtue then possessing an individual vice even if the latter is a very seductive one they must be already neurotic or otherwise extraordinary people who can be deluded by such particular interests the neurotic fled from his duties and his libido withdrew at least partly from the tasks imposed by real life in consequence the libido became introverted and directed towards an inner life the libido followed the path of regression to a large extent fantasies replace reality because the patient refused to overcome these fantasies unconsciously the neurotic patient prefers very often consciously to his dreams and fantasies to reality to bring him back to real life and to the fulfillment of its necessary duties the analysis proceeds along the same false path of regression which has been taken by his libido so that the beginning of psychoanalysis looks as if it were supporting the morbid tendencies of the patient but psychoanalysis these wrong paths in order to restore the libido which is the valuable part of the fantasies to the conscious self and to the duties of the moment this can only be done by bringing the fantasies into the light of day and along with them the libido bound up with them we might leave these unconscious fantasies to their shadowy existence if no libido were attached to them it is unavoidable that the patient feeling himself at the beginning of analysis confirmed in his regressive tendencies leads his analytical interest amid increasing resistances down to the depths of the shadowy world we can easily understand that any physician who is a normal person experiences the greatest resistance towards the thoroughly morbid regressive tendency of the patient since he feels quite certain that this tendency is pathological and this all the more because as physician he believes he is right in refusing to give heed to his patient's fantasies it is quite conceivable that the physician feels a repulsion towards this tendency it is undoubtedly repugnant to see how a person is completely given up to such fantasies finding only himself of any importance and never ceasing to admire or despise himself the aesthetic sense of normal people has as a rule little pleasure in erotic fantasies even if it does not find them absolutely repulsive the psychoanalyst must put aside such aesthetic judgment just as every physician must who really tries to help his patients he may not fear any dirty work of course there are a great many patients physically ill who without undergoing an exact examination or local treatment do recover by the use of general physical, dietetic or suggestive means severe cases can however only be helped by a more exact examination and therapy based on a profound knowledge of the illness our psychotherapeutic methods hitherto have been like these general measures in slight cases they did no harm on the contrary they were often of great service before a great many patients these measures have proved inadequate if they really can be helped it will be by psychoanalysis which is not to say that psychoanalysis is a universal panacea such as sneer proceeds only from ill nature criticism we know very well that psychoanalysis fails in many cases as everybody knows we shall never be able to cure all illnesses this diving work of analysis brings dirty matter piecemeal out of the slime which must then be cleansed before we can tell its value the dirty fantasies are valueless and are thrown aside but the libido actuating them is a value and this after cleansing becomes serviceable again to the psychoanalyst as to every specialist it will sometimes seem that the fantasies have also a value of their own and not only by reason of the libido linked with them but their value is not in the first instance for the patient for the physician these fantasies have a scientific value just as it is of special interest to the surgeon to know whether the pus contained staphylococci or a streptococci to the patient it is all the same and for him it is better that the doctor conceal his scientific interest in order not to tempt him to have greater pleasure than necessary in his fantasies the etiological importance which is attached to these fantasies incorrectly to my mind explains why so much room was given up in psychoanalytic literature to the extensive discussion of the various sexual fantasies once it is known that absolutely nothing is impossible in the sphere of sexual fantasy the former estimate of these fantasies will disappear with the endeavor to discover in them in the etiological import nor will the most extended discussion of these cases ever be able to exhaust this sphere every case is theoretically inexhaustible but in general the production of fantasies ceases after a time naturally we must not conclude from this that the possibility of creating fantasies is exhausted but the cessation in their production only means that there is then no more libido on the path of regression the end of the regressive movement is reached as soon as the libido takes hold of the present real duties of life and is used to solve those problems but there are cases and these are not a few where the patient continues longer than usual to produce endless fantastic manifestations either from his own pleasure in them or from certain false expectations on the part of the doctor such a mistake is especially easy for beginners since blinded by the present psychoanalytical discussion they keep their interest fixed on these fantasies because they seem to possess etiological significance they are therefore constantly a pains to fish of fantasies of early childhood vainly hoping to find thus the solution of the neurotic difficulties they do not see that the solution lies in action and in the fulfillment of certain necessary duties of life it will be objected that the neurosis is entirely due to the incapacity of the patient to carry out great demands of life and that therapy by the analysis of the unconscious ought to enable him to do so or at least give him means to do so the objection put in this way is perfectly valid but we have to add that it is only so when the patient is really conscious of the duties he has to fulfill not only academically in their general theoretical outlines but in their most minor details it is characteristic for neurotic people to be wanting in this knowledge although because of their intelligence they are well aware of the general duties of life and struggle perhaps only too hard to fulfill the prescriptions of current morality but the much more important duties which he ought to fulfill towards himself are to a great extent unknown to the neurotic sometimes even they are not known at all it is not enough therefore to follow the patient blindfold on the path of regression and to push him by an inopportune etiological interest back into his infantile fantasies I have often heard from patients with whom the psychoanalytic treatment has come to a standstill the doctor believes I must have some infantile trauma or an infantile fantasy which I am still repressing apart from the cases where this supposition was really true I have seen cases in which the stoppage was caused by the fact that the libido held up by the analysis sank back into the depths again for want this was due to the physician's attention being directed entirely to the infantile fantasies and is failing therefore to see what duties of the moment the patient had to fulfill the consequence was that the libido brought forth by analysis always sank back again as no opportunity for further activity was found there are many patients who on their own account discover their life tasks and abandon the production of regressive fantasies presumed because they prefer to live in reality rather than in their fantasies it is a pity that this cannot be said of all patients a good many of them for a sake for a long time or even forever the fulfillment of their life tasks and prefer their idle neurotic dreaming I must again emphasize that we do not understand by dreaming always a conscious phenomenon in accordance with these facts and these views the character of psychoanalysis has changed during the course of time if the first stage of psychoanalysis was perhaps a kind of surgery which were removed from the mind of the patient the form body the blocked effect the later form has been a kind of historical method which tries to investigate carefully the genesis of the neurosis down to its smallest details and to reduce it to its earliest origins the conception of transference this last method has unmistakably been due to strong scientific interest the traces of which are clearly seen in the delineations of cases so far thanks to this Freud was also able to discover where in lay the therapeutical effect of psychoanalysis whilst formally this was sought in the discharge of the traumatic effect it was now seen that the fantasies produced were especially associated with the personality of the physician for it caused this process transference you bear to our gloom owing to the fact that the images of the parents imagines are henceforth transferred to the physician along with the infantile attitude of mind adopted towards the parents the transference does not arise solely in the intellectual sphere but the libido bound up with the fantasy is transferred together with the fantasy itself to the personality of the physician so that the physician replaces the parents to a certain extent all the apparently sexual fantasies which have been connected with the parents are now connected with the physician and the less this is realized by the patient the more he will be unconsciously bound to his physician this recognition is in many ways of prime importance this process has an important biological value for the patient the less libido he gives to reality the more exaggerated will be his fantasies and the more he will be cut off from the world typical of neurotic people is their attitude of disharmony towards reality that is their diminished capacity for adaptation through the transference to the physician a bridge is built across which the patient can get away from his family into reality in other words he can emerge from his infantile environment into the world of grown up people for here the physician stands for a part of the extra familial world but on the other hand this hindrance to the progress of treatment for the patient assimilates the personality of the physician as if he did stand for father or mother and not for a part of the extra familial world if the patient could acquire the image of the physician as a part of the non-infantile world he would gain a considerable advantage but transference has the opposite effect hence the whole advantage of the new acquisition is neutralized the more the patient succeeds the less he does any other individual the more he is able to consider himself objectively the greater becomes the advantage of transference the less he is able to consider his doctor in this way the more the physician is assimilated with the father the less is the advantage of the transference and the greater will be its harm the familial environment of the patient has only become increased by an additional personality assimilated to his parents the patient himself is as before and therefore maintains his infantile attitude of mind in this manner all the advantages of transference can be lost there are patients who followed the analysis with the greatest interest without making the slightest improvement remaining extraordinarily productive in fantasies although the whole development of their neurosis even to the smallest details has been brought to light a physician under the influence of the historical view might be thus easily thrown into confusion we have to ask himself what is there in this case still to be analyzed those are just the cases of which I spoke before where it is no longer a matter of the analysis of the historical material but we have now to face a practical problem the overcoming of the inadequate infantile attitude of mind of course the historical analysis which show repeatedly that the patient had a childish attitude towards his physician but would not bring us any solution of the question how that attitude could be changed to a certain extent this serious disadvantage of transference is found in every case gradually has been proved that this part of psychoanalysis is considered from a scientific standpoint extraordinarily interesting and of great value but in its practical aspect of less importance than that which has now to follow namely the analysis of the transference confession and psychoanalysis before we enter into a more detailed consideration of this practical part of psychoanalysis I should like to mention our parallelism between the first part of psychoanalysis and a historical institution of our civilization it is not difficult to guess this parallelism we find in the religious institution called confession by nothing are people more cut off from fellowship with others than by a secret born about within them it is not that a secret actually cuts off a person from communicating with his fellows yet somehow personal secrets which are zealously guarded do have this effect sinful deeds and thoughts for instance are the secrets which separate one person from another great relief is therefore gained by confessing them this relief is due to the readmission of the individual through the community is loneliness which was so difficult to bear ceases herein lies the essential value of the confession but this confession means at the same time through the phenomenon of transference and its unconscious fantasies that the individual becomes tied to his confessing this was probably instinctively intended by the church the fact that perhaps the greater part of humanity wants to be guided justifies the moral value attributed to this institution by the church the priest is furnished with all the attributes of paternal authority and upon arrest the obligation to guide his congregation just as a father guides his children thus the priest replaces the parents and to a certain extent freezes people from their infantile concerns insofar as the priest is a highly moral personality with a nobility of soul and an adequate culture this institution may be commended as a splendid instance of social control and education which served humanity during the space of 2000 years so long as the Christian church of the middle ages was capable of being the guardian of culture and science in which role her success was in part due to her wide toleration of the secular element confession was an admirable method for education of the people the confession lost its greatest value at least for the more educated as soon as the church was unable to maintain her leadership over the more emancipated portion of the community and became incapable through her rigidity of following the intellectual life of the nations the more highly educated men of today do not want to be guided by a belief or a rigid dogma they want to understand therefore they put aside everything that they do not understand and the religious symbol is very little accessible for general understanding the sacrificial intellect is an act of violence to which the moral conscience of the highly developed man is opposed but in a large number of cases transference to independence upon the analyst could be considered as a sufficient end with a definite therapeutic effect if the analyst were in every respect a great personality capable and competent to guide the patients given into his charge and to be a father of his people but a modern mentally developed person desires to guide himself and to stand on his own feet he wants to take the helm in his own hands the steering has too long been done by others he wants to understand in other words he wants to be a grown-up person it is much easier to be guided but this no longer suits the well educated of the present time for they feel the necessity of the moral independence demanded by the spirit of our time modern humanity demands moral autonomy psychoanalysis has to allow this claim and refuses to guide and to advise the psychoanalytic physician knows his own shortcomings too well and therefore cannot believe that he can be father and leader his highest ambition must only consist in educating his patients to become independent personalities and infring them from their unconscious dependency within infantile limitations psychoanalysis has therefore to analyze the transference a task left untouched by the priest and so doing the unconscious dependence upon the physician is cut off and the patient is put upon his own feet this at least is the end at which the physician aims the analysis of the transference we have already seen that the transference brings about difficulties because the personality of the physician is assimilated with the image of the patient's parents part of the analysis the investigation of the patient's complexes is rather easy chiefly because a man is relieved by reading himself of his secrets difficulties and pains in the second place he experiences a book of satisfaction from at last finding someone who shows interest in all those things to which nobody here the two would listen it is very agreeable to find a person who tries to understand him and does not shrink back in the third place the expressed intention of the physician and to follow him through all his erring ways pathetically affects the patient the feeling of being understood as especially sweet to the solitary souls who are forever longing for understanding in this they are insatiable the beginning of the analysis is for these reasons fairly easy and simple the improvement so easily gained and the sometimes striking change in the patient's condition of health are a great temptation to the psychoanalytic beginner to slip into a therapeutic optimism and an analytical superficiality neither of which would correspond to the seriousness and the difficulties of the situation the trumpeting of therapeutic successes is nowhere more contemptible than in psychoanalysis for no one is better able to understand than a psychoanalyst how the so-called result of the therapy depends on the cooperation of nature and the patient himself the psychoanalyst may rest content with possessing an advanced scientific insight the prevailing psychoanalytic literature cannot be spared reproach that some of its works do give a false impression as to its real nature there are there are putical publications in which the uninitiated receive the impression that psychoanalysis more or less a clever trick with astonishing effects the first part of analysis where we try to understand in which as we have seen before offers much relief to the patient's feelings is responsible for these illusions these incidental benefits help the phenomenon of transference the patient has long felt the need of help to free him from his inward isolation and his lack of self understanding so he gives way to his transference after first struggling against it for an erotic person the transference is an ideal situation he himself makes no effort and nevertheless another person meets him halfway with an apparent defectionate understanding does not even get annoyed or leave off his patient endeavors although he himself is sometimes stubborn and makes childish resistances by this means the strongest resistances are melted away for the interest of the physician meets the need of a better adaptation to extra familial reality the patient obtains through the transference not only his parents who used to bestow great attention upon him but in addition it gets a relationship outside the family and thus fulfills a necessary duty of life the therapeutical success is so often to be seen at the same time fortifies the patient's belief that this new gain situation is an excellent one here we can easily understand that the patient is not in the least inclined to abandon this newly found advantage if it depended upon him he would be forever associated with his physician in consequence he begins to produce all kinds of fantasies in order to find possible ways of maintaining the association with his physician the greatest resistances towards his physician when the latter tries to dissolve the transference at the same time we must not forget that for our patients the acquisition of a relationship outside the family is one of the most important duties of life and one more over which up to this moment they had failed or but very imperfectly succeeded in accomplishing I must oppose myself energetically to the view that we always mean by this relationship outside the family a sexual relation in this popular sense this is the misunderstanding falling into by so many neurotic people who believe that our right attitude toward reality is only to be found by way of concrete sexuality there are even physicians not psychoanalysts who are of the same conviction but this is the primitive adaptation which we find among uncivilized people under primitive conditions if we lend uncritical support to this tendency of neurotic people to adapt themselves in an infantile way we just encourage them in the infantilism from which they are suffering the neurotic patient has to learn that higher adaptation which is demanded by life from civilized and grown-up people whoever has a tendency to sink lower will proceed to do so for this end he does not need psychoanalysis but we must be careful not to fall into the opposite extreme and believe that we can create by analysis great personalities psychoanalysis stands above traditional morality it follows no arbitrary moral standard it is only a means to bring to light the individual trends and to develop and harmonize them as perfectly as possible analysis must be a biological method that is a method which tries to connect the highest objective well-being with the most valuable biological activity the best result for a person who passes through analysis is that he becomes at the end what he really is in harmony with himself neither bad nor good but an ordinary human being psychoanalysis cannot be considered a method of education if by education has understood the possibility of shaping a tree to a highly artificial form but whoever has the higher conception of education will most prize that educational method which can cultivate a tree so that it shall fulfill to perfection its own natural conditions of growth we yield too much to the ridiculous fear that we are at bottom quite impossible beings and that if everyone were to appear as he really is a dreadful social catastrophe would result the individualistic thinkers of our day insist on understanding by people as they really are only the discontented anarchistic and egotistic element in humanity they quite forget that this same humanity has created those well-established forms of our civilization which possess greater strength and solidity than all the anarchistic undercurrents when we try to dissolve the transference we have to fight against powers which have not only neurotic value but also universal normal significance when we try to bring the patient to the dissolution of his transference we are asking more from him than is generally asked of the average man we ask that he should subdue himself wholly only certain religions have made such a claim on humanity and it is this demand which makes the second part of analysis so difficult the technique that we have to employ for the analysis of the transference is exactly the same as that before described naturally the problem as to what the patient must do with the libido which is now withdrawn from the physician comes to the fore here again there is a great danger for the beginner as he will be inclined to suggest or to give suggestive advice this would be extremely pleasant for the patient in every respect and therefore fatal the problem of self-analysis I think here is the place to say something about the indispensable conditions of the psychology of the psychoanalyst himself psychoanalysis is by no means an instrument applied to the patient only it is self-evident that it must be applied to the psychoanalyst first I believe that it is not only a moral but a professional duty also for the physician to submit himself to the psychoanalytic process in order to clean his mind from his own unconscious interferences even if he is entitled to trust to his own personal honesty that will not suffice to save him from the misleading influences of his own unconscious the unconscious is unknown even to the most frank and honest person without analysis the physician will inevitably be blindfolded in all those places where he meets his own complexes this is a situation of dangerous importance in the analysis of transference do not forget that the complexes of a neurotic are only the complexes of all human beings the psychoanalyst included through the interference of your own hidden wishes you will do the greatest harm to your patients the psychoanalyst must never forget that the final aim of psychoanalysis is the personal freedom and moral independence of the patient the analysis of dreams here as everywhere in analysis we have to follow the patient and follow the line of his own impulses even if the path seems to be a wrong one error is just as important the condition of mental progress is true in the second step of analysis with all its hidden precipices and sandbanks we owe a great deal to dreams at the beginning of analysis dreams chiefly helped in discovering fantasies here they guide us in a most valuable way to the application of the libido Freud's work laid the foundation of an immense sin Greece and art knowledge in regard to the interpretation of the dreams content through its historical material and its tendency to express wishes he showed us how dreams open the way to the acquisition of unconscious material in accordance with his genius for that purely historical method he opprises us chiefly of the analytical relations although this method is incontestably of the greatest importance we ought not to take up this standpoint exclusively as such and historical conception does not sufficiently take account of the teleological meaning of dreams conscious thinking would be quite insufficiently characterized if we considered it only from its historical determinants for its complete valuation we have unquestionably to consider its teleological or perspective meaning as well if we pursued the history of the English parliament back to its first origin we should certainly arrive at a perfect understanding of its development and determination of its present form though we should know nothing about its perspective function that is about the work which it has to accomplish now and in the future the same thing is to be said about dreams their perspective function has been valued only by superstitious peoples in times but probably there is much truth in their view not that we pretend that dreams have any prophetic foreboding but we suggest that there might be a possibility of discovering in their unconscious material combinations which are subliminal just because they have not reached the distinctiveness or the intensity which consciousness requires here I am thinking of those indistinct presentments of the future which we sometimes have which are nothing else than subliminal combinations the objective value of which we are not able to to perceive the future tendencies of the patient are elaborated by this indirect analysis and if this work is successful the convalescent passes out of treatment and out of his half infantile state of transference into life which has been inwardly carefully prepared for which has been chosen by himself and to which after many deliberations he has at last made up his mind End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Part 1 of the Theory of Psychoanalysis by Carl Gustav Jung This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 10 Part 1 Some general remarks on psychoanalysis as may easily be understood psychoanalysis will never do for polyclinic work and will therefore always remain in the hands of those few who because of their innate and trained psychological faculties are particularly apt and have a special liking for this profession Just as not every physician makes a good surgeon so neither will everyone make a good psychoanalyst the predominant psychological character of psychoanalytic work will make it difficult for doctors to monopolize it sooner or later other faculties will master it either for practical uses or for its theoretical interest of course the treatment must remain confined entirely to the hands of responsible scientific people so long as official science excludes psychoanalysis from general discussion as pure nonsense we cannot be astonished if those belonging to other faculties master this material even before the medical profession and this will occur the more because psychoanalysis as a general psychological method of investigation as well as a heuristic principle of the first rank in all departments of mental science, geist of this and Schafton chiefly through the work of the Zurich school the possibility of applying psychoanalysis to the domain of the mental diseases has been demonstrated psychoanalytical investigation of dementia precox for instance brought us the most valuable insight into the psychological structure of this remarkable disease it would lead me too far were I to demonstrate to you the results of those investigations the theory of the psychological determinants of this disease is already in itself a vast territory even if I had to treat but the symbolic problems of dementia precox I should be obliged to lay before you so much material that I could not possibly master it within the limits of these lectures which must give a general survey. The question of dementia precox has become so extraordinarily complicated because of the quite recent incursion on the part of psychoanalysis into the domains of mythology and comparative religion once we have derived a deeper insight into ethical psychological symbolism those who are well acquainted with the symbolism of dreams and of dementia precox have been greatly impressed by the striking parallelism between modern individual symbols and those found in folklore the extraordinary parallelism between ethnic symbolism and that of dementia precox is remarkably clear this fact induced me to make an extended comparative investigation of individual and ethnic symbolism the results of which have been recently published this complication of psychology with the problem of mythology it would be impossible for me to demonstrate to you my conception of dementia precox for the same reasons I must forego the discussion of the results of psychoanalytic investigation in the domain of mythology and comparative religions it would be impossible to do this without setting forth all the material belonging to it the main result of these investigations is for the moment the knowledge of the far reaching parallelisms symbolisms from the present position of this work we can scarcely conceive what a vast perspective may result from this comparative ethno-psychology through the study of mythology the psychoanalytical knowledge of the nature of the unconscious processes we may expect to be enormously enriched and deepened I must limit myself if I am to give you in the course of my lectures a more or less general presentation of the psychoanalytic school the detailed elaboration of this method and its theory would have demanded an enormous display of cases whose delineation would have detracted from a comprehensive view of the whole but to give you an insight into the concrete proceedings of psychoanalytic treatment I decided to bring before you a short analysis of a girl of 11 years of age the case was analysed by my assistant, Miss Mary Mozart in the first place I must mention that this case is by no means typical either in the length of its time or in the course of its general analysis it is just as little so as an individual is characteristic for all other people nowhere is the abstraction of universal rules more difficult than in psychoanalysis for which reason it is better to abstain from too many rules we must never forget that notwithstanding the great uniformity of complexes is unique for every individual is unique every case demands from the physician an individual interest and in every case you will find the course of analysis different in describing this case I offer you a small section of the vast diverse psychological world showing all those apparently bizarre and arbitrary peculiarities scattered over human life by the whims of so-called chance I have no intention of withholding any of the minute psychoanalytic details as I do not want to make you believe that psychoanalysis is a method with rigid laws the scientific interest of the investigator inclines him to find rules and categories in which the most living of all things alive can be included but the physician as well as the observer free from all formulas ought to have an open eye for the whole lawless wealth of living reality in this way I will endeavor to present to you this case also to succeed in demonstrating to you how differently an analysis develops from what might have been expected from purely theoretical considerations a case of neurosis in a child the case in question is that of an intelligent girl of 11 years of age of good family the history of the disease as it follows and I'm nieces she had to leave school several times on account of sudden sickness and headache and was obliged to go to bed in the morning she sometimes refused to get up and go to school she suffered from bad dreams, was capricious and not to be counted upon I informed the mother who came to consult me that these things were neurotic signs and that some special circumstance must be hidden there necessitating an interrogation of the child this supposition was not arbitrary for every attentive observer knows that if children are restless or in bad temper there is always something painful worrying them if it were not painful they would tell it and they would not be worried over it of course I'm only speaking of those cases having a psychogenic cause the child confessed her mother the following story she had a favorite teacher of whom she was very fond during this last term she had fallen back somewhat through working insufficiently and she believed she had rather fallen in the estimation of her teacher she then began to feel sick during his lessons she felt not only estranged from her teacher but even somewhat hostile she directed all her friendly feelings to a poor boy with whom she usually shared the bread which she took to school later on she gave him money so that he could buy bread for himself in a conversation with this boy she made fun of her teacher and called him a goat the boy attached himself more and more to her and considered that he had the right to levy attacks on her occasionally in the form of a little present of money she now became greatly alarmed lest the boy might tell her teacher that she turned him into ridicule and called him a goat and she promised him two francs if he would give his solemn word never to tell anything to her teacher from that moment the boy began to exploit her he demanded money with threats and persecuted her with his demands on the way to school this made her perfectly miserable her attacks of sickness are closely connected with all this story but after the affair had been disposed of by this confession her peace of mind was not restored as might have been expected we very often see as I have said that the mere relation of a painful affair can have an important therapeutical effect generally this does not last very long although on occasion such a favorable effect can maintain itself for a long time such a confession is naturally a long way from being an analysis but there are nerve specialists nowadays who believe that an analysis is only a somewhat more extensive anemesis or confession a little while later the child had an attack of coughing and missed school for one day after that she went to school for one day and felt perfectly well on the third day a renewed attack of coughing came on with pains on the left side fever and vomiting her temperature accurately taken showed 39.4 degrees celsius about 103 degrees Fahrenheit doctor feared pneumonia but the next day everything had passed away she felt quite well and not the slightest sign of fever or sickness was to be noted but still our little patient wept the whole time and did not wish to get up from this strange course of events I suspected some serious neurosis and I therefore advised treatment by analysis analytic treatment first interview the little girl seemed to be nervous and constrained having a disagreeable forced laugh also who analyzed her gave her first of all an opportunity of talking about her staying in bed we learned that she liked it immensely as she always had some society everybody came to see her also her mother read to her out of a book which contained the story of a prince who was ill but who recovered when his wish was fulfilled the wish being that his little friend a poor boy might be allowed to stay with him the obvious relation between this story and her own little love story its connection with her own illness was pointed out to her where upon she began to cry and say she would prefer to go to the other children and play with them otherwise they would run off this was at once allowed in a way she ran but came back again after a short while somewhat embarrassed it was explained to her that she did not run away because she was afraid her playmates would go but that she herself wanted to get off because of resistances at the second interview she was anxious and repressed they happened to speak about the teacher but then she was embarrassed she seemed to be ashamed at the end and she timidly confessed that she liked her teacher very much it was then explained to her that she need not be ashamed of that on the contrary her love for him could be a valuable stimulus to make her do her very best in his lessons so I may love him ask the little patient with a happier face this explanation justified the child in the choice of the subject of her affection it seems as if she had been ashamed of admitting her feelings for her teacher it is not easy to explain why there should be so our present conception tells us that the libido has great difficulty in taking hold of a personality outside the family because it still finds itself in incestuous bonds a very plausible view indeed from which it is difficult to withdraw but we must point out here there is much intensity upon the poor boy who was also someone outside the family once we must conclude that the difficulty was not to be found in the transference of the libido outside the family but in some other circumstance the love of the teacher but tokens a difficult task it demands much more than her love for the little boy which does not require any moral effort on her part this indication and the analysis that her love for her teacher would enable her to do her utmost brings the child back to her real duty namely her adaptation to her teacher the libido requires from before such a necessary task for the very human reason of indolence which is highly developed not only in children but also in primitive people primitive laziness and indolence are the first resistances to the efforts towards adaptation the libido which is not used for this purpose becomes stagnant and will make the inevitable regression of the former objects or modes of employment it is thus that the incest complex is revived in such a striking way the libido avoids the object which is so difficult to attain and demands such great efforts and turns towards the easier ones and finding to the easiest of all namely the infantile fantasies which thus become real incest fantasies the fact that wherever there is present a disturbance of psychological adaptation one finds an exaggerated development of incest fantasies must be conceived as I have pointed out as a regressive phenomenon that is to say the incest fantasy is of secondary and not of causal significance while the primary cause is the resistance of human nature against any kind of exertion the drawing back from certain duties is not to be explained by saying that man prefers the incestuous condition but he has to fall back into it because he shuns exertion otherwise it would have to be said that the aversion from conscious effort must be taken as identical with the preference for incestuous relations this would be obvious nonsense for not only primitive men but animals too have a pronounced dislike for all intentional efforts and pay homage to absolute laziness until circumstances force them into action we cannot pretend either in very primitive people or in animals that their preference for incestuous relations causes aversion towards efforts of adaptation as in those cases there can be no question of incestuous relations this would presuppose a differentiation of parents and non-parents characteristically the child expressed her joy at being allowed to love her teacher but not at being allowed to do her utmost for him that she might love her teacher because it suited her best her relief was caused by the information that she was right in loving him even though she did not especially exert herself before the conversation ran on to the story of the extortion which is now again told in details we hear further that she had tried to force open her savings bank and that she could not succeed in doing so she wanted to steal the key from her mother she expressed herself thus about the whole matter to her teacher because he was much kinder to the other girls than to her but it was true that she did not do very well in his lessons especially at arithmetic once she did not understand something was afraid to ask for fear she might lose his esteem and consequently she made many mistakes and did really lose it it is pretty clear that her position towards her teacher became consequently very unsatisfactory sometimes it happened that a young girl in her class was sent home because she was sick soon after the same thing happened to herself in this way she tried to get away from the school which had become uncongenial to her the loss of her teacher's respect led her on the one hand to insult him and on the other into the affair with the little boy obviously as a compensation for the lost relationship with the teacher the explanation which was given here was a simple hint she would be a service to her teacher if she took pains to understand the lessons by sensible questions I can add here that this hint given in the analysis had a good effect from that moment the little girl became one of the best of pupils and missed no more arithmetic lessons we must call attention to the fact that the story of the boy's extortion shows constraint and lack of freedom the phenomenon exactly follows the rule as soon as anyone permits his libido to draw back from necessary tasks it becomes autonomous and juices without regard to the protests of the subject its own way and pursues it obstinately it is a general fact that a lazy and inactive life is highly susceptible to the coercion of the libido that is to say to all kinds of tears and involuntary obligations the anxieties and superstitions of savages furnish us with the best illustrations but our own history of civilization especially the civilization and customs of the ancients abounds with confirmations non-employment of the libido makes it autonomous but we must not believe either that we are able to save ourselves permanently from the coercion of the libido by making forced efforts to a certain limited extent we are able to set conscious tasks to our libido but other natural tasks are chosen by the libido itself and that is what the libido exists for if we avoid those tasks the most active life can become useless for we have to deal with the whole of the conditions of our human nature innumerable cases of neurasthenia from overwork can be traced back to this cause for work done amid internal conflicts creates nervous exhaustion at the third interview the little girl related a dream she had had she was five years old and by which she was greatly impressed she says I'll never forget this dream the dream runs as follows I am in a wood with my little brother and we are looking for strawberries then a wolf came and jumped at me I took to a staircase the wolf after me I fall down and the wolf bites my leg I awoke in terror before we go into the association given by our little patient I will try to form an arbitrary opinion about the possible content of the dream and then compare our result afterwards with the associations given by the child the beginning of the dream reminds us of the well-known German fairy tale of little red writing hood which is of course known to the child the wolf ate the grandmother first then took her shape and afterwards ate little red writing hood but the hunter killed the wolf cut open the belly and little red writing hood sprang out in a safe and sound this motive is found in a great many fairy tales why it spread over the whole world and it is the motive of the biblical story of Jonah the original significance is astro-mythological the sun is swallowed up by the sea and in the morning is born again out of the water of course the whole of astro-mythology is at the root but psychology, unconscious psychology projected onto the heavens for myths have never been or never made consciously but arise from man's unconscious for this reason we sometimes find that marvelous striking similarity or identity in the forms of myths even among races that have been separated from each other since eternity as it were this explains the universal dissemination of the symbol of the cross perfectly independent of Christianity of which America as is well known furnishes us especially interesting instances it is impossible to agree that myths have been made to explain meteorological or astronomical processes myths are first of all manifestations of unconscious currents similar to dreams these currents are caused by the libido in its unconscious forms the material which comes to the service is infantile material hence fantasies connected with the incest complex without difficulty we can find in all the so-called son myths infantile theories about generation childbirth and incestuous relations in the fairy tale of little red writing hood we find the fantasy that the mother has to eat something which is similar to a child and that the child is born by cutting open the mother's body this fantasy is one of the most universal to be found everywhere we can conclude from these universal psychological observations that the child in its dream elaborates the problem of generation and childbirth as to the wolf the father probably has to be put in its place for the child unconsciously assigns to the father any act of violence towards the mother this anticipation can be based on innumerable myths which deal with the problem of any act of violence towards the mother in reference to the mythological parallelism to your attention to Boaz's collection where you will find a beautiful set of Indian legends also to the worker Frobenius, Das Taltus Sonan Gattus and finally to the works of Abraham Rank, Ricklin, Jones, Freud, Spiel, Reim and in my own investigations in my Von Lungen und Symbola der Lebedo after having made these general observations for theoretical reasons which of course were not made in the concrete case we will go back to see what the child has to tell in regard to her dream of course the child speaks of her dream just as she likes without being influenced in any way whatever the little girl begins with the bite in her leg and relates that she had once been told by a woman who had had a baby that she could still show the place where the stork had bitten her this mode of expression is in Switzerland a universally known variant of the symbolism of generation and birth here we find a perfect parallelism between our interpretation and the associations of the child the first associations which have been brought by the child without being influenced in any way are connected with the problem which for theoretical reasons was suggested by ourselves I know well that the innumerable cases published in our psychoanalytic literature where the patients have certainly not been influenced have not prevented the critics contention that we suggest our own interpretation to our patients this case will not therefore convince anyone who is determined to find crude mistakes or much worse still fabrications after our little patient finished her first association she was asked what did the wolf suggest she answered I think of my father when he is angry this association also coincides with our theoretical observations it might be objective that the observation was made just for this purpose and for nothing else and has therefore no general validity I believe that this objection banishes of itself as soon as the corresponding psychoanalytic and mythological knowledge has been acquired the validity of a hypothesis can only be confirmed by positive knowledge otherwise it is impossible to confirm it we have seen by the first association that the wolf has been replaced by the stork the associations given to the wolf bring the father in the common myth the stork stands for the father as the father brings children the apparent contradiction which could be noticed here between the fairy tale where the wolf represents the mother and the dream in which the wolf stands for the father is of no importance for the dream I must renounce here any attempt at a detailed explanation I have treated this problem of bisexual symbols in the work already referred to you know that in the legend of Romulus and Remus both animals were raised to the rank of parents the bird, pikes and the wolf the fear of the wolf in the dream is therefore fear of her father the little patient explains her fear of her father by his severity towards her he had also told her that we only have bad dreams when we have been doing wrong later she once asked her father but what does mama do wrong she is very often frightful dreams the father once slapped her fingers because she was sucking them was this her naughtiness scarcely because sucking the fingers is an anachronistic infantile habit of little interest at her age it only seems to annoy her father for which she will punish and hit her in this way she relieves her conscience of the unconfessed and much more serious sin it comes out that she has induced a number of other girls to form mutual masturbation these sexual tendencies have caused the fear of the father still we must not forget that she had this dream in her fifth year at that time these sins had not been committed hence we must regard this a fear with the other girls as a reason for her present fear of her father but that does not explain the earlier fear but still we may expect it with something of a similar nature some unconscious sexual wish corresponding to the psychology forbidden action previously mentioned the moral value and character of this wish is even more unconscious with the child than with adults to understand what had made an impression on the child we have to ask what happened in her fifth year her youngest brother was born at that time even then her father had made her nervous the associations previously referred to give us an undoubted connection between her sexual inclinations and her anxiety the sexual problem which nature connects with positive feelings of delight is in the dream brought to the surface in the form of fear apparently on account of the bad father who represents moral education this dream illustrates the first impressive appearance of the sexual problem obviously suggested by the recent birth of the little brother just such an occasion when experience teaches us that these questions become vital just because the sexual problem is connected with certain pleasurable physical sensations which education tries to reduce and break off it can apparently only manifest itself hidden under the cloak of moral anxiety as to sin this explanation certainly seems rather plausible but it is superficial it is insufficient it attributes the difficulties to the moral education on the unproved assumption that education can cause such a neurosis we hereby leave out consideration the fact that there are people who have become neurotic and suffer from morbid fears without having had a trace of moral education moreover the moral law is not merely an evil which has to be resisted but a necessity born out of the utmost needs of humanity the moral law is only an outward manifestation of the innate human impulse to dominate and tame oneself the origin of the impulse towards domestication or civilization is lost in the unfathomable depths of the history of evolution and can never be conceived as the consequence of certain laws imposed from without man himself obeying his instincts created laws therefore we shall never understand the reasons for the repression of sexuality in the child if we only take into account the moral influences of education the reasons are to be found much deeper in human nature itself in its perhaps tragic contradiction between civilization and nature or between individual consciousness and the general conscience of the community I cannot enter into these questions now in my other work I have tried to do so naturally it would be of no value to give a child the notion of the higher philosophical aspects of the problem that would probably not have the slightest effect end of chapter 10 part 1