RELATIONS OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 747 



no longer able to make a simultaneous fusion of all the sensations 

 and all the images which come in from without. This is well ex- 

 plained from the remarkable facts which relate to the transference, 

 or better, the equivalence of phenomena in hystericals. One symp- 

 tom gives place to another, one paralysis is cured and another 

 supervenes, as though the mind were incapable of constituting a 

 single system, and could resume control of one side of the body only 

 at the expense of losing control of the other side. In hysteria we 

 again find interesting disturbances of memory continuous and 

 retrogressive amnesia which are identical with those that occur 

 in dreams and in emotion. It is a familiar fact that at the end of 

 an emotion we find that we have forgotten the preceding events, 

 and we are incapable of acquiring the memory of new events. But 

 hysteria is nothing more than this; and that is the reason why an 

 endless discussion has arisen as to whether the hysterical is not merely 

 an individual who has been overcome by emotion, and as to whether 

 traumatic neurosis is not simply hysteria. The narrowing of the 

 field of consciousness seems to me to be the characteristic form 

 which the mental depression assumes in hysteria; and it is of the 

 same sort as that which one finds in sleep, in fatigue, and in emotion. 



Let us now consider another disease which I have studied these 

 many years, and which I have discussed in my most recent volumes. 1 

 Let us take a glance at the innumerable disorders which have been 

 designated obsessions, impulsions, insanity of doubt and of touch, 

 tics, phobias, etc. No matter how various their symptoms may 

 appear, it is possible to find certain fundamental characteristics 

 which are common to all of these diseases. Motor, visceral, or 

 mental agitation manifests itself in unmistakable form in all of 

 these crises of motor agitation, these contortions and tics of all 

 sorts, and in the anguish which constitutes the essence of all the 

 phobias. Everybody knows the peculiar mental agitation of those 

 abnormal individuals who busy themselves incessantly with some 

 insoluble problem; who spend whole days in an endeavor to re- 

 member what they did at a certain hour on a certain day ten years 

 ago; who exhaust themselves in attempts to understand why trees 

 are green, or why people have noses; who try to count all the objects 

 they see. or to atone every act by an appropriate exorcism. 



All of these agitations seem to have their source in certain feel- 

 ings which are extremely varied and interesting. I shall mention 

 only the most familiar forms. In connection with all his acts the 

 subject experiences feelings of difficulty, of inutility, of incapacity, 

 of indecision, of uneasiness, of automatism, of- domination, of dis- 

 content, of humility, of shame, of intimidation, and of revolt. In 

 1 Obsessions et psychasthenie, 1903. 



