232 



DISCOVERY 



five and thirteen or fourteen, and what is left converges 

 towards the production of the normal sexual instinct 

 and Ufe of the adult. 



His theory of functional nervous diseases was, that 

 it was the outcome and sign of maldevelopment of 

 the sex-instinct. These partial processes had either 

 been repressed too intensely, or their mutual relation 

 had taken an abnormal course. Some had persisted 

 when they should have been outgrown, etc. 



The hysteric suffers from repression of perverted 

 sexuality. If the repression had not occurred, the 

 patient would have shown, not a normal, but a per- 

 verted sexual life. He is incapable of a normal sexual 

 life, because the kind he would show would be out of 

 harmony with his own character and his social environ- 

 ment. The patient realises that a seemingly insoluble 

 mental conflict is going on inside him, but by psycho- 

 analysis he is 'enabled to sublimate it — that is, to 

 direct the impulse along other channels. This opens 

 up a path along which solution of the conflict may 

 take place, the impulse can find its fulfilment in another 

 way. Energy is put at the disposal of the patient, 

 and he directs it towards other ends. 



We have, then, already moved far away from the 

 conception of catharsis, and we find a change in the 

 psychological dynamics involved. Whereas Breuer 

 spoke of emotion as something that could be worked 

 out, now Freud speaks of libido, something per- 

 haps physical rather than mental, which can be 

 shifted from one idea to another, and which, when 

 dammed up, may produce either physical or mental 

 symptoms. 



If the repressed libido fails to find an outlet in 

 physical symptoms — the paralyses, contractures, 

 anaesthesias, etc., of so-called conversion hysteria — 

 it appears in consciousness as an anxiety state. In 

 other words, repressed emotion appears in consciousness 

 as anxiety. 



The nucleus of the Freudian Unconscious is con- 

 stituted of the repressed tendencies and memories of 

 early childhood, and later repressions enrich this 

 Unconscious with memories of later life. Memories 

 that are out of consciousness, but have undergone no 

 repression, are called by Freud " prcconscious. " The 

 resistance that stands in the way of the entry of the 

 unconscious memories into consciousness is named 

 the " censor." An important portion of the infantile 

 unconscious is the group of tendencies and memories 

 relating to the child's parents, its feelings of love 

 towards the parent of the opposite sex, and feelings 

 of hatred and jealousy towards the parent of the 

 same sex. This whole system of emotionally- 

 tinged memories is known as the " Qidipus complex," 

 because it corresponds to the theme of Sophocles' 

 tragedy (Edipus Tyrannus, in which Qidipus 



unwillingly kills his own father and marries his own 

 mother. 



Freud considers that the dreams of normal persons 

 are similar in origin to the symptoms of persons suffering 

 from psycho-neurosis. Under the physiological and 

 psychological conditions of sleep, unconscious wishes 

 come to dream-consciousness and obtain a disguised 

 fulfilment. Analysis, by the method of free associa- 

 tion, reveals the nature of these wishes, and gives 

 the meaning or latent content of the dream — something 

 very different from the manifest content, i.e. the 

 dream as it is remembered hy the dreamer. 



Space does not permit us to go into the details of 

 Freud's dream-theory, nor to do more than mention 

 the processes of condensation, displacement, and 

 dramatisation that disguise the true meaning of the 

 dream from the dreamer himself. In a similar way, 

 Freud undertakes to explain the unintentional slips 

 of speech and writing of normal people, bungling 

 actions, and momentary loss of memory for names, 

 etc., ordinarily well known to the individual, as the 

 effect of unconscious wishes breaking into the stream 

 of ordinary conscious life. 



At the present time Freud's theories are undergoing 

 careful testing by unbiassed observers, out of which 

 they are likely to emerge in a greath' modified form. 

 In particular, the exclusively sexual origin of the 

 psychoneuroses will probably have to be denied. On 

 the other hand, the theory and practice of the earlier 

 method of psycho-catharsis have been abundantly 

 confirmed by work done on " shell shock " cases during 

 the War, especially cases seen in the Field shortly 

 after their breakdown. Many of these cases showed 

 complete loss of memory for their terrifying experiences, 

 and the recall of these memories, together with the 

 emotion of fear that had originally accompanied them, 

 often caused the immediate disappearance of their 

 hysterical symptoms. The patients had not been 

 able to react adequately to their terrifying experiences 

 at the time, and repression had occurred. Other 

 cases suffered from anxiety as a result of the re- 

 pression, and benefited in like manner by cathartic 

 treatment. 



No reference has been made to the important factors 

 of " repression " and " transference " in the Freudian 

 system, nor to the modifications of theory introduced 

 by Jung and Adler, but enough has perhaps been said 

 to indicate the significance of the system for modern 

 thought. 



For (urthcr reading : 



Vorlesiingen ziir Einluhring in die Psychoanalyse. Von Prof. 

 Dr. Sigm. Freud ; Zwcite Auflage. (H. Helber & Cie, Leipzig u. 

 Wicn. 1918.) 



Psychoanalysis. A Brief Account of the Freudian Theory. 

 By Barbara Low. (George Allen & Inwin. 1020. 5s. net.) 



