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Title: The Theory of Psychoanalysis

Author: C. G. Jung

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THEORY
OF PSYCHOANALYSIS ***

The Theory of Psychoanalysis

Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph
Series, No. 19

The Theory of Psychoanalysis
BY
DR. C. G. JUNG
of Zurich

NEW YORK

THE JOURNAL OF NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE
PUBLISHING COMPANY

1915

NERVOUS AND MENTAL DISEASE
MONOGRAPH SERIES

Edited by

Drs. SMITH ELY JELLIFFE and WM. A. WHITE
Numbers Issued

1. Outlines of Psychiatry. (4th Edition.) $3.00.

By Dr. William A. White.

2. Studies in Paranoia.

By Drs. N. Gierlich and M. Friedman.

3. The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. (Out of Print).

By Dr. C. G Jung.

4. Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses
(2d Edition.) $2.50.

By Prof. Sigmund Freud.

5. The Wassermann Serum Diagnosis in Psychiatry. $2.00.

By Dr. Felix Plaut.

6. Epidemic Poliomyelitis. New York, 1907. (Out of Print).

7. Three Contributions to Sexual Theory. $2.00.

By Prof. Sigmund Freud.

8. Mental Mechanisms. $2.00. By Dr. Wm. A. White.

9. Studies in Psychiatry. $2.00.

New York Psychiatrical Society.

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15. Dreams and Myths. $1.00. By Dr. Karl Abraham.

16. Poliomyelitis. $3.00. Dr. I. Wickmann.

17. Freud’s Theories of the Neuroses. $2.00.

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Dr. C. G. Jung.

Copyright, 1915, by
The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease
Publishing Company, New York

CONTENTS

Introduction 1
CHAPTER I
Consideration of Early Hypotheses 4
CHAPTER II
The Infantile Sexuality 17
CHAPTER III
The Conception of Libido 27
CHAPTER IV
The Etiological Significance of the Infantile Sexuality 45
CHAPTER V
The Unconscious 55
CHAPTER VI
The Dream 60
CHAPTER VII
The Content of the Unconscious 67
CHAPTER VIII
The Etiology of the Neuroses 72
CHAPTER IX
The Therapeutical Principles of Psychoanalysis 96
CHAPTER X
Some General Remarks on Psychoanalysis 111

INTRODUCTION

In these lectures I have attempted to reconcile my practical experiences in
psychoanalysis with the existing theory, or rather, with the approaches to
such a theory. Here is my attitude towards those principles which my
honored teacher Sigmund Freud has evolved from the experience of many
decades. Since I have long been closely connected with psychoanalysis, it
will perhaps be asked with astonishment how it is that I am now for the first
time defining my theoretical position. When, some ten years ago, it came
home to me what a vast distance Freud had already travelled beyond the
bounds of contemporary knowledge of psycho-pathological phenomena,
especially the psychology of the complex mental processes, I no longer felt
myself in a position to exercise any real criticism. I did not possess the
sorry mandarin-courage of those people who—upon a basis of ignorance
and incapacity—consider themselves justified in “critical” rejections. I
thought one must first work modestly for years in such a field before one
might dare to criticize. The evil results of premature and superficial
criticism have certainly not been lacking. A preponderating number of
critics have attacked with as much anger as ignorance. Psychoanalysis has
flourished undisturbed and has not troubled itself one jot or tittle about the
unscientific chatter that has buzzed around it. As everyone knows, this tree
has waxed mightily, and not in one world only, but alike in Europe and in
America. Official criticism participates in the pitiable fate of
Proktophantasmist and his lamentation in the Walpurgis-night:

“You still are here? Nay, ’tis a thing unheard!
Vanish at once! We’ve said the enlightening word.”

Such criticism has omitted to take to heart the truth that all that exists has
sufficient right to its existence: no less is it with psychoanalysis.

We will not fall into the error of our opponents, nor ignore their existence
nor deny their right to exist. But then this enjoins upon ourselves the duty of
applying a proper criticism, grounded upon a practical knowledge of the
facts. To me it seems that psychoanalysis stands in need of this weighing-up
from the inside.
It has been wrongly assumed that my attitude denotes a “split” in the
psychoanalytic movement. Such a schism can only exist where faith is
concerned. But psychoanalysis deals with knowledge and its ever-changing
formulations. I have taken William James’ pragmatic rule as a plumb-line:
“You must bring out of each word its practical cash-value, set it at work
within the stream of your experience. It appears less a solution, then, than
as a program for more work and more particularly as an indication of the
ways in which existing realities may be changed. Theories thus become
instruments, not answers to enigmas, in which we can rest. We don’t lie
back upon them, we move forward, and, on occasion, make nature over
again by their aid.”
And so my criticism has not proceeded from academic arguments, but from
experiences which have forced themselves on me during ten years earnest
work in this sphere. I know that my experience in no wise approaches
Freud’s quite extraordinary experience and insight, but none the less it
seems to me that certain of my formulations do present the observed facts
more adequately than is the case in Freud’s method of statement. At any
rate I have found, in my teaching, that the conceptions put forward in these
lectures have afforded peculiar aid in my endeavors to help my pupils to an
understanding of psychoanalysis. With such experience I am naturally
inclined to assent to the view of Mr. Dooley, that witty humorist of the New
York Times, when he says, defining pragmatism: “Truth is truth ‘when it
works.’” I am indeed very far from regarding a modest and moderate
criticism as a “falling away” or a schism; on the contrary, through it I hope
to help on the flowering and fructification of the psychoanalytic movement,
and to open a path towards the scientific treasures of psychoanalysis for
those who have hitherto been unable to possess themselves of
psychoanalytic methods, whether through lack of practical experience or
through distaste of the theoretical hypothesis.
For the opportunity to deliver these lectures I have to thank my friend Dr.
Smith Ely Jelliffe, of New York, who kindly invited me to take part in the

“Extension Course” at Fordham University. These lectures were given in
September, 1912, in New York.
I must here also express my best thanks to Dr. Gregory, of Bellevue
Hospital, for his ready support of my clinical demonstrations.
For the troublesome work of translation I am greatly indebted to my
assistant, Miss M. Moltzer, and to Mrs. Edith Eder and Dr. Eder of London.
Only after the preparation of these lectures did Adler’s book, “Ueber den
nervösen Character,” become known to me, in the summer of 1912. I
recognize that he and I have reached similar conclusions on various points,
but here is not the place to go into a more intimate discussion of the matter;
that must take place elsewhere.

CHAPTER I
Consideration of Early Hypotheses

It is not an easy task to speak about psychoanalysis in these days. I am not
thinking, when I say this, of the fact that psychoanalysis in general—it is
my earnest conviction—is among the most difficult scientific problems of
the day. But even when we put this cardinal fact aside, we find many
serious difficulties which interfere with the clear interpretation of the
matter. I am not capable of giving you a complete doctrine elaborated both
from the theoretical and the empirical standpoint. Psychoanalysis has not
yet reached such a point of development, although a great amount of labor
has been expended upon it. Neither can I give you a description of its
growth ab ovo, for you already have in your country, with its great regard
for all the progress of civilization, a considerable literature on the subject.
This literature has already spread a general knowledge of psychoanalysis
among those who have a scientific interest in it.
You have had the opportunity of listening to Freud, the real explorer and
founder of this method, who has spoken in your own country about this
theory. As for myself, I have already had the honor of speaking about this
work in America. I have discussed the experimental foundation of the
theory of complexes and the application of psychoanalysis to pedagogy.
It can be easily understood that under these circumstances I fear to repeat
what has already been said, or published in many scientific journals in this
country. A further difficulty lies in the fact that in very many quarters there
are already prevailing quite extraordinary conceptions of our theory,
conceptions which are often absolutely wrong, and unfortunately wrong just
in that which touches the very essence of psychoanalysis. At times it seems
nearly impossible to grasp even the meaning of these errors, and I am
constantly astonished to find any one with a scientific education ever
arriving at ideas so divorced from all foundations in fact. Obviously it

would be of no importance to cite examples of these curiosities, and it will
be more valuable to discuss here those questions and problems of
psychoanalysis which really might provoke misunderstanding.

A Change in the Theory of Psychoanalysis

Although it has very often been repeated, it seems to be still an unknown
fact to many people, that in these last years the theory of psychoanalysis has
changed considerably. Those, for instance, who have only read the first
book, “Studies in Hysteria,” by Breuer and Freud, still believe that
psychoanalysis essentially consists in the doctrine that hysteria, as well as
other neuroses, has its root in the so-called “traumata,” or shocks, of earliest
childhood. They continue to condemn this theory, and have no idea that it is
fifteen years since this conception was abandoned and replaced by a totally
different one. This change is of such great importance in the whole
development of psychoanalysis, as well for its technique as for its theory,
that I must give it in some detail. That I may not weary you with the
complete recitation of cases already well known, I will only just refer to
those in Breuer and Freud’s book, which I shall assume are known to you,
for the book has been translated into English.[1] You will there have read that
case of Breuer’s, to which Freud referred in his lectures at Clark University.
You will have found that the hysterical symptom has not some unknown
organic source, but is based on certain highly emotional psychic events, so-
called injuries of the heart, traumata or shocks. I think that now-a-days
every careful observer of hysteria will acknowledge from his own
experience that, at the root of this disease, such painful events are to be
found. This truth was already known to the physicians of former days.

The Traumatic Theory

So far as I know it was really Charcot who, probably under the influence of
Page’s theory of nervous shock, made this observation of theoretical value.
Charcot knew, by means of hypnotism, at that time not understood, that
hysterical symptoms could be called forth by suggestion as well as made to
disappear through suggestion. Charcot believed that he saw something like
this in those cases of hysteria caused by accident, cases which became more
and more frequent. The shock can be compared with hypnosis in Charcot’s
sense. The emotion provoked by the shock causes a momentary complete
paralysis of will-power, during which the remembrance of the trauma can
be fixed as an auto-suggestion. This conception gives us the original theory
of psychoanalysis. Etiological investigation had to prove whether this
mechanism, or a similar one, was also to be found in those cases of hysteria
which could not be called traumatic. This lack of knowledge of the etiology
of hysteria was supplied by the discovery of Breuer and Freud. They proved
that even in those ordinary cases of hysteria which cannot be said to be
caused by shock the same trauma-element was to be found, and seemed to
have an etiological value. It is natural that Freud, a pupil of Charcot, was
inclined to suppose that this discovery in itself confirmed the ideas of
Charcot. Accordingly the theory elaborated out of the experience of that
period, mainly by Freud, received the imprint of a traumatic etiology. The
name of trauma-theory is therefore justified; nevertheless this theory had
also a new aspect. I am not here speaking of the truly admirable
profoundness and precision of Freud’s analysis of symptoms, but of the
relinquishing of the conception of auto-suggestion, which was the dynamic
force in the original theory, and its substitution by a detailed exposure of the
psychological and psycho-physical effects caused by the shock. The shock,
the trauma, provokes a certain excitation which, under normal
circumstances, finds a natural outlet (“abreagieren”). In hysteria it is only to
a certain extent that the excitation does find a natural outlet; a partial
retention takes place, the so-called blocking of the affect
(“Affecteinklemmung”). This amount of excitation, which can be compared

with an amount of potential energy, is transmuted by the mechanism of
conversion into “physical” symptoms.
The Cathartic Method.—According to this conception, therapy had to find
the means by which those retained emotions could be brought to a mode of
expression, thereby setting free from the symptoms that amount of
repressed and converted feeling. Hence this was called the cleansing, or
cathartic method; its aim was to discharge the blocked emotions. From this
it follows that analysis was then more or less closely concerned with the
symptoms, that is to say, the symptoms were analyzed—the work of
analysis began with the symptoms, a method abandoned to-day. The
cathartic method, and the theory on which it is based, are, as you know,
accepted by other colleagues, so far as they are interested at all in
psychoanalysis, and you will find some appreciation and quotation of the
theory, as well as of the method, in several text-books.

The Traumatic Theory Criticized

Although, as a matter of fact, the discovery of Breuer and Freud is certainly
true, as can easily be proved by every case of hysteria, several objections
can be raised to the theory. It must be acknowledged that their method
shows with wonderful clearness the connection between the actual
symptoms and the shock, as well as the psychological consequences which
necessarily follow from the traumatic event, but nevertheless, a doubt arises
as to the etiological significance of the so-called trauma or shock.
It is extremely difficult for any critical observer of hysteria to admit that a
neurosis, with all its complications, can be based on events in the past, as it
were on one emotional experience long past. It is more or less fashionable
at present to consider all abnormal psychic conditions, in so far as they are
of exogenic growth, as the consequences of hereditary degeneration, and
not as essentially influenced by the psychology of the patient and the
environment. This conception is too narrow, and not justified by the facts.
To use an analogy, we know perfectly well how to find the right middle
course in dealing with the etiology of tuberculosis. There are, of course,
cases of tuberculosis where in earliest childhood the germ of the disease
falls upon a soil predisposed by heredity, so that even in the most favorable
conditions the patient cannot escape his fate. None the less, there are also
cases where, under favorable conditions, illness can be prevented, despite a
predisposition to the disease. Nor must we forget that there are still other
cases without hereditary disposition or individual inclination, and, in spite
of this, fatal infection occurs. All this holds equally true of the neuroses,
where matters are not essentially different in their method of procedure than
they are in general pathology. Neither a theory in which the predisposition
is all-important, nor one in which the influence of the environment is all-
important, will ever suffice. It is true the shock-theory can be said to give
predominance to the predisposition, even insisting that some past trauma is
the condition sine qua non of the neurosis. Yet Freud’s ingenious
empiricism presented even in the “Studies in Hysteria” some views,
insufficiently exploited at the time, which contained the elements of a

theory that perhaps more accentuates the value of environment than
inherited or traumatic predisposition.

The Conception of “Repression”

Freud synthesized these observations in a form that was to extend far
beyond the limits of the shock-theory. This conception is the hypothesis of
repression (“Verdrängung”). As you know, by the word “repression” is
understood the psychic mechanism of the re-transportation of a conscious
thought into the unconscious sphere. We call this sphere the “unconscious”
and define it as the psyche of which we are not conscious. The conception
of repression was derived from the numerous observations made upon
neurotic patients who seemed to have the capacity of forgetting important
events or thoughts, and this to such an extent that one might easily believe
nothing had ever happened. These observations can be constantly made by
anyone who comes into close psychological relations with his patients. As a
result of the Breuer and Freud studies, it was found that a very special
method was needed to call again into consciousness those traumatic events
long since forgotten. I wish to call attention to this fact, since it is decidedly
astonishing for a priori we are not inclined to believe that valuable things
can ever be forgotten. For this reason several critics object that the
reminiscences which have been called into consciousness by certain
hypnotic processes are only suggested ones, and do not correspond with
reality. Even granting this, it would certainly not be justifiable to regard this
in itself as a condemnation of “repression,” since there are and have been
not a few cases where the fact of repressed reminiscences can be proved by
objective demonstration. Even if we exclude this kind of proof, it is
possible to test the phenomena by experiment. The association-tests provide
us with the necessary experiences. Here we find the extraordinary fact that
associations pertaining to complexes saturated with emotion emerge with
much greater difficulty into consciousness, and are much more easily
forgotten.
As my experiments on this subject were never reëxamined, the conclusions
were never adopted, until just lately, when Wilhelm Peters, a disciple of
Kraepelin, proved in general my previous observation, namely, that painful
events are very rarely correctly reproduced (“die unlustbetonten Erlebnisse
werden am seltensten richtig reproduciert”).

As you see, the conception rests upon a firm empirical basis. There is still
another side of the question worth looking at. We might ask if the
repression has its root in a conscious determination of the individual, or do
the reminiscences disappear rather passively without conscious knowledge
on the part of the patient? In Freud’s works you will find a series of
excellent proofs of the existence of a conscious tendency to repress what is
painful. Every psychoanalyst will know more than a dozen cases showing
clearly in their history one particular moment at least in which the patient
knows more or less clearly that he will not allow himself to think of the
repressed reminiscences. A patient once gave this significant answer: “Je
l’ai mis de côté” (I have put it aside).
But, on the other hand, we must not forget that there are a number of cases
where it is impossible for us to show, even with the most careful
examination, the slightest trace of conscious repression; in these cases it
seems as if the mechanism of repression were much more in the nature of a
passive disappearance, or even as if the impressions were dragged beneath
the surface by some force operating from below. From the first class of
cases we get the impression of complete mental development, accompanied
by a kind of cowardice in regard to their own feelings; but among the
second class of cases you may find patients showing a more serious
retardation of development. The mechanism of repression seems here to be
much more an automatic one.
This difference is closely connected with the question I mentioned before—
that is, the question of the relative importance of predisposition and
environment. The first class of cases appears to be mainly influenced by
environment and education; in the other, predisposition seems to play the
chief part. It is pretty clear where treatment will have more effect. (As I
have already said, the conception of repression contains an element which
is in intrinsic contradiction with the shock-theory.) We find, for instance, in
the case of Miss Lucy R.,[2] described by Freud, that the essential etiological
moment is not to be found in the traumatic scenes, but in the insufficient
readiness of the patient to set store upon the convictions passing through
her mind. But if we think of the later views we find in the “Selected Papers
on Hysteria,”[3] where Freud, forced through further experience, supposes
certain traumatic sexual events in early childhood to be the source of the
neurosis, then we get the impression of an incongruity between the

conception of repression and that of shock. The conception of “repression”
contains the elements of an etiological theory of environment, while the
conception of “shock” is a theory of predisposition.
But at first the theory of neurosis developed along the lines of the trauma
conception. Pursuing Freud’s later investigations, we see him coming to the
conclusion that no such positive value can be ascribed to the traumatic
events of later life, as their effects could only be conceivable if the
particular predisposition of the patient were taken into account. Evidently
the enigma was to be resolved just at this point. As the analytical work
progressed, the roots of hysterical symptoms were found in childhood; they
reached back from the present far into the past. The further end of the chain
threatened to get lost in the mists of early childhood. But it was just there
that reminiscences appeared of certain scenes where sexual activities had
been manifested in an active or passive way, and these were unmistakably
connected with the events which provoked the neurosis. (For further details
of these events you must consult the works of Freud, as well as the
numerous analyses which have already been published.)

The Theory of Sexual Trauma in Childhood

Hence arose the theory of sexual trauma in childhood which provoked bitter
opposition, not from theoretical objections against the shock-theory in
general, but against the element of sexuality in particular. In the first place,
the idea that children might be sexual, and that sexual thoughts might play
any part with them, aroused great antagonism. In the second place, the
possibility that hysteria had a sexual basis was most unwelcome, for the
sterile position that hysteria was either a reflex neurosis of the uterus or
arose from lack of sexual satisfaction had just been given up. Naturally,
therefore, the real value of Freud’s observations was disputed. If critics had
limited themselves to that question, and had not adorned their opposition
with moral indignation, a calm discussion would have been possible. In
Germany, for instance, this method of attack made it impossible to get any
credit for Freud’s theory. As soon as the question of sexuality was touched
general resistance, as well as haughty contempt were awakened. But in truth
there was but one question at issue: were Freud’s observations true or not?
That alone could be of importance to a really scientific mind. It is possible
that these observations do not seem very probable at first sight, but it is
unjustifiable to condemn them a priori as false. Wherever really sincere and
thorough investigations have been carried out it has been possible to
corroborate his observations. The fact of a psychological chain of
consequences has been absolutely confirmed, although Freud’s original
conception, that real traumatic scenes were always to be found, has not
been.

Theory of Sexual Trauma Abandoned

Freud himself abandoned his first presentation of the shock-theory after
further and more thorough investigation. He could no longer retain his
original view as to the reality of the sexual shock. Excessive sexuality,
sexual abuse of children, or very early sexual activity in childhood, were
later on seen to be of secondary importance. You will perhaps be inclined to
share the suspicion of the critics that the results derived from analytic
researches were based on suggestion. There might be some justification for
this view if these assertions had been published broadcast by some
charlatan or ill-qualified person. But anyone who has carefully read Freud’s
works, and has himself similarly sought to penetrate into the psychology of
his patients, will know that it is unjust to attribute to an intellect like Freud’s
the crude mistakes of a journeyman. Such suggestions only redound to the
discredit of those who make them. Ever since then patients have been
examined by every possible means from which suggestion could be
absolutely excluded. And still the associations described by Freud have
been proved to be true in principle. We are thus obliged in the first place to
regard many of these shocks of early childhood as phantoms, while other
traumata have objective reality. With this knowledge, at first somewhat
confusing, the etiological importance of the sexual trauma in childhood
declines, as it seems now quite irrelevant whether the trauma really took
place or not. Experience teaches us that phantasy can be, so to speak, of the
same traumatic value as real shock. In the face of such facts, every
physician who treats hysteria will recall cases where the neurosis has indeed
been provoked by violent traumatic impressions. This observation is only in
apparent contradiction with our knowledge, already referred to, of the
unreality of traumatic events in childhood. We know perfectly well that
many persons suffer shocks in childhood or in adult life who nevertheless
get no neurosis. Therefore the trauma has, ceteris paribus, no absolute
etiological importance, but owes its efficacy to the nature of the soil upon
which it falls.

The Predisposition for the Trauma

No neurosis will grow on an unprepared soil where no germ of neurosis is
already existing; the trauma will pass by without leaving any permanent and
effective mark. From this simple consideration it is pretty clear that, to
make it really effective, the patient must meet the shock with a certain
internal predisposition. This internal predisposition is not to be understood
as meaning that totally obscure hereditary predisposition of which we know
so little, but as a psychological development which reaches its apogee and
its manifestation at the moment, and even through, the trauma.
I will show you first of all by a concrete case the nature of the trauma and
its psychological predisposition. A young lady suffered from severe hysteria
after a sudden fright. She had been attending a social gathering that evening
and was on her way home at midnight, accompanied by several
acquaintances, when a carriage came behind her at full speed. Everyone
else drew aside, but she, paralyzed by fright, remained in the middle of the
street and ran just in front of the horses. The coachman cracked his whip,
cursed and swore without any result. She ran down the whole length of the
street, which led to a bridge. There her strength failed her, and to escape the
horses’ feet she thought, in her extreme despair, of jumping into the water,
but was prevented in time by passers-by. This very same lady happened to
be present a little later on that bloody day, the 22d of January, in St.
Petersburg, when a street was cleared by soldiers’ volleys. Right and left of
her she saw people dying or falling down badly wounded. Remaining
perfectly calm and clear-minded, she caught sight of a gate that gave her
escape into another street.
These terrible moments did not agitate her, either at the time, or later on.
Whence it must follow that the intensity of the trauma is of small
pathogenic importance: the special conditions form the essential factors.
Here, then, we have the key by which we are able to unlock at least one of
the anterooms to the understanding of predisposition. We must next ask
what were the special circumstances in this carriage-scene. The terror and
apprehension began as soon as the lady heard the horses’ foot-steps. It

seemed to her for a moment as if these betokened some terrible fate,
portending her death or something dreadful. Then she lost consciousness.
The real causation is somehow connected with the horses. The
predisposition of the patient, who acts thus wildly at such a commonplace
occurence, could perhaps be found in the fact that horses had a special
significance for her. It might suffice, for instance, if she had been once
concerned in some dangerous accident with horses. This assumption does
hold good here. When she was seven years old, she was once out on a
carriage-drive with the coachman; the horses shied and approached the
steep river-bank at full speed. The coachman jumped off his seat, and
shouted to her to do the same, which she was barely able to do, as she was
frightened to death. Still, she sprang down at the right moment, whilst the
horses and carriage were dashed down below.
It is unnecessary to prove that such an event must leave a lasting impression
behind. But still it does not offer any explanation for the exaggerated
reaction to an inadequate stimulus. Up till now we only know that this later
symptom had its prologue in childhood, but the pathological side remains
obscure. To solve this enigma we require other experiences. The amnesia
which I will set forth fully later on shows clearly the disproportion between
the so-called shock and the part played by phantasy. In this case phantasy
must predominate to an extraordinary extent to provoke such an effect. The
shock in itself was too insignificant. We are at first inclined to explain this
incident by the shock that took place in childhood, but it seems to me with
little success. It is difficult to understand why the effect of this infantile
trauma had remained latent so long, and why it only now came to the
surface. The patient must surely have had opportunities enough during her
lifetime of getting out of the way of a carriage going full speed. The
reminiscence of the danger to her life seems to be quite insufficiently
effective: the real danger in which she was at that one moment in St.
Petersburg did not produce the slightest trace of neurosis, despite her being
predisposed by an impressive event in her childhood. The whole of this
traumatic event still lacks explanation; from the point of view of the shock-
theory we are hopelessly in the dark.
You must excuse me if I return so persistently to the shock-theory. I
consider this necessary, as now-a-days many people, even those who regard
us seriously, still keep to this standpoint. Thus the opponents to

psychoanalysis and those who never read psychoanalytic articles, or do so
quite superficially, get the impression that in psychoanalysis the old shock-
theory is still in force.
The question arises: what are we to understand by this predisposition,
through which an insignificant event produces such a pathological effect?
This is the question of chief significance, and we shall find that the same
question plays an important rôle in the theory of neurosis, for we have to
understand why apparently irrelevant events of the past are still producing
such effects that they are able to interfere in an impish and capricious way
with the normal reactions of actual life.

The Sexual Element in the Trauma

The early school of psychoanalysis, and its later disciples, did all they could
to find the origin of later effects in the special kind of early traumatic
events. Freud’s research penetrated most deeply. He was the first, and it was
he alone, who discovered that a certain sexual element was connected with
the shock. It is just this sexual element which, speaking generally, we may
consider as unconscious, and it is to this that the traumatic effect is
generally due. The unconsciousness of sexuality in childhood seems to
throw a light upon the problem of the persistent constellation of the primary
traumatic event. The true emotional meaning of the accident was all along
hidden from the patient, so that in consciousness this emotion was never
brought into play, the emotion never wore itself out, it was never used up.
We might perhaps explain the effect in the following way: this persistent
constellation was a kind of “suggestion à échéance,” for it is unconscious
and the action occurs only at the stipulated moment.
It is hardly necessary to give detailed examples to prove that the true nature
of sexual manifestations during infancy is not understood. Physicians know,
for instance, how often a manifest masturbation persisting up to adult life,
especially in women, is not understood as such. It is, therefore, easy to
realize that to a child the true nature of certain actions would be far less
conscious. And that is the reason why the real meaning of these events,
even in adult life, is still hidden from our consciousness. In some cases,
even, the traumatic events are themselves forgotten, either because their
sexual meaning is quite unknown to the patient, or because their sexual
character is inacceptable, being too painful. It is what we call “repressed.”
As we have already mentioned, Freud’s observation, that the admixture of a
sexual element with the shock is essential for any pathological effect, leads
on to the theory of the infantile sexual trauma.
This hypothesis may be thus expressed: the pathogenic event is a sexual
one. This conception forced its way with difficulty. The general opinion that
children have no sexuality in early life made such an etiology inadmissible,
and at first prevented its acceptance.

The Infantile Sexual Phantasy

The change in the shock-theory already referred to, namely, that in general
the shock is not even real, but is essentially a phantasy, did not make things
better. On the contrary, still worse, since we are forced to the conclusion
that we find in the infantile phantasy at least one positive sexual
manifestation. It is no longer some brutal accidental impression from the
outside, but a positive sexual manifestation created by the child itself, and
this very often with unmistakable clearness. Even real traumatic events of
an outspoken sexual type do not always happen to a child quite without its
coöperation, but are not infrequently apparently prepared and brought
about by the child itself. Abraham stated this, proving his statement with
evidence of the greatest interest, and this, in connection with many other
experiences of the same kind, makes it very probable that even really sexual
scenes are frequently called forth and supported by the peculiar
psychological state of the child’s mind. Perfectly independently from
psychoanalytic investigation, medical criminology has discovered striking
parallels to this psychoanalytic statement.

CHAPTER II
The Infantile Sexuality

The precocious manifestations of sexual phantasy as cause of the shock
now seemed to be the source of neurosis. This, logically, attributed to
children a far more developed sexuality than had been hitherto admitted.
Many cases of precocious sexuality had been recorded in literature long
before the time of psychoanalysis. For instance, a girl of two years old with
normal menstruation, or cases of boys of three and four and five years of
age having normal erections, and so far ready for cohabitation. These were,
however, curiosities. Great astonishment was caused when Freud began to
attribute to the child, not only ordinary sexuality, but even polymorphic
perverse sexuality; all this based upon the most exhaustive investigation.
People inclined much too lightly to the superficial view, that all this was
merely suggested to the patients, and was a highly disputable artificial
product. Hence Freud’s[4] “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory” not
only provoked opposition, but even violent indignation. It is surely
unnecessary to insist upon the fact that science is not furthered by
indignation, and that arguments of moral resentment may perhaps please the
moralist—that is his business—but not a scientific man, for whom truth
must be the guide, and not moral indignation. If matters are really as Freud
describes them, all indignation is absurd; if they are not so, again
indignation will avail nothing. The conclusion as to what is the truth can
only be arrived at on the field of observation and research, and nowhere
else. The opponents of psychoanalysis with certain honorable exceptions,
display rather ludicrously a somewhat pitifully inadequate realization of the
situation. Although the psychoanalytic school could unfortunately learn
nothing from their critics, as the criticism took no notice of its
investigations, and although it could not get any useful hints, because the
psychoanalytic method of investigation was, and still is unknown to these
critics, it remains a serious duty for our school to explain thoroughly the

contrast between the existing conceptions. It is not our endeavor to put
forward a paradoxical theory contradicting all existing theories, but rather
to introduce a certain category of new observations into science. Therefore
we regard it as a duty to do whatever we can to promote agreement. It is
true, we must renounce all hope of obtaining the approval of those who
blindly oppose us, but we do hope to come to an understanding with
scientific men. This will be my endeavor now in attempting to sketch the
further intellectual development of the psychoanalytic conception, so far as
the so-called sexual theory of the neuroses is concerned.

Objections to the Sexual Hypothesis

As I said, the finding of precocious sexual phantasies, which seemed the
source of the neurosis, forced Freud to the view of a highly developed
sexuality in infancy. As you know, the reality of this observation has been
contested by many, who maintain that crude error, that narrow-minded
delusion, misled Freud and his whole school, alike in Europe and in
America, so that the Freudians saw things that never existed. They regarded
them as people in the grip of an intellectual epidemic. I have to admit that I
possess no way of defending myself against criticism of this kind. The only
thing I can do is to refer to my own work, asking thoughtful persons if they
discover there any clear indications of madness. Moreover, I must maintain
that science has no right to start with the idea that certain facts do not exist.
At the most one can say: “This seems very improbable—we want still more
proofs and more research.” This is also our reply to the objection: “It is
impossible to discover anything trustworthy by the psychoanalytic method,
as this method is practically absurd.” No one believed in Galileo’s
telescope, and Columbus discovered America on a false hypothesis. The
psychoanalytic method may be full of errors, but this should not prevent its
use. Many chronological and medical observations have been made with
inadequate instruments. We must regard the objections to the method as
pretexts until our opponents come to grip with the facts. It is there a
decision must be reached—not by wordy warfare.
Our opponents also call hysteria a psychogenic disease. We believe that we
have discovered the etiological determinants of this disease and we present,
without fear, the results of our investigation to open criticism. Whoever
cannot accept our results should publish his own analyses of cases. So far as
I know, that has never been done, at least not in European literature. Under
these circumstances, critics have no right to deny our conclusions a priori.
Our opponents have likewise cases of hysteria, and those cases are surely as
psychogenic as our own. There is nothing to prevent their pointing out the
psychological determinants. The method is not the real question. Our
opponents content themselves with disputing and reviling our researches,
but they do not point out any better way.

Many other critics are more careful and more just, and do admit that we
have made many valuable observations, and that the associations of ideas
given by the psychoanalytic method will very probably stand, but they
maintain that our point of view is wrong. The alleged sexual phantasies of
childhood, with which we are here chiefly concerned, must not be taken,
they say, as real sexual functions, being obviously something quite
different, since at the approach of puberty the characteristic peculiarities of
sexuality are acquired.
This objection, being calmly and reasonably made, deserves to be taken
seriously. Such objections must also have occurred to every one who has
taken up analytic work, and there is reason enough for deep reflection.

The Conception of Sexuality

The first difficulty arises with the conception of sexuality. If we take
sexuality as meaning the fully-developed function, we must confine this
phenomenon to maturity, and then, of course, we have no right to speak of
sexuality in childhood. If we so limit our conception, then we are
confronted again with new and much greater difficulties. The question
arises, how then must we denominate all those correlated biological
phenomena pertaining to the sexual functions sensu strictiori, as, for
instance, pregnancy, childbirth, natural selection, protection of the
offspring, etc. It seems to me that all this belongs to the conception of
sexuality as well, although a very distinguished colleague did once say,
“Childbirth is not a sexual act.” But if these things do pertain to this concept
of sexuality, then there must also belong innumerable psychological
phenomena. For we know that an incredible number of the pure
psychological functions are connected with this sphere. I shall only mention
the extraordinary importance of phantasy in the preparation for the sexual
function. Thus we arrive rather at a biological conception of sexuality,
which includes both a series of psychological phenomena as well as a series
of physiological functions. If we might be allowed to make use of an old
but practical classification, we might identify sexuality with the so-called
instinct of the preservation of the species, as opposed in some way to the
instinct of self-preservation.
Looking at sexuality from this point of view, we shall not be astonished to
find that the root of the instinct of race-preservation, so extraordinarily
important in nature, goes much deeper than the limited conception of
sexuality would ever allow. Only the more or less grown-up cat actually
catches mice, but the kitten plays at least as if it were catching mice. The
young dog’s playful indications of attempts at cohabitation begin long
before puberty. We have a right to suppose that mankind is no exception to
this rule, although we do not notice similar things on the surface in our well
brought-up children. Investigation of the children of the lower classes
proves that they are no exceptions to the biological rule. It is of course
infinitely more probable that this most important instinct, that of the

preservation of the race, is already nascent in the earliest childhood, than
that it falls at one swoop from heaven, full-fledged, at the age of puberty.
The sexual organs also develop long before the slightest sign of their future
function can be noticed. Where the psychoanalytic school speaks of
sexuality, this wider conception of its function must be linked to it, and we
do not mean simply that physical sensation and function generally
designated by the term sexual. It might be said that, in order to avoid any
misunderstanding on this point, the term sexuality should not be given to
these preparatory phenomena in childhood. This demand is surely not
justified, since the anatomical nomenclature is taken from the fully-
developed system, and special names are not generally given to more or less
rudimentary formations.
After all, the objections to the terminology do not spring so much from
objective arguments, as from those tendencies which lie at the base of moral
indignation. But then no objection can be made to the sex-terminology of
Freud, as he rightly gives to the whole sexual development the general
name of sexuality. But certain conclusions have been drawn which, so far as
I can see, cannot be maintained.

The “Sexuality” of the Suckling

When we examine how far back in childhood the first traces of sexuality
reach, we have to admit implicitly that sexuality already exists ab ovo, but
only becomes manifest a long time after intrauterine life. Freud is inclined
to see in the function of taking the mother’s breast already a kind of
sexuality. Freud was bitterly reproached for this view, but it must be
admitted that it is very ingenious, if we follow his hypothesis, that the
instinct of the preservation of the race has existed separately from the
instinct of self-preservation ab ovo and has undergone a separate
development. This way of thinking is not, however, a biological one. It is
not possible to separate the two ways of manifestation of the hypothetical
vital process, and to credit each with a different order of development. If we
limit ourselves to judging by what we can actually observe, we must reckon
with the fact that everywhere in nature we see that the vital processes in an
individual consist for a considerable space of time in the functions of
nutrition and growth only. We see this very clearly in many animals; for
instance, in butterflies, which as caterpillars pass an asexual existence of
nutrition and growth. To this stage of life we may allot both the intrauterine
life and the extrauterine time of suckling in man. This time is marked by the
absence of all sexual function; hence to speak of manifest sexuality in the
suckling would be a contradictio in adjecto.
The most we can do is to ask if, among the life-functions of the suckling,
there are any that have not the character of nutrition, or of growth, and
hence could be termed sexual. Freud points out the unmistakable emotion
and satisfaction of the child while suckling, and compares this process with
that of the sexual act. This similarity leads him to assume the sexual quality
in the act of suckling. This conclusion is only admissible if it can be proved
that the tension of the need, and its gratification by a release, is a sexual
process. That the act of suckling has this emotional mechanism proves,
however, just the contrary. Therefore we can only say this emotional
mechanism is found both in nutrition and in the sexual function. If Freud by
analogy deduces the sexual quality of sucking from this emotional
mechanism, then his biological empiricism would also justify the

terminology qualifying the sexual act as a function of nutrition. This is
unjustifiably exceeding the bounds in either case. It is evident that the act of
sucking cannot be qualified as sexual.
We are aware, however, of functions in the suckling stage which have
apparently nothing to do with the function of nutrition, such as sucking the
finger, and its many variations. This is perhaps the place to discuss whether
these things belong to the sexual sphere. These acts do not subserve
nutrition, but produce pleasure. Of that there is no doubt, but nevertheless it
is disputable whether this pleasure which comes by sucking should be
called by analogy a sexual satisfaction. It might be called equally pleasure
by nutrition. This latter qualification has even the further justification that
the form and kind of pleasure belong entirely to the function of nutrition.
The hand which is used for sucking finds in this way preparation for future
use in feeding one’s self. Under these circumstances nobody will be
inclined by a petitio principii to characterize the first manifestation of
human life as sexual. The statement which we make that the act of sucking
is attended by a feeling of satisfaction leaves us in doubt whether the
sucking does contain anything else but the character of nutrition. We notice
that the so-called bad habits shown by a child as it grows up are closely
linked with early infantile sucking, such for instance as putting the finger in
the mouth, biting the nails, picking the nose, ears, etc. We see, too, how
closely these habits are connected with later masturbation. By analogy, the
conclusion that these infantile habits are the first step to onanism, or to
actions similar to onanism, and are therefore of a well-marked sexual
character cannot be denied: it is perfectly justified. I have seen many cases
in which a correlation existed between these childish habits and later
masturbation. If this masturbation takes place in later childhood, before
puberty, it is nothing but an infantile bad habit. From the fact of the
correlation between masturbation and the other childish bad habits, we
conclude that these habits have a sexual character, in so far as they are used
to obtain physical satisfaction from the child’s own body.
This new standpoint is comprehensible and perhaps necessary. It is only a
few steps from this point of view to regarding the infant’s act of sucking as
of a sexual character. As you know, Freud took the few steps, but you have
just heard me reject them. We have come to a difficulty which is very hard
to solve. It would be relatively easy if we could accept two instincts side by

side, each an entity in itself. Then the act of sucking the breast would be
both an action of nutrition and a sexual act. This seems to be Freud’s
conception. We find in adults the two instincts separated, yet existing side
by side, or rather we find that there are two manifestations, in hunger, and
in the sexual instinct. But at the sucking age, we find only the function of
nutrition, rewarded by both pleasure and satisfaction. Its sexual character
can only be argued by a petitio principii, for the facts show that the act of
sucking is the first to give pleasure, not the sexual function. Obtaining
pleasure is by no means identical with sexuality. We deceive ourselves if we
think that in the suckling both instincts exist side by side, for then we
project into the psyche of the child the facts taken from the psychology of
adults. The existence of the two instincts side by side does not occur in
suckling, for one of these instincts has no existence as yet, or, if existing, is
quite rudimentary. If we are to regard the striving for pleasure as something
sexual, we might as well say paradoxically that hunger is a sexual striving,
for this instinct seeks pleasure by satisfaction. If this were true, we should
have to give our opponents permission to apply the terminology of hunger
to sexuality. It would facilitate matters, were it possible to maintain that
both instincts existed side by side, but it contradicts the observed facts and
would lead to untenable consequences.
Before I try to resolve this opposition, I must first say something more
about Freud’s sexual theory, and its transformations.

The Polymorphic Perverse Sexuality of Infancy

We have already reached the conclusion, setting out from the idea of the
shock being apparently due to sexual phantasies, that the child must have,
in contradiction to the views hitherto prevailing, a nearly fully formed
sexuality, and even a polymorphic perverse sexuality. Its sexuality does not
seem concentrated on the genital functions or on the other sex, but is
occupied with its own body; whence it is said to be auto-erotic. If its sexual
instinct is directed to another person, no distinction, or but the very
slightest, is made as to sex. It can, therefore, be very easily homo-sexual. In
place of non-existing local sexual function there exists a series of so-called
bad habits, which from this standpoint look like a series of perversities,
since they have the closest analogy with the later perversities. In
consequence of this way of regarding the subject, sexuality, whose nature is
ordinarily regarded as a unit, becomes decomposed into a multiplicity of
isolated striving forces. Freud then arrived at the conception of the so-called
“erogenous zones,” by which he understood mouth, skin, anus, etc. (It is, of
course, a universal tacit presumption that sexuality has its origin in the
sexual organs.)
The term “erogenous zone” reminds us of “spasmo-genic zones,” and the
underlying image is at all events the same; just as the spasmo-genic zone is
the place whence the spasm arises, so the erogenous zone is the place
whence arises an affluent to sexuality. Based upon the model of the genital
organs as the anatomical origin of sexuality, the erogenous zones must be
conceived as being so many genitals out of which the streams of sexuality
flow together. This is the condition of the polymorphic perverse sexuality of
childhood. The expression “perverse” seems to be justified by the close
analogy with the later perversities which present, so to speak, but a new
edition of certain early infantile perverse habits. They are very often
connected with one or other of the different erogenous zones, and are the
cause of those exchanges in sex, which are so characteristic for childhood.
According to this view, the later normal and monomorphic sexuality is built
up out of several components. The first division is into homo- and hetero-

sexual components, to which is linked an auto-erotic component, as also
there are components of the different erogenous zones. This conception can
be compared with the position of physics before Robert Mayer, when only
isolated forces, having elementary qualities, were recognized, whose
interchanges were little understood. The law of the conservation of energy
brought order into the inter-relationship of the forces, at the same time
abolishing the conception of those forces as absolute elements, but
regarding them as interchangeable manifestations of one and the same
energy.

The Sexual Components as Energic Manifestations

Conceptions of great importance do not arise only in one brain, but are
floating in the air and dip here and there, appearing even under other forms,
and in other regions, where it is often very difficult to recognize the
common fundamental idea. Thus it happened with the splitting up of
sexuality into the polymorphic perverse sexuality of childhood.
Experience forces us to accept a constant exchange of isolated components
as we notice more and more that, for instance, perversities exist at the
expense of normal sexuality, or that the increase of certain kinds of sex-
manifestations causes corresponding deficiencies of another kind. To make
the matter clearer, let me give you an instance: A young man had a homo-
sexual phase lasting for some years, during which time women had no
interest for him. This abnormal condition changed gradually toward his
twentieth year and his erotic interest became more and more normal. He
began to take great interest in girls, and soon the last traces of his homo-
sexuality were conquered. This condition lasted several years, and he had
some successful love-affairs. Then he wished to get married; he had here to
suffer a great disappointment, as the girl to whom he proposed refused him.
During the ensuing phase he absolutely abandoned the idea of marriage.
After that he experienced a dislike of all women, and one day he discovered
that he was again perfectly homo-sexual, that is, young men had an
unusually irritating influence upon him. To regard sexuality as composed of
a fixed hetero-sexual component, and a like homo-sexual element, will
never suffice to explain this case, for the conception of the existence of
fixed components excludes any kind of transformation.
To understand the case, we have to admit a great mobility of the sexual
components, which even goes so far that one of the components can
practically disappear completely, whilst the other comes to the front. If only
substitution took place, if for instance the homo-sexual component entered
the unconscious, leaving the field of consciousness to the hetero-sexual
component, modern scientific knowledge would lead us to conclude that
equivalent effects arose from the unconscious sphere. Those effects would

have to be conceived as resistances against the activity of the hetero-sexual
component, as a repugnance towards women.
Experience tells us nothing about this. There have been some small traces
of influences of this kind, but of such slight intensity that they cannot be
compared with the intensity of the former homo-sexual component. On the
conception that has been outlined, it is also incomprehensible how this
homo-sexual component, regarded as so firmly fixed, can ever disappear
without leaving active traces. To explain things, the process of development
is called in, forgetting that this is only a word and explains nothing. You
see, therefore, the urgent necessity of an adequate explanation of such a
change of scene. For this we must have a dynamic hypothesis. Such
commutations are only conceivable as dynamic or energic processes. I
cannot conceive how manifestations of functions can disappear if I do not
accept a change in the relation of one force to another. Freud’s theory did
have regard to this necessity in the conception of components. The
presumption of isolated functions existing side by side began to be
somewhat weakened, more in practice than theoretically. It was replaced by
an energic conception. The term chosen for this conception is “libido.”

CHAPTER III
The Conception of Libido

Freud had already introduced the idea of libido in his[5] “Three
Contributions to the Sexual Theory” in the following words:
“In biology, the fact that both mankind and animals have a sexual want is
expressed by the conception of the sexual desire. This is done by analogy
with the want of nourishment, so-called hunger. Popular speech has no
corresponding characterization for the word ‘hunger,’ and so science uses
the word ‘libido.’”
In Freud’s definition, the term “libido” appears as exclusively a sexual
desire. “Libido” as a medical term is certainly used for sexual desire, and
especially for sexual lust. But the classical definition of this word as found
in Cicero, Sallust, and others, was not so exclusive. The word is there used
in a more general sense for every passionate desire. I only just mention this
definition here, as further on it plays an important part in our
considerations, and as it is important to know that the term “libido” has
really a much wider meaning than is associated with it through medical
language.
The idea of libido (while maintaining its sexual meaning in the author’s
sense as long as possible) offers us the dynamic value which we are seeking
in order to explain the shifting of the psychological scenery. With this
conception it is much simpler to formulate the phenomena in question,
instead of by the incomprehensible substitution of the homo- by the hetero-
sexual component. We may say now that the libido has gradually withdrawn
from its homo-sexual manifestation and is transferred in the same measure
into a hetero-sexual manifestation. Thus the homo-sexual component
practically disappears. It remains only an empty possibility, signifying
nothing in itself. Its very existence, therefore, is rightly denied by the laity,
just as we doubt the possibility that any man selected at random would turn

out to be a murderer. By the use of this conception of libido many relations
between the isolated sexual functions are now easily explicable.
The early idea of the multiplicity of sexual components must be given up: it
savors too much of the ancient philosophical notion of the faculties of the
mind. Its place is taken by libido which is capable of manifold applications.
The earlier components only represent possibilities of activities. With this
conception of libido, the original idea of a divided sexuality with different
roots is replaced by a dynamic unity, without which the formerly important
components remain but empty possibilities of activities. This development
in our conception is of great importance. We have here the same process
which Robert Mayer introduced into dynamics. Just as the conception of the
conservation of energy removed their character as elements from the forces,
imparting to them the character of a manifestation of energy, so the libido
theory similarly removes from the sexual components the idea of the mental
“faculties” as elements (“Seelen Vermögen”), and ascribes to them merely
phenomenal value. This conception represents the impression of reality far
more than the theory of components. With a libido-theory we can easily
explain the case of the young man. The disappointment he met with, just at
the time he had definitely decided on a hetero-sexual life, drove his libido
again from the hetero-sexual manifestation into a homo-sexual form, thus
calling forth his entire homo-sexuality.

The Energic Theory of Libido

I must point out here that the analogy with the law of the conservation of
energy is very close. In both cases the question arises when an effect of
energy disappears, where is this energy meanwhile, and where will it
reemerge? Applying this point of view as a heuristic principle to the
psychology of human conduct, we shall make some astonishing discoveries.
Then we shall see how the most heterogeneous phases of individual
psychological development are connected in an energic relationship. Every
time we see a person who is splenetic or has a morbid conviction, or some
exaggerated mental attitude, we know here is too much libido, and the
excess must have been taken away from somewhere else where there is too
little. From this standpoint, psychoanalysis is that method which discovers
those places or functions where there is too little or too much libido, and
restores the just proportions. Thus the symptoms of a neurosis must be
considered as exaggerated and correspondingly disturbed functional
manifestations overflowing with libido. The energy which has been used for
this purpose has been taken away from somewhere else, and it is the task of
the psychoanalyst, to restore it whence it was taken, or to bestow it where it
was never before given. Those complexes of symptoms which are mainly
characterized by lack of libido, for instance, the so-called apathetic
conditions, force us to reverse the question. Here we have to ask, where did
the libido go? The patient gives us the impression of having no libido, and
there are occasionally physicians who believe exactly what the patients tell
them. Such physicians have a primitive way of thinking, like the savage
who believes, when he sees an eclipse of the sun, that the sun has been
swallowed up and put to death. But the sun is only hidden, and so it is with
these patients. Although the libido is there, it is not get-at-able, and is
inaccessible to the patient himself. Superficially, we have here a lack of
libido. It is the task of psychoanalysis to search for that hidden place where
the libido dwells, and where it is as a rule inaccessible to the patient. The
hidden place is the non-conscious, which may also be called the
unconscious, without ascribing to it any mysterious significance.

The Conception of Unconscious Phantasy

Psychoanalytic experience has taught us that there are non-conscious
systems which, by analogy with conscious phantasies, can be described as
phantasy-systems of the unconscious. In cases of neurotic apathy these
phantasy systems of the unconscious are the objects of the libido. We know
well that, when we speak of unconscious phantasy systems, we only speak
figuratively. We do not mean more by this than that we accept as an
indispensable postulate the conception of psychic entities existing outside
consciousness. Experience teaches us, we might say daily, that there are
unconscious psychic processes which influence the disposition of the libido
in a perceptible way. Those cases, known to every psychiatrist in which
complicated symptoms of delusions emerge with relative great suddenness,
show clearly that there must be unconscious psychic development and
preparation, for we cannot regard them as having been just suddenly formed
when they entered consciousness.

The Sexual Terminology

I feel myself justified in making this digression concerning the unconscious.
I have done it to point out that, with regard to shifting of the manifestations
of the libido, we have to deal not only with the conscious, but also with
another factor, the unconscious, whither the libido sometimes disappears.
We have not yet followed up the discussion of the further consequences
which result from the adoption of the libido-theory.
Freud has taught us, and we see it in the daily practice of psychoanalysis,
that in earlier childhood, instead of the normal later sexuality, we find many
tendencies which in later life are called perversions. We have to admit that
Freud has the right to give to these tendencies a sexual terminology.
Through the introduction of the conception of the libido, we see that in
adults those elementary components which seemed to be the origin and the
source of normal sexuality, lose their importance, and are reduced to mere
potentialities. The effective power, their life force, is to be found in the
libido. Without libido these components mean nothing. We saw that Freud
gives to the conception of libido an undoubted sexual definition, somewhat
in the sense of sexual desire. The general view is, that libido in this sense
only comes into being at the age of puberty. How are we then to explain the
fact that in Freud’s view a child has a polymorphic-perverse sexuality, and
that therefore, in children, the libido brings into action not only one, but
several possibilities? If the libido, in Freud’s sense, begins its existence at
puberty, it could not be held accountable for earlier infantile perversions. In
that case, we should have to regard these infantile perversions as “faculties
of the mind,” in the sense of the theory of components. Apart from the
hopeless theoretical confusion which would thus arise, we must not
multiply explanatory principles in accordance with the philosophical axiom:
“principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda.”
There is no other way but to agree that before and after puberty it is the
same libido. Hence, the perversities of childhood have arisen exactly in the
same way as those of adults. Common sense will object to this, as obviously
the sexual needs of children cannot possibly be the same as those of adults.

We might admit, with Freud, that the libido before and after puberty is the
same, but is different in its intensity. Instead of the intense post-pubertal
sexual desire, there would be first a slight sexual desire in childhood, with
diminishing intensity until, as we reach back to the first year, it is but a
trace. We might admit that we are biologically in agreement with this
formulation. It would then have to be also agreed that everything that falls
into the region of this enlarged conception of sexuality is already pre-
existing but in miniature; for instance, all those emotional manifestations of
psycho-sexuality: desire for affection, jealousy, and many others, and by no
means least, the neuroses of childhood.
It must, however, be admitted that these emotional manifestations of
childhood by no means make the impression of being in miniature; their
intensity can rival that of an affect among adults. Nor must it be forgotten
that experience has shown that perverse manifestations of sexuality in
childhood are often more glaring, and indeed seem to have a greater
development, than in adults. If an adult under similar conditions had this
apparently excessive form of sexuality, which is practically normal in
children, we could rightly expect a total absence of normal sexuality, and of
many other important biological adaptations. An adult is rightly called
perverse when his libido is not used for normal functions, and the same
could be said of a child: it is polymorphous perverse since it does not know
normal sexual functions.
These considerations suggest the idea that perhaps the amount of libido is
always the same, and that no increase first occur at puberty. This somewhat
audacious conception accords with the example of the law of the
conservation of energy, according to which the quantity of energy remains
always the same. It is possible that the summit of maturity is reached when
the infantile diffuse applications of libido discharge themselves into the one
channel of definite sexuality, and thus lose themselves therein. For the
moment we must content ourselves with these suggestions, for we must
next pay attention to one point of criticism concerning the quality of the
infantile libido.
Many critics do not admit that the infantile libido is simply less intense or is
essentially of the same kind as the libido of adults. The emotions among
adults are correlated with the genital functions. This is not the case in

children, or it is only so in miniature, or exceptionally, and this gives rise to
an important distinction, which must not be undervalued.
I believe such an objection is justified. There is really a considerable
difference between immature and fully developed functions, as there is a
difference between play and reality, between shooting with blank and with
loaded cartridges. That the childish libido has the harmlessness demanded
by common sense cannot be contested. But of course none can deny that
blank shooting is shooting. We must get accustomed to the idea that
sexuality really exists, even before puberty, right back in early childhood,
and that we have no right to pretend that manifestations of this immature
sexuality are not sexual. This does not indeed refute the objection, which,
while recognizing the existence of infantile sexuality in the form already
described, yet denies Freud’s claim to regard as sexual early infantile
manifestations such as sucking. We have mentioned already the motives
which induced Freud to enlarge the sexual terminology in such a way. We
mentioned, too, how this very act of sucking, for instance, could be
conceived from the standpoint of pleasure in the function of nutrition, and
that, on biological grounds, there was more justification for this derivation
than for Freud’s view. It might be objected that these and similar activities
of the oral zones are found in later life in an undoubted sexual use. This
only means that these activities can in later life be used for sexual purposes,
but that does not tell us anything concerning the primitive sexual nature of
these forms. I must, therefore, admit that I find no ground for regarding the
activities of the suckling, which provoke pleasure and satisfaction, from the
standpoint of sexuality. Indeed there are many objections against this
conception. It seems to me, in so far as I am capable of judging these
difficult problems, that from the standpoint of sexuality it is necessary to
divide human life into three phases.

The Three Phases of Life

The first phase embraces the first years of life. I call this part of life the pre-
sexual stage. These years correspond to the caterpillar-stage of butterflies,
and are characterized almost exclusively by the functions of nutrition and
growth.
The second phase embraces the later years of childhood up to puberty, and
might be called the pre-pubertal stage.
The third phase is that of riper years, proceeding only from puberty
onwards, and could be called the time of maturity.
You cannot have failed to notice that we become conscious of the greatest
difficulty when we arrive at the question at what age we must put the limit
of the pre-sexual stage. I am ready to confess my uncertainty with regard to
this problem. If I survey the psychoanalytical experiences with children, as
yet insufficiently numerous, at the same time keeping in mind the
observations made by Freud, it seems to me that the limit of this phase lies
between the third and fifth years. This, of course, with due consideration for
the greatest individual diversities. From various aspects this is an important
age. The child has emancipated itself already from the helplessness of the
baby, and a series of important psychological functions have acquired a
firm hold. From this period on, the obscurity of the early infantile
“amnesia,” or the discontinuity of the early infantile consciousness, begins
to clear up through the sporadic continuity of memory. It seems as if, at this
age, a considerable step had been made towards emancipation and the
formation of a new and independent personality. As far as we know, the first
signs of interest and activity which may fairly be called sexual fall into this
period, although these sexual indications have still the infantile
characteristics of harmlessness and naiveté. I think I have sufficiently
demonstrated why a sexual terminology cannot be given to the pre-sexual
stage, and so we may now consider the other problems from the standpoint
we have just reached. You will remember that we dropped the problem of
the libido in childhood, because it seemed impossible to arrive at any
clearness in that way. But now we are obliged to take up the question again,

if only to see whether the energic conception harmonizes with the principles
just advanced. We saw, following Freud’s conception, that the altered
manifestations of the infantile sexuality, if compared with those of maturity,
are to be explained by the diminution of sexuality in childhood.

The Sexual Definition of Libido Must be Abandoned

The intensity of the libido is said to be diminished relatively to the early
age. But we advanced just now several considerations to show why it seems
doubtful if we can regard the vital functions of a child, sexuality excepted,
as of less intensity than those of adults. We can really say that, sexuality
excepted, the emotional phenomena, and, if nervous symptoms are present,
then these likewise are quite as intense as those of adults. On the energic
conception of the libido all these things are but manifestations of the libido.
But it becomes rather difficult to conceive that the intensity of the libido
can ever constitute the difference between a mature and an immature
sexuality. The explanation of this difference seems rather to postulate a
change in the localization of the libido (if the expression be allowed). In
contradistinction to the medical definition the libido in children is occupied
far more with certain side-functions of a mental and physiological nature
than with local sexual functions. One is here already tempted to remove
from the term libido the predicate “sexualis,” and thus to have done with
the sexual definition of the term given in Freud’s “Three Contributions.”
This necessity becomes imperative, when we put it in the form of a
question: The child in the first years of its life is intensely living—suffering
and enjoying—the question is, whether his striving, his suffering, his
enjoyment are by reason of his libido sexualis? Freud has pronounced
himself in favor of this supposition. There is no need to repeat the reasons
through which I am compelled to accept the pre-sexual stage. The larva
stage possesses a libido of nutrition, if I may so express it, but not yet the
libido sexualis. It is thus we must put it, if we wish to keep the energic
conception which the libido theory offers us. I think there is nothing for it
but to abandon the sexual definition of libido, or we shall lose what there is
valuable in the libido theory, that is, the energic conception. For a long time
past the desire to extend the meaning of libido, and to remove it from its
narrow and sexual limitations, has forced itself upon Freud’s school. One
was never weary of insisting that sexuality in the psychological sense was
not to be taken too literally, but in a broader connotation; but exactly how,
that remained obscure, and thus too, sincere criticism remained unsatisfied.

I do not think I am going astray if I see the real value of the libido theory in
the energic conception, and not in its sexual definition. Thanks to the
former, we are in possession of a most valuable heuristic principle. We owe
to the energic conception the possibility of dynamic ideas and relationships,
which are of inestimable value for us in the chaos of the psychic world. The
Freudians would be wrong not to listen to the voice of criticism, which
reproaches our conception of libido with mysticism and inaccessibility. We
deceived ourselves in believing that we could ever make the libido sexualis
the bearer of the energic conception of the psychical life, and if many of
Freud’s school still believe they possess a well-defined and almost complete
conception of libido, they are not aware that this conception has been put to
use far beyond the bounds of its sexual definition. The critics are right when
they object to our theory of libido as explaining things which cannot belong
to its sphere. It must be admitted that Freud’s school makes use of a
conception of libido which passes beyond the bounds of its primary
definition. Indeed, this must produce the impression that one is working
with a mystical principle.

The Problem of Libido in Dementia Præcox

I have sought to show these infringements in a special work, “Wandlungen
und Symbole der Libido,” and at the same time the necessity for creating a
new conception of libido, which shall be in harmony with the energic
conception. Freud himself was forced to a discussion of his original
conception of libido when he tried to apply its energic point of view to a
well-known case of dementia præcox—the so-called Schreber case. In this
case, we had to deal, among other things, with that well-known problem in
the psychology of dementia præcox, the loss of adaptation to reality, the
peculiar phenomenon consisting in a special tendency of these patients to
construct an inner world of phantasy of their own, surrendering for this
purpose their adaptation to reality. As a part of the phenomenon, the lack of
sociability or emotional rapport will be well known to you all, this
representing a striking disturbance of the function of reality. Through
considerable psychological study of these patients we discovered, that this
lack of adaptation to reality is compensated by a progressive increase in the
creation of phantasies. This goes so far that the dream-world is for the
patient more real than external reality. The patient Schreber, described by
Freud, found for this phenomenon an excellent figurative description in his
delusion of the “end of the world.” His loss of reality is thus very concretely
represented. The dynamic conception of this phenomenon is very clear. We
say that the libido withdrew itself more and more from the external world,
consequently entered the inner world, the world of phantasies, and had there
to create, as a compensation for the lost external world, a so-called
equivalent of reality. This compensation is built up piece by piece, and it is
most interesting to observe the psychological materials of which this inner
world is composed. This way of conceiving the transposition and
displacement of the libido has been made by the every-day use of the term,
its original pure sexual meaning being very rarely recalled. In general, the
word “libido” is used practically in so harmless a sense that Claparède, in a
conversation, once remarked that we could as well use the word “interest.”
The manner in which this expression is generally used has given rise to a
way of using the term that made it possible to explain Schreber’s “end of

the world” by withdrawal of the libido. On this occasion, Freud recalled his
original sexual definition of the libido, and tried to arrive at an
understanding with the change which in the meantime had taken place. In
his article on Schreber, he discusses the question, whether what the
psychoanalytic school calls libido, and conceives of as “interest from erotic
sources” coincides with interest generally speaking. You see that, putting
the problem in this way, Freud asks the question which Claparède
practically answered. Freud discusses the question here, whether the loss of
reality noticed in dementia præcox, to which I drew attention in my book,[6]
“The Psychology of Dementia Præcox,” is due entirely to the withdrawal of
erotic interest, or if this coincides with the so-called objective interest in
general. We can hardly agree that the normal “fonction du réel” [Janet] is
only maintained through erotic interest. The fact is that, in many cases,
reality vanishes altogether, and not a trace of psychological adaptation can
be found in these cases. Reality is repressed, and replaced by phantasies
created through complexes. We are forced to say that not only the erotic
interests, but interests in general—that is, the whole adaptation to reality—
are lost. I formerly tried, in my “Psychology of Dementia Præcox,” to get
out of this difficulty by using the expression “psychic energy,” because I
could not base the theory of dementia præcox on the theory of transference
of the libido in its sexual definition. My experience—at that time chiefly
psychiatric—did not permit me to understand this theory. Only later did I
learn to understand the correctness of the theory as regards the neuroses by
increased experience in hysteria and the compulsion neurosis. As a matter
of fact, an abnormal displacement of libido, quite definitely sexual, does
play a great part in the neuroses. But although very characteristic
repressions of sexual libido do take place in certain neuroses, that loss of
reality, so typical for dementia præcox, never occurs. In dementia præcox,
so extreme is the loss of the function of reality that this loss must also entail
a loss of motive power, to which any sexual nature must be absolutely
denied, for it will not seem to anyone that reality is a sexual function. If this
were so, the withdrawal of erotic interests in the neuroses would lead to a
loss of reality—a loss of reality indeed that could be compared with that in
dementia præcox. But, as I said before, this is not the case. These facts have
made it impossible for me to transfer Freud’s libido theory to dementia
præcox. Hence, my view is, that the attempt made by Abraham, in his
article “The Psycho-Sexual Differences Between Hysteria and Dementia

Præcox,” is from the standpoint of Freud’s conception of libido
theoretically untenable. Abraham’s belief, that the paranoidal system, or the
symptomatology of dementia præcox, arises by the libido withdrawing from
the external world, cannot be justified if we take “libido” according to
Freud’s definition. For, as Freud has clearly shown, a mere introversion or
regression of the libido leads always to a neurosis, and not to dementia
præcox. It is impossible to transfer the libido theory, with its sexual
definition, directly to dementia præcox, as this disease shows a loss of
reality not to be explained by the deficiency in erotic interests.
It gives me particular satisfaction that our master also, when he placed his
hand on the fragile material of paranoiac psychology, felt himself
compelled to doubt the applicability of his conception of libido which had
prevailed hitherto. My position of reserve towards the ubiquity of sexuality
which I allowed myself to adopt in the preface to my “Psychology of
Dementia Præcox”—although with a complete recognition of the
psychological mechanism—was dictated by the conception of the libido
theory of that time. Its sexual definition did not enable me to explain those
disturbances of functions which affect the indefinite sphere of the instinct of
hunger, just as much as they do those of sexuality. For a long time the libido
theory seemed to me inapplicable to dementia præcox.

The Genetic Conception of Libido

With greater experience in my analytical work, I noticed that a slow change
of my conception of libido had taken place. A genetic conception of libido
gradually took the place of the descriptive definition of libido contained in
Freud’s “Three Contributions.” Thus it became possible for me to replace,
by the expression “psychic energy,” the term libido. The next step was that I
asked myself if now-a-days the function of reality consists only to a very
small extent of sexual libido, and to a very large extent of other impulses. It
is still a very important question, considered from the phylogenetic
standpoint, whether the function of reality is not, at least very largely, of
sexual origin. It is impossible to answer this question directly, in so far as
the function of reality is concerned. We shall try to come to some
understanding by a side-path.
A superficial glance at the history of evolution suffices to teach us that
innumerable complicated functions, whose sexual character must be denied,
are originally nothing but derivations from the instinct of propagation. As is
well known, there has been an important displacement in the fundamentals
of propagation during the ascent through the animal scale. The offspring has
been reduced in number, and the primitive uncertainty of impregnation has
been replaced by a quite assured impregnation, and a more effective
protection of offspring. The energy required for the production of eggs and
sperma has been transferred into the creation of mechanisms of attraction,
and mechanisms for the protection of offspring. Here we find the first
instincts of art in animals, used for the instinct of propagation, and limited
to the rutting season. The original sexual character of these biological
institutions became lost with their organic fixation, and their functional
independence. None the less, there can be no doubt as to their sexual origin,
as, for instance, there is no doubt about the original relation between
sexuality and music, but it would be a generalization as futile, as unesthetic,
to include music under the category of sexuality. Such a terminology would
lead to the consideration of the Cathedral of Cologne under mineralogy,
because it has been built with stones. Those quite ignorant of the problems
of evolution are much astonished to find how few things there are in human

life which cannot finally be reduced to the instinct of propagation. It
embraces nearly everything, I think, that is dear and precious to us.
We have hitherto spoken of the libido as of the instinct of reproduction, or
the instinct of the preservation of the species, and limited our conception to
that libido which is opposed to hunger, just as the instinct of the
preservation of the species is opposed to that of self-preservation. Of course
in nature this artificial distinction does not exist. Here we find only a
continuous instinct of life, a will to live, which tries to obtain the
propagation of the whole race by the preservation of the individual. To this
extent this conception coincides with that of Schopenhauer’s “will,” as
objectively we can only conceive a movement as a manifestation of an
internal desire. As we have already boldly concluded that the libido, which
originally subserved the creation of eggs and seed, is now firmly organized
in the function of nest-building, and can no longer be employed otherwise,
we are similarly obliged to include in this conception every desire, hunger
no less. We have no warrant whatever for differentiating essentially the
desire to build nests from the desire to eat.
I think you will already understand the position we have reached with these
considerations. We are about to follow up the energic conception by putting
the energic mode of action in place of the purely formal functioning. Just as
reciprocal actions, well known in the old natural science, have been
replaced by the law of the conservation of energy, so here too, in the sphere
of psychology, we seek to replace the reciprocal activities of coordinated
psychical faculties by energy, conceived as one and homogeneous. Thus we
must bow to the criticism which reproaches the psychoanalytic school for
working with a mystical conception of libido. I have to dispel this illusion
that the whole psychoanalytic school possesses a clearly conceived and
obvious conception of libido. I maintain that the conception of libido with
which we are working is not only not concrete or known, but is an unknown
X, a conceptual image, a token, and no more real than the energy in the
conceptual world of the physicist. In this wise only can we escape those
arbitrary transgressions of the proper boundaries, which are always made
when we want to reduce coördinated forces to one another. Certain
analogies of the action of heat with the action of light are not to be
explained by saying that this tertium comparationis proves that the
undulations of heat are the same as the undulations of light; the conceptual

image of energy is the real point of comparison. If we regard libido in this
way we endeavor to simulate the progress which has already been made in
physics. The economy of thought which physics has already obtained we
strive after in our libido theory. We conceive libido now simply as energy,
so that we are in the position to figure the manifold processes as forms of
energy. Thus, we replace the old reciprocal action by relations of absolute
equivalence. We shall not be astonished if we are met with the cry of
vitalism. But we are as far removed from any belief in a specific vital
power, as from any other metaphysical assertion. We term libido that energy
which manifests itself by vital processes, which is subjectively perceived as
aspiration, longing and striving. We see in the diversity of natural
phenomena the desire, the libido, in the most diverse applications and
forms. In early childhood we find libido at first wholly in the form of the
instinct of nutrition, providing for the development of the body. As the body
develops, there open up, successively, new spheres of influence for the
libido. The last, and, from its functional significance, most overpowering
sphere of influence, is sexuality, which at first seems very closely connected
with the function of nutrition. With that you may compare the well-known
influence on propagation of the conditions of nutrition in the lower animals
and plants.
In the sphere of sexuality, libido does take that form whose enormous
importance justifies us in the choice of the term “libido,” in its strict sexual
sense. Here for the first time libido appears in the form of an
undifferentiated sexual primitive power, as an energy of growth, clearly
forcing the individual towards division, budding, etc. The clearest
separation of the two forms of libido is found among those animals where
the stage of nutrition is separated by the pupa stage from the stage of
sexuality. Out of this sexual primitive power, through which one small
creature produces millions of eggs and sperm, derivatives have been
developed by extraordinary restriction of fecundity, the functions of which
are maintained by a special differentiated libido. This differentiated libido is
henceforth desexualized, for it is dissociated from its original function of
producing eggs and sperm, nor is there any possibility of restoring it to its
original function. The whole process of development consists in the
increasing absorption of the libido which only created, originally, products
of generation in the secondary functions of attraction, and protection of
offspring. This development presupposes a quite different and much more

complicated relationship to reality, a true function of reality which is
functionally inseparable from the needs of reproduction. Thus the altered
mode of reproduction involves a correspondingly increased adaptation to
reality. This, of course, does not imply that the function of reality is
exclusively due to differentiation in reproduction. I am aware that a large
part of the instinct of nutrition is connected with it. Thus we arrive at an
insight into certain primitive conditions of the function of reality. It would
be fundamentally wrong to pretend that the compelling source is still a
sexual one. It was largely a sexual one originally. The process of absorption
of the primitive libido into secondary functions certainly always took place
in the form of so-called affluxes of sexual libido (“libidinöse Zuschüsse”).
That is to say, sexuality was diverted from its original destination, a definite
quantity was used up in the mechanisms of mutual attraction and of
protection of offspring. This transference of sexual libido from the sexual
sphere to associated functions is still taking place (e. g., modern neo-
Malthusianism is the artificial continuation of the natural tendency). We call
this process sublimation, when this operation occurs without injury to the
adaptation of the individual; we call it repression—when the attempt fails.
From the descriptive standpoint psychoanalysis accepts the multiplicity of
instincts, and, among them, the instinct of sexuality as a special
phenomenon, moreover, it recognizes certain affluxes of the libido to
asexual instincts.
From the genetic standpoint it is otherwise. It regards the multiplicity of
instincts as issuing out of relative unity, the primitive libido. It recognizes
that definite quantities of the primitive libido are split off, associated with
the recently created functions, and finally merged in them. From this
standpoint we can say, without any difficulty, that patients with dementia
præcox withdraw their “libido” from the external world and in consequence
suffer a loss of reality, which is compensated by an increase of the
phantasy-building activities.
We must now fit the new conception of libido into that theory of sexuality
in childhood which is of such great importance in the theory of neurosis.
Generally speaking, we first find the libido as the energy of vital activities
acting in the zone of the function of nutrition. Through the rhythmical
movements in the act of sucking, nourishment is taken with all signs of
satisfaction. As the individual grows and his organs develop, the libido

creates new ways of desire, new activities and satisfactions. Now the
original model—rhythmic activity, creating pleasure and satisfaction—must
be transferred to other functions which have their final goal in sexuality.
This transition is not made suddenly at puberty, but it takes place gradually
throughout the course of the greater part of childhood. The libido can only
very slowly and with great difficulty detach itself from the characteristics of
the function of nutrition, in order to pass over into the characteristics of
sexual function. As far as I can see, we have two epochs during this
transition, the epoch of sucking and the epoch of the displaced rhythmic
activity. Considered solely from the point of view of its mode of action,
sucking clings entirely to the domain of the function of nutrition, but it
presents also a far wider aspect, it is no mere function of nutrition, it is a
rhythmical activity, with its goal in a pleasure and satisfaction of its own,
distinct from the obtaining of nourishment. The hand comes into play as an
accessory organ. In the epoch of the displaced rhythmical activity it stands
out still more as an accessory organ, when the oral zone ceases to give
pleasure, which must now be obtained in other directions. The possibilities
are many. As a rule the other openings of the body become the first objects
of interest of the libido; then follow the skin in general and certain places of
predilection upon it.
The actions carried out at these places generally take the form of rubbing,
piercing, tugging, etc., accompanied by a certain rhythm, and serve to
produce pleasure. After a halt of greater or less duration at these stations,
the libido proceeds until it arrives at the sexual zone, where it may next
provoke the first onanistic attempts. During its “march,” the libido carries
over not a little from the function of nutrition into the sexual zone; this
readily explains the numerous close associations between the function of
nutrition and the sexual function.
This “march” of the libido takes place at the time of the pre-sexual stage,
which is characterized by the fact that the libido gradually relinquishes the
special character of the instinct of nutrition, and by degrees acquires the
character of the sexual instinct. At this stage we cannot yet speak of a true
sexual libido. Therefore we are obliged to qualify the polymorphous
perverse sexuality of early infancy differently. The polymorphism of the
tendencies of the libido at this time is to be explained as the gradual

movement of the libido away from the sphere of the function of nutrition
towards the sexual function.
The Infantile “Perversity.”—Thus rightly vanishes the term “perverse”—so
strongly contested by our opponents—for it provokes a false idea.
When a chemical body breaks up into its elements, these elements are the
products of its disintegration, but it is not permissible on that account to
describe elements as entirely products of disintegration. Perversities are
disorders of fully-developed sexuality, but are never precursors of sexuality,
although there is undoubtedly an analogy between the precursors and the
products of disintegration. The childish rudiments, no longer to be
conceived as perverse, but to be regarded as stages of development, change
gradually into normal sexuality, as the normal sexuality develops.
The more smoothly the libido withdraws from its provisional positions, the
more completely and the more quickly does the formation of normal
sexuality take place. It is proper to the conception of normal sexuality that
all those early infantile inclinations which are not yet sexual should be
given up. The less this is the case, the more is sexuality threatened with
perverse development. The expression “perverse” is here used in its right
place. The fundamental condition of a perversity is an infantile, imperfectly
developed state of sexuality.

CHAPTER IV
The Etiological Significance of the Infantile Sexuality

Now that we have decided what is to be understood as infantile sexuality,
we can follow up the discussion of the theory of the neuroses, which we
began in the first lecture and then dropped. We followed the theory of the
neuroses up to the point where we ran against Freud’s statement, that the
tendency which brings a traumatic event to a pathological activity, is a
sexual one. From our foregoing considerations we understand what is meant
by a sexual tendency. It is a standing still, a retardation in that process
whereby the libido frees itself from the manifestations of the pre-sexual
stage.
First of all, we must regard this disturbance as a fixation. The libido, in its
transition from the function of nutrition to the sexual function, lingers
unduly at certain stages. A disharmony is created, since provisional and, as
it were, worn-out activities, persist at a period when they should have been
overcome. This formula is applicable to all those infantile characteristics so
prevalent among neurotic people that no attentive observer can have
overlooked them. In dementia præcox it is so obtrusive that a symptom
complex, hebephrenia, derives its name therefrom.
The matter is not ended, however, by saying that the libido lingers in the
preliminary stages, for while the libido thus lingers, time does not stand
still, and the development of the individual is always proceeding apace. The
physical maturation increases the contrast and the disharmony between the
persistent infantile manifestations, and the demands of the later age, with its
changed conditions of life. In this way the foundation is laid for the
dissociation of the personality, and thereby to that conflict which is the real
basis of the neuroses. The more the libido is in arrears in practice, the more
intense will be the conflict. The traumatic or pathogenic moment is the one

which serves best to make this conflict manifest. As Freud showed in his
earlier works, one can easily imagine a neurosis arising in this way.
This conception fitted in rather well with the views of Janet, who ascribed
neurosis to a certain defect. From this point of view the neurosis could be
regarded as a product of retardation in the development of affectivity; and I
can easily imagine that this conception must seem selfevident to every one
who is inclined to derive the neuroses more or less directly from heredity or
congenital degeneration.

The Infantile Sexual Etiology Criticized

Unfortunately the reality is much more complicated. Let me facilitate an
insight into these complications by an example of a case of hysteria. It will,
I hope, enable me to demonstrate the characteristic complication, so
important for the theory of neurosis. You will probably remember the case
of the young lady with hysteria, whom I mentioned at the beginning of my
lectures. We noticed the remarkable fact that this patient was unaffected by
situations which one might have expected to make a profound impression
and yet showed an unexpected extreme pathological reaction to a quite
everyday event. We took this occasion to express our doubt as to the
etiological significance of the shock, and to investigate the so-called
predisposition which rendered the trauma effective. The result of that
investigation led us to what has just been mentioned, that it is by no means
improbable that the origin of the neurosis is due to a retardation of the
affective development.
You will now ask me what is to be understood by the retardation of the
affectivity of this hysteric. The patient lives in a world of phantasy, which
can only be regarded as infantile. It is unnecessary to give a description of
these phantasies, for you, as neurologists or psychiatrists, have the
opportunity daily to listen to the childish prejudices, illusions and emotional
pretensions to which neurotic people give way. The disinclination to face
stern reality is the distinguishing trait of these phantasies—some lack of
earnestness, some trifling, which sometimes hides real difficulties in a light-
hearted manner, at others exaggerates trifles into great troubles. We
recognize at once that inadequate psychic attitude towards reality which
characterizes the child, its wavering opinions and its deficient orientation in
matters of the external world. With such an infantile mental disposition all
kinds of desires, phantasies and illusions can grow luxuriantly, and this we
have to regard as the critical causation. Through such phantasies people slip
into an unreal attitude, preeminently ill-adapted to the world, which is
bound some day to lead to a catastrophe. When we trace back the infantile
phantasy of the patient to her earliest childhood we find, it is true, many
distinct, outstanding scenes which might well serve to provide fresh food

for this or that variation in phantasy, but it would be vain to search for the
so-called traumatic motive, whence something abnormal might have
sprung, such an abnormal activity, let us say, as day-dreaming itself. There
are certainly to be found traumatic scenes, although not in earliest
childhood; the few scenes of earliest childhood which were remembered
seem not to be traumatic, being rather accidental events, which passed by
without leaving any effect on her phantasy worth mentioning. The earliest
phantasies arose out of all sorts of vague and only partly understood
impressions received from her parents. Many peculiar feelings centered
around her father, vacillating between anxiety, horror, aversion, disgust,
love and enthusiasm. The case was like so many other cases of hysteria,
where no traumatic etiology can be found, but which grows from the roots
of a peculiar and premature activity of phantasy which maintains
permanently the character of infantilism.
You will object that in this case the scene with the shying horses represents
the trauma. It is clearly the model of that night-scene which happened
nineteen years later, where the patient was incapable of avoiding the trotting
horses. That she wanted to plunge into the river has an analogy in the model
scene, where the horses and carriage fell into the river.
Since the latter traumatic moment she suffered from hysterical fits. As I
tried to show you, we do not find any trace of this apparent etiology
developed in the course of her phantasy life. It seems as if the danger of
losing her life, that first time, when the horses shied, passed without leaving
any emotional trace. None of the events that occurred in the following years
showed any trace of that fright. In parenthesis let me add, that perhaps it
never happened at all. It may have even been a mere phantasy, for I have
only the assertions of the patient. All of a sudden, some eighteen years later,
this event becomes of importance and is, so to say, reproduced and carried
out in all its details. This assumption is extremely unlikely, and becomes
still more inconceivable if we also bear in mind that the story of the shying
horses may not even be true. Be that as it may, it is and remains almost
unthinkable that an affect should remain buried for years and then suddenly
explode. In other cases there is exactly the same state of affairs. I know, for
instance, of a case in which the shock of an earthquake, long recovered
from, suddenly came back as a lively fear of earthquakes, although this
reminiscence could not be explained by the external circumstances.

The Traumatic Theory—A False Way

It is a very suspicious circumstance that these patients frequently show a
pronounced tendency to account for their illnesses by some long-past event,
ingeniously withdrawing the attention of the physician from the present
moment towards some false track in the past. This false track was the first
one pursued by the psychoanalytic theory. To this false hypothesis we owe
an insight into the understanding of the neurotic symptoms never before
reached, an insight we should not have gained if the investigation had not
chosen this path, really guided thither, however, by the misleading
tendencies of the patient.
I think that only a man who regards world-happenings as a chain of more or
less fortuitous contingencies, and therefore believes that the guiding hand of
the reason-endowed pedagogue is permanently wanted, can ever imagine
that this path, upon which the patient leads the physician, has been a wrong
one, from which one ought to have warned men off with a sign-board.
Besides the deeper insight into psychological determination, we owe to the
so-called error the discovery of questions of immeasurable importance
regarding the basis of psychic processes. It is for us to rejoice and be
thankful that Freud had the courage to let himself be guided along this path.
Not thus is the progress of science hindered, but rather through blind
adherence to a provisional formulation, through the typical conservatism of
authority, the vanity of learned men, their fear of making mistakes. This
lack of the martyr’s courage is far more injurious to the credit and greatness
of scientific knowledge than an honest error.

Retardation of the Emotional Development

But let us return to our own case. The following question arises: If the old
trauma is not of etiological significance, then the cause of the manifest
neurosis is probably to be found in the retardation of the emotional
development. We must therefore disregard the patient’s assertion that her
hysterical crises date from the fright from the shying horses, although this
fright was in fact the beginning of her evident illness. This event only seems
to be important, although it is not so in reality. This same formula is valid
for all the so-called shocks. They only seem to be important because they
are the starting-point of the external expression of an abnormal condition.
As explained in detail, this abnormal condition is an anachronistic
continuation of an infantile stage of libido-development. These patients still
retain forms of the libido which they ought to have renounced long ago. It is
impossible to give a list, as it were, of these forms, for they are of an
extraordinary variety. The most common, which is scarcely ever absent, is
the excessive activity of phantasies, characterized by an unconcerned
exaggeration of subjective wishes. This exaggerated activity is always a
sign of want of proper employment of the libido. The libido sticks fast to its
use in phantasies, instead of being employed in a more rigorous adaptation
to the real conditions of life.

Introversion

This state is called the state of introversion, the libido is used for the
psychical inner world instead of being applied to the external world. A
regular attendant symptom of this retardation in the emotional development
is the so-called parent-complex. If the libido is not used entirely for the
adaptation to reality, it is always more or less introverted. The material
content of the psychic world is composed of reminiscences, giving it a
vividness of activity which in reality long since ceased to pertain thereto.
The consequence is, that these patients still live more or less in a world
which in truth belongs to the past. They fight with difficulties which once
played a part in their life, but which ought to have been obliterated long
ago. They still grieve over matters, or rather they are still concerned with
matters, which should have long ago lost their importance for them. They
divert themselves, or distress themselves, with images which were once
normally of importance for them but are of no significance at their later age.

The Complex of the Parents

Amongst those influences most important during childhood, the
personalities of the parents play the most potent part. Even if the parents
have long been dead, and might and should have lost all real importance,
since the life-conditions of the patients are perhaps totally changed, yet
these parents are still somehow present and as important as if they were still
alive. Love and admiration, resistance, repugnance, hate and revolt, still
cling to their figures, transfigured by affection and very often bearing little
resemblance to the past reality. It was this fact which forced me to talk no
longer of father and mother directly, but to employ instead the term “image”
(imago) of mother or of father for these phantasies no longer deal with the
real father and the real mother, but with the subjective, and very often
completely altered creations of the imagination which prolong an existence
only in the patient’s mind.
The complex of the parents’ images, that is to say, the sum of ideas
connected with the parents, provides an important field of employment for
the introverted libido. I must mention in passing that the complex has in
itself but a shadowy existence in so far as it is not invested with libido.
Following the usage that we arrived at in the “Diagnostische
Associationsstudien,” the word “complex” is used for a system of ideas
already invested with, and actuated by, libido. This system exists as a mere
possibility, ready for application, if not invested with libido either
temporarily or permanently.
The “Nucleus”-Complex.—At the time when the psychoanalytic theory was
still under the dominance of the trauma conception and, in conformity with
that view, inclined to look for the causa efficiens of the neurosis in the past,
the parent-complex seemed to us to be the so-called root-complex—to
employ Freud’s term—or nucleus-complex (“Kerncomplex”).
The part which the parents played seemed to be so highly determining that
we were inclined to attribute to them all later complications in the life of the
patient. Some years ago I discussed this view in my article[7] “Die

Bedeutung des Vaters für das Schicksal des Einzelnen.” (The importance of
the father for the fate of the individual.)
Here also we were guided by the patient’s tendency to revert to the past, in
accordance with the direction of his introverted libido. Now indeed it was
no longer the external, accidental event which caused the pathogenic effect,
but a psychological effect which seemed to arise out of the individual’s
difficulties in adapting himself to the conditions of his familiar
surroundings. It was especially the disharmony between the parents on the
one hand and between the child and the parents on the other which seemed
favorable for creating currents in the child little compatible with his
individual course of life. In the article just alluded to I have described some
instances, taken from a wealth of material, which show these characteristics
very distinctly. The influence of the parents does not come to an end, alas,
with their neurotic descendants’ blame of the family circumstances, or their
false education, as the basis of their illness, but it extends even to certain
actual events in the life and actions of the patient, where such a determining
influence could not have been expected. The lively imitativeness which we
find in savages as well as in children can produce in certain rather sensitive
children a peculiar inner and unconscious identification with the parents;
that is to say, such a similar mental attitude that effects in real life are
sometimes produced which, even in detail, resemble the personal
experiences of the parents. For the empirical material here, I must refer you
to the literature. I should like to remind you that one of my pupils, Dr.
Emma Fürst, produced valuable experimental proofs for the solution of this
problem, to which I referred in my lecture at Clark University.[8] In applying
association experiments to whole families, Dr. Fürst established the great
resemblance of reaction-type among all the members of one family.
These experiments show that there very often exists an unconscious
parallelism of association between parents and children, to be explained as
an intense imitation or identification.
The results of these investigations show far-reaching psychological
tendencies in parallel directions, which readily explain at times the
astonishing conformity in their destinies. Our destinies are as a rule the
result of our psychological tendencies. These facts allow us to understand
why, not only the patient, but even the theory which has been built on such
investigations, expresses the view, that the neurosis is the result of the

characteristic influence of the parents upon their children. This view,
moreover, is supported by the experiences which lie at the basis of
pedagogy: namely the assumption of the plasticity of the child’s mind,
which is freely compared with soft wax.
We know that the first impressions of childhood accompany us throughout
life, and that certain educational influences may restrain people undisturbed
all their lives within certain limits. It is no miracle, indeed it is rather a
frequent experience, that under these circumstances a conflict has to break
out between the personality which is formed by the educational and other
influences of the infantile milieu and that one which can be described as the
real individual line of life. With this conflict all people must meet, who are
called upon to live an independent and productive life.
Owing to the enormous influence of childhood on the later development of
character, you can perfectly understand why we are inclined to ascribe the
cause of a neurosis directly to the influences of the infantile environment. I
have to confess that I have known cases in which any other explanation
seemed to be less reasonable. There are indeed parents whose own
contradictory neurotic behavior causes them to treat their children in such
an unreasonable way that the latter’s deterioration and illness would seem
to be unavoidable. Hence it is almost a rule among nerve-specialists to
remove neurotic children, whenever possible, from the dangerous family
atmosphere, and to send them among more healthy influences, where,
without any medical treatment, they thrive much better than at home. There
are many neurotic patients who were clearly neurotic as children, and who
have never been free from illness. For such cases, the conception which has
been sketched holds generally good.
This knowledge, which seems to be provisionally definitive, has been
extended by the studies of Freud and the psychoanalytic school. The
relations between the patients and their parents have been studied in detail
in as much as these relations were regarded as of etiological significance.

Infantile Mental Attitude

It was soon noticed that such patients lived still partly or wholly in their
childhood-world, although quite unconscious themselves of this fact. It is a
difficult task for psychoanalysis so exactly to investigate the psychological
mode of adaptation of the patients as to be capable of putting its finger on
the infantile misunderstanding. We find among neurotics many who have
been spoiled as children. These cases give the best and clearest example of
the infantilism of their psychological mode of adaptation. They start out in
life expecting the same friendly reception, tenderness and easy success,
obtained with no trouble, to which they have been accustomed by their
parents in their youth. Even very intelligent patients are not capable of
seeing at once that they owe the complications of their life and their
neurosis to the trail of their infantile emotional attitude. The small world of
the child, the familiar surroundings—these form the model of the big world.
The more intensely the family has stamped the child, the more will it be
inclined, as an adult, instinctively to see again in the great world its former
small world. Of course this must not be taken as a conscious intellectual
process. On the contrary, the patient feels and sees the difference between
now and then, and tries to adapt himself as well as he can. Perhaps he will
even believe himself perfectly adapted, for he grasps the situation
intellectually, but that does not prevent the emotional from being far behind
the intellectual standpoint.

Unconscious Phantasy

It is unnecessary to trouble you with instances of this phenomenon. It is an
every-day experience that our emotions are never at the level of our
reasoning. It is exactly the same with such a patient, only with greater
intensity. He may perhaps believe that, save for his neurosis, he is a normal
person, and hence adapted to the conditions of life. He does not suspect that
he has not relinquished certain childish pretensions, that he still carries with
him, in the background, expectations and illusions which he has never
rendered conscious to himself. He cultivates all sorts of favorite phantasies,
which seldom become conscious, or at any rate, not very often, so that he
himself does not know that he has them. They very often exist only as
emotional expectations, hopes, prejudices, etc. We call these phantasies,
unconscious phantasies. Sometimes they dip into the peripheral
consciousness as quite fugitive thoughts, which disappear again a moment
later, so that the patient is unable to say whether he had such phantasies or
not. It is only during the psychoanalytic treatment that most patients learn to
observe and retain these fleeting thoughts. Although most of the phantasies,
once at least, have been conscious in the form of fleeting thoughts and only
afterwards became unconscious, we have no right to call them on that
account “conscious,” as they are practically most of the time unconscious. It
is therefore right to designate them “unconscious phantasies.” Of course
there are also infantile phantasies, which are perfectly conscious and which
can be reproduced at any time.

CHAPTER V
The Unconscious

The sphere of the unconscious infantile phantasies has become the real
object of psychoanalytic investigation. As we have previously pointed out,
this domain seems to retain the key to the etiology of neurosis. In
contradistinction with the trauma theory, we are forced by the reasons
already adduced to seek in the family history for the basis of our present
psychoanalytic attitude. Those phantasy-systems which patients exhibit on
mere questioning are for the most part composed and elaborated like a
novel or a drama. Although they are greatly elaborated, they are relatively
of little value for the investigation of the unconscious. Just because they are
conscious, they have already deferred over-much to the claims of etiquette
and social morality. Hence they have been purged of all personally painful
and ugly details, and are presentable to society, revealing very little. The
valuable, and much more important phantasies are not conscious in the
sense already defined, but are to be discovered through the technique of
psychoanalysis.
Without wishing to enter fully into the question of technique, I must here
meet an objection that is constantly heard. It is that the so-called
unconscious phantasies are only suggested to the patient and only exist in
the minds of psychoanalysts. This objection belongs to that common class
which ascribes to them the crude mistakes of beginners. I think only those
without psychological experience and without historical psychological
knowledge are capable of making such criticisms. With a mere glimmering
of mythological knowledge, one cannot fail to notice the striking parallels
between the unconscious phantasies discovered by the psychoanalytic
school and mythological images. The objection that our knowledge of
mythology has been suggested to the patient is groundless, for the
psychoanalytic school first discovered the unconscious phantasies, and only
then became acquainted with mythology. Mythology itself is obviously

something outside the path of the medical man. In so far as these phantasies
are unconscious, the patient of course knows nothing about their existence,
and it would be absurd to make direct inquiries about them. Nevertheless it
is often said, both by patients and by so-called normal persons: “But if I had
such phantasies, surely I would know something about them.” But what is
unconscious is, in fact, something which one does not know. The opposition
too is perfectly convinced that such things as unconscious phantasies could
not exist. This a priori judgment is scholasticism, and has no sensible
grounds. We cannot possibly rest on the dogma that consciousness only is
mind, when we can convince ourselves daily that our consciousness is only
the stage. When the contents of our consciousness appear they are already
in a highly complex form; the grouping of our thoughts from the elements
supplied by our memory is almost entirely unconscious. Therefore we are
obliged, whether we like it or not, to accept for the moment the conception
of an unconscious psychic sphere, even if only as a mere negative, border-
conception, just as Kant’s “thing in itself.” As we perceive things which do
not have their origin in consciousness, we are obliged to give hypothetic
contents to the sphere of the non-conscious. We must suppose that the
origin of certain effects lies in the unconscious, just because they are not
conscious. The reproach of mysticism can scarcely be made against this
conception of the unconscious. We do not pretend that we know anything
positive, or can affirm anything, about the psychic condition of the
unconscious. Instead, we have substituted symbols by following the way of
designation and abstraction we apply in consciousness.
On the axiom: Principia præter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda, this
kind of ideation is the only possible one. Hence we speak about the effects
of the unconscious, just as we do about the phenomena of the conscious.
Many people have been shocked by Freud’s statement: “The unconscious
can only wish,” and this is regarded as an unheard of metaphysical
assertion, something like the principle of Hartman’s “Philosophy of the
Unconscious,” which apparently administers a rebuff to the theory of
cognition. This indignation only arises from the fact that the critics,
unknown to themselves, evidently start from a metaphysical conception of
the unconscious as being an “end per se,” and naïvely project on to us their
inadequate conception of the unconscious. For us, the unconscious is no
entity, but a term, about whose metaphysical entity we do not permit
ourselves to form any idea. Here we contrast with those psychologists, who,

sitting at their desks, are as exactly informed about the localization of the
mind in the brain as they are informed about the psychological correlation
of the mental processes. Whence they are able to declare positively that
beyond the consciousness there are but physiological processes of the
cortex. Such naiveté must not be imputed to the psychoanalyst. When Freud
says: “We can only wish,” he describes in symbolic terms effects of which
the origin is not known. From the standpoint of our conscious thinking,
these effects can only be considered as analogous to wishes. The
psychoanalytic school is, moreover, aware that the discussion as to whether
“wishing” is a sound analogy can be re-opened at any time. Anyone who
has more information is welcome. Instead, the opponents content
themselves with denial of the phenomena, or if certain phenomena are
admitted, they abstain from all theoretical speculation. This last point is
readily to be understood, for it is not everyone’s business to think
theoretically. Even the man who has succeeded in freeing himself from the
dogma of the identity of the conscious self and the psyche, thus admitting
the possible existence of psychic processes outside the conscious, is not
justified in disputing or maintaining psychic possibilities in the
unconscious. The objection is raised that the psychoanalytic school
maintains certain views without sufficient grounds, as if the literature did
not contain abundant, perhaps too abundant, discussion of cases, and more
than enough arguments. But they seem not to be sufficient for the
opponents. There must be a good deal of difference as to the meaning of the
term “sufficient” in respect to the validity of the arguments. The question is:
“Why does the psychoanalytic school apparently set less store on the proof
of their formulas than the critics?” The reason is very simple. An engineer
who has built a bridge, and has worked out its bearing capacity, wants no
other proof for the success of its bearing power. But the ordinary man, who
has no notion how a bridge is built, or what is the strength of the material
used, will demand quite different proofs as to the bearing capacity of the
bridge, for he has no confidence in the business. In the first place, it is the
critics’ complete ignorance of what is being done which provokes their
demand. In the second place, there are the unanswerable theoretical
misunderstandings: impossible for us to know them all and understand them
all. Just as we find, again and again, in our patients new and astonishing
misunderstandings about the ways and the aim of the psychoanalytic
method, so are the critics inexhaustible in devising misunderstandings. You

can see in the discussion of our conception of the unconscious what kind of
false philosophical assumptions can prevent the understanding of our
terminology. It is comprehensible that those who attribute to the
unconscious involuntarily an absolute entity, require quite different
arguments, beyond our power to give. Had we to prove immortality, we
should have to collect many more important arguments, than if we had
merely to demonstrate the existence of plasmodia in a malaria patient. The
metaphysical expectation still disturbs the scientific way of thinking, so that
problems of psychoanalysis cannot be considered in a simple way. But I do
not wish to be unjust to the critics, and I will admit that the psychoanalytic
school itself very often gives rise to misunderstandings, although innocently
enough. One of the principal sources of these mistakes is the confusion in
the theoretical sphere. It is a pity, but we have no presentable theory. But
you would understand this, if you could see, in a concrete case, with what
difficulties we have to deal. In contradiction to the opinion of nearly all
critics, Freud is by no means a theorist. He is an empiricist, of which fact
anyone can easily convince himself, if he is willing to busy himself
somewhat more deeply with Freud’s works, and if he tries to go into the
cases as Freud has done. Unfortunately, the critics are not willing. As we
have very often heard, it is too disgusting and too repulsive, to observe
cases in the same way as Freud has done. But who will learn the nature of
Freud’s method, if he allows himself to be hindered by repulsion and
disgust? Because they neglect to apply themselves to the point of view
adopted by Freud, perhaps as a necessary working hypothesis, they come to
the absurd supposition that Freud is a theorist. They then readily agree that
Freud’s “Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory” is a priori invented by a
merely speculative brain which afterwards suggests everything into the
patient. That is putting things upside down. This gives the critics an easy
task, and this is just what they want to have. They pay no attention to the
observations of the psychoanalysts, conscientiously set forth in their
histories of diseases, but only to the theory, and to the formulation of
technique. The weak spot of psychoanalysis, however, is not found here, as
psychoanalysis is only empirical. Here you find but a large and
insufficiently cultivated field, in which the critics can exercise themselves
to their full satisfaction. There are many uncertainties, and as many
contradictions, in the sphere of this theory. We were conscious of this long
before the first critic began to pay attention to our work.

CHAPTER VI
The Dream

After this digression we will return to the question of the unconscious
phantasies which occupied us before. As we have seen, nobody can dispute
their existence, just as nobody can assert their existence and their qualities
forthwith. The question, however, is just this: Can effects be observed in the
consciousness of unconscious origin, which can be described in conscious
symbolic signs or expressions? Can there be found, in the conscious, effects
which correspond with this expectation? The psychoanalytic school
believes it has discovered such effects. Let me mention at once the principal
phenomenon, the dream. Of this it may be said that it appears in the
consciousness as a complex factor unconsciously constructed out of its
elements. The origin of the images in certain reminiscences of the earlier or
of the later past can be proved through the associations belonging to the
single images of the dream. We ask: “Where did you see this?” or “Where
did you hear that?” And through the usual way of association come the
reminiscences that certain parts of the dream have been consciously
experienced, some the day before, some on former occasions. So far there
will be general agreement, for these things are well known. In so far, the
dream represents in general an incomprehensible composition of certain
elements not at first conscious, which are only recognized later on by their
associations. It is not that all parts of the dream are recognizable, whence its
conscious character could be deduced; on the contrary, they are often, and
indeed mostly, unrecognizable at first. Only subsequently does it occur to us
that we have experienced in consciousness this or that part of the dream.
From this standpoint alone, we might regard the dream as an effect of
unconscious origin.

The Method of Dream Analysis

The technique for the exploration of the unconscious origin is the one I
mentioned before, used before Freud by every scientific man who attempted
to arrive at a psychological understanding of dreams. We try simply to
remember where the parts of the dream arose. The psychoanalytic technique
for the interpretation of dreams is based on this very simple principle. It is a
fact that certain parts of the dream originate in daily life, that is, in events
which, on account of their slighter importance, would have fallen into
oblivion, and indeed were on the way to become definitely unconscious. It
is these parts of the dream that are the effect of unconscious images and
representations. People have been shocked by this expression also. But we
do not conceive these things so concretely, not to say crudely, as do the
critics. Certainly this expression is nothing but a symbolism taken from
conscious psychology—we were never in any doubt as to that. The
expression is quite clear and answers very well as a symbol of an unknown
psychic fact.
As we mentioned before, we can conceive the unconscious only by analogy
with the conscious. We do not imagine that we understand a thing when we
have discovered a beautiful and rather incomprehensible name. The
principle of the psychoanalytic technique is, as you see, extraordinarily
simple. The further procedure follows on in the same way. If we occupy
ourselves long with a dream, a thing which, apart from psychoanalysis,
naturally never happens, we are apt to find still more reminiscences to the
various different parts of the dream. We are not however always successful
in finding reminiscences to certain portions. We have to put aside these
dreams, or parts of dreams, whether we will or no.
The collected reminiscences are called the “dream material.” We treat this
material by a universally valid scientific method. If you ever have to work
up experimental material, you compare the individual units and classify
them according to similarities. You proceed exactly in the same way with
dream-material; you look for the common traits either of a formal or a
substantial nature.

Certain extremely common prejudices must be got rid of. I have always
noticed that the beginner is looking for one trait or another and tries to
make his material conform to his expectation. This condition I noticed
especially among those colleagues who were formerly more or less
passionate opponents of psychoanalysis, their opposition being based on
well-known prejudices and misunderstandings. When I had the chance of
analyzing them, whereby they obtained at last a real insight into the
method, the first mistake generally made in their own psychoanalytic work
was that they did violence to the material by their own preconceived
opinion. They gave vent to their former prejudice against psychoanalysis in
their attitude towards the material, which they could not estimate
objectively, but only according to their subjective phantasies.
If one would have the courage to sift dream material, one must not recoil
from any parallel. The dream material generally consists of very
heterogeneous associations, out of which it is sometimes very difficult to
deduce the tertium comparationis. I refrain from giving detailed examples,
as it is quite impossible to handle in a lecture the voluminous material of a
dream. I might call your attention to Rank’s[9] article in the Jahrbuch, “Ein
Traum der sich selber deutet” (A dream interpreted by itself). There you
will see what an extensive material must be taken into consideration for
comparison.
Hence, for the interpretation of the unconscious we proceed in the same
way as is universal when a conclusion is to be drawn by classifying
material. The objection is very often heard: Why does the dream have an
unconscious content at all? In my view, this objection is as unscientific as
possible. Every actual psychological moment has its special history. Every
sentence I pronounce has, beside the intended meaning known to me
another historical meaning, and it is possible that its second meaning is
entirely different from its conscious meaning. I express myself on purpose
somewhat paradoxically. I do not mean that I could explain every individual
sentence in its historical meaning. This is a thing easier to do in larger and
more detailed contributions. It will be clear to everyone, that a poem is,
apart from its manifest content, especially characteristic of the poet in
regard to its form, its content, and its manner of origin. Although the poet,
in his poem, gave expression to the mood of a moment, the literary historian
will find things in it and behind it which the poet never foresaw. The

analysis which the literary historian draws from the poet’s material is
exactly the method of psychoanalysis.
The psychoanalytic method, generally speaking, can be compared with
historical analysis and synthesis. Suppose, for instance, we did not
understand the meaning of baptism as practised in our churches to-day. The
priest tells us the baptism means the admission of the child into the
Christian community. But this does not satisfy us. Why is the child
sprinkled with water? To understand this ceremony, we must choose out of
the history of rites, those human traditions which pertain to this subject, and
thus we get material for comparison, to be considered from different
standpoints.
I. The baptism means obviously an initiation ceremony, a consecration;
therefore all the traditions containing initiation rites have to be consulted.
II. The baptism takes place with water. This special form requires another
series of traditions, namely, those rites where water is used.
III. The person to be baptized is sprinkled with water. Here are to be
consulted all those rites where the initiated is sprinkled or submerged, etc.
IV. All the reminiscences of folklore, the superstitious practices must be
remembered, which in any way run parallel with the symbolism of the
baptismal act.
In this way, we get a comparative scientific study of religion as regards
baptism. We accordingly discover the different elements out of which the
act of baptism has arisen. We ascertain further its original meaning, and we
become at the same time acquainted with the rich world of myths that have
contributed to the foundations of religions, and thus we are enabled to
understand the manifold and profound meanings of baptism. The analyst
proceeds in the same way with the dream. He collects the historical
parallels to every part of the dream, even the remotest, and he tries to
reconstruct the psychological history of the dream, with its fundamental
meaning, exactly as in the analysis of the act of baptism. Thus, through the
monographic treatment of the dream, we get a profound and beautiful
insight into that mysterious, fine and ingenious network of unconscious
determination. We get an insight, which as I said before, can only be

compared with the historical understanding of any act which we had
hitherto regarded in a superficial and one-sided way.
This digression on the psychoanalytic method has seemed to me to be
unavoidable. I was obliged to give you an account of the method and its
position in methodology, by reason of all the extensive misunderstandings
which are constantly attempting to discredit it. I do not doubt that there are
superficial and improper interpretations of the method. But an intelligent
critic ought never to allow this to be a reproach to the method itself, any
more than a bad surgeon should be urged as an objection to the common
validity of surgery. I do not doubt that some inaccurate descriptions and
conceptions of the psychoanalytic method have arisen on the part of the
psychoanalytic school itself. But this is due to the fact that, because of their
education in natural science it is difficult for medical men to attain a full
grasp of historical or philological method, although they instinctively
handle it rightly.
The method I have described to you, in this general way, is the method that
I adopt and for which I assume the scientific responsibility.
In my opinion it is absolutely reprehensible and unscientific to question
about dreams, or to try to interpret them directly. This is not a
methodological, but an arbitrary proceeding, which is its own punishment,
for it is as unproductive as every false method.
If I have made the attempt to demonstrate to you the principle of the
psychoanalytic school by dream-analysis, it is because the dream is one of
the clearest instances of those contents of the conscious, whose basis eludes
any plain and direct understanding. When anyone knocks in a nail with a
hammer, to hang something up, we can understand every detail of the
action. But it is otherwise with the act of baptism, where every phase is
problematic. We call these actions, of which the meaning and the aim is not
directly evident, symbolic actions or symbols. On the basis of this
reasoning, we call a dream symbolic, as a dream is a psychological
formation, of which the origin, meaning and aim are obscure, inasmuch as it
represents one of the purest products of unconscious constellation. As Freud
strikingly says: “The dream is the via regia to the unconscious.” Besides the
dream, we can note many effects of unconscious constellation. We have in
the association-experiments a means for establishing exactly the influence

of the unconscious. We find those effects in the disturbances of the
experiment which I have called the “indicators of the complex.” The task
which the association-experiment gives to the person experimented upon is
so extraordinarily easy and simple that even children can accomplish it
without difficulty. It is, therefore, very remarkable that so many
disturbances of an intentional action should be noted in this experiment.
The only reasons or causes of these disturbances which can usually be
shown, are the partly conscious, partly not-conscious constellations, caused
by the so-called complexes. In the greater number of these disturbances, we
can without difficulty establish the relation to images of emotional
complexes. We often need the psychoanalytic method to explain these
relations, that is, we have to ask the person experimented upon or the
patient, what associations he can give to the disturbed reactions. We thus
gain the historical matter which serves as a basis for our judgment. The
intelligent objection has already been made that the person experimented
upon could say what he liked, in other words, any nonsense. This objection
is made, I believe, in the unconscious supposition that the historian who
collects the matter for his monograph is an idiot, incapable of distinguishing
real parallels from apparent ones and true documents from crude
falsifications. The professional man has means at his disposal by which
clumsy mistakes can be avoided with certainty, and the slighter ones very
probably. The mistrust of our opponents is here really delightful. For
anyone who understands psychoanalytic work it is a well-known fact that it
is not so very difficult to see where there is coherence, and where there is
none. Moreover, in the first place these fraudulent declarations are very
significant of the person experimented upon, and secondly, in general rather
easily to be recognized as fraudulent.
In association-experiments, we are able to recognize the very intense effects
produced by the unconscious in what are called complex-interventions.
These mistakes made in the association-experiment are nothing but the
prototypes of the mistakes made in everyday life, which are for the greater
part to be considered as interventions. Freud brought together such material
in his book, “The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.”
These include the so-called symptomatic actions, which from another point
of view might equally as well be called “symbolic actions,” and the real
failures to carry out actions, such as forgetting, slips of the tongue, etc. All

these phenomena are the effect of unconscious constellations and therefore
so many entrance-gates into the domain of the unconscious. When such
errors are cumulative, they are designated as neurosis, which, from this
aspect, looks like a defective action and therefore the effect of unconscious
constellations or complex-interventions.
The association-experiment is thus not directly a means to unlock the
unconscious, but rather a technique for obtaining a good selection of
defective reactions, which can then be used by psychoanalysis. At least, this
is its most reliable form of application at the present time. I may, however,
mention that it is possible that it may furnish other especially valuable facts
which would grant us some direct glimpses, but I do not consider this
problem sufficiently ripe to speak about. Investigations in this direction are
going on.
I hope that, through my explanation of our method, you may have gained
somewhat more confidence in its scientific character, so that you will be by
this time more inclined to agree that the phantasies which have been
hitherto discovered by means of psychoanalytic work are not merely
arbitrary suppositions and illusions of psychoanalysts. Perhaps you are even
inclined to listen patiently to what those products of unconscious phantasies
can tell us.

CHAPTER VII
The Content of the Unconscious

The phantasies of adults are, in so far as they are conscious, of great
diversity and strongly individual. It is therefore nearly impossible to give a
general description of them. But it is very different when we enter by means
of analysis into the world of his unconscious phantasies. The diversities of
the phantasies are indeed very great, but we do not find those individual
peculiarities which we find in the conscious self. We meet here with more
typical material which is not infrequently repeated in a similar form in
different people. Constantly recurring, for instance, are ideas which are
variations of the thoughts we encounter in religion and mythology. This fact
is so convincing that we say we have discovered in these phantasies the
same mechanisms which once created mythological and religious ideas. I
should have to enter very much into detail in order to give you adequate
examples. I must refer you for these problems to my work, “Wandlungen
und Symbole der Libido.” I will only mention that, for instance, the central
symbol of Christianity—self-sacrifice—plays an important part in the
phantasies of the unconscious. The Viennese School describes this
phenomenon by the ambiguous term castration-complex. This paradoxical
use of the term follows from the particular attitude of this school toward the
question of unconscious sexuality. I have given special attention to the
problem in the book I have just mentioned; I must here restrict myself to
this incidental reference and hasten to say something about the origin of the
unconscious phantasy.
In the child’s unconsciousness, the phantasies are considerably simplified,
in relation to the proportions of the infantile surroundings. Thanks to the
united efforts of the psychoanalytic school, we discovered that the most
frequent phantasy of childhood is the so-called Œdipus-complex. This
designation also seems as paradoxical as possible. We know that the tragic
fate of Œdipus consisted in his loving his mother and slaying his father.

This conflict of later life seems to be far remote from the child’s mind. To
the uninitiated it seems inconceivable that the child should have this
conflict. After careful reflection it will become clear that the tertium
comparationis consists just in this narrow limitation of the fate of Œdipus
within the bounds of the family. These limitations are very typical for the
child, for parents are never the boundary for the adult person to the same
extent. The Œdipus-complex represents an infantile conflict, but with the
exaggeration of the adult. The term Œdipus-complex does not mean,
naturally, that this conflict is considered as occurring in the adult form, but
in a corresponding form suitable to childhood. The little son would like to
have the mother all to himself and to be rid of the father. As you know, little
children can sometimes force themselves between the parents in the most
jealous way. The wishes and aims get, in the unconscious, a more concrete
and a more drastic form. Children are small primitive people and are
therefore quickly ready to kill. But as a child is, in general, harmless, so his
apparently dangerous wishes are, as a rule, also harmless. I say “as a rule,”
as you know that children, too, sometimes give way to their impulses to
murder, and this not always in any indirect fashion. But just as the child, in
general, is incapable of making systematic projects, as little dangerous are
his intentions to murder. The same holds good of an Œdipus-view toward
the mother. The small traces of this phantasy in the conscious can easily be
overlooked; therefore nearly all parents are convinced that their children
have no Œdipus-complex. Parents as well as lovers are generally blind. If I
now say that the Œdipus-complex is in the first place only a formula for the
childish desire towards parents, and for the conflict which this craving
evokes, this statement of the situation will be more readily accepted. The
history of the Œdipus-phantasy is of special interest, as it teaches us very
much about the development of the unconscious phantasies. Naturally,
people think that the problem of Œdipus is the problem of the son. But this
is, astonishingly enough, only an illusion. Under some circumstances the
libido-sexualis reaches that definite differentiation of puberty corresponding
to the sex of the individual relatively late. The libido sexualis has before
this time an undifferentiated sexual character, which can be also termed
bisexual. Therefore it is not astonishing if little girls possess the Œdipus-
complex too. As far as I can see, the first love of the child belongs to the
mother, no matter which its sex. If the love for the mother at this stage is
intense, the father is jealously kept away as a rival. Of course, for the child

itself, the mother has in this early stage of childhood no sexual significance
of any importance. The term “Œdipus-complex” is in so far not really
suitable. At this stage the mother has still the significance of a protecting,
enveloping, food-providing being, who, on this account, is a source of
delight. I do not identify, as I explained before, the feeling of delight eo ipso
with sexuality. In earliest childhood but a slight amount of sexuality is
connected with this feeling of delight. But, nevertheless, jealousy can play a
great part in it, as jealousy does not belong entirely to the sphere of
sexuality. The desire for food has much to do with the first impulses of
jealousy. Certainly, a relatively germinating eroticism is also connected
with it. This element gradually increases as the years go on, so that the
Œdipus-complex soon assumes its classical form. In the case of the son, the
conflict develops in a more masculine and therefore more typical form,
whilst in the daughter, the typical affection for the father develops, with a
correspondingly jealous attitude toward the mother. We call this complex,
the Electra-complex. As everybody knows, Electra took revenge on her
mother for the murder of her husband, because that mother had robbed her
of her father.
Both phantasy-complexes develop with growing age, and reach a new stage
after puberty, when the emancipation from the parents is more or less
attained. The symbol of this time is the one already previously mentioned; it
is the symbol of self-sacrifice. The more the sexuality develops the more
the individual is forced to leave his family and to acquire independence and
autonomy. By its history, the child is closely connected with its family and
specially with its parents. In consequence, it is often with the greatest
difficulty that the child is able to free itself from its infantile surroundings.
The Œdipus- and Electra-complex give rise to a conflict, if adults cannot
succeed in spiritually freeing themselves; hence arises the possibility of
neurotic disturbance. The libido, which is already sexually developed, takes
possession of the form given by the complex and produces feelings and
phantasies which unmistakably show the effective existence of the complex,
till then perfectly unconscious. The next consequence is the formation of
intense resistances against the immoral inner impulses which are derived
from the now active complexes. The conscious attitude arising out of this
can be of different kinds. Either the consequences are direct, and then we
notice in the son strong resistances against the father and a typical
affectionate and dependent attitude toward the mother; or the consequences

are indirect, that is to say, compensated, and we notice, instead of the
resistances toward the father, a typical submissiveness here, and an irritated
antagonistic attitude toward the mother. It is possible that direct and
compensated consequences take place alternately. The same thing is to be
said of the Electra-complex. If the libido-sexualis were to cleave fast to
these particular forms of the conflict, murder and incest would be the
consequence of the Œdipus and Electra conflicts. These consequences are
naturally not found among normal people, and not even among amoral
(“moral” here implying the possession of a rationalized and codified moral
system) primitive persons, or humanity would have become extinct long
ago. On the contrary, it is in the natural order of things that what surrounds
us daily and has surrounded us, loses its compelling charm and thus forces
the libido to search for new objects, an important rule which prevents
parricide and inbreeding.
The further development of the libido toward objects outside the family is
the absolutely normal and right way of proceeding, and it is an abnormal
and morbid phenomenon if the libido remains, as it were, glued to the
family. Some indications of this phenomenon are nevertheless to be noticed
in normal people. A direct outcome of the infantile-complex is the
unconscious phantasy of self-sacrifice, which occurs after puberty, in the
succeeding stage of development. Of this I gave a detailed example in my
work, “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido.” The phantasy of self-
sacrifice means sacrificing infantile wishes. I have shown this in the work
just mentioned and in the same place I have referred to the parallels in the
history of religions.

The Problems of the Incest-Complex

Freud has a special conception of the incest-complex which has given rise
to heated controversy. He starts from the fact that the Œdipus-complex is
generally unconscious, and conceives this as the result of a repression of a
moral kind. It is possible that I am not expressing myself quite correctly,
when I give you Freud’s view in these words. At any rate, according to him
the Œdipus-complex seems to be repressed, that is, seems to be removed
into the unconscious by a reaction from the conscious tendencies. It almost
looks as if the Œdipus-complex would develop into consciousness if the
development of the child were to go on without restraint and if no cultural
tendencies influenced it. Freud calls this barrier, which prevents the
Œdipus-complex from ripening, the incest-barrier. He seems to believe, so
far as one can gather from his work, that the incest-barrier is the result of
experience, of the selective influence of reality, inasmuch as the
unconscious strives without restraint, and in an immediate way, for its own
satisfaction, without any consideration for others. This conception is in
harmony with the conception of Schopenhauer, who says of the blind
world-will that it is so egoistic that a man could slay his brother merely to
grease his boots with his brother’s fat. Freud considers that the
psychological incest-barrier, as postulated by him, can be compared with
the incest-taboo which we find among inferior races. He further believes
that these prohibitions are a proof of the fact that men really desired incest,
for which reason laws were framed against it even in very primitive cultural
stages. He takes the tendency towards incest to be an absolute concrete
sexual wish, lacking only the quality of consciousness. He calls this
complex the root-complex, or nucleus, of the neuroses, and is inclined,
viewing this as the original one, to reduce nearly the whole psychology of
the neuroses, as well as many other phenomena in the world of mind, to this
complex.

CHAPTER VIII
The Etiology of the Neuroses

With this conception of Freud’s we have to return to the question of the
etiology of the neuroses. We have seen that the psychoanalytic theory began
with a traumatic event in childhood, which was only later on found to be a
phantasy, at least in many cases. In consequence, the theory became
modified, and tried to find in the development of abnormal phantasy the
main etiological significance. The investigation of the unconscious, made
by the collaboration of many workers, carried on over a space of ten years,
provided an extensive empirical material, which demonstrated that the
incest-complex was the beginning of the morbid phantasies. But it was no
longer thought that the incest-complex was a special complex of neurotic
people. It was demonstrated to be a constituent of a normal infantile psyche
too. We cannot tell, by its mere existence, if this complex will give rise to a
neurosis or not. To become pathogenic, it must give rise to a conflict; that
is, the complex, which in itself is harmless, has to become dynamic, and
thus give rise to a conflict.
Herewith, we come to a new and important question. The whole etiological
problem is altered, if the infantile “root-complex” is only a general form,
which is not pathogenic in itself, and requires, as we saw in our previous
exposition, to be subsequently set in action. Under these circumstances, we
dig in vain among the reminiscences of earliest childhood, as they give us
only the general forms of the later conflicts, but not the conflict itself.
I believe the best thing I can do is to describe the further development of the
theory by demonstrating the case of that young lady whose story you have
heard in part in one of the former lectures. You will probably remember that
the shying of the horses, by means of the anamnestic explanation, brought
back the reminiscence of a comparable scene in childhood. We here
discussed the trauma theory. We found that we had to look for the real

pathological element in the exaggerated phantasy, which took its origin in a
certain retardation of the psychic sexual development. We have now to
apply our theoretical standpoint to the origin of this particular type of
illness, so that we may understand how, just at that moment, this event of
her childhood, which seemed to be of such potency, could come to
constellation.
The simplest way to come to an understanding of this important event
would be by making an exact inquiry into the circumstances of the moment.
The first thing I did was to question the patient about the society in which
she had been at that time, and as to what was the farewell gathering to
which she had been just before. She had been at a farewell supper, given in
honor of her best friend, who was going to a foreign health-resort for a
nervous illness. We hear that this friend is happily married, and is the
mother of one child. We have some right to doubt this assertion of her
happiness. If she were really happily married, she probably would not be
nervous and would not need a cure. When I put my question differently, I
learned that my patient had been brought back into the host’s house as soon
as she was overtaken by her friends, as this house was the nearest place to
bring her to in safety. In her exhausted condition she received his
hospitality. As the patient came to this part of her history she suddenly
broke off, was embarrassed, fidgetted and tried to turn to another subject.
Evidently we had now come upon some disagreeable reminiscences, which
suddenly presented themselves. After the patient had overcome obstinate
resistances, it was admitted that something very remarkable had happened
that night. The host made her a passionate declaration of love, thus giving
rise to a situation that might well be considered difficult and painful,
considering the absence of the hostess. Ostensibly this declaration came like
a flash of lightning from a clear sky. A small dose of criticism applied to
this assertion will teach us that these things never drop from the clouds, but
have always their previous history. It was the work of the following weeks
to dig out piecemeal a whole, long love-story.
I can thus roughly describe the picture I got at finally. As a child the patient
was thoroughly boyish, loved only turbulent games for boys, laughed at her
own sex, and flung aside all feminine ways and occupations. After puberty,
the time when the sex-question should have come nearer to her, she began
to shun all society; she hated and despised, as it were, everything which

could remind her even remotely of the biological destination of mankind,
and lived in a world of phantasies which had nothing in common with the
rude reality. So she escaped, up to her twenty-fourth year, all the little
adventures, hopes and expectations which ordinarily move a woman of this
age. (In this respect women are very often remarkably insincere towards
themselves and towards the physician.) But she became acquainted with
two men who were destined to destroy the thorny hedge which had grown
all around her. Mr. A. was the husband of her best friend at the time; Mr. B.
was the bachelor-friend of this family. Both were to her taste. It seemed to
her pretty soon that Mr. B. was much more sympathetic to her, and from
this resulted a more intimate relationship between herself and him, and the
possibility of an engagement was discussed. Through her relations with Mr.
B., and through her friend, she met Mr. A. frequently. In an inexplicable
way his presence very often excited her and made her nervous. Just at this
time our friend went to a big party. All her friends were there. She became
lost in thought, and played as in a dream with her ring, which suddenly
slipped from her hand and rolled under the table. Both men tried to find it,
and Mr. B. managed to get it. With an expressive smile he put the ring back
on her finger and said: “You know what this means?” At that moment a
strange and irresistible feeling came over her, she tore the ring from her
finger and threw it out of the open window. Evidently a painful moment
ensued, and she soon left the company, feeling deeply depressed. A short
time later she found herself, for her holidays, accidentally in the same
health-resort where Mr. A. and his wife were staying. Mrs. A. now became
more and more nervous, and, as she felt ill, had to stay frequently at home.
The patient often went out with Mr. A. alone. One day they were out in a
small boat. She was boisterously merry, and suddenly fell overboard. Mr. A.
saved her with great difficulty, and lifted her, half unconscious, into the
boat. He then kissed her. With this romantic event the bonds were woven
fast. To defend herself, our patient tried energetically to get herself engaged
to Mr. B., and to imagine that she loved him. Of course this queer play did
not escape the sharp eye of feminine jealousy. Mrs. A., her friend, felt the
secret, was worried by it, and her nervousness grew proportionately. It
became more and more necessary for her to go to a foreign health-resort.
The farewell-party was a dangerous opportunity. The patient knew that her
friend and rival was going off the same evening, so Mr. A. would be alone.
Certainly she did not see this opportunity clearly, as women have the

notable capacity “to think” purely emotionally, and not intellectually. For
this reason, it seems to them as if they never thought about certain matters
at all, but as a matter of fact she had a queer feeling all the evening. She felt
extremely nervous, and when Mrs. A. had been accompanied to the station
and had gone, the hysterical attack occurred on her way back. I asked her of
what she had been thinking, or what she felt at the actual moment when the
trotting horses came along. Her answer was, she had only a frightful
feeling, the feeling that something dreadful was very near to her, which she
could not escape. As you know, the consequence was that the exhausted
patient was brought back into the house of the host, Mr. A. A simple human
mind would understand the situation without difficulty. An uninitiated
person would say: “Well, that is clear enough, she only intended to return
by one way or another to Mr. A.’s house,” but the psychologist would
reproach this layman for his incorrect way of expressing himself, and would
tell him that the patient was not conscious of the motives of her behavior,
and that it was, therefore, not permissible to speak of the patient’s intention
to return to Mr. A.’s house.
There are, of course, learned psychologists who are capable of furnishing
many theoretical reasons for disputing the meaning of this behavior. They
base their reasons on the dogma of the identity of consciousness and
psyche. The psychology inaugurated by Freud recognized long ago that it is
impossible to estimate psychological actions as to their final meaning by
conscious motives, but that the objective standard of their psychological
results has to be applied for their right evaluation. Now-a-days it cannot be
contested any longer that there are unconscious tendencies too, which have
a great influence on our modes of reaction, and on the effects to which these
in turn give rise. What happened in Mr. A.’s house bears out this
observation; our patient made a sentimental scene, and Mr. A. was induced
to answer it with a declaration of love. Looked at in the light of this last
event, the whole previous history seems to be very ingeniously directed
towards just this end, but throughout the conscience of the patient struggled
consciously against it. Our theoretical profit from this story is the clear
perception that an unconscious purpose or tendency has brought on to the
stage the scene of the fright from the horses, utilizing thus very possibly
that infantile reminiscence, where the shying horses galloped towards the
catastrophe. Reviewing the whole material, the scene with the horses—the
starting point of the illness—seems now to be the keystone of a planned

edifice. The fright, and the apparent traumatic effect of the event in
childhood, are only brought on the stage in the peculiar way characteristic
of hysteria. But what is thus put on the stage has become almost a reality.
We know from hundreds of experiences that certain hysterical pains are
only put on the stage in order to reap certain advantages from the sufferer’s
surroundings. The patients not only believe that they suffer, but their
sufferings are, from a psychological standpoint, as real as those due to
organic causes; nevertheless, they are but stage-effects.

The Regression of Libido

This utilization of reminiscences to put on the stage any illness, or an
apparent etiology, is called a regression of the libido. The libido goes back
to reminiscences, and makes them actual, so that an apparent etiology is
produced. In this case, by the old theory, the fright from the horses would
seem to be based on a former shock. The resemblance between the two
scenes is unmistakable, and in both cases the patient’s fright is absolutely
real. At any rate, we have no reason to doubt her assertions in this respect,
as they are in full harmony with all other experiences. The nervous asthma,
the hysterical anxiety, the psychogenic depressions and exaltations, the
pains, the convulsions—they are all very real, and that physician who has
himself suffered from a psychogenic symptom knows that it feels absolutely
real. Regressively re-lived reminiscences, even if they were but phantasies,
are as real as remembrances of events that have once been real.
As the term “regression of libido” shows, we understand by this retrograde
mode of application of the libido, a retreat of the libido to former stages. In
our example, we are able to recognize clearly the way the process of
regression is carried on. At that farewell party, which proved a good
opportunity to be alone with the host, the patient shrank from the idea of
turning this opportunity to her advantage, and yet was overpowered by her
desires, which she had never consciously realized up to that moment. The
libido was not used consciously for that definite purpose, nor was this
purpose ever acknowledged. The libido had to carry it out through the
unconscious, and through the pretext of the fright caused by an apparently
terrible danger. Her feeling at the moment when the horses approached
illustrates our formula most clearly; she felt as if something inevitable had
now to happen.
The process of regression is beautifully demonstrated in an illustration
already used by Freud. The libido can be compared with a stream which is
dammed up as soon as its course meets any impediment, whence arises an
inundation. If this stream has previously, in its upper reaches, excavated
other channels, then these channels will be filled up again by reason of the

damming below. To a certain extent they would appear to be real river beds,
filled with water as before, but at the same time, they only have a temporary
existence. It is not that the stream has permanently chosen the old channels,
but only for as long as the impediment endures in the main stream. The
affluents do not always carry water, because they were from the first, as it
were, not independent streams, but only former stages of development of
the main river, or passing possibilities, to which an inundation has given the
opportunity for fresh existence. This illustration can directly be transferred
to the development of the application of the libido. The definite direction,
the main river, is not yet found during the childish development of
sexuality. The libido goes instead into all possible by-paths, and only
gradually does the definite form develop. But the more the stream follows
out its main channel, the more the affluents will dry up and lose their
importance, leaving only traces of former activity. Similarly, the importance
of the childish precursors of sexuality disappears completely as a rule, only
leaving behind certain traces.
If in later life an impediment arises, so that the damming of the libido
reanimates the old by-paths, the condition thus excited is properly a new
one, and something abnormal.
The former condition of the child is normal usage of the libido, whilst the
return of the libido towards the childish past is something abnormal.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is an erroneous terminology to call the infantile
sexual manifestations “perversions,” for it is not permissible to give normal
manifestations pathological terms. This erroneous usage seems to be
responsible for the confusion of the scientific public. The terms employed
in neurotic psychology have been misapplied here, under the assumption
that the abnormal by-paths of the libido discovered in neurotic people are
the same phenomena as are to be found in children.

The Infantile Amnesia Criticized

The so-called amnesia of childhood, which plays an important part in the
“Three Contributions,” is a similar illegitimate retrograde application from
pathology. Amnesia is a pathological condition, consisting in the repression
of certain contents of the conscious. This condition cannot possibly be the
same as the antegrade amnesia of children, which consists in an incapacity
for intentional reproduction, a condition we find also among savages. This
incapacity for reproduction dates from birth, and can be understood on
obvious anatomical and biological grounds. It would be a strange
hypothesis were we willing to regard this totally different quality of early
infantile consciousness as one to be attributed to repression, in analogy with
the condition in neurosis. The amnesia of neurosis is punched out, as it
were, from the continuity of memory, but the remembrances of earlier
childhood exist in separate islands in the continuity of the non-memory.
This condition is the opposite in every sense of the condition of neurosis, so
that the expression “amnesia,” generally used for this condition, is
incorrect. The “amnesia of childhood” is a conclusion a posteriori from the
psychology of neurosis, just as is the “polymorphic perverse” disposition of
the child.

The Latent Sexual Period Criticized

This error in the theoretical conception is shown clearly in the so-called
latent sexual period of childhood. Freud has remarked that the early
infantile so-called sexual manifestations, which I now call the phenomena
of the pre-sexual stage, vanish after a while, and only reappear much later.
Everything that Freud has termed the “suckling’s masturbation,” that is to
say, all those sexual-like actions of which we spoke before, are said to
return later as real onanism. Such a process of development would be
biologically unique. In conformity with this theory one would have to say,
for instance, that when a plant forms a bud, from which a blossom begins to
unfold, the blossom is taken back again before it is fully developed, and is
again hidden within the bud, to reappear later on in the same form. This
impossible supposition is a consequence of the assertion that the early
infantile activities of the pre-sexual stage are sexual phenomena, and that
those manifestations, which resemble masturbation, are genuinely acts of
masturbation. In this way Freud had to assert that there is a disappearance
of sexuality, or, as he calls it, a latent sexual period. What he calls a
disappearance of sexuality is nothing but the real beginning of sexuality,
everything preceding was but the fore-stage to which no real sexual
character can be imputed. In this way, the impossible phenomenon of the
latent period is very simply explained. This theory of the latent sexual
period is a striking instance of the incorrectness of the conception of the
early infantile sexuality. But there has been no error of observation. On the
contrary, the hypothesis of the latent sexual period proves how exactly
Freud noticed the apparent recommencement of sexuality. The error lies in
the conception. As we saw before, the first mistake consists in a somewhat
old-fashioned conception of the multiplicity of instincts. If we accept the
idea of two or more instincts existing side by side, we must naturally
conclude that, if one instinct has not yet become manifest, it is present in
nuce in accordance with the theory of pre-formation. In the physical sphere
we should perhaps have to say that, when a piece of iron passes from the
condition of heat to the condition of light, the light was already existent in
nuce (latent) in the heat. Such assumptions are arbitrary projections of

human ideas into transcendental regions, contravening the prescription of
the theory of cognition.
We have thus no right to speak of a sexual instinct existing in nuce, as we
then give an arbitrary explanation of phenomena which can be explained
otherwise, and in a more adequate manner. We can speak of the
manifestations of a nutrition instinct, of the manifestations of a sexual
instinct, etc., but we have only the right to do so when the function has
quite clearly reached the surface. We only speak of light when the iron is
visibly luminous, but not when the iron is merely hot. Freud, as an observer,
sees clearly that the sexuality of neurotic people is not entirely comparable
with infantile sexuality, for there is a great difference, for instance, between
the uncleanliness of a child of two years old and the uncleanliness of a
katatonic patient of forty. The former is a psychological and normal
phenomenon; the latter is extraordinarily pathological. Freud inserted a
short passage in his “Three Contributions” saying that the infantile form of
neurotic sexuality is either wholly, or at any rate partly, due to a regression.
That is, even in those cases where we might say, these are still the same by-
paths, we find that the function of the by-paths is still increased by
regression. Freud thus recognizes that the infantile sexuality of neurotic
people is for the greater part a regressive phenomenon. That this must be so
is also shown through the further insight obtained from the investigations of
recent years, that the observations concerning the psychology of the
childhood of neurotic people hold equally good for normal people. At any
rate we can say that the history of the development of infantile sexuality in
persons with neurosis differs but by a hair’s breadth from that of normal
beings who have escaped the attention of the expert appraiser. Striking
differences are exceptional.

Further Remarks on the Etiology of Neurosis

The more we penetrate into the heart of infantile development, the more we
receive the impression that as little can be found there of etiological
significance, as in the infantile shock. Even with the acutest ferreting into
history, we shall never discover why people living on German soil had just
such a fate, and why the Gauls another. The further we get away, in
analytical investigations from the epoch of the manifest neurosis, the less
can we expect to find the real motive of the neurosis, since the dynamic
disproportions grow fainter and fainter the further we go back into the past.
In constructing our theory so as to deduce the neurosis from causes in the
distant past, we are first and foremost obeying the impulse of our patients to
withdraw themselves as far as possible from the critical present. The
pathogenic conflict exists only in the present moment. It is just as if a nation
wanted to regard its miserable political conditions at the actual moment as
due to the past; as if the Germany of the 19th century had attributed its
political dismemberment and incapacity to its suppression by the Romans,
instead of having sought the actual sources of her difficulties in the present.
Only in the actual present are the effective causes, and only here are the
possibilities of removing them.

The Etiological Significance of the Actual Present

A greater part of the psychoanalytic school is under the spell of the
conception that the conflicts of childhood are conditio sine qua non for the
neuroses. It is not only the theorist, who studies the psychology of
childhood from scientific interest, but the practical man also, who believes
that he has to turn the history of infancy inside out to find there the dynamic
source of the actual neurosis—it were a fruitless enterprise if done under
this presumption. In the meantime, the most important factor escapes the
analyst, namely, the conflict and the claims of the present time. In the case
before us, we should not understand any of the motives which produced the
hysterical attacks if we looked for them in earliest childhood. It is the form
alone which those reminiscences determine to a large extent, but the
dynamic originates from the present time. The insight into the actual
meaning of these motives is real understanding.
We can now understand why that moment was pathogenic, as well as why it
chose those particular symbols. Through the conception of regression, the
theory is freed from the narrow formula of the importance of the events in
childhood, and the actual conflict thus gets that significance which, from an
empirical standpoint, belongs to it implicitly. Freud himself introduced the
conception of regression in his “Three Contributions,” acknowledging
rightly that our observations do not permit us to seek the cause of neurosis
exclusively in the past. If it is true, then, that reminiscent matter becomes
active again as a rule by regression, we have to consider the following
question: Have, perhaps, the apparent effective results of reminiscences to
be referred in general to a regression of the libido? As I said before, Freud
suggested in his “Three Contributions,” that the infantilism of neurotic
sexuality was, for the greater part, due to the regression of the libido. This
statement deserves greater prominence than it there received. Freud did give
it this prominence in his later works to a somewhat greater extent.
The recognition of the regression of the libido very largely reduces the
etiological significance of the events of childhood. It has already seemed to
us rather astonishing that the Œdipus- or the Electra-complex should have a

determining value in regard to the onset of a neurosis, since these
complexes exist in everyone. They exist even with those persons who have
never known their own father and mother, but have been educated by their
step-parents. I have analyzed cases of this kind, and found that the incest-
complex was as well developed as in other patients. It seems to us that this
is good proof that the incest-complex is much more a purely regressive
production of phantasies than a reality. From this standpoint, the events in
childhood are only significant for the neuroses in so far as they are revived
later through a regression of the libido. That this must be true to a great
extent is also shown by the fact that the infantile sexual shock never causes
hysteria, nor does the incest-complex, which is common to everyone. The
neurosis only begins as soon as the incest-complex becomes actuated by
regression.
So we come to the question, why does the libido make a regression? To
answer it we must study carefully under what circumstances regression
arises. In treating this problem with my patients, I generally give the
following example: While a mountain climber is attempting the ascent of a
certain peak, he happens to meet with an insurmountable obstacle, let us
say, some precipitous rocky wall which cannot be surmounted. After having
vainly sought for another path, he will have to return and regretfully
abandon the climbing of that peak. He will say to himself: “It is not in my
power to surmount this difficulty, so I will climb another easier mountain.”
In this case, we find there is a normal utilization of the libido. The man
returns, when he finds an insurmountable difficulty, and uses his libido,
which could not attain its original aim, for the ascent of another mountain.
Now let us imagine that this rocky wall was not really unclimbable so far as
his physique was concerned, but that from mere nervousness he withdrew
from this somewhat difficult enterprise. In this case, there are two
possibilities: I. The man will be annoyed by his own cowardice, and will
wish to prove himself less timid on another occasion, or perhaps will even
admit that with his timidity he ought never to undertake such a difficult
ascent. At any rate, he will acknowledge that he has not sufficient moral
capacity for these difficulties. He therefore uses that libido, which did not
attain its original aim, for a useful self-criticism, and for sketching a plan by
which he may be able, with due regard to his moral capacity, to realize his
wish to climb. II. The possibility is, that the man does not realize his own
cowardice, and declares off-hand that this mountain is physically

unattainable, although he is quite able to see that, with sufficient courage,
the obstacle could have been overcome. But he prefers to deceive himself.
Thus the psychological situation which is of importance for our problem is
created.

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 its 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, illusive 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 its ascent 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. Thus 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 pretence that the ascent 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 naïve 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 a surer

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 sharp reproaches,
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 some one 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
betrayed a lamentable state of mind, which increased sometimes to
pronounced irritability; weeks of depression ensued. Whilst the younger
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 phantasies, the existence of
which would not be admitted by the patient. The question, whence arose
such perverse phantasies, 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 she 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. At 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
phantasy, 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 a hair, whether the
affair would be broken off or not. The younger one, somewhat calmer, was
therefore more deliberate, and able to find the right word at the right
moment. The elder 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 phantastic
character; in addition, an incestuous phantasy towards the father. We have a
quick and easy solution of the problem of this sensitiveness, if we admit
that these phantasies 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 phantasies 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 a causation,
and pursue the development of these phantasies 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 has
exactly the character of a subsequent phantastic formation. Therefore, we
have to conceive these difficulties, which we called “resistances,” at least in
this part of the analysis, as an opposition of the patient against the
formation of such phantasies, and not as a resistance against the conscious
admittance of a painful remembrance.
You will ask with astonishment, to what aim the patient contrives such a
phantasy? 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 physician’s desire to find a cause, especially under the
influence of the shock-theory, the patient has been brought to contrive such
phantasies. 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, a falling back of the libido to
its former desires. The analysis, in following the libido-regression, does not
always follow the exact way marked by its historical development, but very
often rather a later phantasy, which only partly depends on former realities.
In our case, only some of the circumstances are real, and it is but 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 revives, takes on dramatic form, and becomes
systematized. We have to admit that, in our case, almost the greater part of
these phantasies 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 phantasy. Then that phantasy, keeping pace with
the retrograde movement of the libido, came back at last to the father and
put upon him all the infantile 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 phantasies 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 inopportune
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 a discord within the subject’s 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 the 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 a
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 hysterical 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 katatonic. 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 consideration impossible. Nothing could be more incorrect
than to consider this sensitiveness as eo 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 specially 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 in practice,
that the effect of regression is so enormous, so important and so impressive,
that we might perhaps be inclined to attribute the effect of 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
artefacts of the imagination, and in which the few real events are
subsequently entirely distorted through phantastic 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 has
certainly a 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—there 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 in the standard of 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 straightway
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 a regression, that is to say, a secondary phantastic 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 the mental faculties is 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
phantastic and regressive one. Important impressions 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 a
regressive importance. Sometimes the regression does play an
overwhelming part in later years, but even then one must not ascribe too
little importance to accidental experiences. It is well known that, in the later
course of a 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 valuation.

The Significance of the Actual Conflict

In the case I have described, we saw that we could understand the
symptomatological 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, of which I spoke in my
lectures[10] 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 it 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 result 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 phantasy-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-phantasies which worry him. To-day, we know that
every one has such things. The belief that only neurotics had these
complexes was an error. We ask now: What is the task which the patient

does not wish to fulfil? 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 and adequately. 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
phantasies, in consequence of which reality seems to them, wholly or partly,
more unreal, valueless and uninteresting than to normal people. These
heightened phantasies 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 Phantasy Criticized

The apparent etiological development of neurosis, discovered by
psychoanalysis, is in reality only the work of causally connected phantasies,
which the patient has created from that libido which at times he did not
employ in the biological adaptation. Thus, these apparently etiological
phantasies 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
phantasies, 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 phantastic elaboration. Only they make the mistake of attributing the
phantastic artefacts and far-fetched arbitrary symbolism to the suggestion
and to the awful phantasy of the physician, instead of to the unequalled
fertility of phantasy on the part of the patient. Of a truth, there is a good
deal of artificial elaboration in the phantasies of a 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 phantasies. I have no doubt that patients are unconscious of the greater
part of their own phantasies. A phantasy only “really” exists in the
unconscious, when it has some notable effect upon the conscious, e. g., in
the form of a dream; otherwise, we may say with a clear conscience that it
is not real. Every one who overlooks the frequently nearly imperceptible
effects of unconscious phantasies upon the conscious, or renounces the
fundamental, and technically incontestable analysis of dreams, can easily
overlook the phantasies of his patients altogether. 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 phantasies he discovers and forms during
analysis. We might even perhaps go so far as to say that, during the time of

analysis, this phantasy-production is greatly increased, as the patient is
strengthened in his regressive tendency, by the interest taken by the
physician and originates even more phantasies 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 phantasies and bring
him back again to real life.

CHAPTER IX
The Therapeutical Principles of Psychoanalysis

While the psychoanalyst, of course, knows of this therapeutic tendency to
extricate the patient from his unhealthy phantasies, he also knows just how
far this mere extricating of neurotic patients from their phantasies goes. As
physicians, we should never think of preferring a difficult and complicated
method, assailed by all authorities, to a simple, clear and easy one without
good reason. I am 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 “ré-éducation de la volonté” as the psychoanalytic method gives me
better results.
In applying psychoanalysis we must grant the regressive phantasies of the
patient, for psychoanalysis has a much broader outlook, as regards the
valuation of symptoms, than have the above psychotherapeutic 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 eo 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 a 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 the
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 phantasies of the patient. Not only critics, but the patients also,
doubt the therapeutic value of such a method, which concentrates attention
upon phantasies 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 phantasies, and told them that they must only
consider that it is well with them, when they are free, if 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 phantasies. These phantasies 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 is an 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 phantasies from the standpoint of his reason,
regards them as valueless and senseless; but, in reality, the phantasies 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 wont, must now pay an active attention to
their inner life. Where they formerly 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 in indulgence has now become

a purpose and an aim—that is, has become work. The patient, assisted by
the physician, occupies himself with his phantasies, 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 formerly 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 fulfilment 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 eo ipso egoistic interests, since we are social beings as well, a matter too
easily forgotten by individualists. An ordinary person will feel very much
more comfortable sharing a common virtue than 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 phantasies
replaced reality, because the patient refused to overcome certain real
difficulties. Unconsciously the neurotic patient prefers—and very often
consciously too—his dreams and phantasies to reality. To bring him back to
real life and to the fulfilment 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 follows these
phantasies, these wrong paths, in order to restore the libido, which is the
valuable part of the phantasies, to the conscious self and to the duties of the
moment. This can only be done by bringing the phantasies into the light of
day, and along with them the libido bound up with them. We might leave
these unconscious phantasies 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 phantasies. 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 phantasies, finding only himself of any importance and
never ceasing to admire or despise himself. The esthetic sense of normal
people has, as a rule, little pleasure in neurotic phantasies, even if it does
not find them absolutely repulsive. The psychoanalyst must put aside such
esthetic 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. But for 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 a sneer proceeds only from ill-natured 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
phantasies are valueless and are thrown aside, but the libido actuating them
is of value and this, after cleansing, becomes serviceable again. To the
psychoanalyst, as to every specialist, it will sometimes seem that the
phantasies 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 phantasies have a scientific value, just as if
is of special interest to the surgeon to know whether the pus contained
staphylococci or 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 phantasies. The
etiological importance which is attached to these phantasies, incorrectly, to

my mind, explains why so much room is given up in psychoanalytic
literature to the extensive discussion of the various sexual phantasies. Once
if is known that absolutely nothing is impossible in the sphere of sexual
phantasy, the former estimate of these phantasies will disappear, and
therewith the endeavor to discover in them an 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
phantasies ceases after a time. Naturally, we must not conclude from this
that the possibility of creating phantasies 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 not a few, where the patient
continues longer than usual to produce endless phantastic 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 phantasies, because they seem to possess etiological
significance. They are therefore constantly at pains to fish up phantasies 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
fulfilment 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 these
very 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 fulfil, not only
academically, in their general theoretical outlines but in their most minute
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 fulfil the
prescriptions of current morality. But the much more important duties
which he ought to fulfil 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

phantasies. I have often heard from patients, with whom the psychoanalytic
treatment has come to a standstill: “The doctor believes I must have
somewhere some infantile trauma, or an infantile phantasy 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, hauled up by the analysis, sank back into the depths again for want
of employment. This was due to the physician’s attention being directed
entirely to the infantile phantasies, and his failing therefore to see what
duties of the moment the patient had to fulfil. 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 phantasies pretty soon, because
they prefer to live in reality, rather than in their phantasies. It is a pity that
this cannot be said of all patients. A good many of them forsake for a long
time, or even forever, the fulfilment 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 would remove from
the mind of the patient the foreign body, the “blocked” affect, 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 wherein lay the therapeutical effect of
psychoanalysis. Whilst formerly this was sought in the discharge of the
traumatic affect, it was now seen that the phantasies produced were
especially associated with the personality of the physician. Freud calls this
process transference (“Uebertragung”), 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 phantasy is transferred, together with the phantasy itself,
to the personality of the physician, so that the physician replaces the parents
to a certain extent. All the apparently sexual phantasies 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 phantasies, 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 transference is a powerful
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 in regarding his doctor as 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, still
in his childish surroundings, and therefore maintains his infantile attitude of
mind. In this manner, all the advantages of transference can be lost.
There are patients who follow the analysis with the greatest interest without
making the slightest improvement, remaining extraordinarily productive in
phantasies, 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, and would
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 would show repeatedly that the patient had a
childish attitude towards his physician, but it 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 it 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 a parallelism between the first part
of psychoanalysis and a historical institution of our civilization. It is not
difficult to guess this parallelism. We find it in the religious institution
called confession. By nothing are people more cut off from fellowship with
others than by a secret borne 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 re-admission of the individual to the community.
His 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
phantasies, that the individual becomes tied to his confessor. 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 him rests the obligation to
guide his congregation, just as a father guides his children. Thus the priest
replaces the parents and to a certain extent frees his people from their
infantile bonds. In so far 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 two thousand years. So long as the
Christian Church of the Middle Ages was capable of being the guardian of
culture and science, in which rôle her success was, in part, due to her wide
toleration of the secular element, confession was an admirable method for
the education of the people. But 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 to-day 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 sacrificium intellectus 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, and dependence
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 in freeing them from their unconscious dependency
within infantile limitations. Psychoanalysis has therefore to analyze the
transference, a task left untouched by the priest. In 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. The first part of the analysis, the investigation of the
patient’s complexes, is rather easy, chiefly because a man is relieved by
ridding himself of his secrets, difficulties and pains. In the second place, he
experiences a peculiar satisfaction from at last finding some one who shows
interest in all those things to which nobody hitherto 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, to
understand him and to follow him through all his erring ways, pathetically
affects the patient. The feeling of being understood is 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 coöperation 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 therapeutical publications from which the
uninitiated receive the impression that psychoanalysis is more or less a
clever trick, with astonishing effects. The first part of analysis, where we try
to understand, and 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 a neurotic person, the transference is an ideal situation. He
himself makes no effort, and nevertheless another person meets him
halfway, with an apparent affectionate 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 he gets a relationship outside the family,
and thus fulfils a necessary duty of life. The therapeutical success so often
to be seen at the same time fortifies the patient’s belief that this new-gained
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 phantasies, in order to find
possible ways of maintaining the association with his physician. He makes
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, moreover, 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 its popular sense. This is
the misunderstanding fallen into by so many neurotic people, who believe
that a 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 subjective 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 is 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 fulfil 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 under-currents.
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 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 along the line
of his own impulses, even if the path seems to be a wrong one. Error is just
as important a condition of mental progress as truth. In this second step of
analysis, with all its hidden precipices and sand-banks, we owe a great deal
to dreams. At the beginning of analysis dreams chiefly helped in
discovering phantasies; here they guide us, in a most valuable way, to the
application of the libido. Freud’s work laid the foundation of an immense
increase in our knowledge in regard to the interpretation of the dream’s
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 the purely historical method, he
apprises 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 an 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
prospective 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 the determination of its present form.
But we should know nothing about its prospective 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 prospective function has been valued only
by superstitious peoples and 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 those future 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

apperceive. 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.

CHAPTER X
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 every one 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 is a general psychological
method of investigation, as well as a heuristic principle of the first rank in
all departments of mental science (“Geisteswissenschaften”). Chiefly
through the work of the Zürich School, the possibility of applying
psychoanalysis to the domain of the mental diseases has been demonstrated.
Psychoanalytical investigation of dementia præcox, 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 præcox 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 præcox has become so extraordinarily
complicated because of the quite recent incursion on the part of
psychoanalysis into the domains of mythology and comparative religion,
whence we have derived a deeper insight into ethical psychological
symbolism. Those who are well-acquainted with the symbolism of dreams
and of dementia præcox have been greatly impressed by the striking
parallelism between modern individual symbols and those found in folk-
lore. The extraordinary parallelism between ethnic symbolism and that of
dementia præcox 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.[11] This complication of
psychology with the problem of mythology makes it impossible for me to
demonstrate to you my conception of dementia præcox. 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 between the ethnical and the
individual symbolisms. From the present position of this work, we can
scarcely conceive what a vast perspective may result from this comparative
ethnopsychology. 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. A 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 eleven years of age. The case was analyzed
by my assistant, Miss Mary Moltzer. 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 and conflicts, every case 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, and I hope 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 eleven years of age, of
good family. The history of the disease is as follows:

Anamnesis

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 am only speaking of those cases having a psychogenic cause. The
child confessed to 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 a tax 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 anamnesis 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° C., about 103° F. The 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. Miss Moltzer, who analyzed her, gave her first
of all an opportunity of talking about her staying in bed. We learn 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, as
well as its connection with her own illness, was pointed out to her,

whereupon 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, and away 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 less 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?” asked the little
patient with a happier face.
This explanation justified the child in the choice of the object 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 this 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 that her libido was placed with much
intensity upon the poor boy, who was also someone outside the family;
whence 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 betokens 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 in 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 retires 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
to 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 finally to the easiest of all, namely, the
infantile phantasies, which thus become real incest-phantasies. The fact
that, wherever there is present a disturbance of psychological adaptation,
one finds an exaggerated development of incest-phantasies, must be
conceived, as I have pointed out, as a regressive phenomenon. That is to
say, the incest-phantasy 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 man, 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 is what she understood at once, 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 as she could not succeed in doing so, she wanted to steal the key
from her mother. She expressed herself thus about the whole matter: she
ridiculed 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. About this time 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 rendering 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 a lack of freedom. This phenomenon exactly follows the rule.
As soon as anyone permits his libido to draw back from necessary tasks, it
becomes autonomous and chooses, 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 terrors 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 when 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 associations 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-Ridinghood, which is, of course, known to the child. The wolf
ate the grandmother first, then took her shape, and afterwards ate Little
Red-Ridinghood. But the hunter killed the wolf, cut open the belly and
Little Red-Ridinghood sprang out safe and sound. This motive is found in a
great many fairy-tales, widespread 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 on to the
heavens, for myths have never been and are never made consciously, but
arise from man’s unconscious. For this reason, we sometimes find that
marvellous, 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.[12] These currents are caused by the libido in its unconscious forms.
The material which comes to the surface is infantile material, hence,
phantasies connected with the incest-complex. Without difficulty we can
find in all the so-called sun-myths infantile theories about generation,
childbirth and incestuous relations. In the fairy-tale of Little Red-
Ridinghood, we find the phantasy 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 phantasy 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, let me direct your attention to Boas’s collection,
where you will find a beautiful set of Indian legends; also to the work of
Frobenius, “Das Zeitaltes Sonnengottes”; and, finally, to the works of
Abraham, Rank, Riklin, Jones, Freud, Spielrein, and my own investigations
in my “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido.”
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 interpretations 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 had 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 objected that the observation was made just for this purpose and
for nothing else, and has therefore no general validity. I believe that this
objection vanishes of itself as soon as the corresponding psychoanalytic and
mythological knowledge has been acquired. The validity of an 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 Picus 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 Mamma do wrong?
She has 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 he 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 perform 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 affair 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 was something of a similar
nature, some unconscious sexual wish, corresponding to the psychology of
the 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 closely 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 of 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 main 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
a notion of the higher philosophical aspects of the problem; that would
probably not have the slightest effect.
The child wants, first of all, to be relieved from the idea that she is doing
wrong in being interested in the generation of life. By the analytic
explanation of this complex it is made clear to the child how much pleasure
and curiosity she really takes in the problem of generation, and how her
groundless fear is the inversion of her repressed desire. The affair of her
masturbation meets with a tolerant understanding and the discussion is
limited to drawing the child’s attention to the aimlessness of her action. At
the same time it is explained to her that her sexual actions are mainly the
consequences of her curiosity, which might be satisfied in a better way. Her
great fear of her father corresponds, probably, with as great an expectation,
which, in consequence of the birth of her little brother, is closely connected
with the problem of generation. Through this explanation, the child is
declared to be justified in her curiosity and the greater part of her moral
conflict is eliminated.

Fourth Interview. The little girl is now much nicer and much more
confiding. Her former unnatural and constrained manner has vanished. She
brings a dream which she dreamed after the last sitting. It runs: “I am as tall
as a church-tower and can see into every house. At my feet are very small
children, as small as flowers are. A policeman comes. I say to him, ‘If you
dare to make any remark, I shall take your sword and cut off your head.’”
In the analysis of this dream she makes the following remarks: “I would
like to be taller than my father, for then he will have to obey me.” The first
association with policeman was father. He is a military man and has, of
course, a sword. The dream clearly fulfils her wish. In the form of a tower,
she is much bigger than her father, and if he dares to make a remark, he will
be decapitated. The dream fulfils the natural wish of the child to be a
grown-up person, and to have children playing at her feet, symbolized in
the dream by the small children. With this dream she overcomes her great
fear of her father; that means an important improvement with regard to her
personal freedom, and her certainty of feeling.
But incidentally there is here also a theoretical gain; we may consider this
dream to be a clear example of the compensating and teleological function
of dreams which was especially pointed out by Maeder. Such a dream must
leave with the dreamer an increased sense of the value of her own
personality, which is of much importance for personal well-being. It does
not matter that the symbols of the dream are not perceived by the
consciousness of the child, as conscious perception is not necessary to
derive from symbols their corresponding emotional effect. We have to do
here with knowledge derived from intuition; in other words, it is that kind
of perception on which at all times the effect produced by religious symbols
has depended. Here no conscious understanding has been needed; the
feelings are affected by means of emotional intuition.
Fifth Interview. In the fifth sitting, the child brings a dream which she had
dreamt meanwhile. “I am with my whole family on the roof. The windows of
the houses on the other side of the valley radiate like fire. The rising sun is
reflected. Suddenly I notice that the house at the corner of our street is, as a
fact, on fire. The fire comes nearer and nearer; at last our house is also on
fire. I take flight into the street and my mother throws several things to me. I
hold out my apron, and among other things my doll is thrown to me. I notice
that the stones of our house are burning, but the wood remains untouched.”

The analysis of this dream presents peculiar difficulties and therefore
required two sittings. It would lead me too far to sketch to you all the
material this dream brought forth. I have to limit myself to what is most
necessary. The associations which deal with the real meaning of the dream
belong to the remarkable image which tells us that the stones of the house
are on fire, while the wood remains untouched. It is sometimes worth while,
especially with longer dreams, to take out the most striking parts and to
analyze them first. This proceeding is not the typical one, but it is justified
by the practical desire to shorten matters. The little patient makes the
observation that this part of the dream is like a fairy-tale. Through examples
it was made plain to her that fairy-tales always have a meaning. She
objects: “But not all fairy-tales have one. For instance, the tale of the
Sleeping Beauty. What could that mean?” The explanation was as follows:
“The Sleeping Beauty had to wait for one hundred years in an enchanted
sleep until she could be freed. Only he who was able to overcome all the
difficulties through love, and had the courage to break through the thorny
hedge, was able to deliver her. So one must often wait a long while to
obtain what one longs for.”
This explanation is as much in harmony with the capacity of childish
understanding, as it is perfectly consonant with the history of the motive of
this fairy-tale. The motive of the Sleeping Beauty shows clearly its relation
to an ancient myth of Spring and fertility, and contains at the same time a
problem which has a remarkably close affinity to the psychological
situation of the precocious girl of eleven.
This motive of the Sleeping Beauty belongs to a whole cycle of legends in
which a virgin, closely guarded by a dragon, is delivered by a hero. Without
entering into the interpretation of this myth, I want to bring into prominence
the astronomical or meteorological components which are very clearly
demonstrated in the Edda. In the form of a virgin, the Earth is kept prisoner
by the winter, covered in ice and snow. The young Spring-Sun, in the form
of a hero, delivers her out of her frosty prison, where she has been longing
for her deliverer.
The association given by the little girl was chosen by her simply to give an
example of a fairy-tale without a meaning, and was not, in the first place,
conceived as having any relation with the house on fire. To this part of the
dream, she only made the observation: “It is quite marvellous, just like a

fairy-tale.” She meant to say it was impossible, as the idea of burning stones
is to her something impossible, some nonsense, or something like a fairy-
tale. The observation made a propos of this shows her that an impossibility
and a fairy-tale are only partly identical, since a fairy-tale certainly has
much meaning. Although this particular fairy-tale, from the casual way in
which it was mentioned, seemed to have no apparent relation to the dream,
we have to pay special attention to it, as it was given spontaneously in the
course of the interpretation of the dream. The unconscious suggested this
example, which cannot be accidental, but must be in some way significant
for the present situation. In interpreting dreams we have to pay attention to
such apparent accidents, since in psychology we find no blind chances,
much as we are inclined to think these things accidental. From the critics,
you may hear this objection as often as you like, but for a really scientific
mind there are only causal relationships and no accidents. From the fact that
the little girl chose the example of the Sleeping Beauty we may conclude
that there was some fundamental reason underlying this in the psychology
of the child. This reason is a comparison, or partial identification, of herself
with the Sleeping Beauty; in other words, there is in the soul of the child a
complex, which manifests itself in the form of the motive of the Sleeping
Beauty. The explanation, which I mentioned before, which was given to the
child, was in harmony with this conclusion.
Notwithstanding she is not quite satisfied, and doubts that all fairy-tales
have a meaning. She brings another instance of a fairy-tale, that cannot be
understood. She brings the story of little Snow-White, who, in the sleep of
death, lies enclosed in a coffin of glass. It is not difficult to see that this
fairy-tale belongs to the same kind of myths to which the Sleeping Beauty
belongs. The story of little Snow-White in her glass-coffin is at the same
time very remarkable in regard to the myth of the seasons. This mythical
material chosen by the little girl has reference to an intuitive comparison
with the earth, held fast by the winter’s cold, awaiting the liberating sun of
spring.
This second example affirms the first one and its explanation. It would be
difficult to pretend here that this second example, which accentuates the
meaning of the first, has been suggested by the explanation given. The fact
that the little girl brought up the story of little Snow-White, as another
example of the senselessness of fairy-tales, proves that she did not

understand her identification with little Snow-White and the Sleeping
Beauty. Therefore we may expect that little Snow-White arose from the
same unconscious sources as the Sleeping Beauty, that is, a complex
consisting of the expectation of coming events, which are altogether
comparable with the deliverance of the earth from the prison of winter and
its fertilization through the sunbeams of spring.
As may, perhaps, be known, the symbol of the bull has been given from
time immemorial to the fertile spring sun, as the bull embodies the
mightiest procreative power. Although without further consideration, it is
not easy to find any relation between the insight indirectly gained and the
dream, we will hold to what we have found and proceed with the dream.
The next part described by the little girl is receiving the doll in her apron.
The first association given tells us that her attitude and the whole situation
in the dream is like a picture very well known to her, representing a stork
flying above a village; children are in the street, holding their aprons,
looking up and shouting to him; the stork must bring them a little baby. The
little patient adds the observation that several times she wished to have a
little brother or sister herself. This material, given spontaneously by the
child, stands in a clear and valuable relationship to the motive of the myths.
We notice here that the dream is indeed concerned with the problem of the
awakening instinct of generation. Nothing of this has been said to the little
girl. After a little pause, she brings, abruptly, this association: “Once, when
I was five years old, I thought I was in the street and that a bicyclist passed
over my stomach.” This highly improbable story proved to be, as it might
be expected, a phantasy, which had become a paramnesia. Nothing of this
kind had ever happened, but we came to know that at school the little girls
lay cross-wise over each other’s bodies, and trampled with their legs.
Whoever has read the analyses of children published by Freud and myself
will observe the same “leit-motif” of trampling; to this must be attributed a
sexual undercurrent. This conception demonstrated in our former work
agrees with the next association of our little patient: “I should prefer a real
child to a doll.”
This most remarkable material brought by the child in connection with the
phantasy of the stork, refers to typical childish attempts at the sexual theory,
and betrays where we have to look for the actual phantasies of the child.

It is of interest to know, that this “motive of trampling” can be illustrated
through mythology. I have brought together the proofs in my work on the
libido theory. The utilization of these early infantile phantasies in the
dream, the existence of the paramnesia of the bicyclist, and the expectation
expressed by the motive of the Sleeping Beauty show that the interests of
the child dwell chiefly on certain problems which must be solved. Probably
the fact that the libido has been attracted by the problem of generation has
been the reason of her lack of attention at school, through which she fell
behind. This problem is very often seen in girls between the ages of twelve
and thirteen. I could demonstrate this to you by some special cases
published under the title of “Beitrag zur Psychologie des Gerüchtes” in the
Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse. The frequent occurrence of the problem at
this age is the cause of the indecent talk among all sorts of children and the
attempts at mutual enlightenment, which are naturally far from beautiful,
and which so very often spoil the child’s imagination. Not the most careful
protection can prevent children from some day discovering the great secret,
and then probably in the dirtiest way. Therefore it would be much better if
children could learn about certain important secrets of life in a clean way
and at suitable times, so that they would not need to be enlightened by their
playmates, too often in very ugly ways.
In the eighth interview the little girl began by remarking that she had
understood perfectly why it was still impossible for her to have a child and
therefore she had renounced all idea of it. But she does not make a good
impression this time. We get to know that she has told her teacher a
falsehood. She had been late to school, and told her teacher that she was
late because she was obliged to accompany her father. But in reality, she
had been lazy, got up too late and was thus late for school. She told a lie,
and was afraid of losing the teacher’s favor by telling the truth. This sudden
moral defect in our little patient requires an explanation. According to the
fundamentals of psychoanalysis, this sudden and striking weakness can
only follow from the patient’s not drawing the logical consequences from
the analysis but rather looking for other easier possibilities.
In other words, we have to do here with a case in which the analysis
brought the libido apparently to the surface, so that an improvement of the
personality could have occurred. But for some reason or other, the

adaptation was not made, and the libido returned to its former regressive
paths.
The ninth interview proved that this was indeed the case. Our patient
withheld an important piece of evidence in her ideas of sexuality, and one
which contradicted the psychoanalytic explanation of sexual maturity. She
suppressed the rumor current in the school that a girl of eleven had a baby
with a boy of the same age. This rumor was proved to be based on no facts,
but was a phantasy, fulfiling the secret wishes of this age. Rumors appear
often to originate in this kind of way, as I tried to show in the above-
mentioned demonstration of such a case. They serve to give vent to the
unconscious phantasies, and in fulfiling this function correspond to dreams
as well as to myths. This rumor keeps another way open: she need not wait
so long, it is possible to have a child even at eleven. The contradiction
between the accepted rumor and the analytic explanation creates resistances
towards the analysis, so that it is forthwith depreciated. All the other
statements and information fall to the ground at the same time; for the time
being, doubt and a feeling of uncertainty have taken their place. The libido
has again taken possession of its former ways, it has made a regression.
This is the moment of the relapse.
The tenth sitting added important details to the story of her sexual problem.
First came a remarkable fragment of a dream: “I am with other children in
an open field in the wood, surrounded by beautiful pine trees. It begins to
rain, to lighten and to thunder. It is growing dark. Suddenly I see a stork in
the air.”
Before I enter into an analysis of this dream, I should like to point out its
beautiful parallel with certain mythological presentations. This astonishing
coincidence of thunderstorm and stork has, of course, to those acquainted
with the works of Adalbert Kuhn and Steinthal nothing remarkable. The
thunderstorm has had, from ancient times, the meaning of the fertilizing of
the earth, the cohabitation of the father Heaven and the mother Earth, to
which Abraham[13] has recently again called attention, in which the lightning
takes the place of the winged phallus. The stork is just the same thing, a
winged phallus, the psychosexual meaning of which is known to every
child. But the psychosexual meaning of the thunderstorm is not known to
everyone. In view of the psychological situation just described, we must
attribute to the stork a psychosexual meaning. That the thunderstorm is

connected with the stork and has also a psychosexual meaning, seems at
first scarcely acceptable. But when we remember that psychoanalytic
observation has shown an enormous number of mythological associations
with the unconscious mental images, we may suppose that some
psychosexual meaning is also present in this case. We know from other
experiences that those unconscious strata which, in former times, produced
mythological forms, are still in action among modern people and are still
incessantly productive. But this production is limited to the realm of dreams
and the symptomatology of the neuroses and the psychoses, for the
correction, through reality, is so much increased in the modern mind that it
prevents their projection into reality.
We will return to the dream analysis. The associations which lead us to the
heart of this image begin with the idea of rain during the thunderstorm. Her
actual words were: “I think of water. My uncle was drowned in water—it
must be dreadful to be kept under water, so in the dark. But the child must
be also drowned in the water. Does it drink the water that is in the stomach?
It is very strange, when I was ill Mamma sent my water to the doctor. I
thought perhaps he would mix something with it, perhaps some syrup, out
of which children grow. I think one has to drink it.”
With unquestionable clearness we see from this set of associations that even
the child associates psychosexual, and even typical ideas of fructification
with the rain during the thunderstorm.
Here again, we see that marvellous parallelism between mythology and the
individual phantasies of our own day. This series of associations contains
such an abundance of symbolic relationships, that we could easily write a
whole dissertation about it. The child herself splendidly interpreted the
symbolism of drowning as a pregnancy-phantasy, an explanation given long
ago in psychoanalytic literature.
Eleventh interview. The next sitting was occupied with the spontaneous
infantile theories about fructification and child-birth. The child thought that
the urine of the man went into the body of the woman, and from this the
embryo would grow. Hence the child was in the water from the beginning,
that is to say, in urine. Another version was, the urine was drunk in the
doctor’s syrup, so that the child would grow in the head. The head had then
to be split open, to help the growth of the child, and one wore hats to cover

this up. She illustrated this by a little drawing, representing a child-birth
through the head. The child again had still a smaller child on the head, and
so on. This is an archaic idea and highly mythological. I would remind you
of the birth of Pallas, who came out of the father’s head.
We find striking mythological proofs of the fertilizing significance of the
urine in the songs of Rudra in the Rigveda. Here should be mentioned
something the mother added, that once the little girl, before analysis,
suggested she saw a puppet on the head of her little brother, a phantasy with
which the origin of this theory of child-birth might be connected. The little
illustration made by the patient has remarkable affinity with certain pictures
found among the Bataks of Dutch India. They are the so-called magic
wands or ancestral statues, on which the members of families are
represented, one standing on the top of the other. The explanation of these
wands, given by the Bataks themselves, and regarded as nonsense, has a
marvellous analogy with the infantile mental attitude. Schultz, who wrote
about these wands, says: “The assertion, that these figures represent the
members of a family who have committed incest, were bitten by a snake,
entwined with another, and met a common death in their criminal embrace,
is widely disseminated and obviously due to the position of the figures.”
The explanation has a parallel in our presuppositions as to our little patient.
We saw from the first dream that her sexual phantasy centers round the
father; the psychological condition is here the same as with the Bataks,
being found in the idea of incestuous relationship.
Still a third version is the growth of the child in the intestinal canal. The
child tried several times to provoke nausea and vomiting, in accordance
with her phantasy that the child is born through vomiting. In the closet she
had arranged also pressure-exercises, in order to press out the child. Under
these circumstances, we cannot be astonished that the first and principal
symptoms of the manifest neurosis were nausea-symptoms.
We have come so far with our analysis that we are now able to throw a
glance over the case as a whole.
We found, behind the neurotic symptoms, complicated emotional processes,
which were undoubtedly connected with the symptoms. If it may be
allowed to draw some general conclusions from this limited material, we
could construct the course of the neurosis in the following way.

At the gradual approach of puberty, the libido of the child assumed rather
an emotional than a practical attitude towards reality. She began to be very
much taken with her teacher, but the sentimental self-indulgence, evinced in
her riotous phantasies, played a greater part than the thought of the
increased endeavors which such love ought really to have demanded of her.
For this reason, her attention and her work left much to be desired. The
former pleasant relationship with her favorite teacher was troubled. The
teacher was annoyed, and the little girl, who had been made somewhat
conceited by her home-conditions, was resentful, instead of trying to
improve in her work. In consequence her libido withdrew from her teacher,
as well as from her work, and fell into the characteristic forced dependence
on the little boy, who on his side made the most of the situation. Then the
resistances against school seized the first opportunity, which was suggested
by the case of the little girl who had to be sent home on account of sickness.
Our little patient followed this child’s example. Once away from school, the
way was open to her phantasies. By the regression of the libido, these
symptom-making phantasies became awakened to a real activity, and were
given an importance they had never had before, for they had never
previously played such an important part. Now they become apparently of
much importance and seemed to be the very reason why the libido
regressed to them. It might be said that the child, in consequence of its
essentially phantasy-building nature, saw her father too much in her teacher,
and thus developed incestuous resistances towards the latter. As I have
already stated, I hold that it is simpler and more probable to accept the view
that, during a certain period, it was convenient for her to see the teacher as
the father. As she preferred to follow the hidden presentiments of puberty
rather than her duties towards the school and her teacher, she allowed her
libido to fall on the little boy, from whom, as we saw, she awaited some
mysterious advantages. Even if analysis had demonstrated it as a fact that
she had had incestuous resistances against her teacher on account of the
transference of the father-image, those resistances would only have been
secondary phantasies, that had become inflated. At any rate, indolence
would still have been the primum movens. In the analysis she learned about
the two ways of life, the way of phantasy, of regression, and the way of
reality, wherein lay her present child’s duties. In her the two were
dissociated, and consequently she was at strife with herself. As the analysis
was adapted to the regressive tendency of the libido, the existence of an

extreme sexual curiosity, connected with certain very definite problems,
was discovered. The libido, imprisoned in this phantastical labyrinth, was
brought back into useful application by means of the psychological
explanation of the incorrect infantile phantasies. The child thus got an
insight into her own attitude towards reality with all its possibilities. The
result was that she was able to take an objective-critical attitude towards her
immature puberty-desires, and was able to give up these and all other
impossibilities in favor of the use of her libido in possible directions, in her
work and in obtaining the good-will of her teacher. In this case, analysis
brought great peace of mind, as well as a pronounced intellectual
improvement. After a short time her teacher himself stated that the little girl
was one of the best pupils in her class.
I hope that by the exposition of this brief instance of the course of an
analysis, I have succeeded in giving you an insight not only into the
concrete procedure of treatment, and into the technical difficulties, but no
less into the beauty of the human mind and its endless problems. I
intentionally brought into prominence the parallelism with mythology, to
indicate the universally possible applications of psychoanalysis. At the
same time, I should like to refer to the further importance of this position.
We may see in the predominance of the mythological in the mind of a child,
a distinct hint of the gradual development of the individual mind out of the
collective knowledge or the collective feeling of earliest childhood, which
gave rise to the old theory of a condition of perfect knowledge before and
after individual existence.
In the same way we might see, in the marvellous analogy between the
phantasies of dementia præcox and mythological symbolisms, a reason for
the widespread superstition that an insane person is possessed of a demon,
and has some divine knowledge.
With these hints, I have reached the present standpoint of investigation, and
I have at least sketched those facts and working hypotheses which are
characteristic for my present and future work.

INDEX

Abreagieren, 5
Actual conflict, 92, 93
Actual present, 81
Adaptation, failure of, 83
Amnesia, infantile, 78
Analysis of dreams, 60, 109
Analysis of transference, 105
Association-experiment, 66

Breuer, 5

Cathartic method, 6
Change in the theory of psychoanalysis, 5
Charcot, 5
Child, neurosis in, 113
Childhood, sexual trauma in, 10
Complex, Electra, 69
Complex, Oedipus, 67
Complex, incest, 70
Complex of the parents, 50
Conception of libido, 27

Conception of sensitiveness, 89
Conception of sexuality, 19
Conception of transference, 102
Confession and psychoanalysis, 103
Conflict, actual, 92, 93
Content of the unconscious, 67
Criticism, 1
Criticized, infantile sexual etiology, 46

Dementia præcox, 111
Dementia præcox, libido in, 35
Dream analysis, 60, 109
Dream, the, 60
Dreams, teleological meaning of, 109

Early hypothesis, 4
Electra-complex, 69
Energic theory of libido, 28
Environment and predisposition, 9
Etiology of the neuroses, 72, 80

Failure of adaptation, 83
Finger, sucking of, 22
Freud, 5

Genetic conception of libido, 38

Hypothesis, early, 4

Incest-complex, 70
Infancy, the polymorphic sexuality of, 24
Infantile amnesia, 78
Infantile mental attitude, 53
Infantile perversity, 43
Infantile reaction, 84
Infantile sexuality, 17
Infantile sexual etiology criticized, 46
Infantile sexual phantasy, 15
Introversion, 49

Latent sexual period, 79
Libido, 26, 27
Libido in dementia præcox, 35
Libido, energic theory of, 28
Libido, genetic conception of, 38
Libido, regression of, 76
Libido, the sexual definition, 34
Life, three phases of, 33
Little Red-Ridinghood, 119

Masturbation, 22
Method, cathartic, 6

Naughtiness, 121
Neurosis in a child, 113
Neuroses, etiology of, 72, 80
Nucleus-complex, 50

Objections to the sexual hypothesis, 18
Oedipus-complex, 67

Perversity, infantile, 43
Phantasy criticized, 94
Phantasy, infantile sexual, 17
Phantasy, unconscious, 29, 53
Polymorphic perverse sexuality of infancy, 24
Pragmatic rule, 2
Predisposition and environment, 9
Predisposition for the trauma, 12
Present, actual, 81
Problem of self-analysis, 108
Psychoanalysis and confession, 103
Psychoanalysis, remarks on, 111
Psychoanalysis, therapeutic principles of, 96
Psychopathology of everyday life, 65

Regression of the libido, 76
Regression and sensitiveness, 90
Remarks on psychoanalysis, 111

Repression, 8
Robert Mayer, 28
Romulus and Remus, 120

Schopenhauer’s will, 39
Self-analysis, problem of, 108
Sensitiveness, conception of, 89
Sensitiveness and regression, 90
Sexual definition of libido, 34
Sexual element in the trauma, 14
Sexual period, latent, 79
Sexual hypothesis, objections to, 18
Sexual trauma in childhood, 10
Sexuality, the conception of, 19
Sexuality, infantile, 17
Sexuality of the suckling, 21
Sexual terminology, 30
Sleeping Beauty, 124
Snow-White, 125
Spring-Sun, 124
Stork, 129
Sucking the finger, 22
Suckling, sexuality of, 21
Symbolism, 112

Teleological meaning of dreams, 109

Terminology, sexual, 30
The dream, 60
Theory, change in, 5
Theory criticized, traumatic, 7
Theory, traumatic, 5, 48
Therapeutic principles of psychoanalysis, 96
Three contributions to the sexual theory, 17
Three phases of life, 33
Thunderstorm, 129
Transference, analysis of, 105
Transference, conception of, 102
Trauma, predisposition for, 12
Trauma, sexual element in, 14
Traumatic theory, 5, 48
Traumatic theory criticized, 7

Unconscious, 55
Unconscious, content of, 67
Unconscious phantasy, 29, 53

Footnotes
1. “Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses,” by Prof.
Sigmund Freud. Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series, No.
4.

2. Monograph No. 4, p. 14.

3. Ibid.

4. No. 7 of this Monograph Series.

5. No. 7 of this Monograph Series.

6. No. 3 of this Monograph Series.

7. Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologisch
Forschungen, Bd. I.

8. Am. Jour. Psychol., April, 1910.

9. Jahrbuch für psychopath. u. psychoanalyt. Forschungen, Bd. II, p.
465.

10. Am. Journ. Psych., April, 1910.

11. “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido,” Wien, 1912.

12. Abraham, “Dreams and Myths,” No. 15 of the Monograph Series.

13. “Dreams and Myths,” No. 15 of the Monograph Series.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Footnotes have been collected at the end of the text, and are linked
for ease of reference.

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