A General Introduction to PsychoanalysisFreud, Sigmund
Science
A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis
illness are, if not entirely wiped out by the amnesia, at least
partially obliterated. Without fail important details have disappeared
from the general picture of such a recent memory, or are placed by false
memories. Indeed it happens almost regularly that just before the
completion of an analysis, certain memories of recent experiences
suddenly come to light. They had been held back all this time, and had
left noticeable gaps in the context.
We have pointed out that such a crippling of the ability to recall is
characteristic of hysteria. In hysteria symptomatic conditions also
arise (hysterical attacks) which need leave no trace in the memory. If
these things do not occur in compulsion-neuroses, you are justified in
concluding that these amnesias exhibit psychological characteristics of
the hysterical change, and not a general trait of the neuroses. The
significance of this difference will be more closely limited by the
following observations. We have combined two things as the meaning of a
symptom, its "whence," on the one hand, and its "whither" or "why," on
the other. By these we mean to indicate the impressions and experiences
whence the symptom arises, and the purpose the symptom serves. The
"whence" of a symptom is traced back to impressions which have come from
without, which have therefore necessarily been conscious at some time,
but which may have sunk into the unconscious--that is, have been
forgotten. The "why" of the symptom, its tendency, is in every case an
endopsychic process, developed from within, which may or may not have
become conscious at first, but could just as readily never have entered
consciousness at all and have been unconscious from its inception. It
is, after all, not so very significant that, as happens in the
hysterias, amnesia has covered over the "whence" of the symptom, the
experience upon which it is based; for it is the "why," the tendency of
the symptom, which establishes its dependence on the unconscious, and
indeed no less so in the compulsion neuroses than in hysteria. In both
cases the "why" may have been unconscious from the very first.
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