Collected Papers on Analytical PsychologyJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Science
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Psychoanalysis
The first attempts to assume friendship and love are constellated in
the strongest manner possible by the relation to parents, and here one
can usually observe how powerful are the influences of the familiar
constellations. It is not rare, for instance, for a healthy man whose
mother was hysterical to marry a hysteric, or for the daughter of an
alcoholic to choose an alcoholic for her husband. I was once consulted
by an intelligent and educated young woman of twenty-six who suffered
from a peculiar symptom. She thought that her eyes now and then took
on a strange expression which exerted a disagreeable influence on men.
If she then looked at a man he became self-conscious, turned away and
said something rapidly to his neighbour, at which both were either
embarrassed or inclined to laugh. The patient was convinced that her
look excited indecent thoughts in the men. It was impossible to convince
her of the falsity of her conviction. This symptom immediately aroused
in me the suspicion that I dealt with a case of paranoia rather than
with a neurosis. But as was shown only three days later by the further
course of the treatment, I was mistaken, for the symptom promptly
disappeared after it had been explained by analysis. It originated
in the following manner: The lady had a lover who deserted her in a
very marked manner. She felt utterly forsaken; she withdrew from all
society and pleasure, and entertained suicidal ideas. In her seclusion
there accumulated unadmitted and repressed erotic wishes which she
unconsciously projected on men whenever she was in their company.
This gave rise to the conviction that her look excited erotic wishes
in men. Further investigation showed that her deserting lover was a
lunatic, which she had not apparently observed. I expressed my surprise
at her unsuitable choice, and added that she must have had a certain
predilection for loving mentally abnormal persons. This she denied,
stating that she had once before been engaged to be married to a normal
man. He, too, deserted her; and on further investigation it was found
that he, too, had been in an insane asylum shortly before,--another
lunatic! This seemed to me to confirm with sufficient certainty my
belief that she had an unconscious tendency to choose insane persons.
Whence originated this strange taste? Her father was an eccentric
character, and in later years entirely estranged from his family. Her
whole love had therefore been turned away from her father to a brother
eight years her senior; him she loved and honoured as a father, and
this brother became hopelessly insane at the age of fourteen. That was
apparently the model from which the patient could never free herself,
after which she chose her lovers, and through which she had to become
unhappy. Her neurosis which gave the impression of insanity, probably
originated from this infantile model. We must take into consideration
that we are dealing in this case with a highly educated and intelligent
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