Collected Papers on Analytical PsychologyJung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Science
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology
Jung, C. G. (Carl Gustav)
Psychoanalysis
2. Next came a pretty, coquettish, seventeen-year-old girl with a
harassed, suspicious mother. The young daughter had suffered since early
girlhood from _enuresis nocturna_, which, among other difficulties,
hindered her from going to a boarding-school abroad.
At once I thought of the old woman and her wisdom. I tried to hypnotise
the girl; she laughed affectedly and prevented hypnosis for twenty
minutes. Of course I kept quiet and thought: I know why you laugh; you
have already fallen in love with me, but I will give you proof of my
decency in gratitude for your wasting my time with your challenging
laughter. I succeeded in hypnotising her. Success followed at once. The
enuresis stopped, and I therefore informed the young lady later that,
instead of Wednesday, I would not see her again for hypnosis till the
following Saturday. On Saturday she arrived with a cross countenance,
presaging failure. The enuresis had come back again. I remembered
my wise old woman, and asked: "When did the enuresis return?" She
(unsuspecting), "Wednesday night." I thought to myself, There it is
again, she wants to show me that I simply must see her on Wednesdays
too; not to see me for a whole long week is too much for a tender,
loving heart. But I was quite resolved to give no help to such annoying
romancing, so I said, "To continue the hypnosis would be quite wrong
under these circumstances. We must drop it for quite three weeks, to
give the enuresis a chance to stop. Then come again for treatment." In
my malicious heart I knew I should then be on my holiday and so the
course of hypnotic treatment would come to an end. After the holidays my
_locum tenens_ told me the young lady had been there with the news that
the enuresis had vanished, but her disappointment at not seeing me was
very keen. The old woman was right, thought I.
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