The strange manner in which these compensating influences break through into the conscious mind derives its peculiarities from the fact that they have to struggle against the resistances already existing in the conscious mind, and therefore present themselves to the patient's mind in a thoroughly distorted manner. And secondly, these compensating equivalents are obliged necessarily to present themselves in the language of the unconscious--that is, in material of a heterogeneous and subliminal nature. For all the material of the conscious mind which is of no further value, and can find no suitable employment, becomes subliminal, such as all those forgotten infantile and phantastic creations that have ever entered the heads of men, of which only the legends and myths still remain. For certain reasons which I cannot discuss further here, this latter material is frequently found in dementia præcox. I hope I may have been able to give in this brief contribution, which I feel to be unfortunately incomplete, a glimpse of the situation as it presents itself to me of the importance of the unconscious in psychopathology. It would be impossible in a short discourse to give an adequate idea of all the work that has already been done in this field. To sum up, I may say that the function of the unconscious in conditions of mental disturbance is essentially a compensation of the content of the conscious mind. But because of the characteristic condition of one-sidedness of the conscious striving in all such cases, the compensating correctives are rendered useless. It is, however, inevitable that these unconscious tendencies break through into the conscious mind, but in adapting themselves to the character of the one-sided conscious aims, it is only possible for them to appear in a distorted and unacceptable form. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 182: Paper given before the Section of Neurology and Psychological Medicine, Aberdeen, 1914. Reprinted from the _British Medical Journal_, by kind permission of the Editor, Dr. Dawson Williams.] CHAPTER XI A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES[183] It is well known that in their general physiognomy hysteria and dementia præcox present a striking contrast, which is seen particularly in the attitude of the sufferers towards the external world. The reactions provoked in the hysteric surpass the normal level of intensity of feeling, whilst this level is not reached at all by the precocious dement. The picture presented by these contrasted illnesses is one of exaggerated emotivity in the one, and extreme apathy in the other, with regard to the environment. In their personal relations this difference is very marked. Abstraction creates some exceptions here, for we remain in affective rapport with our hysterical patients, which is not the case in dementia præcox.