Psycho-Analysis and the War NeurosesFreud, Sigmund
History
Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis; War neuroses
At this juncture we must again refer to the previously mentioned
circumstance that in our patients the anxiety as regards killing is
of a similar significance to that of dying. The symptoms in part
are only comprehensible in this sense. The case of a man who in the
field suffered from a relapse of a neurosis which he had had six
years previously is especially instructive. At that time he was taken
with a tremor of his arm which arose in connection with a dream in
which he murdered someone; a hand-to-hand fight in the field caused
the old symptom to reappear. Hysterical convulsive attacks are not
only produced through dangerous situations, terror, etc., but not
infrequently an act of aggression which he has failed to carry out is
expressed in them. Such an attack is especially often associated with
an exchange of words with his superiors; the suppressed impulse to
forcible activity finds in the expression its motor discharge.
The complete instability of many war neurotics, their disconcerting
depression, their propensity to thoughts of death, find a further
explanation in a particular effect of the trauma. Many of the
neurotically disposed persons, up to the moment when the trauma upsets
them, have supported themselves only through an illusion connected
with their narcissism, namely, through the belief in their immortality
and invulnerability. The effect of an explosion, a wound, or things of
a like nature suddenly destroys this belief. The narcissistic security
gives way to a feeling of powerlessness and the neurosis sets in.
To what an extent the regression can go is shown in those cases,
described also in the literature, in which the patients display the
conduct of little children. One of my patients who was previously
neurotic was thrown into this kind of condition through the terrifying
effect of a mine explosion. For a long time he behaved like a terrified
little child. For many weeks he could only reply to all questions about
his trouble with the two words, “Mine bombs”. He had therefore gone
back to the mode of expression of a child hardly two years old.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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