Psycho-Analysis and the War NeurosesFreud, Sigmund
History
Psycho-Analysis and the War Neuroses
Freud, Sigmund
Psychoanalysis; War neuroses
It can be understood that relapses occur in what is on the whole
a comparatively hasty treatment. However, with the help of the
pure analytic method described the character of the relapse can be
established without difficulty. Frequently it is solely a question of
the patients getting into the old surroundings through re-employment by
the military to which they are not psychically equal, and from which
they have escaped with the help of their neurosis, and now they in
defence react with a relapse.
On the other hand, it can frequently be established that the treatment
on account of its shortness has not removed all the unconscious
material. I might mention as an example a soldier who had suffered
from states of excitement and convulsive attacks. After two treatments
the states of excitement disappeared and within four weeks the attacks
had ceased. The patient had to be discharged in spite of the fact that
he still seemed somewhat distressed. After a few months he came back
into the hospital on account of a recurrence of the attacks. In the
treatment carried out when he had first been admitted into the hospital
only those things came to light which were connected with his being
blown up. During hypnosis on his second admission the patient said
that he still had the feeling as though “someone was behind him”. This
feeling of anxiety often increased so terribly that he would have a
convulsive attack. In this attack he constantly saw a dead Russian in
a white shirt who threateningly demanded back a gold ring which the
patient had taken from the Russian after killing him. This occurrence
the patient had completely forgotten, but after I had talked it over
with him when he was awake he became changed, alert and keen to work,
and was now permanently cured of his convulsions.
These theoretical points which I have supported by means of
practical examples will suffice for a primary representation of the
symptomatology of the war neuroses. It is impossible within the compass
of this contribution, with the abundance of material at my disposal, to
represent the numerous forms of the neuroses not mentioned here, and
still further as regards their unconscious conditionality.
In conclusion I should like to give a short description of the neurosis
of a young civil servant, which despite the brevity of the treatment
revealed with classical clearness a modified picture of the nature of
the neurotic predisposition and the actual outbreak of the illness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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