Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneurosesFreud, Sigmund
Science
Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses
Freud, Sigmund
Hysteria; Neuroses; Psychoanalysis
No analysis can be brought to an end if one does not know how to meet
the resistances resulting from the causes mentioned. The way can be
found if one bears in mind that the new symptom produced after the old
model should be treated like the old symptoms. In the first place it is
necessary to make the patient conscious of the obstacle. In one of my
patients, in whom the pressure symptoms suddenly failed and I had cause
to assume an unconscious idea like the one mentioned in 2, I met it for
the first time with an unexpected attack. I told her that there must
have originated some obstacle against the continuation of the treatment
and that the pressure procedure has at least the power to show her the
obstacle, and then pressed her head. She then said, surprisingly, “I see
you sitting here on the chair, but that is nonsense, what can that
mean?”—But now I could explain it.
In another patient the obstacle did not usually show itself directly on
pressure, but I could always demonstrate it by taking the patient back
to the moment in which it originated. The pressure procedure never
failed to bring back this moment. By discovering and demonstrating the
obstacle, the first difficulty was removed, but a greater one still
remained. The difficulty lay in inducing the patient to give information
where there was an obvious personal relation and where the third person
coincided with the physician. At first I was very much annoyed about the
increase of this psychic work until I had learned to see the lawful part
of this whole process, and I then also noticed that such a transference
does not cause any considerable increase in the work. The work of the
patient remained the same, she perhaps had to overcome the painful
affect of having entertained such a wish, and it seemed to be the same
for the success whether she took this psychic repulsion as a theme of
the work in the historical case or in the recent case with me. The
patients also gradually learned to see that in such transferences to the
person of the physician they generally dealt with a force or a deception
which disappeared when the analysis was accomplished. I believe,
however, that if I should have delayed in making clear to them the
nature of the obstacle, I would have given them a new, though a milder,
hysterical symptom for another spontaneously developed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account