Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneurosesFreud, Sigmund
Science
Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses
Freud, Sigmund
Hysteria; Neuroses; Psychoanalysis
It is left for me to utilize the explanations gained in this case of
paranoia for the comparison of paranoia with compulsion neurosis. Here,
as there, the repression was shown to be the nucleus of the psychic
mechanism, and in both cases the repression is a sexual experience of
childhood. The origin of every compulsion in this paranoia is in the
repression, and the symptoms of paranoia allow a similar classification
as the one found justified in compulsion neurosis. Some symptoms also
originate from the primary defense among which are all delusions of
distrust, suspicion and persecution by others. In the compulsion
neurosis the initial reproach became repressed through the formation of
the primary symptom of defense, self-distrust, moreover, the reproach
was recognized as justified, and for the purpose of adjustment the
validity acquired by the scrupulousness during the normal interval now
guards against giving credence to the returning reproach in the form of
an obsession. By the formation of the defense symptom of distrust in
others, the reproach in paranoia is repressed in a way which may be
designated as projection; the reproach is also deprived of recognition,
and as a retaliation there is no protection against the returning
reproaches contained in the delusions.
The other symptoms in my case of paranoia are therefore to be designated
as symptoms of the return of the repression, and as in the compulsion
neurosis they show the traces of the compromise which alone permits an
entrance into consciousness. Such are the delusions of being observed
while undressing, the visual hallucinations, the perceptual
hallucinations and the hearing of voices. The memory content existing in
the delusion mentioned is almost unchanged and appears only uncertain
through utterance. The return of the repression into visual pictures
comes nearer to the character of hysteria than to the character of
compulsion neurosis; still, hysteria is wont to repeat its memory
symbols without modification, whereas the paranoiac memory hallucination
undergoes a distortion similar to those in compulsion neurosis. An
analogous modern picture takes the place of the one repressed (instead
of a child’s lap it was the lap of a woman upon which the hairs were
particularly distinct because they were absent in the original
impression). Quite peculiar to paranoia but no further elucidated in
this comparison is the fact that the repressed reproaches return as loud
thoughts, this must yield to a double distortion: (1) a censor, which
either leads to a replacement through other associated thoughts or to a
concealment by indefinite expressions, and (2) the reference to the
modern which is merely analogous to the old.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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