Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneurosesFreud, Sigmund
Science
Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses
Freud, Sigmund
Hysteria; Neuroses; Psychoanalysis
Before I continue with the history of my patient I will add something
about her behavior during the second period of the treatment. Throughout
this whole analysis I made use of the method of evoking pictures and
ideas by pressing the head, a method therefore, which would be
inapplicable without the full cooperation and voluntary attention of the
patient. At times it was really surprising how promptly and how
infallibly the individual scenes belonging to one theme succeeded each
other in chronological order. It was as if she read from a long picture
book the pages of which passed in review before her eyes. At other times
there seemed to be inhibitions, of what kind I could not at that time
surmise. When I exerted some pressure she maintained that nothing came
into her mind. I repeated the pressure and told her to wait, but still
nothing would come. At first when such obstinacy manifested itself I
determined to discontinue the work and to try again, as the day seemed
unpropitious. Two observations, however, caused me to change my
procedure. Firstly, because such failure of this method only occurred
when I found Elisabeth cheerful and free from pain and never when she
had a bad day; secondly, because she frequently made assertions of
seeing nothing after the lapse of a long pause during which her tense
and occupied mind betrayed to me some psychic process within. I
therefore decided to assume that the method had never failed, that under
the pressure of my hands Elisabeth had each time perceived some idea or
had seen some picture but that she was not always ready to inform me of
it and attempted to repress the thing evoked. I could think of two
motives for such concealment; either Elisabeth subjected the idea that
came to her mind to a criticism to which she was not entitled, thinking
it not sufficiently important and unfit as an answer to the question, or
she feared to say it because that statement was too disagreeable to her.
I therefore proceeded as if I were perfectly convinced of the
reliability of my technique. Whenever she asserted that nothing came
into her mind, I did not let that pass. I assured her that something
must have come to her but that perhaps she was not attentive enough,
that I was quite willing to repeat the pressure. I also told her not to
entertain any doubts concerning the correctness of the idea presenting
itself to her mind, that that was not any of her concern; that it was
her duty to remain perfectly objective and to tell whatever came into
her mind, be it suitable or not, and I ended by saying that I knew well
that something did come which she concealed from me and that as long as
she would continue to do so she would not get rid of her pains. After
such urging I found that there was really no pressure that remained
unsuccessful. I then had to assume that I correctly recognized the state
of affairs, and indeed I won through this analysis perfect confidence in
my technique.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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