Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneurosesFreud, Sigmund
Science
Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses
Freud, Sigmund
Hysteria; Neuroses; Psychoanalysis
Miss Elisabeth who was in constant relation
with her brother-in-law must have been particularly exposed to the
appearance of new traumas.
I must now occupy myself with the point which I have designated as a
difficulty for the understanding of the afore mentioned history. On the
analytical basis I assume that the first conversion took place in the
patient while she nursed her father, at the time when her duties as
nurse came into conflict with her erotic yearnings, and that this
process was the prototype for the later ones which led to the outbreak
of the disease in the Alpine watering place. But then we have it from
the patient’s statement that at the time of nursing and the period
following which I designated as the “first period” she had not suffered
at all from the pains and weakness. To be sure, during the illness of
her father she was once bedridden for a few days with pains in her legs,
but it is doubtful whether this attack already belonged to the hysteria.
A causal relation between these first pains and any psychic impressions
could not be demonstrated by analysis; it is possible, even probable,
that at that time we dealt with a common rheumatic muscular pain. Even
if we should assume that this first attack of pain was the result of a
hysterical conversion in consequence of the rejection of the erotic
thoughts then existing, the fact nevertheless remains that the pains
disappeared after a few days so that the patient actually behaved
differently than she did during the analysis. During the reproduction of
the so called first period all her statements concerning the illness and
death of her father, the impressions relating to her first
brother-in-law, etc., all these were accompanied by manifestations of
pain, while at the time she really experienced these impressions she
perceived no pains. Is this not a contradiction tending to considerably
diminish the confidence in the explanatory value of such an analysis?
I believe that I can explain the contradiction by assuming that the
pains—the product of the conversion—did not originate while the patient
experienced the impressions during the first period, but subsequently,
that is in the second period when the patient reproduced these
impressions in her mind. The conversion did not follow the fresh
impressions but the memories of them. I even believe that such a process
is not at all unusual in hysteria and regularly participates in creating
hysterical symptoms. Nevertheless, as such an assertion does not seem
plausible I shall attempt to make it more credible by citing other
experiences.
It once happened to me during a similar analysis that a new hysterical
symptom was formed during the treatment so that I could attempt its
removal on the day after its origin.
I will describe the essential features of the history of this patient.
They are simple but not without interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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