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among numbers. He does not omit to lay stress on the importance of manner and expression, etc. in conveying unconscious signs. One would like to know, though, how far such signs can convey any indication of the specific nature of the complexes involved, over and above the more 'functional' material, the degree of repression or otherwise of some complex unknown. No doubt this question is one of those which, as Freud says, depend upon the varying degrees in all the various factors at work, so that each case would require a separate estimation and judgment. Reik points out, and it is a conclusion which often comes upon one in analytic work, that owing to the same impulses being common to everyone coincidences in their activation must very frequently occur. It is certain that the contents of a popular book would be capable of being associated, probably in many ways, with the primary tendencies in the mind of every reader; the question in this instance is, did or did not the onlookers unconsciously know that the exhibitionistic-prostitutioncomplex was behind the lady's inhibition, and if so, how? and if not, how did the corresponding complex come to be aroused in them? But the probability is that they did know! for the title of the book which they all knew and forgot was "Ben-Hur," a word foreign to the Viennese but almost identical in sound and spelling with two Viennese words meaning "I am a prostitute" (Bin Hure).

Reik concludes by mentioning that a widespread capacity to forget unpleasant ideas or groups of ideas is an established phenomenon in racepsychology, particularly in primitive races, and refers to Freud's "Totem and Taboo." He remarks that although much has yet to be done in explanation of mass-psychology, it is already clear enough that the same forces are at work, in the individual and in the race, in the course of one life or through a succession of countless generations, bringing about forgetfulness and memory, repression and the return of the repressed.

"Wish-fulfilments in Earthly and Divine Punishments" is a heading under which Groddeck has collected a great deal of material. He writes in a most vivid, terse style, plunging straight into his analytic interpretations, which deal mostly with phantasies of punishment, and he links some of these up with different types of punishment performed in reality by man upon his fellows.

Life after death is a fruitful subject for phantasy. So strong is the lust, and the sly cunning, of the Unconscious that even the idea of eternal punishment is a distorted form of eternal joy. By the close relation of love and death, the fire of desire which runs through the whole of human existence is projected even beyond the grave; belief in Hell and the Devil is an expression of the insatiable unconscious craving for pleasure. In speech, in myth, in custom, fire stands for love; hell-fire represents the wish to prolong the moment of passion through eternity. The dark, moist cavern of hell, in which fire burns, is the female organ; the devil, with hoofs, horns, tail and pitchfork is the phallus; the boiling oil in which the damned seethe is the seminal fluid. Death and the grave signify the return to the mother's womb; being devoured by worms symbolises birth (worm child). Cremation can mean purification by fire, an abbreviated form of the punishments of hell and purgatory, or an attempt by a voluntary penance to escape torture, or by the scattering of the ashes to evade the resurrection of the body.

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Individual analyses furnish special conceptions of tortures hereafter. A young girl imagined the nipples of her breasts being eternally pinched with red-hot pincers. This proved to be a talion punishment for an infantile form of

sexual wish, in which the female was imagined to bite off a piece of the male organ, which formed the child in her. The castration' was to be performed on her, by the biting jaws of the pincers. Castration (the punishment par excellence in the unconscious mind) is itself associated with the sexual act (through the loss of erection in the organ after emission); beheading can represent both this punishment and the sexual act itself, the flow of blood being associated with emission and the collapse of the body in death with the resulting flaccidity of the organ. The legends of Salome and John the Baptist, of Judith and Holofernes show this clearly; in David and Goliath, both figures represent the male organ, in its two forms, large and smali. Popular excitement over executions, tales of atrocities in war, burning of houses, cutting off the breasts of women, and so on, are due to these associations.

Another female patient had the idea that in hell the devil would hammer a thick wooden stake into ber genitals, or that she would be torn into four pieces by four stallions. Both were formed from experiences of a sexual kind in which parting the legs was the main feature. A similar idea was met with in another young girl, namely, that the devil would hack at the genitals with a chopper, or hounds with fiery tongues would lick them, while she lay with legs wide-stretched upon a block. This was traced to a past experience connected with a chopping-block and a dog. The phantasy of riding naked on a razor in hell, in another patient, was traced to experiences of a sexual nature from behind, and to envy of a brother's organ. The phantasy of being pierced by a red-hot stake and roasted, and the medieval tortures of roasting and staking are symbolic of the sexual act.

The author then goes more closely into the devil as a symbol. The devil is frequently supposed to be black; this is also a common attribute of those burglars and murderers (and bogies) who are suspected to be under beds and behind curtains. The expectation of sexual violence-which Groddeck says is the only demonstration which is ever accounted a genuine proof of love by a woman!—is at the root of the fascination which savages in travelling circuses have for women, and is behind the dread of the native troops during the late war. Black stands for night, darkness and excitement; white for day-light and respectability. Besides this, the devil is frequently represented as brown, not black, and this leads to another group of associations. In one case of a female patient, eternal punishment took the form of the devil inserting a stake into the rectum and twisting it for ever there; analysis clearly showed that the agony caused by the devil and his stake was but a projection into eternity of pleasurable sensations caused by the faeces pressing into and being retained in the anal canal. Results of analyses make clear that besides symbolising the male organ, the brown stinking devil also represents the stool, the importance of which as an instrument of pleasure Groddeck finds still under-estimated, in spite of the work on anal-erotism already done. He says it is a form of pleasure which humanity learns to enjoy earlier and makes more use of and retains later, than the genital, even to the moment of death. Selfgratification has here its source and earliest form, not merely in a particular class of persons called anal-erotics, but in the whole human race; the gratification obtained is so habitual that it is hardly perceived in consciousness. But experiment and attention bring proof to anyone of the reality of analerotic pleasure and also make conviction easier in regard to such problems as infantile birth-theories, the money-complex, paederastia, and 'castration'ideas (which spring originally from the experience of parting with the faeces). Groddeck finds that suicide-phantasies are always in closest symbolic

association with the predominating sexual desire. Thus with men, shooting and hanging are the commonest forms of it, representing ejaculation and loss of erection in the trap which symbolises the woman. With women, poisoning and drowning, signifying impregnation or giving birth, and falling from a height, meaning a sexual, moral fall, are commonest. The wish-fulfilment in the idea of re-incarnation is obvious enough; further, the fear of being reborn in some distasteful shape, of the other sex, or in animal form, is founded on a wish. Animals are permitted self-gratification without reproach, and so also are the insane; the author finds that terror of madness has reference to wishes of this kind. Many interesting details of cases illustrating all these points are given.

We can only endorse the author's conclusions, both as regards the enormous influence of the unconscious tendency towards gratification, upon both life and phantasy, and the interpretation of the particular manifestations discussed. Especially in regard to the faecal significance of black and browncoloured love-objects, two cases in the writer's experience fully confirm Groddeck's conclusions. It is worth noting that the contempt felt for 'coloured' races is without doubt derived from this source, contempt being a characteristic reaction to anal-interests. This cannot be unconnected with the dread of savage licence and of madness, the humiliations involved being dreaded partly as punishments (madness as a consequence of masturbation, for instance) and partly as fulfilments of repressed wishes.

Eugenia Sokolnicka contributes an extremely interesting account of a cure of an obsessional neurosis, in a boy of 111, in the short space of six weeks. As the author herself makes clear, a complete and true analysis was not possible; it was to some extent modified by educative and disciplinary suggestions based on analytic comprehension of the case.

The child was extremely ill, quite unable to attend school or learn, almost unable to collect his thoughts at all or attend to anything; his whole life was dominated by compulsive ceremonies, which also involved his mother's whole time and attention. He was half-starved, for every mouthful of food occasioned the most terrible doubt and anxiety and required the most elaborate precautions and performances. This applied also to all the other everyday requirements of ordinary life. Besides this, the boy frequently lost consciousness and became very violent, biting, kicking and tearing the mother and her clothes, until he would fall at last sobbing and exhausted into a chair. These attacks had given rise to a suspicion of epilepsy. Apart from this, the child was exceedingly good and sweet-tempered, dutiful, scrupulously honourable and truthful; in fact, too good.

Sokolnicka gives a most attractive account of the skilful way in which she dealt with this difficult case in such a short time, and a most vivid picture of the psychological situation in the child's mind. The little obsessions and compulsions are so easily interpreted and the childish terror and mental agony so monstrous that the story gives, as it were, a flashlight exposure of the Unconscious, bringing a conviction of the reality of these dark psycho-analytic truths, seldom received with such simplicity and completeness in analyses of more complicated cases. We see the exciting sexual thoughts and wishes. almost in the bare crudity of their childish forms; the struggle to fight them goes on almost before our eyes, and we perceive almost actually the awful burden of repression enveloping the child. The love for the mother, belief in

magic, sexual curiosity, onanistic impulses, the terror of the forbidden, make up this tale these are the hidden causes which underlie the disease. This little account should go far to convince any doubters of the overwhelming significance of the sex-life for every individual.

Freud's preface to the fourth edition of the "Three Contributions to Sexual-Theory" is printed here. It deals with the opposition which this volume above all his other works has always met with. He says that although the psycho-analytic theories in regard to the Unconscious, repression, conflict, the mechanisms of symptom-formation and so on, have been more widely accepted he sees no reason to believe that the doctrines laid down in this book are less well-founded on careful and unprejudiced research than any others. Moreover, the explanation of the opposition lies so close to hand. So many doctors have not the patience or the experience necessary for finding out these truths for themselves in prolonged analyses, or else the requirements of a quick cure make it impossible; and doctors who do not practise analysis are not in a position to form an opinion about that which only analysis can reveal. If mankind understood how to learn these things from the direct observation of children the "Three Contributions" need never have been written.

Again, the emphasis in this book on the significance of the sexual element in every department of life has led to an exaggeration of the idea, so that the nonsensical reproach is now common, that psycho-analysis explains ‘everything' by sex. And yet Schopenhauer had previously shown clearly enough the extent to which sexuality—in the usual narrow sense- influences the life and deeds of mankind. As for the broader sense of the word sexuality, which includes those impulses which are found in children and in perverts, those who regard psycho-analysis with contempt are reminded that the divine Plato called it-Eros.

Under the title "Autistic Thinking in Children," Markuscewicz describes two cases in which phantasy-construction proved useful in enabling the subject to deal with difficulties in life. The process is compared with the delusions of the insane. Sachs gives eight instructive notes of observations made in the course of analytic practice. Hitschmann contributes a note insisting on the importance of urethral-erotism in the obsessional-neurosis, ranking it equal to the anal-sadistic partial impulses. He relates the common compulsive washing symptom to this impulse, by the equivalence of water and urine. The question has to be considered whether the prevalence of urethral-erotism and its importance in this disease are constitutional, as with the anal-sadistic impulses, or whether it plays a more symptomatic part. Grüninger reviews the subject of "Psycho-Technique and Pyscho-Analysis," remarking that the decay of academic experimental psychology appears to be leading towards the study of the psycho-physical 'conditions of work.' In this field, probably more work has been done in this country than abroad. The author dwells upon the difficulty of testing the affective factor and regrets that 'psycho-technique' works upon the assumption of a stable emotional factor, which is actually very rarely present. Flournoy contributes a note on the symbolism of the key, with some drawings by an insane patient, and some general remarks upon symbolism. There follow, in conclusion, reviews of twenty books.

JOAN RIVIERE.

REVIEWS.

Collected Papers on the Psychology of Phantasy. By Dr CONSTANCE E. LONG. Baillière, Tindall & Cox, 1920. pp. xii + 216.

This volume, composed of papers which have been read before various societies between the years 1916 and 1920, presents the analytical standpoint of a sane and observant mind. The book is singularly free from fanaticism and the style is simple and unforced. The meaning of analysis is perhaps brought home to the lay reader more humanly, naturally and convincingly in this book than in any other volume of its kind. The illustrations are drawn from many sources, the psychology of the child being particularly referred to. The significance of analytical psychology in its practical application to human affairs is to Dr Long a matter that is intimately bound up with many of the problems existing to-day in Western civilisation. She emphasises the need for the unconscious as being one of the most important factors behind modern unrest. In conjunction with other observers she finds that the problem of man does not only lie in a satisfactory adaptation or relationship to objective reality, but also in a satisfactory relationship to the unconscious. From this point of view, man stands between two worlds; the world of the unconscious and the world of reality. Neurosis results from a failure of adaptation in one direction, or in the other direction; or in both directions. Dr Long associates herself with the Freudian interpretations up to a certain point. She finds, however, that the unconscious is more than an infantile wish-fulfilling apparatus produced by repression. In the unconscious lie the under-expressed elements of the psyche. When the psychology is one-sided in its conscious manifestation the other sides, or missing psychological functions, are found to lie towards the unconscious. Neurosis, therefore, to Dr Long, is not merely a question of partial failure of repression, and psychic health does not rest on a basis of repression. Neurosis is the result of a one-sided psychological development, and psychic health is a matter of growth. Neurosis is psychological mal-development. Such a view gives to the unconscious a considerably wider significance than that attributed to it by the followers of Freud. The over-development of one particular psychological function, such as the intellect, leads to a disproportion in the psyche as a whole, and to the non-expression of other human functions that should be developed for a normal and harmonious life. In such a case, the feelings lie towards the unconscious and appear therefore in the products of the unconscious, namely, in the phantasies and dreams. Viewed from this standpoint, the products of the unconscious appear to Dr Long as giving valuable indications of the direction along which the life-line of psychological health should be developed, even although that may involve a partial sacrifice of the most valuable and most fully-developed function. It is in this sense that the dream becomes compensatory. Dr Long points out that the compensatory theory of the unconscious mind is perhaps one of Jung's most valuable ideas. The wish-fulfilment theory of dreams narrows the possibility of interpretation, so that monotony results. The reaction to this monotony is frequently interpreted as resistance, but it is question

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