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It is doubtful if Rivers ever really appreciated or believed in the facts of co-consciousness as these are described by Morton Prince. Certainly his use of this term seemed to imply a total misapprehension of Morton Prince's views.

In the chapter on Dissociation in the new edition the only changes made are the re-wording of a relatively unimportant sentence on page 75 and the substitution of 'Sally' for 'Miss' in reference to the appropriateness of the term co-conscious when applied to the Beauchamp case. But nothing short of a rewriting of the whole of this page could do away with the confusions contained in it.

On page 102, it is now said that the hypnotic state differs from a characteristic attack of dissociation or a fugue "in that it may be accompanied by memories from the ordinary waking state." The words quoted have been substituted for "in having been produced by the suggestion of another person."

On page 109: "the view that in the subject of a fugue the consciousness of one phase underlies the consciousness of the other phase," has been substituted for "the view that in a fugue the normal consciousness is there underlying the split-off consciousness accompanying the activity of the fugue."

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At the foot of page 134: to the sentence ending "it is doubtful whether anything is gained by bringing hysteria within the category of dissociation, are now added the words, "at any rate so far as paralyses and anaesthesias are concerned." "I propose therefore to exclude dissociation from the connotation of hysteria" takes the place of "I have, therefore, no hesitation in excluding, etc."

These are practically all the changes connected with the topic of dissociation that I can find in the new edition, and I cannot admit that they meet, in any appreciable degree, the criticisms contained in my original notice; nor do they adequately represent the extent to which Rivers himself was convinced of the incorrectness of his views concerning dissociation. But it is plain that the changes he was able to make in the text were limited by the necessity for maintaining the integrity of each page so that the stereoplates could be made from the type as originally set up. The handicap which such a restriction imposes is well known to authors, and in the present instance I think it prevented Rivers from making corrections which (as he admitted to me in conversation) he saw were called for.

Dr Rivers' untimely death is an irreparable loss to the world of science; and its recency takes the heart out of any further criticism of this book which we might be inclined to make. Instinct and the Unconscious, though by no means the work on which his fame most surely rests, yet remains to us a striking example of the versatility and originality of his mind and of the wide range of his interests and knowledge.

T. W. MITCHELL.

348

NOTES ON RECENT PERIODICALS.

International Journal of Psycho-Analysis. 1921. Parts 2, 3 and 4.
Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse. 1921. Parts 2, 3 and 4.

An important article in the field of applied psycho-analysis written in English by that brilliant young worker in ethnology and allied subjects, G. Róheim, of Budapest, opens Part 2 of the Journal for 1921. “Primitive Man and Environment” is the subject of this paper, the aim of which is to show how the biological relationships between primitive man and his environment are reflected in the mental life of the individual. Totemism which postulates a magic bond between man and the animals, the idea of re-incarnation, nomadism, and the later tendency to settle and acquire personal property, cave-dwelling, tree-dwelling, the origins of social status, of cosmogonical theories, and of the ideas of heaven and hell acquire a remarkable unity and meaning in the light of the unconscious mental mechanisms and attitudes discovered by psycho-analysis, which predominate so greatly in primitive man. The conclusions here demonstrated by Róheim, without any forcible twisting of material or farfetched interpretations, are not merely supported by a mass of scientific evidence derived from sources entirely independent of psycho-analysis or prior to it, but literally in many points actually coincide with it as far as it goes; the knowledge of the Unconscious merely makes it possible to correlate, and to clarify further, observations already established by previous workers. It is a fortunate circumstance that besides his natural gifts Róheim possesses a sound knowledge of psycho-analysis and an amazing grasp of the English language and familiarity with the wealth of English scientific literature on his subject. His cold and closely reasoned mode of presentation adds to the attractions of his work.

There is a point in common between Róheim's article and the succeeding one, "The Castration Complex," by Stärcke, different as it is in form and subject-matter. It deals with some of the remotest aspects of individual mental development; but the common point with Róheim's work is the inference both writers draw that "the wish-phantasies of the unconscious are ultimately repetitions of real situations" (in Stärcke's words), although in Róheim's work this inference refers also to real situations in phylogenetic, as well as in ontogenetic, development. The work of Stärcke will presumably only interest those already familiar with the important influence of the very earliest stages of individual life on the subsequent development of the libido. Close connections are here traced between the situation of the suckling infant when the mother's nipple is withdrawn from it, either before it is satisfied or during the process of weaning, inducing a sensation of loss and distress, and the later development of the idea of castration, by the association between nipple and penis now well established. The work is undoubtedly valuable and interesting, and is capable of throwing much light on certain types of neurosis.

There are two of this Journal's well-known Collective Reviews in this number: on Normal Psychology and on Mysticism and Occultism; also numerous book reviews.

The next number of the International Journal is a double one comprising Parts 3 and 4. It contains a translation of an article by Eisler, entitled "An Unconscious Phantasy of Pregnancy in a Man under the Guise of Traumatic Hysteria," which was already abstracted from the Zeitschrift for our readers in Vol. 1, Part 2 of this Journal. Besides a very interesting analysis of a case, it presents some important theoretical conclusions.

There are also some remarks on "The Technique of Child-Analysis" by H. von Hug-Hellmuth, a well-known childrens' analyst. Many useful hints are contained in them; it is perhaps inevitable that the result should be a little disappointing. For the writer herself claims that 'intuition' is the chief guidance in these cases and that

almost every one requires different handling; perhaps it is as well that she lays down no golden rules, which might be only too lightheartedly misunderstood and misapplied.

"The Anal-Erotic Factor in Hindu Religion" is the subject of an interesting paper by Berkeley-Hill. He shows in a convincing fashion that the sense of guilt arising from this complex is the mainspring of the Hindu religion and that it has determined the national character and the social customs of the race. The pedantic reaction-formations against impurity and pollution are so severe that anything approaching sublimation has been almost entirely excluded; repression is so heavy that almost no energy is available for the demands and opportunities of reality, all is consumed in maintaining a mental equilibrium of a kind that in other peoples appears only in highly abnormal and neurotic individuals. In character-development and way of life the race has formed itself in the mould of a typical obsessional neurosis; a fact which throws light on the indifference to life observable in these people, and on their longing for Nirvana-existence without desire or feeling. Only so can the conflict be escaped, and just so, in proportion to the severity of their conflicts, do all neurotics crave to escape from life. It is unfortunate that the article does not end with the presentation of these interesting facts and that the author permits himself to go beyond the boundaries of psychology-to judge, to criticize and to compare the Hindus unfavourably with other peoples in respect of their type of mental development.

In a paper on "Psycho-Analysis and the History of Science" van Teslaar defines three stages in the development of science, which he terms atomism, energeticism, and unfoldment. He points out that unfoldment, or the concept of evolution, has by now influenced all sciences except academic psychology. Freud's work has at last placed psychology on a level with the other sciences in this respect, adding to it a genetic, developmental, evolutionistic point of view. "The details of Freud's work amount to a restatement of the recapitulation theory applied to the biologic history of the mind."

A short paper on the character-traits of Shakespeare's Shylock is quite unworthy of this periodical. The extent of Isador Coriat's knowledge of psycho-analysis seems limited to connecting love of money with coprophilia and hate with sadism. His theme is to prove that there is nothing specifically Jewish about the character of Shylock a question of interest to certain individuals, perhaps, but one which concerns psychology only if it is connected with an investigation into the characteristic psychology of the Jewish race. This little matter the author completely overlooks, and indeed by implication he denies the existence of any such phenomenon as a characteristic Jewish psychology. It is regrettable that the International Journal should lend itself to the publication of a production, however insignificant, of no intrinsic value and plainly actuated by strong resistances' against personally disagreeable ideas.

66

Psycho-Analysis and Psychiatry" is the title of an exceedingly interesting but difficult and obscure paper by Stärcke, not made more comprehensible by having been too hastily translated into English from the German of a Dutchman. An abundance of original ideas, an independent judgment, and the capacity for perceiving and bringing to light hidden connections are here brought to bear on this much more general subject, just as in the same author's article on the "Castration Complex"; both are the work of a mind which has freed itself from many inhibitions. There is in all Stärcke's work a note of enthusiasm and rebellion (to say nothing of his humour) which rings out arrestingly; at the same time there is in it an undertone of melancholy which comes to expression in an unfaltering acceptance of truth. Where his ideas will ultimately find their place we cannot tell, and while so much is speculative in the new science it matters comparatively little; we can but be grateful to those who are willing to throw some light, though it can only be a flickering and uncertain one, upon unanswered questions and unsolved problems-those who, as the author himself says, thereby forego the gratification which "non-analytical psychiatry finds in the compulsion to solve and finish with problems, even though the solution be illusory.” The renunciations in narcissistic gratification required by analytic work are becoming recognized; the author devotes the first part of his paper to a detailed

consideration of the forms they take. The phenomenon of "personal error," so important in other branches of scientific investigation, is shown to have been recognized at last, by psycho-analysis, as prevailing in an equal or even greater degree in the science of mind. Psychiatry and psychology have ignored it hitherto. The author hints further at some aspects of the new standard of human values which we may expect to arise from the new knowledge. "The old-style psychiatrist was a servant of the censorship, an instrument of society. The analyst has a more comprehensive duty to society, dictated by the same healing endeavour, but pointing in an opposite direction. He must reconcile society with the Libido, with death, in short, with the Unconscious." Something of this kind has often been said, but this writer has attempted to map out the narrow course through which, by abnegation and fortitude, this goal may finally be reached.

The second part of the paper is more technical, if not more speculative. It endeavours to trace the relations between the neuroses and the psychoses, and incidentally considers most of the normal forms of human life as well. Perhaps the author's earnest efforts in this section to steer a course between cynicism and idealism are the best evidence of the exceptional quality of his thought. Next, having attempted to show the forms of regression and fixation of Libido and their relation to the Egoimpulses in the various manifestations of human development, the author endeavours to trace a sketch of the development of the Ego-impulse and its paths of regression. Broadly, the function of the Ego-impulse is to arrest and control discharges of energy ("that which cannot postpone discharges evaporates and is destroyed"); its various stages of development and modes of functioning are enumerated and described. The relation of these stages to the development of consciousness and memory is also sketched. The final conclusion is that "the savage in us is not replaced by the civilized human being, but covered over by him as by a net. The primitive peeps through the meshes on all sides. (For instance, the 'epileptic,' convulsive character of many normal reactions, such as laughter, sneezing, outbursts of applause, etc., is pointed out.) In every stage of inhibition resounds a little of each stage that has been surmounted in the immeasurable past; the greater the share of the lower stages, the more the stages of rhythm and repetition etc. are contained in any one, the more unrestrained and profound a gratification it provides."

In 1919, for this paper and that on the “Castration Complex,” Dr August Stärcke received from Professor Freud the prize founded by Dr Max Eitingon to be awarded yearly for the best work on medical psycho-analysis.

Among the shorter communications in this number is one from Ernest Jones upon an interesting device of the censorship in the dream-work. The history of an old man who was a patient in the wards of a general hospital, 'contributed by John Rickman, would be interesting and entertaining to any observer of humanity; in the light of psycho-analysis the unconscious meaning of his extraordinary story is plain, and we can even understand why it is so amusing. The pleasure-principle governs our unconscious minds and our chief pleasures are derived from the impulses and tendencies which belong there, or from the spectacle of them at work in others, whether we recognize them consciously or not.

A Collective Review of recent literature on the subject of "Sexual Perversions" is contained in this number, and several book reviews.

Of the Zeitschrift for 1921, Part 2 contains some interesting shorter communications, besides original articles appearing also in English in the Journal. Eisler describes the outbreak of an attack of manic excitement and the manifest ambivalence which showed itself in the symptoms. He finds that the case supports Freud's view that the striking symptoms of insanity constitute the attempts of the diseased mind to regain a state of equilibrium and that the ambivalence is made use of as a mechanism which may be suitably employed for this purpose. Feldmann, who also describes the onset of dementia praecox in three cases of men wounded or disabled during the war, was enabled, owing to the favourable circumstances of military service, to observe the gradual development of the disease and the conditions out of which it arose. Abraham describes two incidents, showing how a young woman suffering

from hebephrenia with a delusion of being robbed 'defrauded' herself by spending or hiding some money, in order to substantiate her delusion. A contributor offers an extract from a book of travel in Siberia, by Kennan, giving an account of an epidemic 'disease' prevalent in a certain district. Most of its victims were women; the symptoms took the form of a loss of consciousness, with a suddenly acquired facility for speaking unknown languages, in which the sufferer made known some unfulfilled wish. Her recovery could only be effected by fulfilling her wish, which usually took the form of a desire to possess something belonging to someone else. That this very frequent occurrence was a form of infectious illness the inhabitants unhesitatingly believed; the Russian governor of the district, however, gave it as his opinion that the patients required no treatment beyond corporal punishment. He said that a woman who wanted a new hat and failed to obtain it by the usual tormenting methods would produce a few convulsions and a song or two in a remote dialect in which she demanded the hat as a physiological need. One husband had to travel 300 versts in the depth of winter to obtain a silk dress which his wife demanded in this fashion. The author concludes that "in the light of these remarkable achievements of feminine strategy the women of America will have to admit that their Siberian sisters have succeeded far better than all the societies for women's rights in the art of getting what they want and throwing sand in the eyes of their lords and masters." Psychoanalysts at any rate will find the account amusing, and will see in it a new form of a psychological phenomenon common enough under the guise of a neurosis. The rest of the communications in this number are concerned with dreams, and include a very good example of the way in which something temporarily forgotten (in this case a dream) may be recalled through free association.

Among other original articles, Part 3 of the Zeitschrift for 1921 contains a discussion by Alexander of the points of view put forward by Freud in his recent work Beyond the Pleasure-Principle. He endeavours to show that the conception of what Freud there calls death-instincts and life-instincts, and describes as a speculative surmise, can be supported by deductive reasoning from biological and chemical facts. An article by Nunberg on "The Catatonic Attack," published in Part 1 of Zeitschrift for 1920, and abstracted in Vol. I, part 1 of this Journal, forms the basis of a further paper in this number on "The Course of the Libido-Conflict in a case of Schizophrenia." The attempts of the Libido to regain an object-investment, and so to detach itself from the narcissistic investment of the Ego characteristic of the psychoses, are here analysed and their various forms described. They were, first: To regain the object, (a) by the aid of speech, (b) by narcissistic identification carried out on the basis of anal, aggressive, and cannibalistic impulses. The failure of these processes to effect an object-investment and therewith recovery led to two further attempts: (a) an attitude of 'transitivism,' in which self and object were felt to be interchangeable and there was failure to discriminate between them, (b) projection and the feeling of being wronged and injured by the object. The latter was closely related to the transitivism, which mainly expressed negative impulses, and both represented the activation of the narcissistic omnipotence of thought. This also proving unsatisfactory, the patient finally succeeded in developing an object-attachment to the physician by identifying him with the father. A transition stage between the idea of being harmfully influenced and the object-investment was expressed by the wish to be hypnotized. A partial recovery became possible after the Libido could be again directed towards an object.

Eisler contributes to this number a long abstract of Freud's Beyond the PleasurePrinciple.

"Transference and Object-Choice" is the title of the article, contributed by Hattingberg, opening Part 4 of the Zeitschrift for 1921. He discusses the usual assumption of the psychology of consciousness that feelings and affects are essentially connected with their objects, and arise in relation to their specific objects and not otherwise. This is directly controverted by experience with the phenomenon of transference in psycho-analytic treatment, where the affect arises irrespective of the

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