Consideration of Early Hypotheses

The Theory of Psychoanalysis by C. G. Jung, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. CHAPTER I

CHAPTER I

Consideration of Early Hypotheses

It is not an easy task to speak about psychoanalysis in these days. I am not thinking, when I say this, of the fact that psychoanalysis in general—it is my earnest conviction—is among the most difficult scientific problems of the day. But even when we put this cardinal fact aside, we find many serious difficulties which interfere with the clear interpretation of the matter. I am not capable of giving you a complete doctrine elaborated both from the theoretical and the empirical standpoint. Psychoanalysis has not yet reached such a point of development, although a great amount of labor has been expended upon it. Neither can I give you a description of its growth ab ovo, for you already have in your country, with its great regard for all the progress of civilization, a considerable literature on the subject. This literature has already spread a general knowledge of psychoanalysis among those who have a scientific interest in it.

You have had the opportunity of listening to Freud, the real explorer and founder of this method, who has spoken in your own country about this theory. As for myself, I have already had the honor of speaking about this work in America. I have discussed the experimental foundation of the theory of complexes and the application of psychoanalysis to pedagogy.

It can be easily understood that under these circumstances I fear to repeat what has already been said, or published in many scientific journals in this country. A further difficulty lies in the fact that in very many quarters there are already prevailing quite extraordinary conceptions of our theory, conceptions which are often absolutely wrong, and unfortunately wrong just in that which touches the very essence of psychoanalysis. At times it seems nearly impossible to grasp even the meaning of these errors, and I am constantly astonished to find any one with a scientific education ever arriving at ideas so divorced from all foundations in fact. Obviously it would be of no importance to cite examples of these curiosities, and it will be more valuable to discuss here those questions and problems of psychoanalysis which really might provoke misunderstanding.

A Change in the Theory of Psychoanalysis

Although it has very often been repeated, it seems to be still an unknown fact to many people, that in these last years the theory of psychoanalysis has changed considerably. Those, for instance, who have only read the first book, “Studies in Hysteria,” by Breuer and Freud, still believe that psychoanalysis essentially consists in the doctrine that hysteria, as well as other neuroses, has its root in the so-called “traumata,” or shocks, of earliest childhood. They continue to condemn this theory, and have no idea that it is fifteen years since this conception was abandoned and replaced by a totally different one. This change is of such great importance in the whole development of psychoanalysis, as well for its technique as for its theory, that I must give it in some detail. That I may not weary you with the complete recitation of cases already well known, I will only just refer to those in Breuer and Freud’s book, which I shall assume are known to you, for the book has been translated into English.[1] You will there have read that case of Breuer’s, to which Freud referred in his lectures at Clark University. You will have found that the hysterical symptom has not some unknown organic source, but is based on certain highly emotional psychic events, so-called injuries of the heart, traumata or shocks. I think that now-a-days every careful observer of hysteria will acknowledge from his own experience that, at the root of this disease, such painful events are to be found. This truth was already known to the physicians of former days.

The Traumatic Theory

So far as I know it was really Charcot who, probably under the influence of Page’s theory of nervous shock, made this observation of theoretical value. Charcot knew, by means of hypnotism, at that time not understood, that hysterical symptoms could be called forth by suggestion as well as made to disappear through suggestion. Charcot believed that he saw something like this in those cases of hysteria caused by accident, cases which became more and more frequent. The shock can be compared with hypnosis in Charcot’s sense. The emotion provoked by the shock causes a momentary complete paralysis of will-power, during which the remembrance of the trauma can be fixed as an auto-suggestion. This conception gives us the original theory of psychoanalysis. Etiological investigation had to prove whether this mechanism, or a similar one, was also to be found in those cases of hysteria which could not be called traumatic. This lack of knowledge of the etiology of hysteria was supplied by the discovery of Breuer and Freud. They proved that even in those ordinary cases of hysteria which cannot be said to be caused by shock the same trauma-element was to be found, and seemed to have an etiological value. It is natural that Freud, a pupil of Charcot, was inclined to suppose that this discovery in itself confirmed the ideas of Charcot. Accordingly the theory elaborated out of the experience of that period, mainly by Freud, received the imprint of a traumatic etiology. The name of trauma-theory is therefore justified; nevertheless this theory had also a new aspect. I am not here speaking of the truly admirable profoundness and precision of Freud’s analysis of symptoms, but of the relinquishing of the conception of auto-suggestion, which was the dynamic force in the original theory, and its substitution by a detailed exposure of the psychological and psycho-physical effects caused by the shock. The shock, the trauma, provokes a certain excitation which, under normal circumstances, finds a natural outlet (“abreagieren”). In hysteria it is only to a certain extent that the excitation does find a natural outlet; a partial retention takes place, the so-called blocking of the affect (“Affecteinklemmung”). This amount of excitation, which can be compared with an amount of potential energy, is transmuted by the mechanism of conversion into “physical” symptoms.

The Cathartic Method.—According to this conception, therapy had to find the means by which those retained emotions could be brought to a mode of expression, thereby setting free from the symptoms that amount of repressed and converted feeling. Hence this was called the cleansing, or cathartic method; its aim was to discharge the blocked emotions. From this it follows that analysis was then more or less closely concerned with the symptoms, that is to say, the symptoms were analyzed—the work of analysis began with the symptoms, a method abandoned to-day. The cathartic method, and the theory on which it is based, are, as you know, accepted by other colleagues, so far as they are interested at all in psychoanalysis, and you will find some appreciation and quotation of the theory, as well as of the method, in several text-books.

The Traumatic Theory Criticized

Although, as a matter of fact, the discovery of Breuer and Freud is certainly true, as can easily be proved by every case of hysteria, several objections can be raised to the theory. It must be acknowledged that their method shows with wonderful clearness the connection between the actual symptoms and the shock, as well as the psychological consequences which necessarily follow from the traumatic event, but nevertheless, a doubt arises as to the etiological significance of the so-called trauma or shock.

It is extremely difficult for any critical observer of hysteria to admit that a neurosis, with all its complications, can be based on events in the past, as it were on one emotional experience long past. It is more or less fashionable at present to consider all abnormal psychic conditions, in so far as they are of exogenic growth, as the consequences of hereditary degeneration, and not as essentially influenced by the psychology of the patient and the environment. This conception is too narrow, and not justified by the facts. To use an analogy, we know perfectly well how to find the right middle course in dealing with the etiology of tuberculosis. There are, of course, cases of tuberculosis where in earliest childhood the germ of the disease falls upon a soil predisposed by heredity, so that even in the most favorable conditions the patient cannot escape his fate. None the less, there are also cases where, under favorable conditions, illness can be prevented, despite a predisposition to the disease. Nor must we forget that there are still other cases without hereditary disposition or individual inclination, and, in spite of this, fatal infection occurs. All this holds equally true of the neuroses, where matters are not essentially different in their method of procedure than they are in general pathology. Neither a theory in which the predisposition is all-important, nor one in which the influence of the environment is all-important, will ever suffice. It is true the shock-theory can be said to give predominance to the predisposition, even insisting that some past trauma is the condition sine qua non of the neurosis. Yet Freud’s ingenious empiricism presented even in the “Studies in Hysteria” some views, insufficiently exploited at the time, which contained the elements of a theory that perhaps more accentuates the value of environment than inherited or traumatic predisposition.

The Conception of “Repression”

Freud synthesized these observations in a form that was to extend far beyond the limits of the shock-theory. This conception is the hypothesis of repression (“Verdrängung”). As you know, by the word “repression” is understood the psychic mechanism of the re-transportation of a conscious thought into the unconscious sphere. We call this sphere the “unconscious” and define it as the psyche of which we are not conscious. The conception of repression was derived from the numerous observations made upon neurotic patients who seemed to have the capacity of forgetting important events or thoughts, and this to such an extent that one might easily believe nothing had ever happened. These observations can be constantly made by anyone who comes into close psychological relations with his patients. As a result of the Breuer and Freud studies, it was found that a very special method was needed to call again into consciousness those traumatic events long since forgotten. I wish to call attention to this fact, since it is decidedly astonishing for a priori we are not inclined to believe that valuable things can ever be forgotten. For this reason several critics object that the reminiscences which have been called into consciousness by certain hypnotic processes are only suggested ones, and do not correspond with reality. Even granting this, it would certainly not be justifiable to regard this in itself as a condemnation of “repression,” since there are and have been not a few cases where the fact of repressed reminiscences can be proved by objective demonstration. Even if we exclude this kind of proof, it is possible to test the phenomena by experiment. The association-tests provide us with the necessary experiences. Here we find the extraordinary fact that associations pertaining to complexes saturated with emotion emerge with much greater difficulty into consciousness, and are much more easily forgotten.

As my experiments on this subject were never reëxamined, the conclusions were never adopted, until just lately, when Wilhelm Peters, a disciple of Kraepelin, proved in general my previous observation, namely, that painful events are very rarely correctly reproduced (“die unlustbetonten Erlebnisse werden am seltensten richtig reproduciert”).

As you see, the conception rests upon a firm empirical basis. There is still another side of the question worth looking at. We might ask if the repression has its root in a conscious determination of the individual, or do the reminiscences disappear rather passively without conscious knowledge on the part of the patient? In Freud’s works you will find a series of excellent proofs of the existence of a conscious tendency to repress what is painful. Every psychoanalyst will know more than a dozen cases showing clearly in their history one particular moment at least in which the patient knows more or less clearly that he will not allow himself to think of the repressed reminiscences. A patient once gave this significant answer: “Je l’ai mis de côté” (I have put it aside).

But, on the other hand, we must not forget that there are a number of cases where it is impossible for us to show, even with the most careful examination, the slightest trace of conscious repression; in these cases it seems as if the mechanism of repression were much more in the nature of a passive disappearance, or even as if the impressions were dragged beneath the surface by some force operating from below. From the first class of cases we get the impression of complete mental development, accompanied by a kind of cowardice in regard to their own feelings; but among the second class of cases you may find patients showing a more serious retardation of development. The mechanism of repression seems here to be much more an automatic one.

This difference is closely connected with the question I mentioned before—that is, the question of the relative importance of predisposition and environment. The first class of cases appears to be mainly influenced by environment and education; in the other, predisposition seems to play the chief part. It is pretty clear where treatment will have more effect. (As I have already said, the conception of repression contains an element which is in intrinsic contradiction with the shock-theory.) We find, for instance, in the case of Miss Lucy R.,[2] described by Freud, that the essential etiological moment is not to be found in the traumatic scenes, but in the insufficient readiness of the patient to set store upon the convictions passing through her mind. But if we think of the later views we find in the “Selected Papers on Hysteria,”[3] where Freud, forced through further experience, supposes certain traumatic sexual events in early childhood to be the source of the neurosis, then we get the impression of an incongruity between the conception of repression and that of shock. The conception of “repression” contains the elements of an etiological theory of environment, while the conception of “shock” is a theory of predisposition.

But at first the theory of neurosis developed along the lines of the trauma conception. Pursuing Freud’s later investigations, we see him coming to the conclusion that no such positive value can be ascribed to the traumatic events of later life, as their effects could only be conceivable if the particular predisposition of the patient were taken into account. Evidently the enigma was to be resolved just at this point. As the analytical work progressed, the roots of hysterical symptoms were found in childhood; they reached back from the present far into the past. The further end of the chain threatened to get lost in the mists of early childhood. But it was just there that reminiscences appeared of certain scenes where sexual activities had been manifested in an active or passive way, and these were unmistakably connected with the events which provoked the neurosis. (For further details of these events you must consult the works of Freud, as well as the numerous analyses which have already been published.)

The Theory of Sexual Trauma in Childhood

Hence arose the theory of sexual trauma in childhood which provoked bitter opposition, not from theoretical objections against the shock-theory in general, but against the element of sexuality in particular. In the first place, the idea that children might be sexual, and that sexual thoughts might play any part with them, aroused great antagonism. In the second place, the possibility that hysteria had a sexual basis was most unwelcome, for the sterile position that hysteria was either a reflex neurosis of the uterus or arose from lack of sexual satisfaction had just been given up. Naturally, therefore, the real value of Freud’s observations was disputed. If critics had limited themselves to that question, and had not adorned their opposition with moral indignation, a calm discussion would have been possible. In Germany, for instance, this method of attack made it impossible to get any credit for Freud’s theory. As soon as the question of sexuality was touched general resistance, as well as haughty contempt were awakened. But in truth there was but one question at issue: were Freud’s observations true or not? That alone could be of importance to a really scientific mind. It is possible that these observations do not seem very probable at first sight, but it is unjustifiable to condemn them a priori as false. Wherever really sincere and thorough investigations have been carried out it has been possible to corroborate his observations. The fact of a psychological chain of consequences has been absolutely confirmed, although Freud’s original conception, that real traumatic scenes were always to be found, has not been.

Theory of Sexual Trauma Abandoned

Freud himself abandoned his first presentation of the shock-theory after further and more thorough investigation. He could no longer retain his original view as to the reality of the sexual shock. Excessive sexuality, sexual abuse of children, or very early sexual activity in childhood, were later on seen to be of secondary importance. You will perhaps be inclined to share the suspicion of the critics that the results derived from analytic researches were based on suggestion. There might be some justification for this view if these assertions had been published broadcast by some charlatan or ill-qualified person. But anyone who has carefully read Freud’s works, and has himself similarly sought to penetrate into the psychology of his patients, will know that it is unjust to attribute to an intellect like Freud’s the crude mistakes of a journeyman. Such suggestions only redound to the discredit of those who make them. Ever since then patients have been examined by every possible means from which suggestion could be absolutely excluded. And still the associations described by Freud have been proved to be true in principle. We are thus obliged in the first place to regard many of these shocks of early childhood as phantoms, while other traumata have objective reality. With this knowledge, at first somewhat confusing, the etiological importance of the sexual trauma in childhood declines, as it seems now quite irrelevant whether the trauma really took place or not. Experience teaches us that phantasy can be, so to speak, of the same traumatic value as real shock. In the face of such facts, every physician who treats hysteria will recall cases where the neurosis has indeed been provoked by violent traumatic impressions. This observation is only in apparent contradiction with our knowledge, already referred to, of the unreality of traumatic events in childhood. We know perfectly well that many persons suffer shocks in childhood or in adult life who nevertheless get no neurosis. Therefore the trauma has, ceteris paribus, no absolute etiological importance, but owes its efficacy to the nature of the soil upon which it falls.

The Predisposition for the Trauma

No neurosis will grow on an unprepared soil where no germ of neurosis is already existing; the trauma will pass by without leaving any permanent and effective mark. From this simple consideration it is pretty clear that, to make it really effective, the patient must meet the shock with a certain internal predisposition. This internal predisposition is not to be understood as meaning that totally obscure hereditary predisposition of which we know so little, but as a psychological development which reaches its apogee and its manifestation at the moment, and even through, the trauma.

I will show you first of all by a concrete case the nature of the trauma and its psychological predisposition. A young lady suffered from severe hysteria after a sudden fright. She had been attending a social gathering that evening and was on her way home at midnight, accompanied by several acquaintances, when a carriage came behind her at full speed. Everyone else drew aside, but she, paralyzed by fright, remained in the middle of the street and ran just in front of the horses. The coachman cracked his whip, cursed and swore without any result. She ran down the whole length of the street, which led to a bridge. There her strength failed her, and to escape the horses’ feet she thought, in her extreme despair, of jumping into the water, but was prevented in time by passers-by. This very same lady happened to be present a little later on that bloody day, the 22d of January, in St. Petersburg, when a street was cleared by soldiers’ volleys. Right and left of her she saw people dying or falling down badly wounded. Remaining perfectly calm and clear-minded, she caught sight of a gate that gave her escape into another street.

These terrible moments did not agitate her, either at the time, or later on. Whence it must follow that the intensity of the trauma is of small pathogenic importance: the special conditions form the essential factors. Here, then, we have the key by which we are able to unlock at least one of the anterooms to the understanding of predisposition. We must next ask what were the special circumstances in this carriage-scene. The terror and apprehension began as soon as the lady heard the horses’ foot-steps. It seemed to her for a moment as if these betokened some terrible fate, portending her death or something dreadful. Then she lost consciousness. The real causation is somehow connected with the horses. The predisposition of the patient, who acts thus wildly at such a commonplace occurence, could perhaps be found in the fact that horses had a special significance for her. It might suffice, for instance, if she had been once concerned in some dangerous accident with horses. This assumption does hold good here. When she was seven years old, she was once out on a carriage-drive with the coachman; the horses shied and approached the steep river-bank at full speed. The coachman jumped off his seat, and shouted to her to do the same, which she was barely able to do, as she was frightened to death. Still, she sprang down at the right moment, whilst the horses and carriage were dashed down below.

It is unnecessary to prove that such an event must leave a lasting impression behind. But still it does not offer any explanation for the exaggerated reaction to an inadequate stimulus. Up till now we only know that this later symptom had its prologue in childhood, but the pathological side remains obscure. To solve this enigma we require other experiences. The amnesia which I will set forth fully later on shows clearly the disproportion between the so-called shock and the part played by phantasy. In this case phantasy must predominate to an extraordinary extent to provoke such an effect. The shock in itself was too insignificant. We are at first inclined to explain this incident by the shock that took place in childhood, but it seems to me with little success. It is difficult to understand why the effect of this infantile trauma had remained latent so long, and why it only now came to the surface. The patient must surely have had opportunities enough during her lifetime of getting out of the way of a carriage going full speed. The reminiscence of the danger to her life seems to be quite insufficiently effective: the real danger in which she was at that one moment in St. Petersburg did not produce the slightest trace of neurosis, despite her being predisposed by an impressive event in her childhood. The whole of this traumatic event still lacks explanation; from the point of view of the shock-theory we are hopelessly in the dark.

You must excuse me if I return so persistently to the shock-theory. I consider this necessary, as now-a-days many people, even those who regard us seriously, still keep to this standpoint. Thus the opponents to psychoanalysis and those who never read psychoanalytic articles, or do so quite superficially, get the impression that in psychoanalysis the old shock-theory is still in force.

The question arises: what are we to understand by this predisposition, through which an insignificant event produces such a pathological effect? This is the question of chief significance, and we shall find that the same question plays an important rôle in the theory of neurosis, for we have to understand why apparently irrelevant events of the past are still producing such effects that they are able to interfere in an impish and capricious way with the normal reactions of actual life.

The Sexual Element in the Trauma

The early school of psychoanalysis, and its later disciples, did all they could to find the origin of later effects in the special kind of early traumatic events. Freud’s research penetrated most deeply. He was the first, and it was he alone, who discovered that a certain sexual element was connected with the shock. It is just this sexual element which, speaking generally, we may consider as unconscious, and it is to this that the traumatic effect is generally due. The unconsciousness of sexuality in childhood seems to throw a light upon the problem of the persistent constellation of the primary traumatic event. The true emotional meaning of the accident was all along hidden from the patient, so that in consciousness this emotion was never brought into play, the emotion never wore itself out, it was never used up. We might perhaps explain the effect in the following way: this persistent constellation was a kind of “suggestion à échéance,” for it is unconscious and the action occurs only at the stipulated moment.

It is hardly necessary to give detailed examples to prove that the true nature of sexual manifestations during infancy is not understood. Physicians know, for instance, how often a manifest masturbation persisting up to adult life, especially in women, is not understood as such. It is, therefore, easy to realize that to a child the true nature of certain actions would be far less conscious. And that is the reason why the real meaning of these events, even in adult life, is still hidden from our consciousness. In some cases, even, the traumatic events are themselves forgotten, either because their sexual meaning is quite unknown to the patient, or because their sexual character is inacceptable, being too painful. It is what we call “repressed.”

As we have already mentioned, Freud’s observation, that the admixture of a sexual element with the shock is essential for any pathological effect, leads on to the theory of the infantile sexual trauma.

This hypothesis may be thus expressed: the pathogenic event is a sexual one. This conception forced its way with difficulty. The general opinion that children have no sexuality in early life made such an etiology inadmissible, and at first prevented its acceptance.

The Infantile Sexual Phantasy

The change in the shock-theory already referred to, namely, that in general the shock is not even real, but is essentially a phantasy, did not make things better. On the contrary, still worse, since we are forced to the conclusion that we find in the infantile phantasy at least one positive sexual manifestation. It is no longer some brutal accidental impression from the outside, but a positive sexual manifestation created by the child itself, and this very often with unmistakable clearness. Even real traumatic events of an outspoken sexual type do not always happen to a child quite without its coöperation, but are not infrequently apparently prepared and brought about by the child itself. Abraham stated this, proving his statement with evidence of the greatest interest, and this, in connection with many other experiences of the same kind, makes it very probable that even really sexual scenes are frequently called forth and supported by the peculiar psychological state of the child’s mind. Perfectly independently from psychoanalytic investigation, medical criminology has discovered striking parallels to this psychoanalytic statement.

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