dan tat FT E Ba RE CR m uluE nase 5 oe FATEH Bene. reeks Leeds tesa geiatep et eaet shhh ee une 5 “ Wichatebe ESS pipe 3 oan rg Ne Ta a ee hun ee ea eae Sethe ehe tte etapa se ket tres en aA N este aba ej ai reat WITT NETT U 3 On EHE AT En a 4 ee falas he Te ie . RE 2° KT erg 3 TEN « re aaa ti MR V8, 3 ne Bra BE ERAN Re Vs ee a ee yalsinwerts! ee gan % ehe de 45: rar ET eters a te akopatietets Ihe re an site er arnt ehren age Fephetinie'ear seine Baie he rip bate ight) tabs ee ee a Jalan Hate aeg ae Le rene fastens Stiga eee sacs FEY bate’ Se a peer! en: LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON. N. J. PURCHASED BY THE MARY CHEVES DULLES FUND u at ri . Division. Ne.) “tr “ >. AN Section.a.\\.maIt Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/neuroticconstitu00adle_0 al Tae Ar a NR alow LY a ni an fs earl THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ve ” iR N ee % P ye ; Vail Perk 1) an } at ed { x N , D 4 3 I N Muh - ne y sn a i \ ae x Ty x Akt un Ar it UJ 7 : py he: [ . J ous Pi on i v1 va ‚ N ad wer ieee | RR wey MOE ch oe Noe ry ae de a4 3) , at. pag. Us Aa Se A| N ( Ais : A‘ h sige a ab 7 q i ae a Rie eee FD ees REP HY) aig a Ph By vie i h HN, x € \ a Rz A Nur . f 1 , aa =i ‘ ; A > ; = is i a hse Pee w \ eee + NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION OUTLINES OF A COMPARATIVE INDIVIDUAL- ISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY BY DR. ALFRED ‘ADLER Vienna AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION By BERNARD GLUECK, M.D. Senior Assistant Physician, Government Hospital for the Insane ‚nd JOHN E. LIND, M.D. Senior Assistant Physician, Government Hospital for the Insane NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1926 ig | Published, 1926 Bch. ek | By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Ine. r ae f Yin i Vl ¢ 4 & te men r * i ' (Eo ae i ) i 3 . AN . \ 1 x t ene Fy ‘ ! r i ty m ve J ‘ 1 # i # y vi | \ amt wt Y Br j » J 3 1 er u# BE Kup os j “ i mr yf + ; i 5 a ah 7 et u alia i uy ; ı7 i v x 1 x “ y q T AN? ’ N = * h 4 i % \ 4 ; \ RC a ee eT i ’ ; 4} } / “ Fa 4 ‘PRINTED IN U.S. A. i ER bt eS) ta N i f FEN . , i ; sit thy i 2 1 x 1 4 ’ ’ ‘ y 1 A ‘ 7 4 f #2: a ’ : j \ 4 fr er A ce i A | | HM THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS 000 a j ’ BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK Rae ‘ Py en , ti fi ae) ae 4 iv \ PREFACE After I had made the attempt to investigate in the “Studie über Minderwertigkeit von Or- ganen,” the structure and tectonic of organs in association with their genetic basis, their func- tional capability and destiny, I proceeded, sup- porting myself upon already available data as well as upon my own experience, to apply the same method in the study of psychopathology. In the book before us are embraced the most important results of my comparative, individual- psychologic studies of the neuroses. As was the case in the theory of somatic in- feriority, an empiric basis is made use of in com- parative individual-psychology for the purpose of establishing a fictive standard of normality in order to enable one to measure and compare with it grades of deviation from it. In both of these scientific endeavors, the comparative method of study reckons with the origin of phenomena, dis- misses from consideration the present and seeks to outline from them the future. This method of approach leads us to view the compulsion of evolution and the pathological elaboration as the result of a conflict which breaks forth in the PREFACE organic sphere for the purpose of attaining equi- poise, functional capability and adaptation; the same struggle in the psychic sphere is under the command of a fictitious idea of personality whose influence dominates the development of the neurotic character and symptoms. If in the organic sphere, “the individual develops into a unit mass in which all of the individual parts co- operate toward a common goal” (Virchow), if the various abilities and tendencies of the indi- vidual tend toward a purposefully directed, unit- personality, then we may look upon every single manifestation of life as if in its past, present and future there are contained traces of a dominating, guiding idea. In this way it has appeared to the author of this book, that the most minute trait of psychic life is permeated by a purpose-force. Comparative, individualistic psychology sees in every psychic event the impress, so to speak, or symbol of a uniformly directed plan of life which only comes more clearly to light in the neuroses and psychoses. The result of such an investigation of the neurotic character should furnish proof of the value and utility of our method of comparative, individualistic psychology in the problems of mental life. THE AUTHOR. Vienna, February, 1912. INTRODUCTION “Omnia ex opinione suspensa sunt: non ambitio tantum ad illam respicit et luxuria et avaricia. Ad opinionem dolemus. Tam miser est quisque, quam credidit.” SENECA, Epist. 78, 13. The study of the neurotic character is an éssen- tial part of neuro-psychology. Like all other psychic phenomena it can only be understood when taken in connection with the entire psychic life. A cursory knowledge of the neuroses suf- fices to enable one to discover that which is pe- culiarly characteristic in them and all writers who have studied the problem of nervousness have laid particular stress upon certain peculiar traits of character. ‘The opinion was a general one that the neurotic shows a series of sharply emphasized traits of character which exceed the normal standard. The marked sensitiveness, the irritable debility, the suggestibility, the ego- tism, the penchant for the fantastic, the estrange- ment from reality, but also more special traits such as tyranny, malevolence, a self-sacrificing virtue, coquetry, anxiety and absent-mindedness V vi INTRODUCTION are met with in the majority of case histories and it would be necessary to detail all writers who have thoroughly studied the subject in order to endorse their contributions. Of the more recent ones, Janet, who has carried on the traditions of the famous French school and who has brought to light some very important and ingenious analyses, must be especially mentioned. His emphasis of the neurotic’s “sentiment d’incomple- tude” particularly, is so wholly in harmony with the results offered by me that I am justified in seeing in my work an extension of this most im- portant fundamental fact of the mental life of the neurotic. No matter where one begins with the analysis of psychogenic disorders, one and the same phe- nomenon forces itself upon one’s attention after the briefest observation, namely, that the entire picture of the neurosis as well as all its symptoms are influenced by, nay, even wholly provoked by an imaginary fictitious goal. This final purpose has a creative, directive and adjustive power. The potency of this “goal idea” is revealed to us by the trend and evaluation of the pathological phenomena and should one attempt to dispense with this assumption there remains nothing but a confusing mass of impulses, trends, components, debilities and anomalies which has made the ob- scurity of the neurosis impenetrable to some, while INTRODUCTION vii others have undertaken bold exploratory jour- neys into this field. Pierre Janet has certainly recognized this rela- tionship as is shown in his classical descriptions of the “Hysterical Psyche,” 1894,* but he avoided a detailed description. He expressly maintains, “T have until now only described general and sim- ple traits of character which by means of their as- sociation and under the influence of definite ex- traneous circumstances may produce all kinds of curious behavior and conduct.” It is entirely out of place here to enter into a detailed discussion of Janet’s description for this treatise would then resemble more a moral romance than a clinical study. Having adhered to this attitude even up to his latest contributions on the subject, Janet, notwithstanding his keen insight into the rela- tionship between the psychology of the neuroses and moral philosophy, never entered the road to synthesis. It remained for Joseph Breuer, a man well versed in current German philosophy, to discover the gem which lay in his path. He directed his attention to the meaning of the symptoms and undertook to ascertain the source and purpose of the same from the only one who could give them —from the patient. In so doing the author founded a method which seeks to explain indi- 1Translated by Dr. Max Kahane. viii INTRODUCTION vidual psychological phenomena historically and genetically with the assistance of a preliminary hypothesis, i.e., that of the determinism of psychic phenomena. The manner in which this method has been extended and improved upon by Sig- mund Freud with the host of problems and at- tempted solutions therewith connected belongs to contemporaneous history and has met with both recognition and contradiction. Less for the pur- pose of following a critical bent than for the pur- pose of making clear my own position I beg leave to separate from the fruitful and valuable contri- butions of Freud three of his fundamental views as erroneous inasmuch as they threaten to impede progress in the understanding of the neuroses. The first objection is directed against the view that the libido is the motive force behind the phe- nomena of the neurosis. On the contrary it is the neurosis which shows more clearly than does normal psychic conduct how by means of this neurotic positing of a “final purpose,” the apper- ception of pleasure, its selection and power are all driven in the direction of this final purpose so that the neurotic can really only follow the allure- ment of the acquisition of pleasure with his healthy psychic force, so to speak, while for the neurotic portion only “higher” goals are of value. The neurotic goal (Zwecksetzung) has re- vealed itself to us in the heightened ego-conscious- INTRODUCTION ix ness (Persönlichkeitsgefühl) whose simplest for- mula is to be recognized in an exaggerated “mas- culine protest” (Männlichen Protest). This formula: “I wish to be a complete man” is the guiding fiction in every neurosis, claiming higher reality values than even the normal psyche. ‘The libido, the sex-impulses and the tendencies to sex- ual perversions arrange themselves in accord- ance with this guiding principle, no matter whence they originate. Nietzsche’s “Will to power” and “Will to seem” embrace many of our views, which again resemble in some respects the views of Féré and the older writers, according to whom the sensation of pleasure originates in a feeling of power, that of pain in a feeling of fee- bleness (Ohnmacht). A second objection is directed against Freud’s fundamental view of the sexual etiology of the neuroses, a view which Pierre Janet approached very closely when he asked, “Is sexual feeling then the center around which all other psycholog- ical syntheses are built up?” The applicability of the sexual picture deceives the normal person and especially the neurotic. But it must not de- ceive the psychologist. The sexual content in the neurotic phenomenon originates primarily in the imaginary antithesis: “Masculine-feminine” and is evolved through a change of form of the “mas- culine protest.” The sexual trend in the fantasy x INTRODUCTION and life of the neurotic follows the direction of the “masculine goal,” and is really not a trend, but a compulsion. The whole picture of the sexual neurosis is nothing more than a portrait depicting the distance which the patient is re- moved from the imaginary masculine goal and the manner in which he seeks to bridge it. It is strange that Freud, a skillful connoisseur of the symbolic in life, was not able to discover the sym- bolic in “sexual apperception,” to recognize the sexual as a jargon, a modus dicendi. But we can understand this when we take into consideration the more extensive basic error, 1.e., the assumption that the neurotic is under the influence of infan- tile wishes, which come to life nightly (Dream theory) as well as in connection with certain oc- casions in life. In reality these infantile wishes already stand under the compulsion of the imag- inary goal and themselves usually bear the char- acter of a guiding thought suitably arrayed, and adapt themselves to symbolic expression purely for reasons of thought economy. A sickly girl who during her entire childhood in her conscious- ness of an unusual insecurity leans upon her father and in so doing strives to become superior to her mother, may comprehend this psychic con- stellation in the form of an incest, as if she wished to be the wife of her father. Thereby the goal is both attained and effective; her insecurity is INTRODUCTION xi only abolished when she is with her father. Her developed psycho-motor intelligence, her uncon- sciously active memory combats all feelings of uncertainty with the same aggression, with the adequate expedient, to take refuge in the father as if she were his wife. There she finds that heightened ego-consciousness which she has set for her goal, which she has borrowed from the masculine ideal of childhood, from the over-com- pensation of her feeling of inferiority. If she recoils from a proffer of love or marriage, threat- ening her as they do with a fresh lowering of her ego-consciousness, she acts symbolically, and all her defensive resources and her predispositions become arrayed against a female destiny and make her seek security where she has always found it, with her father. She utilizes an expe- dient, behaves in accordance with a senseless fic- tion, but is nevertheless certain of attaining her goal. The greater her feeling of uncertainty, the more firmly this girl clings to her fiction, en- deavors to take it quite literally and since human thinking favors symbolic abstraction the patient with a little effort (and also the analyst) is suc- cessful in the longing of neurotics, namely, to find security, to gain a foothold in the symbolic pic- ture of incestuous emotion. Freud was obliged to see in this purposeful manifestation a reanimation of infantile wishes xii INTRODUCTION because according to him the latter are to be looked upon as motive forces. We recognize in this infantile mode of procedure, in the extensive use of safety-devices (Hilfsconstructionen), in which light the neurotic fiction is to be regarded, in the many-sided motor preparedness which reaches into the remote past, in the strong tend- ency to abstraction and symbolization, the most useful expedient of the neurotic, who strives to- ward security, toward a maximation of his ego, toward the masculine protest. If we attach to these critical remarks the ques- tion of how the neurotic phenomena come into being, why the patient wills to be a man and con- stantly seeks to adduce proof thereof, whence he has the stronger necessity for ego-consciousness, why he makes such strong endeavors to gain se- curity, in short, if we inquire into the final reasons for these devices of the neurotic psyche, we may conjecture that which is revealed by every analy- sis, namely, that at the onset of the development of a neurosis there stands threateningly the feel- ing of uncertainty and inferiority and demands insistently a guiding, assuring and tranquilizing positing of a goal in order to render life bearable. Among these are especially prominent safety devices and fictions in thought, action and voli- tion. It is clear that this sort of psyche, directed as it INTRODUCTION xiii is with especial force toward a heightening of the ego, will, aside from specific neurotic symptoms, make itself conspicuous in society because of its evident inability to adapt itself. ‘The conscious- ness of the weak point dominates the neurotic to such a degree that often without knowing it he begins to construct with all his might the protect- ing superstructure. Along with this his sensi- tiveness becomes more acute, he learns to pay at- tention to relationships which still escape others, he exaggerates his cautiousness, begins to antici- pate all sorts of disagreeable consequences in starting out to do something or in experiencing an injury, he endeavors to hear further and to see further, belittles himself, becomes insatiable, eco- nomical, constantly strives to extend the bounda- ries of his influence and power over space and time and at the same time loses that peace of mind and freedom from prejudice which above all guaran- tee mental health. His mistrust of himself and others, his envy and maliciousness, become grad- ually more pronounced, aggressive and cruel tendencies which are to secure for him supremacy over his environment, gain the upper hand, or he endeavors to captivate and conquer others by means of greater obedience, submission and hu- mility which not infrequently degenerate into masochistic traits; thus both heightened activity as well as increased passivity are expedients xiv INTRODUCTION ushered in by the fictitious goal of an increased power, of a desire to be above, of the masculine protest. Thus we have arrived at those psychic phenom- ena, at the neurotic character, the discussion of which forms the content of this book. None of _ the neurotic’s traits of character are essentially | new. He shows no single trait which cannot like- wise be demonstrated in the healthy individual, although at times it becomes understandable for the physician as well as the patient only through analysis. It is uninterruptedly “sensitized,” thrust forward like an outpost, and represents the sounding of the environment and the future. The knowledge of these psychic dexterities, which protrude far and wide, like sensitive antenne, first makes possible the understanding of the neurotic’s struggle with his fate, of his stimulated aggressive tendency, his unrest and impatience. For these antenne test all the phenomena of the environment and examine them constantly for their advantages and disadvantages with regard to the assumed goal. They create the keen sense for estimate and comparison, awaken, by means of the attention active in them, fear, hope, doubt, expectations of all sorts and seek to ensure the psyche against surprise and against a lowering of the ego-consciousness. They put forth the most accessible motor dexterities, ever mobile, INTRODUCTION KV ever ready to prevent a degradation of the per- son. The forces of internal and external expe- rience are active in them, they are filled with memory-rests of fear—inspiring as well as con- soling experiences, the reminiscences of which they have changed into dexterities. Categorical imperatives of the second rank, they do not serve to bring about their own existence, but in the last analysis cause an elevation of the ego-conscious- ness and they attempt this by making possible the discovery in the unrest and uncertainty of life, of guiding principles, by facilitating the differentia- tion between right and wrong, up and down, right and left. The accentuated traits of character are to be found already in the neurotic disposition where they give rise to peculiarities and perver- sions of conduct. These become still more pro- nounced when after a more severe attack or after the emergence of a contradiction in the masculine protest, the craving for security (Sicherungsten- denz) asserts itself and simultaneously calls forth symptoms as new, effective expedients. They are largely constructed after models and patterns and have for their object the initiation in every new situation of the struggle for the preservation of the ego and victory for it. In their influence lies the reason for the exaggerated affectivity and lowered threshold of stimulation in contrast with normal individuals. It goes without saying that Xvi INTRODUCTION the neurotic character, too, develops out of ma- terial already at hand, out of psychic impulses and metamorphosing experiences of the somatic functions. All these psychic dexterities, standing as they do in close contact with the outside world, become neurotic only when an inner want accentuates the craving for security which in turn more effec- tively constructs and mobilizes the traits of char- acter only when the fictitious object of life oper- ates more dogmatically and strengthens those secondary guiding principles which are in accord with the traits of character. It is then that the hypostatization of the character sets in, its trans- formation from a means to a goal leads to an in- dependence of existence and a sort of deification lends to it unchangeability and eternal worth. The neurotic character is thus incapable of ad- justing itself to reality because it is always striv- ing toward an impossible ideal. It is a product ' and instrument of a cautious psyche which strengthens its guiding principle for the purpose of ridding itself of a feeling of inferiority, an at- tempt which is destined to be wrecked as a con- sequence of inner contradiction, on the barriers of civilization or on the rights of others. Analo- gous to the groping gestures, pose in facing the rear, to the bodily attitude in the act of aggres- sion, like mimicry as a form of expression and in- INTRODUCTION xvii strument of motility, so the traits of character, especially the neurotic ones, serve as a psychic means and form of expression for the purpose of entering into an account with life, for the pur- pose of assuming an attitude, of gaining a fixed point in the vicissitudes of life, for the purpose of reaching that security-giving goal, the feeling of superiority. Thus we have unmasked the neurotic character as the servant of an imaginary goal and have established its dependence upon a final purpose. It has not sprung up independently out of any sort of biological or constitutional primitive force, but has received direction and motivation from the compensatory superstructure and the sche- matic guiding principle. Its emergence took place under the pressure of uncertainty, its tend- ency to personify itself is the doubtful success of the craving for security. This course of the neurotic character has received through the posit- ing of a final purpose its destination which is the masculine main principle and thus every neurotic tendency betrays to us by its direction that it is impregnated with the masculine protest which seeks to make of it an unfailing instrument for the purpose of excluding from experience every permanent degradation. In the practical part of this book will be shown by means of a series of cases how the “neurotic xviii INTRODUCTION scheme” calls forth special psycho-pathological constellations, namely, through the apperception of experiences by means of the neurotic char- acter. INTRODUCTION Since the inception of the psychoanalytic movement its students have shown a remark- able activity in applying the principles of inter- pretation originally enunciated by Freud over a wide field of human endeavor, and thus not only have the neurotic and the psychotic come under the critical survey of the analyst, but the whole course of cultural development has been subjected to inquiry along these lines. In addi- tion to this growth in the extent of the movement it has manifested what seems to me to be a very healthy tendency, namely, it has shown an in- clination to put forth suggestions as to new meth- ods of approach to the problems, represented here and there by groups of workers who have tended to depart more or less from the original formulations as laid down by Freud. One of the most stimulating and valuable points of view which have been developed in this way is that of Alfred Adler, of Vienna, a translation of whose work on the characteristics of the neurotic character is offered in the following pages. The distinctive feature of Adler’s approach to the problem of the neurotic character traits is that it approaches from the organic rather than from the functional side and in this way, I think, affords a very valuable viewpoint because it tends to bring together the organicist and the X1X xx INTRODUCTION functionalist, who have been too long separated by the misconception of irreconcilable differ- ences between mind and body. No small part of the opposition to the whole psychological move- ment, as represented in psychoanalysis, has come from the inability of the man who has been brought up to look at things from the point of view of the internist -to be able to accept many of the clinical observations which were offered and which tended to show the development of clearly organic disorders as a result of a dis- turbance in the psyche. Adler’s approach to the psychoanalytic problems is admirably calculated to break down such prejudices. In this book, however, the working out of the significance of the various neurotic character traits has been by ringing the changes on the basic formulation of what Adler calls the mascu- line protest. It is as if the neurotic said to himself, “ I wish to be a complete man.” This protest arises on the basis of a feeling of in- feriority and an effort upon the part of the neurotic to correct this feeling, which he does by so ordering his life, so regulating his every act that he may find that security of which the feeling of inferiority has robbed him. This is the fictitious goal of the neurotic and the funda- mental and ultimate cause of his symptoms when he is no longer able to succeed, when failure threatens in his efforts to deal with reality. For Adler the neurosis or the psychosis is comparable to the work of art, but has been built up in response to a fictitious goal which INTRODUCTION xxi collects and unites into a group those psychic elements of which it can make use, collecting only those which promise results in the effort at the attainment of security. ‘The attempt to attain to the maximation of his ego fails because directed along a false path. The neurosis or psychosis is therefore a constructive creation, a compensation product, which, however, fails be- cause of its false direction. All this is very psychological and does not bear out what I have said about it to the effect that Adler’s approach is from the organic side. This particular book, however, stresses the psy- chological formula. In his earlier work on organ inferiority * the organic basis of this psycho- logical formulation is founded. The feeling of inferiority, which underlies the masculine pro- test, has its raison d’etre in an inferior organ. In this work he has gone to considerable ex- tent in working over the psychological charac- teristics of persons who have had demonstrably inferior organs, either clinically evident or show- ing up at autopsy. From this work he believes he has been able to show that the predominant traits of character are the result of an effort on the part of the individual to overcome a feeling of inferiority resulting from an inferior organ. Many examples might be given, and in fact they come within the ken of every one, which demon- strate the validity of this point of view. A classical example is that of Demosthenes, a stam- 1Translation in preparation, as Number 24 of the Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series. xxi INTRODUCTION merer, who became the greatest orator of Greece. Adler believes that defects of this sort nucleate, so to say, the feeling of inferiority and force the individual to make supreme efforts to over- come his particular defect and in this way, as a result of these efforts, the inferior organ, by the development of a highly differentiated nerv- ous superstructure, may actually become super- normal, a result which we are familiar with, for example, in the remarkable facility with which blind people gain information through their supersensitized touch organs. In other words, to use the language of current psychoanalysis, the organ inferiority is the basic factor of what the Freudians refer to as the conflict. These two works of Adler’s, therefore, give the organic basis and the psychological elabora- tion of his opinions. The neurotic constitution founds in an inferior organ, the inferior organ produces a feeling of inferiority, the feeling of inferiority—the masculine protest—becomes the fictitious goal of the neurotic, whose symp- toms result from an effort to mould reality along this false pathway. To those who follow Adler through the vari- ous ramifications of his hypothesis, who read sympathetically his numerous case reports which he offers to substantiate his views, there can be no doubt but that the angle from which he looks at the problem of the neuroses and the psychoses lets us see new aspects of these phenomena which are exceedingly helpful to us in our effort to grasp their meanings. It will also be perfectly INTRODUCTION xxiii evident that the helpfulness of the Adler theories is in the orientation which the physician gets towards the problem presented by the patient, whether he approach it from the point of view of the internist or of the psychologist. Adler’s theories are admirably calculated to help the internist to grasp the possibilities of organ in- feriority as they may affect the psyche and to help the psychoanalyst to grasp the origin and meanings of the neurosis as he sees it at the psychological level and perhaps to see more clearly upon what his limitations are based. In any event the two groups of physicians, hereto- fore separated all too far, both in theory and practice, may find in Adler’s views a common ground upon which to meet. WiıLLIıam A. WHITE. SAINT ELIZABETH’s HosPITAL, WasuHineTon, D. C, October 23, 1916. CHAPTER II III CONTENTS PREFACE THEORETICAL PART INTRODUCTION The Origin and Development of the Feeling of Inferiority and the Consequences Thereof Psychic Compensation and its Synthesis The Accentuated Fiction as the ee Idea in the Neurosis : PRACTICAL PART Avarice, Suspiciousness, Envy, Cruelty, The derogatory critique of the neurotic, neurotic apperception, senile neuroses, changes in the form and intensity of the fiction. Somatic jargon (organ-jargon) The neurotic extension of limits through asceti- cism, love, desire to travel, crime. Simula- tion and neurosis. Feeling of inferiority of the female sex. Purpose of an ideal. Doubt as an expression of psychic hermaphroditism. Masturbation and neurosis. The incest-com- plex as a symbol of craving for dominancy. The nature of the delirium. (Delirium used in the sense of the French une Delire) . Neurotic principles: sympathy, coquetry, nar- cissism, Psychic hermaphroditism, Halluci- natory security, Virtue, conscience, pedantry, fanatic attachment to truth Vets 35 öl 127 208 . 246 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE IV The derogatory tendency to disparage others; Obstinacy and wildness; The sexual rela- tions of neurotics as a means of comparison; Symbolic emasculation; Feeling of being be- littled; Equality to man as a life-plan; Simu- lation and neurosis; Substitute for masculin- ity; Impatience; Discontent; Inaccessibility 281 V Cruelty. Conscience. Perversion and neurosis 324 VI VII VIII IX The antithesis above-beneath, Choice of a profession, Somnambulism, Antithesis in thought, Elevation of the personality through the disparagement of others, Jealousy, Neu- rotic auxiliaries, Authoritativeness, Thinking in antithesis and the masculine protest, Dila- tory attitude and marriage, The tendency up- ward as a symbol of life, Compulsion to masturbation, The neurotic striving for knowledgen.. m Sian und na ge em ta Punctuality, The will to be first, Homosexual- ity and perversion as a symbol, Modesty and exhibitionism, Constancy and inconstancy, JEALOUS. eine eis ende | eens ea» Kae Ra Oe Fear of the partner; The ideal in the neurosis; Insomnia and compulsion to sleep; Neurotic comparison of man and woman; Forms of the fear of) the) wife se) an aden veer nis oe eee Self-reproaches, self-torture, Contrition and asceticism, Flagellation, Neuroses in chil- dren; Suicide and suicidal ideas . . . . 412 The neurotic’s esprit de famille, Refractoriness and obedience, Silence and loquaciousness, The tendency to, contrariness . . ...436 Conclusion PP mer AES gare Pe cae AR REN 24 KO ta ER Authors’ Contributions referred to in this book 447 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ie 2 ’ Live Wyss 0 Mi ur Keely as i Pe A} Were NE fu MR Sk aes d RT re CA NZ sh bs ci om Ay $ ! h r a ; es ® a we HR fa i THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY AND THE CONSEQUENCES THEREOF Tue facts established through my study of somatic inferiority (vide Studie, l.c.) concerned themselves with the causes, the behavior, the man- ifestations and altered mode of activity of in- feriorily developed organs and has led me to as- sume the idea of “compensation through the central nervous system” with which were linked certain discussions of the subject of psychogene- SIS. There came to light a remarkable relationship between somatic inferiority and psychic overcom- pensation, so that I gained a fundamental view- point, namely, that the realization of somatic in- feriority by the individual becomes for him a permanent impelling force for the development of his psyche. Physiologically there results from this a reén- 1 2 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION forcement of the nerve tracts, both quantitatively and qualitatively, whereby a concomitant original inferiority of these tracts is enabled to reveal in a composite picture its tectonic and functional peculiarities. The psychic phase of this compensation and overcompensation can only be disclosed by means of psychologic investigation and analysis. As I have given a detailed description of organ- inferiority as the etiology of the neuroses in my former contributions, especially in the “Studie,” in the “Ageressionstrieb,” in “Psychischen Her- maphroditismus,” in the “Neurotischen Disposi- tion” and in the “Psychischen Behandlung der Trigeminusneuralgie,” I may in the present de- scription confine myself to those points which promise a further elucidation of the relationship between somatic-inferiority and psychic compen- sation and which are of importance in the study of the neurotic character. Summarizing, I lay stress on the fact that organ-inferiority, as described by me, includes the incompleteness in such organs, the frequently demonstrable arrests of development or func- tional maturity, the functional failure in the post- fetal period and the fetal character of organs and systems of organs; on the other hand the accen- tuation of their developmental tendency in the presence of compensatory and coördinating THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 3 forces and the frequent bringing about of in- creased functional activity. One may easily de- tect in every instance from observation of the child and from the anamneses of the adult that the possession of definitely inferior organs is re- flected upon the psyche—and in such a way as to lower the self-esteem, to raise the child’s psycho- logical uncertainty; but it is just out of this lowered self-esteem that there arises the struggle for self-assertion which assumes forms much more intense than one would expect. As the compen- sated inferior organ gains in the scope of activity both qualitatively and quantitatively and acquires protective means from itself as well as from the entire organism, the predisposed child in his sense of inferiority selects out of his psychic resources expedients for the raising of his own value which are frequently striking in nature and among which may be noted as occupying the most prom- inent places those of a neurotic and psychotic character. Ideas concerning innate inferiority, predispo- sition, and constitutional weakness may be found even in the very beginnings of scientific medicine. In leaving out of discussion here many note- worthy contributions, although they frequently contained fundamental viewpoints, we do so solely because the relationship between organic and psychic disease states, albeit dwelt upon, was 4 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION never explained. In this class belong all view- points of pathology which are founded upon a general assumption of degeneracy. Stiller’s theory of the asthenic habitus goes considerably further and almost attempts to establish etiologi- cal relationships. Anton’s compensation theory confines itself all too-closely to correlation systems within the central nervous system; nevertheless, he, as well as his talented pupil, Otto Gross, have made noteworthy attempts to bring about on this basis a clearer understanding of certain psychotic states. Bouchard’s bradytrophy, the exudative diathesis described by Ponflick, Escherich, Czerny, Moro and Striimpel, and interpreted by them as a disease-producing diathesis, Comby’s infantile arthritism, Kreibich’s angio-neurotic diathesis, Heubner’s lymphatism, Poltauf’s status thymico-lymphaticus, Escherich’s spasmophilia and Hess-Eppinger’s vagotonia are successful attempts of recent decades to describe disease states associated with congenital inferiority. All of them refer to heredity and infantile characteristics. But, although the vague and in- constant limits of the predispositions in question are emphasized by the authors themselves, the impression is not to be ignored that certain con- spicuous types have been isolated which in the course cf time will be brought within one large group, namely, that of the minus-variants. Of THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 5 extreme importance for the understanding of congenital inferiority and predisposition to dis- ease are the researches into the glands of internal secretion in which morphologic as well as func- tional deviations have been discovered, e.g., the thyroids, the parathyroids, the sex glands, the chromaffin system and the hypophysis. Consid- ered from the standpoint of their organ-inferiori- ties the orientation of the composite picture be- comes easier and the relationship to compensation and correlation in the economy of the entire body becomes clearer. Among the remaining inves- tigators who took as the basis for their views not a primum-movens, but a combined influence of various organ-inferiorities and mutual interac- tion of the same, Martius, above all, must be men- tioned. In my contribution on “The Inferiority of Organs” (1907), the idea of the coordination of the coexisting inferiorities likewise appears prominently. ‘The fact is not to be lightly evalu- ated that the simultaneously existing organ-in- feriorities stand in relation to one another as if united by a secret bond. Bartel likewise has extended his theories con- cerning the status thymico-lymphaticus, which represents a considerable advance in science, to such limits as to invade the boundaries of the sys- tems of other authors. Kyrle too, supporting himself by the newly discovered pathological find- 6 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ings, reached quite independently conclusions identical with mine, namely, that the codrdination of the inferiority of the sexual apparatus with other organ-inferiorities, though frequently only slightly developed, is nevertheless so often found to exist that I must maintain that there exist no organ-inferiorities without an accompanying de- fect in the sexual apparatus. Because of some future considerations I must also mention certain of the views of Freud who assumes a sexual constitution as the basis of the neuroses and psychoses, under which term he un- derstands a qualitatively and quanitatively vary- ing arrangement of partial sex impulses. This assumption simply corresponds to a postulate ad- vanced by him for his other views. The develop- ment of perverse inclinations and their unsuccess- ful repression into the unconscious furnishes, ac- cording to him, the picture of the neurosis, and in itself forms the primary cause for the neurotic psyche. We shall see from our considerations that perversion so far as it reaches development in the neurosis and psychosis is not dependent upon a connate impulse, but that it arises from the striving towards a fictitious goal in connection with which the repression takes place as a by- product under the pressure of the self-conscious- ness. That which, however, is to be taken cognizance THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 7 of biologically in an originally abnormal sexual conduct, namely, the greater or lesser sensitive- ness, the heightened or lowered reflex activity, the functional valency as well as the compensa- tory psychic superstructure indicates directly as I have shown in my “Studie” a congenital defect of the sexual organ. Concerning the nature of the predisposition to disease dependent upon organ-inferiority there exists a unanimity of opinion. The standpoint assumed by me (“Studie,” J.c.) emphasizes more strongly than does that of other authors, the as- surance of an adjustment through compensation. With the release from the maternal organism there begins for these inferior organs or systems of organs the struggle with the outside world, which must of necessity ensue and which is initi- ated with greater vehemence than in the more normally developed apparatus. This struggle is accompanied by greater mortality and morbidity rates. This fetal character, however, at the same time furnishes the increased possibility for com- pensation and over-compensation, increases the adaptability to ordinary and extraordinary resist- ances and assures the attainment of new and higher forms, new and higher accomplishments. Thus the inferior organs furnish the inexhaust- ible material by means of which the organism continuously seeks to reach a better accord with 8 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION the altered conditions of life through adapta- tion, repudiation, and improvement. Its hyper- valency is deeply rooted in the compulsion of a constant training, in the variability and greater tendency to growth, frequently associated with inferior organs, and in the more facile evolution of the appertaining. nervous and psychic com- plexes, on account of the introspection and con- centration bestowed on them. The evils of con- stitutional inferiority manifest themselves in the most varied diseases and predispositions to dis- ease. At times various somatic or mental disabilities develop, at other times an over-irritability of the nerve tracts, then again clumsiness of manner, ungainliness, precocity. A host of childhood de- fects codperate with the predisposition to disease and form a close union, as I have shown, with the organic or functional inferiority. Strabismus, anomalies of refraction of the visual apparatus or photophobia with its train of symptoms, deaf- mutism, stuttering and other defects of speech, difficulty of hearing, the organic and psychic de- fects which go with adenoid vegetations, the com- plete aprosexia, the frequent affections of the sensory organs, of the respiratory and digestive tracts, striking ugliness and deformities, periph- eral stigmata of degeneration and nevi which may indicate more profound organ-inferiorities THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 9 (Alder, Schmidt). Hydrocephalus, rickets, anomalies of stature as scoliosis, round shoulders, genu varus or valgus, pes varus or valgus, a pro- tracted incontinence of feces and urine, malfor- mations of the genitals, results of small arteries (Virchow) and the numerous consequences of defects of the internal secretory glands as de- scribed by Wagner v. Yauregg, Frankl v. Hoch- wert, Chvostek, Bartel, Escherich, Pineles and others, all of which reveal in their great abun- dance, in the variety of their combinations, the large sphere of disease manifestations as disclosed to the physician through an understanding of organ-inferiority. It was especially pediatrists and pathologists who first noted these relation- ships. But the concept of degeneracy has like- wise become of increasing importance to neu- rology and psychiatry. The line of advance stretches all the way from Morel’s theory of the stigmata of degeneration to the consideration of nervous diseases from the standpoint of an in- ferior constitution. We need only consider the statistical study of Thiemich-Birks and Potpesch- nigg’s contributions (cited by Gott) concerning the fate of children who were treated in the first and second years of their lives for tetanoid con- vulsions. Of these children only a small number became entirely well. In most instances there were found later definite signs of somatic and 10 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION psychic inferiority, psychopathic and neuropathic characteristics. As such, these authors mention infantilism, squints, difficulty of hearing, speech defects, feeble-mindedness, disturbances of sleep, pavor nocturnus, somnambulism, enuresis, exag- gerated reflexes, tics, paroxysms of rage, truancy, timidity, pathological lying and habitual fugues. Gott as well as other authors reached the con- clusion that in spasmophilie children there exists a predisposition to severe neurotic and psycho- pathic states. Czerny and others maintain that a similar relationship may be found in children suffering from gastro-intestinal disorders. Bartel was able to discover among suicides a considerable preponderance of the status thymico- lymphaticus, especially a hypoplasia of the sexual organs. The existence of somatic inferiority among juvenile suicides was shown by me, Net- slitzky and others. Frankl v. Hochwert de- scribed states of excitement, irritability and hal- lucinatory confusion, in tetany. French writers (cited from Pfaundler) ascribe to the torpid habitus of children, moroseness, indolence, sleepi- ness, distractibility, stupidity and phlegmatism, to the erotistic type, restlessness, liveliness, irri- tability, precocity, moodiness, affectivity, unso- ciability, peculiarity of disposition and one-sided development. Pfaundler emphasizes the harass- ing, tormenting and painful influences to which THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 11 defective children are subject as a result of skin eruptions, colic, disturbances of sleep and func- tional anomalies. Czerny, who called attention to the relationship between intestinal disturb- ances of children and neuroses, emphasizes es- pecially the importance of psychotherapy in chil- dren who became neurotic in the course of consti- tutional diseases. Only recently Hamburger has thrown light upon the nature of the ambitions in neurotic children, while Stransky showed the re- lation between myopathy and psychic manifesta- tions. These brief references give us an insight into the attempts of the present day scientific trends to emphasize and maintain the relation between psychic anomalies in childhood and constitutional inferiority. The first comprehensive funda- mental views concerning this relation were pub- lished by me in the “Studie,” wherein I showed how the inferior organ constantly endeavors to make a very special demand upon the interest and attention. I was able to prove in this and other contributions to what extent inferiority of an organ constantly shows its influence on the psyche in action, in thought, in dreams, in the choice of a vocation and in artistic inclinations and capabil- ities.’ 1See also Adler, “The Theory of Organ-inferiority and Its Significance for Philosophy and Psychology.” Address in the 12 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The existence of an inferior organ demands a kind of training on the part of the appertaining nerve tracts and on the part of the psychic super- structure which would render the latter active in a compensatory manner when a possibility for compensation exists. In such an event, however, we must likewise find a reénforcement in the psy- chic superstructure of certain allied points of con- tact which the inferior organ has with the outside world. To the originally inferior organ of vision cor- responds a reénforced visual psyche; a defective digestive apparatus will be accompanied by a greater psychic capability in all nutritional direc- tions, as gourmondism, acquisitiveness, and where it concerns money equivalents, stinginess and greed, will be manifested to an extraordinary de- gree. The ability of the compensating nervous sys- tem will manifest itself through qualified reflexes (Adler) and conditioned reflexes (Bickel) by means of sensitive reactions and exaggerated sen- sitiveness. The compensating psychic super- structure will bring about an accentuated mani- festation of the psychic phenomena of presenti- ments and forethoughts and their effective fac- tors such as memory, intuition, introspection, Philosophic Society of the Vienna University, 1908, and J. Reich, “Art and the Eye,” Oesterreichische Rundschau, 1908. THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 13 analysis, attention, hypersensitiveness, in brief, of all the fortifying psychic forces. To these re- assuring forces belong also the fixation and accentuation of those traits which form useful guiding principles in the chaos of life, thus dimin- ishing the feeling of uncertainty. The neurotic individual is derived from this sphere of uncertainty and in his childhood is under the pressure of his constitutional inferior- ity. In most cases this may be easily detected. In other cases the patient behaves as if he were inferior. In all cases, however, his striving and thinking are built upon the foundation of the feeling of inferiority. This feeling must always be understood in a relative sense, as the outgrowth of the individual’s relation to his environment or to his strivings. He has constantly been draw- ing comparisons between himself and others, at first with his father, as the strongest in the family, sometimes with his mother, his brothers and sis- ters, later with every person with whom he comes into contact. Upon closer analysis, one finds that every child, especially the one less favored by nature, has made a careful estimate of his own value. The constitutionally inferior child, the unattractive child, the child too strictly reared, the pampered child, all of whom we may align as being predisposed to the development of a neuro- sis, seek more diligently than does the normal child 14 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION to avoid the evils of their existence. They soon long to banish into a distant future the fate which confronts them. In order to bring this about, he, the defective child, requires an expedient which enables him to keep before his eyes a fixed picture in the vicissitudes of life and the uncer- tainty of his existence. He turns to the con- struction of this expedient. He sums up in his self-estimation all evils, considers himself incom- petent, inferior, degraded, insecure. And in order to find a guiding principle he takes as a second fixed point his father or mother who en- dowed him with all the attributes of life. And in adjusting this guiding principle to his thinking and acting, in his endeavors to raise him- self to the level of his (all-powerful) father, even to the point of surpassing the latter, he has quite removed himself with one mighty bound from reality and is suspended in the meshes of a fic- tion. Similar observations may also be made in a lesser degree among normal children. ‘They too desire to be great, to be strong, to rule as the father, and are guided by this objective. Their conduct, their psychical and physical attitude is constantly directed towards this goal, so that one may almost detect a true imitation, an identical psychic gesture. Example becomes the guide to the “masculine” THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 15 goal, so long as the masculinity is not doubted. Should the idea of “the masculine goal” become unacceptable to girls, then there takes place a change of form of this “masculine” guiding prin- ciple. One can scarcely evaluate this phenome- non in a more correct way than by assuming that the necessary denial of the gratification of certain organic functions forces the child from the first hour of his extrauterine life into assuming a com- bative attitude towards his environment. From this result tensions and accentuations of certain organically acquired abilities—c’est la guerre!— as I have described them in my “Studie” and the “Aggressionstrieb.” ? In the temporary denials and discomforts which the first years of childhood bring with them, one must seek the impulse for the develop- ment of a host of common traits of character. Above all the child learns, in his weakness and helplessness, in his anxiety and manifold short- comings to value an expedient which assures him of the help and support of his relatives and guar- antees their concern. In his negativistic be- havior, in his obstinacy and refractoriness, he often finds a gratification of his consciousness of his own powers, thus ridding himself of the pain- ful realization of his inferiority. Both main- 2 Adler, “Der Aggressionstrieb im Leben und in der Neurose,” Lc. 16 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION springs of the child’s behavior, obstinacy and obedience (Adler, “Trotz and Gehorsam”) guar- antee to him an accentuation of his feeling of ego- consciousness and assist him in groping his way towards the masculine goal or, as we wished to adduce before, towards the equivalent of this. The awakening self-eonsciousness is always being suppressed in constitutionally inferior children, their self-esteem is lowered because their capacity for gratification is much more limited. Let us consider the numerous restrictions, the courses of treatment and the sufferings of chil- dren ill with gastro-intestinal derangements; the effeminacy and fastidiousness seen in the anemic, weakly children suffering from respiratory dis- orders; the itching and tortures of those afflicted with prurigo and other exanthemata; the many degrading defects of childhood; the fear of con- tamination on the part of the parents of such chil- dren which often leads, as do the frequent difficul- ties in their bringing up—in their school progress as well as the stubbornness of these children—to an isolation and misunderstanding on the part of their comrades and within the family circle. In the same manner the self-consciousness is injured by rachitic clumsiness, congenital obesity and the lesser grades of mental backwardness. The child usually explains his difficulty by the assumption of a neglect, a slight by the parents, especially as THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 17 it occurs in later children or in the youngest, occa- sionally even in the first born. This hostile ag- gression, reénforced and accentuated in constitu- tionally inferior children, becomes confluent with his effort to become as great and strong as the strongest and thrusts forward activities which lie at the bottom of the infantile ambition. All later trains of thought and activities of the neurotic are constructed similarly with his childhood wish phantasy. The “recurrence of the identical” (Nietzsche) is nowhere so well illustrated as in the neurotic. His feeling of inferiority in the presence of men and things, his uncertainty in the world force him to an accentuation of his guiding principles. To these he clings throughout life in order to orient himself in existence by means of his beliefs and superstitions, in order to overcome his feeling of inferiority, in order to rescue his sense of ego-consciousness, in order to possess a subterfuge to avoid a much-dreaded degradation. Never has he succeeded so well in this as during his childhood. His guiding fiction which makes him behave as if he surpassed all others may therefore also bring about a form of conduct iden- tical with that of the child. In such manner then the infantile gratifica- tions become criteria and thus strengthen the guiding principle. It would be amiss to assume that only the neurotic exhibits such “guiding prin- 18 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ciples.” The healthy individual would also have to do without orientation in the world if he did not arrange the cosmic picture and his expe- rience according to some imaginary fiction. In hours of uncertainty these fictions come to the fore more distinctly and become the imperative influences dominating beliefs, ideals and free will; moreover they also act secretly in the unconscious like all other psychic mechanisms whose verbal image they represent in conscious thought. Log- ically considered they are to be regarded as ab- stractions, as simplifications, which have for their object the solution of life’s difficulties in a manner analogous to that required for the simplest expe- riences. The original type of these simplest ex- periences, the meshwork of apperceptive memory, we found in studying the child’s efforts to solve his difficulties. In dreams this form of appercep- tion is still more obvious; we shall consider this subject later. The neurotic carries his feeling of inferiority constantly with him. Hence his method of think- ing by analogy is more strongly and clearly de- veloped. His “misoneism” (Lombroso), his fear of the new, of decisions and tests, which is usually present, originates from the lack of analogy for these new conditions. He has chained himself so strongly to guiding principles, taken them THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 19 so literally and sought to realize them only, that unconsciously he has become incapable of pro- ceeding freely and without prejudice to the solu- tion of real problems. Even the necessary limi- tations imposed by reality, where matters clash for want of room, do not impel him to reject his fiction because he is forced to suspend it, but only to alter it. Still more consequentially the psychotic patient strives to bring about a realiza- tion of his fiction. The neurotic in real life flounders in his self-created guiding principle and thus arrives at a splitting of the personality in seeking to do justice to both the real and the imaginary requirements. The form and content of the neurotic “guiding principle’ originate from the impressions of the child who feels him- self neglected. These impressions, which of necessity develop out of an original sense of in- feriority, call forth an aggressive attitude in life, the object of which is the overcoming of the un- certainty. In this attitude of aggression all those efforts of the child which tend toward an elevation of his feeling of ego-consciousness find their place, successful efforts which prompt a repetition, unsuccessful ones which serve as me- mentoes for those goal-preparing tendencies de- veloped out of a conspicuous organic disease and which express themselves in a mass of psychic predispositions, as well as those observed in 20 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION others. All the phenomena of the neuroses orig- inate from these predisposing means which tend toward the attainment of the final object, mascu- linity. They are mental predispositions always. ready to initiate the straggle for ego-conscious- ness, they obey the command of the guiding prin- ciple which seeks to realize itself through the channels of reactions lying ready at hand in child- hood. In the developed neuroses the fiction stimulates all these predispositions whereupon they comport themselves as independent final purposes. Anxiety, which formerly sought to furnish assurance against being alone, against underestimation, against the feeling of insignifi- cance, is hypostasized; the compulsion, originally in the sense of the fiction to preserve a manly be- havior, becomes independent; in fainting, in paralysis, in the hysterical pains and functional disturbances, the pseudo-masochistic method of the patient is symbolically represented, in which he seeks to attract attention or to avoid a decision which is feared. ‘The important role played by the neurotic uncertainty, as I have recognized and described it, leads to that sort of strengthen- ing of the predisposition and its consequences which makes the originally unimportant phenom- ena of a functional nature assume the most aston- ishing exaggeration as soon as the inner exigency demands it. THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 21 The gaze of the neurotic, on account of this feeling of uncertainty, is directed far into the future. All present existence is to him only a preparation. Moreover this circumstance is largely responsible for encouraging his dreaming proclivities and estranging him from the world of reality. As with religious persons his king- dom is not of this world and like them he cannot free himself from his self-created deity, the exal- tation of his ego-consciousness. A host of gen- eral traits of character of necessity develop in an individual thus turned away from reality. First of all must be mentioned the deep reverence in which are held the expedients which subserve the fiction. An individual of this type will as a rule manifest a carefully adjusted mode of behavior, exactness and pedantry, first of all, in order not to increase the great difficulties of life and sec- ondly and principally, in order to distinguish him- self from others in dress, in work, in morals, and thus acquire for himself a feeling of superiority. This exaggerated trait of character usually serves also to bring him face to face with the enemy, to furnish the opportunity for a maturing of such situations as will bring him into conflict with his environment so that he finds occasion for giving vent to reproaches. At the same time these con- stant reproaches serve to keep alive his feeling, his attention, to the fact that people are neglect- 22 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ing him, that they are not taking him into ac- count. This trait may be found even in the child- hood of certain neurotics where it serves the pur- pose of putting some one at their service, say the mother, who must take care of their clothes every evening for a considerable length of time in a definitely prescribed manner. In a similarly re- markable manner, anxiety and timidity gain ex- pression and I must adhere to the opinion, in spite of all other attempts at explanation, that the psy- chic phenomena of anxiety originate from an hal- lucinatory excitation of a predisposition which in childhood developed automatically from small beginnings as soon as a bodily injury was threat- ened, and which in later life, especially in the neuroses, is conditioned by the final goal, namely, to escape a lowering of ego-consciousness and to make oneself of service to others. It is easy to understand how all wish-phantasies may attain an enormous degree, just as attainment seldom brings with it satisfaction. One may assume without fear of contradiction that a neurotic “wishes to have everything.” This desire coin- cides with his “guiding fiction” to become potent. If he draws back in horror before undertakings which promise advantage, as he usually does be- fore crimes and immoral acts, it is because he en- tertains fears for the safety of his ego-conscious- ness. For this reason he recoils in horror from THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 23 lying, but in order to proceed with certainty and in order to preserve steadfastness he may harbor the thought that he is capable of great evils and crimes. That this obstinate pursuit of the fiction implies a social injury is obvious. The egoism of neurotics, their envy, their greed, frequently unconscious, their tendency to undervalue men and things, originate in their feeling of uncertainty and serve the purpose of assuring them, of guiding them and of spurring them on. As they are enveloped in phantasy and live in the future their preoccupation is not to be wondered at. The variability of temper depends on the play of the phantasy which at one time awakens painful memories, at another fills with the enthusiasm of an expected triumph, analogous to the vacillations and doubts of the neurotic. In the same way special traits of char- acter which are not foreign to the normal psyche appear to be directed by the hypnotizing goal and strengthened in this direction. Sexual precocity and falling in love are forms of expression for the heightened tendency to captivate. Mastur- bation, impotence and perverse excitements lie in the direction of the guiding line of fear of a part- ner and fear of separation, along with which sadism represents the desire to play the “wild man” in order to overcome the feeling of inferior- ity. As the driving force and goal of the neurosis 24 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION developing out of a constitutional inferiority, we have up to this point regarded the accentuation of ego-consciousness which constantly strives for expression with especial force. In doing so we have not ignored the fact that this is only a mode of expression of a striving and yearning whose beginnings are deeply rooted in human nature. The form of expression itself and the accentua- tion of this guiding thought, which may also be expressed by Nietzsche’s “will to power,” teaches us that there is an especial compensatory force at play, whose object it is to put an end to the inner uncertainty. By means of an unyielding for- mula, which usually presses to the surface of con- sciousness, the neurotic seeks to obtain the ful- crum whereby to lift the world off of its hinges. It matters but little how.much of this driving force becomes consciously known to the neurotic. The mechanism itself he never understands, neither is he able to explain and break down un- aided his mode of apperception by means of anal- ogy and the conduct resulting therefrom. This can only succeed by means of an analytic process which permits us to divine and understand his infantile analogy by means of abstraction, reduc- tion and simplification. In this way one finds regularly apparent that the neurotic always ap- perceives after the analogy of a contrast, indeed, that usually he only recognizes and gives value THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 25 to relations of contrast. This primitive mode of orientation in life which corresponds to the an- tithesis as set forth in the categories of Aristotle and to opposites in the Pythagorean table orig- inates also in the feeling of uncertainty and illus- trates a simple device of logic. What I have described as polar, hermaphroditic opposites, Lombroso as bipolar, Bleuler as ambivalent, leads to this same method of apperception which works according to the principal of opposites. One should not fall into the common error of regard- ing this as an essence of things, but must recog- nize in it the primitive method of procedure which measures a thing, a force, or an event, by an op- posite which is fitted to it. The further the analysis proceeds the more dis- tinct appears one of these opposites, the original form of which we have established as the feeling of inferiority and the maximation of the ego-con- sciousness. This only agrees with the primitive efforts of the child to orient himself in the world and to obtain certainty when tangible antitheses are encountered. Among these I have regularly found the following: (1). Above—beneath, (2). Masculine—feminine. One furthermore always finds an arrangement of memories, feelings and actions according to this type of antitheses in the sense the patient takes them (not always in the generally accepted sense), i.e., inferior—beneath, 26 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION feminine; powerful—above, masculine. This grouping is important for it renders possible, be- cause it can be conserved or falsified at will, the distortion of the cosmic picture, whereby the neu- rotic can always hold fast to his standpoint, namely, that of a neglected person, by rearrange- ment, by accentuation or by arbitrary changes. It lies in the nature of things that in this process his constitutional inferiority comes to his assist- ance as well as his constantly increasing aggres- sive environment which is continually set into activity by the neurotic conduct of the patient. At times the neurotic is not fully conscious of his supposed or real defeat. It is then always found that it is his pride which prevents him from recognizing it. Nevertheless he acts as if he had appreciated the new degradation and the riddle of a nervous attack is often only solved when this fact is understood. The revelation of such repressed feelings is not of much therapeutic value, at least, it can only be of value when by means of it the connection with the infantile mechanism which is responsible for the predis- position to the attack becomes apparent to the patient. At times there results even a seeming relapse which may be explained by the fact that the patient directs his predispositions against the physician because the latter has injured his feel- ings of personal worth. THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 27 There still remains to be answered one im- portant question. On what does the patient base his feeling of inferiority? . Inasmuch as the patient is only able to detect the possibility of re- lationship between disease predispositions and those organ-inferiorities which force themselves upon his attention he is constantly in the path of conjecture. He will for example not seek the reason for his inferiorities in the disturbances of the secretions of the glands, but will blame in a general way his weakness, his stunted growth, his sham education, the small size or anomalies of his genitals, lack of complete virility, his effemi- nacy, the feminine traits of a physical or psychic nature, his parents, his heredity; at times only lack of love, bad training, deprivation in child- hood, ete. And what about his neurosis, the neu- rosis in the sense we understand it? We shall find that the accentuation of his predispositions on an analogic, childish basis, that his symbolized thoughts, his preparations for feelings, and re- sults used by him as means of expression will spring into action as soon as the patient fears or experiences a set-back. Being from a certain situation, so to speak, inoculated with the feelings of inferiority, he exhibits an anaphylactic reac- tion against depreciation of his ego-conscious- ness and finds in irresolution, in vacillation, in doubt and in skepticism, as well as in the break- 28 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ing out of a neurosis or a psychosis, a refuge and security against the greatest evil that could be- fall him, namely, the conjuring up of a distinct realization of his inferiority. In line with this the typical causes of the onset of a neurosis and psychosis are easy to divine and to prove: 1. The desire for knowledge of sex differences, the uncertainty concerning his own sexual röle, may be looked upon as causes of the arousing of the feeling of inferiority. Likewise the realiza- tion and grouping of traits believed to be fem- inine, the vacillating, doubting, hermaphrodistic apperception and hermaphrodistic predisposi- tion. Predisposition to and psychic gestures of the feminine role always entail greater passivity, anxious anticipation, etc., but call forth the mas- culine protest, stronger emotivity. (Heymanns) 2. Onset of menstruation. . Epoch of menstrual activity. . Epoch of sexual activity. . The stage of fitness for marriage. . Pregnancy. . Puerperium. . Climacteric, reduction of potency. . Examinations, choice of profession. . Danger of death. All these epochs call forth heightening of or changes in the preparatory attitude toward life. The bond common to them all which holds them COON HD OS Ww foun THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 29 together is the expectation of new events which imply for the neurotic new struggles, new dan- gers of a set-back. He proceeds therefore im- mediately to intensive protective measures, the most extreme of which is suicide. Outbreaks of neuroses and psychoses represent accentuations of his neurotic preparedness, predispositions in which are always found prominent traits of char- acter, calculated to guarantee this sort of secur- ity, such as exaggeration of hypersensitiveness, greater carefulness, irritability, pedantry, ob- stinacy, stinginess, discontent, impatience, and many others. As these traits are easily demon- strable, they are especially suitable for deter- mining the existence of a psychogenic disorder. We arrived at the conclusion in the foregoing that it is the feeling of uncertainty which forces the neurotic to a stronger attachment to fictions, guiding principles, ideals, dogmas. ‘These guid- ing principles float before the normal person also. But to him they are a figure of speech, a device for distinguishing above from below, left from right, right from wrong, and he is not so involved in prejudice that when called upon to make a de- cision he cannot free himself from the abstract and reckon with reality. Just as little do the phenomena of life resolve themselves for him into strict antitheses, but on the contrary he is striv- ing constantly to keep his thoughts and actions 30 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION detached from this unreal principle and to bring them into harmony with reality. That he uses artifices at all as a means to an end arises from the usefulness of the fiction in casting up the ac- counts of life. ‘The neurotic, however, like the child devoid of contact with life and like the prim- itive understanding of early man catches at the straw of his fiction, hypostasizes it, arbitrarily ascribes to it a real value and seeks to realize it in the world. For this the fiction is unfitted, still more unfitted when, as in the psychoses, it is ele- vated to a dogma or anthropomorphosed. The symbol as a “modus dicendi” dominates our speech and thought. The neurotic takes it liter- ally and in the psychosis the realization is at- tempted. In my contributions to the theory of the neuroses this point is constantly emphasized and maintained. A fortunate circumstance made me acquainted with Vaihinger’s ingenious “Philosophy of the ‘As If’” (Berlin, 1911), a work in which I found the trains of thought sug- gested to me by the neurosis set forth as valid for general scientific thought. After we have established that the fictitious guiding goal of the neurotic consists of an un- limited heightening of the ego-consciousness which deteriorates into the “will to seem” (Nie- tzsche) we may proceed to a consideration of the abstract conception of these problems of life. In- THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 31 asmuch as in seeking the sex differentiation the role of the male is given a decided preference, the formal changes agreeing with the antithesis, man- woman, begin at an early period and for the neu- rotic arises the formula “ I must act as though I were a complete man (or would become one).” The feeling of inferiority and its consequences become identified with the feeling of effeminacy, the compensatory pressure in the psychic super- structure impels toward obtaining a guarantee that the manly role will be preserved and the meaning of the neurosis assumes the form of the antithetical, fundamental thought, “I am a woman and will be a man.” _ This guiding final purpose supplies the psy- chic gestures and predispositions necessary for this thought, but is expressed likewise in the atti- tudes of the body and in mimicry. And with these prepared gestures, of which the neurotic traits of character are to be considered a herald- ing, the neurotic confronts persons and life, anxiously and with strained attention asking if he will prove himself aman. Sham combats play a great röle; they are begun so that the neurotic may exercise himself, that he may gain experi- ence from other or similar conditions, so that he may become more cautious, and in order to ob- tain proof from example that he dare not venture upon the main battle. How much in this he re- 32 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION arranges, exaggerates, depreciates, which is pos- sible to him from a certain arbitrariness (Meyer- hoff), how he falsely classifies and how he seeks to put his fiction on firm foundation, demand a separate consideration, such as I have tentatively furnished in the preliminary work for this book. That in this mascuhne protest, however, there lies for the neurotic the more fundamentally com- pensating “will to power” which may change the value of feelings and even transform pleasure into pain is proved by the frequent cases where the direct effort to act like a man meets with ob- stacles and avails itself of a circuitous route, in which event the role of the woman is overvalued, passive traits are strengthened, masochistic, and in men, passive homosexual traits emerge, by means of which the patient hopes to gain power over men and women: in short, the masculine protest makes use of the feminine role in order to attain its purpose. That this device is likewise dictated by the “will to power” is proved by the further neurotic traits which strive for mastery and superiority in the most extreme form. This apperception, however, brings the sexual jargon into the neuro- sis which must be regarded as symbolic and re- quires interpretation. Side by side with or dominating it is found in neurotics the method of apperception which ar- THE FEELING OF INFERIORITY 33 ranges perception according to the spatial antith- esis, above-beneath. Also, for this primitive attempt at orientation, which the neurotic empha- sizes very strongly, one finds analogies in primi- tive people. However, while it is easy to under- stand that the masculine principle is identified with perfection, we are forced to guesses in re- gard to the valuation of “above” as the equal of the principle. A certain probability seems to give color to the opinion that the value and sig- nificance of the upper part of the body in com- parison with the feet furnishes the explanation. Still more important it seems to me that the val- uation of the word above and its covaluation with perfection originates in the longing of man to lift himself, to fly, to do that which is impossible for man. The universal flying dreams and. the efforts of man in the same direction seem to con- firm this opinion. That in the congressus sex- ualis the “above” is confluent with the masculine principle does not seem without significance. The reénforcement of the fiction in the neuro- sis causes a concentration of the attention on those points of view regarded by the neurotic as important. Therefrom results the narrowing of the field of vision and the psychic preparation as motor and psychic predispositions. Simultane- ously, the more accentuated neurotic character comes into force, which maintains the assurance 34 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of the fiction, comes in touch with inimical forces and, spreading itself out far over the boundaries of personality, into the realms of space and time, furnishes, in the form of a secondary guiding line, an impetus to the will to power. ‘The neu- rotic attack, finally, like the strife for power, has for its purpose the protection of the ego-con- sciousness from degradation. Therefore from constitutional ee there arises a feeling of inferiority which demands a compensation in the sense of a maximation of the ego-consciousness. From this circumstance the fiction which serves as a final purpose acquires an astonishing influence and draws all the psychic forces in its direction. Itself an outgrowth of the striving for security, it organizes psychic pre- paratory measures for the purpose of guarantee- ing security, among which the neurotic character as well as the functional neurosis are noticeable as prominent devices. The guiding fiction has a simple, infantile scheme, and influences the apperception and the mechanism of memory. CHAPTER II PSYCHIC COMPENSATION AND ITS SYNTHESIS Our examination of the facts has led us to understand how out of the absolute inferiority of the child (especially the one constitutionally bur- dened), there is evolved a kind of self estimation which calls forth a feeling of inferiority. Analogously to the 8s zoi o7é the child seeks to gain a standpoint which will enable him to get a perspective in the problems of life. From this point of departure, which is taken as a fixed pole in the flux of phenomena, the child psyche pro- jects its thoughts towards the goal which it longs to reach. ‘These thoughts, too, are apprehended as fixed points by the abstract conceptions of hu- man understanding and are then concretely inter- preted. The aim to be great, to be strong, to be a man, to be “above” is symbolized in the person of the father, the mother, the teacher, the coach- man, the locomotive engineer, etc., and the con- duct, the attitude, the imitative gestures, the play of children and their wishes, the day dreams and favorite stories, ideas about their future vocation show us that the compensatory tendency is at 35 36 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION work and is making preparations for the future role. The feeling which the individual has of his own inferiority, incompetency, the realization of his smallness, of his weakness, of his uncertainty, thus becomes an appropriate working basis which, because of the intrinsically associated feel- ings of pleasure and pain, furnishes the inner im- pulse to advance towards an imaginary goal. The scheme of which the child avails himself in order to enable him to act and orient himself is one common to and in accordance with the tend- ency of the human understanding to reduce that which is chaotic, fluid and intangible in life to measurable entities by means of the assumption of fictions. We proceed in the same way when we divide the globe by means of meridianal and parallel lines, for thus only do we preserve fixed points which we can place in relation with each other. In all similar attempts (and the human psyche is full of them) it is the question of an in- troduction of an unreal and abstract scheme into actual life, and I consider the presentation of this conception as I have gathered it from the psycho- logical observation of neuroses and psychoses and which, according to the proofs furnished by Vaihinger, manifests itself in all scientific con- cepts, to be the main object of this book. No matter from what angle we observe the psychic development of a normal or neurotic person he PSYCHIC COMPENSATION 37 is always found ensnared in the meshes of his particular fiction; a fiction from which the neu- rotic is unable to find his way back to reality and in which he believes while the normal person utilizes it for the purpose of reaching a definite goal. However, that which gives such irresisti- ble impulse to the utilization of this scheme is al- ways the uncertainty in childhood, the great dis- tance which separates the child from the potency of man, from the distinctions and privileges of manhood, forebodings and knowledge of which the child possesses. And in regard to this point I beg leave to supplement these statements of the learned writer, Vaihinger, namely, that the thing which impels us all and especially the neurotic and the child to abandon the direct path of in- duction and deduction and to use such devices as the schematic fiction originates in the feeling of uncertainty and is the craving for security, the final purpose of which is to escape from the feel- ing of inferiority in order to ascend to the full height of the ego-consciousness, to complete man- liness, to attain the ideal of being “above.” ‘The greater the distance to this ideal, the more dis- tinctly the guiding fiction asserts itself so that the feeling of being “under” may be just as much a determining factor as the deification of the father and mother who are the ideals of strength. We thus see exertions put forth far beyond 38 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION those which we would expect in the most violent bodily performances which might arise from in- stincts, or in the strongest desire for gratification of organic longings. Goethe among others also refers to this fact that while perception is con- nected with the practical satisfaction of necessi- ties, yet man carries on a life beyond this in feel- ing and imagination. In this thought the com- pulsion to the elevation of the ego-consciousness is aptly expressed, as well as in a passage oc- curring in one of Goethe’s letters to Lavater in which he says, “This longing to elevate as high as possible the apex of the pyramid of my exist- ence, the base of which is placed in my possession, outweighs all else and is scarcely a moment ab- sent from thought.” It can readily be understood how such a tense psychic situation—and every artist, every genius, fights the same battle against the feeling of un- certainty; with him, however, it is the valuable cultural medium of his art—which is capable of reénforcing and bringing to light a host of traits of character which help to construct the neuroses. Thus, first of all, ambition. ‘This is the strongest of the secondary guiding principles which strive towards the imaginary goal. And it generates a number of psychic predispositions whose pur- pose it is to secure to the neurotic superiority in all situations of life, but which on the other hand PSYCHIC COMPENSATION 39 makes his aggressiveness, his affectivity, appear to be in a state of constant irritation. Thus the neurotic individual seems always to be proud, dogmatic, envious and miserly, seeks always to make an impression, wishes to be first, but always trembles for the result and gladly postpones de- cisions. Hence the hesitating, cautious behavior of neurotics, their mistrust, vacillation and doubt. As if for practice in the sense of a preliminary process he carries on these psychic preparations in small things in order to attain to fixed points and safeguarding directing principles for greater aims which hold him under their charm. This is also the meaning of Freud’s displacement mechanism, i.e., the patient is impelled by his craving for security to collect proof experi- mentally, in corpore vili, which justifies and will continue to justify his entire psychic attitude. As a rule the result is always the thought, “I must be cautious, if I wish to attain my goal.” And not infrequently the patient commits audaciously reckless acts in order to assure himself through an emphasis of the lesson of his recklessness the attainment of his main point, namely, the mas- culine ideal. Often hallucinations and dreams assume with neurotics and psychotics the function of these warning voices and depict how it has al- ready been once before, how it has been with others, or how the thing might turn out, in order 40 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION to hold the patient to the guiding principle in which he finds security. At other times the strongly emphasized traits of eagerness for strife, obstinacy and activity, which are to “elevate” the apex of the pyramid as far as possible are strongly accentuated by pedantry which strives to keep them from chang- ing their direction. That the eagerness for knowledge, as a mighty promoter towards attain- ing the high goal, is greatly overstrained, is not astonishing. With equal distinctness impa- tience, fear of being too late, fear of attaining nothing, manifest themselves as a particularly strong impulse to neglect no means, to do rather too much than not enough towards the attain- ment of the goal. ‘These traits always lie within the field of the developed neurosis, where the feeling of “craving for security” obtrudes itself more and drives to the dangerous expedients by means of which the feeling of inferiority is ren- dered more profound, and the patient acts as if he were restrained, cut off from success and with- out hope, or he plunges to a greater or less degree into passivity, displays effeminate traits, con- ducts himself in a masochistic or perverse manner and finally greatly reduces his sphere of activity so that it is more shaken and more strongly dom- inated by the symptoms of the disease. In a similar manner arises the arrangement of indo- PSYCHIC COMPENSATION 41 lence, laziness, fatigue, impotence of every sort which furnish a pretext to escape from decisions which could affect the pride of the neurotic, an excuse for withdrawing from study, from a voca- tion, from marriage. At times this develop- mental phase terminates in suicide which is then always felt as a successful revenge on fate or on his relatives. Consciousness of guilt also asserts itself. Here we find one of the most difficult points in the analysis of neuroses and psychoses. Con- sciousness of guilt and conscience are fictitious guiding principles of caution, like religiosity and subserve the craving for security." Their object is to prevent a lowering of the ego-consciousness when the irritated aggressiveness impels immod- erately to selfish deeds. In the consciousness of guilt the glance is directed backwards, conscience operates through foresight. The love of truth, too, is sustained by the craving for security and belongs really within the sphere of our personal ideal, while the neurotic le represents a feeble attempt to preserve appearances and to effect compensation. All these attempts towards elevation, efforts of the “will to power,” must naturally be under- stood as a form of the striving towards masculin- 1See Fortmuller, “Psychoanalysis and Ethics,” München, E. Reinhardt, 1912. 42 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ity and become identified with the masculine pro- test, because this represents a fundamental form of the psychical impulse to become of value, in accordance with which all experiences, percep- tions and directions of will are grouped. Apper- ception is guided in accordance with this most significant scheme, namely, the goal, especially in neurotics, is the erection of the masculine protest against an effeminate self-estimation. ‘Thus are guided also attention, foresight, doubt, as well as all traits of character and other psychic and phys- ical inclinations, but in the highest degree and above all the evaluation of all experiences in line with this masculine goal, so that all these phe- nomena contain a dynamic which is betrayed to the experienced, and which tends from that which is below to that which is above, from that which is feminine to that which is masculine. The crea- tion of all these lines of force, the fixation of this remote goal, the emphasis and occasional protec- tion of inferior effeminate traits for the purpose of combating them more forcibly by the mascu- line protest takes place by means of the same fac- tor which also created the organic compensation, i.e., the tendency towards adjustment by con- stant attempt to supplant an injurious, inferior performance by an increase of effort and which in the psychic sphere finds expression in the craving for security which takes as a guiding line (direc- PSYCHIC COMPENSATION 43 trix) the will to power, to be manly, in order to escape the feeling of uncertainty. The greatest difficulty which stands in the way of an understanding of the neurosis arises from the striking protection afforded these inferior, effeminate traits and their acknowledgment by the patients. Here belong all the phenomena of the disease generally, but also the passive, maso- chistie traits, the effeminate characteristics, the passive homosexuality, impotence, suggestibility, accessibility to and inclination for hypnosis, or, finally, the apparent surrender to effeminacy and to effeminate behavior. The final object, how- ever, always remains the same, the domination over others which is felt and appreciated as a masculine triumph. Neither are the above de- scribed compensatory features ever absent in the makeup of these patients, as they might be ex- pected to be in individuals who assume as a ground for action a feeling of inadequacy and who then strive to secure by every possible means a substitute for their shortcomings, to supply that which they feel to be lacking in their exaggerated ego-consciousness. And also in the psychic situ- ation the sexual element as a symbol asserts itself, inasmuch as such patients frequently form their apperceptions in accordance with a scheme in which their genital organs are regarded as if they were effeminized, restricted, castrated, and as if 44 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION, they were therefore constantly forced to seek a substitute. One form of this substitution they find in the depreciation and emasculation of all other persons. From this tendency to deprive others of worth originates the considerable reén- forcement of certain traits of character, which set forth further inclinations and which have the quality of injuring others, as sadism, hate, con- tentiousness, intolerance, envy, etc. Active ho- mosexuality, also, as well as perversions which de- grade the partner, also Lustmord, arise from the neurotic tendency to depreciate, a tendency which can hardly be pictured too strongly. They all represent a rationalization of the symbolism of subjection in line with the concept which asserts the “sexual dominance of the male.” In short, the neurotic may also elevate the feeling of his own worth by degrading others. We have mentioned above the protection of the effeminate traits in the neurosis for the pur- pose of better carrying on the combat, for the purpose of a better surveillance over self. These accentuations along with the distinct tendency to give preference to the will to masculinity create the appearance of a rent in the psyche of the neu- rotic which is familiar to writers as double per- sonality, dissociation, and which is frequently seen in the changing humors of neurotics, but also PSYCHIC COMPENSATION 45 in the succession of depression and mania, of ideas of persecution and grandeur in the psy- choses. I have always found as an internal con- necting bond in these antithetical conditions the tendency to maximate the ego-consciousness, whereby the “inferior” situation is associated with a degradation, but is circumscribed and ar- ranged as a ground for operation. It is then that the masculine protest asserts itself, which is often carried to the length of asserting a resem- blance to God or an intimate connection with Him. For the “splitting of consciousness” the severely schematic and very abstract process of apperception is also responsible, a form of apper- ception which groups the internal and external experiences according to a scheme which has the form of an absolute antithesis, something like the debits and credits in book-keeping, where there are no transitions possible. This fault of the neurotic mode of thinking, which is identical with a too far-fetched abstraction, is likewise caused by his craving for security, a tendency which re- quires for the purpose of making decisions, for anticipations and actions, sharply defined guiding lines, idols, false deities in which the neurotic be- lieves. In this way he becomes estranged from concrete reality. For to find one’s bearings in the world of reality an elasticity of the psyche 46 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION and not a rigidity is required, a utilization of ab- straction, but not an adoration, an idolizing of the same as the final purpose of existence. Accordingly we shall find in the mental life of the neurotic, just as is the case in primitive poetry, in mythology, in legends, in cosmogony, in theogony and in the beginnings of philosophy a most pronounced tendency to give a symbolic style to himself, his experiences and to persons about him. Thus naturally the phenomena which do not belong together must be sharply separated from each other by an abstracting fic- tion. ‘The impulse to this expedient arises from the longing for an orientation and has its roots in the neurotic’s craving for security. This im- pulse is often so intense that it demands the split- ting of unity, of the category, of the unity of the ego into two or more of its antithetical parts. From the above described self-estimation of the child, who is induced by inferiority of consti- tution and the evils arising therefrom to strive after special securities, up to the complete devel- opment of the neurotic technique of thinking and its coadjuvant lines, of the neurotic character, a host of psychic phenomena make their appear- ance which according to Karl Groos ? may be re- garded as a training, according to our interpreta- 2See Karl Groos, “Die Spiele der Menschen, Die Spiele der Thiere.” PSYCHIC COMPENSATION 47 tion as a preparation for the imaginary goal. They are manifested at an early age, are indicated even in early infancy and are constantly at the foundation of the influences of conscious and un- conscious education. ‘The whole development of the child shows that it proceeds in the direction of an idea, which naturally takes a primitive form and quite regularly seeks concrete embodiment in the form of a person. Under this compulsion, the psychic mechanism of which is for the most part unconscious and only partly conscious, the psyche in the process of formation comes to more distinct expression, and the mental as well as the physical life of a human being taken at any given point of its development is to be understood as the answer which that individual gives to the question of life. This answer, in reality the manner in which life is accepted, is according to all the knowledge thereof furnished by experience, to be considered as identical with the effort to put an end to un- certainty, to the chaos which prevails in impres- sions and feelings, with the effort to obtain a firm hold in order to overcome the difficulties of life. Reflection, observation, thought and forethought, attention, calculation and valuation are all efforts put forth by this craving for security. And in- asmuch as the realization of one’s own inferiority is taken as an abstract standard for inequality 48 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION among human beings, the greater, the stronger and his measure are taken for the fictitious goal so that it may be a guarantee against this uncer- tainty and fright. Thus it is that the soul of the child constructs a guiding line which impels to- wards an elevation of the ego-consciousness in order to escape from uncertainty, the influence of which is still stronger in neurotics who have felt their inferiority more keenly. Mythographers, the human race, poets, philosophers, founders of religions have taken the material from their con- temporaneous periods for the transformation of the guiding lines so that immortality, virtue, piety, riches, knowledge, social consciousness of the upper classes or self-perfection were available as goals and were utilized according to the recep- tive peculiarities of the individual who longed for perfection. At this point the living energies of the child become transferred into the self-created sphere of his subjective world which henceforth as a guiding fiction transmutes, falsifies and changes the values of all feelings and emotions, pleasures and pains, even the struggle for self- preservation, for his benefit, in order to attain the goal; a transformation which utilizes all the ex- periences of the neurotic in such a way as to bring about preparations which will ensure the triumph. These preparatory acts with their tendency to change values may be most clearly observed in PSYCHIC COMPENSATION 49 the play of nervous children, in their delibera- tions over the choice of a future vocation and their physical and psychical attitudes. These phenomena will be further discussed in connec- tion with the dominating craving for security which controls them. Concerning the nervous habitus it may be stated that as a rule it is notice- able at an early age, that it takes the form of a pantomimic representation of some trait of char- acter, either as an anxious, waiting, distrustful, uncertain, cautious, bashful attitude or as a hos- tile, obstinate, self-certain, self-complacent, for- ward attitude. Blushing is noticeable or the glance is peculiarly fixed, cast down or hostile. It is easy to correlate one of these attitudes or gestures, or a mimic trait, with the prototype. In nervous children imitation of the male principle, the father, is often found; the mother only be- comes a model for imitation after a formal change in the guiding principle has taken place, or when from the beginning the moral superiority of the mother is beyond question. Usually these phe- nomena are insignificant and such as are not as a rule subjected to the observation of the phy- sician. Crossing the legs, the arms, a peculiar manner of gait, preference for certain foods, bor- rowing of certain traits of character, etc., or in the presence of more strongly emphasized ob- stinacy opposite forms of expression. The re- 50 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tained bad habits of childhood, such as eneuresis, biting the nails, sucking, stuttering, winking the eyes, masturbation, ete., can always be traced to these beginnings of obstinacy. They are the ex- pedients of the weak to diminish the pathos of the distance and thereby do away with the feel- ing of inferiority, and strive in the last analysis to a transformation of authority and at the same time to gain an excuse for avoiding a decision, for postponing it. All considerable phenomena of this sort are themselves neurotic traits of character or show that they are permeated by the neurotic charac- ter and like it itself are a form of expression of the craving for security, preparatory processes and preliminary provisions of the compensatory force which is produced by the feeling of inferi- ority. CHAPTER III THE ACCENTUATED FICTION AS THE GUIDING IDEA IN THE NEUROSIS THE most important task of thinking is to an- ticipate actions or events; to seize upon an objec- tive and ways and means and to influence them as far as possible. By means of this process of forethought, our influence over space and time is assured to a certain degree. Accordingly our psyche is first of all an organ of aggression born out of the distress of the all too restricted limi- tation which from the first renders difficult the gratification of natural appetites. This organ- ically determined goal of gratification of appe- tites will only endure so long as the suitable means are at hand for its stabilization; for rendering it secure against the strongest attacks. Toward the end of the nursing period, when the child ac- quires ability to carry out independent, purpose- ful actions which are not merely directed toward the gratification of appetite, when he takes his place in the family and begins to adapt himself to his environment, he already possesses abilities, psychic gestures and preparations. Besides this 51 52 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION his conduct has acquired a certain uniformity and is seen to be on the road toward acquiring his place in the world. Such a uniformity of con- duct can only be comprehended by the assump- tion that the child has discovered some specific fixed point outside of his own personality towards which he strives with his developmental energies. The child must, therefore, have constructed for himself a guiding principle, a guiding model, ob- viously in the hope of thus orienting himself in the best possible manner in his environment and of obtaining gratification of his necessities of avoiding pain and of obtaining pleasure.‘ From this guiding ideal arises the very beginning of the child’s craving for tenderness, that quality which (Paulsen) originally determines the tractability of the child. Soon there become associated with this first quality, efforts to gain the praise, help and love of the parents, stirrings of independ- ence, of obstinacy and of opposition. The child has found a meaning in life towards which he strives and whose still indistinct outlines he is forming, and starting from which he derives that quality of prevision which is calculated to direct and give worth to his actions and impulses. It is the child’s helplessness, clumsiness and uncer- tainty which necessitates the establishment of the tentative tests of possibility, the acquisition of 1 Adler, “Trotz und Gehorsamkeit.” THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 53 experience, the creation of memories for the pur- pose of constructing a bridge leading to that fu- ture where there are to-be found greatness, power and satisfaction of all sorts. The construction of this bridge is the most important work the child is called upon to perform because without it he would find himself in the midst of the inpouring impressions without order, without counsel, with- out guide. It is scarcely possible to define the limits of this first stadium, of this awakening sub- jective world, to describe it in words. But it may, however, be said that the guiding model of the child must be so constructed as if it were able to bring to the child greater certainty and orien- tation by influencing the direction of his will. But he can only obtain security by striving to- wards a fixed point where he sees himself greater and stronger, where he finds himself rid of the helplessness of infancy. The symbolic and logi- cal nature of our process of thinking permits the construction of this future changed personality in the image of the father, the mother, of an elder brother or sister, or teacher or some professional man, or hero, or animal, or God. The qualities of greatness, power, knowledge and ability are features common to all these guiding images and thus they are one and all symbols for imaginative abstractions. And thus like idols made of clay they receive from the imagination of man, force 54 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION and life and react upon the psyche which has cre- ated them. This artifice of thinking would have the stamp of paranoia and of dementia precox conditions, which create for themselves hostile forces for the purpose of securing ego-consciousness, were not the child able at all-times to free himself from the bonds of his fiction, to eliminate his projections (Kant) from his calculations, and to make use only of the impetus which is given him by this guiding line. His uncertainty is sufficient to make him set up a fantastic goal for the purpose of orientation in the world, but it is not so great as to make him deprive reality of its value and to assert dogmatically the reality of this guiding model, as is the case in the psychoses. One must, however, call attention to the similarity, the sig- nificance of this uncertainty and the device of a fiction in normal persons, neurotics and the in- sane. The part of this process which is common to all humanity, normal and abnormal, is that the ap- perceiving memory is under the sway of the guid- ing fiction. It is because of this that there exists within certain limits in all mankind a uniformity concerning a cosmic conception. ‘The child in its insignificance and helplessness will constantly strive to enlarge his field of power and will mark this field off after the pattern of that which seems THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 55 to possess the greatest strength. And now it becomes evident in the course of psychic develop- ment that that which was at first only an imagi- nary expedient, important only in its relations, only a means for gaining ground to stand upon, for finding one’s bearings, for gaining a foothold, has become a goal in itself, obviously because the child can only in this way obtain self-assurance in acting and not directly through the gratifica- tion of desires.? Thus the effective point is found outside the corporeal sphere according to which the psyche adjusts itself, a point which forms the center of gravity of human thought, feeling and volition. And the mechanism of apperceiving memory with its host of experiences, transforms itself from an objectively operating system into a sub- jectively active, fictitiously modified scheme of an imagined future personality. It becomes the task of this scheme to bring about such connec- tions with the outside world as will serve to maxi- mate his feeling of ego-consciousness, such asso- ciations as will hint at the preparing activities and thought indicators and bring these in contact with the already existing state of preparedness. One is here reminded of the apt expression of 2As may be seen from Karl Groos’ “Play of Animals” the understanding of the animal psyche is likewise based upon the fact that we see it act as though it were following the direction of a fictitious guiding line. 56 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Charcot who has emphasized for science that “one only discovers that which one knows,” an obser- vation which when directed to practical experi- ence tends to show that our whole sphere of per- ception is limited by a number of predetermined psychical mechanisms and predispositions as Kant’s theory ° of “a priori” forms of perception teaches us. In a similar manner our actions are determined by the content of experiences, which are given birth to and are determined by the guid- ing fiction. Even our judgments concerning the value of things are determined according to the standard of the imaginary goal, not according to “real” feelings or pleasurable sensations. And conduct follows as James expresses it in consequence of a sort of approbation—depends as it were on a fiat, command or acquiescence. The guiding fiction is therefore first of all the expedient, the device by means of which the child seeks to free himself from his feeling of infe- riority. It initiates compensation and stands at the service of the craving for security. The greater the feeling of inferiority, the more im- perative and stronger will be the necessity for a steadying, guiding principle and indeed the more distinctly it manifests itself, and like compensa- 3] have to call attention here to Bergson’s fundamental teach- ings, without being able to give room here for his important view- points. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION: 57 tion in the organic sphere, the effectiveness of _ psychic compensation is linked with a functional increase and brings about novel and many-sided manifestations in the mental life. One of the forms of expression of this compensatory mech- anism, intended to assure the sense of ego-con- sciousness is exemplified by the neurosis and psychosis. The constitutionally inferior child with his host of disadvantages and uncertainties will construct his goal in a more definite and clearer manner, will outline more distinctly the guiding principle and will adhere to it more anxiously or dogmati- cally. In fact the principal impression which one gains from the observation of a neurotically dis- posed child is usually that the child is guided in the choice of a weapon by his somatic inferiority which he utilizes in his dealings with his relatives or which he emphasizes in his obstinacy. Often his illness is borrowed from his environ- ment either by simulation or exaggeration of ac- tual ailments, all this in order to strengthen his position. Should such means not have the de- sired effect upon his environment, the child en- deavors to rid himself of his complaints through the exercise of superior efforts, as result of which there develop not infrequently qualified and artis- tic performances in the event of the experiencing of an over-compensation on the part of the 58 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION functional anomalies of the eye, ear, speech or musculature. Associated with this are also stir- rings of independence. Or the remedy is sought, on the other hand, in a greater dependence, for the attainment of which, anxiety, a feeling of in- significance, weakness, awkwardness, incapacity, sense of guilt and remorse serve as strongholds. The same tendency may be seen in the adherence to the bad habits of childhood, in the retention of a psychic infantilism in so far as this is not ex- clusively or partially the result of obstinacy, of the infantile negativism. A number of the complaints of psychopathic children are of a subjective nature, and corre- spond to a complete or partial error of judgment as it takes place in the effort of children to find a reason for their feeling of inferiority and to com- prehend it. Frequently these logical interpreta- tions are already intermixed with the compensat- ing ambition or with the child’s aggressiveness towards its parents. “The fault lies with my parents, with my lot, because I’m the youngest, because I was born too late, because I am a Cin- derella, because I’m perhaps not the child of these parents, of this father, of this mother, because I am too small, too weak, have too small a head, am too homely, because I have an impediment of speech, a defect of hearing, am cross-eyed, near- sighted, because I have imperfect genitals, be- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 59 cause I’m not manly, because I am a girl, because I’m bad by nature, dull and awkward, because I have masturbated, because I’m too sensuous, too covetous and naturally perverted, because I sub- mit easily, am too dependent and obey, because I cry easily, am easily affected, because I am a criminal, a thief, an incendiary, and could murder some one. My ancestry, my education, circum- cision are to blame, because I have too long a nose, too much hair, too little hair, because I am a cripple.” Thus and similarly sound the child’s attempts to unburden himself by blaming fate just as in the Greek fate tragedies, these are at- tempts to preserve the ego-consciousness and hold others responsible for his inferiority. ‘These at- tempts are regularly met with in the psychic treatment of the neuroses and they can always be referred back to the relationship between an ex- isting feeling of inferiority and an assumed ideal. The significance and value of these thought processes which are as a thorn in the side of the neurotic are noted also in the uses to which they are put by himself, first for the stimulation of his efforts in the direction of his ideal (grandiose ideas) and second, the utilization of them as a refuge and excuse when forced to a decision which threatens a lowering of the ego-consciousness (depreciatory ideas). ‘The second applicability and application naturally occupies the fore- 60 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ground in the neuroses because the goal toward which the neurotic strives is set too high to be reached in a direct line. The utilization of this ideal is only rendered possible by an admixture of aggression or in blaming fate as well as hered- ity. By means of this the neurotic gains a per- manent base of operation on the strength of which he unfolds, thrusts forward and stabilizes certain traits of character which serve the same hostile purpose, such as obstinacy, a dominating, grum- bling nature, pedantry, because thereby he al- ways succeeds in gaining mastery over his en- vironment principally by calling attention to his terrible suffering. All of these traits and predis- positions associated with bad habits retained from childhood which have become markedly exagger- ated, as well as with disease symptoms of a self- created and self-modeled nature stand in the closest interrelation, are inseparable one from an- other and show their dependence on a factor out- side their own sphere, 1. e., they depend upon the guiding fiction which has evolved from the crav- ing for security or from the longing for the maximation of the ego-consciousness. In the imaginary basis of this feeling of inferiority which because of the craving for security is always thought of in an exaggerated manner and felt too keenly, I see the chief therapeutic hope. The question whether the feeling of uncertainty is THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 61 conscious or unconscious is of secondary impor- tance. At times pride carries things so far that “memory gives way” (Nietzsche). Naturally the above described connection is not realized by the patient. It is for this reason that he remains the plaything of his emotions and affects until such time as the mechanism becomes revealed to him and set to rights, until such time as the pre- dispositions and neurotic plan of life are shat- tered; a plaything of emotions and affects the in- teraction of which becomes further complicated because of a constant admixture of traits of char- acter intended to negate his sense of inferiority, such as pride, envy, greed, cruelty, courage, re- vengefulness, irritability, etc., traits of character which are constantly being excited through his craving for security. The tendency to exaggerate and emphasize existing defects plays an important role in the psychology of the neuroses. An appearance of weakness, suffering, incapacity and uselessness results from this manner of presenting actual de- fects because the neurotic is compelled by the mechanism which controls him to conduct himself unwaveringly in such a manner as to feel as though he were sick, as though he were effeminate, inferior, neglected, injured, sexually over-ex- cited, impotent or perverted. The cautious ap- proach to problems of life which constantly ac- 62 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION companies these impulses, the exaggerated striv- ing upwards, the desire to play the role of man in some way or other, to be superior to everybody else, the neurotic’s stronghold with its prime ob- ject of avoiding decisions and setbacks and thus to escape a lowering of his ego-consciousness, all of this reveals to us the true state of affairs, namely, that the low self-estimation of the neu- rotic is in itself an expedient by means of which he strives the more powerfully to attain that guiding goal which will bring about a maxima- tion of his ego-consciousness. He may conduct himself according to the motto “half and half,” he may cede certain strongholds in the contest but he does so solely in order to fortify himself against an ultimate feeling of inferiority and in order to be the better able to utilize others in his service. The sexual feature of the psychology of the neuroses which Freud looks upon as a cardinal point is in this wise explained as the effect of a fiction. ‘There is no objective standard of the “libido.” The exaltation and diminution of the same is always in accord with the imaginary goal. It is easy for the neurotic to convince himself that he is the subject of a high sexual tension by means of a more or less purposeful arrangement, and especially by means of a concentration of the at- tention in this direction the moment he begins to THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 63 seek proof of how much injury sexuality works to his feeling of security and how much his ego- consciousness is threatened from this source. The weakening of libidinous impulses even to the point of psychic impotence is to be regarded as purposeful checks on aggression, as disorders of natural predispositions, as a construction of an “as if” for the purpose of assuring himself against marriage, against a swerving from the goal, against a degradation at the hands of the sexual partner, against poverty or culpability. Re- pressed or conscious perverse tendencies, as well as the compulsion to masturbation are always looked upon as detours, as symbols of an imagin- ary plan of life whose purpose is self-assurance. They are called into being by the guiding fiction as soon as the feeling of inferiority finds expres- sion in the fear of the sexual partner as happens regularly where there exist sexual anomalies. ‘The fiction may then also repress the incentive to per- version into the subconscious or make the fear of the partner unrecognizable to consciousness so that it only becomes apparent from a survey of the whole situation. It resorts to the first alter- native when it depends on pride for the fulfillment of its purpose, to the latter when it makes a virtue of the defect and seeks the degradation of the partner. Incestuous tendencies too, to which Freud ascribes such an important role in the pro- 64 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION duction of neuroses and psychoses reveal them- selves in the psychology of the neuroses as pur- poseful edifices and symbols, which derive their usually harmless material out of childhood Iıfe | with its preparatory processes. A proper insight for instance into the “CEdipus complex” shows us that it is nothing more nor less than a figura- tive, sexually clothed conception of what consti- tutes masculine self-consciousness, superiority over woman, but at the same time betrays the cause which leads to this phenomenon, namely as if the mother were the only one that one could sub- jugate, on whom one could depend or as though sexual desire (already in childhood) were to be carried through in spite of everything and always by a struggle with stronger forces (the father, dragons, danger of death). As may be inferred from this interpretation, close inquiry into the sexual neuroses always leads to the discovery of a guiding fiction which reveals itself in a sexual form or can be revealed by therapeutists, as well as to the laying bare of a mode of apperception evolved according to a sexual scheme in conse- quence of which the neurotic and often also the normal person attempt to apprehend and under- stand the world and all its phenomena in sexual terms, in a sexual picture asit were. Our further investigations reveal that this sexual scheme which is often carried out in speech, in custom, THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 65 and manners, is only a variation of that all-em- bracing scheme of more fundamental origin, Le., the antithetical mode of apperception as “male- female” “up-down.”’* ‘The later psychic per- verse tendencies derive their material and impulse from the harmless bodily sensations and misjudg- ments of childhood which when occasion arises are given an extraordinarily high value or some chance pleasurable sensations are perceived as analogues of sexual sensations. The psycholo- gist must not assume the same point of view, must not maintain such a mode of apperception as valid, not substitute real sexual components for a fiction as the patient does. His task on the con- trary consists in revealing to the patient the su- perficiality of his attempts at orientation, to tear it apart as mere product of the imagination, and to weaken the feeling of inferiority which drives the patient in a convulsive manner towards these guiding principles which would necessitate the carrying out of the “masculine protest” in a cir- cuitous manner. Apperceiving memory which influences our 4See the dream of Hippias, Herodotus VI, 107; “he dreamt that he was sleeping with his mother.” This he dreamed as he was about to conquer his maternal city, as he had already done once before as the companion of his father. Thus the CEdipus complex as the symbol of the desire to dominate. With the Ro- mans too Beischlaf (sexual congress) symbolized conquest, vic- tory. Compare the double meaning of the word “subigere.” 66 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION cosmic picture to such a great extent works also with a fiction as it were, with a schematic fiction, in accordance with which we choose and model our perceptions, our experiences, as well as the train- ing of all our connate tendencies and capacities until they are changed into the appropriate psy- chical and technical skillfulness and preparedness. The modus operandi of our conscious and uncon- scious memory and its individualization obey the personal ideal and its standards. From this we are able to deduce that as a guiding fiction its pur- pose is to confront the problems of life so soon as the feeling of inferiority and uncertainty impels toward compensation. ‘This fixed guiding point of our efforts, which in no sense possesses reality, is absolutely decisive for the psychic development, for it enables us to make steps in the chaos of the world, as does the child when learning to walk and keeping in his eye a goal which he strives to reach. Far more unwaveringly, the neurotic keeps be- fore his eye his God, his idol, his ideal of person- ality and clings to his guiding principle, losing sight in the meanwhile of reality, whereas the nor- mal person is always ready to dispense with this crutch, this aid, and reckon unhampered with reality. In this instance, the neurotic resembles a person who looks up to God, commends himself to the Lord and then and there awaits credulously for his guidance; he is nailed to the cross of his THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 67 fiction. ‘The normal individual too may and does create his deity, feels drawn upward but never loses sight of reality, and always takes it into ac- count as soon as he is called upon to act. Ac- cordingly the neurotic lives under the hypnotic in- fluence of an imaginary plan of life. That this imaginary mark of the personal ideal situated as it is beyond space and time is never without effect, may be seen from the trends of the attention; interests and tendencies of these indi- viduals, which always lead to points of view of an a priori nature. The exquisite purposefulness of our psychic processes and the predisposition determined thereby is responsible for the fact that our actions have definite beginnings and ter- minations, that, as Ziehen emphasizes, voluntary and involuntary actions are constantly aimed at attaining a definite result, that we must assume with Pawlow a decided intelligence in the func- tioning of the organs. All these phenomena are so convincing that philosophers and psychologists have from the earliest times taken as a teleologic dogma everything which premeditatively at- tempted an orientation according to an assumed fixed point as the goal. The concept of natural selection is entirely too inadequate to explain results which are able to take on new and changing forms as occasion de- mands. Experience compels us to consider all 68 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION these phenomena as dependent upon an uncon- sciously active fiction, the faint conscious irradia- tions of which furnish us goals, according to which in the last analysis our apperception of all our experiences and activities is shaped. It is less difficult to prove the details of this guiding fiction, than the fiction itself, than the fictitious goal itself. Psychological research has called at- tention to various such goals. For our purpose it will suffice to consider critically just two of these. Most authorities content themselves with the view that all human activity, all volition is dominated by feelings of pleasure and pain. Upon superficial consideration these authors seem to be correct in their assumptions, because as a matter of fact the human psyche does tend to seek pleasure and avoid pain. But the foundation of this theory is unstable. There is no standard for feelings of pleasure, indeed no standard for feel- ing at all. ‘There exists furthermore no percep- tion, no action, the effect of which may not vary in accordance with place and time, under some circumstances causing pleasure; under others pain. And even the primitive sensations result- ing from satisfaction of organic desires have their gradations and vary with the degree of satiability and in accordance with cultural guiding princi- ples, so that for satisfaction in itself to serve as the goal, it requires extreme denial, and ab- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 69 stinence. Now granting that satisfaction has ac- tually been attained, does the psyche really lose its directing principle? The psyche’s iron neces- sity for orientation and security requires for their establishment and their functions a more stable standpoint than the vacillating and uncertain principle of gratification of desire, and a more stable point of view than the object of attaining gratification. The impossibility of orienting one’s self and one’s actions according to such a goal forces even the child to abandon efforts in this direction. Finally it is a misuse of an ab- straction to single out and emphasize by means of a petitio principii, out of the various complex psychic activities, the quest of pleasure, as the motive force, after every isolated impulse has al- ready been explained—as pleasure seeking, as libidinous. Shiller with a keenness of vision trained in the school of Kant saw much further when he made a place in the coming “philosophy” for the directing influence of earthly events, and even went so far as to consider it (philosophy) dependent on “hunger and love.” To ascribe, however, the whole directing force to sexuality as Freud does, or what is for him the same thing, to the libido, to ascribe this whole in- fluence to nothing but love is a violation of logical thinking itself, a fiction of a bad sort, which when accepted as a dogma must lead to great contra- 70 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION dictions and confusion of concepts because it con- trasts altogether too much with reality. The disapproval of the principle of “self- preservation” is more difficult, especially as that principle is supported on the one hand by argu- ments of a teleological significance, on the other hand by the import of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. But we see constantly that we under- take courses of action contrary to the principles of self-preservation or to the preservation of the species, yes, that a certain arbitrariness (Fres- Meyerhof) permits us, in regard to self-preserva- tion as well as in regard to pleasure, to raise or lower our valuations, that we often wholly lose sight of self-preservation when pleasure or pain enter into the question, and that on the other hand we often sacrifice pleasure when an injury is threatened to the ego. In what manner do these two incentives which are certainly not without in- fluence, range themselves under the main guiding principle which impels to the elevation of the ego- consciousness? ‘The two points of view corre- spond to two types of individuals (to which it is possible to add still others) one of which is least able to dispense with pleasure in his ego-con- sciousness, while the other places first importance on the feeling of life, on the feeling of immortal- ity. Therefore, there arise modified modes of perception which produce antitheses in thought THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 71 in the sense of “pleasure—pain” or “life—death.” The former are unable to deprive pleasure of value, the latter life. In the sense of procreation which is again thought of in the manner of the antithetical scheme “male-female,” these two types approach each other and seek expression in the direction of the masculine protest. As far as neurotics are concerned the one type has al- ways sought to compensate the painful feeling of his somatic inferiority, the other type has grown up in the fear of death, of dying early. Their view of the world furnishes them only fragments, their soul is partially color-blind, but notwith- standing this often more keen-sighted than the Daltonists in their understanding of color. We close this critical observation with a refer- ence to the absolute principle of the “will to power” a guiding fiction which sets in more for- cibly and earlier, and is precipitated and matured, in proportion to the prominence assumed by the consciousness of inferiority in the physically in- ferior child. The ideal of personal importance as a point toward which all efforts are directed is created by the craving for security and contains as imaginary qualities all the powers and natural gifts of which the child believes himself deprived. This fiction, more exaggerated than under normal conditions, molds the mentality, the traits of character and predispositions in its own image. 72 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The neurotic apperception proceeds according to a figurative scheme containing sharply opposed antitheses, and the grouping of the impressions and emotions takes place according to corre- spondingly false and imaginary values. It lies in the nature of the neurotic fiction, of the exaggerated idea of personal worth, to reveal itself under two forms, sometimes as an “abstract mechanism” sometimes as a concrete picture, or as a phantasy, as an idea. In the first case the connection of what is symbolic in the representa- tion with the compensated feeling of inferiority should not be lost sight of, and in the second case one must above all take into consideration the decisive share in the process taken by the psychic dynamic which impels “upwards.”° In the analysis of a psychogenic disease so long as the guiding tendency “upwards” does not reveal it- self, the nature of the disease remains hidden to us, for no matter how valuable the insights of the psycho-therapeutists have been, so long as the secondary guiding principle of attaining pleasure, of affectivity (Bleuler) and those which originate as result of physical inferiority (Adler) are not referred back to the ideal of personality—our un- derstanding remains imperfect, “there is still un- fortunately lacking the psychic bond.” It is also 5 Of the later authors who have especially emphasized this point of view, I must especially mention H. Silberer. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 73 not astonishing that in different cases different characteristics are given to this ideal of person- ality and usually various characteristics at one and the same time as these are derived from various sorts of organ defects, usually from several at the same time. A _ preliminary, de- cidedly incomplete diagram which would corre- spond more to the “abstract psyche” of the neu- rotic than to that of the normal individual would be the following: Ego-Weal asthe goal eeling a e : HE In this outline the most varied combinations must be imagined, if it is to serve its purpose as a model for the purpose of superficial orientation. In- stead of discussing these combinations and the multitudinous components we will discuss some distinguishing phenomena which seem important for the understanding of the neuroses and the neurotic character. 74 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Each of the abstract guiding lines of the neuro- sis and of its underlying psychic mechanism may become accessible to consciousness by means of a memory-picture or may be rendered accessible to it. This picture may originate from the rem- nants of a childhood experience, or it is a product of phantasy, a species of the craving for security. It may represent a symbol, a trade-mark as it were, for a certain mode of reaction, now and then reaching development or being reformed only at a later period often when the neurosis is already fully developed. Being obviously the effect of a sort of economy of thought, which is furnished by the principle of least resistance (Avenarius), it is never of consequence as far as its content is concerned, but only as an abstract scheme or as the remnant of a psychic experience in which the will to power once filled its destiny. This schematic fiction, no matter how concretely it may manifest itself, is never to be understood otherwise than in an allegorical sense. In it is reflected an actual constituent part of experience together with a “moral” both of which are re- tained by memory in the interest of the self-assur- ance that is aimed at, either as a memento, to adhere more tenaciously to the guiding principle or as a fore-judgment not to abandon it. None of these memory pictures has ever had patho- genic significance, like a psychic trauma for in- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 75 stance, and it is only when the neurosis super- venes, when the feeling of degradation of the ego- consciousness leads to the masculine protest and because of this to a closer attachment to the al- ready long established compensatory guiding principles are these memory pictures hunted out from material belonging to a remote past and come to light because of their usefulness, partly in order to make possible the neurotic’s conduct and partly to give it meaning. Here belong above all pain, anxiety and affect predispositions which are based upon such reminiscences which may become actualized in an hallucinatory man- ner, and which may be likened to visual and audi- tory hallucinations. Naturally those reminis- cences will be typical which stand in the closest possible relation to the guiding principle because they represent or simulate for the neurotic, cling- ing as he does to the guiding principle, both the greater and smaller detours of which he has to avail himself in order to elevate his ego-con- sciousness. ‘The characteristic of the neurotic psyche is only its tenacious adherence to the guid- ing principle. It is the contradictions with real- ity, the conflicts which arise from them and the urgency to acquire social importance and power, which bring forth the symptoms. This is even more obvious in such psychoses where the guiding principle appears most subtly. Misinterpreta- 76 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tions of reality are undertaken, and demonstra- tions result, merely, so to speak, for the sake of proof. In both instances, the patient behaves as though he had the goal constantly before his eyes. In the case of the neurosis he exaggerates and combats the real obstacles to the maximation of his ego-consciousness or seeks to avoid them by _ the construction of excuses. The psychotic indi- vidual clinging as he does to his idea (fixe idée) seeks to ignore reality or to transform it in such a way as to make it correspond with his unreal standpoint. Freud, who has done so much to- ward the discovery of symbolism in the neurosis and psychosis, has called attention to the galaxy of symbols. Unfortunately he has carried his investigations only to the point of discovering the actual or possible sexual formule in these symbols, and has not pursued their further eluci- dation into the dynamic eventuality of the mas- culine protest, of striving “upward.” Thus it happened that for him the meaning of the neuro- sis became exhausted in the conversion of libidi- nous stimuli whereas, in reality that which lies behind the symbolism is the appearance of or the actual impulsion toward a maximation of the masculine ego-consciousness. We have described the guiding ideal of the ego as a fiction, thus denying its reality, but we must nevertheless assert that although unreal it is of THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 77 the greatest importance for the process of life, and for the psychic development. Vaihinger in his “Philosophy of As If” has given a brilliant elucidation of this apparent contradiction, and recognized the fiction as an opposition to reality but as indispensable for the development of science. Reference to this singular relationship in the psychology of the neuroses was first made by me and I was considerably assisted and con- firmed in my view by Vaihinger’s work. I am thus in a position to say something concerning the fiction of ego-consciousness, and to throw some light on its significance as well as on its mode of appearance in the psyche. It is first of all an abstraction and must in itself be re- garded as the indication of an anticipation. It is, so to speak, the marshall’s staff ° in the wallet of the insignificant soldier, and may be looked upon as “payment on account” demanded by the prim- itive feeling of uncertainty. ‘The construction of the fiction takes place by setting aside disquiet- ing inferiorities and burdensome realities in the idea, as always happens when the psyche seeks 6 For the benefit of psychologists of a keener insight, I note here that the prevalence of examples which have been taken from military life have been chosen by me with an especial object in view. In military training the starting point and fictive purpose are brought into closer relation, can be more readily noted, and every movement of the training soldier becomes a dexterity which has for its purpose the transformation of a primary feel- ing of weakness into a feeling of superiority. 78 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION certainty and escape from its restraint. The painful uncertainty is reduced to its lowest possi- ble, albeit apparently causal amount, and this is transformed into its very antithesis which is in turn made into the fictive goal of every wish- phantasy and desire. It is then that this goal may be made concrete for the sake of becoming self-evident. For instance, the restriction of food in childhood is felt as an abstract “nothing,” as want, in contrast to this feeling the child comes to long for “all,” for superfluity until it brings this goal much nearer to the understanding in the person of the father, in the form of a tradition- ally rich person, of a mighty Kaiser. ‘The more intensely the deprivation was felt the more forci- ble is this imaginary abstract ideal constructed and starting therefrom begins the formation and classification of the given psychical forces to pre- paratory attitudes, facilities and traits of charac- ter. The individual then carries these traits of character demanded by the fictive goal just as the mask of the ancient actor—persona—was re- quired to fit to the dénouement of the tragedy. Should there stir in a boy doubt concerning his manliness, as happens in constitutionally in- ferior children, feeling as they do to be kindred to girls, he chooses a goal of such a nature as will give him mastery over women (usually also THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 79 over allmen). Through this his attitude toward women is determined at an early age. He will constantly show a tendency to bring about his superiority over women, will undervalue and de- grade the feminine sex, will, figuratively speak- ing—raise the hand against his mother, which in neurotically disposed children often finds expres- sion in a gesture or in their psychic attitude, and will in a playful manner take his model from the mother in order to test himself in the manly role before it. The development of this sort of in- fantile attitude of readiness where a rigid pedan- tic behavior becomes manifest, where the child’s excited desire for mastery seeks a confirmation, and an assurance of his ego-consciousness, simi- lar to the one he has experienced from his mother, that is, conditions in which he is able in the same manner to satisfy his craving for security is al- ready to be looked upon as a neurotic trait. Itis only to this neurotic fixity of the uncertainty that Nietzsche’s assertion is applicable, namely that “every one carries within him a portrait of womankind which he has derived from his mother, and which makes him honor woman or despise her or entertain a total indifference toward her.” Yet we must concede that these individuals are in the majority. Among them are many who were disdained by their mother, since which time 80 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION they fear a like setback from every woman, or demand from her an extraordinary measure of surrender. In the life and development of man there is nothing that sets to work with greater secrecy than the construction of the ideal of personality. If we inquire into.the cause of this secrecy, it seems that the most important basis lies in the combative, not to say hostile character of this fiction. It has originated through a constant measuring and weighing of the advantages of others and must therefore bring about according to the principle of antithesis which lies at the root of this process, the injury to others. The psy- chological analysis of the neurotic shows always the presence of the tendency to depreciation, which is summarily directed toward every one. The combative tendencies‘ become regularly manifest in greed, in envy, in longing for superi- ority. But the fiction of gaining the mastery over others can only be used, be taken into ac- count if it does not disturb the combination of relations from the beginning. And therefore, this fiction must early become unrecognizable, must assume a disguise, or it destroys itself. This disguise takes place by the positing of an anti-fiction, which first of all directs visible con- duct, and under the stress of which reality is ap- 7S. “Der Aggressionstrieb im Leben und in der Neurose.” THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 81 proached, and the recognition of its effective forces is accomplished. This contrary fiction, al- ways of the nature of current, corrective in- stances, brings about the formal change of the guiding fiction by pressing its own claim to con- sideration, by presenting for recognition social and ethical demands at their true value and thus assuring the reasonableness of thinking and act- ing. It is the security coefficient of the guiding line to power and the harmony of the two fictions, their mutual compatibility which is the sign of mental health. In the contrary fiction are active experience and education, social and cultural formulas, and the traditions of society. In times of good humor, of security, of normal conditions, of peace, this is the prevailing form, which causes a restraint of the combative predispositions and effects an adaptation of the traits of charac- ter to the environment. Should the insecurity increase and the consciousness of inferiority emerge, then the contrary-fiction is deprived of value because of an increasing abstraction from reality, the dexterities become mobilized, the nervous dogmatic character asserts itself and with it the exaggerated sense of ego-ideal. It is one of the triumphs of human wit to put through the guiding fiction by adapting it to the antifiction, to shine through modesty, to conquer by humility and submissiveness, to humiliate 82 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION others by one’s virtues, to attack others by one’s own passivity, to cause pain to others by one’s own suffering, to strive to attain the goal of manly force by effeminate means, to make one- self small in order to appear great. Of such sort, however, are often the expedients of neu- rotics. Concerning the significance of the most primi- tive perception and emotion as an abstraction I need waste no words. Just as abstract is the positing of an imaginary guiding point and of this life plan which is now spun out between these two points. With reference to the neurotic psy- che we have repeatedly emphasized that it is the greater insecurity which alone tends to with- draw the guiding point still further from reality, to set it higher. In addition to this the inferior sense organs yield qualitatively and quantita- tively changed sensations, and the organs of exe- cution a changed technique usually in the sense of greater limitation, so that the self-esteem, the ideal guiding representation, the representation of the world and the life plan must be formed differently from normal representations of this sort, in that they are more abstract, less in con- formity with reality. In this process it is true the compensation and over-compensation may sometimes bring the conception of the world and the line of reality nearer together as in the great THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 83 performances of the neurotic psyche. The over- tense personal ideal, however, which acquires ab- solute rigidity, which assumes nearly an identity with God, often lends to the nature and behavior of the neurotic and psychotic a pronounced hypo- manic character, if the preparations therefore, the feeling of insignificance, the ideas of perse- cution did not counteract this character by caus- ing a sort of inner certainty without which the positing of the goal would be impossible, by caus- ing a feeling of predestination. In the phases of greater insecurity this characteristic is consid- erably stronger and its significance as anticipation of the guiding fiction, as payment on account becomes distinctly obvious. Gustav Freytag in his “Reminiscences of my Life” describes the usefulness of the compensa- tory performance in the following manner: “But too the bull’s-eye-shot on the target is difficult tome. For at Oels I had noticed during the instruction that I was very near sighted. When I complained of this during the vacation to my father, he advised me to make my way through the world without glasses and told me a story illustrating the helplessness of a theologist who had made him get up out of bed one morn- ing to hunt his spectacles so that he could find his trousers. I followed this advice and have accus- tomed myself to the use of spectacles only at the 84 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION theater and in looking at pictures. I sought to overcome the disadvantages under which I la- bored in society from this defect and overlooked much unsuspectedly which would have disgusted a sharper observer. I was often obliged to forego the enjoyment of flowers, beauty in dress, of remarkable countenances and beauty in women from which others derived pleasure. But as the same adjusted itself adroitly to this defect of sense, there was soon developed in me a good un- derstanding of those expressions of life which came within my range of vision and a quick divi- nation of much which was not clear to me; the smaller number of the perceptions permitted me to elaborate those which were perceived with greater ease and perhaps more profoundly. At any rate the loss was greater than the gain. But my father was thus far right, my eyes preserved unchanged throughout my entire life their keen- ness of vision at close distances.” If one imagines the development of a visual phantasy of this sort which constantly draws away from reality goaded by the pressure of the craving for security, there results for the same purpose of obtaining security as in the above cited example, an ability to produce visual hallu- cinations which can manifest itself even outside of dream states, for the purpose of presenting warnings to preserve personal security and en- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 85 couraging consolations. The abstractions and also the anticipations have even gone farther and may lead to the well known remarkable patho- logical expressions of the “telepaths” or Cassan- dra natures. The disquieting consciousness of inferiority gives a terrible incentive to this reach- ing out beyond the limits of human possibilities here as in other instances, and this consciousness finding refuge in weakness ascribes to others a greater power of vision, as though they could see what was hidden, could read the thoughts. The child in his craving for security with his natural secrecy may early incline to just this point in order to gain security, and act under the imagi- nary assumption that others can “see into his heart,” can divine his most. hidden thoughts, an assumption which often makes its appearance as an expedient in the neurosis and psychosis and has the same value as the exaggerated feeling of guilt, perhaps, and neurotic conscientiousness, and whose purpose is to avoid a degradation of self-esteem, shame, punishment, mockery, hu- miliation, the feminine role, death. The increased capacity of the neurotic for ab- stractions for anticipations is not only at the root of his hallucinatory character, of his fantasies and his dreams but also of the over-exertion of organ functioning of which he makes use in pur- poseful efforts as preparations for the combat. 86 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Thus the neurotic makes for himself a place by more abstract prevision and premeditation, and constructs thereof, that neurotic foresight which is regularly present in this disease, by means of which the patient holds the possibilities of expe- rience constantly before him arranged dogmati- cally and in sharply antithetical groups accord- ing to the Scheme “Triumph—Defeat.” Or he places his environment under ban by heightening the sensibility of his organs (which is the first step towards hallucinations) showing hypersensibil- ity to smells, sounds, touch, temperature, tastes and pains, and this brings his undertakings con- stantly into harmony with his imaginary mascu- line guiding principle. Foolishness and super- stitious convictions of a hopeless destiny, the firm seated belief in one’s own ill luck serve the same purpose of satisfying the craving for security by constructing the proof that caution is necessary. The hallucinatory awakening of anxiety works in the same direction, of which the neurotic makes extensive use. That the traits of character as well as the emo- tional predispositions serve the guiding fiction, it is the purpose of this book to prove to the fullest degree. ‘The guiding line of the neurotic leading in a directly perpendicular line upwards de- mands peculiar expedients and forms of life which are included under the little uniform con- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 87 cept of the neurotic symptoms. Now one finds safety-devices at remote places, prohibitory ar- rangements, protective combats, for the purpose of assuring success to the central impulse, the will to power, then again there are, and these are often difficult to understand, circuitous ways compa- rable to secret paths, taken so as not to lose the guiding line when the direct way to the masculine triumph is barred. Often a change of nervous phenomena is observed which resembles tentative experiments, until the more severe symptom guarantees a concordance with the guiding idea. I believe too that I have presented in the present work these symptoms and their psycho- genesis coherently and to a sufficient extent. They all rest on dexterity acquired by long practice and preparation whose hypervalency is supported through the medium of and is founded on the fitness for the combat to preserve the ideal self-esteem. The preparations themselves com- mence in the beginning of the neurosis, accom- pany the development of the idea of personal worth and are adapted to it. They are most clearly recognized in the reminiscences of child- hood which have been presented in the oft re- turning dreams, in the mimic, the habitus, in the play of children, in their phantasies, concerning future vocations, concerning the future. It lies in the nature of the too elevated guiding 88 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION idea that it should estrange the person who en- tertains it, that is the neurotic, from reality. Not infrequently this condition manifests itself in a “feeling of strangeness” which is again over- estimated and used with a view to a certain effect, 1.e., to recommend a cautious retreat in an inse- cure situation. Apparently opposite to this “back” an unjustified feeling of confidence in a situation, the feeling of “deja vu” sometimes be- comes manifest, often in the form of a concealed analogy for the purpose of warning or encourag- ing.” In neurotic students I have sometimes ob- served that led by the feeling of their predestina- tion scholars have sought a hearing on subjects with which they were wholly unfamiliar with the result of total failure. Such experiences may cause the neurotic to be suspicious of his empha- sized feeling of “self-confidence” which may emerge, as though he preserved a bad after-taste. The security through the exaggerated idea of self-esteem and the adherence to it determines often the feeling of or even a real condition of estrangement from the world, which indeed is usually exaggerated with a definite purpose. Fear for everything now, ponderousness, awk- 8 The feeling of strangeness and the feeling of familiarity in the neurosis are analogous to the image of warning and exhortation of an inner voice in the dream, the hallucination and the attitude in the psychosis. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 89 wardness, bashfulness, then accompany the neu- rotic who avoids reality and reveals his efforts to reinterpret, reconstruct and remodel it. This deficiency also seeks its compensation and in less severe cases finds it in the antifiction leading to reality, which again in an abstract, usually urgent form seeks to over-estimate the significance of the reality from exaggerated fear of it in order to raise up preparations against error and defect at all times. The vacillation between the ideal and the real manifests itself in an extreme way in the neurotic psyche, in which the passion for doubting assumes the form of a paradigm for the real “truth,” as the final goal of power which the neurotic is to attain. Or the outer forms are pedantically held to and over-estimated as is a fetish, and as though they guaranteed security. The following sentence from Hebel’s letters ° seems to me to indicate this feature. “One can never pay sufficient honor to the outer forms which in youth are so thoughtlessly ridiculed, for they are the only lines which assist in making decisions in the restlessly changing world without law or order”— In small things as in great this craving for security is always manifested and humanity is always seeking it by analogies, and by abstract dogmatic methods. 9R. W. Werner, from Hebel’s youth, Oesterreichische Rund- schau, 1911. 90 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The frequency of sexual guiding lines in the neuroses is explained in unprejudiced analyses upon the following grounds: 1. Because they furnish a suitable form of ex- pression for the masculine protest. 2. Because it lies within the option of the patient to feel them as real. Therefore, the adaptation of the sexual im- aginary guiding line depends also on its value in procuring security for the feeling of self-esteem, on its significance as an abstraction and quality of exciting hallucinations, and on its quality of easily receiving a concrete form and because it admits of anticipations. According to this the hallucinatory character of the neurotic is a peculiar instance of the mecha- nism of security. It makes use, as does thinking and speech, of the primitive recollections reduced to the smallest dynamic measure to which he is drawn by means of the abstracting power of the craving for security. Its function and office is to calculate the way to the desired heights by use of analogy from experiences which have their place in childhood in emphasizing set-backs that have been endured or comforting memories of evils that have been overcome. The hallucinatory power represents a com- pleted preparation accomplished by the over- strained craving for security, and takes its ma- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 91 terial, as does also the function of thought and premeditation from the cast-iron element of the neurotically directed memory. That which is called regression in dream and in hallucinations by other writers is the every-day process of thought which gropes back to experience, and can only refer to the material of the dreams and hal- lucinations, but never to their dynamics. The psychic dynamic of an hallucination con- sist therefore in this, that in a situation of uncer- tainty, a guiding line is sought with might and is hypostasized by means of an abstraction, per analogium with the evaluation of experience, by means of anticipation and by means of a fictitious rendition of something closely related to a sensory perception. This latter ability as the most effec- tive means of expression may, by reason of the anti-fiction which inclines to reality, be felt as in conscious opposition to reality as in dreams, or in the craving for security dissolves the anti-fiction and permits the hallucination to be felt as real. Jodl defined civilization as “the increased ef- fort of man under certain circumstances and with special intensity to secure his person and life against hostile powers of nature as well as from the antagonism of his fellow men, to satisfy his needs both real and ideal in a greater measure and to bring his nature without obstacle to devel- opment.” 92 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The neurotic individual holds the guiding line much more constantly in view, but may accord- ingly need to bring to expression schematically and dogmatically the guiding line which leads to the transcendental or the anti-fiction which tends to culture, the latter in the sense of a neurotic circuitous way, in which, for example, he seems to submit to an extreme degree to the “antago- nism of his fellow men” for the purpose of tri- umphing over them. The evolution of the effort to bring his nature to the fullest development, to attain the pinnacle of that which the neurotic individual may call his culture leads us back again to the already men- tioned preparations so important from a psycho- logical point of view, to the tentative efforts which are supposed to be introduced by the orig- inal consciousness of inferiority. All the imperfect organs in a state of infantile development strive with all their connate capaci- ties and possibilities of development to form pur- poseful, so to speak intelligent preparatory ar- rangements. In the efforts of the constitution- ally inferior organs with their numerous abortive performances arises, aS a consequence of the greater tension in the presence of the require- ments of the external world, the impression of uncertainty, the self-esteem of the child brings forward a permanent consciousness of inferiority. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 93 Thus it happens that already in early childhood the mastery of the situation according to an ex- ample taken as a model or to dominate the situ- ation even far beyond the power indicated in the model is taken as the guiding motive and a per- manent impulse of will is founded which hands over the permanent guidance to a directing idea —‘the will to power.” ‘The positing of a goal in the neurotic character is a phase of the same tend- ency. ‘This goal corresponds consciously or un- consciously to the formula: “I must act in such a way that in the end I become the master of the situation.” Long continuation of the child in the phase of consciousness of inferiority leads to a heightening and strengthening of the intensity of that formula, so that from the unusual inten- sity of all efforts, the preparatory actions and the predispositions, the traits of character of any period of development may be inferred as original consciousness of inferiority. Also in organs fall- ing below the normal standard the tentative ef- forts are manifested, which produce preparations and expedients in walking, seeing, eating, hear- ing. Exner emphasizes that these tentative ef- forts are like those which precede the grasping of the sound combinations when children are learning to speak. Much more convulsive in form are the preliminary processes in the defec- tive organ, whose preparations and methods of 94 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION functioning in favorable examples of over-com- pensation, are in height, light artistic perform- ances and perfection, but which often as in the neurosis because of the close guard kept and the cautiousness, rarely attain full development. The child seeks to learn his faults in the way offered him by the craving for security, and seeks to remedy them or to gain advantage from them in using them as an expedient. As he does not know the real reason for his inferiority, often from pride does not wish to know them, he is easily misled to ascribe them to external reasons, to blame the “spits of objects” or usually, his rel- atives, and assumes then an aggressive, hostile attitude to the real objective world. Usually he retains a foreboding, a presentiment of ill-luck as an abstract reminder of his feelings of inferiority, which he is likely to exaggerate, often develops to a feeling of guilt, if circumstances admit of this, in order to unfold his pre-vision, his fore- sight with good reason. ‘The neurotic endeavors are above all directed towards enlarging and se- curing the boundaries of self-esteem by con- stantly estimating and testing the powers in the difficulties of the objective world. To over-exertion in this effort may be traced many of the traits of the neurotic—his inclination to play with fire, to make dangerous situations and hunt for them, his pleasure in the gruesome THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 95 and the diabolical (Michel). The inclination to crime, like the sadistic inclination lies in the mas- culine guiding line, but is often neutralized by the contradictory idea which develops and is more often exaggerated in memory, with the purpose of warning from execution. Nervousness, by preference, utilizes organic defectiveness, the infantile defects, the sense of ill-health in general, on the one hand for the pur- pose of securing the ego-consciousness against the requirements of parental authority, usually by means of a stubborn revolt on the other hand for the purpose of postponing by a sort of arti- ficial obstruction decisions and collisions which might be dangerous to the masculine fiction, that is to say, the relinquishing of certain positions of advantage in order to retain more impor- tant ones. Indeed the neurotic individual often seeks minor defeats, even brings them about arti- ficially, or assumes dangerous outlooks in order thereby to justify his neurotic acts and caution. In neurotically retained childhood defects a spe- cial refractoriness and strong aggression against the father and mother may be expected. Thus a compulsory striving toward the under- standing of objective difficulties, efforts to over- come them, to gain the mastery, to combat them, undervaluation and depreciation of life and its joys or flight from them characterize a phase of 96 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION the neurosis. Along with this the fact very fre- quently comes to light that the patient is very enthusiastic for life, for work, for love and mar- riage, but platonically, while secretly he bars the access to them through the neurosis, in order to make sure of his domination in the more limited field of the family with the father and mother. This outwardly directed anxious and cautious glance of the neurotic which is intended to pre- serve the guiding fiction is regularly accompa- nied by a self-observation of a higher intensity. Sometimes in a situation of psychic uncertainty the personified, deified guiding idea is met with as a second self, as an inner voice like the Damon of Socrates which warns, encourages, punishes, accuses. And that which the neurasthenics and hypochondriacs relate to us concerning the man- ner in which they inwardly rage, how keenly they examine and follow every act of their lives is true of neurotics generally. The self-observa- tion may lead to a limitation of the field of com- bat, through it it utilizes expressions of fear of sickness, by means of which the neurotic individ- ual is always in a position to beat a retreat for the sake of security. It must be thought of as effec- tive, when the primitive expedients for gaining security, such as anxiety, shame, bashfulness, or the more complex ones, as modesty, conscientious- ness, nervous attacks, accompany the presenti- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 97 ment of a defeat, in order not to allow the self- esteem to sink below the required level. Self- observation and self-esteem always excited and reénforced by the guiding fiction so that a base of operation is offered and the aggressions in- troduced produce immediately the neurotic, dog- ‘matic traits of character, of envy, greed, tyranny, etc. The exaggerated introspection plays a con- stant role in the continuous measuring and wrestling of the neurotic individual to test his own worth against that of others, it gives hints to premeditation and phantasy and announces its presence when the patient avoids making a de- cision or when for the same purpose he gives him- self up permanently to doubt. That all these introspections originate from the feeling of insufficiency and are influenced by it is Just as easy to understand, as that they finally reach the goal to which they in reality tend, i.e., caution. ‘Thus introspection is at once hesitation, egotism, megalomania, doubt, self-de- preciatory psychosis, and stands in connection with all other phenomena which are caused by the consciousness of inferiority. It serves especially for the reénforcement and testing of the masculine protest, of characteristics such as courage, pride, ambition, etc., as well as the purpose of increas- ing all those tendencies whose acme is security, such as economy, exactness, industry, cleanliness. 98 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION It influences the attention and serves also to dominate it, so that it occupies a prominent posi- tion in that mesh of traits whose object it is to gain security. The results, however, at which it arrives are purposely falsified. It would be very erroneous to regard it as libidinous or as pleasure producing. Its funetion is rather to group all the impressions of the objective world and to bring them under a single test, in such a way, so to speak, that the primary uncertainty of the in- dividual shall be assured from being unmasked by a mathematical or statistical guarantee accord- ing to the standard of probability, i.e., that the individual shall escape a defeat. I first called at- tention to the dynamic of the neurosis in the “Neurotic Disposition” and the object of the present work is to present it in a more profound and extended form. The purposeful and pro- found introspection, therefore, is in line with the neurosis, even though in philosophy, psychology and in self-knowledge it has produced excellent fruit. It is the private philosophy of the neu- rotic which fails to hit the mark of reality, and whose mania, corrigible by analysis, has its anal- ogy in the “know thyself” of the sublime philoso- phers. The largely incorrigible delirium of the psychotics brooding and phantastic introspection, which is so much easier to comprehend as a sys- tematized illusion with the object of assuring THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 99 self-esteem, teaches us to understand the delirium of the introspection of the neurotic. The neurotic’s striving for security, his very stronghold, can therefore only be understood when the original, contrary factor of his uncer- tainty is likewise taken into consideration. Both are the result of an antithetically grouped judg- ment which has come to depend on the fictitious egotistic ideal, which furnishes to this judgment biased “subjective” values. The feeling of “‘se- curity” and its opposite pole of “insecurity” ar- ranged according to the antithesis of “feeling inferiority” and “egotistic ideal” are like these latter a fictitious pair of values, a psychic for- mation of which Vaihinger says “that the real in them is artificially placed there, that only when taken together have they meaning and value, taken singly, however, they lead through their isolation to nonsense, contradictions and illusion- ary problems. In the analysis of psychoneu- roses it always becomes obvious that this antithe- sis resolves itself in accordance with the only real “antithesis” of “man—woman,” so that the feel- ing of inferiority, uncertainty, lowliness, effemi- nacy, falls on one side of the table, the antithesis of certainty, superiority, self-esteem, manliness, on the other. The dynamics of the neurosis can therefore be regarded (and is often so understood by the neurotic because of its irradiation upon his 100 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION psyche) as if the patient wished to change from awomantoaman. This effect yields in its most highly colored form the picture of that which I have called the “masculine protest.” The strength of the manly element in the idea of cultural perfection as well as more particularly in the artificial guiding lines of neurotics as we find it in the wishes and actions, thoughts and feelings of our patients, in their attitude toward the objective world, in their preparations for life, in every trait of character, in every physical and psychical gesture, which gives the impulse to the upward movement and directs the line of life up- ward, permits us to divine that in the beginning of psychical development a deficiency of such manly power was felt, and that the original feel- ing of inferiority realized by the constitutionally defective child was estimated as feminine in con- formity with this antithesis. No matter what was at the foundation of the feeling of infe- riority, when the strong neurotic stronghold is introduced through the setting up of the mas- culine fiction, the supposed basis of the childish uncertainty and the uncertainty itself fall under the phenomena which are considered as effemi- nate as a consequence of the neurotic, antithet- ical grouping. The feeling of insignificance, of weakness, of anxiety and helplessness, of ill health, of deficiency, of pain, etc., produces in THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 101 the neurotic actions of such a nature that he seems to be compelled to set up a defense against effeminacy, that is to say, to be obliged to act in a manly and forceful manner. In the same man- ner this answer follows, the affect-possibilities of the masculine protest react against every degra- dation, against the feeling of uncertainty, of be- ing injured, of inferiority, and the neurotic indi- vidual draws constantly effective guiding lines for his volition, action and thoughts in the form of traits of character in the broad chaotic field of his soul, in order not to miss the way to the heights, in order to make his security complete. Usually the traits of character tend in a direct line of the masculine ideal in both the male and the female patients, but the neurotic circuitous ways, attacks and predispositions to attack espe- cially following the decisive defeat whose analysis and arrangements in the ensemble reveals the same tendency to the heightening of the mascu- line ego-consciousness, manifest themselves as in accordance with the above given expositions, even though from an outside view and superficially considered they may appear to be timidity, anx- iety, effeminacy, and may be regarded as flight or retreat from the world. The simple question concerning the stability of the far fetched expedi- ent in the form of a neurotic symptom enables us to understand that in these latter cases it is not 102 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION because a decision has been reached, but because the originally constructed imaginary masculine goal is effective now as it was before and that a cultural adaptation, peace and contentment, can- not be maintained, because the goal is set too high. Through certain uncertainties of the child con- cerning his own sex-role the masculine element in the guiding fiction is considerably reénforced. In fact one observes that children retain a re- markable interest for differences of sexuality in a hidden form. The similarity of dress in chil- dren in the first years, the feminine features in small boys, and masculine in girls, certain threats of the parents as “a boy will change himself into a girl” reproaches to the boy that he is like a girl, to a girl that she is like a boy, may still increase this uncertainty, as long as the differences in the genital organs are unknown. But even where there is the fullest explanation, doubt may awaken through anomalies of the genital organs in erroneous judgments, which may be retained and emerge constantly in later life in the antithet- ical picture of “masculine-feminine” so that our original statement *° that the doubt of his own sex-role is at the foundation of the neurotic doubt needs extension only in one direction, i.e., that the neurosis holds fast to this condition of doubt 10 “Psychic Hemaphrodism in Life and in the Neurosis.” l. c. and the later publications, a THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 103 in the patient subsequently as a security against the necessity of decadency, in order to construct the “hesitating attitude.” The longer the uncertainty as to the sex-röle exists, the more urgent becomes the effort and tentative preparation to attain the masculine role. ‘Thus originates the original picture of the “masculine protest” which has as aim to force the one in whom it exists under all circumstances into the seemingly most masculine attitude, or, as is the case with girls and boys, who early become neurotic, to prevent set-backs in all forms by neu- rotic expedients, simultaneously, however, to build up directly masculine traits of character and strong affect-predisposition. The fore-stage of the knowledge of the sex- role, that is the period of psychic hermaphrodit- ism of the child exists generally. Attention has been called to its importance by Dessoir and my- self. That this stadium with its strong endeav- ors in the direction of the masculine guiding line is of the greatest significance for the develop- ment of the neurosis with its too elevated manly goal and its expedients for gaining security was demonstrated to me by the analysis of the psy- choneurosis. Goethe proves himself to be a good observer and connoisseur of nature when he says in Wilhelm Meister’s Theatrical Consignment, “Just as at certain periods in their life, children 104 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION begin to pay attention to the differences in the sex of their parents, and their glances through the envelopes which conceal these secrets bring forth very wonderful emotions in their nature, so it was with Wilhelm in this discovery ; he was more quiet and less quiet than before, thought he had learned something and just from this perceived that he knew nothing.” In fact one finds as the first expression of this inexperience and its depressing reaction upon the psyche an enormous amount of curiosity and craving for knowledge and in order to find orien- tation in life notwithstanding this the child comes under the influence of the guiding line which im- pels him to act as though he must know every- thing. Should he happen to find out the supe- riority of the manly principle in our society, the guiding model becomes masculine, especially if a man, the father appears to him to be the person with knowledge. In the case of little girls peculiar traits of char- acter which become especially prominent in the neurosis develop when they try to hold fast to the masculine guiding line. The feeling of having suffered an injury has just as much weight with them as for boys who consider themselves female, so that they put all their interest into collecting proof of their injury and building up their ag- gression against their environment. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 105 Imaginary pictures of castration, of man changed to woman, woman to man, of masculine forms of life, emerge in the analysis as indicators of the neurotic psyche, point to the craving for equality with man and permit the masculine fic- tion to reémerge constantly in the later changes of form of the guiding line. "These neurotics reg- ularly assume an attitude toward life as though they had suffered an injury, or as though they were constantly seeking with the greatest caution, to avoid a loss. EK. H. Meyer says in the “Indo-Germanic Myths” (I. S. 16), “According to the Atharva Veda the Gandharvs (phallic Demons) consume the testicles of boys and thus transform the boys into girls.” The ideas of many neurotics in childhood seem to have assumed this and similar forms concerning the origination of the two sexes, as if from thoughts concerning a degradation which has been suffered and which assumes the form of a sexual transformation with the woman. The immediate psychical result is then as a rule more acute aggression against the parents, to whom is ascribed the blame for this shortcoming. Flies, Halban, Weininger, and before them, among others, Schopenhauer and Krafft-Ebing, founded the psychic hermaphroditism on the presence of a hypothetical male and female sub- stance in the individual. Our concept supposes 106 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION only the antithesis in the valuation of male and female as it actually exists, takes into account the universality of the antithetical figurative apper- ception-scheme “male-female” and deduces from the pressure of the neurotically reénforced and heightened egotistic ideal the masculine factor which is so easily discoverable. The latter condi- tions also the emphasis of the feeling of inferior- ity of the individual by comprehending it in a picture which belongs to the feminine role in order to react against it with the character traits, the impulses, and preparations of the masculine protest. ‘The findings published by me have been taken up in a series of the latest works from the Freudian school. A further pursuance of the matter leads irrevocably to a realization of the untenableness of the libido-theory, to a doing away with the sexual etiology and to an under- standing of the neurotic sexual conduct as a fic- tion. If the masculine protest has thus become clear to us as an expedient of the psyche by means of which it attains full security, and strives to bring itself in conformity with the guiding egotistic idea, it still remains to present to view the formal change of this guiding line as it takes place every time contradictions become apparent in it and the purpose of neurotic efforts to maintain superior- ity is Jeopardized. This is the case when reality THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 107 threatens the egotistic ideal with degradation. The neurotic in this case will cling more tena- ciously to his idea than the normal person. The more deeply, however, he becomes entangled in the reassuring neurosis, the more likely is he, being assisted by memories and warnings, to an- ticipate an injury, to construct new neurotic cir- cuitous ways, to apply further neurotic expedi- ents for security which for a problem under consideration contain neither a fiat nor a nega- tion, or more likely both at once. His psychic hermaphroditic character will also manifest itself in the circumstance that he yields, becomes submissive, effeminate, while his efforts at the same time reveal a pressure towards a tendency to dominate, toward manliness, with the result that he makes no progress, because for every step he takes forward he takes one back- ward, and sometimes even expresses this proce- dure in pantomime. In the same way the fear of blame, of punishment, of shame, in short of being “down” may alter his straightforward manly traits. The construction of the neurotic feelings of guilt, of congenital criminal instincts, of rough- ness, of cruelty, and egotism bear fear-inspiring signs in the same ways as the feelings of bashful- ness, cowardice, dullness and laziness when these latter are brought neurotically to expression. The bad, intractable child, the years of wild oats, 108 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION and certain forms of psychoses, frequently the fore-stage of the “developed neurosis,” show us the masculine protest in a high, rectilinear devel- opment. ‘Their performances are produced di- rectly by the surge of the masculine protest which has become an end in itself and which represents wholly and entirely the reénforced guiding fic- tion. Our theoretical presentation of the neurotic psyche would be incomplete, if it did not also enter upon the subject of the nature and signifi- cance of dreams. I can in this place advance no well founded theory of dreams, to say nothing of a complete one. But for various reasons I am obliged to communicate all the observations and findings which have rendered possible the study of dreams in the practical part of the work. Freud’s interpretation of dreams was perhaps the greatest step in advance which has been made in our understanding of the psychology of the neuroses. And yet I cannot regard it as the final step in our knowledge of dreams. In the course of an observation of dreams extending over many years of healthy and unhealthy persons I have arrived at the following result: 1. The dream is a sketch-like reflection of psy- chic attitudes and indicates for the investigator the characteristic manner in which the dreamer takes his attitude in regard to a certain problem. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 109 It coincides therefore, with the form of the fic- titious guiding line, yields only efforts of pre- meditation, tentative preparations of an aggres- sive attitude and can therefore be utilized to great advantage for the purpose of understanding these individual preparations, predispositions, and the guiding fiction itself. 2. In the same way there comes to light in the dream, in a more or less abstract manner, the dreamer’s attitude towards the world about him as well as his traits of character 1! and their neu- rotic abnormalities. The abstraction in dream- thought is necessitated by the craving for secur- ity, which seeks to solve a problem by simplifying it and by referring it to a less complete infantile stage. This it accomplishes in a manner which is true of thinking generally, except that it is more profound. It makes use too of memory, and in a figurative analogical manner, through the hallucinatory awakening of memories of a fear-inspiring or energy-exciting sort. The ex- clusion of reality by sleep favors the abstract thinking in dreams, as correction is to a great part prevented by the insensibility of the sense organs. To this circumstance as well as to the absence of a conscious positing of purpose in 11G. Chr. Lichtenberg already wrote—If people were to relate accurately their dreams, their character cou'd be read from them sooner than from the face. 110 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION dream thought is due the incomprehensibility of the contents of dreams, which only receive mean- ing when taken as symbols of life, as an “as if” for which the interpretation has to supply the real aggression. 3. These facts which still remain to be proved as well as the form of expression of the dream in an “as if” (“It seemed to me as if”) reveal to us the nature of the dream as a factor in which those tentative efforts and tasks become manifest by which caution seeks to gain the mastery of a situ- ation in the future. In the dreams of neurotic persons it is possible, therefore, to observe more distinctly than in others the neurotic methods of apperception which work according to the prin- ciple of an antithesis, the emphasized feeling of inferiority and the guiding egotistic idea, or to divine them in connection with the mental life of these persons. 4. The tendency of the neurotically reénforced guiding idea will be revealed regularly in the dreams of a neurotic person, usually in the form of a striving to attain a position “above” or the masculine protest. The feminine or “under” base of operation is always indicated. 5. Repeated dreams of the same content and dreams of childhood reveal the fictitious guiding line most distinctly. Because they construct themselves upon a completed scheme or one that THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 111 is in a condition to be used which is erected and sustained by the neurotic final purpose. The various dreams of a night indicate this attempt at various solutions and are a characteristic of the feeling of extreme uncertainty. The so-called censor of dreams by means of which is accom- plished a concealment or disguising of actual facts by distortion, reveals itself as the craving for security which accomplishes the formal change of the fiction in the neurosis as well as in the dream, and seeks to avoid by a circuitous way a contradiction in the masculine guiding line. Other disfigurations are inherent in the nature of the more abstract dream thinking and in its char- acter as a mere reflection. 6. The symbolisms and expedients of analogy in dreams are radiations containing forms and contents of dynamic affect reénforcements, their word-pictures, so to speak. They are a psychic superstructure over a compromise between a psychic situation and a biased, usually falsified, sophistically applied souvenir which must sup- ply the resonance required by the idea. The fulfillment of infantile wishes in dreams asserted by Freud is solved by me by regarding it as the effect of premeditation to attain security, whereby memories grouped together with a view to a certain effect are taken as helps in the form of mementoes, a psychic expedient which also 112 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION dominates all logical thinking, and which are not the libidinous or sexual wishes of childhood. The only difference between the neurosis and normality with its dreams and its delusions is the heightened tendency brought about by the re- enforced fiction, to choose those memories which have been made effective, in short the neurotic perspective,—the neurotic does not suffer from reminiscences, he makes them. If this point of comparison, an absolutely nec- essary one for orientation and certainty in action, becomes once fixed, a point which is in proportion to the degree with which the feeling of inferiority weighs upon the child, this point must for the above given reasons, from the necessity of mak- ing comparisons, and on account of the adjust- ments which take place in childhood, become stable, hypostasized and regarded as holy, as di- vine. On the one hand are the real conditions and activities of the subject; on the other hand are the compensatory result of the feeling of in- feriority, the Deity, the guiding idea apperceived in the form of a person or an event. This latter ideal point operates now as though all directing forces were contained in it. Thus first arises from an organic, objective life that which we call soul life, the psyche. Every step the child takes directs itself accord- ing to this system and is in turn directed by it. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 113 There is a continuous weighing, feeling, prepara- tion, formation of predispositions and measuring on the ideal which brings the child forward in his development. He measures himself with men as well as with women, whereby the contrast be- tween the sexes furnishes a guide and produces a psychic adjustment in accordance with a contrast in a certain sense in a hostile, evasive direction in the masculine line. In the neurotically dis- posed child, the compensatory craving for secur- ity heightened by the feeling of uncertainty is responsible, through the over-stimulation of at- tention in this direction for the abstract, neu- rotically reénforced directing lines to the high- flown goal of the masculine protest. And the more sharply defined understanding of the con- trast of the sexes produces earlier and more pro- foundly the preparatory attitudes toward the opposite sex, the more so when, as is the case with neurotics, the exclusively masculine appraisal of the ideal reflects upon his feeling of inferiority causing it to appear feminine. The nature of home training carries with it the result that in his first attempts at formulating an ideal of personality, the child pictures to him- self traits belonging to the most important mem- ber of the family, usually the father. Neuroti- cally disposed children who in contrasting them- selves with the father experience an accentuation 114 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of their feeling of inferiority, immediately hit upon preparatory expedients and construct de- vices for combat as though they were obliged ta demonstrate their superiority to the father. In these preparatory efforts is contained also the attitude to the opposite sex, in so far as the intel- lect of the child does not make a mistake in regard to his own sexual role, and many of his predispo- sitions which are to come into effectiveness later in life are tentatively practiced in a playful man- ner upon members of the family of the opposite sex, in the waking state or in hallucinations, or in his dreams. That along with this the mother serves in a certain sense as a model for the boy has long been known and has been mentioned by Nietzsche. The boundary itself which the child sets for him- self is also a matter of experiment for him. His wishes are, if he be neurotically disposed, bound- less. Discontented because of the too great dis- tance to his egotistic ideal, he even goes so far as to entertain sexual wishes in regard to the mother, a proof of how boundless is the “will to power.” A. fixation of a sexual relation, however, must have other grounds than chance wishes in the field of boundless aspirations. The desire of the boy extends to other female persons with whom he is brought into contact. ‘The picture if then again similar to that of possession “to wish to possess THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 115 the mother” becomes a sign of his discontent, a symbol of his boundless aspirations, of his obsti- nacy and his fear of other women. Now in later life a “fixation” on the mother from similar con- stellations may result, not however, because the wish was heretofore libidinous. For it is a mat- ter of indifference of what nature the real relation to the mother was—the psyche of the neurotic will always utilize it in some way for the purpose of furnishing him security. The motive of the discontent interests us here above all. It originates from the feeling of hav- ing suffered an injury and it is obvious that the child waits fulfillment of every aspiration in his “growing up.” According to the psychology of the “as if” he may expect his cure from the de- velopment of his hair, his teeth, his genital organs. His experience with his teeth serves to give him the impression that a thing may grow again. The tooth-motive plays a frequent role in the dreams and phantasies with girls in order to en- able them to cling to their hope of becoming a man, with boys to give hope to their longing for a more complete manhood. If a tooth is pulled, a milk tooth, a new, stronger one forms. The pulling out of teeth, therefore, symbolizes in the dream the wish to become a man. Neurotic men like women are full of the feeling of having suffered an injury and their whole life 116 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION is spent in the effort at enlarging their spheres of influence. In order to attain this, indeed, in order even to assume their attitude toward this effort, they are obliged to keep up constantly their discontent, so that they will find nourish- ment for it and proof of their neglect in every sit- uation by examining it, rearranging it or arbitra- rily changing it, but always keeping in mind the fictitious guiding goal. With great regularity, I found in them the apperception according to the antithetical scheme “male-female” by means of which they sought and classified all their experi- ences. ‘This scheme according to which they wish to arrange the cosmic picture is usually overlayed by an antithetical picture of the large and small masculine genitalia. It is a frequent and char- acteristic discovery that a finer sensibility devel- ops at points of the body which by nature are inferior, whose excitability sometimes takes the character of pleasurable sensations. I have de- scribed this phenomenon in the “Studie uber Or- ganmin derwertigheit” (1907, Wien und Berlin) and refer them to the compensatory adjustment which has come into play during the individual’s experience in his struggle for existence where the organs or parts of organs in question were men- aced. ‘These compensatory, now higher valued portions of an inferior organ—inferior after they had suffered an injury in their ascendancy—are THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 187 really in a certain sense protective adjustments, although frequently they do not prove of worth. Because, however, their technique has become dif- ferent and no longer keeps pace with the nearly normal organ, the psychic phenomena connected with these organs are striking and deviate from normality. ‘This is the same albeit more minute variation based upon somatic inferiority of which I have spoken in the biology, i.e., explanation of variation, refinement and decline of an or- gan.'? In this way, for instance, the sense of taste has evolved as a security-serving apparatus, in the realm of the nutritive organ, but along with this also the pleasure sense apparatus which must now guarantee the continuance of nutrition as well as the proper choice of food. The variation from the type is brought about by the “compensation tendency” which is already introduced in the germ plasm. The environment (in a broader sense the milieu) dominates the “germ plasm” and in this manner is explained the prompt uniformity of reaction, viz. “inferiority plus compensatory se- 12'Thus the “value of an organ” likewise becomes a symbol in life’s current in which are reflected the past, present, future as well as the fictive goal in like manner as is the case with the indi- vidual’s make-up or with the neurotic symptoms. The idea of the “symbolic in a person’s appearance” is not a new one. It has been expressed by Porta, Gall and Carus. 118 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION curity,” through a change in the conditions of life in the broadest sense, that is to say, all particular members of a single species vary in the same way when the same change in their mode of life takes place. In regard to human society one must keep constantly in mind, more so than in the ani- mal and vegetable kingdoms—that the demands on the single individual vary to a considerable degree one from the other, both quantitatively and qualitatively, so that their somatic inferiori- ties and the compensatory adjustments resulting therefrom differ very widely. And their vari- ations would be still more striking were it not for the fact that the human psyche has thrust itself into the circle of correlations and compensations with such preponderance as the principal organ of adjustive security.” Now the standard tend- encies to security are no longer variations in the organs themselves, but psychic peculiarities. There always continues to exist a connection 13 The psychic adjustment of man with its preparations and peculiar characteristics simulates so very closely the adjustive variations in the animal sphere, that children, neurotics, poets and even speech itself utilize this analogy for the purpose of eluci- dating by way of comparison a psychic gesture, a trait of char- acter, a type of preparedness by means of a representation of an animal, as is the case for instance in the designing of escutcheons, in poetic similes, in fables and parable. See also Erckmann’s Chatrain, the famous Dr. Maltbieu, Goethe’s Reinecke Fox, paint- ing and caricatures. THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 119 which can be sufficiently proved, and we are able to infer from somatic variations stigmata and signs of degeneration of the same, that there has taken place an increased compensatory adjust- ment of the brain and more acentuated tendencies to obtain security. The nature and tendency of all psychic processes are full of the efforts of pre- caution and defensive preparations for gaining superiority so that one cannot avoid the conclu- sion that what we term soul, spirit, reason and understanding are for us abstractions of those effective guiding lines, to which human beings reach out beyond the sphere of bodily sensations, striving to overstep their limitations in order to gain the mastery of a portion of the world and to secure themselves against threatened dangers. The imperfection of the independently acting organ is thus magically elevated to that security which is furnished by knowledge, understanding and foresight. In the animal kingdom the function performed in men by the understanding is performed by a finely adjusted technical apparatus. ‘The fine scent of the dog becomes superfluous or is brought under man’s service, the highly specialized sense of taste, which teaches cattle to avoid poisonous plants, is supplied in man by the understanding eye. 120 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION But it is the same tendency which continues through eternity the struggle of the ancestors to facilitate the preservation of life by more finely graded, sharply differentiated organs as well as by more refined expedients of the psyche. And thus it is permitted to us, to regard this sort of more sensitive peripheral apparatus, its special physiognomy and mimic as a sign of an imperfection of some organ, as a trace which be- trays a transmitted somatic defect. This is also true of the extraordinary development of the. organs of taste in man, for the greater sensi- bility to stimuli of the lips and mucous membrane of the mouth, with which there is usually asso- ciated a more exacting state of the gums, ali- mentary canal, and stomach. Physiognomically the picture of the more in- ferior mouth is represented in the form of more mobile, thicker or thinner lips, usually associated with slight deformities of the lips, of the tongue (lingua scrotallis Schmidt), of the gums, with which are often associated signs of degeneration of these parts, enlarged tonsils or of the whole status lymphaticus. At times, it is true, all higher development in the sense of a tendency to compensation is wanting in the presence of an inferiority, even the hyperasthesia. Reftex anomalies are quite common, sometimes exagger- ation, sometimes diminution of the pharyngeal THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 121 reflex; along with defects of childhood, one ob- serves a greater occupation with the mouth, as touching of the mouth, thumb sucking, tenden- cies to put everything into the mouth, vomiting. Along with this, good digestion is usually present in so far as this is not prevented by other coexist- ing somatic defects. But the evil, the deprivation and the pain which from the cradle on are the fate of the child with an inferior alimentary tract, awake in him at the same time a feeling of inferiority, of having suffered an injury and of uncertainty and force the constitutionally predisposed child to a resort to fictive expedients. The over-strongly devel- oped, precocious, egotistic ideal includes within itself also fictitious goals of over-gratifications which reality can never satisfy. The attention of such children is directed after the manner of a compulsory idea to all problems of nutrition and their sublimation (Nietzsche). The deprivation of a delicacy releases in them entirely different emotions and actions than we would expect. Their sense turns to the kitchen, their play and the infantile choice of vocation turn on the phan- tasy of procuring nutrition, to be cook or candy- maker. The importance of money as a means to power dawns upon them earlier and more forci- bly, as well as the sense of greed and economy. Stereotypies and pedantries in eating are often 122 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION revealed, courses of action according to a princi- ple such as the best is to be put into the mouth first or last, the impatient preferring the first practice, the cautious and avaricious the latter. Idiosyncrasies against certain foods, refusal of food, hasty swallowing, are often adhered to as traits of obstinacy and show the application of the problem of nutrition as an aggression against the parents. Aside from the organic diseases of Jater life which go with an inferior alimentary apparatus, and among which I have emphasized ulcer of the stomach, appendicitis, cancer, dia- betes, liver and gall bladder disease, there is mani- fested in the neurosis a stronger participation and frequent employment of functional disturbances of the digestive tract. Its intimate relation to the psyche is reflected in many neurotic and psy- chotic symptoms. I believe I am on the track of a special expedient of this sort, without being able to present conclusive facts. A number of neurotic symptoms, such as erythrophobia, neu- rotic obstipation and colic, asthma, probably also vertigo, vomiting, headache, and migraine stand in some sort of relation, which is as yet not en- tirely clear to me, with a voluntary but uncon- sciously codperating activity of anus-contraction (“cramp” of the other authors) (spasms of sig- moid flexure, Holzknecht, Singer) and that of abdominal pressure, symbolic acts which are ac- THE ACCENTUATED FICTION 123 complished through the domination of the reén- forced fiction. Acquisitiveness and greed for gold and power I found strikingly in the foreground and as essen- tial factors in the egotistic ideal of these indi- viduals. iY eek ee ae rh Is A ik ue a ps ASH bh ik 1 J ¥ ‘ AR ree + oil 4 A LE” We N Ms ” Bey. Lie wh Br 4) wi ti ats ert hi; Sa K Nn ' glauRRiant we in A Wa oh a at Tie ‚a i sa Ma aye ar idle a 2 m ene Wig ne i] 3 PRACTICAL PART ry Er N AN AU, “ ae #37 Aw Ail Marin Ao AT N. DR yi 1g CHAPTER I AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, CRUELTY, THE DEROGATORY CRITIQUE OF THE NEUROTIC, NEUROTIC APPERCEPTION, SENILE NEUROSES, CHANGES IN THE FORM AND INTENSITY OF THE FICTION. SOMATIC JARGON (ORGAN- JARGON ) I wıst to speak first of those traits of charac- ter which may be demonstrated with a certain regularity in all neurotics, and which reach ex- pression in the patient’s striving with great eagerness, directly or circuitously, consciously or unconsciously, by means of purposive thinking and acting, or through an especial arrangement of symptoms, towards greater possession, to- wards a heightening of his power and influence, towards a degradation and belittling of others. All these forms of self-interest are most often found to coexist, and it is only after a better insight that one recognizes the mighty prepon- derance of those evasions by means of which the patient deceives himself and his environment. He even deceives also science. While playing, for instance, the role of unsel- 127 128 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION fishness, one finds again and again in his attacks, in his neurosis, moreover in the end result gained by means of the latter, that exaggerated eager- ness of which we have spoken in the beginning :— He thus arouses the impression of a double-ego, of one suffering from a splitting of consciousness, and whereas a fictitious goal permits him to ob- serve secretly more rigidly than does the normal person the scheme of avarice, envy, desire for mastery, malice, disputatiousness, and desire to please (coquetry), he is compelled in the open (perhaps also on account of his desire to please) to play the role of the benefactor and patron, of the pacifier and unselfish saint. Not that this play is usually without disastrous results, some- what like Gregor Werles’ truth—fanaticism in Ibsen’s “Wild Duck.” One cannot estimate strongly enough the neurotic’s mania to desire possession of everything, his eagerness to wish to be the first one—cannot be over-stated—even though the obvious traits of character furnish the most contradictory picture. What really drives the patient onward is the overweening desire for absolute power; and inasmuch as his ego-con- sciousness takes offense at many of his means— inasmuch as the power of others may prevent his triumph, he conceals the hindering traits of char- acter from himself and others, and having full in- sight into his hostile impulses and their unpopu- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 129 larity, he allows himself to be guided in the open in his conscious activities by the ideal of virtue. Notwithstanding this, however, his heightened aggressive tendency betrays itself—namely in the dreams in uncontrolled acts, in his attitude, mimicry and gesture—and in that psychic being (“Geschehen”) the expression for which is the neurosis. Concerning the question of transmissibility of such characteristics, yes, also their antagonistic arrangement, there as a rule develops that they have been acquired as secondary guiding princi- ples after the pattern of the father, the mother, or representative persons and are in nowise in- herited. The neurotic psyche finds it in its own or in some representative material, for the pur- pose of which the “double play”—the cleft con- sciousness of society—is utilized in many cases. It is then, however, the device of the neurosis, to conceal and change those hostile aggressive traits which are frequently unsuitable for the fictitious purpose of obtaining a heightening of the ego- consciousness—and to obtain the latter goal through a more intensive utilization of artifices— often by means of contrasting characteristics and neurotic symptoms. One readily becomes con- vinced that the generosity of such patients obeys the same goal of the “will to power” which the patient strives to approach also through the 130 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION heightening of his aggressive tendency, his avarice and thriftiness. One of my patients who came under my obser- vation on account of stammering and depressive states, permitted to appear in his environment a detection only of his generosity. One day he made a voluntary bequest to a certain institute, and told me this story with an apparently directly associated statement that he felt unusually de- pressed that day. Along with this his stammer- ing likewise became more pronounced. ‘The ex- aggerated state of his neurosis showed itself to be a result of his generosity as result of which he feels himself degraded and one is justified in ex- pecting a revelation of the real working of this individual in further acts, thoughts and dreams as running with the developing neurotic symp- toms—not because he has repressed his avari- ciousness or a corresponding sexual impulse—but because he has deviated too far from his goal— namely, to increase his possessions. He must therefore do something which will bring him back to it. He tells me further, “It was already far after the dinner hour. I felt very hungry, and besides a friend awaited me in a restaurant where we were to dine together. I had to walk there- fore the (long) distance to that place. My friend still waited. After dinner I felt somewhat better.” This means that he began at once to AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 181 save again and made the journey on foot, not- withstanding hunger, depression and rendezvous. Incidentally, he was able to let the friend wait, which is with many neurotics the concealed mode of asserting their desire for dominancy. The very first manifestation, actions and com- munications of the patient in the presence of the physician, frequently contain the most important of the disease mechanism and character develop- ment. This is so because the patient is as yet not in possession of cautiousness in the presence of the physician. As the above quoted patient in- troduced himself to me, he told me casually, that his father was not well to do, and that he was unable to make great sacrifices for the treatment. After a certain time, there came of necessity to light that he deceived me in this respect in order to obtain a smaller charge. He showed himself to be avaricious also in many other respects, but at the same time he endeavored to deceive both himself and others in this respect. Both of these traits were also possessed by the father, and our patie_t was taught stinginess by the latter with special stress. He was often told “money is might, for money everything can be had.” Thus it could not be avoided that our patient, who was already in childhood very ambitious and tyranni- cal, having later fallen into an uncertain situa- tion and believing that he could not reach the pa- 132 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ternal standard, through direct means, took refuge under the pressure of his ambitiousness, in the device to convince the father of his utter help- lessness and of the other failures of his educa- tional plans, by retaining this childhood defect, stammering. Through his stammering, he spoiled his father’s play—because he was not able to be the first one, because he was not able to surpass the latter. Our culture, however, agrees with those chil- dren who see in the amassing of fortune the road to power. Similarly led on, this “will to power” assumed the external form of stinginess and avarice in so far as he further developed these tendencies. It was only the contradiction be- tween a vulgar avariciousness and the ego-ideal which forced him to a concealment of the impulse to avarice by means of which he wished to domi- nate his father, and forced him to the substitution of the stammering. In the further course of the analysis the origin of his desire for possession became evident. He suffered practically con- stantly in his infancy from stomach and intestinal disorders, which were the expression of a heredi- tary inferiority of the gastro-intestinal tract. In the family, stomach and intestinal disorders played an important role. ‘The patient recalled very distinctly how he frequently had to deny himself appetizing food in spite of hunger and AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 183 desire, whereas his parents and brothers and sis- ters consumed them with pleasure. Whenever he could he gathered foods, bonbons and fruits to be feasted upon later. In this tendency to gather, we already see the influence of the devel- oping craving for security, which is constantly endeavoring to adjust in some way or other the feeling of degradation. How far, however, this may reach may be shown by a constructed example which I am able to verify with analogies from our case. The eagerness for power, and through it for posses- sion may be stirred up by the feeling of inferior- ity to such a point that one finds it at phases of the psychic development when one would least expect it. A small patient of this sort will at first, it is true, only desire to have the apple which is for- bidden him, in seeing his father and brother eat- ing the same. Envy will begin to stir itself, and after a brief period such a child may have reached the stage in his deliberateness and contemplation when out of the striving for equality he will at- tempt to prevent others from having anything before he has it. It will soon have reached so far in the elaboration of this albeit only slightly im- portant idea, as to have at his disposal all sorts of preparations and facilities, it will, especially in the presence of an originally inferior muscular 134 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION system, train itself for the whole year by climbing and jumping in order to be able to climb a tree as a master in the fall. The human psyche is not able to account always for fictitious goals, and thus the child may apparently free himself from his goal, employ his dexterity in sports and gym- nastics in the service of other tendencies, which serve in a different manner his ego-consciousness somewhat like our modern States conduct our war preparations without even knowing the fu- ture enemy. The father of our patient may have easily been taken by the boy as an incidental example because he excelled his environment in greatness, power, wealth and social standing. If the boy is to emerge out of his insecurity into which he has been plunged by his constitutional inferiority he must arrange his preparations for life in accord- ance with a set point of view as after a plan (blue print). A marked exhibition of the guiding principle toward the paternal ideal ( Vaterideal) is in itself quite a neurotic trait, because in it we may comprehend the entire misery of the child who endeavors to emerge from his insecurity. The craving for security (Sicherungstendenz) of the neurosis leads the patient in this way out of the sphere of his own power and forces him into a path which leads away from reality, first because he takes for his object his fiction to be AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 135 equal to his father or even to excel him and is therefore forced to formulate, arrange and in- fluence his apperception of life under its compul- sion, and second because one can never succeed in carrying out such a fiction in real life except in a psychosis. In this way, there develops in the psyche of the child an intensive searching, weighing, and meas- uring tendency of which I shall have to say some- thing more. ‘That which is according to my ex- perience primarily responsible for the too rigid assumption of the paternal guiding principles, may be discovered in an investigation into the sexual roles. The neurotically predisposed child, or as I may say, the child laboring under the pres- sure of a feeling of inferiority, desires to become a man, as soon as the neurosis develops, to be a man. In both instances he can only conduct him- self in such a manner as if he were a man or shall become one. The exaggerated craving for secur- ity drives also in this instance the attitude of the developing neurotic into the ban of the fiction, so that in some instances even conscious simula- tion may come into play, and a girl for mstance in order to escape a feeling of inferiority may in the beginning borrow in conscious imitation masculine gestures of her father. There is no reason for the assumption that because of this she must be in love with her father. ‘The mere over- 136 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION valuation of the masculine principle suffices for this, may nevertheless at times be taken as in- fatuation by the girl herself as well as by her en- vironment, should the preparations for the future playfully demand a hinting of love or a marriage. In our case the guiding line to the compensatory ego-ideal, transformed itself through a change of form and content into a craving to excel the father in wealth, esteem, and along with this in manliness. The inquiry into his own sexual role, sets in intensively and typically as sexual curi- osity, whereby the patient in his feeling of in- feriority, apperceives the smallness of his infantile genitals as compared with the largeness of the paternal ones, as a bitter setback, as a want of masculinity. His ambitiousness which shall en- able him to rise out of his state of inferiority, compelled him to a heightening of his sense of shame, in order that his genitals may not be seen in the event of an exposure (in case he is nude). To this may be added that he was of Jewish descent. He had heard certain things about cir- cumcision and harbored the idea that he was also (Verkürzt) belittled through the operation. His masculine protest drove him to a degradation of woman, as if he had to give proof to his superi- ority in this wise, and came into the most abomi- nable relationship with his mother. But also with respect to his father, whose pref- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 187 erence for himself he gained through diplomatic adjustment, he harbored hostile thoughts which became especially prominent when the father over-emphasized his own superiority to do which he had a marked inclination. In this chaos of feelings the patient sought orientation, and found it only in the thought to become superior to his father, to become more manly than he. He had, too, as often happens in such cases, undertaken attempts at enlarging his genitals or bringing about erection. This route which leads to sexual precocity and masturbation, was soon abandoned by him, because his father warned him against it on numerous occasions. ‘Thus there remained as a substitution for his masculine pro- test, only efforts to become richer, more honored and wiser than his father, and to degrade his en- vironment. His father placed great hopes in the patient’s oratorical talents, which had shown themselves al- ready in childhood, did not allow himself to be de- ceived by the mild stammering of the boy, and hoped he would make a law career. In this re- spect the patient was able to strike at the father’s most vulnerable point, and thus he sank into a more pronounced stammering, a neurotic mani- festation of the insurance against the superiority of the father, a manifestation whose inception was given him by a stammering home teacher. 138 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION In the course of time, this symptom gained many other uses, for example, the one that through his stammering he always gained time in which to weigh his words, to avoid demands of the family, to utilize the confession of others as well as that prejudice because of which, only little was ex- pected of him, which he then managed to fulfill easily. It is interesting that his quite apparent stammering was no obstacle to his courtship, that it even expedited matters, a fact which becomes quite comprehensible from our standpoint, ac- cording to which we assume the existence of a quite prevalent type of girl which cannot omit from the conditions of their love that the man of their choice must be beneath them, so that they may with certainty rule over him. Especially hostile feelings against his parents, brothers and sisters and the servants he put a stop to, through the development of a new guiding principle which was to make of him a benevolent man. This new evolution took place under a nightly confession through which he reproached himself for his wick- edness and arranged qualms of conscience. His growing knowledge thus showed him the way, through a cultural subterfuge to a heightening of his ego-consciousness. The want of a direct aggressiveness showed it- self in thoughts and phantasies, albeit also in his good progress at school, so that he was victorious AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 139 over all his classmates. A growing tendency to- wards sarcasm and exasperation of others was at this time the only manifest expression of his for- mer often violent aggressiveness which gained for him the nickname of “blood-leech.” His comba- tive attitude played an important röle in the cause of Judaism, which was reflected in an act of com- pulsion at the age of twelve. Whenever he en- tered a swimming pool he had to cover his geni- tals with his hands and immediately submerge his head under the water, where he kept it until he counted 49, so that he often came to the surface gasping for air and exhausted. The analysis re- vealed the mental content to be a striving of his phantasy to bring about an equality of genitalia. The forty-ninth year is, according to the old Jew- ish laws, with which he had become acquainted shortly before, the year of the jubilee, in which all acres were again made equal. Ideas of this sort, and the simultaneous concealment of the genitalia showed the way to the interpretation. One may almost draw the conclusion that also his stammering was intended to make him quits with a superiority of his father, of all people, inasmuch as his stuttering was an obstacle to them, was even painful to them. His avarice, his stinginess, were accordingly active in the same direction, namely, to clear the field of superiorities of others, to insure him 140 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION against further degradation and _ belittling through poverty, thus he was compelled markedly to expand these secondary directions and to for- mulate and evaluate his experiences according to them in order to reach the heightening of his ego- consciousness, his masculine protest. It was only under such circumstances where through revelation of these traits of character a lowering of his ego might arise that he suppressed their apparent activity. It were an absurdity to wish to assume a moral standpoint in a medico-psychological question, to consider people like the above as morally inferior. Those who have an inclination in this direction I wish to remind of the very strong, compensatory traits of character, of a worthy nature, for the rest I wish to remind them of Rochefoucauld’s wise sentence—viz: “I have never investigated the soul of a wicked man, but I once became ac- quainted with the soul of a good man: I was shocked.” In another case, the nature of the avarice showed itself not as a safety device for the com- pensation of a feeling of degradation, but above all as an artifice in the service of the craving for security. A forty-five year old patient who suf- fered throughout life from psychic impotency, and was pursued by suicidal ideas, showed an es- pecially marked tendency to degrade others. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 141 We know this trait of character from the de- scription of the previous case where it served as it always does to do away with one’s own feeling of inferiority. With this tendency there is usually associated exaggerated mistrust and envy, which have for their object as neurotic- psychic dexterities, the falsification of the search and valuation of experiences. A tendency, too, to cause others bodily and psychic pain, will like- wise know how to assert itself in an accentuated manner. The abstract, guiding point of view of the patient, to assure his dominating position, to be above, appeared to be obviously threatened, and compelled a strengthening of fictitious guid- ing principles. Reminiscences out of his infan- tile period were utilized in the neurosis, as result of which he came near being the victim of a homo- sexualist. He was raised as an only boy among his sisters, a situation which, according to my ex- perience, frequently narrows the understanding of one’s own sexual role. Of importance was his attitude toward his father, because it likewise drove him to strength- ened security devices. The father, namely, was brutal, egotistical, tyrannical, so that it was difk: cult for the boy to assert his own value in his presence. Several love adventures had thrown the father into quite difficult situations which our patient utilized as mementoes in his developed 142 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION psychosis. This mistrust was directed against all women. ‘Throughout life he remained ready to make sacrifices for his sisters, but he had al- ready apperceived this fact with an unusual amount of feeling, and readily developed from this trains of thought which were to show how readily he gave in.to women. Incidentally, he was able to advance quite considerably in this direction in order to be able to emphasize sharply this impression for himself. It was then that he was prepared to withdraw himself from women. He transformed into a sexual image, feelings of inferiority which were present in his childhood. The reason for his unmanly bearing—for the homosexualist wanted to take him for a girl—he sought for and found in an incidental Cryptor- chism caused by a patent canal. At the age of eight he watched a boy in the act of masturba- tion. Hic puer ei semen ejacularit in os—which he looked upon as a further sign of his feminine role. So long as he took his father as his guiding principle, he exhibited the ordinary dexterities intended to make him equal to his father. He secretly consumed his father’s whiskey, en- deavored to bring his mother over to his side, and already early in life had chosen his father’s trade, by means of which he was also able to satisfy his sadistic tendencies which were excited by his feel- ing of inferiority and his striving toward the pa- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 143 ternal guiding line—to choose the trade of a butcher. He was also fond of bringing his vul- gar tendencies into execution upon girls and women—he was in the habit of biting them, beat- ing them, and took part one time in a sexual as- sault, when he carried out coitus per anum in order to avoid a possibility of alimony. His experience, however, which showed him in the complete brutal character of his father, drove him, because of the threatening of a lawsuit, and the degradation associated with it, to a neurotic subterfuge. He utilized his already accentuated mistrust of women for the purpose of torturing them with fits of jealousy, of bringing them en- tirely under his influence and insure in this man- ner the appearance of dominancy. His ejaculatio precox and the associated im- potency served his need for security in the same manner as did his animosity towards women. He showed preference for the seduction of mar- ried women in order to cause them disappoint- ments through his impotency, at the same time, however, to gain in a sportive manner a substan- tiation of his belief that all women were bad. Also in his compulsory ideas this tendency to cause pain manifested itself. Thus even during his treatment he experienced sudden impulsions to bite and beat a language teacher while taking a lesson from her, because he developed ideas that 144 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION she had a lover whom she preferred to the patient. This sadistic reaction to a feeling of subordinacy, as a masculine protest against a feeling of being unmanly, effeminate, had its origin in childhood and runs through his entire neurosis. It was not difficult to prove, that his impotency similarly obeyed the goal to find a means whereby to es- cape the call of love, the subordination to a wife, a tendency, however, which found its contmu- ation in a further degradation of women. As he saw no prospect of dominating his teacher, he immediately left her, because he knew that she was dependent upon giving him lessons. Before, however, having done this he undertook a critical estimation of the expense of taking les- sons, found them beyond his means which could be readily seen to be a false purposive valuation of the very well-to-do individual. In the same manner he made use of the occasionally recurring reminiscences of incestuous thoughts, in order to become apprehensively conscious of his inferior- ity, of his criminal tendencies as soon as women came into play. Thus he established his base of operation, by means of which he must insure him- self against the feminine gender, as a result of which he seemed to be assured of lasting superior- ity throughout life. The essence of his compulsion towards an in- surance against women lay in the fear that he AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 145 might experience in marriage or love disappoint- ment which he might attribute to his unmanli- ness. Inasmuch as he sought his remote goal in the proof of his might he was bound to become inclined toward caution and neurotic subter- fuges. In this patient also there were present early gastro-intestinal disturbances, and as a peripheral sign of inferiority the fatal inguinal hernia. In his sort of love-activity, exaggerated avarice lent itself as the most useful means for an insurance against a too far-reaching surren- der. In order, however, that this avarice may be of use, it must embrace the whole sphere of his life’s relations and must be omnipresent. It must in turn be supported, it must be assisted by all sorts of by-traits. This took place among other things in the arrangement of compulsory ideas. Whenever he used an automobile, the thought that a collision might take place came to his mind. A further analysis of this compulsory idea revealed that he was farthest away from a belief in such an eventuality but that he always avoided all expensive means of travel. Yes, even when he used the tram cars for an extended trip, the thought occurred to him, upon reach- ing the point where the cheap fare terminated and the more expensive one began, that a col- lision might take place, or that the bridge which had to be crossed might collapse, so that he would 146 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION always pay the cheaper fare, save a few pennies and cover the rest of the distance on foot. He was on the road where he felt bitterly every ex- penditure. Thus it also came to pass that he sought to degrade man, in order to gain a uniformity of behavior. ‘This already became distinctly mani- fest in the hunt after married women, and the dismay and disappointment of the seduced women as well as the abusive language which he used to- ward them afterward pleased him no less than the satisfaction of once again having shown him- self to be the stronger. This was in line with the content of his life, with the change of form in which his original fiction to be the manliest came closest to realization. Only the fear of women which synchronously with the realization of his own femininity origi- nally led him to his exaggerated masculine pro- test, found itself again in the unduly accentu- ated insurance against the domination of women and allowed him to strengthen beyond measure like a safety-dam his mistrust and avarice, both of which offered good arguments. Swept away by this craving for security, he furthermore at- tached to it his psychic impotency, with which he became acquainted during his first attempts at coitus. A servant girl whom he wanted to se- duce as a youngster, offered resistance and es- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 147 caped him by tightening her limbs. He was at that time inexperienced and considered himself impotent. Later, as he became more experi- enced in these matters, he felt his inexperience in such a way, as if woman were an insoluble puzzle to him. In the original impotency, how- ever, as well as in his helplessness in the presence of woman, he found the neurotic subterfuges by means of which to escape a depreciatory defeat, a decision adverse to his masculinity. The com- paring of himself with other men set in vehe- mently now. He would surprise himself for in- stance, when sitting at the table in company, in a psychic situation, where before any one even had spoken a word, he was already planning a repartee, already figuring how he might prove the speaker wrong, no matter whether he was speak- ing of a book or a theatrical performance, or society or place, his derogatory criticism always pushed itself to the front in a most pronounced form. And so it was to be expected that after a brief introductory period his traits of mistrust, avarice, and depreciation of others would become evident every time he underwent medical treat- ment, often quite artfully linked one with the other. ‘This phenomenon, not at all in the Freud- ian sense of a transference, but because his rigidly fixed psychic gesture, his attitude of attack, his tendency to degrade others, actually did, and 148 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION upon closer acquaintance, was obliged to come to the surface. To this was added another accentu- ating moment. His object when seeking the ad- vice of a physician, could not have been simply to become rid of his impotency because in such an event, he would have been cast into the chaos of his apprehensions. He was much more anxious to find proof of his incurability, or to find means of ridding himself of his impotency without the fear of a defeat. In order to bring about the first, a depreciation of the physician’s ability was a preliminary condition. ‘The proper means of ridding himself of his impotency however, he could only find after following up his fear of . women to its source, to the feeling of his unmanli- ness, in which his feeling of inferiority became concrete. One of his dreams which occurred at the period preceding the termination of the treat- ment showed this state of affairs very distinctly. I must first of all briefly state that I make use of certain important parts of the Breuer-Freud technique of dream interpretation, but that I see in the dream an abstracting, simplifying en- deavor to find, by means of a premeditation and testing of difficulties carried on in accordance with the patient’s own peculiar scheme—a pro- tective way for the ego-consciousness out of a sit- uation which threatens a defeat. One will therefore always discover in the AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 149 dream, that significant scheme of the antithetical mode of apperception: “masculine-feminine,” “above—beneath” as existing originally in every- body, but especially marked in the neurotic. The various notions and recollections which come to the surface in the dream, must be brought within this scheme before they can be of any aid in the interpretation of same, whose object it is not—or at least not principally—the fulfillment of infantile wishes but rather to accompany those introductory endeavors, to bring about a balance in favor of the ego-consciousness, through balanc- ing the patient’s debit-credit account in a pecu- liarly neurotic manner. His dream was as fol- lows: “I dealt in second-hand goods in Vienna, or in Germany, or in France. I had to buy, however, new goods and wash them, because this would then be cheaper. Then they were again old (second-hand) goods.” The new goods meant new potent genitalia in contrast to the “(second-hand) old goods,” his impotency—which as yet nobody had cured. Here the idea of a new life, of a possibility of at- taining potency, shines through. The words, “because they would be cheaper” correspond to the previously elucidated ideas, his fear of money expenditures in case he does not become potent. This idea, however, can only be accepted under 150 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION one condition, to wit—if the patient is saturated with the conviction that he is boundless in his love-impulse, that he knows no limits and sense- lessly hunts after women. This conviction he purposely takes for himself out of his childhood reminiscences, out of his period of puberty and adolescence. In doing so he also assists in the shaping of his infantile incest-stirrings should these serve his purpose in a form, as if he had coveted his mother or sisters with a sexual object. This means that he works, with a fiction which arose from the assumed goal, through gaining security for himself, similarly as Sophocles de- veloped and shaped the (Edipus legend in order to stabilize the holy commands of the gods. Our patient became a willing victim of his limited un- derstanding of dialectic and of the antithetical manner of primitive thinking. ‘The guiding idea of his ego-ideal “I must not covet blood rela- tions,’ embraces dialectically the antithetical thought of an incestuous possibility. Inasmuch as the neurotic desires to insure himself, he clings to this antithetical thought, plays with it, empha- sizes it and utilizes it in the neurosis in the same way as all other frightening reminiscences which appear to him to be useful for his security. In the life of our patient, and in the lives of all neu- rotics, there are very many more experiences, which might have been able to carry with them AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 151 the conviction that they were free from incestu- ous stimuli, that they were always especially tem- perate, careful and timorous. Inasmuch, however, as he desires to reassure himself, his neurotic and falsifying mode of ap- perception push these traits of character pur- posely aside. He has many more impressions to that effect, that he does not covet his mother and sister, but he is, however, unable to utilize them in the service of his craving for security. ‘Thus there remains for them only a memory rest of a playful preparatory venture, and because this may serve as a warning to him, he makes of it a bugbear, with which to frighten himself. Ex- actly in the same manner, develop neurotic anxiety, fear of places, hypochondriasis, pes- simism and constant doubting, inasmuch as these patients only avail themselves of those impres- sions and experiences which serve the purpose of bringing about security, which strengthens their affective state while they depreciate all others especially those of an antithetical nature. The sophist’s ability “in utram-que partem dicere” of everything is also possessed by the neurotic as well as by the psychotic, and they utilize it as they need it. The thoroughly polished, purposefully strengthened dexterities of neurotics, and the neurotic traits of character which go with them 152 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION are impossible for the fact that every new situa- tion brings about havoc. (Lombroso’s misoneis- mus.) More than anything else, our patient feared the, to him unknown, situation of sexual gratification and successful coitus, because in presentiments of this situation, he gave himself for reasons of safety the role of the underling (unterliegenden). Now this fear, which is ap- perceived as a fear of impotency, furnishes a fur- ther security against the possibility of being re- strained, restricted in freedom or deceived by his wife, against a possibility of not being equal to her, against a role which is contrary to his mas- culine ideal, and which he therefore evaluates as effeminate. Out of the harmless, ubiquitous traits of sel- fishness, avarice and stinginess, he puts together a far-reaching, apparently imminent, but in real- ity fictitious guiding principle of “avarice,” be- cause, the retention of this appears to him to be lost. Should he become endowed, as was the case in the dream with that which he had desired already in childhood, namely, new genitals, a healthy potency, then he must defend himself against it. He takes hold then of a means, with which he has been long acquainted, which has often been highly recommended to him, which after all enfeebles his erections instead of strengthening them,—he turns to cold washes. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 153 This according to his experiences, inadequate remedy, he considers equal to my treatment. The remedy shall bring about the opposite to what it is aimed to do, and this physician shall have just as little success as the former ones. Thus the dream shows him the way out of the situation, it tells him how to safeguard himself against the treatment and thus get the upper hand of the physician. “Then they are second- hand goods again.” In other cases of psychic impotency a cure readily results, and as we know, as result of the most diverse kinds of remedies. Often it con- cerns neurotic patients who by the mere fact of going to consult a physician give one to under- stand that they would be inclined to give up this form of security. In that case all manner of medication, cold douches, electricity, hydrother- apy, and especially every form of suggestion, even the one resulting from an incomplete analy- sis are of value, occasionally the authoritative command of the physician suffices to bring about definite consequences. In severe cases, it is necessary to bring about a transformation of the all too absorbing, concentrated psyche upon the idea of security. Age often intensely stimulates envy and avarice. Psychologically this is not difficult to 154 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION understand. No matter how beautifully poets and philosophers endeavor to picture age, it is nevertheless only given to the select souls, to maintain their equilibrium, when they see loom- ing up in the distance the gate which leads to death. Then again the denials and restrictions, which the senium naturally carries with it, and the perceptible dominancy of the younger folks, of one’s own relations, which often furnish the occasion, quite innocently—or apparently so— for a degradation of old people—will almost al- ways lead to a depression of the ego-conscious- ness. The sunshiny preparedness as it is re- freshingly expressed in Goethe’s “Father Time” is a quite unattainable illusion for most people, and fortunate indeed may be considered those who survive their best time of life without a se- vere depression of the spirits. According to our thesis, it must naturally fol- low that the period of aging—brings forth simi- larly to a severe setback, a feeling of inferiority. Especially affected by this will be all those who are neurotically predisposed. At times it is age, in women, the climacteric, feelings of insuffi- ciency of a psychic or physical nature, indica- tions of impotency, a breaking up of the family, marriage of a son or daughter, as well as financial losses, the loss of a position or post of honor which first causes the breakdown. In most in- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 155 stances one may already find in the previous his- tory indications of actual attacks of a neurotic character. Age with its losses has the same effect as other degradations of the ego-consciousness. The ag- gressive tendency seeks other means whereby an adjustment may be brought about, other means which unfortunately are not easily to be had in these cases. Renunciation would come easier, if along with the sinking of bodily and mental power there would also take place a narrowing of the emotional life. This seldom happens, and in order to find a substitute for the loss, the aggres- sive tendency which has been stimulated by the insecurity—again whips up all stimuli of desire. The universal decree frequently stands all too firm against all these endeavors. The bearing, the life, the desires, the dress, the work and ac- complishments of aging people are subject to criticism in a great measure. ‘Those who are predisposed to a neurosis will readily take this criticism as a barricade—and will already shrink from these situations which still offer possibility of gratification. Such an individual will force himself into submission, will want to annihilate his feelings and desires, without being able to set himself to rights with them. Yes, still more intensely will these flare up when a renunciation without adjustment is demanded. 156 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ~ Thus it happens that the active hostile traits of character develop, that envy, ill-will, avarice, the craving for dominancy, sadistic impulses of all sorts, experience accentuations, and never satis- fied, bring about a restlessness which unremit- tingly strives for remedies, substitutions, securi- ties, “Where you are not—there is happiness” because the real position of aging people is seri- ously endangered in our state of society, inas- much as it is the productive value, which is almost exclusively the test of the worth of the personal- ity. ‘The neurotic’s sustenance (Brod) on the other hand is the appearance of power, prestige, even suicide has already come within our experi- ence as the last expression of masculine protest. The advent of senility has even a stronger ef- fect upon women than upon men. Even the significance of the climacteric is usually phantas- tically exaggerated. Youth and beauty meant power for woman, and more so than for man. Her charms were able to give her dominancy, vic- tories and triumphs, for which the neurotic greed- iness constantly longs. Age to them is like a stain. Besides their value sinks more decidedly than is the case with the aging man, and as far as it concerns aging woman, prevailing psychology may be desig- nated point blank as actually hostile. This deplorable feature has its origin in the AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 157 well known tendency of man to depreciate woman, coupled with the psychic defeat which they experience from our social life, a neurotic germ which manifests itself, implacably and in- eradicably even unto the grave. Consciously or unconsciously, often unavoidably from the na- ture of things, this derogatory tendency has its in- jurious effect upon the ego-consciousness of these aging women, who after all have a right to live. Children’s love and respect for the aged as aids and guiding points of view in man’s relations with his fellow men, furnish only the very mi- nutest relief and can never suffice to gratify the stimulated desires of people whose powers are waning. It is then that the neurotic bent sets in for the purpose of strengthening the guiding principle. “I am deprimed—lI had too little out of life—I will realize nothing more,” this one regularly hears in the complaints of aging neu- rotics, and they accentuate this manner of view- ing life to such an extent, that they suspiciously and distrustfully sink into a repulsive egoism, the like of which they had never before expe- rienced so vividly. Through this, however, the vacillations and doubts become stabilized. “Act as though you were still obliged to attain worth,” thus approximately rings a newly con- structed guiding principle, and along with this the nerotic’s sharpening of avarice becomes more 158 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION acute, the avaricious, envious, domineering im- pulses come violently to the foreground, almost, however, restrained by the previously mentioned guiding principles in accordance with which these patients shrink with apprehension from every desire and beginning. ‘Thus there lie unmistak- ably under cover, separated with difficulty from consciousness, those impulses which lastingly support dissatisfaction, impatience, mistrust, and uninterruptedly direct the attention of the unat- tained and often unattainable. In the last in- stance, to the success of which the marked adap- tability of the sexual symbols contributes in a way, but furthermore also the fact that a proof of a lack of sexual gratification is readily to be had by every one, it therefore happens, that all desire becomes sexualized. It is readily understood that these people apperceive on a sexual basis. But one must avoid taking this sexual fiction, this, so to speak, “modus dicendi” or as I have called it, the sexual jargon, for an original ex- perience. In the theoretical part I have dis- cussed the reasons for the marked prominence of the sexual guiding principle in neurotics, first, because it, like all other guiding principles is con- siderably accentuated in the neurotic, and so to speak, felt as real instead of what it was intended for—namely, as a protective guiding line—and second, because it (the sexual guiding principle) AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 159 leads in the direction of the masculine protest. Thus it happens that every desire of the aging neurotic woman may be referred to not only by herself, but with a little effort by the physician to a sexual analogy. Likewise, that the physi- cian may be able to fill the neurotic’s want of a protective analogy, by means of a premature of- fering of a sexual guiding principle in the sense of the orthodox Freudian school, may unques- tionably be inferred from the foregoing consid- erations. There is no gain so long as one does not suc- ceed in ridding the patient of his fiction, which becomes possible when he becomes more certain of himself, and is able to recognize his pre- sumably libidinous impulse as a falsifying fic- tion. Such a fiction for instance is the so-called cli- macteric of the male, of former authors, described by Freud and Kurt Mendel. The climacteric of woman has its psychic effect irrespective of the metabolic phenomena, because of the heightening of the feeling of inferiority. Concomitant dis- turbances of metabolism are only able to change or intensify the neurotic’s aspect, the moment it makes itself specifically felt through an intensi- fication of the insecurity. Basedow’s neurosis in climacteric women furnishes an example of such a mixed and intensified picture. The neurosis of 160 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION the climacteric in man, is likewise only indirectly influenced by atrophy of the genitals, may, how- ever, experience an intensification through the aggravating abstraction, “I am no longer a man —I am a woman.” Inasmuch as the masculine guiding principle becomes intensified and hypo- stasized through carefulness and appropriate stimuli as a result of this ideologie standpoint those wonderful manifestations of the Johannis- trieb take place, the frequent occurrence of which in women Karin Michaelis has aptly explained in her “Dangerous Age.” Only that the sexual guiding principle is not the exclusive or even most essential one as is at- tempted to infer from a biologic point of view, but it must be looked upon as a form of expres- sion similar to other forms of desire if one is to face the facts squarely. The climacteric neurosis shows us accordingly only a different phase of the neurosis caused by the masculine protest, and the traits of character demonstrable in it resemble the hypostasizations already familiar to us. I have never seen a case where the neurosis became first manifested at the climacterium. And it is to be expected accord- ing to our thesis that the “climacteric” neurosis had already shown its face in former days, at times, in a mild manner, especially when favorable circumstances or cultural activity were able to les- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 161 sen the attack through a partial gratification of the craving for power. Mostly one finds a grad- ually progressive intensification and spreading of the neurotic symptoms of some years duration, which an antecedently necessitated intensification of the craving for security permits of detection. An example of this would be the transformation of headache and occasional migraine into a trifa- cial neuralgia. On the intensification of a neu- rotic cautiousness into anxiety and occasionally through the discounting of an anticipated dis- aster, into melancholy. For these three steps of protection one must consult the schema contained in the theoretical part. CAUTION: for instance, as if I may lose my money, I may be beneath. ANXIETY: as if I will lose my money, I will be beneath. MELANCHOLY: as if I had lost my money, as if I were beneath. In other words, the stronger the feeling of in- feriority, the more intensified the fiction becomes and the more closely it approaches a dogma, through an increasing abstraction from reality. And the patient approximates and handles every- thing which brings him nearer to his guiding principle. Reality is along with this depreciated in various degrees, and the corrective routes be- come more and more inadequate. 162 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION One not infrequently sees cases in which there come to light neurotic phenomena in the patho- genic periods already known to us something on the order of an experiment. Kisch and others have called attention to this anamnestic data of neurotic complaints formed at the onset of puberty. More frequently one finds in the anamnesis neurotic molimina menstrualia, or neu- roses before entering the marriage state, in the puerperium, or even continuously. After these considerations, we shall have to let the various guiding principles described by us coördinate themselves with the prime guiding principle. ‘The neurosis of aged people is only a different phase, an adaptive psychic super- structure built up upon the one elementary direc- tive principle—I wish to be a man. And this directive principle, which has been outrightly condemned to destruction, avails itself of all man- ner of disguise, without ever finding a satisfac- tory one. Frequently the impression they make is one of great helplessness of resignation, as though the patient wanted to say he knew not how to go about the thing. In all their plans doubt is prominent—vacillation never leaves them, along with this, however, one sees exaggerated explanations as if the patients wished to convince themselves that they are too old, or that they are still young. ‘The tendency is toward the gaining AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 163 of power, influence, worth. But the feeling, that they want the unattainable, never leaves them. In the dreams one regularly finds the endeavor to assist the masculine protest towards expres- sion, to be young, to obtain sexual gratification, to show itself in a nude state, always, however, albeit at times well masked, the desire to be a man. Also the traits of character, the secondary guiding principles, show the influence of the craving for security. Pedantry, avarice, envy, craving for domi- nancy, and the desire to be popular, manifest themselves often in this disguised manner. Anx- iety is frequently found, it seems, as proof that they cannot be alone. And in consummation, the neurotic symptoms force the entire house- hold under the régime of the patient. Often the attempt is made in a more or less timorous con- cealed manner to realize a certain wish, as though in that event the masculine protest were assured. Frequently this wish manifests itself in a de- sire for divorce, or to move to a large city, or to humiliate the sons-in-law or the daughters-in-law as if tranquillity might be hoped for in that event. Difficulties in taking food, or in emptying the bowels, or fragmentary manifestations of imag- inary pregnancies and childbirths are not rare. Along with this they bring into use forgetfulness, tremulousness, here and there an occasional trau- 164 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION matic incident, all for the purpose of bringing to the attention of themselves and others their grow- ing helplessness. Complaints constantly recur, every unpleasant incident serves a special significance, and their thoughts are constantly directed toward an ap- proaching evil. 'The demonstrative emphasizing of their suffering and their hesitating attitude serve on the one hand to throttle their social cir- cle, while on the other hand it is useful for the initiation of their withdrawal from society in the event of a painful anticipation of a setback. Psychologically this complaint may also be looked upon as a form of the revolt, of the mas- culine protest against a feeling of inferiority, it is intended to soften and weaken those about them. Treatment meets with considerable difficulties, inasmuch as the attainment of independence is much more difficult in advanced age, and promis- ing predictions cannot be so plausibly made. As always is the case, the personality of the psycho- therapeutist as well as any actual or possible suc- cesses of his are utilized to spur on envy, and thus it frequently happens that improvements serve to give rise to relapses. ‘Then, too, the readily attainable authority over them serves to disturb the equilibrium of these patients, inasmuch as never in their life were they able to adjust them- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 165 selves readily or what is more, subordinate them- selves. Asa last refuge in severe cases, the self- sacrifice of the physician following a thorough analysis recommends itself, so that one is obliged to own up to an apparent failure of his part of the treatment, and offer the laurels to some other therapeutic method. In two of my cases, this expedient justified itself, in the one case the pa- tient, a female, was cured through the medium of correspondence by a Bosnian country phy- sician; in the other, a case of trifacial neuralgia of long standing which I had been treating for two years with varying success recovered follow- ing suggestions given against me in the wakeful state. In most of these cases, considerable im- provement, remissions, or even complete recov- eries set in of their own accord following the termination of the treatment. One of my patients, a fifty-six-year-old lady, had been suffering for eighteen years from anx- iety states, dizziness, nausea, abdominal pains and severe obstipation. A considerable portion of this period was spent either in bed or lying on a sofa, especially during the last eight years when severe pains in the back and limbs added to her complaints. The patient had been previously a robust woman but at the age of eighteen had ap- parently suffered for months from joint rheuma- tism. 166 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Her present condition appeared to be psycho- genetic in nature, inasmuch as there was an ab- sence of corresponding organic changes, and the protective traits of character ' discovered by me were easily demonstrable. The advice of a hysterectomy by a prominent gynecologist because of some perimetritic ad- hesions I did not take into account since I have learned to understand from other cases, the eti- ologic significance of such maiming procedures in the neuroses influencing as they do the psyche indirectly. Changes, manifestations of arrests of develop- ment, deformities and disease of the genitals are frequently found in neurotics. A. Bossi cer- tainly is correct in emphasizing this relationship as I had already done before in my “Studie” (1907). ‘This relationship, however, lies either in the adjustment of a special feeling of inferior- ity which in the presence of a neurotic predisposi- tion gives occasion for the development of a neu- rosis or because the neurosis, developed as result of other causes, requires a protective allusion to an organic change, in order to start upon the road the fixed goal of the masculine protest. Sexual inferiority becomes, so to speak, the 1The differential-diagnostic significance of these is beyond doubt. Only one must regularly take into account the simultane- ous existence of an organic affection. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 167 vehicle which especially forces itself upon one’s attention when slight changes or even wholly imagined fictitious ones such as a supposed loss of the clitoris, enlargement of the labia-majora, moistening of the apertures, telling evidences of masturbation or anomalies of the hairy growth, phimoses, paraurethral passages and asymmetric posture of the penis or testicles, or cryptorchism are taken as an occasion for a symbol of the feel- ing of inferiority. This patient’s disease began during a game of tennis. One year before this one of her daugh- ters died, and her husband, a great lover of chil- dren, wished to have more children. The patient who from her earliest childhood had bewailed her lot, and wished to be a man, was not at all in- clined to gratify this wish of her husband. The pain which was probably caused by a twist gave her new food for this indistinctly conscious re- sistance, since that time she could not stand any pressure on the abdomen, her abdomen became for her a dainty part and by means of a further bringing into use of insomnia and nausea, the latter as a memento of pregnancy, she brought matters to a point where the husband, upon the advice of physicians, abandoned sexual concourse with her, and used a separate bedroom. Already her recital with reference to the rheu- matism was characteristic. She blamed her dead 168 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION mother for everything. The latter, she com- plained, forced her to wash and iron in the pa- ternal home, always slighted her before the other sisters, and even in later years she was treated in the same hard-hearted manner. This woman’s greediness brought her into some difficulties. But her troubles, however, she attributed to her father, so that the latter also received his share of the blame. Such reproaches against the parents regularly draw attention according to my experience to an- other kind of reproach which the child is secretly making against the parents, when it finds itself incomplete, or what’s more, unmanly. Such re- proaches become abstract later on, as I have shown it to be likewise true of the feeling of guilt, and in later life serve the purpose, so to speak, of shells to be filled up with different content. Thus it later on sounds as if the parents were not affectionate enough, or that they pampered the child, or that especially during the masturbation period they did not supervise him sufficiently. In short, we observe in these formulations of an attitude towards the parents and later on towards the world, formal changes such as are in line with guiding principles which are to serve a practical purpose, and we frequently see a different guise cut according to the pattern of the actual situ- ation. It is then necessary to retrace the steps AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 169 covered by the formal change. Here the ana- lytical method makes use of the medium of re- duction, of simplification (Nietzsche) of abstrac- tion. Along with the formal change accentu- ations or attenuations of the guiding fiction play an important role. The more insecure the patient feels himself, the more he is driven by an unconscious tendency towards an intensification of his guiding principle, to make himself depend- ent upon it. I readily follow here the worthy views of Vaihinger, who maintains for the history of ideas, that historically considered they show a tendency to grow from a fiction (an unreal but practically useful safety-device) to hypotheses and later to dogmas. This change of intensity characterizes in a general way individual psychol- ogy, the thinking of the normal individual (fic- tion as an expedient) of the neurotic (attempt to realize the fiction) and of the insane (incom- plete but protective anthropomorphism and real- ization of the fiction: dogmatization). The stronger inner need seeks adjustment through an intensification of the assuring guiding principles. We will therefore regularly find equivalents of the neurotics’ and psychotics’ guid- ing principles and characteristics in the normal individual, which in the latter may become cor- rected in order that they may be able to approach reality without contradiction. If we were to re- 170 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION duce the manifest guiding principles of this pa- tient, and free them of the various changes of form and intensity which they have undergone, so that we may take them in the original, not in the form developed later on, it would read, “I am a woman and want to be aman.” ‘The nor- mal individual, too, adjusts himself throughout life in accordance with this formula. It aids him in attaching himself to our masculine culture, yes, it furnishes the latter with a steady impetus to- wards masculization (Vermännlichung). But here it plays a role similar to the Hilfslinie in a geometric construction. So soon as the object, a higher manly niveau is attained, it is lost from consideration (Vaihinger). Concerning the myth, a guiding principle of the race, Nietzsche laments its transformation into the fairy tale and demands a transformation into the manly (Mann- liche). The neurotic emphasizes this fiction, takes it altogether too literally, and endeavors to bring about its realization. His object is not the dovetailing, the adjust- ment of his masculine prestige, but to give it value, which is mostly unattainable in its over- strained form or because of intrinsic contradic- tions in the masculine protest, or is hindered in its attainment because of the fear of a threaten- ing defeat, the patient still remaining ignorant of the significance and scope of his largely un- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 171 conscious fiction. But his more intense feeling of uncertainty and inferiority also hinders him in the proper estimation of his fiction. The in- sane man conducts himself as if his fiction were a reality. He acts under the most intense urgency and delivers himself unto his self-created deity, which he apperceives as real. In a similar man- ner he simultaneously feels himself to be woman and superman, the latter as a reaction of the ex- aggerated masculine protest. The splitting of the personality corresponds to the psychic her- maphroditism, the formal change being a mani- fold one, manifests itself for the instant in the combination of ideas of persecution and grand- eur, of depression and mania, whereas fixation as self-protection, is made facile through a rela- tive insufficiency or absolute weakness of the cor- rective paths. If one were to remove from Freud’s equation of dementia (“Yearbook,” Bleuler-Freud, 1911) the introduced sexualiza- tion, if one were to shorten it on both sides of the superfluous libido factor, our much more pro- found formula of the psychic hermaphroditism with the masculine protest comes to the surface, against which, missing entirely its true signifi- cance, Freud argues in his work. To come back to the case history, it still re- mains to be mentioned that our patient in her feeling of insufficiency brought forth various 172 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION forms of the masculine protest. ‘Thus she was unable to bring herself to remain tolerant of men’s accomplishments. In this regard, she could be quite critical, especially when some one tried to overestimate himself. In these cases it not infrequently happens that physicians with a self-confident demeanor, which appears to be an essential to some in the treatment of disease, are antagonized by the patient with neurotic impetu- ousness and with the same means. In this case, she was, aside from this, naturally guided by a sort of instinct which forbade her to adopt the physician’s instructions, out of respect to the pur- pose of her disease. But at times matters reached such a point where a harmless gain of influence over her by the physician was responded to by vomiting and nausea, in connection with which the patient never missed a chance to call atten- tion to the unsuccessful effort of the physician. One need not lose one’s tranquillity on account of this sort of manifestation, one must rather see in them a part of the entire whole, a formal change of the original envy of man and later of every one believed to be superior. Along with this our patient made extensive use of certain privileges given her by her illness. First of all she was able to withdraw herself as much as she wished to from the social duties im- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 173 posed upon her by the role of housewife and im- portant personage of a provincial city. ’Tis true she received visitors, to whom she complained of her sufferings, but only exception- ally returned a call, thus assuring herself as is the case regularly with neurotics, of a favored and privileged position. Along with this it was pos- sible to avoid comparisons and musterings, in one sense also trials, occasions for which social activi- ties furnish as a rule. Of late years she has be- sides been frightened by the idea that she was being robbed as a result of her growing age, of the possibilities of wielding influence over men. A lady friend demonstrated to her very inti- mately how ridiculously society looks upon youthful conduct in an aging woman. ‘Thus she decided by her way of dressing to lay special em- phasis on her age, but at the same time the bitter thought crowded itself to the surface of her con- sciousness that men of her age are by no means pushed into the corner. At all times she felt bitterly the fact that she had to spend her life in a provincial city. In- stinctively she strove in many ways for a removal to Vienna. However, this was not to be at- tained in an open battle with her husband, who was many years her senior, because he disarmed her with his inexhaustible affection and his com- 174 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION pliance in all other matters. She quarreled most bitterly with her brother and arranged an unbe- lievable anxiety of meeting this brother in this small town. When this did not suffice to bring about her object, she developed a most obstinate insomnia, as the most important cause of which she blamed the nightly rattling of wagons before the windows of her bedroom. Thus she brought about a temporary removal to Vienna, acquired a home in the neighborhood of her daughter, the heavenly peacefulness of which she constantly emphasized, and where she likewise regained her sleep. Ever since her daughter lived in Vienna, the small provincial city became progressively more obnoxious to her. The analysis revealed in ac- cordance with the other directive principles that she intensely envied her daughter’s prestige with which there was also associated an aristocratic predicate. She, too, wanted to live in Vienna, and would have brought this about long ago, had not a new danger threatened her in Vienna, namely, to have to cover her daughter’s expenses with her own means. The rivalry with this Viennese daughter was wholly contained in her unconscious, and corre- sponded with an infantile guiding line, the wish to surpass her pampered older sister. ‘This guid- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 175 ing principle, too, was found to be an equivalent of the basic one, which strove toward the attain- ment of greater worth, as if she were a man. On account of the heavy expenditures which her residence in Vienna imposed upon her there arose a contradiction in her masculine protest. The neurotic with his torturing feeling of inade- quacy does not allow anything to be taken from him without suffering for it. He apprehends a further belittling (Verkür- zung) as a lowering of his ego-consciousness and along with his guiding principle in such a way as if this were a castration, an effeminization, a sex- ual assault at times also in the image of a preg- nancy or birth.? In our case the analogous sensations of preg- nancy came especially to the surface, nausea, ab- dominal cramps and fixed ideas of an existing pregnancy made themselves felt, pains in the limbs represented a phlegmasia alba dolens, whereas an obstinate obstipation symbolized in part a vaginismus in the anal language, in part 2 Thus it is that the thought process takes place not along real- ity, but depends on analogous symbols, whose falsifying affective accompaniment heightens the aggressive preparedness of the neurotic. The latter, however, corresponds to the unconscious, guiding “opinion.” ‘This disguise, the symbol, the analogy are as a device in the service of the aggressiveness to which the ego-ideal of the neurotic compels. The woman as a Sphinx, the man as a murderer, etc. 176 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION attempting to prevent expenditures symbolically, and thirdly attempted to express the impossibility of an independent conduct. A more profound understanding of the mode of expression of the neurosis appears to me to be impossible without the knowledge of the “organ- jargon” discovered by me. Folklore takes cog- nizance of this in the expression of popular speech and custom. Freud misunderstood this Jargon, and has created out of its constructions the main- stay of his libido-theory, namely the theory of the erogenous zones. Especially his work on the anal character and analerotic is full of a strained and overworked phantasy. ‘The point of outset is the relative inferiority of certain organs, the attitude of the environment towards the mani- festations of these organs as well as the mass- impressions of the two upon the soul of the child. Neurotically predisposed children will endeavor to associate with suitable manifestations of their organ-inferiority especially with defects of child- hood, those traits of character which have their origin in their protesting ego-consciousness, such as obstinacy, greater need of affection, exagger- ated cleanliness, pedantry, anxiousness, ambition, envy, revengefulness, etc., in order to gain an especially effective representation. One of my psychogenic epileptics utilized for the purpose of strengthening his masculine protest such a device, AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 177 an interlacing, so to speak, inasmuch as he man- aged to have most of his attacks preceded by an attack of obstipation in order to arouse anxious forebodings in his relatives and thus bring him- self to their notice in the event of a degradation. Obstinacy and infantile negativism may al- ready be well developed towards the end of the nursing period. It is the association of these anomalies of urination, defecation, and eating, which gives rise to the heightened “reasoning.” The child who abstains from emptying his bowels derives his pleasurable sensations not from an irritation of the rectum, but from the satisfaction of his obstinacy which avails itself of this unes- thetic means, but may, however, attribute a pleas- ure-quality to rectal sensations for years, up to the curing of his obstinacy. The mother of a nearly two-year-old girl who was still suffering from bed-wetting told me that she had frequently observed that when awakened from her sleep her child would attend properly to the emptying of the bladder, providing she was still in a half-wakeful state only, but no sooner did she become fully awake than she refused to do so. If the child became fully awake towards the end of urination, she upset the urinal and cried a long time out of rage at being thus taken unawares; if, on the other hand, she still continued half asleep she turned over and went fast asleep. 178 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Thus we may find in every case that from the very earliest period of existence the ego-con- sciousness of the child finds itself in a manifest and latent contrast with its environment, that it assumes a most pronounced attitude of hostility and belligerency until it finally brings about a uniform termination of all these aggressive stim- uli, until it constructs these into the masculine protest which it brings in opposition to the stim- uli of tenderness, subordinacy, and weakness, as well as to the manifestations of inferiority, all of which it collectiveiy apperceives and combats as symptoms of femininity. Only that at times an interlacing and intertwining takes place, where the masculine protest lays stress upon feminine symptoms in order to utilize them as a bugbear, or where he obstinately retains feminine symp- toms and this makes possible the development of hermaphrodistic constructions which likewise exert their influence in the direction of the mascu- line protest. For example, tears, indispositions, simulations and exaggerations of childhood de- fects. The overaccentuated guiding principle, namely, “I wish to be a man,” enlists then within its ranks all utilizable bodily symptoms, particu- larly those manifestations of inferiority upon which the attention of the patient as well as that of the environment is especially directed. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 179 Thus it happens that the masculine protest makes use of a “somatic language” for the pur- pose of gaining expression. A beautiful exam- ple, one which frequently recurs in neurotic phan- tasies is that of Leonardo da Vinci’s childhood phantasy: “A vulture repeatedly shoved its tail into his mouth.” This phantasy carries the art- ist’s psychic constellation to a most accurate ab- straction. Mouth phantasies are regularly re- lated to manifestations of inferiority in the child’s gastro-intestinal tract. Leonardo’s inclinations to a science of nutrition were most likely the fruits of the attention directed to these channels. The tail of the vulture is a phallic symbol. A summing up of these two trends brings forth the characteristic basic idea, “I will experience the lot of the woman.” But this rigid adherence to a symbolic guiding principle already draws our at- tention to the fact that these and similar trends of thought do not signify a psychic settlement but serve, under the pressure of our masculine culture, for a heightened impetus in the opposite direction, must lead to an over compensation to- ward the masculine side, where they evolve the masculine guiding principle the more distinctly, “therefore I must act in such a manner as if I were a complete man.” That these two guiding principles contradict 180 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION one another, aside from the fact that each indi- vidually is a contradiction to reality, in so far as they are taken literally and not as something useful and corrigible, I have already set forth in my contribution on the “Psychic hermaphroditism in life and in the neurosis” (“Fortschritte der Medizin,” Leipzig, 1908). This contradiction is reflected in doubt, in inde- cision, and in fear of making decisions, the analy- sis of which reveals more or less the fact that there existed in early childhood an uncertainty as to the future sexual role, in the psychic super- structure of which all later sensations, feelings and stimuli were grouped in a certain sense as doubtful, “I don’t know whether I am a man or a woman” (see “Predispositions to Neurosis,” Year Book, Bleuler-Freud, 1909). Our patient expressed in the anal language that she had closed up an opening. A distinctly feminine thought. One may picture to himself a group of men and women dressed in women’s clothes gathered in a room into which a mouse was suddenly let loose. ‘The women will at once betray their sex in that they will draw their clothes around their legs, as if they tried to pre- vent the mouse from entering. In the same manner, the feminine frightening guiding princi- ple is betrayed by a fear of holes, of being bitten, stabbed, ideas of persecution by men, by bulls, AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 181 the position of the back, the being pulled to the right, backwards, to be pressed upon, to fall, etc., a guiding principle which is readily reacted to with an insuring anxiety.? Obstipation as a neurotic symptom takes its origin in a hereditary defect of the intestines, which leads to a neurotic closure of the sphincter through ideas concerning anal birth and sexual relation. As a matter of fact this patient suf- fered in her childhood from intestinal catarrh and occasional intestinal incontinence, later from obstipation and a recto-vaginal fistula. That the closure of the anus was under the domination of a guiding idea of closing of cavities is likewise seen from the fact that the patient suffered for a considerable length of time follow- ing her marriage from vaginismus. The obsti- pation of this aging woman expresses in a dual way the same desire as did her erstwhile vaginis- mus, namely, “I don’t want to be a woman, I want to be a man.” At this point I must for practical, as well as for theoretical reasons go considerably beyond the scope of a mere character delineation, as one is for that matter usually compelled to take into account the psyche as a whole in every discussion 3 The same masculine protest leads in the neurosis to trismus, blepharospasmus, vaginismus, spasm of the sphincter, globus and spasm of vocal cords. 182 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of psychological questions. Besides this so mi- nutely analyzed case furnishes a clearer insight than it is possible to gain in other cases, espe- cially where because of a dependence upon the physician or upon extraneous circumstances a cure or discontinuance of the treatment takes place before the scheme, according to which the patient built his psychosis, becomes completely revealed. Thus I will attempt to set forth in this case, this scheme, by arranging according to this analytically disclesed scheme all her symptoms, the sentinels opposite the outer world, and show the synthetic relationship of the traits of charac- ter with it. According to this scheme (p. 184-6) the pa- tient arranged all her experiences, and wherever they fitted at all, occasion for which is amply fur- nished in the life of every individual by his sym- bolic as well as purposive apperceptions, she reacted to them with the appropriate disease manifestations. ‘The protective traits of charac- ter were pushed to the fore, like outposts, were ever ready for defense, and explained situations in accordance with guiding thoughts, and when- ever the occasion arose, borrowed support from the sum total of the appropriate symptoms. Her manifestations of independence were con- siderably interfered with by the intelligent and tender attitude of her husband and by certain AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 183 benevolent guiding principles of the patient. Thus it happened that the basic scheme, “I’m only a woman,” derived its influence from inten- tionally retained impressions of the feminine role, in connection with which the unconscious mechanism of the masculine guiding thoughts furnished the protecting memento. The healthy woman is characterized by a more conscious atti- tude toward the feminine role by a purposive dovetailing and corrective approximation of the scheme to reality. The psychosis produced an accentuation of the imaginary scheme for protec- tive purposes, and an incorrigible attitude within this scheme; such a patient will conduct herself as if she really were pregnant. In all three cases the fiction of pregnancy and the greater circle of its manifestations, a symbol of the infe- rior feminine role, a convincing expression for the feeling of degradation, but at the same time looked upon from the standpoint of the mascu- line protest, an artifice for the purpose of avoid- ing further degradation, as was shown above.* 4 The transformation of the masculine fiction may reach a point where under its direction maternity, pregnancy, may be striven for, quite frequently in such cases where obstacles of a very gross nature exist. The cry for a baby is then regularly directed against the man. Phantom pregnancies frequently represent such an arrangement, 184 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION SCHEME SYMPTOMS Fear of society. Compulsive blush- ing Fear of being alone. Palpitation of the heart. Fear of falling, dizziness when in high places. Feeling of pres- sure in the stom- ach. (Cxcum.) Frigidity. Over- acuity of hear- ing of husband’s snoring. Vaginismus, pres- sure sensations over the breasts. The leaning from the feminine role, the mas- culine pro- test. — Protection against courting, Protection against coitus. Protective dexterities. Mistrust (cre- dulity with subsequent protest). Belittling of man. Anxiousness. Bashfulness (timidity). Virtuous mo- rality. Desire to domi- nate (submis- sion with sub- sequent pro- test). Willfulness. Obstinacy. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 185 Inability to stand any kind of pressure, the struggle against the corset. A feeling of being drawn to the right and down- ward (towards the feminine side). Noises in the ears. (The noise of the moving sea, which swells and falls.) Abdominal pains. Shortness of breath. Palpitation of the heart. Nausea. Vomiting. Compulsory ideas of pregnancy. Fatigue. Craving for cer- tain foods. Abdominal cramps. Difficult evacuation of the bowels, signifying diffi- cult labor. Occasional polyu- ria. (Passing of the waters.) Proteetion against coitus. Protection against pregnancy. Protection against parturition. Disputatious- ness. Tendencies hos- tile to the husband. Somatic over- sensitiveness. Hypochon- driacally to pamper one- self. 186 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Objection to lying on bed. Pain in legs. Tendency to pro- long invalidism. | Weakness in limbs, reminding one of astasia and abasia. Staggering gait. Easy fatiguibility in walking. A hostile, at times sadistic behavior towards children. Rapid fatiguing, tiring and impa- tience in the care of children. Insomnia. Finickiness in mat- ters of cleanli- ness. Over-acuteness of hearing at night. Light sleeping. Protection A fiction against puerperium. thrombo- phlebitis A memento of leaving the child- bed. Protection against maternal duties. Form of action of a complex type for the purpose of doing away with the infe- riority and degradation. Avarice, thrift- iness, envy, desire to dom- inate, impa- tience, fear of attaining nothing, of completing nothing, all sorts of exer- tions, as if the distance toward equal- ity with men were to be diminished in any possible way. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 187 A dream which took place towards the end of the treatment shows us the original guiding thought of the patient in connection with her actual inner conflicts. She dreamed: “As if she were sitting on a bench in a park near the residence of her parents, ill and weak. She wore on her head two bathing caps. Two girls then approached from behind her and one of them tore one of the caps from her head. She grabbed hold of the girl and held her while the other one disappeared and threatened to report her to the police. A poor, badly clothed woman passed by and told her that the girl’s name was Velicka. At this point she went to her mother in order to complain. Her mother gave her a basket full of eggs and said they cost 5 guldens. She took two of the eggs in her hand and saw that they were pretty. The situation on the bench; her fatigue and the bathing caps referred to a hydropathic treat- ment which she had undertaken especially for the removal of an insomnia prior to coming under my care. On the day preceding the dream she reprimanded her daughter because the latter used her bath linen for her own use; she also pos- sessed two bathing caps, as in the dream, which the daughter likewise often used. Velicka is a Slavie word signifying big. The daughter had a Slavic “Adelspraedikat.” The poorly-dressed 188 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION woman is a noblewoman by the name of Grand- venire. Opposed to the two is she, the plebeian, degraded one. She was dissatisfied because her husband was not knighted, but on account of her pride she did not acknowledge this envy. She was afraid that the daughter might be able to take everything away from her. She had two daughters, one died, disappeared. She often complained to me that her daughter cost her much money. She has already given her all her jewelry. From her very childhood she has al- ways been degraded before others. Even her mother always humbled her and demanded pay- ment from her for every little thing after the patient had become married. She, on the other hand, supplied her daughter regularly with eggs, venison, milk, butter, etc., and still she needed so much money. Before she left for Vienna she forgot to settle a debt of 5 guldens. The day previous she wrote to her husband that he should pay this at once. Im fact she always had to pay at once for everything she bought.’ The mother treated her badly. In the dream she recalled a forgotten obligation. She always 5 The fear to become humiliated through further expenses is closely allied to the utilization of the character-type of greed and parsimony. These maternal, and according to her way of looking, feminine traits, she avoided through a compulsion to pay before- hand and showed herself to be superior to her mother through her liberality. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 189 saved at her expense. In the dream she re- ceived from her mother the masculine attribute (testicles) which the mother kept from her at the time of birth. We see again how out of the feel- ing of femininity (degradation) the masculine protest is in the dream directed against further insults. This dream shows us the attempt of the patient to evade in her thoughts further degrada- tion and to accuse her daughter that like her mother she kept everything from her. Similarly, this lust to possess everything is found in the following case history which shows still more clearly than the preceding case how the patient on account of his pride seeks to re- move this lust from his field of vision, to repress it. We shall see how a decided change takes place through the revelation of this repression and through the elucidation of the Gidipus com- plex. In the same manner it appears from all these cases that this lust to have everything pur- sues the most senseless goals. Such patients have eyes for everything which others in their circle possess in so far as they are excluded from the possession of the same. ‘They may possess more than the others and yet they will envy them. They may gain everything which they formerly begrudged others and will then unceremoniously set it aside in order to furnish new goals for their desires and possessions. And their lust for pos- 190 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION session ever remains attached to those goals which they have not attained. It is readily understood that they are incapacitated for love and friend- ship. Often they acquire a general ability to misrepresent and set out to captivate souls be- cause others also dominate. They constantly fear degradation and-always seek to assure them- selves long beforehand. The love of the parents enjoyed by the brother, their jewelry, the mar- riage of a brother or of a sister, a book, an accom- plishment of an acquaintance or even of a total stranger, fill them with rage.° The superiority of another, a successfully passed examination, possession or worth of broth- ers and sisters throw them into excitements, cause them headache, insomnia and more pro- nounced neurotic symptoms. Their constant fear not to become the equal of an older or younger brother may render them unfit for work. It is then that they attempt to avoid all decisions and tests, it is then that they reach the stage of loss of initiative, approach often in any possible way the withdrawal from life and support them- selves in the meanwhile on their ad hoc created symptoms among which there came to my atten- 6 Thus an approaching marriage of a girl may lead to the devel- opment of a neurosis in the brother or father when the latter are neurotically disposed. Thus the arrangement of affection may then give the impression of incest stirrings. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 191 tion frequently compulsory blushing, migraine, all sorts of headaches, palpitation of the heart, stuttering, agoraphobia and claustrophobia, tremor, sleepiness, depression, weakness of mem- ory, excessive thirst and psychogenic epilepsy. I have especially emphasized above the case of the younger brother because I met with him often- est and because he is most apt to be driven to rivalry." This case is not an exception. One also finds in this role older siblings or only chil- dren, naturally also girls. The rivalry may also be directed primarily against the father or mother in whose picture the desired superiority appears to be concretely represented. It is then that the (Edipus-complex develops out of the longing of the predisposed child, as a guiding model, a guid- ing fiction to gain satisfaction for his craving, and this takes place at a time when sexual craving is still out of the question, but it is also the desire to possess a person or an object which belongs to an- other. A belief in predestination and ideas of identification with God frequently develop as manifestations of the masculine protest. Klep- tomania is frequently revealed in the anamneses of these patients. At times the patient is uncon- scious of his guiding principle. Occasionally he is seen at work trying to conceal this guiding prin- 7 Frischauf, “Psychology of the Younger Brother.” Munich, A. Reinhardt, 1912. 192 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ciple and to make it unrecognizable through a manifestation of opposed tendencies such as lib- erality. The wish which, for instance, draws him to his mother, changes nothing after it has become con- scious in the disease-picture, no matter how frankly sexual it may be shown to be. It is only after the patient understands and controls his desire for the unattainable, for that which in the nature of things belongs to another, that recov- ery may take place. The boundless pride which one detects in some of these cases does not readily permit the patient to gain insight into his envy and jealousy. The tendency to belittle others is, on the other hand, quite markedly developed and readily comes to the surface. Malice, revengefulness, desire for intrigue (and in those of lower intelligence), more crudely aggressive tendencies, even sadistic and murder-instincts reveal themselves as at- tempts to insure oneself against a degradation in this eternal rivalry. The fear of the conse- quences, such as a lively concern about the needs of relatives, the picturing to oneself of punish- ments, arrest and misery are appertaining assur- ances against the ebullitions of the masculine protest. Even epileptic seizures may serve as security devices, thus, for instance, as in our case, where a psycho-epileptic insult associated AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 193 itself with patricidal and fratricidal dream-stir- rings. It is possible that the motive of a “scorned love” regularly plays a role in these cases, and brings about the most intense hate against the un- attained person. One may justly doubt whether love in a normal person is capable of such a trans- formation. It requires the sum-total of power- instincts, the over-heated ego-consciousness of these individuals to desire to bring about the spir- itual possession of another person against that person’s will. Inasmuch as the neurotic desires to possess everything, he is blind to all natural restrictions, and experiences in the scorn of his love a thrust at his most sensitive principle. Now he turns to revenge: Acheronta movebo. When one is in doubt as to which of two per- sons the patient has selected for his affections, whether the father or mother, it is safe to assume that it is the opposite to the one the patient men- tions. It would be too painful, as a rule, to ac- knowledge scorned love. An exact solution seems to me to be furnished by the following sim- ple experiment: One places the patient exactly between the two persons in question, and soon one observes that he has moved nearer the preferred one. Thus I was able to discover in the case which I am about to discuss in detail that the patient 194 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION showed decided preference for his mother, though when he was alone he always gave preference to his father. He not infrequently scolded his mother, and not a day passed but what they quar- reled. A certain manifestation which one frequently observes in the neuroses was likewise present here, and in an especially accentuated form, namely, the strong emphasis of a pedantic char- acter trait, which, not unlike the “crack regi- ment” in war time, took over the task of coming in touch with the enemy. ‘The enemy was first of all the mother, and the daily battles regularly developed because the latter was unable to do full justice to the patient’s pedantic demands in eat- ing, in dressing, in the preparation of his bath or bed. Our patient thus gained a base of oper- ation—from which emanated the various subter- fuges by means of which he endeavored to place his mother, after all, completely at his service. In this is seen again a neurotic trait of character as a device, by means of which the patient seeks to be true to his inner fiction, to dominate his mother in the same manner as he believed to have observed his father dominate her. “And should you be unwilling, T’ll use force.” This train of thought gained stability from the patient in his youth, and thus he at once assumed towards his mother an attitude full of mistrust, constantly AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 195 on the alert for setbacks, for the preferring of others, full of tense energy and gloomy expecta- tion whether he will yet succeed in gaining her for himself. Not because he really loved her, or really desired to possess her, but because his de- sire for possession of her was similar to the desire which he had for many other things, jewelry, bon- bons, which he valued not at all highly, but left lying in a drawer, forgotten, once he could call them hisown. ‘Thus the possession of the mother was not an end in itself, his desire was not at all a libidinous or sexual one, but the mother and his distance from her became a symbol for him, an estimate of his own inferiority. And because he apperceived the cosmic picture, every new ac- quaintance, every relation to the opposite sex with the same traits of character, suspiciously, full of sensitiveness, with a similar expectation of a disappointment, all success fled from him, all satisfaction in life was lost to him. He had eyes only for everything which spoke against him, against his success, and whatever he did attain lost all charm for him. He settled the problem of his life with the arrangement of his neurosis. He considered himself deficient by a whole lot— and this deficiency was represented in the sym- bolic loss of the mother. Does one suppose that this patient who had been suffering from anxiety-states, migraine and 196 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION depressions, could have been cured if his mother were returned to him? Such an attempt would have been fruitless at the time the patient came to the physician. Even the most compliant mother—and many of them are _lastingly estranged from their sons—could not have shown that measure of patience and sacrifice which the patient demanded in his boundless mistrust and desire for dominancy. The past, and the thought of former privations, were ever ready to furnish motives for new outbreaks and oppres- sions. It is possible that the attempt at cure might have been a successful one in the patient’s childhood, a pedagogic solution of this special neurotic problem in a gradual orientation and independence of the child, and an appropriate tranquilizing of the child concerning his future. It is the wncertainty which mars the outlook for the future in these children, an uncertainty whose organic and psychic roots we already know. In our case it was the fact that the patient, already as a child, even during the suckling period showed a tendency to become easily frightened and panicky. This fright of sucklings—which is frequently taken as nervousness—is obviously an organic inheritance and is associated, according to my observations, with an hereditary sensitive- ness, inferiority of the auditory apparatus, so that children already become panicky in the pres- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 197 ence of noises and tones to which other children pay no unusual attention. From our standpoint this striking tendency to fright signifies a sign of an hereditary, auditory oversensitiveness, a manifestation of a somatic inferiority of the familiar ear diseases, but likewise corresponds to a heightened refinement of hearing in the musical sense. The fact that our patient suffered at the age of 6 years from a protracted middle ear disease which necessitated paracentesis of the ear drum, is in accord with our views concerning somatic inferiority; similarly, his development of an excellent musical ear and of a strikingly re- fined sensitiveness in hearing which especially qualified him for eavesdropping. This somatic refinement brings with it that the child is driven to a development of a tendency towards a lurking curiosity, even though he may feel more marked uncertainties from other causes. The roots of this uncertainty from which he endeavors to es- cape by means of his curiosity, laid in the patient’s weaker intellect, compared with an older brother —who as it often happens to the detriment of bringing up—made of the patient the plaything of his railleries and often made a fool of him. The patient also recalled to have suffered from that form of cryptorchism in which a testicle oc- casionally disappears into the abdominal cavity through the patent canal. This fact, that is, the 198 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION better sexual development of his brother, the ear- lier maturity of the latter, brought to his mind quite early the thought that he is perhaps a girl after all. Up tothe fourth year of his life he was dressed in girls’ clothes, and during this period he developed the fear that he never perhaps would reach the mature state of his father or his older brother, that is, never become a complete man. The marked development of his breasts lent con- siderable weight to his uncertainty. That he un- consciously gave considerable thought to the ques- tion of the difference of the sexes, one may glean from an occurrence which remained fixed in his memory, because at the time he told it every one laughed at him. One day while in a public park he watched a girl urinate and upon reaching home related how he had seen a boy urinate from be- hind.® This early period in his life was of marked sig- nificance in shaping his attitude towards his fam- ily and in a broader sense to the world at large. He saw himself belittled, and his feeling of infe- riority found no adjustment in the family. His covetousness, his craving to become the equal of 8 The original uncertainty of the sexual röle, as I have been emphasizing for years, plays one of the chief parts in the develop- ment of the neurotic psyche, which is later on vitalized as a sym- bol and base of operation in the struggle for dominancy. It is only of late that many authorities are beginning to agree with me on this point. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 199 his brother, of his father, of anyone whom he con- sidered strong, able, powerful, gained in intensity and directed him upon paths in which he came into serious conflicts with his parents. He be- came a bad, unmanageable child, which made a tender attitude of his parents towards him still more difficult. His desires assumed measureless proportions, he began to insure himself against every setback suspiciously and with a growing choler, and this at a time when his maturing geni- talia, his strikingly hairy body, his improved in- sight into matters sexual, should have had their tranquilizing effect upon him. But by this time his position in the family became such an un- favorable one, owing to the development of his traits of character, which likewise unfavorably in- fluenced his school work, that with his over-sensi- tive nature he had good reason to feel himself slighted and belittled. Thus he was no longer able to find the road to normality. ‘That he, how- ever, continued to apperceive this slight—in the manner of an analogy with the feminine röle—be- came already evident from the first dream which he recited during the treatment. The dream was “I felt as if I were witnessing an ape nursing a child,” His brother often called him an ape because of his excessive hairy growth, which he neverthe- less exhibited with pride. The ape, which is 200 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION nursing the child, a female ape, is he himself— that is, he sees himself, he feels himself in a femi- nine role, along with which the nursing is to be considered a gynecomastia (“Gynmakomastie” ) which came up during the dream analysis. This is the feminine principle emphasized by me for all dreams—against which the stressing of the excessive hairy growth is to be understood as pointing in the direction of the masculine pro- test. Thus the patient enters upon the treat- ment with the disclosure that he feels himself be- littled—and permits us to divine from the choice of his figure of speech, that he evaluates this in- feriority as feminine. I wish to draw attention, in this connection, to the fact that the dreamer often chooses pictures and forms of expression which show a simul- taneous coloring of feminine and masculine traits. Here it was an ape, whose nursing was a feminine characteristic, while the hairy growth is to be apperceived as a masculine characteristic. Such forms of expression which I have recognized as belonging to the psychic hermaphroditism may be referred to two simplifying circumstances. First, they correspond to the infantile indefinite- ness of sex-cognition. Second, because the ele- ment of time, as in other cases, the element of space, is during the marked abstraction of the dream state wholly or almost wholly eliminated, AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 201 so that his thoughts which may be separated spatially or temporally, become united—in one case the thoughts were “I feel myself a woman and wish to be a man.” Stekel, in his further elaboration of my conception of psychic herma- phroditism, assumes a double sexual meaning for every dream symbol, which I think is a certain exaggeration, nevertheless he comes closer to the truth than does Freud who denies the regular manifestation in the dream of psychic hermaphro- ditism and the masculine protest. The distinctness with which this first dream of our patient points to his feeling of inferiority, so to speak, in the form of a reaction to the be- ginning of the treatment, is naturally also to be understood as an omen for the benefit of the phy- sician :— “My disease has its origin in my feeling of inferiority.”— ‘My disease,” fainting attacks and business incapacity are security devices against a defeat in the fifth act. “I am impotent and inefficient as a child and long for love, ape- love, as I see it in the dream.” We fill out:— impotent for reason, in order to be pampered like a child, which he succeeds in attaining more read- ily after his attacks; and inefficient, in order that he may always be supplied with maintenance, in order that it may not be forgotten that he must be made secure for life through affection and legacy. His marked tendency to be frightened 202 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION by sudden noises, his hyperacusis was especially fitted to aid him in gaining his point. The finale which he set before him, a desired over-compensa- tion for a feeling of inferiority, consisted in not more nor less than the desire to gain the love of his parents, especially that difficult of attainment, mother’s love. Thus he utilizes, with the object of influencing his mother’s heart, the already- mentioned experiences, such as becoming fright- ened upon hearing a shot, as he often manifested upon hearing the firing at a military funeral, upon hearing the puffing and shrill whistling of a locomotive, and during a sudden assault by his brother or playmates. The finale which con- stantly stands before his eyes, drew upon itself a fixation of this hyperacusis, which dominated him up to the present. This purposeful hypersensi- tiveness serves, as do similar phenomena in hys- teria, to show us that the patient’s uncertainty forces him to stretch forth his antenne as far as possible, as he is actually doing with over-tense traits of character. Aside from this his tendency to fear pressed upon his masculine feeling and gave him the sense of feminine stimuli. He en- deavored, therefore, to bring forth in all other relations, courage and fearless behavior, in which he succeeded too. The laying bare of his desire for the love of the mother brought forth no particular result. His AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 203 attacks occurred at about the same intervals, but now he had them in bed, in order to protect him- self in this way from the possible inroads of the treatment, which, at this stage, was encountering more difficulty in endeavoring to uncover the causes of his attacks. Prior to this the attacks occurred always in connection with experiences which threatened him with a set-back, but now I was compelled to reconstruct these experiences from his thoughts and dreams. Naturally the patient made a virtue of this necessity, and spoke of this change as an improvement due to my treatment, thus expecting to gain in this way my sympathy, an experience which he always apper- ceived as a feeling of power. To this craving after this feeling of power he owes his success in passing as a very sociable and pleasant fellow in his intercourse with strangers. It may be spoken here that because of my dif- ferent conception of these matters, the Cidipus- complex does not come very clearly to the surface, here, at any rate not so clearly as Freud has demonstrated this complex. To this I would have to object energetically. It was this case particularly, as so few of them are, which brought to view regardless of consequence, the striving for the mother in a sexual manner, and the patient at no time hesitated to elaborate the frequently unconcealed (Edipus dreams as proof of his sex- 204 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ual striving after his mother. He had many such dreams. He dreamed: “I’m walking with a lady from our rendezvous towards the street.” The lady represented his mother, as the various details showed. ‘The “street” referred to prosti- tution. ‘The “rendezvous” on the other hand was a memory-remnant from his waking life and re- ferred to a girl who refused him another meeting, thus by her refusal simulating his mother. He was unable to wield any influence over girls, and was thus, according to his own understanding, driven to the masculine—feeling of power—and in his protest degraded to the level of a prostitute his mother as well as the girl, and for that matter all women whom he naturally feared. Just as clearly the C(Edipus-complex came to light in other dreams, where too the sexual, as a jargon, as a mode of speech, was only recognized after a penetration into the psychic constellation. Thus he dreamed: “I’m sitting at a smooth table made of brown wood. A girl brings me a large vessel of beer.’ The table reminded him of a subterranean cellar at Niiremberg, where he went to attend a scientific undertaking which led him to the German museum. His thoughts drifted in the same general direction of Germanism in connection with the large vessel of beer. It is quite comprehensible that this unusually musical patient should in the analysis come upon Wag- AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 205 ner’s “Meistersinger.” As he mentioned this he began to search for a scene in Wagner’s operas, wherein some one takes a drink. At first he thought of Tristan, then of Siegfried’s arrival at Gunter’s palace. In both scenes the hero drinks a love potion. ‘Thus our patient apperceives his enigmatical attraction for his mother as some- thing provoked by the mother’s magical powers. At last he thought of Siegmund whom his sister Sieglinde compassionately gives a horn of meal. Thus the dream reads:—The voice of blood (relation) hath spoken, the mother compassion- ately takes his part, he is the hero, who is the man (father) of his wife. An incestuous prospect, as in Wagner, the patient, as if intoxicated, longs after his mother. The psychic situation of the patient had experienced an “effeminization.” His older brother had returned from a journey and was welcomed at home with much love. How differ- ent were matters upon his own return from his travels in Germany. The thought, I am be- littled, became accentuated through the reception accorded his brother, and ın the dream he seeks to save himself through a masculine guiding line. It was an attempt which was bound to fail. The same night he had a seizure. The seizure had for its purpose the direction of the mother’s tenderness towards the patient. 206 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION This was quite successful with the father. But even the mother would forget his jealous, fre- quently vulgar outbreaks of temper, as soon as he lay unconscious, and for a time would sit on his bed. Thus he satisfies his wish, his wish to pos- sess everything, like the brother, like the father. The change of form of his original fiction, namely —J] have imperfect genitalia, I will not be a com- plete man— had reached the thought, I too wish to possess my mother as my father and brother possess her. In order to comport himself in this matter with the appropriate amount of energy, it required a deeply-felt conviction of his longing for his mother, which he proceeded to create. The most essential reason for his ardent atti- tude towards his mother was revealed in the fur- ther analysis, which revealed as the decisive point his feeling of uncertainty. As the mother iso- lated herself more and more from him during his childhood, he developed the idea, as is the case not infrequently with such children, that he did not belong to his family. The fairy tales of “Snow White” and “Cinderella” frequently fur- nish these children with leading thoughts. When his brother was ill once the mother did not leave him for a second. Since then the patient was uninterruptedly stimulated to test, by means of his severe seizures, the family, especially the mother, and see if the “voice of blood” will speak. AVARICE, SUSPICIOUSNESS, ENVY, ETC. 207 These tests he carried out with a genuine neurotic insatiability, and thus we see also in this case that the (Edipus-complex is of the nature of an es- pecially arranged fiction, utilized as a means of expression for the masculine protest against a feeling of uncertainty and inferiority, and de- pendent upon the neurotic craving for security, the desire to possess everything. The inner contradiction which frequently comes into being in this form of masculine pro- test, the moral condemnation of a conduct corre- sponding to the basic thought “to possess every- thing,” but also the greater insight into the im- possibility of attainment or the fear of a decision which may assail the patient often necessitate a compromise. ‘This may best be expressed by the words “half and half.” The patient seeks a way out of this dilemma and thus reaches the point of “divide etimpera.’ At times this solution is ten- able, because of the possibility of a gratification of the desire for dominancy. At times this leads to a marked cultural but also utopian development of feeling of equality and love for justice. CHAPTER II THE NEUROTIC EXTENSION OF LIMITS THROUGH ASCETICISM, LOVE, DESIRE TO TRAVEL, CRIME. SIMULATION AND NEUROSIS. FEELING OF IN- FERIORITY OF THE FEMALE SEX. PURPOSE OF AN IDEAL. DOUBT AS AN EXPRESSION OF PSY- CHIC HERMAPHRODITISM. MASTURBATION AND NEUROSIS, THE INCEST-COMPLEX AS A SYMBOL OF CRAVING FOR DOMINANCY. THE NATURE OF THE DELIRIUM. (Delirium used in the sense of the French: UNE DELIRE. ) A CONSIDERATION which should align itself here endeavors to show how the compensating guiding idea, “to possess everything” may deviate from its straight course in order to stimulate in a round- about way or by means of an artifice accomplish- ments of a strangely neurotic, criminal, but also of a creative kind, in order to reach its ultimate good eventually and bring about in some way a maximation of the ego-consciousness or at least— and to this extent the neurosis remains produc- tive—to prevent a degradation. The parsimony, penury and asceticism of cer- tain neurotics already shows us such a detour 208 ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 209 upon which the patient permits himself to be driven as if he were able to avoid danger only in this way. He then behaves strictly according to these guiding ideas, believes in them and accen- tuates his abnormal being in moments of especial uncertainty to the point of a psychosis. In melancholic states when poverty phantasies pre- dominate, as well as in hypochondriacs, the pa- tient in order to avoid the real danger, anticipates the feared state, endeavors to realize a fiction, emphasizes his feeling of inferiority and utilizes his disease for the safeguarding of his ego-con- sciousness. Cases exhibiting the lying-mania, fetichism, neurotic mania for gathering up things and kleptomania, also illustrate this craving to possess everything. Another evident trait exists, namely, to break through the boundaries laid down by reality in the direction of a fictitious guiding principle, in order to escape a feeling of degradation. Apperception always comes to light according to the rigidly formal antithesis of “manly-womanly” and frequently leads the pa- tient to undertake accentuations by means of which it may be proved thatheisaman. Sexual symbolism lends itself very well as a means of expression for this purpose, the solution of which is at times furnished by the exaggerated mascu- line trend through peculiar detours. Here be- longs the neurotic lying, braggardism, as well as 210 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION attempts to play with fire and love and thus ex- tend as far as possible the established limits. Less harmful manifestations are pathological wanderlust, the expression of which is to be seen in the running away, in the fugues of neurotic and psychotic subjects. Asa rule there exists in the guiding picture of these neurotics an ideal of personality, the apex of which it is attempted to reach through imitation or obstinate, negativistic behavior. The same trend, namely, to extend masculine cognition, to its very limits, is at the bottom also of the constant tendency to read about, listen to, see and commit acts of a disgust- ing nature. The more pronounced this striving for worth- less possession, the more normal tendencies and values are falsified, stmilarly to the manner in which love for nature is only a deception, but furnished in an exaggerated manner, when a tourist wants to have every peak noted upon his mountain staff. The Leporelist shows us this desire with refer- ence to love and the Messalina is to be compared with Don Juan, a nymphomaniac who always imagines herself unsatiated and belittled because in this neurotic form real possibilities for gratifi- cation are unattainable. The fettering and deg- radation of the partner are of course taken into consideration in this relation. ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 211 “Dear soul, what place can you think of where I have not been?” Immermann’s Munchausen answers to the question, whether he knew a cer- tain distant place. The real satisfaction in active games, riding, driving, racing and aviation origi- nate, from the desire for possession, for conquest. For this reason every child aspires to be a coach- man, a conductor, a locomotive engineer or an aviator, but to no less an extent he wishes to be emperor or teacher in order to command his com- panions and to find a visible expression for his superiority, or a physician in order to conquer death and to extend the limits of life, or a general in order to lead an army or an admiral in order to command the sea. Lies, thefts and other crimes committed by children are manifestly attempts to extend the limits of power in this way. For the most part these attempts assume no more real form than that of day dreams or phantasies. An inquiry instituted by me in a girls’ high school showed that all of the twenty-five girls remem- bered having committed trivial thefts. I was able to include even the teacher. On closer ex- amination the motive for this striving for attain- ment is the intolerable stimulus arising from the child’s feeling of inferiority. Frequently the child under this pressure is curious, eager to learn, seeks to recognize his faults and to make for himself a place for unfolding his personality. 2 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Defects, misfortunes, the feeling of uncertainty and inferiority often force a strong development of the higher psychic faculties, analogous to the compensatory stress in the organic compensatory tendency. Jatgeir says in Ibsen’s “Pretender to the Crown,” “I received the gift of pain and be- came a skald.” It is easy to prove in a number of cases that a particularly strong feeling of in- feriority sets into activity the impulse to investi- gation, or that the “vocation” to the life of an artist which later presents the example of a har- monious accord of art and life “began with a crude dissonance” (B. Litzmann, Clara Schu- mann). Another way in which children often show themselves superior to their parents has been de- scribed by me in the “Psychic Treatment of Tri- geminal Neuralgia.” This may consist in the following: From memory of earlier defects in imitation of others, a state of apparent stupidity, blindness, deafness, limping, stuttering, enuresis, untidiness, awkwardness, lack of appetite, nau- sea, etc., is retained. The psyche gradually forms out of these already prepared psychic habits which the child holds fast to as a protest against the feeling of being neglected, psychic aptitudes which in the neurosis following a given direction, constitute a symptom picture which may be stated as follows: Act as if you were ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 213 obliged to shift for yourself by means of one of these faults, of these deficiencies, to gain through it a feeling of superiority. The difference be- tween this and malingering often consists only in this, that in every case it is not always reflection which first calls up the phenomenon, but that the already existing preparedness for the symptom becomes embodied in the web and woof of mem- ory as an insuring agent against the fear of being under-estimated or neglected, Just as the techni- cal skill in the fingers of a virtuoso is always ready to respond in the proper reaction to any demand. ‘The whole army of neurotic symp- toms, blushing, headache, migraine, fainting, pains, tremor, depression, exaltation, etc., may be traced to these ready-for-use psychic attitudes. One of the facts which, thanks to my method of viewing the subject, I was able to explain con- cerns the less well known feeling of inferiority common to all girls and women which is due to their feminine role in contrast to the masculine. Their soul life is thereby so altered that they con- stantly betray traits of the “masculine protest” and in truth, usually in a circuitous form, in ap- parently feminine inferior traits such as are de- scribed in the previously cited group. Educa- tion as well as the necessary preparations for the future force them to bring their superiority to expression, their “masculine protest” in insidious 214 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ways, mostly having the character of resignation. The features of “Emotion” (Heyman’s) are al- ways sufficiently distinct, greed for power, envy, desire to please, inclination to cruelty are so ap- parent that they may be regarded as compensa- tory masculine traits, as directed towards a mas- culine goal. Parkes Weber (Lancet, 1911) has, following me, discovered the foundation of hys- terical phenomena in this sort of provision against under-estimation. Preparedness for crime is also to be regarded as an outcome of the masculine protest in persons whose compensatory ideal necessitates a fictitious guiding line which demands that the life, health, and possessions of his fellow man should be stripped of worth. In cases of extreme uncer- tainty where the deprivations, under-estimations, threaten loss of the feeling of ego-consciousness as well as where there is strained effort to “reach the top,” to secure supremacy, such persons (whose feeling of inferiority has sought compen- sation in emotional preparedness, in essential pursuit of the guiding line, by processes. of ab- straction from reality) will seek to come nearer to their ideal by a crime. D. A. Jassny has given an excellent analysis of this mechanism which is manifested most clearly in emotional crimes, ha- bitual crimes and crimes of negligence in women, in Gross’ Archiv. f. Kriminalanthropologie, 1911. ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 216 The great importance of the relations of love in human life has as a result that the neurotic greed to possess everything enters regularly into the relations of man and wife and there develops a disturbing tendency by introducing an inclination to disregard reality and causing the undertaking of enterprises with a view to maximation the feel- ing of personal worth. It lies in the nature of a neurotic to wish to diminish the feeling of inferi- ority by constant proofs of his superiority. For this reason, the person loved is forced to sacrifice the personality, to exist entirely through the neu- rotic who makes this demand, to become a means for augmenting the feeling of personal worth of the neurotic. A good test of a real love without neurotic tendency would be the fact that the per- son loved was allowed to preserve his or her per- sonal worth or when this personal worth even received support. Such cases are rare. In the relation of the sexes there arises nearly always an obstinate and selfish feature, a tendency to put to test, towards suspicion which constantly disturbs the peaceful marital relations. Arbitrary de- mands are the order of the day. One situation explains the other, so that the gist of the situation can always be easily recognized. It is as if both parties were confronted by an enigma which they endeavor to solve by every possible means. Analysis always reveals a fear of the sexual part- 216 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ner resulting from a feeling of inferiority and thereby striving toward superiority. We have already become acquainted to some extent with the strivings by circuitous ways where there is an accentuated feeling of inferiority in congenital defectives. This striving results in a number of neurotically acquired adaptations and certain traits of character assume promi- nence, so that the individual remains in close touch with the enemy. Perhaps the really most important features are distrust and jealousy, with which desire for mastery and disputatious- ness are concurrent. According to the previous history of the patient and to the previous avail- able practices as well as the neurosis which he can apply to his purpose, the one feature or the other declares itself with more or less distinctness. They all stand under the pressure of the fictitious final purpose and break forth when reduction of the feeling of personal worth is threatened, or show that they are still effective when pride re- presses them into the unconscious. In all cases these individuals have at their disposal the neu- rotic adaptations, which now in the form of de- pression, again as anxiety at being left alone, as fear of places, as insomnia, and in a hundred and one other symptoms by means of which they seek to force “the opponent” to lay down his arms. The strongest moral principles have the same ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 217 value as, for instance, coquetry and adultery as a revenge when the feeling of being under-esti- mated demands the reinstatement in equality or the gaining of the upper hand of the other party. The husband expresses protesting revengeful- ness where there is a lack of the feeling of superi- ority by playing the wild man, in side leaps, in rejection, sometimes however in impotence, in re- markable protection of the children or doubts about their legitimacy, frequently in shunning domesticity, in increased alcoholism or in the pur- suit of pleasure. The purpose of this line of con- duct is usually so obvious that it is generally un- derstood. For it only then reaches its goal when the wife feels herself thereby degraded. The frequent delirium of jealousy of alcoholics is not based on the resulting impotence, but alcoholism, impotence and the increased jealousy as a trait of character are neurotic forms of expression of those predisposed and whose feeling of inferiority experiences an aggravation. Like all other neu- rotics such an individual suffers from the neurotic apperception, by means of which he measures the distance of reality from an ideal which has been strengthened in the direction of his tendency. It is, however, one of the most effective attitudes of neurotic individuals to measure pollice verso so to speak, real human beings by an ideal, so that their value may be reduced to any desired extent. 218 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The revengefulness of the rejected wife mani- fests itself preferably in those neurotic symptoms in which frigidity plays the principal role. The purpose of this is to contest with the husband, the male force, to show him, even where there is perfect accord, limits of his power and thus to secure a considerable_superiority. That this powerful construction is the result of an original feeling of deficiency which demands compensation becomes apparent from more thor- ough analysis. Ordinarily the apperception of an under-estimation of an analogous fear or of a wish of this nature takes place after the picture of the antithesis of “man—woman,” in accordance with which the maximation of the ego-conscious- ness 1s felt and valued as “masculine,” the lower- ing as “feminine.” Or instead of the feeling of being under-estimated, in a phantasy or dream of a castration (feminine) a loss of the penis arises as a symbol. Very often the masculine guiding line which had already played an important role in the previous history penetrates into the neurosis as an essential or accessory component and ac- centuates the manly traits as soon as the ego- consciousness enters into the question, a circum- stance which as a rule is very striking in women. Aside from the predisposition to jealousy a large number of other symptoms are manifested in female neurotics, which originate from the ad- ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 219 herence to the masculine guiding line. These symptoms usually have reference to love or to the sexual relation and claim may be made to many causes as their foundation, instead of the only right one, the desire to be a man, which as far as possible seeks realization. This inclination to love and “manage” then continues throughout the entire life or this form of the masculine guid- ing line develops in advanced years an inner con- tradiction, a fear of not being able to hold the husband, touches the ego-consciousness and causes constantly varying neurotic, erotic dis- turbances. ‘These variations are dependent on the fact that the new guiding line, to win a hus- band, in order thereby to elevate the feeling of personal worth, contains within itself a contra- diction: the lowering of the feeling of personality by assuming the feminine role. In such cases often the neurotic symptom of indecision awakens and extends to the most banal relations of life, until the real situation is understood to depend upon the hermaphroditic attitude of the subject from which the impulse of indecision and doubt takes its source. Every decision calls up an an- tithetical reaction in the opposing consciousness which is then felt and valued after the antithesis of “man—woman”’ so that the patient either si- multaneously or in immediate sequence plays a feminine and then a masculine role. The fol- 220 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION lowing case may be considered as a visible exam- ple of such a condition: A girl 30 years of age, who earned her living by teaching, complained of uneasiness, constant doubt, insomnia and thoughts of suicide. Since the death of the father she had taken care of the whole family, thus taking the place of the man, the provider, and in her phantasies and dreams is a beast of burden, a horse that must draw all the load. She works until she is exhausted and sac- rifices everything to her brother and to her sister. As far back as she can remember, she has always wished she had been aman. As a child, she had sturdy boyish traits and at 15 years of age was still mistaken for a boy at bathing places. Von Neusser has called attention to these bod- ily traits of the opposite sex where constitutional anomaly could be shown in his work on the status thymico-lymphaticus. Also in my work on neu- rology, I have emphasized the finding of bodily traits of the opposite sex and could prove con- cerning them that they are often made use of by neurotics, either for giving prominence to the in- feriority in cases where the femininity is accentu- ated or for expressing the “masculine protest.” The previous observations of Flies who as well as Halvan directed my attention to this field, do not take into consideration the psychic mechanisms as I understand them. ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 221 In one variety, this female patient revealed the masculine protest on the very first day by refus- ing sharply gratuitous treatment. She would receive no gifts, she repeated emphatically several times in succession and she subsequently ex- plained to me in the manner with which I was already acquainted that it was unmanly to receive gifts. Therefore she had always refused them. On the other hand, she herself gave willingly, something she often practiced in the family in her role of father. From her history, I emphasize one incident as of importance. An uncle had attempted to vio- late her in her eighth year. In her terror, she had remained passive, but had never mentioned the attack. After her neurosis had made some progress, she had forced herself to the idea that as a child she was already a sinful creature and capable of yielding to any one, and that she had always remained the same. ‘Thus we have the application of a souvenir for the purpose of re- assurance with which we are already acquainted, for the course of this train of thought was that up to her thirtieth year of life she had yielded to all men. From her tenth year to the twenty-fifth year she asserted that she had practiced masturbation excessively. She developed therefrom a strong feeling of guilt, augmented the conviction of her 222 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION sinfulness, and arrived at the conclusion that she had rendered herself eternally unworthy to enter into matrimony. This conviction was bound to have an extensive influence on her attitude to- ward men. The usual role of masturbation in neuroses is as follows, that in consequence thereof, an ar- rangement of a feeling of guilt arises, but at the same time from the possibility of dispensing with a partner, the feeling of security from being under the influence of a partner. ‘The analogy with those cases where the same security is sought by strengthening the defects of childhood, enure- sis, stuttering or other neurotic symptoms is ob- vious. The original feeling of inferiority re- mains behind as an echo, fills itself with phan- tasies of feminine deficiencies and feelings of guilt and forces the individual to strive for the manly guiding point. The conduct of our fe- male patient is constructed according to the guid- ing line which may be expressed in the words, “I wish to be a man.” A few years ago, a compulsory idea took hold of her which clearly reflects our idea of the neuro- sis. The patient believed that she had lost through masturbation a part of the genital region which extended forward and which according to her description seemed to her to be a penis. Now she had become wholly unfit for marriage, be- ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 223 cause she could not live through it if her husband should hear of her sins. The security seems to be thus entirely assured and it is easy to under- stand how she brings her fictitious masculine guiding principle as an ideal in contrast with her real femininity, emphasizes the latter and feels inferior, yet by this very expedient seeks to exempt herself from a feminine role in reality. But even this assurance, however strong it might seem, became in time insufficient to satisfy the ideal of personal value of our patient. Her female friends deserted her in order to marry, and when finally her younger sister married, her guid- ing line became no longer tenable because her ambition strove also for “mastery over men.” She decided arbitrarily, as nervous girls with ex- treme indecision usually do, to take the first best. She went to a masquerade where she became ac- quainted with a worthy man who wished to marry her after a short acquaintance. During a trip she yielded to him because, as she said, she feared that by contact he might become aware of the defect of her genital organs and leave her dis- graced and she would rather have anything else happen to her. -When later the man in a friendly way insisted on her telling him if he were her first lover and why she had become so cold she threw him overboard with the untruthful explanation 224 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION that she had had relations with other men. Thereupon the man broke off the affair. It is easy to imagine what now followed. The patient who was already constantly grieving over another loss than that of her masculinity, beheld herself thwarted and deprived of her new mascu- line triumph. She recalled her lie which, as she sought to explain to me later, she had told in order to punish the man for having conquered her, in order to deprive him of worth. She ex- plained to him the facts, but he withdrew entirely, for the most part from fear of further discords in a marriage with this neurotic girl. Thereupon our patient became passionately in love with him, made a god of him, passed sleepless nights in thoughts of him, and took an oath to have him or no other husband, for this one was in all human probability lost to her. Thus by means of vari- ous expedients of her neurosis she had returned to her original guiding line, and had gained a ficti- tious ideal and up to the time of her treatment, had succeeded in avoiding the feminine role. In psychotherapeutic treatment, special atten- tion should be given to prevent this blindly working tendency to depreciation of the patient from making the physician himself a victim, as the condition of disease is regularly used as a means of depriving the psycho-therapeutist of his worth. ‘The patient may do this by following the ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 225 ordinary direction which his disease takes only with a sharper tone, because he strengthens the symptoms, or originates new ones, and tries to supply tense relations, frequently also situations of love and friendship, but always with the inten- tion (which is the result of his neurotic tendency, of the masculine protest) of becoming master of the physician, of giving him a setback, of making him play a “feminine” part, of annihilating his worth. ‘The tactical and pedagogic expedients to which one is obliged to resort in order to weaken this struggle of the patient against the physician, in order to render it comprehensible and in order to demonstrate in this way the neu- rotic conduct or attitude of the patient in life generally, become an important factor in the therapeusis. The silent protest of the neurotic should not however be undervalued, and one should be on the lookout for it to the very end of the treatment, laying special stress upon it to- wards its termination. It should be viewed with quiet, objective composure, as the matter-of-fact aggressiveness of the patient and as having the same value as has the neurosis, inasmuch as it furnishes the neurotic predispositions and traits. Freud’s hypothesis of transference will be re- ferred to again later. It is nothing more than an expedient of the patient who seeks to rob the physician of superiority. Bezzola and others 226 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION have described the circuitous ways in which the neurotic patient seeks to deprive physicians of their value. It is always the masculine guiding line which is revealed, the purpose of which is to assure the patient’s superiority. The most usual manner of enhancing his tendency to aggression, the neurotic finds by holding fast to his symp- toms, because these in themselves present a phase of his aggressive tendency. An extract from a history of a patient shortly before the end of her treatment reveals (in the form of an unfriendly impulse) this effort to de- prive the physician of value as a psychic predis- position of her “masculine protest.” The pa- tient was placed under treatment because of an anxiety and of crying out at night. She was a virgin, 36 years of age. I will begin the descrip- tion of this neurotic picture with the following dream: “I was lying at your feet and reached upward with my hand trying to grasp your clothes which were silk. You made a lascivious gesture, where- upon I said laughingly, ‘You are then no better than the other men? You confirmed this with a nod.” Those who, following Freud’s interpretation of dreams, place the sexual wish-motive in the fore- ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 227 ground, will not be at a loss for an interpretation; the requirements for a sexual basis for the dream were fully supplied. The requirements could also be complied with, as the patient had already done, by brmging forward a reminiscence from childhood, when she solicited her father in a simi- lar manner; her neurotic tendency to attain secu- rity had indeed carefully collected all admonitory experiences, in order to use the man in an “an- aphylactic” manner against repetitions. Indeed, one could easily get the assent of the patient to ascribe to repressed impulses of the will the emer- gence of souvenirs of like tendency and the present experiences. For her neurotic psyche sees such exaggerations as real remembrances and makes them her basis of operation, which she does by affirming her conviction of inferiority, of her fault, of her sin, of her too feminine nature, in order to defend with greater vehemence her supe- riority, her manliness and to increase her fore- sight. This increased masculine protest, how- ever, which has its source in the defective perspec- tive of the patient who is overfearful, can not but naturally increase the neurosis. The destruction of this false perspective first (the foundation of the neurotic apperception), and the damming up of the fictitious influx in the direction of the mas- culine protest, and finally a right understanding 228 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of the superstitious faith in an abstract guiding line and the apotheosis of the same are the levers which must be used to remove neurosis. Our patient had begun a liaison with a married man about the time of this dream. When he pressed himself upon her and invited her to his house during his wife’s absence at a watering place, she was troubled with all sorts of scruples, which I strengthened considerably. Neverthe- less, she justified the relation and “played with the fire” because she said the impatient writhing of the man amused her. Incidentally, her way of regarding the subject was an inimical act di- rected against her relatives and against me her monitor. Her own understanding could be in- terpreted as a reasonable excuse. But the pre- vious history of the patient, and her conduct dur- ing her illness which lasted twenty years, and dur- ing her treatment, showed plainly that she was strongly under the influence of the masculine pro- test, and that she could have demanded the sub- jugation of the man, but that she must have re- fused to play a feminine röle— (she suffered from anxiety states and crying out in terror at night). The central point of her psychic attitude con- sisted in fear of the man to whom she believed she was not equal, a fear which she sought to com- pensate by her own masculine bearing and by the lower estimation of men. ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 229 After this information concerning the patient, we could venture to interpret the dream. She exaggerated her physical dependence on me and gave this conviction form by clothing it in a dream image which is admirably suited for this purpose. “As though I lay at your feet.” This being “below” was taken as a basis of operation and we could rightly expect that the manly im- petus would follow the construction of a fictitious feminine role. She reached upwards with the hands. ‘The contamination contained my depri- vation of masculinity. I wore a silk dress. ‘The same psychic mechanism hovers in the remaining part of the dream. I had admonished the pa- tient—in the dream I made a lascivious gesture of which the seducer had been guilty, that is to say that I am on the same level, “I also am not better than the other men.” Besides this to carry out the idea further, I was silent and showed assent by a gesture in the dream. The opposite thought that I could be better is insupportable to the patient; from it, which gives me a sort of superiority, originates the preventative dream fiction constructed after the neurotic perspective. The patient only felt secure when all men were alike bad. Then she is following her old guiding line and feels superior. Her superiority is re- flected by her laughing in the dream as well as by my silence. 230 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The circumstance that she began this first dan- gerous liason with a married man is worthy of attention. In all similar cases, such a relation may be recognized as an effort to obtain security from marriage, usually also from sexual rela- tions. ‘The masculine guiding line is preserved, but reality asserts itself by feminine excitements and emotions. It is as I have frequently pointed out, a masculine protest made with feminine means which recalls to me the fact of psychic her- maphroditism. Finally, too, the superiority over the lawful wife asserts itself in the three-cornered arrangement, something which in all analogous cases strengthens to an unusual degree the mo- tive force. If we now proceed as it were to a comparative psychology and wish to bring to conscious expres- sion the component parts of the foundation of the apperception of this patient and put the question before us, whence these psychic preparations which lead to the attempt of unmanning the man by feminine means in order to enhance thereby her feeling of worth in a masculine direction and to surpass a woman’s, the answer is: From her relation to her father and mother. There she derived the preparation to approach the father with love and esteem as a guiding ideal, learned to master him and had thus shown herself su- perior to the mother. If one abstracts the mas- ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 231 culine protest of the neurotic child and if one apperceives these conditions (as neurotics often do) in a sexual scheme the “incest complex” re- mains. One can now, as I have shown in former works, take out of the incest complex again what the masculine guiding line has placed in it, namely, the assurance of the feeling of personal worth under the title of an amative condition. In the literature on psycho-analysis, the assertion emerges constantly that the libido of the neurotic is fixed on the father or on the mother, on which account he seeks similar amative conditions which are in reality that which was loved in the parents. The “will to power and to seem” constitutes the only amative condition and this guiding point the neurotic seeks with all caution, but invariably, with all his practiced preventive precautions which have originated from and have exclusive value from the craving for security and which re- sist any change. ‘The significance of the amative feeling is no other than the assurance of the ego- consciousness, and with this the exclusive influ- ence of the same further betrays that the motive force there is to be found in the masculine pro- test which has already constructed the incest con- stellation. Where, as in many cases, the attach- ment to one of the parents is clearly obvious, it is contracted with a purpose,’ arranged in order to 1In accordance with the life-plan, the finale. 232 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION escape decisions concerning other partners, to es- cape marriage. ‘Then usually the neurotic has destroyed the tendency to love and marriage as inconsistent with the masculine final purpose, or has not developed it. The original of the “three-cornered situation,” the incest situation, resolves itself on closer exam- ination into an affair caused by the megalomania of the child who already reveals all of the charac- teristics of one predisposed to neurosis, 1.e., envy, obstinacy, insatiableness, precocity. Without the sexual appetite really taking part therein, thoughts and reflections of the child may come to light which are later valued and represented as sexual when the neurotic tendency to gain secur- ity seeks to make such a connection. “I was al- ready as a child, so beyond bounds, so culpable, my sexual appetite was so strong, I have such a criminal tendency, I am so much the slave of love,” these are the echoes in the soul of the adult neurotic. “Therefore I must be careful.” ‘The impulse to hold to certain appropriate memories, to falsifications of memory, to exaggerating traces of memories arises from a fear of a defeat in life. And where the sexual appetite has really been revealed, where the possibility of incest really existed, the memory is preserved as an ad- monitory sign. ‘That which diverts the neurotic psyche is not memory or reminiscence, but the ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 233 fictitious final purpose which has derived profit- able situations therefrom. It is nearly the same if these reminiscences have been repressed by the conscious ego, thrust back into the unconscious. The neurotic character and the other psychic ges- tures with their unconscious mechanism are none the less opposed to disposition in proper order in reality. Thus it was in the case of our female patient. She related, for example, that she always wished to win the father to her side and that she accom- plished this by carefully falling in with his train of thought and his wishes. It was not difficult to leave her mother. From the age of fourteen, she began to refuse to kiss him because she began to feel a peculiar erotic emotion. In explanation of this, I might add that the patient had from her twelfth year manifested unmistakable signs of a neurosis. Her situation at that time permits us to understand the significance of this attempt at security—through the construction of erotic prep- arations. She had always been an unruly, boy- ish creature who had already learned to feel the force of the sexual appetite and for some time had already practiced masturbation. About this time also, men began to make advances to her to which she reacted with extreme anxiety. Her craving for security had progressed so far that the patient had strengthened the anxiety prepar- 234 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION edness which had been constructed out of real emotions of anxiety which she had originally felt, and now she was able, whenever she feared a de- feat in the sense of being obliged to play a fem- inine röle, any possible cause of which she was on the alert to anticipate, to develop in a hallucina- tory manner, a condition of anxiety, so to speak, discount it, such as would have corresponded for example to the eventuality of pregnancy. This anticipation and hallucinatory awakening of sen- sations which correspond to a fear of defeat which might arise in the future are the work of the pre- ventive craving for security and constitute, as I have already emphasized,” the essential part of hypochondria, of phobia and of numerous neuras- thenic and hysterical symptoms. I will only state briefly here that the essential part of a psy- chosis, too, depends upon a similar dogmatic an- ticipatory representation of a fear or a wish, which the craving for security offers for the better testimony in a phase of great insecurity, in strong dependence on the fictitious guiding line for the conservation of the ego-consciousness. When our patient foresaw a loss of prestige and pro- vided against it by a condition of anxiety in a hal- lucinatory manner she felt most secure against it. At times, the hallucinatory emotion needed a fur- ther strengthening, then the patient arrived at 2 “Siphilidophobia,” loc. cit. ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 235 the compulsory idea that she had killed a new born child. In the analysis this idea in regard to the man, at times a place anxiety, was shown to be connected with an admonition of her mother’s. This signifies that the patient rescued from her memories even the words of her mother whom she constantly fought against, in so far as these words were adapted to her tendency to seek se- eurity.” Among these preparatory conditions an event occurred which favored greatly the hardy con- struction of these preparations for security. One of her cousins gave birth to a child out of wedlock, a fact which, in a family of respectable mid- dle class people, caused the greatest excitement, especially as the seducer shook the dust of the place from his feet. Our growing understand- ing for the development of this girl permits us to understand why this event must have accelerated the development of the neurosis and how it came that the words of the mother to whom she ordi- narily showed little attention were given such importance. The patient was from her early childhood wild and boyish and of great strength, preferred boys’ games and avoided every femi- nine emotion. She can still remember with what vehemence she. refused to play with dolls or to 3 Along with this the mother should also be at fault with her apodictic threats. 236 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION engage in needlework. The personality of the father preponderated over that of the mother to a remarkable degree. An unmarried aunt who lived with the family of our patient took pleas- ure in her masculine manners, had a beardlike growth of hair and a masculine voice. To this strong and constantly recurring memory was as- sociated another event of later occurrence and which furnished the necessary resonance to the dominating tendency of the patient to wish to become aman. She remembered that one of her fellow scholars with whom she had long been as- sociated—a pseudo hermaphrodite—was changed into aman. These and similar communications —for example, the special interest for hermaph- roditism, are sufficient according to my experi- ence for the preliminary assumption that patients of this sort wish to divest themselves of the ap- pearance of femininity, and wish to assume mas- culine characteristics, as though they fully be- lieved in the possibility of a metamorphosis and that they invariably make an attempt to push forward to the manly role which is considered by them to be the higher. Among these attempts to change fate two interest us particularly—the for- mation of the neurotic character and the neu- rotic preparations in the form of the neuroses and their symptoms. As a trait of character which is not rare with ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 237 such patients, I may cite the tendency to expose nakedness, and indeed in childhood or in later years, in dreams, in phantasy or in neurotic at- tacks during which they tear the clothes from the body as though they would divest themselves of the modesty which they regard as feminine, as though they wished to make a parade of fictitious large masculine genital organs and thus belittle others. It may be seen from these cases how one perversion, that of exhibitionism, does not origi- nate from a congenital sexual constitution, but that the neurosis which seeks to secure the ego- consciousness is impelled to suppress the feeling of inferiority, to overcome it because in this neu- rosis the lively desire to be a complete man, to be of great account, finds expression. The sexual jargon is there—in merely a form of expression an “as-if” of the sexual content of the thought or want, only a symbol of the scheme of life. Also the feminine, exaggerated modesty of such patients is an expedient in the opposite direction for the purpose of deceiving concerning the lack of masculinity.* The absence of modesty in such cases answers for the desired masculinity, is the masculine protest, and more marked immodesty points invariably to disquieting dreams or thoughts concerning curtailed genital organs and hence releases feelings of protest of a masculine 4 Adler—The masculine attitude in female neurotics, etc. 238 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION nature which considerably strengthen the line of ambition, of the desire to be first, to possess every- thing, of obstinacy. In the further development of the neurosis the desire for mastery and for conquest as well as the tendency to deprive others of worth may assert itself in the form of castra- tion phantasies and their rationalization (Jones). The inclination to disarm the partner, to con- stantly feel the assurance of superiority which regularly constitutes the content of exhibitionism are often met with. At times, the lack of neat- ness and indecency in girls may be interpreted as a trace of the desire for masculinity. All of these traits of character although they at times seemed contradictory were all active in one direction toward the fictitious final goal in this patient. It was not difficult to discover a period of uncertainty in her early childhood as preliminary to her affectation of masculine traits, where she, because of lack of insight, misled by boyish traits and her compensatory ambition, cherished the hope of metamorphosing herself at some future time intoaman. ‘This final purpose of developing from a hermaphroditie condition to a male is easy to perceive if her boyish charac- teristics are understood as preparations for her fictitious final goal. Here also belongs her in- clination to put on boys’ clothes, a phenomenon which as with Hirschfeld’s “Transvertiter” ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 239 flows from the psychic dynamic just described. Her ideal was particularly distinct in the phan- tasies and day dreams of her childhood. Influ- enced by fairy stories and myths (“Dwarf Nose,” “Thousand and One Nights,” etc.) she imagined the most varied changes went on in her, some- times believed herself changed into a Nix or mer- maid, in which form a fish tail terminated the lower parts of the body, which is indicative of the peculiar sense. At this time a distinct neu- rotic symptom set in, in this connection; she could not walk at times, as if, instead of legs, she had a fish tail. Also a shoe fetichism in this connec- tion showed the masculine tendency and devel- oped in the form that she insisted on wearing large shoes, we might say masculine shoes, be- cause her feet hurt. From Ovid’s Metamorpho- sis which in her rage for reading soon fell into her hands, she borrowed another fiction which emerged during her treatment in her dreams; she imagined she had been metamorphosed in such a way that the lower part of her body became a firmly rooted trunk. In this and in similar ways, she gave to herself the answer to the question concerning her future sexual role. We will not be surprised to find that in this and similar cases, the attitude towards woman was also influenced by the masculine final goal. In the preparations for the future the amative and 240 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION sexual relations must have had a place and there- fore we soon find our patient assuming the ideal masculine role of protector to a younger and weaker sister. Furthermore, there were sadistic acts towards little girls and servants, but also towards little, girlish boys. Thus we find in the masculine guiding line of the patient an intermix- ture of secondary features, auxiliary traits of homosexuality ° and masculine sadism, whose ar- rangement resulted from the construction of the masculine predispositions and which is the only possible substitute if masculine sexuality were se- lected by her neurotic apperception from the im- pressions of life. As will be shown, both of these perversions are circuitous ways and expedients, secondary guiding lines which grow out of the ex- aggerated masculine protest. ‘The question con- cerning a constitutional tendency to perversions is wholly irrelevant, because the neurosis seeking assurance and choosing its material in conform- ity with this tendency can fasten upon the most harmless relations, lend to them proportions and value which may become immeasurable in so far as the neurosis requires this by exaggerating them and lending them high values. 5 Moll has emphasized sharply the frequent association of homo- sexuality with exhibitionism. Our discussion reveals the inner re- lationship. Both perverse tendencies are expressions of the mas- culine protest. ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 241 One day as the patient, now fourteen years of age, was accosted by a man on the stairs who made advances to her, an insane idea developed on this foundation which is easy to see through. She imagined herself for many months the mur- derer of domestic servants (Hugo Schenk) and thus by means of extreme abstractions which were introduced for the purpose of security, she ef- fected an interlacing of her masculine, her homo- sexual and her sadistic fiction, while she brought them to more distinct expression and at the same time held herself in anticipation of an event which she feared. These three conditions, mere ab- stractions from reality, strengthening of guiding lines leading to masculinity and upwards, and anticipation of the directing ideal mostly in a dis- guised form, are the fundamental components of the psychotic construction. The role of indige- nous and exogenous poisons consists in many cases in the circumstance that these call up a feel- ing of heightened insecurity which can also result from psychic experiences. But the neurotic tendency toward security, which is strengthened in cases of increased uncertainty, is always the effective cause of the psychotic construction. It then draws more forcibly into its power the neu- rotic method of apperception and thus causes a “barring off” (absperrung). "The use of female domestic servants in the psychic construction of 242 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION our patient brings to expression the tendency to depreciation of females. In her insane system anxiety is strongly manifested and is distinctly recognizable as a means to obtain security against the male and thus coördinated to the purpose of her insanity constituting a second expression of her aggravated masculine protest.° A further perversion of our patient of which she was dimly conscious consisted in a fellatio phantasy. The realities connected therewith and which found application in the neurotic tendency of her phantasy were well known to the patient. She had always been very dainty and as a child had always been a slave to this tendency. Even to-day this characteristic often asserts itself. But it happened not infrequently that she took loathsome things into her mouth without disgust. In her avoidance of the feminine role this pa- tient tried, because parturition seemed to her un- acceptable and especially feminine, to imagine this perverse situation temporarily possible. The suggestion originated from a conversation which she had overheard. ‘This perversion was 6 The accentuation of the fictitious guiding line in the neurotic who becomes insecure is responsible for the fact that he has to utilize stronger measures for the purpose of gaining security. Anxiety where another merely visualizes, hypochondriasis where another employs caution. Our patient had both the anxiety and the delusion where for other girls morality and caution were still sufficient. Thus also in place of caution, hallucinations, and fears. ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 243, asserted of a female neighbor living independ- ently and in pleasant relations. Early forced away from the partner, she nevertheless sought to keep in touch with reality and found in the avoidance of labor, supported by her exaggerated leaning to disgusting procedures the way to this, perverse phantasy. But her masculine protest opposed even this. Her crying out at night was as a rule over dream situations of this sort, ar- ranged tentatively, and with this masculine pro- test, she answered to the femininely perverse role which she imputed to herself. The psychic attitude of the patient described at the beginning shows the essential difference. At least a part of her fear of the man and of the masculine protest was present which after a short time made room for a normal attitude. ‘What could make one apprehensive was the disposition to a difficult, socially inferior situation which could only be obviated by further inroads. Could there, however, be expected a much more favorable solution of the problem of this patient who has declined and who has been robbed of all social connections by the long duration of the neurosis, and is destitute? With all the solidity and obstinacy which cling to neurotic symptoms and the neurotic character there is often a changeableness and instability which has attracted the attention of many writ- 244 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ers. The character of capriciousness, of uncer- tainty of temper, of suggestibility and of suscep- tibility to influence (Janet, Strümpell, Raimann and others) was wrongly given as an important sign of a psychogenic affection. But attention must, however, be called to the fact that in psychic phenomena which, as. we have shown, only present means, modes of expression and purposeful dis- positions, variability must often be preserved among the other characteristics, because it may also occur as an auxiliary line and serve the ficti- tious final goal, the maximating of the ego-con- sciousness. The neurotic self-valuation will at any rate take those variations as a point of de- parture for a way of thinking, will exaggerate the judgment of weakness by strengthening the sug- gestibility, will support it with selected neuroses for the most part falsely estimated in order to gain in a neurosis a strengthened impetus. As the following case teaches for example. A short time ago, a Viennese physician brought forward in a public session, examples of making waking suggestions which indeed succeeded with a certain lady on a few evenings. When the same lady was expected to offer herself again for a demon- stration on a subsequent evening she responded with an hysterical attack of such nature that the further demonstrations were forbidden by the police. In the psychotherapeutic treatment, one ASCETICISM, LOVE, ETC. 245 must always be prepared for the circumstance that the introduction of the patient into the ex- periment heightens the masculine protest and the disposition to attacks and is above all forced to prevent this reaction. Every improvement in the condition is felt by the patient as compulsion and conquest and a relapse often follows from no other reason than that an improvement had pre- ceded. The many ambivalent traits of neurotics and psychotic patients arranged according to a polar principle (Bleuler) are constructed on the hermaphroditie splitting of the neurotic psyche and obey exclusively the ideal of personal worth reassured by hypersensibility and great caution. CHAPTER III NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES: SYMPATHY, COQUETRY, NARCISSISM, PSYCHIC HERMAPHRODITISM, HALLUCINATORY SECURITY, VIRTUE, CON- SCIENCE, PEDANTRY, FANATIC ATTACHMENT TO TRUTH In our preceding observation we were able to follow the various attempts, preparations and dispositions of a patient which were conditioned by the setting in of the masculine tendency. The resulting fear of the man was so great that every amative relation was prevented until treatment made it possible. In very many cases the mascu- line protest manifests itself in an apparently op- posite direction. ‘The patients constantly begin new relations which, however, easily languish and are menaced by peculiar turns of fortune. On the other hand, they are capable of contracting marriage one or more times and also of dissolving the marriage again. Very often the deepest pas- sions of love are shown which are strong enough to overcome all obstacles and are usually only augmented by them. ‘The same phenomeha are observed in male neurotics. Upon closer obser- 246 NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 247 vation the well known traits of the neurotic sub- ject are again found (first of all the desire for mastery) which make use of the relations of life as a vehicle for realizing themselves demonstrably in the same manner as do his other characteristics. The desire to possess everything finds expression in such a way that all men, at times, all human beings, become an object for conquest and in pur- suing this object, coquetry, necessity for tender- ness, and discontent with the lot assigned by fate, play an important part. The preference for difficulties is often remarkable. A little girl pre- fers only big men, or love first declares itself when the parents forbid it, while the attainable is treated with open disdain. In the conversation and deliberation of such girls the limiting word emerges constantly. They wish only a cultured, only a broad, only a masculine man, only a pla- tonic love, only a marriage without children, only a husband who will permit their entire liberty, etc. The tendency toward detraction is often so obvi- ous in this process that hardly a man remains who would fit the requirements. Usually they have a completed, often unconscious ideal, in whom are mingled the features of the father, the brother, an imaginary personage, or a literary or historical character. ‘The more we become ac- quainted with these ideals, the more are we con- vinced that they are advanced as a fictitious 248 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION standard in order to detract from reality by com- parison with them. The psychic tendency with the accompanying features of an “unwomanly” nature, which frequently gives rise to sexual lib- erty, unfaithfulness and unchastity, reveals ob- viously a striving after the masculine ideal. Analysis often shows original organic inferiority, an exaggerated feeling of inferiority, a remark- able original higher estimation of the male which follows on the heels of detraction as a means of assurance. Other assurances strengthen the opinion we have formed. Such ideas as, all men are rough, tyrannical, have a bad odor, are in- fected, etc., reveal the influence upon appercep- tion of this trend. In male neurotics are ob- | served ideas of a suspicious nature which make the accusation that all women are sinful, un- stable, frivolous, psychologically weak-minded, abandoned unrestrainedly to their sexuality. Our teachers, philosophers and poets, who form the ideal of our time, the Secret Emperor (“heimlichen Kaiser”) (Simmel), are also not infrequently under the sway of the same fictions. The neurotic is therefore likely to seize upon them in order to gain a firm guiding line in the unrest of life. For the above neurotic tendency, Schopenhauer, Strindberg, Moebius, and Wein- inger, besides the religious teachers and fathers of the church, have produced the most pleasing NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 249 cleiché. 'The malleus malificarium and the dis- grace of the burning of witches followed the learned disputes of the clerics over the question whether woman has a soul, whether she is a hu- man being. ‘The reassuring schematic fictions of neurotic girls are derived from a childish view of the world because art is still, nearly exclu- sively, masculine territory and the apperception offers a material less suited to it, and therefore these fictions of neurotic girls are brought into harmony with reality with greater difficulty. Where reality, however, is able to influence the neurotic fiction of the girl it usually causes traits of character and tendencies which reveal clearly enough the masculine inclination to con- quer man, or where there is the strongest tend- ency to gain security—in a homosexual way—to conquer woman, but which make these neurotics nevertheless seek, as a lover or as a husband, the man to whom she denies value and who is only fitted in a small degree for conflict. The expres- sion of sympathy can in such cases often disguise the state of affairs, and love is then free if the man is powerless, enfeebled, a cripple, aged. In phantasies, dreams and hallucinations in which the man is castrated or changed into a woman, or corpse, is “below,” and especially in the tend- ency to see the man without weapons, small, abased; is revealed the compulsion of the mascu- 250 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION line guiding fiction and finds in necrophilia its highest expression." Another road, as we have already stated, leads over the line of the desire to possess everything, towards neurotic coquetry. The masculine protest is therein revealed, first in the tendency to compensate a feeling of infe- riority, of deficiency apperceived through the picture of the lost masculine member by means of domination of many or of allmen. Secondly, by the refusal of a feminine röle in sexual rela- tions, in marriage. In place of this despised role, expedients are resorted to which are dic- tated by the manly guiding line, such as sexual anesthesia and perversions of all sorts, among which the sadistic predominates. Bloch has em- phasized in a fine manner the desire for domina- tion by the coquette when he says: (“Beitrage zur Atiologie der Psychopathia sex,” 1903) “Co- quetry, which may be defined as the effort of women to attach men to them, makes use, to a considerable extent, of purely sexual means to attain its object, and is, in this respect, an efflux of the true gynecokratic instinct.” We can only add that these “gynecokratic instincts” are con- structed according to the picture of the resem- blance to men and thus prove themselves to be dependent on a masculine ideal although in the 1 Eulenburg emphasized in the same manner the relationship be- tween active algolagnia (v. Schrenck-Notzing) and necrophilia. NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES gol attainment thereof feminine means are resorted to as expedients because they are the only ones at hand. The attention and interest of these neurotics (among whom the masculine coquettes are remarkable because they seek to carry through their triumph valued as masculine by feminine means) is directed towards making an impression and to force others into their service. A result of this trait of character is that the neu- rotic strengthening of these secondary guiding lines leads to overestimation of self and there- fore also to exaggeration of the desire for mas- tery, of pride, and of the tendency to detract from the worth of others. Hence we need not be surprised that the object of the desire, as a rule, appears to be overvalued through the narcissism (Naecke) of the patient. This overestimation is rather an a priori condition in the construction of the relation and in it is reflected the exagger- ated ego of the female patient.’ In the psychotherapeutic treatment these cases produce especially the appearance of “be- ing in love with the physician.” It may, how- ever, be easily seen that this “transfer of love” corresponds to one of the numerous preparations for conflict used for overcoming the obstacle and thus to get the better of the superiority of the 2 The belief in personal magic is so strong that every resistance leads to new endeayors. 252 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION man, of the masculine physician; and it may be easily seen that the feeling of deficiency which calls forth this peculiar obscure form of the mas- culine protest springs from their femininity which they feel as inferiority. In no case, how- ever, no matter how far the neurotic may carry coquetry, does it reach far enough to include sub- jection to the man. Sooner or later the man is threatened with defeat which carries with it loss of dignity, and in fact, always when the neurotic patient feels the situation to be too feminine. This moment may arrive at different stages but it is as a rule, contact, a kiss, expectation of sex- ual relations, fear of pregnancy or of childbirth which releases the heightened tendency to gain reassurance and causes the outbreak of that which is ordinarily termed a neurosis or psy- chosis. Then the stronger abstraction of reality comes into its right, the fictions assert themselves with greater distinctness, the tendency to detract from the value of the man leads to actions and deeds which apparently have lost all meaning, and the inimical dispositions of the aggressive- ness, and with these the neurotic traits of char- acter come to light. Every neurotic possesses to some degree this coquetry which has its origin in narcissism. They originate indeed from his hypostasized idea of personal value and is founded like this upon NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 253 an original feeling of inferiority. ‘The fact that neurotics, especially the species just described, find it so hard to separate themselves from per- sons or things is in harmony with this. The parting from a person, seemingly not in close re- lations with the neurotic, to say nothing of a seemingly loved person, is capable of producing the most severe neurotic symptoms, neuralgic attacks, depression, loss of sleep, attacks of weep- ing, etc. On the other hand, threats of deser- tion or separation are not rare and are used to bring forth proof of the influence over the person threatened. ‘That the masculine protest is domi- nant in this coquetry is proved from various phe- nomena. ‘The strong disinclination for a dis- tinctly feminine role has already been empha- sized; it is capable in these cases of calling forth a remarkable picture, the appearance of a double life—a splitting of consciousness, an ambiva- lence (Bleuler). Analysis constantly furnishes greater proof for the striving toward masculin- ity. Dreams, phantasies, hallucinations, onset of psychosis show in a most distinct manner the striving to become a man, or one of the equiva- lents, as fear of a feminine lot. The strong tendency toward detraction of men originates from the effort to attain an equal value with the male and gives rise in sexual events to the mas- culine röle, which is revealed in frigidity, in de- 254 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION sire to be first and in those perversions which force the man to take a slavish and debasing po- sition. Often the onset of the neurosis may be as- sumed to have set in when such symptoms as fear of a decision, of a test, of marriage, public ap- pearance, of place (Platzangst), require medi- cal treatment. These anxieties arise at the emerging of a contradiction in the masculine pro- test, if in pursuing the same a set-back, a femi- nine lot, a defeat is threatened and hence the forced admission of femininity. This was the case with one of my patients who, several years ago, just before her first public ap- pearance, became ill with piano-player’s cramp. This neurosis furnished a good excuse for escap- ing from a dreaded failure. The closer exami- nation into the conditions of this illness showed a neurotic illusion in which the patient at the sight of notes was reminded of male genital or- gans. The first explanation to suggest itself was that of an exaggerated or repressed sexuality whose reflection in the piano-player’s cramp was to.be sought in the repression of the inclination to masturbation. ‘The result furnished an en- tirely different explanation. The triumph be- fore the public was supposed to signify an equal- ity with the man, masculinity. This fiction was in contradiction with reality, with her femininity, NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 255 so that a public appearance equaled a final bal- ancing of the facts (many talented girls and women are wrecked for the same reason). The sense of reality of the patient placed instead of the facts would not admit this condition of things, and arranged by a symbolic interpreta- tion of the heads of the notes works a fictitious abstraction which recalled the femininity and be- came a regressive signal. The contradiction in the masculine protest of this patient is mani- fested, as is nearly always the case in the neu- rosis, in the unrealizability of the fiction just when before the decision the possibility of a fail- ure estimated as “feminine” in character emerged —a common phenomenon which needs no expla- nation. Now the traits of anxiety, of shyness, of stage-fright are strengthened and they either themselves furnish excuses or preparations and predispositions (in our case pains and inability to move the hands) and divert the attention from the menace to the masculine protest. But in this case also the force of the masculine protest is as- tonishing, it forms a preparedness for con- flict in the direction of the masculine protest even out of the illness in which the patient takes ref- uge. This girl had entered upon the career of a virtuoso against her will, forced thereto by her unyielding mother. The wrecking of her moth- er’s ambitious plans meant for the daughter a 256 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION victory which recompensed her in part. That which her obstinacy, her masculine tendency was not able to accomplish, was successful through her illness as soon as note-stems called up to her the menacing souvenir “you are a woman, take care, do not allow yourself to be forced to a femi- nine obedient röle by your mother—conquer her.” A further construction, an excuse which yielded a foundation for the attitude toward her mother, lay in the heightened feeling that her younger sister was given preference. This train of thought, as well as her efforts to gain exclusive control over every one, her mother, all the mem- bers of the family, all human beings in the en- vironment, even of a dog, was reflected in the heightened characteristics of her coquetry and found expression, for example, in one of her latest dreams concerning the physician. The dream was as follows: “I sit opposite you and ask if you like all the patients as well as you like me. You answered, ‘Yes, all, and my four children, too” All at once you changed into a woman and went to sleep. A woman was looking at the black notes.” The amative disposition of this patient could endure no rival. She made use of the certainty of her conquest in order to support her feeling of security. The physician who gave her to un- NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 257 derstand that he treated all patients with the same interest, and who loved his children besides, becomes forthwith the point of attack of her striving for domination, as was formerly the mother, the man whom she married, as were all persons in her environment, domestic servants, trades-people, teachers, etc. Her self-centered nature did not need to “transfer,” as she came to the treatment with rigid predispositions and put them in play from the first moment of her meet- ing with the physician. Only the new situation was surrounded with difficulties and obstacles which prevented the will to domination through love from fully developing. Naturally my wife was left out of the dream. Just this omission is the cornerstone of the situation; my wife is defi- nitely set aside. Up to this point the feminine means extend and characterize the feminine line to which the patient holds. Now the masculine protest emerges more distinctly. I become un- manned, the reassuring illusion of the patient, namely, the notes as a protecting symbol of the male genitals, asserts its right. She, herself, “takes care,” secures herself in order not to sink in her feeling of masculine ego-consciousness, to suffer no defeat. That I go to sleep in the dream, assigns to me a place similar to that which her husband occu- pies. ‘The patient feels it as a great neglect that 258 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION her husband, an overworked manufacturer, often goes to sleep before she does. The unmanning of the husband is the answer thereto, as well as a prolonged insomnia whose constructive signifi- cance lies in the fact that it permits the patient to operate against her husband. Now she could refuse him his right as a husband and turned him, at first in the middle of the night, later perma- nently, out of her bedroom; because he “snored and disturbed her so much.” Our patient would have easily found another argument if this one had not presented itself, and it would be errone- ous to exclude the neurotic construction as a cause because in this case the neurotic happened to be right. In order to prove that she is right the patient will often argue aptly; the neurotic stigma in fact consists in the tendency to render the superiority visible by all possible means. Litigious paranoia for example reveals this mechanism to us with greater clearness. Be- sides, the neurosis of our patient continues in its construction of assurances. To her insomnia is added, in order to place this on a firmer basis, a sensitiveness of hearing, whose mechanism con- sists in an overcharging of the attention for the purpose of serving the neurotic tendency, so that we were also able to say, by this overcharging, the patient is awakened by the slightest noise as soon as she falls asleep. ‘Thus she can, still awake NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 259 when morning comes, sleep far into the day and thus avoid the feminine tasks of the household, in the same manner as she had escaped the moth- er’s domination by stage fright and cramps in the fingers. An auditory hallucination, a sawing noise, constitutes a final security which may be pursued analytically in two directions. ‘The one interpretation is furnished by a warning souvenir which at the same time is an incentive to her co- quetry—once, when eight years old, she over- heard an intimate scene at her married sister’s, she felt shut out, neglected—she gave a similar value to her husband’s “indifference” when he fell asleep before she did, in order to be able to take a sharply aggressive attitude toward him. A second interpretation led in another direction. The noise recalled the sawing off of a stem and symbolized, acoustically,? the unmanning, the de- traction from the worth of the man. As is also so frequently the case this symptom proved to be (just as I have maintained of the dream, of symptoms, and of the neurosis) a representative instance of the ascension from the feminine to the masculine line, as a masculine protest against a situation usually previously felt as feminine, 3 One is reminded here of the somatic-jargon of which we have already spoken. Thus the words, “schrill” and “grell,” bring to expression sensorially in their transformed meaning, analogies which are felt at one time through the eye, at another, through the ear. 260 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION against an anticipated feeling of defeat and as a symbol of the life scheme of this neurotic pa- tient. This, and similar cases, explained to me in what manner suggestibility became an auxiliary of the tendency to attain security, either because therefrom the patient gained in small things the conviction of her weakness in order to provide herself with proper protection at critical times, or because the patient yields with surprising plia- bility in order to gain ascendancy over the other person.* The more direct efforts of her tend- ency to domination stand so sharply in contrast with this yielding that when only superficially observed the phenomenon resembles a splitting of consciousness. In the same manner, vanity, pride, and self-admiration will guide the patient in many cases to the same goal, while she at times, conducts herself with modesty, simplicity, and carelessness, using these qualities as expedi- ents. Usually externals and attitudes are care- fully studied. Very often fetichism is mani- fested, whose essential and constructive founda- tion represents efforts to prove equality with men in circuitous ways, hence to compensate for a feeling of deficiency. Literature furnishes us 4'The latter mechanism seems to be at the root of passive homo- sexuality while both attitudes may be taken as the structure of masochism, still better, pseudomasochism. NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 261 with representations of all these efforts in a most refined form in the memoirs of Baschkirzewa and Helen Rakowiza. Analyses of a series of cases where the memories of these remarkable impres- sions from childhood had been preserved more vividly than usual furnished me with interesting verifications at a time when I was already far advanced in my exposition of the doubts about the future sexual röle on the part of the neurotic child and the masculine protest which necessarily springs therefrom. Some remembered very dis- tinctly having been in doubt up to the twelfth or thirteenth year whether they were male or fe- male. It may not be a matter of chance that these were male patients. At times the doubt emerged whether they were not hermaphrodites, so that I am inclined to think that in other cases where the thought of hermaphrodites was dis- tinctly and importunately present in the memory of the patient and was spontaneously brought forward, it is the last impression of a doubt about the patient’s own sex. And in literature, too, I have frequently run across this significant trace in the histories of neurotics and psychotics with- out the significance of this doubt concerning the sexual role being clear to the writers. Meschede described an interesting case of question-compul- sion (Fragezwang), and Freud one of dementia after Schreber’s biography. I disregard whether 262 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION or not this interest of the patient was explained by illustrations, or placards, in the lexicon, by readings by spectacles, by occurrences, as well as the scientific interpretation which seemed to con- centrate its attention to the male periods, the male climacteric, to the examination of the male or female share in the individual, ete. For me, the permanent impression which asserted itself in an obvious emphasis of the relation and the recip- rocal relation of the antithesis male-female, was the important factor. In recent years since I have hit upon these fundamental phenomena of the neurosis, I have often asked myself if I, too, in the course of my development from childhood was not dominated by a similar doubt notwithstanding the fact that the question of hermaphroditism only attracted me at a very late period and from the standpoint of a critic, and hence in a secondary manner. Also my rejection of the biological hermaphro- ditism as a cause of the neurosis (Flies) I would use as an argument against such doubts in my early youth, if I were not familiar with the fact that often the negation is the assertion of an old interest which has become unconscious. But my view of life shows me that I must have become master of old childish contrary tendencies, with- out the exaggerated masculine protest having been developed. Because I have in life, as well NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 263 as in science, after a first abstract valuation of the masculine principle over the feminine, re- jected the flood of arguments to prove the orig- inal deficiencies of women, with pertinent calm- ness. I believe, however, concerning the former critics of the “masculine protest,” from the man- ner in which they have undertaken the contest, and from their stubborn failure to understand it, that the exaggerated savageness of their attack in a strictly scientific question is referable nearly as much as is their fear of the concept “hermaph- roditism” to a childhood impression which alarm- ingly presented to them an accentuated effem- inacy or hermaphroditism, with which, however, it is not my intention to deter any one from a scientific criticism. Besides, there is no better way of judging the reaction of the neurotic psyche than from the answers to questions showing estimation of the opposite sex. It will become apparent that every stronger denial of the equality of the sexes, every detraction or overvaluation of the opposite sex is invariably connected with a neurotic dis- position and neurotic traits. They are all de- pendent on the neurotic tendency to obtain se- curity, and all manifest distinct traces of the masculine protest and are evidence of the essen- tial, more abstract adherence to a guiding fiction. 264 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION They are one and all, expedients of human thought to enhance the feeling of personal worth. It follows from the exposition of my psychol- ogy of the neuroses that children with male as well as those with female tendencies, look for- ward with fear to the lot of a woman, to be sub- ject to a man, to be deprived of virginity, in- jured, to be obliged to bear children, to play a subordinate role in life, to obey, to be backward in knowledge, in skill, in strength, wisdom, to be weak, to have periods, to become a sacrifice to husband and children, to become at last an old and neglected woman. How this fear of the future gives rise to egoistic traits of character has been described above. I have described a typical case of a little girl in the “Disposition zur Neu- rose” (l.c.). I am able to show in the case of a patient suf- fering from a gastric neurosis a line of conduct which is regularly observed in the psychic devel- opment of neurotic patients. This is the antici- pation in thought and emotion of all disadvan- tages which could be expected to occur. This tendency is observed in early childhood when, where there is organic inferiority and the evils arising therefrom, it is of excessive growth. Very often this feeling occurs at the time imme- diately preceding the falling asleep and it is then not remarkable that a dream fiction spurs further NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 265 this effort of anticipation in a form to cause fear. Only the dream, in resemblance to the hallucina- tion, brings with it a condition of feeling, of emo- tion, which has the significance as anticipation of emotion parallel to anticipation in thought in a waking condition. The hallucinatory excitabil- ity is, as I have already emphasized in the “Studie uber Mindwertigkeit von Organ,” an extended capacity of the brain which is overstrained in compensatory directions, serves the neurotic tendency to gain security and owes its repre- sentative faculty in consciousness to the memory which follows a certain tendency to the neurotic, cautious apperception. ‘The childish undevel- oped psyche shows at most, traces of tendencies toward hallucinatory feelings which are to be un- derstood as the fictitious preparations for a goal, as anticipation in time of uncertainty. Thus laughing in sleep, or pleasant sensations in the anticipatory quest of organic satisfaction, or of security. The hallucinatory excitement in the neuroses and psychoses always, and without exception, serves the guiding fiction of the ideal of personality. The significance of the halluci- nations of pain and anxiety for the fiction of nervous diseases should also be taken into ac- count. A further examination of the mechanism of the hallucination teaches us unequivocally that it is composed of tendencies to abstraction and 266 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION to anticipation, and that it gains significance as a strengthened fiction or as a warning souvenir because it acts as a spur to the assurance of the feeling of personal worth. ‘That they are con- nected with traces of memory has no essential sig- nificance. The psyche works without exception with the content of consciousness and with sen- sations that are given by experience and originate in the corporal substratum. The significance of the psyche, and especially of the neurotic psyche, lies in the special choice of these memory traces and in their connection with the neurotic apper- ception which gives them their trend. There- fore the nervously exalted tendency to gain security makes use of a specially developed func- tion of prevision, of hallucination, in which ab- stractly and imaginatively a scene unrolls, an anticipated dénouement, a foreseen finale, with eagerness so that the hallucinated individual builds the bridges to it, or they have an admoni- tory quality warning them to choose another way. Hallucinations as well as dreams are, like other tentatives of the psyche, fitted for finding the way which leads to the maximation or preser- vation of the ego-consciousness. In it are re- flected the faiths, the hopes or the fears of the patient. The above patient was on the eve of marriage when her gastric neurosis began. She suffered NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 267 from pains in the region of the stomach, belching, vomiting, loss of appetite and obstipation. One evening, shortly before going to sleep she heard the word “Eskadambra” distinctly. The forma- tion of apparently meaningless words are often among the performances of neurotics. Usually they prove to be put together according to a plan, just as children invent languages by means of which they attain a feeling of superiority. Pfis- ter was able to make interpretations of the word pictures which originated from fascination in the cases of those having the “gift of tongues.” In a previous chapter I have given a solution of an hallucinatory “sawing” in the ears, in two other cases I found the roaring serving as an ad- monitory memory on the roaring of the sea and its dangers as a sense-picture of life, just as Homer compares the @yopa to the roaring sea.” In paranoia and dementia preecox the emotions leading to the masculine protest disguise them- selves in the form of hallucinations and assure the psychotic scheme through their acoustic or visual complement. Likewise concerning the above mentioned rounding off of a psychic move into a hallucination of hearing, we may assume 5On another occasion I found roaring in the ears to be a re- minder of the tones of telegraph wires. These tones reminded him of his isolation in childhood where alone he often embraced the world as does the telegraph, with his hopes for the future. 268 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION that a strong inner necessity has led to a greater tension of the tendency to gain security, for which the word “eskadambra” though without value or significance for the patient, can repre- sent a signal or sign.® One is justified in think- ing, however, that a thorough understanding of this word would show a meaning which would re- veal to us the mental condition of this girl. As a rule it is easy to obtain an understanding of hallucinations of this sort, at least not more diffi- cult than for short fragments of dreams. Asked concerning the impression of the new-word for- mation, the patient answered, she recalled al hambra” by this word. For this she had evi- dently always had a great interest; once it stood proudly, but it was now fallen into decay, a ruin. The beginning of the word “Esk” was to be found in the word “Eskimo,” in “E (tru)skan” too, these letters are found. The race of “Baskes’” occurred also to her; in this word the greater part of “Esk” appears. The patient thus indicates the way she has followed in the construction of the new word, she has joined a fragment of the names of ancient tribes and the name of a ruined city. Finally the word “al- hambra” had for her also only the significance 6 As one has to assume also concerning the dream which repre- sents the image of a psychic movement in the state of conscious- ness. NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 269 of a fragment, and hence we are Justified in as- suming the thought of being broken, made small, made short, would emerge in the interpretation of the hallucination. The letters “skad” belong, as the patient easily discovered, to the word “kas- kade.” She said she was certain of this because she had used the expression “ganze kaskaden” in connection with the period, the menstrual period Just passed. When it is taken into consideration that this patient was about to be married the connection of this construction of new words with the psychic condition can be understood without anything further. ‘That she is disinclined to marry one can see from her neurosis, which formed a ready obstacle.’ In the hallucination there is a discon- nected sketch of the following train of thought: the glory of my virginity will be destroyed—I shall bear a new race—I will be forced to sacri- fice whole cascades of blood. When I had brought the interpretation up to this point, the patient helped me further by relating that when she was eight years old she had heard that a woman of her acquaintance had died from loss of blood at the birth of a child. Since then she 7 As has already been mentioned, the anticipation of marriage furnishes one of the most potent moments for the accentuation of a neurosis or for the development of a psychosis. The contrary expressions of these patients, such, for instance, as “I would very much like to be married,” always prove themselves to be platonic. 270 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION had always been afraid of childbirth. What now is the meaning of this hallucination? Can it be defined, even remotely, by the word “wish-ful- fillment”? The meaning of this new formation of words is the anticipatory interpretation in the direction of a danger to be feared, of being hu- miliated, or the fear of becoming a ruin, as she had often called her mother, of dying like the woman she remembered in her childhood. This feeling against female functions (and the pa- tient indeed strove also consciously against mar- riage) is of older date, originated in early child- hood, and was at that time embodied in the wish to be ahead, healthy, strong like her father. It became then a fictitious guiding line and was filled with a logical content, which was grouped about a masculine ideal of personality, and was filled also with a fear in the same direction against a feminine role. Now I was able also to make clear to the patient the meaning of her stomach neurosis. It was a hallucinatory excite- ment which reflected the hardships of pregnancy, warning the patient to avoid the same. In the _ waking condition, in the dream and in halluci- nations and in the neurosis there was a harmony of the tendency towards security—do not be a woman, do not submit, be a man! This girl manifested in her demeanor rough, resolute traits, and could get along with no one. NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 271 Her ambition flamed blazingly and made her in- tolerant. She required unconditional submis- sion from her fianc& whom she treated very badly and with whom she often dissolved all relations. Once, however, when he turned his attention to another girl, she offered everything in order to hold him. One of the day dreams of her child- hood consisted in the phantasy that the whole human race was going to destruction and that she alone would remain, an analogy with the myth of the flood in which the ego-centric, inimi- cal nature of the patient is clearly manifested. In the cases of many patients who show signs of the tendency to “have everything” as in the case of the girl just described, traits of character of an opposite nature are found. They are often of such importunate honorableness, modesty and contentedness that the peculiar accentuation of these qualities awakens the suspicion of a special arrangement. Their conscience always makes itself heard and their feeling of being at fault is always ready to react on the slightest occasion.® The solution of this enigma which has puzzled humanity for a long time, is furnished by an un- derstanding of the craving for security which breaks through the direct aggressive guiding line, and which puts an end to greed and immod- 8 Adler, “Ueber neurotische Disposition,” 1. c, and Fortmül- ler, 1. c. 272 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION eration as soon as the egoistic ideal is threatened by them. Conscience then constitutes, ‘so to speak, an intermediate guiding fiction, as does also its anticipatory exaltation, the abstract self- accusation of guilt. These are instances in which all actions planned and anticipatory preparations are changed around in such a way that they are not injurious, that they permit the feeling of per- sonal worth to be preserved. We perceive on this point the opposition in the original feeling of inferiority as a compensation for the feeling of uncertainty which has come to moral expression. Now the neurotic can exclude a number of pos- sibilities which could degrade him. In other re- lations, also, the effect of the craving for security is recognizable, in morals, in religion, in super- stition, In stirrings of conscience and in the feel- ing of guilt. They all form themselves into rigid formule and principles such as the uncertain neurotic loves. And he can prepare himself by practice in small things, test his moral strength on mere nothings and especially—principiis obsta!—secures himself from a moral fall which he exaggerates in anticipation by feeling the moral defeat beforehand. This last hallucina- tory expedient resembles the security through neurotic anxiety, and indeed conscientiousness, self-accusation, and anxiety often complement each other, or alternate with each other, in the NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 273 neurosis. ‘The knowledge of this fact is of great importance to the psycho-therapeutist for the understanding of the connection between mastur- bation and neurosis and from which may be com- prehended the significance as a security of the feeling of self-accusation constructed from the fact of onanism. If this feeling of guilt is brought into junction with the masturbation for the purpose of working as a brake against the force of sexuality, both constitute, later, a base of operation from which the patient augments his neurotic disposition in order to guard against a reduction of his ego-consciousness. As a rule, both—with the assistance of anticipated results, as impotence, tabes, paralysis, loss of memory— are used as an excuse in order to avoid making decisions, and always also for deepening the fear of the sexual partner. I have often described connections of this sort in this and in previous works. In the neurosis, honorableness and con- scientiousness border on pedantry, therefore we will not be surprised to find how often these quali- ties draw their real value from the fact that thereby the neurotic is placed in a position to humiliate others, to come into conflict with them, to raise himself above others and press them into his service. It is just the neurotic whose tend- ency to dominate contains the scheme “to possess everything” and who not rarely preserves mem- 27% THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ories of sins, who will usually take care not to betray a secret which would certainly result in his humiliation. He will rather seek to preserve the appearance even with great pains and anx- iety; will blush anxiously when he lifts his own pocketbook from the floor, and will avoid being alone in a strange room in order not to fall under suspicion of theft, if something should be missed. In like manner I found an obstinate wish to pay in advance, to owe nothing, in patients to whom every expenditure seemed a reduction of their ego-consciousness. ‘They preferred undergoing an evil and making an end of it to enduring one without end, but had at the same time a feeling of superiority in doing this, over the one who re- ceived the money. In the same manner the fanatic adherence to truth in many neurotics proves itself to be, as a rule, a reaction of the weaker against the supe- rior power (in this connection the original pic- ture of the same may be called, the “enfant ter- rible”). I learned from the previous history of a cata- tonic that he was oppressed and humiliated by his wife. One night he broke out in sobs and told her that he had deceived her by an affair with a servant girl. His masculine protest made use of this expedient, adultery, in order to con- nect with it an open confession. Again, in the NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 275 form of the neurotic conjunction with which we are already acquainted, it became apparent that the wife not only had the stronger will, but had, also, the command of the pocket-book. The pa- tient, himself a weak man, was obliged to live from her revenues, something that the wife and her family made the source of much unpleasant- ness, though they knew all about it beforehand. In order to protect himself from the superiority of his wife and not to submit entirely to her in- fluence, he, already engaged in conflict over the male domination, arrived at an arrangement of a psychic impotence. The wife, on the other hand, overcame this impotence and humiliated the husband openly. His flirtation with the nurse girl was the beginning of his revenge. This could only be effective in a way to elevate him if he confessed his adultery in a manly way; therefore he had recourse to the love of truth, which had already served him as a vehicle for all sorts of rascality. ‘The fact that he confessed his fault with tears was in keeping with his cowardice before a decision, but on the other hand, made it easier for him to communicate the painful intelli- gence to his wife. The further course turned out against the masculine triumph of the psychic hermaphrodite; the wife went further in her ag- gression and complained to her relatives who in turn reproached him in the most severe manner. 276 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Now he fell into an apathy with an augmented craving for security, wished to undo his trans- gression as it had not assisted him to the mascu- line triumph and found the solution in a fiction of a purifying miracle which God had wrought in him. He was again on the heights, his pre- destination phantasy broke out, he stood in com- munication with God, received orders and com- mands from Him, and built up a psychotic sys- tem in which he wandered on the earth as a prophet. ‘The masturbation, too, which he prac- ticed openly, he designated as a miracle, in order thus to escape the feeling of humiliation. Stere- otypies were manifested, among other ways, by an occasional upright position of the body and by holding the head high, a motion which I was able to interpret as symbolic, as a phantasy of the erection of the male organ. “To tell some one a bitter truth—” This ex- pression contains the kernel for the comprehen- sion of the case just described. The neurotic often makes use of the truth in order to cause pain to others. One never hears agreeable truths from neurotic patients without a reaction imme- diately becoming visible, usually in the form of an aggravation of the suffering. To every emo- tion of love, which is regarded as feminine, as a submission, there follows an emotion of hate, as masculine protest, the latter in the garments of NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 277 truth—honor bright! Also in this case of de- mentia pr&cox we find a stage where the doubt of the neurotic concerning his own masculinity is bridged over by means of expedients and by a tightening of the guiding fiction where the com- pensatory craving for security gives the impulse to take a guiding symbol verbally and to con- struct the fiction (as if the neurotic were a teacher, the Emperor, Savior). Other traits, such as moodiness and unsociability, are likewise to be recognized as neurotic anticipatory prepa- rations, as always fitted to annihilate the supe- riority of others and to prevent them from carry- ing out their will. The neurotic individual is the typical kill-joy and peace destroyer. He is misled by his meg- alomaniac ideal in conditions of greatest uncer- tainty and is always busy trying to hypostasize and deify his own guiding line, and to cross those of others. These traits are also capable of a more extended application. The neurotic re- gards his inability to get along with others, his disturbing attacks, as proofs that others wish to injure him, and erects, as a protection, the wall of his principles within which his spirit of mas- tery is able to develop. Here emerge tendencies such as the desire to be alone, sometimes the de- sire to be buried; or pictures, such as being buried alive or concealed in the mother’s body (Gruner). 278 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION At times I have discovered as a fulfillment of this wish to dominate in solitude, the habit of remain- ing a long time on the stool. Wholly in the same direction, i.e., of gaining the upper hand, the neurotic carries out his exaggerated yielding and adaptability, but'the patient is in this always on the watch, although he tries, too, in this way to captivate those who are stronger, to deviate toward the more manly line and to enjoy his open triumph. The inclination to daintiness furnishes the neu- rotic with the same readiness for conflict. By this means he can decry everything, secure him- self against decisions and lay claim to his pre- rogative. He will be finicky in such instances as harmonize best with his tendencies and where he can gain the most advantages. In eating, in the choice of friends, in amorous relations, he secures to himself thereby a troublesome superiority. Every one is obliged to make allowances for him because he is sick, nervous. This trait of char- acter rises to great performances as soon as the fear of the sexual partner, of marriage, makes use of it. No girl, no man, then amounts to any- thing, and a twisted ideal furnishes the neurotic with a point of support for the disparagement of every one. At other times and in other rela- tions, this trait manifests itself as an arrange- ment, as the foresight of an individual who has NEUROTIC PRINCIPLES 279 not as yet conquered the weak point of his feel- ing of inferiority. He can also be moderate “when the wind blows from the northwest,” when his will to power requires it. One of the univer- sal methods of quieting children when they show discontent is by comforting them with a prospect of the future, when they will be big, grown up. One often hears children themselves say, “When I am grown up, I will...” The problem of growth engages the attention of children to an extraordinary extent and in the course of their development they are constantly reminded of it. It is thus in regard to the size of his body, the growth of his hair, of the teeth, and as soon as he comes to speculations concerning the sexual or- gans by the growth of the pubes and the genital organs. The entrance of the child upon his mas- culine röle, of which we have often spoken, re- quires a distinct largeness of the person of the individual and of the parts of his body. Where this is denied him—and here we encounter again the basis of somatic inferiority, especially the causal rickets (thymus anomalies?), anomalies of the thyroid, of the sperm glands, hypophysis, ete.—the child has recourse on account of its de- sire for masculine value to the positing of the masculine protest. ‘Then it acquires the height- ened impulse to covetousness, envy, bragging, greed, activity, together with the acute feeling of 280 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION contrast and begins to measure himself con- stantly with others, especially with the persons of importance in his environment, and finally with the heroes from tales and stories. Thus the in- dividual comes to a wishful contemplation of the future and the phantasy incited by the craving for security fills all wishes. CHAPTER IV THE DEROGATORY TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTH- ERS; OBSTINACY AND WILDNESS; THE SEXUAL RELATIONS OF NEUROTICS AS A MEANS OF COMPARISON 5 SYMBOLIC EMASCULATION 5 FEELING OF BEING BELITTLED; EQUALITY TO MAN AS A LIFE-PLAN 5; SIMULATION AND NEU- ROSIS; SUBSTITUTE FOR MASCULINITY; IMPA- TIENCE; DISCONTENT; INACCESSIBILITY THE compulsive craving of the neurotic to fill his egoistic ideal with the overvalued masculine traits impels him, especially because of the ob- stacles of reality, to a change in the formula of his guiding line, so that he attempts to attain the goal which he values as equal to the masculine goal by means of circuitous paths. What drives him to a psychosis is his longing to realize an unattainable ideal. Should he suffer a defeat in the main line of his masculine protest, or should he even anticipate such a defeat, he seeks a substitute which he temporarily considers as of equal value through an arrangement of intensi- fied reassuring expedients. At this point there begins as a rule that process of psychic transfor- 281 282 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION mation which we designate as neurosis, in so far as the guiding fiction does not lead to a violation of reality, the patient only feeling it as a disturb- ing element, as is the case in neurasthenia, hypo- chondriasis, anxiety and compulsion neuroses and in hysteria. In the psychosis the guiding mascu- line fiction appears disguised in pictures and symbols of infantile origin. The patient then conducts himself no longer as if he wished to be masculine, above, and as if he sought to attain this end by every possible means, but through the medium of anticipation as though he already had attained all these ends and only indicates at first, incidentally and in the manner of a foundation (depression, persecutory and self-accusatory ideas, ideas of poverty), that he is underneath, unmanly, feminine. For the sake of clarity, I will now proceed to the description of some neurotic character traits which tend in a direct line to the masculine ego- tistic ideal, or are so closely connected therewith that they force themselves upon the understand- ing as only slight deviations of the masculine pro- test. ‘They have been generally regarded as ac- tive, masculine traits and the neurotic can thus appeal to this general opinion in which there is agreement. But we have already endeavored to show in previous chapters that in the construction of masculine traits the choice of the fictitious goal TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 283 is dependent upon and guided only within cir- cumscribed limits by the conscious understanding of the neurotic or even of the critical observer. He also makes use of such guiding lines which to general logic do not always seem masculine, or at least only in part so, such for example as co- quetry, deception, etc. As the direct traits of character in line with the masculine protest may be emphasized, the frequently displayed tendency to be a man through and through, courageous, ready for attack, open, hard-hearted, cruel, to ex- cel every one in strength, influence, power, wis- dom, etc. When the fundamental feeling of in- feriority demands stronger reassuring compensa- tions—because of an expected defeat or the sus- picion of one, this compensation ensues by a strengthening of the readiness for conflict which now strives toward the masculine feeling of su- periority, often by circuitous and more abstract ways, revealing simultaneous and often contra- dictory traits—after the manner of tricks and artifices. It is then that the neurotic may mani- fest pliancy instead of obstinacy, or side by side with it, or as the occasion may require it, traits of exorbitant arrogance and modesty, roughness and mildness, courage and cowardice, lust for power and submissiveness, masculinity and fem- ininity, all of which are used to gain security from defeat or in order to permit him by circuitous 284 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ways to enhance his own egoistic ideal or dispar- age that of others. That it is possible to con- quer by weakness, submissiveness and modesty is shown in the example of women and by many ex- amples in the history of the world. The dominancy of the self-created deities, of the guiding fiction is always easily discernible and is revealed in the psychosis with unmistakable clarity. I will endeavor to show by means of a dream of a 22-year-old girl who was suffering from enuresis nocturna and in the daytime from frequent outbreaks of rage and ill-humor, who could get along with no one but me, and who often had suicidal ideas, that all of these phe- nomena, together with other traits of lust for power, of obstinacy or of anxiety were under the guidance of the masculine protest, and that this protest was dependent in turn upon a constitu- tional inferiority of the urinary organ, which in combination with ugliness and mental retardation gave the impulse to the compensatory exhibition of an exaggerated masculine guiding line. In order to make the case brief and comprehens- ible, I preface the remark that the patient had applied the realities of her childhood to a reas- suring neurosis, had constructed the enuresis as an ever-ready expedient and always had recourse to this symptom when her egoistic feeling suf- fered a humiliation. In this case, too, there was TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 285 manifested the colossal power of the tendency to disparagement in the arrangement of the seizures which drove the mother to a powerless despair, while at the same time the patient disparaged her mother in the usual form of an allusion by ex- cusing herself from all fault and throwing the blame on another. The following dream shows this in a specially clear manner. “My mother showed my friend the dirty cover of the bed. We began to quarrel. I say the cover is yours and begin to cry bitterly. I awake flooded in tears.” A short time before she related to me that she often awoke weeping from sleep without know- ing the cause of her weeping. From the connec- tion of the genesis of the disease which was ap- parent even at that time the weeping was of sig- nificance in relation to the mother, it represented one of the most usual childish procedures for diminishing the mother’s superiority. After the communication of the dream she remarked, “You will certainly believe that you are right in your opinion concerning my weeping.” One hears such remarks during a psychotherapeutic treat- ment as a regular thing, and must not overlook the concealed criticism therein as a device of the tendency to disparage, which is directed against everybody. The moderate expression of the 286 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION same on this occasion led me to suspect that the cure of the neurosis was in progress, as the more lively reactions were absent. Formerly under similar circumstances she would have asserted sharply and passionately that I was wrong, or she would have omitted to mention or would have for- gotten those dreams which confirmed my view. I was further confirmed in my assumption by the information that the patient after the dream im- mediately took off the slightly soiled bed linen and washed it in secret which was never the case be- fore because the sight of the soiled linen was in- tended for her mother. For the explanation of the dream she related the following. She was firmly convinced that her mother told all her acquaintances about her enuresis. All her relatives seemed to know of her weakness. Once an uncle, obviously in order to comfort her, had informed her that both he and another brother had for a long time been in the habit of wetting the bed. In her dreams she re- proached her mother, telling her, “The weakness is in your family, you are to blame if I soil the bed, the soiled cover is yours.” She related further that in changing she often took a bed-slip instead of a cover; the one was closed, the other open; adding, “And it is easy to mistake them in the closet.” Behind this thought lies the problem of open TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 287 and shut which is clearly recognizable as an ex- pression for the oppositeness of the sexes. She blames her mother for the disease, but at the same time casts, so to speak, a furtive glance at its source and spring, that is, the femininity for which she blames her mother and betrays to us in the masculine protest of her dreams how slightly she estimates the difference between man and woman. Similarly George Sand declared that there was only one sex. The quarreling and weeping is the most important attitude of her aggression against her mother whose superiority she tried to destroy in this way as well as by her adherence to the enuresis. ‘The fact that at the present time she operates against men by her enuritic device and thereby avoids marriage and “the tyranny of man,” is a natural result to be inferred from other perspectives of her neurotic psyche. An example of the change of formula of the guilding masculine fiction which originally was “I will be a man,” in the above described stage of the treatment was, “I will be superior to my mother like a man,” and later on was expressed in the words, “I will humiliate my mother by feminine means.” In a dream, therefore, in a tentative, anticipatory test, this guiding line as we have maintained it to be comes to stronger ex- pression. ‘The dream is as follows: 288 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION “T lie in a burning bed. All weep about me. I laugh aloud.” A discussion of free love had preceded the dream. The burning bed, according to the pa- tient’s interpretation represented amorous pleas- ure. We translate according to our understand- ing of the dream.» “How would it be if I should embrace free love? Then my mother would be humiliated but I would laugh at her, would be superior to her.” Attention must also be called to the expression “burning,” which arises so fre- quently in psychic constructions which spring from the urinary functions in antithesis to water (enuresis). * The laughing in this dream is equivalent to the weeping in the first dream. Both show the ag- gressive tendency which seeks the mother’s de- feat. In this case, too, the untenability of the assumption of a splitting of personality is readily perceivable. Just as erroneous would be the as- sumption of a real sexual wish. This means would only serve the purpose of the patient if the mother were set back and she could play the part of man in regard to her. The guiding fiction of the equality to man comes to expression In some way or other in all 1 Adler, “Studie,” 1. c, Addendum. Freud has already touched upon the relationship between fire and water in the dream, and the allegorical representation based on this. TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 289 women and girls. As I was able to show in the foregoing case, it is the change of formula neces- sitated by reality which disguises the masculine protest. Hence it is essential in the analysis of neurotic female patients to discover at what point they protest against their femininity. This point can always be found, for the pressure to- ward the maximation of the ego-consciousness necessitates the construction of a reassuring guid- ing line which is erected as an antithesis to the idea “feminine.” Cultural or uncultural ideas of emancipation, of militancy directed against men and their privileges are usually found in normal women and girls. They seek to diminish the dis- tance as much as possible in dress, attitude, cus- toms, laws, views of life. The masculine protest of neurotics is exaggerated in all these directions. In dress glaring but at the same time mannish fashions are affected, as the lengthening of single parts of dress and the wearing of strong high shoes. Or they avoid all fashions in dress which are distinctly feminine. Often there is a lively fight against the corset, a fight directed against the confinement, but which can also serve other purposes and is often brought into play to avoid seeing company and is most usually directed against the husband. The attitude and habits of neurotic women are often so masculine that it is noticeable from the first moment. Crossed legs 290 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION and arms, and at times only indications which betray this tendency, as well as the tendency to take the left side as a man does or to allow no one to stand in front of them, etc., as in the dream. In the neurotic’s view of life the usual ideal over- estimation of the masculine qualities is compen- sated for in a practical manner by the disparage- ment of men. In sexual relations anasthesia is the rule. Masculine variants, or those which dis- parage man are given preference. The neurotic psyche of men offers the same characteristics. It derives its artifices from an imaginary consciousness of femininity in order to arrive at a feeling of complete manliness. One of my patients who was suffering from asthma nervosum presented a very clear example of this dynamic. He had been a weak child and had suffered from the exudative diathesis, a relation to which Striimpell has called attention. His early catarrh permitted him already in childhood to press his mother into his service. She took him to her, cared for him in her bedroom and yielded to all his wishes. He was early placed under the care of a strict governess of whom he could not get the better, notwithstanding his rage and in- tractibility. He felt weak before her and thus became acquainted with childish deceptions by means of which he was able to escape the gover- ness, that is, he simulated and exaggerated the TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 291 catarrhal affection by an arrangement of cough- ing and excitation of the bronchial tubes and larynx and by asthmatic phenomena which he produced after the manner of straining at diffi- cult defecation, by tension of the abdomen and closing of the anus. He soon learned to know that these phenomena gained him a place in his mother’s room, and in the course of years pro- duced an asthmatic device which he was to set un- consciously into activity whenever he felt com- pelled on account of his overtense fictitious guid- ing goal to rise to the position of the lord of the house, and incidentally, of the governess. He soon gained the victory so that the governess was forbidden to treat him severely or to beat him. We see how his egotistic ideal had at its dis- posal from now on a neurotic weapon which placed him in a position to escape a defeat or to prevent the emergence of the feeling of his original inferiority in a circuitous way, that is, no longer by obstinacy, rage, courage, manliness, but that he sought to get ahead by a sort of treachery, craft, unmanly conduct, cowardice, a leaning on the mother. This subterfuge, hypostasized and elaborated to an unconsciously working mechan- ism, furnished him the necessary security for his whole life. His neurotic symptom which was constantly defended and laid claim to by further auxiliary lines of his trait of character, 1. e. “to 292 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION possess everything” by his lust for power, by his obstinacy and disputatiousness, and at the same time by his cowardice, fear of new undertakings, fear of men and women and by the tendency to disparagement which always evolves from these traits and which played such an important role in his aggressive devices furnished him a new organ, a means of making himself important in a special way, to dominate his world, inasmuch as he could always demand the protection of his mother. He felt safer with his mother than with his wife, and thus he was driven by necessity to fall in love with his mother, a love which upon closer analysis proved to be a sort of tyranny. Pregnancy phantasies reflected for him the feelings of humil- iation connected with a feminine role and alter- nated with thoughts about castration and with phantasies about being a woman. His impulse to masturbation revealed the attempt to emanci- pate himself victoriously from women, to avoid a defeat, to conduct himself in a manly fashion, and was continued in similarly directed phantasies of greatness, both of which were forms of expression of his masculine protest. The imagined small- ness of his genital organs, a thought which made a marked impression upon him, served him as a figure and perceptional form for his inferiority and feminine nature. From his childhood he sought to attribute all his unsuccessful efforts and TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 293 defeats to his small penis, apperceived and grouped his experiences in this direction and ac- cording to related antithetical forms of apper- ception of “manly-womanly.” The small penis represented to him the figurative marginal con- cept between masculinity and femininity and was manifestly constructed as was the attitude of the patient on the idea of a corporal and psychic her- maphroditism and its tragedy. It is no wonder that in the psycho-analysis of these cases with the male-female manner of apperception which be- longs to the foundation of the neurotic psyche, one hits only upon sexual relations. They are all to be understood as a modus dicendi, as a Jar- gon, and figurative modes of expression and are to be resolved into forms, whereby strength, vic- tory, triumph come to expression in male sexual symbols, defeat in female and the neurotic arti- fices in both together, usually also in a perverse or hermaphroditic symbolism. It was easy to detect in our patient that besides the sexual mode of expression he had another fashion of apperception based upon the antitheti- cal formula of inspiration-expiration which had been set in operation by the inferiority of his respiratory organ inclusive of the nose. Even the speech used for our mutual understanding likewise made use of such formule and a sigh of relief from an oppressed breast could very well 294 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION be clothed in the figure of “having air again.” The patient was also able to represent, in panto- mime form, memories of his boyhood race, a wild race to get to first place, the desire to be the first at the goal by means of breathless efforts. Ina dream during the latter part of the treatment he made use of his ability to whistle (which is to be understood figuratively) in order to accentuate his manliness by respiration. ‘The dream was as follows: “It seemed to me that four people were whist- ling. I remark that I can do it just as well as they.” A.short time before he had begun a relation with the governess in the family of his married brother and had asked her the question if his brother often visited his wife at night. The girl answered in the negative. Being able to whistle is the ideal of all small boys and some girls make efforts to acquire this manly attitude. In his dream he made a tentative comparison to see if he was the equal of his male relatives and thus ar- rived from this line, which originated in his feel- ing of effeminacy, to the masculine protest. He is the equal of all four. In this case too I found my observation con- firmed that the neurotic feels his sexual libido, and manifests the same only in accordance with TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 295 the manner and degree that is required by his fictive goal, so that every psychological opinion which perceives in the libido a constitutionally ac- quired factor, in its alterations and fortunes the essence of the neurosis, becomes untenable. It is especially easy to arrange sexual and excitations and they are always in some way subordinated to the masculine protest. The identification of masculinity with sexuality takes place in the neu- rosis by means of abstraction, symbolization and a figurative somatic-jargon, and it is this false artifice of the neurotic which fills his thought con- tent with sexual pictures. The contentiousness and hidden querulousness which stand in the closest relation to the tendency to disparagement present difficult tactical and pedagogic problems to the psychotherapeutist. They betray in every case the weak point, the feeling of inferiority of the patient which drives him to compensation. It is easy to uncover this neurotic aggressiveness by a very simple mode of approach. Let it be imagined that the neurotic feels that he has entirely lost his masculinity and feels himself humiliated and now let it be noted through what artifice he seeks to carry out the completion of his character or his overcompensa- tion. One will then find a number of prepara- tory devices, characteristics, syndromes and sym- toms which have for their aim the representation 296 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of an ideal organ, but one must however be pre- pared to view this as a riddle, which requires so- lution. For this “ideal organ,” namely—the neurosis or psychosis, is of masculine origin and has for its purpose the prevention of a lowering of the patient’s ego-consciousness, and to bring him closer to his masculine goal. Cruel reality, however, impedes the development of this fiction to such an extent that the most peculiar circuitous ways must be resorted to so that partial and ap- parent results are striven after without bringing the patient nearer to his goal. Without the help of the psychotherapeutist who in rare cases may prove to be a substitute for the fortunes of life, this “will to seem’? becomes more and more ac- centuated in case of failure, and constantly strengthens the abstract, main line of the old guiding fiction. One of the principal circuitous ways along which this ideal organ—i. e. the mas- culine protest,—works, is the tendency to dispar- agement. That is the reason that it has been mentioned so often because it attracts the atten- tion of the physician and is an expression of the strength of the neurotic impulse. It likewise furnishes an ever-present point of contact by means of which it may be possible to instil some insight into the patient and it is at the bottom of those phenomena which Freud has described as resistance and has falsely viewed as the result of TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 297 repressed sexual excitations. With this tendency the neurotic comes to the physician and he carries it with him, as does also the normal person, when he returns home. Only that then his increased insight stands as a guard, warning him against giving expression to this tendency and thus the patient is forced to show his desire to be “‘first” in other ways. One should never hesitate to guard all expres- sions of doubt, of critique, of forgetfulness, of tardiness, all demands of the patient, relapses after improvements, continued silence, as well as adherence to symptoms as effective means of the tendency toward disparagement directed against the psychotherapeutist. One will rarely err in proceeding thus and usually be justified in this opinion by the comparison of coincident phe- nomena of a similar trend. The expressions of these tendencies are often of the most subtile na- ture. Shall I add that the most extensive experi- ence and knowledge in regard to this “tendency to disparage” is barely sufficient to prevent being taken by surprise, and that a great deal of tact, renouncement of authority, and even friendliness, watchful interest and the consciousness of being in the presence of a sick person with whom it is out of place to engage in strife are indispensable to good results? I found it necessary once to explain to a stut- 298 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tering patient the position of the larynx, by means of a drawing. Instead of taking the drawing home with him as he had intended in or- der to give it further consideration, he left it with me on the table. The next day he was a quarter of an hour late, first went to the toilet, related something of another patient who had complained of me, and after some silence related a dream which ran as follows: “It seemed to me that I had been looking at a drawing. A cylinder extended out from a cir- cle; it did not run straight but sideways.” The interpretation showed that this dream had reference to the drawing of the larynx on which the larynx was drawn straight downwards. The patient argued with me in the dream as though he would say “How would it be if my physician were wrong?” and thus revealed to me his distrustful attitude—the fear of being deceived and at the same time the tendency to disparagement directed against me, which had been revealed by the sub- conscious measures of the forgetfulness, the de- lay, the recital of the complaint, the silence, and finally by the tentative endeavor in the dream to put me in the wrong. One may justly expect that the patient applies his stuttering for the same purpose against me and will continue thus to use it. In spite of many contradictions he forced me TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 299 into the role of a former teacher whom he often corrected, so that he could continue to use against me his former artifices.” This was revealed by his remarks concerning his dreams and further from the fact that his disease was assumed and adhered to in order to decry his father and gain superiority over him. A female patient who was assigned to me for treatment because of depression, suicidal ideas, weeping fits and “lesbischen Neigungen” was sent by me after a brief course of treatment be- cause of the suspicion of a genital affection, to a gynecologist who removed a large myoma and prognosticated a cure of the neurosis from the operation. After the operation the patient journeyed to her home and from there wrote me that the gynecologist was right in his prognosis. Of course she added it was to be expected that the operation succeeded better in the case of a countess upon whom the same surgeon had oper- ated, and of whom she had read in the papers, than it had in her case. Soon afterward she vis- ited me, argued against one of my contributions which she had in some way procured, declared her extreme interest in my method of treatment, said her condition was the same as before the opera- tion and vanished. From the portion of her his- 2 An artifice which had for its purpose a tendencious, deroga- tory, affective expression. 300 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tory which she communicated to me during the treatment it became apparent among other things that she lived at swords-points with her whole en- vironment, that she dominated her husband en- tirely, that she hated the village and played the man psychically and sexually to one of her friends. Her fear of the blessing of children was astounding, sexual relations unbearable because her husband seemed too heavy. When the latter visited her once during the treatment, she had the day before his visit the following dream: “Tt seemed to me that the whole room was en- veloped by fire.” She gave the information spontaneously that this was a typical dream, and that it always re- turned at the time of her menstrual period. This time it occurred a long time before her pe- riod. ‘The dream could be easily recognized as an attempt to use a feminine situation, menstrua- tion, for the purpose of the masculine protest— that is to avoid sexual relations. A deeper pene- tration into the meaning which would certainly have revealed an enuresis in childhood (fire-my- oma see “Studie,” Appendix) was prevented by the interruption of the treatment. I received an- other letter which contained the assurance that the patient from now on would try to find peace in her environment in my sense of the word. I TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 301 think that this must have been sfill difficult for her. | Obstinacy, wildness and unruliness may in the same way serve as the proof which female pa- tients seek in order to show how little they are fitted for the feminine role. ‘These preparations begin already in the earliest childhood and lead gradually to physical and psychic aptitudes in gestures, facial expression, emotional predisposi- tions and mimicry, while the character develops in the direction of the ideal guiding line and cau- tiously introduces the patients’ attitude of life. In many cases these characteristics are manifested in a direct manner and serve without deviation for the expression of the masculine protest. Or there takes place a change of formula in the guid- ing fiction, either because of the emergence of contradictions in the guiding line, in the event of a real or threatened defeat, or because of some- thing that usually coincides therewith, namely, an obstacle of reality which is estimated as unsur- mountable. Under the construction of a secur- ity-giving anxiety or feeling of guilt, or security- giving antithetical traits (dissociation of other writers), the deviations in neurotic circuitous ways follow. But the preparatory devices per- sist. It is only that the neurotic cautiousness in- troduces the devia—under these new forms of se- curity, anxiety, feeling of guilt, seizures, when 302 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION the patient would otherwise have had to answer with the originally developed emotions such as, anger, rage, aggression. Frequently there come to light purposefully grouped memory pictures of a certain “boundlessness,” thoughts, memories, illusions as though one were boundlessly desirous, sensuous, demoniac, criminal, are manifested, at times obviously arranged oversights and accidents which are nothing else than admonitions to be cautious. Or the sudden termination of the di- rect masculine aggressiveness takes place always just before a decision, a peculiarity which char- acterizes many neurotic love affairs. The devia- tion in such cases from the direct guiding line may follow in a perverse manner under the in- fluence of the craving for security, or the guiding line leads him to seek the protection of the father, mother, God, alcoholism or an idea. Attempts to reach the top through feminine means, or to sur- pass at least, all women, leads to excessive cleanli- ness, to the “cleaning mania,” to a masochistic subjection or coquetry, to a desire to please and in female patients to a constant fretting. Along with this there will always be found character- traits and tell-tale traces which betray that the masculine fiction is all-powerful and seeks to ar- rive at its purpose by these circuitous ways. The excessive eroticism in many of these cases is not to be understood as real, that is to say, as depend- TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 303 ing upon a constitutional basis but shows itself to be associated with the fiction, and to be due to an uninterrupted attentiveness which has taken an erotic direction. The same is true of perversions and an apparently weakened libido, which are constructed from neurotic subterfuges. All sex- ual relations in the neurosis are only a simile. The fear of the superiority of the male and the depreciatory struggle directed against it is often clothed, as result of the neurotic antithetical per- spective, in phantasies of emasculation which have for their object the deprivation of the male of worth. In the dreams of these female neurotic patients this comes clearly to light and can be readily proved by coexistent derogatory tenden- cies. One of these dreams is here given. The patient came under my care shortly after she had undergone an operation for a fistula, because of a compulsory thought and excitement. The com- pulsory thought ran, “I will never be able to at- tain anything.” At our very first meeting she expressed the thought whether I would be able to attain anything. The same line of disparage- ment illuminated her dream. She dreamed, “I cried out in my dream, Marie, the fistula is there again.” The surgeon had promised her complete recovery and kept his word. He is under obli- gations to her in many ways and did not wish to takeafee. The patient became very excited over 304 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION this and regarded it as an humiliation. For some time after she tortured herself with plans for pay- ing the debt. Her servant was called Marie, and she had never spoken to her about the operation. If there should take place a new breaking out of the fistula her first trip would be to the surgeon to whom she would express her opinion. Marie, a female servant becomes the surgeon. The pa- tient imagines the circumstances demanded by her masculine egoistic feeling, the surgeon has oper- ated poorly, has not kept his promise, is a woman and a servant at the same time. This expresses the way in which she could attain everything if she were only a man. When one examines the published analyses of no matter what psychological school the mechan- ism of the neurotic masculine protest will always be found therein. I shall again emphasize this in connection with the analysis of a case of migraine. The patient related immediately from the rem- iniscences of her childhood that she had constantly lived in conflict with her elder brothers because they wished to dominate her. This sort of rem- iniscences led, as soon as they were voluntarily re- Jated, to a hidden contest against male domina- tion, and one will never be deceived in the as- sumption that other character-traits also point to this strife to become equal to the male. Unin- fluenced, our patient continued to relate that she Pt ee an 9 ee en Zn ee TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 305 played almost exclusively with boys and was treated by them as one of their kind. This method of expression betrayed very clearly the high estimation in which the male sex was held, which brought this girl nearer to her father— something which may easily be interpreted as sexual love for the father and as the “incest com- plex.” The development of our patient took the same course. She took her father wholly as her ideal; especially as she once caught her mother m a lie she was anxious to imitate her father’s example of truthfulness and punctuality.” She remembered also that her father had often regretted that she was not a boy, and that it was his wish that she should study. In this situation an egoistic feel- ing was naturally developed in which ambitious efforts could not be absent. On the other hand her bashfulness which wrecked many of her prin- ciples was very noticeable to herself and others. This bashfulness is found with extraordinary fre- quency in the histories of neurotics. It is identi- cal with the feeling of uncertainty, as soon as this is manifested in relations with others. Blushing, stuttering, downcast looks, avoidance of the so- ciety of adults, excitement before examinations 3 What other authors term imitativeness, identification, is always to be looked upon as the assumption of a model for the purpose of a heightening of the ego-consciousness. 306 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION and stage fright often accompany the attempts at approaches to other people or at the establishment of relations with them. Analysis shows that the feeling of inferiority is the source of this sort of uncertainty, usually accompanied by a strong feeling of shame. The feeling of inferiority is conditioned by somatic inferiority which makes it- self felt psychically, by faults of childhood and strong psychic pressure on the part of parents and relatives, and finally by real or imagined femininity which develops early in strong con- trast to a male member of the family (father or brother). The analogy according to which the most diverse emotions of being belittled, of humil- iation, of inferiority are apperceived by the child is then usually the analogy of “the smallness of the penis,” which is to be understood symbolically, and thoughts of castration develop, of a feminine role in sexual relations, of conception and preg- nancy or of persecution, of being stabbed or wounded, of falling and being “beneath.” All these fictions are revealed in day-dreams, halluci- nations, dreams, in so far as they are not wholly supplanted by the fiction of the masculine pro- test and express a feeling of being belittled, which breaks forth in the thought, “I am a woman,” against which the egoistic feeling presses forward and the masculine protest struggles. Of our patient we hear that she had some TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 307 knowledge of sexual relations at a time when from lack of experience she was unable to take into account its results and purposes. In such cases we may always expect to find bashfulness, shame and doubt, and in later years fear of tests and decisions in every form, traits of character which resolve themselves analytically into the idea that others might be able to discover on the per- son of the patient genital defects or omissions. The characteristics which display an effort to at- tain equality with the male sex are usually mani- fested at an early age, and this effort occupies the foreground, while in many cases because of a tinge of hopelessness “the innate coloring of the decision” is affected. Because the direct route to masculinity is closed or seems to be so, circuitous and deviating ways are sought out. On one of these circuitous ways lies the socially valuable ef- fort of woman toward emancipation, on another, the private expression of the masculine protest, the neurosis of woman, the construction of the ideal male organ. It was easy to see in the case of this patient that in her childhood she had sought to attain the domination of man, of her brothers and her father, as she apparently had made very short work of her mother. Her father fell entirely under her authority. After a little experience the conclusion is easily arrived at concerning the 308 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION direction of her neurotic symptoms, that her headache and migraine represent since her mar- riage a means for gaining the mastery over her husband. And in this mastery she sought a sub- stitute for her masculine power which she be- lieved to have lost. I know the objection which might be raised at this point. How shall the severe suffering of a neurosis, the terrible pain of trigeminal neural- gia, insomnia, unconsciousness, paralysis, mi- graine all be thrown into the bargain merely as a means to an end, because of the failure to attain equality with man? I have myself struggled against this conviction which thrust itself upon me. Is the case very much different when human beings endure all sorts of hardships for a whole life time in order to attain some other worthless bubble? Furthermore, as I have already shown, on these neurotic circuitous paths to masculinity are found also crime, prostitution, the psychosis, suicide. This in addition to the mystery which shrouds human psychic mechanisms may be cited in support of my understanding of the matter. The psychic therapy of the neuroses is certainly based upon an understanding of the exaggerated valuation of the male destiny. And I draw from this objection the advantage in regard to my pa- tients inasmuch as I endeavor to show them how they, placed before a choice between a natural TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 309 role and the neurotic masculine goal, choose the greater of the two evils. From the previous history of our patient the further facts may be emphasized that she always had a disinclination to play with dolls, further- more that until her marriage she took the great- est pleasure in gymnastics and sports. That these efforts too, served as a substitute for mas- culinity is manifested more from their connection with other masculine traits than from their own nature, more especially from a sort of importun- ity with which the patient spoke of them. She was also passionately fond of extensive touring, of which inclination since the birth of her child, whom she wished and expected to be male, only the desire to make occasional journeys re- mained. The error must be avoided, however, of assum- ing that the traits of character here described and emphasized by the patient herself formed isolated islands in the extensive soul-life of awoman. On the contrary, it must be assumed that these mas- culine traits came to expression under the pres- sure of a dominating tendency, had their origin in a distinct life-plan and became conspicuous phe- nomena only because they had the power to do so, while all around these phenomena there existed an indistinct, only occasionally manifested mascu- line craving which was principally occupied with 310 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION the prevention and transformation of feminine emotions until such time as it shall have reached an independent existence. In this conflict of masculine against feminine emotions the egoistic feeling is thrown entirely on the side of masculin- ity and makes use even of persistently emerging feminine emotions, among others also of the fe- male sexual appetite in order to collect them as humiliating and dangerous,’ to group them, to ex- aggerate, to emphasize them and at the same time to surround them with sentinels so that they may be robbed of their influence. ‘These sentinels, se- curities, usually extend beyond the sphere of fem- inine emotions. One always finds that these re- assurances and protective devices, among which should be placed our symptoms of disease, do not stop at the mere fulfillment of their destiny, that is, the avoidance of defeat, but that they permeate these patients with a sort of cautiousness which finally renders them unfit for anything. It is only then that the primary insecurity which may be likened to a fear of a feminine role is at an end, but by this time it has permeated the entire life- relation of the individual and forces him outside the realm of all social relationship. We find all our patients in the midst of this retreat and their 4This affective accentuation is always derived from a purpose- ful device. Feminine röle and abyss, drowning, death, being run over, or strangled. TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 311 symptoms are for them assurances that they will not be forced back into the tumult of life. From this there develops a neurotic picture which often reveals a reversion to simpler, more child-like re- lations, either because these are developed after maturity, or for the reason that maturity was generally impeded. ‘Thus many act as though they were in the nursery. Family relations be- come accentuated to an extraordinary degree, or instead of childish love for the parents the old childish obstinacy develops and both factors are used as guiding symbols, as though the patient sought to discover in all persons the father or mother. Notwithstanding the fact that he comes in conflict with reality on account of this fiction, the patient holds fast to it because he found se- curity in the relations existing in the nursery. Kipling relates of a person lying in the death struggle, whom he observed until the expected cry for the mother came from his lips. One has only to listen to the street-Arabs, who, when hard pressed, immediately cry out for their mother, in order to comprehend this longing for security. The same longing for security has crept into the worshipping of the Mother of God. In girls, the longing for security is as a rule in more pro- nounced analogy to the relation to the father. The “uterine phantasy” which is placed in the foreground by G. Griiner I have also found em- 312 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ployed by neurotics only when they wish to ex- press that peace can be found only with the mother, or when they have thoughts of suicide, that is, the wish to return to the same state in which they were before birth. (The hermaphro- ditic progression backward.) Our patient, too, as child and girl sought this leaning on her father who spoiled her not a little. The mother, as is often the case, was more at- tracted to her brothers. This trait also shows it- self to be conditioned by the exaggerated estima- tion of the masculine principle, which the father, being a man, would more readily renounce in her favor. Our patient soon noticed that her father’s care for her increased whenever she was ill. Thus she came to have a special preference for being sick, which procured for her further pet- ting, love, and sweetmeats. She must have re- garded as the most appropriate substitute for that manliness which she believed to be lost to her, that condition of sickness which gained for her the command of the whole house, the gratification of all her wishes and permitted her to escape all un- pleasant encounters in school and society. Yes, it meant for her the highest attainable potency, her feeling of security, as soon as her father be- lieved that she was ill. And she sometimes pre- tended to be ill, that is, she simulated or exag- gerated. TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 313 This fact‘ of simulation in childhood is often found in the anamneses of neurotics. I have called attention to this phenomenon in the “Psy- chischen Behandlung der Trigeminus Neural- gie,” and have mentioned that children often pre- tend to be deaf, blind, dumb, ete. E. Jones men- tions this fact in his “Hamletstudie,” and calls at- tention to the resemblance of Hamlet’s pretense to that of children. 'There are many historical examples such as Saul, Claudius and others, and they show us the problem in its pure culture. The accompanying thought is always how can I secure myself from a danger, how can I avoid a defeat? It is clear that the neurotic who apper- ceives according to the analogy man-woman per- ceives in the domination of a position a masculine equivalent, a substitute and protection for the threatened loss of manliness. And the technique of simulation consists in the fact that the individ- ual sets forth a fiction and acts in accordance therewith as though he had the defect which would require such action, while he knows and maintains that he has no such defect. We main- tain that the psychically conditioned neurotic symptom arises in the same way only with this difference that the fiction is not recognized as a fiction, but is held as true.? As is frequently the case, we can obtain the 5 See theoretical part, Chapter III, “The accentuated fiction.” 314 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION best insight into this condition not from a neurotic symptom, but from a borderline case. We mean the psychology of sympathy. We are in a posi- tion to feel the suffering of another person as if it affected our own corporal sphere. Yes, we can even feel the suffering of another in anticipation before its occurrence. Well known examples of this are the anxious feelings which many persons experience when they see others, servant girls, roof workers or circus actors in dangerous situa- tions, or even when they only think of such situa- tions. These symptoms are usually felt by those who suffer from dizziness when in high places and they act when others are in danger exactly as though they themselves stood at a window or on a rock. They withdraw under the feeling of anxiety, placing a safe distance between them- selves and the usually not dangerous position, in short, they have a feeling akin to that which they would have were they themselves in a dangerous position. Here the exaggerated cautiousness be- comes apparent which in neurotics is so strong that they will not cross a bridge for fear that they might fall into the water or throw themselves into it. I have found similar mechanisms of cautious- ness in all cases of fear of places and they reveal to us that we have a patient who wishes to avoid decisions, who fears whether he is equal to a cer- tain situation, usually the sexual partner. In all TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 315 other phobias, too, as I have shown in my descrip- tion of syphilidophobia, (Zeitschr. f. Psych., Bd. I, Heft 9, 1911), this “sympathy” in a situation which has not as yet been realized, but which may be expected with probability constitutes the char- acteristic symptom (Lipps). It reveals itself as a very efficient tool of the craving for security, takes the place in many cases of a morality which is not invincible in character. Careful examina- tion of this character-trait reveals that it has its foundation in that sort of feeling-participation for purposes of security, which is clearly set forth in Kant’s categorical imperatives for the expres- sion of the whole character, when this philosopher wishes each single individual to be influenced in his action by a point of view which permits of be- ing regarded as if it were elevated to a universal maxim.° Fictions, maxims, guiding principles then simi- lar to the reassuring fictions of the simulator form part of the mental character of all persons, espe- cially of neurotically inclined children. And re- duced to their nucleus all of these formule are as follows: Act as though you were a complete man, or wished to be one. ‘The content of this procedure which usually turns out to be in the nature of a substitute is determined beforehand by the experience of the child and by the special 6 Vaihinger, “The Philosophy of As If.” 316 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION type of somatic inferiority from which he suffers, but is subject to special alterations which must be regarded as formal changes arising from special circumstances connected with experiences to which he gives neurotic valuations. Somatic inferiority determines through the ac- companying psychic phenomena of repugnance the direction of the ideas of pleasure and thus conducts the compensatory processes into the psychic regions. Here, too, we behold the crav- ing for security at work and usually in such a purposeful manner that it works coefficients which offer security and thus gives rise to an over- compensation.’ In the development, for in- stance of the stuttering Demosthenes to the great- est orator of Greece, of Clara Schumann, who was deaf to an accomplished musician, of the near-sighted G. Freitag, of many poets and painters with anomalies of the eye to visually talented persons and of the numerous physicians with anomalies of hearing, we perceive the result of the craving for security. We likewise see the result in every weak child who wishes to be a hero, in the clumsy child with thyroid affection who wishes to be an athletic racer and later in life always tries to be the first. But the direction of the craving for security in order to have its objective point must depend 7J. Reich, “Art and the Eye,” Ost, Rundschau, 1909. TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 317 upon anexample. And here the man offers more attraction to the egoistic feeling of childhood than does the woman. Indeed it seems that a female example can only be imitated after an initiatory conflict and only when this feminine example per- mits the attainment of mastery along the lines of least resistance. This was the case with our patient as it often is with cases of migraine. Numerous writers have emphasized the circumstance that it is so often possible to trace the inheritance of migraine from the mother. We must give up the idea of the inheritance of migraine in the same manner as we were obliged to abandon the view of its or- ganic etiology. I have already explained the na- ture of this question,® in the case of a seven-year- old girl and had before that been convinced that a feeling of uncertainty and humiliation precedes the attack of migraine, and that the attacks serve to place the whole household at the service of the sufferer, for which reason the example of the mother is imitated. The husband, the father, other relatives suffer no less from the attack than does the patient. ‘Thus migraine is to be placed in the series of neurotic affections which serve to secure the mastery in the household and in the family. ‘That this tyranny has a masculine sig- nificance and can be reduced to the wish to be a 8“Neurotische Disposition,” Jahrbuch Bleuler-Freud, 1908. 318 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION man becomes obvious from further analysis. But a brief consideration of the migraine which occurs at the time of menstruation teaches us to understand in this case also the dissatisfaction with the feminine role. I have in various in- stances learned to recognize this connection with epilepsy, sciatica, trigeminal neuralgia. I have proved that these latter conditions in the cases mentioned by me were psychogenic in nature and originated whenever stronger securities were de- manded. The only sphere of influence which remained for our patient was her tyranny over her father, over whom she had complete power and this did not entirely satisfy her lust for power. Hence a “still, still more” declared itself as is often the case in neurotic affections and she sought a more obvious grasp of the subjugation of the father. Her mother suffered from migraine and the time of her attacks was, as is usual with patients suf- fering from migraine, a time of absolute power. Therefore our patient also who comprehended the value of the disease pretended to be suffering from it” And our patient succeeded in doing what aboriginal man succeeded in doing when 9In my work on “The Neurotic Disposition,” I have already emphasized what must likewise be mentioned here, that an original somatic inferiority determines the choice of a symptom. In the neurosis the mechanism becomes the property of the psyche in the form of a disease-preparedness. TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 319 he made himself gods who filled him with terror, in creating for herself the migraine. This “as if” creation, this fiction became substantially inde- pendent, so that the pain and suffering could awaken whenever the patient needed them. ‘The dramatic performance became so successful that the patient, because of its value in the direction of her tendencies, no longer saw through the fiction. ' Indeed she won by means of the same a superior- ity over and security against the husband just as she had previously done in regard to her father when she made use of this weapon to attain se- curity. She strove to attain a masculine part in the marriage relation, directing all her activities towards gaining the mastery over her husband, but as there always remained an “and yet” it was necessary to obtain still further substitutes as evi- dences of power. And the most important of these substitute formations was the resolution not to have any more children. It had become a general principle in the household of this patient as in many others (one of which I described in the “Männliche Einstellung Weiblicher Neuroti- ker,” Zeitsch., f. Psychoanalyse, Heft 4, 1910) that a woman who suffered from such headaches should have no more children. Insomnia, impos- sibility of going to sleep again after having been disturbed, references to the difficulties concern- ing the place of residence, various protective ar- 820 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION rangements and the spoiling of the only child completed the security. That these phenomena are merely a new view of the old wish for masculinity is proved by her first dream. “I was at the depot with my mother. We wished to visit my father who was ill. I was afraid of missing the train. Then suddenly the father appeared. Then I was at a watch maker's and wanted to buy a substitute for the one I had lost.” She felt superior to her mother who was greatly respected by her, and also to her father who hu- mored her slightest wish. Sick means weak. The father had died a short time previously. Shortly after his death she had one of her dread- ful attacks of migraine. In the dream he came to life again and his person signified for her a maximating of her ego-consciousness. She had always been impatient, afraid of being late. Her brother came before she did and became a man. She felt spurred on to hasten (a man does it with one bound, a woman with a hundred), in order to arrive at the summit of her ego-conscious- ness. ‘The day before the dream she was hasten- ing to a concert and was held back by her mother. Women are often late and she did not wish to fol- low their example. TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 321 Reality reminded her nevertheless that she was a woman like her mother. The thought lies in the picture of being together with her mother at the depot. Her aggressive affect which is identi- cal with the masculine protest is directed against her husband, against her father. In the further analysis of the dream the disparaging thoughts come to light, such as that the wife is stronger, more vigorous and healthier than theman. Then as a further incentive to conflict, the father (the man) suddenly emerges. This simile is taken from swimming and signifies in the neurotic per- spective the “being above” in opposition to being “beneath.” While the patient was afraid of missing the train, of being left behind in compari- son with another, that is to say in comparison with the man, which can be supplied from the connec- tion—to submit to him, she notices as her ex- perience increases that the man is first, is above. The application of a picture, of an abstract idea in space for the purpose of illustrating the feel- ing of being belittled is often found in the neuro- sis, (See Syphilidophobia, 1. c.) because it is adapted to prepare the disposition to conflict in the most extensive manner by means of the ficti- tious, abstract antithesis “nothing or all.” Inthe same manner the artifice is made use of in paint- ing, of representing the power of woman and the fear she inspires by giving her a higher position 322 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION in space. In religious and cosmological phan- tasies this representation of superiority is the ele- vation of the position assigned. That in her dream the patient came through the spatially antithetical scheme according to the analogy of “man-woman,” is indicated in the position of the patient beside her mother, that is, with her mother. Thus the first dream which the patient had during the course of the treatment begins with considerations of masculine and feminine roles. One should never neglect to take into considera- tion unprejudicially the possibility of the contin- uation of the dream and to await and compare new confirmatory data, even though the psycho- therapeutist may have the most firm convictions concerning the significance of the problem for the neurosis. ‘The further explanation of the patient was in regard to a watch chain which had been lost through the fault of her husband. She cannot remember having lost a watch. Interrogated concerning the significance in the dream of the watch which was substituted for the chain, the pa- tient answered with considerable affect but eva- sively, that it was not the loss of the chain but of a charm attached to it that disturbed her. In short the watch hanging to a lady’s chain is identical with the lost watch charm for which the patient grieves and for which she seeks a substitute. TENDENCY TO DISPARAGE OTHERS, ETC. 323 The dream began with a symbolic contrast rep- resented in space of an inferior femininity with a superior masculinity and ends with the logically following conclusion of the striving for a substi- tute for the lost masculinity. In this fictitious guiding line thus constructed the character, the _ affect reaction, the predispositions and neurotic symptoms must be represented, the correctness of which assumption the result of the case substanti- ated. ‘The character-traits of impatience, discon- tent, obstinacy and reticence proved therefore to be, as did all the rest, auxiliary lines which stood in a dependent relation to the guiding fiction, that of attaining a masculine elevation. CHAPTER V CRUELTY. CONSCIENCE. PERVERSION AND NEUROSIS. THE discovery of traits of a cruel nature in the very earliest childhood is unusually frequent in the course of an analysis of neuroses and psy- choses. It would be wrong to apply our moral standards to the first two years of life, and to re- gard the activities of such children, who in reality are still incapable of either good or evil, as sadis- tic or brutal as it often happens when parents or guardians relate the histories of psychopaths. For these manifestations become psychic, or in our sense neurotic only when they begin to serve a definite end and are constructed as an abstrac- tion which has some future tendency in view.* The fact that they are always created out of pos- sibilities and capabilities of experience does not justify the assumption of a constitutional factor. As a matter of fact one only finds the character- trait of cruelty as a compensatory psychic con- struction in those children who, aside from this, 1See also Wagner v. Jaureg. “Ueber krankhafte Triebhand- lungen,” Wiener klin. Wochenschrift, 1912. 324 CRUELTY, CONSCIENCE, ETC. 825 are forced by their feeling of inferiority to an early and hasty development of their ideal of per- sonality. 'The accompanying traits of obstinacy, rage, sexual precocity, ambition, envy, greed, malice and delight in doing harm as they are reg- ularly evoked by the guiding fiction, and which the strife and emotional predispositions help to form and mobilize, furnish the highly colored Kaleidoscopic picture of the refractory child. The lust for power of such children is regularly manifested in the family life and play, but most of all in their bearing, attitude and glance. In the play and early thoughts concerning the choice of a vocation, the tendency to cruelty is often be- trayed in a veiled manner and makes them re- gard as ideal types, the hangman, the butcher, the policeman, the grave digger, the savage or coach- man, “because they can whip the horses,” or the teacher, “because they can whip the children,” the physician, “because they cut,” or the soldier, “because they shoot,” the judge, etc.” The spirit of investigation is also often associated with this, and the torturing of animals and children, specu- lations and phantasies concerning possible misfor- tunes, often of those which might befall near rela- tives, an interest in funerals and church-yards and in horrible sadistic stories, are begun. The first purpose of these exaggerated tenden- 2 Adler, “Aggressionstrieb,” 1. c. 326 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION cies to cruelty, is to prevent the emergence and the becoming effective of the ever present possi- bility of weakness and pity, because these stand in opposition to the masculine guiding line. The general spreading of this craving to be manly which is thought to lead to superiority over others, is nowhere so clearly shown as in the dis- interested pleasure in injuries. In neurotics this may be especially strongly emphasized and may be utilized in the most unreasonable manner for the purpose of exalting the ego-consciousness. La Rochefoucauld expresses this in his quaint manner as follows, “There is something in the misfortunes of our friends which is not quite dis- pleasing.” I heard a patient laugh aloud when told of the Messina earthquake. He suffered from severe masochistic attacks. Compulsory laughter often possessed this patient when he was in the presence of a superior person, his teacher for instance, or some one who had some claim of authority over him. One finds in such patients a strong in- clination to dominate over or torment others, at times sadistic phantasies, until one discovers that the compulsion to laughter, the lust for power and the sadism are erected over the weak point of the feeling of inferiority, in order to compensate for it. Pyromania, the delight in fire-brands and the almost irresistible compulsion to think of fire, CRUELTY, CONSCIENCE, ETC. 327 or to cry out “fire” in the theater or church seem to be referable, according to certain of my find- ings, to defects of the sensitive bladder or to eyes oversensitive to light, or at any rate to prepara- tions for the compensation of these defects. But this guiding line of masculine cruelty is threat- ened with great danger and accident in a society where there exist ethical imperatives, it can, there- fore, be only followed in a disguised form. Usu- ally one sees deviations and circuitous paths in following which the sadistic trait seems wholly or in part lost. In this way the neurotic succeeds in gaining superiority over the weak, or he operates on this new line so skillfully as to manage to set up an aggression which enables him to dominate and torture others. In the compulsion neuroses one frequently finds that these patients have abandoned their sadistic guiding line and have turned to penance and reassuring measures,’ which have the same compulsory character and are not less oppressive for the environment than were the previous emotional predispositions of the patient, and hence are fitted in the same man- ner as prime characteristics to render obvious the superiority of the neurotic. In the major at- tacks of so-called affective epilepsy, of hysteria, of trigeminal neuralgia, of migraine, etc., the masculine lust for power turns in the direction of the neurotic “readiness for a paroxysm,” but the 328 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION helplessness of the environment and its suffermg is not less but rather greater than in the rages and enmity which were active ways of the neurotic. An inclination for antivivisectionism, vegetarian- ism, prevention of cruelty to animals, charity, often distinguishes these connoisseurs of the suf- ferings of others, they cannot endure to see a goose bleed, but clap their hands gleefully when their opponent leaves the Exchange a bankrupt. Their inclination to sectarianism forms an inimi- cal antisocial trait, as does their severe criticism of the valuation of others which they exhibit be- fore they even form an opinion of their own. Tolerance is unknown to them, unless they cry out for it for themselves. If I sketch here traits which are to be en- countered on all sides, they are nevertheless traits of a very prevalent neuroticism and signs of a deeply grounded uncertainty. ‘They are by no means inherent in human nature, but are rather unsuccessful forms of the masculine protest which failed to bring assurance to the ego-consciousness. Should failure result in following the main guid- ing line, neurotic circuitous ways are entered upon and the “outbreak” of the neurosis or psy- chosis follows as a result of a change of form and accentuation of the guiding fiction. I must also disagree with the theory of con- genital criminality of children and criminals CRUELTY, CONSCIENCE, ETC. 329 promulgated by Lombroso and Ferrari, as well as with Stekel’s theory of the universal criminality of neurotics. (Aggressionstrieb, |. c.). They are nothing but forms of the aggressive impulse become accentuated through the feeling of inferi- ority, and which makes use of the masculine guid- ing line. ‘The transformation into a clearly ob- vious neurosis follows the abandonment of this straightforward aggression. Where the fear of a decision is absent, an early result of the secu- rity-giving neurosis, and where there develops a strong tendency to deprive others of life, honor and property, criminality is the result.® In the developed neurosis, on the other hand, one finds memory-traces of cruelty, criminality as well as those of sexuality purposefully exagger- ated, falsely grouped and retained. Through the imagining of an accentuated conscience and exaggerated feeling of guilt, the masculine pro- test is diverted from the straight path of aggres- sion and becomes inclined towards routes of soft- heartedness. It is only in the affect which occa- sionally comes to the surface, in the analysis of the seizures, in the traits of character which be- come manifest now and then as is the case fre- quently at the onset of a psychosis and the nature of the goal of the neurotic subterfuges and traits 3A. Jassny, “Dass Weib als Verbrecher,’ Arch. f. Kriminal- psych., 1911, H. 19. 330 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of character which have become diverted from the straight course, in the fact that a tyranny is erected in spite of all defeats, in the torture of others through self-torture, and finally in the in- termixture of occasionally emerging original and direct traits of aggression, that one discovers the fact that the old over-tense goal still exists and that a change in the form of the fiction has only diverted the direction of the original tendency into other, often apparently opposite channels. Thus it happens that following a decidedly ag- gressive period, the greedy, brutal or violent traits of the psychopath, in anticipation of a de- feat or after such has actually been experienced, may be made to approach more closely or even too eagerly general moral ideals, through the con- struction of a fictitious factor, “‘conscience,” in the same manner as the path of egocentric evil desire was entered upon from a feeling of inferiority. “Then I am destined to be bad,” in this and simi- lar ways the fictitious life-plan of many neurotics is unconsciously formed, until a glance into the abyss tears the giddy subject from his perilous po- sition and forces him to seek a stronger security than is actually needed. Conscience develops out of the simpler forms of prevision and self-evalu- ation under the pressure of the craving for se- curity, is endowed with the attributes of power and raised to a divinity, so that the individual may CRUELTY, CONSCIENCE, ETC. 331 construct his ideal without objection from any side, so that he may be able better to orient him- self in the uncertainty of events and have his choice in attacks and methods of combat to which his will to power guides him. But the neurotic brings about a reconstruction of his traits of character even for the sole pur- pose of being enabled to initiate the struggle to better advantage. Such is the case when he ascribes to the sexual partner of whom he stands in fear, traits of an egotistic, cruel and deceptive nature. He is then likely to hunt out and exag- gerate from his memories and emotions, those which confirm his own character as affectionate, mild and open. For the purpose of proving these characteristics he will often act as though his virtues had the reality of innate and indestruc- tible qualities. One important question must still be touched upon. Nearly all of our neurotic patients come to us in the “stadium of virtue,” after having ex- perienced a defeat, and we must therefore expect to discover their masculine protest less in direct traits of character and emotional predispositions than in neurotic circuitous ways, accentuated se- curity devices, which may be detected only with difficulty through the analysis of their dreams and symptoms. One will discover that the infantile, fictive guiding line has only become more effec- 332 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tive, and in so far as it concerns the cases just spoken of, that their neurotic symptoms lead to a more intense degradation of others than did their original cruelty and desire to torture. For all these guiding lines are tensely stretched be- tween the insecurity of the constitutionally or subjectively defective individual and his unattain- able ego-ideal. However far back into childhood sadism, perversions of various sorts, sexual-libido, in short the masculine protest may extend, they are always constructed according to a life-plan and reveal their dependence thereon. The liber- ation of the sadism from the neurotic predisposi- tion, and in the sense of Freud, from the uncon- scious and from repression, is to be likened to a carrying back of the neurosis to an earlier sta- dium, to a time before the defeat. Freud’s scien- tific work, important and full of results as it was for the understanding of the neurosis, did not give a correct picture of the neurotic psyche. The neurotic predispositions of heightened affectivity, the exaggerated aggressiveness, the hypersensi- bility, and the direct, compensatory character- peculiarities require a liberation from their over- tense state; as do also the inclinations to neurotic perversions which are often constructed at a very early age, and which are to come to the aid of the general fear of decisions through a compromise formation. For this reason the effort should be CRUELTY, CONSCIENCE, ETC. 333 made to conquer this feeling of inferiority and the tendency to disparage which results therefrom, these two important poles of every neurotic state, by means of insight and contemplation on the part of the patient, for they like their sexual anal- ogies, (sadism, masochism, fetichism, homosex- uality, incest-phantasies, apparent heightening or weakening of the sexual impulse), already form the foundation of the neurosis. CHAPTER VI THE ANTITHESIS ABOVE-BENEATH, CHOICE OF A PROFESSION, SOMNAMBULISM, ANTITHESIS IN THOUGHT, ELEVATION OF THE PERSONALITY THROUGH THE DISPARAGEMENT OF OTHERS, JEALOUSY, NEUROTIC AUXILIARIES, AUTHOR- ITATIVENESS, THINKING IN ANTITHESES AND THE MASCULINE PROTEST, DILATORY ATTI- TUDE AND MARRIAGE, THE TENDENCY UP- WARD AS A SYMBOL OF LIFE, COMPULSION TO MASTURBATION, THE NEUROTIC STRIVING FOR KNOW LEDGE THE abstraction of the concept, “above-be- neath,” obviously plays an extremely important role in the civilization of mankind, and is prob- ably even connected with the beginning of the up- right carriage of human beings. As every child repeats this process in the course of his develop- ment when he arises from the floor and as training also teaches him a disgust for clinging to the floor and creeping on it from hygienic reasons, for be- ing “down”; this higher development in childhood may contribute not a little to the tendency to value “up” more highly; a certain proof is to be 334 ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 335 found in the conduct of small children who throw themselves on the floor angrily and thus try to make themselves dirty in order to attract the at- tention of their parents, but betray thereby that the idea of “being down” as a fiction of what is forbidden, dirty, sinful, is developing in them. In this psychic gesture of small children may also be detected the model for strongly developed later neurotic traits. Further notions may be gathered from the im- pressions of heavenly bodies, as may be seen from a psychological understanding of the various re- ligions and of civilization. The aboriginal races, like the child, regarded the sun, the day, joy, ele- vation, being “up,” as resembling each other and frequently associated “being down” with sin, death, dirt, sickness and night. The antithesis of “up-down” is not less distinct than in ancient religions. From a work by K. Th. Preuss on “Die Feuergötter als Ausgang- spunkt zum Verständniss der Mexicanischen Re- ligion,” Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 1903, we are able to infer the deeply rooted character of this antithesis and the association of “up-down.” The fire god is also the god of the dead who live with him at the place of descent. Overturned vessels, people who fell, were re- garded as presentations of “up-downs,” that is to 336 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION say, of falling into the realm of the dead, and thoughts of preservation and destructive activities were given this form of spatial antithesis.’ Further, sensations and impressions from childhood tend to give form to the spatial notion of “up-down” and to define the contrast more sharply. Falling, falling down, is painful, blam- able, dishonorable, ‘at times, punishable. Not rarely it is the result of inattention, lack of fore- sight and the child may therefore assume these sensory traces as an admonition, so that being “down” may be felt as a forceful expression for “fallen,” for inattention, for unskillfulness, for defeat, not without releasing or at least stimulat- ing the protest which is directed against the ap- proaching feeling of inferiority. In this cate- gory of “down-up,” one of which cannot be thought of without the other, is further found intermingled trains of thought (in both neurotics and normal persons), which express the anti- theses of conquest and defeat, of triumph and in- feriority. In individual cases upon analysis memory traces emerge of riding, swimming, fly- ing, mountain climbing, climbing up and of climbing staircases, the antitheses of which reveal themselves as carrying a rider, incubus, sinking in water, falling down, tumbling down, a check 1I am especially indebted to Prof. Dr. S. Oppenheim for some important historical data for my work. ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 337 in an upward or forward movement. ‘The more abstract and figurative the memory is in dreams, in hallucinations, in separate neurotic symptoms, the more perceptible are the transitions which show a sexual factor. In this connection the masculine principle is only represented by the feeling of greater power, as being “up,” and the feminine by the feeling of being “down.” It is easy to see that scuffling and its results support this valuation. In the games of children which are prepara- tory for the conflicts of life (Karl Groos) this striving “upwards” is regularly found. Also in the thoughts of children concerning a vocation. In the progress of the psychic development real- ity is seen working as a brake, so that the ab- straction “upwards” has a tendency to assume a concrete form in some. Very often in this con- nection caution in the form of fear of being in elevated positions is at work and changes the wish to be a roof maker into that of being a mas- ter builder, makes of the aviator a builder of flying machines, changes the wish of the little girl to be like her father into the more attainable wish of being able to command like her mother. The striving for security and the masculine protest make the greatest possible use of the re- sulting guiding lines of the “will to be up.” Under the pressure of the fiction the neurotic 1s 338 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION sometimes forced to decisions, to conflict and strife, to passionate haste, sometimes to cautious, hesitating, doubting behavior. Thus he is placed in a position to make an estimate of his worth in life and that through instances which escape the notice of others. He must scent out, hold fast, exaggerate or arrange situations which seem to us of very little value. Let us follow this con- duct in detail. A girl, 25 years old, came to us with complaints of frequent headache, emotional attacks, disincli- nation for life and work. ‘Traces of rickets were perceptible. The history of childhood revealed an extreme feeling of inferiority which was kept at a strained tension because of the mother’s pref- erence for a younger brother and because of his intellectual superiority. The most cherished wish of this patient had always been to be big, very wise, anda man. She took the preparatory attitudes for the attainment of this masculine ego-consciousness as far as was possible from her father. When this was not possible for her, a small, stupid girl, she had secured the imaginary ego-consciousness through emotional expedients of rage and anger against her relatives and espe- cially in obstinacy toward her mother, in the simulation of stupidity, of awkwardness and sick- ness, and finally in the arrangement of laziness. I omit here the lines constructed by her of man- ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 339 liness, of malice, of obstinacy, and refrain also from analyzing her overweening ambition, her inclination to lying and ostentation, and will con- tent myself with showing how all these habits are combined in the impulse to be “up” and serve the tendency to depreciate others. For this pur- pose I will refer to one of her dreams, which con- tains a modest reference to the psychology of somnambulism. ‘The dream is as follows: “I became a sleepwalker and climbed onto the head of everybody.” The patient had heard sleepwalkers spoken of a few days previous to this dream. In her at- tempt at explanation of this dream a series of ambitious thoughts emerged which takes the form among others of a sexual picture of domi- nation over her future husband. She remem- bered dreams of earlier times which represented her as riding on a man, on a horse.” I have never treated a real sleepwalker, but one finds this neurotic symptom sometimes indicated in on- sets. It is manifested as is the dream of flying, of climbing stairs, etc., as a dynamic expression of the “will to be up” in the sense of the manly 2 Women riding on a man one frequently finds as the subject of paintings. I wish to call attention to Burgkmair, Hans Baldung, Grien, Diirer, and to tell of the many prints which show Alex- ander’s paramours riding on Aristotle. 340 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ageression. In a patient who showed strong masochistic traits, I once discovered strenuous attempts to reach the ceiling of the room by put- ting his legs out on the wall during the night. The interpretation showed that the patient res- cued himself from a real or an imagined situ- ation which was regarded as feminine by turning around to the masculine protest and at the same time gave expression to this in a symbolic modus dicendi through his striving upwards. The second thought of the dream, “I climbed onto the heads of everybody,” reveals the same meaning. The patient makes use here of a form of speech to express that she is superior to all others. Her striving upwards is only to be un- derstood dialectically in an antithesis, for the thoughts of insecure neurotics generally move in strongly antithetical directions, in an “either-or,” in an abstraction understood according to the scheme of the opposites, masculine-feminine. The innumerable middle ways are not chosen be- cause the two neurotic poles, the feeling of infe- riority on the one hand and the overtense ego- consciousness on the other only permit the antithetical values to reach consciousness.? 3 That the tentative, insecurely begun, beginnings in philosophy have likewise hypotasized this antithetical mode of thinking we have already emphasized. Karl Joél speaks of this problem in the “Geschichte der Zahl- prinzipien in der griechischen Philosophie” (Zeitschr. f. Philoso- ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 341 The train of thought of this dream permits us to divine the neurotic predispositions of the pa- tient. In reality her masculine protest, her in- clination to belittle others, her ambition, her sensitiveness, defiance, unyieldingness, obstinacy, is sufficiently remarkable. The psychic signifi- cance of her headache is revealed in this dream. Previous analysis showed in fact that the symp- tom always made its appearance when there was a feeling of defeat, of belittlement, of emascula- tion—to speak in the words of the dream, when one “mounted her head.” In the phases of the headache, therefore, through the construction of these “expedients of pain” with consequent hal- lucinations of pain she strove to dominate all persons, especially her mother, and was able to enhance her ego-consciousness thereby in the same manner as she was able to do it through de- fiance, laziness, and obstinacy, only to a greater degree, in short, had thus mounted on the heads of others. In children the tendency to be up is unmis- takable and coincides with the wish to be big. They wish to be lifted up and like to climb on sofas, tables, boxes, and usually connect with this striving the idea of showing themselves un- phie und philos. Kritik. Bd. 97), and states in this study, “The real root of ‘antithesis’ lies in the instinctive, peculiar fixity of thought which only recognizes absolutes.” 842 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION conquerably courageous, manly. How closely bordering on this is the tendency to depreciate others is shown by their joy when they succeed in being “bigger” than grown people. The heightening of the aggressive tendency is mani- fested in children who show neurotic symptoms at an early age by this exhibition. Thus it some- times happens that children in the consulting room of the physician constantly climb on tables and benches and thus reveal their contempt. The danger of falling, of accidents in striving upwards as well as the customary training to cowardice, force the majority of children to a change of form of the guiding line, or to neu- rotic, circuitous ways, whereby the fear of ele- vated positions and heights opposes itself as an admonition usually in a symbolical form to un- dertakings and ventures of all sorts, and thus becomes the foundation of a predisposition which has the appearance of a neurotic check on aggres- sion. At times the desire to be up is transposed for the most part to a tendency to depreciate ' others. The tendency of those suffering from _ dementia pr&cox to change the furniture stands regularly in such close connection with the de- _ preciation of the surroundings that the suspicion is justified, that this is one of the fictitious, ab- stract, circuitous ways by which the psychotic enhances his ego-consciousness. In a trans- ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 343 ferred form this placing of others in an inferior position is expressed in the tendency to calumny, especially, however, in neurotic jealousy and de- | lirium of jealousy. I discovered further an in- teresting sort of derogation in nervous subjects - in their care, their anxious behavior, in their fears for the fate of other people. They act as if | others were incapable of caring for themselves without their help. They are constantly giving advice, wish to do everything themselves, are al- ways finding new dangers and are never con- tented until others confide themselves entirely to their care. Neurotic parents are thus the cause of much harm, and in love and marriage much friction is caused in this manner. One of my pa- tients, who was run over twice in his childhood, associated his feeling of injured personality with this memory and whenever he crossed a street with another person he led that person anxiously over by the arm as though without his help his companion could not have crossed. Many per- sons are filled with fears when their relatives travel by rail, go swimming or canoeing, give their nurses constant instructions and continue their tendency to depreciation in exaggerated criticisms and corrections. In schools and in offices this nagging depreciation is always found in neurotic teachers and superiors. In the prac- tice of psychotherapy it is one of the main re- 344 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION quirements to obviate predispositions of this sort, even when the patient provokes them. This re- quirement often amounts to a renunciation of au- thority. Every one who has become acquainted with the hypersensitiveness of neurotic subjects knows with what slight cause they feel themselves to be undervalued. One of my patients who suf- fered from hystero-epilepsy and always con- ducted himself as if he wished to place himself in an entirely subordinate position fell on one oc- casion unconscious before my door. In such “accidents” the tendency to undervaluation is clearly recognizable. While still in a confused condition he addressed me as “Teacher,” and stammered that he would bring a note. After the attack he told me that he had come unwill- ingly on that occasion. The analysis showed that he had come to regard me as a teacher in order to obtain the distance necessary for the con- flict, in order to be able to act as though he were obliged to come to the school and to bring a writ- ten excuse for his absence. After he had placed himself as far as his feelings were concerned in this situation of inferiority he could allow the compensatory expedients derived therefrom to come into play in order to belittle me. A girl 20 years old suffered from the compul- sory idea that she could not ride in a street-car because when she got in the thought always ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 345 emerged that a man might get out at the same time and fall under the wheels. Analysis showed that this compulsory neurosis represented the masculine protest of the patient in the figure of being “above” corresponding with which the man must be “under,” deprived of value, and should bear the injuries which he imposes on women. In addition the exaggerated striving for security constructed the protection of anxiety which was intended to satisfy further the fear of the male. Even then when her superiority was assured she could not bring herself to decide on marriage, for her future husband would have a hard time with her—from this point of view one is able to understand the often incomprehensible striving of many neurotic girls and women to exact from their partners the greatest sacrifices and put them to the most severe tests, in so far as they hope to attain thereby an enhancement of their ego-con- sciousness to the point of an appearance of man- liness. Thinking in crude antitheses is therefore in itself a sign of uncertainty and adheres to the sole genuine antithesis, that between male and female. In this a judgment of worth is already given, which infuses itself unnoticed in every “antithesis” (Joel) because this antithesis is al- ways made in the figure of a dissection of the hermaphroditic form into a male and female half. 346 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Plato has perhaps expressed this idea most purely. And human perception was unable until the time of Kant to disentangle itself from this self-made fiction. But the neurotically disposed child adheres to the oppositeness of the sexes and to the higher valuation of the male principle therewith connected in order to escape from un- certainty and in order to find a guiding line for his idea of egoistic worth. ‘Thus it happens that this guiding fiction contains a manly aspect, and that in all the experiences and strivings of neu- rotic individuals the masculine protest is revealed as the ordering principle and motive force. The antithesis of the sexes is admirably expressed in the above given symbol of the spatial opposites of “up-down.” And thus it becomes comprehensi- ble that in every one of our psychological analyses this expression of a sharp antithetical schema must somehow or other come to light. It is still an open question whether reénforcements of the antithesis have been acquired from the events of early childhood and the resulting impressions, from the observations of sexual relations in hu- man beings and animals, or whether the con- sciousness of the higher position of the male has been fixed by the normal situations of sexual re- lations. The “will to be above” of the neurotic woman is produced by her manly guiding idea and repre- ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING _ 347 sents an attempt to identify herself with the man. The importunity and rigidity with which this takes place even in neurotic, circuitous ways testi- fies to the original uncertainty and fear of being “below,” undervalued, female. Thus the tran- scendental egoistic idea attains its powerful dominancy because it promises compensation, the overcoming of the feeling of inferiority, in the opposite direction. Every gesture then says, “I will be above, I will be a man because I am afraid as a woman of being oppressed and misused.” Ambition and envy are hereby strengthened and an unusually lively mistrust is awakened against every possibility of belittlement. Where there is real undervaluation, however, the masculine protest flashes forth and leads from slight and often from no cause to the well known, unpleas- ant frictions of the neurotic individual with his environment, in which the principal weapons of attack used to confirm the feeling of power are disputatiousness, love for justice, obstinate ad- herence to opinion and trust in penetration. And in this connection the tendency to “look be- neath” will never be absent, especially in times of uncertainty, the acute perception of affronts, neglects, undervaluations, and further than this arrangements of depression, anxiety, remorse, feeling of guilt and pangs of conscience. Stronger measures for security are applied and 348 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION new neurotic symptoms and deviations are con- structed, the neurotic traits of character become more deeply seated and more abstract and the fully developed picture of the neurosis arises.‘ Thus the revolt for attaining a heightened ego- consciousness is fairly contrived, the introduction thereof is formed by the disease itself and by the predispositions to disease which in some way or other are made use of as means for attaining power in the environment. A patient, 21 years old, came under treatment because of extreme depression, loss of sleep and compulsory thoughts. It was ascertained that she had always had neurotic traits of character. 4While writing this book I discovered in Alfred v. Berger’s “Hofrat Eysenhardt” an excellent example of the type just de- scribed in whom the striving to be above was especially well marked and whose lectures I would recommend to every psycho- therapeutist. One will find in this description a repetition of all we have said concerning this type of individual from a poet’s standpoint. The all too powerful elan of the father, the feeling of inferiority of the boy along with the compensatory masculine protest. The accentuation of sexual desire, of the will to power, the preparation for the patricide, fetichism, contentious tendency, the exaggerated assurance in the case of threatening defeat. The construction of remorse, self-reproach, hallucinations, and com- pulsory ideas as a revengeful annihilation of the authority of the State. The loss of a tooth and the exaggerated fear of woman as the result of a further accentuated masculine protest, and along with this the repeated arrangement of an exaggerated sexual desire, all of which is very impressive and obvious, a description of the neurotic subterfuge which reminds one of Dostoyeffsky’s descrip- tions and which requires no further elucidation. ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 349 The compulsory neurosis broke out as her rela- tions with a man whom she wanted to marry be- came serious. The typical pathogenic situation brings the neurotic “no” to light, and while the patient was making her preparations for mar- riage, and did not hesitate with the affirmative answer, she arranged for the neurosis and con- ducted herself as if she did not wish to marry. In all these very numerous cases the next step is a condition which therefore takes the form, “If I were well, if I should overcome my present condition,” ete. (in men, often: “If I were po- tent’), “I would marry.” By this condition, which is equivalent to a vacillation, a doubt, to a special attitude of caution, the patient escapes all responsibility, has drawn the bolt in secret until something further happens, but may act as if he wishes to open the door. The traits of mistrust, of disputatiousness, of tyranny, and of wishing to be “above” are clearly revealed in the analysis, and one can easily comprehend that the fear of not being equal to the partner, the menace of feeling another superior in love or marriage ne- cessitates the secret retreat and constructs the neurotic symptom. Not rarely one finds a pur- poseful valuation of the person’s own sexuality from which without proof or with the assistance of memories which every one has at command, 350 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION or by evoking unconscious falsifications the im- pression is sought that it is too little or too great to permit a marriage to be ventured on. The further communication of the patient ex- plained that she could undertake nothing be- cause whenever she began anything the thought emerged that it was useless because every one must die. As one sees, a nonsensical thought, which at the same time has sense, but above all brings time and development to a standstill and renders the entrance of the patient upon mar- riage impossible. In accordance with this the conviction that the patient only came to the phy- sician because she was forced to, that she had no hope of cure and only desired proof of her incura- bility followed as a matter of course. One of her dreams showed, much of this constellation. It was as follows: “A physician came to me who said I should jump and sing when thoughts of death came to me, then the thoughts would vanish. Then a child (hesitatingly), a large one is brought. It had pain and cried. It was given medicine so that it should become quiet and sleep.” The physician in the dream had once treated her as a child when she had scarlet fever. In the dream he used the words which she during her present illness had constantly heard from her ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 351 relatives and from physicians. He gives her ad- vice of a kind which amounts to nothing. These thoughts are aimed at me and express the con- viction that all my measures will be useless. Of course this dream was dreamed during a night when she slept—for the first time after a period of insomnia. As the patient, however, saw in this fact a partial success of the treatment she realized with strong aggression my measures too were useless. The hesitation in emphasizing the “largeness” of the child shows on what the thoughts of the dreamer are dwelling, on a small, a newborn child. The expression, “a child is brought” (supply: into the world) is taken from the idea of giving birth and coincides with this in the outlined representation of the dream. The powder which is given to the child is the sleeping powder of the patient in a former treatment, an indication that pains also belong to the patient, to giving birth. In other words the patient here expresses: I cannot sleep because I think of giv- ing birth with its pains. Giving birth, pains, dying, in these she sees her fate and hence she thinks of dying in order to avoid giving birth. The exaggerated security against childbirth is a change of form and intensity of her masculine protest. In order to secure herself against the feminine röle she enters upon the neurotic devi- S02 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION ation, fixes her thought upon an anticipatory tendency on childbirth and death as admonitions and prefers to become a child, to take a powder rather than to be cured psychotherapeutically. Because her cure signifies her fitting herself into the feminine role. Now the conflict is turned more acutely against the physician who wishes to cure her insomnia. She must remain superior to him, must permit him to talk absurdities and dic- tate to him, that he should treat her with medi- cines as she had been treated when a child. The compulsory neurosis represents her reassuring philosophy of the vanity of everything under the sun. In our sort of neuropsychology one always gains the impression that the visible neurotic con- duct is directed straight to the final purpose, to the fictitious goal, as if one were examining one of the intermediary pictures in a cinematographic film. The problem consists in recognizing this conduct, that is, the symptoms, predispositions, and traits of character, and to learn to compre- hend their object. In every neurotic attitude the beginning and final purpose is concealed in its significance.” These facts form the foundation 5 Bergson justly emphasizes the same thing for every move of life. One who possesses sufficient insight and experience is able to see in every psychic phenomenon the past, present, and future, but also the desired finale. Thus every psychic phenome- non and every trait of character, similarly to the inferior somatic ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 353 of every individualistic psychological method and coincide with our other findings. Therefore in the analysis of a symptom or of a dream the feeling of effeminacy, of inferiority, of being “down,” and the masculine protest, the fictitious manly goal, the feeling of being “above,” will always be found indicated, in the form of an up- wardly directed psychic attitude, in a hermaph- roditic picture which is apperceived in a strongly antithetical manner, in neurotic, circuitous ways, which as such characterize the tendency to meet obstacles with expedients, or when analyzed re- veal at one time the tendency upwards, at another the tendency downwards in the alterations and vacillations of the psychic phenomena. Fre- quently this “will to be up” is expressed in a strongly figurative manner, especially in dreams, but also in symptoms, and takes the symbolic form of a race, of soaring, of climbing mountains, of emerging from water, etc., while the “down” is represented by falling, in short by a motion downwards. Just as frequently the figure or the fact of the sexual act is symbolically employed for the same expression. I will here give an ac- count of the dreams of a patient who had fears for his future as a man on account of his weak- ness and noticeably effeminate conduct. In a organ, is to be looked upon as a symbol of life, as an attempt at an ascendancy of the masculine protest. 354 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION dream of his early childhood which for a long time filled him with fears he saw himself pursued by a bull. As a farmer’s son he understood at that early age that the male pursuer represented a race for a cow, that is, for the patient himself. When he was to enter school he directed his steps straight to the girls’ school and had to be taken to the boys’ school by force. He unconsciously regarded his life as a race, for which he con- stantly found preparations. When he was courting a girl his friend cut him out. When he contemplated marriage, he became afraid of the superiority of his wife, fell into the habit of com- pulsory masturbation, suffered from frequent pollutions, and fell victim to a tremor, which hin- dered his work and advancement in office. Nat- urally he set up the condition that he would only marry when he was cured, a thought which seemed to be wise and justified, but which per- mitted the patient to operate secretly against his marriage as behind a veil because he feared there- from a reduction of his ego-consciousness. The tremor represented to him the premonitions of a paralysis which he feared on account of his ex- cessive masturbation. After he had secured him- self in this manner he still felt the need of con- firmation of his incurability and went weeping to physicians. Our conversation revealed to me the picture of a restless, ambitious individual who ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 355 wished constantly to detract from others, but who recoiled in fear from a serious decision. Amo- rous relations were also with him principally a means of assuring himself of his superior manli- ness. No matter how eagerly he courted a girl, the moment she met his addresses, she lost all charm for him. Besides as soon as he ap- proached an engagement he entered into other relations without prospect, or gave them a pros- pectless form and thus ran after his rejections in order to be able through the feeling of his lack of influence even vis-a-vis his future bride, to be able to regard himself as inferior. From this he constantly regained the impulse to work secretly against the apparently desired marriage. One of his dreams is as follows: “I was with my old friend and was speaking with him about a mutual friend. He said, ‘Of what use is his money to him, he has learned noth- ing?” The old friend, who had cut our patient out in the courtship of a girl, had failed in the Tech- nical school and had given up study. The pa- tient was superior to him for he had finished the course. He embraced the sublime principle, “Knowledge is more than money,” especially as this profession served his fiction to be “above” and comforted him. The mutual acquaintance 356 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION is placed here instead of the rich girl who was courted by both. The contest begins anew. Our patient is declared victor by his rival. A second dream which occurred the same night makes this clearer. The patient dreamed: “As if I had caused the fall of a girl of lower standing and had dishonored her.” The fiction of this dream says a shade more clearly that he is “above.” The girl who was formerly courted is thus in the sense of the pa- tient brought down, made poor, and recognizes him as her master. I will here briefly mention that the occurrence of several dreams in a night signifies that vari- ous attempts at preliminary arrangements of ten- tative solutions of a problem are undertaken. It becomes regularly apparent that a single way is not sufficient for the guiding, egoistic idea of cau- tion, a fact which is easily comprehended in the case of neurotics. The dream then, under the influence of the more intensive craving for secur- ity becomes more abstract, more figurative, and one thus obtains in interpreting all the dreams of a night several psychic attitudes, from the com- parison of which the dynamic of the neurosis be- comes much clearer. In the above cited case the rival surrenders and the wealth of the girl—her power—is deprived of worth for him. The sec- ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 357 ond dream deprives the girl also of power and places her in the position a woman that is “under” occupies, and this is done in the most far-fetched and abstract manner, so that nothing personal is left to the girl under consideration except her subordinate position. The patient besides ex- presses the thought that only an uneducated girl from the country serves his purpose, as he can always remain her master. The girl whom he wishes to make his wife frightens him because of her intelligence.6 This is the tendency of many neurotics, which causes them always to choose below their social level, and thus thoughts and facts come to pass such as choosing a prosti- tute or a little girl for love and marriage, ne- crophilic tendencies, etc. In all similar cases the tendency to detract from the partner is percepti- ble, which seeks to degrade the wife by the con- struction of mistrust, jealousy, tyranny, ethical principles and requirements. A further idea shown in a dream represents a race graphically: “I was riding in a railway car and looked out of the window to see if the dog was still running with the train. I thought that he had run himself to death, had fallen under the wheels. I felt 6 Another dream of the same night may have dealt with the vio- lation of a girl. 358 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION sorry for him. Then the idea struck me that I had another dog, but a clumsy one.” He had often ridden bicycle races with his old friend and rival and was usually left behind. Now as his friend occupies a position socially in- ferior to him, his friend “can run after him,” as one says in Vienna when a person gives himself airs. ‘The metamorphosis into a dog is a prod- uct of the tendency to derogation and is quite frequently met with. In a case of dementia precox I observed that the patient gave all dogs the names of women of importance. The dog also represented his future bride who also brought _ his superiority into question. Her death, more- over, would free him of his fear, just as he would also be free if she should listen to another suitor, as his suspicion often whispered to him was the case. “If she should fall under the wheels.” “If this should occur, it would cause him sorrow.” In the dream he regards this as having already happened and anticipates his sorrow. The “clumsy dog” is a girl who about this time had disgusted him by meeting his advances and for whom he no longer cared. His dislike for those above him is boundless and deep-seated. One night he dreamed: “Our singing society gave a concert. The di- rectors place was empty.” ANTITHETICAL MODE OF THINKING 359 The society to which he belonged was on one occasion obliged to sing without a director be- cause the latter had missed the train. This situ- ation appeared to him better than any other. “We need no director,” he thought. This is his usual attitude in all situations in which he him- self is not the director. The impulse to masturbation in male neurotics corresponds in female neurotics to the tendency to avoid a decision and thereby to remain “up.” In the masturbation phantasies of girls the woman is often found to take the role of a man. Also the position which is taken therein is at times that of the man. In men masturbation serves, first, as proof that one can live alone, sec- ond, as a protection against and hindrance to sexual relations which on account of the superior- ity of the wife are feared and hence arises from the craving for security. If the situation neces- sitates stronger securities, impotence or the de- veloped neurosis makes its appearance, not as a consequence of renunciation of masturbation, but as a reénforced security. The masturbation phantasies in neurotics have often a masochistic or sadistic feature, according to the phase of the masculine protest which they aim to represent. Among the preparatory actions and neurotic expedients which are intended to serve to secure the position of being “up,” curiosity, impulse to 360 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION investigation, the desire to see everything, the “voyeur” impulse mentioned by writers occupies a prominent place. These impulses are always a proof of a primary uncertainty for the compen- sation of which the guiding lines of investigation are brought in. They serve especially in devel- oped neuroses secondarily the purposes of dila- toriness to avoid a plan and a decision and are in life, especially in the erotic very often changed from a means to an end on which all the psychic activities are based. Investigation, the search for truth, the wish to understand everything, the well known neurotic thoroughness, these are then the traits which the ego-consciousness erects and must elevate or protect. CHAPTER VII PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST, HOMOSEX- UALITY AND PERVERSION AS A SYMBOL, MOD- ESTY AND EXHIBITIONISM, CONSTANCY AND INCONSTANCY, JEALOUSY A. PHENOMENON often noted in neurotics is their attitude towards the question of punctuality. In accordance with our analysis of neurotic pedantry the expectation is justified that a large number of punctual individuals will be found among neurotics. This is in fact the case. But it is easy to perceive that these patients play with the thought, how would it be if they should let others wait, a train of thought which indicates their opposition to others. There always re- mains in this attitude of punctuality so much of ageression that these patients exact the greatest punctuality from everybody without exception and in consequence are often in a position to put their expedients and neurotic preparedness to attacks into operation at the tardiness of others. In other cases it is found that pride compels them to come late regularly, and when others are obliged to wait and a flood of excuses is offered, 361 362 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION this is felt as an enhancement of the ego-con- sciousness. This tardiness is well fitted to form a substitute for the fear of decisions. The social fitness is greatly menaced and professional duties as well as relations with friends and loved ones are soon eliminated. Admonitions are entirely fruitless, because the obstinate attitude is only confirmed by them. © The neurotic is able to mas- ter the situation by his eternal tardiness and thus place before his relatives an insoluble problem. The choice of this line of character often follows in conformity with an analogy: “as I came into the world too late among my brothers and sis- ters,” “because I did not arrive later like my younger brother or sister.” It may be seen from this how, by this neurotic arrangement—the feel- ing of inferiority and the order of birth of the brothers and sisters—a broad and permanent basis of operation for the battle for superiority is gained. Patients who always come too early show also at other times the trait of impatience. Through a feeling of inferiority they are con- stantly in fear of other new losses and reassure themselves by believing in their “unlucky star.” In cases of these neurotics, too, the elder brother is often found as an opponent with whom they are engaged, as it were, in a race, an analogical fiction, but by no manner of means the causal factor of their conduct. PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 363 Fictive rights of primogeniture become often for younger children the impetus for the enhance- ment of the egoistic idea, and in my experience second and later children show greater tendency to neuroses and psychoses, and certainly show greater ambition.’ In their neurotic conduct the figurative analogy of the story of Jacob and Esau comes to light, proving that the wish to be first is at the foundation of the situation. Their preparations and predispositions will always have as object to permit no one to have merit, to transform every relation by means of love and hate so that their superiority shall become appar- ent. The tendency to derogation exceeds all bounds. The individual of this type does not hesitate at harming himself if he can only harm others at the same time. In the formal change of the guiding line a view such as Cesar took is often arrived at, “Better first in a village than second in Rome,” better to play the leading role with the mother or father than to draw an un- known lottery ticket in marriage, etc. Hatred is frequently felt for superiors, teachers and phy- sicians. They are usually kill-joys in social gatherings, as soon as their superiority is not rec- ognized and they often break off every relation of friendship and love after a short time, if the 1 Compare Frischauf, “The Psychology of the Younger Brother,” E. Reinhardt, Munich (in preparation). 364 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION other parties to these relationships do not ac- knowledge themselves inferior. Very often their conduct is brusque and inimical from the start, because they are already at strife before the other person suspects it. They cannot endure to have any one stand or walk before them, and avoid every school examination, because the superiority of the person conducting the examination is un- endurable to them. That all these phenomena may finally be directed against the family en- vironment, and take the form of the view that the family must care for the patient is a further step towards the proof of the significance and importance of the egoistic idea for the patient. At times they operate with their neuroses as oth- ers carry on fortune hunting. Frequently the wish to be first, with the wife, is hidden in the neurotic efforts of a male patient and he hunts through her previous life with jeal- ousy and suspicion and constantly believes him- self deceived, or he eagerly keeps watch lest his wife should prefer another, the fear of the wife as the expression of the feeling of incomplete man- liness. ‘The neurotic only wants certainty in re- gard to this point and even goes so far as to put the wife to all sorts of tests. In the burning jeal- ousy which from this point on possesses the neu- rotic the expedients by which the wife is degraded follow of themselves and the egoistic feeling of PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 365 the jealous neurotie is thereby so greatly ele- vated that he is often not in a condition to sepa- rate from the justly or unjustly accused person. This latter fact which is often met with is wholly dependent on the masculine guiding idea of the patient. He cannot endure the thought that one could abandon him and reconstructs the facts in such a way that he is hindered, by love, by pity, by fear of misfortune which might come to wife or children from taking the final step. Perhaps the striving to be first, to be master of all, is constructed on a feeling of inferiority based with justification or without it on smallness of stature or of the genital organs. In the de- veloped neurosis the patient through the arrange- ment of a neurotic symptom fails at a distance from the opportunity in which he was to have given proof. Asa frequent symptom of this sort I was able to observe compulsory blushing. In a less marked degree the tendency to be first is a universal human characteristic and con- comitant therewith is regularly found an incli- nation to conflict in all human beings. The competitive race begins even in earliest childhood and creates its psychic organs and reassuring traits of character. 'Thus one often finds in chil- dren the trait of character that they wish to be the first to eat or drink or that they like to run ahead in order to reach a place before others. 366 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Not rarely at five years of age they carry on the play of trying to outrun every wagon and many child’s games owe their origin to the idea of com- petitive races. Many persons preserve this in- clination throughout their entire life in the form of an unconscious gesture, always wish to walk at the head in a company or hasten their steps when any one attempts to pass them on the street. In a transferred sense this tendency makes itself noticeable by the fact that those who possess it are given to hero-worship whereby the more profound sense comes to light of being him- self, also Heros, Achilles, Alexander, Hannibal, Cesar, Napoleon or Archimedes, and thus be- traying at the same time the guiding fiction and the original feeling of inferiority. The likeness to God also reveals itself as an active fiction and is manifested at times in fairy tales, in phantasy, and in the psychoses. We have emphasized that in this state of the predispositions and traits of character all bonds of friendship and love are threatened and when the stronger uncertainty requires it, forces the patient into doubt, makes him represent scarecrows or ideal forms by means of which he secures himself permanently from reality. A caricature of Cesar, he now seeks his mother, the small city, the lower relations, wanders at times restlessly from one place of residence to another as if the external relations PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 367 were the cause of his dissatisfaction. In this developed neurosis the sexual appetite is fre- quently directed to children, persons of low sta- tion, maids; homosexuality, perverse inclinations or inclinations to masturbation are constructed and adhered to because the patient hopes thus more easily to master the situation. For the fear of a woman hinders a natural sexual relation to such an extent that the neurotic in order to avoid the defeat of which he stands in fear, arrives at the expedient of ejaculatio precow, of pollutions, and of impotence. The circumstances are similar in neurotic women of this type, in whom frequently rivalry in society with friends in the large city, with sis- ters, with a daughter and a daughter-in-law is secretly brewing, forces to neurotic securities and this causes illness. In male neurotics the social position leads to the development of a neu- rosis aS soon as precedence in society, in science or in amusement is called into question and con- tested. Where the feeling of inferiority of the younger child forms the fictitious guiding ideal according to the pattern of the first born or the earliest born the most varied real and apparent advantages incite the desire and envy of the younger child. Nearly always teachers will notice traits such as envy of the size of the older brother, of his growth 368 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of hair, of the size of his genital organs. That fictitious values are thereto given I was able to infer from the psychotherapeutic treatment of two brothers, of whom each had envied the other in childhood on account of the development of the genital organs. In the same manner the real preference of the elder brother or such as arises naturally from the situation becomes the point of attack. The fact that he is taken to the theater and on journeys, that he has more experience in the sexual problem, is sexually active, that he is preferred by girls and by the servants may fill the younger child, where there is a feeling of in- feriority, with the most profound bitterness. For this melancholy, at times a hopeless emo- tional condition, arose at a very early age in our patient and attained an incredible degree. At times there seems no prospect of victory in the competition. His manly tendency turns around toward the pseudomasochistic side* and seeks now to attain the manly goal by emphasizing the feelings of sickness and weakness, by yielding and submitting to an extreme degree in the hope of thus winning the protection of parents and those with more strength and to gain in this man- ner the desired security in life. I have seen cases 2 According to our conception, every perversion and inversion is a simile, a symbol. For pseudomasochism see “The Psychic Treatment of Trigeminal Neuralgia,” 1. c. PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 369 where protracted catarrh in childhood (Czerny’s exudative diathesis) was sustained by a combina- tion of the clearing of the throat and panting and led to sneezing fits and asthma (see Striimpell’s Asthma-theory) and in connection with which at the same time fictions of pregnancy and cas- tration and exaggerated anal sensitiveness ef- fected a homosexual factor which was to be un- derstood symbolically. In one of these cases the fictitious feminine presentation went so far that the patient came to identify himself with his younger sister by a change of form of the guiding line. And as the mother showed a noticeable in- clination always to be late, he took this fact and the wish that he had been born later in place of his younger sister as a guiding motive always to arrive late wherever he went, even when he came to me for treatment, a phenomenon which did not vanish when it was revealed, but only after a cure had been effected. In these feminine presenta- tions the masculine protest is striven after by a circuitous route, by following the feminine guid- ing line and is regularly accompanied by day dreams, sensitiveness, disputatiousness, discon- tent, and is also as a rule forced into side paths by fear of tests, of decisions, of the sexual part- ner, so that perverse tendencies, onanism and pollutions are frequently found. ‘The initial phenomena of inferiority of organs may disap- 370 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION pear or only remain as a trace. Smallness and anomalies of the exterior genital organs may sometimes be discovered, but as a rule only re- veal themselves psychically in the fear of not being able to dominate the sexual partner. This emotional condition often leads to jealousy, tend- ency to torment and sadistic inclinations, by which it is sought to establish the proof of po- tency and of being loved. Often the pride of the patient is so great that he is himself not conscious of his jealousy. Ac- cording to our experience the solution of this psychic constellation is that the masculine pro- test in addition to other effects has also the effect of repressing jealousy in order to prevent a dimi- nution of personal worth. The consequence of this repression is not great, at most that the patient finds himself in ambiguous situations. Generally he acts as if he were jealous and often so plainly that every one else except the pa- tient knows it. At times, however, the jealousy is masked by depression, headache, refuge in soli- tude, ete. I will give still another dream of a patient who came under my treatment because of depression and anxiety in society, because in the partial in- terpretations undertaken by the patient this dream reveals many of the points just described PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 371 of the competition of a neurotic with his older brother: “It seemed to me that I had made a bet with my brother Joseph to beat him to a certain place which was not distingushable in the dream. “T saw myself now suddenly in a little three- wheeled automobile on the road, and tried to di- rect the automobile as well as possible by means of a small apparatus similar to a key which I was only able to take between the thumb and index finger. I rode very insecurely and felt uncom- fortable. I got into by-paths on which I could go no farther. The people whom I met were as- tonished and laughed. I was forced to take the auto on my back and turn back to the road. There I rode farther in the same manner. “Suddenly I saw myself with my three-wheeled vehicle in the room of an inn which was well known to me and was situated on a mountain near my native place. I now shoved my automo- bile into a corner and troubled myself no more about it. My brother had arrived before me at the same inn and alongside there was sitting a well-known family who were deeply in debt, con- sisting of Mr. and Mrs. M and their two daughters. My brother and I paid no attention to them. Then Mr. M. came to our table, 372 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION spoke with us, and finally we went to the table of the family which, however, was unpleasant to me. “The thought of a bet came up in the course of a conversation with my brother. He advised me not to bind myself at an early age to the flighty girl that I wished to marry and told me from his own experiences what ill results this can have to a man striving for success. I comprehended this and promised to act according to his advice. He took little stock in such promises. That incited me toabet. In early years before I knew what lay buried in the depths of his nature he seemed to be a model to me and I strove to become like him in character, mode of thought, and bearing. Now I see, that I must not pattern after him in many things, if I do not wish to follow in his foot- steps. “Tt is easier to reach one’s destination with an automobile than on foot. This auto, however, obviously represented the wife, to whom I had tied myself. A three-wheeled auto is less per- fect than a four-wheeled one, the former lacks something. Thus it is with a woman. Man is perfect. For that reason the antithesis, the small handle. In my earliest youth I was constantly seeking after something in girls. There was something I could not understand about them. Frequently we were led to go under a bridge and PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 373 yet we did not know what we expected to see through the cracks above. At that time—I was perhaps five years old—I had not the slightest idea of sexual procedures (‘uncertainty’) and had also come upon no sexual aberration. I can, however, say that even at that time something drew me to girls, ‘the small handle on the auto’ indicated at the same time that I possessed a too small penis or none at all, for which reason the girl must be superior to me. “I came into by-paths with my auto, that is, through the woman, through which I could not pass and which brought me no nearer to the goal which I wished to attain, that is, no nearer to the summit of my efforts. “T took the auto on my back—the woman was thus more than ever above me. “The inn in which I finally found myself with my brother stood on the top of a mountain, this signified my burning desire for success in life, as I had expected it of my brother. “That I met with a family which was deeply in debt indicates that I had often had exaggerated thoughts concerning the cost of a wife to her hus- band and that the wife is too often the cause of running into debt. “It is clear to me also that trains of thought on masturbation (by-paths, being in debt) run through the dream, as well as the false connec- 874 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tion of masturbation and the stunting of the geni- tals. The latter I ascribe to my uncertainty in regard to my bride. Without knowing it I hit upon all sorts of expedients for getting rid of her (in the corner). My condition of depression serves the same purpose, to be liberated from my wife, to prove my superiority in life.” In our physiognomic of the soul we under- stand the theory of character to be this, we have already frequently spoken of those obvious and deep-seated wants which seek to support and maximate the ego-consciousness as an obtrusive proof of manliness, as if there were a constant fear of becoming “de-classed,” of the revelation of a feminine role. ‘Thus the exaggerated mod- esty of many neurotics, who can visit no public toilet, who suffer from inhibition of the flow of urine in the presence of others, who withdraw from female society on account of blushing or anxiety and palpitation of the heart, reveals to us the strained manly ambition, which supports itself against the original feeling of inferiority. The masculine protest of these patients, insecure to the core, forces them to this arrangement whose boundaries pass over into those of bash- fulness and awkwardness: or there is a concord- ance of these and other traits which may on oc- casion supplant each other. Often in neurotic persons of both sexes one finds an inability to go PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 375 to the toilet in cases of great necessity before others. The greater modesty of women, espe- cially of neurotic women, in all relations of life originates from the fear which is implanted in them from earliest childhood that attention might be directed to their sex. I have often con- vinced myself that the performances of girls and women suffer considerably from this more or less unconscious impression, indeed that the progress in the mental development—just as is the case in male patients, who feel unmanly—the formation of social and professional relations and relations of love are immediately checked as soon as the patient comes into a “feminine” or subordinate role or presupposes this expectation in others. This fact is in no manner affected when ex- pressed or repressed sexual stimuli come to light as the apparent source of the checks of aggres- sion. They are similarly arranged, have the pur- pose of enhancing the fear of the partner and of permitting the retreat decided upon in the plan of life to be entered upon with certainty, are therefore also acts of foresight. The neurotic had already in childhood laid the foundation of this foresight and in it is reflected the feeling of shame as the guiding line of reassuring modesty and the prudery of civilization. The previous history of the patient reveals the exaggerated modesty and this is true at times of those who in 376 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION other respects show a boyish nature, and the anx- iety of nervous children on being exposed may be observed in their conduct. ‘They exclude every one from the room and will lock the doors when they are going to undress. "This conduct is also often observed in boys who have grown up among girls. ‘The masculine protest of the latter is ex- pressed in these cases in the derogation of the boy, either purposely or unthinkingly until he goes so far as to hide his sex. For the develop- ment of the neuroses this expedient of cowardice has an unfavorable significance. It is equal to later castration thoughts and wishes of the neu- — rotic, wishes to be a woman, as soon as the fear of the wife seems actual, or as soon as he wishes to escape a decision. And it arises nevertheless originally from the compulsion of an exaggerated masculine protest, which is easily perceptible from the accompanying, often continuing traits of character, such as tyranny, burning ambition, the desire to have everything, to be first every- where; from the emotional predispositions to rage and anger and finally from the tendency to derogate and to too great foresight. If therefore neurotic modesty should be con- sidered equal to the secret attempt to play the man, this “consciousness of role” (Groos) is more clearly manifested in the apparently antithetical trait of character of shamelessness. In reality PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 877 this latter line proves to be a reénforcement and continuation of the former, as an obtrusive re- minder to the environment that one is a man. The guiding idea, which causes the predisposition to or habit of exhibitionistic gestures, hence often insulting or tactless obtrusion in respect to the environment betrays in detail the strong mascu- line factor. ‘Thus it is when in nervous boys and men sexual exhibitionism breaks through or is expressed habitually in certain faults of toilette. In all similar cases one finds the belief in the _ power of the phallus constructed as in the an- tique religious cults as consciousness of power. Narcissistic traits are also regularly intermin- gled so that in these cases the attitude of con- quest, accompanied by coquetry, by the mability to believe in a refusal, attracts the attention. In shameless girls the trait is even more noticeable because it is unusual. In conversation, in dress, in behavior, at times only in small things, at times obscurely or in coprology they demonstrate their inability to adapt themselves to or to satisfy themselves with their feminine role. The basis of operation for both sexes is manifested then in such a way that each demands from the other recognition or an extreme submission. In the analysis of such neurotic girls, at times only in their dreams and symptoms is observed the child- ish expectation of a metamorphosis into a male 378 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION and in other cases always as an attempted sub- stitute for the will to power, the wish to be above. If two persons of this sort meet, the result is not rarely that the reénforced masculine guiding line of the one affects the other preliminarily as a sort of miracle, a talisman, because in her guiding ideal the belief in the miraculousness and wonder working power of manliness is also contained. Thus there is often for both what seems a chance fulfilling of destiny, but which is really brought about by the power of their idea of personality. One often finds immodest conduct in neurotic girls as an anticipation of their fictitious expec- tation; they conduct themselves as if they were really a boy or a man, expose themselves naked or live out in neurotic symptoms, dreams and phantasies their masculine reincarnation. Often in such patients the attempt is observed to ascribe the miraculous power of the phallus by means of an alteration of form of the fiction to other parts of the body, for example to the hands, feet, breasts, which thus altered into male members are taken into especial favor as fetiches and enjoy a Narcissus-form worship, as often also the genital organs or the whole body. This fetichism is nearly always transferred to the articles of cloth- ing and constitutes a large part of the charm of fashion, from which we therefore must assume that this, like the fetichism itself, must be re- PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 379 garded as a substitute of manliness with its larger sphere of usefulness, which has been lost but which is always to be sought. Like immodesty the deep-seated neurotic infi- delity of many sick patients is an imitation of the exaggerated, apperceived masculine image. It indicates to us one of the ways which the mas- culine goal is forced to take. It is, like many of the neurotic traits of character, often only ideal, a maker of humor or of the view of life (Marezi- nowsky) or extends only to the boundary where the reality of the female role begins. Much oftener the virtue of fidelity is chosen as the means of security in the fear of the man. Phan- tasies of infidelity, at times to the degree of hal- lucinations or dreams, often result where there is real or imagined subjection exacted by the hus- band. Phantasies of prostitution indicate in these cases the neurotic, exaggerated perspective concerning the power of the sexual appetite and serve the same purpose of gaining security. In general in patients who are prone to speak of their sexuality the suspicion is justified that they paint their bugbear with great exaggeration. The reality is always in their favor. In girls often the holy conviction of their infidelity occu- pies the foreground entirely. It may be there- from inferred that for them even a single man would be too much and that they wish to protect 380 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION themselves from love and especially from mar- riage: “for where does my passion drive me?” The real infidelity of many persons, too, both men and women, is the result of the fear of the partner of whose superiority they are afraid. The understanding of the accompanying symp- toms, fear of solitude, fear of places, fear of so- ciety, etc., unsocial’conduct, fixation of faults of childhood and derogation of the opposite sex are other signs by which the masculine purpose of these traits of character is revealed. Often de- spised love gives rise to a feeling of a reduction of the egoistic sense to such a degree that hate, indifference or infidelity are the forms which the masculine protest assumes. In this place a few educational observations may be added, which I was in a position to make in regard to neurotics suffering from Jealousy. They all have reference to the search for proofs of the influence of the individual over the part- ner and every situation which is even half-way fitted for this purpose is made use of. The in- satiableness with which the neurotic tests his part- ner is an indication of the want of self-confidence, of his lack of self-esteem, of his uncertainty so that it is easy to be seen how his Jealous efforts serve to bring him more into notice, to attract more attention to himself and thus to secure his self-esteem. The old feeling of being disre- PUNCTUALITY, THE WILL TO BE FIRST 381 garded and neglected is seen to be revived upon the slightest occasion together with the childish attitude of wishing to have everything, to obtain a proof of superiority from the partner. A glance, a word in company, an acknowledgment of a favor, a show of sympathy for a picture, for an author, for a relative, even a protective atti- tude towards servants may be taken as the cause of the operation. In severe cases the impression is distinctly given that the jealous individual cannot rest because he has no confidence in peace- ful happiness on account of his misfortune. Now the neurosis develops in which the effort is made to bend the partner by an arrangement of attacks, to arouse the sympathy of the partner, or the attack is intended as a punishment. Headaches, weeping fits, conditions of weakness, paralysis, attacks of anxiety and depression, si- lence, etc., have the same value as abandoment to alcoholism, masturbation, perversion and lewd- ness. ‘The lines of distrust and doubt—often about the legitimacy of the children—become more pronounced, outbreaks of wrath and scold- ing, mistrust of the entire opposite sex are regu- lar phenomena and reveal the other side of jeal- ousy as a preparation for the derogation of the other. Often pride prevents consciousness of jealousy; the conduct is the same. The situa- tion is not rarely made worse by the circumstance 382 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION that the other party meets the helplessness of the jealous person with an unconscious satisfaction, thereby giving foundation to his feeling of su- periority and does not therefore find the right tone, the proper attitude to hold the jealousy at least within limits. Jealousy of children often leads to grave faults of education. The belief in miracles as a threat to the sexual organs through births or aging nearly always causes jealous excitement to be more strongly mani- fested in neurotically disposed persons. CHAPTER VIII FEAR OF THE PARTNER; THE IDEAL IN THE NEU- ROSIS; INSOMNIA AND COMPULSION TO SLEEP; NEUROTIC COMPARISON OF MAN AND WOMAN; FORMS OF THE FEAR OF THE WIFE In this striving of the neurotic for the attain- ment of the masculine guiding goal, one never misses the fact, as has already been emphasized, that the fear of a decision resolves itself into a fear of the opposite sex, that touchstone of the individual’s own power, the fulfiller of the guid- ing idea. One finds in the family life of boys and girls, in their play and phantasy, in their assortment of experiences of all kinds, in their day dreams and poems and in their living out of actual experiences preparations for the strug- gle for supremacy so early, with such abundance and such unity of purpose that in arriving at puberty secure determinants for love and mar- riage already exist and by these alone the choice and direction of their eroticism is defined within narrow limits. Let us consider now of what na- ture these determinants of love objects may be in neurotics. Among these should be mentioned 383 384 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tyranny, hypersensitiveness, ambition, discon- tent and all the principal neurotic character- traits already described, the security-giving de- vices of mistrust, caution, jealousy and deroga- tory tendency which is everywhere seeking faults, the neurotic digressions and subterfuges which are at first directed against members of their own family, and which are intended, with this as a basis, to prove their own superiority or to facilitate the escape of the superiority of others. The neurotic device has its part in this and demands for love some quality which is dif- ficult of attainment or entirely out of reach, or that the sexual partner “shall supply that which is lacking” (Plato and many modern sexolo- gists), which is paramount to saying that the partner must fulfill or represent the “ego-ideal” which the other party to the contract has con- structed as a compensation. The normal child, too, expects from his future, and especially from the one chosen in love the fulfillment of his ideals. But in due course of time, after he has permitted himself to be driven by his “ideal” as a means to an end he is able to detach himself from it, de- scend to reality and reckon with the demands of reality. Not so with the neurotic. He is un- able to change his neurotic perspectives through his own power, he cannot dispense with his prin- ciples which have by now become fixed and rigid, FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 385 he has no longer control over his traits of char- acter. Chained to his “idea” he brings his old, prejudices into his love-relations and behaves as though they ought to procure for him not reality but the security of his “idea,” the triumph of his strained masculine protest. And soon disillusion makes its appearance. For it is introduced by the neurotic himself as a protective measure, as a security against the prospective derogatory ef- fect of his fictive finale. ‘The disillusionment furnishes the adequate basis for a continuance of the strife against the partner, for a recognition of every opportunity for the degradation of the latter. For these were, after all, the most im- mediate goals of the old preparatory training. Unconsciously, the fear of the sexual partner hovers in the soul of the growing neurotic as though he anticipated in the approach of that event the end of his masculine fiction and with it the annihilation of his ego-consciousness, of his guiding star, of his security in the chaos of life. He creates for himself ideals in order to detract from reality. He screws his ego-consciousness, often in a narcissistic manner, as high as pos- sible in order to make every partner appear small by contrast. He surrounds himself with a wall of the most crass egotism in order to furnish the proof of his unfitness to himself and others. He arranges in a neurotic manner doubt, uncer- 386 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tainty, awkwardness, adheres to old faults of childhood and constructs new deficiencies in or- der to keep himself at a distance. He invents weaknesses, submissiveness, masochistic impulses in order to alarm himself. The power of the sex instinct becomes for him an “overvalued idea” (Wernicke), because he feels its need and apper- ceives his sexual desire as the superiority of the opposite sex. The neurotic is incapable of love, not because he has repressed his sexuality, but because his rigid predispositions lie in the direc- tion of his fiction, in the line towards power. The neurotic caricatures of Don Juan and Mes- salina are, notwithstanding their sexuality, neu- rotic. ‘Those who become inverts and perverts have already escaped the threatening cliffs and seek henceforth to make a virtue of necessity. And where thoughts of incest apparently effect a check on the erotic life, it can be shown that to the neurotic, who constantly fears a decision, this represents a secure refuge, that is, the secure way to the mother or father clothed in a sexual simile. The flight from the partner, especially the flight from the wife, succeeds better in those neu- rotics who have early succeeded in finding their way to a profession or who have turned to an artistic vocation. It is true that should they be threatened with a feminine röle, with defeat, the FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 387 fear of a decision, of their future, of life, of death may overtake them in the midst of their labors. Frequently, however, some sort of tranquilizing occupation furnishes the neurotics the means se- curing his ego-consciousness, or his talents, in ef- fecting a formal change in his fiction, furnish him the opportunity to contest for the palm of mas- culinity in art. It is then not rare that the mo- tive and content of his artistic creations reflect that which has driven him into the security-giv- ing sphere of art, namely, the power of woman and his fear of the wife. The wonderfully effective charm which many myths, many creations of art and philosophy pos- sess for us, is in line with this; the fault of the woman, the banal “cherchez la femme,” in all evils. ‘The thought is expressed in a bizarre manner by Baudelaire, “I can form no idea of a beautiful woman without at the same imagining misfortune connected with her;” mythically and sublimely, in the story of Eve, traces of which have never been missing from poetry. “The Iliad” is built upon this foundation, as well as the “Thousand and One Nights,” and if one exam- ines more closely, every great and small artistic creation. What is its leading thought? Noth- ing less than to win a standpoint in the uncertain- ties of life, in the conflict with love, in the fear of woman. 388 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Woman as a sphynx, as a demon, as a vam- pire, as a witch, as a man-murdering horror, as benefactress, in all these pictures is reflected the sexual impulse which has become over-excited by the masculine protest and which have their coun- terpart in the caricature of woman, in the obscene outpourings of gall, in anecdotes and degrading comparisons. Inthe same manner the neurotic, philistine male-consciousness and the desire for superiority forces to those firm convictions which would deny woman equal rights, sometimes even the right to existence. Another turn which neurotic trains of thought may take in seeking security from woman leads as a natural consequence away from reality and life. In line with this Schopenhauer was led to a denial of life, the present, all time. (The prepa- rations for this attitude originated in his un- friendly attitude towards his mother.) Many patients flee in a somewhat less consistent and methodical manner in their fear of woman, but they constantly hanker after the fulfillment of their fiction in phantasies and dreams which they weave about the future. Every neurotic shows this trait, wishes to illuminate and investigate the future in order to secure himself in good time. His cautious and anxious expectation gives the fundamental tone to future events, gray, somber, full of danger. For they must FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 389 seem thus to him in order to be effective as in- centives. Now he is able to keep the greatest danger in sight, draw the lines of his character- traits and predispositions to the fineness of a hair in order to secure himself adequately. Now he believes to have discovered the road to his goal, and instead of ambition, longing after victory and triumph, honor, elevation, power and ad- miration, he allows his symptoms to become ef- fective. He experiences under the compulsion of his guiding principle, as a prophetic gift, what sober individuals experience through their fore- sight and estimation of reality. But with neu- rotie strivings of “anticipatory thinking,” atten- tion approaches problems and arranges them in accordance with the neurotic’s antithetical mode of apperception, which values a defeat as death, as inferiority, as effeminacy, and victory as im- mortality, higher values, masculine triumph, while the hundreds of other possibilities of life are annihilated by withdrawing them from atten- tion. In the same manner the way is entered upon to the anticipation of future triumph and terror as well as an hallucinatory reinforcement for the sake* of security. ‘The psychoses show this trend in a pure manner, melancholia and mania as anticipations of the pure antithesis “above-beneath,” dementia preecox, paranoia and cyclothyemia as a mixture. 390 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The recognition and construction of traits of character now follow essentially in strict con- formity with the goal-idea. The accentuation of the traits of greed and economy is intended to prevent the abjectness of poverty, pedantry, to assure against difficulties, ethical traits of char- acter, against shame, and all of these against relations of love and marriage, against a subjec- tion to the partner, and at the same time furnish the possibility of an attack upon the partner, an ever ready excuse for his own depreciation of others. The device of the “principle of exclu- sion,” is held in the highest esteem, becomes a re- ligious or proverbial principle of life, of the high- est wisdom. ‘The uncertainties of our social sys- tem, ethical points of view and the difficulties at- tendant upon the rearing of children, furnish a welcome excuse for the construction of the boundaries of a natural and reasonable attitude towards life as narrowly as possible, while the ob- scurity and insolubility of the problems of hered- ity are distorted in a similar manner in order to justify an unwedded life. Many take refuge in religion, surrender their present life, excite their moral and ascetic instincts in order to become partakers in the happiness, in the triumph in the “beyond.” An asexual role is arranged and everything becomes a means for the attainment of the heightened ego-consciousness which is ren- FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 391 dered possible by the neurotic perspective of life and its experiences. At times security is at- tained through a want of satisfaction in sexual relations, through a heightening of the disillu- sionment to a marked degree, a device to which the patient plainly lends his assistance. It is only another phase of the fear of the partner when the patient brings his predisposi- tions into play against the psychotherapeutist. The neurotic female patient combats the man in the physician at the same time, and seeks to es- cape his masculine influence which she often ap- perceives as most terrifying, looking at it as she does from a sexual point of view. The male neurotic secretly seeks to undermine the influence of the psychotherapeutist, which influence he ap- perceives as sexual superiority, and both conduct themselves during the course of the treatment as they had always conducted themselves whenever compelled to take an active part in life, or when- ever confronted by a decision. At times patients are found whose flight from woman is into the past. It is then that their in- terest for antiquities, heraldry, dead languages, etc., becomes very acute, and they often become quite skillful in this direction. This skill is ab- sent in those patients who instead turn their at- tention to grave-yards, death-notices and fu- nerals. 392 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION I have already mentioned that the “motive of the fear of woman,” is the strongest incentive to art and phantasy. Permit me to quote an ab- stract from Grillparzer’s autobiography, which illuminates much of our thesis. “Like every well-made man I felt myself at- tracted by the beautiful half of mankind. I was, however, far too little satisfied with myself to be- lieve myself capable of making deep impressions in a short time. Could it have been the vague conception of the poet or of poetry, or was it the reserve of my nature, which when it does not repel, attracts, because of the spirit of contradic- tion? I would find myself deeply entangled while I still believed myself to be only at the first advances. ‘This promised both pleasure and pain near at hand, though mostly the latter, be- cause my real efforts had always been to preserve myself in that tranquil state which would not ren- der difficult, or even entirely prevent the ap- proach of my real goddess, art.” When both, artist and neurotic, regard the at- traction of woman as menacing, as dangerous, as a compulsion on account of the uncertainty of their triumph, when both regard amorous emo- tions as a subjection, it is only in conformity with the fundamental disposition that animates both. By which I do not at all intend to deny the reali- ties of these relations. An examination of love, FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 393 be it ever so sober, reveals a mutual adaptation, a subjection of our will. To put forth, however, special efforts to unearth these, to think of them as something significant and to renounce, for this reason, the pleasurable yielding thereto, reveals unequivocally an unconquerable craving for self- assertion on the part of the person in question, which we have frequently shown to be the neu- rotic’s overcompensation for his neurotic feeling of inferiority. The guiding goal forbids the for- mation of fitting predispositions, or presents them only in the form of an unmeasurable maso- chistic exaggeration, which is in turn itself used as a protective measure. At times this craving for self-assertion seeks other channels as soon as it feels its own libidi- nous tension as the superior power of the partner. Wishes and efforts then emerge to escape this power through satiety, through orgies. Even castration wishes and intents, and similarly ascetic and repentant practices make their ap- pearance, such as flagellation, etc., incited by the unconquerable craving for security, all in order to win peace from the demon, love. Active, con- stantly recurring perversions, especially maso- chistic manifestations, can be explained in no other way. ‘They are an expression of the neces- sity of convincing one’s-self in detail of the sin- ister strength of the partner, in order to be able 394 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION to construct out of this conviction of the strength of the other and of one’s own weakness an admon- ishing bugbear. The real result of this, the neu- rotic’s rectification of boundaries, is a strong deviation from the normal path, which path he fears most of all. The self-degradation thus ar- ranged now furnishes a stronger stimulus for the masculine protest and enhances it in line with the goal-idea. “It must be night, where Friedland’s stars shine.” Now, after these detours, his ef- forts are again directed along the paths of his neurotic goal, reveal sadistic admixtures and a strong purification fanaticism in case facts or fancies of a coprophilic nature play a role. Or the patient contends himself to create an appear- ance of justification for his neurotic detours by means of a struggle against the judgment of others, against the law, or often by having re- course to an unheard of logic, and in this way seeks again to prove his superiority. Thus it is in the arguments of inverts who in the same manner owe their neurotic deviation from nor- mality to their fear of the opposite sex. The prestige which it is sought to maintain, the masculine protest is always shoved into the fore- ground, until the enlightening analysis arrives at that point where in the memories of man the neu- rotically grouped thoughts come to light, i. e., that it is his inferiority, his underdeveloped geni- FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 395 talia which will hinder him from obtaining vic- tory over woman; in the memories of female pa- tients this place is occupied by the feeling of in- feriority, by the neurotic terror of the feminine role. Along with these rediscovered trains of thought, which have their origin in the earliest years of childhood, one detects megalomanic ideas often in the shape of narcissism and exhibi- tionism. They are to be readily understood as preparatory attempts at compensation for the feeling of inferiority, such as are produced by the compulsion of the guiding fiction, as secondary neurotic formations which say, “I want to be a complete man.” The change of formula which this thought experiences in girls into the ideal, “I will excel all women” has already been men- tioned. I am able to present some of these relation- ships in the case of the following female patient. A 19-year-old girl came under my care for de- pression, suicidal ideas, insomnia and incapacity for work. She had become an artist in order to have a profession. With the exception of indica- tions of hereditary tuberculosis and myopia there were no discoverable bodily symptoms. The rel- atives described her as formerly an obstinate child who left home because she wished to be self- supporting. Her mother and her only older brother died of tuberculosis. 396 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The commencement of the treatment was very difficult because the patient sat before me show- ing great indifference and answered none of my questions. Only at times did she express herself with a negative gesture, or answered with, “No.” I began to work cautiously, I explained to her that her indifference is identical with her general derogatory tendency, the same being true of her continued silence in my presence, her negativism, her “No,” all of which are part of this derogatory tendency now directed against me. I then en- deavor to show her that her conduct indicates her discontent with her feminine role against which she seeks to secure herself in this manner. She answers me constantly with, “No,” which I disre- gard as something to be expected and which is directed against me, the male, and proceed. Her depression began during her sojourn at a bathing resort. I now maintain with certainty that something must have happened there which had released this “No,” that is to say, something which had brusquely brought to her attention her feminine role. ‘Thereupon she related that more than a year ago she had been at another resort where she made the acquaintance of a young man, who was agreeable to her, and that tender- ness and kisses had followed. One evening the young man had fallen upon her as though he were insane and tried to approach her in an indecent FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 397 manner. Whereupon she immediately left the place. I call her attention to the fact that she tore herself away at the moment when the young man wished definitely to force her by his be- havior into a feminine role and added the remark that she must have undergone a similar experi- ence during the present summer. She there- upon related to me that a guest at the resort whose acquaintance she had made a short time previously, had conducted himself towards her in the same manner as the afore mentioned young man. She left the place just as she had done the previous year. The “return of the identical’ (Nietzsche) Jeads to the belief that the patient must have had her part in the play since both times she helped herself out of the situation by a neurotic arrange- ment so as to break off at the same moment. In this connection the patient furnished valuable support in the statement that the kisses ex- changed had not irritated her. I showed her that she acquiesced as long as the feminine role did not enter the question. I explained to her that her initial courage was the masculine idea of con- quest in harmony with her masculine aim. At this stage her insomnia vanished. She communi- cated this remarkable improvement in her condi- tion with the detracting remark, that now she would like to sleep day and night. Those who, 398 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION like myself, have learned to recognize the tense ageressiveness of patients during the progress of a psychotherapeutic course of treatment, an ageressiveness which is directed against all su- periors, in this instance against the masculine physician, and who have thus sharpened their perception for the manner in which neurotics ex- press themselves, will not misunderstand the ex- pression of our patient. The expression shows distinctly that she has detected the result of the treatment, but that she takes the trouble to de- tract with a light touch from this result and hence from me. She insinuatingly calls my attention to the fact that one evil has only been replaced by another. More closely questioned the patient stated that during her four weeks of insomnia she had con- stantly thought during her wakeful nights how worthless life was. We understand that she did not merely think of it, but had worked at it. Now when the male enemy in the form of the physician, whom she subjects to the same valua- tion as man generally, confronts her and lays bare her craving for security and thus under- mines her effort to gain security by means of her wakefulness, she tries, when forced to sleep, to belittle him by asserting a superfluity of sleep. Neurotic insomnia is a symbolic attempt to es- cape from the defenselessness of sleep and to FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 399 keep in mind the securities against being under- neath. The dream is another form of this ef- fort, equal to a compromise, inasmuch as it covers as in sleep, the defenselessness and consequent feeling of inferiority by the masculine protest. The dream, according to my observation, always drives towards security and has therefore the function of forethought. That this is accom- plished through the medium of facts from ex- perience is easily comprehensible, and thus it is that in the dream content and dream thoughts the defeats which one has experienced come to light, a circumstance which has led Freud to the formation of his heuristically valuable but other- wise imperfect and one-sided theory of dreams. After a prolonged hesitation and after having her attention called to the negative significance of her hesitation, the patient brought a few days later the following dream: “I was in front of the ‘Steinhoff’ (Vienna's great insane asylum). I hurry past, as I see a dark form within.” In order to avoid all artificial influencing of the patient, especially in the interpretation of the dream, I avoid all explanations of my dream theory and only refer to the fact that the dream rouses trains of thoughts which betray again how the patient tries to secure herself against sleep which is felt by her to be a defenseless condition, and which recalls to her her defenselessness in re- 400 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION gards to life. In cases such as the one just given, who wish above all to discuss the fear of the fem- inine role, I indicate that sleep may be felt as a feminine situation. The figure of speech, “lying in the arms of Morpheus,” the frequent sensation of being par- alyzed, of being crushed, the analysis of night- mares, etc., and the feminine trends which I am able to discover in all dreams, trends out of which the dream raises itself to the masculine protest, and where furthermore the advent of sleep- banishing consciousness awakens an individual thought-association suggesting a feminine situa- tion, prove with certainty the fact that every dream must reveal a progression from femininity to masculinity. ‘That not every dream is of such a nature as to convince the beginner of the cor- rectness of my conception, I have already em- phasized. This arises from the fact that in a sketch, and we must regard the dream as such, the sense and meaning of mere traces of ideas must be ferreted out and completed, a thing which is never difficult for the experienced. I teach the patient that he must regard the dream as he would the sketch of a painting, the details of which he is obliged to fill in according to his impressions. After this explanation the intelligent patient proceeded unassisted. “Steinhoff means insane. FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 401 This point indicates that I am on the verge of insanity. But I hasten away. Then what you always tell me occurs to me, I am running away from my feminine röle. Hence becoming insane and the feminine role are the same thing.” I now lead her on to endeavor to force a meaning into the dream, and for this purpose make use of the patient’s spirit of rivalry which is known to me, in order to excite her zeal when difficulties present themselves by saying, “But one certainly ought to be able to understand something under that idea.” Patient: “Perhaps that it would be insane to play a feminine role?’ I: “That would be an answer to a question. What then must the question have been?” Patient: “You told me yesterday, I should not be afraid of my feminine röle.” I: “Therefore an answer directed against me, in line with our conversations, a conflict against the man. And the black figure?” Patient: “Perhaps death?’ I: “Try now to fit death into the situation.” This was difficult for the patient, although it is wholly clear that she has taken the fear of death as a figure for her flight from the feminine role, in order to present it in a sufficiently strong man- ner. The connection of sexuality and death is often spoken of in philosophy and poetry. ‘The 402 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION analysis of neurotics often indicate this connec- tion in the sense of an affect-accentuating “con- ditional proposition.” The sense of the dream is now shown to be an expedient directed against the physician, which with our knowledge of the patient’s phantasy- life should be made to read: “It would be in- sane to submit to a man,—equal to death.” But according to her estimation, she had already sub- mitted by the fact that she slept since the begin- ning of the treatment. This dream therefore re- volts against sleep, and her derogatory remark that she would now like to sleep day and night, is in line with this. Therefore the neurotic pre- dispositions of this patient against the possibility of a man winning influence over her is laid bare, and it is shown that the patient acted and dreamed as though she were conscious of her guiding purpose.’ This essential predisposition, her tendency to detract, her longing for victory over men and her neurotic craving for security, which stands men- acing in the background with the terror of death and insanity, had also caused the development of the neurosis as a strengthened security. Through it the patient is unfitted for life. The ı Richard Wagner’s genius-like intuition in the song of Erda. “My life is dreaming, my dreaming is thinking, my thinking the control of knowledge.” FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 403 neurotic apperception, which conjures up a con- nection between love, insanity and death has something of the ring of poetry. How firmly fixed this is in the thoughts of the patient is shown in her first account: the young man had fallen upon her as though he were insane. It is often learned from the anamneses of male neurotics that they had been under the influence of a strong woman, mother, teacher, sister, who therefore, instead of their feminine röle or ın ad- dition thereto, played a masculine one, were above, and to whom the environment did not deny recognition, sometimes even disapproba- tion, showing that they were really regarded as men. This circumstance also often tends to strengthen the uncertainty of the neurotically disposed child, who tries to arrive at a conviction of his manliness by understanding the sexual dif- ferences. Especially when one endeavors to gain security through knowledge a certain sex inquisitiveness forces him to constantly seek visual confirmation of his sexual superiority, a necessity of obtaining definite knowledge and full comprehension of the female organs which approaches the masculine guiding line more nearly, in proportion as it is created out of prep- arations for the future. His pathological uncertainty adheres to the neurotic as a pretext and confirmation of his 404 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION fear of woman even after he is married, so that the expression is often heard, that the feminine sexual apparatus, the condition of virginity, legitimacy of children, fatherhood, is a mystery just as a woman herself is. Along with this de- sire to obtain satisfaction through visual percep- tion of the female organs, there is at times as- sociated in neurotitally disposed children a sort of sinister feeling of danger, as though obscure thoughts arose in the mind of the boy that his future life, his victory or defeat were dependent upon the solution he has reached concerning the sexual question. It is in the nature of things, that frequently the opportunity for this sort of visual confirmation is only offered when the woman occupies a position above the boy. Even this small circumstance forms, as I have re- peatedly stated, a figurative representation of the feminine superiority in the phantasy of the neu- rotic individual who stands in fear of woman. Ganghofer and Stendhal give accounts in the his- tory of their childhood of these terrifying experi- ences which, it is thought left behind permanent traces. The terror was in itself already a secu- rity of the injured masculine prestige, and the exciting scene remained as an admonition, to be understood figuratively, of caution in regard to women. Frequently the derogatory tendency sets in at the point where the superiority of FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 405 woman assumes a threatening aspect and leads to a comparison of male and female advantages and disadvantages. The abstract and figurative rep- resentation of the inferiority of woman, in dreams, phantasies, wit and science, frequently resorts to the mode of expression of a lost mem- ber, of supernumerary cavities. One of my pa- tients who suffered from vertigo had a dream one time following an unusually stormy scene with his wife which summarily and essentially brought about a degradation of his domineering wife. “The picture of a birch trunk emerged. At one point there was a branch with a round swell- ing. There a twig had fallen off and I had the impression as though this was a female genital organ.” I have already discussed such dreams, as have others also. ‘Io me such dreams represent figur- atively the question concerning the differences of sex, which is answered after the manner of chil- dren that the girl is a boy who has been deprived of the male organ. ‘The above dream fits into the psychic situation of the dreamer, inasmuch as it reveals the thought, “I am a man who has been deprived of manliness, who is weak and ill, who is in danger of being under, of falling beneath.” Now he has the basis of operation, he beholds his prestige diminished and takes breath, for the ef- 406 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION fort again to regain power. The masculine pro- test now sets in in waking hours as tyranny, out- breaks of rage and acts of infidelity. It might be mentioned in this connection that one often hears from neurotics that in moments of personal danger or when they are threatened with defeat, they perceive a shortening or con- traction of the genitals, at times also a feeling of pain which forcibly impels them to a termination of the situation.” These phenomena most fre- quently accompany states of anxiety in high places where there is fear of falling. The short- ening of the genitals in the bath nearly always causes a reaction in the neurotic individual. He © feels out of sorts and at times experiences pres- sure in the head. I have already emphasized that homosexuality as a tendency and behavior is the result of the fear of the opposite sex. In addition it may be briefly mentioned that the over-valuation of the homosexual partner serves also to raise the neurotic invert in his own estimation. In neuroses homosexuality even when carried into practice is always found to be a symbol by means of which it is sought to place the individual’s own 2 At times this feeling of pressure extends to the abdomen, to the breast and cardiac region—or affects only these regions, at times pollutions take place as reactive symbols of the masculine goal. FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 407 superiority beyond question. This mechanism is similar to that of a religious psychosis in which the nearness of God has the significance of an elevation. One of the forms which the fear of woman is especially likely to take is syphilophobia. The train of thought of such phobists (Adler, syphilid- ophobia, |. c.) is usually the following: They fear that they will not be able to play a dominat- ing part in regard to woman because of some feel- ing of inferiority, for which they have ready all sorts of foundations, at times without conscious motivation. In this manner, following the in- creasing trend to belittle woman, they arrive at suspicious trains of thought which are to se- cure them against sexual relations. Sometimes woman is a riddle, sometimes a criminal being, always thinking of adornment and expense and sexually insatiable. The suspicions constantly arise that a girl is only hunting for support, is bent on capturing the man, is crafty and cunning and always bent on evil. These trains of thought are universal and are found at all periods of his- tory. They emerge in the most sublime and the lowest creations of art, have a place in the thoughts and efforts of the wisest, and create in man and in society a constant predisposition which develops suspicious and cautious traits, in order to always keep in touch with the enemy and 408 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION to be in good time for the defense against knavish attacks. It is an error to think that it is only the man who harbors distrust of his sexual partner. The same trait is found also in the woman, often less distinct in character, when fictions of her own strength put a check to the doubt of her own value, but flashing up most strongly, when the feeling of degradation becomes overpowering. In the disputes of pious savants of the middle ages, questions arose as to whether woman had a soul, whether she was a human being, and the general prevalence of similar thoughts is re- flected in the insane burning of witches in the cen- turies following to which government, church and the blinded populace lent a hand. This de- traction from women in hate as well as in love which recurs constantly in Christian, Jewish and Mohammedan religious usages, break out irre- sistibly in the timorous, uncertain man and so completely fills the world of thought of the neu- rotic, that the most accentuated trait of character in the neurotic psyche is found to be the tendency to detract from the sexual partner. ‘Thus the outposts which offer security to the ego-con- sciousness become established and the peculiar play of the neurotic traits of character begins. Continuous testing, feeling, attempts to subju- gate, to find fault with and to degrade the part- ner set in, always favored by the fact that at- FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 409 tention and interest is directed to a single pur- pose, to keep in touch with the enemy and to pre- vent a surprise. As long as the tendency to de- traction with its outward expressions, distrust, fear, jealousy, tyranny exists there is no hope of a cure of the neurotic. As we have seen worthy creations of art and literature which have received recognition on all sides owe their origin to this tendency. From the “Lysistrata” to the “kreu- zel writers” leads the same path as from the Gorgo Medusa to the Syphilis fad, which arose before the eyes of Lenans or Ganghofer. The guiding line which prevails in Tolstoi’s Kreuzer Sonata and which strives after the degradation of woman was perceptible even in his boyhood when he shoved his future bride out of the win- dow. An old guiding line which is revealed in the myth of the poison-girl * of antiquity, in the middle ages and in the beginning of modern times in the fear of witches, demons, vampires and sprites has undergone a change of form and has become the syphilophobia of to-day. Poggio relates of a man who had violated a girl. The girl changed into a devil and vanished with a stench. All these trains of thought returning in the same manner as they do in the dream and in the 3 Wilhelm Hertz, “The Myth of the Poison-girl.” Abh. d. bayer Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1897. 410 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION psyche of the neurotic, reveal the cautious man, doubtful of his manliness, who seeks to secure himself from real life just as much by the setting up of scarecrows as by the fear he has of this life itself, because of the veneration of an ideal. The bantering note in such an attitude toward woman is of little significance in so far as our view is concerned. It shows moreover an effort to be guilty of no exaggeration, to preserve de- corum and to save one’s self from ridicule by a spirit of wit. The case is similar to that of Gogol whose strong craving for security is perceptible in every vein of his poetry. In his “Jahrmarkt von Sorotschinsk” * he makes a character say, “Lord in heaven, why dost thou punish us poor sinners so? ‘There is already so much trouble, why didst thou also send women into the world?” In the “Dead Souls” of this great poet, who was neurotic during his entire life, suffered from compulsory masturbation and died in a mad house, he makes his hero reflect on seeing a young girl: “A superb little woman! ‘The best about her is that she seems to have just come out of a board- ing school or institute and as yet has none of those special feminine traits that disfigure the whole sex. She is still a pure child, everything about her is straight-forward and simple; she 4 From O. Kaus, “The Case of Gogol,” Munchen, Reinhardt, 1912. FEAR OF THE PARTNER, ETC. 411 speaks from her heart and laughs when she feels like it. All possibilities lie in her nature; she may become a superb creature but she may be- come a stunted being and that will probably be the result when the aunts and mammas set them- selves to educate her. They will stuff her so full of their woman’s nonsense in a year that her own father would no longer recognize her. She will acquire a pompous and affected nature, will turn and move and courtesy according to rules learned by heart, rack her brains over the questions, what to say, how much to say, and with whom to speak, and how she shall look at her cavalier, etc., she will constantly be in the greatest anxiety lest she may have spoken some superfluous word, and finally will no longer know what she ought to do and will go wandering through life, a great lie. Fie! the devil!— For the rest I would like to know, of what sort she is!” CHAPTER IX SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, CONTRITION AND ASCETICISM, FLAGELLATION, NEUROSES IN CHILDREN 3.SUICIDE AND SUICIDAL IDEAS Unxper the forms of the neurotic lines of con- duct for the purpose of securing the masculine protest, trends of self-execration, self-reproach, self-torture and suicide appear in marked accent- uation. Our astonishment loses in force as soon as we see that the whole arrangement of the neu- rosis follows the trait of self-torture, that the neu- rosis is a self-torturing expedient whose purpose it is to enhance the feeling of personal esteem. In fact, the first stirrings of the aggressive ten- dency which is directed against the individual’s own person, originate in the child from a situa- tion in which the child through disease, death, shame and all sorts of constructed deficiencies seeks to prepare pain for the parents or to keep himself in their mind. This trait already char- acterizes the neurotically disposed child who has formed expedients out of the reminiscences of the phenomena of somatic inferiority and out of their significance for the maximation of the ego-con- 412 SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 413 sciousness, for the purpose of increasing the ten- derness and interest of the parents. The devel- oped neurosis builds up these expedients and in- troduces their activity through a reinforcement of the fiction, as soon as this is demanded by the growing feeling of insecurity. It is well known how strong exacerbations take a hand in this, how the hallucinatory character, the anticipatory force of the neurotic assists in this and how the situation of the attack and the disturbances of health with the resultant dominancy over the en- vironment takes place. Paradoxical as it may seem at first glance the neurotic is only at peace when he has an attack behind him. Janet has already called attention to this fact; I can only add as the basis for it that it is because he has then gained the security of his superiority, if only for a short time. The trait of character of wishing to excel all others is also contained in the feeling to which the neurotic constantly gives expression, that he excels all others in pain. He uses this convic- tion because it furnishes him with a basis of oper- ation for feeling himself in opposition to others, for avoiding a decision or for making an attack. Thus it happens also that attacks, pains, or a dis- ease are wished for, when the situation demands it. Sometimes the wish alone serves the purpose of an attack, when as a reminder it already ter- 414) THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION rifies the environment. For the patient’s own psyche it is at times sufficient, as a female patient once told me, if a phantasy is formed as result of which the neurotic suffers pain through the acts of another. This brings about the feeling of suppression or mistreatment, awakens the crav- ing for security and introduces the masculine protest. The significance of the feeling of guilt, of the conscience and self-reproaches as forms of secur- ity-giving fictions has already been described. Not rarely one finds in the psychology of mas- turbation an admixture of traits of atonement and of a desire to harm, the latter to be likened to an obstinate revolt against the parents, the former as a cheap pretext or sanctimonious act. The injuring of others through atonement is one of the most subtle expedients of the neurotic, for example when he launches forth in self- curses. Ideas of suicide often reveal the same mechanism, which is clearly seen in joint suicides. When one of my patients was treated by another physician with cold douches for impotence, he expressed the wish “that the physician might tear, injure his genitals.” When two years be- fore he suffered great losses in business he wished to commit suicide, although he was still a rich man. The motive force of these execrations (v. Shylock) is neurotic avarice. The analysis SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 415 offers a complete explanation. In order to pro- tect himself from expenses for girls he execrates himself also when he is obliged to pay physicians’ fees. This is certainly accompanied by a half conscious feeling that his wishes need not be ab- solutely fulfilled. He execrates especially his levity for this is the meaning of his self-re- proaches and execrations, when he has paid a large account or ought to pay one. ‘Then every small expense disturbs him. He fears the charm of sexuality. Even his own sister he would like to throw into misfortune, or his sister’s daughter, both of whom lived with him. At the same time he must have estimated his execrations as of very little importance or perhaps even expected the opposite. This is shown by the great number of his measures for security, among which the self-execrations only played an insignificant part. He secures him- self to a much greater extent through the ar- rangement of impotence. Self-detraction and self-torture our patient constructed in the same manner as hypochondria, in order to hold before his eyes the feeling of his own inferiority, to feel himself too weak, too small, too unworthy. _ They appear as hindrances and in this way take the place of doubts. Neurotic girls who fear the man, who do not wish to play a feminine rdle, worry constantly over their growth of hair, their 416 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION birth marks and fear their children might be similarly deformed. In many cases they were homely children or were slighted for a preferred brother when they were small girls. In one of my female patients with a compulsion neurosis, her compulsory thought was revealed as belief in an enlargement of the pores of her skin, to be understood symbolically as a security against the feminine role. Another form of self-torture is manifested in the tendency to atonements. They may be recognized as simple cravings for security when it is taken into consideration that these patients seek just as little as those with the allied feeling of remorse for the past, to change or better things in the future. The symptom clearly aims at the future, and this just as much when it reveals itself as of per- sonal emotion in individual form and conduct as when it is revealed socially in religious perform- ances. As in all forms of craving for security, in this case too, it is not at all excluded that re- cently experienced evil thoughts and acts come to light. Its purpose is to become effective as a restraining admonition and to serve as proof of the worthy intentions of the one concerned. Not last of all in this self-inspection is the impulse to atonement and the emphasis of inner good quali- ties wherein the contrast to other people is al- ways thought of, so much so, that the tendency SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 417 to atonement and remorse at times betrays a strongly antagonistic, intractable, inimical note. The epidemic character of acts of atonement is scarcely ever without this pomp, people vie with each other in crying out, in weeping, in self-tor- ture and contrition. The possibility therefore of gaining a feeling of superiority by means of fasting and praying, wearing of sack cloth and ashes, etc., will have a charm for weak souls as soon as they have the in- clination to appear pious and good, religious and sublime. And asceticism will lead to an eleva- tion when it is felt as a triumph, in my sense, as a masculine protest. That in all this there is only an arbitrary valuation, in which frequently the contrast to otherwise superior people is taken as the point of departure, is revealed in the coun- terparts to the God fearing type, in atheists, mili- tant free thinkers and iconoclasts who seek to demonstrate their superiority in the same manner as the former. Lichtenberg’s expression is to be understood in this sense when he remarks, how rare are the people who live up to the principles of their religion, and how numerous those who fight for them. The conversion from militant free thinking to orthodoxy is not rare as is also not rare the conversion from Epicurianism to Asceticism. Along with this craving for security by means 418 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of atonement the masculine protest plays a röle as a guide which should not be underestimated. But one must still keep in sight the building ma- terial, the possibilities dormant in the psyche, of which it makes use in order to reach expression. There is no doubt that along with this, acts and thoughts of self-subjection come to light, that is, masochistic elements, which according to our way of looking at the subject are estimated as fem- inine elements of the masculine psyche. How incompatible these are with the consciousness of mankind and the fact that they constantly de- mand a change of direction in the masculine pro- test, that therefore, they are pseudo-masochistic phenomena, is seen from the fact that this sub- jection is connected with a soaring, an elevation. The lines of force also in this case were from be- low upwards because the person who has made atonement feels himself elevated or cleansed, he speaks with his God, he comes nearer to him than others, than at other times, and “joy in the king- dom of heaven awaits him.” One of my patients “punished herself” after the death of her mother, 72 years of age, with whom she had always lived at strife and to whom she would have been justified in making re- proaches, by deep feelings of remorse because of her indifference for her mother, and by sleepless- ness. Her feelings of remorse had the character SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 419 of compulsory thoughts and compulsory acts. The analysis showed that she wished to prove her moral superiority over a sister. The sister was married, while our patient was tempted to enter into a liaison with a married man which experi- ence she felt as a degradation. She was, there- fore, according to her own opinion degraded in contrast to her sister. On the occasion of the death of her mother the masculine protest gave rise to a situation which again brought her up- permost, namely, her stronger grief for the sad event. In the history of civilization as in the neurosis, the tendency to atonement not rarely degener- ates into scourging, flagellation, ete. From the confessions of Rousseau and from private com- munications of healthy as well as neurotic indi- viduals, and furthermore from good observations of the behavior of children, as for example B. Asnaurow’s, we know that in certain individuals blows are capable of arousing sexual excitations. This is the real, somatically perceptible moment which exists in the makeup of these individuals and which determines the choice of a particular form of atonement. Patients have told me that in their childhood they experienced pleasure from blows on their buttocks, though it was terrible to them to be beaten. In the later life of these neurotics flagellation analogously with masturba- 420 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION tion and all other forms of perversions is the visible expression of the fear of the opposite part- ner. I am indebted to a patient for the follow- ing communication. She had come under my care for severe migraine. Several years before the onset of the treatment she was subject to day- phantasies in which she saw herself detected in an act of infidelity and punished by a man to whom she thought herself married but who did not re- semble her real husband. As a sequel to this phantasy there followed a severe self-scourg- ing until she fell exhausted. This flagellation brought about intense sexual emotions. The analysis revealed that this woman hated her hus- band, a neurotic hatred, and in this hatred would have readily committed an act of infidelity m order to humiliate him thereby. Now she has gotten to be too old to be of any worth in sex matters, while in former years she was hindered by the masculine protest. For a short time be- fore she thought of flagellation, she played with phantasies of infidelity, but not without securing herself against a realization. ‘The detection by the husband, the flagellation and consequent auto-erotic gratification, all of this had its origin in the anticipatory craving for security and is but a play of phantasy which emphasizes in an espe- cially strong manner the fear of the man. The substitution of her husband by another is the re- SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 421 sult of her derogatory tendency and equivalent to her wishes of infidelity, her husband is to be humiliated, another would be preferred in his stead. Continuing, she disavows this plausible assumption through an act of infidelity to this other one. In the course of years she gave up this flagellation. The derogatory tendency, however, is directed more vehemently against her husband as well as against all mankind. She de- veloped migraine as soon as she feared that she was losing hold of her domineering role over any one. Her disease succeeded too in enabling her to withdraw completely from society. Within her family circle she was absolute mistress as a result of her illness. She succeeded also in de- grading in a large measure her various family physicians, inasmuch as her migraine remained unimproved in spite of all their treatment. Even morphine failed in its effect, and I might recommend that a perverse reaction to this rem- edy in any case should receive special attention. I mention incidentally, as a supplement to the termination of the treatment that she also placed great obstacles in the way of my form of therapy and for a long time sought to expose me by re- taining her pain even when openly flattering me. Patients recover as soon as they understand that this motive of adhering to their disease is for the purpose of humiliating the physician. 422 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Incidentally, I will refer to the fact that ac- cording to my experience, “religious insanity,” phantasies and hallucinations of God, heaven and the saints, as well as the feeling of being crushed are to be understood as infantile megalomanic ideas of these patients and as an expression of their feeling of superiority over their environ- ment. There is often connected with this a hos- tile feeling against the environment, as is the case when a catatonic permits himself to be com- manded by God to give his attendant a box on the ear or to overturn a bed or a table, or when he tries to compel his Jewish relatives to submit to baptism. The soaring in manics, the dements’ grandiose ideas are parallel phenomena and in- dicate the buried feeling of humiliation which demands over-compensation in the psycho- sis.* In practice physicians often come across chil- dren who aggravate symptoms and simulate in order to escape oppression at the hands of their parents. How closely these phenomena border on unfaithfulness without entirely coinciding with it is self-apparent. Remarkable, however, is the concomitant manifestation of signs of som- 2 Paul Bjerre (“Zur Radicalbehandlung der chronischen Para- noia,” Wien und Leipzig, Deuticke, 1912) was the first to describe in a convincing manner the significance of the masculine protest and of the craving for security in the psychosis. SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 423 atic inferiority, as well as the emergence of the neurotic character-development, and hence the neurotic disposition. As examples, three cases of observations of neurotic children are given. A seven years old girl came under my care for periodical attacks of gastric pain and nausea. We found a frail, poorly developed child who suffered from struma cystica, adenoids and en- larged tonsils. Her voice had a hoarse intona- tion. Upon inquiry her mother stated that the child often suffered from catarrhal troubles ac- companied by a cough, which were unusually protracted, as well as from protracted attacks of dyspepsia. Her present complaint had existed about a half year, without any demonstrable or- ganic affection. Along with this her appetite and bowel functions remained normal. ‘The gastric pains developed since the girl began at- tending school. Her progress in school was an excellent one, but the teacher had repeatedly ex- pressed wonder over the striking ambitiousness of the child. She was very sensitive about ad- monitions and felt herself slighted for a sister who was three and one-half years her junior. What especially attracted her mother’s attention was a definite lengthening of the clitoris, one of the genital anomalies, the importance of which as a sign of inferiority I have already emphasized here, and which was later on discovered by Bartel 424 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION and Kyrle and emphasized by them as very char- acteristic. Her skin was everywhere hypersensi- tive, and the tickling reflex noticeably accentu- ated. The child frequently asked to be tickled. The child’s anxiousness exceeded the normal. The irregularity of the incisors is to be looked upon as a further indication of a somatic inferior- ity, which points to a defect of the gastro-intesti- nal tract. The pharyngeal reflex was definitely exaggerated. One gains the impression from this ensemble of phenomena, that the reflex activity of the ali- mentary canal was likewise exaggerated. As a matter of fact the child had vomited frequently during the first three years of her life. The fre- quent dyspeptic attacks likewise indicate an in- feriority of the gastro-intestinal tract. Along with this she had suffered for about a year from eczema of the buttocks,—at the termination of the inferior alimentary canal, with itching which lasted for several months and which was cured by the family physician by means of suggestion and with the assistance of a neutral salve. The painful pressure in the stomach proved to be a psychic reflex which set in whenever the child feared a humiliation at school or at home.? 2R. Stern has described similar phenomena, of which we have already spoken frequently in this book, as preactive tensions (practive Spannungen). According to my conception we are dealing here with a planful, albeit unconscious utilization of reflex SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 425 The purpose of this reflex which had been con- structed on the basis of somatic inferiority lay in the effort to avoid punishment and to direct the attention of the somewhat harsh mother who pre- ferred the younger girl. After the inner per- ception of this heightened reflex activity, there was obviously fixation and aggravation as soon as the child sought a guiding idea which she could use for the purpose of maximating her ego-con- sciousness. On account of the brevity of the treatment I was able to discover no spontaneous expressions of traces of ideas concerning a future gravidity, as the anticipated destiny of a fem- inine role. The attacks vanished after a short time, after I had explained the connection to the child. A dream after one of these attacks points in the above described direction. She dreamed: “My friend was below. Then we played with each other.” Her friend was a preferred rival in the school. Conflicts often resulted, without blows however. She lived on the floor above and they always played in the apartment of the patient. But the form of expression in the dream she related was sufficiently remarkable. When I asked this in- telligent child if one would say “her friend was irritability of inferior organs, with intelligent reflexes (“Intell- gente Reflexe”). 426 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION below” when the person who related the story was playing with her, she connected herself im- mediately, and said “she was with me.” But we will assume that the form of expression is right and the accent is on the “below,” then behind this is concealed the thought that the rival was under the ambitious patient as in a conflict. “The friend was below” then means “I was above,” a conception as result of which we are able to de- fine the standpoint of the patient. The “then” also points in the same direction. It only has meaning when we assume that there is an inter- val between the two dream pictures, such as per- haps: “I must first be superior to my friend, then I will play with her.” The history which preceded the attack which followed furnished a confirmation of our concep- tion. ‘The game of the two girls was as a rule playing “father and mother” or “playing doc- tor.” In the first game there was a quarrel be- tween the two girls as to who should be “father” until the father finally took a hand and re- proached the patient that her companion was al- ways more yielding than she, which was the truth. The friend thereupon received the part of father. When the family shortly afterwards seated them- selves at the table, the child was seized with an attack. She ate nothing and was put to bed and in fact in her parents’ room, where at other SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 427 times her other rival slept, her little sister. The dream now expresses a continuation of the same tendency which was served by the attack and fur- nishes us a hint concerning the patient’s equal valuation of her desire for masculinity and her craving to assert her worth. The representation of the feminine part as that of the subordinate or the one who is beneath in the word, “under,” strengthens this view greatly, but not without giving rise to the suspicion that the patient knows the position during coitus. She slept before the arrival of the younger sister in her parents’ room and even later whenever she was ill. This sus- picion expressed in the presence of the mother remained uncontradicted, but had as result that both the children were kept permanently out of the parents’ room. But here we see again how the character-traits of this child were active in the direction of the masculine protest, functionating as distantly placed outposts whose object it was to secure her at a distance against every analogy, every symbolic experiencing of a female destiny, degradation, minimizing of the ego-consciousness, and furthermore, to protect her from all future misfortune. A similar affection well known to physicians is the school-nausea and nausea at table or shortly after eating which resembles the above described disease in its psychic constitution in that it rep- 428 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION resents an unconscious expedient or one which has become unconscious for the purpose of avoid- ing a threatened humiliation and for the purpose of asserting one’s own worth. A 13 years old boy had shown for the past three years a remarkable indolence, which prevented his progress at school, notwithstanding his indis- putable intelligence. For several months past he had been manifesting a sort of lamenting habi- tus which would especially come to light when- ever he was admonished for any cause whatever. His father and mother had probably always been a little too harsh with him, but as far as I could obtain information their admonitions only re- ferred to his slowness in eating and dressing and to his eagerness for reading. Lately things had come to such a pass that the boy began to cry whenever he was reminded of anything or when any one hurried him. The result of this condi- tion was a more cautious attitude on the part of the parents, though they thought they could not dispense with admonitions entirely on account of the sluggishness of the boy. An inquiry concerning his last fit of weeping showed that he had been admonished to hurry to school, after he had been striving for half an hour before the glass to brush his stubborn hair smooth. ‘The analysis showed that he saw him- self nearing difficulty and wished to secure him- SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 429 self against painful humiliations by careful meas- ures. He reproached himself severely with childish sex indiscretions which he had committed in company with other boys and girls. Above all he feared discovery by his parents and this fear reached an extraordinary degree when one night during a somnambulistic experience he en- tered the servant’s room and to his great sur- prise found himself in the morning in the cook’s empty bed. This sleep-walking was, as in all other cases which I have been able to penetrate, the result of the masculine protest against the feeling of humiliation. The day before he was transferred from the intermediary to the ele- mentary school because of poor progress. ‘The impression which this scene made upon him was so great, the fear that he might betray during his somnambulistic experiences, the secrets between him and his friends, because like all other som- nambulists he talked in his sleep, was so terrify- ing that it led him to very strong measures of security. The thoughts were first in regard to his erections which he sought to conceal carefully from his parents. This he accomplished by a downward stroking of his erected penis with his hand. By this time the craving for security had taken possession of him to such an extent that he treated the hair which stubbornly persisted in standing up as if it were a sexual organ, as in 430 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION fact the craving for security always reaches be- yond what is absolutely necessary. In this case we see the modest beginning of a compulsory act whose mechanism regularly consists in a repre- sentation of the masculine protest or in the crav- ing for security directed towards it. The latter becomes the content and motive force of the com- pulsion neuroses when the masculine protest goes too far and is threatened to fall into femininity through inner contradictions, because the conse- quences would be a punishment, a degradation or embarrassment. Itis then, that the safety de- vice itself seems to be the more masculine, al- though the alluring feeling of triumph may not be produced. Under certain circumstances how- ever the same results may be attained by a fight- ing against desire in every form, so that a power- ful asceticism is valued as a triumph. As a matter of fact, ascetic leanings as varie- ties of self torture, found a place in this boy’s craving for security, and this disinclination to eat had for its object analogously to abstinence the checking of his outcropping sexual instincts. The boy who, apart from this, was weak became so reduced that the parents were obliged to inter- fere. ‘Thus they came upon his craving for se- curity which he had gratified with so much diffi- culty. Then the psychomotor familiarity with the attacks of the parents led to security through SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 431 crime as a result of which his value again became enhanced. His eagerness to read also originated from his craving for security. The insecurity which had seized him at puberty compelled him to seek com- fort, instruction and a reassuring fear of disease in the encyclopedia. He was incredibly well read on the problems in question. Once fairly on the way to seek security in books, he overdid the thing because the elder brothers and sisters whom he emulated were remarkable readers, also because he acted against his parents, his oppres- sors in doing this; and thirdly because he was able to satisfy his original masculine protest in this way and follow the heroes of his books in danger and conflict, which was shown by his choice of reading matter—he preferred Karl May. The third case was that of an eleven years old boy who suffered from a psychically determined protracted pertussis and who at that time still suffered from enuresis. He was an intractable child who wished to attach his father to himself while he tried to avoid his step-mother as a cruel persecutor. The receptive disposition of the father was manifested in his extreme solicitude during attacks of whooping cough. One morn- ing as the mother again reproached the boy be- cause he had wet his bed, he jumped laughingly out of bed and ran about the room undressed 432 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION until the solicitous father with an indignant re- mark to the mother carried the breathless boy back to bed. A severe fit of coughing which re- sembled whooping cough, from which he had just recovered, closed this scene and caused a quarrel between the married couple. When the boy again went to bed in the evening, he sprang up in an excited manner and galloped back and forth so that he again became breathless. ‘The mean- ing of the attack was quite obvious. The boy wished to again provoke reproaches against the step-mother and to draw the father to his side. A suggestive treatment and an explanation of the purpose of the attack brought about a cessation of same, but the pertussis still dragged on for half a year longer. Analogous mechanisms are at the foundation of the idea of suicide. ‘The deed itself is usually wrecked on the knowledge of the inner contradic- tions of this form of the masculine protest. ‘The psychic change results from the thought of death, of non-existence, the humiliating feeling of being about to become dust, of wholly losing one’s per- sonality. Where there are checks of a religious nature, they are merely the husks, a recoil as though this action too were a punishment. Hamlet, up to our time the model of a person who doubts of his manliness, of the psychic her- maphrodite, who consciously represents to him- SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 433 self in reassuring forethought the limitations of his manly protest, who rebels against his femi- nine line, and not without evading the dialectical change to the manly line, protects himself from suicide by conjuring up the dreams, “To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil.” In the grave- yard scene a real horror was manifested because Yorick’s skull was of no more value than the others’. I have for some time defended the view that suicide is one of the strongest forms of masculine protest and represents a security from humilia- tion by withdrawal. The cases accessible to me of attempts at suicide have always revealed the neurotic structure in their psyche. Signs of somatic inferiority, feelings of uncertainty and inferiority from childhood, a psychic structure which is felt to be effeminate, and the overtense masculine protest answering to this feeling of effeminacy were manifested in the same manner as in every neurotic. A nearer or more remote example shows the trend. The most powerful psychic hold originates from the thoughts of death in childhood which produce a constant pre- disposition to suicide by shaping the psychic physiognomy under the influence of the egotistic idea. In the previous history of would-be sui- 434 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION cides the same tendencies are fond of trying to attain influence by illness, by attempting or by dwelling on the thoughts of death, dreaming of the mourning of relatives to obtain satisfaction in a situation of humiliation or when there are feelings of despised love. And the idea becomes deed in a similar situation of the reduction of the feeling of self-esteem, as soon as this loss leads to a strong reduction of the worth of life and is able to cause the dialectical change of the masculine idea of suicide to be overlooked in the case of a recent humiliation. Thus we must concede that those writers are correct who see in suicide a pro- cess allied to the insane constructions. My studies and those of Bartel’s on the inferiority of organ, especially the inferiority of the sexual apparatus, are in harmony with this. In the neuroses the probability of a correction is stronger, if it does not always prevent suicide. It seems, that the profound consideration of the problem of suicide which with the neurotic usu- ally lasts for years is in itself a sign and at the same time a contributory cause of the correction. And in fact the deeds and thoughts of neurotics are full of thoughts of death. Here is the dream of a neurotic who was under treatment on ac- count of stuttering and psychic impotence, dur- ing a night after he had waited in vain for a let- ter from his bride: SELF-REPROACHES, SELF-TORTURE, ETC. 435 “I thought I was dead. My relatives stood about the coffin and conducted themselves as though they were in despair.” The patient remembered having often had thoughts in childhood that he would like to die because his parents preferred his younger brother. He had always been persecuted by the thought that because of hydrocele and because of smallness of the genital organs he was inferior and would have no children. Later he thought to protect himself by humiliation of women and great distrust of them to protect himself against them and unhappiness in marriage. In reality he felt too weak and was afraid of women. Just as he feared this test in marriage he avoided all decisions through a factor which had become motor. His impotence set in when he received a favorable answer from his bride, as an excuse, an expedient to postpone marriage. In the dream, the thought that his bride might prefer another is reflected. With this was connected an attempt at a solution by means of which he could divert her whole love to himself, in which, as in the arrangement of his impotence the possi- bility of marriage was eliminated. CHAPTER X THE NEUROTIC’S ESPRIT DE FAMILLE, REFRACTOR- INESS AND OBEDIENCE, SILENCE AND LOQUA- CIOUSNESS, THE TENDENCY TO CONTRARINESS. In this chapter I will refer to another series of character-traits displayed by neurotics, such as are often found in the foreground of psychoan- alytic observations where they merely influence the external picture of the neurosis. They merely assist in constructing the neurotic indi- viduality, but just on this account may lend to the special neurosis a particular direction, or may provoke a definite fate in the conflict with the environment. Thus it may happen that the neu- rotic’s esprit de famille may be revealed in an especially obtrusive manner, that genealogical in- vestigations may fill a part of the neurotic’s thinking, which conceals more deeply seated traits, often of the nature of an unjustifiable pride of ancestry, which is then utilized as a striving against the social obligations which go with sexual relations and marriage, similarly as the hunting out of heredity of disease is utilized. This readily succeeds through an arrangement of 436 THE NEUROTIC’S ESPRIT DE FAMILLE 437 extreme affection for certain members of the family, or for the entire family. This affection originates from the compulsion of the same guid- ing fiction with its internal contradiction upon which the fear of decisions and of the sexual part- ner rests. ‘This expedient then serves the pur- pose of gaining mastery over the family circle, for which purpose the family bond is taken as something holy. In neurotics the break with the family borders on the esprit de famille, as soon as the craving for security makes itself felt more strongly and requires proof that it is impossible to depend even on blood relations. Misanthropy as an abstract guiding line and refuge in solitude are then not rare occurrences and are plainly re- vealed in the psychosis. The subordination of the character-traits to the guiding fiction may be seen especially clearly in the antithetical traits of refractoriness and obedience,’ which singly or intermingled in vary- ing degrees contribute much to the coloring of the neurotic psyche. Insight into the construction of these character-traits, which have been ab- stracted from neutral, actual impressions of the pre-neurotic period and have then been neuroti- cally grouped and worked over into guiding lines, teaches us much concerning the origin, the meaning and purpose of a given character. 1 Adler, Trotz und Gehorsam, I. c. 438 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The idea of a congenital origin of “character,” is untenable because the real substratum for the formation of psychic character and whatever part thereof may be congenital, is metamorphosed under the influence of the guiding idea until this idea is satisfied. Both refractoriness and obedi- ence are only attitudes which reveal to us the jump from the uncertain past into the protecting future, as are all other character-traits. Timidity as an attitude of the fear of decisions is often accompanied in neurotics by the trait of uncommunicability. These devices work in the manner of an isolation which has for its purpose the withdrawal from the environment of the points of contact. The neurotic who persists in silence sometimes shows his superiority and de- rogatory tendency also in the role of kill-joy, or he arranges through his silence and apparent want of ideas the proof that he is not the equal of others, especially when these are in the majority, and that he is especially unfit for marriage. In the taking up and accentuating the antithesis of the above, loquaciousness, I have at times discov- ered the proof for the conviction that the mdi- vidual cannot keep a secret. Another form of attack and detraction is found in the loud, im- patient manner which many neurotics have of in- terrupting others. The object is often more ob- vious from the circumstance that he introduces THE NEUROTIC’S ESPRIT DE FAMILLE 489 every remark with a “No” or a “But” or an “On the contrary.” A trait of character to which the neurosis owes much of its definiteness and significance, which is always present and which, together with refractoriness and negativism, belongs to the strongest forms of expression of the masculine protest, is the tendency to desire to have every- thing different or turned around. This trait is found in the compensatory efforts as well as in the striving after neurotic expedients, it exists in the disputatiousness and in the neurotic de- rogatory tendency and possesses an enormous applicability for the conflict with the environ- ment. It is the counterpart of the frequently observed conservative, pedantic nature of the neurotic and like it permits him to confirm his thirst for mastery. The striving for change and revolution is found at the root of the masculine protest, when the latter is constructed according to an antithesis. “The essential of all feminine dialectic is said to be: to wish everything differ- ent,’ announces E. Fuchs in “Die Frau in der Karikatur.” In dress, morals, attitude, and movement, something bizarre is always revealed, usually with some pretext. One of my patients often turned herself around in sleep in such a way that when she awoke she found herself lying in the opposite direction. In waking hours also 440 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION she sought to turn everything upside down. One of her favorite phrases was, “On the con- trary,” as an objection to the opinion of others. The wish to be above, to ride, to wear the pants is often found to be expressed in patients of this sort in an extraordinarily clear manner. In the psychotherapeutic treatment this trait is mani- fested from beginning to end, as is the case with negativism in catatonics, may be always antici- pated and extends to the most trivial things. Very often these neurotic tendencies to contrari- ness are manifested in the form of a notion that the physician could come to the patient, not the patient to the physician. Predictions should as a rule be avoided in the treatment of neurotics, but where there is a strong tendency to turn things around the physician will always be put in the wrong. The effort is constantly made to make up- down; right-left; before-behind, because the guid- ing fiction demands symbolically the turning around, that is, the changing from feminine to masculine. Words and writing are turned around (mirror writing), morality, sexual con- duct, dreams are turned into opposites and fol- low in reverse sequence and sometimes playfully, but at other times offensively, thoughts are turned around. The expedient which is to pre- THE NEUROTIC’S ESPRIT DE FAMILLE 441 serve a masculine line of conduct has accordingly something of the nature of fury. The application of this “On the contrary” (Umgekehrt) in superstition, perhaps for the purpose of cheating fate by expecting the oppo- site of what one would like is a frequent trait in neurotics, reveals their complete insecurity, takes us back to the neurotic cautiousness and permits the recognition of the tremendous significance and wide scope which this attains in the psyche of the neurotic.” About this nucleus of cautiousness may be grouped, according to the exactions of the guid- ing ideal, traits of truthfulness or untruthfulness as the particular situation may demand. They always express the striving after full masculinity, sometimes directly, at other times by circuitous ways. Closely related to these are traits of de- ception and frankness, the first characteristic originating clearly in a feeling of inferiority, of being under. A strong anticipatory craving for security is revealed by the traits of hypersensi- tiveness to pain and suffering which keeps the in- dividual as well as the environment reminded that he can only choose those situations in life which can be endured without pain. It goes without saying that the anticipation of labor pains often 2See also Adler, “Syphilidophobia,” 1. c. 442 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION enters into the construction of this guiding line. The neurotic’s phenomena of doubt, of vacilla- tion and of lack of decision which have been so frequently emphasized in this book are related to cautiousness. ‘They always set in when reality influences the guiding fiction in such a manner that contradictions constantly emerge in the lat- ter, when the danger of a defeat, of a loss of pres- tige, is threatened by reality. There are then, generally speaking, three ways open to the neu- rotic, which depend upon the strength of the fic- titious guiding goal, so that the developed neu- rosis assumes an aspect in correspondence with one of these. The first way is by fixing the doubt and vacillation as a basis of operation, as is most frequently found in neurasthenics and psychasthenics, the tendency to doubt. The sec- ond way leads to the psychosis by means of which under the construction of a feeling of truth,? the fiction is hypostasized, deified. ‘The third way leads to a formal change of the fiction under an arrangement of anxiety, weakness, pain, etc., in short to a neurotic, circuitous way in which femi- nine means are employed to attain the purposes of the masculine protest. 3 Kanabich, “Zur Pathologie der Intellectuellen Emotionen” (“Psychotherapia,” edited by v. N. Wiroboff, Moskau, 1911), ap- proached this thought very closely. CONCLUSION Our study has shown that man’s character- traits and their principal function in the life of the individual are manifested as expedients, in the nature of guiding lines for the thinking, feel- ing, willing, and acting of the human psyche, and that they are brought into stronger relief so soon as the individual strives to escape from the phase of uncertainty to the fulfillment of his fictitious guiding idea. The material for the construction of the character-traits is contained in the psychic totality and congenital differences vanish before the uniform effect of the guiding fiction. Goal and direction, the fictitious purpose of the traits of character may be best recognized in the orig- inal, direct, aggressive lines. Want and diffi- culties of life lead to alterations of character, so that only such constructions find favor as stand in harmony with the individual’s ego-idea. In this manner are formed the more cautious, the more hesitating character-traits which show a deviation from the direct line, but examination of which reveals their dependence upon the guid- ing fiction. 443 444 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION The neuroses and psychoses are attempts at compensation, constructive creations of the psyche which result from the accentuated and too highly placed guiding ideal of the inferior child. The uncertainty of these children in regard to their future and their success in life forces them to stronger efforts and reassurances in their fic- titious life plan. ‘The more fixed and rigid their guiding picture, their individual categorical im- perative, the more dogmatically they draw the guiding lines of their lives. ‘The more cautiously they proceed in this, the further they weave these threads of thought beyond their own person out into the future and organize on their peripheral ends where contact with the external world is to take place, those traits of character which are required to serve as outposts for their psychic predispositions. With its extraordinary sensi- tiveness the neurotic trait of character fastens itself to reality in order to change it according to the egoistic ideal, or in order to subject it to the same. Should defeat threaten, the neurotic predispositions and symptoms come into force. The slight significance of the congenital sub- stratum as far as the formation of character is concerned arises also from the fact that the guid- ing fiction only collects and unites into a group those psychic elements of which it can make use. It only collects those faculties and memories in CONCLUSION 445 which results are promised for the attainment of the final goal. In the neurotic reformation of the psyche the guiding fiction has absolute do- minion and makes use of experience according to its own bent, as if the psyche were a motion- less, concrete mass. It is only when the neurotic perspective becomes effective, when the neurotic character and predispositions are fully developed and the way to the guiding goal is assured that we recognize the individual as neurotic. It is then that the neurotic psyche teaches us more clearly than does the normal! that, “Through the great being which surrounds and penetrates us, there is a great becoming which strives toward a completed being.” (Durch das grosse Sein, das uns umgibt und weit in uns hineinreicht, zieht sich ein grosses Werden, das dem vollendeten Sein zustrebt.) Thus we find that “character,” which has found its utility through the guiding ideal is something like an intelligent pattern (intelligente Schablone) which is made use of by the craving for security as well as by the affect and disease predispositions. It is the task of comparative individualistic psychology to com- prehend the meaning of these models, as Breuer has begun to understand them in their genetic, and in our sense, analogical construction, to re- gard them as a symbol of a life plan, as a simile. For through the analysis of character by means 446 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION of which the line which ever soars toward the guiding ideal may always be followed, we find compressed in one point the past, present, future, and the desired goal. One will always find that neurotics cling te- naciously to their reassuring ideals. The de- fense of them becomes accentuated because the patient in abandoning his ideal as well as by a change in direction of his life plan brought about by another anxiously anticipates a defeat, a sub- ordination, an emasculation. The next step in the therapeutic procedure will, according to this, have to be the removal of this strongly antithet- ical attitude, the resistance of the patient to the physician, and its revelation as a form of the old neurotic ideal, as the exaggerated masculine pro- test. Thus as a final word and as an explanation of our standpoint we may sum up as follows: In- ferior organs and neurotic phenomena are sym- bols of formative forces which strive to realize a self-constructed life plan by means of intense efforts and expedients. AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS REFERRED TO IN THIS BOOK Studie iiber Minderwertigkeit von Organen. Urban u. Schwarzenberg. Wien u. Berlin, 1907. Uber neurotische Disposition. Jahrbuch, Bleuler- Freud, 1909. Der Aggressionstrieb im Leben und in der Neurose. Fortschritte der Medizin. Leipzig, 1908. Die Bedeutung der Organminderwertigkeitslehre fiir Philosophie und Psychologie. Vortrag in der Gesell- schaft für Philosophie an der Universität in Wien, 1908. Myelodysplasie oder Organminderwertigkeit? Wiener med. Wochenschrift, 1909. Der psychische Hermaphroditismus im Leben und in der Neurose. Fortschr. d. Medizin, 1910. Leipzig. Trotz und Gehorsam. Monatschefte für Padagogik. Wien, 1910. Die psyche Behandlung der Trigeminusneuralgie. Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse. Wiesbaden. Berg- man, 1910. Einerlogener Traum. Zentralblatt für Psychoan- alyse. Wiesbaden. Bergman, 1910. Uber männliche Einstellung bei weiblichen Neu- rotikern. Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse. Wies- baden. Bergman, 1910. 447 448 THE NEUROTIC CONSTITUTION Beitrag zur Lehre vom Widerstand. Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse. Wiesbaden. Bergman, 1910. Syphilidophobie. Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse. Wiesbaden. Bergman, 1910. Zur Determination des Charakters. Vortrag, gehal- ten in der Gesellschaft für Psychologie an der Uni- versität in Wien, 1909. THE END INDEX Accusation, self-, 272 Avenarius, 74 Acquisitiveness, 12 Awkwardness, 212, 386 Activity, 40, 279 Adenoids, 8 Adler, bibliography, 447 ER: Pe ae 10. 434 Adultery > 216, 274 Baschkirzewa 261 Affectivity, 10 Basedow 159° Aggressionstrieb, 2, 15, 80, 325, Pyshfulness, 96, 107, 184, 305 iA ieh bia. 191 Baudelaire, 387 enabupDia; Berger, Alfred v., 348 Alcoholism, 381 Bern are Alexander, 339 B RE Algolagnia, 250 rer Ambition, 38, 97, 325, 347, 984 Bibliography, Adler, 447 case, 341 Birks, Thiemich-, 9 Ambivalency, 245 h n Biting of nails, 50 Angio-neurotic diathesis, Krei- Bjerre, 422 ; 9 bich, 4 Blepharospasm, 181 Anorexia, 212 Anticipatory thinking, 389 at Re MESS NESS Eh eS Antithesis, the neurotic, 25, 31, ; 33, 65, 86, 99, 106, 116, 150, Blindness, 212 Bloch, 250 ane hae 293, 334, 340, 345, Blushing, 49, 191, 213, 305, 365, Antivivisectionism, 328 STE NEN 209.070 3 penton et Bossi, 166 f Anxiety, 96, 151, 161, 163, 184, 242, 272, 347, 374, 381 cases, 165, 195, 226, 284,301 pradytropiy, & Apperception, neurotic mode ida ses of, 32, 42, 127, 227 , Aprosexia, 8 Aristotle, 25, 339 Bouchard, 4 Burgkmair, 339 Arrogance, 283 Capriciousness, 244 Asceticism, 208, 412, 417, 430 Carelessness, 260 As. If, Philosophy of the, 30 Carus, 117 Asthma, 122, 369 Cases, 130, 165, 177, 193, 220, Authoritativeness, 334 221, 226, 254, 264, 274, 284, Author’s bibliography, 447 290, 298, 299, 303, 338, 344, Avarice, 127, 152, 163, 186 370, 395, 418, 420, 423, 428, cases, 131 431 449 450 Castration, phantasies, 376, 393 Catarrh, 369 Catatonia, case, 274 Caution, 41, 161, 314, 384, 441 Charcot, 56 Chatrain, 118 Chvostek, 9 Claustrophobia, 191 Cleanliness, 97 Climacteric, 28, 154 Clumsiness, 8, 52 Colic, 122 Comby, 4 Compensation, Anton’s theory, 4 psychic, 35 through the central nervous system, 1, 18 Compulsory ideas, 222, 383 cases, 344, 348 Conscience, 246, 324, 330, 347 Conscientiousness, 96, 272 Constancy, 361 Constipation, 122, 177 case, 165 Constitutional inferiority, 8, 34, 57 Contentiousness, 348 Contrariness, 436 Contrition, 412 Convulsions, tetanoid, 9 Coprology, 377 Coprophilic phantasies, 394 Coquetry, 128, 217, 246, 250 Courage, 61, 97, 283 Covetousness, 279 Cowardice, 107, 283, 291, 342 Craving for security, xv, 40, 41, 56, 94, 99, 134, 163, 241, 276, 351, 359, 368, 393, 417, 431 Criminality, 107, 208, 214, 329 Critique, 127, 297 Cruelty, 61, 107, 127, 324, 329 Cryptorchism, 142, 197 Cyclothymia, 389 Czerny, 4, 10, 11, 369 40, 44, 295, INDEX Darwin, 70 Deaf-mutism, 8 Deafness, 212 Death, danger of, 28 Deception, 283 Defiance, case, 341 Degeneracy, 9 Deja vu, 88 Delirium, 208 Dementia precox, 267, 342, 358, 389 Demosthenes, 316 Depreciation, of others, self-, 59 N, 191, 213, 347, 370, i cases, 195, 348, 395 Derogation, 127, 147, 281, 285, 297, 334, 343, 363, 384, 396, 421 of man, 184 Desire to dominate, 186 Dessoir, 103 Dexterities, 151, 184 Diagram, of neurotic psyche, 73 Difficulty of hearing, 8, 10 Discontent, 281, 369, 384 Disparagement, see Derogation Disposition zur Neurose, 264 Disputatiousness, 185, 349, 369, 439 Distractibility, 10 Distrust, 216 Dogs, symbolic significance, 358 Dostoyeffsky, 348 Doubt, 97, 151, 162, 208, 261, 297 cases, 220, 349 Dream theory, x Dreams, 39, 85, 108, 149, 163, 187, 199, 204, 226, 253, 256, 285, 286, 288, 294, 298, 300, 303, 320, 339, 350, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 371, 399, 405, 425, 434 of a single night, 356 day, 369 exhibition, 163, 237 flying, 33, 339 44; INDEX Dreams, of climbing stairs, 339 of riding, 339 sexual, 163 Diirer, 339 Dyspnoea, 185 Eavesdropping, 197 Economy, 97 Effeminacy, 31, 40, 43, 61 Ego-consciousness, 21, 27, 37, 55, 62, 63, 76, 138, 289, 338, 342, 354, 362, 374, 387, 425 Egotism, 97, 107, 262 Ejaculatio precox, 143, 367 Emasculation, 281, 341 Eneuresis, 10, 50, 212 cases, 177, 284, 431 Envy, 44, 61, 97, 127, 163, 186, 232, 279, 325, 347 Epicureanism, 417 Epilepsy, 191, 192, 327 case 176 hystero-, case, 344 Epochs, causative of neuroses and psychoses, 28 Eppinger, 4 Erckmann, 118 Erythrophobia, 122 Escherich, 4, 9 Esprit de famille, 436 Exactness, 97, 213 Exaltation, 213 Examinations, 28 Exhibitionism, 237, 361, 378, 395 Exner, 93 Exudative diathesis, 4, 290, 369 377, Fainting, 213 Fantasy, 85, 253 Fatigue, 41, 185 Fear, 184, 343 of being alone, 184 of decision, 383, 438 of falling, 184 of partner, 383, 385, 391, 392 of places, 380, 406 of reality, 89 of society, 184, 380 451 Fear, of solitude, 380 of wife, 383 Feeble-mindedness, 10 Feeling of inferiority, 1, 12, 17, 27, 58, 60, 63, 85, 92, 100, 164, 208, 211, 222, 253, 295, 306, 330, 336, 338, 353, 367, 374, 407 case, 344 Feeling of superiority, 21, 36, 229, 320, 363, 417 Fellatio, 242 Fere, ix Ferrari, 329 Fetichism, 209, 239, 260, 333, 348, 378 Finickiness, 186, 278 Flagellation, 393, 412, 419 Flies, 105, 212, 220 Forgetfulness, 297 Fortmuller, 271 Fres-Meyerhof, 70 Freud, viii, ix, x, xi, 6, 53, 69, 76, 106, 108, 111, 147, 148, 159, 171, 180, 203, 225, 226, 261, 288, 296, 332 Freytag, 83, 316 Frigidity, 184, 218, 253 Frischauf, 191, 313 Fuchs, E., 439 Fugues, 10, 216 Gall, 117 Gandharvs, 105 Ganghofer, 404 Genitals, malformation of, 9 Genu valgus, 9 Genu varus, 9 Globus hystericus, 181 Goethe, 38, 103, 118, 154 Gogol, 410 Gott, 9, 10 Gourmandism, 13 Greed, 12, 61, 97, 297, 325 Grien, 339 Grillparzer, 392 Groos, 46, 55, 337, 376 Gross, Otto, 4, 214 Griiner, 277, 311 452 Guiding fiction, 22, 36, 54 Guiding line, 42 Guiding principle, 19, 29 Habitus, torpid, 10 Halban, 105 Hallucinations, 39, 85, 91, 253, 259, 265 of pain, 341 Halvan, 220 Fiamburger, 11 Hate, 44 Headache, 122, 190, 191, E12 370, 381 cases, 338 Hebel, 89 Hermaphrodism, 236 psychic, 102, 105, 208, 246, 275, 345 Herodotus, 65 Hero-worship, 366 Hertz, 409 Hesitation, 97 Hess, 4 Heubner, 4 Heyman, 214 Hilfs constructionen, Safety-devices Hirschfeld, 238 Hochwert, Frankl v., 9, 10 Holtzknecht, 122 Homer, 267 Homosexuality, 32, 43, 240, 260, 333, 361, 406 Hydrocephalus, 9 Hyperacusis, 202 Hypersensitiveness, 344 Hypochondriasis, 151, 242 Hypophysis cerebri, 279 Hysteria, 327 Hystero-epilepsy, 344 see Ibsen, 128, 212 Ideal, ego, 384 neurotic, 383 Immermann, 211 Immodesty, 237, 379, see also Exhibitionism Impatience, 40, 186, 281 INDEX Impotence, 23, 41, 43, 61, 147, 359, 367 cases, 434 Inaccessibility, 281 Incest-complex, 208, 231, 305 phantasies, 333, 386 Inconstancy, 361 Incontinence, of faeces, 9 of urine, 9 Indolence, 10, 40 Industry, 97 Infantile arthritism, Comby, 4 Infantilism, 10 Inferiority, literature of, 3 Infidelity, 406 phantasies of, 379 Insatiableness, 232 Insomnia, 186, 190, 216, 308, 319, 383 cases, 220, 258, 348, 352, Intolerance, 44 Introduction, v Introspection, 97 Irritability, 10 395 James, 56 Janet, vi, vii, ix, 244, 413 Jassny, 214, 329 Jaureg, Wagner von, 824 Jealousy, 216, 334, 357, 361, 364, 370, 381, 384 Jodl, 91 Jöel, Karl, 340, 345 Johannistrieb, 160 Jones, E., 238, 313 Kanabich, 442 Kant, 54, 56, 69, 315, 346 Kipling, ‘311 Kisch, 162 Kleptomania, 191, 211 Krafft-Ebing, 105 Kreibich, 4 Kyrle, 5, 424 Laziness, 41, 107, 341 cases, 428 Leonardo da Vinci, 179 Leporelist, 210 INDEX Lewdness, 381 Libido, 62 Lichtenberg, 109, 417 Limping, 212 Lingua scrotallis, 120 Lipps, 315 Litzmann, 212 Liveliness, 10 Lombroso, 18, 25, 152, 329 Love, 208, 215 Lying, pathological, 10 mania, 209 cases, 223 ‚ Lymphatism, Heubner’s, 4 Malice, 192, 325 Malthieu, Dr., 118 Männliche Einstellung Weib- licher Neurotikes, 319 Marczinowsky, 379 Marriage, 28, 41 Martius, 5 Masculine goal, 15 fr protest, 100, 103, 108, 164, 178, 184, 213, 220, 226, 246, 296, 334, 353, 369, 374, 385, 394 Masochism, 40, 260, 333, 359, 386 cases, 326, 340 Masturbation, 23, 50, 208, 222, 273, 334, 359, 381, 414 cases, 221, 233, 276, 292, 354, 369, 373 Megalomania, 97 Meister, 103 Melancholy, 161, 389 Mendel, 159 Menstruation, 28 Meschede, 261 Meyer, E. H., 105 Meyerhoff, 32, 70 Michaelis, 160 Michel, 95 Migraine, 122, 161, 191, 213, 308, 317.7327 cases, 195, 420 Minus-variants, 4 Misoneism, Lombroso’s, 18, 152 Mistrust, 184, 357 453 Modesty, 96, 237, 260, 283, 361, 374, 375 Moebius, 248 Moll, 240 Moodiness, 10 Morel, 9 Moro, 4 Moroseness, 10 Morphine, failure of, 421 Mother fixation, 114 Myopathy, 11 Myths, charm of, 387 Naecke, 251 Naevi, 8 Narcissism, 246, 252, 377, 385, 395 Nausea, 185, 212 cases, 165 school, 427 Necrophilia, 250 Negativism, infantile, 177 Neologisms, cases, 267 Netslitzky, 10 Neuralgia, 327 cases, 308 Neurotischen Disposition, 2, 317 Neusser, von, 220 Nietzsche, ix, 17, 24, 30, 61, 79, 114, 169, 170, 397 No, the neurotic, 349 Nymphomania, 210 Obedience, 436 Obstinancy, 40, 60, 184, 232, 281, 301 cases, 284, 341 Obstipation, see Constipation Oedipus complex, 64, 150, 189, 191, 203 Onanism, see Masturbation Oppenheim, 336 Organ-inferiority, 7 Organ-jargon, see jargon Overcompensation, psychic, 1, 12 Ovid, 239 Somatic 454 Palpitation of heart, 185, 191, 374 Paralysis, 308, 381 Paranoia, 267, 389 litigious, 258 Parsimony, 208 Passivity, 40, 43 Patricide, 348 Paulsen, 52 Pavor nocturnus, 10 Pawlow, 67 Pedantry, 60, 163, 246 Penury, 208 Persönlichkeitsgefühl, see Ego- consciousness Pertussis, cases, 431 Perverse sexuality, 23 Perversion, 324, 332, 361, 369, 381, 393 Pessimism, 151 Pfaundler, 10 Phantasy, see Fantasy Phantom pregnancy, 183 Philosophy of the As If, Vaihinger, 30 Phlegmatism, 10 Phobias, see Fear Photophobia, 8 Pineles, 9 Plato, 346, 384 Pliancy, 283 Poggio, 409 Pollution, 354, 367, 369, 406 Poltauf, 4 Polyuria, 185 Ponflick, 4 Porta, 117 Potpeschnigg, 9 Practical Part, 127 Precocity, 8, 10, 232 sexual, 23 Preface, Author’s, iii Pregnancy, 28 phantom, 183 compulsory ideas, 185 Preparation, psychic, 39, 48, 92, 114 Preuss’ Ke) Thasoo Pride, 61, 97, 370, 381 INDEX Profession, choice of, 334 Prostitution, 308 phantasies, 379 Protection, against coitus, 184, 185 against courting, 184 against maternal duties, 186 against parturition, 185 against pregnancy, 185 against puerperium, 186 Pseudomasochism, 260, 368 Psychic hermaphrodism in life and the neuroses, 102, 180 Psychischen Behandlung des Trigeminusneuralgie, 2, 212, 313, 368 Psychischen mus, 2 Puerperium, 28 Punctuality, 361 Pyromania, 326 Pythagoras, 25 Hermaphroditis- Querulousness, 295 Rage, paroxysms of, 10 Raimann, 244 Rakowiza, Helen, 261 Recurrence of the Nietzsche, 17 Reflexes, exaggerated, 10 conditioned, 12 Refraction, anomalies of, 8 Refractoriness, 436 Reich, J., 316 Religiosity, 41, 422 Remorse, 347, 348 Restlessness, 10 Return of the identical, Nietz- sche, 397 Revengefulness, 61, 192 Rickets, 9, 279, 338 Rochefoucauld, 140, 326 Roughness, 143, 270 Round shoulders, 9 identical, Sadism, 23, 44, 143, 186, 192, 240, 325, 332, 333, 359 Safety-devices, xii, 87, 117 INDEX Sand, George, 287 Scheme, neurotic, 184 Schmidt, 9, 120 Schopenhauer, 105, 248, 388 Schreber, case of, 261 Schrenck-Notzing, 250 Schumann, Clara, 212, 316 Scoliosis, 9 Self-accusation, 272, 412 Self-confidence, 88 Self-preservation, 70 Self-reproach, 348 Self-torture, 412 Senile neuroses, 127, 154 Sensitiveness, 369 cases, 341 Sentiment d’incompletude, of Janet, vi Sexual guiding lines, 90 Sexual perversions, 142, 240, 254 inferiority, 166 Sexual precocity, 23 activity, 28 anomalies, 27, 63 Sexuality and death, 401 as a jargon, 64, 158, 204, 237, 293, 337, 353, 369 Shame, 96 Shamelessness, 376, see also Ex- hibitionism Shiller, 69 Sicherungstendenz, see Craving for security Silberer, 72 Silence, 381, 436 Simmel, 248 Simplicity, 260 Simulation, 208, 281 Singer, 122 Siphilidophobia, 234, 315, 321, 407, 441 Sleep, disturbances of, 10 Sleepiness, 10, 191 Socrates, 96 Somatic inferiority, 1, 2, 412 Somatic jargon, 127, 176, 179, 259 Somnambulism, 10, 334 Spasmophilia, Escherich, 4 455 Spasms, sphincters, 181 vocal cords, 181 Speech-defect, 8, 10 Sperm glands, anomalies of, 279 Splitting of consciousness, 128, 260 Squints, 10 Staggering gait, 186 Stammering, cases, 130 Stature, anomalies of, 9 Status thymico-lymphaticus, 220 in suicide, Baitel, 5 Stekel, 201, 329 Stendhal, 404 Stern, R., 424 Stinginess, 12 Strabismus, 8 Stransky, 11 Strindberg, 248 Strümpell, 4, 244, 290, 369 Studie über Mindwertigkeit von Organen,eil, ple os 1, Il, 15, 72, 116, 166, 265, 288, 300 Stupidity, 10 Stuttering, 8, 50, 191, 212, 305 cases, 298, 434 Submissiveness, 283, 386 Sucking, 50 thumb, 121 Suggestibility, 43, 244 Suicides, 29, 308, 312, 412, 432, status-lymphaticus in, 10 juvenile, 10 cases, 220, 284, 395 Suspiciousness, 127 Symbols, as a jargon, x, 30, 122, 340 10; Poltauf, 4, Sympathy, 246, 314 Tardiness, 297 Telepathy, 85 Tetanoid convulsions, 9 Theoretical part, 1 Thiemich-Birks, 9 Thirst, excessive, 191 456 Thriftiness, 186 Thymus-anomalies, 279 Thyroid anomalies, 279 Ties, 10 Timidity, 10 Tolstoi, 409 Tooth-motive, 115 Tremor, 213, 354 Trotz und Gehorsam, 16, 52, 437 Truancy, 10 Tyranny, 97, 349, 357, 406 Ueber neurotische Disposition, 271 Uncertainty, 102, 196, 386, 403 Unchastity, 248 Unfaithfulness, 248 Ungainliness, 8 Unruliness, 301 Unsociability, 10 Vaginismus, 181, 184 Vagotonia, Hess-Eppinger, 4 Vaihinger, 30, 36, 37, 77, 99, 169, 170, 315, 405 Valgus, genu, 9 Varus, genu, 9 Vegetarianism, 328 Vertigo, 122 cases, 165, 405 Vinci, Leonardo da, 179 Virchow, iv, 9 INDEX Vomiting, 121, 122, 185 Von Neusser, 220 Voyeur, 360 Wagner, Richard, 205, 402 Wagner v. Jaureg, 324 Wanderlust, 210 Weakness, 381, 385 Weber, Parkes, 214 Weeping fits, 381 Weininger, 105, 248 Werles, Gregor, 128 Wernicke, 386 Wild duck, 128 Wild oats, 107 Wildness, 281, 301 Will to be above, Nietzsche, 346 Will to be up, Nietzsche, 337, 339, 353 Will to power, Nietzsche, 24, 32, 41, 71, 93, 129, 132, 231, 348 Will to seem, 30, 296 Willfulness, 184 Winking, 50 Woman, 388, 408 Yauregg, Wagner v., 9 Younger brother, 191 Ziehen, 67 THE END ney ae rake Ge eee A VII: ern Ka ; ay igre x Canal ’ : ono * « La oP eon R ae b Dur Ni AND, j 1 a i“ phi N RUHE A SALE, fen 7 eons wae Sere ae ae PES ee aL Ue Po hay ee TEN TEN (Pa Pe Paces oe Oa ke sabe ee ae a ee ee Boy Oe wine ete ew es eo Be SFOS Tee) iy aa Sor. Pee eee ee ae RC343 .A237 ae on wate we : outlines of eminary—Speer Libra iil iN 1 1012 00065 9823 Eye Be De Ton)