Chapter XIV: The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes216 (3)

Most civilised people incline more to one type than the other. Taken together they would supplement each other exceedingly well. That is why they are so apt to marry one another, and so long as they are fully occupied with adapting themselves to the necessities of life they suit one another splendidly. But if the man has earned a competence, or if a big legacy drop from the sky, terminating the external urgencies of life, then they have time to occupy themselves with each other. Until now they stood back to back, defending themselves against want. But now they turn to each other expecting to understand one another; and they make the discovery that they have never understood one another. They speak different languages. Thus the conflict between the two types of psychology begins. This conflict is venomous, violent and full of mutual depreciation, even if it be conducted very quietly in the utmost intimacy. _This is so because the value of the one is the worthlessness of the other._ The one, starting from the standpoint of his valuable thinking, takes for granted that the feelings of the other correspond to his own inferior feelings, this because he knows absolutely nothing of any other feelings. But the other, starting from the standpoint of his valuable feelings, assumes that his partner has the same inferior thought that he himself has. Evidently there is plenty of work here for Goethe's Homunculus, who had to find out "why husband and wife get on so badly." Now as many cases of neurosis have a basis in such differences, I, as a physician, found myself obliged to relieve the Homunculus of some of his ungrateful task. I am glad to be able to say that many a sufferer has been helped in grave difficulties by the enlightenment I could give.

The _third stage_ of the path of increasing understanding consisted in formulating a theory of the psychology of types which would be of practical use for the development of man. Viewed from the newly-gained standpoint, there resulted, first of all, _a totally new theory of psychogenic disturbances_.

The foundation of the facts remains the same: the first hypothesis of every neurosis is the existence of an unconscious conflict. According to Freud's theory, this is an erotic conflict, or to speak more exactly, a battle of the moral consciousness against the unconscious infantile sexual world of phantasy and its transference to external objects. According to Adler's theory, it is a battle of the superiority of the ego against all oppressive influences, whether from inside or outside.

But the new idea asserts that _the neurotic conflict always takes place between the adapted function and the co-function that is undifferentiated, and that lies to a great extent in the unconscious_; therefore in the case of the introvert, between thought and unconscious feeling, but in that of the extrovert, between feeling and unconscious thought.[240] Another theory of the etiological moment results from this. If a man who naturally adapts himself by thinking is faced by a demand that cannot be met by thinking alone, but which requires differentiated feeling, the traumatic or pathogenic conflict breaks out. On the contrary, the critical moment comes to the man who adapts by feeling when he is faced by a problem requiring differentiated thought. The afore-mentioned case of the business man is a clear example of this. The man was an introvert, who all through his life had left every consideration of sentiment in the background, that is, in the unconscious. But when, for the first time in his life, he found himself in a situation in which nothing could be done except by means of differentiated feeling, he failed utterly. At the same time, a very instructive phenomenon occurred; his unconscious feelings manifested themselves as _physical sensations_ of a vague nature. This fact harmonises with a generally accepted experience in our psychology, to wit, that undeveloped feelings partake of the character of vague physical sensations, since undifferentiated feelings are as yet identical with subjective physical sensations. Differentiated feelings are of a more "abstract" objective nature. This phenomenon may well be the unconscious basis of the earliest statement of psychological types that is known to me; namely, the three types of the Valentinian School. They held the undifferentiated type to be the so-called hylic (material) man. He was ranked below the differentiated types, that is, the psychic (soulful) man, who corresponds to the extroversion type; and the pneumatic (spiritual) man, who corresponds to the introversion type. For these gnostics the "pneumatikos" stood of course the highest. Christianity, with its "psychic" (spiritual) nature (principle of love), has indeed contested this privilege of the gnosis. But even this page may be turned in the course of time: since, if the signs of the age are not deceptive, we are now in the great final settlement of the Christian epoch. We know that, evolution not being uniformly continuous, when one form of creation has been outlived, the evolutionary tendency harks back to resume that form which, after having made a beginning, was left behind in an undeveloped state.

After this brief digression to generalities, let us return to our case. If a similar disturbance were to take place in an extrovert, he would have what are called hysterical symptoms, that is, symptoms that are also of an apparently physical nature, which, as our theory indicates, would this time represent the patient's unconscious undifferentiated thought. As a matter of fact, we find also a widespread region of phantasy as the basis of hysterical symptoms, of which many have been described in detail in the literature of the subject. They are phantasies of a pronounced sexual, that is physical complexion. But in reality they are undifferentiated thoughts, which in common with the undifferentiated feelings are to some extent physical, and therefore appear as what may be called physical symptoms.

By taking up again here the thread that was dropped before, we can now clearly see why it is precisely in the neurosis that those values which are most lacking to the individual lie hidden. We might also now return to the case of the young woman, and apply to it the newly-won insight. She is an extrovert with an hysterical neurosis. Let us suppose that this patient had been "analysed," that is, that the treatment having made it clear to her what kind of unconscious thoughts lay behind her symptoms, she had regained possession of the psychic energy which by becoming unconscious had constituted the strength of the symptoms. The following practical question now arises: what can be done with the so-called available energy? It would be rational, and in accordance with the psychological type of the invalid, to extrovert this energy again, that is to transfer it to an object, as for instance to philanthropic or some other useful activities. This way is possible only in exceptional cases--there are energetic natures who do not shrink from care and trouble in a useful cause, there are people who care immensely about just such occupations--otherwise it is not feasible. For it must not be forgotten, that in the case under consideration, the libido (that is the technical expression for the psychic energy) has found its object already unconsciously in the young Italian, or an appropriate real human substitute. Under these circumstances such a desirable sublimation, however natural, is out of the question. For the object of the energy usually affords a better channel than an ethical activity, however attractive. Unfortunately there are many people who always speak of a person, not as he is, but as he would be if their desires for him were realised. But the physician is necessarily concerned with the actual personality, which will obdurately remain the same, until its real character has been recognised on all sides. An analysis must necessarily be based upon the recognition of naked reality, not upon any arbitrarily selected phantasies about a person, however desirable.

The fact is that the so-called available energy unfortunately cannot be arbitrarily directed as desired. It follows its own channel, one which it had already found, even before we had quite released it from its bondage to the unadapted form. For we now make the discovery that the phantasies which were formerly occupied with the young Italian, have been transferred to the physician himself. The physician has therefore himself become the object of the unconscious libido. If this is not the case, or if the patient will on no account acknowledge the fact of transference, or again, if the physician either does not understand the phenomenon at all, or does so wrongly, then violent resistances make their appearance, which aim at completely breaking off relations with the doctor. At this point patients leave and look for another doctor or for people who "understand" them; or if they hopelessly relinquish this search they go to pieces.

But if the transference to the physician takes place and is accepted, a natural channel has thereby been found, which not only replaces the former, but also makes a discharge of the energic process possible, and provides a course that is relatively free from conflict. Therefore if the libido is allowed its natural course, it will of its own accord find its way into the transference. Where this is not the case, it is always a question either of arbitrary rebellion against the laws of Nature, or of some deficiency in the physician's work.

Into the transference every conceivable infantile phantasy is first of all projected; these must then be subjected to the caustic, that is, analytically dissolved. This was formerly called the _dissolution of the transference_. Thereby the energy is freed from this unsuitable form also, and once again we are confronted by the problem of disposable energy. We shall find that an object affording the most favourable channel has been chosen by Nature even before our search began.

V.--THE PERSONAL AND THE IMPERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS

The fourth stage of our newly won insight is now reached. The analytical dissolution of the infantile transference phantasies was continued until it became sufficiently clear, even to the patient, that he was making his physician into father, mother, uncle, guardian, teacher, friend or any other kind of surrogate for parental authority conceivable. But, as experience is constantly proving, further phantasies make their appearance, representing the physician as saviour or as some other divine being. Obviously this is in flagrant contradiction to the sane reasoning of consciousness. Moreover, it appears that these divine attributes considerably overstep the bounds of the Christian conception in which we grew up. They even assume the guise of heathen allurements, and, for instance, not infrequently assume the form of animals.

The transference is in itself nothing but a projection of unconscious contents on to the analyst. At first it is the so-called superficial contents that are projected. During this stage the physician is interesting as a possible lover (somewhat after the manner of the young Italian in our case). Later on, he is a representation of the father, and is the symbol either of kindness or of severity, according to what the patient formerly imputed to his real father. Occasionally the doctor even appears to the patient as a kind of mother, which, though sounding somewhat strange, really lies well within the bounds of possibility. All these projections of phantasy have an underlying basis of personal reminiscences.

But presently other forms of phantasy appear, bearing an extravagantly effusive and impossible character. The physician now appears to be endowed with uncanny qualities; he may be either a wizard or a demoniacal criminal, or his counterpart of virtue, a saviour. Later on he appears as an incomprehensible mixture of both sides. It should be clearly understood that the physician does not appear to the patient's consciousness in these forms, but that phantasies come up to the surface representing the doctor in this guise. If, as is not seldom the case, the patient cannot forthwith perceive that his view of the physician is a projection of his own unconscious, then he will probably behave rather foolishly. Difficulties often arise at this stage of analysis, making severe demands upon the good will and patience of both physician and patient. In a few exceptional cases, a patient cannot refrain from disseminating the stupidest tales about the physician. Such people cannot get it into their head that, as a matter of fact, their phantasies originate in themselves, and have nothing or very little to do with the physician's actual character. The pertinacity of this error arises from the circumstance that there is no foundation of personal memory for this particular kind of projection. It is occasionally possible to prove that similar phantasies, for which neither parent gave reasonable occasion, had at some time in childhood been attached to the father or mother.

In one of his shorter books, Freud has shown how Leonardo da Vinci was influenced in his later life by the fact that he had two mothers. The fact of the two mothers (or the double descent) had indeed a reality in Leonardo's case, but it plays a part with other artists as well. Benvenuto Cellini had this phantasy of a double descent. It is unquestionably a mythological theme; many heroes of legend have two mothers. The phantasy is not founded upon the actual fact of the hero's having two mothers, but is a widespread "primordial image" belonging to the secrets of the universal history of the human mind. It does not belong to the sphere of personal reminiscences.

In every individual, in addition to the personal memories, there are also, in Jacob Burckhardt's excellent phrase, the great "primordial images," the inherited potentialities of human imagination. They have always been potentially latent in the structure of the brain. The fact of this inheritance also explains the otherwise incredible phenomenon, that the matter and themes of certain legends are met with all the world over in identical forms. Further, it explains how it is that persons who are mentally deranged are able to produce precisely the same images and associations that are known to us from the study of old manuscripts. I gave some examples of this in my book on "The Psychology of the Unconscious." I do not hereby assert the _transmission of representations_, but only of the _possibility of such representations_, which is a very different thing.

It is therefore in this further stage of the transference that those phantasies are produced that have no basis in personal reminiscence. Here it is a matter of the manifestation of the deeper layers of the unconscious, where the primordial universally-human images are lying dormant.

This discovery leads to the fourth stage of the new conception: that is, to the recognition of a _differentiation in the unconscious itself_. We are now obliged to differentiate a personal unconscious and an impersonal or super-personal unconscious. We also term the latter the _absolute or collective_ unconscious, because it is quite detached from what is personal, and because it is also absolutely universal, wherefore its contents may be found in every head, which of course is not the case with the personal contents.

The primordial images are quite the most ancient, universal, and deep thoughts of mankind. They are feeling just as much as thought, and might therefore be termed _original thought-feelings_.

We have therewith now found the object selected by the libido when it was freed from the personal-infantile form of transference. Namely, that it sinks down into the depths of the unconscious, reviving what has been dormant there from immemorial ages. It has discovered the buried treasure out of which mankind from time to time has drawn, raising thence its gods and demons, and all those finest and most tremendous thoughts without which man would cease to be man.

Let us take as an example one of the greatest thoughts to which the nineteenth century gave birth--the idea of the _conservation of energy_. _Robert Mayer_ is the originator of this idea. He was a physician, not a physicist nor a natural philosopher, to either of whom the creation of such an idea would have been more germane. It is of great importance to realise that in the real sense of the word, Robert Mayer's idea was not _created_. Neither was it brought about through the fusion of the then-existent conceptions and scientific hypotheses. It grew in the originator, and was conditioned by him. Robert Mayer wrote (1841) to Griesinger as follows: "I by no means concocted the theory at the writing-desk." He goes on to report about certain physiological investigations that he made in 1840-41 as doctor on board ship, and continues: "If one wishes to be enlightened about physiological matters, some knowledge of physical processes is indispensable, unless one prefers to work from the metaphysical side, which is immensely distasteful to me. I therefore kept to physics, clinging to the subject with such ardour that, although it may well seem ridiculous to say so, I cared little about what part of the world we were in. I preferred to remain aboard where I could work uninterruptedly, and where many an hour gave me such a feeling of _being inspired_ in a way I can never remember having experienced either before or since.

"A few flashes of thought that thrilled through me"--this was in the harbour of Surabaja--"were immediately diligently pursued, leading again in their turn to new subjects. Those times are passed, but subsequent quiet examination _of what then emerged_, has taught me that it was a truth which can _not only be subjectively felt_, but also proved objectively; whether this could be done by _one who has so little knowledge_ of physics as I have, is a matter which obviously, I must leave undecided."

Heim, in his book on Energetics, expresses the opinion: "that Robert Mayer's new thought did not gradually detach itself by dint of revolving it in his mind, from the conceptions of power transmitted from the past, _but belongs to those ideas that are intuitively conceived, which, originating in other spheres of a mental kind, surprise thought, as it were, compelling it to transform its inherited notions conformably with those ideas_."

The question now arises, whence did this new idea that forced itself upon consciousness with such elemental power spring? And whence did it derive such strength that it was able to effect consciousness so forcibly that it could be completely withdrawn from all the manifold impressions of a first voyage in the tropics? These questions are not easy to answer. If we apply our theory to this case the explanation would run as follows: _The idea of energy and of its conservation must be a primordial image that lay dormant in the absolute unconscious_. This conclusion obviously compels us to prove that a similar primordial image did really exist in the history of the human mind, and continued to be effective through thousands of years. As a matter of fact, evidence of this can be produced without difficulty. _Primitive religions, in the most dissimilar regions of the earth, are founded upon this image._ These are the so-called _dynamistic religions_, whose sole and distinctive thought is the existence of some universal magical power upon which everything depends. The well-known English scholars, Taylor and Frazer, both wrongly interpreted this idea as animism. Primitive peoples do not mean souls or spirits by their conception of power, but in reality something that the American investigator _Lovejoy_[241] most aptly terms "primitive energetics."

In an investigation appertaining to this subject, I showed that this notion comprises the idea of soul, spirit, God, health, physical strength, fertility, magic power, influence, might, prestige, curative remedies, as well as certain states of mind which are characterised by the setting loose of affects. Among certain Polynesians "Melungu" (that is this primitive concept of energy) is spirit, soul, demoniacal being, magic, prestige. If anything astonishing happens, the people cry "Melungu." This notion of power is also the first rendering of the concept of God among primitive peoples. The image has undergone many variations in the course of history. In the Old Testament this magic power is seen in the burning bush, and shines in the face of Moses. It is manifest in the Gospels as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as cloven tongues of fire from heaven. In Heraclitus it appears as universal energy, as "eternally living fire"; for the Persians it is the fiery brightness, haôma, divine mercy; for the Stoics it is heimarmene, the power of destiny. In mediæval legend it is seen as the aura, or the halo of the saint. It blazes forth in great flames from the hut where the saint is lying in ecstasy. The saints reflect the sum of this power, the storehouse of light, in their faces. According to ancient concepts this power is the soul itself; the idea of its immortality contains that of its _conservation_. The Buddhistic and primitive conception of the metempsychosis (transmigration of souls) contains the idea of its _unlimited capacity for transformation under constant conservation_.

This thought has obviously therefore been imprinted on the human brain for untold ages. That is why it lies ready in the unconscious of every one. Only certain conditions are needed in order to let it appear again. These conditions were obviously fulfilled in the example of Robert Mayer. The greatest and best thoughts form themselves upon these primordial images, which are the ancient common property of humanity.

After this instance of the nascence of new ideas out of the treasury of primordial images, we will resume the further delineation of the process of transference. It was seen that the libido of the patient seizes upon its new object in those apparently preposterous and peculiar phantasies, namely the contents of the absolute unconscious. As I already observed, the unacknowledged projection of primordial images upon the physician constitutes a danger for further treatment which should not be undervalued. The images contain not only every beautiful and great thought and feeling of humanity, but also every deed of shame and devilry of which human beings have ever been capable. Now, if the patient cannot differentiate the physician's personality from these projections, there is an end to mutual understanding, and human relations become impossible. If however the patient avoids this Charybdis, he falls into the Scylla of _introjecting_ these images, that is, he does not ascribe their qualities to the physician but to himself. This peril is just as great. If he projects, he vacillates between an extravagant and morbid deification, and a spiteful contempt of his physician. In the case of introjection, he falls into a ludicrous self-deification or moral self-laceration. The mistake that he makes in both cases consists in attributing the contents of the absolute unconscious to himself personally. Thus he makes himself into both God and devil. This is the psychological reason why human beings have always needed demons, and could not live without gods. There is the exception, of course, of a few specially clever specimens of the _homo occidentalis_ of yesterday and the day before--supermen whose God is dead, wherefore they themselves become gods. There is also the example of Nietzsche, who confessedly required chloral in order to be able to exist. These supermen even become rationalistic petty gods, with thick skulls and cold hearts. The concept of God is simply a necessary psychological function of an irrational nature that has altogether no connection with the question of God's existence. This latter question is one of the most fatuous that can be put. It is indeed sufficiently evident that man cannot conceive a God, much less realise that he actually exists, so little is he able to imagine a process that is not causally conditioned. Theoretically, of course, no accidentality can exist, that is certain, once and for all. On the other hand, in practical life, we are continually stumbling upon accidental happenings. It is similar with the existence of God; it is once and for all an absurd problem. But the _consensus gentium_ has spoken of gods for æons past, and will be speaking of them in æons to come. Beautiful and perfect as man may think his reason, he may nevertheless assure himself that it is only one of the possible mental functions, coinciding merely with the corresponding side of the phenomena of the universe. All around is the irrational, that which is not congruous with reason. And this irrationalism is likewise a psychological function, namely the absolute unconscious; whilst the function of consciousness is essentially rational. Consciousness must have rational relations, first of all in order to discover some order in the chaos of disordered individual phenomena in the universe; and secondly, in order to labour at whatever lies within the area of human possibility. We are laudably and usefully endeavouring to exterminate so far as is practicable the chaos of what is irrational, both in and around us. Apparently we are making considerable progress with this process. A mental patient once said to me, "Last night, doctor, I disinfected the whole heavens with sublimate, and yet did not discover any God." Something of the kind has happened to us. Heraclitus, the ancient, that really very wise man, discovered the most wonderful of all psychological laws, namely, the _regulating function of antithesis_. He termed this "enantiodromia" (clashing together), by which he meant that at some time everything meets with its opposite. (Here I beg to remind the reader of the case of the American business man, which shows the enantiodromia most distinctly.) The rational attitude of civilisation necessarily terminates in its antithesis, namely in the irrational devastation of civilisation. Man may not _identify_ himself with reason, for he is not wholly a rational being, and never can or ever will become one. That is a fact of which every pedant of civilisation should take note. What is irrational cannot and may not be stamped out. The gods cannot and may not die. Woe betide those men who have disinfected heaven with rationalism; God-Almightiness has entered into them, because they would not admit God as an absolute function. They are identified with their unconscious, and are therefore its sport. (For where God is nearest, there the danger is greatest.) Is the present war supposed to be a war of economics? That is a neutral American "business-like" standpoint, that does not take the blood, tears, unprecedented deeds of infamy and great distress into account, and which completely ignores the fact that this war is really an _epidemic of madness_. The several parties project their unconscious upon each other, hence the mad confusion of ideas in every head. This is the enantiodromia that occurs in the individual life of man, as well as in that of peoples. The legend of the Tower of Babel turns out to be a tenable truth.

Only he escapes from the cruel law of enantiodromia who knows how to separate himself from the unconscious--not by repressing it, for then it seizes him from behind--_but by presenting it visibly to himself as something that is totally different from him_.

This gives the solution of the Scylla and Charybdis problem which I described above. The patient must learn to differentiate in his thoughts between what is the ego and what is the non-ego. The latter is the collective psyche or absolute unconscious. By this means he will acquire the material with which henceforward, for a long time, he will have to come to terms. Thereby the energy, that before was invested in unsuitable pathological forms, will have found its appropriate sphere. In order to differentiate the psychological ego from the psychological non-ego, man must necessarily stand _upon firm feet_ in his ego-function; that is, _he must fulfil his duty towards life completely, so that he may in every respect be a vitally living member of human society_. Anything that he neglects in this respect descends into the unconscious and reinforces its position, so that he is in danger of being swallowed up by it, if his ego-function is not established. Severe penalties are attached to that. As indicated by old Synesius, the "spiritualised soul (pneumatike psyché) becomes god and demon, a state in which it suffers the divine penalties," that is, it suffers being torn asunder by the Zagreus, an experience which Nietzsche also underwent at the beginning of his insanity, where, in "Ecce Homo," the God whom he was despairingly resisting in front assailed him from behind. Enantiodromia is the being torn asunder into the pairs of opposites, which opposites are only proper to "the god," and therefore also to the deified man, who owes likeness to God to his having prevailed over his gods.

VI.--THE SYNTHETIC OR CONSTRUCTIVE METHOD

We now reach the fifth stage of progressive understanding. The coming to terms with the unconscious is a technical performance to which the name of _transcendental function_ has been given because a new function is produced, which being based upon both real and imaginary, or rational and irrational data, makes a bridge between the rational and irrational functions of the psyche. The basis of the transcendental function is a _new method of treating psychological materials_ such as dreams and phantasies. The theories previously discussed were based upon an exclusively causal-reductive procedure, which reduces the dream or phantasy to its component reminiscences, and the instinctive processes that underlie them. I have already stated the justification as well as the limitations of this proceeding. It reaches the end of its usefulness at the moment when the dream symbols no longer permit of a reduction to personal reminiscences or aspirations; that is when the images of the absolute unconscious begin to be produced. It would be quite inappropriate to reduce these collective ideas to what is personal, and not only inappropriate but even actually pernicious, a fact that has been impressed upon me by disagreeable experiences. The values of the images or symbols of the absolute unconscious are only disclosed if they are subjected to a synthetic (not analytical) treatment. Just as analysis (the causally reductive procedure) disintegrates the symbol into its components, so the synthetic procedure synthesises the symbol into a universal and comprehensible expression. The synthetic procedure is by no means easy; I will therefore give an example, by means of which I can explain the whole process.

A patient had the following dream. She was just at the critical juncture between the analysis of the personal unconscious and the commencement of the production of the absolute unconscious. "_I am on the point of crossing a broad and rapid stream. There is no bridge, but I find a ford where I can cross. As I am just on the point of doing so, a big crab that lay hidden in the water seizes my foot and does not let it go._" She awoke in fear. Associations with the dream were as follows:--

1. _Stream._--It forms a boundary that is difficult to cross. I must surmount an obstacle; I suppose it refers to the fact that I am getting on very slowly; I suppose I ought to reach the other side.

2. _Ford._--An opportunity for getting safely across, a possible way; otherwise the stream would be too difficult. The possibility of surmounting the obstacle lies in the analytical treatment.

3. _Crab._--The crab lay quite hidden in the water; I did not see it at first. Cancer is a fearful incurable illness. (A series of recollections of Mrs. X., who died of cancer, followed.) I am afraid of this illness. A crab[242] is an animal that walks backwards; obviously it wants to pull me down into the stream. It clutched me in a gruesome way, and I was awfully afraid. What prevents my getting across? Oh yes, I had another great scene with my friend.

It must be explained that there is something special about this friendship. We have here an ardent attachment, bordering on the homosexual. It has been going on for years. The friend is in many respects like the patient, and is also nervous. They have pronounced artistic interests in common. But the patient is the stronger personality of the two. They are both nervous, and their mutual relation being too engrossing, cuts them off too much from other possibilities of life. In spite of an "ideal friendship" they have at times tremendous scenes, owing to their mutual irritability. Evidently the unconscious wishes to put some distance between them, but they refuse to pay attention to it. A "scene" usually begins by one of them finding that she does not yet understand the other well enough, and that they ought to talk more openly together; whereupon both make enthusiastic endeavours to talk things out. Misunderstandings supervene almost directly, provoking fresh scenes, each worse than the last. The quarrel was in its way and _faute de mieux_ a pleasure to both of them, which they were unwilling to relinquish. My patient, especially, was unable for a very long time to renounce the sweet pain of not being understood by her best friend, although, as she said, every scene "tired her to death." She had long since realised that this friendship had become superfluous, and that it was only from mistaken ambition that she clung to the belief that she could yet make something ideal out of it. The patient had formerly had an extravagant, fantastic relation to her mother, and after her mother's death had transferred her feelings to her friend.

VII.--ANALYTICAL (CAUSAL-REDUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION.[243]

This interpretation may be summed up in a sentence: "I understand that I ought to get to the other side of the stream (that is, give up the relation with the friend), but I would much rather that my friend did not let me out of her claws (embrace)." That is, expressed as an _infantile wish_: Mother would like to attract me to herself again by the well-known mode of enthusiastic embraces. The incompatibility of the wish lies in the strong under-current of _homosexuality_, the existence of which had been abundantly proved by obvious facts. The crab seizes her foot. The patient having big, "manly" feet, she plays a masculine part towards her friend, having also corresponding sexual fantasies. The foot is known to have phallic significance. (Detailed evidence of this is to be found in _Aigremont's_ writings.) The complete interpretation would run as follows: The reason why she will not let her friend go is because her unconscious homosexual wishes are set upon her. As these wishes are morally and æsthetically incompatible with the tendency of the conscious personality, they are repressed, and therefore unconscious. The fear is an expression of this repressed wish.

This interpretation is exceedingly depreciative of the patient's high-pitched conscious ideal of friendship. It is true at this point in analysis she would no longer have taken this interpretation amiss. Some time before certain facts had sufficiently convinced her of her homosexual tendency, so that she was able to acknowledge the existence of this inclination frankly, although it was of course painful for her to do so. Therefore if, at this stage of the treatment, I had informed her that this was the interpretation, I should not have encountered resistances from her. She had already overcome the painfulness of this unwelcome tendency by understanding it. But she would have said to me: "Why do we analyse this dream at all? It is only repeating what I have now known for a long while." It is true this interpretation does not reveal anything new to the patient, and it is therefore uninteresting and ineffective. This kind of interpretation would at the beginning of the treatment have been impossible in this case, because the patient's prudishness would under no circumstances have acknowledged it. The "venom" of understanding had to be instilled very carefully, and in the smallest of doses, until the patient gradually became more enlightened. But when the analytical or causal-reductive interpretation, instead of furnishing something new, persistently brings the same material in different variations, then the moment has come when another mode of interpretation is called for. The causal-reductive procedure has certain drawbacks. First, it does not take strictly into account the patient's associations--_e.g._ in this case the association of the illness ("cancer") with "crab" (Krebs = cancer). Second, the particular choice of symbol remains obscure. For instance, why does the friend-mother appear as a crab? A prettier and more plastic representation would have been a nymph. ("Half dragged she him, half sank he down,"[244] etc.) An octopus, a dragon, a serpent, or a fish could have performed the same services. Third, the causal-reductive procedure completely ignores that a dream is a subjective phenomenon, and that consequently even an exhaustive interpretation can never connect the crab with the mother or the friend, but only with the dreamer's idea of them. The whole dream is the dreamer; she is the stream, the crossing, and the crab. That is to say these details are expressions of psychological conditions and tendencies in the subject's unconscious.

I have therefore introduced the following terminology. I call interpretations in which the dream symbols are treated as representations of the real objects _interpretation upon the objective plane_. The opposite interpretation is that which connects every fragment of the dream (_e.g._ all the persons who do anything) with the dreamer himself. This is _interpretation upon the subjective plane_. Objective interpretation is _analytical_, because it dissects the dream contents into complexes of reminiscence, and finds their relation to real conditions. Subjective interpretation is _synthetic_, because it detaches the fundamental underlying complexes of reminiscence from their actual causes, regarding them as tendencies or parts of the subject, and reintegrating them with the subject. (In experiencing something I do not merely experience the object, but in the first place myself, although this is only the case if I render myself account of the experience.)

The synthetic or constructive procedure of interpretation[245] is therefore based upon the version on the subjective plane.

VIII.--THE SYNTHETIC (CONSTRUCTIVE) INTERPRETATION.

The patient is unconscious of the fact that it is in herself that the obstacle lies which should be overcome, the boundary that is difficult to cross which impedes further progress. But it is possible to cross the boundary. It is true that just here a peculiar and unexpected peril threatens, namely, something "animal" (non-human or super-human) which moves backwards and goes into the depths of the stream, wanting to draw down the dreamer as a whole personality. This danger is, moreover, like the deadly disease of cancer, which begins secretly somewhere, and is incurable (overpowering). The patient imagines that her friend hinders her, pulling her down. So long as this is her belief she must perforce influence her friend, "draw her up," teach, improve, educate her, and make futile and impractically idealistic efforts in order to avoid being dragged down herself. Of course, the friend makes similar endeavours, being in a like case with the patient. So both of them keep jumping upon each other like fighting cocks, each trying to fly over the other's head. The higher the point to which the one screws herself, the higher must the other also try to get. Why? Because each thinks the fault lies in the other, in the object. Interpretation of the dream on the subjective plane brings deliverance from this absurdity, for it shows the patient that she has something in herself that is hindering her from crossing the boundary; that is, from getting out of the one position or attitude into another. To interpret change of place as change of attitude is supported by the mode of expression in certain primitive languages, where, _e.g._, the phrase "I am on the point of going," is "I am at the place of going." In order to understand the language of dreams, we need plenty of parallels from the psychology of primitive peoples, as well as from historical symbolism. This is so because dreams originate in the unconscious, which contains the residual potentialities of function of all preceding epochs of the history of the evolution of man.

Obviously, in our interpretation everything now depends upon understanding what is meant by the crab. We know that it symbolizes something that comes to light in the friend (she connects the crab with the friend), and also something that came to light in the mother. Whether both mother and friend really have this quality in them is irrelevant as regards the patient. The situation will only be changed when the patient herself has changed. Nothing can be changed in the mother because she is dead. The friend cannot be urged to alter; if she wants to alter herself, that is her own affair. The fact that the quality in question is associated with the mother indicates that it is something infantile. What is there in common in the patient's relation both to her mother and her friend? What is common to both is a violently extravagant demand for love, the patient feeling herself overwhelmed by its passion. This claim is an overpowering infantile craving which is characteristically blind. What is in question here is a part of her libido that has not been educated, differentiated, nor humanized, retaining still the compulsive character of an instinct, because it has not yet been tamed by domestication. An _animal_ is a perfectly appropriate symbol for this rôle of libido. But why is the animal a crab in this particular instance? The patient associates cancer with it, of which disease Mrs. X. died at the age the patient has just reached. It may, therefore, well be that this is an allusion to an identification with Mrs. X. We must therefore make inquiries about this Mrs. X. The patient relates the following facts about her: Mrs. X. was widowed early; she was very cheerful and enjoyed life. She had a number of adventures with men, especially with one particular man, a gifted artist, who the patient herself knew personally and who always impressed her as very fascinating and weird.

An identification can only result from an unrecognized unconscious resemblance. Now what is the resemblance between our patient and Mrs. X.? I was able here to remind the patient of a series of former fantasies and dreams, which had shown plainly that she also had a frivolous vein in her, although anxiously repressing it, because she vaguely feared it might seduce her to an immoral life. We have now gained a further essential contribution for a right understanding of the "animal" rôle, which evidently represents an untamed, instinctive greed, which in this case is directed to men. At the same time we understand a further reason why she cannot let go of her friend. She must cling to her in order not to fall a prey to this other tendency, which seems so much more dangerous. By these means she remains at an infantile homosexual stage, which serves her as a defence. (Experience proves this erection of defences to be one of the most effective motives for the retention of unadapted, infantile relations.) But in this missing libido in the animal rôle lies her well-being, the germ of her future healthy personality, which does not shrink from the hazards of human life.

But the patient had drawn another conclusion from the fate of Mrs. X., having conceived her severe illness and early death as a punishment of fate for her gay life which the patient, although certainly not confessing to this feeling, always envied her. When Mrs. X. died, the patient pulled a long face, beneath which a "human, all too human," malicious satisfaction was hidden. As a punishment for this tendency the patient, taking Mrs. X.'s example as a warning, deterred herself from living and from further development, and burdened herself with the misery of this unsatisfying friendship. Of course this concatenation had not been consciously clear to her, otherwise she would never have acted as she had done. The truth of this conclusion can be proved by the material.

The history of this identification by no means ends here. The patient subsequently emphasized the fact that Mrs. X. had a not inconsiderable artistic capacity which developed only after her husband's death and which led to her friendship with the artist. This fact seems to be one of the essential incentives to the identification, if we call to mind that the patient had already told us what a striking impression she had received from the artist. A fascination of this kind is never exclusively exercised by one person only upon the other. It is a phenomenon of reciprocal relation between two persons in so far as the fascinated person must provide a suitable predisposition. But she must be unconscious of this predisposition, otherwise there will be no fascination. Fascination is a phenomenon of compulsion which lacks conscious ground; that is, it is not a process of the will, but a phenomenon coming to the surface from the unconscious, and forcing itself compulsorily upon consciousness. All compulsions arise from unconscious motives. It must therefore be assumed that the patient possesses a similar unconscious predisposition to that of the artist. She becomes identified with this artist, and is also identified with him _as man_. Here we are at once reminded of the analysis of the dream, where we met an allusion to the "masculine" foot. As a matter of fact, the patient plays a thoroughly masculine part towards her friend, being the active one who continually takes the lead, commanding her friend and occasionally even forcing her somewhat violently to some course that only the patient desires. Her friend is distinctly feminine both in her external appearance and otherwise, whilst the patient is also externally of a somewhat masculine type. Her voice is stronger and deeper than that of her friend. She now describes Mrs. X. as a very feminine woman, her gentleness and amiability being comparable to that of her friend, so she thinks. This gives us a new clue. The patient is obviously playing towards her friend the artist's part towards Mrs. X. Thus she unconsciously completes her identification with Mrs. X. and her lover. In this way she is giving expression to her frivolous vein which she had repressed so carefully. She is not living it consciously, however, but is herself played upon by her own unconscious tendency.

We now know a great deal about the crab: it represents the inner psychology of this untamed part of the libido. The unconscious identifications always keep drawing her on. They have this power because being unconscious they cannot be subjected to insight and correction. The crab is the symbol of the unconscious contents. These contents are always seducing the patient to retain her relation to the friend. (The "crab goes backwards.") But the relation to the friend is synonymous with illness, she became nervous through it (hence the association of illness).

Strictly speaking, this really belongs to the analysis on the objective plane. But we must not forget that we only arrive at understanding by applying the _subjective_ interpretation, which thereby proves itself to be an important heuristic principle. For practical purposes we might rest quite satisfied with the result we have already reached. But we seek here to satisfy all the requirements of the theory. Not all the associations have yet been used; neither is the significance of the choice of symbols yet demonstrated sufficiently.

We will now recur to the patient's remark that the crab lay hidden under the water in the stream, and that she had not seen it at first. She had not at first perceived the unconscious relations that have just been elucidated; they lay hidden in the water. But the stream is the obstacle preventing her from going across. It is precisely the unconscious relations binding her to her friend that have been hindering her. The unconscious was the obstacle. In this case, therefore, the water signifies the unconscious, or, it were better to say, the _being unconscious_ the being hidden, for the crab is also something unconscious, namely, the portion of the libido that was hidden in the unconscious.

IX.--THE DOMINANTS OF THE SUPER-PERSONAL UNCONSCIOUS.

The task now lies before us of raising the unconscious data and their relations that have been hitherto understood upon the objective plane, to the _subjective_ plane. To this end we must once more separate them from their objects, conceiving them as images, related in a subjective way to function-complexes in the patient's own unconscious. Raised to the subjective plane, Mrs. X. is the person who showed the patient the way to do something that the patient herself feared while unconsciously desiring it. Mrs. X. therefore represents that which the patient would like to become, and yet does not quite want to. In a certain sense Mrs. X. is a picture of the patient's future character. The fascinating artist cannot be raised to the subjective plane, because the unconscious artistic gift lying dormant in the patient has already been covered over by Mrs. X. It would be quite right to say that the artist is the image of the masculine element in the patient, which not being consciously realised, is still lying in the unconscious. In a certain sense this is indeed true, the patient actually deluding herself as regards this matter. That is, she seems to herself to be particularly tender, sensitive and feminine, with nothing in the least masculine about her. She was indignantly amazed when I drew her attention to her masculine traits. But the reason why she is fascinated by something mysterious in the artist cannot be attributed to what is masculine in her. That seems to be completely unknown to her. And yet it must be hiding somewhere, for she has produced this feeling out of herself.

Whenever a part of libido similar to this cannot be found, experience teaches us that it has always been _projected_. But into whom? Is it still attached to the artist? He has long ago disappeared from her horizon, and can hardly have taken the projection with him, because it was firmly fixed in the patient's unconscious. A similar projection is always actually present, that is, there must somewhere be some one upon whom this amount of libido is actually projected, otherwise she would have felt it consciously.

Thus we once more reach the objective plane, for we cannot discover this missing projection in any other way. The patient does not know any man except myself who means anything at all to her, and as her doctor I mean a good deal to her. Therefore she has probably projected this part upon me. It is true I had never noticed anything of the kind. But the exquisitely deceptive rôles are never presented to the analyst on the surface, coming to light always only outside the hour of treatment. I therefore carefully inquire: "Tell me what do I seem like to you when you are not with me? Am I just the same then?" Reply: "When I am with you, you are very pleasant and kind; but when I am alone, or have not seen you for rather a long time, then the picture I have in my mind of you changes in an extraordinary way. Sometimes you seem quite idealized, and then again different." She hesitates; I help by saying: "Yes, what am I like then?" Reply: "Sometimes quite dangerous, sinister like an evil magician or demon. I do not know how I get hold of such ideas. You are not really a bit like that."