Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/238

 These examples show in the first place that many other words connect themselves with the reaction word. The test person is unable to suppress the ideas which subsequently occur to her. In doing this she also pursues a certain tendency which perhaps is more distinctly expressed in the following reaction: new—old—as an opposite. The addition of “as an opposite” denotes that the test person has the desire to add something explanatory or supplementary. This tendency is also shown in the folio wing reaction: finger—not only hand, also foot—a limb—member—extremity.

Here we have a whole series of supplements. It seems as if the reaction were not sufficient for the test person, as if something else must always be added, as if what has been already said were incorrect or in some way imperfect. This feeling we may with Janet designate as the ‘sentiment d’incomplêtude,’ which by no means explains everything. I enter somewhat deeper into this phenomenon because it is quite frequently encountered in neurotic individuals. Indeed it is not merely a small and unimportant subsidiary manifestation in an insignificant experiment, but rather an elemental and universal manifestation which otherwise plays a role in the psychic life of neurotics.

With his desire to supplement the test person betrays a tendency to give the experimenter more than he wants, he even exerts the greatest efforts to seek further mental occurrences in order finally to discover something quite satisfactory. If we translate this elementary observation into the psychology of everyday life, it signifies that the test person has a tendency constantly to give to others more feeling than is required and expected. According to Freud, this is a sign of a reinforced object-libido, that is, it is a compensation for an inner unsatisfaction and voidness of feeling. In this elementary observation we therefore see one of the main qualities of hysterics, namely, the tendency to allow themselves to be carried away by everything, to attach themselves enthusiastically to everything, and to always promise too much and hence do little. Patients having this symptom, in my experience, are always hard to deal with; at first they are enthusiastically enraptured with the physician, for a time going so far as to accept everything blindly; but they soon merge into just as blind a resistance against the physician, thus rendering any educative influence absolutely impossible.

We see therefore in this phenomenon the expression of a tendency to give more than the instruction demands and expects. This tendency betrays itself also in other failures to follow the instruction:


 * to quarrel—angry—different things—I always quarrel at home;
 * to marry—how can you marry?—reunion—union;