Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/262

 anything to do with her husband and child; she imagined herself pregnant by another man. In brief, the resistances against her husband which hitherto had been laboriously repressed came out quite openly, and among other things manifested themselves in insults of the gravest kind directed against her husband.

In this case we see how a neurosis appeared, as it were at the moment of marriage, i.e., this neurosis expresses the counter-argument against the husband. What is the counter-argument? The counter-argument is the father of the patient, for she verified daily her belief that her husband was not equal to her father. When the patient first fell in love there also appeared a symptom in the form of a very impressive visionary dream. She saw the man with the very beautiful white beard. Who was this man? On directing her attention to the beautiful white beard she immediately recognized the phantom. It was of course her father. Thus every time the patient merged into a love affair the picture of the father inopportunely appeared and prevented her from adjusting herself psychologically to her husband.

I purposely chose this case as an illustration because it is simple, obvious, and quite typical of many marriages which are crippled through the neurosis of the wife. The unhappiness always lies in a too firm attachment to the parents. The offspring remains in the infantile relations. We can find here one of the most important tasks of pedagogy, namely, the solution of the problem how to free the growing individual from his unconscious attachments to the influences of the infantile milieu, in such a manner that he may retain whatever there is in it that is suitable and reject whatever is unsuitable. To solve this difficult question on the part of the child seems to me impossible at present. We know as yet too little about the child’s emotional processes. The first and only real contribution to the literature on this subject has in fact appeared during the present year. It is the analysis of a five-year-old boy published by Freud.

The difficulties on the part of the child are very great. They should not, however, be so great on the part of the parents. In many ways the parents could manage more carefully and more indulgently the love of children. The sins committed against favorite children by the undue love of the parents could perhaps be avoided through a wider knowledge of the child’s mind. For many reasons I find it impossible to tell you anything of general validity concerning the bringing up of children as it is affected by this problem. We are as yet very far from general prescriptions and rules; are still in the realm of casuistry. Unfortunately our knowledge of the finer