Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/268

 M. “What are you thinking of? I always tell the truth.”

A. “No, you are not telling the truth.”

M. “You will soon see that I am telling the truth; we are going into the garden now.”

A. “Indeed, is that true? Is that really true? Are you not lying?”

Scenes of this kind were repeated a number of times. This time the tone was more rude and more penetrating, and at the same time the accent on the word “lie” betrayed something special which the parents did not understand; indeed, at first they attributed too little significance to the spontaneous utterances of the child. In this they merely did what education usually does with official sanction. One usually pays little heed to children in every stage of life; in all essential matters, they are treated as not responsible, and in all unessential matters, they are trained with an automatic precision.

Under resistances there always lies a question, a conflict, of which we hear at later times and on other occasions. But usually one forgets to connect the thing heard with the resistances. Thus, on another occasion Anna put to her mother the following difficult questions:

Anna: “I should like to become a nurse when I grow big,—why did you not become a nurse?”

Mother: “Why, as I have become a mother I have children to nurse anyway.”

A. (Reflecting) “Indeed, shall I be a different woman from you, and shall I still speak to you?”

The mother’s answer again shows whither the child’s question was really directed. Apparently Anna, too, would like to have a child to “nurse” just as the nurse has. Where the nurse got the little child is quite clear. Anna, too, could get a child in the same way if she were big. Why did not the mother become such a plain nurse, that is to say, how did she get a child if not in the same way as the nurse? Like the nurse, Anna, too, could get a child, but how that fact might be changed in the future or how she might come to resemble her mother in respect to getting children is not clear to her. From this resulted the thoughtful question, “Indeed, shall I be a different woman from you? Shall I be different in every respect?” The stork theory evidently had come to naught, the dying theory met a similar fate; hence she now thinks one may get a child in the same way, as, for example, the nurse got hers. She, too, could get one in this natural way, but how about the mother who is no nurse and still has children? Looking at the matter at this point of view, Anna asks: “Why did you not become a nurse?” namely, “why have you not got your child in the natural way?” This peculiar indirect