Page:Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (1916).djvu/151

 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 him.

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 her belief daily that her husband was not the equal of her father. When the patient first fell in love there had appeared a symptom in the form of an extremely impressive dream or vision. 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 recognised the phantom. It was of course her father. Thus every time the patient merged into a love affair the picture of her 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 cause of the unhappiness always lies in a too firm attachment to the parents. The infantile relationship has not been given up. We 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 the love of children more carefully, more indulgently, and more