Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/105

Rh. All that she could remember was that the nervous cough began at the age of fourteen while she boarded with her aunt. She remembered absolutely no psychic excitement during that time, and did not believe that there was a motive for her suffering. Under the pressure of my hand, she at first recalled a large dog. She then recognized the memory picture; it was her aunt's dog which was attached to her, and used to accompany her everywhere, and without any further aid it occurred to her that this dog died and that the children buried it solemnly; and on the return from this funeral her cough appeared. I asked her why she began to cough, and after helping her with the pressure, the following thought occurred to her: "Now I am all alone in this world ; no one loves me here; this animal was my only friend, and now I have lost it."She then continued her story." The cough disappeared when I left my aunt, but reappeared a year and a half later."—"What was the reason for it? "—"I do not know."—I again exerted some pressure on the forehead, and she recalled the news of her uncle's death during which the cough again manifested itself, and also recalled a train of thought similar to the former. The uncle was apparently the only one in the family who sympathized with and loved her. That was, therefore, the pathogenic idea: "People do not love her; everybody else is preferred; she really does not deserve to be loved," etc. To the idea of love there clung something which caused a marked resistance to the communication. The analysis was interrupted before this explanation.

Some time ago I attempted to relieve an elderly lady of her anxiety attacks, which considering their characteristic qualities, were hardly adapted to such influence. Since her menopause she had become extremely religious, and always received me as if I were the Devil. She was always armed with a small ivory crucifix which she hid in her hand. Her attacks of anxiety, which bore the hysterical character, could be traced to her early girlhood, and were supposed to have originated from the application of an iodine preparation used to reduce a moderate swelling of the thyroid. I naturally repudiated this origin, and sought to substitute it by another which was in better harmony with my views concerning the etiology of neurotic symptoms. To the first