Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/142

128. The affect under which the ego has suffered remains now as ever unchanged and undiminished, but the unbearable idea is suppressed and excluded from memory. The repressed ideas again form the nucleus of a second psychic group which I believe can be accessible without having recourse to hypnotism. That in the phobias and obsessions there appear none of the striking symptoms which in hysteria accompany the formation of an independent psychic group, is due to the fact that in the former case the whole transformation remains in the psychic sphere and the somatic innervation experiences no change.

What I have here said concerning obsessions I will explain by some examples which are probably of a typical nature:

1. A young girl suffers from obsessive reproaches. If she reads anything in the journal about false coiners she conceives the thought that she too, made counterfeit money; if a murder was anywhere committed by an unknown assassin she anxiously asked herself Whether she had not committed this crime. At the same time she is perfectly aware of the absurdity of these obsessive reproaches. For a time the consciousness of her guilt gained such a power over her that her judgment was suppressed, and she accused herself before her relatives and physician of having really committed all these crimes (Psychosis through simple aggravation—overwhelming psychosis—Überwältigungspsychose). A thorough examination revealed the source of the origin of this guilty conscience. Accidentally incited by a sensual feeling she allowed herself to be allured by a friend to masturbate. She practiced it for years with the full consciousness of her wrong doing, and under the most violent but useless self-reproaches.—The girl was cured after a few months' treatment and strict watching.

2. Another girl suffered from the fear of getting sudden desires of micturition and of being forced to wet herself. This began after such a desire had really forced her to leave a concert hall during the performance. This phobia had gradually caused her to become quite incapable of any enjoyment and social relationship. She felt secure only when she knew that there was a toilet in the neighborhood to which she could repair unobserved. An organic suffering which might have justified this lack of confidence of the control of the bladder was excluded. At home among quiet surroundings and during the night there was no such