Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/49

Rh lacking. Later I penetrated into the deeper strata of memory by using for those locations hypnotic investigation or a similar technique. The presupposition of the whole work was naturally the expectation that a perfect and sufficient determination could be demonstrated. The means of the deeper investigation will soon be discussed.

The history which Miss Elisabeth gave was very dull and was woven of manifold painful experiences. During this recital she was not in a hypnotic state; I merely asked her to lie down and keep her eyes closed. I however made no objection if she from time to time opened her eyes, changed her position or sat up. Whenever she entered more deeply into a part of her history she seemed to merge spontaneously into a condition resembling a hypnotic state. She then remained motionless and kept her eyes firmly closed.

I shall now reproduce the results of the superficial strata of her memory. As the youngest of three daughters she spent her youth with her parents, to whom she was devotedly attached, on their estate in Hungary. Her mother's health was frequently disturbed by an affliction of her eyes and also by nervous conditions. It thus happened that she became especially and devotedly attached to her jovial and broadminded father who was wont to say that this daughter took the place of both a son and friend with whom he could exchange his thoughts. As much as the girl gained in mental stimulation in consequence of this intercourse it did not escape the father that her psychic constitution deviated from that ideal which one so much desires to see in a girl. Jocosely he called her pert and disputatious. He warned her against being too confident in her judgments, against her tendencies to tell the truth regardlessly to everybody and expressed his opinion that she would find it difficult to get a husband. As a matter of fact she was very discontented with her girlhood; she was filled with ambitious plans, wishing to study or obtain a musical education, and revolted at the thought of being forced to give up her inclination to sacrifice her freedom of judgment on account of marriage. Meanwhile she was proud of her father, of the regard and social position of her family, and jealously guarded everything connected with these matters. The indifference with which she treated her mother and older sisters, as will