Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/54

40 pressure of any kind of excitement hysterical symptoms could develop.

Even less than for the explanation did this confession offer for the treatment of the case. One could not conceive what beneficial influence Miss Elisabeth could derive from recounting sad familiar family experiences of the past years to a stranger who could give her in return only moderate sympathy, nor could we perceive any improvement after the confession. During the first period of the treatment the patient never failed to repeat to her physician: "I continue to feel ill, I have the same pains as before," and when she accompanied this by a crafty and malicious glance, I could perhaps recall the words which old Mr. v. R. was wont to utter concerning his favorite daughter: "She is frequently pert and disputatious," but after all I had to confess that she was right.

Had I given up the patient at this stage of the psychic treatment the case of Miss Elisabeth v. R. would have been quite unimportant for the theory of hysteria. Nevertheless, I continued my analysis because I felt sure that an understanding of the causation as well as the determination of the hysterical symptoms could be gained from the deeper strata of consciousness.

I therefore decided to put the direct question to the broadened consciousness of the patient, in order to find out with what psychic impression the origin of the pain in the legs was connected.

For this purpose the patient should have been put in deep hypnosis. But unhappily I had to realize that all my procedures in that direction could put the patient in no other state of consciousness than that in which she gave me her confession. Still I was very pleased that this time she abstained from triumphantly remonstrating with the words: "You see I really do not sleep, I cannot be hypnotized." In such despair I conceived the idea of making use of the trick of pressing the head, the origin of which I have thoroughly discussed in the preceding contribution concerning Miss Lucy. This was done by requesting the patient to unfailingly inform me of what came before her mind's eye or passed through her memory at the moment of the pressure. For a long time she was silent, and then admitted that on my pressure she thought of an evening in which a young man had