Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/57

Rh trouble was the model for the later hysterical imitation, at all events that it occurred before the scene of being accompanied home. That these mild organic pains could continue for some time without her paying much attention to them is quite possible when we consider the nature of the disease. The obscurity resulting from this, namely, that the analysis pointed to a conversion of psychic excitement into bodily pain at a time when such pain was certainly not perceived and not recalled—this problem I hope to be able to solve in later considerations and by other examples.

With the discovery of the motive for the first conversion we began a second more fruitful period of the treatment. In the first place very soon afterward the patient surprised me with the statement that she now knew why the pains always radiated from that definite location on the right thigh and were most painful there. This is really the place upon which her father's leg rested every morning while she changed the bandages of his badly swollen leg. That occurred hundreds of times, and strange to say she did not think of this connection until today. She thus gave me the desired explanation of the origin of an atypical hysterogenic zone. Furthermore during our analysis her painful legs always commenced to "join in the discussion." I mean the following remarkable state of affairs: The patient was as a rule free from pain when we began our work, but as soon as I evoked some recollection by question or by pressure of the head she at first reported some pain usually of a very vivid nature, and then winced and placed her hand on the painful area. This awakened pain remained constant as long as the patient was controlled by the recollection, reaching its height when she was about to utter the essential and critical part of her communication, and disappearing with the last words of the statement. I gradually learned to use this awakened pain as a compass. Whenever she was moody or claimed to have pains I knew that she had. not told me everything, and urged a continuation of the confession until the pain was "spoken away." Then only did I awaken a new recollection.

During this period of ab-reaction, the patient's condition