Page:Freud - Selected papers on hysteria and other psychoneuroses.djvu/59

Rh in my investigations and gained the impression that perhaps de- tailization went still further and that every new psychic cause of painful feeling might have some connection with a differently located painful area in the legs. The original painful location on the right thigh referred to the nursing of her father, and as the result of new traumas the painful area then grew by apposition so that strictly speaking we had here not one single physical symptom connected with a multiform psychic memory complex but a multiplicity of similar symptoms which on superficial ex- amination seemed to be fused into one. To be sure I have not followed out the demarcations of the individual psychic causes corresponding to the pain zones for I found that the patient's attention was turned away from these relations.

Notwithstanding this I directed further interest to the mode of construction of the whole symptom-complex of the abasia upon this painful zone, and with this view in mind I asked such questions as this: "What is the origin of the pains in walking and standing, or on lying?" She answered these questions partially uninfluenced, partially under the pressure of my hand. We thus obtained two results. In the first place she grouped all scenes connected with painful impressions according to their occurrence, sitting, standing, etc. Thus, for example, she stood at the door when her father was brought home with his cardiac attack and in her fright remained as though rooted to the spot. To this first quotation "fright while standing" she connected more recollections up to the overwhelming scene when she again stood as if pinned near the death bed of her sister. The whole chain of reminiscences should justify the connection of the pain with standing up, and could also serve as an association proof, only one had to bear in mind the fact that in all these occasions we must demonstrate another moment which had served to direct the attention—and as a further result the conversion—just on the standing, walking, sitting, etc. The explanation for this direction of attention could hardly be sought in other connections than in the fact that walking, standing, and lying are connected with capabilities and conditions of those members which here bore the painful zones; namely, the legs. We could then easily understand the connection between the astasia-abasia and the first scene of conversion in this history.