Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/121

Rh will result in the brain which functionally at least will be more or less equal to a destruction of a great part of the brain. To be sure this hypothesis cannot be proven any further, but it may explain many things not reached by psychological analysis.

Hysteria contains in its innermost essence a complex which could never be totally overcome; in a measure the psyche is brought to a standstill since it is unable to rid itself of the complex. Most of the associations go in the direction of the complex, and the chief function of psychic activity is to elaborate the complex in every possible direction. For this reason (in chronic stages) the individual is forced to retire more and more from an adaptation to the environment. The wish-dreams and wish-deliria of hysteria occupy themselves exclusively with the fulfilment of the wish-complex. Many hysterics succeed, after a time, in regaining equilibrium by conquering the complex and by avoiding new traumas.

In dementia præcox we likewise find one or more complexes which become tenaciously fixed. Here, too, we have complexes which can no longer be conquered. Whereas in hysteria there exists an unmistakable causal relation between the complex and the disease (a predisposition is presupposed), we are not at all clear about this in dementia præcox. We do not know whether, in predisposed cases, it is the complex that causes or sets free the disease, or whether at the moment of the outbreak of the disease, a definite complex is present which determines the symptoms. The more detailed and sharper the analysis, the more we see that in numerous cases at the onset of the disease there was a strong affect from which the initiatory moodiness developed. In such cases one feels tempted to attribute causal significance to the complex, but one must add the already mentioned restriction, that is, that the complex, besides its psychological effects, produces also an X (toxin?) which helps along the process of destruction. Yet I am fully cognizant of the possibility that the X may primarily result from other than psychological reasons or causes, and then seize the last remaining complex and specifically change it, so that it may seem as if the complex had causal effects. Be this as it may, the psychological consequences