Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/136

112 in the background, while the other complexes are nothing but its transferences. We shall speak of this later.

A very sensitive person possessing an exaggerated self-consciousness will generally meet with many obstacles in life. This fact alone may be the reason for the complexes of grandeur and of being wronged. But in this mechanism we do not find the specific cause. We have to look for it among those symptoms which farthest deviate from the normal, that is, in the unintelligible. Among the latter the neologisms stand first. It is for this reason that I subjected the new speech formations of the patient to a special study, hoping thereby to find the clue to the essential.

At first I attempted to have the patient explain to me what she meant by her neologisms. This attempt was a total failure, for she immediately produced a series of fresh neologisms which resembled "word-salad." She spoke in a self-confident tone, as if she were perfectly clear about the meaning of her words, and seemed to think that what she said was an explanation. I then realized that direct questioning would lead to nought, just as in hysteria, when one interrogates directly as to the origin of symptoms. I therefore made use of a means which is also applied in hysteria. I asked patient to tell me all her thoughts evoked by the stimulus word. In this manner it was possible to exhaust in every way the content of the idea and to learn its different relations. As stimuli I employed the neologisms which are repeatedly used by the patient. As the patient spoke very slowly in reference to her delusions, and was constantly disturbed by "thought deprivations" (complex-inhibitions) it could readily be literally transcribed. I reproduce the tests verbatim, omitting, however, the repetitions.

1. Socrates—scholar—books—wisdom—modesty—no words in order to express this wisdom—it is the highest groundpostament—his teachings—had to die on account of bad people—falsely accused—sublimest sublimity—self-satisfied—that is all Socrates—the fine learned world—no thread cut—I was the best tailoress, never had a piece of cloth on the floor—fine artist world—fine