Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/15

Rh recalled when the bookkeeper attempted to kiss the children.

This ended the analysis and the patient was cured. A few days later the anosmia disappeared and the reflex returned.

This abstract shows very nicely how the symptoms were nothing other than painful psychical experiences symbolically converted into physical ones. The traumatic moment causing this conversion is that in which the contradiction thrusts itself on the ego and is therefore banished by it. The banishment does not annihilate the opposing presentation, but crowds it into the unconscious. This process occurring for the first time forms the nucleus and crystallization point for the formation of a psychic group separated from the ego, around which collects everything in accord with the contradictory presentation. The splitting of consciousness in such cases is intentional; it is often initiated by at least one arbitrary act. However something else happens than the individual intends; he wishes to eliminate a presentation as though it never came to pass, but only succeeds in isolating it psychically.

The traumatic moment in our patient corresponds to the time when she was upbraided by her master for allowing the children to be kissed. For the time being this episode remained without any apparent effects, perhaps it caused the depression and sensitiveness. The hysterical symptoms commenced later in moments which can be designated as "auxiliary" and which are characterized by a simultaneous flowing together of both psychical groups. The first moment in which the conversion took place in Miss Lucy was the scene at the table when the chief accountant attempted to kiss the children. This evoked the traumatic memory and she behaved as though she had not entirely banished her attachment for her master.

The second auxiliary moment almost followed the mechanism of the first. It is interesting to note how the symptom coming second covered the first so that it was not clearly distinguished until the former was eliminated, a thing quite usually observed in psychanalysis.

The therapy consisted in forcing the union of the split-off psychic groups with the ego-consciousness.