Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/66

42 doctrine of determinism. How often we notice that an old unpleasant impression will, in many people, produce an imperturbable false judgment that no logic, no matter how clear, can dislodge!

The effects of the complex extend not only over thought but also over action, forcing it continually in a very definite direction. How many people thoughtlessly practice religious rites and many other possible baseless actions, though intellectually they long since are above it all!

The second group of chronic complex-effects in which the feeling-tone is constantly sustained by actual stimuli, offer the best examples of complex constellations. The strongest and most persistent effects are especially seen in the sexual complexes where the feeling-tone is constantly maintained by unsatisfied sexual desire. A glance through the "History of the Saints," or, e. g., Zola's "Lourdes," or "Rêve," will show numerous examples. Nevertheless the constellations are not always of a totally coarse and sensuous nature, often they are finer influences, marked by symbolisms acting on thought and action. I refer to the numerous and instructive examples offered by Freud. Freud presents the conception of "symptom-action" as a special act of the constellation. (One should really speak of "symptom-thought" and "symptom-action.") In his "Psychopathologie des Alltagslebens" Freud shows that apparently fortuitous disturbances of our actions, such as lapses in talking and reading, forgetting, etc., are due to the infringement of constellated complexes. In his "Traumdeutung" he points out a similar influence in our dreams. In our experimental work we have proven that complexes disturb association experiments in a characteristic and regular manner. (Peculiar forms of reactions, perseveration, retardation or loss of reaction, subsequent forgetting of critical or post-critical reactions, etc.) These observations give us