Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/71

Rh and painful outbreaks which may assume disproportionate dimensions. (In a case of dementia præcox we may note that when asked whether he is married, the patient falls into inadequate laughter or he begins to cry and becomes completely negativistic, or he shows an obstruction, etc.) Had we not the means to look into the mind of a normal lover we would have to consider his behavior that of a hysteric or catatonic. In hysteria where the complex-sensitiveness reaches a higher grade than in the normal, we lack almost all means of penetrating the mind and are obliged to laboriously habituate ourselves to enter into the feelings of hysterical affects. We totally forego this in catatonia, perhaps because we do not as yet know enough about hysteria.

The psychological state of being in love can be designated as a possession-complex. Besides this special form of sexual complex which for didactic reasons I have chosen as a paradigm for the complex of possession (it is the most common and best known form), there are naturally many other kinds of sexual complexes which can similarly exert a strong influence. Among women one frequently finds complexes of unreciprocated or even hopeless love. In such cases one generally notes an extremely strong complex-sensitiveness. The slightest intimations on the part of the other sex are assimilated into the complex and elaborated with a total blindness for the weightiest arguments against them. An insignificant utterance of the adored one is construed as a powerful subjective proof. The accidental interests of the one desired become similar interests to the adoring woman—a symptom-action which often rapidly vanishes if the wedding finally takes place or if the object of adoration is changed. The complex-sensitiveness manifests itself also in an unusual sensitiveness to sexual stimuli, which especially appears in the form of prudery. Those possessed of the complex at an early age ostentatiously avoid everything that may call up sexuality—the familiar "innocence" of grown-up daughters. They know indeed everything, where it lies and what it signifies, but there whole behavior is as if they never had the slightest notion of things sexual. If the subject must be broached for medical purposes one at first believes that he is on virgin soil, but he soon finds that all the necessary knowledge implicitly exists, only the patient does not