Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/72

48 know where she got it from. A psychoanalysis usually finds that behind numerous resistances there is hidden a complete repertoire of fine observations and subtle deductions. In a somewhat more advanced age prudery often becomes unbearable, or there appears a naïve symptomatic interest for all kinds of society news in which "one ought to take an interest because one is of an age when …, etc." The objects of those symptomatic interests are brides, pregnancies, births, scandals, etc. The cleverness of elderly ladies for the last is proverbial. These interests pass then under the flag of the "objective, purely human, interests." Here we simply have a transference; the complex must under all circumstances assert itself. As the sexual complex cannot in many cases assert itself in a normal manner, it makes use of by-ways. During the age of puberty they exist in the form of more or less abnormal fancies, frequently alternating with religious ecstatic phases (transferences). In men, sexuality (if not directly lived through) is frequently changed to a feverish professional activity or to some eccentricity, such as dangerous sports, etc., or to peculiar academic passions, such as a collecting mania. Women take up some altruistic activity which is usually determined by the special form of the complex. (They devote themselves to nursing in hospitals where there are young assistant physicians, etc.) Or there may be strange eccentricities, affectations, "putting on airs" which shall express distinction and proud resignation. The artistic predispositions are especially wont to gain by such transferences. One very frequent manner of transference is hiding the complex by means of a contrasting frame of mind. This manifestation is frequently seen in those who are constantly endeavoring to banish a chronically irritating sorrow. Among these one generally finds the best wags, the finest humorists whose jokes however are spiced with a grain of bitterness. Others hide their pain under a forced and convulsive cheerfulness, which, on account of its boisterousness and artificiality (lack of emotion) allows of no ease in society. Women betray themselves by an unbridled aggressive