Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/91

Rh expresses himself in a similar manner. If one succeeds in repressing the complex, there remains for a long time a strong complex-sensitiveness, that is, there is a marked tendency to recrudescence. If the repression was produced by compromise-formation there exists a lasting inferiority, a hysteria, in which only limited adaptation to the environment is possible. If the complex remains entirely unchanged which, to be sure, is possible only when there is most serious damage to the ego-complex and its functions, we must then speak of dementia præcox. Of course, I speak here only from the psychological side and only affirm what one may find in the psyche of dementia præcox. The view expressed in the above sentence in no way excludes the idea that the inveterate persistence of the complex may be due to an internal poisoning which may perhaps have been originally liberated by the affect. This assumption seems probable because it is consonant with the fact that in most cases of dementia præcox the complex is in the foreground, while in all primary intoxications, such as alcoholic, uremic poisoning, etc., the complex plays a subordinate rôle only. Another fact which speaks for my supposition is that many cases of dementia præcox begin with striking hysteroid symptoms, and only during the course of the disease do they "degenerate," that is, only during the course of the disease do they merge into the characteristic stereotypy or senselessness. It was for this reason that the older psychiatrists spoke directly of degenerative hysterical psychoses. We may, therefore, formulate the above conceptions in the following manner:

Considered from without we see the objective signs of an affect. These signs gradually (or very rapidly) grow stronger and more distorted so that to ingenuous observation it finally becomes impossible to assume a normal psychic content and one then speaks of dementia præcox. A more perfect chemistry or anatomy of the future will perhaps sometime be able to demonstrate the objective metabolic changes belonging to it, or the toxin effects. Considered from within, which, of course, is only