Page:Jung - The psychology of dementia praecox.djvu/94

70 one occasionally discovers the reason for the inadequate behavior. So long as the complex connection which is under special inhibition does not become conscious, the patient may tranquilly speak about it in a rather light manner and without going into detail. This manner of light talking may result in a condition of evasion producing contrasting actions. I had a hysterical patient under observation who, whenever she was tormented by a depressing complex, entered upon an unbridled jovial behavior, thus repressing the complex. When she related anything very sad which really should have deeply moved her, she accompanied it by loud laughter. At other times she spoke with absolute indifference (the accent, however, betrayed her deliberateness) about her complexes as if they did not in the least concern her. The psychologic reason for this incongruity between the ideational content and the affect seems to be due to the fact that the complex is autonomous and allows itself to be reproduced only when it wishes. Hence we see that the "belle indifférence" of hysterics does not last very long but is suddenly interrupted sometimes by a wild emotional explosion, a crying spell, or something similar. We notice the same in the euphoric apathy of dementia præcox. Here, too, we see, from time to time, now an apparently unexpected moodiness, now a violent act, or a striking freak, which have nothing in common with the former indifference. Professor Bleuler and I have frequently noticed at our joint examinations that as soon as analysis succeeded in laying bare the complex, the apathetic or euphoric mask immediately disappeared and was replaced by an adequate affect often quite a stormy one, just as in hysteria when the sore spot is touched. There are, however, cases in which the obstructions defending the complex can in no way be penetrated. The patients then continually give contemptuous and meaningless answers, that is, they simply do not enter into the question, and the more direct bearing the questions have on the complex the less they answer.

Not seldom we see that after intentionally or unintentionally producing complex stimuli in apparently apathetic patients, there subsequently appears a reaction having a distinct relation to the stimulus. The stimulus therefore acted after a certain period of incubation. In my experience with hysterical cases I frequently observed that in conversation the patient spoke with an