Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/50

 42

MICHAEL JOSEF EISLER

Pathology teaches us that there are profound connections between consciousness and breathing. In all those morbid disturbances or interruptions of consciousness which we denote by the popular collective term 'fit' (syncope, epilepsy, certain hysterical attacks), inliibition in breathing is the dominating symptom that distinguishes these states from sleep. In the sense of the Freudian libido theory we have to assume that every regressive process, in so far as it is not absorbed into the ego, concerns an organ that responds dis- positionally to it. There is no difficulty in drawing the theoretical conclusion that also in the respiratory organ such a libido position can be established. I first obtained this idea from a case of hys- terical dyspnoea. Later I found the same regressive path to the respiratory organs in the investigation of a case of infantile anxious readiness, which had not yet become a phobia and culminated in something like eclampsic attacks.^ At that time I said to myself that there must be a retrogressive movement of libido to an apnoeic phase, which phase I had previously called lethargic. I have no desire, however, to simplify artificially a great number of very complicated phenomena by this terminology and will therefore break off at this point. In the cases related above I was more concerned to indicate the parallelism. If I have thrown some light on the parallels between liie oral impulse and the need for sleep, I have provisionally fulfilled my task. '

' See Freud: Vorlesungen zur Einfiihrung in die Psychoanalyse. 1917, S, 461. He says : ' The word Angst {angusiiae, narrowness) emphasises the character of constriction in breathing',

nervous disturbances of sleep. This unfortunate circumstance can be explained from the fact that the automatic state of sleep, which is usually related to various auto-erotisms, is at first charged with but little psychic energy, and only later assumes its relations to the different mental activities. Psycho-analytic treatment finds a natural limit where the purely psychic, which is an isolated product, is merged into the general current of life.
 * Our therapeutic endeavours have so far shown little success in the

ir

i

i