Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/15

 PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON TIC 7

the mirror would have a deterrent effect on Narcissists and function as a powerful encouragement of the healing tendencies.

II

I am well aware of the weak points in the arguments I have advanced. The hypothesis, constructed rather speculatively, for my own use so to speak, on the basis of very meagre observations, would not have been made public but for the fact that its plausibility received essential support from a quite un- expected quarter. For this help I am indebted to the perusal of a book on the Tics, of particularly valuable and conclusive content, in which the whole of the literature on the subject is worked up: "Tic, its Nature andTreatment" by Dr.Henry Meige and Dr.E.Feindel.¹ I should like to connect my further remarks to the contents of this book.

Owing to the particular nature of Psycho-Analysis, physicians who devote themselves to its practice get few opportunities of observing certain forms of nervous disorders such as "organic" neuroses (M. Basedowii) which require physical treatment in the first instance, as well as the psychoses the treatment of which is only possible in asylums, and the many varieties of "common nervousness" which on account of its insignificance is not made the subject of detailed psychotherapy.

For such cases one has to rely on the observations of others and upon literary communications which, although not of the same value as one's own observation, at least has this advantage that one is spared the accusation of biased and prejudiced observation, that one has "suggested" to the patient or been "suggested" to. Meige and Feindel knew hardly anything of the Breuer-Freudian Catharsis; at any rate these names are missing from the index of authors in their book. It is true that "Studies on Hysteria" is referred to in one place, but this appears to be an interpolation of the translator who wished **to draw attention to several German writers whom the French authors had overlooked". Also the translation dates from the early days of psycho-analytical develop- ment (1903), so that the far-reaching concurrence of opinions in

¹German translation by O. Giese.