Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 3-4.djvu/121

 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND PSYCHIATRY 375

<3isregard failure which otherwise would be considered complete.

The example of the intelligent paranoiac on the one hand, and

that of the lazy, superstitious and dishonest war-profiteer on the

other shows how little this criterion gratifies logical feelings.

I We might expect tiiat besides the conscious criteria one or

■, ,, more unconscious criteria exist, and that these will be decisive.

L?M Behind those various ways in which the mentally diseased are

openly recognised as constituting a danger to society there lies

another unmentioned one. We find indications of it in the attitude

with which the public regards the insane person; this attitude

contains a certain horror and at the same time an equally ill-

/ ', founded sympathy. The normal person has a feeling of uncanni-

, Bess as regards the mental patient. The patient's incapability for

.;, normal conversation disturbs the belief in the power of spoken

!;p: words, and his apparent incapability of being influenced and his


 * v incurability disturb the belief in one's own omnipotence. The belief

t:^. .. in the magic power of the spoken word and the belief in the

.power over other human beings and nature in general rest on

narcissism. The normal person protects his narcissism, and prob-

}^- ably in a certain respect quite righdy, since physical health partly

^My depends upon it. This unconscious narcissism is severely affected

by association with mental patients.

The repressions of the normal person are endangered in yet another way. In the wards of the troublesome mental patients one is literally on a visit to the unconscious. Here the uncanny forces of the deep can be denied no longer, they show themselves openly like the glowing fire of a volcano, and call up in the visitor their deep and distant rumblings.

Society considers as mad him who threatens to reveal to men

its unconscious, and knows no other means of defence against

such revelation than to isolate the madman. ,i.(Oi)i?,of|

This fifth criterion is the most important and compared with

it the remainder appear as pretexts. ; . ••.

,:?; -hy -"i-^ THE NORMAL AND THE ABNORMAL -i-'ini'r.'.H.

The criteria which psychiatry gives for mental disease will not detain us long: there are none. On the other hand, the boundaries

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