Page:The theory of psychoanalysis (IA theoryofpsychoan00jungiala).pdf/101

 sexual desires. Even so it was thought in ancient times that the golden age of Paradise lay in the past! In the case before us we know that all the phantasies brought out by analysis did become subsequently of importance. From this standpoint only, we are not able to explain the beginning of the neurosis; we should constantly move in a circle. The critical moment for this neurosis was that in which the girl and man were inclined to love one another, but in which an inopportune sensitiveness on the part of the patient caused the opportunity to slip by.

The Conception of Sensitiveness.—We might say, and the psychoanalytical conception inclines in this direction, that this critical sensitiveness arises from some peculiar psychological personal history, which determined this end. We know that such sensitiveness in a psychogenic neurosis is always a symptom of a discord within the subject's self, a symptom of a struggle between two divergent tendencies. Both tendencies have their own previous psychological story. In this case, we are able to show that this special resistance, the content of that critical sensitiveness, is, as a matter of fact, connected in the patient's previous history, with certain infantile sexual manifestations, and also with that so-called traumatic event—all things which are capable of casting a shadow on sexuality. This would be so far plausible if the sister of the patient had not lived more or less the same life, without experiencing all these consequences. I mean, she did not develop a neurosis. So we have to agree that the patient experienced these things in a special way, perhaps more intensely than the younger one. Perhaps also, the events of her earlier childhood were to her of a disproportionate importance. But if it had been the case to such a marked extent, something of it would surely have been noticed earlier. In later youth, the earlier events of childhood were as much forgotten by the patient as by her sister. Another supposition is therefore possible. This critical sensitiveness is not the consequence of the special previous past history, but springs from something that had existed all along. A careful observer of small children can notice, even in early infancy, any unusual sensitiveness. I once analyzed a hysterical patient who showed me a letter written by her mother when this patient was two and a half years old. Her mother wrote about her and her sister. The elder was always good