Page:The theory of psychoanalysis (IA theoryofpsychoan00jungiala).pdf/125

 from too many rules. We must never forget that, notwithstanding the great uniformity of complexes and conflicts, every case is unique. For every individual is unique. Every case demands from the physician an individual interest, and in every case you will find the course of analysis different. In describing this case, I offer you a small section of the vast diverse psychological world, showing all those apparently bizarre and arbitrary peculiarities scattered over human life by the whims of so-called chance. I have no intention of withholding any of the minute psychoanalytic details, as I do not want to make you believe that psychoanalysis is a method with rigid laws. The scientific interest of the investigator inclines him to find rules and categories, in which the most living of all things alive can be included. But the physician as well as the observer, free from all formulas, ought to have an open eye for the whole lawless wealth of living reality. In this way I will endeavor to present to you this case, and I hope also to succeed in demonstrating to you how differently an analysis develops from what might have been expected from purely theoretical considerations.

The case in question is that of an intelligent girl of eleven years of age, of good family. The history of the disease is as follows:

Anamnesis

She had to leave school several times on account of sudden sickness and headache, and was obliged to go to bed. In the morning she sometimes refused to get up and go to school. She suffered from bad dreams, was capricious and not to be counted upon.

I informed the mother, who came to consult me, that these things were neurotic signs, and that some special circumstance must be hidden there, necessitating an interrogation of the child. This supposition was not arbitrary, for every attentive observer knows that if children are restless or in bad temper, there is always something painful worrying them. If it were not painful, they would tell it, and they would not be worried over it. Of course, I am only speaking of those cases having a psychogenic