Page:The theory of psychoanalysis (IA theoryofpsychoan00jungiala).pdf/88

 What happened in Mr. A.'s house bears out this observation; our patient made a sentimental scene, and Mr. A. was induced to answer it with a declaration of love. Looked at in the light of this last event, the whole previous history seems to be very ingeniously directed towards just this end, but throughout the conscience of the patient struggled consciously against it. Our theoretical profit from this story is the clear perception that an unconscious purpose or tendency has brought on to the stage the scene of the fright from the horses, utilizing thus very possibly that infantile reminiscence, where the shying horses galloped towards the catastrophe. Reviewing the whole material, the scene with the horses—the starting point of the illness—seems now to be the keystone of a planned edifice. The fright, and the apparent traumatic effect of the event in childhood, are only brought on the stage in the peculiar way characteristic of hysteria. But what is thus put on the stage has become almost a reality. We know from hundreds of experiences that certain hysterical pains are only put on the stage in order to reap certain advantages from the sufferer's surroundings. The patients not only believe that they suffer, but their sufferings are, from a psychological standpoint, as real as those due to organic causes; nevertheless, they are but stage-effects.

This utilization of reminiscences to put on the stage any illness, or an apparent etiology, is called a regression of the libido. The libido goes back to reminiscences, and makes them actual, so that an apparent etiology is produced. In this case, by the old theory, the fright from the horses would seem to be based on a former shock. The resemblance between the two scenes is unmistakable, and in both cases the patient's fright is absolutely real. At any rate, we have no reason to doubt her assertions in this respect, as they are in full harmony with all other experiences. The nervous asthma, the hysterical anxiety, the psychogenic depressions and exaltations, the pains, the convulsions—they are all very real, and that physician who has himself suffered from a psychogenic symptom knows that it feels absolutely real. Regressively re-lived reminiscences, even if they were but phan