Introduction to Psychoanalysis

Chapter 44 The Process of Symptom Formation (2)
As we have said before, a new factor remains to be studied, and this factor is really surprising.The results of the analysis of the symptoms have given us an idea of ​​what the libido clings to and of the infantile experience from which the symptoms are formed.Oddly enough, these infants' experiences may not be entirely credible.In fact, they are unreliable in most cases; sometimes they are even completely contrary to historical facts.You know these things more than any other fact, and we are more apt to doubt the analysis from which these results, or the analysis of the psychiatric whole, and the patient himself upon which the understanding is built.In addition, there is one thing that is puzzling.If it is known by analysis that the infant's experiences are indeed facts, I feel that there is a solid foundation; if they are the patient's imagination or hallucination, we have to drop these unreliable foundations and find another way out.But in fact it is neither; we learn by analysis that the infant's experiences from recollection are sometimes fictitious, sometimes reliable; in most cases a mixture of truth and falsehood.Therefore, sometimes the experience represented by the symptom is absolutely true, and we also believe that it has a great influence on the obsession of libido; and sometimes the effect it represents is only the patient's fantasy, and naturally we cannot regard these fantasy as cause of illness.It is indeed difficult for us to find a proper way here.Maybe clues can be found in similar facts in the future.Before the analysis, the vague impressions of childhood recalled in consciousness can likewise be falsified, or at least mixed; Be a patient, not a psychoanalyst.

If we think about it a little, we will see what is so surprising about this question.In fact, this is the contempt of reality for us, ignoring the difference between reality and fantasy; patients waste our time with fabricated stories, it is really annoying.From our point of view, reality and fantasy are vastly different, and we must assign different values ​​to each.The same attitude is occasionally adopted by the patient when his thoughts are normal.When he presents some material which directs us to observe the expected situation, which is the basis for the production of symptoms based on childhood experience, it is already doubtful whether we are dealing with reality or fantasy.If we can solve this problem according to a certain phenomenon later, of course, we must also try to make the patient understand the real results, such as which are reality and which are illusions.It is true that the work is not easy to accomplish.If we start by telling him that they are fantasies which he used to cover up his childhood experience, as every nation mixes its myths with its long-forgotten history, his interest in the subject will be so great. As for the sharp reduction, he also wants to seek facts and despise imagination, and the results obtained will inevitably disappoint us.If, however, we convince the patient for the time being that we are studying real events from his early years, and then elaborate later upon analysis, we have to run the risk of being wrong and of being mocked and gullible.It takes a considerable time for the patient to learn that fantasy and reality are to be treated equally, and that initially it does not matter which category the childhood experiences being analyzed belong to.This was apparently the only correct attitude to his fantasies.Fantasy is also a kind of reality.The fact that the patient creates these fantasies is almost as important to the psychosis as any other fact that they actually experience.For what these fantasies represent is a psychological reality as opposed to a physical reality.The psychological reality that we come to know is the only major factor in the field of psychosis.

There are several incidents which often occur in childhood in psychotic patients which have special significance and to which we should pay special attention.Therefore, I would like to cite the following examples to illustrate: one is the spying on parents' sexual intercourse, the other is the temptation of adults, and the third is the fear of "castration".If you think that these events must not be true, you are mistaken; older relatives can attest that these events cannot be doubted.For example, when a child begins to play with his genitals, but he does not know that this behavior must be concealed, parents or nurses will threaten him with cutting off his hands or cutting off his genitals.Parents often acknowledged these facts to each other, and they justified the threats; many can still vividly remember them, especially when they occurred in late childhood.If the mother or other woman makes these threats, she often refers to the punisher as the father or the doctor.In the past, there was a pediatrician named Hoffmann in Frankfurt, who wrote a book "Struwell Peter", which is famous all over the world because of his thorough understanding of children's sexuality and their emotions. .In this book, you will find that the author once proposed cutting off the thumb as a punishment for sucking the thumb, which actually represents the concept of castration.From the analysis of mentally ill patients, castration-like intimidation seems to be common, but it is not necessarily so.We are compelled to think that the child, having been informed by adults that masturbatory gratification is socially unacceptable, and at the same time influenced by the structure of the female genitals, uses these phenomena as a basis for inventing threats.In the same way, although a child has never understood and remembered, he may also have witnessed the sexual intercourse of his parents or other adults; we believe that there are considerable reasons for the reaction caused by the impression he can understand at that time.However, if he only described the coitus in detail and never actually saw it, or if he described these behaviors with emphasis on the back force, the fantasy must have been caused by his observation of animals such as dogs copulating. Yes, and the motivation for the observation lies in his insatiable desire for voyeurism during adolescence.Speaking of his fantasies about observing his parents having sex in his mother's womb, that must be pure fantasy.

Seductive phantasies are of still more special interest, since they are more often recollections of facts than fancies; but fortunately, these facts are not so common as might be supposed from the results of the analysis.Children are much more seduced by peers or older children than by adults; and if a woman narrates these events in her childhood, she often refers to her father as the one who seduced her, and the nature and fantasies thus aroused There is no need to doubt the motive for it.If he has not been tempted in childhood, he will often cover up the masturbation at that time with fantasies; he will deeply regret his masturbation and fantasize that there was indeed a sexual object at that time.But you must not think that the incidents of children being seduced by relatives are pure fiction.There is no doubt that most of the analysts have recognized this in the cases they treat; but these events, which belong to late childhood, are merely transposed in phantasy to an earlier period.

The above facts seem to give us only the impression that such childhood experiences are an indispensable condition for the formation of psychosis.It is true, if they have been real; but if they have not been experienced in actuality, they must be of suggestive origin and the product of imaginary fantasies.The result is the same; its place in childhood is so important that we have hitherto found no difference in the various conclusions, whether fantasy or reality.Here again is one of the complementary series we have discussed before, only the most exotic one.Where, then, do the necessity of these fantasies and the material for them come from?Instinctive, no doubt, but how is it that the same phantasy is always composed of the same content?Regarding this point, we have an answer, but this answer may seem a bit absurd to you.I believe that these what we call "primitive fantasies" are possessed by every species.Whenever individual experience is applied concretely, it is necessary to make use of the fantasies that the ancients had.It seems to me that all the phantasies we speak of today in analysis, such as the seduction of childhood, the sexual excitement of spectacles of parental intercourse, the threat of castration and even castration itself, were once facts in the prehistoric period of man. ; Therefore, children's fantasies are nothing more than supplementing individual real experience with prehistoric real experience.We have thus repeatedly doubted that the psychology of psychosis can give us more knowledge of the first forms of human development than any other science.

Now that we have discussed these facts, the origin and significance of the psychic activity called "fantasy formation" must be explained in more detail.You should understand that although the place of phantasy in psychic life has hitherto been unknown, it is nevertheless important in the main.For this problem, I will elaborate as follows.You should know that when the human self is trained by external needs, it gradually agrees with the value of reality, and then pursues the principle of realism. is sexual.Renouncing pleasure, however, is difficult; compensation is bound to be demanded.As a result, he gradually developed a psychological activity in which all the abandoned sources of happiness and satisfaction continued to exist, that is, he was free from the shackles of reality, and he was no longer bound by the so-called "real sense". about.Every desire is at once transformed into an idea of ​​gratification; and the gratification of desires in fantasies can of course also give rise to pleasure, though it is known to be unreal.Therefore, although human beings have long since abandoned freedom in reality, they can still continue to enjoy freedom from outside troubles in fantasy.They switch roles between pleasure-seeking animality and human rationality, just because the negligible satisfaction he seeks in reality cannot quench his hunger and thirst.Fontan once said: "Whatever is done must have its attendant products." A kind of "reserved area" and "natural park" has been formed.The purpose of the reserved area is to keep the original things that are unfortunately sacrificed by need at any time, no matter whether these things have been useless or harmful, they can grow and multiply here at will.The spiritual realm of fantasy is also a reserved area wrested from the grip of the reality principle.

The most familiar product of fantasy that we have ever seen is daydreams.Daydreams may be described as imaginative gratifications of ambition, display, and erotic desires.The more servile you are in reality, the more arrogant you are in fantasy.From this we see that imaginary happiness is essentially nothing but a return to a contentment unbound by reality.We all know that these daydreams are the nucleus and model of the dream; that the dream is basically nothing but a daydream, that is, formed by the wild changes of the mental activities of the night, and the freedom indulged by the excitement of the instinct at night.We also understand that daydreaming doesn't have to be conscious, subconscious daydreaming is also very common.This subconscious daydreaming is then the source of dreams and psychotic symptoms.

You will understand the importance of phantasy in symptom formation after reading what follows.We have said before that the libido, by being deprived, returns to a position from which it left before, but which still possesses a little capacity.With regard to this sentence, we have no intention of revoking or revising, but simply inserting a connecting hub between them.How does the original desire return to these attachment points?The fact is that the objects and paths abandoned by the libido are not completely lost; these objects or derivatives still remain in the phantasy with more or less the original intensity.As long as the original desire retreats to fantasy, it can find its way back to the point of attachment that was suppressed.These phantasies are tolerated by the ego, although they are opposed to the ego, but the two do not conflict, and the ego is thus developed. A certain condition on which it was originally dependent is now disturbed by the return of the libido to phantasies.Since fantasies can be added, they strive forward to achieve reality; at this time, the conflict between fantasies and ego is inevitable.These previously preconscious or conscious fantasies are now repressed by the ego on the one hand and seduced by the unconscious on the other.The libido goes from the fantasy of the subconscious to the root of the fantasy in the subconscious, that is, the original attachment point of the libido.

The return of libido to phantasy is an intermediate stage in the path of symptom formation, which we shall denote by a special name.Jung once coined a very suitable term "introversion", but unfortunately he abused this term to interfere with other things.We, on the other hand, insist on the proposition that a process in which libido deviates from actual gratification and accumulates excessively on otherwise harmless fantasies is called introversion.An introvert, though not yet a psychotic, is in an unstable state; the destruction of his capacity to transfer is sufficient to cause symptoms to develop; unless he can find another outlet for the repressed libido.The illusory nature of psychotic satisfaction, the neglect of the distinction between fantasy and reality, is determined by the stagnation of libido at this introverted stage.

You will recall that in the last few sentences I have introduced a new element to the clue to etiology, namely, that of quantity; and this, too, we must always note that a purely qualitative analysis of etiology is not sufficient. , that is, a purely dynamic conception of these processes is not sufficient and must be supplemented by an economic perspective.We must understand that two opposing forces do not necessarily conflict if they already have substantive conditions, unless both are of considerable intensity at the same time.Furthermore, the innate elements can cause diseases in people, also because other parts of instinct are stronger than others; we may say that the tendencies of people are basically the same, and they all vary according to quantity.This quantitative component is very important for the ability to resist mental illness; whether a person suffers from mental illness or not depends on how much of his unvented and freely preserved abilities can be, and how much is derived from it. The sublimation of sexual aspects to non-sexual goals is contingent.In essence, the ultimate goal of mental activities can be seen as an effort to seek pleasure and avoid pain. From an economic point of view, it is manifested as distributing the amount of excitement or stimulation stored in the mental organs, so as not to make them Accumulate and cause pain.

We have already said so much about the formation of psychotic symptoms, but I want to tell you that today we are talking about hysterical symptoms.The symptoms of obsessive-compulsive psychosis are quite different, although essentially similar.As far as hysteria is concerned, the ego already expresses its rebellion against the demands of instinct gratification, and this rebellion is more pronounced in obsessive-compulsive psychosis and occupies a very important position in the symptoms.In other psychoses the range of differences will be even greater, but the development of their symptoms has not been thoroughly studied.

Before concluding today's speech, I still want to draw your attention to a fantasy life that everyone is interested in.Fantasy can sometimes return to reality, and that is art.Artists are not far from psychopaths, and they also have a tendency to seek inwardly.Perhaps he was compelled by a strong instinctual need for honor, power, riches, fame, and love; but there was no means to pursue all these gratifications.Thus, like all men whose desires are insatiable, he is detached from reality, diverted from interests and libidos—desires that make up a fantasy life.These fantasies are easy to cause illness; the reason why there is no mental illness, of course, there are many factors combined to resist the attack of the illness; in fact, artists often suppress part of their talents due to mental illness.Perhaps it is their endowment that possesses a great power of sublimation and an elasticity in the repression that produces conflict.The process by which artists return from fantasy to reality can be briefly described as follows: Artists are not limited to wishing for a life of fantasy; the world of fantasy is allowed by all human beings, and anyone who has failed to fulfill his wish can seek comfort in fantasy.But the gratification of the less artistically cultivated is often so limited that the repression is so merciless that no fanciful pleasure is permitted except the transformation of consciousness into daydreams.But real artists are not like that.First, he knows how to camouflage and embellish daydreams so that they are depersonalized and shared by others;He also possessed, secondly, a mysterious talent for faithfully expressing fanciful ideas in exceptional materials; he also had the ability to attach intense pleasure to gorgeous fantasies, so that, at least temporarily, the repression was restrained from exerting its fists. .If he completes these things, then he can make other people enjoy the subconscious happiness, and he can also get the gratitude and appreciation of others; so he wins through his own fantasy. Everything gained is honor, power and love.

(End of this chapter)