connecting thoughts. My
blunder was made plain to me the next day by a depreciatory comment
on her part.
----
Studies On Hysteria
60
May 12 . - Contrary to my
expectation, she had slept badly and only for a short time. I found
her in a state of great anxiety, though, incidentally, without
showing her usual physical signs of it. She would not say what the
matter was, but only that she had had bad dreams and kept seeing
the same things. ‘How dreadful it would be,’ she said,
‘if they were to come to life.’ During the massage she
dealt with a few points in reply to questions. She then became
cheerful; she told me about her social life at her dower house on
the Baltic, of the important people whom she entertains from the
neighbouring town, and so on.
Hypnosis . - She had had
some fearful dreams. The legs and arms of the chairs were all
turned into snakes; a monster with a vulture’s beak was
tearing and eating at her all over her body; other wild animals
leapt upon her, etc. She then passed on to other animal-deliria,
which, however, she qualified with the addition ‘That was
real’ (not a dream): how (on an earlier occasion) she had
been going to pick up a ball of wool, and it was a mouse and ran
away; how she had been on a walk, and a big toad suddenly jumped
out at her, and so on. I saw that my general prohibition had been
ineffective and that I should have to take her frightening
impressions away from her one by one.¹ I took an opportunity
of asking her, too, why she had gastric pains and what they came
from. (I believe that all her attacks of zoöpsia are
accompanied by gastric pains.) Her answer, which she gave rather
grudgingly, was that she did not know. I requested her to remember
by tomorrow. She then said in a definitely grumbling tone that I
was not to keep on asking her where this and that came from, but to
let her tell me what she had to say, I fell in with this, and she
went on without preface: ‘When they carried him out, I could
not believe he was dead.’ (So she was talking of her husband
again, and I saw now that the cause of her ill-humour was that she
had been suffering from the residues of this story which had been
kept back.) After this, she said, she had hated her child for three
years, because she always told herself that she might have been
able to nurse her husband back to health if she had not been in bed
on account of the child. And then after her husband’s death
there had been nothing but insults and agitations. His relatives,
who had always been against the marriage and had then been angry
because they had been so happy together, had spread a rumour that
she had poisoned him, so that she had wanted to demand an enquiry.
Her relatives had involved her in all kinds of legal proceedings
with the help of a shady journalist. The wretch had sent round
agents to stir people up against her. He got the local papers to
print libellous articles about her, and then sent her the cuttings.
This had been the origin of her unsociability and her hatred of all
strangers. After I had spoken some calming words about what she had
told me, she said she felt easier.
¹ I unfortunately failed to enquire into the
significance of Frau Emmy’s animal visions - to distinguish,
for instance, what was symbolic in her fear of animals from what
was primary horror, such as is characteristic of many neuropaths
from youth onwards.
----
Studies On Hysteria
61
May 13 . - Once again she
had slept badly, owing to gastric pains. She had not eaten any
supper. She also complained of pains in her right arm. But she was
in a good mood; she was cheerful, and, since yesterday, has treated
me with special distinction. She asked me my opinion about all
sorts of things that seemed to her important, and became quite
unreasonably agitated, for instance, when I had to look for the
towels needed in massage, and so on. Her clacking and facial tic were frequent.
Hypnosis . -
blunder was made plain to me the next day by a depreciatory comment
on her part.
----
Studies On Hysteria
60
May 12 . - Contrary to my
expectation, she had slept badly and only for a short time. I found
her in a state of great anxiety, though, incidentally, without
showing her usual physical signs of it. She would not say what the
matter was, but only that she had had bad dreams and kept seeing
the same things. ‘How dreadful it would be,’ she said,
‘if they were to come to life.’ During the massage she
dealt with a few points in reply to questions. She then became
cheerful; she told me about her social life at her dower house on
the Baltic, of the important people whom she entertains from the
neighbouring town, and so on.
Hypnosis . - She had had
some fearful dreams. The legs and arms of the chairs were all
turned into snakes; a monster with a vulture’s beak was
tearing and eating at her all over her body; other wild animals
leapt upon her, etc. She then passed on to other animal-deliria,
which, however, she qualified with the addition ‘That was
real’ (not a dream): how (on an earlier occasion) she had
been going to pick up a ball of wool, and it was a mouse and ran
away; how she had been on a walk, and a big toad suddenly jumped
out at her, and so on. I saw that my general prohibition had been
ineffective and that I should have to take her frightening
impressions away from her one by one.¹ I took an opportunity
of asking her, too, why she had gastric pains and what they came
from. (I believe that all her attacks of zoöpsia are
accompanied by gastric pains.) Her answer, which she gave rather
grudgingly, was that she did not know. I requested her to remember
by tomorrow. She then said in a definitely grumbling tone that I
was not to keep on asking her where this and that came from, but to
let her tell me what she had to say, I fell in with this, and she
went on without preface: ‘When they carried him out, I could
not believe he was dead.’ (So she was talking of her husband
again, and I saw now that the cause of her ill-humour was that she
had been suffering from the residues of this story which had been
kept back.) After this, she said, she had hated her child for three
years, because she always told herself that she might have been
able to nurse her husband back to health if she had not been in bed
on account of the child. And then after her husband’s death
there had been nothing but insults and agitations. His relatives,
who had always been against the marriage and had then been angry
because they had been so happy together, had spread a rumour that
she had poisoned him, so that she had wanted to demand an enquiry.
Her relatives had involved her in all kinds of legal proceedings
with the help of a shady journalist. The wretch had sent round
agents to stir people up against her. He got the local papers to
print libellous articles about her, and then sent her the cuttings.
This had been the origin of her unsociability and her hatred of all
strangers. After I had spoken some calming words about what she had
told me, she said she felt easier.
¹ I unfortunately failed to enquire into the
significance of Frau Emmy’s animal visions - to distinguish,
for instance, what was symbolic in her fear of animals from what
was primary horror, such as is characteristic of many neuropaths
from youth onwards.
----
Studies On Hysteria
61
May 13 . - Once again she
had slept badly, owing to gastric pains. She had not eaten any
supper. She also complained of pains in her right arm. But she was
in a good mood; she was cheerful, and, since yesterday, has treated
me with special distinction. She asked me my opinion about all
sorts of things that seemed to her important, and became quite
unreasonably agitated, for instance, when I had to look for the
towels needed in massage, and so on. Her clacking and facial tic were frequent.
Hypnosis . -
Similar Books
