PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, MAY 29, 1912 (Continued) AFTERNOON SESSION HE meeting was called to order at 3 P.M. by the TH Dr. Tom A. Williams, Washington, D. C., read a paper entitled "Juvenile Psychogenetic Disorders: Pathogenesis: Treatment." DISCUSSION DR. ERNEST JONES, Toronto: I would ask Dr. Williams how he explains the visions of these wild animals, snakes, etc., in the last case he reported. DR. JAMES J. PUTNAM, Boston: I should like to ask Dr. Williams to say a few words more about his last remark. I understood him to say that he could not get at all the experiences in his patient's case, and that they were unimportant. I only wish to say that I think that these experiences of very early childhood are of the utmost importance, because, on the one hand, they are of a sort that most people have been in the habit of paying little attention to; and yet, on the other hand, they establish paths of least resistance which the subsequent development is likely to follow. DR. TOM A. WILLIAMS, Washington, D. C.: It was not my intention to take a controversial attitude of the whole method of the fundamental basis of genesis of psychie disorders in children. I merely wished to point out some which seemed efficient in particular cases. I do not feel in sympathy with the attitude which assumes the relation of the child to his parents to be very important. It seems to me that in children there may be a recurrence to the recollection of affective experiences which have eventuated from dreams. The fact that this happens with everybody seems to somewhat invalidate the hypothesis that assumes them as the parent cause. With regard to what Dr. Jones has said, it was not possible in the half hour to endeavor to explain why this child did see particular animals. DR. G. ALEXANDER YOUNG, Omaha, Neb., read a paper entitled "Report of a Case of Versuchung Angst Attended by Visual Hallucinations of Homicidal Nature; Psychoanalysis.' No discussion. DR. TRIGANT BURROW of Boston read a paper entitled "Psychoanalysis and Society." DISCUSSION DR. JAMES J. PUTNAM, Boston: I like the general trend of Dr. Burrow's argument so well that I should like to say a few words that may seem critical, though they are not intended to be such. What I would say should be considered as a supplement to his views rather than antagonistic to them. It seems to me that psychoanalysis is to be regarded as more or less on a par with the natural sciences, and, being on a par with the natural sciences, it does a certain work and no more. The physicist deals in certain constructions which he assumes and through which he is enabled to get at certain working theories which are of great value. The biologic evolutionist does no less. He takes an arbritrarily cut-off portion of evolution and assumes that in studying that he goes back to the beginning and passes from the simplest conditions to the more complex. In fact, however, I think he really does not go back to the simplest form of the problem. He leaves the question of the origin of the instincts, which we assume to be so primarily really untouched, and what we really need and should study as a supplement to psychoanalysis is philosophy in one form or another. When we make any mental effort to recognize the infinitude of the mental capacity on one hand, and the finiteness of any definite expression on the other hand, and in doing that we really discover the first contrast in the struggle of life, and one which is logically anterior to the contrast which we discover through psychoanalysis. The neurotic patient feels that there is conflict in his own mind. It literally turns upon itself. As far as the matter of the religious question goes, I would not undertake here to touch on that subject at length. I entirely admit that the ordinary religious idea of God gets its color and form from the projection of an earthly father; I do not, however, believe that it gets its first origin in that way. That is to say, the mind, in dealing with itself, is conscious of its own relation to the source of power which one may decline entirely to define, but which is logically the basis of our notion of divinity and motivates the desire to project the existence of an earthly father. So, too, in regard to the Trinity idea; I agree with the conception of the Trinity. It must also not be forgotten that there is a Trinity antecedent to that, namely, the mind recognizing itself as subject and object; and as lying down to relation between self anf object constitutes something which is present in every mental act, I do not think that we can very fairly assert that psychoanalysis strikes at the real origin of mental action until we really seriously look into the origin of life from that point of view. We do not come a single scrap nearer the origin of life by beginning with the child or with the germ or the egg. The question is, how did they come to be there? Then we come to a self-active force which is just as incapable of growth as electricity is, and find that we must account for that, and that, in a certain sense, we can account for it. DR. ERNEST JONES, Toronto: Dr. Prince is incorrect in attributing to psychoanalysts the view that symbolisms are inherited. I should, perhaps, rather speak for myself, and say that I personally do not hold that view, though as a matter of fact I do not know any other psychoanalysts that hold it. It seems to me to be untenable on the ground that it would contradict the well-known biological law as to the non-transmissibility of acquired characters. The inference that psychoanalysts draw from the important finding that identical symbolisms occur unconsciously in the neuroses and consciously in more primitive races is a quite different one. Holding as we do that unconscious symbolisms are essentially of infantile origin, we consider it a valuable confirmation of the truth of our views when we find that identical symbolisms occur in the childhood of the race, here not being repressed into the unconscious, but remaining conscious throughout adult life. DR. TRIGANT BURROW, Baltimore, Md.: The reply which Dr. Jones has made to Dr. Prince's objection that racial trends may not be inherited by the individual seems to me a sufficient answer. In pointing out the observed analogy between unconscious mechanisms existing in the individual and those inherent in the race I no more wish to adopt the view, in regard to the functional side, that the mental traits of the individual are of the nature of an inheritance from the homologous mental characters of the race than, in respect to the organic realm, I should pretend to espouse the view that the parallelism observed between the lineal phases of development in the phylogenetic and in the ontogenetic series could in any sense be regarded in the light of an hereditary descent. But just as organic or structural biology cites the progressive correspondence between the individual and the ethnic spheres of development in support of the evolutionary hypothesis of organic forms, so it seems fitting that functional or mental biology point to the analogous concurrence, in respect to the psychic side, in corroboration of the genetic hypothesis of mental modes and mechanisms. The parallelistic notion of concomitance is surely to be sharply discriminated from the causal conception contained in the derivative idea of heredity. In regard to Dr. Putnam's remarks I may say that I am wholly at one with him in the philosophical position for which he contends. In all that I have said, however, I find nothing in the least inconsistent with the philosophical views expressed by Dr. Putnam. Philosophy has to do with conscious deductions, while psychoanalysis is concerned exclusively with the phenomena of unconscious mentation. So that while analysis invalidates the symbols expressive of the archaic forms of religion, it does not encroach for a moment upon the question of the realities underlying them. Dr. Isadore H. Coriat of Boston read a paper entitled "The Edipus-complex in the Psychoneuroses. DISCUSSION DR. BRILL, New York: I agree with most of the statements made by Dr. Coriat, but I would like to correct the assertion that only children who are predisposed to psychoneuroses usually show an exuberant love for the mother, the dipus-complex. I must say that I have found the Edipus-complex in just as many normals as in neurotics. In fact it is found in every individual, but whereas in the normal person it remains in a state of repression, the neurotic shows its influence on the surface and can never tear himself away from his parental influences. This parental influence is found in every individual, indeed our relations. to our fellow-beings depend entirely on it. The first impression of a man is formed by one's father, and the first impression of a woman by one's mother. These father and mother images remain as a standard for our future estimation of men and women. We either like or dislike, depending upon how the person in question fits into the particular parental image. To be sure parents help to keep alive these feelings by giving the child too much love, as in the case mentioned by Dr. Coriat. When this happens the person may remain consciously attached to the parent. The dipus-dreams may be vague and symbolic, but some are quite plain. DR. ALFRED REGINALD ALLEN, Philadelphia: I am in entire accord with Dr. Brill that this is a very common, if not always present, complex of early life, and I think we find a residuum of the Edipus, or rather its Abwehr, in the symptom shown by the young boy, say from seven to fourteen years of age, who wants to play with other boys, being ashamed of playing with little girls. What has happened to him is that he has repressed his love for his mother and he has symbolized all women with his mother, and they are abhorrent to him. I had a case, referred to me some time ago, of alcoholic excess. The patient has been the rounds of many neurologists and had been treated for this difficulty by other means than psychoanalysis. I found by analysis that there was a very strong dipuscomplex. I urearthed the fact that at four years of age the boy had watched his father in considerable danger of losing his life, with a feeling of interest, almost pleasure, but absolutely ro feeling of regret whatsoever. Shortly after that we fird him playing altogether with boys, eschewing girls, then we find the homo-sexuality appear, which homo-sexuality is kept up until the present. Al |