ABSTRACTS

UNTERSUCHUNGEN UEBER DIE KONSTANZ UND DEN WECHSEL DER PSYCHOLOGISCHEN KONSTELLATION BEI NORMALEN UND

FRÜHDEMENTEN

(SCHIZOPHRENEN). (INVESTIGATION OF THE

CHANGE AND CONSTANCY OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTELLATION

IN NORMAL INDIVIDUALS AND IN EARLY DEMENTS (SCHIZOPHRENICS).) Von W. Pfenninger. JAHRBUCH FÜR PSYCHOANALYTISCHE FORSCHUNGEN, Bd. III, 2d Half.

UND 1912.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGISCHE

Various observers in working with association experiments. have noticed that certain stimulus words cause a lengthening of the reaction time, and that when the experiments have been repeated at varying intervals of time the same prolongation of the reaction time is present. Jung in his Diagnostic Association Studies has laid great weight on the lengthened reaction time, and also on the inability to correctly reproduce the reaction word, and has pointed out that the lengthened reaction time corresponds to a complex reaction, and such complex associations show a distinct tendency to incorrect reproductions.

The results of the reproduction experiments show that it is chiefly the complex associations which lead to a distortion of the reproduction and raises the supposition that in repetition investigations the complex reactions play a very important rôle and perhaps may be one of the principal causes for the change of reaction in repeated experiments. The association experiments also point out a means of determining the psychological daily disposition, and the reproduction experiments thus allow a certain insight into the constancy and change of the psychological constellation.

In his experiments the author used both normal and insane subjects, the latter of the dementia præcox type. Each of four men and four women, uneducated attendants, were given one hundred associations according to Jung's scheme, and the reactions and the time in fifths of seconds of each individual mistake was noted. This experiment was repeated with the same words eight times, at weekly intervals, with each of the eight subjects. At the same time the same experiment was performed with six male and five female subjects suffering from pure dementia præcox. The work is divided into three parts: the experiments with the normal subjects, those with the insane subjects, and thirdly, a part devoted to reproduction experiments with six female dementia.

præcox subjects and a female experimenter. Numerous tables are given to illustrate the results which are summarized by the author as follows:

PART I. NORMAL SUBJECTS

1. The reaction time. In male subjects the reaction times are shorter than in the female. The curve of the average reproduction time decreases slowly and irregularly in the men, in the women it decreases rapidly.

2. Change of constellation. In men the percentage of change is less than in women. In men there is first a slow decrease in the percentage followed by a rapid decrease; in women a rapid decrease followed at the end of the series by an increase.

3. The women, on an average, show more than twice the number of complex reactions than do men. In the course of the investigation the average of complex reactions decreases very slightly in the women as compared with the men. Although there is a tendency to increase of the complex reactions, the individual series show more irregularities than was the case in the series of constellation changes or in the reaction times.

4. If the reactions to the first or second series showed several complex reactions, the remainder of the series showed more changes. than those which were not so marked in the first series.

5. In the unchanged reactions the average time does not reach the general probable mean, but, on the other hand, this is markedly overstepped by a changed reaction.

6. Frequent changes are to be expected when there is an increase in the complex reactions in the first and second series. In the second series one may safely say that with an increase in the complex reactions one may expect a corresponding greater number of changes.

7. If the reaction time of the first series is increased one may expect changes in the next series, and indeed the earlier this occurs the more the reaction time increases over the probable mean.

8. Before a change the reaction time increases over the general probable mean, in unchanging reactions it usually remains under the mean.

9. In the repetitions changes especially occur where more than the average number of changes follow a stimulus word, therefore in complex reactions.

10. The changes most frequently fall in a row of associations which are disturbed by a persevering complex.

PART II. INSANE SUBJECTS

1. The insane subjects as a rule react three times more slowly than do the normal. One notices, however, that in the insane there are marked individual differences. The light hebephrenics or the paranoid cases do not show any special difference in the reaction time from the normal, in the marked catatonics, however, the reaction time is markedly increased. From this one cannot say that the individual associations are slowed, but that only the expression is retarded.

The course of the average times is as follows: the men begin with a high reaction time which decreases. The women, on the other hand, begin with a relatively short time which increases and then decreases again. These variations are understood as resistance phenomena in the psychoanalytic sense.

2. Reaction changes. There is a greater percentage of changes in men than in women. Towards the end of the repetitions the changes increase. The increase of the changes in dementia præcox (Schizophrenia) stands in connection with the increase. of the complexes.

3. The number of complex reactions in men rapidly decreases, later it does not increase markedly, which is similar to the results in normal women. The women show an almost continual decrease comparable to that of the normal men. (Reversal of the psychosexual viewpoint.)

4. It is also to be noted in the insane subjects that if a reaction in the first or second series shows one or more complex characteristics there are, as a rule, more changes following than if such were not present.

5. Although the results have no regular value, it is to be noted that in the insane subjects, where there are frequent changes in the first and second series, there is an inclination to increase of complex reactions.

6. The elementary rules for the change and constancy of the constellation found in the normal subjects are also present in the insane, the only differences being in the indications of the affective focus, for example, the increase in the complex indicators.

PART III. REPETITION EXPERIMENTS WITH FEMALE EXPERIMENTER AND FEMALE SUBJECTS

1. The curve of the average time is nearer the type of the corresponding curve of insane men than to that of the women.

2. The curve of frequency of complex indicators nears the corresponding type of insane men as well as that of normal women.

3. Here also the first and second series is shown to be prognostically important for later changes. The results again approach those of the normal women and insane men.

CHARLES RICKSHER.

CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SO-CALLED DIP

SOMANIA. By Dr. Otto Juliusburger. Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, July-August, 1912.

By dipsomania we understand a recurrent uncontrollable craving for alcohol; in the interim the patient is temperate or even a total abstainer. There are various theories to explain dipsomania. According to Kraepelin and Gaupp dipsomania is closely related to epilepsy, inasmuch as the attack develops rather suddenly, and it strongly simulates the epileptic mood. Anxiety, profound depression, heightened irritability, oppression of the head, weariness of life, anorexia, insomnia, and sexual irritation stand out prominently in the foreground. Ziehen maintains that in fifty per cent of his cases epileptic twilight of consciousness (Dämmerzustand) was usually present, and only in rare instances could an hysterical state be demonstrated. It should be borne in mind that in the epileptic cases the amnesia was more strongly developed and was restricted to the very early period of the attack. One-third of his cases belonged to periodic melancholia, which usually ushered in with a marked anxiety affect; the rest of the cases were grouped with periodic mania. Ziehen states that he had seen cases of dipsomania following pathological intoxication. Cramer is of the opinion that dipsomania is not the effect of habitual drunkenness, but rather a recurrent pathological state determining the dipsomanic attack. Stöcker shares Gaupp's views, and in his recent book he declares that in his cases, besides the dipsomanic attacks, there were other stigmata of epilepsy. Wernicke held that the peculiar periodicity of dipsomania could only be elicited in a small number of cases, and, therefore, he believed that dipsomania could not be grouped with periodic mania. According to his conception there is a disturbance in the continuity of consciousness; at the break the normal personality forms authoctonous ideas, through which alteration and deterioration of character results.

Juliusburger does not agree with Kraepelin, Gaupp, Ziehen, and others that dipsomania is a disease process. He holds that dipsomania is a peculiar mental state with an underlying psychosexual mechanism, and in support of his view he describes a case

It

in detail and also refers briefly to analyses of other cases. will not be amiss to allude to the clinical history of the author's patient.

The patient appears to be a young man (the exact age is not known), married, and for the past five years has been subject to attacks of dipsomania, which recur occasionally, once a month, every fortnight, or twice a week, and which last a day and a half; in the interim he is said to be temperate. In the attack the patient visits the same restaurant; he drinks wine and sack, and remains there till 9 P.M. The restaurant keeper is his relative by marriage, and with him the patient calls at another café, where they continue to drink till he (the patient) again comes to his senses. Then he returns home and sleeps for six or seven hours. On the following day the patient does no work, but sleeps most of the time. It is interesting to note that in the second restaurant the piano is usually playing, and that in neither place are the servants female. In the café he wishes to sing and express himself forcibly; however, he does not utter vulgar or obscene expressions. In this state women do not appeal to him, and, as a matter of fact, he has no sexual desires.

In regard to analysis: At the age of seven he drank whiskey from a bottle, and following this he had convulsions, but not since then. When eleven years old he began to masturbate; the first time he had practised this habit with his schoolmates, but they did not indulge in mutual onanism. Since the age of nineteen he masturbated occasionally, which usually bore a direct relation to intoxication. The same was true of married life. At fourteen years of age, while doing his lessons in a room where two girls were sleeping, one of them seized his hand, with which she fondled her genitalia. From the age of seventeen up till the time of his marriage he indulged in promiscuous intercourse.

There are a few facts of his marriage which should be emphasized. The restaurant keeper was his wife's uncle, of whom he was very fond. He kept company with the niece, but at one time wished to give her up, and for this reason made some effort to avoid the restaurant, but was unsuccessful. Finally he married her. After marriage he quarreled with her uncle, and at about that time his wife left for Vienna. In her absence he did not visit the uncle's café, and during that period he abstained from liquor. Three months later he met the uncle, and was then reconciled to him. The uncle insisted upon his visiting his restaurant, and from that time on the patient resumed his habit.

According to Abraham, craving for alcoholic beverages abolishes more or less the sublimation of the homosexual activity,