The primary lesion may thus act as
"a foreign body in consciousness." Something is introduced into psychic
life which refuses to merge in the general flow of consciousness. It
cannot be accepted simply as other facts of life are accepted; it cannot
even be talked about, and so submitted to the slow usure by which our
experiences are worn down and gradually transformed. Breuer illustrates
what happens by reference to the sneezing reflex. "When an irritation to
the nasal mucous membrane for some reason fails to liberate this reflex,
a feeling of excitement and tension arises. This excitement, being unable
to stream out along motor channels, now spreads itself over the brain,
inhibiting other activities.... _In the highest spheres of human activity
we may watch the same process_." It is a result of this process that, as
Breuer and Freud found, the mere act of confession may greatly relieve the
hysterical symptoms produced by this psychic mechanism, and in some cases
may wholly and permanently remove them. It is on this fact that they
founded their method of treatment, devised by Breuer and by him termed the
cathartic method, though Freud prefers to call it the "analytic" method.
It is, as Freud points out, the reverse of the hypnotic method of
suggestive treatment; there is the same difference, Freud remarks, between
the two methods as Leonardo da Vinci found for the two technical methods
of art, _per via di porre_ and _per via di levare_; the hypnotic method,
like painting, works by putting in, the cathartic or analytic method, like
sculpture, works by taking out.
Pages:
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404