Thus, it will be seen, the theory had to be shifted on to an entirely different basis, for the investigation now had to face the erotic conflict itself. Our example shows that this contains extremely abnormal elements and cannot, _primâ facie_, be compared with an ordinary love conflict. It is surprising, indeed hardly credible, that only the postulated affection should be conscious, whilst the real passion remained unknown to the patient. But in this case it is beyond dispute that the real erotic relation remained unillumined, whilst the field of consciousness was dominated by the assumption. If we try to formulate this fact, something like the following proposition results: _in a neurosis_, two erotic tendencies exist which stand in extreme opposition to one another, and one at least is unconscious. Against this formula the objection can be raised that it has obviously been derived from this one particular case, and is therefore lacking in general validity. The criticism will be the more readily urged because no one unpossessed of special reasons is willing to admit that the erotic conflict is of universal prevalence. On the contrary, it is assumed that this conflict belongs more properly to the sphere of novels, since it is generally depicted as something in the nature of such wild adventures as are described by Karin Michaelis in her "Aberrations of Marriage," or by Forel in "The Sexual Question." But indeed this is not the case; for we know the wildest and most moving dramas are not played on the stage, but every day in the hearts of ordinary men and women who pass by without exciting attention, and who betray to the world, save through the symbol of a nervous breakdown, nothing of the conflicts that rage within them. But what is so difficult for the layman to grasp is the fact that in most cases patients have no suspicion whatever of the internecine war raging in their unconscious. But remembering that there are many people who understand nothing at all about themselves, we shall be less surprised at the realisation that there are also people who are utterly unaware of their actual conflicts.
If the reader is now inclined to admit the possible existence of pathogenic, and perhaps even of unconscious conflicts, he will certainly protest that they are not erotic conflicts. If this kind reader should happen himself to be somewhat nervous, the mere suggestion will arouse his indignation, for we are all inclined, as a result of our education in school and at home, to cross ourselves three times where we meet such words as "erotic" and "sexual"--and so we are conveniently able to think that nothing of that nature exists, or at least very seldom, and at a great distance from ourselves. But it is just this attitude which in the first instance brings about neurotic conflicts.
We recognise that the course of civilisation consists in the progressive mastering of the animal element in man; it is a process of domestication which cannot be carried through without rebellion on the part of the animal nature still thirsting for its liberty. Humanity forces itself to endure the restrictions of the civilising process; but from time to time there comes a frenzied bursting of all bonds. Antiquity had experience of it in that wave of Dionysian orgies, surging hither from the East, which became an essentially characteristic element of antique culture. Its spirit was partly instrumental in causing the numerous sects and philosophic schools of the last century before Christ, to develop the Stoic ideal into asceticism; and in producing from the polytheistic chaos of those times, the ascetic twin-religions of Mithras and of Christ. A second clearly marked wave of the Dionysian impulse towards freedom swept over the Western world during the Renaissance. It is difficult to judge of one's own time, but we gain some insight if we note how the Arts are developing, what is the prevailing type of public taste, what men read and write, what societies they found, what "questions" are the order of the day, and against what the Philistines are fighting. We find in the long list of our present social problems that the sexual question occupies by no means the last place. It agitates men and women who would shake the foundations of sexual morality, and throw off the burden of moral shame which past centuries have heaped upon Eros. The existence of these aspirations and endeavours cannot be simply denied, or declared indefensible; they exist and are therefore presumably not without justification. It is both more interesting and more useful to study carefully the basic causes of these movements than to chime in with the lamentations of the professional mourners over morals, who prophesy with unction the moral downfall of humanity. The moralist least of all trusts God, for he thinks that the beautiful tree of humanity can only thrive by dint of being pruned, bound, and trained on a trellis, whereas Father-Sun and Mother-Earth have combined to make it grow joyfully in accordance with its own laws, which are full of the deepest meaning.
Serious people are aware that a very real sexual problem does exist at the present time. The rapid development of the towns, coupled with methods of work brought about by the extraordinary division of labour, the increasing industrialisation of the country and the growing security of life, combine to deprive humanity of many opportunities of expending emotional energy. Think of the life of the peasant, whose work so rich and full of change, affords him unconscious satisfaction by means of its symbolic content; a like satisfaction the factory-hand and the clerk can never know. Think of a life with nature; of those wonderful moments when, as lord and fructifier, man drives the plough through the earth, and with kingly gesture scatters the seed of the future harvest; see his justifiable awe before the destructive power of the elements, his joy in the fruitfulness of his wife, who gives him daughters and sons, who mean to him increased working power and enhanced prosperity. Alas! from all this we town-dwellers, we modern machines, are far, far removed.
Must we not admit that we are already deprived of the most natural and most beautiful of all satisfactions, since we can no longer contemplate the arrival of our own seed, the "blessing" of children, with unmixed pleasure? Marriages where no artifices are resorted to are rare. Is this not an all-important departure from the joys which Mother Nature gave her first-born sons? Can such a state of affairs bring satisfaction? Note how men slink to their work, watch their faces at an early morning hour in the tram-cars. One of them makes his little wheels, and another writes trivial things which do not interest him. What wonder is it if such men belong to as many clubs as there are days in the week, and that among women little societies flourish, where they pour out on some particular hero or cause those unsatisfied desires which the man dulls at his restaurant or club, imbibing beer and playing at being important? To these sources of dissatisfaction is added a more serious factor. Nature has provided defenceless, weaponless man with a great amount of energy to enable him not merely to bear passively the grave dangers of existence, but also to conquer them. Mother Nature has equipped her son for tremendous hardships and has placed a costly premium on the overcoming of them, as Schopenhauer quite understood when he said that "happiness is really but the termination of unhappiness." Civilized people are, as a rule, shielded from the immediately pressing dangers, and they are therefore daily tempted to excess, for in man the animal always becomes rampant when he is not constrained by fierce necessity. Are we then indeed unrestrained? In what orgiastic festivals do _we_ dispose of the surplus of vital power? Our moral views do not permit us that outlet.
But reckon up in how many directions we are met by unsatisfied longings; the denial of procreation and begetting, for which purpose nature has endowed us with great energy; the unending monotony of our highly developed modern methods of "division of labour," which excludes any interest in the work itself; and above all our effortless security against war, lawlessness, robbery, epidemics, infant and woman mortality--all this gives a sum of surplus energy which must needs find an outlet. But how? A relatively few create quasi-natural dangers for themselves in reckless sport; many more, seeking to find some equivalent for their more primitive energy, take to alcoholic excess; others expend themselves in the rush of money-making, or in the morbid performance of duties, in perpetual over-work. By such means they try to escape a dangerous storing-up of energy which might force mad outlets for itself. It is for such reasons that we have to-day a _sexual question_. It is in this direction that men's energy would like to expend itself as it has done from time immemorial in periods of security and abundance. Under such circumstances it is not only rabbits that multiply; men and women, too, become the sport of these accesses of nature: the sport, because their moral views have confined them in a narrow cage, the excessive narrowness of which was not felt so long as harsh external necessity pressed upon them with even greater constraint. But now the man of the cities finds the space too circumscribed. He is surrounded by alluring temptation, and like an invisible _procureur_ there slinks through society the knowledge of preventive methods which evade all consequences. Why then moral restraint? Out of religious consideration for an angry God? Apart from the prevalence of widespread unbelief, even the believing man might quietly ask himself whether, if he himself were God, he would punish the youthful erotic uncontrol of John and Mary with twice twenty-four years of imprisonment and seething in boiling oil. Such ideas are no longer compatible with our decorous conception of God. The God of our time is necessarily much too tolerant to make a great fuss over it; (knavishness and hypocrisy are a thousand times worse). In this way the somewhat ascetic and hypocritical sexual morality of our time has had the ground cut from under its feet. Or is it the case that we are now protected from dissoluteness by superior wisdom, recognition of the nothingness of human happenings? Unfortunately we are very far from that; rather does the hypnotic power of tradition keep us in bonds, and through cowardice and thoughtlessness and habit the herd goes tramping on in this same path. But man possesses in the unconscious a fine scent for the spirit of his time; he has an inkling of his own possibilities and he feels in his innermost heart the instability of the foundations of present-day morality, no longer supported by living religious conviction. It is thus the greater number of the erotic conflicts of our time originate. Instinct thirsting for liberty thrusts itself up against the yielding barriers of morality: men are tempted, they desire and do not desire. And because they will not and cannot think out to its logical conclusion what it is they really desire, their erotic conflict is largely unconscious; whence comes neurosis. Neurosis then is most intimately bound up with the problem of our times and represents an unsuccessful attempt of the individual to solve the general problem in his own person. Neurosis is a tearing in two of the _inner self_. For most men the reason of this cleavage is the fact that their conscious self desires to hold to its moral ideal, whilst the unconscious strives after the amoral ideal, steadfastly rejected by the conscious self. People of this kind would like to appear more decent than they really are. But the conflict is often of an opposite kind. There are those who do not outwardly live a decent life at all and do not place the slightest constraint upon their sexuality, but in reality this is a sinful pose assumed for goodness knows what reasons, for down below they have a decorous soul which has somehow gone astray in their unconscious, just as has the real immoral nature in the case of apparently moral people. Extremes of conduct always arouse suspicions of the opposite tendencies in the unconscious.
It was necessary to make this general statement in order to elucidate the idea of the "erotic conflict" in analytical psychology, for it is the key to the conception of neurosis. We can now proceed to consider the psychoanalytic technique. Obviously the main problem is, how to arrive by the shortest and best path at a knowledge of the patient's "unconscious." The method first used was hypnotism, the patient being questioned, on the production of spontaneous phantasies observed while in a state of hypnotic concentration. This method is still occasionally used, but in comparison with the present technique is primitive and frequently unsatisfactory. A second method, evolved by the Psychiatric Clinic, Zürich, was the so-called association method,[227] which is chiefly of theoretic, experimental value. Its result is an extensive, though superficial orientation, concerning the unconscious conflict ("complex").[228] The more penetrating method is that of dream-analysis whose discovery belongs to Sigmund Freud.[229]
Of the dream it can be said that "the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner." It is only in modern times that the dream (that fleeting and seemingly insignificant product of the soul), has met with such complete contempt. Formerly it was esteemed, as a harbinger of fate, a warning or a consolation, a messenger of the gods. Now we use it as a messenger of the unconscious; it must disclose to us the secrets which our unconscious self enviously hides from our consciousness, and it does so with astonishing completeness.
On analytical investigation it becomes plain that the dream, as we remember it, is only a façade which conceals the contents within the house. But if, observing certain technical rules, we get the dreamer to talk about the details of his dream, it soon appears that his free associations group themselves in certain directions and round certain topics. These appear to be of personal significance, and have a meaning which at first sight would not be suspected. Careful comparison shows that they are in close and subtle symbolic connection with the dream-façade.[230] This particular complex of ideas in which all the threads of the dream unite, is the conflict for which we are seeking; is its particular form at the moment, conditioned by the immediate circumstances. What is painful and incompatible is in this way so covered up or split that we can call it a wish-fulfilment; but we must immediately add that the wishes fulfilled in the dream do not seem at first sight to be _our_ wishes, but rather the very opposite. For instance, a daughter loves her mother tenderly, but she dreams that her mother is dead; this causes her great grief. Such dreams, where apparently there is no trace of any wish-fulfilment are innumerable, and are a constant stumbling-block to our learned critics, for--_incredible dictu_--they still cannot grasp the simple distinction between the _manifest_ and the _latent_ content of the dream. We must guard against such an error; the conflict dealt with in the dream is an unconscious one, and equally so also is the manner its solution. Our dreamer has, as a matter of fact, the wish to get away from her mother--expressed in the language of the unconscious, she wants her mother to die. Now we know that a certain section of the unconscious contains all our lost memories, and also all those infantile impulses that cannot find any application in adult life--a series, that is, of ruthless childish desires. We may say that for the most part the unconscious bears an infantile stamp; like the child's simple wish: "Daddy, when Mummie is dead, will you marry me?" In a dream that infantile expression of a wish is the substitute for a recent wish to marry, which is painful to the dreamer for reasons still undiscovered. This thought, or rather the seriousness of its corresponding intention, is said to be "repressed into the unconscious" and must there necessarily express itself in an infantile way, for the material which is at the disposal of the unconscious consists chiefly of infantile memories. As the latest researches of the Zürich school have shown,[231] these are not only infantile memories but also "racial" memories, extending far beyond the limits of individual existence.
Important desires which have not been sufficiently gratified, or have been "repressed," during the day find their symbolic substitution in dreams. Because moral tendencies usually predominate in waking hours, these ungratified desires which strive to realise themselves symbolically in the dream are, as rule, erotic ones. It is, therefore, somewhat rash to tell dreams before one who understands, for the symbolism is often extremely transparent to him who knows the rules! The clearest in this respect are "anxiety-dreams" which are so common, and which invariably symbolise a strong erotic desire.
Often the dream apparently deals with quite irrelevant details, thereby making a ridiculous impression; or else it is so unintelligible that we are simply amazed at it, and accordingly have to overcome considerable resistance in ourselves before we can set to work seriously to unravel its symbolic weaving by patient work. But when at last we penetrate into its real meaning we find ourselves at a bound in the very heart of the dreamer's secrets, and find to our astonishment that an apparently senseless dream is quite full of sense, and deals with extraordinarily important and serious problems of the soul. Having acquired this knowledge we cannot refrain from giving rather more credit to the old superstitions concerning the meaning of dreams for which our rationalising tendencies, until lately, had no use.
As Freud says: "Dream-analysis is the _via regia_ to the unconscious." Dream-analysis leads us into the deepest personal secrets, and it is therefore an invaluable instrument in the hand of the psychotherapist and educator. The objections of the opponents of this method are based, as might be expected, upon argument, which (setting aside undercurrents of personal feeling) show the bias of present-day Scholasticism. It so happens that it is just the analysis of dreams which mercilessly uncovers the deceptive morals and hypocritical affectations of man, and shows him the under side of his character; can we wonder if many feel that their toes have been rather painfully trodden upon? In connection with the dream-analysis I am always reminded of the striking statue of Carnal Pleasure in Bâle Cathedral, which shows in front the sweet smile of archaic sculpture, but behind is covered with toads and serpents. Dream-analysis reverses the figure and for once shows the other side. The ethical value of this reality-correction (Wirklichkeitscorrectur) cannot be disputed. It is a painful but extremely useful operation, which makes great demands on both physician and patient.
Psychoanalysis, in so far as we are considering it as a therapeutic technique, consists mainly of the analysis of many dreams; the dreams in the course of the treatment bringing up successively the contents of the unconscious in order that they may be subjected to the disinfecting power of daylight, and in this process many a valuable thing believed to have been lost is found again. It is not surprising that for those persons who have adopted a certain pose towards themselves, psychoanalysis is at times a real torture, since in accordance with the old mystic saying, "Give all thou hast, then only shalt thou receive," there is first the necessity to get rid of almost all the dearly cherished illusions, to permit the advent of something deeper, finer, and greater, for only through the mystery of self-sacrifice is it possible to be "born-again." It is indeed ancient wisdom which again sees the daylight in psychoanalytic treatment, and it is a curious thing that this kind of psychic re-education proves to be necessary at the height of our modern culture; this education which in more than one respect can be compared to the technique of Socrates, even though psychoanalysis penetrates to much greater depths.
We always find in a patient some conflict, which at a particular point, is connected with the great problems of society; so that when the analysis has arrived at this point the apparently individual conflict is revealed as a universal conflict of the environment and the epoch. Neurosis is thus, strictly speaking, nothing but an individual attempt, however unsuccessful, at a solution of the general problem; it must be so, for a general problem, a "question," is not an end in itself; it only exists in the hearts and heads of individual men and women. The "question" which troubles the patient is--whether you like it or not--the "sexual" question, or more precisely, the problem of present-day _sexual morality_. His increased demands upon life and the joy of life, upon glowing reality, can stand the necessary limitations which _reality_ sets, but not the arbitrary, ill-supported prohibitions of present-day morals, which would curb too much the creative spirit rising up from the depths of the darkness of the beasts that perish. For the _neurotic has in him the soul of a child_ that can but ill-endure arbitrary limitations of which it does not see the meaning; it tries to adopt the moral standard, but thereby only falls into deeper disunion and distress within itself. On the one hand it tries to suppress itself, and on the other to free itself--this is the struggle that is called Neurosis. If this conflict were altogether clear to consciousness it would of course never give rise to neurotic symptoms; these only arise when we cannot see the other side of our character, and the urgency of the problems of that other side. In these circumstances symptoms arise which partially express what is unrecognised in the soul. The symptom is, therefore, an indirect expression of unrecognised desires, which, were they conscious, would be in violent opposition to the sufferer's moral views. As we have already said, this dark side of the soul does not come within the purview of consciousness, and therefore the patient cannot deal with it, correct it, resign himself to it, or renounce it, for he cannot be said to _possess_ the unconscious impulses. By being repressed from the hierarchy of the conscious soul, they have become _autonomous complexes_ which can be brought again under control by analysis of the unconscious, though not without great resistance. There are a great many patients whose great boast it is that the erotic conflict does not exist for them; they are sure that the sexual question is nonsense, that they have, so to say, no sexuality. These people do not see that other things of unknown origin cumber their path, such as hysterical whims, underhand tricks, from which they make themselves, or those nearest them, suffer; nervous stomach-catarrh, pain here and there, irritability without reason, and a whole host of nervous symptoms. All which things show what is wrong with them, for relatively, only a few specially favoured by fate, avoid the great conflict.
Analytical psychology has already been reproached with setting at liberty the animal instincts of men, hitherto happily repressed, and causing thereby untold harm. This childish apprehension clearly proves how little trust is put in the efficacy of present-day moral principles. It is pretended that only morals can restrain men from dissoluteness; a much more efficient regulator, however, is _necessity_, which sets much more real and convincing bounds than any moral principles. It is true that analysis liberates animal instincts, but not, as some have said, just in order to let them loose, but rather to make them available for higher application, in so far as this is possible to the particular individual, and in so far as such "sublimated" application is required. Under all circumstances it is an advantage to be in full possession of one's own personality, for otherwise the repressed desires will get in the way in a most serious manner, and overthrow us just in that place where we are most vulnerable. It is surely better that a man learn to tolerate himself, and instead of making war on himself convert his inner difficulties into real experiences, rather than uselessly repeat them again and again in phantasy. Then at least he lives, and does not merely consume himself in fruitless struggles. But when men are educated to recognise the baser side of their own natures, it may be hoped they will learn to understand and love their fellow-men better too. A decrease of hypocrisy and an increase of tolerance towards oneself, can have only good results in tolerance towards one's neighbours, for men are only too easily disposed to extend to others the unfairness and violence which they do to their own natures.
Freud's theory of repression does, indeed, seem to postulate the existence only of people who, being too moral, are continually repressing the immorality of their natural instincts. According to this idea, the immoral man who allows his natural instincts an unbridled existence should be proof against neurosis. But daily experience proves this is obviously not the case; he may be just as neurotic as other men. If we analyse him, we find that it is simply his decency that has been repressed. Therefore, when an immoral man is neurotic, he represents what Nietzsche appropriately described as "the pale criminal," a man who does not stand upon the same level as his deed.[232]
The opinion may be held, that in such a case the repressed remnants of decency are merely infantile traditional legacies, that impose unnecessary fetters upon natural instincts, for which reason they should be eradicated. The principle "écraser l'infâme" would be the natural culmination of such an absolute let-instinct-live theory.[233] That would obviously be quite phantastic and nonsensical. It should, indeed, never be forgotten--and the Freudian School needs this reminder--that morality was not brought down upon tables of stone from Sinai and forced upon the people, but that morality is a function of the human soul, which is as old as humanity itself. Morality is not inculcated from without. Man has it primarily within himself--not the law indeed, but the essence of morals.
After all, does a more moral view-point exist than the let-instinct-live theory? Is there a more heroic morality than this? That is why Nietzsche, the heroic, is especially partial to it. It is natural and inborn cowardice that makes people say, "God preserve me from following my instincts," thinking that they thus prove their high moral standard. They do not understand that following one's bent is really much too costly for them, too strenuous, too dangerous, and finally it cuts somewhat against that sense of decency which most people associate rather with taste than with a categorical imperative. The unpardonable fault of the let-instinct-live theory is, that it is much too heroic, too idealogic for the multitude.
There is, therefore, probably no other way for the immoral man but to accept the moral corrective of his unconscious, just as he who is moral must come to terms as best he may, with his demons of the netherworld. It cannot be gainsaid that the Freudian School is so convinced of the fundamental, and even exclusive importance of sexuality in neurosis, that it has been courageous enough to face the consequences of its convictions by heroically attacking the sexual morality of the present day. Many different opinions prevail upon this subject. What is significant is, that the problem of sexual morality is being widely discussed at the present time. This is doubtless both useful and necessary, for hitherto we have not really had any sexual morality at all, but merely a low barbaric view, quite insufficiently differentiated. In the Middle Ages, usury was considered absolutely despicable, for at that time the morality of finance was not casuistically differentiated; there was nothing but a kind of lump-morality. So nowadays, there exists nothing but sexual morality in the lump. A girl who has an illegitimate child is condemned, without any inquiry as to whether she is a decent person or not. Any form of love that has no legal sanction is immoral, no matter whether it occurs between thoughtful people of value or irresponsible scamps. People are still barbarically hypnotised by the thing itself, to such an extent that they forget the individual.
Therefore the discussion of and attack upon sexual morality of the present day signifies at bottom, a moral deed, constraining people towards a differentiated and really ethical conception of the subject.
As already stated, Freud sees the great conflict between the ego and natural instinct chiefly under its sexual aspect. This aspect does exist, but a big query should be placed behind its actuality. The question is whether what appears in a sexual form must always essentially be sexuality? It is conceivable that one instinct may disguise itself under another. Freud himself has supplied several notable instances of such a disguise, proving therewith, convincingly, that many of the deeds and aims of human kind are, at bottom, nothing but somewhat figurative expressions substituted, on account of embarrassment, in place of important elementary things. The substitution is not seen through on account of reasons of mutual consideration. There is nothing to hinder certain elementary things being also pushed conveniently into the foreground, in place of more necessary but less pleasant ones, under the illusion that the elementary things only are really in question.
_The theory of sexuality although one-sided is absolutely right up to a certain point. It would, therefore, be just as false to repudiate it as to accept it as universally valid._
