Freud - Complete Works (506 page)

Mourning And Melancholia

3051

   If we put these two indications
together, what we find is this. In mania, the ego must have got
over the loss of the object (or its mourning over the loss, or
perhaps the object itself), and thereupon the whole quota of
anticathexis which the painful suffering of melancholia had drawn
to itself from the ego and ‘bound’ will have become
available. Moreover, the manic subject plainly demonstrates his
liberation from the object which was the cause of his suffering, by
seeking like a ravenously hungry man for new object-cathexes.

   This explanation certainly sounds
plausible, but in the first place it is too indefinite, and,
secondly, it gives rise to more new problems and doubts than we can
answer. We will not evade a discussion of them, even though we
cannot expect it to lead us to a clear understanding.

   In the first place, normal
mourning, too, overcomes the loss of the object, and it, too, while
it lasts, absorbs all the energies of the ego. Why, then, after it
has run its course, is there no hint in its case of the economic
condition for a phase of triumph? I find it impossible to answer
this objection straight away. It also draws our attention to the
fact that we do not even know the economic means by which mourning
carries out its task. Possibly, however, a conjecture will help us
here. Each single one of the memories and situations of expectancy
which demonstrate the libido’s attachment to the lost object
is met by the verdict of reality that the object no longer exists;
and the ego, confronted as it were with the question whether it
shall share this fate, is persuaded by the sum of the narcissistic
satisfactions it derives from being alive to sever its attachment
to the object that has been abolished. We may perhaps suppose that
this work of severance is so slow and gradual that by the time it
has been finished the expenditure of energy necessary for it is
also dissipated.¹

   It is tempting to go on from this
conjecture about the work of mourning and try to give an account of
the work of melancholia. Here we are met at the outset by an
uncertainty. So far we have hardly considered melancholia from the
topographical point of view, nor asked ourselves in and between
what psychical systems the work of melancholia goes on. What part
of the mental processes of the disease still takes place in
connection with the unconscious object-cathexes that have been
given up, and what part in connection with their substitute, by
identification, in the ego?

  
¹
The economic standpoint has hitherto
received little attention in psycho-analytic writings. I would
mention as an exception a paper by Victor Tausk (1913) on motives
for repression devalued by recompenses.

Mourning And Melancholia

3052

   The quick and easy answer is that
‘the unconscious (thing-) presentation of the object has been
abandoned by the libido’. In reality, however, this
presentation is made up of innumerable single impressions (or
unconscious traces of them), and this withdrawal of libido is not a
process that can be accomplished in a moment, but must certainly,
as in mourning, be one in which progress is long-drawn-out and
gradual. Whether it begins simultaneously at several points or
follows some sort of fixed sequence is not easy to decide; in
analyses it often becomes evident that first one and then another
memory is activated, and that the laments which always sound the
same and are wearisome in their monotony nevertheless take their
rise each time in some different unconscious source. If the object
does not possess this great significance for the ego - a
significance reinforced by a thousand links - then, too, its loss
will not be of a kind to cause either mourning or melancholia. This
characteristic of detaching the libido bit by bit is therefore to
be ascribed alike to mourning and to melancholia; it is probably
supported by the same economic situation and serves the same
purposes in both.

   As we have seen, however,
melancholia contains something more than normal mourning. In
melancholia the relation to the object is no simple one; it is
complicated by the conflict due to ambivalence. The ambivalence is
either constitutional, i.e. is an element of every love-relation
formed by this particular ego, or else it proceeds precisely from
those experiences that involved the threat of losing the object.
For this reason the exciting causes of melancholia have a much
wider range than those of mourning, which is for the most part
occasioned only by a real loss of the object, by its death. In
melancholia, accordingly, countless separate struggles are carried
on over the object, in which hate and love contend with each other;
the one seeks to detach the libido from the object, the other to
maintain this position of the libido against the assault. The
location of these separate struggles cannot be assigned to any
system but the
Ucs.
, the region of the memory-traces of
things
(as contrasted with
word
-cathexes). In
mourning, too, the efforts to detach the libido are made in this
same system; but in it nothing hinders these processes from
proceeding along the normal path through the
Pcs.
to
consciousness. This path is blocked for the work of melancholia,
owing perhaps to a number of causes or a combination of them.
Constitutional ambivalence belongs by its nature to the repressed;
traumatic experiences in connection with the object may have
activated other repressed material. Thus everything to do with
these struggles due to ambivalence remains withdrawn from
consciousness, until the outcome characteristic of melancholia has
set in. This, as we know, consists in the threatened libidinal
cathexis at length abandoning the object, only, however, to draw
back to the place in the ego from which it had proceeded. So by
taking flight into the ego love escapes extinction. After this
regression of the libido the process can become conscious, and it
is represented to consciousness as a conflict between one part of
the ego and the critical agency.

Mourning And Melancholia

3053

   What consciousness is aware of in
the work of melancholia is thus not the essential part of it, nor
is it even the part which we may credit with an influence in
bringing the ailment to an end. We see that the ego debases itself
and rages against itself, and we understand as little as the
patient what this can lead to and how it can change. We can more
readily attribute such a function to the
unconscious
part of
the work, because it is not difficult to perceive an essential
analogy between the work of melancholia and of mourning. Just as
mourning impels the ego to give up the object by declaring the
object to be dead and offering the ego the inducement of continuing
to live, so does each single struggle of ambivalence loosen the
fixation of the libido to the object by disparaging it, denigrating
it and even as it were killing it. It is possible for the process
in the
Ucs.
to come to an end, either after the fury has
spent itself or after the object has been abandoned as valueless.
We cannot tell which of these two possibilities is the regular or
more usual one in bringing melancholia to an end, nor what
influence this termination has on the future course of the case.
The ego may enjoy in this the satisfaction of knowing itself as the
better of the two, as superior to the object.

   Even if we accept this view of
the work of melancholia, it still does not supply an explanation of
the one point on which we were seeking light. It was our
expectation that the economic condition for the emergence of mania
after the melancholia has run its course is to be found in the
ambivalence which dominates the latter affection; and in this we
found support from analogies in various other fields. But there is
one fact before which that expectation must bow. Of the three
preconditions of melancholia - loss of the object, ambivalence, and
regression of libido into the ego - the first two are also found in
the obsessional self-reproaches arising after a death has occurred.
In those cases it is unquestionably the ambivalence which is the
motive force of the conflict, and observation shows that after the
conflict has come to an end there is nothing left over in the
nature of the triumph of a manic state of mind. We are thus led to
the third factor as the only one responsible for the result. The
accumulation of cathexis which is at first bound and then, after
the work of melancholia is finished, becomes free and makes mania
possible must be linked with regression of the libido to
narcissism. The conflict within the ego, which melancholia
substitutes for the struggle over the object, must act like a
painful wound which calls for an extraordinarily high anticathexis.
- But here once again, it will be well to call a halt and to
postpone any further explanation of mania until we have gained some
insight into the economic nature, first, of physical pain, and then
of the mental pain which is analogous to it. As we already know,
the interdependence of the complicated problems of the mind forces
us to break off every enquiry before it is completed - till the
outcome of some other enquiry can come to its assistance.¹

  
¹
[
Footnote added
1925:] Cf. a
continuation of this discussion of mania in
Group Psychology and
the Analysis of the Ego
(1921
c
).

3054

A CASE OF PARANOIA RUNNING COUNTER TO THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC

THEORY OF THE DISEASE

(1915)

3055

Intentionally left blank

3056

A CASE OF PARANOIA RUNNING COUNTER TO THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC

THEORY OF THE DISEASE

Some years ago a well-known lawyer consulted
me about a case which had raised some doubts in his mind. A young
woman had asked him to protect her from the molestations of a man
who had drawn her into a love-affair. She declared that this man
had abused her confidence by getting unseen witnesses to photograph
them while they were making love, and that by exhibiting these
pictures it was now in his power to bring disgrace on her and force
her to resign the post she occupied. Her legal adviser was
experienced enough to recognize the pathological stamp of this
accusation; he remarked, however, that, as what appears to be
incredible often actually happens, he would appreciate the opinion
of a psychiatrist in the matter. He promised to call on me again,
accompanied by the plaintiff.

   (Before I continue the account, I
must confess that I have altered the
milieu
of the case in
order to preserve the incognito of the people concerned, but that I
have altered nothing else. I consider it a wrong practice, however
excellent the motive may be, to alter any detail in the
presentation of a case. One can never tell what aspect of a case
may be picked out by a reader of independent judgement, and one
runs the risk of leading him astray.)

   Shortly afterwards I met the
patient in person She was thirty years old, a most attractive and
handsome girl, who looked much younger than her age and was of a
distinctly feminine type. She obviously resented the interference
of a doctor and took no trouble to hide her distrust. It was clear
that only the influence of her legal adviser, who was present,
induced her to tell me the story which follows and which set me a
problem that will be mentioned later. Neither in her manner nor by
any kind of expression of emotion did she betray the slightest
shame or shyness, such as one would have expected her to feel in
the presence of a stranger. She was completely under the spell of
the apprehension brought on by her experience.

A Case Of Paranoia Running Counter To The Psycho-Analytic Theory Of The Disease

3057

   For many years she had been on
the staff of a big business concern, in which she held a
responsible post. Her work had given her satisfaction and had been
appreciated by her superiors. She had never sought any love-affairs
with men, but had lived quietly with her old mother, of whom she
was the sole support. She had no brothers or sisters; her father
had died many years before. Recently an employee in her office, a
highly cultivated and attractive man, had paid her attentions and
she in turn had been drawn towards him. For external reasons,
marriage was out of the question, but the man would not hear of
giving up their relationship on that account. He had pleaded that
it was senseless to sacrifice to social convention all that they
both longed for and had an indisputable right to enjoy, something
that could enrich their life as nothing else could. As he had
promised not to expose her to any risk, she had at last consented
to visit him in his bachelor rooms in the daytime. There they
kissed and embraced as they lay side by side, and he began to
admire the charms which were now partly revealed. In the midst of
this idyllic scene she was suddenly frightened by a noise, a kind
of knock or click. It came from the direction of the writing-desk,
which was standing across the window; the space between desk and
window was partly taken up by a heavy curtain. She had at once
asked her friend what this noise meant, and was told, so she said,
that it probably came from the small clock on the writing-desk. I
shall venture, however, to make a comment presently on this part of
her narrative.

   As she was leaving the house she
had met two men on the staircase, who whispered something to each
other when they saw her. One of the strangers was carrying
something which was wrapped up and looked like a small box. She was
much exercised over this meeting, and on her way home she had
already put together the following notions: the box might easily
have been a camera, and the man a photographer who had been hidden
behind the curtain while she was in the room; the click had been
the noise of the shutter; the photograph had been taken as soon as
he saw her in a particularly compromising position which he wished
to record. From that moment nothing could abate her suspicion of
her lover. She pursued him with reproaches and pestered him for
explanations and reassurances, not only when they met but also by
letter. But it was in vain that he tried to convince her that his
feelings were sincere and that her suspicions were entirely without
foundation. At last she called on the lawyer, told him of her
experience and handed over the letters which the suspect had
written to her about the incident. Later I had an opportunity of
seeing some of these letters. They made a very favourable
impression on me, and consisted mainly in expressions of regret
that such a beautiful and tender relationship should have been
destroyed by this ‘unfortunate morbid idea’.

A Case Of Paranoia Running Counter To The Psycho-Analytic Theory Of The Disease

3058

   I need hardly justify my
agreement with this judgement. But the case had a special interest
for me other than a merely diagnostic one. The view had already
been put forward in psycho-analytic literature that patients
suffering from paranoia are struggling against an intensification
of their homosexual trends - a fact pointing back to a narcissistic
object-choice. And a further interpretation had been made: that the
persecutor is at bottom someone whom the patient loves or has loved
in the past. A synthesis of the two propositions would lead us to
the necessary conclusion that the persecutor must be of the same
sex as the person persecuted. We did not maintain, it is true, as
universally and without exception valid the thesis that paranoia is
determined by homosexuality; but this was only because our
observations were not sufficiently numerous; the thesis was one of
those which in view of certain considerations become important only
when universal application can be claimed for them. In psychiatric
literature there is certainly no lack of cases in which the patient
imagines himself persecuted by a person of the opposite sex. It is
one thing, however, to read of such cases, and quite a different
thing to come into personal contact with one of them. My own
observations and analyses and those of my friends had so far
confirmed the relation between paranoia and homosexuality without
any difficulty. But the present case emphatically contradicted it.
The girl seemed to be defending herself against love for a man by
directly transforming the lover into a persecutor: there was no
sign of the influence of a woman, no trace of a struggle against a
homosexual attachment.

A Case Of Paranoia Running Counter To The Psycho-Analytic Theory Of The Disease

3059

   In these circumstances the
simplest thing would have been to abandon the theory that the
delusion of persecution invariably depends on homosexuality, and at
the same time to abandon everything that followed from that theory.
Either the theory must be given up or else, in view of this
departure from our expectations, we must side with the lawyer and
assume that this was no paranoic combination but an actual
experience which had been correctly interpreted. But I saw another
way out, by which a final verdict could for the moment be
postponed. I recollected how often wrong views have been taken
about people who are ill psychically, simply because the physician
has not studied them thoroughly enough and has thus not learnt
enough about them. I therefore said that I could not form an
immediate opinion, and asked the patient to call on me a second
time, when she could relate her story again at greater length and
add any subsidiary details that might have been omitted. Thanks to
the lawyer’s influence I secured this promise from the
reluctant patient; and he helped me in another way by saying that
at our second meeting his presence would be unnecessary.

   The story told me by the patient
on this second occasion did not conflict with the previous one, but
the additional details she supplied resolved all doubts and
difficulties. To begin with, she had visited the young man in his
rooms not once but twice. It was on the second occasion that the
had been disturbed by the suspicious noise: in her original story
she had suppressed, or omitted to mention, the first visit because
it had no longer seemed of importance to her. Nothing noteworthy
had happened during this first visit, but something did happen on
the day after it. Her department in the business was under the
direction of an elderly lady whom she described as follows:
‘She has white hair like my mother.’ This elderly
superior had a great liking for her and treated her with affection,
though some times she teased her; the girl regarded herself as her
particular favourite. On the day after her first visit to the young
man’s rooms he appeared in the office to discuss some
business matter with this elderly lady. While they were talking in
low voices the patient suddenly felt convinced that he was telling
her about their adventure of the previous day - indeed, that the
two of them had for some time been having a love-affair, which she
had hitherto overlooked. The white-haired motherly old lady now
knew everything, and her speech and conduct in the course of the
day confirmed the patient’s suspicion. At the first
opportunity she took her lover to task about his betrayal. He
naturally protested vigorously against what he called a senseless
accusation. For the time being, in fact, he succeeded in freeing
her from her delusion, and she regained enough confidence to repeat
her visit to his rooms a short time - I believe it was a few weeks
- afterwards. The rest we know already from her first
narrative.

A Case Of Paranoia Running Counter To The Psycho-Analytic Theory Of The Disease

3060

   In the first place, this new
information removes any doubts as to the pathological nature of her
suspicion. It is easy to see that the white-haired elderly superior
was a substitute for her mother, that in spite of his youth her
lover had been put in the place of her father, and that it was the
strength of her mother-complex which had driven the patient to
suspect a love-relationship between these ill-matched partners,
however unlikely such a relation might be. Moreover, this disposes
of the apparent contradiction to the expectation, based on
psycho-analytic theory, that the development of a delusion of
persecution will turn out to be determined by an over-powerful
homosexual attachment. The
original
persecutor - the agency
whose influence the patient wishes to escape - is here again not a
man but a woman. The superior knew about the girl’s love
affairs, disapproved of them, and showed her disapproval by
mysterious hints. The patient’s attachment to her own sex
opposed her attempts to adopt a person of the other sex as a
love-object. Her love for her mother had become the spokesman of
all those tendencies which, playing the part of a
‘conscience’, seek to arrest a girl’s first step
along the new road to normal sexual satisfaction - in many respects
a dangerous one; and indeed it succeeded in disturbing her relation
with men.

   When a mother hinders or arrests
a daughter’s sexual activity, she is fulfilling a normal
function whose lines are laid down by events in childhood, which
has powerful, unconscious motives, and has received the sanction of
society. It is the daughter’s business to emancipate herself
from this influence and to decide for herself on broad and rational
grounds what her share of enjoyment or denial of sexual pleasure
shall be. If in the attempt to emancipate herself she falls a
victim to a neurosis it implies the presence of a mother-complex
which is as a rule over-powerful, and is certainly unmastered. The
conflict between this complex and the new direction taken by the
libido is dealt with in the form of one neurosis or another,
according to the subject’s disposition. The manifestation of
the neurotic reaction will always be determined, however, not by
her present-day relation to her actual mother but by her infantile
relations to her earliest image of her mother.

A Case Of Paranoia Running Counter To The Psycho-Analytic Theory Of The Disease

3061

   We know that our patient had been
fatherless for many years: we may also assume that she would not
have kept away from men up to the age of thirty if she had not been
supported by a powerful emotional attachment to her mother. This
support became a heavy yoke when her libido began to turn to a man
in response to his insistent wooing. She tried to free herself, to
throw off her homosexual attachment; and her disposition, which
need not be discussed here, enabled this to occur in the form of a
paranoic delusion. The mother thus became the hostile and
malevolent watcher and persecutor. As such she could have been
overcome, had it not been that the mother-complex retained power
enough to carry out its purpose of keeping the patient at a
distance from men. Thus, at the end of the first phase of the
conflict the patient had become estranged from her mother without
having definitely gone over to the man. Indeed, both of them were
plotting against her. Then the man’s vigorous efforts
succeeded in drawing her decisively to him. She conquered her
mother’s opposition in her mind and was willing to grant her
lover a second meeting. In the later developments the mother did
not reappear, but we may safely insist that in this phase the lover
had not become the persecutor directly but
via
the mother
and in virtue of his relationship to the mother, who had played the
leading part in the first delusion.