Freud - Complete Works (397 page)

   In the preceding chapters I have
shown what justification can be found for giving this picture of
Leonardo’s course of development - for proposing these
subdivisions of his life and for explaining his vacillation between
art and science in this way. If in making these statements I have
provoked the criticism, even from friends of psycho-analysis and
from those who are expert in it, that I have merely written a
psycho-analytic novel, I shall reply that I am far from
over-estimating the certainty of these results. Like others I have
succumbed to the attraction of this great and mysterious man, in
whose nature one seems to detect powerful instinctual passions
which can nevertheless only express themselves in so remarkably
subdued a manner.

   But whatever the truth about
Leonardo’s life may be, we cannot desist from our endeavour
to find a psycho-analytic explanation for it until we have
completed another task. We must stake out in a quite general way
the limits which are set to what psycho-analysis can achieve in the
field of biography: otherwise every explanation that is not
forthcoming will be held up to us as a failure. The material at the
disposal of a psycho-analytic enquiry consists of the data of a
person’s life history: on the one hand the chance
circumstances of events and background influences, and, on the
other hand, the subject’s reported reactions. Supported by
its knowledge of psychical mechanisms it then endeavours to
establish a dynamic basis for his nature on the strength of his
reactions, and to disclose the original motive forces of his mind,
as well as their later transformations and developments. If this is
successful the behaviour of a personality in the course of his life
is explained in terms of the combined operation of constitution and
fate, of internal forces and external powers. Where such an
undertaking does not provide any certain results - and this is
perhaps so in Leonardo’s case - the blame rests not with the
faulty or inadequate methods of psycho-analysis, but with the
uncertainty and fragmentary nature of the material relating to him
which tradition makes available. It is therefore only the author
who is to be held responsible for the failure, by having forced
psycho-analysis to pronounce an expert opinion on the basis of such
insufficient material.

Leonardo Da Vinci And A Memory Of His Childhood

2303

   But even if the historical
material at our disposal were very abundant, and if the psychical
mechanisms could be dealt with with the greatest assurance, there
are two important points at which a psycho-analytic enquiry would
not be able to make us understand how inevitable it was that the
person concerned should have turned out in the way he did and in no
other way. In Leonardo’s case we have had to maintain the
view that the accident of his illegitimate birth and the excessive
tenderness of his mother had the most decisive influence on the
formation of his character and on his later fortune, since the
sexual repression which set in after this phase of childhood caused
him to sublimate his libido into the urge to know, and established
his sexual inactivity for the whole of his later life. But this
repression after the first erotic satisfactions of childhood need
not necessarily have taken place; in someone else it might perhaps
not have taken place or might have assumed much less extensive
proportions. We must recognize here a degree of freedom which
cannot be resolved any further by psycho-analytic means. Equally,
one has no right to claim that the consequence of this wave of
repression was the only possible one. It is probable that another
person would not have succeeded in withdrawing the major portion of
his libido from repression by sublimating it into a craving for
knowledge; under the same influences he would have sustained a
permanent injury to his intellectual activity or have acquired an
insurmountable disposition to obsessional neurosis. We are left,
then, with these two characteristics of Leonardo which are
inexplicable by the efforts of psycho-analysis: his quite special
tendency towards instinctual repressions, and his extraordinary
capacity for sublimating the primitive instincts.

   Instincts and their
transformations are at the limit of what is discernible by
psycho-analysis. From that point it gives place to biological
research. We are obliged to look for the source of the tendency to
repression and the capacity for sublimation in the organic
foundations of character on which the mental structure is only
afterwards erected. Since artistic talent and capacity are
intimately connected with sublimation we must admit that the nature
of the artistic function is also inaccessible to us along
psycho-analytic lines. The tendency of biological research to-day
is to explain the chief features in a person’s organic
constitution as being the result of the blending of male and female
dispositions, based on substances. Leonardo’s physical beauty
and his left-handedness might be quoted in support of this view. We
will not, however, leave the ground of purely psychological
research. Our aim remains that of demonstrating the connection
along the path of instinctual activity between a person’s
external experiences and his reactions. Even if psycho-analysis
does not throw light on the fact of Leonardo’s artistic
power, it at least renders its manifestations and its limitations
intelligible to us. It seems at any rate as if only a man who had
had Leonardo’s childhood experiences could have painted the
Mona Lisa and the St. Anne, have secured so melancholy a fate for
his works and have embarked on such an astonishing career as a
natural scientist, as if the key to all his achievements and
misfortunes lay hidden in the childhood phantasy of the
vulture.

Leonardo Da Vinci And A Memory Of His Childhood

2304

   But may one not take objection to
the findings of an enquiry which ascribes to accidental
circumstances of his parental constellation so decisive an
influence on a person’s fate - which, for example, makes
Leonardo’s fate depend on his illegitimate birth and on the
barrenness of his first stepmother Donna Albiera? I think one has
no right to do so. If one considers chance to be unworthy of
determining our fate, it is simply a relapse into the pious view of
the Universe which Leonardo himself was on the way to overcoming
when he wrote that the sun does not move. We naturally feel hurt
that a just God and a kindly providence do not protect us better
from such influences during the most defenceless period of our
lives. At the same time we are all too ready to forget that in fact
everything to do with our life is chance, from our origin out of
the meeting of spermatozoon and ovum onwards - chance which
nevertheless has a share in the law and necessity of nature, and
which merely lacks any connection with our wishes and illusions.
The apportioning of the determining factors of our life between the
‘necessities’ of our constitution and the
‘chances’ of our childhood may still be uncertain in
detail; but in general it is no longer possible to doubt the
importance precisely of the first years of our childhood. We all
still show too little respect for Nature which (in the obscure
words of Leonardo which recall Hamlet’s lines) ‘is full
of countless causes [‘
ragioni
’] that never enter
experience’.¹

   Every one of us human beings
corresponds to one of the countless experiments in which these
‘
ragioni
’ of nature force their way into
experience.

  
¹
‘
La natura è piena
d’infinite ragioni che non furono mai in
isperienza
’ (Herzfeld, 1906, 11).

2305

THE FUTURE PROSPECTS OF PSYCHO-ANALYTIC THERAPY

(1910)

2306

Intentionally left blank

2307

THE FUTURE PROSPECTS OF PSYCHO-ANALYTIC THERAPY

GENTLEMEN
, - Since the objects for
which we are assembled here to-day are mainly practical, I shall
choose a practical theme for my introductory address and appeal to
your medical, not to your scientific, interest. I can imagine your
probable views on the results of our therapy, and I assume that
most of you have already passed through the two stages which all
beginners go through, the stage of enthusiasm at the unexpected
increase in our therapeutic achievements, and the stage of
depression at the magnitude of the difficulties which stand in the
way of our efforts. At whatever point in this development, however,
each of you may happen to be, my intention to-day is to show you
that we have by no means come to the end of our resources for
combating the neuroses, and that we may expect a substantial
improvement in our therapeutic prospects before long.

   This reinforcement will come, I
think, from three directions:

   (1) from internal progress,

   (2) from increased authority,
and

   (3) from the general effect of
our work.

   (1) Under ‘internal
progress’ I include advances (
a
) in our analytic
knowledge, (
b
) in our technique.

   (
a
) Advances in our
knowledge. We are, of course, still a long way from knowing all
that is required for an understanding of the unconscious in our
patients. It is clear that every advance in our knowledge means an
increase in our therapeutic power. As long as we have understood
nothing, we have accomplished nothing; the more we understand, the
more we shall achieve. At its beginning psycho-analytic treatment
was inexorable and exhausting. The patient had to say everything
himself, and the physician’s activity consisted of urging him
on incessantly. To-day things have a more friendly air. The
treatment is made up of two parts - what the physician infers and
tells the patient, and the patient’s working-over of what he
has heard. The mechanism of our assistance is easy to understand:
we give the patient the conscious anticipatory idea and he then
finds the repressed unconscious idea in himself on the basis of its
similarity to the anticipatory one. This is the intellectual help
which makes it easier for him to overcome the resistances between
conscious and unconscious. Incidentally, I may remark that it is
not the only mechanism made use of in analytic treatment; you all
know the far more powerful one which lies in the use of the
‘transference’. It is my intention in the near future
to deal with these various factors, which are so important for an
understanding of the treatment, in an
Allgemeine Methodik der
Psychoanalyse
. And further, in speaking to you I need not rebut
the objection that the evidential value in support of the
correctness of our hypotheses is obscured in our treatment as we
practise it to-day; you will not forget that this evidence is to be
found elsewhere, and that a therapeutic procedure cannot be carried
out in the same way as a theoretical investigation.

The Future Prospects Of Psycho-Analytic Therapy

2308

   Let me now touch upon one or two
fields in which we have new things to learn and do in fact discover
new things every day. Above all, there is the field of symbolism in
dreams and in the unconscious - a fiercely contested subject, as
you know. It is no small merit in our colleague, Wilhelm Stekel,
that, untroubled by all the objections raised by our opponents, he
has undertaken a study of dream-symbols. There is indeed still much
to learn here; my
Interpretation of Dreams
, which was
written in 1899, awaits important amplification from researches
into symbolism.

   I will say a few words about one
of the symbols that has newly been recognized. A little time ago I
heard that a psychologist whose views are somewhat different from
ours had remarked to one of us that, when all was said and done, we
did undoubtedly exaggerate the hidden sexual significance of
dreams: his own commonest dream was of going upstairs, and surely
there could not be anything sexual in
that
. We were put on
the alert by this objection, and began to turn our attention to the
appearance of steps, staircases and ladders in dreams and were soon
in a position to show that staircases (and analogous things) were
unquestionably symbols of copulation. It is not hard to discover
the basis of the comparison: we come to the top in a series of
rhythmical movements and with increasing breathlessness and then,
with a few rapid leaps, we can get to the bottom again. Thus the
rhythmical pattern of copulation is reproduced in going upstairs.
Nor must we omit to bring in the evidence of linguistic usage. It
shows us that ‘mounting’ [German
‘
steigen
’] is used as a direct equivalent for
the sexual act. We speak of a man as a ‘
Steiger
’
[a ‘mounter’] and of ‘
nachsteigen
’
[‘to run after’, literally ‘to climb
after’]. In French the steps on a staircase are called
‘
marches
’ and ‘
un vieux
marcheur
’ has the same meaning as our ‘
ein alter
Steiger
’ [‘an old rake’]. The dream-material
from which these newly recognized symbols are derived will in due
time be put before you by the committee we are about to form for a
collective study of symbolism. You will find some remarks on
another interesting symbol, on ‘rescue’ and its changes
in significance, in the second volume of our
Jahrbuch
. But I
must break off here or I shall not get to my other points.

The Future Prospects Of Psycho-Analytic Therapy

2309

   Every one of you will know from
his own experience what a very different attitude he has towards a
new case of illness when once he has thoroughly grasped the
structure of a few typical cases. Imagine that we had arrived at a
succinct formula of the factors regularly concerned in constructing
the various forms of neuroses, as we have so far succeeded in doing
for the construction of hysterical symptoms, and consider how
firmly it would establish our prognostic judgement! Just as an
obstetrician can tell by examining the placenta whether it has been
completely expelled or whether noxious fragments of it still
remain, so should we, independently of the outcome and of the
patient’s condition at the moment, be able to say whether our
work had been definitely successful or whether we had to expect
relapses and fresh onsets of illness.

   (
b
) I will hasten on to
the innovations in the field of technique, where indeed nearly
everything still awaits final settlement, and much is only now
beginning to become clear. There are now two aims in
psycho-analytic technique: to save the physician effort and to give
the patient the most unrestricted access to his unconscious. As you
know, our technique has undergone a fundamental transformation. At
the time of the cathartic treatment what we aimed at was the
elucidation of the symptoms; we then turned away from the symptoms
and devoted ourselves instead to uncovering the
‘complexes’, to use a word which Jung has made
indispensable; now, however, our work is aimed directly at finding
out and overcoming the ‘resistances’, and we can
justifiably rely on the complexes coming to light without
difficulty as soon as the resistances have been recognized and
removed. Some of you have since felt a need to be able to make a
survey of these resistances and classify them. I will ask you to
examine your material and see whether you can confirm the
generalized statement that in male patients the most important
resistances in the treatment seem to be derived from the
father-complex and to express themselves in fear of the father, in
defiance of the father and in disbelief of the father.

   Other innovations in technique
relate to the physician himself. We have become aware of the
‘counter-transference’, which arises in him as a result
of the patient’s influence on his unconscious feelings, and
we are almost inclined to insist that he shall recognize this
counter-transference in himself and overcome it. Now that a
considerable number of people are practising psycho-analysis and
exchanging their observations with one another, we have noticed
that no psycho-analyst goes further than his own complexes and
internal resistances permit; and we consequently require that he
shall begin his activity with a self-analysis and continually carry
it deeper while he is making his observations on his patients.
Anyone who fails to produce results in a self-analysis of this kind
may at once give up any idea of being able to treat patients by
analysis.

The Future Prospects Of Psycho-Analytic Therapy

2310

   We are also now coming to the
opinion that analytic technique must be modified in certain ways
according to the nature of the disease and the dominant instinctual
trends in the patient. We started out from the treatment of
conversion hysteria; in anxiety hysteria (phobias) we must to some
extent alter our procedure. For these patient cannot bring out the
material necessary for resolving their phobia so long as they feel
protected by obeying the condition which it lays down. One cannot,
of course, succeed in getting them to give up their protective
measures and work under the influence of anxiety from the beginning
of the treatment. One must therefore help them by interpreting
their unconscious to them until they can make up their minds to do
without the protection of their phobia and expose themselves to a
now greatly mitigated anxiety. Only after they have done so does
the material become accessible, which, when it has been mastered,
leads to a solution of the phobia. Other modifications of
technique, which seem to me not yet ripe for discussion, will be
required in the treatment of obsessional neurosis. In this
connection very important questions arise, which have not hitherto
been elucidated: how far the instincts which the patient is
combating are to be allowed some satisfaction during the treatment,
and what difference it makes whether these impulses are active
(sadistic) or passive (masochistic) in their nature.

   I hope you will have formed an
impression that, when we
know
all that we now only
suspect
and when we have carried out all the improvements in
technique to which deeper observation of our patients is bound to
lead us, our medical procedure will reach a degree of precision and
certainty of success which is not to be found in every specialized
field of medicine.

The Future Prospects Of Psycho-Analytic Therapy

2311

   (2) I have said that we had much
to expect from the increase in authority which must accrue to us as
time goes on. I need not say much to you about the importance of
authority. Only very few civilized people are capable of existing
without reliance on others or are even capable of coming to an
independent opinion. You cannot exaggerate the intensity of
people’s inner lack of resolution and craving for authority.
The extraordinary increase in neuroses since the power of religions
has waned may give you a measure of it. The impoverishment of the
ego due to the large expenditure of energy on repression demanded
of every individual by civilization may be one of the principal
causes of this state of things.

   Hitherto, this authority, with
its enormous weight of suggestion, has been against us. All our
therapeutic successes have been achieved in the face of this
suggestion: it is surprising that any successes at all could be
gained in such circumstances. I must not let myself be led into
describing my agreeable experiences during the period when I alone
represented psycho-analysis. I can only say that when I assured my
patients that I knew how to relieve them permanently of their
sufferings they looked round my modest abode, reflected on my lack
of fame and title, and regarded me like the possessor of an
infallible system at a gambling-resort, of whom people say that if
he could do what he professes he would look very different himself.
Nor was it really pleasant to carry out a psychical operation while
the colleagues whose duty it should have been to assist took
particular pleasure in spitting into the field of operation, and
while at the first signs of blood or restlessness in the patient
his relatives began threatening the operating surgeon. An operation
is surely entitled to produce reactions; in surgery we became
accustomed to that long ago. People simply did not believe me, just
as even to-day people do not much believe any of us. Under such
conditions not a few attempts were bound to fail. To estimate the
increase in our therapeutic prospects when we have received general
recognition, you should think of the position of a gynaecologist in
Turkey and in the West. In Turkey, all he may do is to feel the
pulse of all arm stretched out to him through a hole in the wall:
and his medical achievements are in proportion to the
inaccessibility of their object. Our opponents in the West wish to
allow us much the same degree of access to our patient’s
minds. But now that the force of social suggestion drives sick
women to the gynaecologist, he has become their helper and saviour.
I trust you will not say that the fact of the authority of society
coming to our aid and increasing our successes so greatly would do
nothing to prove the validity of our hypotheses - arguing as you
might that, since suggestion is supposed to be able to do anything,
our successes would then be successes of suggestion and not of
psycho-analysis. Social suggestion is at present favourable to
treating nervous patients by hydropathy, dieting and
electro-therapy, but that does not enable such measures to get the
better of neuroses. Time will show whether psycho-analytic
treatment can accomplish more.