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From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3545

   But something that I am able to
adduce from the analytic findings in other cases will seem to most
readers to be the decisive factor in favour of the correctness of
the view here proposed. Scenes of observing sexual intercourse
between parents at a very early age (whether they be real memories
or phantasies) are as a matter of fact by no means rarities in the
analyses of neurotic mortals. Possibly they are no less frequent
among those who are not neurotics. Possibly they are part of the
regular store in the - conscious or unconscious - treasury of their
memories. But as often as I have been able by means of analysis to
bring out a scene of this sort, it has shown the same peculiarity
which startled us with our present patient too: it has related to
coitus a tergo
, which alone offers the spectator a
possibility of inspecting the genitals. There is surely no need any
longer to doubt that what we are dealing with is only a phantasy,
which is invariably aroused, perhaps, by an observation of the
sexual intercourse of animals. And yet more: I have hinted that my
description of the ‘primal scene’ has remained
incomplete because I have reserved for a later moment my account of
the way in which the child interrupted his parents’
intercourse. I must now add that this method of interruption is
also the same in every case.

   I can well believe that I have
now laid myself open to grave aspersions on the part of the readers
of this case history. If these arguments in favour of such a view
of the ‘primal scene’ were at my disposal, how could I
possibly have taken it on myself to begin by advocating one which
seemed so absurd? Or have I made these new observations, which have
obliged me to alter my original view, in the interval between the
first draft of the case history and this addition, and am I for
some reason or other unwilling to admit the fact? I will admit
something else instead: I intend on this occasion to close the
discussion of the reality of the primal scene with a
non
liquet
. This case history is not yet at an end; in its further
course a factor will emerge which will shake the certainty which we
seem at present to enjoy. Nothing, I think, will then be left but
to refer my readers to the passages in my
Introductory
Lectures
in which I have treated the problem of primal
phantasies or primal scenes.]

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3546

VI

THE
OBSESSIONAL NEUROSIS

Now for the third time the patient came under
a new influence that gave a decisive turn to his development. When
he was four and a half years old, and as his state of irritability
and apprehensiveness had still not improved, his mother determined
to make him acquainted with the Bible story in the hope of
distracting and elevating him. Moreover, she succeeded; his
initiation into religion brought the previous phase to an end, but
at the same time it led to the anxiety symptoms being replaced by
obsessional symptoms. Up to then he had not been able to get to
sleep easily because he had been afraid of having bad dreams like
the one he had had that night before Christmas; now he was obliged
before he went to bed to kiss all the holy pictures in the room, to
recite prayers, and to make innumerable signs of the cross upon
himself and upon his bed.

   His childhood now falls clearly
into the following epochs: first, the earliest period up to the
seduction when he was three and a quarter years old, during which
the primal scene took place; secondly, the period of the alteration
in his character up to the anxiety dream (four years old); thirdly,
the period of the animal phobia up to his initiation into religion
(four and a half years old); and from then onwards the period of
the obsessional neurosis up to a time later than his tenth year.
That there should be an instantaneous and clear-cut displacement of
one phase by the next was not in the nature of things or of our
patient; on the contrary, the preservation of all that had gone
before and the co-existence of the most different sorts of currents
were characteristic of him. His naughtiness did not disappear when
the anxiety set in, and persisted with slowly diminishing force
during the period of piety. But there was no longer any question of
a wolf phobia during this last phase. The obsessional neurosis ran
its course discontinuously; the first attack was the longest and
most intense, and others came on when he was eight and ten,
following each time upon exciting causes which stood in a clear
relationship to the content of the neurosis.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3547

   His mother told him the sacred
story herself, and also made his Nanya read aloud to him about it
out of a book adorned with illustrations. The chief emphasis in the
narrative was naturally laid upon the story of the passion. His
Nanya, who was very pious and superstitious, added her own
commentary on it, but was also obliged to listen to all the little
critic’s objections and doubts. If the battles which now
began to convulse his mind finally ended in a victory for faith,
his Nanya’s influence was not without its share in this
result.

   What he related to me as his
recollection of his reactions to this initiation was met by me at
first with complete disbelief. It was impossible, I thought, that
these could have been the thoughts of a child of four and a half or
five; he had probably referred back to this remote past the
thoughts which had arisen from the reflections of a grown man of
thirty.¹ But the patient would not hear of this correction; I
could not succeed, as in so many other differences of opinion
between us, in convincing him; and in the end the correspondence
between the thoughts which he had recollected and the symptoms of
which he gave particulars, as well as the way in which the thoughts
fitted into his sexual development, compelled me on the contrary to
come to believe him. And I then reflected that this very criticism
of the doctrines of religion, which I was unwilling to ascribe to
the child, was only achieved by an infinitesimal minority of
adults.

   I shall now bring forward the
material of his recollections, and not until afterwards try to find
some path that may lead to an explanation of them.

   The impression which he received
from the sacred story was, to begin with, as he reported, by no
means an agreeable one. He set his face, in the first place,
against the feature of suffering in the figure of Christ, and then
against his story as a whole. He turned his critical
dissatisfaction against God the Father. If he were almighty, then
it was his fault that men were wicked and tormented others and were
sent to Hell for it. He ought to have made them good; he was
responsible himself for all wickedness and all torments. The
patient took objection to the command that we should turn the other
cheek if our right cheek is smitten, and to the fact that Christ
had wished on the Cross that the cup might be taken away from him,
as well as to the fact that no miracle had taken place to prove
that he was the Son of God. Thus his acuteness was on the alert,
and was able to search out with remorseless severity the weak
points of the sacred narrative.

  
¹
I also repeatedly attempted to throw the
patient’s whole story forward by one year at all events, and
in that way to refer the seduction to an age of four and a quarter,
the dream to his fifth birthday, etc. As regards the intervals
between the events there was no possibility of gaining any time.
But the patient remained obdurate on the point, though he did not
succeed entirely in removing my doubts. A postponement like this
for one year would obviously be of no importance as regards the
impression made by his story and as regards the discussion and
implications attached to it.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3548

   But to this rationalistic
criticism there were very soon added ruminations and doubts, which
betray to us that hidden impulses were also at work. One of the
first questions which he addressed to his Nanya was whether Christ
had had a behind too. His Nanya informed him that he had been a god
and also a man. As a man he had had and done all the same things as
other men. This did not satisfy him at all, but he succeeded in
finding consolation of his own by saying to himself that the behind
is really only a continuation of the legs. But hardly had he
pacified his dread of having to humiliate the sacred figure, when
it flared up again as the further question arose whether Christ
used to shit too. He did not venture to put this question to his
pious Nanya, but he himself found a way out, and she could not have
shown him a better. Since Christ had made wine
out of
nothing, he could also have made food
into
nothing and in
this way have avoided defaecating.

   We shall be in a better position
to understand these ruminations if we return to a piece of his
sexual development which we have already mentioned. We know that,
after the rebuff from his Nanya and the consequent suppression of
the beginnings of genital activity, his sexual life developed in
the direction of sadism and masochism. He tormented and ill-treated
small animals, imagined himself beating horses, and on the other
hand imagined the heir to the throne being beaten.¹ In his
sadism he maintained his ancient identification with his father;
but in his masochism he chose him as a sexual object. He was deep
in a phase of the pregenital organization which I regard as the
predisposition to obsessional neurosis. The operation of the dream,
which brought him under the influence of the primal scene, could
have led him to make the advance to the genital organization, and
to transform his masochism towards his father into a feminine
attitude towards him - into homosexuality. But the dream did not
bring about this advance; it ended in a state of anxiety. His
relation to his father might have been expected to proceed from the
sexual aim of being beaten by him to the next aim, namely, that of
being copulated with by him like a woman; but in fact, owing to the
opposition of his narcissistic masculinity, this relation was
thrown back to an even more primitive stage. It was displaced on to
a father-surrogate, and at the same time split off in the shape of
a fear of being eaten by the wolf. But this by no means disposed of
it. On the contrary, we can only do justice to the apparent
complexity of the state of affairs by bearing firmly in mind the
co-existence of the three sexual trends which were directed by the
boy towards his father. From the time of the dream onwards, in his
unconscious he was homosexual, and in his neurosis he was at the
level of cannibalism; while the earlier masochistic attitude
remained the dominant one. All three currents had passive sexual
aims; there was the same object, and the same sexual impulse, but
that impulse had become split up along three different levels.

  
¹
Especially on the penis (see
p. 3517
).

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3549

   His knowledge of the sacred story
now gave him a chance of sublimating his predominant masochistic
attitude towards his father. He became Christ - which was made
specially easy for him on account of their having the same
birthday. Thus he became something great and also (a fact upon
which enough stress was not laid for the moment) a man. We catch a
glimpse of his repressed homosexual attitude in his doubting
whether Christ could have a behind, for these ruminations can have
had no other meaning but the question whether he himself could be
used by his father like a woman - like his mother in the primal
scene. When we come to the solution of the other obsessional ideas,
we shall find this interpretation confirmed. His reflection that it
was insulting to bring the sacred figure into relation with such
insinuations corresponded to the repression of his passive
homosexuality. It will be noticed that he was endeavouring to keep
his new sublimation free from the admixture which it derived from
sources in the repressed. But he was unsuccessful.

   We do not as yet understand why
he also rebelled against the passive character of Christ and
against his ill-treatment by his Father, and in this way began also
to renounce his previous masochistic ideal, even in its
sublimation. We may assume that this second conflict was especially
favourable to the emergence of the humiliating obsessional thoughts
from the first conflict (between the dominant masochistic and the
repressed homosexual currents), for it is only natural that in a
mental conflict all the currents upon one side or the other should
combine with one another, even though they have the most diverse
origins. Some fresh information teaches us the motive of this
rebelling and at the same time of the criticisms which he levelled
at religion.

   His sexual researches, too,
gained something from what he was told about the sacred story. So
far he had had no reason for supposing that children only came from
women. On the contrary, his Nanya had given him to believe that he
was his father’s child, while his sister was his
mother’s; and this closer connection with his father had been
very precious to him. He now heard that Mary was called the Mother
of God. So all children came from women, and what his Nanya had
said to him was no longer tenable. Moreover, as a result of what he
was told, he was bewildered as to who Christ’s father really
was. He was inclined to think it we Joseph, as he heard that he and
Mary had always lived together, but his Nanya said that Joseph was
only ‘like’ his father and that his real father was
God. He could make nothing of that. He only understood this much:
if the question was one that could be argued about at all, then the
relation between father and son could not be such an intimate one
as he had always imagined it to be.