Studies in psychoanalysis; an account of twenty-seven concrete cases preceded by a theoretical exposition

Front matter

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AN ACCOUNT OF TWENTY-SEVEN CONCRETE CASES PRECEDED BY A THEORETICAL EXPOSI- TION. COMPRISING LECTURES DELIVERED IN OFMFVA AT THE JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU INSTITUTE AND AT THE FACULTY OF LET- TERS IN THE UNIVERSITY

BY

Part Two: Case Histories Chapter Page

V. CHILDREN . . . 147

1. Linette: Dreams of forbidden Pleasures.

Fixation upon the Mother . . . 149

2. Mireille : Fixation upon the Mother. Re-

fusal of the feminine Role . . . 171

3. Robert: A Schoolboy ^s Feelings about

School. Introversion (Analysis of a School Essay) 181

4. Jean: Protest against the Father (Anal-

ysis of a School Essay) .... 186

VI. THE CRISIS OF ADOLESCENCE . . . . . 190

1. Raoul : Budding Virility. The feeling of

Constraint 192

2. Kitty: A young GirPs Passion for a

Woman 195

3. (j^rard: Vacillating Sublimation. A

State of Conflict 206

Vn. ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE PARENTS .... 219

1. Miriam: A religious and social Calling

inspired by the Cult of the Father. A State of Conflict 221

2. Marcel: Dread of the Father. Timidity

and undue Scrupulosity . . .231

3. Otto: Repressed Virility. Awkwardness

and Constraint. A philosophic Trend 242

Vm. THE INSTINCT OF SELF-PRESERVATION AND THE

INSTINCT FOR MOTHERHOOD .... 266

TABLE OF CONTENTS xxiii

CHAPTER I'-^GE

1. Autopsychoanalysis. Dreams during an

Attack of pulmonary Tuberculosis . 268

2. Yvonne: Fears concerning Childbirth . 282

3. Renee: Refusal of Femininity and of

Motherhood 284

4. Martha : Longing for Motherhood. Men-

strual Irregularity 292

IX. TYPICAL NERVOUS DISORDERS 294

1. Alexander : Anxiety States . . .296

2. Roger: Psychasthenia. Impotence . . 321

3. Germaine : Spasm of the Eyelid. Fussy

Activity 339

X. MENTAL DISORDERS 350

1. Bertha: Introversion. Delusions of Per-

secution, Neuralgia .... 352

2. Ruth: A fixed Idea. Impressions of

Rape 362

3. George: Mental Aberrations in an Epi-

leptic 367

XI. SUBLIMATIONS 377

1. Alfred: Stammering. Maladaptation to

social Life. A Taste for Music . .379

2. Ida : Sexual Shock at Puberty. Maniacal

Disturbances. Esthetic Sublimation . 383

3. Adam : Sublimation in Danger . . . 388

4. Jeanne: Non- Acceptance of Marriage.

Thwarted Maternal Instinct. Vacillating Sublimation . . . . . 393 xxiv TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

5. Queenie: Fixation upon the Father.

-Esthetic and religious Sublimation . 410

Xn. THE SEARCH FOR A GUIDE 421

1. Eynaldo: Change of AnalyvSt. From

Hostility to Sympathy .... 422

2. Stella: Sublimation of the Idea of the

Guide 448

INDEX 485

CHAPTER ONE 1, The two Categories of Psychoanalysis

Almost the only book by means of wMcb readers of the French tongue can gain a knowledge of the principles of psychoanalysis is Eegis and Hesnard's faithful exposition of Freudian theory/ This work should be read by all students of physoanalytical theory. In the present study, I write from an entirely different point of view. My primary aim has been to expound psychoanalysis as concretely as possible, by the record of a number of cases analysed by myself. As far as concerns the theory upon which the practice is based, this cannot be purely and simply Freudian, for I have also assimilated the ideas of other psychologists, such as Adler, Jung, and Flournoy ; and, furthermore, my theoretical outlook has necessarily been modified by the data, however slender, of my own experience. Thus I make no claim to do over again the theoretical work which

^ Regis and Hesnard, La Psychoanalyse des Nevroses et des Psychoses, 1914.

has been so ably done by Eegis and Hesnard; my book is not a study of the authorities. I approach the problem from the other side, where it is concrete and individual.

These considerations will explain one of the difficulties of compiling the volume; they will account for what may be regarded as its defects. My aim has been to produce a record of my own work which might interest experts, not to write a popular treatise for beginners. On the other hand, I was writing for French readers, most of whom are in fact beginners in this subject. Consequently it was incumbent on me to deal with general principles, many of which are trite matters for the expert. Have I been clear enough to be comprehensible to the general reader; have I been concise enough to escape being tedious to the expert! I do not know. But I am not without hope that the way in which I have had to write my book will prove to have been an advantage after all. I believe that a theoretical discussion of the general principles of psychoanalysis is eminently desirable, even though such an examination may be considered superfluous by certain psychoanalysts, extremists of their school.

There is good reason for surprise that a thought trend so notable both in quality and in quantity should still be little known in France. Freud's most important work, Traumdeutung,^ has never been translated into French. There is a great contrast, in this respect, between France and the English-

^ See complete bibliography at end of volume.

speaking lands. Traumdeutung was translated into English in 1913, and psychoanalysis has now become a household word in Britain and the United States. Works on philosophy, various aspects of science, and even popular science, have been written by persons who have made the new outlook their own.^ To return to France, the neglect of psychoanalysis in this country is readily explicable — quite apart from the war. Nor are all the reasons wholly discreditable to French thought.

A regretable indifference, routinism and parochialism, have doubtless played their part. But the psychoanalysts are not free from blame. The realm of the ^^unconscious'' is necessarily obscure; but they would seem at times to have taken a positive delight in peopling it with shadows. They have been neologist to excess ; some of their theories are fantastically bold; not a few of the exponents are fanatics. These characteristics of the new doctrine were naturally repugnant to the French mind, which

^ A few instances may be given. Philosophy : W. H. R. Rivers, Mind and Medicine, 2nd ed., 1920 ; Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind, 1921. Psychology : A. G. Tansley, The New Psychology and its Relation to Life, new edition, 1922 (this work is directly inspired by psychoanalysis) ; Anonymous (The Plebs League), An Outline of Psychology, 1922 (this exposition of psychology for working-class students is likewise permeated with psychoanalytical theory) ; Millais Culpin, Spiritualism and the Ne^ Psychology. Sociology: W. M. Gallichan, The Psychology of Marriage, 1917 (it is significant that on p. 64 the author describes C. G. Jung as "one of the greatest psychologists of our day") ; Eden and Cedar Paul, Creative Revolution, 1920 (these writers lay especial stress on "the new lights Freudianism sheds upon the problems of revolutionary communism"). The list might be greatly extended.

loves clarity and good sense and is humorously sceptical. Psychoanalysts have occasionaly done their best to justify Nietzsche's aphorism: ^^The German spirit is a form of indigestion." They would appear, too, to have found it pleasing to break down all the bridges connecting their *^^ew science'' with the psychology of yesterday. (Like Christopher Columbus they have discovered a new world, have thereupon renounced allegiance to the old, and have even been inclined to deny the existence of the old.) We ought not to break down these bridges, bux rather to strengthen them. Where could such work be more successfully carried on than at Geneva, the meeting-place of two cultures'? We have to thank the late Theodore Flournoy for having guided our footsteps in this direction, for having sought out the points of contact between the psychology of William James and the psychology of Sigmund Freud, and between their respective terminologies. Flournoy 's Une mystique moderne is a model of that scientific tolerance which is less common than people are apt to suppose. The Genevese group of psychoanalysts is guided in the same spirit by Edouard Claparede ; this spirit likewise animates Pierre Bovet's remarkable study L'instinct comhatif. I wish to take this opportunity of expressing my indebtedness to all these colleagues.

Such originality as the present work possesses will, then, be due to a search for points of contact between psychoanalysis and ordinary psychology. These points of contact must be found if the science of the subconscious is to be made assimilable, Claparede holds that it does not suffice to translate psychoanalysts' writings into French. He considers that as far as may be, we ought also to translate their thought, their terminology, their very theories, into forms more familiar to French minds and to non-Freudian psychologists. Unquestionably, an unmodified exposition of the psychoanalysis of the schools is apt to produce on unfamiliar ears the effect produced on Pascal by the Spanish Latin of certain Jesuit fathers. **Can these fellows really be Christians?" he asks. I am not certain to what degree a ^^translation'' of this kind is possible. But I am sure that a discussion of the relationships between psychoanalysis and ordinary psychology is essential, and I believe that it will throw light on many points that are still obscure.

In the field of theory, I have endeavoured to show the ties between the psychology which has now become classical, that of Eibot, James, Bergson, and Claparede, to say nothing of the almost forgotten Jouffroy. At the same time, I have borne in mind Descartes' methodological rule: ** Divide the subject into as many subdivisions as you can, for this will help you to solve the difficulties." It seems to me that in the totality of ideas which pass by the general name of psychoanalysis, at least one great distinction ought to be made.

(a) Psychoanalysis starts by laying the foundations of an affective theory of the association of ideas, a theory which discerns in aifectivity, often subconscious, the cause of the ostensibly incoherent creations of the imagination. It is upon this that the new method of studying the subconscious has been based.

(h) This affectivity which is discerned behind the imagination, is in its turn linked by psychoanalysis with instinct. To the psychoanalysts, all the higher sentiments appear to be products of the evolution of a crude instinct. Thus we arrive at a biological theory of affectivity, which is likewise an evolutionary theory of instinct.

It follows that there are two categories, sufficiently distinct, though not hitherto sufficiently distinguished:

(a) imagination explained by affectivity;

(fe) affectivity explained by instinct. The former theory, which is supported by an abundance of facts that anyone can observe for himself, is all the better for being separated from the latter theory; for this, though in broad outlines it appears acceptable, is complicated in matters of detail by a number of hypothetical and contradictory formulas. We must leave to to-morrow the perfectionment of this biological theory. By confusing the issues, by trying to compact the two theories into one, we run the risk of giving a hypothetical aspect even to data that are based upon an extremely solid foundation.

Larguier des Bancels, in his recent work Introduction a la psyoJiologie, writes (Avant-propos, pp. 13-14): ^^The American school draws a distinction between functional psychology and structural psychology. Structural psychology analyses the phenomena; it endeavours to discover their mechanism;

in a word, it describes them. Functional psycliology is concerned with, the purport of these same phenomena, and seeks to elucidate their biologic role. Here we have two perspectives. They are equally legitimate but the observer cannot occupy two viewpoints at the same time. Aristotle's psychology is functional psychology. Locke remains the master of structural psychology. The doctrine of the faculties is a return to Aristotle. The associationism of the nineteenth century carries on the tradition of Locke and his eighteenth-century successors."

The first category of psychoanalysis (the affective theory of association) is a structural psychology; the second category is a functional psychology. We have here 'Hwo perspectives. They are equally legitimate, but the observer cannot occupy two viewpoints at the same time." They are related to one another just as anatomy and physiology are related to one another. Now it is certain that the dynamic and functional point of view which has been the favourite outlook in psychology since James, is the only one enabling us to formulate an integral science of the phenomena of existence. We have no more right to blame Freud than we have to blame William James for having wished to construct a dynamic psychology. Nevertheless we are entitled to add that the second point of view (functional) must be a sequel to the first (structural). When people begin to give functional explanations in default of a suffi<iient descriptive foundation, they must never forget that they are formulating mere hypotheses. These may of course be extremely useful in research as guiding ideas ; but they are dangerous, for many people are inclined to make of them a slippery descent into an unscientific finalism. A dynamic explanation is the goal we must seek to attain; but all dynamic explanations will be provisional so long as our static descriptions remain inadequate. In like manner, when we have to trace a continuous curve representing experimental data, we must not endeavour to do so until we have directly determined a sufficient number of isolated points through which the curve has to pass. It is the business of functional psychology to trace the curve; but it is the business of structural psychology to ascertain the points through which the curve must pass.

This distinction between the two categories corresponds to the distinction which Bovet has drawn between psychoanalysis as a method and psychoanalysis as a doctrine, for whereas the method is essentially based on the former theory, the doctrine is built on the latter.

^^ Psychoanalysis, *' writes Bovet, ^*is, above all, a method for the study of the subconscious. To initiate ourselves into psychoanalysis is to form an idea of this method and to attempt the manipulation of this instrument.

** Frequently, however, experts in psychoanalysis, identifying the method with the results, present it to us as a body of doctrines bearing upon the nature of the subconscious ego, and offer it to us as a new psychology. In this they resemble a Pisan of the seventeenth century who should have given the name of * telescopy' to Galileo's opinions concerning the satellites of Jupiter and concerning the solar system in general.

*^It is well to point out that the wide differences which separate the various schools of psychoanalysts (those of Freud, Adler, and Jung, respectively) do not impair in any way the value of the instrument which they all alike use as a means of study. The differences relate to the interpretation of the facts which psychoanalysis has revealed. Let us suppose that two astronomers, independently studying the planet Mars, detect the phenomenon which is known as the gemination of the canals of that luminary. Perhaps one astronomer will tell us that the gemination is due to some peculiarity in the refraction of light, whereas the other will ascribe it to a seasonal variation in the distribution of the waters of the planet. But the existence of such disputes does not justify us in contending that telescopes are useless. Bather should they urge us to perfect our utilisation of telescopes, or to supplement their employment by other methods which will enable us to reduce the uncertainties attendant on the interpretation of the phenomena we are observing." ^

I shall perhaps, when I come to the concrete exposition of cases, be charged with having failed to abide by my own distinction. I am aware that it is extremely difficult to avoid adopting the current methods of exposition. Conversely, in practice it is sometimes difficult to disentangle the fact from the interpretation. Simply by recording a fact, we interpret it ; and language is a web of interpretations.

^ Pierre Bovet, La Psychanalyse et L'education, pp. 4-5, 1920.

When, therefore, the reader comes across a functional interpretation which seems to him to lack adequate verification, let him prefix the words: *' Everything happens as if . . ." This prefix will not conflict with the essence of my thought.

2, Guiding Principles of the Present Work

Thanks to this distinction, I have at least been able to avoid the perpetual mingling of comprehensive functional hypotheses with the description of the affective laws of the association of images (Chapter Two). I therefore regard the symbolism of dreams as a natural result of the working of the laws of condensation and displacement, and I do not apriori consider symbolism to be the purposive masking of repressed and ** censored'' mental processes. This notion of the *^ censorship" has been strongly criticised, even by psychoanalysts (Eivers, for instance). There are plenty of cases in which it is not necessary to invoke such . a hypothesis, whereas condensation is a persistent fact. This condensation, which groups images characterised by a common affect, groups them so as to form a single composite and new image, is the first stage in the creation of the symbol. I look upon symbolisation as a general law of the imagination, and not as being necessarily the outcome of the masking of forbidden representations. This applies equally to artistic symbols, which have with good reason been compared to the spontaneous symbols of dreams. An author may use a symbol to disguise his thought and thus throw an official censorship off the scent;

this is what Montesquieu did in his Lettres persanes. On the other hand, an author may use a symbol simply as a means of self-expression; this is the practice of the symbolist poets.

The condensation of images lies at the very root of creative imagination. This implies that creative imagination is the direct outcome of an affective state, so that we might say that sensibility itself is the true creator of new images. Condensation is more powerful in strong affective states than in weak ones; it is more powerful likewise in dreams than in waking states. This leads us to ask what may be the common element in affective states and dream states, and we realise that the two types of condition are characterised by a suspension of activity, of spontaneous movement. Both affectivity, and the dream or the reverie which affectivity engenders, are pent-up action.

Thence we pass to the dynamic outlook (Chapter Three), and we ask what can be the fwnction or functions of the dream (and of such kindred states as reverie and aesthetic creation). First of all, we look upon the dream as an exercise of the creative imagination. In this respect its usefulness, even from the point of view of action, is evident. The intelligence ensures our adaptation to the real; the imagination ensures the adaptation of the real to ourselves. But when we come to consider the remarkable law of displacement (whose working is manifest in dreams), the law in virtue of which an affect is detached from its real object and transferred to another object, we cannot but assimilate the dream to play, in which the imagination of the child effects like displacements. If we study the conditions of dreaming and of play, their kinship becomes even more apparent. Since Karl Groos wrote on the subject, play has been looked upon as an outlet or exercise for unutilised tendencies. The dream, a manifestation of pent-up action, is in like manner the outcome of unutilised tendencies. In the dream, these tendencies are discharged; they exercise themselves ; they enact the possibilities of their future evolution.

For tendencies evolve. They are the psychological manifestation of instinct ; and instinct, which was long regarded as immutable, is now looked upon as susceptible of development. In man, above all, instinct is malleable. Naturalists have shown that suppressions and transformations of instinct occur among animals. Psychologists (William James, for instance) point to the same phenomena in man. Freud's originality lies in this, that he discloses the link between suppression and transformation. Suppression is apparent merely; although the instinct is repressed, it still lives in a modified form. Approaching the matter from the olher side, we may say that an instinct which has been transformed is preeminently an instinct which has been restrained.

Thus psychoanalysis culminates in an evolutionary theory of instinct. The transformations of instinct are clues to the affective life; and the higher sentiments are nourished by instinctive forces. Freud has turned his attention to the evolution of the sexual instinct ; Adler, to the instinct for power. Jung attempts a synthesis of the two systems, unifying under the term libido all instinctive energy. But this unification belongs rather to the realm of philosophy than to that of science. From the psychologist's point of view we are inclined to ask whether the reconciliation of Freud's views with Adler's should not rather be sought upon a deliberately analytical platform ; and whether, instead of considering all instincts as manifestations of one single kind of energy, it would not be better if we were more modestly to study the evolution of each instinct by itself. Psychoanalysis is an evolutionary theory of instinct; it ofught to become an evolutionary theory of the instincts. We need not hesitate to admit that a number of different instincts can participate in the genesis of the same higher sentiment. This purely analytic path, which is not the path of the systematist, is the one which British and French writers upon psychoanalysis appear to be following. Both Eivers and MacCurdy have studied war neuroses as functions of the instinct of self-preservation, and Bovet has written a monograph on the combative instinct. Henceforward we must deliberately work along these lines. Thus we shall free psychoanalytic science from that systematiser's spirit, from that inappropriate metaphysic, which have been its bane, and which have prevented superficial observers (and even some persons of first-class intelligence) from recognising its value as a contribution to positive science.

In the practice of psychoanalytical re-education.

it will, moreover, be fruitless as a rule to attempt a choice from among hypothetical interpretations when these belong to the second category (the biological theory of affectivity). Freud, Adler, and others have secured successes by explaining to their patients that the symptoms with which these were affected were due to causes which they themselves (the psychoanalysts) have inferred as the outcome of the analysis. Now each analyst has his own theory, and the causes explained to the patient vary from analyst to analyst. Yet the practical successes of the treatment are indubitable. Does it not follow that we should be mistaken in attributing these successes to remote causes of an extremely hypothetical character, when immediate and far less hypothetical causes are competent to explain them? Or, following Bovet's terminology, may we not say that the curative power of psychoanalysis depends more upon the method than upon the theory which guides it?

At this stage, sceptics will obviously declare that the results are not due to a knowledge either of the affective causes or of the biological causes, but that everything is the outcome of suggestion. This objection merely proves that the objector is ignorant of psychoanalysis. All the same, despite its naivety, the psychoanalysts will do well to take the criticism into account. Those who have studied suggestion, and in especial those who are familiar with the work of the New Nancy School,^ are well aware that the

^ See the author^s other writings, enumerated in the Bibliography.

factor of suggestion plays its part in every method of treatment and in all kinds of education. Purely physical therapeutic methods do not escape the working of this law ; statistics have demonstrated its importance in connection with the treatment of consumption/ But in psychoanalysis, where we have to do with the nervous system and the suhconscious (which is preeminently the field of suggestion), and where in addition an intimate affective relationship is apt to be established between teacher and pupil, there can be no question but that the factor of suggestion is powerfully operative. This does not deprive the method of any part of its objective value; but when the psychoanalysts would fain prohibit suggestion, they are asking the impossible. Seeing, tJien, that it is inevitable that suggestion should accompany the analysis, would it not he better to guide this suggestion instead of trying to ignore it?

Here we again reach a point where a great many analysts, intolerant in matters of practice no less than in matters of theory, seem to have wished to break down the bridges behind them. The only psychology, they tell us, is psychoanalysis; and in like manner they insist that psychoanalysis is the only psychotherapeutics. They discard suggestion as an obsolete method, superseded by analysis, and in conflict with the latter. For my part, I believe that this supposition of a conflict between psychoanalysis and suggestion is based upon a number of false hypoth-

^ Louis Renon, Tuberculose pulmonaire chronique, " Le Monde Medicale/' January 15, 1914. See also Baudouin, Suggestion and Autosuggestion, pp. 97-9.

eses, and upon misunderstandings which I am endeavouring to clear up. Psychoanalysis is incompatible with certain forms of suggestion; but it is perfectly compatible with others. I regard the intolerance which some analysts display towards suggestion as no less deplorable than the sceptical attitude of practitioners of suggestion towards analysis. The method to which experience has led me, the method whose results are recorded in this book, is founded upon an unceasing collaboration between autosuggestion and psychoanalysis (Chapter Four). Many, I know, regard this as a heresy. Whether it be heretical or not, I am confident that immense advantage can be derived from such collaboration.

Generally speaking, throughout this work more stress is laid on the normal than on the pathological. In my view, analysis is a method of education or re-education rather than a curative method.^ In many cases, the internal conflicts which the analysis has to resolve cannot be looked upon as morbid. Pfister is right in insisting that we must call normal education to our aid. Even where we have to deal with morbid symptoms, we shall help the patient by showing how these have developed through the hypertrophy of conditions that are perfectly normal, so that our therapeutic analysis will take the form, not so much of an amputation which cuts everything away, as of a cauterisation which removes what is superfluous. Psychoanalytical experience merely confirms our view that the difference between the

^ I take the same view of suggestion.

pathological and the normal is only one of degree. But, like every medical method, it has begun by considering the pathological, and its consideration of the normal has been a secondary reconstruction. This pathological method is an excellent one ; and its application to psychology has brought about the maximum of progress, for, precisely because the pathological is as it were the normal seen through pathological ig as it were the normal seen through a microscope. Hypnotism and suggestion constitute one way of applying this method; psychoanalysis is another. But if psychoanalysis, like suggestion, has naturally followed the route from the pathological to the normal, it is essential to impress upon psychoanalysis (and to do so more vigorously than has yet been attempted) the inverse movement — the movement which, as far as suggestion is concerned, was initiated at Nancy and carried to its logical conclusion by the New Nancy School. The Salpetriere School, having discovered suggestion in persons suffering from hysteria, looked upon it as a morbid phenomenon, and was inclined to detect hysteria in everything. The Nancy School, psychological rather than pathological, inverting the order of research, set out from the normal phenomena which had been revealed by the light of pathology, to pass on by degrees to the study of morbid modifications. The route from the pathological to the normal is one of research; the route from the normal to the pathological is one of exposition and synthesis. The two methods are complementary. Whenever the study of the pathological has thrown light on a normal phenomenon, we must do our utmost to deduce the pathological from the normal, and thus to put things in their places. The psychoanalysts have rarely reversed the engine in this way. Consequently Han Eyner, though as a thinker he is sympathetic towards psychoanalysis, once asked mischievously whether the doctors would not soon be talking of ** chronic normality" or ** acute health."

In this realm of thought, an error of terminology is current, and the experts are themselves largely to blame for its existence. I refer to the identification of the words ** nervous" and *' neuropathic." Analysis undoubtedly confirms the supposition that the three terms ^* nervous," ^^ affective," ^imaginative," have kindred connotations. But we must not infer, as some are inclined to do, that moral sensibility and imagination are pathological manifestations. The nervous person is a potential neuropath, just as a biped is a potential cul-de-jatte; ^ but he is not necessarily a neuropath. We have no right to describe aesthetic, philosophical, and religious phenomena as forms of the neuroses and psychoses. Nevertheless certain analysts employ phraseology which conveys this impression. A professor of the University of Geneva, during a philosophical discussion with a psychoanalyst, found it necessary to interject good-humouredly : **But what difference do you make, then, between a metaphysician and a patient suffering from dementia prcecoxV^ Such errors of terminology may entail errors of thought, dangerous errors. Some psychoanalysts seem to

^ A person who has lost both legs.

regard the whole human mind as an elaborate sexual perversion; others, as an imaginative compensation for an organic inferiority. Following this line of thought, man might be defined as ^^a neuropathic animal"; and it is perfectly true that the human nervous system possesses a delicacy of poise, and consequently a liability to injury, which is unknown among ruminants.

A person of nervous temperament may develop into a neuropath, but he may also develop into a genius. It depends upon which line he is switched on to. This is the significance of the well-known formula: **A neurosis is an unsuccessful work of art; a work of art is a successful neurosis.'' We must not, of course, infer that the two things are equivalent. The difference between failure and success may perhaps represent the whole difference between the pathological and the normal, for the normal is essentially a successful adaptation. A runner may become the champion; it is also possible that he will fall and break his leg. He will not think it funny if you tell him there is no difference.