which she tried to win over. She grew steadily odder, and at
seventeen was taken to the mental hospital, where she spent a year
and a half. She heard voices, refused food, and was completely
mutistic (i.e., no long spoke). When I first saw her she was in a
typical catatonic state.
In the course of many weeks I succeeded, very gradual y, in
persuading her to speak. After overcoming many resistances, she
told me that she had lived on the moon. The moon, it seemed, was
inhabited, but at first she had seen only men. They had at once
taken her with them and deposited her in a sublunar dwel ing where
their children and wives were kept. For on the high mountains of the
moon there lived a vampire who kidnapped and kil ed the women
and children, so that the moon people were threatened with
extinction. That was the reason for the sublunar existence of the
feminine half of the population.
My patient made up her mind to do something for the moon people,
and planned to destroy the vampire. After long preparations, she
waited for the vampire on the platform of a tower which had been
erected for this purpose. After a number of nights she at last saw
the monster approaching from afar, winging his way toward her like
a great black bird. She took her long sacrificial knife, concealed it
in her gown, and waited for the vampire's arrival. Suddenly he stood
before her. He had several pairs of wings. His face and entire figure
were covered by them, so that she could see nothing but his
feathers. Wonder-struck, she was seized by curiosity to find out
what he real y looked like. She approached, hand on the knife.
Suddenly the wings opened and a man of unearthly beauty stood
before her. He enclosed her in his winged arms with an iron grip, so
that she could no longer wield the knife. In any case she was so
spel bound by the vampire's look that she would not have been
capable of striking. He raised her from the platform and flew off with
her.
After this revelation she was once again able to speak without
inhibition, and now her resistances emerged. It seemed that I had
stopped her retum to the moon; she could no longer escape from
the earth. This world was not beautiful, she said, but the moon was
beautiful, and life there was rich in meaning. Sometime later she
suffered a relapse into her catatonia, and I had to have her taken to
a sanatorium. For a while she was violently insane.
When she was discharged after some two months, it was once
again possible to talk with her. Gradual y she came to see that life
on earth was unavoidable. Desperately, she fought against this
conclusion and its consequences, and had to be sent back to the
sanatorium. Once I visited her in her cel and said to her, "Al this
won't do you any good; you cannot return to the moon!" She took
this in silence and with an appearance of utter apathy. This time she
was released after a short stay and resigned herself to her fate.
For a while she took a job as nurse in a sanatorium. There was an
assistant doctor there who made a somewhat rash approach to her.
She responded with a revolver shot. Luckily, the man was only
slightly wounded. But the incident revealed that she went about with
a revolver al the time. Once before, she had turned up with a
loaded gun. During the last interview, at the end of the treatment,
she gave it to me. When I asked in amazement what she was doing
with it, she replied, "I would have shot you down if you had failed
me!"
When the excitement over the shooting had subsided, she returned
to her native town. She married, had several children, and survived
two world wars in the East, without ever again suffering a relapse.
What can be said by way of interpretation of these fantasies? As a
result of the incest to which she had been subjected as a girl, she
felt humiliated in the eyes of the world, but elevated the realm of
fantasy. She had been transported into a mythic- realm; for incest is
traditional y a prerogative of royalty and divinities. The
consequence was complete alienation from the world, a state of
psychosis. She became "extramundane," as it were, and lost
contact with humanity. She plunged into cosmic distances, into
outer space, where she met with the winged demon. As is the rule
with such things, she projected his figure onto me during the
treatment. Thus I was automatical y threatened with death, as was
everyone who might have persuade her to return to normal human
life. By tel ing me her story she had in a sense betrayed the demon
and attached herself to earthly human being. Hence she was able to
return to life and even to marry.
Thereafter I regarded the sufferings of the mental y il in different
light. For I had gained insight into the richness an importance of
their inner experience.
I am often asked about my psychotherapeutic or analytic method. I
cannot reply unequivocal y to the question. Therapy is different in
every case. When a doctor tel s me that he adheres strictly to this or
that method, I have my doubts about his therapeutic effect. So much
is said in the literature about the resistance of the patient that it
would almost seem as if the doctor were trying to put something
over on him, whereas the cure ought to grow natural y out of the
patient himself. Psycho- therapy and analysis are as varied as are
human individuals. I treat every patient as individual y as possible,
because the solution of the problem is always an individual one.
Universal rules can be postulated only with a grain of salt. A
psychological truth is valid only if it can be reversed. A solution
which would be out of the question for me may be just the right one
for someone else. "
Natural y, a doctor must be familiar with the so-cal ed "methods."
But he must guard against fal ing into any specific, routine
approach. In general one must guard against theoretical
assumptions. Today they may be valid, tomorrow it may be the turn
of other assumptions. In my analyses they play no part. I am
unsystematic very much by intention. To my mind, in dealing with
individuals, only individual understanding wil do. We need a
different language for every patient. In one analysis I can be heard
talking the Adlerian dialect, in another the Freudian.
The crucial point is that I confront the patient as one human being to
another. Analysis is a dialogue demanding two partners. Analyst
and patient sit facing one another, eye to eye; the doctor has
something to say, but so has the patient.
Since the essence of psychotherapy is not the application of a
method, psychiatric study alone does not suffice. I myself had to
work for a very long time before I possessed the equipment for
psychotherapy. As early as 1909, I realized that I could not treat
latent psychoses if I did not understand their symbolism. It was then
that I began to study mythology.
With cultivated and intel igent patients the psychiatrist needs more
than merely professional knowledge. He must understand, aside
from al theoretical assumptions, what real y motivates the patient.
Otherwise he stirs up unnecessary resistances. What counts, after
al , is not whether a theory is corroborated, but whether the patient
grasps himself as an individual. This, however, is not possible
without reference to the col ective views, concerning which the
doctor ought to be informed. For that, mere medical training does
not suffice, for the horizon of the human psyche embraces infinitely
more than the limited purview of the doctor's consulting room.
The psyche is distinctly more complicated and inaccessible than
the body. It is, so to speak, the half of the world which comes into
existence only when we become conscious of it. For that reason the
psyche is not only a personal but a world problem, and the
psychiatrist has to deal with an entire world.
Nowadays we can see as never before that the peril which
threatens al of us comes not from nature, but from man, from the
psyches of the individual and the mass. The psychic aberration of
man is the danger. Everything depends upon whether or not our
psyche functions properly. If certain persons lose their heads
nowadays, a hydrogen bomb wil go off.
The psychotherapist, however, must understand not only the patient;
it is equal y important that he should understand himself. For that
reason the sine quo non is the analysis of the analyst, what is cal ed
the training analysis. The patient's treatment begins with the doctor,
so to speak. Only if the doctor knows how to cope with himself and
his own problems wil he be able to teach the patient to do the
same. Only then. In the training analysis the doctor must learn to
know his own psyche; and to take it seriously. If he cannot do that,
the patient wil not learn either. He wil lose a portion of his psyche,
just as the doctor has lost that portion of his psyche which he has
not learned to understand. It is not enough, therefore, for the training
analysis to consist in acquiring a system of concepts. The
analysand must realize that it concerns himself, that the training
analysis is a bit of real life and is not a method which can be
learned by rote. The student who does not grasp that fact in his own
training analysis wil have to pay dearly for the failure later on.
Though there is treatment known as "minor psychotherapy," in any
thoroughgoing analysis the whole personality of both patient and
doctor is cal ed into play. There are many cases which the doctor
cannot cure without committing himself. When important matters
are at stake, it makes al the difference whether the doctor sees
himself as a part of the drama, or cloaks himself in his authority. In
the great crises of life, in the supreme moments when to be or not
to be is the question, little tricks of suggestion do not help. Then the
doctor's whole being is chal enged.
The therapist must at al times keep watch over himself, over the
way he is reacting to his patient. For we do not react only with our
consciousness. Also we must always be asking ourselves: How is
our unconscious experiencing this situation? We must therefore
observe our dreams, pay the closest attention and study ourselves
just as careful y as we do the patient. Otherwise the entire treatment
may go off the rails. I shal give a single example of this.
I once had a patient, a highly intel igent woman, who for various
reasons aroused my doubts. At first the analysis went very wel , but
after a while I began to feel that I was no longer getting at the
correct interpretation of her dreams, and I thought I also noticed an
increasing shal owness in our dialogue. I therefore decided to talk
with my patient about this, since it had of course not escaped her
that something was going wrong. The night before I was to speak
with her, I had the fol owing dream.
I was walking down a highway through a val ey in late-afternoon
sunlight. To my right was a steep hil . At its top stood a castle, and
on the highest tower there was a woman sitting on a kind of
balustrade. In order to see her properly, I had to bend my head far
back. I awoke with a crick in the back of my neck. Even in the
dream I had recognized the woman as my patient.
The interpretation was immediately apparent to me. If in the dream I
had to look up at the patient in this fashion, in reality I had probably
been looking down on her. Dreams are, after al , compensations for
the conscious attitude. I told her of the dream and my interpretation.
This produced an immediate change in the situation, and the
treatment once more began to move forward.
As a doctor I constantly have to ask myself what kind of message
the patient is bringing me. What does he mean to me? If he means
nothing, I have no point of attack. The doctor is effective only when
he himself is affected. "Only the wounded physician heals." But
when the doctor wears his personality like a coat of armor, he has
no effect. I take my patients seriously. Perhaps I am confronted with
a problem just as much as they. It often happens that the patient is
exactly the right plaster for the doctor's sore spot. Because this is
so, duffcult situations can arise for the doctor too--or rather,
especial y for the doctor.
Every therapist ought to have a control by some third person, so
that he remains open to another point of view. Even the pope has a
confessor. I always advise analysts: "Have a father confessor, or a
mother confessor!" Women are particularly gifted for playing such a
part. They often have excel ent intuition and a trenchant critical
insight, and can see what men have up their sleeves, at times see
also into men's anima intrigues. They see aspects that the man
does not see. That is why no woman has ever been convinced that
her husband is a superman!
It is understandable that a person should undergo analysis if he has
a neurosis; but if he feels he is normal, he is under no compulsion to
do so. Yet I can assure you, I have had some astonishing
experiences with so-cal ed "normality." Once I encountered an
entirely "normal" pupil. He was a doctor, and came to me with the
best recommendations from an old col eague. He had been his
assistant and had later taken over practice. Now he had a normal
practice, normal success, a normal wife, normal children, lived in a
normal little house in a normal little town, had a normal income and
probably a normal. diet. He wanted to be an analyst. I said to him,
"Do you know what that means? It means that you must first learn to
know yourself. You yourself are the instrument. If you are not right,
how can the patient be made right? If you are not convinced, how
can you convince him? You yourself must be the real stuff. If you are
not, God help you! Then you wil lead patients astray. Therefore you
must first accept an analysis of yourself.
That was al right, the man said, but almost at once fol owed this
with: "I have no problems to tel you about." That should have been a
warning to me. I said, "Very wel , then we can examine your
dreams? "I have no dreams," he said. "You wil soon have some," I
responded. Anyone else would probably have dreamt that very
night. But he was unable to recal any dreams. So it went on for
about two weeks, and I began to feel rather uneasy about the whole
affair.
At last an impressive dream turned up. I am going to tel it because
it shows how important it is, in practical psychiatry, to understand
dreams. He dreamt that he was traveling by railroad. The train had
a two-hour stop in a certain city. Since he did not know the city and
wanted to see something of it, he set out toward the city center.
There he found a medieval building, probably the town hal , and
went into it. He wandered down long corridors and came upon
handsome rooms, their wal s lined with old paintings and line
tapestries. Precious old objects stood about. Suddenly he saw that
it had grown darker, and the sun had set. He thought, I must get
back to the railroad station. At this moment he discovered that he
was lost, and no longer knew where the exit was. He started in
alarm, and simultaneously realized that he had not met a single
person in this building. He began to feel uneasy, and quickened his
pace, hoping to run into someone. But he met no one. Then he
came to a large door, and thought with relief: That is the exit. He
opened the door and discovered that he had stumbled upon a
gigantic room. It was so huge and dark that he could not even see
the opposite wal . Profoundly alarmed, the dreamer ran across the
great, empty room, hoping to find the exit on the other side. Then he
saw--precisely in the middle of the room--something white on the
floor. As he approached he discovered that it was an idiot child of
about two years old. It was sitting on a chamber pot and had
smeared itself with feces. At that moment he awoke with a cry, in a
state of panic.
I knew al I needed to know--here was a latent psychosis! I must say
I sweated as I tried to lead him out of that dream. I had to represent
it to him as something quite innocuous, and gloss over al the
perilous details.
What the dream says is approximately this: the trip on which he sets
out is the trip to Zurich. He remains there, however, for only a short
time. The child in the center of the room is himself as a two-year-old
child. In smal children, such uncouth behavior is somewhat unusual,
but stil possible. They may be intrigued by their feces, which are
colored and have an odd smel . Raised in a city environment, and
possibly along strict lines, a child might easily be guilty of such a
failing.
But the dreamer, the doctor, was no child; he was a grown man.
And therefore the dream image in the center of the room is a
sinister symbol. When he told me the dream, I realized that his
normality was a compensation. I had caught him in the nick of time,
for the latent psychosis was within a hair's breadth of breaking out
and becoming manifest. This had to be prevented. Final y, with the
aid of one of his other dreams, I succeeded in finding an
acceptable pretext for ending the training analysis. We were both of
us very glad to stop. I had not informed him of my diagnosis, but he
had probably become aware that he was on the verge of a fatal
panic, for he had a dream in which he was being pursued by a
dangerous maniac. Immediately afterward he returned home. He
never again stirred up the unconscious. His emphatic normality
reflected a personality which would not have been developed but
simply shattered by a confrontation with the unconscious. These
latent psychoses are the bétes noires of psychotherapists, since
they are often very difficult to recognize.
With this, we come to the question of lay analysis. I am in favor of
non-medical men studying psychotherapy and practicing it; but in
dealing with latent psychoses there is the risk of their making
dangerous mistakes. Therefore I favor laymen working as analysts,
but under the guidance of a professional physician. As soon as a
lay analyst feels the slightest bit uncertain, he ought to consult his
mentor. Even for doctors it is difficult to recognize and treat a latent
schizophrenia; al the more so for laymen. But I have repeatedly
found that laymen who have practiced psychotherapy for years, and
who have themselves been in analysis, are shrewd and capable.
Moreover there are not enough doctors practicing psychotherapy.
For such practice, long and thorough training is necessary, and a
wide culture which very few possess.
The relationship between doctor and patient, especial y when a
transference on the part of the patient occurs, or a more or less
unconscious identification of doctor and patient, can lead to
parapsychological phenomena. I have frequently run into this. One
such case which was particularly impressive was that of a patient
whom I had pul ed out of a psychogenic depression. He went back
home and married; but I did not care for his wife. The first time I saw
her, I had an uneasy feeling. Her husband was grateful to me, and I
observed that I was a thorn in her side because of my influence over
him. It frequently happens that women who do not real y love their
husbands are jealous and destroy their friendships. They want the
husband to belong entirely to them because they themselves do not
belong to him. The kernel of al jealousy is lack of love.
The wife's attitude placed a tremendous burden on the patient
which he was incapable of coping with. Under its pressure he
relapsed, after a year of marriage, into a new depression.
Foreseeing this possibility, I had arranged with him that he was to
get in touch with me at once if he observed his spirits sinking. He
neglected to do so, partly because of his wife, who scoffed at his
moods. I heard not a word from him.
At that time I had to deliver a lecture in B. I returned to my hotel
around midnight. I sat with some friends for a while after the lecture,
then went to bed, but I lay awake for a long time. At about two
o'clock--I must have just fal en asIeep--I awoke with a start, and had
the feeling that someone had come into the room; I even had the
impression that the door had been hastily opened. I instantly turned
on the light, but there was nothing. Someone might have mistaken
the door, I thought, and I looked into the corridor. But it was stil as
death. "Odd," I thought, "someone did come into the room!" Then I
tried to recal exactly what had happened, and it occurred to me that
I had been awakened by a feeling of dul pain, as though something
had struck my forehead and then the back of my skul . The fol owing
day I received a telegram saying that my patient had committed
suicide. He had shot himself. Later, I learned that the bul et had
come to rest in the back wal of the skul . This experience was a
genuine synchronistic phenomenon such as is quite often observed
in connection with an archetypal situation--in this case, death. By
means of a relativization of time and space in the unconscious it
could wel be that I had perceived something which in reality was
taking place elsewhere. The col ective unconscious is common to
al ; it is the foundation of what the ancients cal ed the "sympathy of
al things." In this case the unconscious had knowledge of my
patient's condition. Al that evening, in fact, I had felt curiously
restive and nervous, very much in contrast to my usual mood.
I never try to convert a patient to anything, and never exercise any
compulsion. What matters most to me is that the patient should
reach his own view of things. Under my treatment a pagan
becomes a pagan and a Christian a Christian, a Jew a Jew,
according to what his destiny prescribes for him.
I wel recal the case of a Jewish woman who had lost her faith. It
began with a dream of mine in which a young girl, unknown to me,
came to me as a patient. She outlined her case to me, and while
she was talking, I thought, "I don't understand her at al . I don't
understand what it is al about." But suddenly it occurred to me that
she must have an unusual father complex. That was the dream.
For the next day I had down in my appointment book a consultation
for four o'clock. A young woman appeared. She was Jewish,
daughter of a wealthy banker, pretty, chic, and highly intel igent. She
had already undergone an analysis, but the doctor acquired a
transference to her and final y begged her not to come to him any
more, for if she did, it would mean the destruction of his marriage.
The girl had been suffering for years from a severe anxiety
neurosis, which this experience natural y worsened. I began with an
anamnesis, but could discover nothing special. She was wel -
adapted, Westernized Jewess