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Page 23
_Analysis._--The husband of the patient, an upright and conscientious
wholesale butcher, had told her the day before that he is growing too
fat, and that he must, therefore, begin treatment for obesity. He was
going to get up early, take exercise, keep to a strict diet, and above
all accept no more invitations to suppers. She proceeds laughingly to
relate how her husband at an inn table had made the acquaintance of an
artist, who insisted upon painting his portrait because he, the painter,
had never found such an expressive head. But her husband had answered in
his rough way, that he was very thankful for the honor, but that he was
quite convinced that a portion of the backside of a pretty young girl
would please the artist better than his whole face[1]. She said that she
was at the time very much in love with her husband, and teased him a
good deal. She had also asked him not to send her any caviare. What does
that mean?
As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat a caviare
sandwich every forenoon, but had grudged herself the expense. Of course,
she would at once get the caviare from her husband, as soon as she asked
him for it. But she had begged him, on the contrary, not to send her the
caviare, in order that she might tease him about it longer.
This explanation seems far-fetched to me. Unadmitted motives are in the
habit of hiding behind such unsatisfactory explanations. We are reminded
of subjects hypnotized by Bernheim, who carried out a posthypnotic
order, and who, upon being asked for their motives, instead of
answering: "I do not know why I did that," had to invent a reason that
was obviously inadequate. Something similar is probably the case with
the caviare of my patient. I see that she is compelled to create an
unfulfilled wish in life. Her dream also shows the reproduction of the
wish as accomplished. But why does she need an unfulfilled wish?
The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the interpretation of the
dream. I beg for more. After a short pause, which corresponds to the
overcoming of a resistance, she reports further that the day before she
had made a visit to a friend, of whom she is really jealous, because her
husband is always praising this woman so much. Fortunately, this friend
is very lean and thin, and her husband likes well-rounded figures. Now
of what did this lean friend speak? Naturally of her wish to become
somewhat stouter. She also asked my patient: "When are you going to
invite us again? You always have such a good table."
Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may say to the patient: "It is
just as though you had thought at the time of the request: 'Of course,
I'll invite you, so you can eat yourself fat at my house and become
still more pleasing to my husband. I would rather give no more suppers.'
The dream then tells you that you cannot give a supper, thereby
fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the rounding out of
your friend's figure. The resolution of your husband to refuse
invitations to supper for the sake of getting thin teaches you that one
grows fat on the things served in company." Now only some conversation
is necessary to confirm the solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has
not yet been traced. "How did the salmon mentioned in the dream occur to
you?" "Smoked salmon is the favorite dish of this friend," she answered.
I happen to know the lady, and may corroborate this by saying that she
grudges herself the salmon just as much as my patient grudges herself
the caviare.
The dream admits of still another and more exact interpretation, which
is necessitated only by a subordinate circumstance. The two
interpretations do not contradict one another, but rather cover each
other and furnish a neat example of the usual ambiguity of dreams as
well as of all other psychopathological formations. We have seen that at
the same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish, the patient is
in reality occupied in securing an unfulfilled wish (the caviare
sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get
fatter, and it would not surprise us if our lady had dreamt that the
wish of the friend was not being fulfilled. For it is her own wish that
a wish of her friend's--for increase in weight--should not be fulfilled.
Instead of this, however, she dreams that one of her own wishes is not
fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of a new interpretation, if in the
dream she does not intend herself, but her friend, if she has put
herself in the place of her friend, or, as we may say, has identified
herself with her friend.
I think she has actually done this, and as a sign of this identification
she has created an unfulfilled wish in reality. But what is the meaning
of this hysterical identification? To clear this up a thorough
exposition is necessary. Identification is a highly important factor in
the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled
in their symptoms to represent not merely their own experiences, but the
experiences of a great number of other persons, and can suffer, as it
were, for a whole mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama by
means of their own personalities alone. It will here be objected that
this is well-known hysterical imitation, the ability of hysteric
subjects to copy all the symptoms which impress them when they occur in
others, as though their pity were stimulated to the point of
reproduction. But this only indicates the way in which the psychic
process is discharged in hysterical imitation; the way in which a
psychic act proceeds and the act itself are two different things. The
latter is slightly more complicated than one is apt to imagine the
imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it corresponds to an unconscious
concluded process, as an example will show. The physician who has a
female patient with a particular kind of twitching, lodged in the
company of other patients in the same room of the hospital, is not
surprised when some morning he learns that this peculiar hysterical
attack has found imitations. He simply says to himself: The others have
seen her and have done likewise: that is psychic infection. Yes, but
psychic infection proceeds in somewhat the following manner: As a rule,
patients know more about one another than the physician knows about each
of them, and they are concerned about each other when the visit of the
doctor is over. Some of them have an attack to-day: soon it is known
among the rest that a letter from home, a return of lovesickness or the
like, is the cause of it. Their sympathy is aroused, and the following
syllogism, which does not reach consciousness, is completed in them: "If
it is possible to have this kind of an attack from such causes, I too
may have this kind of an attack, for I have the same reasons." If this
were a cycle capable of becoming conscious, it would perhaps express
itself in _fear_ of getting the same attack; but it takes place in
another psychic sphere, and, therefore, ends in the realization of the
dreaded symptom. Identification is therefore not a simple imitation, but
a sympathy based upon the same etiological claim; it expresses an "as
though," and refers to some common quality which has remained in the
unconscious.
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