JOURNAL OP

THE INDIAN PSYCHOANALYTICAL SOCIETY

i
r

jr,

-Vft
-.- : . 1,.,-J <tJ

' '

Editor
NAGENDRANATH DE

VOLUME 9

PftCtXTBAM M

1955

NUMBEB 2

Ion j

SAMIKSA
JOURNAL COMMITTEE

Dr. S. C. Mitra
Dr. N.JDe
Mr. T. C. Sinha
Dr. B. K. Bose
Mr. A. Datta
Dr. N. N. Chatterji
Dr. A. K. Dev
Dr. C. V. Ramana
Mr. M. V. Amrith
EDITOR

Dr. N. De
ASST. EDITOR

Dr. B. K. Bose

REVISTA DE PSIGOANALISIS
Organo De La
ASOCIACION PSICOANLITICA ARGENTINA

Publica en castellano los articulos fundamentals del pensamiento

psicoanalitico y los articulos originates escritos en espanol. Ademas :
Revista de Libros, Revista de Revistas, Revision de la literatura psicoanalitica clasica y Notas y Comentarios pskoanaliticos.
El tomo anual, lujosamente presentado e illustrado, contiene un
promedio de mil paginas. Su coleccion constituye la mejor sintesis del
pensamiento psicoanalitico existente en castellano.
Precio de venta : Suscripcion anualS 70 (Arg.), $ 8.00 (U. S.)
Volumenes atrasados
$ 90 (Arg.>, $ 8.50 ;U. S.)
REVISTA DE PSICOANALISIS
Juncal 655, 1, Bi Buenos Aires, Argentina

PRACTICAL AND TECHNICAL PROBLEMS PRESENTED BY THE PATIENT'S LIES ABOUT THE ANALYST
DURING PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT
EDMUND BERGLER, M.D.

Terence once said : "There is nothing a man would not believe

in his own favour." This dictum is applicable to technical situations
in clinical analysis, in which a patient has been caught lying about the
analyst and argues his head off to prove that he was fully justified in
his presentation of the 'facts'.
The technique of these specific lies is encountered exclusively
in psychopathic personalities ; and is typically executed in the following
situation: The transference neurosis has taken place, and the
analyst has been unconsciously identified with the infantile image
with whom the original conflict started. If, luckily., the 'real' person
involved in the original conflict is still at hand, the latter is fed with
lies and distortions purporting to have come from the analyst. If,
however, the original is not at hand, substitute figures are chosen.
In both cases, the purpose of the procedure is identical: mobilization
of fury against the analyst, and masochistic expectation of retaliation
from the analyst.
A young man of 28 entered analysis under peculiar circumstances. He was potent with his wife, whom he did not love, and
impotent with his girl-friend, whom he did 'love.' The official reason
for analysis which he presented to his father (who was paying the
bills), was of course different: the patient explained that he needed
treatment because of his inability to get along with buyers in the
business he and his father conducted.
The patient's original infantile conflictconsisting of a deep
oral-masochistic elaboration acquired from the motherwas subsequently shifted to the father. This was easy enough, because this
father had been an irascible, inconsistant, half-hypocritical educator,
a dictator who shouted everybody down. Officially, the patient was
submissive towards his father, who continued to hold him down even
after he became an adult. The son was given a relatively large salary

82

E. BERGLER

[ SAMIKSA

when he entered the business, but the father kept the reins securely
in his own hands. There were constant quarrels between the two,
subdued on the son's part, not so subdued on the father's. These
quarrels centered around the young man's feeling that the father had
become a mere figurehead in the firm, while he (the son) did most of
the work without being elevated to a partnership or at least rewarded
with an 'adequate' salary.
As is usual in orally regressed masochistic cases, the wish to Set
covered more deeply repressed conflicts centering around the wish to
be refused. The latter wish corresponded to the solution of the
infantile conflict along masochistic lines ; the former wish was not
identical with baby-greediness (which it originally was), but represented a subsequently established defensive cover designed to counter
the super-ego's accusations pertaining specifically to the "pleasure-indispleasure-pattern " This procedure has been elaborated at length
in my books, The Basic Neurosis (1949) and The Super-ego (1952).
The patient demurred when this explanation was presented to
him. He considered himself a hedonist longing for 'real love' and
'real money.'
The contradiction between conscious and unconscious aims
could be demonstrated : both in marriage and in business he was in
pursuit of rejection. He had married a cold detached, sexually frigid
girl who was totally unresponsive. Her housekeeping was sloppy;
she never served him his favourite dishes ; she was uninterested in
company and isolated him socially. In business, the patient swallowed
the identical fury : here, too, he was constantly confronted with an
inaccessible person (his father) from whom it was easy to extract a
stream of 'injustices'.

As time went on, stronger inner defences were needed and

erected. To counteract the accusation of the inner conscience pertaining to his masochistic, self-created, marital misery a 'kind and
loving* girl-friend was procured. To counteract the accusation of
conscience hitting at the masochistic submission he displayed towards
his father in business, the defensive wish to get money was instituted.
It soon became obvious that this patient could operate only in
a climate of refusal. Where there was no refusal, he provoked until
he got what he wantedthe proverbial kick in the jaw. * This also
explained the paradox of the man's potency with his unloved wife

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

THE PATIENT'S LIES ABOUT THE ANALYST

83

and his impotence with the loved girl-friend. Obviously, he could

hot provoke his sexually disinterested wife by being impotent with
hershe would have been only too glad to dispense with the whole
messy business. Hence, potency retained with her meant a repeated
demonstration of how unjustly he was treated : he gave sex, and in
return gotnothing. However, the girl-friend wanted sex. Here he
provoked by being impotent.
The patient described his relationship with the girl as rosy,
but this was by no means factually correct. In addition to the
Suffering guaranteed by his impotence, he cashed in on other masochistic pleasures. He was pathologically jealous, 'suffering hell.'
To make absolutely sure that the girl would be an instrument of
torture, he had vaguely promised her that he would divorce his wife ;
of course, he did nothing whatever about this promise. Resentment
become increasingly visible in the girl.
Having established his 'three torturers' (father, wife, girl-friend),
he proceeded to play for higher stakes by antagonizing buyers in
his business. His father understood this danger, and suggested
analysis. The patient accepted the suggestion, but for his own
reasons : he wanted his potency with his girl-friend restored.
With undisguised malice, the patient told me : "This old fool
has no idea why I went into analysis. He is hyper-moral, and
would hit the ceiling if he had any idea of my real reasons."
The patient's analysis developed along unusual lines. The
unconscious reasons for his impotence with the girl were worked
out quickly, and the symptom disappeared. The patient did not see
any reason for continuing analysis. I warned him against breaking
off, pointing out his completely shaky neurotic balance, his conflicts
with everybody, his depressions following each new 'injustice'. I
had the impression that he had quite a different motive for
remaining in treatment : his father paid the bills, and it gave the
patient pleasure to "waste the old fool's money." He concluded
with this comment: "I wouldn't get it anyway ; let him pay !"
It was difficult to focus the patient's attention on his real
inner problem. With unrelenting irony he countered every attempt to
explain that what he called his 'real' problem was in his case merely a
sham, and that in inner reality he desired neither love nor money.
"Nothing can satisfy an 'injustice collector' butinjustices," I told him.

84

E. BERGLER

[ SAMIKSA

The patient did not develop an interest in analysis until his

girl-friend became belligerent and definitely demanded 'clarification' :
her motto was "Either divorce your wife and marry me or we
are finished."
At once, he needed the analyst. It was the analyst's business,
he told me, to convince his father, a devout Catholic, that it was
'old-fashioned1 of him to object to his son's marrying a Jewess
(the girl was Jewish). I answered that he would have to convince
me, first that he really loved the girl. In my opinion he was
planing to divorce his wife and marry the girl for only one reason :
he was bargaining for more trouble. I suggested that he postpone
all plans.
In spite of my definite 'suggestions,' and contraty to them, the
patient decided to go ahead. This simply meant that he was putty
in the hands of the quite energetic girl, who was pressing hard
for marital status. The father, informed of these developments
by his son, was horrified. In conformity with my suggestion ("No
decisions during analysis"), although for different reasons, he, too,
demanded that his son postpone his plans. The patient finally
accepted this demand, although with a stipulated time limit of
twelve months.
Immediately, the patient started a campaign'for more money.
The father refused : "Why should I help you support two families ?
A divorce would mean cutting your income in half. If you want
a divorce, change your style of living !"
Needless to say, the 'injustice' was bitterly exploited by the
patient. He also became indignant with me, since I had pointed
out that the demand for money was ill-timed : I practically foretold
his father's answer. He did not give credit to the explanation of
his masochistic:action, but began to accuse me of "being in cahoots"
with his father.
The identification between father and analyst was obvious ;
the patient denied it vehemently. Transference, he declared, is
the bunk : "I an dealing with realities, not nebulous fantasies of
an even more nebulous so-called unconscious."
This was the second instance which made me question whether
anything could be achieved with this patient: nothing is more
ominous than complete misunderstanding of transference and resistance

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

THE PATIENT'S LIES ABOUT THE ANALYST

85

on the patient's part. The patient's attitude the suspicion which

had been aroused a few weeks earlier by the first incident t The
patient's father had reported his son as saying, during a discussion
of his divorce plans, "Nothing has been changed by analysis."
On that identical day, the patient had urgently begged me to "convince
his father." Obviously, the patient was provoking the analyst;
obviously, too, he was undesmining the strength of the latter's arguments vis-a-vis the father. My position was not too enviable. I
could not refute the patient life ; I was bound by medical secrecy
not to divulge the patient's great secret: his previous impotence
with his girl-friend, and the analytic removal of that symptom. I
simply told the father that there must be some misunderstanding ;
if the son were present, I went on, I would retire with him for a
private consultation of about a minute's duration, to remind him of
a specific set of facts. After this, I assured the father, the son would
be bound to retract his statement. The father understood that
questioning me would lead nowhere ; from his facial expression it
was evident that doubts about his son's veracity had been actively
aroused.
The incident was analyzed, and the patient was shown how
senseless and ill-timed his lie had been. I pointed out, too, that the
usual moral indignation with which the outer world surrounds the
word 'lie' does not apply in analysis : analytically, a senseless lie is
simply a subdivision of the general masochistic technique. Specific
determinants may, or may not, be added. In his specific case, I
suspected that inner irony at the expense of the father was involved.
With an ironic smile the patient countered : "I had simply forgotten
my impotence."
The patient's anger was continually shifting from father to
buyers to myself; the circuit was then repeated. I pointed out that
be clearly could not live without a bogey-man.
Then came an event which nearly torpedoed the whole analysis.
During one of his quarrels with his father, the patient 'quoted' me
as having said that his father was half-crazy, and needed analysis
more than his son did. The father indignantly informed me of this,
and I simply stated that I had never made such a statement. I
promised that the young man would be forced to retract the obvious
lie. The patient admitted to me that he had lied : his father had been

86

E. BERGLER

SAMIKSA

irritating, and he had wanted to throw in his face "something that

really hurt." The patient also admitted the 'exaggeration' to his
father, and retracted the 'quotation', telling his father that my alleged
statement had never been made.
The next step wasonce more a 'reality situation,' according
to the naive patient. His 'fiancee,' as the patient called his girl-friend,
worked as an assistant bookkeeper in one of the numerous companies
affiliated with his father's business. Her office was so close to
patient's office that it was possible for him to spend a good deal of
time with her during working hours. The patient's father objected
to this practice, claiming that it was detrimental to the businessmorale of the employees. Rumours, suppressed and only partly
suppressed, grew rapidly, and the father laid down an ultimatum:
"The girl must leave." This infuriated the patient; every attempt
the father made to explain the situation was fruitless.
The problem was, once more, dumped into my lap. I tried to
explain that prevailing standards tabooed 'affairs' in offices, and that
in this case, the taboo was especially strong, since the patient had
been 'indiscreet' in handling the 'affair' (in other words, had provoked
once more). Eventually a compromise was reached ; the patient
undertook to persuade his "fiancee" to look for another job. It
became clear, very soon, that neither patient nor the girl had any
serious intention of sticking to the agreement. The girl did not want
to leave because she suspected that changing her position might
lead to the patient's throwing her overboard. The patient did
not want her to leave because she had become a pawn in the
masochistic provocative game he was playing with the "powers
that be."
At last the father lost patience and told me that if the girl did
not soon resign voluntarily, his son would have to leave the business.
I tried to dissuade him from this redical step. I discussed the
problem with the patient again, and pointed out that it would be to
his interest to press the point with the girl. I met with the strongest
resistance, and the 'realistic' statement that the only position she
conld get would pay >10 less than her present job. . I suggested that
for the time being he give the girl the difference: a weekly payment
of $10 would be less damaging than being thrown out of the
business.

Voi; 9, No. 2 ]

THE PATIENT'S LIES ABOUT THE ANALYST

87

.'.." It became clear during this discussion that his boast"The girl
does everything I tell her to"was pure braggadocio; he was
completely under her heel. I told him so, and the masochistic
attachment was discussed.
Parallel with these developments went the patient's running battle
for "more money." During and analytic appointment, the patient
accused his father, in excited tones, of having lied to him : two years
earlier he had been promised more money if and when certain
provisions of the Federal wage-stabilization law were rescinded,
these laws had since been invalidated, and he still had not been given
more mony.
On the very same day on which the patient told me that his
father had "lied to him", he went to his father and informed him that
he had decided to break off his analysis : he had lost all confidence in
me, since I had lied to him. This was the alleged lie : One of my
other patients was a distant relative of this patient's ; some time
earlier I had quoted "private information" to the effect that relatives
of his (also shareholders) did not want him in the business. The
story was complete fake, of course.
Confronted with this alleged statement (repeated to the father)
I completely denied it; hence I "lied in his face."
The first to inform me of his decision was the patientby phone.
He gave no reason, simply stating that he had decided to break off
.analysis. I answered that he could do whatever he wished, and that
we would discuss this during his next few appointments, since
analysis was a month-to-month arrangement, and he had filed his
"letter of resignation'' (via telephone) in the middle of the month.
The next telephone call came shortly afterwards. It was from
the patient's father ; he expressed his satisfaction with my statement,
and his hope that the few remaining appointments would "knock some
sense" into his difficult son.
In the next appointment, the patient was again confronted with
the complex net of masochistic acts he had executed via lies. He
was told that he was projecting the father-image, and reminded that
the reproaches having to do with my 'lie' pertained to the father,
whom he had accusedon that very same dayof having lied about
-the promised salary increase. I also pointed out that he constantly
:tried to use. analysis as a weapon against his father in connection

E. BERGLER

[SAMIKSA

with his plane to re-marry. It was not until I had confirmed the fact
that his finance had to leave the business that he became unable to
use me as a counter-weapon in this conflict. I told him that if his
father claimed that one and one equalled two, I could not to please
the patientagree with his dissenting opinion that the total equals
twenty-seven. Once more, the masochistic sub-structure was
clarified.
The patient answered excitedly that I had no right "to make an
ass of him" by denying his statements about my 'lie'.
"You had no right to attack me !" he insisted.
"I did not attack you. I simply had to clarify a lie you had
told. This is not attack but self-defence. I have told you repeatedly
that you are not to discuss your analysis."
"May be I made a mistake in opening my mouth to my father,
But that's beside the point."
"It is not beside the point; it is the heart of the matter. If
you attack me by spreading lies about me, I have the right to put the
record straight. But you act the innocent victim; you attack first,
and when I defend myself you turn around and ask indignantly,
'Why are you attacking me ?' When I tell you that your actions
began it all, you answer, 'That's beside the point' To sum up : You
cannot and will not take the real analysis of your'acting out'and
your masochistic personality. This being the case, analysis can do
nothing for you. You had better leave, but be clear about the
dangers ahead : you are bargaining for real trouble. Analysis is a
therapy for neurosis ; you, however, are suffering from more than a
neurosis."

To adduce two other examples :

An inhibited writer, a woman, reported that between the ages
of five and ten she had, as she put it, "sold her looks" to an old man
who lived across the street. The payment was fifty cents for each
exhibitionistic performance. This action could be reconstructed as
her first desparate unconscious attempt to cope with her own
voyeuristic conflict, for in these performances it was not she, but the
old man (father-imago) who committed the crime of peeping. The
mechanism used in this" expiation of guilt was, first, projection;

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

THE PATIENT'S LIES ABOUT THE ANALYST

83

second, exchange of one part of scopophilia for the other; third,

identification wite the old man's voyeuristic pleasure. The child
exhibited in two ways ; in addition to giving the performances, she
confessed them to her horrified sister. She thus preferred to take
the blame for the defence mechanism (exhibitionism), for the sake of
covering up something more importantpeeping. But why did she
aceept money ? At that time the child's father was beating her
frequently and brutally. Every beating was administered with a
specific ceremony which included undressing and formally asking for
punishment. Very early, the child suspected that her father's motives
were not of an exclusively punitive nature. In taking money from
the "man across the street", she was unconsciously directing an
ironic message to her father; "You enjoy this ; you should pay for
your pleasure, just as the old man across the street does." Secondarily, unconscious ideas of self-degradation were included : "This
is what Father makes out of me."
As already mentioned, the patient was a writer ; in her, therefore, oral and voyeuristic tendencies were intensified as elaborated
in my book, The Writer and Psychoanalysis. Her customary
benaviour was markedly exhibitionistic. As is usual, she used
exhibitionism as a defence against more deeply repressed voyeurism.
When she was asked why she had done nothing about her father's
cruelty, the patient presented very interesting rationalizations.
She claimed that she was "ashamed of her bruises" and of the
possibility that the neighbours would consider her father 'crazy.'
What the child really dreaded was the possibility that people would
perceive her mssochistic pleasure in this paternal torture. It became
apparent in the transference that it was not modesty that prevented
her from making the exhibitionistically conceived complaints that
would expose her father. In the transference, she projected the
"bad-mother-father" attachment upon the analyst; she misconstrued
all developments as situations in which she was being mistreated ;
without understanding what she was repeating, she started to mobilize
outsiders against analysis. The reason was obvious : since her feeling
of guilt had been augmented by analysis of her masochistic wishes,
she did now what she had not done as a childshe complained
about 'mistreatment'. Even there an ironic twist was discernible :
"You ask why I didn't complain; well, I'm complaining now."
2

90

E. BERGLER

[ SAMIKSA

Thus analysis was 'punished' for having disturbed her masochistic

pleasure.
When this patient took the step of mobilizing outsiders against
the analysis, her complaint was that the analyst was "driving her into
suicide." Conveniently left unmentioned was the fact that her
history recorded three suicide attempts, the first of which had been
made at the age of seven I She left treatment, told her 'story' to a
number of colleagues, and eventually landed with an 'understanding'
analyst. The analysis with him, of course, was a failure.
Twice in later years this patient telephoned to me, requesting
that I take her case again, and continue treatment. I declined,
although the woman claimed that she now understood what she had
acted out with me, and declared she had a 'hunch' that the analysis
"would work" this time. In other words, she still wanted to squeeze
out some repetitive conflicts I

Here is a third example :

Nearly ten years ago I treated, for some weeks, a man of twentysix who possessed many of the traits of the impostor. His ingratiating
behaviour had persuaded a man from an old and wealthy family to
become his business partner. When treatment began, the patient
informed me that he was the owner of a business firm ; this was the
full extent of the information I had. Very soon, the patient's
"peculiar partner" came under scrutiny ; the partner's motives were
totally incomprehensible. Before the situation came to a climax
the partner had fraudulently obtained money from his wealthy, and
seemingly had invested this money with my patient as a 'speculation'
with intent to lose itenough of my patient's rather fantastic past
had come to the fore to stigmatize him as a psychopathic personality.
"Business reverses", meaning his partner's arrest, made further
analysis impossible.
Years later, in quick succession, three young women came to me
for consultation ; each one bitterly accused me of having "prevented
her marriage." The prospective husband in each case was the patient
described above. Each interview proceeded along the following lines :
I stated that I had not seen the man for years. "But how can that
be possible ?" the young women asked. "He showed me a bill of

.Vol. 9, No. 2 J

THE PATIENT'S LIES ABOUT THE ANALYST

91

yours I" In every case the legitimizing bill had been exhibited in a
dim light and at a distance ; the date (now nearly a decade past)
Had been cautiously hidden. In any case, further "business reverses"
and the progress of his psychopathy had led the man to specializing
in promises of marriage ; the profit lay in thus obtaining money to
cover "divorce proceedings." The lies he used for extricating
himself from tight spots were rather remarkable. On one occasion
he used the money (half-extorted, half-lent) for a journey to
Alabama ; he came back allegedly married, claiming that the father
of another girl had forced him, at the point of a gun, to marry his
daughter. Moreover, he claimed that I had "advised him on psychological grounds" not to marry the girl, etc.
I clarified the lies and warned the man against further use of
my name, threatening to take the appropriate legal steps if he did
not desist.
What should the attitude of the analyst be when confronted
with these damaging lies ?
Obviously, medical secrecy does not bar self-defence. To
protect himself, the analyst must contradict these lies in general
terms, since other people are invariably involved. On the basis of
my experience, I would say that such patients, in these situations of
heightened negative transference, are inaccessible to interpretations.
Especially difficult are situations in which a psychopathic liar
circulates untruth, and the analyst cannot divulge the facts which
would expose the statement as a lie. An example is the statement
made by the first patient to be described here, in which he declared
that nothing had changed during his analysis ; the patient had
simply omitted the cure of his potency disturbance. Another
example is to be found in the second case : the patient's story was
that the analyst was "driving her into suicide", when actually her
first suicide attempt had been made at the age of seven, and the
attempt had subssquently, but long before analysis, been twice
repeated.
As soon as one discovers that one of the masochistic techniques
of a specific patient consists of repetitive lies, it must be concluded
that what is involved is not a simple neurosis. And, unfortunately,

92

E. BERGLER

E SAMIKSA

analysis is not too effective with psychopaths of the schizoid variety.

T h e simplest procedure would be to ease the patient out by gradually
interrupting treatment. Regrettably, the patient more often takes
the initiative by provoking violent conflicts.
These cases are more than a nuisance; they are dangerous.
This is especially so because these patients are not bound by normal
self-preservation : masochistically, they advertise to outsiders most
of their conflict with the analyst, in the attempt to mobilize these
outsidets against the analyst. The whole problem falls into the
category of professional risks which cannot always be avoided.

FREUD AND HORNEY ON ANXIETY AND NEUROSIS

M. BARUA

If neurosis is the product of anxiety and the defence set up

against it, the problem of anxiety assumes a central role in the causation
and maintenance of neurosis. Recognition of anxiety as the dynamic
centre of neurosis brought about a new phase in the development
of psychoanalytic theories and practice and laid the foundation upon
which further researches were done in recent years.
In Freud's earliest formulations, anxiety was considered to be
of little consequences so far as the development of neurosis or
neurotic character structure was concerned. He maintained that
frustrated sexual energy was converted into anxiety, which had nothing
to do with neurosis although anxiety was found to be present in some
neurotic persons.
Later on he established a link between anxiety and neurosis and
explained that neurotic difficulties first produced sexual inhibition.
Thus the repressed sexual energy or the repressed libido was transformed into anxiety or it was discharged in the form of anxiety. Freud
was not contented with this explanation also and finally in 1923 he
concluded that neurotic behaviour was developed in an attempt to
cope with anxiety. Anxiety therefore was no longer considered
to be the result of repression but the cause of repression. However,
his conception of anxiety was rather vague and complicated. Although
he said that it was not important whether anxiety was transformed
libido or not yet he never abandoned his original position and
maintained that the earliest pattern of anxiety was produced as a
result of transformation of libido. The later experiences of anxiety
served the function of a signal from the ego that a similar danger
threatened. The dangerous forces within, he thought, originated
from two sources \ firstly, the strength of the instincts and secondly,
the severity of the super-ego. In short, anxiety according to Freud
was produced when one failed to control the 'Life- drive' (chiefly
libido) or the 'Death instinct' in order to maintain a secure
position in society. Freud therefore with his usual consistency
related anxiety to the instinctual sources and explained that anxiety

94

M. BARUA

[ SAMIKSA

originated when the 'ego' was not strong enough to cope with
the instinctual claims of the 'id' or harassed by the punitive
power of the "super-ego" which threatened one's relation to the
outside world.
Culturally oriented analystsFromm, Horney and Sullivan
accepted Freud's important premise that symptoms or neurotic
behaviours were developed in an attempt to cope with anxiety and
also agreed with Freud that anxiety originated when something
from within the person disturbed his relationship to significant
people or the outside world. But the main point of difference
was .as to the nature of the threat from within. They maintained
that inner impulses which threatened ones security was primarily
forces created by the cultural pressures. In other words, the threat
from within were not engendered by the instinctual pressures of
the sex or aggression instincts as was assumed by Freud. On the
contrary, they maintained that the dangerous forces from within
were created by the cultural pressures which produced in the
child strong hostility and resentment in reaction to frustrations of
his potentialities, either intinctual or otherwise. But the child has
to repress his resentment and hostility because of his existing dependency upon others or for the sake of love and approval on which
his security rests primarily. Thus a formidable force was generated
within, always pressing for outward expressions but which would only
r bring loss of love and approval. It was due to this conflict that the
basic anxiety or the earliest pattern of anxiety was produced in
the child. Secondary anxiety was formed out of the very defence
system, which contained contradictory trends and was originally built
up in order to cope with the basic anxiety.
Horney described the situation which produced basic-anxiety in
the child as follows :
"In an environment in which the basic anxiety developed, the
child's free use of energies are thwarted, his self-esteem and selfreliance are undermined, fear is instilled by iatimidation and isolation, his
expansiveness is warped through brutality, standards of overprotective
love".
Fromm and Sullivan also described in different terms that the
earliest pattern of anxiety developed in the child due to adverse
environmental influences. However, it must be noted that Freud

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

FREUD AND HORNEY ON ANXIETY

95

did not neglect the importance of environmental influence but he

considered it only a factor moulding the instinctual impulses ; where
as, the culturally oriented analysts placed environmental influences
in the centre. They maintained that the human-relationship was
the crucial factor in the chararter formation of the child. Therefore,
disturbances in human relationship produced conflicting trends in the
child which ultimately made him neurotic.
This, in short, is the theoretical difference between Freud's
view of anxiety and the views put forward by the culturally oriented
analysts. The differences in theoretical concepts has naturally farreaching effects on the therapeutic approach to the problem.
Without going into the details of the controversies arising out of
the differences in theoritical concepts, I shall only try to show with
the help of a case-material as to what factors should be considered
important in creating, maintaining and curing a neurosis. Further,
I shall concentrate only upon the broad differences in approach so
far it has some bearing on the problem of anxiety and neurosis from
the point of view of Freud's theories and the theories propounded
by Horney amongst the culturally oriented analysts.
A boy aged 10 years was brought to me recently for analysis
because of his morbid fear of being kidnapped. His fear became so
much intensified that he refused to go to school, cried every now and
then and complained of a pain in the chest. The parents consulted a
physician but nothing was found to be wrong in the chest. He had
a similar attack of anxiety about a year back, when a stranger asked
him about his name and called him while he was returning home one
evening from the play ground. But the anxiety lasted for 3 or 4
days only. After this he was alright for about a year but again there
was a relapse without any apparent provocation. This time he
became more up-set and all efforts failed to convince him that there
was no chance of his being kidnapped nor did he believe any more
as on the previous occasion that the man who called him in the street
was a friend of his uncle. He was obsessed by the idea that one day
he would be kidnapped and thus be seperated from his parents for
ever. He refused to go out of the house or play with other boys and
cried at the idea as to what would happen to him when he was
kidnapped. He also developed a compulsion to write something in
the air with his finger.

96

M. BARUA

[ SAMIKSA

The childhood history of .the boy shows that he learned to walk

rather late and had been bed-wetting up to the age of 4 years. He
was highly intelligent and his physical growth was normal except that
he grew very fat after an attack of Typhoid at the age of 6J years.
He was very timid and slow from his very early childhood days and
had a tendency for over-eating. He was shy and avoided the company
of unknown persons and tried to remain aloof from other boys. He
was very fond of reading and had an exceptionally good memory. He
had one sister nearly 2f- years younger than him.
Being the only son in a zaminder family consisting of many
members, he was the centre of attraction for everyone. He was over
pampered and was brought up under the rigid supervision of everyone
in the family. His freedom was curtailed to such an extent that he
found it difficult to make any decision even in tiifle personal matters.
He was over-sheltered and was never allowed to go anywhere alone
like other boys. The mother herself was afraid to send him out alone
because there was a news in the paper that a boy was kidnapped in
the same locality, and she displayed considerable anxiety when she
reported this to me. In short, he was brought up in an atmosphere
where he had very little scope to assert himself.
In the first few interviews, it was revealed that he was not only
afraid of being kidnapped, he was equally afraid of ghosts, strangers,
dogs, punishing gods and goddesses, e t c He was also afraid of other
boys in the class. The headmaster of the school was a terror to him.
He felt extremely miserable and helpless if by chance he had any
clash with other boys or if anyone threatened him that he would not
talk to him anymore. He was compelled to maintain an attitude of
over-compliance and always had to appease others. He always
required the guidance and approval of others. Aggression was a taboo
to him. If accidentally he quarrelled with any other boy or differed
with them he used to feel lost and was obsessed with the idea that
other boys might stab him" to death in order to take revenge. He
tried to persuade his parents to come to his school to settle
such disputes and if they refused he used to cry helplessly till
something was done about it. As regards the kidnappers he said
they would take him to some unknown place, keep him as a slave
and would never allow him to come back home. They might cut
one of his fingers and take out all the blood from his body or

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

FREUD AND HORNEY ON ANXIETY

97

they might kill him. Quite often he remarked during associations

that if his parents could keep him locked-up in an iron-safe like
"valuable jewels" only then his fear would go. He morbidly tried
, to cling to every body for the sake of love and rpproval. If his
class-fellows showed any indifference towards him or discussed
something among themselves, he thought as if they were conspiring
against him. He became panicky and cried helplessly in the class.
He was under the constant dread of offending others and tried
his utmost to become lovable and 'perfect' according to other's
expectation. He often remarked that he was the most unhappy
man on earth and habitually made a display of the miseries of
his life or recited poems which depicted the futility of life. The
world to him was full of wicked people and full of struggle-in
his own words a "battle field", or a'Vast Ocean'. He could only
feel safe if every man on earth could be tied up with each other
by a bond of friendly relationship or universal brotherhood.
He was highly inhibited in sexual matters and his hatred
towards his parents increased since he noticed the primal scene
at about the age of 5 years. For a long time he refused any
food served by his mother after this experience but he never
disclosed this to anybody. He thought Tagore was a highly
immoral person since he wrote many love poems. He had strong
sex curiosity but he always pretended to be 'innocent' and took
every 'care to suppress even his sexual thoughts for fear of
being detected and punished by the parents or the God. He
felt very guilty and anxious whenever he mentioned something
about sex. He needed constant reassurance before he could speak
about, his real feelings regarding sexual matters.
As the analysis advanced another trend in his character
though less conspicuous, came into the picture. He showed a
strong urge to appear perfect and superior or powerful. In
associations he often talked in chaste Bengali and used high-sounding
words and quoted Sanskrit slokas. He tried to behave like grownup people and became highly obstinate at times. He expanded
bis chest now and then by taking deep breath and talked in a
manner which gave a peculiar dramatic effect to his behaviour.
He behaved in a rigid and elderly fashion particularly in relation
to women and tried to maintain an attitude of indifference towards
3

98

M. BARUA

[ SAMIKSA

them. He cherished the desire to become a great actor or a

great wrestler so that he eould knock down everyone he liked
including his father or uncles. He showed strong hostility against
the members of his family. Sometimes he asked me various questions
just to test my knowledge and if I failed to give proper answer he
ridiculed me or even scolded me. But next moment he tried to
appease me by saying that it was all a joke only. He recited
difficult pieces from Tagore's works or Nazrul's revolutionary poems
and boasted about his high moral and intellectual standard. He
wanted to become a prominent man or a hero . but prospect of
growing up and working like his father or uncles greatly discouraged
him. On the one hand, he wanted to become grown-up so that
no one would be able to kidnap him, on the other hand, the
idea frightened him because in that case the parents would grow
even older and die. So any move towards independence or assuming
control over others by direct exercise of power or indirect
manipulation made him feel all the more anxious and uneasy.
As it is not possible to make a detailed presentation of the
case materials, as was revealed in the analysis of the boy, only
the relevant features of his character are presented.
Now coming back to our former discussion^ an analyst following
Freud's biological orientation, would logically try to explain the
boy's manifest anxieties by relating then to the instinctual sources,
either sexual or aggressive in nature. His attention would possibly
be directed towards the boy's unresolved 'Oedipus Complex', which
for Freud was the basis of all neurotic manifestations. His fear of
being kidnapped might be interpreted as the manifestation of his
unconscious fear of hostile and rival father which possibly was
due to his repressed passive homosexual or feminine desires. The
idea that the kidnapper might cut off one of his fingers would
probably represent the boy's castration complex, the finger being
the symbol for penis. His wish to remain locked up in an ironsafe would possibly be explained as his regressive tendency to go
back into the mother's wombor it might be the symbolic expression
of his desire to have sexual intercourse with the mother. Since
the boy had a strong masochistic dependency upon others, this
trend would be regarded as derivative of the instincts and might
be explained as the result of fusion between his repressed aggression

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

FREUD AND HORNEY ON ANXIETY

and passive homosexual or feminine tendencies. His tendency for

over-eating might represent fixation in the oral stage of libido
development or the mouth to him was the substitute for vagina
Once he expressed the idea of oral impregnation and anal delivery
and as such the tendency for over-eating might also represent
the latent feminine desire for impregnation,
Finding the boy's rigid moral standards in matters of sex
and aggression in particular, the analyst probably would think that
they were the dictates of the harsh super-ego the function of
which was to prohibit the gratification of instinctual pleasures and
the therapeutic task therefore was to free the ego from its clutches.
According to Freud libido moulded the character and determined
attitudes and strivings. Thus the boy's striving for power or his
mainfold attempts at self-assertion would possibly be regarded as
the direct outcome of his aim-inhibited sadism or defence against
his repressed homosexuality. It would be explained that he developed
masochistic tendencies because his aggressive impulses were repressed
and self-directed. Hence the therapeutic task would be to help
him to direct his aggression towards other people or the outer world.
Foliating Freud's theory of 'Death-Instinct' one must conclude
that if one is to live he must destory others or there must be
sublimation of the death instinct, failing which he is sure to become
the victim of his own destructiveness. Thus the analyst would
expect that if the agression in the boy which was self-directed
could find some outlet only then his self-recriminatory tendencies
or his timidity or shyness would lose much of its force. Besides,
the super-ego which derived much of its strength from the deathinstinct also would lose its punitive power.
In brief, an analyst following Freud's theories would logically
expect that the emotional reliving of the past situations in analysis
would release the repressions and the libido which was thus 'bound'
in repressed memories or stivings when found free expression the
anxiety in the boy would gradually disappear. Therefore, the aim
in therapy was to help the patient primarily to gain mastery over
his instincts; which meant that when the repressions were removed
. the 'ego' would gain so much strength that it would no longer
be threatened by the instinctual claims of the 'id' or the dictates of
the 'super-ego' and therefore no anxiety would be produced. Hence,

100

M. BARUA

t SAMIKSA

all the endeavour of the analyst would be directed towards

achieving this and finding the boy's manifest anxiety, his theoritical
preconceptions would lead him to search for all later peculiarities
or conflicts in the instinctual sources of the patient's past life.
This, in brief, would be the approach to the boy's problem from
Freud's point of view.
Culturally oriented analysts discarded Freud's genetic and
instinctivistic orientation of psycho-analysis. They maintained that
the source of psychic illness, whatever may be the symptomatic
picture lies in the personality disturbances. Hance the endeavour
in theory and therapy are directed towards the better understanding
of the neurotic character sturcture. Thus Horney says, "Disturbances
in human-relationships become the crutial factor in the genesis of
neuroses, A prevailingly sociological orientation then takes the place
of prevailingly anatomical-physiological one. When the one sided
consideration of the pleasure principle, implicit in the libido theory
is relinquished the striving for safety assumes more weight and
the role of anxiety in engendering strivings towards safety appears
in a new light. The relevant factor in the genesis of neuroses is
then neither the Oedipus complex nor any kind of infantile pleasure
strivings, but all those adverse influences which make a child feel
helpless and defenceless and which make him conceive the world
as potentially menacing. Because of his dread of potential dangers
the child must develope certain 'neurotic trends' permitting him
to cope with the world with some measure of safety. Narcissistic,
masochistic, perfectionistic trends seen in this light are not derivatives
of instinctual forces, but represent primarily an individuals attempt
to find paths through a wilderness full of unknown dangers. The
manifest axiety in neuroses is then not the expression of the 'ego's'
fear of being overwhelmed by the onslaught of instinctual drives
or of being punished by a hypothetical 'super-ego', but is the result
of the specific safety devices failure to operate".
A culturally oriented analyst when comfronted with the boy's
manifest anxiety would possibly point out to him that in most cases
anxiety was the result of being cought up in an acute dilemma,
conscious or unconscious, and encourage him to search for the nature
of the dilemma. He would for instance, draw the attention of the
boy towards the prevailing trends of his character and all the intra-

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

FREUD AND HORNEY ON ANXIETY

101

psychic conflicts as was manifested in human-relationships. Thus

the analyst would point out to him about his morbid dependency
over others or his compulsive need to be loved by each and everybody.
That his need for affection and approval was so great, at the
slightest rejection he became panic-striken which re-inforced his need
for protection and sympathy.. His phobia of being kidnapped would
be interpreted as one of the many possible expressions of his fear of
"isolation." The analyst would encourage him to find out as to how
he developed the compulsive need to feel accepted, welcomed,
appreciated and wanted, what purpose did they serve or what was
the consequences of maintaining such trends. By drawing the
attention of the boy towards the manifold expressions of his compulsive move towards other people, the analyst would raise the question
as to what function did it serve for him. He must also be made
conscious of the compulsive nature of his clinging attitude and the
constant need to appease others for the sake of maintaining his sense
of security. He always lived up to the expectations of others and
avoided all sorts of clash, quarrels or competition with others. He
accepted his weakness and inferiority or rather made a display of it
mainly for the purpose of winning love and sympathy from others
and thereby avoid the danger of being deserted by others.
All these defensive strivings and attitudes were determined by
the major trend in his character which was designated by Horney as
"moving towards'1 people for the sake of love and protection. The
therapeutic task therefore, would be to make the boy fully conscious
about the subjective value of such a move as well as their adverse
consequences upon the personality as a whole. It was also important
to make him aware of the adverse influences this had on humanrelationship which hindered the normal growth of his self-system.
The other predominant trend in the boys character was to
"move against" people which was evident from his compulsive need
to appear superior or powerful. If he could become the best boy in
his class or the most powerful man on earth or grown-up like his
parents then he would feel no anxiety. He behaved compulsively
like adults and wanted his superiority must be accepted by others.
He developed a basic hostility against others and cherished the desire
to control each and every one. But every move he made "against
people" with a view to establish his superiority in defence against

102

M. BARUA

t SAMIKA
Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

his basic anxiety and helpless, came into conflict with the other
trend, i. e. 'moving towards' people. Therefore, the therapeutic task
was to bring out the "basic conflict" in his character of which he
was unaware. It was evident from the case materials that the boy
had, on the one hand, a compulsive need to be loved and protected,
on the other hand, he was compelled by the contradictory strivings
to establish his superiority or exert control over others, both of
which were prompted not by a desire to satisfy some wishes for the
sake of pleasure but out of the need for reassurance against his basicanxiety, which gave it the character no less powerful than instinctual
desires. Thus the boy was made conscious not only of his basicconflicts but also all the contradictory strivings and attitudes arising
out of them, their functions, intensity and consequences for maintaining such neurotic trends in relation to himself and others.
By working through the adverse influences of such conflicting
trends upon the life of the patient and by showing the factors which
made the trends necessary, the analyst would expect that the patient's
anxiety could be so much lessened that he would be in a position to
dispense with the neurotic character trends. The aim of therapy
therefore was not merely to change the neurotic character structure
which was responsible for creating and maintaining a neurosis but
this also included that the patient must regain his spontaneity and
inner independence which was only possible when he finds his centre
of gravity in himself.

CONCLUTION

It will be evident from the above presentation that I have only

tried to show the broad differences in approach to the problem of
neurosis from the standpoint of Freud's theory of anxiety and the
theory mainly presented by Horney among the analysts of the
Cultural School.
I became critical about Freud's Libido theory because of some
practical necessities arising out of the analysis of neurotic patients. I
repeatedly ezperienced that anxiety could not be adequately tackled by
classical Freudian technique. I also noticed that even though the
repressions in the patients were lifted by intensive analysis the

FREUD AND HORNEY ON ANXIETY

103

intensity of anxiety remained in varying degree in most of the cases

inspite of the fact that there were changes in the symptomatic picture,
In most cases only the secondary anxiety disappeared but the basic
anxiety remained unresolved. This limitations in therapy made me
increasingly aware that it was due to our own lack of understanding,
influenced by preconceived theoritical notions, which stood on the
way of our helping the patient to resolve their conflicts. My won
experience of analysis convinced me that Freud's sexual theory of
neurosis was erroneous and I began to search for a better explanation.
Ultimately I came in contact with Horney's works which gave me a
better understanding of the problem of anxiety and neuroses and to
my satisfaction I found that my own way of thinking was in common
with Horney*s concepts. I received a new impetus to work in the
line adopted by the Cultural School. The analysis of the boy whose
case materials I have presented is the second case I successfully
treated by this new technique. There were all total 215 sessions only
lasting over a period of little more than a year. Compared to my
previous experiences with similar cases I found that it was not only
possible to help the boy to resolve his anxieties in shorter time but
more lasting and favourable changes could be effected in his characterstructure with the insight gained through this new technique.
In conclusion I must admit that though I am not competent
enough to pass any judgment over the theoretical issues, but from
my personal experience I can say that the later theories and technique
are more effective than orthodox Freudian approach to the problem
of neuroses.

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOSOMATIC

DISORDERS

PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS

105

TOTAL
CONDITION
Genetic Factors (<3.F.)
Environment + Mental G.F

Soma+ic G.f. + Environment

MAX SCHUR, M. D. *
External FactorstEmoHonolState

Analysts investigating 'psychosomatic symptoms' are concerned

with genetics because they are interested in aetiology, diagnosis,
treatment and prognosis and genetic factors are involved in all these
spheres of their clinical interest. Some deny it. To them introduction of genetic factors is an excuse for something one cannot
otherwise explain. Could it not be that, with analytic interest
focused on reactions to environment, the realization of the importance
of genes, a concept so abstract and so alien to our thinking, would
hamper optimism and set limits to therapeutic endeavour ? On the
other hand some geneticists would concede only a minor role to the
influence of environment.
No one expressed the truth more concisely than Freud 1 when
he stated that "Daimon kai Tycke (fate and accident) determine the
fate of man ; the relative aetiological effectiveness of each is only
to be measured individually and in single instances."
The following scheme3 has proved useful in gauging the relative
importance of different factors in psychosomatic conditions.
The first factor to be considered in the evaluation of the 'total
condition1 of the patient is the 'genetic factor' which may manifest
itself both in the somatic and in the psychic (mental) sphere. Out
of the interplay of mental genetic factors and environment, develops
what I called in analogy to the term 'allergic state' the 'emotional
state.' This term is meant to indicate an individual's potential
readiness, under the impact of 'external factors' such as traumata or
disease, to react with a 'psychoneurosis' or to supply the emotional
factors involved in somatic reactions. The 'emotional state' is in turn
constantly influenced by various factors in the somatic sphere (as
shown by arrows in the scheme.)
* Based on a contribution to the Panel on Psychosomatic Medicine, held at the
1950 Mid-Winter Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association in New York
on December 10.1950:

>

Reactive State* External Factors

Psycboneuroses

"~:j P I S E A 7 ? ! ] : ; : ; ; ; ; ; : ; ; : ; : : ; ; ; ; : ; ; ; : ; ; ; ; ; ; " j

Under the influence of the 'emotional state', the interaction of

somatic genetic factors and the environment creates, what I called
the 'reactive state', indicating the readiness for reacting in the
somatic sphere. If under the influence of external or emotional factors
such a reaction occurs, we have 'disease', as shown in our scheme.
The best example for the 'reactive state' is the 'allergic state'.
The relative importance of the various factors can be indicated
in our scheme by shifting the final result...'disease'...more to the
left or more to the right.
Let us take hemophilia as first example : nobody will question
the predominant importance of the somatic genetic factor in this
entity. It manifests itself in the reactive state, the readiness to react
to an external factor, an injury, with prolonged bleeding. The hemophilic shows his symptoms throughout his life. He bleeds whenever a
blood vessel is opened. Here we know the ways of transmission of
the abnormal genes, and in this instance we behave as if the genes
were something respectable.
Take as the next example the allergic state. The genetic
character of the allergic state is best exemplified by the fact that
allergic manifestations are 300% concordant in recorded cases of
monozygotic twins 8 . Yet compared with hemophilia there are
obvious differences in the manifestations of symptoms.
(1)
4

The age group in which the allergic state becomes manifest

varies greatly ;

106

M. SCHUR

(2)

[ SAMIKSA

In a given case we may encounter great fluctuations in the

manifestations of allergic symptoms, namely :
(A) The allergenic substance, which precipitates the allergic
reaction may be replaced, f.i. by an emotional conflict.
(B) The allergenic substance may under certain circumstances
fail to provoke a reaction.
From these examples we may suspect that genetic considerations
could also include quantitative factors and that in certain conditions
the genetic factor is predominant, the clinical manifestations uniform,
in others it is directive, but the clinical manifestations dependent on
a series of other factors. F.i. in families of patients with hemolytic
jaundice certain members have only a slightly increased fragility of
the red cells, without clinical symptoms, a fact which can only be
explained on the basis of quantities.
Applying the concept of qualitative and quantitative factors to
allergy we may say: The quality of the somatic genetic factor will
exert a directive influence in the choice of the symptom, a mechanism
which may be reinforced by the establishment of conditioned reflexes
and by emotional conflicts. In other words, the specificity of the
reactive state is here determined by the somatic genetic factor. The
quantitative element will influence the severity of symptoms and the
readiness with which other factors can replace the allergenic
substance. The greater the genetic quantity the more we may expect
that, e.g. a multitude of emotional conflicts may precipitate a reaction.
The emphasis in specificity will again be on the reaction and not on
the immediate cause of it. The less somatic genetic factors are
involved in a disease, the greater will be the relative importance of
other factors.
A parallel can readily be seen between \he concepts of qualitative and quantitative elements of the somatic genetic factor and the
familiar concept of the dynamic and economic factors in the structure
of neurotic symptoms. Freud himself stressed the importance of
genetic factors for economic considerations. I quote from ''Analysis
Terminable and Interminable"* : "Generally there is a combination of
the two factors, the constitutional and the accidental. The stronger
the constitutional factor, the more readily will the trauma lead to
fixation."
To disregard genetic factors is likely to lead into a blind alley.

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS

107

Were we to ignore the genetic factor, e.g. in hemophilia one might

be tempted to formulate a hypothesis how hostility may be turned
against one's own body and make one bleed to death, whereas it is
correct to say that a conflict may contribute to accident proneness of
the hemophilic, but that the specific result of the accident will be
due to the hemophilic state. To assume such hypotheses may sound
absurd, but that is exactly what happens in certain areas of psychosomatic research.
One of the best examples of this type of hypotheses is the
'psychosomatic' concept of essential hypertension. This concept is
based on a series of premises:
1. Upon Cannon's theory of the emergency function of affects5,
which states that during fear and rage the physiological responses
are the result of discharge over the sympathetic (adrenal) division
of the autonomous nervous system. This theory has been applied to
man and is e. g. the cornerstone of Alexander's6 approach to the
problem.
2. Upon the assumption that adrenalin, because it raises the
'blood pressure', must be predominantly operative in the aetiology of
essential hypertension.
3. Upon the old observation that the blood pressure of
hypertensives, especially in the early stages of the disease, shows
response to emotional factors and upon the fact that the elevated
blood pressure can beagain in the early stagesoccasionally and
temporarily lowered by sedation and/or psychotherapy.
Upon these premises the theory was built that essential
hypertension is based on pathological vicissitudes of aggression and its
physiological manifestations. Specifically 'repressed hostility' became
what may be called a 'catch all' slogan in 'psychosomatic medicine'.
This is not the place to discuss the vagueness of the term
'repressed hostility' from an analytical point of view. As to the
other premises of the hypertension hypothesis the following comments
may be made.
1. Cannon's law can be applied to man only with great
reservations. The development of the ego accounts for the fact that
anxiety and the manifestations of aggression are highly structured
phenomena7. Both the psychological and physiological manifestations
depend on that structure.

108

M. SCHUR

[ SAMIKSA

2. Adrenalin in man raises only the systolic blood pressure, increases cardiac output and lowers peripheral resistancehemodynamic
reactions quite opposite to conditions prevailing in essential
hypertension. The proponents of the adrenalin hypothesis might draw
some comfort from the fact, that a newly discovered substance,
noradrenalin, creates the hemodynamic conditions characteristic for
essential hypertension. Yet we know that in cases of pheiochromocytoma enormous quantities of both adrenalin and noradrenalin may
be produced without permanent hypertension8.
3. If hypertensives show fluctuations of blood pressure with
emotions and respond to sedation and psychotherapy, this does not
prove that the emotional conflict constitutes the specific factor in
hypertension. It proves only that the hypertensive has a specific
mode of responses.
We do know one thing, however : essential hypertension is a
genetic disease. Let me here quote only the entirely convincing
statistical material published by E. A. Haines* from the Mayo Clinic.
Among 1374 patients, hypertension was six times more frequent when
one parent was hypertensive. When both parents were hypertensive
the incidence was 89'6% ! Of children with one hypertensive parent
43*4%, whereas 95% of children of both parents with hypertension
were hyper-reactors to the cold pressure test.
Hostility and its vicissitudes may be important for the individual
hypertensive, yet essential hypertension is not caused by the ways in
which the hypertensive deals with his hostility. The specificity in
essential hypertension is inherent in the qualitative element of the
patient's somatic genetic factor, which involves every phase of
blood pressure regulation. It is the quantitative genetic factor and
not the quantity of his repressed hostility which decides whether the
hypertensive will succumb to the malignant form of the disease.
The more entities are being examined in the search for this
spurious specificity, the greater becomes the similarity between
'specific' factors, necessitating more and more minute distinctions
in the vicissitudes of repressed hostility, f. i. between patients
with hypertension and rheumatoid arthritis 6 . A.O. Ludwig 10 has
shown conclusively how complex, but not specific the psychic
background of rheumatoid arthritis may be. If nothing else, the
proper evaluation of the genetic somatic factor could prevent us

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS

109

from generalizations and oversimplifications in the search for

specificity.
Let us review now, with reference to our scheme, entities
of one organ systemthe skin and its adnexes (hair, glands, etc.)
with emphasis on the qualitative and quantitative elements in the
genetic factor. In a burn or a simple infection somatic genetic
factors are negligible. However, in entities in which, as shown by
me in the analysis of representative cases, the emotional factors
may be extremely important the impact of the somatic genetic
factor is indisputable. This applies to such frequent entities as
allergic dermatoses, atopic eczema, seborrhoic eczema and psoriasis.
It will be hopeless to look for a psoriatic or seborrhoic personality
or conflict. The specificity is supplied by the somatic genetic
factor, the neurotic conflict determines the outbreak, its severity and
and duration, and the tendency to chronicity.
If we now move farther to the left in our scheme we will
find entities in which the neurotic conflict is of paramount importance.
Here the choice of the organ may be determined by the life
history of the patient: I am referring to my studies on SulzbergerGarbe's Syndrome 11 and unpublished observations on generalized
and localized alopecia. There the somatic genetic factor may be
present bat cannot be proven, its quantity being apparently
neligible. Similar considerations should be applied to all organ
systems.
What do we know about genetic factors in the emotional
sphere ? As mentioned before they provide the genetic background
for the development of the emotional state, indicating preparedness
to react under certain conditions with psychosis or psychoneurosis,
or to supply the emotional background for some somatic disease,
we know very little about this problem. Freud designated the
constitutional factor in the aetiology of neurosis as 'Triebstaerke' a
term which has been translated rather unsatisfactorily as "constitutional
strength of instincts." In the 'Libidinous Types' 13 and various
papers dealing with the anal character 18 and obsessional neuroses 14
he stressed the genetic factor. With the development of ego
psychology, Freud did not fail to include the ego into genetic
considerations. I quote again from "Analysis, Terminable and
Interminable"4; "One is tempted to make the first factor, the

110

M. SCHUR

E SAMIKSA

constitutional strength of the instinct responsible for the second

the modification of the egobut it seems that the latter has its
own aetiology", and "we have no reason to dispute the existence
and importance of primary congenital variations in the ego. A
single fact is decisive, namely that every individual selects only
certain of the possible defence mechanisms and invariably employs
those which he has selected", also "it does not imply a mystical
overvaluation of heredity, if we think it credible that, even before
the ego exists, its subsequent lines of development, tendencies and
and reactions are already determined." This concept was later
elaborated by H. Hartman 15 .
Despite the tremendous increase in our factual knowledge
about the impact of earliest environmental influences, we now take
into account a genetic background in schizophrenia, severe obsessional
neuroses, and psychopathic personalities. What then about genetic
factors in the emotional background of psychosomatic disorders ?
We lack statistics. Clinical impressions would let us believe that
in certain psychosomatic disorders we are dealing with a personality
structure not too remote from the psychotic. Occasionally we even
have the definite impression that the somatic symptom is the last
barrier against the outbreak of a psychosis. In those cases we
could assume a mental genetic background not too different from
the one found in schizophrenia. This is vague and far from
satisfactory. Yet we may attack the problem from another side.
Geneticists are familiar with the terms linkage and pleiotropism
of genes. Linkage indicates the presence of abnormal genes in one
chromosome, pleiotropism designates the action of single genes
extending upon different parts and diverse functions of the individual.
These concepts explain such weird combinations of symptoms as
abnormal bone fragility, blue sclerae and otosclerosis, or deficiency
of the pattela with aplasia of the thumb-nails. In many of them
we find involvement of mental qualities : i. blindness, idiocy,
bone-abnormalities in amaurotic idiocy ; obesity, retinitis pigmentosa,
polydactily, hypogenitalism and mental deficiency in Lawrence-MoonBardet-Biedl's Syndrome and many others. The potential implications
for our topic are striking. They were stressed by my teacher Julius
Bauer in an unpublished paper, read in 1948 at the Fifth Annual
Meeting of the Psychosomatic Society16. KretschmerV 7 attempt

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS

ill

to link types of body-build with frequency of certain psychoses is

an example of the application of these concepts to psychiatry.
I shall now try to apply this approach to two psychosomatic
entities. The first is obesity. The genetically-minded clinician will
rightly point to statistics 18 , which are beyond any doubt, to
investigations on identical twins 19 , to the fact that obese people are
frequently born with a birth weight well above average. He will
remind us that even the predilection of distribution of fat to certain
parts of the body follows hereditary patterns and will stress the
frequency of coordinated endocrine and metabolic disturbances. The
nutrition expert or caloricist will stress only environmental factors
and tell us that it is a simple matter of calories. Statistics will be
explained by the bad example given through bad eating habits,
disregading the fact that the fat ancestor may be dead or live
on another continent. We analysts will rightly point to the complex
vicissitudes of the instinctual and ego development of our obese
patients and will be inclined to see the aetiological factor in their
mental structure 90 .
By using concept of a pleiotropic gene we might proceed
along more fruitful lines. The obese must have appropriate executive
organs, involving all functions connected with food intake, such
as appetite, digestion, storage and elimination. He will also consume
less energy by muscle action and in addition he will display a
coordinated tendency to a certain constellation of 'Triebstaearke1
especially in the oral sphere, and of defence mechanisms, all of
which would be conducive to establishment of obesity. Environmental
influences will then be mainly contributing factors. The fact that
a diet enforced by a dietician or made possible by successful
analysis may prevent or cure obesity shows that here constitution
is not an unalterable destiny but a strongly directive factor. This
should give comfort to those who reject genetic aspects in medicine
because they sound 'nihilistic'.
As a second example I select certain forms of pituitary anterior
lobe insufficiency associated with 'anorexia nervosa'. In a paper
written in 1936 2 1 which was successfully overlooked in the literature,
perhaps because its title was 'Pituitary anterior lobe insufficiency'
and not 'Anorexia nervosa', I pointed to the fact that these cases
show all the classical signs of pituitary insufficiency, that the

112

M. 5CHUR

[ SAMIKSA

differential diagnosis lies between anatomical destruction due to

other causes and insufficiency due to altered function. I also
postulated anatomical findings of atrophy, later confirmed by pathology
in human and by animal experiments. These cases show their
abnormal anlage by a very high incidence of abnormalities of the
genitals and intestinal tract, including hypoplasia and malformations,
a fact confirmed by observations of Richardson 2 2 and others. There
apparently exists a coordinated genetic preparedness to endocrine
response, to respond with anorexia to certain conflicts, and to the
development of this specific type of vicious circle between anorexia
and endocrine response. It is then not the type of the neurotic
conflict which is responsible for this entity but the specific anlage,
involving the endocrines, the digestive system, the libidinal type and
the predilection for certain defences 4 . These principles of investigation should be applied to many more psychosomatic entities.
Such correlations may f. i. be operative in peptic ulcer, where
unfortunately the importance of the genetic somatic factor in a
directive and quantitative sense has also been neglected 24 , s s .
They seem to be at work in constipation, most probably in
hyperthyroidism and in many manifestations of the allergic state.
Finally, a few remarks are in order about a still more general
aspect of potential correlation of somatic and mental genetic factors. It
was partly contained in such old concepts as 'neuropathic constitution,
or 'vegetative stigmatization', a term which has replaced the narrower
terms of the vagotonic and sympathotonic types ; the asthenic type,
the dysraphic state, and so forth. The common denominator of all
these classifications was a more or less pronounced deviation from the
average, as manifested in diverse morphological and functional
characteristics. What represents the normal average is from a biological point of view the best means of survival. Some people show
marked accumulation of various constitutional abnormalities, affecting
various structures of the body. Bauer 18 indicated that the bearers of
an accumulation of such'stigmata1 show a relatively lower grade of
resistance, greater morbidity and a much higher tendency to atypical
reactions. He proposed the term 'status degenerativus' representing
probably multiple genopathy. Status degenerativus is therefore the
broadest concept of a general constitutional abnormality derived from
the consideration of general biological laws.

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS

113

Thus we find representatives of status degenerativus in a very

high percentage of constitutional entities, as diverse as otosclerosis,
congenital hip dislocation, or sickle cell anemia. It. would be of
great interest to have systematic investigations of the frequency of
'status degenerativus' among the different types of psychoses, psychoneuroses, and certain psychosomatic conditions. I cannot quote
statistics, but only my impression of its high incidence in conditions
such as neurocirculatory asthenia, allergy, atopic eczema, psoriasis,
ulcerative colitis, anorexia nervosa, obesity, and hyperthyroidism.
In conditions such as obesity, we could then conceive of something
like concentric cirles of genetic correlations : an inner circle of
correlation between somatic and emotional manifestations of the
genetic factor 'obesity', within a larger circle comprising the
somatic and mental correlations of the degenerative state.
Summarizing we may emphasize mainly the. following points :
The principle that we are dealing in psychoneuroses with dynamic
and economic factors, a principle which became even more valid
with the development of ego psychology, has to be applied to
psychosomatic considerations. The genetic factor is an essential
element in any such quantitative consideration.
The recognition of the importance of constitutional factors did
not deter Freud from the creation of psychoanalysis. Our ever
widening knowledge of environmental influences should not blind us
to the proper recognition of genetic factors in psychosomatic
medicine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Freud, S.
2. Schur, M.

3. Hanhart, E.

4. Freud, S.
5

"The Dynamics of Transference". Coll. Papers, II

"Basic Problems of Psychosomatic Medicine" (in)
Elements of Psychonalysis. Edited by H. Herma
and G. M. Kurth. The World Publishing Company, Cleveland and New York, 1950.
as quoted in "Survey note by the British Bureau
of Human Heredity". Brit. Med. Jour. 22 : 566,
1940.
"Analysis Terminable and Interminable" Coll.
Papers, V.

114

5.
6.
7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.
13.
14.

M. SCHUR

[SAMIKSA

Cannon, W. B. "The Role of Emotion in Disease". Ann. Int.

Med. 9 : 1453-1465, 1936.
Alexander, F. et al. Psychosomatic Medicine. W. W. Norton &
Co. Inc. N. Y. 1950.
"The Ego in Anxiety", (in) Drives, Affects and
Schur, M.
Behavior Ed. R. Loewenstein, Int. Univ. Press,
N. Y. 1953.
Schur, M.
Case Presentation of a Pheiochromocytoma and
Implications for the Problems of Anxiety and
Essential Hypertension. Psychosomatic Forum,
New York, March 11,1953.
Hines, K. A. Jr. The Hereditary Factor and Subsequent Development of Hypertension. Proceedings of the Staff
Meetings of the Mayo Clinic. 15 : 14?. 1940.
Ludwig, A. O. Personality Structure of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and its Relation to Psychosis.
Paper read at the 1950 Midwinter Meeting of
the Amer. Psychoanalytic Association.
"Chronic Exudative, Discoid and Lichenoid
Schur, M.
Dermatitis (Sulzberger-Garbe's Syndrome). Case
Analyses". Inter. J. Psa, XXXI, 1950.
"Libidinal Types". Coll. Papers, V.
Freud. S.
"Character and Anal Eroticism". Coll. Papers, II.
Freud, S.
"From
the History of an Infantile Neurosis".
Freud, S.
Coll. Papers, III.

"Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation"

in D. Rapaport: Organization and Pathology of
Thought, Columbia Univ. Press, New York, 1951,
pp. 362-396
The Methodological Approach to the Problem of
16. Bauer, J.
Constitution in Psychosomatic Research. Paper
read before the fifth Annual Meeting of the
Amer. Psychosomatic Soc. Atlantic City 1948.
Unpublished.
17. Kretschmcr, E. Physique and Character, Harcourt, Brace, New
York: 1925.
Constitution
and Disease. 2nd Ed. Grune &
18. Bauer, J.
Stratton. New York, 1945.
15. Hartman, H.

Vol. 9, No. 2 J

19. Rony, H. R.
20. Schick, A.
21. Schur, M. and
Medvei, C. V.

PSYCHOSOMATIC DISORDERS

115

Obesity and Leanness. Philadelphia : Lea, 1940.

"Psychosomatic Aspects of Obesity". Psa, Rev,
3412, 1947.

"Hypophysenvorderlappenisufficienz".
Arch f.
inn. Med. 31 : 67, wien, 1937.
22. Richardson, H. B. "Simmond's Disease and Anbrexia Nervosa".
Arch. Int, Med. 63 : 1,1939.
23. Aschnner, B. Arch. f. inn. Med. Wien. 29 : 69,1936.
24. Bauer, J.
'The Relation betweeen Peptic Ulcer and Cancer
of the Stomach from the Genetic Point of View".
Rev. Gastroenter. I, 21,1940.

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

ABC OF THE ABC

NANDOR FODOR

The development of the human language reveals many inconsistencies. We can describe something as uncouth, but there is no
such word as couth. We can speak of a secret as inviolate, but we
cannot use the word violate for openness to violation. We can call
an illiterate man an analphabet, but we cannot call a learned man an
alphabet. This word, from the Greek alpha and beta, is reserved
for the sum total of the letters that we accept as the basic building
blocks of our language. While children and many grown ups still
can learn a language by ear alone, the literate manas a rulecannot
anchor the sound in his brain unless he resolves it into component
letters, i. e. unless he also learns to write it. So, for him, the ABC
is a symbol of the elements of understanding and the foundation of
communication and knowledge. Knowing something from A-Z, or
from Alpha to Omega, is a summation of everything that is to be
known about a particular subject.
Actually, the alphabetas we know itis a degenerative presentation, for very practical purposes, of the more ancient pictographic,
ideographic and hieroglyphic forms of writing. The phonetic correspondence between the Greek and the Hebrew alphabets clearly hints at
the Semitic origin of this linguistic achievement, for in Hebrew the
letters still have a verbal and a corresponding numerical value, whereas
in Greek they no longer stand for words or number. The earliest
history of this semantic invention is still covered by the mist of
antiquity.
Psycho-analytically, the importance of the alphabet lies in the
many encyphering possibilities to which, for the unconscious, the
phonetic, the pictorial, the numerical, the symbolic and the abbreviative values lend themselves in our dream life or in every day
psycho-pathology.
In the exemplification of human relationship, A and B represent
persons, in mathematics they stand for serial order, in geomtery for
points in space. Qualitatively, A stands for importance (A man or

ABC OF.THE ABC

117

A product), in schools it is a mark of excellence arid in listings ;it

confers unearned privileges. For A is the first born of the alphabet;
the rest of the letters are sibling rivals that never quite qualify.
It is a common practice to call people by their single or double
initial when no room is left for doubt as to their identity. The double,
or treble initial secures wider identification. A middle initial permits
a man to feel richer and prouder of himself. He stands out a little
more and if he had achieved distinction, his initials help to advertise
it. F. D. R, for Fraklin Delano Roosevelt is a symbol of fame all over
the word. Without the middle initial, the personality behind the
name would have been as great but not as well pin-pointed. T. P. O.
for T. P. O' Connor is meaningless to us today but it was full of
significance for a previous British generation. J. P. for J. P. Morgan
is still well remembered but it is about to eclipse, as time and death
takes a ruthless toll of the great. Old combination of letters are
constantly superseded by new ones.
Our modern age of speed and economy imposes renewing
demands on the use of letters as abbreviatives. A few examples will
be sufficient.
As the heritage of the war, we have G. I. for general infantry
man, P. W. for prisoner of war, A. W. O. L. for absent without
official leave, A. F. for air force and R. A. F. for Royal Air Force.
The pre-war importance of N. R. A. (National Reconstruction Act)
and W. P. A. (Works Public Administration) is now gone, the O. P.
A. (Office of Price Administration or rent control) still has a vital
significance. No worker need be told what A. F. L. (American
Federation of Labour) or C. I. O. (Congress of Industrial Organization) stands for. Every young man or girl knows the meaning of
Y. M. C. A. or Y. W. C. A. Television is about to be ousted by T. V.,
and N. B. C. or C. B. S. or B. B. C, in England are hardly ever spelt.
National advertising keeps on hammering at us with new combination
of letters. We are told every day of L. S. M. F. T. as a tribute to a
cigarette and of N. F. S. (Non-fermented sugar) in praise of beer.
In journalism which, for editorial reasons, is responsible for the ever
spreading use of abbreviations, we have A. P. for Associated Press and
U. P. for United Press, we accept K. O. for knock out and Ike for
President Eisenhower. In international relations we have EDC
(European Defense Community) and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty

118

N. FODOR

[ SAMIKSA

Organization). In medicine we have M. D. for the doctor, TB for

tuberculosis, BO for body odour, BM for bowel movement and AB
man for abortionist. la other educational fields we have B. A for
Bachelor of Arts, M. A. for Master of Arts, M. I. T. for Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an inexhaustible host of others. In
religion we have I. N. R. I. for Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judeorum and in
the New York traffic system we have B. M. T. and I. R. T.
Abbreviations are adding new words to our vocabulary. Few
people know that Seabees stand for C.B.-s (Construction Bataillons)
or that the mysterious-word Vip stands for V. P. (Vice-President).
The verb "to emcie" is still odder. It takes time to discover that it
stands for acting as an M. C. (Master of Ceremonies).
Abbreviations, double entendres, pictorial, numerical and symbolic values make an astonishingly living thing of the alphabet. In order
to make a systematic inroad into the realm of manifest and concealed
meanings, let us take the printed capital letters of the English alphabet
in their natural order (the printed characters are not subject in shape
or form to individual variations) and study the manifold values that
can be attached to them :
A
is the beginning of the alphabet and, in a sense, of the numerical
system (for a and an stand for one). In more ancient days, as alpha
and omega, A was the beginning of all things. (Pru Jentius : Alpha
et Omega cognominatur Ipse ; fons et clausula, omnium quae sunt,
fuerunt, vel post futura sunt. Alpha and Omega is He called, the
source of all things which are, which were or will hereafter be.) In
our less reverential days we are satisfied to take A as the mark of a
first class man or of a first class quality. As a preposition, A (An)
may stand for Anne or, for French educated linguistic sportsman, for
ane (donkey)

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

ABC OF THE ABC

119

The bee is such a busy sou]

It has no time for birth control.
That's why in times like these
There are so many sons of b-s.
One of my patients discovered a curious pictorial value in B,
the No. 13. As soon as he resolved the upright into 1 and the
curlicew into 3, he added : looked at it latitudinally, the curlicew is
a picture of the breasts. Odder still, the Hungarian word for bee
is mh (pronounced as mahe) and mh also means the womb (possibly
derived from a pictorial association with the bee hive). It is a far
cry from the letter b to the maternal womb but one of my patients
made it.
C
has two important phonetic equations : see (from a letter : C u soon)
and sea. To make matters still more complicated, sea has a secondary
meaning : Holy Sea is the seat of the Pope. Once in Rome, we
should remember that C is a numeral (Centum, one hundred) ;
as such it symbolizes a hundred percent, completion, perfection.
However, this savours of a tour de force and one may well quote
against it the dream of the negro who, on seeing the letters G.P.C.
in the sky, decided to Go and preach Christ. The fervor lasted
until somebody told him that he was wrong because the letters only
mean Go, pick cotton.
D
with three dots after it stands for damn. It is the Day in D day
and it is 500 as a Roman numeral.
E
is derived from the Greek etta, and Etta is a woman's name. Pictorially
etta is the reverse of a 3 ; as such it may also stand for the breasts.

B
originates from beta and serially stands for two (Latin bis). Beta
suggests Bettie ot Beatie and Bea (B) stands for Beatrice. But first
of all, we have the Shakespearean problem : to be or not to be. It
also stands for the honey bee and it can be exploited for derogatory
purposes as in the following rigmarole :

when followed by three dots stands for the four letter word.
G
is an exclamation : gee. It also stands for a G man, and in gangster
tongue it is a Grand ( 1000). For free masons, it is an abbreviation

120

N. FODOR

E SAMIKSA

of God and Geometry, in dreams it usually stands for guilt.

exercise in the nursery : G I P, meaning : gee, I pee)

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

ABC OF THE ABC

Spelling

H
is.the Greek aspirate for breathing and the Hebrew symbol of life.
Followed by three dots it is short for Hell. Pictorially, it is taken
sometimes for two fours or two chairs (one reversed), for a rough 8,
for two boxes (one open at the top, the other at the bottom), and for
the basic structure of a ladder.

is ego, eye and iota (symbolically, a very small quantity). Historically,

this small quantity has caused the life of thousands upon thousands in
the Bizantyne Empire when the battle between the homousians and
the homoiousians (identical in essence or similar in essence with God)
raged at its highest. It is also the Roman numeral for one and the
mediaeval form of J.

J
is the name of a man and of a bird, which can be taught to talk and
is a notorious thief of glittering objects. The jay walker is a transgressor against traffic rules.
K
as a name may mean both male and female. From the nursery : If
Kay asks for me, say I am not at home. What K ? F. U. C. Kay.

stands for Al (Alex) and El (elevated). In Hebrew, El is Elohim,

God. As a Roman numeral for 50, it may stand for a man of 50
("old age of youth and youth of old age". From Mr. Peabody and
Mermaid). Geometrically, L may describe the shape of a room (and
still stand for an initial L or Al), it may hint at two opposite directions
the upright and horizontal forming a right angle which is 90 degrees,
anatomically, the shape stands for the elbow, a symbol of elbow room
or a new turn ; it is also the builder's square and in masonic life,
:
an emblem of morality ; upside down, it suggests an axe.

121

M
is a statement: AM. "My m", for women, means menstruation. It
may mean Mother and it is a Roman numeral for 1000 (Mille). As
such it may substitute for Millie and for Mill or Mills.
N
is an, one, Anne, and the number of uncertain quantities in mathematics.
O
is an exclamation (oh) ; zero, nought, nothing, emptiness, egg, ellipse,
circle, encirclement, universe, ball, testicle, opening, lavatory, hole
(whole, holy), anus, vagina, uterus. From a rigmarole :
If you want to call Pennsylvania, you put your finger into the
P hole
If you want to call Sacramento, you put your finger into the
S (ass) hole
If you want to call long distance, you put your finger into the
operators's hole.
P
is per in mathematics, Pie in Greek (the number 3.141659 by which
the diameter multiplied becomes the circumference of the circle),
urination in the nursery. (Spell PIG backwards ! Gee, I pee.
Spell EYECUP !I C U PEE. Lettuce, turnip and pea.Let us turn
and pee. Tell me a word of four letters beginning with b and ending
with p.Beer. Richard Tauber gets up to a high C Richar Tucker
gets up to P every morning. A woman cooks carrots and peas in the
same pot.) Knowing your p-s and qu-s. Also from the plural: peace
and piece.
Q
P-s and qu-s.

Question.

Are. Three R-s (writing,

change : prescription.

R
reading

arithmatic). With

slight

S
ass (donkey, arse), half of 8, reverse for question mark, part of the
Dollar sign, serpent, winding road, unfolding. From the nursery : a

[ SAMIKSA

N. FODOR

122

snake goes into a house in the rain wearing an umbrella. How do you
write that ? Answer S H I T .
T
tea, tee, Tau, primitive picture of a tree, combination of two L-s ;
knowing something to a t ; under qu. t.

'

'

'

you, yew, ewe, Hugh, test tube, U turn, hue, hue and cry, hew
"

Roman for 5, victory, vagina. (From a dream : "I was lie'mg on my

back, naked, with my legs apart in the shape of a V.")- Veevee,
versus, mediaeval for u, personally wedge, thought of lards, parallel
lines meeting at infinite distanse.

W
two v-s, two u-s (mediaeval), reverse of M. From the cartoon Nancy
by Ernie Bushmiller : Why did you yell Mom when that girl passed ?
Sluggo : Don't let on to Nancy, but Mom is Wow upside down.
X
for the unknown, X marks the spot, something previous (as in exwife), out of, cross, crucifixion, redemption, intersection, intercourse,
kisses, multiplication sign, axe, Roman 10, saw buck (slang for 10), Dix

why, the human body with extended legs ; road or bridge with a fork.

A - Z , zig-zag, lightning, original form of 2 in Chinese match stick

notation.
I have avoided listing technical abbreviations, like 0 for oxygen,
H for hydrogen, C for carbon, U for uranium or U V for ultraviolet
because these abbreviations belong to special pre-occupations. I also
steered clear of abbreviations where the introduction of a second
letter determines the meaning of the first. The letter I does not stand
foy intelligence, except, in I. Q. The letter 0 does not stand for all,
nor K for correct, except jn Q. K. Nor does the reverse combination

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

ABC OF THE ABC

123

make K mean knock and O out, except in newspaper headlines. Only

in banter can we associate A with age (Alter in German) and K with
toilet matters as in A, K. These instances furnish excellent illustration
of the fact that distortion and fanciful usage is not monopoly of
dream life.
As the semantic complexities arising from the combination of
several letters are infinite, we shall do better by concentrating on
simplicities. The letters of the alphabet, originally, purported to
represent sounds. For that purpose, our alphabet is an imperfect
instrument. Not only does every language possess unique sounds
which the English alphabet is incapable of expressing but .it fails to
take full care even of our own emotional utterances. Oh, ah, aha,
oho, tsk, sss, wow, hue are the simplest expression for surprise, shh,
shoo, pst, aaa, tut-tut for warning, mmm, ooo, gee, hy for pleasurable
exclamation, rah-rah for victory, pshaw for rejection, phoo for disgust,
eee, eeoh, oooh, a ugh and ouch for pain but our emotional scale
is far from being exhausted by these few sounds. Think of laughter i
Hahaha, hehehe, hihihi, hohoho, (al! sounds of stimulated breathing)
give only a rough phonetic description of this explosive mood, Giggling,,
tittering, chuckling, crowing, chortling, guffawing, roaring and
screaming with laughter have no alphabetic representation. Nor do
we have adequate words to convey the phonetic values of screaming
in fright, wailing, sobbing or raging. Music can do a more effective
job here than the alphabet. When it comes to baby language, animal
sounds, sounds of nature or mechanical noises (chug-chug of an
outboard motor, whoosh of the water) we have to fall back largely on
imitators or sound records. Even when we do have an approximate
alphabetical representation, we find different values in other languages
for the same thing. A donkey says he-haw in English. In Hungary it
ia, ia (eeah). The English hen, with its cack, cack, cack cackles, theHungarian, with its kot, kot, kot, I suppose, 'kotles'. The cockledoodoo of the cockerell is kukuriku in Hungarian. The snake hisses
in English, it 'cisses' (the woid is : sziszeg) in Hungarian. The sheep
bass in English, it bees ('beget') in Hungarian, The Englishman
cries ouch in pain, the German says Weh, the Hungarian says .
c7i (yay).
The remarkable thing about sounds and spelling is the way the
difficulties are solved in dreams. . No matter how odd is the word

N. FODOR

124

f SAMIKSA

that the dreamer hears, he always knows how to spell it I still

remember a dream of my own of many years ago in which a priest
jumped on a bottle half hidden in the sand and shouted angrily :
Kilabotega. Whereupon a man, dressed like a honey cake doll,
answered emphatically : Usega, Usega. This was supposed to mean :
Nothing, Nothing, but I was never able to make any sense of
Kilabotega or find a linguistic clue to Usega. However, the spelling
of the words was a completely correct representation, in Hungarian
phonetics, of the words I heard.
There is some similarity between dream words and the secret
writing we are addicted to in childhood. Reversal or transposition
of letters is a common occurrence in dreams (disclosing a vague
tendency to anagrams), but it would take a cypher expert to present
a dream word in code. Dream cyphers are highly illogical. The
elements of cypher writing appear to matter more than the principles.
Some of the simplest forms of secret writing are based on a substitution of letters by numbers (the plainest sample of which is the
numerical position of letters in the alphabet) or the use of diagrams
in place of letters, Consider this collegiate example :
AB CD

EF

KL

MN OP

QR

GH

With the exeption of the completely enclosed I and J, every letter

is represented by a square or triangle open on one side. If the
second letter is wanted, a dot is placed in the diagram. Thus the
word Love would be 'spelt':

En<a_
Such digrammatic writing looks like dooling, but instead of a
symbolic meaning it contains a precise message. If the dreamer had
forgotten the collegiate secret writing, the diagrams would offer
as effective a dream disguise as any.
The key board of a typewriter is a perfect representation of the
alphabet in an apparently arbitrary order. A deliberate scrambling

Vol. $, No. 2 3

ABC OF THE ABC

125

of the letters of the key board provides a ready made secret writing
for the decyphering of which a duplicate key board would be necessary.
Some such scrambling process may be the key to many meaningless
words that occur in dreams.
The same observation applies to ancient writings. For a Greek
scholar, the H may stand for A, P for R and X for CH. The analyst,
if he is unable to rise to the cultural level of the patient, may lag
woefully behind. Foreign languages may furnish the easiest cultural
codes. The one which startled me most was presented by a girl
of Hungarian parentage who came to her first session with a dream
about a biography. The dream was vague and it concerned somebody
called Johnston or Johnson. She knew of no such person and had
no idea as to who was the author of the biography. It was obvious
that biography could only stand for her own life history. If the name
Johnson had no personal meaning for her, the possibility existed that
it was a literary reference, that she dreamed of Boswell's biography
of Samuel Johnson. Being a woman of college education, it was
inconceivable that she would not have known of it. Yet no association pointing to Boswell were forthcoming. Finally, I asked her
outright: what does the name Boswell convey to her ? To my
surprise, she blushed and remained silent. Instantly, I knew that the
dream was hitting her deepest repression. The first syllable of
Boswell, in Hungarian, is the phonetic equivalent of the four letter
word. She had been sexually abused in childhood. When she knew
that I knew, she no longer hesitated to tell the story.
I assume that this dream would never have come forth had the
patient not known of my Hungarian origin. The linguistic form was
a dream of acceptance of the analyst. Her unconscious was ready to
co-operate and vouchsafe vitally important information at the very
first session. It was up to me to understand the language. If I had
been a German or a Frenchman, the message would have assumed a
different form.
Let us now examine the relationship between capital and small
letters. Anonymous letters are often written in capitals. The printed
form reveals less of the individual than the cursive writing. But
analytic patients approach the problem of capital letters from a
different angle. Writing a name properly in capital may acknowledge
the importance of that person in the patient's life. One of my

126

N. FODOR

SAMIKSA

patients always wrote her mother's name with Capital and her father's
in small. The father was drunkard who had sexual relations with
her until the age of puberty. She herself became an alcoholic with
strong lesbian tendencies. As father had degraded her, so was she
dragging him down by writing his name in small.
One's own name, constantly abbreviated by a capital may
conceal a dislike for the name. I have a friend who keeps it a dead
secret that his initial C stands for Clarence, which he considers an
effiminate name. Where other persons are concerned the sole use
of an initial may serve expediency and indicate intimacy.
Using a small initial instead of a capital for one's own name
may speak of feelings of inadequacy or of a desire to escape notice
and get lost in a crowd of alphabetical characters. Sometimes,
instead of the name, the letter T takes over for the expression of
such feelings. The late Hanns Sachs always wrote of himself with
a small T. It was a sign of his extreme modesty but, on a deeper
level, perhaps also of his sensitivity to being a lay analyst.*
The choice between capital or small letters offers less of a range
for the expression of stored up unconscious emotions than the
individual tracing of the letters of the alphabet. Writing analysis
is not necessarily the monopoly of graphologists. Any oddity in the
shaping of the letters may reveal, like a doodle, some forgotten pain
or shock that has been deeply repressed. It was my very first patient
in England 17 years ago who impressed me with the importance of
such observations,
I happened to receive a note from him and was struck by the
way he wrote his 't'-s. He had about five different shapes for it.
One was unique, inasmuch as it did not bear the slightest resemblance
to the letter 't\ It was a Greek 'delta' which printers use for
cancelling. The symbol means : deleatur, strike it out. As soon as
I saw him again, I asked : was he trying to escape from writing
the 't' in normal fashion for some reason ? Is it a word beginning
with 't' (like Arsenic and Tea,the man was a theatrical producer),
is it a name or is it the shape of the Y that bothered him ? The
question hit home and released
eased a lott of emotions. He said :
h
'
'
i its
i accepted
ted form,
form with the horizontal
"I don't like the 't' in
*' See Nandoi Fodor : Hanns Sachs' Conscience, American Imago, Sept. 1954

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

ABC OF THE ABe

127

bar across the upright because it reminds me of a dagger. So I tried

placing the bar near the bottom ; but then the shape suggested a
sword. After several attempts to develop a shape that did not make
me feeLuneasy, I gave up and produced a V of my own, a shape
that could not possibly remind me of murde'r."
It is not always easy to observe the choice of words in a patient's
narrative and the subtle difference they suggest from what you would
expect. The V, in its ordinary form, "reminded him" of a dagger,
but it only 'suggested' a sword. So when I heard the word 'murder'
and noticed a slight pallor on my patient's face, I knew that something very important was coming.
"Murder ?"I repeated.
"Yes, murder. I was born in India and was brought up in
Darjeeling. When I was four years old, a man climbed in at night
through the window and attacked my ayah with a dagger. She
screamed and fought. The dagger dropped to the floor with a clatter,
and the man escaped. I cowered in my bed in terror. I still cannot
look at a dagger without a slight internal trembling."
The choice of the Greek delta (for deleatur) was now clear.
He wished to wipe out the memory of this frightening experience.
To return to the subject of capital and small letters, it is becoming increasingly the fashion to neglect capitals and write names
and titles of books in small letter. Is this an unconscious striving
for an equality of status or is it a rebellion against class and authority
represented by capital letters ? Capital letters standing mostly for
names may well become focal points of guilt feelings and other conflicts accumulated through years. As a youngster I used to doodle
the capital D in its cursive form. During my analysis I made the
discovery that D stood for David the name of my grandfather. He
died at 94, after having been bedridden for years, and whenever I
thought of him I felt oppressed by the feeling that I failed him and
did not pay him the respect due to his extreme age and infirmity.
The discovery had enabled me to come to terms with my conscience,
and the doodling of the D stopped.
One more problem should be touched briefly : the tendency of
playing with sounds. Inasmuch as letters stand for sounds, it is
appropriate to dwell on the sadistic trend that a substitution of
improper letters may express. Due to this trend, an interior decorator

128

N. FODOR

t SAMIKSA

becomes an inferior decorator, a detective a defective and the tax

collector the Collector of Infernal Revenues. To this order somewhere belongs the startling slip I made in a letter, advising my correspondent who had invited me to pay him a visit in Atlantic City that
should I find myself in that city I shall certainly Cease the opportunity
for a call. I had no intention to do so and clearly revealed my
unconscious attitude by writing Cease instead of Seize.
Playing with sounds belongs, more or less, to the realm of
witticism. Witness the way the exchange of a diphtong creates in
amusing the story. The God Thor returned to Earth for a good time.
He spent a night of love with Susie. Susie happened to lisp and said
in the morning : I am Thuthie. Whereupon he answered : And I am
Thor. You thore, Thuthie replied : what the hell do you think I am ?
By omitting a letter, instead of changing it, effects can be
achieved that may lead to considerable embarassment: your brotherin-law becomes your bother-in-law, your best friend a fiend. Watch
your 'r1 if you write of a badly treated child, lest you endow the
child with a weaning trauma, and avoid superfluous letters as in this
piece of wisdom : it is better to approach a corner at 20 miles an
hour than a coroner at 60.
Sometimes one is left wondering where the conscious intent
stops "and the unconscious revelation begins, i quote from a newspaper column :
I am been syko-anilesed
An' truthful it may be
That what goes on inside my bed
Wood even startle me.
Was 'bed' instead of 'head' a misprint or does it express
deliberate intent ? The writer may have been mischievous enough
to spoof at psycho-analysis by enriching his poem with this additional
choice bit of psycho-pathology.
And that brings me to the psycho-analyst who revealed an inner
doubt in his own interpretation by turning to the patient with the
question : can you swallow me ?
What would you, my dear colleague, tell your patient if he had
noticed the disastrous slip ?

PSYCHODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC

DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY FORMATION
IN THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN CULTURE
A Compendium of Psychiatric Thought
JULIUS HOFFMAN, M. D.

In a recent series of decisions, the Supreme Court of the United

States stated unanimously that racial segregation of population for
educational purposes was unconstitutional. In this momentous
pronouncement, the ruling of a lower court was reaffirmed that
"Segregation with the sanction of the law, therefore, has a tendency
to retard the educational and mental development of Negro children
and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a
racially integrated school system." Further, Chief Justice Warren
wrote that "In these days it is doubtful that any child may reasonably
be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an
education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to
provide it, must be available to all on equal terms." On the heels
of this, many enthusiastic predictions were made, not the least significant of which, was that Thurgood Marshall that "by the time the
100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation was observed in
1963, segregation in all its forms would have been eliminated from
the nation."
The question remains, however, "Does this mean that 'the
Negro personality'will change ?" Of course one must be cognizant
that there is, in reality, no such thing as a or the Negro personality.
What is meant by this is seemingly because of his skin color and his
own as well as other reaction to it, a certain pattern of behaviors
tends to set in which have a rather common direction and form and
within which various individual combinations and permutations are
observed. The discussion here will isolate this one factor of skin
colour and attempt to illustrate briefly its influence on personality
formation in the Negro in the American culture and indicate why the
Supreme Court decision referred to above and viewed psychodynamically, will, in the long run, haye a very strong impact,

130

J. HOFFMAN

[ SAMIKSA

In attempting to understand the personality of the Negro as a

member of a minority group, two basic factors must be accepted :
1. That in the United States to day "Negro is relegated to an
inferior position and treated as a member of a lower caste."
2. That for the purposes of this presentation the most important
aspect of the developme of the personality is the conception the individual has of himself.
Suffice it to say that anti-Negro prejudices have so become a
part of American life that it goes almost without notice to speak
derisively of "the nigger in the wood pile" or exaltedly of being "free,
white, and 21". The implications for the Negro are obvious. These
attitudes have even crept into so-called psychiatric literature with
such statements as "the coloured race is untruthful, secretive, and
superstitious" or "the Negro lacks initiative, does not worry about
poverty or failure, is jolly, careless, and easily amused"
Now it is well known that except for relatively inconsequential
statistically arrived at diflerences the Negro, in the main, biologically
is like other human beings. However, mainly because of one of these
differences, his skin colour, he is emotionally apart from Caucasian
neighbours, from birth to death. This applies equally to the psychological, social, and economic spheres. However, the general and
irrational feelings indicated above have pervaded the socioeconomic
sphere of the Negro-White interpersonal relations. In his everyday
relations the Negro is torn between on the one hand rightfully accepting the 'Four Freedoms', the Declaration of Independence and
the Constitution and on the other being restricted to his inferior caste.
The natural aggression which follows this frustration has no useful
outlet since to resist and rebel is fought with danger. Instead, the
general pattern of behaviour is to submit and become accommodating
and turn the aggression inward.
By submitting the Negro takes our White standards as his own
and aspires to being more like them. Thus, the factor of colour denial
and colour classification within the caste is observed in everyday
activities of the Negro group. The lighter the skin, the straighter
the hair, etc., the more desirable the Negro. It comes as a high
compliment indeed for the Negro to be told that he can 'pass' for
white. Whiteness then repesents superior advantage, achievement,
progress, and power, all of which have great significance of survival.

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

PERSONLITY FORMATION

131

It would seem then that a Negro is subject not only to white

discrimination but to Negro-Negro differences of attitude which is
such as to predispose to chronic anxiety which may and does take
many forms and of varying intensity.
It is well known that personality development is dependent on
early parent-child relationships and sibling rivalry. In the Negro
the generally accepted patterns are drastically altered. "The conception an individual forms of himself usually has a social reference.
It generally takes the form of some kind of relation between the self
and others. In this sense the conception of self may also be thought
of as a role one intends, or is expected, to play in a social situation.
As a matter of fact it is seldom possible to understand fully the
meaning of any isolated trait or attitude, as any experienced clinician
can testify, except in terms of the role the individual is playing in a
specific social situation, either actual or imaginary.
The conceptions of the self or roles of a human individual are
acquired. An individual is born with only biological needs, but
acquires a self in the course of maturation and socialization. But
with the growth of the self, the needs for security and self-other or
interpersonal relations become as important as, and very often more
than, the needs for biological satisfaction. In fact the self system tends
to exert an over-all control over all the needs of the individual,
biological or otherwise, any serious disturbance of which control may
result in varied degrees of anxiety.
It follows from the foregoing that the nature of a self system an
individual acquires in the course of sccialization depends largely
on the kind of personalities he is associated with and the culture
after which his activities are patterned, what the significant people
in the environment think of him and the ways in which the socialization programme is carried out.
Amongst the Negro the economic insecurity and anxiety in the
parent early determine much of the parental psychological insecurity
and anxiety in the children. Thus the father's position in the family
is in a constant state of jeopardy. Often because of financial straits
the mother is required to work. This maternal absence too has
its effect on the children's growth. Thus parental and maternal
discipline and respect necessary for proper personality maturation
are lacking. The care of the younger children is entrusted to

132

J. HOFFMAN

SAMIKSA

the older siblings who themselves are much too young to assume
these important roles. It would ssem that this pattern is not
present in the ante-bellum days where the family unit was very
much a part of the rural organization of South and where no such
economic demands were made on the Negro head of the family. With
the dissolution of the family organization the personality traits too
have been changed. It is true that this would equally, apply to
the insecure white family, Wherein then does the difference come ?
In the South, the Negro is constantly impressed with the
fact that his life and security depends on the white man's generosity
and if he is to survive he must placate this White God even
though he may be angry and went to fight this despotic, arrogant
aggressor and as with any changing process, the anxieties of the
people involved in the change are noted in the Negro too. Now
a Negro in the South is uncertain as to his approach and
relationship with the White man and his everyday association
with him has to be consciously anticipated and studied. This
tends to dispell a good deal of the 'naturalness' which goes
with amicable relations. However, above the Mason-Dixon line
this insecurity is just as real though a bit more subtle.
It is apparent, then, that throughout his life, if he is to 'get
along' in society he must take a passive role, catering to the whim
of the white people. But what of the aggressive drives inherent
in all people ? Hortense Poamaker in her study of "Channeling of
Negro Aggression by Cultural Processes" states that 'the Uncle Tom'
Negro feels guilty about his conscious and unconscious hostility
toward white people. These Negroes are believing Christians who
take very literally the Christian doctrine that it is sinful to hate.
In being loving and subservient instead of hating, the Negro can feel
superior to the white who behaves in such an unchristian manner.
In heaven, these Negroes feel that their's will be the final victory.
The Negro also feels superior because he is fooling the white man
by his passive facade. The psychological mechanism operative in a
meek Negro can be compared to the masochistic behaviour. This
behaviour pattern has given the Negro a way of appeasing his guilt
over his aggressive impulses and a method of adapting to a very
difficult situation. But there are overtly aggressive Negroes especially
in the North. By becoming aggressive they feel they have overcome

Vol. 9, No. 2 ]

PERSONLITY FORMATION

133-

their feelings of insecurity. However, this leads to fear of retaliation

which emerges as a hate and destructive cycle. This fear-hostilityguilt cycle may be entirely unconscious and is usually associated
with self-depreciation. Many of his efforts are directed toward
making himself less the Negro and more the White man. But
if he becomes too closely identified with the White man he
becomes a symbol of hatred by the other Negroes and presumptuousness by the White man. On the other hand, if he accepts
the subservient role he loses his self-esteem.
For the Negro woman the problem is somewhat different.
The lighter her skin the greater her employment value. This
displacement of the male as the breadwinner further lowers his
standard in her eyes as well as the children. The relationship
to authority then is somewhat altered. If these are the effects
of socio-economic factors on the individual what of the reverse ?
How does this affect the individual's position in society ? About
crime and juvenile delinquency it has been said that the incidence
is much greater in conditions of squalor. That such conditions for
the most part exist in urban Negro communities is readily accepted
but it is equally true for the poor White community. The
difference lies in the attitude of the individual Negro within his
minority group. As was indicated above, the general difference
between a Negro and a White adolescent is the attitude of the
child for the parent. Ordinarily, the adolescent comes to identify
with the father or mother and soon the respect and love he
feels allows him to control his rebellious desires. Since the
Negro child cannot see his father as a figure of respect and
authority his impulsive nature goes unrestricted. Furthermore,
social restrictions for ample opportunity only accentuates the
Negro's helplessness and if he rebels openly it is often against
society. It has been found that the ratio between Whites and
Negroes in crime is one to two while the population as a whole is
ten to one. Even if the injustices in law were said to be especially
prominent in the South were taken into consideration the ratio
would still appear significant. Unfortunately adequate statistics about
psychological illnesses in the Negro population is not available but
in general it has been found that the psychoses among the Negro
population is no greater than in the White.

134

J. HOFFMAN

[ SAMIKSA

If one is to consider the incidence of suicide as one of the

indices of mental health a study of this problem in the Negro
revealed that in Northern urban communities the suicide rate is
about equal to that of the White man but there is a four-fold
increase of the suicide rate of the Northern Negro as compared
to the Southern Negro. This is explained psychodynamically by
McLean as follows. "In suicide, the individual expiates his crime
for wishing to killing or wishing to kill himself. The hatred which
the Negro feels for the White majority largely arises out of
the real injustice meted out to him. His crime lies in being born
a Negro, in other words, fate, (that is, an impersonal situation)
and not he, is responsible. There-fore the guilt for his hostility
can be externalized. Self-loathing and not guilt is the psychological reaction to fate. In the South, the White man is God
and if a Negro killed himself for his hatred of fate injustice,
he would be claiming God-like powers and that he was equal to
the Gods. His whole life has conditioned him to accept inferior
status. Instead of his hostile aggression being turned against
himself in suicide, it is more apt to be directed against others like
himself in crimes of violence.
In the North, the Negro has slightly greater expectations of
achieving status in jobs, professions and acceptance by at least a few
White men. His feelings of being doomed from birth to an inferior
status are consequently less. His self-respect is greater (particularly
among those who have gained superior status in spite of great
difficulties). Because of better status, his competitive rivalry with
White men is intensified. In killing himself, he can assert his
equality with the less harsh White men in the North. The statistics
of suicide in Northern Negroes need to be broken down into
categories. If this were done, it is estimated that the suicide rate
would be highest among the most ambitious Negroes."
In conclusion then it is felt that if the basic factors as outline
initially are accepted it would seem that at least one approach to
solution of this particular aspect of racial tension can be from the
socio-economic point of view. Furthermore, on the basis of this
reasoning, the question posed above can definitely and affirmatively
be answered that 'the Negro personality' will change to the greater
comfort and happiness of all.

Vol. 9, No. 2 J

PERSONLITY FORMATION

135

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Bassen, M. E., Racial

Psychopathology

TensionA

2. Brenman, Margaret, "Urban

Psychiatry, Vol. 6: 307-324, 1943

Study

Lower-Class

Through
Negro

Mass
Girls'1,

3. Cayfcon, R. Horace, "Frightened Children of Frightened Parents",

Twice-a-Year, Editerd by Dorothy Norman. Double Number
12-13, Spring-Summer, 1945 and Fall-Winter, 1945
4. Cayton, Horace R., "The Psychological Approach to Race
Relations", Reed College Bull, Vol 25, 1, November, 1946
5. Davis, Allison and Dollard, John, Children of Bondage ; The
Personality Development of Negro Youth in the Urban South.
American Council on Education. Washington, D. C, 1940
6. Davis, Allison, Gardner, Burleigh B., and Gardner Mary R.,
Deep South ; A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and
Class, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1941
7. Dollard, John, Caste and Class in a Southern Town, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1937
8. Dollard, John, "Hostility and Fear in Social Life", Social Forces,
Vol. 17: 15-26, 1938
9. Dollard, John, et al, Frustration and Aggression, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 1939
10. "Education for Racial Understanding", Jour, of Negro Education,
Vol XIII, Summer 1944
11. Frankel-Brunswick, Else, "A Study of Prejudice in Children",
Human Relations, 1: 295-306, 1940
12. Frazier, F. Franklin, The Negro Family in the U. S., Univ. of
Chicago Press Chicago, 1939
13. Frazier, Edward R, "Negro Youth at the Crossways", Amer,
Council on Education, 1940
14. Frazier, E. Franklin, "The Negro Family", Chap 8 in The Family,
Its Function and Destiny, Edited by Ruth Wanda Anshen, New
York, Harp Brother, 1949 pp 157-158
15.

Golightly, Cornelius L., "Race, Values and Guilt", Social Forces,

Vol 26: 125-139, Dec. 1947

16. Greenacre, Phyllis, "Child Wife As Ideal: Sociological

Considerations", Am, Jour Psychiatry, V 103: 493-S8, 1947

j
136

J. HOFFMAN

[ SAMIKSA

17. Johnson. Chas. S., Growing Up in the Black Belt, Amer.

Council on Education Wash., D. C , 1941
18. Kaufman, S. Harvard, "Prejudice as a Socio-Psychiatric Responsibility", Amer. Jour. Psychiatry, Vol 104, 1, July 1947
19. Kleinberg, Otto, Characteristics of the American Negro, N. Y.,
Harper and Bros., 1944
20. Kluckholn, Clyde, "Mirror for Man: The Relations of Anthropology to Modern Life", New York, Whittlesey House, 1948
21. Maclver, R. M,, "The More Perfect Union", The MacMillanCo.,
New York, 1948
22. McLean, Helen V., "Psychodynamic Factors in Racial Relations",
Ann. Am. Acad. Pol. Soc. 5 c , March 1946,159
23. McLean, Helen V., "Why Negroes Don't Commit Suicide",
Negro Digest, F. 1947
24. McLean, Helen V., "Group Tension", J. Am. N. Women's Assoc,,
Vol 2 : 479-484, Nov. 1947
25. McLean, Helen V., "Emotional Health of Negroes", The Journal
of Negro Education, Vol XVIII, 3, Summer 1949
26. Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma, Harper & Bros, N.Y.,
1944
27. Paton, Clan, Cry the Beloved Country, Charles Scribner's Sons,
New York, 1948
28. Powdermaker, Hortense; Probing Our Prejudices, Harper &
Bros. N. Y., 1944
29. Powdermaker, Hortense, After Freedom, Viking Press, New
York
30. Powdermaker, Hortense, "The Channeling of Negro Aggression
by the Cultural Process" in Personality in Nature, Society, and
Culture" edited by Clyde Kluckhohn and Henry A. Murray,
Alfred A. Knoft, N. Y., 1949, p 471
31. "Red, White, Blue & Black", National Institute of Social Relations
Wash 6, D. C.
32. Rose, Arnold M., "Studies in Reduction of Prejudice", Amer.
Council on Race Relations, Chicago, 1947
33. Rose, Arnold and Caroline, America Divided, Minority Group
Relations in the United States", Alfred A. Knopt, New York, 1948
34. Rustin, Barard, "Interracial Primer", Fellowship of Reconciliation
1943

36.
37.
38.
39.

40.

41.

ur crnononai rroDiems

of Negro Soldiers", Am. J. Psychiatry, V 103 : 493-98, 1947

"The Negro in America" Public Affairs Gemm, N. Y.
Thompson, Edgar, "Race Relations and the Race Problem",
Duke Univ. Press, Durham, N. C.
"Thus Be Their Destiny", Amer. Youth Commission, Amer
Council on Education, 1941
"To Secure These Rights", The Report of the President's Committee
on Civil Rights, United- States Government Printing Office,
Washington, D.C., 1947
Warner, W. Lloyd; Junker, Buford H., and Adams, Walter A-,
"Color and* Human Nature, Amer. Council on Eductaion, Wash.,
D. C , 1941
... . '
White, Walter, A Man Called White, Viking Press, New York,
1948

'

NEWS AND NOTES

SAMIKSA : JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL SOCIETY

-':V

The 'Syndicate of the University of Calcutta at its meeting

held on 23rd April, conferred the degree of Doctor of Science to
Sri Tarun Chandra Sinha Sarma for his thesis on "The Psyche of
the Garos". The thesis is an exhaustive study of the Garos particularly
from the psycho-analytical point of view. It was examined by
such eminent authorities as Prof. J. C. Flugal (London), Dr. E. Weiss
(Chicago), Dr. M. Grotjahn (California). All of them sent seperate
reports characterising the thesis as of inestimable value, very
superior and as a distinct contribution of a very high order to
Psycho-analytical Anthropology.
Late Dr. G. Bose was the only recipient of this degree of the
University of Calcutta before Dr. Sinha for psycho-analytical
studies.
Dr. Sinha is the Superintendent of Lumbini Park (Mental
Hospital) and is the Secretary of the Indian Psycho-analytical
Society. Besides these he is the senior-most practising psychoanalysts of Calcutta at present. He stood first both in B. Sc. and
M. Sc. in first class. Dr. Sinha is a student of late Dr. G. Bose and
Dr. S. C. Mitra the present Head of the Department of Psychology
of the University of Calcutta.

'

1;'':- Samiksa is published by the Indian Psycho-analytical Society

four times a year.
2. The subscription price per volume, payable in advance, is
Bupees Sixteen for inland subscribers and Bupees Eighteen for
overseas subscribers. Special rates are allowed to students and
research workers. The prices of single numbers may be ascertained
on application. Subscriptions should be sent to Indian Psychoanalytical. Society, 14 Parsibagan Lane, Calcutta 9, India.
N.B.

Cheques should be made payable to "Indian Psycho-analytical Society

or Order".

3.. All editorial communications should be addressed to the

Editor, 'Samiksa', Indian Psycho-analytical Society, 14 Parsibagan
Lane, Calcutta 9, India.
4. The Management regrets their inability to return the manuscripts of unpublished articles.
5. Articles once published in the Journal become the copyright
of the Indian Psycho-analytical Society. Permission has to be obtained
before translating or reprinting any contributed article.
6. The Editor reserves the right to accept or reject the whole
or portions of contributions and will not enter into correspondence
innthis matter. The Editor does not assume any responsibility for the
opinions and statements expressed by contributors.
;
T 7. A contributor will obtain one copy of the particular issue
of the Journal containing his article free of charge. Reprints are
not supplied free. Cost of reprints without cover for each hundred
.copies or part of it is Rs. 10/- per forme or part of a forme. For
reprints with cover the charge is Rs. 10/- extra for each hundred
copies or part of it. Contributors should state the number of reprints
required at the time of submitting the manuscripts.
8. Contributors are requested to submit type-written manuscripts.

Membership of the Indian Psycho-analytical Society.

::
Subscription rates are as follows : MembershipRs. 56/- a year ;."
Associate MembershipRs. 15/- a year. Samiksa is supplied to
members and associate members free of charge.

SAMIKSA
Vol.9, No. 2, 1955

CONTENTS
< Page
Practical and Technical Problems Presented by the Patient's Lies about
the analyst during Psychoanalytic TreatmentEdmund Bergler
Freud and Homey on Anxiety and NeurosisM. Barua

...

Constitutional Aspects of Psychosomatic DisordersM. Schur

"ABC of the ABCNandor Fodor

...

...

...

...

81

...

93

... 104
- ... 116

Psychodynamic Analysis of Socio-Economic Determinants of Personality

Formation in the Negro in the American CultureJulius Hoffman .... 129
News and Notes
...
... ...
...
...
... 138

Printed at the Gupta Press, 37/7 Beniatola Lane, Calcutta 9 and published by
Mr. A. Datta, Asst. Secretary, Indian Psycho-analytical Society