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reminiscences. ¹
     
       ¹ In this preliminary communication it is not
possible for us to distinguish what is new in it from what has been
said by other authors such as Moebius and Strümpell who have
held similar views on hysteria to ours. We have found the nearest
approach to what we have to say on the theoretical and therapeutic
sides of the question in some remarks, published from time to time,
by Benedikt. These we shall deal with elsewhere.
     
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    Studies On Hysteria
    11
     
    II
     
       At first sight it seems
extraordinary that events experienced so long ago should continue
to operate so intensely - that their recollection should not be
liable to the wearing away process to which, after all, we see all
our memories succumb. The following considerations may perhaps make
this a little more intelligible.
       The fading of a memory or the
losing of its affect depends on various factors. The most important
of these is whether there has been an energetic reaction to the
event that provokes the affect . By ‘reaction’ we
here understand the whole class of voluntary and involuntary
reflexes - from tears to acts of revenge - in which, as experience
shows us, the affects are discharged. If this reaction takes place
to a sufficient amount a large part of the affect disappears as a
result. Linguistic usage bears witness to this fact of daily
observation by such phrases as ‘to cry oneself out’
[‘ sich ausweinen ’], and to ‘blow off
steam’ [‘ sich austoben ’, literally
‘to rage oneself out’]. If the reaction is suppressed,
the affect remains attached to the memory. An injury that has been
repaid, even if only in words, is recollected quite differently
from one that has had to be accepted. Language recognizes this
distinction, too, in its mental and physical consequences; it very
characteristically describes an injury that has been suffered in
silence as ‘a mortification’
[‘ Kränkung ’, literally ‘making
ill’]. - The injured person’s reaction to the trauma
only exercises a completely ‘cathartic’ effect if it is
an adequate reaction - as, for instance, revenge. But
language serves as a substitute for action; by its help, an affect
can be ‘abreacted’ almost as effectively. In other
cases speaking is itself the adequate reflex, when, for instance,
it is a lamentation or giving utterance to a tormenting secret,
e.g. a confession. If there is no such reaction, whether in deeds
or words, or in the mildest cases in tears, any recollection of the
event retains its affective tone to begin with.
     
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    Studies On Hysteria
    12
     
       'Abreaction’, however,
is not the only method of dealing with the situation that is open
to a normal person who has experienced a psychical trauma. A memory
of such a trauma, even if it has not been abreacted, enters the
great complex of associations, it comes alongside other
experiences, which may contradict it, and is subjected to
rectification by other ideas. After an accident, for instance, the
memory of the danger and the (mitigated) repetition of the fright
becomes associated with the memory of what happened afterwards -
rescue and the consciousness of present safety. Again, a
person’s memory of a humiliation is corrected by his putting
the facts right, by considering his own worth, etc. In this way a
normal person is able to bring about the disappearance of the
accompanying affect through the process of association.
       To this we must add the general
effacement of impressions, the fading of memories which we name
‘forgetting’ and which wears away those ideas in
particular that are no longer affectively operative.
       Our observations have shown, on
the other hand, that the memories which have become the
determinants of hysterical phenomena persist for a long time with
astonishing freshness and with the whole of their affective
colouring. We must, however, mention another remarkable fact, which
we shall later be able to turn to