FROM RATIONALITY TO SUBJECTIVITY
213
called "universal history," he would concl ude that impasses are temporary.
This offers littl e consolation to those who today feel in the midst of an
overwhelming and unending impasse. It is true, in several cases he noted
longer-term impasses (China, India, ancient Egypt). However, hi s sociolog–
ical writings do not depict the modern West in this manner.
SESSION
II:
PSYCHOLOGY: FROM THE CASES OF
HYSTERIA TO THE THERAPEUTIC SOCIETY
Morris Eagle:
As we al l know psychoanalysis began with the study of hys–
teria, although the study of hysteria did not begin with psychoanalysis.
Investigations of and interest in hysteria and related phenomenon as hypno–
sis, somnanlbuhsm, automatic writing, suggestion and so on were in full
swing when Freud and Breuer Can1e upon the scene, although the "talking
cure" and ideas such as catharsis and abreaction of strangulated affect con–
tained the seeds of what was later to become psychoanalytic theory and
treatment. Freud and Breuer's early conception of hysteria was not essential–
ly different from the non-psychoanalytic formulations of Charcot, Janet, and
Bernheim. The decisive moment and starting point for psychoanalysis came
with Freud's clainl that hysterical symptoms were not the consequences of
constitutional weakness interacting wi th a precipitating trauma, but the result
of a mental content--a thought, a memory, a wish, a desire-that was radi–
cally incompatible wi th and unacceptable to the patient's ego, that is with the
patient's sense of herself or himself and of what is moral and in1moral, accept–
able or shameful. With this move Freud altered the conception of what
constitutes trauma and also hysterical symptoms. Later, of course, other neu–
rotic and even psychotic symptoms were transformed from automatic organic
happenings to quasi-actions, which like all human actions entailed purpose,
motive, desire, conflict, self-image, and inner standards of morality and
immorality. Thus the appropriate method for dealing with psychic distress
and dysfunction becan1e psychotherapy rather than hypnosis or organic treat–
ments. Furthermore, and this leads directly into the topic of this panel, since
we all have desires, thoughts, feelings, and fantasies about which we're con–
ilicted, the applications and appropriateness of psychotherapy was no longer
limited to those with esoteric and strange symptoms but could now be
extended to all. We could now truly be characterized as a therapeutic society
or perhaps, more accurately, as a society preoccupied with the therapeutic.
I would now like to introduce Helen Meyers. She is Clinical Professor
of Psychiatry at Col umbia University and the N orth American
Representative in the Executive Council of the International
Psychoanalytical Association.
