that at the right number or name his eyes will open themselves or that he will feel which number is the correct one. In most cases the patients really decide on a definite date and frequently enough (as in the case of Mrs. Cäcilie N.) it could be ascertained from existing notes of that time that the date was correctly recognized. At other times and in different patients it was shown from the connection of the recollected facts that the dates thus found were incontestable. A patient, for instance, after a date was found by enumerating for her the dates, remarked, "This is my father's birthday," and added "Of course I expected this episode [about which we spoke] because it was my father's birthday."
I can only slightly touch upon this theme. The conclusion which I wished to draw from all these experiences is that the pathogenic important experiences with all their concomitant circumstances are faithfully retained in memory, even where they seem forgotten, as when the patient seems unable to recall them.[1]
- ↑ As an example of the technique mentioned above, that is, of investigating in a non-somnambulic state or where consciousness is not broadened, I will relate a case which I analyzed recently. I treated a woman of thirty-eight who suffered from an anxiety neurosis (agoraphobia, fear of death, etc.). Like many patients of that type she had a disinclination to admit that she acquired this disease in her married state and was quite desirous of referring it back to early youth. She informed me that at the age of seventeen when she was in the street of her small city she had the first attack of vertigo, anxiety, and faintness, and that these attacks recurred at times up to a few years ago when they were replaced by her present disease. I thought that the first attacks of vertigo, in which the anxiety was only blurred, were hysterical and decided to analyze the same. All she knows is that she had the first attack when she went out to make purchases in the main street of her city.—"What purchases did you wish to make?"—"Various things, I believe it was for a ball to which I was invited."—"When was the ball to take place?"—"I believe two days later."—"Something must have happened a few days before this which excited you, and which made an impression on you."—"But I don't know, it is now twenty-one years."—"That does not matter, you will recall it. I will exert some pressure on your head and when I stop it you will either think of or see something which I want you to tell me." I went through this procedure, but she remained quiet.—"Well, has nothing come into your mind?"—"I thought of something, but that can have no connection with it."—" Just say it."—"I thought of a young girl who is dead, but she died when I was eighteen, that is, a year later."—"Let us
