in hysteria and regularly participates in creating hysterical symptoms. Nevertheless, as such an assertion does not seem plausible I shall attempt to make it more credible by citing other experiences.
It once happened to me during a similar analysis that a new hysterical symptom was formed during the treatment so that I could attempt its removal on the day after its origin.
I will describe the essential features of the history of this patient. They are simple but not without interest.
Miss Rosalia H., twenty-three years old, who for a number of years made great effort to educate herself as a singer, complained that her beautiful voice did not obey her in certain notes. There appeared choking and tightening sensations in the throat so that the tones sounded strained, and her teacher could therefore not allow her to appear in public. Although this imperfection affected only her middle notes it could not be explained to be due to a defect of her vocal organs, for at times this disturbance was absent and her teacher was very pleased with her, but at other times the slightest excitement, seemingly without any provocation, evoked the choking sensation, and prevented free expansion of the voice. It was not difficult to recognize in this annoying sensation an hysterical conversion. Whether there really appeared a contracture of certain muscles of the vocal chords I have not verified.[1] In the hypnotic analysis which I undertook with this girl I found out the following concerning her vicissitudes and her ailments occasioned through them. She became an orphan at an early age and was brought up at the house of an aunt who had many children of her own, and she thus shared
- ↑ I had under my observation another case in which a contracture of the masseters made it impossible for the artist to sing. The young lady in question through painful experiences in the family was forced to go on the stage. While in Rome rehearsing, in great excitement she suddenly perceived the sensation of being unable to close her opened mouth and sank fainting to the floor. The physician who was called closed her jaws forcibly, but the patient since that time was unable to open her jaws more than a finger's breadth and had to give up her newly chosen profession. When she came under my care many years later, the motives for that excitement were apparently over for some time, for massage in a light hypnosis sufficed to open her mouth widely. The lady has since sung in public.
