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for people, and that the noise the birds made梐 noise to which he was quite accustomed梤epresented to him the dangerous sexual intercourse of his parents, and was so unendurable on this particular morning because of the bull dream, and owing to his acute state of anxiety about his dying mother. Thus his mother's death meant to him her being destroyed by the bull inside him, since梩he work of mourning having already started梙e had internalized her in this most dangerous situation.
I also pointed out some hopeful aspects of the dream. His mother might save herself from the bull. Blackbirds and other birds he is actually fond of. I showed him also the tendencies to reparation and re-creation present in the material. His father (the buffaloes) should be preserved, i.e. protected against his梩he patient's梠wn greed. I reminded him, among other things, of the seeds which he wanted to spread from the country he loved to the town, and which stood for new babies being created by him and by his father as a reparation to his mother梩hese live babies being also a means of keeping her alive.
It was only after this interpretation that he was actually able to tell me that his mother had died the night before. He then admitted, which was unusual with him, his full understanding of the internalization processes which I had interpreted to him. He said that after he had received the news of his mother's death he felt sick, and that he thought, even at the time, that there could be no physical reason for this. It now seemed to him to confirm my interpretation that he had internalized the whole imagined situation of his fighting and dying parents.
During this hour he had shown great hatred, anxiety and tension, but scarcely any sorrow; towards the end, however, after my interpretation, his feelings softened, some sadness appeared, and he experienced some relief.
The night after his mother's funeral, D. dreamt that X. (a father figure) and another person (who stood for me) were trying to help him, but actually he had to fight for his life against us; as he put it: 'Death was claiming me.' In this hour he again spoke bitterly about his analysis, as disintegrating him. I interpreted that he felt the helpful external parents to be at the same time the fighting, disintegrating parents, who would attack and destroy him梩he half-dead bull and the dying mother inside him梐nd that I myself and analysis had come to stand for the dangerous people and happenings inside himself. That his father was also internalized by him as dying
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or dead was confirmed when he told me that at his mother's funeral he had wondered for a moment whether his father also was not dead. (In reality the father was still alive.)
Towards the end of this hour, after a decrease of hatred and anxiety, he again became more co-operative. He mentioned that the day before, looking out of the window of his father's house into the garden and feeling lonely, he disliked a jay he saw on a bush. He thought that this nasty and destructive bird might possibly interfere with another bird's nest with eggs in it. Then he associated that he had seen, some time previously, bunches of wild flowers thrown on the ground梡robably picked and thrown away by children. I again interpreted his hatred and bitterness as being in part a defence against sorrow, loneliness and guilt. The destructive bird, the destructive children梐s often before梥tood for himself, who had, in his mind, destroyed his parents' home and happiness and killed his mother by destroying her babies inside her. In this connection his feelings of guilt related to his direct attacks in phantasy on his mother's body; whilst in connection with the bull dream the guilt was derived from his indirect attacks on her, when he changed his father into a dangerous bull who was thus carrying into effect his梩he patient's梠wn sadistic wishes.
On the third night after his mother's funeral, D. had another dream:
He saw a 'bus coming towards him in an uncontrolled way梐pparently driving itself. It went towards a shed. He could not see what happened to the shed, but knew definitely that the shed 'was going to blazes'. Then two people, coming from behind him, were opening the roof of the shed and looking into it. D. did not 'see the point of their doing this', but they seemed to think it would help.
Besides showing his fear of being castrated by his father through a homosexual act which he at the same time desired, this dream expressed the same internal situation as the bull dream梩he death of his mother inside him and his own death. The shed stood for his mother's body, for himself, and also for his mother inside him. The dangerous sexual intercourse represented by the 'bus destroying the shed happened in his mind to his mother as well as to himself; but in addition, and that is where the predominant anxiety lay, to his mother inside him.
His not being able to see what happened in the dream indicated that in his mind the catastrophe was happening internally. He also knew, without seeing it, that the shed was 'going to blazes'. The
20An attack on the outside of the body often stands for one which is felt to happen internally. I have already pointed out that something represented as being on top of or tightly round the body often covers the deeper meaning of being inside.
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'bus 'coming towards him', besides standing for sexual intercourse and castration by his father, also meant 'happening inside him'.20
The two people opening the roof from behind (he had pointed to my chair) were himself and myself, looking into his inside and into his mind (psycho-analysis). The two people also meant myself as the 'bad' combined parent-figure, myself containing the dangerous father梙ence his doubts whether looking into the shed (analysis) could help him. The uncontrolled 'bus represented also himself in dangerous sexual intercourse with his mother, and expressed his fears and guilt about the badness of his own genitals. Before his mother's death, at a time when her fatal illness had already begun, he accidentally ran his car into a post梬ithout serious consequences. It appeared that this was an unconscious suicidal attempt, meant to destroy the internal 'bad' parents. This accident also represented his parents in dangerous sexual intercourse inside him, and was thus an acting out as well as an externalization of an internal disaster.
The phantasy of the parents combined in 'bad' intercourse梠r rather, the accumulation of emotions of various kinds, desires, fears and guilt, which go with it梙ad very much disturbed his relation to both parents, and had played an important part not only in his illness but in his whole development. Through the analysis of these emotions referring to the actual parents in sexual intercourse, and particularly through the analysis of these internalized situations, the patient became able to experience real mourning for his mother. All his life, however, he had warded off the depression and sorrow about losing her, which were derived from his infantile depressive feelings, and had denied his very great love for her. In his mind he had reinforced his hatred and feelings of persecution, because he could not bear the fear of losing his loved mother. When his anxieties about his own destructiveness decreased and confidence in his power to restore and preserve her became strengthened, persecution lessened and love for her came gradually to the fore. But together with this he increasingly experienced the grief and longing for her which he had repressed and denied from his early days onward. While he was going through this mourning with sorrow and despair, his deeply buried love for his mother came more and more into the open, and his relation to both parents altered. On
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one occasion he spoke of them, in connection with a pleasant childhood memory, as 'my dear old parents'梐 new departure in him.
I have described here and in my former paper the deeper reasons for the individual's incapacity to overcome successfully the infantile depressive position. Failure to do so may result in depressive illness, mania or paranoia. I pointed out (op. cit.) one or two other methods by which the ego attempts to escape from the sufferings connected with the depressive position, namely either the flight to internal good objects (which may lead to severe psychosis) or the flight to external good objects (with the possible outcome of neurosis). There are, however, many ways, based on obsessional, manic and paranoid defences, varying from individual to individual in their relative proportion, which in my experience all serve the same purpose, that is, to enable the individual to escape from the sufferings connected with the depressive position. (All these methods, as I have pointed out, have a part in normal development also.) This can be clearly observed in the analyses of people who fail to experience mourning. Feeling incapable of saving and securely reinstating their loved objects inside themselves, they must turn away from them more than hitherto and therefore deny their love for them. This may mean that their emotions in general become more inhibited; in other cases it is mainly feelings of love which become stifled and hatred is increased. At the same time, the ego uses various ways of dealing with paranoid fears (which will be the stronger the more hatred is reinforced). For instance, the internal 'bad' objects are manically subjugated, immobilized and at the same time denied, as well as strongly projected into the external world. Some people who fail to experience mourning may escape from an outbreak of manic-depressive illness or paranoia only by a severe restriction of their emotional life which impoverishes their whole personality.
Whether some measure of mental balance can be maintained in people of this type often depends on the ways in which these various methods interact, and on their capacity to keep alive in other directions some of the love which they deny to their lost objects. Relations to people who do not in their minds come too close to the lost object and interest in things and activities, may absorb some of this love which belonged to the lost object. Though these relations and sublimations will have some manic and paranoid qualities, they may nevertheless offer some reassurance and relief from guilt, for through them the lost loved object which has been rejected and thus again destroyed is
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to some extent restored and retained in the unconscious mind.
If, in our patients, analysis diminishes the anxieties of destructive and persecuting internal parents, it follows that hate and thus in turn anxieties decrease, and the patients are enabled to revise their relation to their parents梬hether they be dead or alive梐nd to rehabilitate them to some extent even if they have grounds for actual grievances. This greater tolerance makes it possible for them to set up 'good' parent-figures more securely in their minds, alongside the 'bad' internal objects, or rather to mitigate the fear of these 'bad' objects by the trust in 'good' objects. This means enabling them to experience emotions梥orrow, guilt and grief, as well as love and trust梩o go through mourning, but to overcome it, and ultimately to overcome the infantile depressive position, which they have failed to do in childhood.
To conclude. In normal mourning, as well as in abnormal mourning and in manic-depressive states, the infantile depressive position is reactivated. The complex feelings, phantasies and anxieties included under this term are of a nature which justifies my contention that the child in his early development goes through a transitory manic-depressive state as well as a state of mourning, which become modified by the infantile neurosis. With the passing of the infantile neurosis, the infantile depressive position is overcome.
The fundamental difference between normal mourning, on the one hand, and abnormal mourning and manic-depressive states, on the other, is this. The manic-depressive and the person who fails in the work of mourning, though their defences may differ widely from each other, have this in common, that they have been unable in early childhood to establish their internal 'good' objects and to feel secure in their inner world. They have never really overcome the infantile depressive position. In normal mourning, however, the early depressive position, which had become revived through the loss of the loved object, becomes modified again, and is overcome by methods similar to those used by the ego in childhood. The individual is reinstating his actually lost loved object; but he is also at the same time re-establishing inside himself his first loved objects梪ltimately the 'good' parents梬hom, when the actual loss occurred, he felt in danger of losing as well. It is by reinstating inside himself the 'good' parents as well as the recently lost person, and by rebuilding his inner world, which was disintegrated and in danger, that he overcomes his grief, regains security, and achieves true harmony and peace.
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- 148 -
for people, and that the noise the birds made梐 noise to which he was quite accustomed梤epresented to him the dangerous sexual intercourse of his parents, and was so unendurable on this particular morning because of the bull dream, and owing to his acute state of anxiety about his dying mother. Thus his mother's death meant to him her being destroyed by the bull inside him, since梩he work of mourning having already started梙e had internalized her in this most dangerous situation.
I also pointed out some hopeful aspects of the dream. His mother might save herself from the bull. Blackbirds and other birds he is actually fond of. I showed him also the tendencies to reparation and re-creation present in the material. His father (the buffaloes) should be preserved, i.e. protected against his梩he patient's梠wn greed. I reminded him, among other things, of the seeds which he wanted to spread from the country he loved to the town, and which stood for new babies being created by him and by his father as a reparation to his mother梩hese live babies being also a means of keeping her alive.
It was only after this interpretation that he was actually able to tell me that his mother had died the night before. He then admitted, which was unusual with him, his full understanding of the internalization processes which I had interpreted to him. He said that after he had received the news of his mother's death he felt sick, and that he thought, even at the time, that there could be no physical reason for this. It now seemed to him to confirm my interpretation that he had internalized the whole imagined situation of his fighting and dying parents.
During this hour he had shown great hatred, anxiety and tension, but scarcely any sorrow; towards the end, however, after my interpretation, his feelings softened, some sadness appeared, and he experienced some relief.
The night after his mother's funeral, D. dreamt that X. (a father figure) and another person (who stood for me) were trying to help him, but actually he had to fight for his life against us; as he put it: 'Death was claiming me.' In this hour he again spoke bitterly about his analysis, as disintegrating him. I interpreted that he felt the helpful external parents to be at the same time the fighting, disintegrating parents, who would attack and destroy him梩he half-dead bull and the dying mother inside him梐nd that I myself and analysis had come to stand for the dangerous people and happenings inside himself. That his father was also internalized by him as dying
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or dead was confirmed when he told me that at his mother's funeral he had wondered for a moment whether his father also was not dead. (In reality the father was still alive.)
Towards the end of this hour, after a decrease of hatred and anxiety, he again became more co-operative. He mentioned that the day before, looking out of the window of his father's house into the garden and feeling lonely, he disliked a jay he saw on a bush. He thought that this nasty and destructive bird might possibly interfere with another bird's nest with eggs in it. Then he associated that he had seen, some time previously, bunches of wild flowers thrown on the ground梡robably picked and thrown away by children. I again interpreted his hatred and bitterness as being in part a defence against sorrow, loneliness and guilt. The destructive bird, the destructive children梐s often before梥tood for himself, who had, in his mind, destroyed his parents' home and happiness and killed his mother by destroying her babies inside her. In this connection his feelings of guilt related to his direct attacks in phantasy on his mother's body; whilst in connection with the bull dream the guilt was derived from his indirect attacks on her, when he changed his father into a dangerous bull who was thus carrying into effect his梩he patient's梠wn sadistic wishes.
On the third night after his mother's funeral, D. had another dream:
He saw a 'bus coming towards him in an uncontrolled way梐pparently driving itself. It went towards a shed. He could not see what happened to the shed, but knew definitely that the shed 'was going to blazes'. Then two people, coming from behind him, were opening the roof of the shed and looking into it. D. did not 'see the point of their doing this', but they seemed to think it would help.
Besides showing his fear of being castrated by his father through a homosexual act which he at the same time desired, this dream expressed the same internal situation as the bull dream梩he death of his mother inside him and his own death. The shed stood for his mother's body, for himself, and also for his mother inside him. The dangerous sexual intercourse represented by the 'bus destroying the shed happened in his mind to his mother as well as to himself; but in addition, and that is where the predominant anxiety lay, to his mother inside him.
His not being able to see what happened in the dream indicated that in his mind the catastrophe was happening internally. He also knew, without seeing it, that the shed was 'going to blazes'. The
20An attack on the outside of the body often stands for one which is felt to happen internally. I have already pointed out that something represented as being on top of or tightly round the body often covers the deeper meaning of being inside.
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'bus 'coming towards him', besides standing for sexual intercourse and castration by his father, also meant 'happening inside him'.20
The two people opening the roof from behind (he had pointed to my chair) were himself and myself, looking into his inside and into his mind (psycho-analysis). The two people also meant myself as the 'bad' combined parent-figure, myself containing the dangerous father梙ence his doubts whether looking into the shed (analysis) could help him. The uncontrolled 'bus represented also himself in dangerous sexual intercourse with his mother, and expressed his fears and guilt about the badness of his own genitals. Before his mother's death, at a time when her fatal illness had already begun, he accidentally ran his car into a post梬ithout serious consequences. It appeared that this was an unconscious suicidal attempt, meant to destroy the internal 'bad' parents. This accident also represented his parents in dangerous sexual intercourse inside him, and was thus an acting out as well as an externalization of an internal disaster.
The phantasy of the parents combined in 'bad' intercourse梠r rather, the accumulation of emotions of various kinds, desires, fears and guilt, which go with it梙ad very much disturbed his relation to both parents, and had played an important part not only in his illness but in his whole development. Through the analysis of these emotions referring to the actual parents in sexual intercourse, and particularly through the analysis of these internalized situations, the patient became able to experience real mourning for his mother. All his life, however, he had warded off the depression and sorrow about losing her, which were derived from his infantile depressive feelings, and had denied his very great love for her. In his mind he had reinforced his hatred and feelings of persecution, because he could not bear the fear of losing his loved mother. When his anxieties about his own destructiveness decreased and confidence in his power to restore and preserve her became strengthened, persecution lessened and love for her came gradually to the fore. But together with this he increasingly experienced the grief and longing for her which he had repressed and denied from his early days onward. While he was going through this mourning with sorrow and despair, his deeply buried love for his mother came more and more into the open, and his relation to both parents altered. On
- 151 -
one occasion he spoke of them, in connection with a pleasant childhood memory, as 'my dear old parents'梐 new departure in him.
I have described here and in my former paper the deeper reasons for the individual's incapacity to overcome successfully the infantile depressive position. Failure to do so may result in depressive illness, mania or paranoia. I pointed out (op. cit.) one or two other methods by which the ego attempts to escape from the sufferings connected with the depressive position, namely either the flight to internal good objects (which may lead to severe psychosis) or the flight to external good objects (with the possible outcome of neurosis). There are, however, many ways, based on obsessional, manic and paranoid defences, varying from individual to individual in their relative proportion, which in my experience all serve the same purpose, that is, to enable the individual to escape from the sufferings connected with the depressive position. (All these methods, as I have pointed out, have a part in normal development also.) This can be clearly observed in the analyses of people who fail to experience mourning. Feeling incapable of saving and securely reinstating their loved objects inside themselves, they must turn away from them more than hitherto and therefore deny their love for them. This may mean that their emotions in general become more inhibited; in other cases it is mainly feelings of love which become stifled and hatred is increased. At the same time, the ego uses various ways of dealing with paranoid fears (which will be the stronger the more hatred is reinforced). For instance, the internal 'bad' objects are manically subjugated, immobilized and at the same time denied, as well as strongly projected into the external world. Some people who fail to experience mourning may escape from an outbreak of manic-depressive illness or paranoia only by a severe restriction of their emotional life which impoverishes their whole personality.
Whether some measure of mental balance can be maintained in people of this type often depends on the ways in which these various methods interact, and on their capacity to keep alive in other directions some of the love which they deny to their lost objects. Relations to people who do not in their minds come too close to the lost object and interest in things and activities, may absorb some of this love which belonged to the lost object. Though these relations and sublimations will have some manic and paranoid qualities, they may nevertheless offer some reassurance and relief from guilt, for through them the lost loved object which has been rejected and thus again destroyed is
- 152 -
to some extent restored and retained in the unconscious mind.
If, in our patients, analysis diminishes the anxieties of destructive and persecuting internal parents, it follows that hate and thus in turn anxieties decrease, and the patients are enabled to revise their relation to their parents梬hether they be dead or alive梐nd to rehabilitate them to some extent even if they have grounds for actual grievances. This greater tolerance makes it possible for them to set up 'good' parent-figures more securely in their minds, alongside the 'bad' internal objects, or rather to mitigate the fear of these 'bad' objects by the trust in 'good' objects. This means enabling them to experience emotions梥orrow, guilt and grief, as well as love and trust梩o go through mourning, but to overcome it, and ultimately to overcome the infantile depressive position, which they have failed to do in childhood.
To conclude. In normal mourning, as well as in abnormal mourning and in manic-depressive states, the infantile depressive position is reactivated. The complex feelings, phantasies and anxieties included under this term are of a nature which justifies my contention that the child in his early development goes through a transitory manic-depressive state as well as a state of mourning, which become modified by the infantile neurosis. With the passing of the infantile neurosis, the infantile depressive position is overcome.
The fundamental difference between normal mourning, on the one hand, and abnormal mourning and manic-depressive states, on the other, is this. The manic-depressive and the person who fails in the work of mourning, though their defences may differ widely from each other, have this in common, that they have been unable in early childhood to establish their internal 'good' objects and to feel secure in their inner world. They have never really overcome the infantile depressive position. In normal mourning, however, the early depressive position, which had become revived through the loss of the loved object, becomes modified again, and is overcome by methods similar to those used by the ego in childhood. The individual is reinstating his actually lost loved object; but he is also at the same time re-establishing inside himself his first loved objects梪ltimately the 'good' parents梬hom, when the actual loss occurred, he felt in danger of losing as well. It is by reinstating inside himself the 'good' parents as well as the recently lost person, and by rebuilding his inner world, which was disintegrated and in danger, that he overcomes his grief, regains security, and achieves true harmony and peace.
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