CHAPTER XI
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES[1]
It is well known that in their general physiognomy Hysteria and Dementia Praecox present a striking contrast, which is seen particularly in the attitude of the sufferers towards the external world. The reactions provoked in the hysteric surpass the normal level of intensity of feeling, whilst this level is not reached at all by the precocious dement. The picture presented by these contrasted illnesses is one of exaggerated emotivity in the one, and extreme apathy in the other, with regard to the environment. In their personal relations this difference is very marked. Abstraction creates some exceptions here, for we remain in affective rapport with our hysterical patients, which is not the case in dementia praecox.
The opposition between these two nosological types is also seen in the rest of their symptomatology. From the intellectual point of view the products of hysterical imagination may be accounted for in a very natural and human way in each individual case by the antecedents and individual history of the patient; while the inventions of the precocious dement, on the contrary, are more nearly related to dreams than to normal consciousness, and they display moreover an incontestably archaic tendency, wherein mythological creations of primitive imagination are more in evidence than the personal memories of the patient. From the physical point of view we do not find in dementia praecox those symptoms
- ↑ Delivered at the Psychoanalytical Congress, Munich, 1913. Translated from Archives de Psychologie, by kind permission of the Editor, Dr. Claparède.
