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MICHAEL JOSEF EISLER
Pathology teaches us that there are profound connections between
consciousness and breathing. In all those morbid disturbances or
interruptions of consciousness which we denote by the popular
collective term 'fit' (syncope, epilepsy, certain hysterical attacks),
inliibition in breathing is the dominating symptom that distinguishes
these states from sleep. In the sense of the Freudian libido theory
we have to assume that every regressive process, in so far as it
is not absorbed into the ego, concerns an organ that responds dis-
positionally to it. There is no difficulty in drawing the theoretical
conclusion that also in the respiratory organ such a libido position
can be established. I first obtained this idea from a case of hys-
terical dyspnoea. Later I found the same regressive path to the
respiratory organs in the investigation of a case of infantile anxious
readiness, which had not yet become a phobia and culminated in
something like eclampsic attacks.^ At that time I said to myself
that there must be a retrogressive movement of libido to an
apnoeic phase, which phase I had previously called lethargic.
I have no desire, however, to simplify artificially a great number
of very complicated phenomena by this terminology and will
therefore break off at this point. In the cases related above I was
more concerned to indicate the parallelism. If I have thrown some
light on the parallels between liie oral impulse and the need for
sleep, I have provisionally fulfilled my task. '
' See Freud: Vorlesungen zur Einfiihrung in die Psychoanalyse. 1917, S, 461. He says : ' The word Angst {angusiiae, narrowness) emphasises the character of constriction in breathing',
- Our therapeutic endeavours have so far shown little success in the
nervous disturbances of sleep. This unfortunate circumstance can be explained from the fact that the automatic state of sleep, which is usually related to various auto-erotisms, is at first charged with but little psychic energy, and only later assumes its relations to the different mental activities. Psycho-analytic treatment finds a natural limit where the purely psychic, which is an isolated product, is merged into the general current of life.
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