lazy, got up too late and was thus late for school. She told a lie, and was afraid of losing the teacher's favor by telling the truth. This sudden moral defect in our little patient requires an explanation. According to the fundamentals of psychoanalysis, this sudden and striking weakness can only follow from the patient's not drawing the logical consequences from the analysis but rather looking for other easier possibilities.
In other words, we have to do here with a case in which the analysis brought the libido apparently to the surface, so that an improvement of the personality could have occurred. But for some reason or other, the adaptation was not made, and the libido returned to its former regressive paths.
The ninth interview proved that this was indeed the case. Our patient withheld an important piece of evidence in her ideas of sexuality, and one which contradicted the psychoanalytic explanation of sexual maturity. She suppressed the rumor current in the school that a girl of eleven had a baby with a boy of the same age. This rumor was proved to be based on no facts, but was a phantasy, fulfiling the secret wishes of this age. Rumors appear often to originate in this kind of way, as I tried to show in the above-mentioned demonstration of such a case. They serve to give vent to the unconscious phantasies, and in fulfiling this function correspond to dreams as well as to myths. This rumor keeps another way open: she need not wait so long, it is possible to have a child even at eleven. The contradiction between the accepted rumor and the analytic explanation creates resistances towards the analysis, so that it is forthwith depreciated. All the other statements and information fall to the ground at the same time; for the time being, doubt and a feeling of uncertainty have taken their place. The libido has again taken possession of its former ways, it has made a regression. This is the moment of the replapse.
The tenth sitting added important details to the story of her sexual problem. First came a remarkable fragment of a dream: "I am with other children in an open field in the wood, surrounded by beautiful pine trees. It begins to rain, to lighten and to thunder. It is growing dark. Suddenly I see a stork in the air."
Before I enter into an analysis of this dream, I should like to
