the other, predisposition seems to play the chief part. It is pretty clear where treatment will have more effect. (As I have already said, the conception of repression contains an element which is in intrinsic contradiction with the shock-theory.) We find, for instance, in the case of Miss Lucy R.,[1] described by Freud, that the essential etiological moment is not to be found in the traumatic scenes, but in the insufficient readiness of the patient to set store upon the convictions passing through her mind. But if we think of the later views we find in the "Selected Papers on Hysteria,"[2] where Freud, forced through further experience, supposes certain traumatic sexual events in early childhood to be the source of the neurosis, then we get the impression of an incongruity between the conception of repression and that of shock. The conception of "repression" contains the elements of an etiological theory of environment, while the conception of "shock" is a theory of predisposition.
But at first the theory of neurosis developed along the lines of the trauma conception. Pursuing Freud's later investigations, we see him coming to the conclusion that no such positive value can be ascribed to the traumatic events of later life, as their effects could only be conceivable if the particular predisposition of the patient were taken into account. Evidently the enigma was to be resolved just at this point. As the analytical work progressed, the roots of hysterical symptoms were found in childhood; they reached back from the present far into the past. The further end of the chain threatened to get lost in the mists of early childhood. But it was just there that reminiscences appeared of certain scenes where sexual activities had been manifested in an active or passive way, and these were unmistakably connected with the events which provoked the neurosis. (For further details of these events you must consult the works of Freud, as well as the numerous analyses which have already been published.)
The Theory of Sexual Trauma in Childhood
Hence arose the theory of sexual trauma in childhood which provoked bitter opposition, not from theoretical objections against the shock-theory in general, but against the element of sexuality
