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Dear Dr. Reik:
It was 43 years ago that I read in a book in the series of the Internationale Psychoanalytische Bibliothek (No. XVIII) the following statement:
The symptom which is a result of both the urge to express and the tendency to repress possesses the character of a confession. Hence, we designate as a confession any assertion which relates to a drive impulse that is secretly felt or is recognized.
Insofar as the symptom essentially constitutes and represents the development of compensatory unconscious drive impulses, one can speak of its unconscious confessional character.
I assume, my dear Dr. Reik, that you still remember this excerpt, for you are the author of the work: Gestaendiszwang und Strafbeduerfnis (The Urge to Confess and the Need for Punishment), publised in 1925, which contains the above quotation.
Your bold formulation that the symptom is to be construed as a confession of the symptom bearer representing his forbidden and repressed drive impulses caused me at that time no little perplexity I asked myself: Is not the poor “symptom” too much burdened by this overextension? It must now represent not only the indices of the rejected, forbidden drive impulses of both the repressive ego and the stern superego, but it must also portray the urge to confess and the need for punishment.
Shortly after reading your book, I had the task of giving a forensic report to a juvenile court judge in a tragic case in which a 14 1/2 year old high school student had slain his mother. On the occasion of this study, and particularly later when I elicited the catamnesis, I was able to determine that your assertion regarding the confessional nature of the symptom corresponded completely to the psychic reality of the situation.