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This paper which is subtitled 'A Contribution to a Method of Verifying Psycho-analytic Data' is based on the premiss that mental life is a biological activity and that therefore observation of gastric activity, should, like mental activity, throw light on Instinct and its vicissitudes, and that such observation can contribute towards the validation of psycho-analytical concepts.
It reports some conclusions drawn from the psycho-analytical observation of a patient with a gastrostomy, whose gastric functions were being concurrently observed by a physiologist. The patient was a Negress who had swallowed a solution of caustic lye with resulting total cicatricial stenosis of the oesophagus. Infection and necrosis of the gastrostomy left her with a fistula two inches in diameter, which permitted remarkably direct access to her stomach. The physiological observations dealt with the following variables of gastric function; motility, colour of gastric mucosa (as an index of blood flow), volume of gastric secretion, and hydrochloric acid and pepsin concentrations. At no time did the analyst participate in the physiological observations or deviate from a purely interpretative role.
The physiological observations showed three recurring patterns of gastric activity; synchronized high activity, synchronized low activity, and a state of asynchrony or dissociation of functions. These patterns were repetitively and predictably associated with given constellations in the unconscious material, i.e. they could be correlated with different states of interaction between impulse and defence. When a repressed instinctual need was about to emerge into consciousness there was synchronized high activity; when reaction-formation became the predominant defence there was synchronized low activity; when the defences established a state of psychic equilibrium there was asynchromy. These findings help to explain discrepancies that have been encountered in previous attempts to correlate gastric