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On the origin of the “apparatus” in schizophrenia. Dr. Victor Tausk.
Technical difficulties in an analysis of hysteria. Dr. S. Ferenczi.
On the origin of the “apparatus” in schizophrenia.-In psychoanalytic literature this phase of schizophrenia has been treated only in a general way. The author therefore undertakes a thorough discussion of the subject. He brings forward only a single case, but one in which the “apparatus” presents signal peculiarities of construction, permitting illuminating inferences.
The influence which the “apparatus” in schizophrenia exercises upon patients is of various kinds; they may throw pictures like those of a magic lantern or cinematograph, these pictures being at times three dimensional, like the usual hallucinations; they may put thoughts into the mind, or prevent thinking; may cause motor or other somatic reactions, such as erections, pollutions (ascribed at times to suggestion or to streams of air, X-rays, etc.); they may cause sensations which have never before been experienced, which patients are unable to describe; they may cause processes in the body, such as skin eruptions, piles, etc.
The peculiarity of these symptoms is that patients sometimes complain of them without ascribing them to any external, persecutory cause. It therefore seems probable that the “apparatus” is a final form taken by regressive symptoms which began in simple changes of feeling. There are even cases constituting real transitions between these extremes. In some instances patients believe that they themselves cause the abnormal experiences and in these the author sees a parallel to that period of development where, in the process of choosing an object, the person projects his ego into the external world; the author adduces a schema showing seven stages in the delusional formation, corresponding to successive developmental levels.
The connection between the ideas and the “apparatus” having been
thus indicated, the author proceeds to consi