The Danger Neurotics Dread Most: Loss of the “Basic Fallacy”

That every neurotic fights unconsciously with all means at his disposal for his neurosis is a banality in psychoanalysis. Only the tenacity of unconscious wishes, defense mechanisms, and inner feelings of guilt—condensed into the varying neurotic symptoms or personality disorders—explains the paradoxical fact that the same patients who tearfully and in good faith assert that they hate consciously their neurosis and are willing to sacrifice “everything” in order to get rid of it continue for a long period of time to resist unconsciously the analytic attempt to destroy or even modify their neurosis.

In the framework of psychoanalytic therapy of neuroses, one problem stands out: the “basic unconscious fallacy” which supports the whole edifice of neurosis. This “basic fallacy” maintained by the unconscious Ego consists typically of an erroneous assumption about, or tendencious misuse of, the real situation in childhood. Once this crutch is removed, the neurosis itself collapses. We know, of course, that the destruction of this crutch is not a single act. Quite the contrary, it consists of the thousand details in the chronic process of “working through.”1

The “basic neurotic fallacy” assumes that neurosis is the direct result of the environment. Every neurotic drags out his family skeleton, such as: “Father was cruel. Mother didn't love me; she preferred my brother. My sister hated me. The whole family was ‘half-crazy’. Our neighbor's brother seduced me”, etc., etc. One may be of different opinions as to how much influence “reality” really has on the child's development, whether the child sees everything through the spectacles of his projections or only partly misconceives reality. One thing is clear: Without participation of the Ego, the process of environmental influence is unintelligible. Otherwise it could not be explained why two children, brought up in the