Notes Upon the Emotionality of a Schizophrenic Patient and its Relation to Problems of Technique

It seems justifiable to inquire into the specific factors which make the emotionality of a schizophrenic patient different from that of other patients and to investigate to what extent this specificity of schizophrenic emotionality might require specific changes in the psychoanalytic technique. Although I do not think that this paper can really live up to the full requirements of such an ambitious undertaking, it nevertheless may contribute modestly to it. My speculations began during a phase of the treatment of a schizophrenic patient; long after her acute condition had subsided I thought I observed—within clinically pertinent areas—a specific relationship between the patient's ego structure and her emotions. It seems to me that this relationship might allow generalization in terms of a basic defect with which a schizophrenic patient has to struggle, although in various phases of the disease and of the treatment the phenomenology of schizophrenic emotionality differs unquestionably in significant aspects. However, before delving into the subject matter, a few general points must be raised in reference to the psychoanalytic theory of emotions.

A: Freud's statement (1923, p. 84) that only the ego is the abode of anxiety can, I think, be extended to almost all emotions if not, perhaps, to all. The id and the superego cannot be anxious; likewise they cannot be hopeful, hateful, friendly, or experience any other emotion. In all these emotions one must see processes which take place exclusively within the area of the ego. Of course, these processes are correlated in almost all instances with those which take place in other parts of the personality. Sometimes they are direct derivatives of id strivings, for example, the