Chapter I. Notes on the Religious Phantasies of a Female Patient (1927)1

In what follows I propose to describe some features in the case of a woman whose experiences included some remarkable phantasies of a religious nature. My account is based upon data obtained during a short course of analytical treatment undertaken with a view to mitigating the severity of the symptoms from which she suffered. These symptoms presented in the main a hysterical complexion; but there was also evidence of a more profound disturbance of a definitely schizoid nature. In this connection it is perhaps interesting to record that, when on one occasion I showed two separate specimens of her handwriting, mixed with other specimens of handwriting from different sources, to the distinguished graphologist Robert Saudek, he diagnosed one specimen as characteristically hysterical, and the other as characteristically schizophrenic. Significantly enough, the ‘hysterical’ specimen belonged to the period of analytical treatment, whereas the ‘schizophrenic’ specimen dated from the time of a breakdown ten years earlier.

The patient, to whom I shall refer throughout this account as X, was thirty-one years of age when she came under my observation. She was unmarried, and was the youngest child of a large family consisting of one son and a number of daughters. Her mother had died when she was nineteen. Her father was alive; but she did not recall ever having seen him, as he had lived apart from the family from the time of her birth. He was of alcoholic habits; and his wife left him, taking her family with her, as soon as was practicable after the birth of X. X left school at the age of sixteen; and at seventeen she began to train for the post of art teacher. In spite of the interruptions