case has not withstood the newer technique of psychoanalysis. What the patient says is not at all meaningless; it is full of significance, so that he who has the key can understand without overmuch difficulty.
Time does not allow me to describe the technique by means of which I succeeded in lifting the veil of her secret. I must content myself by giving a few examples to make the strange changes of thought and of speech in this patient clear to you.
She said of herself that she was Socrates. The analysis of this delusion presented the following ideas: Socrates was the wisest man, the man of greatest learning; he was infamously accused, and had to die in prison at the hands of strange men. She was the best dressmaker, but “never unnecessarily cut a thread, and never allowed a piece of material to lie about on the floor.” She worked ceaselessly, and now she has been falsely accused, wicked men have shut her up, and she will have to die in the asylum.
Therefore she is Socrates; this is, as you see, simple metaphor, based upon obvious analogy. Take another example: “I am the finest professor and the finest artist in the world.”
The analysis furnishes the remarks that she is the best dressmaker and chooses the most beautiful models which show up well and waste little material; she puts on the trimming only where it can be seen. She is a professor, and an artist in her work. She makes the best clothes and calls them absurdly “The Schnecke Museum-clothes.” Her customers are only such persons as frequent the Schnecke House and the Museum (the Schnecke House is the aristocratic club. It is near the Museum and the Library, another rendezvous of the aristocratic set of Zürich), for she is the best dressmaker and makes only Schnecke Museum[1] clothing.
The patient also calls herself Mary Stuart. Analysis showed the same analogy as with Socrates: innocent suffering and death of a heroine.
“I am the Lorelei.” Analysis: This is an old and well-known song: “I know not what it means,” etc. Whenever she wants
- ↑ As one might say in England, “a Bond Street dressmaker.”
