- resent the liberation of the libido from the incestuous
fixation through which new life is attained. The liberation is accomplished under symbols, which represent the activity of the incest wish.
It might be justifiable at this place to cast a glance upon psychoanalysis as a method of treatment. In practical analysis it is important, first of all, to discover the libido lost from the control of consciousness. (It often happens to the libido as with the fish of Moses in the Mohammedan legend; it sometimes "takes its course in a marvellous manner into the sea.") Freud says in his important article, "Zur Dynamik der Übertragung":[133]
"The libido has retreated into regression and again revives the
infantile images."
This means, mythologically, that the sun is devoured
by the serpent of the night, the treasure is concealed and
guarded by the dragon: substitution of a present mode
of adaptation by an infantile mode, which is represented
by the corresponding neurotic symptoms. Freud continues:
"Thither the analytic treatment follows it and endeavors to
seek out the libido again, to render it accessible to consciousness,
and finally to make it serviceable to reality. Whenever the
analytic investigation touches upon the libido, withdrawn into its
hiding-place, a struggle must break out; all the forces, which have
caused the regression of the libido, will rise up as resistance against
the work, in order to preserve this new condition."
Mythologically this means: the hero seeks the lost sun,
the fire, the virgin sacrifice, or the treasure, and fights the
