| The automatic mobilizing of motor reactions is not | | | | Freud's patients, Rosalia, tried with all her willpower to |
| only noticeable by the person himself, but these | | | | repress expressions of hate and scorn for her father, |
| responses have also an expressive impact on his | | | | compelling herself to remain calm when provocatively |
| environment. They function as signals advertising to | | | | accused. Hence, for some time, Freud thought that |
| outsiders the condition a person is in. People are | | | | hysteria may in some cases merely be a |
| aware of this and often refuse to allow these | | | | consequence of the fact that people have had to |
| automatisms to follow their course spontaneously, | | | | restrain their emotions too much. |
| but consciously try to steer them, and sometimes to | | | | He introduces a special category of 'retention |
| quell them utterly. | | | | hysteria': "They are those cases in which what has |
| Thus Freud relates of one of his patients, Frau | | | | happened is only that the reaction to traumatic stimuli |
| Emmy, that she set down at meals with her brother, | | | | has failed to occur, and which can also, accordingly be |
| a tuberculosis patient, and forced herself not to | | | | resolved and cured by 'abreaction'. These are then |
| show how disgusted she was at his use of the | | | | pure 'retention hysterics'" Later he doubted whether |
| spittoon: "This always made me feel so sick, but I | | | | pure retention hysterics really exist; in practice it |
| could not show it, for fear of hurting his feelings" | | | | appears that in these cases also defense against |
| (1895d, p.82). Social circumstances often do not | | | | incompatible ideas plays a part. |
| permit one to show one's real feelings. Another of | | | | |