Note 186 — LECTURE XIII TWO TYPES OF PHOBIA (Obsessions Continued)

Another example of this idea and of the way it induced a psychosis is the following: She had an intense dislike to hearing the sound of running water. This sound induced an intense feeling of unhappiness and loneliness. This feeling was so intense that whenever she heard the sound of running water she endeavored to get away from it. The sound of a fountain or rainwater running from a roof, for example, would cause such unpleasant feelings that she would change her sleeping room to avoid them. Likewise drawing water to fill the bathtub was so unpleasant that she would insist upon the door being closed to exclude the sound. She could give no explanation of this psychosis. It was discovered in the following way: She had been desirous of finding out the cause, and we had discussed the subject. I had promised that I would unravel the matter in due time, after the other phobia had been cured. I then hypnotized her and, while she was in hypnosis and just after we had completed the other problem, she remarked that a memory of the running water association was on the verge of emerging into her mind. She could not get it for some time, and then, after some effort, it suddenly emerged. She described it as follows: “It was at Bar Harbor. She was about eight years of age. There was a brook there called Duck Brook. The older girls used to go up there on Sundays for a walk with the boys. I went with them one Sunday, accompanied by the governess, and was standing by the brook with a boy. It was a very noisy brook, the water running down from the hillside. While I was standing by the brook, watching the running water, the boy left me to join the other girls, who had gone off. I thought that was the way it would always be in life; that I was ugly, and that they would never stay with me. I felt lonely and unhappy. During that summer I would not join parties of the same kind, fearing or feeling that the same thing would happen. I stayed at home by myself, and when I refused to go it was attributed to sullenness. They did not know my real reasons. Ever since I have been unable to bear the sound of running water, which produces the feeling of unhappiness and loneliness, the same feeling that I had at that time. I thought then that it was all my fault, because I was ugly.” It was then tentatively pointed out at some length to the subject that as she now knew all the facts which had been brought to the “full light of day,” etc., she, of course, would no longer have her former unpleasant emotions from the sound of running water. Hereupon, to put the question to the test, I reached out my hand and poured some water from a caraffe, by chance standing by, into a tumbler, letting the water fall from a height to make a sound. At once she manifested discomfort, and sought to restrain me with her hand. Plainly the setting had to be changed. This was easily done by leading her to see that her childhood’s ideas had been proven by life’s experiences to be false. When this became apparent she laughed at herself, and the psychosis ceased at once.