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Karl Abraham Quotes

The onset of mania occurs when repression is no longer able to resist the assaults of the repressed instincts.

The onset of mania occurs when repression is no longer able to resist the assaults of the repressed instincts.

Karl Abraham
Able, Instinct, Assault
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis”, p.137, Karnac Books

Psychoanalytic investigation has shown that in mental patients excessive affection often turns to violent hostility.

Karl Abraham
Patient, Affection, Violent
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis”, p.62, Karnac Books

A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only through intense work.

Karl Abraham
Work, Numbers, Able

The myth is a surviving fragment of the psychic life of the infancy of the race whilst the dream is the myth of the individual.

Karl Abraham
Dream, Race, Psychics
Karl Abraham, Hilda C. Abraham (1979). “Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-analysis”, p.208, Karnac Books

In neurotics, worm phobias are usually found as well as snake phobias.

Karl Abraham
Snakes, Found, Worms
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, M.D.”

A person who suffers from severe locomotor anxiety finds himself in an almost permanent state of mental tension. He wakes in the morning with the anxious expectation of having to go out somewhere in the course of the day.

Karl Abraham
Morning, Expectations, Anxiety
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis”, p.197, Karnac Books

Both dreams and neurotic dream-states have as their function the avoidance of displeasure, but the dream-states also serve to provide a positive pleasure gain.

Karl Abraham
Dream, Gains, Pleasure
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, M.D.”

Even in my first analysis of a depressive psychosis, I was immediately struck by its structural similarity with obsessional neurosis.

Karl Abraham
Psychosis, Analysis, Neurosis
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, M.D.”

Anyone who is interested in the psychology of children will have observed that whereas one child will resist temptation or seduction, another will easily yield to it. There are children who will hardly oppose any resistance to the invitation of an unknown person to follow him; others who react in an opposite way in the same circumstances.

Karl Abraham
Children, Opposites, Yield
Karl Abraham (1968). “Selected Papers, with an Introductory Memoir by Ernest Jones”

When the depressive psychosis has become manifest, its cardinal feature seems to be a mental inhibition which renders a rapport between the patient and the external world more difficult.

Karl Abraham
Psychosis, World, Patient
Karl Abraham (1968). “Selected Papers, with an Introductory Memoir by Ernest Jones”

Psychoanalysts have been occupied for a long time with the difficult question of what the psychological conditions are which determine the form of the neurotic disease to which the individual will succumb. It is as though he had a choice between different illnesses and led by unknown impulses selected one or other of them.

Karl Abraham
Difficult Questions, Long, Choices
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, M.D.”

Whereas the melancholic exhibits a state of general inhibition, in the manic patient even normal inhibitions of the instincts are partly or wholly abolished.

Karl Abraham
Normal, Patient, Instinct
Karl Abraham (1988). “Selected Papers of Karl Abraham, M.D.”

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