III. Man as a Social Unit

18. What We have said up to now concerns man in his personal life. The psychical includes also his relations with the exterior world, and a praiseworthy task, a field open to your researches, is found in the study of the psychic in its social aspects, in itself and in its roots, and to make it serviceable for the purposes of clinical psychology and of psychotherapy. But one should take good care in this to make a scrupulous distinction between the facts in themselves and their interpretation.

19. Social psychism touches also morality, and the principles of morality affect to a large extent those of serious psychology and psychotherapy. But there are some points where the application of social psychism sins by excess or by defect. And it is on this that We would briefly pause.

20. Error by defect: There is a psychological and moral disturbance-that of the inhibition of the ego-with which your science concerns itself in order to discover its causes. When this inhibition encroaches on the moral domain, as for instance, when there is question of dynamic tendencies, such as the instinct of domination, of superiority and the sexual instinct, psychotherapy would not be capable, without further considerations, of treating this inhibition of the ego as a kind of fatality, as a tyranny of the affective impulse streaming forth from the subconscious and escaping completely from the control of the conscious and of the soul. One should be slow to lower man in the concrete together with his personal character to the level of the brute.

21 Despite the good intentions of the therapeutists, sensitive natures bitterly resent this degradation to the level of instinctive and sensitive life. Furthermore, the observations We have made above on the hierarchy of values among the functions and the role of their central direction should not be disregarded.

22. A word also on the method sometimes employed by the psychologist to liberate the ego of its inhibition in the case of aberration in the sexual domain. We refer to complete sexual initiation, which would not pass over anything in silence, leave nothing in obscurity. Is there not therein a harmful overestimation of knowledge in these matters?

23. There is also an efficacious sexual education which in entire safety, teaches with calmness and objectivity what the young man should know for his own personal conduct and his relationship with those with whom he is brought into contact. For the rest, the accent will be placed principally, in sexual education, as moreover, in all education, upon self mastery and religious training. The Holy See published certain norms in this connection shortly after the Encyclical of Pius XI On Christian Marriage (Holy Office, March 21, 1931-Acta Apostolicae Sedis vol. 23, 1931, p. 118). These norms have not been rescinded, neither expressly nor via facti (by way of fact).

24. What has just been said of inconsiderate initiation for therapeutic purposes is valid also for certain forms of psychoanalysis. One should not come to regard them as the only means of relieving or of curing psychical sexual troubles. The trite principle that sexual trouble of the unconscious, as all other inhibitions of identical origin, can be suppressed only by their being brought to the level of consciousness, is not valid if it is generalized without distinction. The indirect treatment also has its efficacy and often it suffices to a large extent. As to the use of the psychoanalytic method in the sexual domain, Our allocution of September 13, already cited, has already pointed out the moral limits. In truth, one cannot consider as licit, without further consideration, the evocation to the level of consciousness of all the representations, emotions and sexual experiences, which lie dormant in the memory and the unconscious, and which are thus actualized in the psychic. If the protests arising from a sense of human and Christian dignity are heeded, who would risk making the claim that this manner of treatment does not imply both immediate and future moral danger, when, even if the therapeutic necessity of unlimited exploration be affirmed, this necessity is not, after all, established?

25. Error by excess: It consists in emphasizing the exigency of a total surrender of the ego and of its personal affirmation. With regard to this, We wish to consider two points: a general principle and a point of therapeutic practice.

26. From certain psychological explanations, the thesis is formulated that the unconditioned extroversion of the ego constitutes the fundamental law of congenital altruism and of its dynamic tendencies. This is a logical, psychological and ethical error. There exists in fact a defense, an esteem, a love and a service of one's personal self, which is not only justified but demanded by psychology and morality. It is a natural evidence and a lesson of the Christian faith (Cf. St. Thomas, S.Th., 2a2ae p., q. 26, article 4, in c). Our Lord taught: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Mark, 12, 31). Christ, then, proposes as the rule of love of neighbor charity towards oneself, not the contrary. Applied psychology would undervalue this reality if it were to describe all consideration of the ego as psychic inhibition, error, return to a state of former development, under the pretext that it is contrary to the natural altruism of the psychic being.

27. The point about psychotherapeutic practice that We mentioned concerns an essential interest of society: the safeguarding of secrets which the use of psychoanalysis endangers. It is not at all excluded that a fact or knowledge which is secret and repressed in the subconscious provokes serious psychic conflicts. If psychoanalysis discloses the cause of this trouble, it will want, according to its principle, to draw out entirely this unconscious element and make it conscious in order to remove the obstacle. But there are secrets which must on no account be divulged, even to a doctor, even in spite of grave personal inconveniences. The secret of Confession may never be revealed. It is equally forbidden for the professional secret to be communicated to another, including a doctor. The same is true of other secrets. One may invoke the principle: "for a proportionately grave reason it is permitted to reveal a secret to a prudent man and one capable of keeping a secret." This principle is correct within narrow limits for certain kinds of secrets. It is not right to make use of it indiscriminately in psychoanalytic practice.

28. As regards morality, for the common good in the first place, the principle of discretion in the use of psychoanalysis cannot be sufficiently emphasized. Obviously it is not primarily a question of the discretion of the psychoanalyst, but of that of the patient, who frequently has no right whatever to give away his secrets.