THE PRIMITIVE EMOTIONS IN RELATION TO THE FAMILY
[Sidenote: Psycho-analysis and the study of the Unconscious]
The progress that has recently been made in our understanding of the
importance and nature of the psychological problems connected with family
life is to a very considerable extent due to the work of a single school
of psychologists--the so-called psycho-analytic school, which owes its
origin to Prof. Sigmund Freud of Vienna. The success that has attended
the efforts of this school has arisen principally from the fact that
the psycho-analysts have not confined their researches to the conscious
contents of the mind directly discoverable by introspection, but have
sought also to investigate the subconscious or unconscious factors which
enter into human conduct and mentation[3].
To assume the existence of unconscious mental processes has seemed to some
to involve an open contradiction in terms; but at the present day there
are few if any psychologists who think that a satisfactory science of the
mind can be erected on the basis of the study of consciousness only. Even
before Psychology had definitely acquired the status of an independent
science, thinkers like Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Fechner, Helmholtz,
Hartmann, Nietzsche, had realised that a complete account of the nature
and origin of the phenomena of consciousness required the postulation of
some force outside consciousness, or at any rate outside the main stream
of consciousness, which yet appeared to react upon and co-operate with
consciousness, and which could be interpreted and understood in terms of
conscious process.
This result of more or less _a priori_ speculation subsequently received
striking _a posteriori_ confirmation from the work of a large number
of those engaged in different branches of psychological investigation;
including psycho-pathologists like Charcot, Janet, Morton Prince,
students of Psychical Research like F. W. H. Myers, Gurney, Hodgson and
experimental psychologists like Müller and Schumann, Knight-Dunlap and
Ach. The extensive data contributed from these sources seemed to afford
convincing proof that processes such as we are ordinarily inclined to
regard as being invariably accompanied by consciousness, can occur, at
any rate under certain circumstances, without the knowledge or conscious
co-operation of the person by whom they are accomplished. The penetrating
insight, the fearless logical consistency, combined with the exceptional
ability of detecting widespread but hidden identities and similarities
which have distinguished the work of Freud enabled him to show that, far
from being operative only under certain special or rare conditions, the
unconscious mental forces of the human mind are continually active during
waking life and even during sleep, and exercise a profound influence on
the whole course of consciousness and conduct. As the result of the far
reaching investigations of Freud and of his followers, it would seem
indeed that we shall probably have to look to the Unconscious for an
understanding of the ultimate nature of all the deepest and most powerful
motive forces of the mind.
[Sidenote: Psycho-analysis applied to the study of the family]
As is now well known, the psycho-analytic method originated as a method
for the study and treatment of hysteria and other functional nervous
disorders, which were found to depend upon the influence of unconscious
mental factors. The discovery of the importance of the feelings and
tendencies connected with family life, especially as affecting these
unconscious factors, dates from this time of the earliest use and
application of Psycho-Analysis. As in the case of so many other problems
upon which the method has cast light, Freud himself was the first to show
something of the intimate nature of the influence exerted by the family
relationships. Certain aspects of the subject were already revealed in the
Papers on Hysteria, published conjointly with Breuer in 1895--a work which
indicated for the first time something of the importance and nature of the
subsequently developed psycho-analytic method.
[Sidenote: The child's love to its parents]
Here and in the other early works of Freud there gradually emerge the
fundamental conceptions which distinguish the psycho-analytic school[4].
Among these conceptions is that regarding the very important part played
in the moral and emotional development of the child by the psychological
factors which connect the child with its parent, and more especially by
the child's feelings of love towards its parent. This love is shown to be
of exceptional importance for a variety of reasons. In the first place it
constitutes as a rule the earliest manifestation of altruistic sentiment
exhibited by the child, the first direction outwards upon an object of
the external world of impulses and emotions which have hitherto been
enlisted solely in the service of the child's own immediate needs and
gratifications. As such it constitutes in the second place the germ out
of which all later affections spring, and by which the course and nature
of these later affections are to a large extent moulded and determined.
Further (and this is perhaps the most significant, as it is certainly the
most startling of Freud's discoveries in this field) there is shown to be
no clear cut difference between the nature of this early filio-parental
affection and that of the later loves of adolescent and adult life. The
sexual aspect, which imparts the characteristic and peculiar quality to
the most powerful affections of maturity, is found to be present also,
in a rudimentary form, in the loves of childhood and of infancy and to
exert an important influence upon the earliest of all attachments--that
of the child towards its parents. These strong emotional forces concerned
in the love of children to parents--and particularly the sexual or
quasi-sexual elements of these forces--were found, moreover, not only to
be of the greatest importance for the normal emotional development of the
individual, but also to play a leading part among the factors determining
the causation and nature of the neuroses.
[Sidenote: Repression]
In this last conception regarding the continuity of the young child's
love of its parents with the sexual emotions of later life we are brought
face to face with one of the most striking and characteristic features
of Freud's work. The mere idea of such incestuous or quasi-incestuous
feelings and tendencies as are here indicated provokes astonishment,
repugnance and incredulity. The arousal of an attitude antagonistic to
the reception of such views--even though such an attitude be inevitable
and invariable--must not however, be regarded as constituting in itself a
disproof of the existence of the feelings and tendencies in question. Such
an attitude is, on the contrary, only what is to be expected if Freud's
theory of the matter be correct. According to Freud's general conception
of mental development tendencies which--like these--are more or less
openly irreconcilable with prevalent moral sentiments and traditions,
become in the course of time (as we shall see more fully later) opposed
by other powerful forces of the mind; which dispute with them the right
of expression in thought or deed and which eventually tend to refuse them
admission to consciousness at all. This action of opposing forces with
regard to the more primitive aspects of the mind is termed Repression
and so far as it manifests itself in consciousness finds its most usual
expression in the emotions of disgust, anger and fear. As a result of this
repression (which is of course only a particular instance of the more
general process already well known to psychologists and neurologists
under the name of Inhibition), the sexual aspects of the child's love
towards its parents (together with many other tendencies which conflict
similarly with the notions of propriety developed as the child grows up)
are, to a greater or less extent, thrust out of consciousness into the
unconscious regions of the mind, there to drag out a prolonged existence
in a comparatively crude and undeveloped form, and to manifest themselves
in consciousness and in behaviour only in an indirect, symbolic or
distorted manner. The very fact that, when brought into consciousness,
such ideas are often greeted with exaggerated antipathy or incredulity,
constitutes therefore, if anything, a confirmation of the real existence
of these ideas in the Unconscious; the feelings of repulsion and disgust
to which their introduction into consciousness gives rise being but a
manifestation of the motive forces of Repression to which the original
expulsion from consciousness of the repugnant thoughts and tendencies was
due.
[Sidenote: Dreams]
As the result of further study with gradually improving technique, Freud,
in his later works, confirmed, elaborated and extended his observations on
the influence of the family relationships in the growth and development
of the individual mind. Of particular importance, both in itself and
because of the general influence of the book as in some respects the most
thoroughgoing presentation of Freud's methods and point of view, is the
treatment of the matter in the "Interpretation of Dreams." Here Freud
introduces the subject in connection with that of the so-called typical
dreams, _i. e._ dreams which occur to a large number of persons and to the
same person on a number of separate occasions. Among such dreams, some of
fairly frequent occurrence are, as Freud points out, concerned with the
death of near and dear relatives who are still living at the time at which
the dream takes place[5]. The consideration of such dreams leads Freud to
maintain that they are to be interpreted (in accordance with the general
principle of wish-fulfilment)[6] as the manifestation of an actual desire
in the Unconscious for the death of the person concerned.
[Sidenote: The hostile element in family relationship]
In explanation of this astonishing and repellent conclusion, Freud draws
attention to the fact that the relations of the members of a family to one
another are in many respects of such a nature as to call forth hostile
emotions almost if not quite as readily as they call forth love; that
brothers and sisters, parents and children, owing to the very closeness
of the mental and material ties which bind them together and to the very
considerable degree to which they are mutually dependent, often find
themselves in opposition to, or in competition with, one another. The
antagonisms thus produced are frequently of such a kind as to meet with
the same opposition from the moral consciousness as is encountered in
the case of the sexual or quasi-sexual aspects of love between members
of the same family. In their more intense degrees, therefore, they too
are often subjected to a process of repression and become banished to the
Unconscious. They are, moreover, especially when so banished, very far
from being incompatible with the existence of a very genuine affection at
the conscious level. In view of the conflicting nature of the tendencies
that may be thus aroused, it is not surprising that as psycho-pathological
research has revealed, hatred towards near relatives may be of very
considerable importance also as a determining factor in the production of
neuroses. It has, in fact, been found that a repressed hatred may underlie
a whole series of pathological symptoms in precisely the same manner as a
repressed love.
[Sidenote: The correlations of love and hate]
The love aspect of the family relationships itself however often plays a
part in dreams, both in a distorted and symbolic representation and, more
openly expressed, in a directly incestuous form. In fact very frequently
both love and hate aspects may be combined in a dream or in a series of
dreams or set of pathological symptoms. In such cases love for one member
of the family is usually accompanied by jealousy or hatred towards some
other member who possesses or is thought to possess the affections of
the first. In its most typical form this conjunction of love and hate
aspects occurs in the attitude of the child towards its parents. Here the
dawning heterosexual inclinations of the child (which, as Freud, and other
students of the mind, have shown, begin to manifest themselves at a much
earlier age than is often supposed, though full heterosexual maturity is
not attained, if ever, until after puberty) usually bring it about that
the love is directed towards the parent of the opposite sex and the hate
towards the parent of the same sex as that of the child.
[Sidenote: The Œdipus Complex]
The feelings and tendencies in question have found expression in
innumerable stories, myths and legends, in various degrees of openness
or of disguise, and with sometimes the love and sometimes the hate
elements predominating. It is more especially in the myth of Œdipus, who
unwittingly becomes the murderer of his father and the husband of his
mother, that the ultimate nature of these tendencies is most openly and
powerfully revealed; and it is for this reason that the combination of
love and hate aspects with all the feelings and desires to which they give
rise has come to be shortly designated as the Œdipus complex[7].
Tendencies, which, like those revealed in the Œdipus myth and its
numberless variations, have continued to manifest themselves in the
productions of the popular and the artistic mind for many generations,
would seem to show by their universality and tenacity that their
origins lie deeply embedded in the very foundations of human life and
character; and this view of their importance is corroborated by the very
significant place which they are found to occupy as etiological factors
in the production of neuroses. Freud has gone so far as to say that the
tendencies centering round the Œdipus situation form the "nuclear complex
of the neuroses," _i. e._ the fundamental point of conflict in the mind
of the neurotic, about which the other conflicts gather and upon which
they are to a great extent dependent. In the light of Freud's fruitful
conception of the neuroses as due largely to the fact that a part of
the emotional energy has suffered an arrest at, or a "regression" to,
a relatively early stage of mental development, this fundamental rôle
of the Œdipus complex in the neuroses would seem to indicate that the
proper development and control of the child's psychic relations to his
parents constitutes at once one of the most important and one of the most
difficult features of individual mental growth. That this is in fact the
case has been shown both by the researches of Freud himself and by those
of all other psycho-analytic investigators, and may without difficulty be
confirmed from the experience of ordinary life by those whose eyes have
once been opened to the full significance and innumerable manifestations
of the psychic relationship between parents and children.
[Sidenote: The normal course of development of the child's affections]
[Sidenote: Auto-erotism]
[Sidenote: Object love]
In the light of these researches and observations the normal course of
development of the child's affections, so far as they concern us here[8],
would seem to be somewhat as follows[9]: In the earliest period of its
existence those tendencies which are afterwards to develop into love,
affection and desire for persons or objects in the outer world are at
first connected with sensations from various parts of the child's own
body. This constitutes the auto-erotic stage in which the child is for the
most part concerned with outer things as objects of desire merely in so
far as they serve to bring about his own bodily comfort and satisfaction.
To begin with there is indeed in all probability no clear distinction
between the self and the environment or between the animate or inanimate
objects of the environment. Corresponding to the gradual development of
these distinctions there is found the beginning of what is called by Freud
"object love", the experience of desire for, and affection towards, some
object or person of the environment, the highest manifestation of which is
found in the passionate and all absorbing loves of subsequent adolescent
or adult life. This beginning of object love is a most important stage of
development, since on its success depends not only the possibility of a
normal growth of the sexual trends to full maturity, but also, to a great
extent, the occasion and opportunity for the unfolding of many of the
higher altruistic tendencies and motives.
[Sidenote: Heterosexuality]
It is natural that, in the gradual transition from auto-erotism to object
love, the first object of the child's affection should be chosen from
amongst those who administer to its bodily needs and comfort. Thus it
is probable that in the conditions of normal family life, the mother or
the nurse is, in nearly all cases, the first person selected. It would
appear, however, that at a relatively very early age, the sex of the child
begins to exert an influence on the choice of the loved object, so that
(as we have already noted) we find after a time a predominant tendency for
selection of the parent of the opposite sex as the object of affection.
This perhaps takes place to some extent in virtue of an already ripening
tendency to heterosexual selection in the child. But there can be little
doubt that in many cases another factor is to some extent operative
in bringing about this result, _i. e._ the tendency of the child to
appreciate and to return the manifestations of affection that are shown
towards it. Now the parents in virtue of their developed heterosexual
inclinations tend very frequently to feel most attracted to those of their
children who are of the opposite sex to their own and thus (consciously or
unconsciously) to indulge in greater manifestations of affection towards
such children; this unequal distribution of affection being in turn
perceived and reciprocated by the children themselves.
This reciprocation on the part of the child of the heterosexual
preferences of the parents undoubtedly plays a very large part in the
development of normal heterosexuality: just how large is this part
compared with that played by the instinctive heterosexual reactions of
the child, it is difficult or impossible to say in the present state
of our knowledge, since in any given case the two factors are apt to
be very closely interrelated. The question is of interest because the
relative influence of the two factors must, it would appear, largely
determine the extent to which the direction of a child's sexual desires
is dependent upon innate and upon environmental causes respectively.
Should the direction of a child's object love toward persons of one
sex rather than toward those of the other be largely determined by the
manifestations of affection that the child receives, it would seem that
the sexual inclinations of the parents must exert a great influence in the
formation of the sexual character of their children, _e. g._ that marked
heterosexuality in the parents would tend--through its effects on parental
preferences and quite apart from any hereditary influences--to produce
equally developed heterosexual inclinations in the children, whereas
homosexually disposed parents would tend in a similar way to bring up
homosexual children.
If on the other hand, the direction of a child's object love depends
chiefly upon innate instinctive factors, the sexual dispositions of the
parents will play a much less important rôle in the mental history of
the child and will be influential only in so far as they are directly
inherited. The progress of psychological research, statistical and
psycho-analytic--will, we may hope, cast much light upon this problem in
the near future.
[Sidenote: Homosexual and heterosexual development in girls]
Another interesting question relating to the direction of object love
towards the parents is connected with the fact that, in the case of
female children, the influences making towards heterosexual choice of
object would seem, under normal conditions of upbringing, to be liable
to conflict with the tendency for the affections of the child to go out
in the first place towards those to whom the child is chiefly indebted
for the satisfaction of its more immediate bodily needs. Under these
circumstances it might perhaps be expected that it would be usual for
girls to pass through a stage of mother love before transferring the
greater part of their affection to their father. There is much reason
to think that the number of girls retaining an unusual or pathological
degree of mother love in later years is greater than the number of boys
retaining a corresponding degree of father love; if this be the case, it
may perhaps be held to show that the mother is indeed the first object of
affection in both boys and girls and that some of the latter retain marked
traces of this stage of their development throughout subsequent life.
Additional evidence pointing in the same direction seems to be forthcoming
from a number of pathological cases among adult women, the study of which
has revealed the existence of a persistent and intense attachment to the
mother; this attachment being of an infantile character and situated
in a deeper and more inaccessible layer of the Unconscious than the
father love, which appeared to have been, in the process of growth, as it
were, superimposed upon the earlier affection. If father love in girls
should prove to be normally built upon the remains of an earlier period
of exclusive mother love which is common to both girls and boys, it is
evident that in this respect the development of heterosexual object love
in girls is a rather more complex process than it is in boys. This greater
complexity of the process of development may, as Freud himself has pointed
out in a somewhat different but not altogether unrelated connection[10],
become the cause of a number of those failures of adjustment to the
conditions of adult life--sexual and general--that are found to underlie
the neuroses. The greater incidence of certain neurotic disturbances among
women as compared with men may perhaps ultimately be due in part[11] to
the greater complexity of the original process by which the object love of
the child comes to be directed to the parent of the opposite sex.
[Sidenote: Jealousy]
With the firm establishment of object love towards the parent of the
opposite sex, the conditions are present for the arousal of jealousy
towards the parent of the same sex, since this latter is soon found to
possess claims upon the affection and attention of the loved parent which
are apt to conflict with the similar claims of the child. Thus the young
girl begins to resent the affection and consideration which her mother
receives at the hands of her father and comes in time to look upon her
mother as in some sense a sexual rival who competes with her father's
love. In imagination she will allow herself to occupy her mother's place
and may even attempt to put this fancy into practice, if opportunity
should offer; as in the case cited by Freud[12] of the eight year old
girl who openly proclaimed herself as her mother's successor when her
mother was absent on occasion from the family table, or in the still more
striking case of the four year old child who said:--"Mother can just stay
away now; then father will have to marry me and I shall be his wife."
Boys experience a similar jealousy towards their father and often come to
regard his presence in the family as that of an intruder or interloper who
disturbs the otherwise peaceful and loving relations between his mother
and himself. This view of the father as intruder is particularly liable to
occur if (as so frequently happens) the father is absent from the home for
relatively long periods during the working hours of the day or even for
several days or weeks on end[13]. Even in the cases where the father is
not frequently away from home, his continued presence is sooner or later
found to be irksome in the same way as is the mother's in the case of
girls, and the desire for his removal will gradually begin to make itself
felt, if not in consciousness, at least in the unconscious levels of the
mind.
[Sidenote: Causes of parent-hatred]
The hate aspect of the Œdipus complex would thus seem normally to arise
in the first place as a consequence of the love aspect, the affection
felt by the child towards the parent of the opposite sex bringing about a
resentment at the presence of the other parent; this latter parent being
looked upon as a competitor for the affections of the loved parent and
a disturber of the peace of the family circle. But though in its origin
the hate aspect is thus usually a secondary phenomenon, it may under
suitable conditions grow to equal or even to excel in importance the love
aspect from which it in the first place arose. This is especially liable
to be the case when, in addition to the specific interference with the
love activities of the child, the parent in question causes more general
interference with the child's desires and activities, by adopting a
harsh, intolerant or inconsiderate attitude towards the child in their
everyday relations or as regards matters in which the child's interests
and ambitions are more especially concerned. To the envy and jealousy felt
towards a competitor and rival there is then added the hatred and desire
for rebellion against a tyrant and oppressor; and the complex emotions
thus aroused may engender a hostile sentiment of such intensity as, in
some cases, to constitute one of the dominant traits of character, not
only of childhood but of the whole of adult life.
[Sidenote: Hatred between brothers and sisters]
Only second in importance to the attitude of the child towards its parents
are its relations to its brothers and sisters. Under the conditions of
normal family life, brothers and sisters are, after the parents, the most
important persons in the environment of the young child, and it is but
natural that these persons should be among the earliest objects of the
developing love and hate emotions of the child. Whereas, however, in the
child's relations towards its parents, love would seem to be the emotion
that is usually first evoked, in its dealings with the other junior
members of the family, the opposite emotion of hate is in most cases
the primary reaction. This fact can be easily explained as to a great
extent a natural consequence of the necessary conditions of family life.
Brothers and sisters possess claims upon the attention and affection of
the loved parent (especially when that parent is the mother) which are
apt to conflict seriously with one another and may on occasion be felt
by the respective claimants to be almost if not quite as irksome and
exorbitant as those of the other parent, whose competition with the child
in this respect we have already noted. From this source there frequently
arise feelings of violent jealousy between brothers and sisters, and
the attitude of hostility thus evoked may be increased, or at any rate
prevented from disappearing, by the fact that children of the same family
have to share not only the affection of their parents but, to some extent
at least, their material possessions and enjoyments also.
The works of psycho-analytic writers contain numerous examples of such
brother and sister hatreds in early years. As a rule the younger child
resents the advantages and privileges of which it finds the older children
already in possession; it finds itself in many respects compelled to
submit to the superior size and strength and experience of the older
children, whom it is therefore inclined to regard as tyrants, the only
refuge from whose brutal power lies in appeal to the still higher adult
powers who control the destinies of the nursery. Older children, on their
part, are inclined to regard any new arrival in the family circle as an
intruder upon their own preserves and a competitor for their own cherished
rights, privileges and possessions. Hence the announcement of such a new
arrival is in many cases greeted, in the first instance, with anything
but joy, and the wish is often expressed that the intruder should depart
again whence he came. Indeed it would seem probable from some cases that
not a little of the interest displayed by children in the processes of
conception, gestation and (more especially) birth, is due to the fact
that these processes are intimately connected with the appearance of a
new brother or sister to disturb the peaceful monopoly of the family
possessions and affections which the elder children have hitherto enjoyed.
In other cases, again, the resentment felt towards the new intruder may be
so great that it may even find expression in an actual attempt on the part
of an older child to do away with the younger one[14] should a convenient
opportunity for this present itself.
[Sidenote: Love between brothers and sisters]
Although jealousy and hatred are thus apt to be the first emotional
reactions of brothers and sisters towards one another, there can be
no doubt that a brother or sister may from the beginning be an object
of affection, the object love of the child being directed towards its
brother or sister in much the same manner as towards its parent. This is
much more likely to happen in relation to an elder than in relation to a
younger member of the family and occurs most frequently when there is a
considerable difference in age between the children concerned, so that
interests and desires no longer conflict and overlap to the same extent
as they do in the case of children of approximately equal age. The most
favourable conditions for the direction of a child's object love in this
manner are to be found in those large working-class families, where an
elder sister frequently takes over some of the attributes of the mother as
regards the younger children. In such a case the feelings of the younger
child (particularly if that child be a boy) towards its elder sister are
usually of an affectionate nature from the very start.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: I make no attempt here to give a systematic account of
the general nature of the methods, discoveries and hypotheses of the
psycho-analytic school, except in so far as they directly touch our
present problem. Some at least of the general principles underlying the
work of the school together with some of the results they have achieved
are now becoming fairly well known. Those who would pursue the subject
further may be referred to the following books: Brill, "Psychanalysis,"
2nd. ed. 1914; Ernest Jones, "Papers on Psycho-Analysis," 2nd. ed.
1918; Pfister, "The Psychoanalytic Method," 1917; White, "Mechanisms of
Character Formation," 1916; Barbara Low, "Psycho-Analysis," 1920. A more
detailed study would include reference to Prof. Freud's own works, of
which the principal are:--"Selected Papers on Hysteria," 1909; "Three
Contributions to the Theory of Sex," 1910; "The Interpretation of Dreams,"
1913; "The Psychopathology of Everyday Life," 1914; "Wit and its Relation
to the Unconscious," 1916; "Totem and Taboo," 1918; "Vorlesungen zur
Einführung in die Psychoanalyse," 1918; also four volumes of the "Sammlung
kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre," published at various times, and two
volumes in the series entitled "Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde".
For the meaning of the term Unconscious see Hart, "The Conception of the
Subconscious," _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, 1910, Vol. IV, 351.
Hart's small book "The Psychology of Insanity," 1912, affords an excellent
general introduction to abnormal psychology. (Here as elsewhere the titles
and dates of English translations of foreign works are given, wherever
such translations are available.)]
[Footnote 4: The most important work dealing with this matter and with
other questions of development generally is Freud's "Three Contributions
to the Theory of Sex."]
[Footnote 5: "The Interpretation of Dreams," 219.]
[Footnote 6: The dreams falling within this class (together with some
others) appear to exhibit what is, at first sight at least, a puzzling
exception to the general rule governing the formation of dreams which
give expression to repressed tendencies, inasmuch as the obnoxious wish
is gratified openly and undisguisedly instead of appearing in an indirect
and symbolic form, as is usually the case. It would seem however, that
this departure from the rule may to a large extent be explained and
reconciled with the ordinary methods of repression by the following
considerations:--(1) although the content of the wish appears directly
in consciousness, it nevertheless fails (both during the dream and after
waking) to be appreciated in its full significance for the mental life
of the personality, _i. e._ there is no realisation of the fact that the
dream represents in any way the fulfilment of a wish; there is present
a sort of functional agnosia, in virtue of which the thought of the
death is dissociated from its actual psychical concomitants, which alone
can endow it with its full meaning; (2) in addition to this cognitive
dissociation there is an emotional substitution, the emotion actually
experienced being one of sorrow instead of one of joy, which the simple
gratification of a wish would by itself most naturally occasion. This
sorrow corresponds of course to the very genuine grief which would be
felt at the conscious level in case of any real mishap to the relatives
concerned and at the same time serves as an additional screen to hide
the underlying hostile wish in the Unconscious; (3) on rarer occasions
it would seem that the process of emotional substitution may be replaced
by one of deëmotionalisation which prevents the cognitive elements from
calling up any of the feelings which would normally accompany them; thus
the death of a near relative will appear not as a sorrowful (or as it
would be at certain levels of the Unconscious, a joyful) event, but as one
devoid of all affective significance or as one that is absurd, ridiculous
or unthinkable.]
[Footnote 7: Or sometimes, in the case of women, the Electra complex;
though the Electra myth gives a rather less complete expression of the
combined love and hate tendencies in the female than is found in the
Œdipus story for the corresponding tendencies of the male.
The whole subject of the manifestations of these complexes in legend and
literature and in the mind of the poet and the artist is treated at length
in Otto Rank's comprehensive and most valuable work "Das Inzestmotiv in
Dichtung und Sage".]
[Footnote 8: This is a most important and far-reaching limitation. In
order to avoid entering upon many difficult but weighty matters which are
not strictly relevant to our present theme, we have here--and throughout
the book--necessarily had to content ourselves with a somewhat one-sided
and misleading portrayal of human psychic development as a whole. This
deficiency is most marked with regard to the treatment of the great group
of self-preserving and self-regarding tendencies, which we have only
touched upon occasionally and of which we have nowhere attempted any
adequate presentation. As a consequence of this, it must be borne in mind
that from the point of view of general psychology, we have frequently
laid too much stress upon the object-regarding tendencies (see below),
to the relative neglect of much that is more primitive and fundamental
in human nature. Our excuse must be that our subject naturally brings us
into far closer touch with the social and (to use a convenient term of
Ferenczi's) allo-erotic aspects of the mind than with those other aspects
which are more intimately concerned with the individual as an independent
microcosmic organism. To correct and amplify the inadequate conception
of the human mind and of human mental development to which our present
treatment might lead if taken by itself, the reader should consult Freud's
"Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex" and his important paper "Zur
Einführung des Narzißmus," _Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse_, VI, 1. The works
of Alfred Adler, though often both exaggerated and, especially in their
English form, very nearly unreadable, contain some interesting material in
this connection.
A very illuminating consideration of the problem with which we are
immediately concerned at this point--the early development of object love
in the child and the relations of this object love to the activities of
the auto-erotic stage--will be found in a paper on the "Psychology of
the New Born Infant" by David Forsyth. (To be published in the _British
Journal of Psychology_).]
[Footnote 9: _Cp._ especially Freud, "Three Contributions to the Theory of
Sex."]
[Footnote 10: "Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex," 80, 81.]
[Footnote 11: Among other reasons for the greater liability of women to
neurosis, one of great importance is the transference, in the course of
sexual development, of the chief seat of erotic sensibility from the
clitoris to the vagina.]
[Footnote 12: "The Interpretation of Dreams," 219.]
[Footnote 13: Many instances of the influence of the father's absence
could be observed in connection with the war. Thus a small boy of five
known to the writer solemnly assured his mother that now that his father
was permanently away, it would be only right for her to marry him, her
son, instead.]
[Footnote 14: Mr. Cyril Burt informs me that he has encountered two quite
definite cases of attempted fratricide in the course of his work as
Psychologist to the London County Council.]