makes upon the physician. He wants to know whether the physician has
sympathy for him, whether he is impressed or indifferent. He is afraid
of making himself appear ridiculous. The physician becomes the chief
person around whom his own life interests are being centered for the
time.
“But that is irrelevant. You want to get well; and that has nothing to
do with personal matters.”
“To be sure,—that is just what I was saying to myself. Doctor, you are
my last hope. And yet, I am already losing patience and feel like
running off. It is less than two weeks since I went to purchase a
revolver intending to shoot myself. The plan fell through only on
account of my lack of adroitness. I was unable to procure a revolver.
The saleslady demanded to be shown a purchase permit and I did not have
one. There must have also been a tremor in my voice. I was so
excited.... If I had been able to procure that revolver I would not be
now sitting in your office.”
“Why did you want to die?”
“A life full of trouble! No friends! No prospect of improvement! The
everlasting depression!”
“And did you not think of the suffering you would have caused your
mother? To your mother who sacrificed her life for you?”
“No, I was indifferent about that. It would have only served her right,
because it is she who has ruined my life. It might have been the end of
her too.... But I was truly sorry for my friend. He has so many cares
and so much to think about. It would have shaken him up. He is a writer
and is now at work on a new novel. It would have certainly thrown him
out of the writing mood and it would have interfered with his creative
activity.”
“What has your mother done you that you should want to punish her so
severely?”
This brings out the last repressed grudge against the mother who came
near separating him from his much beloved friend.
“Mother has ruined my whole life,” he continues, “she has separated me
from my only and best friend. You have no idea what I suffered. He came
daily to our house. He accompanied me on the piano so that we enjoyed
unforgettable evenings together. Father was once a good singer. As there
was no accompanist at hand he neglected the beautiful gift. Now we
resurrected the old songs once more. Every evening was a festival. On
account of a pulmonary apical catarrh I had to go to Egypt. During my
absence a catastrophe occurred. Mother found that my friend was robbing
her of a son’s love. She was jealous because he heard more often and
received longer letters from me than the parents. She compelled my
father to write Ernst a curt letter forbidding him to come to the house
any longer or to correspond with me. From Ernst, to whom I wrote
regularly three times weekly while he answered once, I received next an
ironic letter, stating that I ought to enclose the parent’s permission
next time I write him. Only then will he write me again. I did not
understand what that meant until I read the enclosed father’s letter. I
felt like one against whom the gates of heaven have been suddenly closed
tight. I returned to Copenhagen at once, but did not dare to take openly
a stand against mother. She had a bad heart spell the first time I
reproached her bitterly and all the relatives called me her murderer. I
made up secretly with Ernst and met him on the street. But mother found
out. She followed me stealthily and when she discovered that I was
meeting Ernst there followed terrible quarrels which I am unable to
relate. I was thus very badly embittered and that innocent relationship
was turned into a morbid whim. You will appreciate, therefore, that I
cannot but hold a grudge against mother....”
“Have you not tried to rebel openly against the situation?”
“I was too weak for that. Father begged me not to disturb the happiness
of our family circle. It was a terrible situation and I did not see my
way out of it. That happened when I was 19 years of age. I have since
told mother that I must meet Ernst once in a while. She is against the
idea and wants to link me up to other friends. I am brought into contact
with girls in the hope that I will take an interest in them. But the
very fact that they are brought in my way under mother’s patronage, as
it were, makes them repulsive to me from the outset. Moreover, I know
that mother would be equally jealous if I should really love a girl. She
will stand for no other love besides her. I am too broken up to ever
break away and be self-reliant. So I remain everlastingly a mother’s
boy. But I cannot endure this sort of thing any longer. I have had
enough of this torture and want to see an end to it....”
“I feel much better. Last evening I worked fairly well, for the first
time in a long period. I am beginning to like Vienna. I was out in the
woods (_Wienerwald_) and I was pleased with the sight of the first
violet. I am again beginning to feel pleasure in nature’s beauties. It
was my first excursion.”
“Don’t you go out of doors otherwise?”
“Yes, every Sunday. Always in mother’s company. We start in the morning,
have our lunch out of doors and spend the day together.”
“Do you not go on excursions with your friend?”
“Unfortunately, I do not. But hold on! I did, just once. I was going to
tell you about it anyway, today. He invited me to join him with a number
of his colleagues on an excursion to a distant island. I was
enthusiastic over the plan at once for I hoped that it would prove an
opportunity for greater intimacy between us. But I was disillusioned. We
were happy the whole day. I was thinking all the time of the night. I
hoped we would have a room with double bed.... Unfortunately all the
rooms in the hotel were taken and we had to be content with occupying
quarters in common. Here, too, luck failed to serve me. My friend slept
next to another member of the party. Next day, under the pretext of
fatigue, I started back. I felt unhappy and was all day long on the
point of tears. I reached the next village alone. It was on a holiday. I
did not know what to do. So I went into the church....”
“To pray?”
“Not at all. I was no longer religious at the time. I went to be among
people. It did no good. The many dressed up folks, the holiday
atmosphere, the music, the songs, the organ. I calmed down a little.
Next I went to a restaurant because I felt a great craving for something
sweet. Thus the majestic and the trivial stand close in my case.[36]
Then I returned home, after first driving around through the streets and
was happy when it was so late that I had to go back to the house....”
There follow various accounts of his passion for his friend Ernst. He
always dreams of physical union with the friend and has no other
thought. Only once he attempted aggression on his friend. In a urinal he
suddenly reached for his friend’s penis. The latter good-naturedly
avoided him and never afterwards referred to the incident. But he saw
clearly that he would never achieve his aim. Meanwhile his friend fell
in love with an actress. He was jealous only so long as his friend did
not confide in him. Thereafter he was happy because the actress
preferred another man and paid no attention to Ernst. He was in a
position to console his friend like a mother. He emphasizes that his
feelings are distinctly maternal towards men who are ill or unhappy and
that he makes an excellent nurse,—thus bringing out his pronounced
identification with the mother. But he was unable to nurse his father
when the latter was taken with gastric cancer; the disease was terribly
repulsive to him....
He has dreamed the following dream:
_I am called up in school. I had to solve a mathematical problem but
could not arrive at the right result. Next it was an English translation
from Shakespeare. I did not know the vowels. It seemed that the various
persons of the play were represented by some of the colleagues in
theatrical costumes._
The analysis of this dream would lead us into endless bypaths. The most
important feature is the affective character of the dream which in
simplest terms may be formulated as follows: “I am facing problems in
life for which I do not feel prepared. I am an actor and I am wearing a
theatrical costume. I am playing the homosexual, I have transposed one
aboriginal trend into another. The English play, _The Merchant of
Venice_, comes to his mind. The teacher who examined him in mathematics
was also _Kaufmann_ (merchant) by name. This _Kaufmann_ is the center of
a rather tragic episode in his life. He was studying “exact” branches
(_Realschule_) but was interested in the classical (_Gymnasium_) course;
he was always weak in mathematics; he failed in his last examination for
engineering. His attitude towards money matters has always been morbid.
His mother continually reproaches him for not appreciating the value of
money and for being unable to handle money wisely. He is different from
his parents, both of whom are merchants.”
The _Merchant of Venice_ portrays the tragedy of the relations of a Jew
to his only daughter. She runs off with her beloved and abandons the
greedy father, who, however, never begrudged her anything. He wants to
do likewise. He would like to flee with his friend and abandon the
mother. His basic problem is: how to get around his mother, how to free
himself of her.
He places great weight on the jewel box scene, which has always
impressed him. He, too, is confronted by the difficult problem of a
choosing among the boxes. There are three paths open before him: man,
woman and child. He is a child, would like to be a woman and is afraid
to be a man. His inner conflicts are locked up like the valuables in the
box. We shall see whether analysis is capable of disclosing them....
There are some vague relations to Shylock’s coldbloodedness. He
emphasizes the pound of flesh. The associations lead to certain sadistic
trends which are wholly unconscious. At any rate, the first dream in the
analysis is of greatest significance. Its complete solution and
interpretation becomes possible much later....
He dwells for a long time on his attitude towards money. One familiar
with dream analysis at once suspects that this money complex has its
bearing on anal eroticism. He keeps to his theme. Requests to leave
early.
Again comes very late and asks whether he may leave early. He is hungry.
(One notices his extremely resistant attitude. He is afraid he might
disclose something.) He has dreamed wild and profuse dreams, he can no
longer remember what. He must have spoiled his stomach for he vomited in
the morning.
This vomiting in the morning, a symptom which appears in many neurotics
and also in the case of many neurotic children is a reaction of the
ethical, moral self against the dreams of the previous night. Plainly,
one is disgusted with one’s self. Hence the vomiting which is
subsequently ascribed to something inoffensive that may have been eaten
on the previous evening. But the subject believes that the beer he drank
did not agree with the dessert....
He is asked whether he can recall at all the dream.
“No, not a trace.”
“Better try and see.”
“I only remember scraps; nothing worth mentioning.”
“Please tell me these scraps.”
“I have dreamed only about various water closets and urinals. There was
a urinal here and one in the office ... the rest is gone. I cannot
recall.”
“The vomiting in the morning seems to me to point at something going on
in the urinal which strikes you as disgusting.”
“May I not have simply spoiled my stomach?”
“Indeed. That is a possibility not to be excluded. But the other is also
a possibility to be thought of. Do you often vomit in the morning?”
“Yes, but only as I did today. Only fluid. It is more a nausea than real
vomiting. May I leave now?”
“You know that I never compel you to stay. Only I want to draw your
attention that I am fully aware you want to hide something from me. How
do you imagine you can get well if you do not have the courage to
confide in your consultant? Or perhaps you are afraid that you will lose
something of my respect if you should disclose the peculiarities of your
sexual life? You are anxious to run off and keep your secret. Very well.
You are free to do as you wish. But do not expect, under the
circumstances, that a consultant should spend his time on your case. One
who wants really to get well must first be willing to face his problems
clearly.”
“You are right, doctor. I have kept from you the most important thing: I
do indulge in a form of sexual excitation which is perhaps the most
unpleasant possible. You will appreciate at once why I have kept the
knowledge of this from you so long. I thought I have told you already
too much and I wanted to keep to myself this particular morbid turn. But
you will surely despise me.”
“I despise no sufferer.”
“Already as a small boy I had felt the greatest interest in the water
closet. My wish was always: to see another man in the act of defecating.
In my school fancies I always thought of the teacher being compelled to
defecate in my presence. I was always trying to watch other men in the
act. If I succeeded in witnessing the act I became very excited and
masturbated. My whole mind and thought to this day revolves around the
water closet and the feces. Think of it! I, a person with certain
æsthetic tastes, an artist, poet, enthusiastic musician, a man aspiring
to all that is beautiful and noble,—to be fettered down to so horrible a
perversion! Think of this abyss between my body and my soul! If I become
acquainted with a new man and I like him, my first thought is: I should
like to see him empty his bowels.”[37]
“Have you perhaps, as a child, witnessed such a scene which may have
made a deep impression on you?”
“I do not remember. I only know that already in the primary grades I was
interested in watching my schoolmates. In Denmark there is a greater
freedom about these matters than elsewhere. Sexual freedom, too, seems
to me to be greater in our country. In later years I found sufficient
opportunity to satisfy my craving. Finally I had recourse to a tiny
augur which I keep always with me as an aid to secure the opportunities
for observation which have now become indispensable to me. But usually I
find boring holes unnecessary. Little appropriate convenient holes may
be found when one looks for them. I must have many colleagues for I have
found that most closets show these observation spots. Here in Vienna,
too, I have seldom come across a water closet, where it was not possible
to watch the act. I fight with all my powers against this unfortunate
trend. But I give in each time again. I think of it all forenoon. By
noontime I am wholly out of patience. I am impelled to seek a public
lavatory. There I wait till a man comes along. When I see him defecate,
I masturbate....”
“Have you watched women, too?”
“No, I find women disgusting when I think of them in this situation.”
We are here confronted with a form of anal erotism of a pronounced
infantile character. All children without exception show a great
interest in the lavatory and in the processes of micturition and
defecation. These processes form the theme of a whole group of infantile
sexual theories. The children come through the anus, they are generated
through the urine, etc. It is quite likely that we have here an instance
of the fixation of certain infantile impressions. The fact that the
first phantasies which he is able to recall revolve around his teacher,
proves that someone who was an authority played a rôle as the
intermediary for these early infantile impressions. Who can that
authority be? We can only surmise. We must await patiently the further
development of the analysis.
He complain that he has an ugly appearance, because everything about him
is so unprepossessing; his whole physiognomy seems to him womanly, soft,
and the obverse of striking. He often turns to the looking-glass and
examines himself. As in the picture of Dorian Grey he finds the traces
of his paraphilia expressed in his features. He symbolizes his mental
processes and localizes them in his face. He fights, a relentless fight
against his scatologic phantasies and trends, he seems to himself weak,
womanly, repulsive. Vice, low thoughts, animal cravings, low passion—all
that he sees expressed in his face.
His first recollection of his paraphilia is noteworthy. He is playing
with a little friend, an uncle, who wants to defecate near the street.
He points out that people may pass and prevents the deed.... This
recollection already indicates the two tendencies: the coprophiliac
trend and the struggle against it.
Moreover, his coprophilia reaches farther than he has confessed thus
far. We discover today that there is present a predisposition to
coprophagia, that the condition is really a mixture of homosexuality and
stark infantilism. He would like to allow the partner to defecate on
him. Identifications with lavatory come to surface. The place chosen for
the deposition of the feces is the abdomen, occasionally the mouth.
There are also frequent phantasies of _fellatio_, active and passive.
The reading of various medical and popular books excites his phantasy
and feeds his paraphilia.
He relates two dreams. In the first he was running after an electric car
which he could not reach. He tried to jump on but in vain, the car just
passed before his nose. In the second dream he led his dog for a walk,
the dog met another and copulated while he himself ran off. The first
dream represents an unattainable ideal. The second illustrates the
endeavor to get rid of the animal-like trends (within himself). He
avoids similarly coitus with a woman.
He relates that for a long time he has been in the habit of writing up
phantastic homosexual orgies and that he carries around these erotic
stories for months. The last story he wrote some 14 days ago. He is much
interested in these doings, because the writing and the reading excite
him tremendously. He tells me the content of the last phantasy which he
has written up: A round table of sixteen soldiers. One of them holds a
naked woman on his knees. She must urinate in a glass. The soldier pours
beer in that glass. Then all those present partake of the beer.[38]
He confesses next that he has already carried out a number of times
various urolagnic acts and felt great pleasure doing so. In fact these
cravings did not bother him only so long as the friend visited him daily
and he was keeping up his spiritual love for the fellow. That is why he
was so broken up when his mother deprived him of that friend.
He relates a number of episodes illustrating his activity as _voyeur_.
At first it was chiefly men of advanced age who roused him. They had to
have very clean and attractive linen. Ejaculation ensued when he had an
opportunity to see the man naked and the phallus interested him more
than the podex.
He also admits having entertained phantasies about his father. But he
found these phantasies unbearable and they proved at last so
discomforting that he had to abandon them. On the other hand he was able
to state emphatically that his mother never figured as an erotic object
in his fancies.
As a genuine homosexual he was very much surprised that a “naked woman”
should figure in his last phantasy or story and he could not explain the
intrusion. But he is telling me everything without reserve....
He fears that perhaps his mother is having some understanding with me.
She is in the habit of tracing all his secrets.... I point out to him
the fact that the mothers of homosexuals always show the strongest
opposition against the analysis when they find out that their sons free
themselves and turn their affection (temporarily, of course) to the
analyst. Sigma’s mother, who has accompanied him to Vienna, also
tolerates no intimate friendship on her son’s part, as we know. Thus he
tells me that she had reproached him yesterday for leaving her alone on
Sunday. She wants to be everything to him. She also tries to be tender
with him, to coddle him, a habit which he strongly resents. He believes
that this resentment is due to his aversion against all womanhood. This
sort of protection against all tendernesses on mother’s part is typical
of all sons who are incestuously fixed on their mother.
He relates how his mother once confessed to him that she found no
support in his father and actually felt lonely. On that occasion he wept
over his mother’s plight and passed a sleepless night.... His further
associations lead him to his father’s fatal illness: it was a slow
breaking down due to cancer. He could not take care of his father, and
was but of little service to the latter. It was shortly after his father
had dismissed his friend. He was still too absorbed in his own troubles.
He witnessed with detachment the terrible phases of the dying man’s last
struggle. A few days before the end he dreamed that he saw his father’s
body lying peacefully on the bier. It was plainly a dream of impatience.
He could hardly await his father’s passing away. He declares that he
hated his father heartily at the time, because the latter had allowed
himself to be induced by the mother to write that letter to his friend.
Strangely, he was never so angry with his determined mother as he was
with his weak-willed father. During the father’s funeral and upon
returning home he was unable to weep. This occurrence is typical of
those men for whom a death is the fulfillment of an old wish. In point
of fact the father was a burden and drag in the house. The mother
sacrificed herself and his death was a release for everybody. Moreover
his attitude towards his father had always been rather peculiar. They
had never had much in common....
He reports a number of small details illustrating how tirelessly his
mother endeavors to bind him to herself. Yesterday afternoon he was at
the theater and later went to the _Prater_. In the evening he found his
mother morose and pouting. She looked at him reproachfully saying: “Did
it not occur to you during your rounds of pleasure that you are leaving
your poor mother alone?”
He must think only of his mother and always feel that he is bound to her
forever. Aunts and neighbors always come to him to tell him how much
suffering he causes his poor mother by neglecting her. While he was
still suffering acutely the distress caused by his mother’s breaking up
his friendship with Ernst, he met the latter once secretly and they went
to a theater together. The mother knew it in some way and when he
returned home he found her in bed, her head wrapped in towels. Her
disappointment made her ill and she had to keep to her bed for a week.
Finally an aunt accused him of behaving like a murderer towards his
mother. She cannot understand that passion of his for that friend! Was
he perhaps in love with the young man’s sister? Happy to have a way out
of his difficulty suggested to him he answered the question in the
affirmative. That roused his mother’s jealousy to the highest pitch. But
she soon convinced herself that she had been fooled by him and that he
had no interest whatever in the girl.
He found the household ties so unbearable that at one time he
entertained the notion of shooting his parents and running off. There
were frequent quarrels during which he displayed unexpectedly a terrible
venom against his mother and an unexplainable tendency to violence. But
these episodes soon blew over, and he again felt himself helpless under
the tyrannic sway of her love. Perhaps not as unwillingly as he makes
out ... for there were opportunities available for freeing himself and
he did not take advantage of them. He remained inactively at home, to be
taken care of and to allow his mother to worry over him....
He dreamed of visiting numerous urinals running from one to the other.
This dream portrays him as searching for something. It appears that he
is trying to trace down a particular infantile scene. He relates how
obsessed he becomes with the desire to go from lavatory to lavatory
until he finally sees the longed-for scene. He is seldom satisfied.
Often there follows a feeling of disappointment and disgust.
Occasionally an uncommon sense of peace during which he is able to
gather his thoughts.