deceptive proximity of the great founder confused my own understanding!
How much I had to unlearn, correct, tone down, or underscore, overcome
or forget, or see with a different eye, before I realized that we are as
yet but at the beginnings of our knowledge and that we must use our
present findings as but so many spring boards to enable us to reach a
little farther out! _Finally, each psychotherapeutist formulates in the
end his own technique. The most important prerequisite for
psychoanalysis—as for every scientific investigator—is to approach the
subject without any preconceptions, to look upon every patient as a new
problem and not to be surprised if one’s case does not fit in with one’s
ready-made systems or if it disproves one’s favorite notion._ For even
the physician with years of experience is startled to meet so many new
forms under which neurosis manifests itself.
But in spite of the variegated pictures, this bewildering variety of
causes leading to the trouble, one thing remains true and unalterable:
the neurotic’s unwillingness to see, that peculiarity which _Freud_ has
called _repression_, and the consequent _psychic conflict_. We must
first appreciate that the patient’s mind is shattered over the hopeless
character of his conflict, that for him the neurosis is a
necessity,—something that enables him in one way or another to put up
with his hardships,—something with which softly to hide his wounds on
the one hand and on the other, show his suffering to the world; when we
appreciate all that, we may gradually acquire the subtle skill of
dissolving the ties and bringing the wound to light. We see the wound
but the patient will not, cannot, see it. He may go so far as to claim
that he has no wound and is well; that he was born with the ties that
bind him; or else, that he came with that wound into the world.
These difficulties are in no psychoneurosis so great as in
homosexuality. As I have already stated: the homosexual neurosis is a
flight to one’s own sex induced by the sadistic feeling-attitude towards
the opposite sex. It is the task of analysis to uncover the mental
conflict which finds expression in this onesidedness and to enable the
patient to see the cruelty trend which he has derived from the childhood
of the race and has carried through his own childhood into his adult
life. _When the homosexual becomes aware of his bisexuality and sees the
causes of his monosexual leaning we have accomplished the requisite
educational task. Beyond that point the patient must help himself. If he
is truly earnest about his desire to get well he will accomplish it
without being pushed to it. If he lacks the inner will the situation is
hopeless in spite of the analysis._
For that reason I am not in favor of the practical management of
homosexuality as carried out by many physicians and particularly by some
psychoanalysts. They urge the homosexual to adopt heterosexual ways, and
consider the subject cured when he is able to have normal coitus a few
times. Unfortunately unpleasant reactions often follow alleged cures
such as are often claimed for persuasion-therapy and hypnosis. The
homosexual abandons all further attempts and prefers his original
monosexual attitude.
We may claim a cure only after the subject under treatment falls in love
with a suitable person of the other sex. _Potentia cœundi_ is not
enough. He must be able to give up dividing the feeling-complex
hatred—love between the two sexes—and to achieve the bipolar attitude
“hatred and love” towards the opposite sex. Such a miracle only love can
perform. Experience proves that the homosexual flees from the
heterosexual love to save himself. The latter looms up in his mind as a
test of power, in which he is anxious to come out the winner, even at
the cost of doing away with his heterosexual partner. He must accept the
subjection to woman implied in love and recognize that in true love both
lovers rule and both obey. He must also learn to recognize the essential
unity of erotism and sexuality. Only when the homosexual finds it
possible to fix his erotism and sexuality upon the same goal, in a
person of the opposite sex,—in other words, when he learns to love in
adult manner,—have we the right to claim a cure. It is only then, at any
rate, that the greatest healer of all ages, love, achieves its easy
victory and the former patient, like all neurotics, thinks that mere
chance has brought him face to face with his ideal. With that end in
view the fixation on the family—through which the homosexual loses his
erotic freedom, occasionally also the sexual—must be severed. I have
brought strong proofs to show that we must transform the homosexual into
a bisexual being, in order to cure him. Practical experience does not
favor bisexuality. We must reckon with the fact that we live in a
monosexual age. The homosexual must transpose his whole sexuality and
must try to overcome or sublimate his one-sided leanings.
The necessary educational discipline takes a long time. The treatment of
homosexuality therefore is a formidable task, both for the analyst and
for the patient. The end-result of the treatment may not be known
definitely for some years.
I have tried to describe the technique of the analysis in the individual
cases. From those various indications the reader may form a picture of
the difficulties. A systematic account of the technique of the analysis
would require a volume in itself. Perhaps after finishing my _Disorders
of the Instincts and Emotions Series_ I may write such a work in order
to acquaint with my experience the practitioners who want to grapple
with the same problems.
A new generation of physicians, not brought up in the midst of the
prejudices of the older, will further the psychologic investigation of
the neuroses.
Naturally the high school must change its attitude towards the problem
of sex. Departments of Sexology and Psychotherapy are necessary to
instruct the young physicians in the essentials of sexual life and its
morbid changes, in order to prepare the future practitioner to deal
effectively with these troubles, heretofore erroneously looked upon as
hopeless. The next volumes in this Series will prove how little the
paraphilias are inborn and how much they are the result of training and
environment. But what is formulated through faulty training may be
corrected by proper reëducation, even though the hold of infantilism
appears unconquerable.
I have called the paraphilias _the struggle between spinal cord and
brain_. They are, even more truly, _the Struggle of Child against
Adult_. For at bottom these neuroses are but infantilisms struggling for
survival. The adult fights against the child; the adult race, ripe for
monosexuality, fights against its childhood manifesting itself in
bisexuality and sadism. The physician can see to it that the warfare is
carried on in humane fashion and with means worthy of civilization. He
can turn the hidden into an open warfare. It means overcoming the
evil—or that which the moralists call evil—by meeting it face to face.
He who looks for more than a few words on the subject of the prophylaxis
of homosexuality and onanism will be disappointed. I believe it is best
that we turn our attention to these themes only when we are called upon
to do so in our professional capacity. I advise all parents and
educators not to watch whether a child masturbates or not. The child
quits the habit when it finds other ways for releasing the tension. And
our analyses have abundantly shown us that it is almost impossible to
prevent masturbation. The evil effects produced upon the child
witnessing marital bickerings, the household inspiration it receives
with regard to judgment-feelings about women and men, the decisive
manner in which parents affect it when they transfer their conflicts on
the child,—these capital facts the life histories of homosexuals given
above illustrate very clearly for any one willing to look squarely at
the truth. We do not as yet appreciate how careful we must be in our
relations with the children. Our educators are still guilty of a serious
blunder when they conceive their duty to be to instill goodness in the
child through the instrumentality of fear. There are only two
educational levers: one’s own example and—love. The healthiest children
come from happy marriages. It is love that determines whether a marriage
shall be a happy one and whether the offspring will be healthy or weak.
The unconscious sexual instinct, manifesting itself in love is the guide
for the regeneration of the human race.[53] Social conditions favoring
early love marriages are the only social reform to which I look for
results....
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Abstinence, 81, 191
Adult Love, 314
Age, 50
Aggressivity, 283
Ahasuerus-Type, 214
Alcoholism, 27, 69, 178, 183
Ambisexuality, 12
Anal Eroticism, 245
Anamnesis (of H.), 231
Anger, 69, 120, 152
Antagonism, 94, 304
Anxiety, 15, 164, 178
neurosis, 28, 76, 191
Asocial (Cravings), 194
Associations, 250
Association Therapy, 307
Atavism, 169, 297
Attachment (to Father), 182
Autism, 173
Aversion, 29, 31, 57, 97
Bipolarity, 157, 206, 218, 265, 283
Bisexuality, 12, 296
Censorship, 267
Christianity, 301
Compromise, 189, 290
Compulsion Neurosis, 192
Conflict, Psychic, 311
Psychology of, 93
Confusion States, 176
Conscience, 144
Coprophilia, 247
Cravings, 180
Creative Energy, 296
Crime Passionelle, 23, 158
Criminality, 13, 18 passim, 20, 70, 133, 138, 144, 151, 157, 187
Culture, 159
Cunnilingus, 209, 216
Day Dreaming, 138
Defence of Jealousy, 123
Degeneration Theory, 282, 296 passim
Delusion of Jealousy, 161
vs. Reality, 177
Depression, 96, 104, 187
Differentiation, Sexual, 294
Disgust, 15, 21, 29, 62, 63, 207
Dorian Love, 300
Dreams, 82, 131 passim, 176, 240, 247, 254 passim, 267, 269, 271, 277
Drinkers’ Jealousy, 183
Drug Addiction, 176, 178
Dyspareunia, 18, 95
Dyspnea, 72
Egoism, 291
Elektra, 195
Engrams, 295
Epilepsy, 22 passim
Ethics, Sexual, 317
Family, Love of, 91
Fancies, Homosexual, 247, 253
Father Complex, 227
Father Imago, 35, 36, 39, 49, 61 passim, 77, 283
Fear, 57, 62, 67
of Sexual Partner, 15 passim, 17, 20, 38
of Women, 286
Feeling-Attitude, 216
Fellatio, 73, 247
Fetichism, 44
Fixation, 47, 70, 79, 81
Emotional, 223
Flight Reflex, 234
Greek Love, 82 passim
Guilty Conscience, 296
Guilt, Feeling of, 207
Hair Symbolism, 262
Hatred, 19, 38, 79, 80, 103, 132, 134, 145, 273, 289, 304
Hermaphroditism, Unilateral, 297
Heterosexuality, 269
Horror Feminae, 14
Hypnosis, 306
Hysteria, 22
Identification, 49, 103, 110
Impotentia, 40, 69
Inability to Love, 289
Inbreeding, 297
Incest Phantasy, 33, 105, 146, 155, 181, 187, 194, 222, 265
Infantile Attitude, 283, 292, 295
Reminiscences, 286
Sexual Theory, 211, 246
Infantilism, 44, 133, 220
Inferiority, Feeling of, 229
Insanity, 156, 158
Fear of, 176, 177
Periodic, 176
Intermediate Sex Theory, 217
Inversion, 41, 43, 49
Jealousy, 76, 102, 109, 127 passim, 131, 135, 156, 292
Judaism, 299
Late Homosexuality, 50
Latent Criminality, 137
Homosexuality, 296, 308
Law of Substitution, 89, 90
Libido, 29, 44, 260
Love, 157
Attitude, 295
Masochism, 207
Masturbation, 16, 55, 64, 66, 155, 230, 245
Maternal Body Phantasy, 268, 272
Melancholia, 118
Monogamy, 303
Monosexuality, 187 passim, 299
Monotheism, Sexual, 193
Mother Imago, 34, 41, 49, 89, 144, 146
Mother-in-Law, 118
Motherhood, 95
Motivations, 159
Narcissism, 47, 48, 91, 269, 291
Neurasthenia, 72
Neurosis, Epileptic, 27
Non-Conscious H., 117
Œdipus, 195
Ontogenesis, 156, 281
Orgasm, 63
Overcleanliness, 266
Over-valuation (of Manliness), 217, 295
Pansexualism, 193
Paranoia, 156, 163, 166, 190
Paraphilia, 200, 219
Pederasty, Epileptic, 26
“Penetrating Eye” Symbolism, 61
Permanence of H., 46
Persecution, Delusion of, 159, 171, 192
Phylogenesis, 156, 281
Philosophy, 39
Polar tension, 293, 303
Pollution Symbolism, 259
Precocity, Sexual, 291
Primordial Hatred, 282
Progression, 297
Projection, Psychic, 159
Prophylaxis, 316
Protection, 80
Pseudo-Heterosexuality, 14
Psychoanalysis, 139, 146, 170, 176, 200, 208, 284, 310
Psychogenesis of H., 105, 181, 280, 298
Paranoia, 171
Psychosexual Infantilism, 148
Psychosis, 156
Puellæ Publica, 194
Purity, 105
Querrulants, 172
Rage, 19, 158
Regression, 90, 132, 163, 194, 195, 282, 292
Religion, 301
Reminiscences, 179
Repressed Sadism, 270
Repression, 34, 43, 49, 190, 194
Revenge Fancies, 169, 292
Revolt, 92
Rivalry, between Sexes, 293
Sadism, 38, 49, 69, 159, 161 passim, 200
Sadistic Trend, 177
Scatologie Fancies, 244, 246, 260
Scent, 46
Scorn, 15, 32
Self-Knowledge, 309
Self-Love, 284, 291
Pathologic, 193
Punishment, 135
Torture, 202
Servant Girl, 119
Severity, Parental, 220
Sexual Infantilism, 260
Sister Imago, 88
Social Abhorrence of H., 298
Specific Phantasy, 78
Spermatozoan Dream, 272
Spiritual Marriage, 166, 264
Sublimation, 88, 90
Submissiveness, 135
Suicide, 76
Supremacy, Struggle for, 220, 222
Symbolism, 44
Sympathetic Act, 111
Telepathy, 186
Tenderness, Craving for, 274
Parental, 220
Third Sex Theory, 15
Transposition, Emotional, 162
Transvestitism, 252, 296
Trauma, Psychic, 98
Tuberculosis, Symbolism of, 233
Uncertainty, 168
Unconscious, 160, 194
Uranism, 34, 189
Urlind, 95, 133, 195, 284
Urning, 14, 31, 33, 47, 48 passim, 194, 284
Urolagnia, 248
Voyeurism, 117
Vomiting, Symptomatic, 242
Warning, 105
Water Closet Symbolism, 244 passim
Wish, 207
Fulfillment, 111
Incestuous, 131, 133
Zoöphily, 155
INDEX OF NAMES
Adler, 15, 222, 285
Aristotle, 299
Beaussart, 155
Berg, 91, 92 passim
Bjerre, 170
Bloch, 14
Bethe, 300 passim
Burchard, 27
Dessoir, 308
Eulenburg, 21, 317
Fehlinger, 294
Fleischmann, 200, 206, 208
Freimark, 93
Freud, 156, 161, 213, 215, 310, 311
Fuchs, 306
Havelock Ellis, 220
Heine, 271
Hirschfeld, 11, 12 passim, 14, 21, 26, 27, 29, 30 passim, 48, 90, 95,
188 passim, 193, 296 passim, 297, 299
Ibsen, 89
Juliusburger, 159, 160
Kafka, 233
Krafft-Ebing, 190 passim
Magnan, 296
Moll, 307
Nietzsche, 10, 11, 198, 199, 288, 289
Oppenheim, 161
Paul (Jean), 138
Platen, 43
Praetorius (Numa), 29
Raffalovich, 284
Rank, 90
Rochefoucauld, 108, 109, 154, 155
Sadger, 36 passim, 38, 39, 43, 46, 48, 71, 285
Schnitzler, 125
Schopenhauer, 52, 53
Schrenk-Notzing, 306
Schrecker, 229
Stekel, 200, 258, 264, 268, 290
Strindberg, 80
Tannenbaum, 125
Tarnowsky, 305
Van Teslaar, 18, 23, 90, 207, 258, 264, 268, 290
Weininger, 80
Ziemcke, 205
-----
Footnote 1:
“Homosexuals who display their inclination clearly only after puberty
show an interest in the other sex before and during the period of
puberty. For instance, I have been told by a 23-year-old typical
homosexual, today a victim of horror feminae, that at 16 and 17 years
of age he entertained strong fancies about girls and ran after them,
although without any particular sexual feeling desire. This transitory
and undefined preoccupation of homosexuals with the opposite sex is a
sort of ‘pseudoheterosexuality.’” (_Bloch_, _loc. cit._, p. 597.)
Footnote 2:
In vol. III of _Disorders of Instincts and Emotions: The Sexual
Frigidity of Woman; Psychopathology of Woman’s Love Life_. English
translation by _Dr. James S. Van Teslaar_.
Footnote 3:
_Nervöse Angstzustände_, 2nd ed., p. 336.
Footnote 4:
Vol. V. in: _Disorders of Instincts and Emotions_. English version by
_Dr. Van Teslaar_.
Footnote 5:
_B. Tarnowsky_, _Die krankhaften Erscheinungen des Geschlechtssinnes_
(The Morbid Manifestations of the Sexual Instinct). _Eine
forensisch-psychiatrische Studie._ Berlin, 1886, p. 51 ff.
Footnote 6:
_Jahrbuch f. sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. IX, 1908, p. 504.
Footnote 7:
_Fragment der Psychoanalyse eines Homosexuellen_ (_Jahrb. f. sexuelle
Zwischenstufen_, vol. IX, 1908). [A typical illustration of the wrong
way of carrying on a psychoanalysis, the kind of painful ordeal during
which the subject calls out in distress: “But, pardon me, what _must_
I tell you? You just torture me, nothing less!” The most important
relations are overlooked, the patient is tortured to admit that he is
in love with _Sadger_, so that after fourteen hours of this sort of
torment he runs off.]
Footnote 8:
_J. Sadger_: _Ist die konträre Sexualempfindung heilbar? Zeitschr. f.
Sexualwissenschaft_, 1908, p. 712.
Footnote 9:
_Jahrb. f. psychoanalytische u. psychopathol. Forschungen_, vol. II,
1910.
Footnote 10:
_Ibsen_, the great psychologist, has described in masterly fashion the
transposition of sister love into boy love. In “_Little Eyolf_,”
Almers, the writer, suddenly loses the love for his wife and turns his
affection exclusively to his child. That child is called ‘little
Eyolf,’ like his sister, who had once put on boy’s clothes and called
herself ‘little Eyolf.’ The parents had expected a boy. Almers turns
his affection for the sister, which pervades the whole drama, into the
love for the boy. He has discovered for himself _the law of
substitution_ which corresponds to the changes spoken of in these
pages. Little Eyolf in fact is the dramatisation of the latent
homosexual fixation on the sister. Almers cannot split his
personality, he cannot be both homo- and heterosexual. This inability
to split his self, the root of all homosexuality, forms the background
of the whole drama. Rita cannot divide her personality any more than
Almers can do it; he must give his whole personality self. Almers
cannot divide wife and sister. He embraces his wife and thinks of the
sister (That sister, whom he calls his little and his big Eyolf. The
sister in trousers, who embodied his ideal, a woman in male clothes, a
bisexual being which need not be split up at all). “_Love of brothers
and sisters is the only relationship not subject to the law of
transformation._” _Rank_ (_Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage_,
1919, p. 654) and _Pfister_ (_Anwendung der Psychoanalyse in der
Pädagogik und Seelsorge_, p. 72) find the incest motive easily but
overlook the fact that the situation involves the outbreak of
homosexuality and its psychogenesis. It represents a flight from the
sister to man, a wavering homosexuality sublimated into love for the
boy. The drama contains numerous other familiar points well worth
careful analysis. For Almers, his wife, and his child, are the
representatives of the male, female, and infantile components which we
endeavor to synthetize in our character (_trinity_). Regression to the
infantile level sets in with flight from the world (flight to the
solitude of the mountain top). The solitary Ibsen, as road builder,
undertakes to construct a new highway which shall lead up to solitary
heights and does not observe that the road leads really straight back
to the realm of his youth. Somewhere in the vast expanse of his soul
the ‘dead child’ is floating around and staring with wide open eyes
into infinity. A child is killed in this drama. It stands for the
miscarried regression back to infantilism. Childhood is finally
subdued and forgetfulness once more drowns in the soul’s vast expanse
all gnawing and biting reproaches. The memories are all dead ... and
the next drama has for its theme: When the dead awaken. But in little
Eyolf they are already awake.... The dead, whom Ibsen carried in his
breast, the corpse to which Rita refers so often.... The child in him
is dead and now the man in him also threatens to die. It recalls the
admission of impotence, described with such tremendous realism in the
great Rita-Almers scene. The man in him dies and the woman in him
persists with yearnings. A more detailed treatment of these
endopsychic processes will be found in my book on _Masochism_
(Translation by _Van Teslaar_, in preparation).
Footnote 11:
The following passage, from an observation by _Hirschfeld_, shows how
early such fixation on the brother may take place, only to disappear,
apparently, and to be mistaken for inborn homosexuality: “I hated boys
and boyish games; my sister was my _alter ego_, while my brother, who
was 13 years older and a very beautiful man, had powerfully charmed my
childish, pure and innocent heart. I worshipped him for his physical
beauty even more than on account of his sterling qualities. At the
same time I grew continuously more sensitive in my overt attitude
towards him. I remember clearly that during the 6th or 7th year my
brother’s physical beauty caused me to shake before him with every
fiber of my body in admiration as before some mystery revealed. At 10
years of age I wept through a whole night intoxicated with joy because
it fell to my lot to lie down near his intoxicatingly sweet presence
for rest. I had a feeling of shame such as I did not experience in the
presence of my mother or sister. Clearly and deliberately, although
unbeknown, of course, to him, I deified my brother from the 10th to
the 15th year, and this worshipful attitude reached its highest from
my 10th to the 12th year, when he married. I was disconsolately
unhappy over it because that event removed him from our midst and I
felt it was dreadful that he should lose his virgin beauty, as I
thought.” (_Hirschfeld_, _loc. cit._, p. 46.)
Footnote 12:
_Zuchtbarkeit der Homosexualität._ _Sexualprobleme_, 6 Jahrg., 1910,
No. 12.
Footnote 13:
This thought is very wonderfully expressed in _Gerhart Hauptmann’s
Griseldis_. The father is jealous of the son because he, in turn, had
been his father’s enemy and rival....
Footnote 14:
_Cf._ chapter on Jealousy in my collection of essays, “_Was am Grunde
der Seele ruht_...,” Wien, 1909, Hofbuchhandlung Paul Knepler. English
Version, _The Depths of the Soul_, translated by _Dr. S. A.
Tannenbaum_, Moffat, Yard & Co., N. Y.
Footnote 15:
With his wonderful psychologic mastery _Arthur Schnitzler_ has
described such a pair in his best piece entitled, “_Das weite Land_.”
Hofrichter, the manufacturer, who flutters from one love affair to
another, and his wife, who consoles herself in the arms of a young
Cadet, are the kind of a pair who love each other but go down in ruin
rather than openly acknowledge their love.
Footnote 16:
_Cf._ chapter entitled, “_Der Kampf der Geschlechter_,” in my work,
_The Beloved Ego_, translated by _Dr. S. A. Tannenbaum_, Moffat, Yard
& Co., N. Y.
Footnote 17:
The flaring up of jealousy in old age during exhaustive conditions, an
extraordinarily common occurrence, seems to be determined partly by
endocrinic disorders and partly by the awakening of infantile
predispositions. We also find frequent mention of the fact that morbid
jealousy manifests itself after a prolonged convalescence in bed. Some
physicians are inclined to trace the condition back to an
intoxication. It seems to me more likely that the unusual opportunity
of mulling things over in the mind is more likely the cause. We must
also take into consideration that facing closely the possibility of
death all ungratified wishes, including the homosexual, once more
flare up, urgently pressing for gratification. This alone may lead to
the flaring up also of paraphilias and homosexual tendencies during
old age, when it must also be considered that on account of organic
changes in the brain cortex the inhibitions are also weakened. I have
repeatedly noticed that nursing care by a person of the same sex as
the patient also plays a certain rôle. I have even seen directly as a
consequence of prolonged invalidism the development of a homosexual
feeling-attitude towards the nursing person, for instance, the flaring
up of a passion for mother or sister. Regressions back into childhood
frequently occur after infectious diseases. All the various infantile
attitudes manifest themselves. Psychosexual infantilism, a subject
which will be fully treated in a forthcoming volume of our “_Disorders
of the Emotions and the Instincts_,” is most likely to break out
particularly after a period of illness when one feels one’s self again
a child.
Footnote 18:
Cf. _Willy Schmidt_, _Inzestuöser Eifersuchtswahn, Gross’ Archiv_,
vol. LVII, 1914, p. 257.
Footnote 19:
_Zur Radikalbehandlung der chronischen Paranoia. Jahrbuch f.
psychoanalytische Forsch._, Vol. III, 1912.
Footnote 20: