Chapter 18 of 19 · 3980 words · ~20 min read

Part 18

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

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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:

A symbolic representation of the identification of myself with the father.

Footnote 21:

A form of sexual disorder not infrequent among neurotics, suggesting a different sexual objective.

Footnote 22:

_Hirschfeld_ naturally traces this morbid tendency back to the social ostracism of the homosexual. In my opinion that is a forced explanation. The very proneness of the homosexuals to affective disorders, their heightened sensibility, their morbid irritability, their endogenous depression prove that all homosexuals are severe neurotics. _Hirschfeld_ may be able to trace the homosexual’s acute outbreaks of affective psychoses back to the actual conflicts. But it is impossible to link this heightened affectivity to the feminine attitude of the urnings. For if it were so, how could we explain the equally distressing analogous disorders among the _urlinds_? _Hirschfeld_ refers to the anxiety states of the homosexuals (p. 916) and expressly states:

“This very condition is found frequently also among homosexuals who are psychically normal so far as their home relations are concerned.”

No—they are not normal with regard to home relations, they are severe neurotics on account of the repression of their heterosexuality. Superficial appearances are deceptive and many a person who appears outwardly to be the picture of health, a well balanced temperament, is inwardly the victim of a serious neurosis.... _Hirschfeld_ refers further to the homosexual’s proneness to persecution manias and to delusions of reference. Concerning homosexual women he states: