Freud - Complete Works (638 page)

   If he is left to himself, a
neurotic is obliged to replace by his own symptom formations the
great group formations from which he is excluded. He creates his
own world of imagination for himself, his own religion, his own
system of delusions, and thus recapitulates the institutions of
humanity in a distorted way which is clear evidence of the
dominating part played by the directly sexual impulsions.¹

  
¹
See
Totem and Taboo
, towards the end
of the second essay.

Group Psychology And The Analysis Of The Ego

3834

   E. In conclusion, we will add a
comparative estimate, from the standpoint of the libido theory, of
the states with which we have been concerned, of being in love, of
hypnosis, of group formation, and of neurosis.

  
Being in love
is based on
the simultaneous presence of directly sexual impulsions and of
sexual impulsions that are inhibited in their aims, while the
object draws a part of the subject’s narcissistic ego-libido
to itself. It is a condition in which there is only room for the
ego and the object.

  
Hypnosis
resembles being
in love in being limited to these two persons, but it is based
entirely on sexual impulsions that are inhibited in their aims and
puts the object in the place of the ego ideal.

  
The group
multiplies this
process; it agrees with hypnosis in the nature of the instincts
which hold it together, and in the replacement of the ego ideal by
the object; but to this it adds identification with other
individuals, which was perhaps originally made possible by their
having the same relation to the object.

   Both states, hypnosis and group
formation, are an inherited deposit from the phylogenesis of the
human libido - hypnosis in the form of a predisposition, and the
group, besides this, as a direct survival. The replacement of the
directly sexual impulsions by those that are inhibited in their
aims promotes in both states a separation between the ego and the
ego ideal, a separation with which a beginning has already been
made in the state of being in love.

  
Neurosis
stands outside
this series. It also is based upon a peculiarity in the development
of the human libido - the twice repeated start made by the directly
sexual function, with an intervening period of latency.¹ To
this extent it resembles hypnosis and group formation in having the
character of a regression, which is absent from being in love. It
makes its appearance wherever the advance from directly sexual
instincts to those that are inhibited in their aims has not been
wholly successful; and it represents a
conflict
between
those portions of the instincts which have been received into the
ego after having passed through this development and those portions
of them which, springing from the repressed unconscious, strive -
as do other, completely repressed, instinctual impulses - to attain
direct satisfaction. Neuroses are extraordinarily rich in content,
for they embrace all possible relations between the ego and the
object - both those in which the object is retained and others in
which it is abandoned or erected inside the ego itself - and also
the conflicting relations between the ego and its ego ideal.

  
¹
See my
Three Essays
(1905
d
).

3835

THE
PSYCHOGENESIS OF A CASE OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN A WOMAN

(1920)

3836

Intentionally left blank

3837

THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF A CASE OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN A WOMAN

I

Homosexuality in women, which is certainly not
less common than in men, although much less glaring, has not only
been ignored by the law, but has also been neglected by
psycho-analytic research. The narration of a single case, not too
pronounced in type, in which it was possible to trace its origin
and development in the mind with complete certainty and almost
without a gap may, therefore, have a certain claim to attention. If
this presentation of it furnishes only the most general outlines of
the various events concerned and of the conclusions reached from a
study of the case, while suppressing all the characteristic details
on which the interpretation is founded, this limitation is easily
to be explained by the medical discretion necessary in discussing a
recent case.

   A beautiful and clever girl of
eighteen, belonging to a family of good standing, had aroused
displeasure and concern in her parents by the devoted adoration
with which she pursued a certain ‘society lady’ who was
about ten years older than herself. The parents asserted that, in
spite of her distinguished name, this lady was nothing but a
cocotte
. It was well known, they said, that she lived with a
friend, a married woman, and had intimate relations with her, while
at the same time she carried on promiscuous affairs with a number
of men. The girl did not contradict these evil reports, but neither
did she allow them to interfere with her worship of the lady,
although she herself was by no means lacking in a sense of decency
and propriety. No prohibitions and no supervision hindered the girl
from seizing every one of her rare opportunities of being together
with her beloved, of ascertaining all her habits, of waiting for
her for hours outside her door or at a tram-halt, of sending her
gifts of flowers, and so on. It was evident that this one interest
had swallowed up all others in the girl’s mind. She did not
trouble herself any further with educational studies, thought
nothing of social functions or girlish pleasures, and kept up
relations only with a few girl friends who could help her in the
matter or serve as confidantes. The parents could not say to what
lengths their daughter had gone in her relations with the
questionable lady, whether the limits of devoted admiration had
already been exceeded or not. They had never remarked in their
daughter any interest in young men, nor pleasure in their
attentions, while, on the other hand, they were sure that her
present attachment to a woman was only a continuation, in a more
marked degree, of a feeling she had displayed of recent years for
other members of her own sex which had already aroused her
father’s suspicion and anger.

The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman

3838

   There were two details of her
behaviour, in apparent contrast with each other, that most
especially vexed her parents. On the one hand, she did not scruple
to appear in the most frequented streets in the company of her
undesirable friend, being thus quite neglectful of her own
reputation; while, on the other hand, she disdained no means of
deception, no excuses and no lies that would make meetings with her
possible and cover them. She thus showed herself too open in one
respect and full of deceitfulness in the other. One day it
happened, indeed, as was sooner or later inevitable in the
circumstances, that the father met his daughter in the company of
the lady, about whom he had come to know. He passed them by with an
angry glance which boded no good. Immediately afterwards the girl
rushed off and flung herself over a wall down the side of a cutting
on to the suburban railway line which ran close by. She paid for
this undoubtedly serious attempt at suicide with a considerable
time on her back in bed, though fortunately little permanent damage
was done. After her recovery she found it easier to get her own way
than before. The parents did not dare to oppose her with so much
determination, and the lady, who up till then had received her
advances coldly, was moved by such an unmistakable proof of serious
passion and began to treat her in a more friendly manner.

The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman

3839

   About six months after this
episode the parents sought medical advice and entrusted the
physician with the task of bringing their daughter back to a normal
state of mind. The girl’s attempted suicide had evidently
shown them that strong disciplinary measures at home were powerless
to overcome her disorder. Before going further, however, it will be
desirable to deal separately with the attitudes of her father and
of her mother to the matter. The father was an earnest, worthy man,
at bottom very tender-hearted, but he had to some extent estranged
his children by the sternness he had adopted towards them. His
treatment of his only daughter was too much influenced by
consideration for his wife. When he first came to know of his
daughter’s homosexual tendencies he flew into a rage and
tried to suppress them by threats. At that time perhaps he
hesitated between different, though equally distressing, views -
regarding her either as vicious, as degenerate, or as mentally
afflicted. Even after the attempted suicide he did not achieve the
lofty resignation shown by one of our medical colleagues who
remarked of a similar irregularity in his own family: ‘Well,
it’s just a misfortune like any other.’ There was
something about his daughter’s homosexuality that aroused the
deepest bitterness in him, and he was determined to combat it with
all the means in his power. The low estimation in which
psycho-analysis is so generally held in Vienna did not prevent him
from turning to it for help. If this way failed he still had in
reserve his strongest counter-measure: a speedy marriage was to
awaken the natural instincts of the girl and stifle her unnatural
tendencies.

   The mother’s attitude
towards the girl was not so easy to grasp. She was still a youngish
woman, who was evidently unwilling to give up her own claims to
attractiveness. All that was clear was that she did not take her
daughter’s infatuation so tragically as did the father, nor
was she so incensed at it. She had even for some time enjoyed her
daughter’s confidence concerning her passion. Her opposition
to it seemed to have been aroused mainly by the harmful publicity
with which the girl displayed her feelings. She had herself
suffered for some years from neurotic troubles and enjoyed a great
deal of consideration from her husband; she treated her children in
quite different ways, being decidedly harsh towards her daughter
and over-indulgent to her three sons, the youngest of whom had been
born after a long interval and was then not yet three years old. It
was not easy to ascertain anything more definite about her
character, for, owing to motives that will only later become
intelligible, the patient was always reserved in what she said
about her mother, whereas in regard to her father there was no
question of this.

The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman

3840

   To a physician who was to
undertake psycho-analytic treatment of the girl there were many
grounds for misgiving. The situation he had to deal with was not
the one that analysis demands, in which alone it can demonstrate
its effectiveness. As is well known, the ideal situation for
analysis is when someone who is otherwise his own master is
suffering from an inner conflict which he is unable to resolve
alone, so that he brings his trouble to the analyst and begs for
his help. The physician then works hand in hand with one portion of
the pathologically divided personality, against the other party in
the conflict. Any situation which differs from this is to a greater
or lesser degree unfavourable for psycho-analysis and adds fresh
difficulties to the internal ones already present. Situations like
that of a prospective house-owner who orders an architect to build
him a villa to his own tastes and requirements, or of a pious donor
who commissions an artist to paint a sacred picture in the corner
of which is to be a portrait of himself in adoration, are at bottom
incompatible with the conditions necessary for psycho-analysis.
Thus, it constantly happens that a husband instructs the physician
as follows: ‘My wife suffers from nerves, and for that reason
gets on badly with me; please cure her, so that we may lead a happy
married life again.’ But often enough it turns out that such
a request is impossible to fulfil - that is to say, the physician
cannot bring about the result for which the husband sought the
treatment. As soon as the wife is freed from her neurotic
inhibitions she sets about getting a separation, for her neurosis
was the sole condition under which the marriage could be
maintained. Or else parents expect one to cure their nervous and
unruly child. By a healthy child they mean one who never causes his
parents trouble, and gives them nothing but pleasure. The physician
may succeed in curing the child, but after that it goes its own way
all the more decidedly, and the parents are now far more
dissatisfied than before. In short, it is not a matter of
indifference whether someone comes to analysis of his own accord or
because he is brought to it - whether it is he himself who desires
to be changed, or only his relatives, who love him (or who might be
expected to love him).

The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman

3841

   Further unfavourable features in
the present case were the facts that the girl was not in any way
ill (she did not suffer from anything in herself, nor did she
complain of her condition) and that the task to be carried out did
not consist in resolving a neurotic conflict but in converting one
variety of the genital organization of sexuality into the other.
Such an achievement - the removal of genital inversion or
homosexuality - is in my experience never an easy matter. On the
contrary, I have found success possible only in specially
favourable circumstances, and even then the success essentially
consisted in making access to the opposite sex (which had hitherto
been barred) possible to a person restricted to homosexuality, thus
restoring his full bisexual functions. After that it lay with him
to choose whether he wished to abandon the path that is banned by
society, and in some cases he has done so. One must remember that
normal sexuality too depends upon a restriction in the choice of
object. In general, to undertake to convert a fully developed
homosexual into a heterosexual does not offer much more prospect of
success than the reverse, except that for good practical reasons
the latter is never attempted.

   The number of successes achieved
by psycho-analytic treatment of the various forms of homosexuality,
which incidentally are manifold, is indeed not very striking. As a
rule the homosexual is not able to give up the object which
provides him with pleasure, and one cannot convince him that if he
made the change he would rediscover in the other object the
pleasure that he has renounced, and such components of the instinct
of self-preservation prove themselves too weak in the struggle
against the sexual impulsions. One then soon discovers his secret
plan, namely, to obtain from the striking failure of his attempt a
feeling of satisfaction that he has done everything possible
against his abnormality, to which he can now resign himself with an
easy conscience. The case is somewhat different when consideration
for beloved parents and relatives has been the motive for his
attempt to be cured. Here there really are libidinal impulsions
present which may put forth energies opposed themselves to the
homosexual choice of object; but their strength is rarely
sufficient. It is only where the homosexual fixation has not yet
become strong enough, or where there are considerable rudiments and
vestiges of a heterosexual choice of object, i.e. in a still
oscillating or in a definitely bisexual organization, that one may
make a more favourable prognosis for psycho-analytic therapy.

The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman

3842

   For these reasons I refrained
altogether from holding out to the parents any prospect of their
wish being fulfilled. I merely said I was prepared to study the
girl carefully for a few weeks or months, so as then to be able to
pronounce how far a continuation of the analysis would be likely to
influence her. In quite a number of cases, indeed, an analysis
falls into two clearly distinguishable phases. In the first, the
physician procures from the patient the necessary information,
makes him familiar with the premises and postulates of
psycho-analysis, and unfolds to him the reconstruction of the
genesis of his disorder as deduced from the material brought up in
the analysis. In the second phase the patient himself gets hold of
the material put before him; he works on it, recollects what he can
of the apparently repressed memories, and tries to repeat the rest
as if he were in some way living it over again. In this way he can
confirm, supplement, and correct the inferences made by the
physician. It is only during this work that he experiences, through
overcoming resistances, the inner change aimed at, and acquires for
himself the convictions that make him independent of the
physician’s authority. These two phases in the course of the
analytic treatment are not always sharply divided from each other;
this can only happen when the resistance obeys certain conditions.
But when this is so, one may bring up as an analogy the two stages
of a journey. The first comprises all the necessary preparations,
to-day so complicated and hard to effect, before, ticket in hand,
one can at last go on to the platform and secure a seat in the
train. One then has the right, and the possibility, of travelling
into a distant country; but after all these preliminary exertions
one is not yet there - indeed, one is not a single mile nearer to
one’s goal. For this to happen one has to make the journey
itself from one station to the other, and this part of the
performance may well be compared with the second phase of the
analysis.