Freud - Complete Works (642 page)

   If the analysis had come to an
earlier, still more premature end, it might have led to the view
that this was a case of late acquired homosexuality, but as it is,
a consideration of the material impels us to conclude that it is
rather a case of congenital homosexuality which, as usual, became
fixed and unmistakably manifest only in the period following
puberty. Each of these classifications does justice only to one
part of the state of affairs ascertainable by observation, but
neglects the other. It would be best not to attach too much value
to this way of stating the problem.

¹
Cf.
Kriemhilde’s admission in the
Nibelungenlied
.

The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman

3859

   The literature of homosexuality
usually fails to distinguish clearly enough between the questions
of the choice of object on the one hand, and of the sexual
characteristics and sexual attitude of the subject on the other, as
though the answer to the former necessarily involved the answers to
the latter. Experience, however, proves the contrary: a man with
predominantly male characteristics and also masculine in his erotic
life may still be inverted in respect to his object, loving only
men instead of women. A man in whose character feminine attributes
obviously predominate, who may, indeed, behave in love like a
woman, might be expected, from this feminine attitude, to choose a
man for his love-object; but he may nevertheless be heterosexual,
and show no more inversion in respect to his object than an average
normal man. The same is true of women; here also mental sexual
character and object-choice do not necessarily coincide. The
mystery of homosexuality is therefore by no means so simple as it
is commonly depicted in popular expositions - ‘a feminine
mind, bound therefore to love a man, but unhappily attached to a
masculine body; a masculine mind, irresistibly attracted by women,
but, alas! imprisoned in a feminine body’. It is instead a
question of three sets of characteristics, namely -

Physical sexual characters

(physical hermaphroditism)

Mental sexual characters

(masculine or feminine attitude)

Kind
of object-choice

which, up to a certain point, vary
independently of one another, and are met with in different
individuals in manifold permutations. Tendentious literature has
obscured our view of this interrelationship by putting into the
foreground, for practical reasons, the third feature (the kind of
object-choice), which is the only one that strikes the layman, and
in addition by exaggerating the closeness of the association
between this and the first feature. Moreover, it blocks the way to
a deeper insight into all that is uniformly designated as
homosexuality, by rejecting two fundamental facts which have been
revealed by psycho-analytic investigation. The first of these is
that homosexual men have experienced a specially strong fixation on
their mother; the second, that, in addition to their manifest
heterosexuality, a very considerable measure of latent or
unconscious homosexuality can be detected in all normal people. If
these findings are taken into account, then, clearly, the
supposition that nature in a freakish mood created a ‘third
sex’ falls to the ground.

The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman

3860

   It is not for psycho-analysis to
solve the problem of homosexuality. It must rest content with
disclosing the psychical mechanisms that resulted in determining
the object-choice, and with tracing back the paths from them to the
instinctual dispositions. There its work ends, and it leaves the
rest to biological research, which has recently brought to light,
through Steinach’s¹ experiments, such very important
results concerning the influence exerted by the first set of
characteristics mentioned above upon the second and third.
Psycho-analysis has a common basis with biology, in that it
presupposes an original bisexuality in human beings (as in
animals). But psycho-analysis cannot elucidate the intrinsic nature
of what in conventional or in biological phraseology is termed
‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’: it simply takes
over the two concepts and makes them the foundation of its work.
When we attempt to reduce them further, we find masculinity
vanishing into activity and femininity into passivity, and that
does not tell us enough. I have already tried to explain how far we
may reasonably expect, or how far experience has already proved,
that the work of elucidation which is part of the task of analysis
furnishes us with the means of effecting a modification of
inversion. When one compares the extent to which we can influence
it with the remarkable transformations that Steinach has effected
in some cases by his operations, it does not make a very imposing
impression. But it would be premature, or a harmful exaggeration,
if at this stage we were to indulge in hopes of a
‘therapy’ of inversion that could be generally applied.
The cases of male homosexuality in which Steinach has been
successful fulfilled the condition, which is not always present, of
a very patent physical ‘hermaphroditism’. Any analogous
treatment of female homosexuality is at present quite obscure. If
it were to consist in removing what are probably hermaphroditic
ovaries, and in grafting others, which are hoped to be of a single
sex, there would be little prospect of its being applied in
practice. A woman who has felt herself to be a man, and has loved
in masculine fashion, will hardly let herself be forced into
playing the part of a woman, when she must pay for this
transformation, which is not in every way advantageous, by
renouncing all hope of motherhood.

  
¹
Cf. Lipschütz (1919).

3861

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND TELEPATHY

(1941 [1921])

3862

Intentionally left blank

3863

PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND TELEPATHY

INTRODUCTORY

We are not destined, so it seems, to devote
ourselves quietly to the extension of our science. Scarcely have we
triumphantly repulsed two attacks - one of which sought to deny
once more what we had brought to light and only offered us in
exchange the theme of disavowal, while the other tried to persuade
us that we had mistaken the nature of what we had found and might
with advantage take something else in its place - scarcely, then,
do we feel ourselves safe from these enemies, when another peril
has arisen. And this time it is something tremendous, something
elemental, which threatens not us alone but our enemies, perhaps,
still more.

   It no longer seems possible to
keep away from the study of what are known as ‘occult’
phenomena - of facts, that is, that profess to speak in favour of
the real existence of psychical forces other than the human and
animal minds with which we are familiar, or that seem to reveal the
possession by those minds of faculties hitherto unrecognized. The
impetus towards such an investigation seems irresistibly strong.
During this last brief vacation I have three times had occasion to
refuse to associate myself with newly founded periodicals concerned
with these studies. Nor is there much doubt as to the origin of
this trend. It is a part expression of the loss of value by which
everything has been affected since the world catastrophe of the
Great War, a part of the tentative approach to the great revolution
towards which we are heading and of whose extent we can form no
estimate; but no doubt it is also an attempt at compensation, at
making up in another, a supermundane, sphere for the attractions
which have been lost by life on this earth. Some, indeed, of the
proceedings of the exact sciences themselves may have contributed
to this development. The discovery of radium has confused no less
than it has advanced the possibilities of explaining the physical
world; and the knowledge that has been so very recently acquired of
what is called the theory of relativity has had the effect upon
many of those who admire without comprehending it of diminishing
their belief in the objective trustworthiness of science. You will
remember that not long ago Einstein himself took occasion to
protest against such misunderstanding.

Psycho-Analysis And Telepathy

3864

   It does not follow as a matter of
course that an intensified interest in occultism must involve a
danger to psycho-analysis. We should, on the contrary, be prepared
to find reciprocal sympathy between them. They have both
experienced the same contemptuous and arrogant treatment by
official science. To this day psycho-analysis is regarded as
savouring of mysticism, and its unconscious is looked upon as one
of the things between heaven and earth which philosophy refuses to
dream of. The numerous suggestions made to us by occultists that we
should co-operate with them show that they would like to treat us
as half belonging to them and that they count on our support
against the pressure of exact authority. Nor, on the other hand,
has psycho-analysis any interest in going out of its way to defend
that authority, for it itself stands in opposition to everything
that is conventionally restricted, well-established and generally
accepted. Not for the first time would it be offering its help to
the obscure but indestructible surmises of the common people
against the obscurantism of educated opinion. Alliance and
co-operation between analysts and occultists might thus appear both
plausible and promising.

   But if we look closer,
difficulties begin to emerge. The immense majority of occultists
are not driven by a desire for knowledge or by a sense of shame
that science has so long refused to take cognizance of what are
indisputable problems or by a desire to conquer this new sphere of
phenomena. They are, on the contrary, convinced believers who are
looking for confirmation and for something that will justify them
in openly confessing their faith. But the faith which they first
adopt themselves and then seek to impose on other people is either
the old religious faith which has been pushed into the background
by science in the course of human development, or another one even
closer to the superseded convictions of primitive peoples.
Analysts, on the other hand, cannot repudiate their descent from
exact science and their community with its representatives. Moved
by an extreme distrust of the power of human wishes and of the
temptations of the pleasure principle, they are ready, for the sake
of attaining some fragment of objective certainty, to sacrifice
everything - the dazzling brilliance of a flawless theory, the
exalted consciousness of having achieved a comprehensive view of
the universe, and the mental calm brought about by the possession
of extensive grounds for expedient and ethical action. In place of
all these, they are content with fragmentary pieces of knowledge
and with basic hypotheses lacking preciseness and ever open to
revision. Instead of waiting for the moment when they will be able
to escape from the constraint of the familiar laws of physics and
chemistry, they hope for the emergence of more extensive and
deeper-reaching natural laws, to which they are ready to submit.
Analysts are at bottom incorrigible mechanists and materialists,
even though they seek to avoid robbing the mind and spirit of their
still unrecognized characteristics. So, too, they embark on the
investigation of occult phenomena only because they expect in that
way finally to exclude the wishes of mankind from material
reality.

Psycho-Analysis And Telepathy

3865

   In view of this difference
between their mental attitudes co-operation between analysts and
occultists offers small prospect of gain. The analyst has his own
province of work, which he must not abandon: the unconscious
element of mental life. If in the course of his work he were to be
on the watch for occult phenomena, he would be in danger of
overlooking everything that more nearly concerned him. He would be
surrendering the impartiality, the lack of prejudices and
prepossessions, which have formed an essential part of his analytic
armour and equipment. If occult phenomena force themselves on him
in the same way in which others do, he will evade them no more than
he evades the others. This would appear to be the only plan of
behaviour consistent with the activity of an analyst.

   By self-discipline the analyst
can defend himself against one danger - the subjective one of
allowing his interest to be drawn away on to occult phenomena. As
regards the
objective
danger, the situation is different.
There is little doubt that if attention is directed to occult
phenomena the outcome will very soon be that the occurrence of a
number of them will be confirmed; and it will probably be a very
long time before an acceptable theory covering these new facts can
be arrived at. But the eagerly attentive onlookers will not wait so
long. At the very first confirmation the occultists will proclaim
the triumph of their views. They will carry over an acceptance of
one phenomenon on to all the rest and will extend belief in the
phenomena to belief in whatever explanations are easiest and most
to their taste. They will be ready to employ the methods of
scientific enquiry only as a ladder to raise them over the head of
science. Heaven help us if they climb to such a height! There will
be no scepticism from the surrounding spectators to make them
hesitate, there will be no popular outcry to bring them to a halt.
They will be hailed as liberators from the burden of intellectual
bondage, they will be joyfully acclaimed by all the credulity lying
ready to hand since the infancy of the human race and the childhood
of the individual. There may follow a fearful collapse of critical
thought, of determinist standards and of mechanistic science. Will
it be possible for scientific method, by a ruthless insistence on
the magnitude of the forces, the masses and qualities of the
material concerned, to prevent this collapse?

   It is a vain hope to suppose that
analytic work, precisely because it relates to the mysterious
unconscious, will be able to escape such a collapse in values as
this. If spiritual beings who are the intimate friends of human
enquirers can supply ultimate explanations of everything, no
interest can be left over for the laborious approaches to unknown
mental forces made by analytic research. So, too, the methods of
analytic technique will be abandoned if there is a hope of getting
into direct touch with the operative spirits by means of occult
procedures, just as habits of patient humdrum work are abandoned if
there is a hope of growing rich at a single blow by means of a
successful speculation. We have heard during the war of people who
stood half-way between two hostile nations, belonging to one by
birth and to the other by choice and domicile; it was their fate to
be treated as enemies first by one side and then, if they were
lucky enough to escape, by the other. Such might equally be the
fate of psycho-analysis. However, one must put up with one’s
fate whatever it may be; and psycho-analysis will somehow or other
come to terms with hers.

Psycho-Analysis And Telepathy

3866

   Let us return to the present
situation, to our immediate task. In the course of the last few
years I have made a few observations which I shall not hold back -
at all events from the circle that is closest to me. A dislike of
falling in with what is to-day a prevailing current, a dread of
distracting interest from psycho-analysis and the total absence of
any veil of discretion over what I have to say - all these combine
as motives for withholding my remarks from a wider public. My
material can lay claim to two advantages which are rarely present.
In the first place it is exempt from the uncertainties and doubts
to which most of the observations of the occultists are prone; and
in the second place it only develops its convincing force after it
has been worked over analytically. It consists, I should mention,
of only two cases of a similar character; a third case, of another
kind and open to a different assessment, is only added by way of
appendix. The first two cases, which I shall now report at length,
are concerned with events of the same sort - namely, with
prophecies made by professional fortune-tellers which did
not
come true. In spite of this, these prophecies made an
extraordinary impression on the people to whom they were announced,
so that their relation to the future cannot be their essential
point. Anything that may contribute to their explanation, as well
as anything that throws doubt on their evidential force, will be
extremely welcome to me. My personal attitude to the material
remains unenthusiastic and ambivalent.

I

   A few years before the war, a
young man from Germany came to me to be analysed. He complained of
being unable to work, of having forgotten his past life and of
having lost all interest. He was a student of philosophy at Munich
and was preparing for his final examination. Incidentally, he was a
highly educated, rather sly young man, rascally in a childish way,
and the son of a financier, who, as emerged later, had successfully
remoulded a colossal amount of anal erotism. When I asked him
whether there was really nothing he could remember about his life
or his sphere of interest, he recalled the plot of a novel he had
sketched out, which was laid in Egypt during the reign of Amenophis
IV and in which an important part was played by a particular ring.
We took this novel as a starting-point; the ring turned out to be a
symbol of marriage, and from there we succeeded in reviving all his
memories and interests. We found that his break-down had been the
result of a great act of mental self-discipline on his part. He had
an only sister a few years his junior, to whom he was
wholeheartedly and quite undisguisedly devoted. ‘Why is it we
can’t get married?’ they had often asked each other.
But their affection had never gone beyond the point permissible
between brothers and sisters.

Psycho-Analysis And Telepathy

3867

   A young engineer had fallen in
love with the sister. His love was reciprocated by her but did not
meet with the approval of her strict parents. In their trouble the
two young lovers turned to the brother for help. He gave their
cause his support, made it possible for them to correspond,
arranged for them to meet while he was at home on vacation, and
eventually persuaded the parents to give their consent to an
engagement and marriage. During the time of the engagement there
was a highly suspicious occurrence. The brother took his future
brother-in-law to climb the Zugspitze and himself acted as guide.
They lost their way on the mountain, ran into trouble and only with
difficulty avoided a fall. The patient offered little objection to
my interpretation of this adventure as an attempted murder and
suicide. It was a few months after his sister’s marriage that
the young man started analysis.

   After some six or nine months he
had completely regained his ability to work, and broke off the
analysis in order to take his examination and write his
dissertation. A year or more later he returned - now a Ph. D.- to
resume his analysis, because, as he said, psycho-analysis had an
interest for him as a philosopher which extended beyond therapeutic
success. I know it was in October that he started again, and it was
a few weeks later that, in some connection or other, he told me the
following story.