PSYCHOANALYSIS AND BEHAVIOR BY ANDRE TRIDON "Since humanity came into being, man has enjoyed himself too little. That alone, my brethren, is our original sin." Nietzsche. NEW YORK ALFRED • A • KNOPF 1920 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc. -5 1820 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA ©CI.A601381 This book is respectfully dedicated to Dr. Edward J. Kempf of Washington, D. C. The author acknowledges his indebtedness to Dr. N. Philip Norman, Dr. Edward /. Kempf, Miss Helena De Kay, H. L. Mencken, Esq., Dr. Elizabeth Severn, Israel Spielberg, Esq., and Carl Dreher, Esq., who have either supplied him with material for the present book, or revised his manuscript or offered valuable editorial suggestions. PREFACE This is an attempt at interpreting human conduct from the psychoanalytical point of view. The un- conscious and involuntary play a tremendous part in human life, the more tremendous as they usually masquerade as conscious and voluntary. Courts and public opinion, disregarding that fact, either praise or condemn, either reward or punish. Psy- choanalysis passes no judgments and only seeks to understand and help. The author has not felt the necessity of restating historical and theoretical facts to which he devoted a previous book: "Psychoanalysis, its history, theory and practice." The various schools of an- alysis, however, having reached almost identical conclusions as to human behaviour, although they started from different premises, the last four chap- ters of the present book shall describe the paths followed by the four best known psychoanalysts, Freud, Jung, Adler and Kempf . Andre Tridon. 121 Madison Avenue, New York City. September 1920. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface, 7 I. THE ORGANISM i. The Unconscious, 13 ii. Body and Mind, an Indivisible Unit, 23 in. Nerves and Nervousness, 34 II. PROBLEMS OF CHILDHOOD i. Childhood Fixations, 53 ii. The Sexual Enlightenment of Chil- dren, 66 III. PROGRESS AND REGRESSIONS i. The Negative and the Positive Life, 87 ii. Speech and Memory Defects, 107 in. Scapegoats, 115 iv. Dual Personalities, 129 v. How One Woman became Insane, 146 vi. The Neurotic Aspects of War, 165 IV. SLEEP AND DREAMS i. Sleep, Sleeplessness and Nightmares, 185 ii. Self-knowledge Through Dream Study, 201 V. PROBLEMS OF SEX i. The Love Life, 219 ii. Can We Sublimate Our Cravings? 239 hi. Puritanism, a Dignified Neurosis, 252 Contents VI. THE PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT i. Hypnotist and Analyst, 269 VII. THE FOUR SCHOOLS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS i. Freud. The Pioneer, 289 ii. Jung. The Zurich School, 305 in. Adler. Individual Psychology, 319 iv. Kempf. Dynamic Mechanism, 331 VIII. INDEX, 351 I. THE ORGANISM CHAPTER I: THE UNCONSCIOUS To the majority of people, our conscious life appears as the most important, if not the only im- portant, form of life. Most of our rules of behaviour, most of our judgments on human actions are based upon that estimate of our con- scious life. And yet we are conscious of very few things at a time and we are conscious of each one of those things only for variable, some times, very short periods. After a week, a day, an hour or a fraction of a second, the various things we were conscious of drop out of our consciousness, temporarily or per- manently. We may witness a theatrical perform- ance, be conscious of it that evening, think of it perhaps the next day, mention it several times in conversation, remember it years after when it is alluded to in our presence, and then "forget it." But the impression made on us by that per- formance does not die off. It only becomes un- conscious. That impression and millions of others are stored up in our "unconscious" where they con- tinue to live as unconscious elements. [13] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour These impressions meant either active or passive reactions to certain stimulations, the yielding to or resistance to those stimulations, memory-images of satisfied cravings and of repressed cravings, joy or pain, longing or hatred, in other words, all our life from the day of our birth, with all its struggles against reality, its compromises with reality, its victories and defeats, etc. All that past which we are constantly carrying with us and to which we are constantly adding, is bound, according to what elements predominate in it, to colour strongly our conscious view of life and to determine our conscious activities. A neurologist, a sexual pervert, a sculptor and a manicure would react very differently to the sight of a woman's hand. An egotist would be unable to notice in his environment things of a neutral type, that is, unlikely to affect his egotism favour- ably or unfavourably. To a farmer, a certain ac- cumulation of clouds might only suggest a danger to his crops; the same meteorological phenomenon might transport a painter with artistic joy. A chemist or a sailor would place a totally different construction on their observations of the same clouds. We know that unconscious factors cause us to engage in certain forms of activity, to become in- [14] What Made Me Do That? sane, to fall asleep or to remain sleepless, to love a certain type and to remain frigid to another. They influence our methods of reasoning, making us at times illogical and one-sided, stubborn and unjust. In other words our entire life is influenced, if not entirely determined, by unconscious factors. Our unconscious is the greatest time and energy saving machine, provided it functions normally. Some of our simplest conscious acts presuppose an enormous amount of unconscious work. Step- ping aside to dodge an automobile, simple as it appears, is only made possible by innumerable "mental" and "physical" operations such as realiz- ing the nature, size, direction and speed, of the dangerous object, selecting a safe spot at a certain distance from it, performing the necessary muscu- lar actions, etc., etc. On the other hand we may, without any apparent reason, perform useless, absurd, harmful actions and be genuinely grieved or puzzled over our behaviour. We ask ourselves "What made me do that?" Our unconscious made us do that. Our be- haviour was dominated and determined by one or several factors unknown to us and which, unless investigated systematically, may remain unknown, [15] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour puzzling, detrimental, if not dangerous, and may at some future time be once more the cause of irrational behaviour. Our unconscious "contains" two sorts of "thoughts" : those which rise easily to the surface of our consciousness and those which remain at the bottom and can only be made to rise with more or less difficulty. Our unconscious is like a pool into which dead leaves, dust, rain drops and a thousand other things are falling day after day, some of them floating on the surface for a while, some sinking to the bottom and, all of them, after a while, merging themselves with the water or the ooze. Let us suppose that two dead dogs, one of them weighted down with a stone, have been thrown into that pool. They will poison its waters, and people wishing to use those waters will have to rake the ooze and remove the rotting carrion. The dog whose body was not fastened to any heavy object will easily be brought to the surface and removed. The other will be more difficult to recover and if the stone is very heavy, may remain in the pool until ways and means are devised to dismember him or to cut the rope holding him down. Another simile might be offered. Out of fifty | persons assembled in a room, not one may be think- [16] The Unconscious Is Permanent ing of the multiplication table. Yet if some one points out three chairs worth six dollars a piece and asks the audience how much the three together are worth, the part of the multiplication table contain- ing the answer shall rise to the surface of every- body's consciousness, to sink back into the unconscious a second later. Other thoughts would not rise so willingly into consciousness: those associated with some painful or humiliating memory or with the repression of some human craving. Only a special effort aided by many association tests will in certain cases cut the rope that holds those "dead dogs tied to their paving stone." Such thoughts are called complexes and they are the most disturbing element in our life, for, unknown to us, they exert a strong influence on all our mental operations and on our bodily activities. It is not so much our consciousness as our un- conscious which IS our personality. Our conscious thoughts are fleeting and changing, our unconscious is more permanent. If we take a list of some hundred words and ask a person to tell us what comes at once to his mind when he hears each word spoken, it will be noticed that the answers which come without any hesitancy would be the same several months afterward. Those answers, in fact, [17] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour by their wording, present a striking picture of the personality, a picture which only changes when the personality undergoes distinct modifications. Only the words referring to the person's com- plexes are likely to change, as if the unconscious was trying to conceal the place where the "dead dogs" have been buried. In reaction tests, in fact, the subject's failure to give the same answer is taken to indicate a hidden complex. But even the varying answers given in such cases are closely related to one another. When we remember how our unconscious has "grown," that is, through the accumulation of memories and repressions from the day of our birth, or even from our prenatal existence to the present day, we must realize that a large proportion of the elements which constitute it is primitive, infantile or childlike, unadapted or only partly adapted. Its influence on our behaviour is not likely, therefore, to facilitate our adaptation to the innumerable rules imposed by a more and more complex civilization. Through all our life our unconscious follows us like the shadow of an archaic self, prompting us to seek a line of lesser resistance, or to give up the struggle with the modern world, to indulge ourselves in many ways which are no longer accept- [18] Wrong Suggestions able socially; when childlike or infantile elements predominate in it, its influence may unfit us com- pletely for life in modern communities unless we are brought to a clear realization of the ghostly power masquerading as ourselves and which tries to pull us back. When the man we were yesterday offers us sug- gestions as to conduct, we are probably safe in accepting them. When the boy we were at 15, en- deavours to convince us that his way was the only way, the struggle for mastery between ourselves and the boy may usher in a neurosis. When the infant we were at one or two years of age, coaxes us to indulge ourselves as he did and we yield to his entreaties, we may regress temporarily or per- manently to a level at which we shall be adjudged insane. Academic psychologists have suggested a num- ber of very interesting but meaningless words to designate the varying degrees of unconsciousness, such as foreconscious, preconscious, subconscious, etc. . . . For scientific purposes the word unconscious is sufficient. Instead of distinguishing degrees of un- consciousness which may easily change, it is pref- erable to assign reasons for unconsciousness. The multiplication table in the above illustration [19] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour was unconscious because it was not needed, for reasons of economy. It became conscious when needed. Other factors, mentioned previously, re- main unconscious because the thought of them is re- pressed or suppressed. Some are forgotten, be- cause they are insignificant, some because the memory of them is weighted with unpleasant con- notations as one of the dead dogs was weighted with a paving stone. It is the task of psychoanalysis to make us thoroughly familiar with the content of our uncon- scious that we may on every occasion determine whether the voices talking to us from the past buried in us are the voices of civilization or the voices of regression. Psychoanalysis forewarns us against any undue influence it may exert in the conduct of our lives and helps those of us who may have listened to the wrong voice to free themselves from their slavery. Instead of saying, as academic psychologists would put it, that the psychoanalytic technique can make unconscious factors foreconscious and finally conscious we should say that it can estab- lish a relation of cause-effect between certain acts and certain unconscious factors. For that reason psychoanalysis is the only key to an understanding of human behaviour. Ethics [20] Every Case Is Peculiar and statute books only record the various com- promises which mankind in its onward march has had to make with reality. They have, however, no absolutely scientific value, because they are based upon the conception of an inexistent being, the average human being. Psychoanalysis on the other hand discards the "average" man or woman and deals solely with the individual. The neurotic applying for treatment who states that his case is a "very peculiar one" is both right and wrong. His case as a clinical picture is prob- ably a very common one but as the content of one man's unconscious is necessarily very different from that of any other man's unconscious, no case can be prejudged from the observations made in any other case. Every case is "peculiar." The law and current ethics criticize or punish a pool for containing a dead dog which is held down by a powerful weight, and for poisoning those who drink of its water. Psychoanalysis looks for the corpse at the bot- tom of the pool and endeavours to remove it. Neither before nor after the operation does it pass judgments or pronounce sentences. To understand is to forgive, but in spite of its frankly determinist attitude in matters of behaviour, [21] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour psychoanalysis does not condone unethical or criminal behaviour. Hygienists would not insult or punish the infected pool but they would fence it off until the contaminating substances had been removed. Irrational and criminal individuals should be likewise restrained and isolated, not for purposes of castigation, but until such time when dangerous factors in their unconscious have been removed and when re-education has enabled them to resume their place among normal individuals. BIBLIOGRAPHY The subject of the unconscious is discussed very clearly in non-technical language by William Lay in "Man's Un- conscious Conflict" (Dodd, Mead and Co.) pages 48 to 126. This book is an excellent primer for those who wish to familiarize themselves with the terminology of psycho- analysis. Advanced readers may study Jung's book "Psychology of the Unconscious" (Moffat Yard) which requires a certain knowledge of folklore, ancient religions and psychiatry. The chapters on Instincts, Memory Images and Trop- isms in Jacques Loeb's "Forced Movements, Tropisms and Animal Conduct" (Lippincott) will also prove very valuable from the mechanistic point of view. [22] CHAPTER II: BODY AND MIND, AN INDI- VISIBLE UNIT Academic psychologists simplify their tasks by allotting the body to physiologists and occupying themselves exclusively with the mind. Applied psychology of the analytical type has been com- pelled to discard that arbitrary division of the human organism into "mental" and "physical." Physiologists prying their way into obscure "physical" phenomena have innumerable times reached a sort of middle kingdom in which it seems impossible to produce anything "physical" without producing at the same time something "mental," in which, to every "physical" stimulation, there cor- responds a "mental" effect and to every "mental" stimulation corresponds a "physical" effect. After observing the constant interrelation exist- ing between secretions, attitudes and emotions, one no longer feels justified in speaking vaguely of the influence of the mind on the body or reciprocally. One can no longer understand life unless one admits that mind and body are one. The task of the psychoanalyst would be a hope- [23] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour less one if he ever attempted to study the so-called "mental" disturbances as purely "psychic" phe- nomena; the physician who would treat bodily ail- ments as purely "physical" manifestations would be baffled and impotent. It is only the profoundly ignorant who at the present day pretend to know the limits of the physi- cal and of the mental and attempt to attribute certain phenomena to the mind and others to the body. Cut off a frog's head, thereby removing the brain which is commonly supposed to be the seat of the mind, of the intelligence, of consciousness, etc. The frog then should be " entirely dead" or at least should not be expected to perform any act, except of a purely reflex type, showing any "intelligence." And yet if you apply a strong stimulus such as a drop of prussic acid to the skin of the frog's stomach, one of the legs will at once try to reach the burnt spot and to remove the harmful stimulus. Such a "reflex" act proves that, even in the absence of any thinking apparatus, the organism is aware that something harmful is happening to one of its parts and endeavours to perform appro- priate motions to protect itself against further destruction. If a set of nerves and muscles can "think" as [24] Nervous Hunger clearly as that, unassisted by any brain or mind, the so-called purely physical must be endowed with a remarkable proportion of "mentality." The deplorable inaccuracy of the words mental and physical is well illustrated by experiments made on dogs. Feed a dog every possible morsel that will induce him to overeat until the beast turns in disgust from the most appetizing food. Inject into that overfed dog blood from a dog who has been kept hungry for two days and the overfed dog will throw himself on food "as though' 9 he were hungry. The same experiment could probably be per- formed as successfully on a man. The man, how- ever, would wonder at the possibility of his experi- encing hunger after being surfeited with all sorts of dainties. He would doubt the testimony of his "senses," and speak of "nervous hunger," of "imaginary hunger," vague terms which explain nothing. If a dog is infuriated by the presence of a cat, he will display for "reasons" which to him and the onlookers appear "plausible" and "logical," symptoms of anger such as the dilatation of his pupils, bristling of the hair, snarling, stiffening of the body, defensive poses. [25] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour Inject a small amount of adrenin into the veins of that dog or any other dog of not especially- vicious disposition, and in the absence of any cat or any other disturbing element, he will, "without any reason" stare, snarl, bristle up his hair, and gener- ally express, through threatening attitudes, violent anger. When large amounts of adrenin are released into the human blood stream owing to the abnormal functioning of certain glands, set in motion per- haps by some obscure unconscious thought, a man may likewise assume an attitude of anger, "without any reason," and may justify his attitude by "imag- ining" a grudge against some people, or impatience at certain things. His attitude may later on appear to him absurd and incomprehensible. He may then excuse himself on the plea that "he lost control of himself" or "he was not himself." A crowd may congregate and indulge in some ridiculous or violent deed of which, the following day, every individual member may feel deeply ashamed. "Crowd psychology," "mob suggestion" will then be invoked, the assumption being that all the individuals constituting the crowd had at one time a sort of "collective mind" dominated by one and the same obsessive "thought." A curious light is thrown upon the behaviour of [26] Mob Psychology mobs by the behaviour of copepods, small crusta- ceans, when carbonated water or beer or alcohol are poured into the aquarium in which they disport themselves. As long as their water remains pure, they are apparently in full possession of their "free will" and displace themselves as they please. As soon as the ingredients mentioned above are added to the water, they all abandon their occupa- tions and go to mass themselves at the end of the aquarium which is turned toward the light. If one continues to drop at intervals small quan- tities of carbonated or alcoholic liquids into the aquarium, the little mob remains in the same posi- tion. It cannot turn round. Nor can the helpless animals partake of their food, if that food happens to be placed at the opposite end of the aquarium, that is, away from the source of light. Drain the polluted water or place the copepods into fresh water and the mob will soon disperse, each small animal regaining its freedom of indi- vidual motion and of direction. Pour into the aquarium strychnin, caffein or atropin and the copepods will once more gather into a mob, this time, however, at the end of the aquarium furthest removed from the light. Their previous "fondness" for sunlight has been replaced by a "craving" for darkness. [27] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour Prophets, artists, reformers, lovers, may undergo all sorts of trials, brave starvation and death in order to seek their ideal, and some day they may forsake their ideal. Lovers having recovered from their "infatuation" may recall with astonishment or shame many absurd things they said or did once and look upon their former love object with disgust or even hatred. Certain animals like copepods can be fooled a number of times and be made to fall in love now with the sun, now with the darkness. Others which, were they human beings, would be said to learn very quickly from experience, are never victimized but once by their "idealistic cravings" and after- ward lead a perfectly "sensible" life. Take some newly hatched caterpillars and de- posit them at the foot of a rod or stick on which the sunlight is shining. They will all climb to the top and stay there, staring at the sun, apparently engrossed in the contemplation of their "ideal." In fact they would starve to death unless some one fed them a small piece of green leaf. As soon as they partake of that food, their obsessive sun worship seems to disappear. They climb down the barren stick and seek other stores of food, never bothering any more with the sun or other sources of light. [28] The Electric Dog Watch the behaviour of bees at mating time. Male and female can only fly in one direction, that is toward the sun, and their amorous ecstasy car- ries them into "higher regions," "uplifts" them, takes them "far from the earth." The sexual act performed, they both become once more crea- tures of the earth, fly back to their native hive and no longer feel the "fascination of the empy- rean." An invention described recently in publications devoted to electrical science shows how difficult it would be to draw an absolute line of demarkation between actions apparently due to physical and chemical causes and actions apparently due to the exercise of our "will power" and prompted by "feelings," etc. The electric dog has two eyes supplied with condensing lenses focussed on two selenium cells. Selenium is an element whose electrical properties change under the influence of light. The selenium cells control two electro-magnetic switches. Two motors, on the right and left, can propel the dog forward or backward. When light, as for instance from a small flash lamp, is thrown on both eyes, the current is switched on to both motors and the dog advances toward the light. When the lamp is held to the right, the right [29] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour motor only is actuated and the dog turns to the right. The dog follows the light in the most com- plicated manoeuvres. Shade the light and the dog stops; reverse the motors and the dog runs away from the light, dodging it wherever it may come from. Thus a moth will rush toward a flame, thus owls fly in distress from any bright light, thus human beings are perhaps "propelled" toward a goal, which they think they are striving for, thus the races of the earth once started on their westward wanderings, thus cities and towns, when not re- strained by natural obstacles of an insuperable nature, like mountains or bodies of water, spread to the westward. Naturalists manage to make the problem a little more complicated by telling us that animals and plants which are "fond" of light, that is which are involuntarily and unavoidably determined by light, are also "fond" of blue and green, while animals which are negatively heliotropic, that is "fond" of darkness and afraid of light, are "fond" of the colour red. And experiments on thousands of human beings have revealed that men are most deeply affected by blue, women by red. Whenever experiments first made on animals [30] Cats, Dogs and Men have been tried on human beings their results have been found to confirm the first observations. We know that the same method of training makes both a man and a passenger pidgeon sexual per- verts. Laboratory experiments have proved that female cats and female dogs react more slowly to anger stimuli than the males of both species, the result being a smaller percentage of sugar found in their urine. Observations made on college students of both sexes prove that the rule holds good when human beings are concerned. Human subjects, un- fortunately, cannot be used as frequently as they should be to assure us of the universal application of certain biological and biochemical laws. Some day when we abandon our wasteful method of dealing with criminals and give unredeemable offenders an opportunity to pay for the damage they have inflicted by submitting to scientific ex- periments likely at times to result in death, we may be able to ascertain accurately in what measure chemical determinism, for example, rules the lives of men. Specialization being the only road to thorough knowledge and efficiency, body and mind must at present, for the sake of convenience, be treated separately when in distress. Internist and analyst, however, must co-operate, both applying the latest [31] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour methods devised in their particular field and sub- mitting to each other the doubtful details of every case. While analysts agree that innumerable diseases of the so-called physical variety are induced or invited by some unconscious predisposing factor, no analyst denies the value of medical help or would suggest doing without it. If a subject has been so weakened by a wrong mental attitude that his body has become an easy prey for certain bacilli, all efforts should be made to check or eliminate those bacilli in order to avoid the further inroads they might make on the organism. Specific medical treatment should be sought under the direction of a physician who keeps him- self well informed as to the latest therapeutic methods, the most efficient pharmaceutic prepara- tions, etc. The family physician, the surgeon, the average specialist, however, cannot be expected to follow all the research work done in applied psychology. Although Freud and other prominent analysts have stated that psychoanalytical practitioners need not have medical training, an analyst should possess a good working knowledge of anatomy, physiology and neurology. Reciprocally, every physician should receive some elementary training in applied [32] A Basis for Co-operation psychology, regardless of whether he is to take up the practice of general medicine or to specialize in some particular branch of the medical profes- sion. Then, those who treat the more obviously mate- rial part of the organism and those who treat the more intangible part of the personality can co- operate intelligently in relieving the ailments of the human unit. BIBLIOGRAPHY Two books are absolutely essential to readers desir- ing to study the problem of the interrelations of body and mind from the modern physiological point of view. Loeb's book mentioned in the bibliography for the pre- ceding chapter and W. B. Cannon's capital work "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage" (Appleton). The latter book contains a very readable and entertaining summary of many experiments made by Cannon and his students not only on laboratory animals but on them- selves as well, showing the chemical changes which correspond to the various "emotions." G. W. Crile's "Man an Adaptive Mechanism," while not as recent as Cannon's book, should also be consulted. [331 CHAPTER III: NERVES AND NERVOUS- NESS Nerves, nervous and nervousness are terms which should be used less frequently and less carelessly, "My nerves are on edge" or "I am a nervous wreck' are picturesque expressions devoid of any meaning and which convey a very inaccurate picture of what is taking place in the organism. To the layman, nerves are just nerves; the nerve which a dentist "kills" and the nerve which makes our heart palpitate are to him identical things. In reality there are in the human body two nervous systems whose appearance, colour, make up, distribution and functions are as different as night is from day. There is the sensori-motor system, or the system of nerves which bring to the brain the information about the condition of the various parts of the body and about the way in which those parts are affected by the environment: the nerves which tell us what the eye "sees," what the mouth "tastes," what the nose "smells," whether the water in which we poke [34] The Autonomic Nerves our toe is cold or hot, whether the apple we hold is hard or soft. That system also transmits from the brain to the various muscles definite orders based upon the in- formation received. Motor nerves open or close our eyes, cause us to chew or spit out certain kinds of food, to extend our arm toward a desirable object or withdraw it from a dangerous object, etc. The sensori-motor nerves are white fibres en- veloped in a fatty sheath interrupted at intervals by nodes. Besides this system there is another nervous system for which various names are being used, such as the vegetative system, the sympathetic system or the autonomic system. These nerves are white fibres covered by a very thin mem- brane instead of a thick sheath and presenting a more regular appearance owing to the absence of nodes. Instead of issuing directly from the spinal column as the sensori-motor nerves do, the auto- nomic nerves, with the exception of the vagus which has its root in the brain, take their roots in a column of ganglia located in front of the vertebrae. Although this system disintegrates soon after death, for it is poorly protected and its ganglia lie close to tissues which putrefy readily (nasal mu- [35] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour cous membrane, buccal cavity and intestinal canal), it is older than the sensori-motor system and it is fully developed at birth. The autonomic system supplies the internal or- gans of the body, tear glands, sweat glands, salivary glands, hair roots, lungs, heart, stomach, liver, in- testine, adrenal glands, bladder, rectum and genitals. It carries motor impulses, but scientists are not agreed as to whether it carries sensations It also controls in part the movements of the pupil The autonomic system is divided up into two sub systems which we shall designate as the cranio sacral division or end division and the thoracico lumbar division, or sympathetic division or middle division. The two divisions are absolutely antagonistic in action. For instance the cranio-sacral contracts the pupil, the sympathetic dilates it; the cranio-sacral division slows down the heart action, the sympa- thetic division accelerates it. The cranio-sacral division promotes all the activities which build up the individual and assure the continuance of the race. The sympathetic division which extends from the neck to the upper sacral region, decreases or stops all those activities in emergencies and releases safety devices. [36] The Nervous Balance For instance the cranio-sacral division causes saliva to flow, which helps the disintegration of food in the mouth; it causes the stomach glands to secrete gastric juice and the stomach to contract regularly and vigorously, which activates the digestion and speeds the digested food on its way into the intes- tine; it contracts the intestine and hence assists the elimination of waste matter; it holds the rectum and bladder openings closed until the proper accumu- lation of feces or urine makes voiding necessary; it regulates the heart beats, prevents the pupil from admitting too much light and focuses it so that it throws a clear image on the retina; finally it fills the exterior genitals with blood and enables them to perform their specific functions. The sympathetic division, on the contrary, stops the flow of saliva and of gastric juice, stops the contractions of the stomach or reverses their direc- tion, so that food may be regurgitated into the aesophagus and, at times, vomited; it speeds the heart action; at times, it voids suddenly the bladder and bowels; releases into the blood stream a flow of adrenin which contracts the arteries and a flow of sugar from the liver which supplies the body with extra fuel; stops all genital functions; causes the pupil to dilate, thus giving the eye a staring glare ; bristles the hair, causing goose flesh, etc. [37] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour One can see at once how all the activities of the sympathetic protect the organism either directly, by initiating necessary activities, or indirectly, by inhibiting certain activities which are not necessary in emergencies. When the organism is in danger, that is, must resort to fight or flight, nutrition and sex activities should cease. Not only should they cease because the organism in danger cannot attend to them prop- erly, but also because they deflect toward their specific organs a certain amount of blood which is needed elsewhere for defensive purposes. Hence the dry mouth, the arrested gastric action, the im- potence induced by fear. As the blood must circulate freely in the en- dangered organism and absorb as much oxygen as possible, the heart beats are increased and so is the rate of respiration. As a larger amount of energy has to be expended, the glycogen (sugar) stored up in the liver must be released into the blood stream, after the fashion of a motorist who "steps on the gas" in order to climb a steep hill; if a wound be sustained, adrenin is mixed with the blood causing it to coagulate more quickly and close the wound; finally the hair must be raised, affording to certain animals, such as cats and dogs, a certain amount of protection against teeth and claws and surround- [38] The Vital Urges ing the body, in the case of porcupines and hedge- hogs, with an impassable barrier of sharp daggers. The sudden voiding of the bowels and bladder caused by fright is another emergency measure taken by the sympathetic division. Empty bowels and an empty bladder present a more favourable condition in the case of deep abdominal injuries, while the same organs, if full, might cause compli- cations. The activities of the sympathetic division corre- spond to what we may call the safety urge, while the cranial division which promotes nutrition and assimilation would correspond to the food-ego- power urge and the sacral division to the sex urge. We may notice that the nerves of ego and sex work in unison. The two divisions of the autonomic system are not always balanced with perfect accuracy and one of them is bound to predominate. This will enable us to distinguish roughly three "nervous" types. The type in which the positive activities which build up the individual and further the continuance of the race are not hampered by the negative activi- ties of the sympathetic except in emergencies. This is the type we may justly consider as nor- mal. The second type is one in which the positive [39] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour activities are so strong that they cannot be checked in emergencies by the safety nerves. When the personality is overwhelmed by the cranio-sacral division, that is by the ego and sex urges, the individual is unadaptive and unsocial. Criminal, gluttonous, obscene imbeciles belong to that type for which the terms vagotonic has been suggested. In the third type, or sympathicotonic type, the sympathetic division functions in and out of season, flashing danger signals when there is no danger and holding back the natural cravings for nutrition, self-expression, acquisition, power, reproduction, etc. Neurotics suffering from anxiety, obsessions, phobias, nervous indigestion, psychic impotence, etc., belong to this type. A very simple test has been devised to determine to what type a subject belongs. It is known as the Aschner test. It is based on the fact that the ends of both divisions, the cranial and the sympathetic divisions, can be reached and stimulated by pres- sure on the pupil. The cranial division increases the heart beats and the sympathetic division decreases them. By applying the same stimulation to both divisions, the one which is more powerful will react more easily than the other. If after pressing on the eyeballs for half a minute, the initial pulse, let us say 90, [40] Ghosts from the Past has been reduced to about 80, the patient is prob- ably normal. If the pulse rate has been decreased by more than 10 or 12 beats, the patient is vago- tonic, and if the pulse rate has remained unchanged or has been increased the patient is sympathicotonic. A study of the autonomic system enables us to visualize complexes as defensive actions of the sym- pathetic division or safety urge which were initiated at some past time, generally in infancy when stimuli are likely to produce the deepest impression and which continue to be performed when no actual danger has to be warded off, or in emergencies which are not real emergencies but appear as such owing to wrong associations. A child, frightened unwisely, may all his life show defence and fear reactions, which means that the nerves of his sympathetic division will con- stantly interfere with his digestion, his heart action, his intestinal peristalsis, his sex life. A child hurt by a doctor with a black beard, a classical case in psychoanalytic literature, uncon- sciously associated in later life all men with black beards with the man who hurt him once and when meeting such a man suffered from arterial tension connected with fright. Experiments made on dogs illustrate well the mechanism of association. [41] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour A dog was submitted to a delicate operation whereby the gastric juice secreted by his stomach would run into a graduated tube. For several days a bell was rung every time the dog was given food. To the sight of food there always corresponded a flow of gastric juice. One day the bell was rung but no food was offered to the animal. In spite of the absence of food, gastric juice began to trickle into the test tube. A "bell association" had been created in the dog's organism. In other words, as for several days the sound of a bell had been con- nected with the sight and taste of food, his auto- nomic nerves promoted the flow of gastric juice as soon as the bell rang. A study of the autonomic activities sheds a new light upon many actions which at the present day are considered as voluntary and subjected to criti- cism or praised from a purely ethical point of view based upon the distinction between body and mind. A sixty candle power bulb should not be criti- cized for carrying an amount of electrical power inferior to that which can flow through a hundred candle bulb. A coward is not a coward because he wishes to run away, but because his sympathetic nerves pro- moting flight are especially sensitive to fright stimuli which in other men would produce no re- [42] The Training of Nerves action or a reaction of fight. As Jacques Loeb would put it, a coward runs in the direction where his legs carry him. As the unscientific layman would express it, the coward "loses his nerve" or "is all nerves" or "cannot control his nerves." Punishing a coward and insulting him will not make him a brave man. It may compel him to pretend for a time that he is brave, after which he may succumb to shell-shock when his cravings for safety, long repressed, assert themselves violently and abnormally. But he need not remain a coward and can be trained to master his fear by analyzing it and by disintegrating the absurd associations which set his organism in flight when no dangerous emergency exists. A coward with a well developed intelligence can be made, through education, as indifferent to cer- tain fear stimuli as other people can be made in- different to some apparently alarming symptoms of sickness. For example : any one taking the typhoid vaccine will after the first injection feel dreadfully sick. He will develop violent fever, suffer from head- aches, thirst, palpitations, nausea, he will feel very weak, etc., in other words, he will, within twenty- four hours, experience most of the symptoms of the [43] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour disease against which the vaccine is to protect him. Duly warned by a physician, the patient will not worry over those disturbances which are "ex- pected," as suppuration is expected after vaccina- tion for smallpox. The patient knows what is causing his malaise and what its duration shall be. While he could not very well "enjoy" the situation, he resigns him- self to it as to something temporary and unavoid- able. On the other hand, should a careless physician fail to warn the patient of the effects of the first hypodermic dose, the patient would add to the unpleasant condition induced by the vaccine a deep worry, a fear of possible complications and perhaps devise unnecessary plans for emergency action, thereby affecting his heart beats, his gastric and intestinal activities and so on. Knowing to what type he belongs is as necessary for a human being as knowing, for instance, whether one of his legs is shorter than the other. A cripple in ignorance of the disparity of his legs, would gather the impression that the road he was travelling was strewn with ruts and obstructions. The longer leg would seemingly encounter number- less obstacles while the shorter would be constantly descending into holes. [44] Know Thyself The man with a vagotonic tendency whose ego and sex urges are apt to disregard the warnings of his safety urge and the man with a sympathico- tonic tendency whose sympthetic division is con- stantly raising the danger flag are bound to have very distorted impressions of their mental states and of their environment. Knowing themselves better, they can discount considerably such deceptive impressions and there- by correct their behaviour. Those called upon to judge them can also by understanding better their nervous mechanism, help them to conform to standard conduct. Even the perfectly normal man can derive much comfort from knowing positively that he is normal at times when, in a crisis or emergency, he might conceive doubts as to his condition. A knowledge of the functioning of one's autonomic system is at all times of great assistance in remaining normal. That knowledge also enables one to adopt or to avoid for scientific, that is, plausible and compel- ling reasons, certain forms of behaviour. The following observation made on dogs by Pavlof teaches a lesson which should be remem- bered by every human being. A dog submitted to the surgical operation I men- tioned previously secreted some seventy cubic centi- [45] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour metres of gastric juice when fed a certain amount of meat. One day, a cat was brought into the laboratory while he was partaking of his meal and aroused his anger. On that occasion, the amount of gastric juice which flowed into the test tube was just one tenth that accompanying a peaceful undis- turbed meal. Anger and fear had raised the danger signal in his organism and prepared the dog for fight or flight, but not for the enjoyment of a meal. A quarrel at the dinner table affects human beings as the sight of a cat affected our dog. Their flow of gastric juice is stopped or considerably re- duced and whatever food they take into their stomachs would linger in that organ much longer than it should normally. The result will be some form of "nervous indigestion," perhaps nausea and in extreme cases, vomiting. Observations of a similar order were made on a small boy suffering from a gastric fistula which allowed gastric juice to flow out of his body. When the boy chewed pleasant food, the flow was copious, whereas the chewing of some unpleasant or in- different substance was not followed by any se- cretion. The flow of gastric juice is not induced solely, as many people think, by the pleasant taste of food. [46] The Value of Pleasure The mere sight of appetizing aliments is sufficient to start the digestive fluids. Hence, a meal served in an attractive dining room, on clean linen, in dainty dishes, with flowers on the table, in a peaceful, soothing atmosphere, to the tune of caressing, unemotional music, is likely to be digested more easily than food served in slovenly, noisy surroundings. This applies to almost every experience in life. Pleasant memories of gratifying happenings create durable associations, like the food-bell asso- ciation which had such an appetizing effect on Pavlof's dog. Unpleasant memories produce per- haps even more lasting effects of the opposite char- acter and are responsible for a thousand "nervous" ills. Every psychological theory will have to be re- vised according to the rather recent findings of scientists touching the autonomic functions. While space does not allow us to dwell at length on that aspect of the subject, we may say a few words on the new interpretation of will-power which can be based upon the study of the autonomic nervous sys- tem. The vagotonic, whose "animal" activities can hardly be checked by a weaker sympathetic divi- sion, is called "a creature of instinct," "led by his [47] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour cravings," "subservient to his lower nature," "lack- ing in will-power," etc. H|e whose sympathetic system acts in all emer- gencies and in emergencies only, that is, does not create absurd, unconscious reasons for illogical be- haviour, is credited with a great amount of will- power. He whose sympathetic system acts in and out of season, overpowering his ego and sex urges, creating emergencies and raising obstacles, is con- stantly "nervous," vacillating, considering one course and then another, "unable to make up his mind." Education undertaken by a trained psychologist, not by a disciplinarian, may alter the first type by developing in his sympathetic division a fear of the absolute privation which may be the consequence of vagotonic indulgence. The third type also can be trained to recognize a true emergency from an imaginary one and to gauge accurately the size of the obstacles rising in his path. Neither type should be dealt with by jailers or judges. Neither should be held responsible for behaviour due to weakness or self-deception. Both should, if their conduct is socially intolerable, be restrained and educated. Those whose nervous [48] Ethical Considerations system appears inadaptable should remain the wards of the state and be considered as victims of organic maladjustment for which they are in no wise responsible. BIBLIOGRAPHY The subject of nerves cannot be well understood unless the reader makes himself familiar with the autonomic nervous system which in the majority of medical books is designated as the sympathetic system. The most important publication on the subject is H. Higier's "Vegetative Neurology" (Nervous and Mental Disease Pub. Co.) which is very technical. Consult also M. Laignel Lavastine's "The Internal Secretions and the Nervous System" (Nervous and Mental Disease Pub. Co.) and Cannon's previously mentioned work. G. V. N. Dearborn's "The Influence of Joy" (Little Brown) and L. E. Emerson's "Nervousness" (Little Brown), are two small books casting interesting side- lights on the subject. [49] II. PROBLEMS OF CHILDHOOD iBll ^Sl CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD FIXATIONS The seed of all mental disturbances is sown in our childhood years. Whether we hold with Freud that childhood memories, habits and repressions disturb our mental balance in later years, or assume with Adler that the neurotic adult simply draws upon his childhood memories for the woof of his fancies, the fact remains that one's childhood, directly or indirectly, determines the content and form of one's neurosis. The problems of childhood are therefore the problems of the adult. To a normal, happy child- hood corresponds a normal, happy adulthood. We cannot state that to an abnormal, unhappy childhood there always corresponds an abnormal unhappy adulthood, for most people manage to remain normal regardless of what they do or have to surfer at the hands of others; but we can state t 1, to every abnormality observed in an adult cor- r* ponds some abnormal situation which dominated the subject's childhood. The most fateful complication in a child's life i. d one whose consequences are recognized by [53] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour analysts of all schools without any exception, is what Freud has designated as the Oedipus complex, or the excessive attachment of a child for the parent of the opposite sex, resulting in a more or less vio- lent dislike of the parent of the same sex. Freud called it the Oedipus Complex as an illu- sion to the well known legend of Oedipus, King of Thebes, who killed his father Laius and married his mother Jocasta. Students of ancient religions and folk lore have noticed that the conflict between father and son, mother and daughter, constitutes the substance of thousands of mythological or popular legends. Psychiatrists have observed it re-appearing in many forms of mental derangement. Freud has stated that such an excessive attach- ment or "fixation" is unconsciously incestuous. The Swiss school of analysts would rather believe that the fixation is purely symbolical, the boy se- lecting his mother, the girl, her father, as an ideal of authority, intelligence, power, etc. Adler, of Vienna, on the other hand, believes that the incest situation is imagined by the neurotic as one of the components of his regression to a period of his life when he was absolutely dependent on one of the parents and did not have to face life and its struggles. [54] Imitation Versus Heredity None of those three views should exclude the others. There may be a slightly sensuous attach- ment in certain cases, encouraged by caresses of the mother for the son and of the father for the daugh- ter, in which there is a slight amount of veiled sexuality, each of the parents showing preference for the child of the opposite sex. But in many cases, Jung's and Adler's views appear very plaus- ible. To those three hypotheses we may add a fourth one: Imitation is probably the most potent factor in human and animal life. Like instinct, it prob- ably resolves itself into a set of little understood physical, chemical and nervous phenomena, some of which have been elucidated only recently. We are what we are because we have imitated some man or woman whose mannerisms, attitudes, mode of speech, and consequently, whose emotional life we have unconsciously reproduced. As in the first years of our life we have no one to imitate but our parents, our parents are likely to become our most obsessing model or ideal. This phenomenon presents many dangers. The normal child would be one who, up to the time of puberty, had imitated both parents without showing much partiality (admitting of course that the parents harmonized well enough not to create a con- [55] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour flict in the child's mind) ; who at puberty, would imitate the parent of the same sex, without exhibit- ing any hostility toward the parent of the opposite sex; and who finally would select secondary imita- tion objects outside of the family circle, thus build- ing up a consistent and original personality. The parental traits would be there, father and mother contributing varied qualities, and outsiders furnishing pleasing variations upon the parental type, introducing into the blend no discordant features. There are too many cases, however, in which that happy situation is disturbed. Sickness in child- hood may bring one child under the constant influ- ence of one parent to the almost complete exclusion of the other; and so may the death or continued absence of one of the parents. One of the parents may for rather regrettable reasons, attract and amuse the child; a neurotic, eccentric parent will have more influence upon his children than his normal mate (circus freaks attract children more than athletes), etc. Children coming home from the circus almost invariably imitate the freaks or the clowns, but even Freud would fail to drag a sexual explanation into that "fixation" which is often of long duration and incredibly powerful, considering the short time [56] The Family Romance in which the children were exposed to the influence of their favourites. Three hours at the circus may mean several weeks of attempts at performing certain stunts. A little boy of my acquaintance walked for several weeks like Charlie Chaplin after seeing him once. In many cases, the Oedipus situation resolves itself then into an exaggerated imitation of one parent by the child. A boy having selected his mother as the most perfect model, is bound to dislike his father who, not only is so unlike her, but wields too much influ- ence over her. If, on the contrary, he had selected his father as his exclusive model, he would dislike his mother, who is unlike the father and dominates him in cer- tain respects. The family romance of the neurotic girl would be similar to that of the neurotic boy. Imitation explains as much as sexuality and rids certain details of the romance of their apparently sexual aspect. The boy with a fixation on his mother, who con- stantly fondles her and has to be taken into her bed, is not attracted by any of his mother's physical qualities. He is, in all respects but one, a female who feels no embarrassment in close contact with [57] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour another female and does not expect her to feel any embarrassment either. The sexual fate of such boys, who later in life are very indifferent to women and not infrequently passive homosexuals, confirms the suspicion that it is rather imitation of the mother and self -identification with her than re- pressed incest cravings which dominate their be- haviour. The many male and female neurotics who are attracted solely to married men and women are subjects with strong fixations who seek, not pri- marily one physical or mental type for which they have a special affinity, but a situation, which in their childhood years was normal and habitual. The father they loved had a wife, the mother they loved had a husband. Their jealousy of their lover's wife or of their mistress's husband is what their dislike of the un- loved parent was, not sexual but egotistical. The boy with a mother fixation and the girl with a father fixation, will not only try to be like the favourite parent, but will on all occasions try to be as unlike the unloved parent as possible. (Clergy- men's sons.) One boy I have observed was the son of a pro- fessional man, very conservative, prudish and snob- bish to a degree. [58] A Restless Type His mother fixation had been nursed along by too much petting and fondling. At sixteen he still played in mother's bed mornings and evenings. At eighteen he showed absolutely no interest in girls and compared every girl he knew to his mother in a way most disadvantageous to the girl. After a severe crisis at the time of puberty when he once attempted suicide, his opposition to every one of his father's ideas and plans for his future began to manifest itself very clearly. The father was extremely conservative; the son embraced readily all radical beliefs. The father was conventional, the son unconventional in his behaviour and speech, and very slovenly in his way of dressing. The father was very settled in his habits, the son led the most irregular life, sleeping all day and loafing all night, having his meals at all times of the day or night. His revolt against the father-image, symbolical of authority, caused him to be involved in difficul- ties with various teachers and finally to leave college. In his sedulous avoidance of the father type he shunned all professional people and spent most of his time with menials and labourers. His distaste for work, which prevented him from holding a position for more than a few days at a [59] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour time, was in part an imitation of the comparative idleness of his middle class mother, financially de- pendent on his father, and in part an expression of dislike of his employers symbolizing the father's authority, and also a way of "getting even" with his father. His constant schemes for getting-rick-quick and his passion for gambling were attempted flights from reality and a search for the line of least ef- fort. The struggle between his normal and his abnor- mal tendencies revealed itself in his variable atti- tude to his mother whom he at times overwhelmed with caresses and at times treated very scornfully. Another neurotic with a decided fixation on his mother was unable to enjoy any food which had not been prepared by her or according to her recipes. Dishes which had never been served in his home during his childhood repelled him and when courtesy compelled him to eat of them, he generally developed nausea and vomiting. In this case, the mother fixation had not had any crippling effects as far as sexual cravings were concerned. He consorted with many women of different types but selected for his wife a woman of the mother type whom he constantly taunted by instituting un- pleasant comparisons between her and his mother. [60] Homosexual Fixations This man always voiced a frank hatred of his father and like the preceding type indulged con- stantly in dreams of get-rich-quick schemes which his restlessness never allowed to mature. Besides heterosexual fixations or fixations on the parent of the opposite sex, we must consider homo- sexual fixations or fixations on the parent of the same sex. They do not lead to conflicts as acute as those precipitated by the Oedipus situation. The boy with a father fixation is not impelled by his dislike of his mother to seek forms of behaviour which are eccentric or absurd, for, being a male, he will on all occasions act in ways different from hers. His dislike will be due to her dissimilarity to his ideal, which he will consider as an inferiority. Very different from the boy with a mother fixa- tion, the boy with a father fixation will not shun women but he will despise them and fear them. They will attract him as they attract the father he imitates but he will be more or less ashamed of yielding to their attraction. He will love them and torture them and the origin of many cases of cruel sadism is generally to be traced back to such a situation. Both forms of fixation have a crippling influence on a human being's life. Clinging too closely to [61] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour an ideal, he has a tendency to disparage all con- ditions which differ from the conditions under which he acquired a fixation. The man with a mother fixation will regret the days when he still was his mother's little boy; when life's emergencies threaten him with defeat he may regress to the childhood level on which he then lived. The man with a father fixation will follow the same deceptive line of least effort; there will be a difference, however. While the man with a mother fixation is likely to be a rebel, the man with a father fixation is generally a crusty conservative, a neophobiac, ranting over the good old days, old fashioned in every way, at times more conservative even than his father, for his father may have grown mentally while he lingers in the stage during which he acquired his fixation and still imitates his father as his father was when he himself was from five to fifteen years old. A conflict between the parents results often in a severe conflict in the child's organism. Parents living in disharmony lack fairness, measure and dignity. Their hostility to each other makes them repellent to the child who is constantly in doubt as to whom to imitate. In certain cases a fixation [62] Results of Family Strife on one of the parents may have disastrous effects. B. M.'s parents never agreed and finally separ- ated. B. M. realized her mother's mental infer- iority and drew farther and farther away from her in childhood. She was extremely attracted by her neurotic father whose lack of kindness and erratic ways, on the other hand, repelled her. Her psy- chology has ever since been complicated by the fol- lowing speculation: "I shall do this because my father would have done it but it is wrong for me to do it for my father was an unworthy type." The result has been acute hysterical suffering. I shall mention in the chapter on the Love Life the various perversions due to maladjustments of the fixation type in childhood. From a consideration of the mental growth of the child, one is forced to accept the conclusion that the presence of a male and a female in the household is absolutely necessary if the offspring is to be normal in later life. The child brought up by only one parent is likely to be one-sided or perverse. Affectionate parents are a source of great danger for their children and so are those who do not know how to restrain their children's affection when it gets out of bounds. [63] Psychoanalysis and Behaviour Indifferent parents or the removal of the par- ents by death in the child's infancy cripple the child in another way. Egotism of the positive, progressive, creative type is the most valuable human trait, the trait which differentiates man from the animals. A cer- tain amount of self-love, self-confidence, self-re- liance is absolutely necessary in life. The child whom no parent has praised and who has been treated like an intruder, the orphan com- mitted to some institution where teachers or keepers, however kind they may be, cannot lavish on fifty or a hundred children the love which individual parents would lavish on each of them separately, suffer from a certain sense of inferiority which often leads to negativism. Such children do not know that they are impor- tant for they have never seemed important to any one. When herded in institutions they only have distant models for imitation, the few adults they could imitate being strangers separated from them by a wall of indifference. The result is often a stunting in mental and physical growth due to the wholesale imitation of children by children. The solution of the fixation problem will not be within our reach until the phenomenon of imitation has been studied more completely. At present a [64] An Unsolved Problem few scattered observations made by biologists con- stitute the only material at our disposal. Those few and unrelated facts, however, are enough to make us suspect the tremendous importance of imitation as a factor in human development. [65] CHAPTER II. THE SEXUAL ENLIGHTEN- MENT OF CHILDREN One of the statements made by Freud and which exposed him to the bitterest criticism on the part of hostile or ill-informed opponents, was that in children, even for the tenderest age, the sexual life attains a much greater degree of development than was generally conceded and that its growth is gradual and continuous from the day of birth. Puberty is the culmination of that progressive ripen- ing instead of being, as it is considered by many, the sudden, unprepared outburst of the sexual instinct. Sexual, urinary and fecal activities being con- trolled by the same nerves develop along parallel lines. All of them, however, are submitted to a severe regulation which in the case of sex amounts to almost complete repression. In probably many more cases than parents and nurses are willing to admit, there is a certain amount of sexual self-gratification indulged in by children between the ages of three and five, that is, long before puberty. Much of it certainly escapes observation. [66] ifi&Jlt