Studies in Forensic Psychiatry

by Bernard Glueck

We are especially concerned here with these inacceptable instincts, for the elucidation of which a brief review of Freud’s theories on sexual instinct is essential.

Thoroughgoing and painstaking dissection of the human soul, such as has been practiced by Freud for nearly a quarter of a century and by many followers of his theories in the past decade, revealed to him a number of unmistakable facts from the developmental history of the individual which forced him to postulate his very radical and revolutionary theories of the sexual instinct in man. Recent behavior studies in the higher anthropoids have likewise revealed very interesting facts concerning the sexual instinct of these animals. Freud was led to make certain assertions from his painfully acquired experience, such as the unfailing sexual agency in the causation of neurotic manifestations, and that his experience of many years has as yet shown no exception to this rule, which quite naturally provoked a good deal of bitter and fanatic criticism not only from lay people but from experienced physicians. The cause for this lies in the nature of the thing itself, that much tabooed subject of sexuality. Unfortunately, as Hitschmann[6] says, physicians in their personal relations to the sexual life have not been given any preference over the rest of the children of men and many of them stand under the ban of that combination of prudery and lust which governs the attitude of most cultivated people in sexual matters. Especially unsavory appears to most people Freud’s theory of infantile sexuality, a subject which has heretofore been looked upon chiefly from a moralistic standpoint, and was spoken of by others merely as odd or as a frightful example of precocious depravity. It is somewhat strange that of all the frightful depravities, if we wish to call it so—inherent in man, of the marked criminalistic components universally present in man which psychoanalytic studies have revealed—the sex depravity should have provoked the most fanatic attacks. Indeed to those who are accustomed to look at man with the psychoanalytic eye, Rochefoucauld’s incisive statement does not at all sound strange. He said, “I have never seen the soul of a bad man; but I had a glimpse at the soul of a good man; I was shocked.” I therefore crave the indulgence of those of you who are not familiar with psychoanalytic literature for what I am about to quote briefly from Freud’s theories on the sexual instinct in man.

Freud lays special stress upon infantile sexuality as it is manifested in the suckling and in the child. The infant brings with it into the world the germ of sexuality, which is, however, extremely difficult of comprehension since at this stage the sexual feelings are not directed towards other persons but are gratified on the child’s own body in a manner which Havelock Ellis has termed “autoerotic.” This autoerotic gratification is gained through erogenous zones, that is, certain areas of the body which are peculiarly sensitized to sexual excitations. Among these erogenous zones may be mentioned the mouth, lips, tongue, anal region, the neck of the bladder as well as various skin areas and sense organs. Already in 1879, Lindner, a Hungarian pediatrist, devoted a penetrating study to the sucking or pleasure-sucking of the child. Freud emphasizes that the suckling enjoys sexual pleasure, in the taking of nourishment, which it ever after seeks to procure by sucking independent of taking food. To many it may occasion surprise to learn that sucking is exhibited independently of its relation to the hunger instinct. It is, however, plain that the mouth is at first concerned only with the gratifying of the hunger instinct; later the desire for a repetition of pleasurable experience gained in this way is separated from the need of taking nourishment, thereby transforming this mucous surface into an erogenous zone. It is likewise difficult to conceive by the inexperienced in psychoanalysis, that the child derives pleasurable sensations from the anal zone. Because of the important rôle which anal eroticism plays in our case we might speak more fully of this form of autoeroticism. One not infrequently observes in little children that they refuse to empty the bowels when they are placed on the closet because they obtain pleasure from defecation, when the retained stool by its accumulation excites strong irritation of the mucosa. The importance which scatological rites and ceremonials, that is, certain peculiar niceties practiced in connection with the emptying of the bowels, play in the evolution of the race have been extensively discussed in literature. Havelock Ellis[7] says in this connection—“The most usual erotic symbolisms in childhood are those of the scatologic group, the significance of which has often been emphasized by Freud and his school. The channels of urination and defecation are so close to the sexual centers that the intimate connection between the two groups is easily understood. There is undoubtedly a connection between nocturnal enuresis and sexual activities, sometimes masturbation. Children not infrequently believe that the sexual acts of their elders have some connection with urination and defecation, and the mystery with which the excretory acts are surrounded, helps to support this theory. Up to puberty scatologic interests may be regarded as normal; at this age the child has still much in common with the primitive mind, which, as mythology and folklore show, attributes great importance to the excretory functions.”

Many of these ceremonials one regularly discovers in the analyses of neurotics. We shall not dwell further here upon the erogenous zones activity in the suckling, but emphasizing again its importance along with the importance of autoeroticism in the sexuality of the suckling will pass to the next phase of the psycho-sexual evolution of man—the latent period.

The germs of sexual excitement in the new-born develop for a time, then undergo a progressive suppression in a period of partial or complete sexual latency. During this period, which is normally interrupted at about the third or fourth year, as result of organic evolutionary processes and the indispensable help of education, those mental forces are formed which appear later as inhibitions to the sexual instinct and narrow its course like dams; mental forces such as disgust, the feeling of shame, the esthetic and moral standards of ideas. During this “latent period” a part of these sexual energies is separated from the sexual aim and applied to cultural and social ends, a process which Freud has designated by the name sublimation as important for culture, history and the individual.

Sublimation or the socialization of the sexuality therefore is the transformation and utilization of certain components of the sexual instinct for aims no longer sexual in nature. At the end of the latency period the child’s sexuality reappears, frequently but not necessarily induced prematurely by seduction. In addition to the autoerotic gratifications spoken of above, the child is now capable of the choice of a love-object accompanied by erotic feelings. Because of the dependency of the child this first choice of a love-object is directed towards parents and nurses either of his own or of the opposite sex. “Incest complex”—Now too the child under the influence of occasional seduction may become polymorphous-perverse, that is, may become subject to any form of sexual perversion. He likewise shows a preference in the selection of his love-object for his own sex, homo-sexuality.

At puberty two significant changes take place in the psycho-sexuality of the individual. First the primacy of the genital zone asserts itself, and second, the heretofore autoerotic character of the sexual activity is lost and the instinct finds its object. In order that the former change may be successfully brought about, there is necessitated an amalgamation of all instinctive tendencies which proceed from the erogenous zones and a subordination of all the erogenous zones to the primacy of the genital zone. All this is facilitated by the development of the genital organs and the elaboration of the seminal secretion. To these conditions there is also added at puberty that “pleasure of gratification” of sexuality which ends the normal sexual act, the end pleasure. The second function, the choice of a love-object, is influenced by the infantile inclination of the child towards its parents and nurses which is revived at puberty and similarly directed by the incest barriers against these persons which have been erected in the meantime. If on account of pathological heredity and accidental experiences, this amalgamation of the excitations springing from various sources and its application to the sexual object does not occur, then there result the pathological deviations of the sexual instinct, determined in part by earlier processes, such as a preservation of a definite part of the original polymorphous-perverse tendency. The perversions are thus developed from seeds which are present in the undifferentiated tendencies of the child and constitute in adults a condition of arrested development.

Thus we see that the sexual impulse does not suddenly emerge as a new phenomenon at the age of puberty, but that the form assumed at this period is gradually evolved from rudimentary elements present even in the earliest years of life. Sexuality is not absent in the child, it is merely different, being unorganized and imperfectly adapted to its later functions. All this primordial mass of pleasurable activities enumerated above, undergoes profound modifications as the result of growth and education. One part only becomes selected and differentiated so as to form the adult sexual impulse in the narrower sense. A greater part is found to be incompatible with social observance, and is repressed, buried, forgotten. The repressed impulses, however, do not die; it is much harder to kill old desires than is sometimes thought, they continue throughout life to strive toward gratification. This they cannot do directly, and are thus driven to find indirect, symbolic modes of expression. The energy is transformed into these secondary, more permissible forms of activity, and furnishes a great part of the strivings of mankind that lead to social and cultural interests and development in general—sublimation. (Jones.)

I don’t know whether I have succeeded in putting clearly enough the Freudian views of sexuality, limited as I have to be in my expositions of his theories. I do wish, however, to leave the impression which one must gain from two sentiments frequently expressed by various authors, namely, “Man sexualizes the universe,” and “Man is what his sex is.”

Sexuality and Criminality.—A method of psychological analysis which aside from its originally restricted field has already thrown so much light upon various cultural aspects of life, such as art, poetry, religion, folklore, and mythology, cannot fail to furnish some very helpful discoveries for the problem of criminology. As far as pathological stealing is concerned a number of very suggestive studies have already appeared, a review of which Albrecht has prepared for the Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology. The fact that rich, or at least well-to-do, women are sometimes guilty of theft in the big Department stores has always received a certain amount of attention. Studies of this phenomenon have been made by Duboisson, Contemps, Lasegue and Letulle. In each case examined the woman declared that some unknown power had suddenly compelled her to touch some object, and put it in her pocket.