[32] An excellent condensed treatment of many of the effects of incestuous fixation will be found in K. Abraham's "Die Stellung der Verwandtenche in der Psychologie der Neurosen." Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen, 1909, I., 110.
[33] In a rather extreme case known to the writer a woman of about 35 had never been able to leave home without the most intense feelings of sorrow and loneliness, which usually impelled her to return precipitately after the absence of a day or two. In childhood she could seldom be induced to go more than a mile or so from her home unless accompanied by her parents and in later life neurotic symptoms were developed which effectually prevented her from living apart from her nearest relatives. As was to be expected, analysis revealed a very strong parent fixation, and after treatment she was able to fill a responsible post in a town far removed from the residence of her family.
[34] Cp. M. Steiner, "Die funktionelle Impotenz des Mannes und ihre Behandlung," 1913.
Freud, "Beiträge zur Psychologie des Liebeslebens." Jahrbuch für psychoanalytische und psychopathologische Forschungen, 1912, IV, 40.
Ferenczi, "Contributions to Psycho-Analysis," 9.
[35] Even if marriage is at first apparently successful, it may be unable to stand the strain of circumstances which would present little or no difficulty in the absence of parent fixation. Thus in a case known to me, after a happy honeymoon spent near home, a wife proved unable to accompany her husband to a distant locality, where business affairs necessitated his residence but (in spite of his protests and entreaties) turned back while on the journey and returned to live with her parents. It appeared that she had very seldom left home before her marriage, having been brought up by kindly but indulgent parents, as regards whom there was a strong emotional fixation. In her youth she had only travelled once without her parents, being then so miserably unhappy that she begged to be sent home again as soon as possible.
[36] Cp. especially Ferenczi, "Contributions to Psycho-Analysis," 250.
[37] In the case of a woman, the record of whose analysis was kindly shown to me by Dr. E. M. Cole, there appears to have been a complete father fixation (with corresponding hatred of the mother) at one level and at a lower and more unconscious level an equally complete mother fixation (with all the indications of an "inverted" Œdipus complex), the two levels being characterised by a predominance of heterosexual and homosexual tendencies respectively.
[38] In three cases of homosexual tendencies in men which I have recently had the opportunity of studying, the desire to be used by the father as a sexual objective was quite clearly apparent. Cp. Freud's "Aus der Geschichte einer infantilen Neurose." Sammlung kleiner Schriften zur Neurosenlehre. IV. 578 ff.
[39] "Contributions to Psycho-Analysis," 250 ff.