(e) Finally, inversion may be fostered by a sort of “latter-day obedience” to the mother’s commands. I have observed not rarely that mothers warn their children against harmless, though warm and friendly contact with the other sex, as something unpermissible and bad and that the teaching thus instilled may unfortunately increase the disposition towards one’s own sex through later obedience. As Stekel has well stated, in commenting upon Sadger’s conclusions, the first of these is false, because the homosexual is not a victim of withdrawal from the mother, but rather of a fixation upon her. Further, one does not repress a person when one identifies one’s self. Identification is direct love; differentiation means repression. Where homosexuals (male) identify themselves with the mother--as many of them do--there may also be present a repression of the father-ideal. Alfred Adler, whose conception of the neurosis is based on the hypothesis of “_the male protest_,” also associates homosexuality with this principle. In his opinion, all reactions and protective constructions or fixations of the neurotic are based on the wish to be “_a complete being_,” as he sees it. Homosexuality exemplifies this protest in a singular form. The homosexual’s ambition is (in its unconscious implications): _I want to be a woman!_ This, according to Adler, _is a male protest under the use of female means_. He maintains that the homosexual attempts by this means to enhance his strength of personality. The latter turns away from woman because he fears his inferiority. He fears the sexual partner. Fear, shame, hate and disgust are the inhibitions which drive the homosexual away from the opposite sex. Adler mentions that the over-valuation of the homosexual partner serves also to raise the neurotic invert in his own estimation. Thus, in neuroses, homosexuality, even when carried into practice, is always found to be a symbol by means of which it is sought to place the individual’s own superiority beyond question. This mechanism is similar to that of a religious psychosis, in which the fancied nearness to God has the significance of an elevation. In a sense, the religious fanatic identifies himself with God, just as the non-religious psychopath may identify himself with Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander the Great, or some other character in history whose personality completely dominated its environment.