The second point that I should bring out in this connection is as follows:
That which is of fundamental importance and of basic significance in the
life of the psychoneurotic or the stutterer, that which is the fundamental
and essential motive force which controls the psychoneurotic and the
stutterer is also true, but in greater or less degree, for all of those who
are not within the confines of this group.[3] And as a further statement I
must assert that whatever is deemed to be the essential and primary cause
for stuttering must also be applicable, in the same way but in different
degree, to all the other manifestations of speech disorder such as the slips
of the tongue, and many other of the psychopathologic acts of everyday life.
Consequently, if the Freudian theories of sexuality are directly applicable
to the problem of stuttering, it follows that they must likewise be
applicable to all the other disturbances of speech just referred to. For,
if followed out to the very end, we shall find that the possible mental
content and mental mechanisms are the same for all psychopathologic acts,
whether of everyday life or distinctly abnormal and outside the pale of our
average range. If sexuality lies at the bottom of stuttering, it must be at
the root of all other psychopathologic acts, of whatever nature, of whatever
degree and wherever and whenever found. I cannot devote the time in this
place to enter into an elaborate discussion to prove the truth of this
thesis. But I can gain my point more easily and more directly in another
way. Although Freud and his followers have not stated, in just so many
words, that the psychopathologic acts of everyday life have the same hidden
mental content that the psychoneuroses have (although it is my contention
that this conclusion is but a natural extension of their sexual theories
concerning the psychoneuroses), yet we do find that Freud and the Freudian
school in general apply their sexual theories to the whole group of the
psychoneuroses. Now, since stuttering is a psychoneurotic disorder of a
certain special type, it is understood that they must believe that
stuttering, as a matter of course, comes within the rubric of their
generalization. As a matter of fact, if their sexual theories were at first
applied only to stuttering, as they were originally applied to hysteria, it
would mean that, by a process of reasoning, the Freudian school would have
to apply their dicta to all of the psychoneuroses. This was, in truth, just
what did occur, beginning with hysteria. And it is seen that the same thing
would have happened had they begun with stuttering. I contend, further, but
I shall not endeavor in this place to prove the correctness of my
contention, that what is absolutely and without exception, fundamentally and
essentially true of the psychoneuroses is likewise true, in different
degree, of the psychopathologic acts of every day life. This would be the
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