suppositious to think that many of these variant individuals are really
atavistic in makeup and have continued from one generation to another
special defective traits of emotional makeup which are fortunately denied
the average individual."
The writer cannot understand how the theory which he has taken the trouble
to so fully present in the above quotations can be maintained. Jones and
Clark both assert that the tics or habit spasms as probably of the same
nature as the obsessions in general. Moreover, Jones agrees that "familiar
examples of compulsion in a slight degree are the obsessive impulses to
touch every other rail of an iron fence as one walks past, to step on the
cracks between the flagstones of the pavement, or not to step on them, and
so on." A little reflection will show us the impossibility and illogicality
of viewing all these conditions as being fundamentally of sexual origin. Let
us follow the argument. If tics are of sexual derivation, as the Freudians
here openly maintain, then it must follow that those familiar examples of
compulsion, such as the obsessive impulse to touch every other post, etc.,
are likewise of sexual origin. This conclusion is forced upon us, since,
even according to Jones, the only difference between the marked tics and the
lesser manifestations is one of degree.[*] Now, these slighter impulsive
tendencies to which we have here referred are very frequent in all children
and by no means infrequent in grown-ups. They are habitual movements, which
may be of transient duration only or may, by repeated performance, develop
into more or less fixed habits. If, then, these habits are of sexual
significance, it must follow that all other habits, especially if associated
with a certain degree of consciousness or awareness, are in like manner
symbolical of the past infantile and early childhood sexual activities and
tendencies. This conclusion is, as is seen, inevitable, if we believe in
the Freudian theory of the pathogenesis of the tics. However, since this
leads us to a reductio ad absurdum, we must, of course, reject the
explanation which has been offered by the Freudian school.
[*] The accompanying mental state characteristic of ticquers is absent in
habits. We can stop doing the latter when our attention is directed to
them; not so in tics Meige and Feindel have discussed these and other
differences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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