The psycho-analytic study of the familyFlugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Science
The psycho-analytic study of the family
Flugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Families; Marriage; Parent and child; Psychoanalysis
The brief review which we have undertaken in this chapter of the
displacement of the love impulse from persons of the immediate family
environment to objects selected from a wider circle, is sufficient to
show that the whole nature and course of the love life of an individual
is to a very large extent dependent on the way in which this displacement
is achieved[139]. There is little doubt but that the further advance of
psychological science will reveal more intimately the working of those
mechanisms with which we have here been dealing, and of whose nature
and importance we are now beginning to gain some rough preliminary
understanding. In view of the desirability of a satisfactory direction of
the love impulse, as well from the point of view of national and racial
well-being as from that of individual happiness and family prosperity, it
is to be expected that the further enlightenment which we may hope for on
this subject, will be, both practically and theoretically, as important as
any which the science of Psychology will bring us.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 116: "Zur Einführung des Narzißmus." _Jahrbuch für
Psychoanalyse_, VI, 1. I.]
[Footnote 117: See especially Otto Rank, "Die Lohengrinsage," Schriften
zur angewandten Seelenkunde.]
[Footnote 118: An influence of this kind may also manifest itself by
causing the successive falling in love with several persons of the same
name, as for instance, in the case of Schiller (Charlotte von Wolzogen,
Charlotte von Kalb, Charlotte von Lengefeld) or in that of Shelley
(Harriet Grove, Harriet Westbrook and the later affection for Harriet de
Boinville). The incestuous origin of such a name influence may be shown
even more clearly in cases where the names of persons successively loved
are those of different members of the lover's own family; as in the case
of Mörike; (Clara and Louisa, after the name of his two sisters). _Cp._
Rank, "Das Inzestmotiv in Dichtung und Sage," pp. 91, 543. In a case known
to me, a young woman fell in love successively with three men possessing
the same Christian name, one of whom had the same surname as herself. In
a fourth love affair the surname of the man was the same as the Christian
name of her brother, to whom she was much attached, and contrary to her
usual custom she always called this fourth lover by his surname instead of
by his Christian name.]
[Footnote 119: Though not perhaps quite so superficial as is often
supposed. Psycho-analytic work has drawn attention to the influence that a
name may often exercise upon the behaviour and mental characteristics of
its possessor. (_Cp._ Stekel, "Die Verpflichtung des Namens," _Zeitschrift
für Psychotherapie und medizinische Psychologie_, III, Part 2, 1911.
Abraham, "Über die determinierende Kraft des Namens," _Zentralblatt für
Psychoanalyse_, II, 1912, 133). Goethe (Wahlverwandtschaften, Part I, Ch.
2) too had already noticed the possibility of this influence.]
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