The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior AnalysisThomas, William Isaac
Science
The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis
Thomas, William Isaac
Female juvenile delinquents -- Case studies; Young women
Those who, in Freud’s teaching of the danger of sex repression to mental
health, find merely sanction for license miss the point of his wonderful
message. This theory that life force, libido, creative energy, follows
the Law of Conservation true of Physical force—that as motion may become
heat, light or electricity, so this inner power may be transmuted from
procreative effort to creative work of hand and brain—would seem to
explain much of the modern success in the rehabilitation of the young
prostitute. This transmutation of sex force into art and religion had
been noted in the past by Jacob Boehme and James Hinton. Myers hinted it
in a line of poetry, “Forge and transform my passion into power”, but it
remained for Freud to bring it to common understanding. James Hinton,
the English surgeon, said just after our Civil War, “Prostitution will
pass as has slavery when it becomes too great a burden for humanity to
carry.” That time has come and prostitution must pass. Prostitution and
promiscuity will be eliminated not by force but through sublimation.
Further analysis of this hypothesis of sublimation shows that life
energy or libido may be manifested physically, psychically, socially,
spiritually:
Physically in motion, eating, drinking and in sex acts;
Psychically in art, science, literature, anything which uses one’s wits;
Socially in service to others;
Spiritually in meditating upon Infinite Power or seeking one’s relation
to The Whole.
Though these divisions give somewhat roughly general group types,
humanity shows infinite variety of expression, and individuals may
change from time to time according to influence and environment. Each
may be developed through her special abilities. One notes with interest
that associated with physical sex expression there is frequently great
cleverness in cookery and crochet. Each must be stabilized on her own
level.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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