Three Contributions to the Theory of SexFreud, Sigmund
Science
Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex
Freud, Sigmund
Sex
The infantile onanism seems to disappear after a brief time, but it may
continue uninterruptedly till puberty and thus represent the first
marked deviation from the development desirable for civilized man. At
some time during childhood after the nursing period, the sexual impulse
of the genitals reawakens and continues active for some time until it is
again suppressed, or it may continue without interruption. The possible
relations are very diverse and can only be elucidated through a more
precise analysis of individual cases. The details, however, of this
_second_ infantile sexual activity leave behind the profoundest
(unconscious) impressions in the persons's memory; if the individual
remains healthy they determine his character and if he becomes sick
after puberty they determine the symptomatology of his neurosis.[16] In
the latter case it is found that this sexual period is forgotten and the
conscious reminiscences pointing to them are displaced; I have already
mentioned that I would like to connect the normal infantile amnesia with
this infantile sexual activity. By psychoanalytic investigation it is
possible to bring to consciousness the forgotten material, and thereby
to remove a compulsion which emanates from the unconscious psychic
material.
*The Return of the Infantile Masturbation.*--The sexual excitation of
the nursing period returns during the designated years of childhood as a
centrally determined tickling sensation demanding onanistic
gratification, or as a pollution-like process which, analogous to the
pollution of maturity, may attain gratification without the aid of any
action. The latter case is more frequent in girls and in the second half
of childhood; its determinants are not well understood, but it often,
though not regularly, seems to have as a basis a period of early active
onanism. The symptomatology of this sexual manifestation is poor; the
genital apparatus is still undeveloped and all signs are therefore
displayed by the urinary apparatus which is, so to say, the guardian of
the genital apparatus. Most of the so-called bladder disturbances of
this period are of a sexual nature; whenever the enuresis nocturna does
not represent an epileptic attack it corresponds to a pollution.
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