Three Contributions to the Theory of SexFreud, Sigmund
Science
Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex
Freud, Sigmund
Sex
*Adhesion.*--The significance of all premature sexual manifestations is
enhanced by a psychic factor of unknown origin which at present can be
put down only as a psychological preliminary. I believe that it is the
_heightened adhesion_ or _fixedness_ of these impressions of the sexual
life which in later neurotics, as well as in perverts, must be added for
the completion of the other facts; for the same premature sexual
manifestations in other persons cannot impress themselves deeply enough
to repeat themselves compulsively and to succeed in prescribing the way
for the sexual impulse throughout later life. Perhaps a part of the
explanation for this adhesion lies in another psychic factor which we
cannot miss in the causation of the neuroses, namely, in the
preponderance which in the psychic life falls to the share of memory
traces as compared with recent impressions. This factor is apparently
dependent on the intellectual development and grows with the growth of
personal culture. In contrast to this the savage has been characterized
as "the unfortunate child of the moment."[15] Owing to the oppositional
relation existing between culture and the free development of sexuality,
the results of which may be traced far into the formation of our life,
the problem how the sexual life of the child evolves is of very little
importance for the later life in the lower stages of culture and
civilization, and of very great importance in the higher.
*Fixation.*--The influence of the psychic factors just mentioned favored
the development of the accidentally experienced impulses of the
infantile sexuality. The latter (especially in the form of seductions
through other children or through adults) produce the material which,
with the help of the former, may become fixed as a permanent
disturbance. A considerable number of the deviations from the normal
sexual life observed later have been thus established in neurotics and
perverts from the beginning through the impressions received during the
alleged sexually free period of childhood. The causation is produced by
the responsiveness of the constitution, the prematurity, the quality of
heightened adhesion, and the accidental excitement of the sexual impulse
through outside influence.
The unsatisfactory conclusions which have resulted from this
investigation of the disturbances of the sexual life is due to the fact
that we as yet know too little concerning the biological processes in
which the nature of sexuality consists to form from our isolated
examinations a satisfactory theory for the explanation of either the
normal or the pathological.
[1] The differences will be emphasized in the schematic representation
given in the text. To what extent the infantile sexuality approaches the
definitive sexual organization through its object selection has been
discussed before (p. 60).
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