NIGHTMARES OF FALLING

SAMIKSA VOLUME 3, NUMBER 1, 1949, pp 1-53, i-vi.

NANDOR FODOR, LL. D. "de montibus altis Se quasi precipitent ad terram corpote toto." Lucretius, Book IV, 1014-15

' \y Falling headlong from heights is a typical dream the occurrence of which has been noted since ancient days because of its frequency and the anguish which accompanies it. Yet remarkable little progress has been made towards understanding the motives that inspire such dreams. Barring cardiac conditions, no general circulatory or nervous disturbance has been found responsible for them ; in view of which it is reasonable to assume that a psychological condition of universal application may l hold the. key. The temptation to draw an immediate parallel between falling and flying dreams has proved irresistible to most psychologists. Like a schoolboy who is switching from the subject of his lesson to another which he knows better, they change from falling to flying. The transition is easy as falling is a form of downward flight and the victim of falling dreams seldom hits the ground. But the analogy ends right there. Flying dreams do not inspire anxiety ; on the contrary they are accompanied by a great sense of exhilaration. Books on dream interpretation devote little space to falling dreams. The subject is exhausted before it is begun. Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is still a classic but all he suggests is that childhood ' experiences of falling out of bed might be the cause of such dreams. Then he continues : "Their interpretation when they occur in women is subject to no difficulty because women always accept the symbolic sense of falling, ' which is a circumlocution for the indulgence of an erotic temptation." (P. 239) While moral fall may cause great anguish to women of rigid religious education, the prevalence of falling dreams is far too widespread to be accounted for on this basis. The idea that sex may have a bearing on the occurrence of such dreams is due to the original psycho-

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NIGHTMARES OF FALLING

NANDOR FODOR

[ SAMIKSA

it has been, handed down, because the monkey that actually crashed from a height died and could notpass on the ancestral memory. This pleasant fiction has nothing to do with'facts, Gravity# almost non-existent for the child within the womb. ilteihands^are bent at the elbows and folded over the chest; After birth ; they are-free to explore the space all around. In falling, they do not snatch at,the branch of a tree above. Slightly modified by the acquired flexibility of the arms in the new environment, the protective movement is conditioned, by fetal memories. It is:a regressive phenomenon, a dynamic manifestation of the desire to resume a position of security. Nor is it true that we never hit the ground in falling dreams. We do. Actual falling experiences provide the pattern. People sometimes wake up on the floor, haviag. fallen out of bed at night. Then they do remember , hitting the ground. The actual impact is carried into the dream. It is true, however, that in the typical falling - nightmare we wake up before we.reach the ground. The emotional charge of such dreams is heavier than experiences in falling justify- We would never sujvive the fall into such bottomless abysses as our nightmares, iportray. The dream seldom stops at the fear of falling. We are actually plunging down into.the .deep and the dream has to break or we would die of the anxiety. The dream breathes the unknown. Those who.are .recurrently afflicted by it, often suffer from the twin complaint: of claustrophobia. In such instances the exploration of the possibility that the. feat of falling originates in birth proves particularly helpful . In my opinion, claustrophobia itself is due to the fear of crushing which we;experi6nced in being born. .. A doctor's wife tells me that when she was a small child her father would not leave her alone on the swing. He would toss hei* up so high that she was seized with dread as soon as she saw him coming. ; Because of these,emotians, she still shrinks from her father. She .used to b#ve a recurrent dream in which she fell out of a high window^ andfiewryp on an aro to an opposite high point . ' ' : ,Some people, do fall out of windows in childhood, but the percentage is slight. In- dreams* the - experience is frequent. I consider.,it a typical birth'memory, m the;.cas& mentioned, the; fear of falling from the swing succeeded in mobilising it. Claustrophobia : developed.. ;For a longtime, the lady could not use elevators. Getting outrof; them was

analytic-trend to find erotic motives behind most dream manifestations. As a .universal motive,, the. fear of death is .muchmore promising as it requires no sexual distinction. Meeting death by falling into an abyss must have been one of the most elementary experiences of the race. In case of extreme fatigue the very process of falling asleep gives the sensation of falling down a deep shaft. From the study of cases of severe insomnia lam- satisfied, that loss of consciousness in going to sleep, together with changes in heart beats, respiration and other metabolic functions do convey the suggestion of dying. I also find it very possible that, not understanding its restorative function, primit'Ve man considered sleep as his worst enemy because sleepiness robbed him. of his strength and exposed him to wild animals, and human enemies in a condition of complete helplessness. Our archaic heritage, stimulated j by collapse: and fainting experiences in the waking state, can well furnisB* foundation for the dramatisation of the fear of death in dreams of falling; yet, clifwcai .experience/ has led me to adopt a much simpler generic view which, though I do not claim it to' be of universalapplication, both helps us to understand nightmares of falling and . enables us to release the pressure from which they arise. The, .essential, discovery was made by the behaviourist school of psychology,; but the behaviourists stopped short of its exploitation... According to their claim, the fear of falling, or loss of position, is one of the original fears with which a child is bornoriginal because there is ho experience to account for it ; the reflex movement of the hands , thrown up in^the air in self-protection is not conditioned. : . J,accept the idea. that the fear of falling is with us at birth,, but I claim that it conditioned because birth is. an experience in loss of position ;, if is.a failing away from the mother's body under the influence of an irresistible driving force. The reaction of the arms change^ later in life as a result of falling accidents. The child learns that its;' body wilLnot be protected if the hands go up in the air and that bruising is less likely to occur if the hands are used for a landing, on
-all; fours. ;..'..;.. . '. .' ''....,.. . :

Fiction writers like to' exploit the child's first curious protective reaction. They see in it.an archaic reflex, a reversion, to the* simian stage. They say that the child acts like.a monkey, 'that it is tryingto save, itself; nby catching.a tree branch above. .Theyalso point .out that: in,falling nightrnare.S!we do: not hit;the ground. Qnly:the fearkof hitting,

Vol. 3. No. 1 ] NANDOR FODOR [SAMIKSA

NIGHTMARES OF FALLING

a dreadful moment because she always expected them to drop. The emphasis is on getting out, which corresponds to leaving the mother's body. She was unable to use elevators, because, to her unconscious mind, they suggested her mother's womb and at the moment when the elevator stopped, the threat of the flooding of the conscious mind with the memory of an unbearable ordeal became acute. Not knowing what this ordeal was, she protected herself against the rising memory by avoiding elevators as far as possible. The arc symbolism is worth noting. In such dreams it usually corresponds with the pubic arch. - The varieties of these experiences are endless. A pregnant woman fell down the stairs and had a miscarriage. Ever since she has had an abnormal fear of descending stairs. She is no longer pregnant and consequently cannot lose a child, she is sure on her legs and she remembers the fall; therefore, she is frightened of something else to which falling down stairs is a symbolic clue. My conclusion is that the miscarriage revived the ordeal of her own birth It is as if she gave birth to herself in losing the child, as if she went to her death on the stairs. To save herself from a recurrence of the harrowing experience of her first fall from the womb, she had to avoid stairs as far as it was humanly possible. Another woman cannot sit on the balcony in a theatre because once she lost her balance, rolled down from the balcony to the bottom of the stairs and hurt herself badly. She cannot travel in subways . because as a child she saw dead, burnt bodies being brought out of the tunnel of the Metro in Paris after a dreadful accident. When anybody has a clear memory of such horrors and yet suffers from morbid fear, we may safely assume that another, deeper, forgotten experience lies behind the remembered one, and that this is the principal determinant of the reaction. My experience in the interpretation of dream symbols encourages me to assume that the subway tunnel, with the dead, burnt bodies, revived buried memories of the journey from the womb into this life and that the injury caused by the fall from the stairs of the balcony could not be forgotten because it set aglow the Ions? repressed pain and fear of being crushed to death by the contracting B'alls of the uterine passage. The balcony, in dreams, often proves to be a symbol of being carried on the mother's arms; this, in turn, sometimes jinds an equation with being carried within the womb. Thus, the fall from

one may well stir up the anxiety of the fall from the other. In case of cardiac patients, falling nightmares arise from the irregularity of heartbeats. Any break in the regular functioning of the heart carries with it the suggestion of death. The missing beat is converted into a sensation of falling and into a dread of an abyss. To our unconscious imagination, the heart is more alive than any other organ. It moves within our body as a child stirs within its mother's womb after the quickening, and the parallelism is further strengthened by maternal statements about childbirth : 'I carried you within (or under) my heart.' If the heart is a child within our 'maternal' organism, the falling sensation caused by the missing heartbeat would, of necessity, associate with the fall in birth. A lady dreams: "I was in a room, with my back to the door. The door opened and I suddenly became aware of danger. I turned and saw an#awful abyss behind me. I was terrified. On awakening, L recalled a close call which I had in the subway recently. The door of a speeding express train opened right behind me and a sudden lurch almost threw me out on the tracks." Some weeks before this dream, this patient undetwerit a thyroid operation which was rendered urgent by the constant over-secretion of thyroxin into her blood stream. Her heart muscles were affected and an erratic cardiac activity ensued. The subway association is a valuable clue to the meaning of the dream. It suggests that the dream is a birth nightmare. All associations that occur to us immediately on awakening are part of the dream. We may, therefore, treat the accident as if it were a dream. The tunnel is symbolic of the uterine passage and the track?, on which she nearly fell are suggestive of the mother's legs extended in birth. This is not a guess, but an assumption. made on the basis of a large number of similar dreams. The unconscious mind evaluates every day situations in a different manner than the conscious mind does. The use of the tracks for the maternal legs seems to be absurd, but. a moment's reflection may remind us that the rails of a track seem to meet in the distance and form the shape of a "V" which, pictorially, is no farther removed from a corporeal position than are the parallel rails. Moreover, absurdity never prevents the utilisation of a situation for dreams, rather it facilitates the coding of the dream message by escaping the watchfulness of the censor, the psychic factor that tries to prevent the emergence of disturbing emotions in dreams.

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[ SAMIKSA Vol. 3, No. 1 j

NIGHTMARES OF FALLING

The probability is that the shock of the near-accident set up very distant reverberations in the lady's unconscious mind and these reverberations were responsible for the dream. The memory of cardiac irregularity during the thyroid state helped in the choice of symbols. The room in the dream is her body and the awful depth behind the door (the entrance gate to life) is dramatisation of the intensity of the fear which her heart condition had mobilised from the very depth of her unconscious mind. Let us now see another dream where no cardiac condition was involved. A man dreams : .4 "I was inside a city garbage truck, al! alone in an empty oblong. The truck was about to dump garbage down a precipice and backed up several times to its edge. The rear end of the truck swung out each time as if on a top hinge, fad I found myself travelling with it, clinging desperately to the bottom of the horizontal metal frame, hanging on my elbows over an abyss as deep as if I had been on the top of the highest mountain. Through successive shocks, my hold was weakening, and in my terror I began to say the Lord's Prayer. 1 awoke with a wildly beating heart." The garbage truck is empty, there is nothing to dump; hence the dreamer himself must be the garbage. Having had training on psychoanalytic lines, the dreamer had two interpretations to offer for the use of this symbol. The child lives on the maternal body as a parasite. From the purely vegetative point'Of-view ;it could be considered as a useless accumulation : which should be dumped. The earliest concept of birth at which children arrive by themselves is the rectal one. As the dreamer is to be dumped from the back of the truck, the garbage assumes a crude but effective delivery value. I agree with this interpretation- The gender of cities being feminine, the city truck is a suitable symbol for the maternal body. Its oblong shape fits in well with the archaic concept of the world as, an oblong. We live in a world of our own in the womb and fhe period of gestation is a complete re-enactment of the archaic history of the race. The repeated backing up of the truck and the successive throws (throes.) at the rear, give a vivid description of the work of the ejectory, muscles of the uterus. The dreamer is alone because in the womb he Was alone. His desperate clinging to the metal frame, the frail hold of his elbo#ws ( a hint at the bent position of the arms of the unborn ), his terror and

prayer depict dramatically his resistance to being born. Judging by the awful abyss, he expected to fall to his death. The abyss is the great unknown of post-natal life. Sometimes the fear is personified and we have a dream of pursuit with a falling, sinking or rooted-to-the-ground sensation. A boy of sixteen states : "From the age of eight, I had a recurrent dream of being pursued by a man or animal. I was running and suddenly sank to my knees into something like paper or soft wood. I freed myself with an effort and continued the flight. I sank in again. When the pursuer was about to catch up with me, I woke with strong palpitations." A man who is very fond of reading science fiction, personified the drama of his birth and the fear of heights, in the following tyrannical fantasy : "A race from another planet has gained mastery of the earth. These people are dark-skinned, wearing white togas like the Romans. To them human beings are just like animals. They tie me up and callously toss me out of a window into a row of other tied-up humans. I was frightened when I was pushed out." The window looked like the bedroom window of his grandmother's house, where the patient spent many years of his early childhood. He was aware of this similarity in the dream- That window, however, was on the ground floor. In the dream, he was thrown from a great height. Can we doubt that the bedroom window has a maternal significance and that the tying up is a dramatisation of the compression and immobilisation of his body in the uterine canal ? The race from another planet is the race of the powerful grown-ups of post-natal life, and the white togas are probably nightgowns in which the child sees its parents at night when they minister to its needs. The ladder symbolism deserves special notice in this recurrent dream of a 36 year old attorney : . "I am chased and get to the end of a cliff. There is a ladder going down. I climb down to the last rung, below which is an abyss which seems'to be thousands of feet deep. The people who are chasing me descend the ladder after me and I am cornered. I can move neither up nor down. I wake up in cold sweat." , Instead of compression by the two banks of a tunnel, a lateral limitation binds the dreamer into a spatial shaft. The ladder is a substitute

NANDOR FODOR

[ SAMIKSA

Vol. 3. No, 1|

NIGHTMARES OF FALLING

symbol to indicate immobilisation by compression. The intensity of the fear is represented by the bottomless abyss and the pursuit, which renders the escape hopeless. It is this touch of hopelessness and fatality that is the chief characteristic of birth dreams. It causes such agony of mind that the dreamer simply must wake up or die of horror. Jacob's ladder is one of the oldest dream we have on record. It symbolises man's descent from Heaven to Earth, it illustrates the loss of a spiritual estate by incarnation. For contact between Heaven and Earth a better symbol would be difficult to find. In ^Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams (p. 15) is a good illustration of how ladder, stairs and the fear of falling can be correlated with aspirations to reach the spiritual world: "Quite frankly and boldly, I .stepped down a large stairway; by and by there was a ladder, below it there was a hole which went down to quite a great depth ; it was difficult to get to the other side without falling irivCv the hole. On the other side there were persons to whom 1 reached out my hand to help get over. I awoke. It is the danger in which I am of falling into the abyss, unless I receive help." From his interpretation of the dream, as shown, in the last sentence, we see that Swedenborg was unaware of the birth symbolism of the abyss. The only certain way in which we can return to another world would appear to be the way we came. It is "difficult to get to the other side without falling into the hole". The choice of the way via the uterus, chosen by the heroes of antiquity, is instinctual, but Swedenborg, having found another way in his trances and visions, had . to struggle against it because he was unable to combat the panic which the return through the uterine jaws of death evokes. The time has now come to answer the question : if my claim is correct that falling away from the maternal body in birth accounts for the plurality of falling nightmares could we use this discovery educationally as well in individual as in group therapy? I would not expect lay readers of this study to be cured of their falling nightmares just for the reading of it. In marshalling my arguments I appeal to the intellect, not to the heart. Yet 1 would risk saying that lay readers, if impressed and thrilled by such presentation, by their combined intellectual and emotional reactions will have taken the initial step towards overcoming the fear that lurks behind sych nightmares. The presentation may need elaboration and repetition

and should be followed by a period of incubation, Associations with future dreams of falling will be indispensable before the personal relevance of my essential elaims will be proven. Gradually, the dreams will reach a stage in which an element of consciousness or ability to rationalize will enter their falling dreams. "When they will view it in the dream as an impersonal event or even know that they are only dreaming .and resolve to face the fear in the dream itself, they will have* progressed significantly towards its ultimate cancellation. All nightmares are curable but to achieve such cure by self-help is alfnst impossible. Enthusiasm for the undertaking counts but analytic guidance is imperative. Let me illustrate the point by the achievement of a very able friend, a religious leader to whom, on a visit to New York, I gave fourteen lessons in dream analysis. I quote from his letter; " It will interest you to know that I had a definite birth^ and claustrophobia dream the ftrstnight after getting back here. I dreamed that in a room that looked like a funnel with a horizontal exteneicm below, very much smaller than I, there were people having a sort of Christian Science testimony meeting. I could hear their voices coming out of the spout, and felt horrified for them sitting there in that cramped, fetid, damp and stifling atmosphere, all in the dark, muttering their testimonies. I got rny feet in the can, or funnel, and just could not bring myself to squat down into the dark. I was not just frightened, I was panicked and terrified beyond measure. The people who were trying to get me to go down were called Wallington ( people I used to know ). I cried out that I was not being compelled to go there, for it was birth and I was not being born, but being reborn. Whereupon the fright left me a t ' once, and I was immediately healed." The dreamer added his own comments as follows : "The idea of a Christian Science kealing meeting interested me as it really did involve a healing for me. Also the voices down there in the fetid ( fetus 1 ) atmosphere seemed to me like the Old Voices- of the Unconscious. The idea of my feet being in the can was reminiscent. of the head-to-foot position of birth. The Wallingtons might have meant either "walled in town" or "wallowing down." Tht faith which the dreamer implies by the words 'I was immediately healed,' is important. The feeling came within the dream, hence it \s not an intellectual but an emotional manifestation. It evidences a change-in the depth of his being. It may still be a wish, but it

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NANDOR FODOR

f SAMIKSA

p dreams became rare and seemed to have been drained of their previous tension.

THE MOHAVE MALE PUBERTY RITE

GEORGE DEVEREUX

I propose to - describe, and to analyze the culture-historical and psycho-analytic significance, of a Mohave ritual not mentioned by Kroeher 1S, and, though available .in typescript form since 1935 2 , not included in Drucker's standard study of Yuman culture-element distributions 10, This skeletal observance is, nonetheless, of considerable significance in Yuman culture-history, since it fills a gap in our knowledge of the relationship between male and female puberty rites, and, at the same time, shows a striking, parallelism between culture'historical and psycho-analytic reconstructions. In fact, the principal significance of this study is precisely the demonstration#that psjcjw-^a_htic__.considerations. .can..provide substantial support for culture-historical reconstructions,_^y_^isclasing the deeper psychologicajjrnotivation of borrowing, patterningj^nd^syinbolic elaboration.
THE RITUAL

The sole male ritual approximating the function of the elaborate female puberty rites of the Mohave appears to be the pjlrig_pf thejiasal septum of boys jirjyroaching adolescence. Although this operation was almost universal in the past, Kuwal, whose photograph was published by Kroeber13 was apparenttyTRe last Mohave to wear a nosestick, as well as the last one to be publicly married to male transvestites3, which indicates that he was one of the last exponents of the old way of life. Since Kroeber l s , does not mention the ritul connected with this operation, one infers that it was a minor and obsolescent phase of Mohave custom in the recent past. The sketchiness of this observance, which was almost wholly devoid of religious or supernatural features, raises certain questions concerning the degree of its integration with the rest of Mohave culture, which cannot be answered without considering the specific distributionpattern qf this observance among other Yuman-speaking tribes. *
* Although distribution-studies probably cannot raise new questions, nor yield
new insights in connection with functional studies, methodologically they can provide further support for an already established interpretation.

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G. DEVERBUX

[SAMIKSA

Vol. 3. No.l]

THE MOHAVE MALE PUBERTY RITE

13

This observance is neither a real ritual, nor a true puberty or initiation-rite, nor a religious performance, nor even a custom having a direct bearing on age-stratification, since this operation did not necessarily or automatically determine the date at which boys cease to be spoken of as 'children' and begin to be called 'young men'. Nor was this operation a formal prerequisite for participation in warfare, or in adult heterosexual activities. Conversely, even though the Mohave described , this observance as an equivalent of female puberty rites, the appearance of the physical signs of puberty, such as the growth of pubic hair, the changing of the voice, or a more intense sexual drive, did not determine the date at which boys had to submit to this operation. The tendency to" compare this observance to female puberty rites is probably partly due to the fact that, like the latter, this custom was a prophylactic rather than a religious one. Since if safeguarded and promoted the endurance, health and welfare of the young men, who were to uphold tribal prestige in years to come, its teleological implications were psychologically important to the Mohave 4 , 15. Even though this operation was not a compulsory one, almost all boys submitted to it. Boys whose infirmities would have prevented their participation in the footrace, and those whose uncertain health would have been further impaired by the painfulness of the operation were, however, excluded from this observance. According to Hivsu:Tupo:ma: "A boy's nose would be pierced between the ages of ten and fifteen. At that age boys began to feel grown up and were disinclined to stay home. They went and rode around on horseback, or ran from Parker, Arizona to Yuma, California '( 70 miles ) and thought of becoming warriors. Their nasal septum was, hence, pierced, in order to give them the endurance needed for * that wa>- of life." ' . Certain men, who did not have to be shamans, and who had no special taboos imposed upon them, had the power and knowledge to perform this operation. The power and knowledge in question were not obtained in dreams, nor inherited in a lineage of gens. Although they were not paid, certain men "learned to pierce the nasal septum the way one may learn a trade", simply because they wished to learn it. They acquired this skill by watching the performance of experienced : nose-piercers, and by listening to the comments of the old people who

sat in the crowd and watched the procedure. These skilled men had no assistants, and no privileges or badges of office, and were not known by any special term. Summing up: a person who pierced the noses of adolescents was a man who knew how to do it, and nothing more. Like every other Mohave custom, nose piercing is patterned upon, and justified and explained by a mythical precedent. "Once upon a time, when the birds had no nostrils as yet, they held a council near the sacred mountain Avikwame:, for the purpose of obtaining endurance. They decided to have their noses pierced and saicl, 'The Mohave, Yuma and Cocopa will also do this, if they wish their boys to acquire our swiftness and endurance.' Then they pierced their noses, and that is why all birds have had nostrils ever since. After the operation some one held a speech and instructed the birds to sleep on their bellies, and to rest their heads on their arms, during the healing period, in order to protect the shape of their noses and tor prevent their flattening. The 'duck' ( grebe ? ) alone ignored this advige, and slept on its back. That is why all 'ducks' ( grebes ? ) have flat beaks." The skilled man watched the boys grow, and, whenever a sufficient number reached the proper age, he announced that he would pierce the nose of any boy who appeared at a certain place on a given date. The exact time and place of the operation, which was always performed in the summer, was determined by the performer, in accordance with his own preferences. As a rule skilled nose-piercers performed the operations in the vicinity of their own camp. Boys wishing to have their noses pierced spent the four days preceding the operation at home. During these days, as well as during the four days following the operation, they remained continent, although their relatives and the performer himself were free to engage in sexual relations. During this eight day period the boys ate no salt, nor ' mesquite beans, since the latter sometimes caused cramps during the footrace. They were free to drink water, however, and ate some thin soup made of ground 'wheat'. A violation of dietary taboos caused a lifelong state of drowsiness, similar to that which follows a heavy meal. The lay character of the entire observance is underscored by the fact tbat the dreams dreamt by the boys during these eight drvvs had. no significance above and beyond the general significance of the dreams themselves. On the day of the operation the boys, usually accompanied by

G. DEVEREUX

[SAMIKSA

Vol. 3, No. 1]

THE MOHAVE MALE PUBERTY RITE

15

their families, proceeded of their own accord to the appointed place, where a crowd had gathered to watch the operation. ,No feast was provided, either for the spectators, or for the participants. The nasal septum was piercetl with a pointed stick of screw-bean wood. The lower, fleshy part of the septum alone was pierced, since "a perforation of the cartilage would cause the nose to flatten out or to collapse." The performer pierced the septum with a rapid thrust of his wooden awl, and inserted a small stick of arrow-weed or willowwood, cut to a suitable length, into the aperture, to prevent the closing of the wound. The same operation was performed on all candidates in succession^ No asepsis was used, and it was stated that no deaths from infection ever occurred. Boys were expected to endure the pain stoically, and were told not to cry out, nor even to shed a silent tear. Those unable to control themselves were ridiculed. After the operation the boys were seated in a half-circle, facing the performer, who instructed them to sleep flat on their stomachs, supporting their heads on their folded arms, or on some object, lest their noses should become flattened through contact with the ground. They were warned not to sleep on their backs, since,due to the inadequate support afforded by the temporarily weakened septum, their noses might collapse. They were to avoid sleeping with their heads held sidewise, lest their noses should become lopsided. They were also warned not to touch thei-r noses, and not to allow anyone else to touch them. / The boys received no other instructions, and the gathering was not informed of any impending betrothal, nor of any other matter concerning the boys. The boys had no obligations toward each other or toward the performer, nor were they expected to address the latter in any special manner, or to use some honorific term indicating relationship or affiliation, and did not engage in homosexual practices. The boys were then dismissed and returned to their respective homes. During the'next four days their sleep was supervised by their parents, who prevented them from unwittingly assuming a forbidden sleeping posture. The wounds received no special treatment, although, according to Tcatc, the sticks were removed each morning and the wound washed with water. The boys did not use scratch! ng-sticks, similar to those used by girls going thrpugh their puberty-observances. The fourth day the boys rose early,presumably before sunrise :

and ran at top speed to Ehrenberg (or perhaps to the ancient Mohave Settlement of La Paz, located near Ehrenberg) and had to return by noon, covering a distance of more than sixty miles. They were, however, permitted to stop briefly at Ehrenberg before starting out on their return-trip. (The same informant also stated that the boys ran 'southward'. This apparent contradiction may be due to the fact that the Mohave originally lived near Needles, California, which is 30 miles north of Ehrenberg, while Parker Js 30 miles south of that place.) Some informants stated that the boys were accompanied by an expert adult runner, who increased their speed by offering them competition. After the race the nose-sticks were removed, and the observance came to an end. No further dietary restrictions were imposed on them, although, like all young men, they were expected not to be gluttons, since heavy eating made people lazy and drowsy. Some boys, especially the poorer ones, wore either no nose ornament whatsoever, or else fitted sticks, or bits of w4sted inner willow-bark into the opening of the septum. The moderately affluent pulledrpresumably blue and white strings'5 of beads through the hole. The rich wore nose pendants made of kayar shells. "These shells are the size of a quarter, and look like a stone. Whan properly . ground on both sides, they are the size of a dime." Kayar shells were the most usual, but not quite the most valuable nose-pendants. Chiefs, as well as the very wealthy, possessed even more valuable pendants, made of a blue shell, tentatively identified as haliotis2' , which the Yuma and Cocopa obtained from the Gulf of Mexico, and then traded to visiting Mohave friends or relatives in exchange for horses. Neither the Mohave, nor the Yuma and the Cocopa appear to have organized systematic shell-trading expeditions, however. A blue shell was thought to be the finest gift anyone could either give or receive. Blue pendants were triangular in shape, and were suspended from the septum by one of the angles. The lower edge of a blue shell pendant, like that of all other types of pendants, hung level with the mouth, and did not interfere with eating or smoking. Since nose-piercing observances are now wholly obsolete, it is not surprising that the old should assert that the obsolescence of this ceremony is responsible for the fact that "the young are so good-fornothing slow at running". In olden times men were said to run

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G. DEVEREUX

[SAM-IKSA

Vol. 3, No. 1]

THE MOHAVE MALE PUBERTY RITE

17

along the river from Parker to Needles (about sixty miles), arriving thereat 2.C0 P.. M. in so fit a condition as to be able to participate at once in a gambling-bout, and then run back to Parker, arriving there shortly after sunset. "But now the Mohave are too fat", my very bulky informant Hivsu:Tupo:ma commented without a trace of self-irony. "The last one to try such a run was my older brother, whom the missionary at Parker asked to carry a letter concerning a marriage to the missionary at Needles, (60 odd miles). My brother started out in the morning, but, since he stopped after a while and slept part of the day and" all night, he arrived at Needles only the .next morning. There is the younger generation for you !" * The Mohave and their Yuma allies valued good runners, since they maintained regular runners, who carried news from settlement to settlement, strung out along the banks of the Colorado River. These runners were especially useful in relaying news of sudden Cocopa or Maricops raids on scattered farms 16, enabling large defense-forces " (including sometimes some Yuma allies ) to gather on short notices. They were also used to relay news of gatherings, gambling-bouts, ceremonies, and prospective forays into enemy territory. This need may have stimulated M.onava efforts to increase the effectiveness of runners by ceremonial and other means, and thus assigns at least one clearcut social-cultural function to the boys' nosepiercing custom. On the other hand the highly secular character of the whole nose-piercing complex, and the absence of any interest in the boy's dreams at this critical period make it highly probable that this rite is a definitely minor one.
CULTURE-HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS

This section summarizes traits occuring in the boys' adolescence observances among other Yuman tribes, but absent amone the Mohave. The list is incomplete, and emphasizes only the most striking differences. The tribes are listed in the order of their present geographical-distribution, roughly from the South-West to the North-East. Kilhm ofJLower^California '. Purpose: To beautify the nose, This incident, which is suppo.ed to illustrate thT^d^T^V^ofMdha^T
stamina, took place during the first decade of this century, when Kroeber is like earlier writers ,, ,8 could still witness the almost incredible long [distance races of ' Indians belonging to the Yuman linguistic stock.

and to safeguard the youth against rattle-snake bites. Date: When the Pleiades rise early in the evening. The Pleiades are 'girls', and cause young boys to feel bashful and to flee. The ceremony was taught by the supernatural being Metipa to his sonsv Nose-piercing is preceded by singing. Marriages take place during the event. Youths were given scratching-sticks, used bull-roarers, and were secluded for two months. They drink little water and eat little food. Salt is taboo. They submit to a test which involves the handling of rattle-snakes. The taboo on eating one's-own kill is lifted. In recent times-coins were used as nose-pendants. Diegueno of California 22, 23- This complex ceremony, connected with the acquisition of shamanistic powers, involves the taking of datura meteloides. Presence of ground-paintings. Absence (?) of nose-piercing. This ceremony is apparently more closely .connected with the Chungichnish rites of the Southern Galifornia Shoshonean tribes, than with Yuman observances. Kamia of Imperial Valley 12- Boys cannot marry before their noses are pierced. The ritual is always performed for groups of four. Boys were led to the ceremony by a 'policeman' appointed by chief. After the ceremony the boys were kept at the^ operating-place for four days, under the policeman's supervision. Men and women sir.g at the place of confinement. Cocopa of Arizona and Mexico !3 , The age-class designation of boys changes after their noses are pierced. There is also a change in type of hair-cut. The gathering lasts three nights and two days. The souls of boys whose noses were not pierced are kicked by a beetle after their death, and do not enter the land of the dead. Major song-cycles are sung during the gathering, and are accompanied.by dancing. A heated trench is used previous to the operation- The boys use scratchingsticks. Boys, whose noses are not pierced, may not have sexual relations. There is a special pattern for distributing food during gathering. There are complex running, bathing, hair-cleaning, body-painting, and swimming observances. A special shade is built fot the boys. Yuma of Arizona and California 11 . The boys bathe after the operation, and sleep in-a squatting position. No special songs are sung during the operation, or during the confinement. Boys race for four days, in the four cardinal directions. Waiapai of Arizona 17. Nose-piercing and pendants are mentioned.

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. [SAMIKSA

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but it is stated that there is no boy's initiation ceremony. The date at which the nose is pierced is not mentioned. Yavapai of Arizona !O . Brave men wore turquoise pendants. Havasupai. No data. Yuman tribes of the Qila River n . The nasal septum of some men is pierced, "This stands for bravery." Such a man would always be obliged to go forward in battle. The shape of the nose-pendant depends on the shape of nose. Some wore bone nose-ornaments. Nose-piercing is performed in isolated cases, usually on boys whose voice cracks, but not on all of them. The distribution of various patterns . of observances relating to the adolescence of boys among the Yuma tribes raises a number of interesting problems, some of which seem relatively simple, if we assume that the data are fairly adequate. We can, at the outset, separate Diegueno data from the rest of the material- The Diegueno observance has little or nothing to do > with Yuman customs, being connected with the taking of datura meteloides for shamanistic purposes. This fact, as well as a number of other traits, links this observance with the ritual of the Southern California Shoshoneans. Curiously enough, the ritual of the Kamia is of the river Yuman type, although Kamia culture in general is more closely related to Diegueno culture. The rest of the data show a clearcut distribution-pattern, provided that we place the Maricopa not in their recent habitat, but in their historic territory on the Colorado River, between the Yuma and the Mohave. We must remember, however-j that their historical isolation from the main focus of Yuman culture may account for the skeletal nature of the data available. The observance decreases in complexity and supernatural import as we proceed from Lower California to North-Western Arizona, via the Colorado River Valley: Kiliwa, Kamia, Cocopa, Yuma, Maricopa, Mohave, Walapai. This decrease in complexity can be explained in terms of Kroeber*s assumption 14 that the Yuman group intruded into that area during Period III of California culture-history. If this hypothesis is correct, we may assume that, previous to thiso intrusion, the boys' adolescence observance must have been a more complex one. The possibility ov re-constructing the pre-Columbian prototype of this observance is a remote one. Even a sketchy survey of available

data suggests-, however, that it must have been at first a genuine ritual, since the religious, or at least supernatural, character of Kiliwa, and even Cocopa, data is rather obvious. Such isolated elements as the handling of rattle-snakes and the use of bull-roarers among the Kiliwa, indicates a genetic nexus between this vestigial observance and ceremonies of a larger scope. Our Mohave data suggest that, in its new habitat, the Yuman' linguistic stock gave free rein to its major interest: the acquisition of power through subjective dream experiences15 , and neglected more an"ds-more- the ritual phases of its culture. The contempt of the Colorado River Yumans for their proximate neighbors is probably responsible for the fact that the cultural influence of the latter is negligible, and, except for Diegueno custom, left few marks on Yuman ritualism. . There are many culture-traits among the River Yumans which in the remote past, may have been tfre foci of major rituals, and which, in recent times, have degenerated, ito mere observances, or into minor customs and folkways. Probably only a significant increase in our knowledge of the culture of tribes to the South of the present-day Yuman territory can provide us with some clues to the original structure of Yuman culture. Until the exact locus of the ancestral habitat of the Yuman tribes is determined, we must content ourselves with mere hypotheses regarding the culturehistory of Yuman tribes. In one respect, however, this skeletal Mohave observance .is of interest., for the functional study of culture. As stated above this custom is now connected with the training of runners, and the acquisition of good couriers. Like many prophylactic and other observances, which formerly were foci of ritualism, it has been preserved in a highly vestigial form, because it could be made subservient to the second, extroversive, facet of Mohave culture: the interest in warfare, tribal continuity and national prestige, etc. 4 This duality of interests is expressed also in dual and incompatible beliefs regarding various other social-cultural situations and complexes, witness the Mohave beliefs concerning twins. 6 It would not be surprising therefore if it could be shown that skeletal or receding observances and secondary patterns tended to group thejnselves about the more concrete aspects of Mohave culture, while full-fledged or growing- observances tended to cluster about the dream-

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song focus of Mohave culture. There are many factors militating in favor of such an assumption, only a few of which may be directly correlated with the destructive impact of Western culture upon the concrete, phases of Mohave culture, which, indirectly, may therefore be partly responsible for the persistent emphasis on dreams. Whether this tendency toward a dual grouping of 'culture elements along foci of major and minor cultural interests is a general cultural trend cannot be discussed in-this context. It does suggest, however, that the concept of "Cultural Lag" should be applied also to primitive cultural material, and ought to be given a more comprehensive formulation in the light of anthropological findings. PSYCHOANALYTIC CONSIDERATIONS. A suitable working hypothesis must take as its point of departure the fact that the two basic Mphave statements regarding this singularly a-sexua3 ceremony are completely contradictory and, superficially at least,,- wiiolly irreconcilable. On the one hand the Mohave affirm that this ritual is the masculine equivalent of the female puberty rites. This claim is strengthened by the fact that the Cocopa ceremony contains many of the most characteristic features of the female puberty ritual 10> 13 . On the other hand the Mohave assert that the date of this ceremony is determined not by the appearance of the physical signs of puberty, but by certain changes in non-sexual behavior which a psychologist, but not the Mohave, would readily identify as the psychological signs of puberty. The contradictorkiess of these attitudes clearly reveals an ambivalence, which, closely parallels a similar ambivalence toward twins 6 , and, in the teeth of evidence, attempts to deny the sexual character of this ritual. Several factors may account for this ambivalence. (a) Since the ritual is obviously patterned upon the female puberty rites, whose antiquity is well established,, the assertion that the nose-piercing ritual is not a puberty right is probably partly rooted in an attempt to' deny an envy of female procreative functions, which is incompatible with the Mohave Indian's belief in the superiority of men,. In addition, there is also an attempt to repress the conscious fear of, and nausea reaction towajd the catamenial flow8 . (b) The ritual itself, which is a painful one, is allegedly motivated by a concern for the welfare of young men and reveals therefore ' an ambivalent attitude toward pubescent youths, who begin to compete

with their elders not merely in the realm of sex, but also in the sphere of warlike exploits. Since the sexual life of Mohave children is a rather uninhibited one, the ritual would naturally tend to emphasize not so much an initiation into sexual activities, as preparation for warlike pursuits. This, in turn, would help to de-sexualize the ritual. (c) Male puberty rites usually involve a temporary "destruction," infantilization, feminization or "castration" of boys, followed by a rebirth, restoration or reinvigoration rite. Since one of the cornerstone of Mohave culture is an extreme leniency toward sexual activities, this attitude of leniency could not be maintained were castrative wishes directed toward pubescent boys permitted to emerge in an undisguised form. The de-sexualization of the ritual, by means of complex disguises, displacements, defensive denials and representations by opposites, is, hence, functionally connected with, and made necessary/ by, the wish to preserve at all cost an approving attitude tflwardj uninhibited infantile and adolescent sexuality and free sexual competition/ Hence the presence of castrative wishes is revealed only by the fact that some men learn to perform this operation for its own sake, without expecting their work to be rewarded either by material gain or by an increase prestige. The guilt-feelings and counterphobic attitudes (compounded of denials of aggressive wishes and restitution fantasies) of the parents are revealed by their wish to protect the noses of adolescents against possible damage. ' In order to maintain, on the one hand, the fiction that this ritual is not a sexual puberty rite, and, on the other hand, in order to deny an envy of female procreative functions, while, at the same# time, reaffirming the equivalence of nose-piercing observances and of female puberty rites, it was necessary to focus the ceremony upon an organthe nose, and upon a performance running, which, while superficially non-sexual, unconsciously symbolize the male and the ferrule genitalia, respectively masculine potency. Psychoanalysis has shown that, through an 'upward displacement', the nose may symbolize both the penis and the vagina20. It is relatively easy to show that Mohave data show a similar dual symbolism, (a^ The masculine symbolism of the nose is revealed, in this context, by the desire to mutilate the nose of adolescent boys, while, at the same time, attempting to safeguard it against being flattened or lopsided, i. e. against its collapsing. It is also important to recall

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G. DEVEREUX

fSAMIKSA

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THE MOHAVE MALE PUBERTY RITE

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that the Mohave have a "small penis complex", since they know that the penes of alien men are larger than theirs 8 . The fact that nosepiercing was initiated by birds also supports the masculine symbolism of the nose, since birds are well known phallic symbols. (One may also speculate on the possibility that nose~pendants may imitate the scrotum and the testicles, although this point is open to debate, and is mentioned only for the sake of completeness.) (b) The femmmejsymbolism of the nose is revealed by its piercing, i. e. "Vaginalizatiqn", which involves the shedding of blood. It is significant that the boys were not permitted to cry out in pain, just'as girls were not permitted to cry either when they are being deflowered 8, , or when they are giving birth 9 . Numerous Mohave beliefs show an unconscious desire to pierce and to feminize the child by an aggressive-homosexual act. If the penis is thrust too vigorously into a pregnant woman's, vagina, the child will be crippled. If the penis is inserted into the pregnant woman's anus, the child will have loose bowels, while if it is inserted into her mouth, the child's vocal apparatus will be damaged 9 . This set of beliefs shows quite clearly that in certain types of intercourse with pregnant women the father is believed to have destructive sexual relations with the unborn child. The counter-phobic attitude toward such destructive wishes is revealed in the belief that the unborn child's food is the paternal sperm 7 . The same mixture of aggressive wishes and counter-phobic protective phantasies is expressed in the Kiliwa belief that, during the nosepiercing ceremonies, youths handle rattle-snakes, in order to protect themselves against rattle-snake bites16. Rattle-snakes symbolize, of course, the aggressive penis, witness the Mohave belief that contact with rattlesnakes causes the penis to become paralyzed 8 , and the Mohave myth of the incestuous "Penis Spotted Nighcsnake" giant, who killed cocky swimmers by raping them anally5 . Summing up, many Mohave beliefs reveal the existence of a fantasy that boys can be feminized by penetrating or piercing their bodies in an aggressive Sexual act. These data, together with the belief that the nose-piercing ceremony is the male equivalent of the female puberty rites, confirm our thesis that, in the rite under study, the nose is also; a female sex-symbol. The fact that the second overt concern of the ritual is the stamina of runners further confirms its sexual meaning, The mythical

birds pierced their beaks in order to obtain stamina for flying, which is a well known symbol of erection, and also of coitus, just as birds are- well known phallic symbols. Running is likewise known to symbolize coitus. The dream of an aging Mohave, who was greatly concerned over his sexual potency, shows with great clarity the equivalence of the triad runningflyingcoitus. In a "dream within a dream" he ran bent forward, and eventually took off and flew away. It is also significant that when the Mohave give examples of their present physical "degradation", they usually list their decreased potency and fertility, their small penes 8 , and their inability to run long distances. (The Mohave affirm8, however, that their coitus last longer than that of Whites). Summing up, the nexus between sexual potency and running appears to be well established in the Mohave unconscious, and further substantiates the interpretation of the nose-piercing ritual as a disguised puberty rite. The increase in physical stamina supposed to result from the piercing of the nose should be interpreted as the restitutive phase of the initial aggressive phase of the rite, since the temporary femiriization-infantilization-castration of the boy is cancelled by a subsequent increase in masculine potency. The same is true of all fully analyzed male puberty rites throughout the world. CONCLUSION Culture-history and psychoanalysis alike postulate that the nose-piercing rite of the Yuman tribes is patterned upon the more* ancient female puberty rites, and probably became decadent before reaching its full flowering. They are hence vestigial, without being very ancient- Culture-historians reconstruct this sequence on. the basis ofdistribution studies. Psycho-analysts, on the other hand, elucidate the need to imitate female initiation rites, and explain the content and structure of male puberty rites in terms of unconscious motives in the selection of traites and symbols. . Those unduly influenced by theories of phallic primacy may, perhaps", be inclined to affirm that 'originally" all female puberty rites were patterned upon male puberty rites, and may suggest that the sketchiness of Yuman nose-piercing rites is due to their great antiquity and obsolescence, rather than to the fact that they are

Vol. 3, No. 1] G. DEVERECTX [SAMIKSA

21.

THE MOHAVE MALE PUBERTY RITE

Chicago, 19337

Spire, L. Tuman Tribes of the Gila River.

relatively recent and skimpy attempts to imitate the more elaborate female puberty rites. Whatever -may be the case in other areas of the world, such an interpretation of Yuman data is supported neither by culture-historical findings, nor by psychoanalytic .commonsense, and hence need not be considered further in this context. BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Bour&e, J. G. Notes on the Cosmogony and Theogony of the Mohave Indians of the Rio Colorado. Journal of American Jolklore 2:169-189, 1339. 2. Devereux, G. Sexual Life of the Mohave Indians. (Doctor's. Thesis). Typescript. University of California Library, Berkeley, California, 1935. 3. Devereux, G. Institutionalized Homosexuality of the Mohsve Indians. Human Biology 9:498-527, 1937. 4- Devereux, G. Mohave Culture and Personality. Character and Personality 8:91-109, 1939. 5. Deveieux, G. The Social and Cultural Implications of Incest Among the Mohave Indians. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 8:510-533, 1939. 6. Deveieux, G. Mohave Beliefs Concerning Twins. American Anthropologist ' n. s 43:573-592, 1941. I. Devereux, G. Mohave Orality. Psychoanalytic Quarterly !6:519-5f6,. 19478. Devereux, G. Heterosexual Behaviour of the Mohave Indians, (in) Roheim, G. (ed). psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences. II. New York {In Press.) 9. Devereux, G. Mohave Obstetrics. American Imago (In Press ) 10. Drucker, P. Culture Element Distributions: xvii: Yuman-Pinian, Anthropological Records 6:3, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1941II. Forde, C. D, Ethnography of the Yuma Indians. University ff California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 28:83-278, 1931. 12. Gifford, E. W. The Kamia of Imperial Valley. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 97, 1931, 13. ' Gifford, E. W. The Cocopa. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 31:257-334, 1933. 14. Kroeber, A. L. Anthropology. New York 1923. 15. Kroeber, A. L. Handbook of the Indians of California, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 78, 1925. 16. Kroeber, A. L. Earth-Tongue, A Mohave. (in) Parsons, E. C. (ed) American Indian Life. New York 1925. 17. Kroeber, A. L. (ed) Waiapai Ethnography. American Anthropological Association, Memoir 42, 1935.. 18. McGee, W. J. The Seri Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology, Annual Report 17 pt 1, 1898. 19. Meigs, P. 3rd. The Kiliwa Indian of Lower California. Ibero-Americana: -15. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1939. 20. Saul, L. J. Feminine Significance of the Nose. Psychoanalytic Qunrterly 17:51-57, 1948.

22.

Toffelmier, K. & Luc-mala, K. Dreams and Dream Interpretation of the Diegueno Indians of Southern California. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 6;19o.22, 1936. . Waterman, T. T. The Religious Practices of the Diegueno Indmns.
University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 8:2l-3oH,

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Vo!. 3, No. 1]

EDMUND BERGLER, M. D

27

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF THE "WISE GUY'

EDMUND BERGLER, M. D.

There is no precise definition of the typus 'wise guy' available. I asked a few Slang spec .lists for an explanation. "An impudent and ignorant fellow, covering his lack of knowledge with a knowing-all attitude", said the first. "Wrong," retorted the second, "a wise guy is a smart fellpw who pronounces his smartness provocatively." "You miss completely. the point," mused the third. "You confuse the wise guy with a smart coockie or egg. A wise guy is just a show-off' \sith a good and ready repartee. The reparteethat's the essence." A fourth specialist* claimed that all three connoisseurs were hopelessly in error, stating that the wise guy is a nationally acclaimed institution, characterizing a person who does not lose his head. Where other people despair, the wise guy makes a crack and asks: What do we do next ? The basis of the admirable phenomenon was, in his opinion, courage mixed with wit. To round up the symposium of specialists for knowledge made simple, a fifth gentleman with great learning summed up his verdict: "A wise guy is an enfant terrible, everything else are unimportant trimmings." The confusing mass of contradictions, visible in these samples, shows that uniformity of views does not exist on the subject. The "wise guy" is accused of ignorance and impudence, credited with smartness provocatively used, rejected as exhibitionist mitigated through the ability of repartee, acclaimed as hero, and finally ironized as mischievous little boyand all that at the same time. Take your choice. I. Going down to 'brass tags' and the nursery, we find that every child goes through a period of 'nosy' and noisy witticism, one of the characteristics of the later 'wise guy'. Adults are amused and flatter the 'clever' child. Confronted with the identical attitude in adults, they^don't take the . bearer of these attributes too seriously. The first

impression, is that the slang specialist who called the 'wise guy' an enfant terrible, was not so far off the tangent. Nor was the description of the other specialist who stressed the exhibitionistic element, wrong: the 'wise ; guy' attracts with his witticism the attention of the listeners. More questionable is, however, the heroism involved in the 'wise guy'attitude: what proofs are there that the bravado is not just whistling in the dark? All o'f the observers conceded to the 'wise guy', ability for wit and repartee. The reasons, though, were contradictory: some believed tha't-that type of wit represented but a provocative technique, others conceded1 wit as 'natural', still others claimed that the witticism represented a subdivision of the exhibitionistic modus vivendi. Interesting was also the reaction of the five interviewed. Some with amusement about the 'wise guy', some with disdain, reproach, irony, jealousy. To make things more complicated, some of these reactions were mixed in one and the same person. The margin of error contained in the statements of all five observers, is double edged: they were all thinking about the wise gu/ in action, and not about his substructure, and took at face value surface reverberations. Stripped of his anticsat home, or in the analytic appointment room, the heroic wise guy is not heroic at all. The first question is: why does the wise-guy-attitude not protect him from neurosis ? The clinical fact is to be recorded that being a wise guy and having neurosis, are mutually not exclusive. I analyzed a long series of these specimens: hypochondriacs, depressives, writers with writing block, journalists and advertisers with conscience troubles, businessmen with weak potency. . My impression has been that the wise-guy attitude is an indispensible mask for these neurotics. They were frightened people who could not stand uncertainty- It is not that the wise guy is above the situation, tte situation constantly overwhelmes the poor wise guy. His modus vivendi is to prove to himself-and let it be confirmed by others,hence his so pronounced exhibitionism, that he is not scared. His whistHng in the dark is couched in the form of wit. The whole inner process is, of course, unconscious. Wise guy's inner conscience is cruel. Confronted with a new situationbe it something he cannot understand or masterhe

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EDMUND BERGLER, M. D.

[SAMIKSA

Vol. 3, No. 1]

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF THE 'WISE GUY"

29

must out of inner necessity ward off the reproach of his inner conscience pertaining to masochistically tinged passivity. Hence he cracks an 'aggressive' joke. Even in that technique of pseudo-superiority, he uses unconsciously a soothing argument: I'm just joking, don't take me seriously. Nothing characterizes a brute more as brute, does hitting the wise guya banal technique, used in movies. By putting himself on the level of the witty child, the great wise guy asks for leniency. Frequently, the technique works, though the wise guy pays with lack of respect afflicted by the environment, slightly sugarcoated by the reputation of being a 'wit.' Another attitude of the wise guy points in the same direction. It is remarkable how often the wise guy plays the submissive role with a stronger person, though on the basis of being the strong man's courtfool. The inner compulsion of the wise guy to use his favourite inner defense, presupposes for its success, the applause, or smiling acceptance of the listeners. The latter are asked to act the role of attesters of pseudo-aggression. The alibi of not being passively overwhelmed, must'metaphorically speakingshow the signature of witnesses. The moment the listener does not laugh, the joke falls flat, the hidden depression of the wise guy comes to the fore. In analysis, f. i., inner fears must be analyzed, not less then their covering defenses. To quote a few of those: A hypochondriaca] patient with severe heart neurosis, asked me: "Why do you publish your monographs on impotence and frigidity as separate volumes ? Why not combined under the title: The Ideal Marriage ?" An impotent businessman: "What is the difference between an analyst and an inmate of a prison ? The prisoner changes his jailer every eight hours, the analyst every 45 minutes." A patient with premature ejaculation: "Paying analytic bills gives me the creeps. Not, as you think, because of the money. No, Sir, I refer to the hazard involved: I am afraid of acquiring a writing cramp when writing your checks. Will you admit then that the remedy is worse than the disease 1" < The precarious balance between the psychic masochism to be warded off, and the defense proper, is sometimes dangerously near the breaking point. That applied to a patient who once lostindirectly-^-

his position because of the following 'witticism.' He was invited to a party given by the new president of the company in which the patient worked as assistant manager. "You know," said the boss apologetically, "I nearly did not recognize you when you greeted me so politely on the street. I was introduced to so many people lately..." "Well," answered the patient, "that's understandable. That reminds me of a story in A. Ehrenstein's 'Report From A Madhouse.' A man greets only dogs and devaluates thus his greeting to a degree that he is able to greet everybody with greatest of courtesy;...." " . W e arrive at the following conclusions: . " (i) The wise guy is an inwardly passive-masochistic person, constantly hounted by an inner reproach pertaining to exactly that passivity. (2) An objectively dangerous or disagreable situation is not taken cognizance of as such; only the inner reproach of being overwhelmed counts.* (3) To counteract his inner fear and reproach, the, victim puts up a front of pseudo-superiority: "I'm not impressed." (4) The unconscious' technique, used as defense is a pseudot 'aggressive' wit, coupled with the prayer: "Don't take me seriously, I'm just funny, don't punish me." (5) The alibi of not being scared and overwhelmed, must be attested by listeners, hence the pronounced exhibitionism. . (6) The types wise guy is contented with the role of court-fool, otherwise submissive; the whole inner process is, of course, unconscious.
*For a discussion afthe complicated problems of conscience, see the writer's book The Battle of the Conscience. Washington Institute of Medicine. 1948.

Vol. 3, No. 1]

THE ART OF CHILD/ ANALYSIS

THE ART OF CHILD ANALYSIS

AGNES B. GREIG, M. O.

In any art there is a long, hard discipline before the simplicity and rhythm of beauty is achieved. Until the center of balance is found, no art is achieved, only a strained act of juggling involving endless distortion and displacement. The most difficult art is the art of living, the workshop of which is the home; the center of balance, the child. f If psychoanalysis has something to contribute to the art of living and what ,el,e can be its goal? it is imperative that we Work from the center of balance, and yet that center is the very area from which we avert our eyes, though well we know how far we are from grace or beauty in living-; only too familiar is the juggling act we substitute for rhythm the distortion, displacement, introjection, projection, the endless maze in which the ego wanders, frightened, lonely, with increasing arrhythmia and exhaustion, spending priceless psychic coin and receiving so little. ~ , Fear of the child is recognized, although its intensity is far from appreciated. < Because of this fear, working through the adult to a concept of the child was the only possible route, clumsy and difficult as it is. Too direct dealing with the child reactivates suppressed infantile drives with their store of fear, hate and painful longing. It was necessary to. turn away from him, just as it was necessary to suppress the drives he symbolizes. All adults, including the well analyzed, have a large storehouse of unhealed narcism and unclarified identifications which becomes immobilized and permit us to function reasonably well in an adult c world. The child touches this immobilized area and if any sensitivity remains, stirs up a sense of threat which, unfortunately, we project upon him, the cause of our efts tress. ,

We have come a long way on the road to seeing the child himself, not merely our identification with him, at best, nor our unslain dragons whom he may represent, nor his distorted image through the adult patient's reconstructed and in degree nightmarish memories. However, our rejection of childhood is still great, and although our vision is clearer and we are justly horrified by parental destruction of children, our own attitude toward analyzing the child reveals an unwillingness to rescue him, an apathy which must be compounded of diverse and conflicting ingredients. .' We are inclined to think analysis of the child is too difficult to bear because of the child's fatiguing and aggressive behaviours, but that the skill involved is not great. Denial of the skill involved, as a justification of rejection, is a trick we all know in our patients but fail to recognize in ourselves. # Successful analysis of the child is a subtle art calling for greater skill, subtlety of insight and delicacy of interpretation than in the case of the adult whose ego has sturdier defenses and who becomes related to the analytic situation, trapped or supported as the case may be, in a transference relationship which is not possible for a child^ Releasing him from -his cedipal conflicts and strengthening the ego to take the frustrations involved is too narrow and restrictive a goal. I would say the goal would be to release the child's creative drives,' expand his world from the family constellation, from a super*ego made up of .parental figures to a richer, bigger world of many and varied figures ; and a super-ego rich in variety and of his choosing ; help him < find his symbols which will then be a center of balance for him and serve their purpose as such, not become his master and destroyer ; and as an inevitable result, help him find the freedom which begets freedom. , Perhaps this is not a new definition but I believe it expands the usual concept and changes the approach. It is commonly said that a child cannot free associate, and that is one of the tedious features in the whole tedious business. ' This is a fallacy. Free association is inherent in chilcUhood. It is the essence of- play* A child comes to us immobilized by fear and needs to learn this freedom of response, this psychic flexibility as does the adult. However, if we are convinced that he cannot free associate we, in effect, forbid him to do so, or fail to see the evidence presented.

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.[SAMIKSA

Vol. 3, No. 1]

THE ART OF CHILD ANALYSIS

Perhaps we clo as his mother has done, forbid him freedom in proportion to our inability to cope with freedom. Anyone who has learned the language of play can follow the association. A child's repetitive behaviour is similar to the adult's repetitive behaviour ; in one case using tangible material, running from one to another, building up and breaking down ; in the other case, using words or dream form a puzzle presented with more and more clues if the situation is safening, or with more and more obscurity if the analyst is too dull or threatening. If one dissolves this block through interpretation on whatever level, the child as adult moves on, energy released, a new door opened, play material he has not dared to see or touch is now open to exploration ; for the adult, new ideas, old memories may now be dealt with. Again-we know that rage and destruction is the language of impotence but fail to see that frequently intolerable behaviour is the result of'chc impotence we have caused by our castrating stupidity. We do not listen to his languageagain a rejection of childhood. We might even say that the essence of our failure is r.ejectibn of his language and" forcing him to communicate in adult terms. And yet the child's language is the primitive one of symbol,-the universal language, an inexhaustible source of material for the artist. Here is the meeting ground of the child, the potential artist, in living, and the artist in interpretation of life through picture, poem or story. Surely helping the child to clarify his symbols and relate them to the world around him should be an adventure worthy of the keenest intellect. The true history of man is in symbol, myth and dream. Perhaps Freud's greatest gift was giving the dignity and scientific value to the symbol, a language we are beginning to value as valid in reality, rather than an irrational power holding sway over the unsophisticated. In other art fields there is increasing recognition that the child must find himself, must be. free to play with the media before techniques are imposed ; help him when he needs help, but find his own direction. He must be given space and freedom from other demands, and encouragement when fear comes forth to make him withdraw; show him the evidences of his Self emerging, when he feels there is no Self.

In analysis freedom is growing. No longer is the child of necessity confronted with the terrifying family constellation, terrifying even if in doll form and even if he is told he is free to do whatever he pleases. Now he may approach and manipulate less rigid things and build up to facing the family, which he will do eventually and with greater speed and clarity' if not pressed. Since he is the core of the famliy he. must explore and relate himself to his world, the family, and form a concept of life which he_ will weave into a pattern, a pattern which he will create and recreate and call .'universe, ,a friendly, free, exciting universe filled with delightful, pleasure-giving, growth-stimulating peoplereal-and individual or, a terrifying, fear-ridden, ghost-haunted universe in which one moves cautiously knowing that anything not made in one's literal image is a foe; no growth, no joyonly a nightmare existemce leading to death. Also most child analysts have outgrown the fear-derived need for omnipotence and magic, and realize that such knowing everything is a straitjacket, growth-destroying approach to the child, whereby we may release him form fear of parent and substitute fear of analyst possibly a more deadly fear. Achieving the relaxation of bein understood, recognized in his own image is vastly different from being in the presence of an omnipotent Being who must inevitably make him his creature. Surely the only explanation of such omnipotence is fear of the child, a need to say 'this is all there is, nothing else exists,' when we daren't look further. We open oujs eyes, resolve our blind spots only as we feel prepared to look. Another straitjacket is a limited and literal evaluation of the cedipal myth. The oedipal legend which Freud used as a channel to the child's inner self and whose validity has been demonstrated over and over, was surely an opening in the baffling wall between child and adult. But what greater disservice can one render a pioneer than to immobilize his work by encapsulating it and not permitting ' it to grow ? We recognize that a symbol is repository for many things, sometimes a fairly accurate image, but more often a frame of reference, a true note or structural axiom. To apply this highly significant symbolic myth literally is to chain feelings which are powerful and basic in drive but nebulous

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[SAM1KSA

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THE ART OF CHILD ANNALYSIS

35

and fragile in form, to mould them into something which has enough truth to imprison the child but too limited to permit freedom. Again it is forcing the child to an adult language which is a denial of his language, a rejection of his innate dignity. True it is that children say: "I want to marry mother; I wish my father were dead- I wish you were dead"-, but their concept of these words 'is not the adult concept. It is fluid, impermanent, as a child's play at being grown up is fluid, temporary, a feeling one's way into something ahead, but not yet wanted unless the child rejects his own childhood and is pushing ahead and away. This he does if childhood is too dengerous, if it is threatened, not protected by the significant figures. Then feelings turn into tangibilities, delicate fluid lines become heavy and rigid, childhood is trapped in premature adulthood, the delightful manipulative material of play changed to prison chains. Ovig.r-,t;angibility destroys beauty, fetters the imagination a limitless play material, -leaking this boundless world safe is a major part of the therapy, destroying the witches and ogres, or bringing them down to a size which makes them a challenge, an exciting adventure. For this reason, too much verbalizing can be destructive. Attempting to make the unconscious conscious on too literal a level is hurtful. Words are not that accurate. Feeling tone can be strong, more exact, if we dare trust it. Sometimes a smile, a bit of nonsense, will crystallize the meaning with greater sureness that would be possible by a precise statement. The anxious child's fears have already crippled his imagination. He is afraid his words are deeds, his thoughts magic, black magic not the delicious magic .of the happy child who builds a castle with two sticks and grandly sweeps it away with a gesture of omnipotence when his mood shiftsable to let it go because he has the power to bring it back if he wants it. He is not the castrated one who must cling to everything because maybe there will be no more. The parallel with the fascination of the marvelous bowel movement is clear, that enchanting work of art, when not forced nor ritualized, enjoyed but quickly waved away unless it is overly charged with significance because of castration fear, the narcistic over-evaluation of the possessions of .trie physically impoverished.

The analyst must not fix every play move by interpretation, solidify it, and turn it into a burdensome thing. The change from fear of fantasy^ and action to freedom- of fantasy and power to manipulate the environment is an exciting drama. An eleven-year-old schizophrenic boy was preoccupied with the compulsive wish to cut off adults' heads. Analysis had progressed slowly but well, and the fog of paralyzing, indiscriminate terror was beginning t o dissolve. "' One day, sensing that he was no longer needing to be permitted merely to verbalize this preoccupation, the interpretation of which he knew but that he was saying in effect. "Please help me". I said: "Today you really cut off my head. There it lies on the floor in a pool of blood." He looked at me in terror. I smiled in return and gradually the terror changed to shivers of mingled terror and elation, and finally he rolled on the floor like an infant, in sheer delight and utter abandon. The following hour he examined the room in detail; "When did you put that picture there? I never saw that before"; and finally moving pictures, books, etc. and looking behind them. "The room has not been changed. Why could you not see these things before ? What did you expect to find behind the pictures ?" "I always thought there was someone hiding there with a gun pointed at me." One must be sensitive to the size variableinflation by fear, deflation by power. A child needs to control his own analysis. The analyst p m e s to his rescue when he is out of control, when he can't free himself fr o m his fantasy or is caught in exhausting repetitive behaviour. Determining the direction, choice of material, and rate of procedure is part of free association. Interpretation must not be hurried or over-emphasized. This is equally true of the adult. The child must gain ego mastery or he will spend his energies in more and more defenses, until the poor little ego is lost and lonely behind a barricade of clumsy mechanisms, each one breeding a new mechanism ; or he will react with a pseudo-omnipotence, an attempt to rule the world..

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[SAMIKSA

Sometimes he needs to be the big one' and the analyst the little one, the fluid quality' is a means of achieving rhythm as opposed to submission. ^ I recall a child who had been living in bleak terror, exhausted with his endlessly growing and always insufficient defense mechanisms, finally daring to manipulate his environment, coming in with jokes, making open fun of the analyst with increasing gayety, decreasing bards and eventually affection, bringing in a most delicious dreamfull of symbols of power and threat but with the antidote" of absurdity. There were mother elephants who produced syrup instead of milk, roaning fires in which the patient held the syrup to condense it into candy,elephants friendly and admiring, while he made candy ; the fire friendly too." It did not burn his hands. < Making child analysis an art, not a' plodding drudgery, would bring reward to analyst as well as to child. Looking directly at the child, not at his grotesquely enlarged shadow nor at his distorted image, the analyst might find him astonishingly unmonster-like, might find his language charming, his values and symbols something to treasure ; thereby not. only releasing the child from his self-destructive drives, but healing the adult's own hurt infantile narcism. Such an approach would lead to discrimination in the of cause analysis. There is~a tendency to work only with the very sick child, too often the one who is so poisoned atfd weakened by haste that only meagre results are possible. Why not use it to increase the stature of the gifted and strong child, who will be free to go ahead into life and create an economy of abundance for rich, Creative livinghealthy but not all-consuming defenses as opposed to our present economy of ego poverty and abundance of defense ? . .

SOME PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE SIVA LING A*

T. C. SINHA

There is a common saying that the Hindus have in their pantheon 330 ^million gods and goddesses.' Again it is believed that the population' of ancient Hindusthan was 330 million also. From this it is suggested that each Hindu has a separate godhead of his choice besides the host of others which are usually accepted in a general way and are worshipped for specific purposes on different occasions. It may, however, be said without any doubt that of all the diffarent forms of worship practised by the Hindus, the daily worship of the god Siva is the most .prevalent one and that Siva is the rfiost popular godhead of this country- At Banaras one may find in every street Siva temples within hundred yards of one another, and numerous other images of Siva Linga housed under trees etc. all over the city. . Icon worship is very widely practised in India.. Hindus have a clear conception of the forms of the idols they worship, and of their component parts. In the case of the god Siva, although the full-bodied image is seen, it is not usually in that form that Siva is worshippedI have never seen a full image of Siva ' being worshipped anywhere. It is only the Siva Linga i. e. the phallic form that receives the homage. For the purpose of this paper I shall only deal with some aspects of the Siva Linga concept .as was found in the course of analysis of different patients. Much has been mentioned about the Siva Linga in the Linga Purana, the Siva Purana and in other Hindu scriptures, but I shall not discuss these'statements in this paper. God Siva is known by many names featuring the different aspects of his character. A few amongst them are, Meheswara, Visvvanatha, Nataraja, Rudra, Bhairava, Umapati, Tunganatha, Mahadeva etc. Siva is one of the Trinity gods of the Hindus. The idol of Siva Linga consists of three parts. The lowest part the base which rises upwards and gradually broadens itself to form is
*Read before the Indian Psycho-analytical Society on 11. 12. 48-

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39

the middle or the second part a horizontal^ platform with pear-shaped outline known as the 'Gouripatta', through which juts out the perpendicular cylindrical structure forming the third part commonly known as the 'Linga'. The idol obviously represents a vagina (Gouripatta) and a penis (Linga) during coitus. Phallic worship in some form or other is found among many tribes- A careful study of the Hindu idol -eeveals certain features that are out of the ordinary and that require explanation. In actual coitus the penis of the male penetrates the vagina of the female from outside. The penis, therefore, during the penetrationpn^se7Ts^ioF~YlsIHIeto anyone during coitus. But in the Siva idol the vertical column representing the penis is visible. The portion representing the glans is at the top away from the part.corresponding to the vulva. It has been suggested by some that the- idol represents the phantasy of a child viewing parental coitus from inside the womb of the mother. But this theory cannot stand scrutiny. Because in that case the child could only see the inner walls of the mother's vagina and the glans portion of the father's penis inside it. The picture would then be something like a solid cylindrical rod inside a hollow tube. In the idol something like whole of the female vulva is represented by the 'Gouripatta'-the . horizontal platform. Obviously a child in the womb cannot have an outer viewof the mother's genitalia. G. Bose suggests that the Siva Linga idol represents the phantasy of a child in its cedipus role i. e. the wish to have sexual coitus with the mother from inside the womb. The child of course exaggerates the size of its own penis by identification with the father. This interpretation sets at rest the object-ions raised in connection with the previous theory. This explanation forwarded by Bose does not only theoretically satisfy the question raised, but also analytical support of the existence of such a phantasy may be often found in psycho-neurotic, cases. When the patient appreciates the difficulties of having a sexual coitus with the mother, particularly because of the fear of father and also, it may be because of the unwillingness of the mother herself, the problem becomes difficult for the patient to solve. The strong cedipus wish on the one side and the fear of the father and other difficulties on the other side may, in some cases, drive the patient to further regression to earlier stages of life. The child again enters into the

mother's body in phantasy. There it finds its place of safety where no aggression from the father is possible, nor can. the mother now stand in the way of fulfilment of its desire, the child being inside the womb is out of direct control of the mother." Fleurnoyin his paper 'Siva Androgymy'discussed the formation of Siva Linga idol and came to the conclusion that the conception of Siva Linga was based on the bi-sexual nature of human being. Although the paper is a learned one, the conclusion . arrived at was too. broad and does not indicate particulars regarding the level of HKidinal development to which the motive for this particular type of 'image formation can be traced. The best answer, of piychaimlytic-tl value, to this problem may be expected from a stu.ly of similar phantasies brought up by certain patients. I shall mention a few relevant points from case histories. In doing so I will not discuss those points that go to prove the validity of Bose's opinion or. the subject. There are other featured that require elucidation. . Mr, M., aged about 30 years, unmarried, was suffering badly from asthma. Analysis disclosed his extreme fear of the male and the female roles in pregnancy, particularly because of the danger involved in delivery.-He had little interest in active hetero-sexual activity. Occasionally when it cam; up, he felt inclined to practice withdrawal before ejaculation or to have coitus after masturbation. The other alternative to avoid pregnancy for him was active homosexuality. In the.,* 'phantasy of the feminine role the patient could not trust the male partner that he would withdraw in proper time before ejaculation. Masturbation in the female role was not quite satisfactory to him. The patient then conceived of having a penis inside the vagina.- He could now have the pleasure of coitus by this penis, which he could control himselfit being his own. It should be noted here that the ^patient in his phantasy sought the pleasure of his imaginary vagina and not that of his penis. Only once he said that if perchance ejac'ulation took place before the satisfaction of his feminine desire, even then, there is no possibility of his becoming pregnant, because the penis would be thrust out of the, vagina from inside, and the semen in that case would fall outside the vagina. Usually he never thought of any ejaculation -from this penis, which would be operating from inside the womb. His main aim was to enjoy feminine gratification

T. 6. SINHA

[SAMIKSA

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OBSERVATIONS ON THE SIVA LINGA

by this method. He also said that not only this would give him pleasure but also people would come to offer jjlower and water to it for_worshjfuas they do in the case of the^Siva Linga. Another patient, Mr. D., aged about 16 years, came up for analysis for his psycho-neurotic symptoms viz., lack of concentration and attention, restless habit, frequent change of his object of interest and other difficulties. As his analysis proceeded a stage came when he was face to face "with his intense desire and fear of passive homosexuality. His main fear was, as in the previous case, the fear of conception as a result of passive homesexual activity. This patient also "could not rely on the active partner that he would withdraw before ejaculation took place nor could he realize the absurdity of the idea of conception as a mate. His anxiety was so great that at this stage of analysis he started searching literature if he could find any mention of pregnancy in the male. One day he referred to the case of the mythical fYfcvanasva and concluded that I was wrong and that actual pregnancy in case of males also might take place. This patfent after some more days of analysis built up a phantasy of having a penis inside his anus. This penis, he said, was his own. He could now use this penis for the gratification of his anal desire. One day he said that if one would chance to see the erected penis coining out of the anus of the patient he would at once bow down his head and place flowers and sandal wood paste on the patient's buttocks as tokens of worship. I shall now mention another case which will be more illuminating and will indicate the whole machanism more clearly. The relevant points of the case are as follows: Mr. A., who was a Bachelor in Arts and in Law and a stenotypist by profession, aged about 40 years, came to me for treatment of his complaints of general lack of energy and interest, procrastination, indecision, and pre-occupation with the idea of eating, etc. He had 'ambition to be successful in life but had to give up practising law mainly because of his lack of interest and he took to stenography as his profession. In this line also he did not fare well but somehow he continued. At certain stages of analysis the patient hadc phantasies similar to that of the two other cases. At one time his phantasy to satisfy his passive homosexual urges expressed itself in the idea of .possessing a penis inside the anus. He could then utilise this penis

at his will to gratify his passive anal desire by moving this penis to and fro from inside till his desire was satisfied. The advantage of this was that he was not to depend on another person for his own pleasure and could avoid the social stigma associated with passive homosexual activity. The idea of another man's semen entering his body was very much, resented by the patient on the ground that he might be badly infected by some veneral disease. In the feminine role also the patient contemplated a penis inside the vagina and derived pleasure from the idea. Here also he coutited on the advantages of enjoying the sexual pleasure fll by himself without depending on others. The question of pregnancy did not come out very prominently in this case at this stage, although there were points which indicated the presence of difficulty on that score also. When the oral libido of the patient came out during analysis he one day told me that he derived a peculiar pleasure in thrusting his tongue out of the closed lips and again withdrawing it. He usually repeated this movement several times till he felt a peculiar sensation primarily in the lips and mouth and then all over the body. This to and fro movement of the tongue was easily detected to be the oral substitute of a genital coitus. Sometimes he found delight in looking at his own face in the mirror when he projected his tongue through the lips.. The contour of the lips'and also the combined lips and tongue picture appeared very much; attractive to him. In the above mentioned cases I have noted the relevant points only and have left the other features of the cases out of consideration,. I have other cases on record showing similar mechanism. One point that I should like to stress is that in the cases mentioned above each of the patients gave the idea that the penis he was contemplating was his own. There was no reason to think that the comtemplated penis was the penis of the father nor was there any hint that the penis had been introjected into the body, from outside. In some cases however the idea of incorporation of a penis from outside may be clearly found. Melanie Klien and others have worked on this problem. The idea of a good penis or of a bad penis does not come into the picture in these cases. The penis which the patients said they possessed were their own. The phantasy was based mainly on the bi-sexual nature of the

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[SAMIKSA

human psyche. In each of the cases cited here the patient had to find some way out of his conflict in facing the actual situation concerned in the satisfaction of the genital, the anal, or the oral libido. The solution of the conflict was found in regression to the narcissistic stage of deriving the different kinds of organ pleasure all by oneself without taking any help from outside objects. In the case of Mr. M. this pleasure was derived in the female vaginal role whereas in the case of Mr. D. the pleasure derived was of the anal type ( passive homosexual). Mr. A. presented a (combined picture of both female genital and passive, homosexual gratifications and added to them the oral libidinal satisfaction. It is now <ile.ar .that the particular feature of the Siva Linga viz. the projection of the penis from within the vagina may also indicate a narcissistic gratification of sexuality due to a conflict resulting in regression. It is also0 to be noted that after the regression has taken place the patient according to his particular type of difficulty may either take to the genital or the anal or the oral mode of gratification. I have already mentioned Bose's theory of the formation of the Siva Linga in which he thinks that the defensive cedipus wish of a child is lit the root of it. In this paper I have tried to show that narcissistic organ pleasure may also be the root cause in some cases. There is no wonder that a particular idol which has been determined by so many basic wishes of human nature should find such an important place in Hindu worship and should enjoy such wide popularity.

THEORIES OF SEX
MOLL:. FREUD: BOSE BEJOYKETU BOSE Before coming to a discussion of the scientific theories of sex psychology, it is useful to consider some features of the pre-scientific popular' notions concerning the subject. It was generally taken for granted that the sexual impulse is something unanalysable, that the sexuality is associated with the phenomenon of reproduction only so that it arises de nova in the -adult life only and that children and infants were innocent of anything sexual. Even many phenomena how classed under the perversions were considered to be outside the domain of sex. *
MOLL'S THEORY

Albert Moll was perhaps the first sexologist to formulate a scientific theory of sex. He never mentions sexual instinct butspeaks of sexual impulse. Let me quote the fundamental postulates regarding sex as advanced by him in his own.language. "We learn from personal observation that two entirely distinct processes participate in this impulse. In the first place, we have the physical processes that take place in the genital organs, these are in part unperceived, but in part they affect consciousness in the form of common sensations. In the. second place we have those higher psychical processes by means of which - man is attracted to woman and woraaa to man. In our actual experience . of the normal sexual life both these groups of processes 'do, as a matter of fact, Work in unison; but not only is it possible for us to distinguish them analytically, it is, in addition, possible in many instances to observe them,in action clinically isolated each from the other." The impulse which is responsible for the peripheral phenomena is termed the "detumesoence impulse" by him. 'This is derived from the root "detumescere" meaning . to decrease in size,. The impulse which is responsible for the higher psychical processes which bring * Reprinted from Indian Journal of Psychology, Vol. XXII 1945, by kind permission of the Editor.

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{SAMIKSA

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BEJOYKETU BOSE

a man to a woman and vice versa is termed by him the "contrectation impulse" derived from the root "contrectare" meaning to touch or think about. Moll says, -'Sexual excitement is accompanied throughout by a sensation of pleasure, specifically known as voluptuousness. Several stages of the voluptuous sensation must be distinguished: its onset ,the equable voluptuous se;nsation, the voluptuous acme, and finally quite sudden diminution and cessation. Associated with the last stage we usually have a sense of satisfaction and simultaneously a cessation of the sexual impulse; a sense of ease and calm ensues, and at the same time a feeling of fatigue. This voluptuous sensation localised in the genital organs must of course be distinguished from the general sense of pleasure." Moll thus distinguishes three classes of pleasure in connection with the erotic phenomena, viz-, (1) voluptuous pleasure, (2) sense of satisfaction with the cessation of voluptuous sensation, (3) general sense of pleasure aroused by the idea of e-r contact with a person of the opposite-sex. Moll says that although voluptuous sensation and the sense of satisfaction are noticeable in both children and adults, voluptuous acme is rarely noticed in children. He is also of opinion that mere erection and ejaculation does not mean that the voluptuous acme and satisfaction has been experienced by the subject. Concerning contrectation Moll says this impulse develops in three stages from infancy till -adolescence, viz., neutral, undifferentiated, differentiated. He does not consider undifferentiated stage to be invariable in occurrence. It is clear from Moll's writing that he does not consider sexual impulse to be any new product manifesting for the first time during adolescence, but he thinks that owing to congenital variation the impulse may vary so that certain cases may exhibit precocious development while others may show unduly retarded development of the sexual impulse. Although the two components of the sexual impulse act frequently in isolation, before the period of pubertal development, generally during this period they become intimately associated with eaclf other.* In normal adults, the two components are so intimately associated that they can as a rule be separated only by artificial analysis. In the adult the voluptuous sensation is closely associated with the mode of the contrectation impulse. He states that as as a rule the voluptuous sensation is experienced to the full culminating in acme and satisfaction, where the sexual act is adequate to the contrectation impulse of the

individual concerned, i. e., where there is full sympathy with the object on the part of the subject experiencing the impulse, f It is clear from the works of Moll that the contrectation impulse is responsible for the choice of love objects, but Moll does not explain how differentiation of objects and their final choice is brought about.
FREUD'S THEORY

Freud's concept of sex seems to comprise the following ideas. Sexual instinct has three aspects, (i) object, (ti) aim, (tii) feeling. These are independently variable and their combinations in proportions of different shades determine the actual nature of sexual instinct in any-given instance. The object of the sexual instinct may vary from individuals of either sex, animals and fetishes to pictures, statues and even corpses. The aim may vary from normal coitus to bestiality and from ordinary caresses to violent sadism and masochism. The feeling as meant by Freud is the emotion connected with the sexual impulse and this may vary in quality from mere liking to a 'deep'rooted love bond on the bne hand and from ordinary dislike to deep abhorrence on the other hand. Besides the mere description of the three aspects of the sexual instinct Freud gives us a morphological classification of the sexual instinct as well. He says that the sexual instinct operates with particular emphasis at certain regions of the body termed erotogenous zones, e. g., mouth, anus, genito-urinary openings, mammae, nates etc. Freud says "An attempt to formulate the general characteristics of the sexual instincts would run as follows: They are numerous, emanate from manifold organic sources, act in the first instance independently of one another and only at a late stage achieve a,more or less complete synthesis. The aim which each strives to attain is 'organ pleasure'; only when the synthesis is complete do they enter the service of the function of reproduction, becoming thereby generally recognizable as sexual instincts They have in a high degree the capacity to act vicariously for one another and they can readily change their objects." Freud brings adult sexuality within a much wider range than many contemporary workers who associate sexual instinct with the function of reproduction and hence with the genitals. He says that the sexual instinct repeats its manifestations under the cue of pleasure principle-and, not from any conscious motive of the propagation of

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[SAMIKSA

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BEJOYKETU BOSE

the race. In further developing his theory Freud establishes that sexual instinct is a congenital endowment manifesting itself from birth in various ways. Freud has shown that if we are careful we can notice in every developing child the different phases in which particular types of the so-called perverse eroticism are successively evolved till finally all the forms are organized under the primacy of the genital. He distinguishes between adult and infantile forms of sexuality by the fact that in the former the partial instincts are organized under the supremacy of the genital or of some other member of the group according as the subject is normal or perverse. These subordinate members contribute towards the intensity of the erotic feeling generated, by the dominant component- In contrast with abult sexuality, individual components of the sexual instinct of an infant work without being, dominated by any single member of the group. We can thus understand how in an infant there lies a potentiality for any form of sexual maturity from perfectly normal to grotesquely perverse. Freud has drawn attention to the two types of pleasure noticeable in any normal sexual act, viz-, (a) fore-pleasure, and (b) end pleasure. The distinctive feature between the two is that end-pleasure removes all feeling of tension and temporarily abates the sexual impulse, whereas fore-pleasure enhances the tension of the sexual excitement. Freud says, "Fore-pleasure is the same as that furnished by the infantile sexual impulse, though on a reduced scale ; while end pleasure is new and is probably connected with determinations which first appear in'puberty." The sharp differentiation of the male and the female character origi-- t c nates at puberty. Freud says "In respect to the autoerotic and masturbatic sexual manifestations it may be asserted that the sexuality of the little girl has entirely a.male character All I have been able to discover concerning masturbation, in little girls concerned the clitoris and not those other external genitals which are so important for the later sexual functions If one wishes to understand how the little girl becomes a wo-. man he must follow up the further destinies of this clitoris excitation. Puberty, which brings to the boy a great advance of libido, distinguishes itself in the girl by a'new wave of repression which especially concerns the clitoris sexuality.; If the sexual act is finally submitted to and the clitoris becomes excited, its role is then to conduct the excitement to tb.e adjacent female parts."

So far I have described what constitutes the sexuality of the sexual instinct according to Freud. Now I shall state Freud's views about instincts in general, for without these the term 'sexual instinct' will be but half understood. Freud says that the idea of a-n instinct involves four things, viz., 1. ImpetusThis is the motor element. Impetus of the sexual instinct is termed 'libido' and this is comparable on the one hand with physical energies like heat, light, electricity, etc., and on the other hand with hunger, thirst, etc. 2. Aim. , 3. ObjectThese have been already discussed. 4. SourceBy this is meant that somatic process in an organ or part of the body from which there results a stimulus represented in mental life by an instinct. We know an instinct by its. aims.
e

BOSE'S THEORY

Bose's approach towards the problem of sex is somewhat different from that of Freud. Bose does not make much use of the term 'instinct' but limits his observations to 'wish' as appreciated in the consciousness and as revealed by the investigations of the unconscious. So it is necessary to discuss the relationship between the instinct of Freud and the wish of Bose. Unfortunately the two authors have not used the terms in identical sense. Freud says in his paper on the unconscious "the kernel , of the system Ucs. consists of instinct presentations whose 'aim is to discharge their cathexis ; that is to say, they are wish impulses. Again in his paper on "Instincts and their vissitudes," he remarks"From, the side of physiologythis has given us the concept of stimuli and the schemes of the reflex arc, according to which a stimulus applied from the outer world is discharged by action towards the outer worldThere is nothing to prevent our including the concept of instinct under that of stimulus and saying that an instinct is a stimulus to the mind." As he goes on, he futher says: "If we now apply ourselves to consider? ing mental life from a biological point of view an instinct appears to us as a borderland""concept between the taental and physical."' Considering these quotations from Freud it seems to me that according to him instincts discharge a series of stimuli in response to which our mind reacts with 'wish impulses' within the system of Ucs. It must be noticed that Freud also describes another class of stimuli viz-, those coming from the outer world; therefore, these also may give rise to wish impulses in the system of Ucs.

48

THEORIES OE SEX

{SAM IKS A

i: 3, No.!.]

BEJOYKETU

BOSE

Bose, on the other hand, is inclined to consider what are called instincts from the psychological angle. According to him instincts are merely conglomerations of wishes which are ^ ^

through the mechanism of identity with the female partner. I have already indicated, Bose has postalated two types of fundamental

As regards "iJJGJj^
opposite to those of Freud. He says the~externaTstimuli areTeaHzed by us because ofa pre-existing wjsh, not that they l ~ T 3 wish. In spite of these differences there is one point in common., and that is that bj3th_c^sjder_j^ish_Jo be) a_motor ^element of the rnentaUife. It will however be noticed that a wish, particularlylvhen it is conscious, is a matter of fact* whereas an instinct is a hypothesis and a matter of inference. Wg__cannot detect an instinct by introspecii21-^L^?_-^liH^j^^-?.E!:iy? F?P_2rts about a wish. Bose says that in any wish situation there are three factors, viz., subject, object and act, when looked at fronym objective standpoint. At the subjective end the ego of the subject undergoes certain changes. At first it splits up into two halves, a subjective half and an object half, termed the subjective_ego and the ob|ective_eg,o (*) respectively. The O e is_rojec(^oj^side_the_^ubje^^ external ojbject,_b^c^mesjresponsible for .the.appreciation of the external reality. So much about the subject and the object factors. As regardTthe act, it corresponds to a wish of the mental life and Bose says that every wish has got a counterwish. Wishes ex is also_jited, Bd_when the former excited,ii^S-^-i^^ isjsatisfiej, the^jatter^ also insists _on..satisfacti.on.___ This opposition comesj.jnto the upon the object via ( X the via ( d f i d with the object, the__active_and the When the Qejsjtdly identified pjjssiy_wishesjrr simultaneouslY__satisfiecL the former directly and h latter vicariously. But the matter does not end here; further changes take place in the ego, manifested openly in retatiatoryor r.eciprocatory acts or kept latent in other situations. The changes its position with the Qe arid in these secondary 5 roles are reversed. _ _ Phychologically, as much_as_jphvsicailv, every humane being is bisexual Male traits in a male can function smo6thly~with~a~pleasufable affect, if only the opposing female traits are also simultaneously satisfied * Symbol Se and Oe respectiveiv.
-2lH5_l!^JE5i^

:Slii*iggifiJlI^^
say3>

The latter~he

I s most welldeveloped in the field of sexual relationship. For this reason repression holds its maximum sway over the domain of sex. ; So far I have stated Bose's views about the. subject-object and the motor aspect of an erotic wish. Bose agrees with the morphological classification of erotic phenomena as propounded by Freud. He has, however, elaborated it to some extent. He has laid particular stress, upon the skin surface as a whole acting as an erogenous zone. , As regards the feeling aspect of an erotic wish his-views are somewhat different. He uses the term feeling in the narrow academic sense and admits only two kinds of feeling: pain_and_pleasurg. He does not include emotions within the'category of feelings.. In the erotic field he recognises two types of pleasurable experiences, viz. (1) pleasure ejtpj^rienced^^rj^^ tion of the sexual act which proceeds from_the knowledge that the partner has experienced orgasm. He says that satisfactionjsjgosgible even in the absence of pleasure.. Although not explicitly mentioned by Bose, it seems very likely that the mode of origin of these two types of pleasurable feeling are different. It seems to me that the pleasure of sexual union arises from the lifting of ^repression from over the field_o_actiyjtv, whereas_the_ ..satisfaction after a successful sexual union depends on the smooth progress_of the changes within the ego. In short, thj2IHeI--^2S^_l5L_l':ie WIS^- fulfilment and the latter proceeds from the normal ego functioning.
j , .,. . _
|

<?-, -

r,

-.

,-- -

-,.?

SOME POINTS FOR COMPARISON BETWEEN THE VIEWS. OF MOLL. FREUD AND BOSE

I have indicated briefly the main views of Moll, Freud and Bose. The important feature in Moll's theory is the distinction between contrectation and detumescence. He based his assertions on theobservation that the two impulses often work in isolation. With the discovery of repression such a simple concept is no longer useful. In Freudiaft language therefore the two groups of phenomena although recognized as different in nature are described as manifestations, in separate phases, of a single continuous function. The 'aim' of the sexual instinct includes both the types of phenomena. Moll is very

THEORIES OF SEX

[SAMIKSA

Vol. 3, No. 1 ]

BEJOYKETU BOSE

51

deficient in factual considerations. He has not attempted any classification of sexual impulse along morphological lines. Moll's concept is very significant in one respect. He implies, though only indirectly, that contrectation impulse represents a bond between the subject and the object. Again, his,idea of detumescence refers only to activity divorced from any consideration either of the subject or of the object. Moll's theory is lacking in internal completeness and is too vague in description. Detumescence and contrectation are repeated many times during an individual's life time, whereas an organ can diminish in size only once, unless it regains its former size by a reverse process,. Nor can two bodies, which have already, met together, meet agair^ unless they have been separated in the mean time. Thus logically detuihescence presupposes tumescence, i. e., increase in size and contrectation presupposes separation. As a matter of fact, both these phenomena are easily demonstrable. It is strange that Moll did aot mention tumescence which invariably precedes detumescence. Freud has covered the field while discussing the mechanism of forepleasure. Havelqck Ellis also has described it in derail. But the separation impulse has not'been properly emphasized and even Freud did not make a mention of it. Separation impulse is noticeable when the partners .disengage themselves with satisfaction after a sexual congress. The concepts of detumescence and contrectation need further elaboration. Detumescence is not limited to periphery alone, we must not forget the release of central tension as well.' Similarly contrectaticSi should not be used with reference to the body as a whole only, but should be extended to mean approximation of parts as well. Freud's work is best understood if we remember that he is inclined to be an interactionist in his metapsychological attitude and that he relies more on biological concepts than on psychological ones for the elucidation of his theories. These peculiarities of Freud made him neglect one of the most useful fields of investigation, viz., conscious introspection. This in its turn^ influenced his interpretation of psychological facts. Infantile thumbsucking has been described by him as an objectless act. But strictly speaking, looking from the point of view of the thumb the oral cavity is the object and vice'versa the thumb is the object: in relation to the oral, cavity. This will be easier to understand if we agree to extend the concepts of subject and object applying them to the fractions of an individual as well as to the individual taken as a whole. Freud's

enunciation of partial instincts also may have to be modified slightly to accommodate some new ideas. He has said " ...they act in the first instance independently of one another and only at a late stage achieve a more or less complete synthesis. The aim which each strives to attain is organ pleasure " I should like to revise this part of his theorem as follows The bonds of association, linking the different partial instincts, are noticeable from the very beginning. Even before the infant has developed any idea of self the organs try to approach and meet one another ; and finally when they have met, they erotically excite one another and derive what Freud calls organ pleasure. We should explain this interorgan contrectation and separation by assuming the identification of subjective and objective halves of the ego with one or other of the organs engaged in mutual excitation. We have corroborative evidences from the domain of symbolism, e. g., the entire body may stand as a symbol of the penis- Again, these bonds of9 association between the different partial instincts are not all equal in intensity. Thus several partial instincts, more strongly bound together than the rest, may be considered to form a system as it were. I am citing two examples at present, one of the oral system and the other of the anal system. Before I proceed to describe them I should mention the different methods of investigation employed by me. They are, " (a) Study of the anatomical basis, (b) Embryological evidences, (c) Behaviour development of infants and young children.
, ORAL SYSTEM *

The three members of the oral system that I may mention for the purpose of illustration are : (1) Mouth, (2) Hands and (3) Breasts. I am citing the case of my infant daughter in whom I have watched the development of the oral system of libido since birth. The baby was put to the breast for the first time while still crying and before the appearance of breast milk, she reflexly grasped the nipple by the mouth asid except for the few incoordinate movements of the hands she showed no restlessness. She made a few sucking movements for a time but remained practically inactive for the most of the time. For the first few days her oral grasp of the nipple used to slip occasion-

52

THEORIES OF SEX

SAMIKSA

Vol. 3, No. 1 ]

BEJOYKETU BOSE

53

ally. At the end of one week she could suck fairly well. I noticed the first act of thumbs ucking on the 8th day. It was quite spontaneous and looked deliberate; there was little fumbling. Compared to this movement the visual fixation was very unsteady and the movements of the hands and legs were quite non-purposive. All this points to the fact that the first act of thumbsucking could not have been produced by chance. There must have been a preexisting bond between the oral and the manual libido, if I am permitted to express in this way. We can usefully employ the theory of Bose regarding the paired wishes to explain the-present phenomena. Bose says that continued fulfilment of an active wish also develops its passive counterpart till the passive counterpart i|self demands satisfaction and comes out of its ktency. Now in sucking the breast the infant firs): experiences passively that its mother's breast is being thrust intoits mouth. As a direct counterpart of the wish satisfied in this passive s"itaation, the child has got the active desire to thrust some object into its mouth with its own energy. This active counterpart at first remains latent. With successive fulfilment of the passive wish the active wish develops and finally impels the thumb to reach the mouth. Further observations- showed that the infant has developed a habit of grasping a cloth by the right hand while sucking the left thumb. Thus the hand takes up the dual role of the grasping act of the mouth and the thrusting act of the breasts.
ANAL SYSTEM

completed the ego goes back to its resting phase, presumably preceded by a re-synthesis. Thus the ego is affected by two contradictory influences operating in alternation. I think these two contradictory impulses are ultimately responsible for the phenomena of contrectation and separation. The present discussions have been restricted to the consideration only of the psychic plane of the individual and any reference to the physical phenomena actually concerns the associated psychic counterpart only'.

I have deduced the existence of this system purely from anatomical considerations. Corroborative evidences from other fields particularly from the clinical one is still necessary. Interesting hints, suggesting libidinal connections between anus, feet and buttocks, from a study of slang expressions and games are however not lacking. Lastly, to summarize we can say that Freud's concept of partial instincts has enabled us to understand many difficult problems, viz-t symbolism and psychosexual parallelism. His discovery of repression has enabled us to understand the pathogenisis of perversions and of many neuroses. Coming to the theory of Bose, we find thai the complete ego is at first resting and devoid of any action-attitude. Then the ego splits up and as the situation changes in any wish circuit we find corresponding changes in the ego. Finally, when the wish circuit is

INDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL SOCIETY

Annual Report for 1948 During the year under review the Society suffered a great loss by the death of Dr. B. C. Ghosh. Dr. Ghosh was connected with the Society since 1928. He served the Society as a member of the Council for a number of years. The Society expressed its deep sense of sorrow at the death of Dr. Ghosh and offered its sincere condolence to the members of the bereaved family. Mahatma, Gandhi died on the 30th January 1948. The Annual General Meeting which was to have been held on the 3lst January 1948 was adjourned till the 28th February 1948 when the following resolution was passed-in solemn silence, all the members present standing :
The Indian Psycho-analytical Society places on record its deep sense of sorrow at the sudden death under tragic circumstances of Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Indian Nation. MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES

During the year under review the number of members was 16 and the number of associate members was 48.
FINANCE

The total income of the Society together with the balance of the previous year amounted to Rs. 34,461-12-2 and the total expenditure under different heads was Rs. 4,35 5-3-3, leaving a balance of Rs. 30,106-8-11. (videApp. A.)
BUSINESS MEETINGS

The 26th Annual General Meeting was held on February 28, 1948. L The Annual Report of the Society for the year 1947 together with the a&dited accounts was adopted. 2. The following gentlemen were elected office-bearers, members of the Council and of the Board of the Institute for the year 1948:

ANNUAL REPORT

[SAMIKSA

Vol. 3- No.lJ

ANNUAL REPORT INDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL INSTITUTE

Dr. G. Bose Dr. S: C. Mitra Dr. N. De Mr. H. P. Maiti , Mr. T. C. Sinha, Mr. A. Datta Mr. D. Ganguly Dr. B. K. Bose Dr. A. K. Dev Mr. H . P. Maitij Mr. G Bora | Dr. N. De I Mr. T. C. Sinha!

President Secretary Librarian Members of the Council Asst. Secretary Asst. Librarian Members of the Board of the Institute

During the year under review the number of candidates under training was 19 of which 8 were doing control work. Training- and control-analystsDr. G. Bose, Mr. H. P. Maiti, Dr. (Mrs) Edith Ludowyk-Gyomroi and Mr. T. C. Sinha. Training-analystsDr. S. C. Mitra, Dr. K. L. Shrimali and Mr. M. V. Amrith.
LUMBINI PARK MENTAL HOSPITAL

3. The budget of expenditure for the year 1948 was passed. Council meetings were held on Feb. 19, March 12, June 5, Sept. 22, and Nov. 27. The following items of business, among others, were transacted: 1. Mr. Basil X. Tsatos and Mr. Pars Ram were elected members of the S6crety. . 2. Miss P. Aghawal, Mr. D. Bagh.Dr. S. Bose,Dr. K.R.Chatterjee, Mrs. A. Chattopadhyaya, Mr. D. Chattopadhyaya, Mr. D. Mitter, Brahmacari Ramesvarn, Mr. I. K. Sarma and Dr. S. N. Sinha were elected associate members of the Society. 3. A donation of Rs. 6/- by Mr. Mohanlal Ganguly M. Sc, B. L. was thankfully received. SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS The following papers were read : * July 17,1948. "Paranoid Jealousy"-By Dr. N. N. Chatterji Dec. 4, 1948. "Myth Formation"By Dr. G. Bose Dec. 11, 1948. "Certain Psycho-analytical Observations on the Siva Linga"By Mr. T. C. Sinha Seminars were regularly conducted by Dr. G. Bose. PUBLIC ACTIVITIES Dr. S. C, Mitra and Mr. R. M. Patel wrote popular articles on psycho-analysis. Dr. S. C. Mitra, Mr. H. P. Maiti, Mr. R. M. Patel and Dr. B. K Bose gave radio talks on psycho-analytical topics. * Mr T. R. A. Pai as Managing Editor regularly published the monthly journal Human Affairs.

The Hospital completed the 8th year of its existence on the 5th February 1948. . During the year under review one newsroom with a running verandah was constructed in the female ward with an accommodation for 4 more beds, thus making a total accommodation for 50 beds19 in the female ward and 31 in male ward. Post-graduate students of the Department of Psychology, Calcutta University attended the hospital on Saturdays for case study. Students of the Universities of Patna and Delhi, Teachers' Training Department of the Calcutta University and the rural medical officers of the Government of West Bengal attended the clinical lectures and demonstrations of mental cases at the hospital. Outdoor: During the year under review the total of dailyattendance was 4890 (4281 general and 609 mental) of which 1719 were new cases (1555 general and 164 mental). The following were the types of mental cases:Anxiety Neurosis Behaviour Disorder Dementia Prsecox Depression Drug Habit Epilepsy Epileptoid state Hysteria '
,. 4

. .. .: .. .. .. ..

2 58 5 3 7 -i 4

Manic-Depressive Psychosis .,.. 6 .. 2 Mental Deficiency ''. 1 Mepacrine Psychosis Obsessional Psycho-neurosis .,.. 2 Paranoia .. 65 P-sycho-neurotic1 Symptom .. 1 General Paralysis of the Insane 2 Total 164

Indoor: 141 mental. cases were treated. types of cases:

Behaviour Disorder Dementia Prascox Depression Drug Habit Epilepsy Epileptoid State
2 58 11 3 1 1

The following were

1 li 1

General Paralysis of Insane Manic-Depressive Psychosis Mental Deficiency Paranoia Psychosis

51
1

Total-141

ANNUAL REPORT

[SAMlKSA

Result of treatment: The following were the results of treatment of the indoor patients Cured Improved Not Improved (apparently) 41'1% 40% 18*9%

INDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL SOCIETY

Annual Report for 1948
During the year under review the Society suffered a great loss by the death of Dr. B. C. Ghosh. Dr. Ghosh was connected with the Society since 1928. He served the Society as a member of the Council for a number of years. The Society expressed its deep sense of sorrow at the death of Dr. Ghosh and offered its sincere condolence to the members of the bereaved family. Mahatma Gandhi died on the 30th January 1948. The Annual General Meeting which was to have been held on the 31st January 1948 was adjourned till the 28th February 1948 when the following resolution was passed in solemn silence, all the members present standing :
The Indian Psycho-analytical Society places on record its deep sense of sorrow at the sudden death under tragic circumstances of Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Indian Nation. MEMBERS AND ASSOCIATES

Electric shock treatment was extensively used in the hospital. Catatonic dementia prsecox and depression cases showed rapid improvement, but other varieties of D. P. viz. paranoid and hebephrenic types did not show much improvement. In depression cases specially where, suicidal tendency was very strong the result of convulsive therapy was very remarkable. Some of the patients who were discharged as cured, were readmitted to the hospital after some time as they got a relapse of their illness. Among these the number of manic-depressive psychotics ..was the largest, next came paranoiacs and catatonic dementia prsecox. The paranoid patients who were discharged in the beginning of the year came back again towards the end of the year. One female case of catatonic dementia prsecox, who became almost cured after 15 electric shocks, came back to the hospital again in the catatonic state 3 months after her discharge. . The relaps of the illness in some of the cases was due to rehabilitation difficulties. Some of the cured patients could not adjust themselves to their uncongenial home environment. Our Social Worker succeeded in helping such patients to a considerable extent. Some of the patients who left hospital in an improved state, became cured in a short time after returning to their homes. A new outdoor clinic named Lumbini Clinic was opened at 14/1 Parsibagan Lane, Calcutta on the 9th. August 1948. This clinic remains- open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

During the year under review the number of members was 16 and the number of associate members was 48.
FINANCE

The total income of the Society together with the balance of the previous year amounted to Rs. 34,461-12-2 and the total expenditure under different heads was Rs. 4,35 5-3-3, leaving a balance of Rs, 30,106-8-11. (vide App. A.) BUSINESS MEETINGS The 26th Annual General Meeting was held on February 28, 1948. 1. The Annual Report of the Society for the year 1947 together with the audited accounts was adopted. 2. The following gentlemen were elected office-bearers, members of the Council and of the Board of the Institute for the year 1948:

ANNUAL REPORT

ISAMIKSA

Vol. 3- No.lJ

ANNUAL REPORT INDIAN PSYGHO-ANALYT1CAL INSTITUTE

Dr. G. Base Dr. S. C. "Mitra Dr. N. De Mr. H. P. Maiti I Mr. T. C. Sinha ; Mr. A. Datta Mr. D. Ganguly Dr. B. K. Bose Dr. A. K. Dev Mr. H. P. Maiti! Mr. G. Bora Dr. N. De Mr. T. C. Sinha'

President Secretary Librarian Members of the Council Asst. Secretary Asst. Librarian Members of the Board of the Institute

3. The budget of expenditure for the year 1948 was passed. Council meetings were held on Feb. 19, March ]2, June 5, Sept. 22, and Nov. 27. The following items of business, among others, were transacted: 1. Mr. Basil X. Tsatos and Mr. Pars Ram were elected members of the Society. 2. Miss P. Aghawal, Mr. D. Bagh, Dr. S. Bose,Dr. K. R. Chatterjee, Mrs. A. Chattopadhyaya, Mr. D. Chattopadhyaya, Mr. D. Mitter, Brahmacari Ramesvarn, Mr. I..K. Sarma and Dr. S. N. Sinha were' elected associate members of the Society. 3. A donation of Rs. 6/- by Mr. Mohanlal Ganguly M. Sc, B. L. was thankfully received. SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS The following papers were read: July 17, 1948. "Paranoid Jealousy"By Dr. N. N. Chatterji Dec. 4, 1948- "Myth Formation"By Dr. G. Bose Dec. 11,1948. "Certain Psycho-analytical Observations on the Siva Linga"By Mr. T. C. Sinha Seminars were regularly conducted by Dr. G. Bose. PUBLIC ACTIVITIES Dr. S. C. Mitra and Mr. R. M. Patel wrote popular articles on psycho-analysis. Dr. S. C. Mitra, Mr. H. P. Maiti, Mr. R. M. Patel and Dr. B. K Bose gave radio talks on psycho-analytical topics. Mr T. R. A. Pai as Managing Editor regularly published the monthly journal Human Affairs.

During the year under review the number of candidates under training was 19 of which 8 were doing control work. Training- and control-analystsDr. G. Bose, Mr. H. P. Maiti, Dr. (Mrs) Edith Ludowyk-Gyomroi and Mr. T. C. Sinha. Training-analystsDr. S. G. Mitra, Dr. K. L. Shrimali and Mr. M. V. Amrith. LUMBINJ PARK MENTAL HOSPITAL. The Hospital completed the 8th year of its existence on .the 5th February 1948. . , During the year under review one new room with a running verandah was constructed in the female ward with an accommodation for 4 more beds, thus making a totaraccommodation for 50 beds19 in the female ward and 31 in male ward. ~ * , Post-graduate students of the Department of Psychology, Calcutta University attended the hospital on Saturdays for case study.' Students of the Universities of Patna and Delhi, Teachers' Training Department of the Calcutta University and the rural medical officers of the Government of West Bengal attended the clinical lectures and demonstrations of mental cases at the hospital. Outdoor: During the year under review the total of daily attendance was 4890 (4281 general and 609 mental) of which 1719 were'new cases (1555 general and 164 mental). 'The following were the types of mental cases :Anxiety Neurosis Behaviour Disorder Dementia Prsecox Depression Drug Habit Epilepsy Epileptoid state Hysteria 4 2 58 5 3 7 2 4 Manic-Depressive Psychosis ... Mental Deficiency ... Mepacrine Psychosis ... Obsessional Psycho-neurosis ... Paranoia ... Psycho-neurotic Symptom ... General Paralysis of the Insane 6 2 1 2 85 1 2

Total164

Indoor: 141 mentat cases were treated. types of cases:

Behaviour Disorder Dementia Praecox Depression Drug Habit Epilepsy Epileptoid State 2 58 \1 '3 1 1

The following were

1 11 1 51 1

General Paralysis of Insane Manic-Depressive Psychosis Mental Deficiency Paranoia Psychosis

Total-141

ANNUAL REPORT

fSAMIKSA

Vol. 3, 'No. 1)

Result of treatment: The following were the results of treatment of the indoor patients Cured Improved Not Improved - ( apparently ) 41" 1 % ,, 40% 18*9%

INDIAN PSYCHO-ANALYTICAL SOCIETY

Proceedings
At a Council Meeting held on the 27th November 1948, Mr. Pars Ram, M- A. was elected a member of the Society and Mr. Dhanapati Bagh, M. Sc, B. T. was elected an associate member of the Society. At a Council Meeting held on the 22nd January, 1949, Mr. Dhurjati Nayek, M. 4 Sc, Miss Usha Bhattacharji, M. A. and Miss Perin Mehenri, M. A. were elected associate members of the Society.

Electric shock treatment was extensively used in the hospital. Catatonic dementia prsecox and depression cases showed rapid improvement, but other varieties of D. P, viz. paranoid and htbephrenic types did not show much improvement. In depression cases specially where suicidal tendency was very strong the result of convulsive therapy was very remarkablex Some of the patients who were discharged as cured, were readmitted* to the hospital after some time as they got a relapse of their illness. Among these the number of manic-depressive psychotic^ ^was the largest, next came paranoiacs and catatonic dementia prsecox. The paranoid patients who were discharged in the beginning of the year came back again towards the end of the year. One female case of catatonic dementia prsecox, who became almost cured after ] 5 electric shocks, came back to the hospital again in the catatonic state 3 months after her discharge. * The relaps of- the illness in some of the cases was due to rehabilitation difficulties. Some of the cured patients could not adjust themselves to their uncongenial home environment. Our Social Worker succeeded in helping such patients to a considerable extent. Some of the patients .who left hospital in an improved state, became cured in a short time after returning to their homes. A new outdoor clinic named Lumbini Clinic was opened at 14/1 Parsibagan Lane, Calcutta on the 9th. August 1948. This clinic; remains open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

At the 27th Annual General Meeting held on the 29th January, 1949, the following items of business were transacted:' 1. The Annual Report of the Society for the year 1948 was 3 adopted. 2. The following gentlemen were elected office-bearers, members of the Council and of the Board of the Institute for the year 1949:Dr> G. Bose President Dr. S. C. Mitra . Secretary Dr. N. De Librarian Mr. H. P. Maiti j Members of the Council Mr. T. C. Sinha ] Mr. A. Datta Asst. Secretary Mrs. Ava Chattopadhyaya Dr. B. K. Bose Librarian Dr. A. K. Dev. Mr. H. P. Maiti f Mr. G. Bora Members of the Board of the Dr. N. De Institute Mr. T. C. Sinha , 3. The budget of expenditure of the Society as shown below was passed:Management Expenses300/Library 700/Journal Publication 1500/2500/-

fSAMIKSA

NOTES AND NEWS

Addresses of New Members Pars Ram, Y. W. C. A. School of Social Work, The Mall, Delhi Dhanapati Bagh, Dept. o Applied Psychology, Patna University, . . Patna 5. Usha Bhattacharji, c/o J. N. Bhattacharji, Rly. Engineer. Barrackpore Perin Mehenti, Institute of Psychological Research & Service, Patna 5 Dhurjati Nayek. 70/2, Netaji Subhas Road, Calcutta-1 Change of Address Tarun Chandra Singha, 67 Jatin Das Road, Calcutta-29 Samiran Banerji, 20B Indra Roy Road, Bhowanipur, Calcutta KaM Ranjan Chatterji, 15 Jatin Das Road, Calcutta-29

The 16th International Psycho-analytical Congress will be held at the "Kongress-Haus" Alponquai, Zurich on August 15th to 18th, 1949. Papers dealing preferably with clinical or therapeutic subjects in one of the Congress languages viz. English, French and German, are to be sent to Dr. Philipp Sarasin, Secretary of the Congress, Gartenstrasse 65, Basle by June 15th i949- Papers in no case exceed 20 minutes. The fee for the Congress is 30 Swiss francs. The following is the programme of the Congress :
Sunday Aug. 14th Monday Aug. loth Tuesday Aug. 16th Wednesday Aug. 17th Thursday Aug. 18th
*

21. 00 a. m. p. m: a. ra. p. m. a. m. p. m. a. m. p. m.
*

Reception in the Opening of the O Scientific Session Scientific Session Scientific Session Business Session Excursion Scientific Session Scientific Session
*

A "Society for the Care, Treatment and Training of Children in need of Special Care" has recently been registered in Bombay. The Society has taken over the "School for Children in Need of Special Care" started by Mrs. Jai H. Vakeel at Ravi Lodge, Warden Road, Bombay in 1944- (A short report of the School was published in Samiksa, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1947). Names of the persons of the Governing Body of the Society are given below :
President Vice-President Hon. Secretary Hon. Treasurers

Sir N. J. Wadia, Kt., I. C. S. (Retd.) Sir Janarda Madan, Kt., C. S. I., C. I. E. Mrs. Jai H. Vakeel Sir. N. J. Wadia, Kt. Mrs. Jai H. Vakeel Dr. R- N. Cooper, M. S. (Lond.) F. R. C. S. (Eng.) Dr. Ras Mohun Haldar, M. Ed., Ph. D. Dr. K. A. J. Lalkaka, M. B., B. S. Dr. K. R. Masani, M. R. C. S. (Eng) L. R. C. P.. (Lond.) D. P, M. (Eng) Mr. K. G. Saiyidain Mr. H. M. Vakeel

Members Advisory

of the Board