Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/134

116 purely symbolic character, and, to a certain extent, serve to indicate the desired situation.

In the dark this man seems to have extended this situation, of being helpless in the hands of a woman, further in imagination. The following case, in which again a complicated comedy, in the sense of masochistic desires, is played, is still more peculiar:—

In connection with this case of symbolic masochism, two more are here given, in which the psychical perversion was entirely confined to the sphere of thought and imagination, and no realization was attempted. The first is that of an individual, mentally and physically predisposed, bearing degenerative signs, in whom mental and physical impotence occurred early:—

Case 58. Mr. Z., aged 22, single, was brought to me by his father for medical advice, because he was very nervous and apparently abnormal sexually. Mother and maternal grandmother were insane. His father begat him at a time when he was suffering severely nervously.

Patient is said to have been a very lively and talented child. At the age of seven he was noticed to practice masturbation. After his ninth