Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/18

 lo KARL ABRAHAM

the unconscious refusal of the female rfile, and also the repressed

desire for revenge on the privileged man. There is no sharp hne

of demarcation between these two groups. The phenomena of one;

group do not exclude those of the other in the same individual;

they supplement each other. The preponderance of this or that

attitude can nevertheless often be clearly recognised. One may then

speak of the preponderating reaction of a wish-fulfilment type or

a revenge type.

We have already learned that besides the normal outcome of the female castration complex there are two abnormal forms of conscious reaction, namely, the homosexual type and the archaic (revenge) type. We have only to recall the general relation betvk^een perversion and neurosis with which we are familiar from Freud s investigations in order to be able to estimate the two neurotic types above described in respect to their psychogenesis. They are the 'negative' of the homosexual and sadistic types; they contain;

the same motives and tendencies, but in repressed form. \

The psychical phenomena which arise from the unconscious wishes for physical masculinity or for revenge on the man are difficult to classify on account of their multiplicity. It has also to ^

be borne in mind that neurotic symptoms are not the sole ex- •

pressions of unconscious origin which have to concern us here; we need only refer to the different forms in which the same I

repressed tendencies appear in dreams. As mentioned at the beginning, therefore, this investigation cannot pretend to give an exhaustive account of the forms of expression of the repressed castration complex, but rather to lay stress on certain frequent and instructive forms and especially those which have not hitherto been considered.

The wisk-fuifibnent which goes farthest in the sense of the female castration complex comprises those symptoms or dreams of neurotics which convert the fact of femininity into the opposite. The unconscious phantasies of the woman proclaim in such a case: I am the fortunate possessor of a penis and exercise the male function. Van Ophuijsen gives an example of this kind in his article on the 'masculine complex' of women. This case of the conscious phantasy from the youtli of one of his patients gives us at first only an insight into the patient's still unrepressed active-homosexual wishes, but at the same time clearly demonstrates the foundation of neurotic symptoms which give expression to the

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