Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis III 1922 1.djvu/27

 MANIFESTATIONS OF THE FEMALE CASTRATION COMPLEX 19

expectations in a person and not fulfil them. In relations with the man this can occur through response up to a certain point follow- ed by refusal. This behaviour is most frequently and signific- antly expressed in frigidily on the part of the woman. Dis- appointing other persons is a piece of unconscious tactics which we frequently find in the psychology of the neuroses and is especially pronounced in obsessional neurotics. These neurotics are unconsciously impelled towards violence and revenge, but on account of the contrary play of ambivalent forces these impulses are incapable of efifectuaUy breaking through. Because the hostility cannot express itself in actions these patients excite expectations of a pleasant nature in their environment which they do not subsequently fulfil. In the sphere of the female castration complex the tendency to disappoint can be represented in respect to its origin as follows:

First stage: I rob you of what you have because I lack it Second stage: I rob you of nothing; I even promise you what I have to give.

Third stage: I do not give you what I have promised. In very many cases the frigidity is associated with the con- scious readiness to assume the female rdle and acknowledge that of the man. The unconscious striving has in part the object of disappointing the man who is inclined to infer from the conscious readiness of his wife the possibility of mutual enjoyment ; while there also exists in the frigid woman the tendency to demonstrate to herself and her partner that his ability signifies nothing.

If we penetrate to the deeper psychic layers we recc^ise how strongly the desire of the frigid woman to be male dominates in the unconscious. In a previous article I have attempted to demon- strate in conjunction with Freud's well-known observations on frig- idity t that this condition in the female sex is the exact analogue of a disturbance of potency in the man, namely, 'ejaculatio praecox'.^ In both conditions the libido is attached to that erotogenic zone which has normally a similar signiiicance in the opposite sex. In cases of frigidity the pleasurable sensation is as a rule situated in the clitoris and the vaginal zone has none. The clitoris, however, corresponds developmentally with the penis.

' Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 4. Aufl., sTs^f » 'Cber Ejacolatio praecox'. Internationale Zeitsckrift fur Psycho- analyse, 1916-17, Bd. IV, S. 171.