Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/25

 THE CASTRATION COMPLEX 181

ferred in the analysis ol neurotics, while they strive most strongly against acknowledging it".

It occasionally happens that an event like that related by Freud is not consciously remembered in spite of the obvious existence of a "castration complex'* and despite all analysis. I do not believe that the resistance is wholly responsible for this, but that in such cases the threat had been expressed in some other form, such as, "If you do that you will go mad", "Through that you may become very ill", "If you do that you will be severely punished", or as a simple prohibition. The question then remains why a threat of this kind is transformed into anxious expectation or fear of actual loss of the penis; for this undoubtedly occurs as shown in cases where the wording of the original threat is remembered and did not take the form of castration.

Some girls have the idea that, as a punishment, they have been deprived of a penis which they formerly possessed. In these cases there certainly had not been a direct threat of castration. We are here confronted with a problem, and I bring forward the four following considerations towards its solution.

A. In consequence of the talion expectation any threat will tend to be realised in the child's phantasy at the spot in connec- tion with which he feels a sense of sin. And, as the threat is probably always uttered on account of genital manipulations, the expectation of punishment is localised to the genitals and hands.

B. It has to be borne in mind that the genitals have a certain measure of guilt attached to them very early, which is derived from the struggle regarding cleanliness; this being the first conflict between the child and its nurse. The transgression of the orders regarding cleanliness load the genital region with a primal guilt which remains fixed for life, and all future expectations of punish- ment are in the first instance attracted to this region.

C. The third factor does not apply to all cases, though I have come across some in which it has contributed to the metamor- phosis of the atypical form of the castration threat into the typical one. In these cases a balanitis or a leucorrhoea has localised the anxiety of punishment.

D. The fourth reflection deals with an actual situation that occurs to every child. The present paper is devoted to conside- ration of it.