Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 2.djvu/38

 194 AUGUST STARCKE

the first part of the body the infant had to renounce. The old anal defiance thus enters into the constitution of the castration complex".

We now obtain a further contribution to this theme. The mother's nipple in the infant's mouth is certainly not less a part of its own body than its motion or its urine. The nipple, however, has rather to be compared with the penis, and it also resembles it in its relation to fluid. Besides the nipple, other parts of the body which were lost early have to be taken into consideration, — the stump of the umbilical cord, the motions, urine, and clothes. It may be postulated that their removal cooperates in the genesis of the castratioij -complex. However, the nipple takes the leading part The nipple has also to have a place assigned it in any other relations of the transposition of instincts.

VI

It is seen from the above considerations that the difTerence between breastj and bottle feeding must also be of great signi- ficance in the development of the mind, irrespective of the chemical composition of the food. It is perhaps curious that psychologists have paid little attention to this subject; a good example of a ne- gative delusion.

In the case of a child of seven who had a transitory compulsion to soil I found the primary motive for this in an abnormal process of weaning. The child had not been getting sufficient milk for some time, and so had to endure the trauma of the feeding- bottle; at first it thrived better until it reacted to a second feeding-bottle with violent opposition. The compulsion to wet appeared later, and subsequent to an occurrence that was repeated for a time almost every night. When the child's mother went to bed |

she was accustomed to take him up in order to let him pass '

water; he usually had such an erection that the stream would miss the chamber-pot. His mother did not like to see an erection in so small a child, and showed her displeasure by giving the refractory member a gentle tap. The child obtained the repetition of this erection complex in its compulsion to soil and especially to wet, I consider this process is an expression of the castration

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