The psychology of the family in its relation to the endocrine traits of its members is something that still remains to be thoroughly worked out as a problem of tremendous importance.  Particularly are the reactions of the mixed sex types to be carefully considered.  For, since the family is fundamentally a sex institution, devised to satisfy the sex needs, all the way from companionship to parenthood, it is apparent that the mixed sex types will be tried the hardest by its inexorable conditions.  It is in relation to the mother (or nurse) first, the father next, and other associates in proportion to their proximity, that the primary endocrine-vegetative mechanisms, the germs of the growing soul, become established.  These are superimposed upon the hereditary instinct apparatus.

Fear, rage and love reactions develop first in association with the suckling reflex, and the accompaniments, the mother’s smile and voice, the color of her hair, eyes and skin, her breasts and odors.  Each time the babe reacts to a pleasant or unpleasant stimulus, there is an outpouring of certain internal secretions, a cessation of others, a tingling of certain vegetative nerves and organs, a hushing of others.  The ensemble of reactions tends to be repeated around the same stimulus, until the whole becomes automatic.  One may observe the same process in the lower animals.  Offer a piece of meat to a dog and his mouth waters.  Ring a bell before offering the meat.  Repeat this a number of times, and after a while the mere ringing of the bell, without the presence of the meat, will cause his mouth to water.  This associated vegetative secretion reflex is the most fundamental to grasp in an understanding of the deepest strata of personality.

Now there are, besides the associated vegetative-endocrine reactions, certain inborn automatic processes in the vegetative system and in the internal secretion system, which work automatically to produce increased intravisceral pressures.  The reduction of these pressures below the point of their intrusion upon consciousness, their relief, as we say, also form the centers of constellations around feelings of satisfaction or love.  Such, for example, are the voiding of excretions.  Sooner or later, these automatic reactions, and the associated reflexes formed around the mother, father and other associates, come into conflict.  Inhibitions or prohibitions of the automatic act at certain times or moments are imposed by somebody.  And so there occurs a pitting of the automatic mechanism against the associated reflex.  Conflict with adjustment by suppression must occur.  Thus a sense of self as active wisher (for the automatically pleasant experience), and punishable suppressor (of the same in favor of the acquired associated reflex) develops.

So far, so good.  Compromise by regulation from above, from the brain, of the automatic reactions follows, as training.  No absolute repression is forced, no absolute encouragement is indorsed.  Harmonious equilibrium, or normality, continues.  But now there come upon the scene the unconscious fears.