Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 479 pages of information about Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1.

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 479 pages of information about Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1.

When, indeed, we analyze the foundation of the once predominant opinions of Charcot and his school regarding the sexual relationships of hysteria, it becomes clear that many fallacies and misunderstandings were involved.  Briquet, Charcot’s chief predecessor, acknowledged that his own view was that a sexual origin of hysteria would be “degrading to women”; that is to say, he admitted that he was influenced by a foolish and improper prejudice, for the belief that the unconscious and involuntary morbid reaction of the nervous system to any disturbance of a great primary instinct can have “quelque chose de degradant” is itself an immoral belief; such disturbance of the nervous system might or might not be caused, but in any case the alleged “degradation” could only be the fiction of a distorted imagination.  Again, confusion had been caused by the ancient error of making the physical sexual organs responsible for hysteria, first the womb, more recently the ovaries; the outcome of this belief was the extirpation of the sexual organs for the cure of hysteria.  Charcot condemned absolutely all such operations as unscientific and dangerous, declaring that there is no such thing as hysteria of menstrual origin.[265] Subsequently, Angelucci and Pierracini carried out an international inquiry into the results of the surgical treatment of hysteria, and condemned it in the most unqualified manner.[266] It is clearly demonstrated that the physical sexual organs are not the seat of hysteria.  It does not, however, follow that even physical sexual desire, when repressed, is not a cause of hysteria.  The opinion that it was so formed an essential part of the early doctrine of hysteria, and was embodied in the ancient maxim:  “Nubat illa et morbus effugiet.”  The womb, it seemed to the ancients, was crying out for satisfaction, and when that was received the disease vanished.[267] But when it became clear that sexual desire, though ultimately founded on the sexual apparatus, is a nervous and psychic fact, to put the sexual organs out of count was not sufficient; for the sexual emotions may exist before puberty, and persist after complete removal of the sexual organs.  Thus it has been the object of many writers to repel the idea that unsatisfied sexual desire can be a cause of hysteria.  Briquet pointed out that hysteria is rare among nuns and frequent among prostitutes.  Krafft-Ebing believed that most hysterical women are not anxious for sexual satisfaction, and declared that “hysteria caused through the non-satisfaction of the coarse sensual sexual impulse I have never seen,"[268] while Pitres and others refer to the frequently painful nature of sexual hallucinations in the hysterical.  But it soon becomes obvious that the psychic sexual sphere is not confined to the gratification of conscious physical sexual desire.  It is not true that hysteria is rare among nuns, some of the most tremendous epidemics of hysteria, and the most carefully studied, having occurred in convents,[269]

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Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.