PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SEXUAL DISORDERS: HYPOTHESIS OF BREUER AND FREUD
The basic hypothesis that Breuer and Freud had advanced in the famous Studies (1893-1895) was that “hysterics suffer from reminiscences,” and that the cure of the hysterical symptoms lies in the gradual uncovering of those traumatic memories and their re-enactment and reactivation in the present together with the intense charge of emotion connected with those infantile traumatic experiences. It was the cathartic release or abreaction of this emotional charge which allowed the symptom to be relieved and dispelled. Freud and Breuer found in a number of instances that the exact recollection of such early traumatic memories did, in fact, lead to the relief of hysterical symptoms. This allowed them to think of a discharge theory of emotion and to conceptualize their findings in terms of a theory of cathexis and discharge which was based upon economic principles, derived from the scientific culture in which they were thinking and working. Thus, psychoanalysis found its origin in the early dealing with matters of sexual conflict and trauma and the corresponding repression, which led to dissociation in the mind of the hysteric and a re-expression of traumatic conflicts in neurotic symptomatology.
There was, however, a fly in the ointment. Only after several years of convinced application of this traumatic theory of neurosis did Freud begin to question his findings. Not only was he not always able to find the traumatic reminiscence, but the hypothesis that sexual infantile trauma were so frequent such that every neurotic patient would be suffering from such an infantile seduction was a bit hard to swallow—even in turn-of-the-century Vienna. Moreover, Freud had embarked on an interesting exercise that was to change the course of psychoanalytic history. He had begun his own self-analysis, working on his own dreams and discovering in himself the roots of repressed and conflicted aspects in his own psychic development.
The outcome was dramatic. In September 1897, his doubts and uncertainties reached a crisis, and he wrote to his good friend Wilhelm Fliess in the following terms:
Let me tell you straight away the great secret that has been slowly dawning on me in recent months. I no longer believe in my neurotica. This is hardly intelligible without an explanation; you yourself found what I told you credible. So I shall start at the beginning and tell you the whole story of how the reasons for rejecting it arose. The first group of factors was the continual disappointment of my attempts to bring my analysis to a real conclusion, the running away of people who for a time had seemed my most favorably inclined patients, the lack of the complete success on which I had counted, and the possibility of explaining my partial successes in other, familiar ways. Then there was the astonishing thing that in every case . . . blame was laid on perverse acts by the father, and realization of the unexpected frequency of hysteria, in every case of which the same thing applied, though it was hardly credible that perverted acts against children were so general . . . Thirdly, there was the definite realization that there is no “indication of reality” in the unconscious, so that it is impossible to distinguish between truth and emotionally charged fiction. (This leaves open the possible explanation that sexual fantasy regularly makes use of the theme of the parents.) Fourthly, there was the consideration that even in the most deep-reaching psychosis the unconscious memory does not break through, so that the secret of infantile experience is not revealed even in the most confused states of delirium. When one thus sees that the unconscious never overcomes the resistance of the conscious, one must abandon the expectation that in treatment the reverse process will take place to the extent that the conscious will fully dominate the unconscious (Freud).
One can understand Freud’s reluctance to abandon the seduction hypothesis, since he had put years of effort into developing it and had accumulated a considerable amount of evidence that seemed to support it, but he could not reconcile the aspects of the hypothesis that did not seem consistent with other undeniable data. The shift in perspective was perhaps the most significant that has ever taken place in psychoanalytic thinking. Freud realized that rather than real parental seductions traumatizing the infant sexually, the possibility now arose that the inherent sexuality of the infant was beginning to express itself in sexual fantasies about the parents. The emphasis shifted in Freud’s thinking and in the direction of his investigation of the neuroses from reality factors to sexual fantasies. Freud’s abandonment of the seduction hypothesis was also reinforced by the results of his own self-analysis. In analyzing his own dreams and in recovering early infantile memories, he began to discover the elements of infantile sexual wishes and desires in himself. He then realized that what he was dealing with was in some fundamental sense a basic characteristic of infantile experience. The role of infantile sexuality in psychoanalytic thinking had been established.
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