Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct
3. I shall and will become well again, fall in love with a virtuous
1108 words | Chapter 43
woman, be happy, and make her happy.
December 14th. While out walking to-day, patient saw a handsome man,
and felt himself powerfully drawn toward him.
From this time there were hypnotic sittings every second day, with the
above suggestions.
December 18th (fourth sitting), somnambulism occurred; the impulse to
onanism and interest in men disappear.
At the eighth sitting “complete virility” was added to the above
suggestions. The patient feels himself morally elevated and physically
strengthened. The neuralgia of the testicles has disappeared. He now
found that he was without sexual feeling.
He now believed himself free from masturbation and contrary. sexual
inclination.
After the eleventh sitting he thought that further help was
unnecessary. He wished to go home, and marry. He felt well and potent.
Early in January, 1890, treatment ceased.
In March, 1890, the patient wrote: “I have since had several occasions
on which it has been necessary for me to use all my moral strength in
order to overcome my habit, and, thank God, I have been successful in
freeing myself from this vice. Several times I have had opportunity
for sexual intercourse, and I have found pleasure in it. I look calmly
on my happy future.”
Case 135. _Acquired Contrary Sexual Instinct. Marked Improvement under
Hypnotic Treatment._—Mr. P., born in 1863, official in a manufactory.
He comes of a highly respected patrician family of Middle Germany, in
which nervousness and insanity have been of frequent occurrence.
His great-grandfather on the father’s side and his sister died insane;
the grandmother died of apoplexy; father’s brother died insane, and a
daughter of the latter died of cerebral tuberculosis. The maternal
grandmother was melancholic for years; maternal grandfather, insane. A
maternal uncle took his life in an attack of insanity. The patient’s
father is very nervous. An elder brother is very neurasthenic, and has
anomalies of the vita sexualis; another is the subject of Case 155; a
third is eccentric in conduct, and is said to be subject to fixed
ideas. A sister suffers with convulsions, and another died of them
when a little child.
The patient is constitutionally predisposed; for he was early very
peculiar, irritable, irascible, and impressed those around him as
being abnormal.
His vita sexualis appeared very early and in great intensity, and was
satisfied, without any seductions, in onanism. From his sixteenth year
the prematurely developed boy visited brothels of the Capital, using
his permissions to go out on Sundays and holidays for that purpose. He
took pleasure in coitus, but during the week he satisfied himself with
onanism. After his twentieth year, when he became independent, the
patient indulged with prostitutes excessively, and fell ill with
neurasthenia sexualis, becoming relatively impotent and unsatisfied in
coitus, owing to weakness of erection and premature ejaculation. His
sexual libido became more powerful than ever, and was satisfied in
onanism. Early in 1888 the patient made the acquaintance of a young
man. “By his pleasing face, his attractive manner, and his beautiful
form, he conquered me entirely. I wished to speak to him, and was
happy at mere sight of him. I was completely in love with him. With
this, my love for women was extinguished. Any man could excite me to
such an extent that, for some moments, I would feel my memory fail,
and I would stammer.
“Soon after this I made the acquaintance of a gentleman who was
likewise very attractive, and who had a decided influence on my future
life. He was male-loving. I confessed to him that I no longer felt
anything but aversion for the female sex, and that I was attracted to
men.
“When I once asked my companion how he brought it about that soldiers
would surrender themselves to him, he answered that the principal
thing was skill; almost any of them could be brought to it. Late in
1888, thinking of these words, I was attracted by an officer’s
servant, and was intensely excited by him, but ejaculation never
occurred. Since I saw that the soldier would surrender himself without
trouble, I approached him. Alium quondam militem in cubiculum allectum
rogavi ut veste exuta mecum in lectum concumberet. Rogatus fecit quæ
volui et alter alterius penem trivit.
“Though after this success I misused many persons, I was never really
in love, so to speak, with but one. He was a very handsome young
fellow of seventeen. His voice was so attractive to me, and his manner
was so delicately proper, that I cannot forget him. In my dreams I
thought only of handsome young men, and often for whole nights I could
not sleep, owing to sensual feeling.”
Early in 1889 the patient’s conduct awakened a suspicion of male-love.
A threatening communication frightened him, and plunged him in deep
depression, so that he contemplated suicide. At the advice of the
family physician, he came to the Capital. Since the patient was unable
to overcome his habitual desires by his own will, hypnotic treatment
was undertaken. It induced but mild lethargy, and, in opposition to
the seduction of former lovers, it had but little effect.
At that time the patient was wanting in earnest desire. There was some
improvement in matters, in the face of the disgrace to relatives and
the prospect of a legal examination that was actually threatening. The
patient determined to attempt a cure with the author.
I found him to be a delicate, pale, very neurasthenic man, much
depressed, and despairing about the future. He was without
degenerative signs. He realized his perverted situation, and seemed to
be willing to do anything in order to become again a decent, moral
man.
He regretted exceedingly his sexual perversion, which he regarded as
abnormal, but also as having been acquired. He made no attempt to
conceal the fact that he could not control himself with young men, and
likewise he would not say that he could abstain from onanism, to
which, _faute de mieux_, he was driven. Only a powerful, imperious
will could keep him from it.
Thus far his male-love had consisted exclusively of mutual onanism.
Erections occurred only when touching men he loved; ejaculation
resulted early, but simple embrace was not sufficient. He had never
felt himself in any particular sexual _rôle_ toward a man. Genitals
and vegetative organs normal.
In addition to treatment directed to his neurasthenia, on April 8,
1890, hypnotic suggestion was begun. Hypnosis was easily induced by
simply looking at him, with verbal suggestion. After a half-minute the
patient passed into deep lethargy, with a cataleptiform state of the
muscles. The awakening was brought about by suggesting it at counting
three. Post-hypnotic suggestions were always successful. The
intra-hypnotic suggestions were:—
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