8. Unsatisfied Wishes and Sublimation - Square Circles Publishing

SOURCE 8: THE MIND AT MISCHIEF
But it is a mistake to try to explain all
nervous symptoms on this basis. The fact
that the Freudian doctrine works out in
practise now and then merely serves to
indicate how often the sex complex is the
one which has been unwisely
oversuppressed.
[I do believe that of all the single
causes of nervous disturbance, sex
suppression (sex perversion, sex
misunderstanding, etc.) is the greatest. I
find (as already noted) in the careful study
of, say, a thousand neurotic sufferers, that
sex is the major factor in the trouble of
about one-fourth of the cases. In the other
three-fourths, I discover some other form
of emotional suppression to be the chief
offender, though sex may appear as a
minor factor even in many of these cases.
I do not dispute the fact that sex
difficulties of some sort may be present in
possibly one-half of our cases of
neurasthenia, hysteria, etc., but I do dispute
the contention that it is a chief and
fundamental factor in all, or even in a
majority, of cases (The Truth About Mind
Cure 39-40).]
In the study of a thousand cases of
emotional suppression, I found that in
slightly over five hundred it was the sex
complex that was the offending cause.
Because sex is such a prominent feature
in human experience, the Freudians have
succeeded more or less, even tho
operating on a somewhat erroneous
hypothesis.
[See M 114-15, where Mitchell explains that
Freud’s conception of the Libido embraces the
energy not only behind adult manifestations of the
sexual instinct but also behind experiences of
childhood not ordinarily considered to belong to
the sexual life.]
8:3.3 There is no doubt that we should
have a proper place for Freud’s libido if
we could limit it or confine it more
directly to a purely sex meaning.
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