IS FRIGIDITY CURABLE?

by Lida Prypchan

When I think of frigidity I am reminded of a French writer more well-known for her love affairs with great men of her century than for her literary pursuits. I am referring to George Sand, the Frenchwoman who adopted a man’s name, dressed like a man and smoked like a man. Also a revolutionary who worked with Napoleon Bonaparte, she was famous as Chopin’s lover, who went to bed at seven in the morning after working around the clock on her writing – and after watering her plants.

Maurois wrote an extraordinary biography of this woman, calling it Lélia ou la vie de George Sand. According to Maurois Lélia was Sand’s best novel. It dealt with a matter very personal to her: frigidity. She recounts in detail the trauma of the first sexual episode in her life when, at nineteen, she married a man she had always loathed.

Frigidity is the female counterpart of psychogenic impotence. It is common, but frequently escapes the doctor’s attention because it interferes less with marital relations and more often than not is accepted by patients as the normal expression of a less than passionate personality.

There are many causes. Among them we have: 1) masturbation in adolescence – supported by some authors, rejected by others. According to the first group it is a combination of narcissism and self-sufficiency: the subject would become accustomed to certain sensations, certain forms of pleasure. According to the second group, masturbation for the woman is a form of experimentation whereby she discovers what an orgasm is. To the first theory we should add that masturbation tends to accustom the woman to clitoral orgasm. 2) Some aspects of an ethical nature, for example, the case of single women who have sexual relations out of curiosity or peer pressure. 3) An inept husband can offend a newly-wed and her disgust can give rise to frigidity.

Vaginismus, whether or not accompanied by painful sensations during the sexual act, is a result of fear and disgust. This is frequently a reaction to marital conflicts, for example, an excessive number of quarrels, an alcoholic husband or an unfaithful one.

Psychotherapy associated with reassurance, and the suggestion and practical advice to breathe deeply and quietly during the sexual act is helpful in some cases of minor apprehension. In other cases a more complete investigation is suggested. In some instances, delayed orgasm caused by the woman’s requirement for long sexual build-up, or by the short duration of the act, can be confused with frigidity. It would be wise to advise the subjects to concentrate more on foreplay. Disturbance of the female orgasm may be due to an erection of very short duration or to fear of orgasm. Fear can be connected with loss of sphincter control, which is generally the result of the fear of losing control of oneself during orgasm, as is the case with hysterical patients and those with a domineering personality.

In most cases of frigidity, it is not possible to study and completely correct the situation because patients are reluctant to devote the necessary time to treatment, which is a pity, since treatment for psychogenic impotence and frigidity is not only interesting but also achieves good results. Hypnosis can be used successfully with impressionable patients and helps modify their attitude toward the sexual act and sexual activity in general.

The Oedipus Complex and Emotional Instability

by: Lida Prypchan

“KNOW THYSELF”

In 1897 Freud began what can be considered the most heroic act of his life – the psychoanalysis of his own subconscious.

The ancient oracle of Delphi had from ancient times encouraged philosophers and thinking persons to pursue the maxim “Know thyself,” but unconsciously resisting, none of them ever managed to achieve it as fully as Freud. The subconscious, the existence of which had already been surmised, was still obscure. The words of Heraclitus were still considered true: “The human mind is a distant, inaccessible territory, which cannot be explored.” It was no sudden conclusion, but the gradual intuition dawning within Freud that one must first analyze oneself before being in a position to pursue any research. For three or four years the researcher will suffer from increasing emotional instability, but eventually he will achieve a greater degree of serenity and stability, which will free him to continue his research dispassionately. Two types of investigation arise that are intimately related with his self-analysis: dream interpretation and childhood sexuality.

As Freud continued his research, he began to recognize in himself a certain amount of residual childhood sexuality. He believed he had uncovered the fact that in childhood he had experienced an excessive love for his mother and consequent jealousy of his father. His knowledge of Greek literature brought to mind immediately the tragedy of Oedipus Rex, which he interpreted as an undeniable confirmation of his theory.

Oedipus, the son Laius, King of Thebes and his wife Jocasta, is the protagonist of the Greek legend in which Oedipus kills his father without realizing it, marries his mother without knowing who she is, sires two children by her then, upon learning that he has married his own mother, tears out his eyes. For Freud, Oedipus’ act of blinding himself represented an expiation of his sin.

According to Freud, children as well as abnormal people experience the Oedipal stage between the ages of three to six. Characteristic of this stage is an excessive love for the mother and jealousy of the father, who is considered a rival. All this results in confusion because, although loving and admiring the father, the child views him with jealousy as if he were a rival. This Oedipal complex is resolved by a closer relationship between father and son, better communication and identification with the parent. Through this relationship the child assimilates his father’s identity and behavior, thus resolving his conflict.

According to Freud, everyone without exception passes through this stage and retains some trace of the Oedipus complex until adult life. However, whether an individual will become a more or less normal or neurotic person depends upon the extent to which this conflict has been resolved. The Oedipus complex must be curbed. However, while the normal person has to make only a little effort to resolve this conflict, a sick person will be forced to focus most of his energy upon overcoming it. Freud believed the Oedipus complex to be at the root of all neuroses and the main cause of an unconscious guilt complex. It could be explained as follows: a child feels guilty for harboring contradictory and destructive feelings for his father; this is intensified because the child loves and admires his father; he is subconsciously afraid that his punishment, when his father learns of his feelings, will be castration. Eventually the child experiences extreme anxiety that he will be found out and castrated, lose his mother and forfeit his father’s love and attention. This can all be resolved, depending on the relationship the child establishes with his father. If a closer father/son relationship is later achieved, the child will be able to resolve the conflict. However, if there are family problems, the child will increasingly seek refuge with the maternal figure and distance himself from the paternal figure, so the conflict will remain latent in the background. During this phase the paternal figure is essential for the child, since until now the child has had only a primitive conscience: if he resists his impulses and behaves, it is only because he is afraid of punishment from an outside source. So, in identifying with his father, the child imitates, assimilates and absorbs behavior, standards and taboos from his father, thus developing his own conscience.

Freud eventually realized, however, that many of the problems encountered in the early stages of a child’s development could be determining factors in the subsequent resolution of an Oedipus complex.

An adequate cure for the Oedipus complex depends on various factors. The child’s innate constitution is important. Extreme reactions to his behavior during this stage often cause disturbances. Excessive punishments from parents or over-indulgence of their child’s feelings are of no help in resolving emotional problems.

No strict guidelines can be established for handling children at this stage of their development.

The appetite for trivial novelty: INTROVERT OR EXTROVERT?

by: Lida Prypchan

People are classified as either introverts or extroverts. This classification is very ambiguous and not particularly practical because a person can be both introverted and extroverted. It’s just that it’s an alternating process: the classification has greater value when we analyze the frequency of the periods when introversion or extroversion occurs.

If an individual is an introvert most of the time, he is put into a niche and branded an introvert and if he acts in a completely different way he is stigmatized under the definition of extrovert. However, I am well acquainted with people who exhibit intermediate stages of personality. They are introverts who seem to be extroverts. They are congenial and sociable, while at the same time their “reserve” and “caution” is such that deep down they are classic introverts. In my opinion, the introvert is the individual who does not share his inner self with others.

The truth is that one can be an introvert with all the rest of humanity, yet a complete extrovert with just one person in the world. We see women who can share their inner self with their mother or their husband and with nobody else. It is also true that we sometimes compartmentalize our lives. We share some things with some people and other things with other people. We work with some, study with others, dance with some, fight with others; with some we make love, with others we converse, with yet others we drink. We have to realize that it’s impossible to share everything with only one person in the world. We need many different people to share in the various activities and functions of our life. It’s because of this that love relationships between people who need to mutually absorb and bind each other end so quickly and so disastrously, even though they started out so well. Only after many break-ups, heartaches and uncertainties do they realize that each has to give the other breathing room in order to love and be loved and not be the recipient of the other’s complaints and uncertainties.

Introversion has a great influence on love relationships. I think the introvert has more problems because he internalizes his love. He is often incapable of expressing the heights of beauty or revulsion we inspire in him. He feels alone and the feeling consumes him, with one result: satisfaction or frustration. After a while he reaches his limit, upon which he explodes and all that he was never capable of saying pours out in two or three hours, in an uncontrollable state of anxiety or anger, with tears, or disguised as irony – in a thousand forms! In this case it is easy to conclude that the problems lie in a lack of communication. People talk about trivialities, immerse themselves in superficialities, apparently happy, often not even listening when spoken to. We could also employ the terms introversion and extroversion to this subject, but we shall use their synonyms instead: “self-absorption” and “outward orientation.” These terms were defined by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, who was educated in Germany. Always living outwardly, frivolously, being aware of this, that and the other, this is being an extrovert or “outwardly oriented.” But man is capable of being quite the opposite. That is to say, he can go inside himself and look within to learn more about himself and discover his ultimate reality, the truth he may hate or seek to avoid. The self-absorbed person manages to detach himself from things, he tries to be more genuine, he is surprised at his conduct, he sees himself as a stranger…and he goes on in this fashion getting to know himself, weighing each step, getting to know all that goes on around him. But man is a being destined for action, and the meaning of extroversion or outward orientation, is precisely that, outward-going action. It is logical, therefore, to wonder how we reconcile this apparent incompatibility – simply by taking into account the fact that self-absorption, the path of introversion, is followed by a stage of practical activity, putting into action what has been serenely developing in the calm of inner tranquility.

Self-absorption leads to solitude and anguish leads to feelings of abandonment – which is very close to solitude. It is only in solitude, far from turmoil and the temptation to avoid his own being, to flee from himself and intervene in other people’s loves, that man can contemplate restructuring his life. In self-absorption man bares himself and stands face to face with his real Self. Solitude makes us aware that we, our feelings, are not transferable. Anguish may or may not be a part of solitude (solitude can be pleasurable), but we experience solitude as though it were composed of especially painful notes, as if it were something gloomy coming to hover around and enshroud us in its mists. When in anguish man feels hopelessly alone. In anguish, man experiences abandonment, the ultimate and most absolute solitude of all. It seems that today everything is set up in such a way that human beings don’t have to think or reflect and are becoming an amorphous mass constantly affected by stimuli from modern society that demand attention in a thousand ways for different and varied reasons. This results in dispersion, an appetite for trivial novelty. It is only one step away from an anonymous existence. In this fashion man distances himself more and more from his inner self. With this style of life, distanced from his inner self, man can only approximate animal life and ultimately become an animal. Self-absorption does not only achieve the opposite effect, but the more soul there is in human nature, the more possibility of anguish there is also. Where there’s more soul, there’s more anguish. That is why beasts do not suffer from anguish and, sadly, there are people that to call them beasts would be an insult to the animal species.

WILHELM REICH AND THE FUNCTION OF ORGASM

by Lida Prypchan

One thing we can say about the life of Wilhelm Reich is that it was troubled.  A photograph I have at hand reveals a man with a penetrating stare, protruding lips, deep wrinkles, and an expression of disillusion.  Maybe it was because the era in which he lived lacked the understanding necessary for him to present his advanced ideas on sexuality and social reform.

He was born on March 24, 1897, an Aries, in the village of Galitzia in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire.  A fiery, determined, and impulsive personality predestined him to continual quarrels and failures.  His father, a well-to-do agriculturist, lived in the German sector of the Ukraine.  His primary interests as a child were biology and the natural sciences, motivated perhaps, by his father’s activities, which made it possible for him at the age of ten to use an experimental laboratory to raise butterflies, insects and plants under the supervision of a personal teacher.

His father died in 1914, at which point Reich was forced to return to work at his farm, which was destroyed the next year by the war.  Between 1915 and 1934 he was enrolled in the Vienna School of Medicine where he was acquainted with Freud and became interested in psychoanalysis.  After finishing his studies he began to practice as a psychoanalyst, specializing in neuropsychiatry.  Together with Freud he performed a series of investigations on neurosis and visited Russia in order to convince scientists there of the importance of psychoanalysis to Marxism. Since Reich was at that time a dedicated communist, with the rise to power of Hitler he was forced to leave Germany and relocate in Oslo, soon to move again to the United States where he established an orgone energy laboratory in New York.  After founding the Orgone Institute he acquired more that 100 hectares of land in Maine and later moved the institute headquarters to this location (a place free from repression, where he would thoroughly study  Orgonomy, otherwise know a vital energy).  In 1954 an agency that controlled food and pharmaceuticals accused him of fraud, for which he was taken to court and convicted of contempt-of-court for failing to appear.  At a subsequent trial he was sentenced to two years in 1957, apparently bordering on insanity. 

Presently, 72 of Reich’s publications have been catalogued, the most important being The Impulsive Character; Sexual arousal and Satisfaction; The invasion of Compulsory Sec-Morality; The Mass Psychology of Fascism; The Sexual Struggle of Youth; The Function of the Orgasm; and The Sexual Revolution.

There are three fundamental aspects of Reich’s work we should examine: firstly, the adequate function of orgasm; second, the discovery of orgone energy; and third, the lesson we learn from his life.  Let’s begin with the functioning of orgasm.

In order to conceive of orgastic potency (or the capability to indulge in the discharge of biological energy without inhibition) one must bear in mind that until 1923 sexology and psychoanalysis only recognized the potency of ejaculation and of the erection.  These potencies (ejaculation and erection) are the preliminary and indispensable conditions required to achieve the afore-mentioned orgastic potency.  For Reich, the key to normalcy was found in the orgasm (or simultaneous and involuntary convulsion occurring during the act of sexual intercourse).

According to Reich, in the majority of human beings raised in a collective environment where the sexuality of children and adolescents is repressed, the orgasm is found to have atrophied.

The second aspect of Reich’s work is his discovery of orgone energy.

In 1936, Reich completely dedicated and oriented his work to a biological interpretation of the psyche.  He discovered the potency of orgasm and the energy this generates, which he called orgone energy.  He maintained that unless the barriers that inhibit orgastic potency are broken down, it is not possible for the human being to reach a normal psycho-physiological state.  From now on, all of his effort was concentrated on developing a technique for acquiring, conserving, and intensifying orgastic or orgone potency.  Based on this, Reich created Physical Orgonotherapy (application of orgone energy to the patient, concentrated in accumulator boxes) and Psychiatric Orgonotherapy (liberation of the orgone energy accumulated in the human being).

It could thus be deduced that the neurosis suffered in our time is a consequence of “orgastic impotence” or, rather, the inability to fully release one’s feelings of arousal at the culmination of sexual intercourse.

In summary, it is obvious that Reich’s life, as well as being troubled, is illustrative of the conflicts he provoked during his lifetime.

Reich, who fought against every type of repression, was destined to a life of repression.  He was expelled from three countries and jailed in another.  Reformists persecuted him as a revolutionary and revolutionaries persecuted him as a reformist. 

The Stalinists persecuted him as a Trotskyist, and the Trotskyists as a Stalinist.

Freud and many others in the psychoanalytical movement and almost all of the luminaries of conventional science attacked him and did everything possible and impossible to disparage him.  Both before and after his death, his works were prohibited.  Some of them, and this I say with irony for those of us who boast of our century’s “openness of attitude,” will continue to suffer the stigma of prohibition.

The Art of Scientific Investigation

by Lida Prypchan

Chance

Undoubtedly chance has played an important role in scientific discoveries.  Its importance increases when we think about how common failures and frustrations are in research.  Probably most of the discoveries in biology and medicine have been unexpected or at least have had an element of chance, especially the most important and revolutionary ones.  This should not surprise us if we consider that if something new is revolutionary, it could hardly be foreseen relying on prior knowledge.  When some scientists talk about a discovery they have made, they say almost embarrassedly, "I found it by accident."  This phrase shows that even when you know that chance is a factor in the formation of discoveries, the magnitude of its importance is rarely appreciated and the significance of its role does not seem to have been fully understood.  For this reason, the researcher should take advantage of this knowledge of the importance of chance in discoveries and not look at it as if it were a rarity or, worse still, as something that diminishes due credit for the discovery and that, therefore, should be underestimated.  Although scientists can not deliberately produce chance, they should be alert to recognizing it when it happens.  He who wants to dedicate his life to the advancement of science must practice his powers of observation, so that he develops that mental attitude which consists of always being on the lookout for the unexpected and getting into the habit of examining any possibility that chance offers him.  Discoveries are made by attention to all indications, however small they may be.  A good maxim for the novice researcher is "Attention to the unexpected."

Many relate chance with luck, but it is not advisable to use the term luck in research as it can lend itself to misinterpretation.  There is no objection to using it when you want to mean simply coincidence, but for many people luck is a metaphysical concept, the sort that in a mystical way influences events, and this type of concept should not ever enter in scientific thinking.  The good scientist pays attention to every observation or unexpected event offered by chance and investigates carefully all those that seem most promising.  In this regard Alan Gregg wrote: “One wonders if that rare ability to always be aware and take advantage of the slightest deviation from the expected behavior of nature is not the true secret of the best scientific minds, a secret that could explain why some men convert the most trivial accidents into memorable events. Behind such attention lies an extreme sensitivity. "

The history of discoveries demonstrates that chance plays an important part even in those discoveries that are attributed to it completely.  For this reason, it is a misleading half-truth to refer to unexpected findings under the category of "accidental discoveries."  If chance or accidents were solely responsible for such discoveries, any researcher would have equal opportunity to realize such discoveries from the start, whether that person is a Pasteur or a Bernard.

The truth of this problem is contained in Pasteur's famous dictum: "In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared mind."  The role of chance consists simply in providing an opportunity, but it is the scientist who has to recognize it and take advantage of it.

Assessing the Opportunities

Given that the frequency of opportunities that involve making discoveries based on chance is very small, scientists spend most of their time at their work stations always attempting "something new," and that is how they are exposed to encountering fortunate accidents.  In addition, they require an acute power of observation to see any indication that is presented and at the same time a special ability to notice the unexpected while they are waiting for the expected.  Then the scientist enters the most difficult stage of all and the one that requires what Pasteur called a "prepared mind."  This stage consists of interpreting and clarifying the possible significance of any indication.  In this respect, Sir Henry Souttar has noted that it is that which is contained in the brain of the observer, accumulated over years of work, that makes triumph possible.  Once the discovery has been made, the scientist has to suffer the impact of skepticism and often the resistance on the part of outsiders.  In itself, mankind shows reluctance to new ideas, since new ideas are generally revolutionary ones that refute established ideas and try to establish new patterns, more evolved than the older ones.  That is why the post-discovery stage is considered one of the most difficult to work through, and this is where the scientist has to fight and sometimes, as we have seen in the past, even to lose their lives.  These are the ironies of life: in enriching humanity with their ideas, they are rewarded with death.

Fortunately, today that is not the form of payment.  I am not referring to material goods that may be given to the scientist, but only to affording them the highest respect, while trying always to keep an open mind to the new ideas they show us.  This is how we can pay them for the innumerable advances humanity receives from them.

The Feeling of Guilt

By Lida Prypchan

There will always be someone who writes about civilization, who criticizes it, who calls it the "Present Shakiness" as J.F. Baena Reyes, who, in his column Lipstick, branded the world in which we move about as a "viscous quagmire of confusion."  And not without good reason.  We are in the era of neurosis, hurried to get who knows where.  Of those who populate the world, Reyes Baena says there are those who enjoy an exquisite pleasure in sadistically provoking the pain of others.  Others aspire to wash their guilt in the savory contentment of personal suffering.

These words, in one form or another, made me think of a game in which all take part: the game of culpability.

This game has existed since the world began.  It is as old as worry and depression. Who escapes their worries?

What changed regarding our generation is that now in any bookshop we find books like "Overcome Depression in 15 Days" with Royal cake type recipes they call "bold techniques."

The feeling of guilt is an emotion that immobilizes us in the present moment for something we did in the past.  And feeling ourselves guilty we deceive ourselves, thinking that we pay for our mistake.  It is one thing is to learn from the past and another to mortify ourselves with something that happened and cannot be undone.  There is a very wise saying about it that says, "It is not the experience of today that drive men crazy.  It is the remorse for something that happened yesterday and the fear of what tomorrow may bring us. "  The past and the future are what we really worry about, and meanwhile we lose the present, thinking of the other two times.

What happens with this emotion is that it seems we carry it in our blood because, from the time we are small, they give us guilt with our applesauce, and then when we become adults we give our children the same dose of guilt that we were given.

For the young, I will not end this article with the skepticism with which Baena Reyes concludes his own.  Reyes ended thus: “It is not time to gargle with words that will find no resonance in the consciousness already experienced among the people."  I do not necessarily seek changes; all I want is that anyone who is self-absorbed, and who identifies him/herself with any of the examples that I will give below, to change, if they so desire, his/her attitude.

What are the origins of guilt?

From when we are children we are manipulated with guilt, whether it be by our parents, siblings, teachers, religion, the state or society.

One of the most typical causative dialogues for one’s guilt it that of a child with its mother.  The mother asked her daughter to bring up the chairs from the basement because they are going to eat.  The daughter is watching a program on the TV and tells her to wait for the ads to come on.  The mother tells her that it does not matter and, even if it greatly hurts her back, she herself will go for the chairs.    The daughter imagines her mother with six chairs on her back, falling down the stairs.  Then she runs and does what her mom asked.  Otherwise she will be responsible for her mother having fallen.

It is very efficient type of mentality, "I sacrifice for you.”  Some mothers remind their children of their labor pains: "I had eighteen hours straight just to bring you into this world."  Another phrase is: "I only stayed married to your father for you."  The child feels guilty for his/her mother's unhappiness.

Attitudes Regarding the Mentally Ill

by Lida Prypchan

Many of my master classes are given at the Bárbula Psychiatric Hospital.  When entering the psychiatric hospital the students already expected to see some of the mentally ill residing there asking for money.  The response is always laughter and giggles.

There is a patient who usually comes up from the back or side and puts her arms around the person’s neck before asking for money.  She is loving and kind, but students do not seem to understand this and for this reason a few days ago an unpleasant situation occurred.  The professor presenting that day had not yet arrived and consequently many students were outside of the room in the hall.  What surprised me was seeing the students desperately running into the lecture hall as if fleeing the sick woman.  Once inside, the previously tranquil atmosphere turned to excitement concerning this woman.  All she had done was what she did out of habit:  ask for money.  In the end, the response of the students was laughter, entertainment, fear and disgust.  Some reacted with fear, as if expecting that she was going to hit them.  Others went along, or joked with her or with their peers about her.  Most interesting was to see the reaction of each student upon her approach and await the reaction, whether they burst into laughter or said something to her.  A shouted exchange occurred between the spectators and the person being accosted with little importance attached to what the patient felt.  I admired the attitude of some who remained in place as if nothing had happened, as if a fellow human being was present.

One might excuse this attitude because contact with the mentally ill was new for all of them and thus unusual, given the image we have about the mentally ill.

It is understood that there is a lack of information, but what I wonder is this: Where is their humanity? Or is it that these patients do not feel the contempt and rejection of others? Is there something in the students that makes them forget another person’s humanity when regarding the ill, who more than anyone, need understanding, love and acceptance?

What happens is that we have social barriers that those whom we call "crazy" don’t have.

Anxiety

by Lida Prypchan

Very few people free themselves from anxiety, though at least Siegfried, the hero of The Ring of the Nibelungen, was born completely free from anxiety.  But it was a rare privilege.  Worries are the historical baggage of humankind.

As typical examples we have the company director who observes that another takes over his position because he is younger, or the student who nervously counts the days until an exam that is crucial for his future.

As can be seen, anxiety in itself is not abnormal; it is simply an all-embracing response by our personality when facing situations that threaten us.  Subjectively, it is characterized by a state of uncertainty, apprehension, tension, and helplessness when facing a threat that we perceive in a vague and imprecise form.

However, it is not necessary to think that everything about anxiety is negative, because in some cases, and depending on the person, it becomes a prod that drives us to attaining something that really matters to us.

But anguish becomes irrational when we exaggerate the response, that is, when in all or in the majority of our activities we allow it to destroy our thoughts, and there it is true that the matter is complicated because this extreme anxiety could easily lead us to depression or even to suicide.  As to its origin, it has been demonstrated that anxiety has genetic roots, but to a larger extent the environment in which the individual operates influences this.  That is why today’s society, with excess population, traffic, crowding, neurosis, and the struggle to "keep up with the Joneses", produces excessive stress on the inhabitants of these societies.

In the specific case of Venezuela, having few men prepared to deal with the large demand for qualified men to meet the needs of the country, we see that these few do the work of many.

Castration Complex Origin of the Neurosis?

by Lida Prypchan

Both the Oedipus and castration complexes are very likely to be found in human societies and must be considered as a normal stage in the development of children.

Castration is understood as the removal of the testicles.  In psychoanalysis, castration means the removal or loss of the penis.

It is worth remembering at what age in development fears and fantasies about castration take place.  Freudian theory emphasizes a series of stages, such as: oral, anal and genital.  In the oral stage, newborns find pleasure in the mouth.  In the anal stage, during the first year of age, satisfaction derives from the anal sensation of defecation.  But it is at the end of the first year of age, when children learn to control their anal sphincter, when they grant more importance to the anus.  Both stages comprise the pregenital stage, which lasts until three years of age.  It is followed by the genital stage, beginning at three years of age, in which boys grant importance to their penis.  This stage lasts until five years of age.  During this stage, boys turn their penis into an object of sexual interest.  Sexual attraction towards the mother is associated with jealousy and fear of the father, who becomes a sexual rival.  This constitutes the Oedipus complex and it is in this stage that the castration complex starts to become important.  Freud thought that the fear of castration was awakened at a very early age by the threats and punishments arising from masturbation.  When the boy is told that sexual interest in the mother is also taboo, he begins to believe that if he persists in this interest, he may be punished with castration.

The castration complex in men is extremely deep and persistent.  According to some legends and myths, castration is horrifying.  In Phrygian mythology, Attis, the god of vegetation, bled to death after having castrated himself.

Both the Oedipus and castration complexes are very likely found in all human societies.  And they must be considered as a normal stage in the development of boys.  Freud stated that the castration complex was the main reason, but not the only one, for the mechanism of repression and that it not only affected integrity of personality, but rather that it could also lead to neurotic manifestations.  He believed that symptomatic formation in phobic, hysterical and obsessive neuroses could be traced back to anxiety about castration.  But this is no longer believed.  Neurosis is a social or cultural problem that is much more complex than what Freud thought, and he did not give importance to the social environment in which his neurotic patients operated.  This is why his theory of neurosis comes up short, without denying that it opened the way for men now engaged in this area to find new interpretations of the problem of neurosis.  

Alfred Adler, a colleague of Freud, criticized this Freudian theory of castration.  According to Adler, based on the central idea of ​​his work "Individual Psychology," boys, threatened with castration by a stronger rival, can counter their feelings of sexual and physical inferiority through a struggle for domination of others, power and self-confidence or sexual conquest.

Melanie Klein expanded on and propagated Freud’s theory.  According to Klein, fear of castration is experienced from an earlier age than that proposed by Freud, both in boys and in girls, and that at that age they are already aware of the genitals of both sexes.

The Brain: A Computer with Secrets

by Lida Prypchan

A genius and a fool can have a brain that is identical in appearance: neither its size nor its structure under the microscope are useful in deciphering intellectual capacity.  The heart speaks through palpitations, but the brain is quiet; it does not reveal its secrets, although it generates electrical impulses that allow us to study the way it works.

In 1870, Erich Hitzig, a Prussian medical officer, walking through a battlefield at Sedan, looked for corpses whose brains were exposed.  With an electrical battery attached to two metal ducts, he discovered that when part of the brain is stimulated with an electric shock, the limbs on the opposite side of the body performed certain movements.

Our movements and sensations cause electrical impulses that travel through a network of neurons or nerve cells to the brain (which is the command center).  We have neurons all over our bodies, even in the most hidden places, and they are all connected to a huge network.  Messages arrive to the brain and it sends out an order.

The neuron is radical in the manner in which it acts: all or nothing, it either generates an electrical impulse or it does not.  It is not yet known how the brain decodes the messages and makes its decisions.  However, the route the messages follow is known.  What is impressive is the amount of different things that the brain does at once and how fast it does them.

Computers are a man-made model of the brain.

I had the opportunity to play a game of chess with a computer, which had seven levels.  I never beat it, not even at the first level.  The computer has magnificent memory, which has the basic rules of the game and a number of possible alternative moves to beat its opponent on magnetophonic tape.  What happens is that the computer does not forget anything: it has perfect memory.

Throughout life, the brain memorizes a series of data that reach the sensory organs.  Such data increases with age.  But since we are not computers, our brains remember very little of all the information we receive throughout our lives.  This is explained by the following comparison: what we use most often is what we most remember; what we use less frequently, we store in boxes and have trouble remembering.

Thousands of neurons fire simultaneously during certain specific classes of mental activity.  This rhythmically generates a series of electric discharges, called brain waves, which can be recorded by placing electrodes on the scalp and can be amplified by using an amplifier that is connected to a system of pens, graphically representing the information on paper.  This device is called the electroencephalograph and is used to explore the changes that take place in the conscious brain.  The strong, slow and steady line predominates when we sleep, daydream or rest with our eyes closed.  When we are stimulated by sensations or are awake, the line is more rapid and irregular.  Using electroencephalography, we can detect an epileptic focus.  

Brain lesions cause characteristic changes, as do certain emotional states and certain mutations, to the body's metabolism.

The Oedipus Complex and Neurosis "Know Thyself"

By Lida Prypchan

In 1897, Freud began what may be called the most heroic act of his life: the psychoanalysis of his own unconscious.

The ancient oracle of Delphi, who said "Know thyself," has since ancient times led philosophers and thinkers to try to pursue this goal, but their inner resistance did not allow any to reach it as deeply as did Freud.  The unconscious, the existence of which had already been speculated on, was still shrouded in darkness.  Heraclitus's words still stood: "The soul of man is a far off land that cannot be approached or explored."  It is not known all at once.  It involves slow intuition.  Freud senses that he needs to self-analyze himself in order to advance in his research.  For three or four years his neurotic suffering increases, but in the end he achieves greater serenity and stability, which causes him to feel free to continue his research with unwavering energy.  Two types of research arise that are closely related to his own analysis: the interpretation of dreams and the study of child sexuality.

As Freud progresses in his research, he begins to recognize, through himself, the basis of the existence of a certain child sexuality.  He believes to have discovered that as a child he felt excessive love for his mother and jealousy of his father.  His knowledge of Greek literature immediately reminded him of the tragedy of Oedipus Rex, which he interprets as an undeniable affirmation of his thesis.

Oedipus, son of the king of Thebes, Laius, and his wife, Jocasta, is the protagonist of this Greek legend, in which Oedipus kills his father, unaware that he is his father, and marries his mother, unaware that she is his mother, has two children with her and, upon learning that he married his mother, tears his eyes out.  This act of pulling his eyes out to Freud represents Oedipus’s desire to atone for his guilt.

According to Freud, the oedipal stage occurs between three and six years of age, even in abnormal people.  This stage is characterized by excessive love of the mother, jealousy of the father, who is seen as a rival, confusion as he admires and loves his father, but he observes him with jealousy, as a rival.  The oedipal complex is resolved through the father and son becoming close in order to have greater communication and identification.  By becoming closer with his father, the boy assimilates the image and behavior of his father, resolving his conflict.

According to Freud, all boys without exception go through this stage and drag certain reminiscences of the Oedipus complex into adulthood.  But to the extent that this complex is resolved, the individual will find themselves closer to or further away from being normal or being neurotic.  The Oedipus complex has to be suppressed.  But while a normal person needs to make little effort to resolve this conflict, an affected individual will be forced to deploy most of their energy to fight it.  Freud considered that the Oedipus complex was the basis for neurosis and the cause of much unconscious anxiety of guilt.  It can be explained as follows: the child feels guilty about harboring contradictory and destructive feelings toward his father; this is accentuated since the child admires and loves his father; in his mind he fears that the retaliation from his father when he learns of his feelings will be to castrate him.  The child therefore feels great anxiety regarding being caught and castrated, as well as regarding losing his mother and the love and attention of his father.  Everything is solved depending on the relationship that the child manages to establish with his father.  If afterward the father and son become closer, the child goes about resolving his conflict.  While if there are family conflicts, the child will seek even more refuge in the mother figure and will distance himself from the father figure, the conflict remaining latent.  The father figure is very important in this stage for the child, as up to that time the child only possesses a primitive conscience: he does what is right, if it goes against what his impulses dictate, only out of fear of punishment from the outside.  Thus upon the child identifying himself with his father, he imitates, assimilates and absorbs the behavior, norms and prohibitions of the father, thereby forming his own conscience.

Freud, therefore, realized nonetheless that many of the difficulties in the process of development of a child, in an earlier stage, could be determinant regarding the subsequent solution of the Oedipus complex.

Achieving the adequate solution of the Oedipus complex depends on several factors.  The innate formation of the child is important.  Extreme reactions to the child's behavior during this stage tend to cause disorders.  Parents who are excessively punitive or lenient with their children's feelings do not help them in solving their emotional problems.

Strict laws cannot be established on how to treat children in this stage of their development.

Intuition

by Lida Prypchan

Intuition is a really valuable factor. Albert Einstein.

The word intuition has slightly different usages. It is defined as a sudden understanding or clarification of a situation, a bright idea that oftentimes blossoms in one’s conscious and which may occur to us when we are not consciously thinking about a given subject; but intuitions are also those that occur to us suddenly, when we consciously think about a problem.

In this regard, prince Kropotin wrote: “Months of intense thought followed with the aim of finding some meaning in all that chaos of various observations, until one day, and suddenly, everything became clear and understandable as if I had been enlightened by a ray of light...” “There are not many joys in life that equal the joy of the birth of a generalization that comes to enlighten the mind after a long period of patient investigation.”

Sometimes intuitions present themselves during sleep. Otto Locur, professor of Pharmacology at the University of Gras, recounts that one night he woke up with a brilliant idea. He searched for paper and pencil, wrote down some notes. When he got up in the morning, he realized that he had had an inspiration during the night; however, try though he did, he could not decipher what he had written. All that day in the laboratory, he tried to remember the idea and understand his notes, but it was in vain. When he was going to bed, he still had not been able to remember anything, but during that night, to his delight, he awoke again with the same flash of inspiration; this time he made sure to take note of everything carefully before going to sleep. The following day, he headed to his laboratory and in one of the simplest, clearest and most definitive experiments in the history of Biology, he verified the chemical mediation of nervous impulses.

Most scientists are familiar with the phenomenon of intuition. In a survey done by the American chemists Platt and Baker, 33 percent reported being frequently aided by intuition, 50 percent only occasionally and 17 percent reported no help from intuition. The last group do not understand what an intuition is and believe that their ideas only derive from conscious thought. It may be that some of those opinions are based on an insufficient examination of our own mind’s work process.

Nor should be believe that all intuitions are correct. Unfortunately, intuitions, as the product of a fallible human mind, are not always correct.

Psychology of Intuition: The most characteristic circumstances for an intuition are the following: an intense period of work on the problem, accompanied by the desire to solve it; abandonment of the work, dedicating oneself to something else and the sudden appearance of the idea, often accompanied by a certain sensation of certainty. Frequently one feels delight and perhaps surprise that that idea had not occurred to one previously.

The psychology of this phenomenon has not been fully understood. There is a general, albeit not universal, agreement regarding the fact that intuitions arise from the subconscious activities of the mind, which has continued to think about the problem, even when the conscious mind is perhaps not paying attention to it.

The concept of the psychology of intuition set forth above provides us an explanation for the importance of: a) the freedom of the other problems and competitive concerns, and b) the help represented by periods of rest by allowing the appearance of intuitions, because these messages from the subconscious cannot be received by the conscious mind if it is constantly occupied or too fatigued. There are various cases of famous generalizations which have occurred to persons when they were sick in bed. Einstein refers to the fact that his profound generalization, relating space and time, came to mind while he was sick.

Baker affirms that the ideal moment is when one is in the bathtub and suggests that it was this favorable condition that helped Archimedes to discover his famous principle and not the fact that he noticed that his body floated. The favorable effects, both of the bed and of the bath, are probably due to there being no distracting elements and to the fact that all the circumstances help in fantasizing.

Different people have noted the favorable influence of music; nonetheless, not everybody agrees with this. Some forms of music help intuition: enjoyment of music is very emotionally similar to that derived from a creative mental activity, and the appropriate music induces an appropriate predisposition of one’s mood to creative thought. There is nothing better than music to inspire us to write a poem, as long as that type of music is appropriate to make us feel that we are in a subconscious state. It has happened to me several times that I have written a poem and then, a few days later, I read it again and I can’t explain to myself how I could have written that: the unreality of the subconscious blooms.

The huge emotional stimulus that many people experience when they carry out a new discovery or have a brilliant intuition also comes to bear. Probably, this emotional reaction is related to the amount of mental and emotional effort and that was dedicated to the problem. Also contributing to form that reaction is the sudden release of all the frustrations that have been associated with the work on that problem in particular. In this regard it is very interesting to note the statement of Claude Bernard: “Those who do not know the torment of the unknown cannot obtain the joy of discovery.”

Emotional sensitivity is a valuable attribute for a scientist; in any case, a notable scientist must be considered to be a creative artist, and it is entirely false to think that a scientist is a man who simply follows the laws of logic and experiments. Some of the great masters of the art of research have also possessed other types of artistic talent. Both Einstein as well as Planck were good musicians, lovers of music: that which understands it all. Pasteur and Bernard, from an early age, showed skill in painting and literature, respectively. Without having to go too far, in Valencia we have Dr. Guillermo Mujica Sevilla, head of the Histology Department at the U.C.: an anatomic pathologist, an educator, a supremely cultured person, lover of literature and music, especially opera. There is no place where he is not seen to collaborate. Dr. Mujica, always calm, has time for everything and for everyone.