2i8 CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE 



its physiologic center in the organs of generation. In 

 such case we have the integration which results in the 

 individual of a normal sexual life. 



Secondly, there may be a persistence of the original 

 auto-erotic interests and of the sexual satisfaction attach- 

 ing to these primary erogenic zones, with failure of the 

 aforesaid integration into the sexual impulse which tends 

 toward the goal of reproduction. In this case there are 

 presented the variations of the normal sexual impulse 

 which constitute the perversions. 



Finally, the sexual interest or libido pertaining to the 

 different erogenic zones through repression may be de- 

 flected into vicarious avenues of sexuality corresponding 

 symbolically to such frustrated interests. Such an out- 

 come epitomizes the mechanism of the neuroses as en- 

 visaged by Freud. Of course no rigid line of demarca- 

 tion separates these three possible developmental issues, 

 but there is among them more or less of interlacement of 

 the characters distinctive of each. 



The neuroses, then, represent in a negative way a mis- 

 carriage of the sexual instinct analogous to that repre- 

 sented in a positive way in the sexual perversions. 

 Freud's thesis, therefore, is that the neuroses betray an 

 inadequacy in the development of the psycho-sexual life. 

 This inadequacy marks a regression toward a sexual 

 mode appropriate to an earlier, infantile period and pos- 

 tulates a latent, unconscious fixation of the libido on its 

 original, infantile object. Hence the sexuality of the 

 neurotic is hindered, repressed and, as it were, preoccu- 

 pied elsewhere than with the immediate and contemporary 

 object of sexual interest, and the psychologic situation 

 presented by the patient is summed up by Freud in what 

 he terms the patient's "sexual resistances" (die sexuelle 

 Widerstdnde) . 



Such is the fundamental idea of psychoanalysis in re- 

 gard to the origin and development of the neuroses. The 

 primary factor in the production of the disorders is the 



