Volume 1

Sadism and masochism : the psychology of hatred and cruelty / by Wilhelm Stekel, M.D. Authorized English version by Louise Brink.

  • Wilhelm Stekel
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Sadism and masochism : the psychology of hatred and cruelty / by Wilhelm Stekel, M.D. Authorized English version by Louise Brink. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    105/470 (page 81)
    so associate themselves with the rest of my thought process that there is in general no occasion for flight of unrecognized erotic strivings into the subconscious and into dreams. Now of course I do not know whether my predominantly schizothymic psychic disposition is the primary cause of my specially erotic general psychophysical constitution or whether the reason for the latter is to be sought essentially in purely physiological anomalies of my constitution. Symptoms of disturbance of well-being may be men- tioned : General neurasthenia, intermittent attacks of heart neuro- sis : frequently severe pressure like a stone upon the region of the heart (middle of the body behind the sternum) especially in increase of atmospheric pressure, asthma cordiale nervosum, particularly by diminished atmospheric pressure, evident influ- ences of changes of the electric tensions in the atmosphere; feel best, relatively speaking, when a low pressure continues and with a moderately cool, damp ocean climate or with release of atmos- pheric tensions through mild snowy weather after unpleasant warm thaw winds or storm; spontaneous attacks of great anxiety which permit fears of direct paralysis of heart or brain with fatal result; even severe vasomotor disturbances in consequence of fail- ure of stimulus conduction; in addition to this, perhaps slight chronic weakness of the heart muscle. But according to the diagnosis of different physicians whom I have consulted in the course of the years neither valvular defect nor any sign of pre- mature arterial sclerosis reveals itself. A doctor in Hamburg whom I consulted recently attributes my difficulty to a general impoverishment of the nervous substance in the affected places, an opinion which in part at least may be correct, inasmuch as I have a none too healthy inheritance quota, I believe, in the neuro-organic sense (see below under 7). Moreover, there are evident effects of an existing anemia and a gouty diathesis from my mother's side, which has already made its appearance.8 I have the impression as if the physiological energy of the sex- uality endogenously inhibited in its active function seeks an outlet in the choc-en-retour [shock-in-return] pathway and in part at least has acted as a disturbing force upon the function of the heart activity, which then finds vent in feelings of anxiety. It almost seems as if, when there are serious physiological conditions pres- ent in the constitution of a particular individual, nature wanted to make use of the affect of anxiety as an ultima ratio for erotiza- tion in the hope of rousing through these very strong stimulants of human emotional life the constitution, which in the last analysis