The psycho-analytic study of the family / by J.C. Flügel.

  • John Flügel
Date:
1921
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The psycho-analytic study of the family / by J.C. Flügel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/280 (page VI)
    children and among the junior members of the same family, have been relatively neglected: in the second place, the study of the two last named, chronologically earlier, relationships (and especially the filio-parental one) is—as will be seen—capable of throwing considerable light upon the subsequent marital relationship; it would seem probable indeed that a thorough understanding of the problems of love, sex, and marriage cannot be attained without a preliminary knowledge of the nature of the psychic bonds that unite parent and child—a knowledge that psychology is only now beginning to afford. On the other hand, I feel a very genuine regret that I have been unable to include some discussion of the problems connected with the size of families. These problems are, I am convinced, of the greatest importance. At a moment like the present when large portions of the human race are suffering from a shortage of the very necessities of existence the question of family limitation, in particular, becomes one that is of enormous, one might almost say of paramount, urgency. Nevertheless, the treatment of this question from the psychological, as distinct from the ethical, sociological or economic standpoint, has as yet been so slight and fragmentary, as to make a full consider¬ ation of the question scarcely suitable to a volume of expository character; and I have thought it better to omit the subject almost altogether than to deal with it in a manner that would be either inadequate and superficial or else manifestly inappropriate^. I am of course aware that much with which we have here to deal makes far from pleasant reading. The unpleasantness arises mainly from the fact that, in the pursuit of our present purpose, we are chiefly brought into contact with the un¬ conscious and more primitive aspects of the mind rather than with the more recently acquired and more morally edifying aspects. But those who realise the importance, for human welfare and progress, of a true understanding of our mental nature, should no more be deterred from the consideration of unpleasant aspects of the mind, than should the student of economics neglect to take account of poverty or the student 1 I have recently attempted elsewhere a preliminary treatment of this question. See On the Biological Basis of Sexual Repression and its Sociological Significance, British Journal of Psychology (Medical Section), 1921, Vol. I, Part 3. vi