A Note on Conchology

When Freud turned the spotlight of his discoveries on psychology and behavior he not only illuminated those fields directly but he also threw a good deal of light on adjacent regions. In fact there are few fields of thought or action today that are not receiving some light from Freud's discoveries, even if only by reflection. This light Freud has shed is of definite value in the investigation of ideas and acts. It provides direction in attempts to find the answer to many questions. If it does not lead to a full answer or the solution to a problem, it does offer clues and has led to some shrewd guesses about conscious and unconscious patterns. It has revealed new meanings in certain wishes and yearnings in man's nature and it has brought us to some new explanations of his oddities.

Why do I enjoy shells, for example? From the psychological point of view a lot could be said. If collecting is akin to hoarding and hoarding is akin to so-called anal preoccupations, then shell collecting may be considered as an anal pattern, with compulsive elements in it, of course.

But when people ask questions like that, the answers are usually casual and superficial. This has to be the case because the questions are reflexly or rhetorically put. Ordinarily people ask me, “Why do you study conchology? What use is it to you?” To the second question there is but one answer—“It is of no use.” The first question I can answer just as briefly, “Because I enjoy it.

In this paper, however, I shall make an effort to answer adequately, if not elaborately, the question, “Why do you like shells?” It will not be possible to pursue every associational thread to its ultimate end, nor advisable to lay open the extensive depths of thought and feeling to which the pursuit of associations would lead one, if allowed to run on endlessly. But at least I can go as far as time and space permit in a paper like this and you may read my statement as to why I like shells.

As a point of departure, I am a psychiatrist