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A young man in the twenties, clinically schizophrenic, was overtly hostile to his mother. During his analysis he stated his case in this fashion:
Her whole life long, his mother had had only one objective—namely, to control all of the patient's activities, which was due to her desire to frustrate his sexual life. Thus, if he became interested in a girl of his own age, she would maneuver it so that this girl would come to love his younger cousin, a boy who was more like a younger brother than a cousin. The patient noted that in his mother's presence he would be stirred sexually and perceive genital sensations. This was, he said, due to the fact that his mother was sexually attracted by him and had been so attracted since his earliest childhood. Her machinations subserved one sole aim: to bind him to her sexually. Once, he stated by way of illustration, his mother had tried to excite him by playing with a baby cousin's penis, while he was looking on. And she would, on all possible occasions, to arouse tabooed desire, throw him at the head of a spinster friend. In short, all sexual advances were made by the mother, though they took many covert forms. When the patient was admitted to the hospital, his estate became subject to the usual guardianship, and the mother arranged that it should be administered by the above mentioned younger cousin. This the patient interpreted as an attempt to insure his complete financial dependence on her. Money, he always knew, meant power or potency; so, in other words, she had given his penis to his cousin, whom she could control, and his potency thus was dependent on her whims.
The patient quite freely admitted his sexual desire for his mother. But, he stated, such desire was not spontaneous. By various means, his mother influenced him and made him have