You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The tendency toward normal and perverse sexual acts in alcoholic intoxication has been explained by a narcotization of conscience. This is a superficial rationalization which neglects the particular defense mechanisms expressed in the symptomatology, e.g., sexual acts as a disguise for aggression.
The alcoholic regresses to the oral phase. However, as Bergler points out, he does not simply desire, in the form of an unconscious substitution, to get what was once denied him. He is rather set upon revenge for the oral denial, thus attempting to repair and to overcome the trauma of weaning. This 'mechanism of orality' is patterned thus: 1. The oral neurotics unconsciously construct and concoct situations in which they are disappointed. 2. Then, so to speak in self-defense, they throw themselves upon their self-constructed or imaginary enemies with the sharpest aggression. 3. In the final act they revel in self-pity, enjoying masochistic pleasure. The alcoholic unconsciously acts aggressively toward the mother of his own babyhood; he shows her how much she has injured him. Through identification with her, he—out of unconscious revenge—fills her up, as it were, with poison. Misfortunes and blows of fate, brought about by the patient himself, may be real enough, but the patient unconsciously conceives them as maternal punishment which he answers with oral-sadistic regression and masochistic self-pity.
Genital sexuality is usually weak and undeveloped in alcoholics. The coitus of these patients is not an expression of tenderness, it is permeated with aggression against the partner who represents the denying and hated mother. It