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After reviewing various theories of homosexuality, Bergler summarizes previously reported cases of his in which the predominant characteristics were: (1) an intense hatred for the mother, (2) oral character traits, (3) a weak Oedipal hatred toward the father, (4) a repressed interest in the mother's breast, (5) an intense secondary narcissism, (6) a strong tendency toward identification. The homosexuality is looked upon as an outcome of oral conflicts. The experience of weaning created strong aggressions in the child which were inhibited in expression. A part of this aggression was used in identification with the mother; another part was displaced onto the penis, the child displacing his ambivalence towards mother's breast onto his own penis; a third part remained toward the mother as object. The anal zone, according to Bergler, was charged by way of the fantasied oral incorporation of the breast. In healthy people the Oedipus complex destroys the effectiveness of the 'breast complex'. Homosexuality is the result of the unsolved breast complex.
Bergler's observations on homosexuality have modified some of his earlier theories and verified others. He has found the oral, preoedipal basis of male homosexuality confirmed without exception in all his cases. The oral regression is to be regarded less as a striving to get and more as a striving to take revenge for having got too little. In latent homosexuals the symptom of ejaculatio præcox is a frequent one. Its unconscious significance is an ironic refusal: the woman is being given the sperm but in a way which prevents her from deriving any pleasure from it. It is an orally conditioned revenge.
Bergler then suggests criteria on which to base the acceptance of homosexual patients for analysis. An honest wish for change and a willingness to accept treatment are absolutely necessary but by no means sufficient. The patient must not have too extensive an amount of self-damaging tendencies. It is better if he has