Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

January 16, 1951. ON MASTURBATION. Annie Reich, M.D.

Dr. Reich reviews the symposium on masturbation held in the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1912, noting the differences from current conceptions. In 1912 the role of castration anxiety as the core of neurotic anxiety was not yet fully understood, stress was laid upon the noxicity of masturbation, and the consequent physiological disturbances of the sexual economy were believed to be actual neurosis. Today 'neurasthenia' is not considered a direct and simple consequence of masturbation. Masturbation is now known to be practiced universally in infancy and youth, and masturbation among adults, apart from periods of transition or sexual deprivation, is considered a symptom. Then as now, there was general agreement about the importance of infantile and incestuous masturbatory fantasies, and unsatisfactory masturbation, due to conflict and guilt, was considered to be traumatic. In 1912 the guilt was ascribed mostly to social condemnation, whereas it is now traced to the unconscious Oedipal fantasies, and to conflict between the superego and infantile sexual cravings. The conclusion that excessive masturbation is a consequence of damming of the libido due to insufficient orgastic discharge has stood the test of time, but the defensive motivation of excessive masturbation, and masturbation as self-destruction and punishment were not formerly considered. Nevertheless, the pivotal importance of masturbation and the struggle against it for the ultimate development of character was recognized, especially by Federn and Tausk. Pregenital strivings were believed to follow suppression of genital masturbation, and to influence the development of substitute activities and perversions. Such regression is now considered to be one of the pathogenic occurrences of childhood development, a manifestation of the failure to resolve the Oedipus conflict. The structure of neurosis and character, largely due to the particular dev