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Collecting is a ubiquitous phenomenon traceable to anthropological, sociobiological, and individual psychodynamics. It is found at a significantly higher rate of incidence in men than in women. Interestingly enough, there has been little written about the psy-chodynamics of collecting. Subkowski sketches the whole range, from mature ego-syntonic to pathological and addictive collecting habits, distinguishing between different categories of collected objects (real objects, sacred objects or totems, social or transitional objects, erotic objects, and fetishes) and the different functions that collections can have.
To psychoanalysts, best known is Sigmund Freud's collection of nearly 3,000 antiques, and his passionate search for these objects. It was also Freud who made a link between infantile anal eroticism and collecting objects, including the anal possession and retention of these objects. Freud noted about himself that, in foreign towns, he tended to misread shop signs, and that this revealed his wish to find additions to his collection—for example, when he thought he saw a sign saying “Antiques.”
Here the author refers to Pieringer's description of the cultural history of man as moving from hunter to collector; a regression from this achievement is often found in collectors who get more and more passionate about their collections and consequently turn into hunters again. Subkowski mentions the case of a teacher who was later caught after having stolen about 1,000 precious medieval books from a cloister library and escaped through a secret corridor. Many collectors draw their thrill from a permanent search for rare and precious objects; once they feel a collection is complete, they start a new one.