Freudian Theory and Sexual Enlightenment: a Study of Resistances

At the present time the students of Freud's contributions to sexual and neurotic theory may be divided into the three classes of believers, doubters and unbelievers. The following study is written by one who is a believer that the Freudian hypotheses contain new truths that furnish strong reasons for the sexual enlightenment of the young. The scientific unbelievers, whose resistances are complete, banish “Freudianism” with “Mysticism” outside the circle of scientific psychology. The religious unbelievers regard Freud as an ally of the devil in a combined attack on the ideal of innocent ignorance. It is not surprising that this class of entirely hostile critics refuse to apply psychoanalytic theories to education.

The attitude of the doubters is interesting by reason of its inconsistency, and it is with the resistances of the doubters that my study is chiefly concerned. In persons whose opposition to the Freudian theory is only consciously overcome, the unconscious resistance tends to appear as a disinclination to apply the new knowledge to the problems of sexual education. The resistance also disguises itself as a doubt of the wisdom and kindness of removing what they regard as the blissful and harmless sexual ignorance of the young. Before examining the unconscious sources of this doubt, we may briefly refer to the plausible rationalization of the resistance that is frequently expressed. The application of the Freudian theory to religion, ethics, sociology and politics tends, by an “unmasking of symbols,” to undermine an uncritical reverence for the traditions and idealizations of modern society. Hence arises in the mind of these doubters the question whether applied psychoanalysis ought to form a part of general education: whether the ordinary citizen ought to know what crude sexual impulses are directly expressed in the behavior of the child and savage, and indirectly expressed in the symbols and institutions of civilized man. The attitude of an anonymous writer w