Some Recurrent Misconceptions Concerning Impotence

In surveying the psychoanalytic literature dealing with the problem of impotence, it is sometimes hard to avoid the impression that the progress of our science is in sharp contrast with the lack of recognition given our fundamental principles by the rest of the world. To draw a comparison with another science, we are struggling with problems of higher mathematics, while the rest of the world has not yet accepted the multiplication tables. Sometimes our publications put me in mind of a rider who ventures deep into enemy territory, without looking back to see whether his fellow riders are willing or able to follow him. Our science assuredly cannot and should not make concessions to opposition on the part of the unanalytic world. Such opposition is due to affective, unconsciously detemined motives which psychoanalysis itself enables us to understand. Freudian psychoanalysis has always been distinguished by its uncompromising attitude. Psychoanalysis is indebted to its founder not only for its wonderful scientific equipment, but from the point of view of human character, for something not less precious—rejection and scorn of every form of scientific opportunism.

On the other hand we recognize that not every scientist is also a good propagandist. In analytic literature we often observe quite the opposite. The result is that in the literature intended for the medical profession at large, all sorts of superficial, pseudo-scientific popularizations prevail which have not even been edited by the Freudians themselves. Surely this is not as it should be. It is not necessary for our literature to be written in an ever more incomprehensible language. The true earmark of science does not lie in a deliberate obscurity of language. No curtailment of our scientific work is implied if we occasionally ask ourselves how to present our scientific opinions without making concessions either to the understanding or the taste of the public, and yet not expressing ourselves so