On Rotting

Mrs. T. R. had a dream that there was some greenish thing like a strip of metal in her vagina. She experienced great fear and anxiety. The associations lead from there to the time when she had a trichomonas infection and to her apprehension because she still has some slight secretion which might be a sign of disease. However, it turns out that she uses a jelly continually and is not always very particular about removing it. The dripping reminds her of urination. In her puberty masturbation with another girl, urination played an outstanding part. Her anxiety neurosis started when she was present when a lawyer discussed the gonorrhoic infection of a client. She has the feeling that inside rotting is the consequence of venereal disease, and venereal disease and masturbation play the same role in her unconscious thinking. Her anxieties concerning the inside of her body are outspoken. She fears that she will explode from the inside and also that she will be empty and not have anything inside. At the height of her anxiety she has the feeling of being indeed empty. The fear of rotting inside is an essential part of her anxiety.

The fear of rotting and cancers which eat the insides away is a very common one. In the preconscious the rotting away and the destruction of the inside is related to the triad, syphilis, masturbation and sex activity in general. The rotting away can be symbolized by any signs of destruction in the outward world. Any indistinct configuration reminded one of my obsessional neurotic patients of cancer and provoked in him the fear that he may succumb to cancer too. He was always very much afraid of syphilis and avoided any kind of spots on the street or in the room. He avoided carefully putting his foot on such places and immediately had the feeling that he had done something wrong by the avoiding movement which was not natural. He had the feeling that he might be punished for such an unnatural movement (which represents an aggressive action) by mutilati