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Freud has told us that the myth of the Paradise is nothing other than a mass-fantasy of the childhood, so long as it does not know shame. We are expelled from this paradise when we have learned to be ashamed. The most ashamed neurotic people, the erythrophobics, sometimes complain of their intolerable state—as a hell. So this paper is extended between paradise and hell.
We do not yet know much about the first signs of early shame; in Melanie Klein's book on child analysis neither shame nor blushing are mentioned. But it is well-known that children already differ in their inclination to shame. We miss investigations about their respective instincts, especially the scoptophilic instinct. In spite of the fact that the intensity of instincts is so decisive for later development of health or disease, we do not yet know whether different intensities of this instinct are congenital, conditioned by environment or both.
There are more than Freud's three libidinous types of healthy characters—the erotic, the compulsive and the narcissistic one—predisposing to special neuroses. I like to add, at least as a sub-division of the narcissistic character, the bashful character, predisposed to neurotic bashfulness, erythrophobia, stage fear, stuttering, and by certain mechanisms essentially differentiated, paranoic states.
There are in the Ego not only moral tendencies, used for repression; there are also aesthetic ones. Our Ego-ideal represents not only moral ideals, but also ideals of appearance. We aspire to be pleasant, well and completely built and decent. We have to know, e.g., in company, how to begin and to continue to talk fluently. If anxiety develops in such characters, it is not—as elsewhere—the anxiety to be alone or to be lost. On the contrary, it is the anxiety not to be alone, to be in company. Not feelings of guilt prevail, but feelings of shame. As social neurotics they develop social inhibitions, bashfulness, blushing, stuttering or combinations.
We know all the degree