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In 1912, a Discussion on Masturbation was held in the "Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung." It was susequently published in book form (1), but has never been translated. At that time, it was already well understood that to talk about masturbation was almost identical with talking about sexuality in general. Thus Victor Tausk, in his discussion, offered the following formulation: "The conflicts around masturbation … are in nuce the conflicts around sexuality as such."
The problems of masturbation are as interesting today as they were in 1912. In Volume V of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Jeanne Lampl recently published a paper on masturbation, also taking the 1912 Discussion as its point of departure and comprising what might be described as an outline of the development of infantile sexuality (11).
The diversity of the problems which can be discussed from this starting point is enormous. I shall have to limit myself to a very brief report on a few highlights of the 1912 Discussion, pointing out the differences between the ideas expressed then and those prevailing now, thirty-nine years later, and stressing a few additional problems which seem especially important to me.
As pointed out by Federn in his review of the 1912 Discussion (2), at that time ego psychology had not yet been introduced into analysis, the oedipus complex had just been accepted as a universal human fate, and the role of castration anxiety as the core of neurotic anxiety was not yet fully understood. Indeed, only two of the authors who participated in the Discussion—Ferenczi and Sachs—connected the anxiety which arises around masturbation with castration anxiety, and this relationship was perceived there for the first time in analytic literature.
As the opinions that were voiced then do not quite conform to our present-day conceptions, it seems worth while to point out the