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[Budapest,] June 1, 1911
Brief Additional Communication
The spoken expression “sich etwas herunterreissen”1 is certainly not the cause, but rather a consequence of the deep psychological connection between masturbation and tooth pulling.
The actual connection is explained by the castration complex. Sich einen herunterreissen [to tear one down] means: to do something for which something else (tooth, penis) is torn off one.
Two patients who never heard the expression “herunterreissen” dreamt about pulling teeth; one became very ill from anxiety after having a tooth pulled. The analysis yielded a colossally strongly pronounced castration complex. The same explanation held true for the second patient.
The two fears, of losing tooth or penis, obviously coincide chronologically (second dentition) and represent each other in the psychic material.
I consider this determination important and regard it as a confirmation of our view on symbol formation. The following on this:
Things that are similar to one another are equated with one another by the child (penis = tooth, castration = tooth pulling). That corresponds to the way in which the ucs. deals with images in general (dream, joke).
Things that were identified with one another in childhood on the basis of their similarity (penis = tooth, butterfly = vagina) can later represent themselves as symbols [tooth for penis, butterfly for vulva].2
As a consequence of the repression of the sexual (latency period), the objects which are equated with them in infancy undergo symbolic overemphasis [a kind of “return of the repressed”].