THE TOXIC AFFECT OF UNDISCHARGED LIBIDO

A.

      Case A – Patient was a thirty-seven-year-old married man suffering from extreme anxiety and incipient paranoia.
      He reported that one evening, after he had gone to bed, he suddenly began remembering the contents of certain perverse, bisexual phantasies which he had masturbated to many years before, an activity he had discontinued upon realizing how 'unhealthy' it was. He had successfully repressed any memory of these events until this very moment.
      Now that he was suddenly confronted again on a conscious level with these long-repressed masturbatory phantasies, he experienced an extraordinary phenomenon. He stated that the very first phantasy he allowed into conscious awareness from its unconscious hiding place caused a transformation in his penis from a state of total flaccidity to full erection and spontaneous orgasmic discharge, all within the space of five seconds or less. When queried about the extremely short time interval between complete penile flaccidity and spontaneous orgasmic discharge, patient answered that the time element may have been even shorter than five seconds, for to him it had seemed like an almost instantaneous happening.
      Greatly astonished by what had taken place, patient said he was able to repeat this phenomenon several more times during the same night, naturally with an increasingly longer time-lag between conscious awareness of a particular phantasy and the ultimate spontaneous orgasm. Patient further reported that he continued this practice nightly for several months until he had exhausted his store of long-repressed phantasies and until these phantasies had lost their power to stir up any more sexual excitement.
      Patient also stated that by the end of this period of phantasy abreaction his anxiety had completely disappeared, along with the incipient paranoia, and that his overall health, both physical and mental, had greatly improved. [ A J. Michael Mahoney Case History. ]

      The extreme importance of this case lies in the insight it sheds on the toxic affects of undischarged libido upon the organism. The fact that the patient's penis could be transformed from its flaccid state to full erection and orgasmic discharge in a matter of seconds vividly illustrates the enormity of the force which can be built up by the sexual impulse when it has been denied access to normal orgasmic discharge through the process of repression. Furthermore, it is precisely this undischarged homosexual libido which provides the energy which fuels the myriad symptoms of mental illness, among the most serious of which are delusions and hallucinations. (It was Dr. Maurits Katan who first made this observation in one of his papers dealing with schizophrenia.)
      In this particular case, it is very clear that the patient's incipient paranoia was directly attributable to the toxic affect of his undischarged homosexual libido, and that if he had been unable to discharge it in the manner in which he did, he soon would have developed a full-fledged case of paranoid schizophrenia, replete with all its classic, malignant features.

[ Quotation / Comment # 528 in "Schizophrenia - The Bearded Lady Disease", by J. Michael Mahoney. ]

[ Addendum. ] We must recognize that the sexual affections are still the greatest constructive forces of the personality if properly conditioned and adjusted, but also that they may become the most insidiously, irresistibly destructive if perverted or unconditionally repressed. This statement is based upon the study of more than two thousand psychopathic and criminal personalities of many nationalities and intellectual levels.

[ Edward J. Kempf, M.D., "Psychopathology", C.V. Mosby Co., St. Louis, Missouri, 1920, p. 749. NOTE: See also Quotation / Comment # 262 in "Schizophrenia: The Bearded Lady Disease", on this website. ]

B.

      His [Schreber's] excitement, which had its origin in the non-psychotic part of the personality, took a different course from that in the pre-psychotic period prior to the psychosis. In the pre-psychotic period the excitement led to genital emissions; a few weeks later, in the psychosis, before a situation leading to excitement could arise, the energy of the homosexual urge was withdrawn and then used to form the hallucination. Thus the hallucination is formed in anticipation of a danger. The energy of the homosexual urge evaporates in forming the hallucination. The hallucination is therefore a discharge phenomenon which serves to prevent the development of danger. Of course, when the homosexual urge acquires energy again, then the danger returns.
      ..... Through the hallucination the energy of the dangerous urge which would destroy contact with reality is discharged, and this fact leads to the conclusion that the hallucination serves to maintain contact with reality in the non-psychotic layer. This goal of maintaining contact with reality can be achieved only by abandoning it for a short while through the formation of a psychotic symptom (the hallucination). It is like avoiding a major evil by accepting a minor one. (Ibid., p. 126)

     When the schizophrenic's bisexual conflict becomes overwhelming, the repressed homosexual excitement discharges itself through the medium of the psychotic hallucination rather than through the medium of genital orgasm, as would be the case under normal circumstances where there was no repression of the homosexual lust by the ego. Thus the psychotic hallucination is actually a "hysterical conversion" mechanism utilized by the organism for the discharge of sexual tension which has been blocked by repression from its normal route of genital orgasmic discharge.

[ Quotation / Comment # 503 in "Schizophrenia - The Bearded Lady Disease", by J. Michael Mahoney ]

C.

      A transition between these endogenous increases of excitation and the psychical affects in the narrower sense is provided by sexual excitation and sexual affect. Sexuality at puberty appears in the first of these forms, as a vague, indeterminate, purposeless heightening of excitation. As development proceeds, this endogenous heightening of excitation, determined by the functioning of the sex-glands, becomes firmly linked (in the normal course of things) with the perception or idea of the other sex---and, indeed, with the idea of a particular individual, where the remarkable phenomenon of falling in love occurs. This idea takes over the whole quantity of excitation liberated by the sexual instinct. It becomes an 'affective idea'; that is to say, when it is actively present in consciousness it sets going the increase of excitation which in point of fact originated from another source, namely the sex-glands.
      The sexual instinct is undoubtedly the most powerful source of persisting increases of excitation (and consequently of neuroses). Such increases are distributed very unevenly over the nervous system. When they reach a considerable degree of intensity the train of ideas becomes disturbed and the relative value of the ideas is changed; and in orgasm 1. thought is almost completely extinguished. 1. [ 'Orgasmus' in the first and second editions. In later editions this is misprinted "Organismus". ]
      Perception too---the psychical interpretation of sense-impressions---is impaired. An animal which is normally timid and cautious becomes blind and deaf to danger. On the other hand, at least in males, there is an intensification of the aggressive instinct. Peaceable animals become dangerous until their excitation has been discharged in the motor activities of the sexual act.

[ Dr. Josef Breuer, in the "The Complete Psychological Works of SIGMUND FREUD". Volume II (1893-95). "Studies on Hysteria". Drs. Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, pp. 200-01. ]