ABSTRACT

The meaning of this very widespread idiosyncrasy was brought to light in the analysis of neurotics. A patient, whose blood ran cold at the sight of potatoes being peeled, brought me the first hint of the significance: he unconsciously identified these vegetables with something human, so that for him the peeling of the potatoes meant a flaying or tearing off of the skin, as much active (sadistic) as passive (masochistic) in the sense of talion punishment. Supported by this experience, I must trace back the above-mentioned peculiarity to childhood impressions, during an early period of life in which an alive and human conception of the inanimate is customary. The shrill tone of scratching on glass seems to the child to be a cry of pain from ill usage, and linen utters—in his opinion—a scream of pain when it is torn in pieces. The touching of stuff with a rough surface, the stroking of silk, are also often accompanied by ‘shudders’, apparently because such stuffs, when stroked the wrong way by the hand, make a ‘disagreeable’ noise. Though roughness of surface is enough in itself to call forth a sympathetic roughness and soreness of one’s own skin, the striking of polished or yielding objects on the nerves of the skin themselves seems to have a soothing effect. The inclination to cultivate such idiosyncrasies is derived in most cases from an unconscious castration-phantasy. It is not impossible that such and similar motives are of significance in the æsthetic production of different stuffs and materials.