ABSTRACT
Negative or latent homosexuality enters so universally into the repression that underlies neurotic disorders as to be practically synonymous with a neurosis. Positive or manifest homosexuality may exist quite apart from a neurosis. The homosexuality, being applied, attains completion in its object. Conscious life is determined by the organism's adaptation to the influences of its environment. The newborn infant, and even the infant of the first several months of its existence, is, under this definition, not a personality; indeed, from the psychological point of view, it is not yet even an individual. During these early months of the infant's exclusive relationship with the mother, organic associations begin to be formed which mark the beginning of the awakening of consciousness. Among the experiences which come to the infant before its differentiation, by far the chief, it will be agreed, is the act of suckling.
