ABSTRACT
The wide field which is open to the science of psychoanalysis at the present time offers an abundance of instances of the rapid increase of psychological knowledge along the lines of purely inductive investigation. Perhaps the most remarkable and instructive of these is the development of the theory of the anal character. In 1908, about fifteen years after the appearance of his first contributions to the psychology of the neuroses, Freud published a short paper entitled ‘Character and Anal Erotism’. It occupied only three pages of a journal, and was a model of condensed statement and of cautious and clear summing up. The gradually increasing number of his co-workers, among whom may be mentioned Sadger, Ferenczi, and Jones, has helped to extend the range of ascertained knowledge. The theory concerning the products of the transformation of anal erotism gained unsuspected significance when in 1913, following on Jones’ important investigation on ‘Hate and Anal Erotism in the Obsessional Neurosis’, Freud formulated an early ‘pregenital’ organization of the libido. He considered that the symptoms of the obsessional neurosis were the result of a regression of libido to this stage of development, which is characterized by a preponderance of the anal and sadistic component instincts. This threw a new light both on the symptomatology of the obsessional neurosis and on the characterological peculiarities of the person suffering 371from it—on the so-called ‘obsessional character’. I might add, anticipating a future publication, that very similar anomalies of character are found in those people who tend to melancholic or manic states of mind. And the strictest possible study of the sadistic-anal character-traits is necessary before we can proceed to investigate those last mentioned diseases which are still so enigmatical to us. The present study is mainly concerned with the anal contributions to the formation of character. Jones’ 1 last great work on this subject presents an abundance of valuable material, but it does not exhaust it. For the work of a single person cannot do justice to the multiplicity and complexity of the phenomena; each analyst who possesses data of his own should publish them, and so help to contribute to the body of psycho-analytical knowledge. In the same way the purpose of the following remarks is to extend the theory of the anal character-traits in certain directions. Another problem of great theoretical importance will be very frequently alluded to in this study. Up to the present we understand only very incompletely the particular psychological connections that exist between the two impulses of sadism and anal erotism which we always mention in close association with each other, almost as a matter of habit. And I shall attempt the solution of this question in a later paper.
