ABSTRACT
The extract is quoted not merely for the sake of this qualifying problem, but also for the fact that the hair interest shows considerable reference to anal matters. The general term ‘worry’ as used in these text-books could be more explicitly defined in the terms of the conflict revealed in such a case as this. It seems that the unconscious conflict is whether to be all penis-faeces and no ego, or all ego and no penis-faeces, while the actual physical manifestation is a compromise between hair and no hair in the form of patches of alopecia. As psychoanalysis reveals deeper and deeper levels of the unconscious mind it discovers mental mechanisms and laws which are so different from those of consciousness that persons acquainted only with the latter refuse to believe in these discoveries. The man who feels sufficiently castrated in his unconscious begins to lose his hair.
