It would be of interest to the Freudians if the author (page 136) had given a specific instance where they say they use the words 'sex' and 'sexual' in a different sense from that which centuries of usage has attached to them. If the author is unable to do this then such a statement is the last thing one would have expected from a man of his standing and attainments. As a matter of fact the Freudians have always used the words 'sex' and 'sexual' in the sense that centuries of usage has attached to them, but on the other hand they have also enlarged the concept, and include the lesser in the greater. D. B.
K. M. Bowman. Analysis of a. Case of War Neurosis. Psychoanalytic Review, 1920, Vol. VII, p. 317.
This is a detailed report of an analytic study of a case seen at Maghull, England, in 1918, which he cured by psychotherapy. The author insists on the connection between the present condition of such patients and the experiences of their early life which went to determine their character. Those working at such subjects should certainly read the article in the original. E. J.
Mary K. Isham. A Case of Mixed Neurosis with some Paraphrenic Features. Medical Record, June 12, 1920.
The paper contains some abstracts from the analysis of the case of a Russian Jew, 30, violinist and composer, who lived apart from his wife because he was afraid he might injure his only child, a baby boy aged fifteen months. He could not bear to hear it cry, yet he was worried when it was quiet and he would pinch and poke it to see if it would cry.
He used to meet his wife periodically and, although she was usually fairly punctual, he was constantly asking during the analysis 'Why does my wife come late?' The solution of this problem lay in the sexual meaning of the word 'come', for the patient was the subject of ejaculatio praecox and adjustment of the sexual life relieved him of his worry about his wife's punctuality.
He feared that masturbation in early life had rendered him impotent and it was because his son symbolized his own (castrated) phallus that he stimulated him to cry, thus satisfying himself that the child was not deficient, otherwise that he himself was not impotent.
