The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler, Volume 4 - Journal Articles: 1914-1920 by Adler Alfred

Author:Adler, Alfred [Adler, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Alfred Adler Institute of Northwestern Washington
Published: 2011-07-18T05:00:00+00:00

A 24 year-old female patient who suffered from headaches, sleeplessness and excessive rage, primarily directed at her mother, told of the following experience: One night while returning home she observed a scene in which a man berated a prostitute for having accosted him. Other men gently tried to calm him. At that moment the patient was overcome by an irresistible desire to intercede and to explain to the excited man the unreasonableness of his behavior. The analysis showed that she wanted to act like a man, to overcome her female role which demanded reserve, and like a man, be better composed.

That same day the patient was to audit the examination of female academic candidates. The examiner was educated, with a good sense of humor, but acting in line with a strong masculine protest. He poked fun at the female candidates and often dropped remarks about "geese." Our patient stood up in anger, left the hall, and was beset for the remainder of the day with thoughts about how to teach the professor a lesson when it was her turn to be examined. That night she was unable to fall sleep until the early morning hours. She then had the following dream:

"I was fully draped in veils when an old man approached me who thought them useless since one could see through them."

The old man resembled a well-known German pathologist who, as the patient pointed out, was a constant dream figure. In addition, he reminded her of other persons, in particular the strict but humorous, examining professor. She emphasized cleverness as a characteristic common to all of them. The expression "one could see through" the veils stemmed from her treatment.

"Fully draped in veils" indicates that she is thinking of the apparent contrast with Venus of Milo. The day before, she had spoken of Venus of Milo and had praised her as a work of art. As could easily have been predicted, further thoughts related to the covered form of the Medici goddess, and to the armless statue of Venus of Milo. A third thought-progression doubts the words of the old man and questions whether it would not be possible with a number of veils, such as a dancer's, to cover nakedness?

I don't need to explain that the dreamer tended to veil her gender. The positioning of Venus of Medici's hand and the absence of limbs in the statue of Venus of Milo clearly express my patient's previously long held wish: I am a woman and want to be a man.

The two experiences occurring while the patient was awake, her insomnia, and what occurred in the street scene, as well as her wish to act like a man by subduing the strict professor, and by duping me with veiling, is part of a continuum that contains her neurosis. In the dream, doubt silently creeps in as to whether the transformation will succeed. If that doubt is reduced to the childhood pathogenic situation, it must correspond to a primitive insecurity, to the prototype of an insecurity about her future gender role.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.