The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler, Volume 5 - Journal Articles: 1921-1926 by Alfred Adler

Author:Alfred Adler [Adler, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Alfred Adler Institute of Northwestern Washington
Published: 2011-07-17T05:00:00+00:00

Haberda, see Casper-Limans handbook for forensic medicine

Maschka, handbook for forensic medicine

A. Moll, Eulenburg's Encyclopedia - Epaulard, vampirism, Lyon, A. Storck et. Co. 1902.

Chapter XXXIII

Sexual Neurasthenia1 2

[1926]

This article's title stems from Beard. The well-established definition for neurasthenia is found in Krafft-Ebing: "Irritable weakness in nerve functions associated with sexual activities." Other authors have failed to reach beyond that definition in their effort to define neurasthenia as a unique illness.

Little satisfactory guidance can be derived from traditional literature for the etiology of this complex of symptoms. The assumption of a neuropathic disposition sees it at least in a context with other psychological manifestations, admittedly not without shifting it into the darkness of what is regarded as general human degeneration. Even less convincing are pronouncements on masturbation, sexual excesses, abnormal sexual relations, coitus interruptus, sexual abstinence, advanced gonorrhea, and mood arousals. Treating these factors etiologically at least recognizes their significance as symptoms or side effects, since the person afflicted with "sexual neurasthenia," in a context of these indicators, already was neurotic.

The symptomenkomplex treating illnesses under this title are in men: weak erections, a failure to ejaculate, frequent nocturnal emissions, premature ejaculation, impotence, spermatorrhoea, excessively extended periods of erections, painful glands, painful urethra; in women: nocturnal and daytime emissions, frigidity, and vaginismus. For both sexes it is a compulsion for masturbation. Some authorities tend to consider all forms of perversion as sexual neurasthenia.

These symptoms, except when they appear only occasionally, start either soon or long after puberty and often persist for a long period of time. Under whatever the conditions and in spite of medications and hydropathic and endocrinological treatments, the affliction can be approached psychologically. To understand the various forms of affliction, it helps to examine them from a common perspective. From that perspective, in general, all sexual neuroasthenics have had a conspicuous lifestyle. It is apparent from that lifestyle that they seem ill-prepared for love. This same failing, if not always as obvious, can also be seen in their other relationships. People thus afflicted have stood out for their hypersensitivity since childhood. They are characteristically ambitious, vain, impatient, careful, and fearful. Characteristically, they are also critical, pessimistic, restrained, and isolated. Vacillating moods show their inability to maintain a happy and spirited disposition. Their zest for life which shows itself from time to time (termed "periodically" by authorities) is always forced and should be seen as compensating for a feeling of inferiority. Kretschmer's effort to divide such people into "pyknics" and "schidzoids" is inadequate since it ignores or considers too lightly the common base, the shared feeling of inferiority, and the nervous character stemming from it. Besides, it never matters what someone brings into life, but what he makes of it.

1 Originally published as "Sexualneurasthenie" in the Handb. norm. path. Physiol., Vol.

14, No. 1, Pages 895-899, 1926.

2 New translation by Gerald L. Liebenau, 2003.

In the case of these widely found people confidence in themselves is diminished. The resulting disposition and the consequences that follow cannot be attributed to anything physical, but must be seen psychologically.

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