Hans' Freud Questions

1. The Sexual Aberrations

pg 35: Why does Freud wait until he splits the sexual instinct into ‘component instincts’ before defining the concept, qualities, and problems of the human sexual instinct?

2. Infantile Sexuality

pg 52: On page 52 Freud describes the ‘gift’ of fecal matter as a form of surrendering the masturbatory stimulus in order to achieve compliance with care givers. Are “surrender” and “compliance” universal qualities inherent in the act of giving? Second question: How does one determine the difference between fecal matter retained in order to achieve a masturbatory stimulus and fecal matter as a ‘gift’? By the size of the present?

3. Puberty

pg 88: “There are thus good reasons why a child sucking at his mother’s breast has become the prototype of every relation of love. The finding of an object is in fact a refinding of it.” Does the breast as an originating object turn us all into nostalgic creatures, continually working to recapture the past? Can nostalgia manifest itself through an unconscious act of “refinding”?

4. Fetishism

Can we trace Freud’s concept of “denial” as a universal agent operating throughout the various definitions of the fetish and fetishism that fall outside the realm of psychoanalysis?