Some enuretic derivatives in an adult analysis

The paper traces the effects of early overstimulation--leading as it does to precocious erotization and rage. Together, these combine in a manic defence by denying deadness in inner psychic reality. The rage being such as the ego cannot cope with, reappears in the recurrent fugitive dream. The paper shows how the patient is most threatened in his dreams where he repeatedly protects himself from death by castration; where death means death of inner psychic reality. In life his rage is never overt but is principally mocking, putting the other in the open while he remains protected from risks. In the same way just as the patient is most threatened in sleep, so he is likewise threatened by the change of mind at the prospect of sexual arousal. The adoption of a fetish affords protection, as it serves to negate total psychic inner deadness. The fetish itself is a sort of screen against loss and grief where these affects have been previously sexualized. Likewise the earlier adoption of the phobia of spilling liquids brought the enuretic event under ego-control by making the risks more conscious and therefore more available to act as a screen against loss and grief.