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Samiksha Vol 10 No 3, 1956

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Samiksha Vol 10 No 3, 1956 THREE UNUSUAL SYMPTOMS CONNECTED WITH THE BREAST EDMUND BERGLER The vatiety of unconscious elaborations executed by the unconscious ege is inexhaustible. As a result, even the experienced psychoanalyst will from time to time encounter an entirely 'new' defense mechanism within the framework of the already known, already described. Most often, however, the 'new' mechanism proves to be no more than a specific, slightly modified, variety of the familiar. I. "Tits or Falsies ?" The bearer of the first symptom to be described was a man in his late thirties, a successful manufacturer dedicated to the proposition, "Tits or falsies ?" With unrelenting energy he scrutinized every woman he saw in order to determine whether he curves were genuine, artificially shaped, or enhanced by foam rubber. Since his special interest pertained to a tabooed topic, he could pursue his research only through ocular inspection of external evidence. Despite this limitation, he habitually communicated authoritative conclusions on this vital question to whatever people he happened to be with. Although men were generally amused, and women embarrassed by this routine, the only person who openly objected to it was his wife. -She hated his use of the slang word, and considered his 'preoccupation' to be at the very least 'tactless', if not 'morbid'. A seemingly unrelated conflict had brought him into analysis. He had attempted to force his wife to bring suit against her mother in order to adjust 'unfairnesses' in her father's will. Although there was some justification for his suspicion that all was not right in the wording of the paralyzed father's will, and in the subsequent distribution of the estate, he had not been able to convince his wife to take legal steps. She merely found his attitude infuriating, especially because she felt that he, a wealthy man, should never have EDMUND BERGLER [ SAMIKSA Vol. 10, No, 3 J THREE UNUSUAL SYMPTOMS CONNECTED attempted to "influence her in the legal department, even if that 113 meant the less of a few dollars". Clearly, he had gone too far in "Why do you specialize in breasts ?" his attacks on "the old hypocrite" and had misjudged his wife's "I don't. I specialize in false breasts." attachment to her allegedly hypocritical mother. As a result of this "What kind of business is this of yours ?" conflict, the wife "nearly insisted" on a divorce, while shifting the "I'm an unmasker of hypocrisy." whole problem to his "bosom tactlessness". In desperation, then, the "But didn't this very trait get you into a conflict with your husband consented to enter analysis. His purpose was only to wife when you raved against the "old hypocrite,'® as you tactfully appease, and keep, his 'raving' wife. called her mother ?" The comedy of quid-pro-quo permeated even their choice of This was news to the patient. He had never connected the two facts. Excitedly, he exclaimed : an analyst. The patient's wife chose me on the basis of a footnote in one of my books : it referred to a study I had published (in "But isn't it only natural to unmask hypocrisy ?" collaboration with a colleague) in 1933, entitled "The Breast Complex "For a reasonable purpose, yes. But you applied your dubious in the Male." Although the lady had no idea of the contents of precepts to situations which only got you into hot water. Correct me, please, if I'm wrong". this study (she had never read an analytic book, and she was indebted to a girl friend for her 'knowledge' of this footnete), she knew that • Instead of saying 'touche', the patient retired behind a sullen 'breast' was the cue, and that I must therefore be* the right man. silence. By the time of his next appointment, he had recovered his The analysis began with all portents negative. The patient composure. "I must hand it to you", he said with a laugh, "in your did not feel sick. He had no confidence in me ; I was merely his desperate attempt to justify your existence, at least with me, you wife's choice. Even he saw the irony in this factor at last, and found a topic of conversation." conceded that I was an entirely innocent bystander in this quarrel. "Thanks for nothing. I'm afraid the suggested topic is more Hesitantly, he hinted that he could pay his fee for a few months than a stopgap and time-filler. It is a dangerous trait for you." without keeping any appointments, and thus prepare an alibi of The 'trick' of connecting "disparate topics" had sufficiently having "completed an analysis" for presentation to his wife. When impressed the patient, however, and he was willing to discuss his this fantasy was disallowed, he decided to "stick it out," and advanced selfdamaging tendencies. His provocative masochistic • technique another proposition : "I hear you're writing a book on laughter ; proved to be quite extensive, pertaining to a number of fields. He that's fine, amuse me for my money !" Regretfully he listened as used an amusing counter-argument : I told him that analysis was neither a circus nor a cabaret, and that "According to you, I should change into a hypocrite myself, my book* was not a joke book but a scientific investigation into the and condone the hypocrisy of others by keeping silent /" psychology of wit. He then settled down to a "long siege of "Many men wear toupees, why don't you pick on them ?" doing nothing." I suggested that he had better use his time to "Who cares about those poor devils ?" analyze what his wife designated as his 'tactlessness'.. "Why are female wearers of breast falsies 'hypocrites' and male At this the patient demurred. In his opinion, only Puritans wearers of wigs 'poor devils' ? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." who "always think below the belt" could objcet to the harmless ocular inspection he directed at the region above the belt. I asked "O.K. You caught me in a contradiction." 1 him why he was so absorbed in the question of "tits or falsies". He "Explain the contradiction, please. ' replied that he hated hypocrisy in any form or fashion. "Why do you have to make me furious for my money ? Is that joke really true—the one that says the only place where the customer Laughter and the Sense of Humour. Giune & Stratton, New york 1956. is always wrong is at the psychiatrist's ?" "Let's talk sense, and dispense with imaginary grievances. I 114 EDMUND BERGLER f SAMIKSA Vol. 10, No. 3 ] TREE UNUSUAL SYMPTOMS CONNECTED 115 believe that your silly campaign of 'tits or falsies'—-even the choice As is usual with neurotic difficulties, the radius increased, and of the slang word for breasts is derogatory—is a cover-up for some the patient widened his attacks to include all types of hypocrisy.* important unconscious problem in you." There was of course unconscious direction in the attacks he made The analytically foreseeable proved to apply in this patient's on his mother-in-law—a woman. case ; breast engy coupled with the "complex of the small penis," The question, "tits or falsies", found a rather unheroic the latter derived from comparisons between his own miniature explanation in analysis ; it derived from the patient's undigested penis, as a child, and his mother's giant breast. As elaborated baby fears. How the sometimes sarcastic patient took this explanation on in my books, Fashion and the Unconscious and Neurotic can be imagined from the fact that he habitually put his question on Counterfeit-Sex* this discrapancy is both a source of self-deprecation a par with the generous stock of familiar quetations with which he and the starting point for a totally incorrect yardstick. These leavened his semi-literacy, and classed it with Hamlet's 'To be or two typical infantile fallacies have, unfortunately, farreaching not to be" and Melville's "Typee or Hapar ?" To increase the consequences. In the patient's case, they led to a frantic campaing irony of the situation, he did not really know what the "Typee to prove that woman's breast isn't so big in the first place. or Hapar ?" quotation from Nelville's Typee referred to, and was An amusing projection occurred ; instead of the little Johnny-come- rather shaken when told that the words were the names of two lately hypocritically enlarging on a small, imaginary breast-substitute, tribes inhabiting an island in the Marquesas, and that one tribe his miniature penis, and making it a one hundred per cent was cannibalistic, the other partially so. "These equivalent' to the mother's enormous breast, the exact opposite fears" was his grudging comment. view was installed—mother-substitutes were hypocritically enlarging, through artificial means, their own small breasts. • " -It'would have been logical to suspect that a man whose external II. The Perversion of Pain-pleasure in "Squeezing O actions were those of a breast fetishist, and specialized in large on Breast with Consecutive Wounds, Infections, breasts, would have a reasonable grievance when deprived of them. Nothing of the kind was actually the case. When confronted with A woman of thirty-five, an editor, entered analysis after a large breasts in bed, he would make derogatory remarks about, and dieappointment dealt her by an impostor. He promised marriage, even feel some revelsion at the sight of these "ugly udders". He swindled her out of some of her savings, proved to be "totally was interested only in exposing woman's "breast hypocrisy". unreliable'', and left her. This'incident', plus previous disappointments Needless to say, his sex life was by no means as 'normal' as with equally 'unreliable' men, made the woman realize that "there his description of it claimed ; he suffered from prematurity.
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