9. PLEASURE, ANXIETY, ANGER, AND THE MUSCULAR ARMOR
In character-analytic practice, we discover the armor functioning in the form of a chronic, frozen, muscular-like bearing. First and foremost, the identity of these various functions stands out; they can be comprehended on the basis of one principle only, namely of the armoring of the periphery of the biopsychic system.
Sex-economy approaches these problems from the point of view of the psychic function of the armor and, in this respect, it has something to say. It proceeds from the practical demand of restoring the patient's freedom of vegetative movement.
In addition to the two primary affects, sexuality and anxiety, we have a third affect, anger or, more accurately, hate. As in the first two affects, here too we must assume that, in expressions such as "boiling with anger" and "consuming anger" to describe anger which is not discharged, the vernacular reflects an actual biophysiological process. It is our opinion that the full scale of affects can be comprehended on the basis of these three basic affects. All more complicated affect impulses can be deduced from these three. However, it will have to be proven whether and to what extent the anger affect can be deduced from the vicissitudes of the first two affect impulses.
We found that sexual excitation and anxiety can be comprehended as two antithetical directions of current. How is the function of hate related to the two primary affects?
Let us proceed from the clinical study of the character armor. This concept was created to offer a dynamic and economic comprehension of the character's basic function. According to the sex-economic view, the ego assumes a definite form in the conflict between instinct (essentially libidinal need) and fear of punishment. To carry out the instinctual inhibition demanded by the modern world and to be able to cope with the energy stasis which results from this inhibition, the ego has to undergo a change. The process we have in mind, though we are talking about it in absolute terms, is definitely of a causal nature. The ego, i.e., that part of the person that is exposed to danger, becomes rigid, as we say, when it is continually subjected to the same or similar conflicts between need and a fear-inducing outer world. It acquires in this process a chronic, automatically functioning mode of reaction, i.e., its "character." It is as if the affective personality armored itself, as if the hard shell it develops were in tended to deflect and weaken the blows of the outer world as well as the clamoring of the inner needs. This armoring makes the person less sensitive to unpleasure but also restricts his libidinal and aggressive motility and thus reduces his capacity for achievement and pleasure. We say the ego has become less flexible and more rigid; and that the ability to regulate the energy economy depends upon the extent of the armoring. We regard orgastic potency as a measure of this ability, since it is a direct expression of vegetative motility. The character armoring requires energy, for it is sustained by continual consumption of libidinal or vegetative forces, which otherwise (under the condition of their motor inhibition) would produce anxiety. This is how the character armor fulfills its function of absorbing and consuming vegetative energy.
When the character armor is broken down through character analysis, bound aggression regularly rises to the surface first. But is the oft-mentioned binding of aggression or anxiety concretely represented?
If, further along in the character analysis, we succeed in freeing the aggression bound in the armor, the result is that anxiety becomes free. Anxiety, then, can be "transformed" into aggression and aggression into anxiety. Is the relation between anxiety and aggression analogous to that between anxiety and sexual excitation? It is not easy to answer this question.
To begin with, our clinical investigations reveal a number of peculiar facts. The inhibition of aggression and psychic armor go hand in hand with increased tonus; sometimes there is even a rigidity of the musculature of the extremities and the trunk. Affect-blocked patients lie on the couch as stiff as boards, wholly rigid and immobile. It is not easy to bring about a change in this kind of muscle tension. If the analyst tries to persuade the patient to relax, the muscle tension is replaced by restlessness. In other cases, we observe that patients make various involuntary movements, the inhibition of which immediately engenders feelings of anxiety. On the basis of these observations, Ferenczi was inspired to develop his "active technique of interference." He recognized that the hindering of the chronic muscular reactions increases the stasis. We agree with this, but we feel that there is more to be inferred from these observations than quantitative changes in excitation. It is a matter of a functional identity between character armor and muscular hypertonia or muscular rigidity. Every increase of muscular tonus and rigidification is an indication that a vegetative excitation, anxiety, or sexual sensation has been blocked and bound. When genital sensations arise, some patients succeed in eliminating or weakening them through motor restlessness. The same holds true in the absorption of feelings of anxiety. In this connection, we are reminded of the great importance motor restlessness has in childhood as a means of discharging energy.
It is often observed that there is a difference in the state of muscular tension before and after a severe repression has been resolved. Usually, when patients are in a state of resistance, i.e., when an idea or an instinctual impulse is barred from consciousness, they sense a tension in the scalp, the upper thighs, the musculature of the buttocks, etc. If they succeed in overcoming this resistance on their own or it is resolved by the analyst through correct interpretation, they feel suddenly relieved. In such a situation a female patient once said: "It is as if I had experienced sexual gratification."
We know that every remembrance of the content of a repressed idea also brings about psychic relief. However, this alleviation does not constitute a cure, as the uninitiated believe. How does this alleviation come about? We have always contended that it is brought about by a discharge of previously bound psychic energy. Let us disregard the alleviation and the feeling of gratification which are connected with every new realization. Psychic tension and alleviation cannot be without a somatic representation, for tension and relaxation are biophysical conditions. Until now, apparently, we have merely carried over these concepts into the psychic sphere. Now it has to be proven that we were right in doing this. But it would be wrong to speak of the "transfer" of physiological concepts to the psychic sphere, for what we have in mind is not an analogy but a real identity: the unity of psychic and somatic function.
Every neurotic is muscularly dystonic, and every cure is directly manifested in a "relaxation" or improvement of the tonus of the musculature. This process can be observed best in the compulsive character. His muscular rigidity is expressed in awkwardness; unrhythmical movements, particularly in the sexual act, lack of mimetic movement, a typically taut facial musculature which often gives him a slightly mask-like expression. Also common to this character type is a wrinkle stretching from above the side of the nose to the corner of the mouth, as well as a certain rigidity in the expression of the eyes, caused by the rigidity of the eyelid musculature. The musculature of the buttocks is almost always tense. The typical compulsive character develops a general muscular rigidity; in other patients this rigidity is paired with a flabbiness (hypotonus) of other muscle areas, which does not, however, reflect relaxation. This is frequently seen in passive-feminine characters. And then, of course, there is the rigidity in catatonic stupor which accompanies complete psychic armoring. This is ordinarily explained as disturbances of extrapyramidal innervations. We have no doubt that the related nerve tracts are always involved in changes of muscular tonus. In this innervation, however, we again perceive only a general disturbance of function which is expressed through it. It is naive to believe that something has been explained when the innervation or its path has been ascertained.
The psychic rigidity of post-encephalitics is not the "expression" of muscular rigidity, nor does it result from it. Muscular rigidity and psychic rigidity are a unit, the sign of a disturbance of the vegetative motility of the biological system as a whole. And it is an open question whether the disturbance of the extrapyramidal innervation is not itself a result of something, effective at a primary level, which has already damaged the vegetative apparatus itself, not just the affected organs. Mechanistic neurology, for example, explains a spasm of the anal sphincter on the basis of the continual excitation of the nerves belonging to it. The difference between the mechanistic-anatomical and the functional view can be easily demonstrated here: sex-economy conceives of the nerves only as the transmitters of general vegetative excitation.
The spasm of the anal sphincter, which is the cause of a number of very severe intestinal disturbances, is brought about by a fear of defecation acquired in childhood. It constitutes a block. Explaining it on the basis of the pleasure derived from holding back one's bowel movements does not appear to get to the core of the matter. Berta Bornstein describes the holding back of evacuation in a one-and-a-half-year-old child. For fear of soiling the crib, the child was in a continual state of spasm and was able to sleep at night only in a crumpled-up sitting position with clenched hands. The muscular pushing back and holding back of feces is the prototype for repression in general and is its initial step in the anal zone. In the oral zone, repression is manifested as a tightening of the musculature of the mouth and a spasm in the musculature of the larynx, throat, and breast; in the genital zone, it is manifested as a continual tension in the pelvic musculature.
The freeing of vegetative excitation from its fixation in the tensions of the musculature of the head, throat, jaws, larynx, etc., is one of the indispensable presuppositions for the elimination of oral fixations in general. According to our experiences in character analysis, neither the remembrance of oral experiences and desires nor the discussion of genital anxiety can have the same therapeutic value. Without it, the patient remembers but he does not experience the excitations. These are usually very well concealed. They escape notice by concealing themselves in conspicuous modes of behavior which appear to be part of the person's natural makeup.
The most important secrets of pathological displacements and the binding of vegetative energy are usually contained in phenomena such as the following: a toneless, languid, or high-pitched voice; speaking with a tight upper lip; a mask-like or immobile facial expression; even slight suggestions of a so-called baby face; an inconspicuous wrinkle of the forehead; drooping eyelids; tensions in the scalp; a concealed, undetected hypersensitivity in the larynx; a hurried, abrupt, constrained manner of speech; faulty respiration; noises or movements in the act of speaking which appear to be merely incidental; a certain way of banging one's head, of shaking it, of lowering it when looking, etc. Nor is it difficult to persuade oneself that the anxiety of genital contact does not appear so long as these symptoms in the regions of the head and neck have not been uncovered and eliminated. Genital anxiety in particular is, in most cases, displaced toward the upper part of the body and bound in the contracted musculature of the neck. A fear of a genital operation in a young girl was expressed in the way she held her head while lying on the couch. After she had been made aware of this peculiar way of holding her head, she herself said: "I am lying here as if my head were nailed to the couch." As a matter of fact, she did give the appearance of being held down by the hair by an invisible force and was not able to move.
It will be asked, and justifiably, whether these concepts do not contradict another assumption. The increased tonus of the musculature is of course a parasympathetic-sexual function; the decreased tonus and paralysis of the musculature, on the other hand, are a sympathetic-anxious function. How does this tie in with the fact that an apprehensive holding back of feces or a speech inhibition in a child go hand in hand with a muscular contraction? In going over the theory relating to these facts, I had to ask myself this question and, for a long time, was not able to find an explanation. However, as always happens when such difficulties crop up in the investigation of various relations, it was precisely its puzzling aspect that led to a deepening of the insight.
First of all, i t had to be understood that the process of muscular tension in sexual excitation could not be the same as the process of muscular tension in anxiety. In expectation of danger, the musculature is tense, as if ready for action. Visualize a deer on the verge of taking flight. In a state of fright, the musculature is suddenly depleted of excitation ("paralyzed with fright"). The fact that, in the case of fright, an involuntary evacuation can take place as a result of the sudden relaxation of the anal sphincter also fits in with our concept of the relation between anxiety and the sympathetic function. In this way, a sympathetic, fear-induced diarrhea in the case of fright can be distinguished from a parasympathetic diarrhea produced by pleasure in the case of sexual excitation. The former is based on the paralysis of the sphincter (sympathetic function); the latter on increased peristalsis of the intestinal musculature (parasympathetic function). In sexual excitation, the musculature is contracted, i.e., prepared for motor action, for further contraction and relaxation. In an expectation fraught with anxiety, on the other hand, the musculature is gripped in a continual tension until it is released by some form of motor activity. Then, either it gives way to paralysis if the fright reaction takes place, or i t is replaced by a reaction of motor flight. The musculature can, however, remain tense, i.e., not resolve itself in either of the two forms. In this event, that condition sets in which, in contrast to fright paralysis, can be designated as fright rigidity ("scared stiff") . Observation shows that, in fright paralysis, musculature becomes flaccid, is exhausted by excitement; the vasomotor system, on the other hand, reaches a state of full excitation: acute palpitations, profuse perspiration, pallidness. In the case of fright rigidity, the peripheral musculature is rigid, the sensation of anxiety is missing or is only partially developed; one is "apparently calm." In reality, one cannot move and is as incapable of physical flight as of vegetative escape into the self.
What is the lesson of these facts? Muscular rigidity can take the place of the vegetative anxiety reaction. To express it another way, the same excitation which, in the fright paralysis, takes flight inwardly uses, in the case of fright rigidity, the musculature to form a peripheral armoring of the organism. 14
14 The theory of evolution will have to decide whether the biological armoring of the turtle, for example, is developed in the same way.
It can be observed that a person operated upon under local anesthesia displays the same muscular rigidity. If voluntary efforts are made to relax, anxiety is immediately intensified in the form of palpitations and perspiration. Thus, the muscular tension that is present and is not resolved in a motor discharge consumes excitation which would otherwise appear as anxiety; in that way the anxiety is avoided. In this process we recognize the prototype of the binding of anxiety through aggression which, when it too is inhibited, leads to an affect-block. This binding of anxiety is very familiar to us from neurotic formations.
These clinical findings are of great importance for the theory of affects. Now we have a better comprehension of the interrelation of:
1. Character block or armor and muscular rigidity
2. Loosening of the muscular rigidity and the liberation of anxiety
3. Binding of anxiety and the establishment of muscular rigidity
4. Muscular tension and libidinal inhibition
5. Libidinal relaxation and muscular relaxation
Before we formulate a theoretical conclusion on the basis of these findings. let us cite further clinical facts that pertain to the relation between muscle tonus and sexual tension. When, in the course of character analysis, the muscular tension begins to give way because of the loosening of the character encrustation, then --as we have pointed out-what comes to the surface is anxiety and/or aggression, or libidinal impulse. We conceive of the libidinal impulse as a flowing of excitation and body fluids toward the periphery, and we conceive of anxiety as a flowing of excitation and body fluids toward the center. The aggressive excitation also corresponds to an excitation directed toward the periphery, but one relating solely to the musculature of the extremities. If the excitation flowing in all three directions can be liberated from the muscular rigidity, from the increased chronic muscular tonus, then we must conclude that chronic muscular· hypertonicity represents an inhibition of the flow of every form of excitation (pleasure, anxiety, rage) or at least a significant reduction of vegetative streaming. It is as if the inhibition of the life functions (libido, anxiety, aggression) was brought about by the formation of a muscular armor around a person's biological core. If the formation of the character has such a close relation to the tonus of the musculature, we can assume that there is a functional identity between neurotic character and muscular dystonus. We will cite additional findings which confirm this assumption; we will also cite findings that might perhaps limit the validity of the functional identity of character armor and muscular armor.
From a purely phenomenological standpoint, it is clear that attractiveness, i.e., sexual appeal, can be chiefly described by the relaxed quality of a person's musculature which accompanies flowing psychic agility. The rhythmicity of one's movements, the alternation of muscular tension and relaxation in movement, go together with the capacity for linguistic modulation and general musicality. In such people, one also has the feeling of direct psychic contact. The sweetness of children who have not been subject to any severe repressions, particularly in the anal zone, has the same basis. On the other hand, people who are physically stiff, awkward, without rhythm, gives us the feeling that they are also psychically stiff, wooden, immobile. They speak in a monotone and they are seldom musical. Many of them never "loosen up"; others are induced "to let go a bit" only under conditions of intimate friendship. In this event, the trained observer can immediately ascertain a change in the tonus of the musculature. Psychic and somatic rigidity, then, are not analogous manifestations; they are functionally identical. Men and women of this kind give us the impression of being deficient in eroticism as well as anxiety. Depending upon the depth of such armoring, the rigidity can go together with more or less strong inner excitation.
In observing melancholic or depressive patients, one finds that they betray a stiffness in their speech and facial expressions, as if every movement were possible only through the overcoming of a resistance. In manic patients, on the other hand, all impulses appear to flood the entire personality precipitately. In catatonic stupor, psychic and muscular rigidity coincide completely; for this reason, the dissolution of this condition restores psychic and muscular mobility.
From this vantage point, it is also possible to pave the way to an understanding of laughter (the "joyous" facial expression) and sorrow (the depressive facial expression) . In laughter, the facial musculature contracts; in depression, it becomes flaccid. This is entirely in keeping with the fact that muscular contraction (clonus of the diaphragm in the case of laughter, "belly-shaking laugh") is parasympathetic and libidinal, while muscular flaccidity is sympathetic and anti-libidinal.
In the so-called genital character(15) who does not suffer from any stasis of excitation or chronic inhibition of excitation, the question arises whether he does not or cannot develop a muscular armor. This would be an argument against my thesis that, fundamentally, the character armor is functionally identical with muscular armor. For the genital character, too, has developed a "character." The investigation of such character types shows that they, too, can develop an armor, that they. too, have the ability to immure themselves against unpleasure and to spare themselves anxiety through an encrustation of the periphery. When this is the case, however, there is a greater a austerity in bearing and facial expression. Under such conditions, sexual excitation and the capacity for sexual pleasure are negatively affected, but not necessarily the capacity for work. However, work which is usually performed effortlessly and with a feeling of pleasure is replaced by a mechanical, pleasureless performance. Therefore, a gratifying sexual life provides the best structural basis for productive achievement. The difference between the armor of the neurotic character and the armor of the genital character lies in the fact that, in the former, muscular rigidity is chronic and automatic, whereas in the latter it can be used or dispensed with at will. (16)
-------------------------
15 Cf. ''The Genital Character and the Neurotic Character." in Part II of the present volume.
16 From the point of view of sex·economy, it is not so important that biopsychic energv is bound; what is important is the form in which this binding takes place, whether or not it limits the availability of the energy. It cannot be the goal of mental hygiene to obstruct the character's ability to develop armor; its goal is merely to guarantee free motility and the greatest possible disposal of vegetative energy, i.e., to guarantee the flexibility of the armor. This task cannot be reconciled with existing educational and moralistic institutions.
The following example will illustrate the functional relationship between a character attitude and muscular tension and vegetative excitation. The character analysis of a patient was marked by a superficiality of communication; the patient himself felt it to be "mere chatter," even when he was discussing the most serious matters. This superficiality, it soon became clear, had become the central character resistance. What better means of destroying every affective impulse! To begin with, the analysis revealed that the "chatter" and "superficiality" represented an identification with his stepmother, who had the same character traits. This identification with the mother figure contained the passive-feminine attitude to the father; and the chattering was an attempt to win the homosexual object, to amuse it, to dispose it favorably, to "pet" it as one would a dangerous lion. But it also functioned as a substitute contact, for, while identifying with the mother figure, the patient had no relationship whatever to his father. He felt estranged from him, a fact which did not come out until late in the analysis. The repression of a strong aggression toward the father lay at the root of and sustained this estrangement. Hence, chattering was also the expression of passive-feminine wooing (vegetative function), the warding off of aggressive tendencies (armor function), and a compensation for the contactlessness. The psychic content of the superficiality could be formulated somewhat as follows: "I want and have to win my father over to my side, I have to please him and amuse him; but I don't at all like having to do this; I don't care a hoot about him--I hate him, deep down. I have no relationship to him at all, but I can't let this come out." In addition to these psychic attitudes, the patient's awkwardness and muscular rigidity were immediately obvious. He lay there in a way very familiar to the character analyst: stiff as a board, rigid and immobile. It was clear that every analytic effort would be hopeless until this muscular armor had been loosened. Though he gave the impression of being afraid, the patient said he was not aware of having any anxieties. In addition to the above traits, he exhibited severe states of depersonalization, and he had a lifeless feeling about himself. His highly interesting childhood experiences were not important as such or in their relation to his neurotic symptoms; at this point, solely their relationship to this armor interested us. It was a question of breaking through this armor, of extracting from it the childhood experiences as well as the moribund vegetative excitations.
To begin with, the superficiality turned out to be a "fear of depth," specifically a fear of falling. In this connection, the patient produced convincing reports that the fear of falling had indeed dominated his life. He was afraid of drowning, of falling into a mountain gorge, of falling overboard from the deck of a ship; he was afraid of riding on a toboggan, etc. It soon became clear that these anxieties were connected with and rooted in an avoidance of the typical sensations experienced in the region of the diaphragm while swinging and descending in the elevator. In my book Die Funktion des Orgasmus I was able to demonstrate that, in some instances, the fear of orgastic excitation is concretely experienced as a fear of falling. It will not surprise us, therefore, that the patient suffered precisely from a severe orgastic disturbance of this kind. In short, the superficiality was more than a passive attitude or an "inborn" character trait; it had a very definite function in the patient's psychic operations. It was an active attitude, a warding off of the "fear of depth" and the sensations of vegetative excitation. There had to be a connection between these two warded-off conditions. I reflected that the fear of falling had to be identical with the fear of vegetative excitation. But how?
The patient remembered that, when as a child he was on a swing, he immediately made himself stiff, i.e., cramped his muscles as soon as he sensed the diaphragmatic sensations. His muscular habitus, characterized by awkwardness and a lack of coordination, stemmed from this period. It will be of interest to the musicologist that he appeared to have no ear for music whatever. But this lack of musicality could also be traced back to other childhood experiences. In connection with the history of his contactlessness and his muscular armor, the analysis produced proof that this defect also served to ward off vegetative excitation. He remembered that his mother was in the habit of singing sentimental songs to him which tremendously excited him, put him in a state of tension, caused him to be restless. When the libidinal relationship to his mother was repressed because of disappointment in her, musicality also fell victim to repression. This was the case not only because the relationship to the mother was essentially sustained by musical experiences but also because he could not endure the vegetative excitations aroused by her singing. And this was related to excitation which he experienced in childhood masturbation and which had led to the development of acute anxiety.
In their dreams, patients often represent their resistance to uncovering unconscious material as a fear of going into a cellar or of falling into a pit. We know that this resistance and its representation in the dream are connected, but we do not as yet understand it. Why should the unconscious be associated with depth, and fear of the unconscious wi th the fear of falling? This puzzling situation was solved in the following way: the unconscious is the reservoir of repressed vegetative excitations, i.e., excitations not allowed to discharge and flow freely. These excitations are experienced in one of two forms:
(1) sexual excitement and feelings of gratification, as in the case of healthy men and women; or (2) feelings of anxiety and constriction, growing more and more unpleasant, in the region of the solar plexus in the case of people who suffer from disturbances of vegetative motility. They are similar to the sensations in the region of the heart and diaphragm and in the musculature which are experienced in fright or during a rapid descent. Also to be mentioned in this connection are the sensations experienced in the region of the genitalia when one is standing on the edge of a steep precipice looking down. In this situation, a feeling of genital contraction usually accompanies the idea of falling. The fact is that, at the mere thought of danger, the organism acts as if the dangerous situation were real and withdraws into itself. In the case of fright, as I explained earlier, energy cathexes in the form of body fluids flow toward the center of the organism and thus create a stasis in the region of the genitalia and the diaphragm. In the case of falling, furthermore, this physiological process is an automatic reaction on the part of the organism. Hence, the idea of depth and the idea of falling must be functionally identical with the sensation of central excitation in the organism. This also enables us to understand the otherwise incomprehensible fact that swinging, rapid descents, etc., are experienced by so many people with a mixture of anxiety and pleasure. According to sex-economic theory, (17) anxiety and pleasure are twins, sprung from one stem and later opposed to one another. To return to our patient: it is objectively justified to describe his fear of the unconscious as being identical with his fear of depth. From the point of view of sex-economy, therefore, we see that our patient's superficiality was an active character attitude for the avoidance of vegetative excitations of both anxiety and pleasure.
17 Cf. Reich: "Der Urgegensatz des vegetativen Lebens." Zeitschrift fiir Politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie, 1934.
The affect-block also falls into this category. The relation between muscular rigidity on the one hand and character superficiality and contactlessness on the other still remains to be explained. It can be said that, physiologically, the muscular armor fulfills the same function that contactlessness and superficiality fulfill psychically. Sex-economy does not conceive of the primal relation between the physiological and the psychic apparatus as one of mutual dependency but as one of functional identity with simultaneous antithesis, i.e., it conceives of the relation dialectically. Hence, the further question arises whether muscular rigidity is not functionally identical with character armor, contactlessness, affect-block, etc. The antithetical relationship is clear: the physiological behavior determines the psychic behavior, and vice versa. The fact that the two mutually influence one another, however, is far less important for the comprehension of the psychophysical relation than everything which supports the view of their functional identity.
I want to cite one more clinical example which shows unmistakably how the vegetative energy can be precisely liberated from the psychic and muscular armor.
This patient was characterized by his intense phallic-narcissistic warding off of passive-homosexual impulses. This central psychic conflict was revealed in his external appearance: he had a gaunt leathery body, and his character was aggressive in a compensatory way. Great analytic effort was required to make him aware of this conflict, for he put up strong resistance to the recognition and breakthrough of the anal-homosexual impulses. When the breakthrough finally occurred, the patient suffered, to my surprise, a vegetative shock. One day he came to the analysis with a stiff neck, severe headache, dilated pupils, his skin alternating between mottled redness and pallor, and severe oppression. The pressure in his head subsided when he moved it and grew worse when he held it still. Severe nausea and feelings of giddiness completed the picture of sympatheticotonia. The patient recovered quickly. The incident was a glaring confirmation of the validity of my views on the relation between character, sexual stasis, and vegetative excitation. It seems to me that these findings also provide an insight into the problem of schizophrenia, for it is precisely in psychoses that the functional relations between the vegetative and the characterological components are so typical and so conspicuous. And there is good reason to believe that the new perspective which we have outlined here will one day provide a consistent and satisfactory explanation of these relations. What is new here is not the knowledge that psychic apparatus and vegetative system are related to one another, or that they have a mutual functional relation. What is:
1. The basic function of the psyche is of a sex-economic nature.
2. Sexual excitation and sensations of anxiety are identical and antithetical at one and the same time (i.e., they derive from the same source of the biopsychic organism but flow in opposing directions) and they represent the irreducible basic antithesis of vegetative functioning.
3. The formation of the character is the result of a binding of vegetative energy.
4. Character armor and muscular armor are functionally identical.
5. Vegetative energy can be liberated, i.e., reactivated from the character armor and muscular armor with the help of a definite technique and, at present, only with this technique.
I should like to make it quite clear that this theory which we have developed on the basis of the clinical data derived from character analysis represents merely an initial step toward a comprehensive presentation of the functional psychophysical relations, that the still unsolved problems are incomparably more complicated, extensive, and difficult than what we have thus far achieved in the way of a solution. However, I feel that I have definitely succeeded in arriving at some fundamental formulations concerning the whole complex of problems that may very well serve to advance our knowledge of the psychophysical relations. I feel that my attempt to apply the functional method of investigation has been successful and is justified by the results. This method is diametrically opposed to the metaphysical-idealistic or mechanistic-causal-materialistic methods applied in the attempt to arrive at an applicable knowledge of psychophysical relations. At this point, however, it would lead us too far afield to set forth the fundamental epistemological objections to these methods. The sex-economic approach differs from the recent efforts to comprehend the psychophysical organism as a "totality" and "unity" in that it makes use of a functional method of investigation and regards the function of the orgasm as the central problem.