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The myth of a new national disease

Homosexuality and the Kinsey report

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References

  1. Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin. Saunders 1948. Italics in the following quotations are mine.

  2. “On Female Sexuality.” Int. Z. f. Psychoan., 1931.

  3. Ges. Schr. IX, p. 399.

  4. Ges. Schr. XI, p. 12.

  5. Int. Z. f. Psychoan., 1928, pp. 11 ff.

  6. Int. Z. f. Psychoan., 1932, pp. 218 ff.

  7. The breast complex in the male (in collaboration with L. Eidelberg). Int. Z. f. Psychoan., 1933.

  8. Psychiat. Quart., 1946.

  9. For a review of the extensive literature, see the author's: Eight prerequisites for the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality. Psychoan. Rev., 31:286, 1944.

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  10. Reference is made to my work on homosexuality, as reported in: The breast complex in the male (with L. Eidelberg). Int. Z. f. Psychoan., 1933; The present situation in the genetic investigation of homosexuality, Marriage Hygiene, 1937; The respective importance of reality and fantasy in female homosexuality, J. Crim Psychopathol., 1943; Eight prerequisites for the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality, Psychoan. Rev., 1944; Psychology of friendship, Med. Rec., 1946; Unhappy Marriage and Divorce, International Universities Press, New York, 1946. Differential diagnosis between spurious homosexuality and perversion homosexuality,Psychiat. Quart., 21:399–409, 1947; Facts and fiction about Lesbianism, Marriage Hygiene, 1:4, 1948. (Lesbians have the identical conflicts as do male homosexuals, but elaborate them somewhat differently since they do not possess the organ used as compensation.)

  11. Differential diagnosis between spurious homosexuality and perversion homosexuality, l. c.,Psychiat. Quart., 21:399–409, 1947; Facts and fiction about Lesbianism, Marriage Hygiene, 1:4, 1948. (Lesbians have the identical conflicts as do male homosexuals, but elaborate them somewhat differently since they do not possess the organ used as compensation.)

  12. Suppositions about the mechanism of criminosis. J. Crim. Psychopathol., V, 215–246, 1943. See also the writer's contribution to Lindner-Seliger's: Handbook of Correctional Psychology, Philosophical Library, New York, 1947.

  13. See the writer's book: The Battle of the Conscience, Washington Institute of Medicine, 1948.

  14. For elaboration, see Chapter 1 (The enigma of tender love) of my book: Unhappy Marriage and Divorce, International Universities Press, 1946, and: Divorce Won't Help, Harpers, 1948.

  15. It is rather amusing that Kinsey, who is full of anti-psychiatric bias, becomes at once a friend of psychiatry where the latter in temporary helplessness (belonging to the past) confirms Kinsey's pet notions. Kinsey's biological one-sidedness goes so far that he denies the existence of the most frequent form of psychogenic potency disturbance, premature ejaculation (p. 580), declares as unjustified the assumption of the mere existence of vaginal orgasm (p. 576), and wants to devote Volume 2 of his series to this denial. If one concentrates on biologic aspects, the whole sex act reduces itself to deposition of sperm, hence duration and pleasure involved in that act become unimportant. Which all goes to show into what dead ends denial of psychological facts leads.

  16. Goals and Desires of Men, Columbia University Press, 1942, p. 159.

  17. For details see: Eight prerequisites for the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality, l. c. (Truly hormonal cases, if any, are an extreme rarity.)

  18. It is possible that one must deduct 10 per cent from all these figures for the unknown homosexual quantity of the colored population. Kinsey says frequently that he speaks ofwhite males, but sometimes his generalizations seem to comprise thewhole male population.

  19. See: A short genetic survey of psychic impotence,Psychiat. Quart., 3 and 4, 1945.

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  1. 251 Central Park West, New York 24, N. Y.

    Edmund Bergler M. D.

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  1. Edmund Bergler M. D.
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Formerly lecturer at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and assistant director of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Clinic.

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Bergler, E. The myth of a new national disease. Psych Quar 22, 66–88 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01572406

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