Attempt at a genital theory
In his attempt at a genital theory , published in 1924 by the International Psychoanalytical Publishing House , Sándor Ferenczi tries to penetrate the field of biology with categories derived from psychoanalytic material : "To supplement the previous, more extensive science of life with a 'deep biology'".
Starting from the observation that during ejaculation originally the colon and urethra belonging driving qualities on sexual organ displaced were and compressed there in "amphimiktischer confusion", it keeps Ferenczi possible that such energy shifts in the correlation of organs commonplace and analysis accessible - within the framework of a new "bioanalytical science" that methodically transfers psychoanalytic knowledge and working methods to the natural sciences . For example, the autotomy tendency can be interpreted as a parallel to repression ; the withdrawal of the cathexes from unpleasurable ideas would then have organic models. In this case, each organ would have a certain individuality; in each one the basic conflict that one encounters in the analysis of the human mind is repeated . Instead of the "displaced" individual organs, the genitals attract their occupation and remove them in the form of ejaculate , analogous to the shedding of body parts (which usually grow back later) in various animals .
According to Ferenczi, the regression tendency that predominates in both psychological and organic life is of particular importance . In the "biological unconscious" the working methods and organization of apparently long outdated phases of individual and species development lived on and not only steered the manifest organ activity, but also overwhelmed the superficial activities of life in exceptional states such as sleep , genitality or organic illness , as well as in neuroses and psychoses normal consciousness is flooded with psychological archaisms. In sleep as in the act of copulation, the whole psychic, but also in part also the organic being, regresses to the antenatal and probably also to the phylogenetically old form of life, in that it strives to overcome the womb and seawater situation that has long been overcome (life comes from the sea ... ), in which Ferenczi finally suspects even more archaic and primitive tendencies to rest - such as the drive to the inorganic . The question of the meaning and purpose of evolution could thus automatically turn into the question of its motives , which are "all rooted in the past". Ferenczi assumes that sleep, copulation, internal fertilization and intrauterine development are nothing but mechanisms for the re-establishment of an apparently overcome developmental period, analogous to the return of the repressed . Actually, suggests Ferenczi, humans want "back into salt water", but the "biological censorship" prevents them from doing so (as in winter sleepers the regression to poikilothermia is reversed when the body temperature drops below a certain limit through sudden heat production) and steer so the forces actually urging regression in the sense of adaptation.
Even though it was largely rejected by specialist circles and deleted from the canon of psychoanalytic writings, Sigmund Freud described the attempt at genital theory in 1933 as Ferenczi's "most brilliant and thoughtful achievement". Put aside “the little pamphlet with the verdict: that's almost too much for once, I'll read it again after a while. But it's not just me alone ... ”The American anthropologist Weston La Barre found the attempt at a genital theory " intoxicating "and admits - like Géza Róheim - Ferenczi owes a lot.