December 13th. To-day the patient came, in a disturbed condition of mind, complaining that, unaided, he was unable to resist the impulse to masturbate, and he asked for help.
A trial of hypnosis induced a condition of deep lethargy in the patient.
He was given the following suggestions:—
1. I can not, must not, and will not masturbate again.
2. I abhor the love for my own sex, and shall never again think men handsome.
3. I shall and will become well again, fall in love with a virtuous woman, be happy, and make her happy.
December 14th. While out walking to-day, patient saw a handsome man, and felt himself powerfully drawn toward him.
From this time there were hypnotic sittings every second day, with the above suggestions.
December 18th (fourth sitting), somnambulism occurred; the impulse to onanism and interest in men disappear.
At the eighth sitting “complete virility” was added to the above suggestions. The patient feels himself morally elevated and physically strengthened. The neuralgia of the testicles has disappeared. He now found that he was without sexual feeling.
He now believed himself free from masturbation and contrary sexual inclination.
After the eleventh sitting he thought that further help was unnecessary. He wished to go home, and marry. He felt well and potent. Early in January, 1890, treatment ceased.
In March, 1890, the patient wrote: “I have since had several occasions on which it has been necessary for me to use all my moral strength in order to overcome my habit, and, thank God, I have been successful in freeing myself from this vice. Several times I have had opportunity for sexual intercourse, and I have found pleasure in it. I look calmly on my happy future.”
Case 135. Acquired Contrary Sexual Instinct. Marked Improvement under Hypnotic Treatment.—Mr. P., born in 1863, official in a manufactory. He comes of a highly respected patrician family of Middle Germany, in which nervousness and insanity have been of frequent occurrence.
His great-grandfather on the father’s side and his sister died insane; the grandmother died of apoplexy; father’s brother died insane, and a daughter of the latter died of cerebral tuberculosis. The maternal grandmother was melancholic for years; maternal grandfather, insane. A maternal uncle took his life in an attack of insanity. The patient’s father is very nervous. An elder brother is very neurasthenic, and has anomalies of the vita sexualis; another is the subject of Case 155; a third is eccentric in conduct, and is said to be subject to fixed ideas. A sister suffers with convulsions, and another died of them when a little child.
