The father once slapped her fingers because she was sucking them. Was this her naughtiness? Scarcely, because sucking the fingers is an anachronistic infantile habit, of little interest at her age. It only seems to annoy her father, for which he will punish and hit her. In this way, she relieves her conscience of the unconfessed and much more serious sin. It comes out, that she has induced a number of other girls to perform mutual masturbation.
These sexual tendencies have caused the fear of the father. Still, we must not forget that she had this dream in her fifth year. At that time these sins had not been committed. Hence we must regard this affair with the other girls as a reason for her present fear of her father; but that does not explain the earlier fear. But still, we may expect it was something of a similar nature, some unconscious sexual wish, corresponding to the psychology of the forbidden action previously mentioned. The moral value and character of this wish is even more unconscious with the child than with adults. To understand what had made an impression on the child, we have to ask what happened in her fifth year. Her youngest brother was born at that time. Even then her father had made her nervous. The associations previously referred to give us an undoubted connection between her sexual inclinations and her anxiety. The sexual problem, which nature connects with positive feelings of delight, is in the dream brought to the surface in the form of fear, apparently on account of the bad father, who represents moral education. This dream illustrates the first impressive appearance of the sexual problem, obviously suggested by the recent birth of the little brother, just such an occasion when experience teaches us that these questions become vital.
Just because the sexual problem is closely connected with certain pleasurable physical sensations, which education tries to reduce and break off, it can apparently only manifest itself hidden under the cloak of moral anxiety as to sin. This explanation certainly seems rather plausible, but it is superficial, it is insufficient. It attributes the difficulties to the moral education, on the unproved assumption that education can cause such a neurosis. We hereby leave out of consideration the fact that there are people who have become neurotic and suffer from morbid fears without having had a trace of moral education. Moreover, the
