CHAPTER V
THE ANALYSIS OF A CASE OF KLEPTOMANIA
Introduction.—The past two years have been very profitable ones for
the science of criminology, as they have brought to light two books on
the subject which concretely reflect, on the one hand, the dying out of
the old statistical method of studying the criminal, a method which will
never tell the whole story, and on the other hand, the birth of a new
kind of approach to the study of the criminal, namely—the
characterological approach. The study of crime or antisocial human
behavior from this newer standpoint at once becomes a study of
character, and demands a scientific consideration of the motives and
driving forces of human conduct, and since conduct is the resultant of
mental life, mental factors at once become for us the most important
phase of our study. Both of these books represent epoch-making
culminations of years of hard labor and scientific devotion to
criminology by two eminent students—Drs. Goring[1] and Healy.[2]
Dr. Goring’s book, “The English Convict, a Statistical Study”, appeared
in 1913, and is the result of an intense statistical study of 4000
English male convicts, to which the author devoted about twelve years of
his life. Dr. Healy’s book, “The Individual Delinquent”, which appeared
in the early part of this year, reflects the results of thoroughgoing
scientific studies of about 1000 repeated offenders, during the author’s
five years’ experience as Director of the Juvenile Psychopathic
Institute in connection with the Juvenile Court of Chicago. Numerous
reviews of these two books have appeared in medical and criminologic
literature, and we shall only touch very minutely upon the difference in
the methods of approach to the subject of these two authors as they
concern the subject under consideration in this paper. I can do this no
better than by quoting from a critical review of Goring’s book by Dr.
White,[3] as it happily touches upon our very subject—namely, stealing.
“Take the more limited concept of ‘thief’, for example. One man may
steal under the influence of the prodromal stage of paresis who has been
previously of high moral character. Another man may steal under the
excitement of a hypomanic attack; another may steal as the result of
moral delinquency; another as the result of high grade mental defect;
another under the influence of alcoholic intoxication, and so forth, and
so on, and how by any possibility a grouping of these men together can
give us any light upon the general concept of ‘thief’ is beyond my power
to comprehend.”
When one remembers that the 4000 units with which this really marvelous
statistical machinery has worked for twelve long years had nothing more
in common than the fact that they were English male convicts—the force
of White’s argument becomes quite apparent. I need not state that this
view of Goring’s work is not intended to detract one iota from the full
measure of credit which this author deserves. His work will stand
forever as one of the monumental accomplishments of the twentieth
century.
Our views concerning Healy’s contribution to the science of criminology
will be reflected in the course of this chapter, which will indicate, I
trust, in a way, his mode of approach to the problem, though he may not
agree with me concerning the details of my interpretation of the case I
am about to report.
Definition.—Like many another I dislike the term “kleptomania” and
would much prefer the term “pathological stealing” to denote the
condition under consideration. Pathological stealing is not synonymous
with excessive stealing as one would gather from the sensational use of
the term in the lay press. Neither is Kraepelin’s dictum that
Kleptomania is a form of impulsive insanity, necessarily correct. It is
obviously, however, a form of abnormally conditioned conduct. Healy’s
criterion of Pathological stealing is the fact that the misconduct is
disproportionate to any discernible end in view. In spite of risk, the
stealing is indulged in, as it were, for its own sake, and not because
the objects in themselves are needed or intrinsically desired. This
definition at once excludes all cases of stealing from cupidity, or from
development of a habit. It furthermore excludes stealing arising from
fetichism, pronounced feeblemindedness and mental disease, such as is
for instance illustrated in the automatic stealing of the epileptic.
According to Healy, the vast majority of all instances of pathological
stealing are those in which individuals, not determinably insane, give
way to an abnormally conditioned impulse to steal.
The Psychoanalytic Study of Anti-Social Behavior.—In introducing the
term “Psychoanalysis” into this chapter I am fully conscious of the task
I have set before me, of writing clearly and convincingly in a work of
this nature on that vast and highly important subject which one at once
links with this term. To strip it of its highly technical
considerations, psychoanalysis is primarily and essentially a study of
motives, intended to bring about a better understanding of human
conduct. We shall leave out from consideration the very intricate
technique which this method of approach to the study of human behavior
employs except to indicate the chief source upon which it relies for its
information, namely, the individual’s unconscious, that is, that part of
the individual’s personality which is outside of the realm of his
moment-consciousness, and which is inaccessible either to himself or to
the observer except through special methods of investigation. It would
be highly desirable, indeed one would say almost imperative, to give a
full discussion of the “unconscious” before a proper and sympathetic
understanding of what is to follow can be made possible. This, however,
is obviously out of the question in a limited chapter like this. Volumes
have been written on the subject. I will only ask my readers to agree
with me for the sake of gaining proper orientation with reference to the
subject under discussion, in the conclusion which I quote from a
masterly paper on the “unconscious” by White.[4] “We come thus to
the important conclusion that mental life, the mind, is not equivalent
and co-equal with consciousness. That, as a matter of fact, the
motivating causes of conduct often lie outside of consciousness, and, as
we shall see, that consciousness is not the greater but only the lesser
expression of the psyche. Consciousness only includes that of which we
are aware, while outside of this somewhat restricted region there lies a
much wider area in which lie the deeper motives for conduct and which
not only operate to control conduct, but also dictates what may and what
may not become conscious.” The foundation upon which the method evolved
by the psychoanalytic school rests has been aptly summed up by Healy,
namely, that for the explanation of all human behavior tendencies we
must seek the mental and environmental experiences of early life. One of
the chief aids in gaining that knowledge we have in the study of the
dream and symbolic life of the individual. The reasons given for our
necessarily limited discussion of the unconscious, are likewise true of
the dream and symbolism. Both of these subjects would require for a
proper elucidation considerably more space than this chapter affords.
Through the dream the unconscious betrays itself;—the dream represents
the fulfillment of wishes and cravings which because of psychic and
social censorship have become repressed into the unconscious. During
sleep these barriers are in abeyance, and the unconscious psyche is
given the opportunity for full play, albeit in a disguised and highly
symbolic form. The proper interpretation of dreams presupposes a
knowledge of the nature of symbolism in the life of man.
When we come now to a consideration of the facts brought to light
through the psychoanalytic study of man we are confronted with a still
greater difficulty of presentation. There is so much that is of vital
importance in this new psychology that we hardly know where to begin. As
I am addressing those who are primarily interested for the moment in
criminology, I may do well to begin with the subject of psychic
determinism. In contrast to the common sentiment of all people in favor
of free will in mental processes, the facts elicited by psychoanalysis
point to a strict determinism of every psychic process. Psychoanalytic
investigations have shown that in mental phenomena there is nothing
little, nothing arbitrary, nothing accidental. In his book on the
Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud[5] has thrown very convincing
light on this subject. Certain apparently insignificant mistakes, such
as forgetting, errors of speech, writing and action, etc., are regularly
motivated and determined by motives unknown to consciousness. The reason
that the motives for such unintentional acts are hidden in the
unconscious and can only be revealed by psychoanalysis is to be sought
in the fact that these phenomena go back to motives of which
consciousness will know nothing, hence were crowded into the
unconscious, without, however, having been deprived of every possibility
of expressing themselves. Thus we see that no mental phenomenon, and by
the same token no part of human behavior, happens fortuitously, but has
its specific motive, to a very large extent, in the unconscious.
The question may suggest itself here “why this extensive participation
of the unconscious in mental life”, which brings us to a discussion of
the principles of resistance and repression.
In speaking of the “unconscious” I purposely left out from consideration
the way in which the sum total of its content was separated from the
conscious mental life of the individual, in order to bring it in
alignment with the discussion of the principles of resistance and
repression. The content of the unconscious, broadly speaking, is brought
about through the activity of these two principles. If one endeavors to
unearth by means of psychoanalysis the pathogenic unconscious mental
impulses, or if one endeavors to bring to consciousness some instinctive
biologic craving which may be responsible for the individual’s conscious
behavior, one regularly encounters a very strong resistance on the part
of the patient, a force is regularly betrayed whose object it seems to
be to prevent them from becoming conscious and to compel them to remain
in the unconscious. This is Freud’s conception of the principle of
resistance and from its constant coming to the fore whenever an endeavor
is made to penetrate into the unconscious, Freud deducts that the
same forces which today oppose as resistance the becoming conscious of
the unconscious purposely forgotten, must at one time have accomplished
this forgetting and forced the offending pathogenic experience out of
consciousness. This mechanism he terms repression. We spoke of an
offending pathogenic experience, or in other words what has been termed
a psychic trauma. But the same principle holds true of certain instincts
which because of their peculiar nature become engaged in a kind of
struggle for existence with the ethical, moral and esthetic attributes
of the personality and are thrust out of the conscious mental structure
as one might say by an act of the will.
We are especially concerned here with these inacceptable instincts, for
the elucidation of which a brief review of Freud’s theories on sexual
instinct is essential.
Thoroughgoing and painstaking dissection of the human soul, such as has
been practiced by Freud for nearly a quarter of a century and by many
followers of his theories in the past decade, revealed to him a number
of unmistakable facts from the developmental history of the individual
which forced him to postulate his very radical and revolutionary
theories of the sexual instinct in man. Recent behavior studies in the
higher anthropoids have likewise revealed very interesting facts
concerning the sexual instinct of these animals. Freud was led to make
certain assertions from his painfully acquired experience, such as the
unfailing sexual agency in the causation of neurotic manifestations, and
that his experience of many years has as yet shown no exception to this
rule, which quite naturally provoked a good deal of bitter and fanatic
criticism not only from lay people but from experienced physicians. The
cause for this lies in the nature of the thing itself, that much tabooed
subject of sexuality. Unfortunately, as Hitschmann[6] says, physicians
in their personal relations to the sexual life have not been given any
preference over the rest of the children of men and many of them stand
under the ban of that combination of prudery and lust which governs the
attitude of most cultivated people in sexual matters. Especially
unsavory appears to most people Freud’s theory of infantile sexuality, a
subject which has heretofore been looked upon chiefly from a moralistic
standpoint, and was spoken of by others merely as odd or as a frightful
example of precocious depravity. It is somewhat strange that of all the
frightful depravities, if we wish to call it so—inherent in man, of the
marked criminalistic components universally present in man which
psychoanalytic studies have revealed—the sex depravity should have
provoked the most fanatic attacks. Indeed to those who are accustomed to
look at man with the psychoanalytic eye, Rochefoucauld’s incisive
statement does not at all sound strange. He said, “I have never seen the
soul of a bad man; but I had a glimpse at the soul of a good man; I was
shocked.” I therefore crave the indulgence of those of you who are not
familiar with psychoanalytic literature for what I am about to quote
briefly from Freud’s theories on the sexual instinct in man.
Freud lays special stress upon infantile sexuality as it is manifested
in the suckling and in the child. The infant brings with it into the
world the germ of sexuality, which is, however, extremely difficult of
comprehension since at this stage the sexual feelings are not directed
towards other persons but are gratified on the child’s own body in a
manner which Havelock Ellis has termed “autoerotic.” This autoerotic
gratification is gained through erogenous zones, that is, certain areas
of the body which are peculiarly sensitized to sexual excitations. Among
these erogenous zones may be mentioned the mouth, lips, tongue, anal
region, the neck of the bladder as well as various skin areas and sense
organs. Already in 1879, Lindner, a Hungarian pediatrist, devoted a
penetrating study to the sucking or pleasure-sucking of the child. Freud
emphasizes that the suckling enjoys sexual pleasure, in the taking of
nourishment, which it ever after seeks to procure by sucking independent
of taking food. To many it may occasion surprise to learn that sucking
is exhibited independently of its relation to the hunger instinct. It
is, however, plain that the mouth is at first concerned only with the
gratifying of the hunger instinct; later the desire for a repetition of
pleasurable experience gained in this way is separated from the need of
taking nourishment, thereby transforming this mucous surface into an
erogenous zone. It is likewise difficult to conceive by the
inexperienced in psychoanalysis, that the child derives pleasurable
sensations from the anal zone. Because of the important rôle which anal
eroticism plays in our case we might speak more fully of this form of
autoeroticism. One not infrequently observes in little children that
they refuse to empty the bowels when they are placed on the closet
because they obtain pleasure from defecation, when the retained stool by
its accumulation excites strong irritation of the mucosa. The importance
which scatological rites and ceremonials, that is, certain peculiar
niceties practiced in connection with the emptying of the bowels, play
in the evolution of the race have been extensively discussed in
literature. Havelock Ellis[7] says in this connection—“The most usual
erotic symbolisms in childhood are those of the scatologic group, the
significance of which has often been emphasized by Freud and his school.
The channels of urination and defecation are so close to the sexual
centers that the intimate connection between the two groups is easily
understood. There is undoubtedly a connection between
nocturnal enuresis and sexual activities, sometimes
masturbation. Children not infrequently believe that the sexual acts of
their elders have some connection with urination and defecation, and the
mystery with which the excretory acts are surrounded, helps to support
this theory. Up to puberty scatologic interests may be regarded as
normal; at this age the child has still much in common with the
primitive mind, which, as mythology and folklore show, attributes great
importance to the excretory functions.”
Many of these ceremonials one regularly discovers in the analyses of
neurotics. We shall not dwell further here upon the erogenous zones
activity in the suckling, but emphasizing again its importance along
with the importance of autoeroticism in the sexuality of the suckling
will pass to the next phase of the psycho-sexual evolution of man—the
latent period.
The germs of sexual excitement in the new-born develop for a time, then
undergo a progressive suppression in a period of partial or complete
sexual latency. During this period, which is normally interrupted at
about the third or fourth year, as result of organic evolutionary
processes and the indispensable help of education, those mental forces
are formed which appear later as inhibitions to the sexual instinct and
narrow its course like dams; mental forces such as disgust, the feeling
of shame, the esthetic and moral standards of ideas. During this “latent
period” a part of these sexual energies is separated from the sexual aim
and applied to cultural and social ends, a process which Freud has
designated by the name sublimation as important for culture, history and
the individual.
Sublimation or the socialization of the sexuality therefore is the
transformation and utilization of certain components of the sexual
instinct for aims no longer sexual in nature. At the end of the latency
period the child’s sexuality reappears, frequently but not necessarily
induced prematurely by seduction. In addition to the autoerotic
gratifications spoken of above, the child is now capable of the choice
of a love-object accompanied by erotic feelings. Because of the
dependency of the child this first choice of a love-object is directed
towards parents and nurses either of his own or of the opposite sex.
“Incest complex”—Now too the child under the influence of occasional
seduction may become polymorphous-perverse, that is, may become subject
to any form of sexual perversion. He likewise shows a preference in the
selection of his love-object for his own sex, homo-sexuality.
At puberty two significant changes take place in the psycho-sexuality of
the individual. First the primacy of the genital zone asserts itself,
and second, the heretofore autoerotic character of the sexual activity
is lost and the instinct finds its object. In order that the former
change may be successfully brought about, there is necessitated an
amalgamation of all instinctive tendencies which proceed from the
erogenous zones and a subordination of all the erogenous zones to the
primacy of the genital zone. All this is facilitated by the development
of the genital organs and the elaboration of the seminal secretion. To
these conditions there is also added at puberty that “pleasure of
gratification” of sexuality which ends the normal sexual act, the end
pleasure. The second function, the choice of a love-object, is
influenced by the infantile inclination of the child towards its parents
and nurses which is revived at puberty and similarly directed by the
incest barriers against these persons which have been erected in the
meantime. If on account of pathological heredity and accidental
experiences, this amalgamation of the excitations springing from various
sources and its application to the sexual object does not occur, then
there result the pathological deviations of the sexual instinct,
determined in part by earlier processes, such as a preservation of a
definite part of the original polymorphous-perverse tendency. The
perversions are thus developed from seeds which are present in the
undifferentiated tendencies of the child and constitute in adults a
condition of arrested development.
Thus we see that the sexual impulse does not suddenly emerge as a new
phenomenon at the age of puberty, but that the form assumed at this
period is gradually evolved from rudimentary elements present even in
the earliest years of life. Sexuality is not absent in the child, it is
merely different, being unorganized and imperfectly adapted to its later
functions. All this primordial mass of pleasurable activities enumerated
above, undergoes profound modifications as the result of growth and
education. One part only becomes selected and differentiated so as to
form the adult sexual impulse in the narrower sense. A greater part is
found to be incompatible with social observance, and is repressed,
buried, forgotten. The repressed impulses, however, do not die; it is
much harder to kill old desires than is sometimes thought, they continue
throughout life to strive toward gratification. This they cannot do
directly, and are thus driven to find indirect, symbolic modes of
expression. The energy is transformed into these secondary, more
permissible forms of activity, and furnishes a great part of the
strivings of mankind that lead to social and cultural interests and
development in general—sublimation. (Jones.)
I don’t know whether I have succeeded in putting clearly enough the
Freudian views of sexuality, limited as I have to be in my expositions
of his theories. I do wish, however, to leave the impression which one
must gain from two sentiments frequently expressed by various authors,
namely, “Man sexualizes the universe,” and “Man is what his sex is.”
Sexuality and Criminality.—A method of psychological analysis which
aside from its originally restricted field has already thrown so much
light upon various cultural aspects of life, such as art, poetry,
religion, folklore, and mythology, cannot fail to furnish some very
helpful discoveries for the problem of criminology. As far as
pathological stealing is concerned a number of very suggestive studies
have already appeared, a review of which Albrecht has prepared for the
Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology. The
fact that rich, or at least well-to-do, women are sometimes guilty of
theft in the big Department stores has always received a certain amount
of attention. Studies of this phenomenon have been made by Duboisson,
Contemps, Lasegue and Letulle. In each case examined the woman
declared that some unknown power had suddenly compelled her to touch
some object, and put it in her pocket.
Stekel,[8] a Viennese psychotherapeutist, claims to have repeatedly
proved to himself by psychoanalysis that the root of all these cases of
kleptomania is ungratified sexual instinct. These women fight against
temptation. They are engaged in a constant struggle with their desires.
They would like to do what is forbidden, touch something that doesn’t
belong to them. We cannot give here the analyses reported in the
literature, though I assure you that they carry convincing proof of the
tremendous rôle sexuality plays directly or indirectly in the causation
of pathological stealing. This is not confined only to thieving
connected with fetichism, numerous cases of which have been reported in
the literature. But even less radical Freudians than Stekel admit the
importance of sexuality in pathological stealing. Thus Healy, who is
eminently fit to speak authoritatively on the subject of recidivism, and
who is unusually conservative in his statements, has the following to
say:—
“The interpretation of the causes of this impulse to steal is of great
interest. We have shown in our chapter on mental conflicts how it may be
a sort of relief phenomenon for repressed elements in mental life. The
repression is found often to center about sex affairs.” Again, “The
correlation of the stealing impulse to the menstrual or premenstrual
period in woman, leads us to much the same conclusion. Gudden, who seems
to have made the most careful studies of the connection between the two
phenomena, maintains that practically all cases of shoplifters whom he
has examined were, at the time of their offense, in or near their period
of menstruation.” Healy does not go beyond this. He is as yet not ready
to agree that some sex difficulty is the only conflict back of
kleptomania.
With these introductory remarks we will proceed to the discussion of our
case. X——, a colored boy aged 23, was admitted to the Government
Hospital for the Insane on January 16, 1915, from the District Jail,
where he was awaiting trial on two indictments for larceny.
Anamnesis obtained from the patient, his relatives and official sources
is to the effect that the patient comes from an unusually refined
colored family, his father being a rather prominent colored minister in
this city. The patient is one of eight children, all of whom with the
exception of the patient have led a normal and fairly successful life.
He was born in Washington, D.C., April 17, 1892. Birth and early
childhood up to four years of age were normal. At that time he was
rather seriously bitten by a large St. Bernard dog, following which he
was ill for about two months. He was rather restive under this enforced
confinement and one day in attempting to escape from the house he fell
from a second story window. His relatives attribute all his difficulties
to these two accidents, for it was soon after that his stealing
tendencies became manifest. The patient himself can place only
approximately the onset of his stealing propensities, stating that he
was quite young and that his first theft consisted in stealing ten cents
from his father. It was in connection with this theft that he first
experienced the sensations to be described later. His school career was
irregular owing to the interruptions necessitated by his repeated
sojourns at the Reformatory. He entered school at the age of 7 and at 11
was sent to the Reform School for the first time. This step was taken by
his father because the patient for some years previously had been
frequently placed under arrest on charges of larceny. He showed,
according to the statements of his relatives, a decided preference for
horses and vehicles of all sorts, which he would utilize for joy riding,
although he not infrequently stole objects of which he could make
absolutely no use. One time, for instance, he stole a dozen bricks from
a neighbor. The Chief Probation Officer of the District of Columbia, who
was an official of the Reformatory during the patient’s sojourn there,
states in a letter to the hospital the following: “While there he (X)
gave very little trouble, except in the way of stealing. He would steal
any and every thing he could lay hold of. It mattered not whether the
article was of any use to him or not. After stealing an article or
articles he would make very little effort to hide it, and when taken to
task and charged with having stolen an article he would acknowledge it
but would say that he did not know what made him take the article, only
that something told him to take it and when this thought came to him he
did not have the power to resist it, but felt that he was compelled to
take it. At the Training School we looked upon him as a rather peculiar
subject. We really never considered him insane except that his desire to
steal might be classed in that line.”
It is somewhat difficult to get a coherent and full account of the
patient’s delinquencies. His record at the National Training School is
as follows: “Rec. on September 4, 1906, sentenced by the D.C. Juvenile
Court charged with larceny, escaped August 30, 1907. Returned from
elopement September 5, 1907, special parole to father October 23, 1909.
Recommitted by D.C. Juvenile Court February 3, 1910, charge larceny.
May 2, 1911, escaped from Freedman’s Hospital while left there for
treatment after operation. Returned on May 25, 1911, from Baltimore, Md.
July 13, 1912, escaped.” During his various sojourns there he was noted
to be wilful and unprincipled. Every time he gained his freedom his
father attempted to keep him at school, thus he attended night school
and Law Department of Howard University for short periods. His father
likewise put forth many genuine efforts to reform the boy, plead with
him and begged him, supplied him with considerable spending money, but
his efforts were as fruitless as the various punishments he underwent.
The boy would behave well for a while, but sooner or later he would be
arrested for stealing. Patient states that he stole many times when he
successfully evaded the police, that he frequently took unusual chances
in his escapades, preferred to steal in the daytime and it was this that
led him to believe that God had chosen this particular mode of life for
him, and that as a result of this conviction he practices the habit of
giving one-fourth of his earnings to charity. He had learned from his
father that somewhere the Bible teaches to give one-fifth of the
earnings to charity, but owing to the manner in which he acquired his
possessions he felt that he ought to give more to charity, a rather
characteristic mode of rationalization for a man of his type.
Aside from the arrests recorded above he has been arrested in the cities
of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, always for stealing, and spent
about 19 months in the Pennsylvania Industrial Reform School.
His latest arrest and subsequent admission to the Government Hospital
for the Insane was the result of an attempt at housebreaking on
August 1, 1914. He states that he entered this house with the full
intention of robbing it, that he found considerable jewelry and some $30
in money which he collected on a dresser, when he suddenly began to
think of his mother, and the anxiety he would cause her should he be
caught in the act, whereupon he left everything on the dresser and left
the house. He was detected leaving the house, which brought about his
arrest. Patient states that such acts on his part were not unusual, that
he not infrequently left a robbery incomplete upon thinking of his
mother.
On admission to this hospital the patient made a normal impression. He
gave a coherent and clear account of his past life, was apparently quite
frank and truthful and endeavored to coöperate with the examiner to the
best of his ability. He was clearly oriented, free from frank delusions
and hallucinations, but said in explanation of his stealing habits that
it is the influence of God that makes him steal, because he has been so
successful at it, and because he has always given one-fourth of his
income from stealing to charity. (He rationalizes very efficiently in
this manner.) He likewise stated that frequently in the night before he
commits an offense he dreams of a man leading him and instructing him
what to do. He used to think that it was a representative of God whom he
saw in the dream, but since he has had the talk with Dr. H., who told
him that it was only the devil who tempts him to do these things, he has
changed his mind about it. Special intelligence tests revealed no
defect, and his stock of information was commensurate with his
educational advantages. He was well informed on current events and
readily adapted himself to his new surroundings.
Physical examination showed him to be a fairly well developed colored
male, slight acneiform eruption over back, slight asymmetry of head,
ears close set to head, lobules attached, palate high arched. There was
likewise present a slight depression in right supra-clavicular region,
lung over this area slightly impaired. Heart sounds slightly roughened,
urine and Wassermann with blood serum negative.
During his sojourn here his conduct has been exemplary. He worked
steadily in Howard Hall workroom and occupied his leisure time in
reading and playing musical instruments, two of which he knows how to
manipulate fairly well. It is significant that as far as known the
patient has not evidenced any tendency to steal since here, although
during the first few days of his sojourn here he experienced the
sensations which usually accompany his stealing escapades. A carefully
kept record of his dreams, in which matter the patient apparently
coöperated to the best of his ability, likewise failed to reveal any of
the pre-stealing dreams mentioned above.
Analysis.—The suggestive points in the patient’s history are the
repeated commission of a similar offense, namely, stealing,
notwithstanding the frequent punishment received, the stealing when he
actually had no necessity for it, being at times when he stole well
supplied with money, the stealing of objects for which he had no use and
which he could not convert into money, as stated in the Reform School
Records, the patient’s belief in his destiny as a thief and the methods
he employed in atoning for his conduct, such as giving one-fourth to
charity, and lastly the peculiar physical and mental sensations which
accompanied the act of stealing. The inquiry was conducted along these
lines. In the first interview the patient could throw very little light
on his difficulties. He stated that he had tried repeatedly to quit
stealing, that he realized he was causing his parents a great deal of
anxiety on account of his habits, and bringing a good deal of trouble on
himself, that he genuinely regretted his past acts and that he believed
he could possibly abstain in the future from stealing. Later interviews
revealed, as has already been stated, that his first theft was committed
upon his father, when he stole ten cents, and it was upon this occasion
that he first experienced the peculiar bodily and mental sensations. He
describes these in his own words as follows, “I begin to feel giddy and
restless and feel as if I have to do something. This feeling becomes
gradually more marked until I feel compelled to enter a house and steal.
While stealing I become quite excited, involuntarily, begin to pant,
perspire and breathe rapidly as if I had run a race; this increases in
intensity and then I feel as if I have to go to the closet and empty my
bowels. After it’s all over I feel exhausted and relieved.” The feeling
of exhaustion and relief was in a later interview spontaneously
described by him as being like that one experiences after coitus. In
the early days of his career he used to go to the closet in response to
the anal sensations, but he never had to actually evacuate his bowels so
that of late he does not do this any more. At first he had those
sensations only when stealing from his father, later also when stealing
from his mother, and finally he would experience them whenever he stole.
It is of interest to note here his attitude towards his father. In the
early stages of the analysis he staunchly maintained that he loved
his father very much, that he honored him and felt very sorry for all
the troubles he was causing him, but further inquiry revealed positively
the fact that he showed a decided preference for his mother, that the
latter always took his part when he was punished by his father, that he
felt extremely angry at his father on a number of occasions in the past
because the latter punished him often, but it was only after the
analysis and proper insight on the part of the patient into the
following dream that he admitted that he had sometimes wished his father
dead. He dreamed on February 4th that his father had died, that he could
see his father in a coffin, and his mother, sister and brothers weeping.
“I awoke before I could finish the dream.” The first attempts with the
patient at analyzing this dream produced quite an upset, a good deal of
emotionalism and tears, especially when it was suggested to him that the
dream might express a wish. In an interview on February 15th he said
that he no longer thought that the above suggestion was such an
impossibility, that perhaps there was a good deal of truth in it,
although he is certain that consciously he had never entertained such
ideas in reference to his father. There was no affective manifestation
in connection with this statement.
Another dream which he had the night before the preceding dream is, to
my mind an extremely important one, reflecting as it does the patient’s
real conflicts. He dreamed on February 3rd that two of his brothers came
over to visit him. They brought a young girl over that he used to keep
company with, and told him that if he would marry they could get him
out. He replied that he would never marry any girl, and one of his
brothers said, “Then you will never get out of this place.” They then
quarreled, the brother insisting that he just had to marry, but he still
refused. The girl plead with him to marry her, saying that she would do
a good deal for him, but he still refused. In parting one of his
brothers said to him, “Then go to your ruin, we will never do anything
for you again.” The patient then awoke perspiring and mad as if he had
actually been quarreling. Thus the dream reads “Marry and you’ll get out
of here, otherwise go to your ruin, we will never do anything for you.”
In other words, “Lead a heterosexual life and your troubles will be
over, continue as you are now, you’ll go to ruin.” This argument of the
unconscious taken together with the group of sensations which patient
always experienced when stealing, and which he spontaneously likens to
the sensations of a sexual act, and furthermore the quite evident anal
erotic fixation, already throw a good deal of light upon the patient’s
difficulties.
He further dreamed one night that his mother got him a situation with a
widowed man. His duties were to take care of and keep in good order the
man’s three horses. One of these horses was a vicious one, the other two
were mild. If one were to think of the three horses as of a phallic
symbol the significance of this dream at once becomes apparent. The
patient asso ciated the vicious horse which always tried to bite him
with his father. Here, too, it was the mother which comes to his aid.
A number of other dreams recorded by the patient manifest simple wish
fulfillment and are of no especial interest.
In his habits the patient was always of a jolly, sociable disposition,
enjoyed fun very much and for many years back he had a keen desire to
become a detective. In fact if he had any ambition in life at all it was
this. On many occasions in the past he played detective; he would track
people on many occasions for hours at a time. What is of marked
significance is the fact that on a number of occasions when he did this
he experienced similar bodily sensations as he did when stealing. The
detective sensations were never as intense as those accompanying
stealing and never reached the climax. It was only yesterday that the
patient told me spontaneously in the course of an interview that he
supposed he never reached the climax in his detective experiences
because he has never arrested anyone. Thus we see that along with his
antisocial sublimation of his anal eroticism, the patient attempted a
more useful sublimation. Unfortunately the one depended simply upon his
exertions and bravado, while the other required for its fulfillment
society’s recognition of his desire and some ability for detective work.
I am firmly convinced that these two activities of the patient, namely,
stealing and detection of crime, are the results of his endeavor at
sublimating a totally inacceptable homosexual career. On one occasion,
and he claims that it is the only one in his life, a fellow prisoner in
the Reformatory attempted a sexual assault upon him. He retaliated by
striking the fellow on the head with a chair, for which he was severely
punished. While we may rely quite fully upon the information furnished
by the patient and upon that obtained from other sources for the purpose
of building up our theory of the case, it will not be amiss to take into
consideration those points in the patient’s conduct while under
observation which further substantiate this theory.
We have it from a reformatory official that while at that institution
the patient frequently stole articles which were of no value whatever to
him, that he did not attempt to conceal his thefts, and that when
upbraided for his conduct, he stated that he could not help it, etc. At
that institution he evidently entirely relied upon his stealing
sublimation for his sexual gratification. It may be that as yet he had
not become conscious of the possibilities of the detective play.
In this hospital he had desires for stealing on two occasions, soon
after his admission, but resisted the temptation. Following the
manifestation of our active interest in his case, he became more and
more confident in his ability to withstand these temptations, and as far
as could be judged manifested a genuine desire to reform. Of course the
biologic sex difficulty is still present, its demands are probably just
as insistent as ever, and having rejected, for the present at least, the
possibility of expression through the stealing channel, he resorts to
the only other channel he knows of, detective play. In line with this he
handed me one morning (March 30, 1915) a note which stated that some
information had come into his possession which he thought would be of
very great value to me, and requested a private interview. After
cautioning me as to the method of procedure he assured me that he did
this piece of detective work solely because he felt very grateful for
our effort to help him out of his troubles. We must note the meticulous
manner in which he carried out the entire procedure. For some time past
he had been in the habit of handing me each morning a uniformly folded
sheet of paper containing the dreams of the previous night. On that
morning he had two of these folded sheets in his vest pocket but handed
me only the above mentioned note, because he says he feared that I would
read only the one containing the dream and miss the other. During the
interview which followed as result of the above note, he handed over to
me a bunch of petitions written by a famous litigant in the criminal
department, which were to have been delivered by the patient to his
relatives with the object of getting them to their final destination.
Aside from the fact that the author of these petitions is by no means a
simpleton, or very credulous, it must have taken a good deal of
ingenuity and skill on the part of the patient to gain this fellow’s
confidence, knowing as I do that the latter has a special grudge against
the patient because they are the only two in the Howard Hall Department
who enjoy some special privileges in common, such as attending chapel
and amusements, etc.
This compulsion of attending chapel, as he puts it, with a negro, has
been the litigant’s chief grievance during the past two months, and he
has accordingly expressed himself in some very choice language when
speaking of the patient. Nevertheless the patient has succeeded in
gaining his full confidence, and the interest and pleasure which the
patient manifested in detailing to me his mode of procedure in
accomplishing this is really very striking. It was during this interview
that he stated, “I suppose the reason I never reached the climax when
playing detective is because I have never arrested anyone. This is the
work I would like to do, Doctor, I hope some day I’ll be able to get a
job with some detective agency.”
I regret to have to omit many interesting details from the analysis of
this case. To me the analysis of this case has been a revelation. For a
number of years past I have been intensely interested in the problem of
recidivism, and although I have had many opportunities to study the
recidivist, and have seen a number of very interesting cases, the
histories of a few of whom I have reported several years ago, I have
always felt that I had never touched the real specific cause of a life
of recidivism in a given individual. Why a man, an apparently
intelligent man, and many of them are far from suffering from a purely
intellectual defect, should choose a career of crime and in spite of
repeated penalties should keep on recurring to it, has always been an
unsolved mystery to me. I have been especially perplexed about those
cases which repeatedly committed the same crime, and although in some
instances an apparently plausible explanation was found in an existing
psychosis, or strong psychopathic make-up, these explanations were in
many instances unsatisfactory.
Let us see what the repeated commission of theft means to the individual
whose history we have just reported. We have seen that his own
explanation of that series of physical and mental phenomena which always
accompanied the act of stealing were not only very much akin to the
physical and mental state which accompanies the act of sexual congress,
but were actually recognized as such by the man himself. In other words
the motive and instinctive prompting which led this man to the act of
stealing were the same which lead normal men to the act of sexual
congress. It would be inconceivable without further explanation why this
colored boy should repeatedly resort to stealing as a means of sexual
gratification in spite of the trials and tribulations which this carried
with it, when he had all the opportunities to gratify this desire in a
natural heterosexual manner, as others of his race have no difficulty at
all in doing.
The answer lies in the type of sexual gratification which his stealing
supplied. We have mentioned the anal sensations, the feeling as though
there was something in the rectum of which he had to rid himself, and
which for years led him to run to the toilet soon after the commission
of a theft. To one versed in the psychology and manifestations of the
sex instinct this can only mean one thing, namely, that we are dealing
here with a homosexual whose erotic receptors were concentrated in the
anal region, with an anal-erotic.
The possibility of a full, happy, satisfied existence for this
individual lies in the gratification of this biologic, instinctive, and
perverse sex-craving. It is the intense revulsion, the protest of his
whole personality against such mode of sex-expression which brought
about the habitual stealing in this individual. So soon as he discovered
that the emotional accompaniment of the act of stealing served to
gratify this biologic sex-craving he clung to it with the tenacity which
characterized his life of recidivism. In other words, the process of
sublimation of which we spoke took an asocial turn in this individual,
with the resultant pathological stealing.
It would lead us far beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss the
problem of the genesis of homo-sexuality, and we shall not attempt it.
The impression which I desire to make is that in this case of
pathological stealing we are dealing with a form of asocial behavior
which has its roots in a mighty instinctive, biologic craving, which
demands gratification at any cost.
Furthermore, because of the nature of this etiologic factor the chances
for reformation are very poor, which prognosis has already been
justified by the subsequent career of this patient. He is at present
again under arrest for grand larceny and housebreaking.
It would be premature to draw any general conclusions from this study,
or to promulgate any general principles of treatment. All that the
chapter is intended for is to stimulate further interest in
criminologists for research along these lines.
REFERENCES
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