Studies in Forensic Psychiatry by Bernard Glueck (best black authors txt) 📕

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 associated 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