analysts their fees. Psychoanalysis is a time consuming process. efficient eye, ear, nose and throat man can handle many more patients per day than the analyst can do. Nevertheless, the problem of homosexuality is one which involves thousands and thousands of individuals. The cost of analysis is prohibitive to nany. Besides, if the majority of homosexuals should decide to seek a cure, the existing crop of analysts could not even begin to handle the case load. Furthermore, Iam of the existing analysts are as optimistic as Dr. Bergler about the possibilities of cure. Berglerian analysis hardly seems the solution to the "homosexual problem" in the foreseeable future.

Truly, homosexuality is primarily, a problem of individual psychology and morels. But I do not see how we can aviod regarding it as, also, & social problem of some magnitude.

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Dr. Fergler has developed a certain theory about the genesis of homosexuality. I feel convinced that in its basic outlines his theory is & sound one. But is there any good reason why there may not be several or oven numerous causes of homoseniality? As it is, Dr. Porgler wants to deny the very existence of all facts which he cannot square with his theory. He passionately objects to the concept of bisexuality, for instance. "Bisexuality-a state that has no existence beyond the word itself-is an out-and-out fraud, involuntarily caintained by some naïve homosexuals, and voluntarily perpetrated by some who are not so naive." This makes Freud, Stekel,, Ferenczi, Ernest Jones, Karl Meninger and many others of his colleagues frauds. To say nothing of ten like Ford and Beach, of Yale-who are biologists, I believe-end some distinguished anthropologists. Then there is also Dr. Kinser of course... It just isn't cricket to create the impression that the concept of bisexuality is the self-serving invention of homosexuals. It is true that the homosexual tends to over-rate the strength of the homosexual component in predominantly heterosexual individuals. The fact that man is bisexual does not imply that his homosexual part is always free enough or powerful enough to lead him into overt homosexual relationships, especially when his heterosexual satisfactions render homosexual activity superfluous. But I think it is equally true that the heterosexually oriented tend to under-rate the power of the homosexual components. This leads to sometimes comic, sometimes tragic misunderstandings between homosexuals and heterosexuals in their personal relationships. I see no reason to disparage the work which Walt Whitman did in the army hospitals in Washington during the Civil War and I believe that Whitman': insight was essentially true in regard to the motional responsiveness of the wounded to his love for them. However, it does seem likely that most of the young men who responded so gratefully to Whitman's love when sick and suffering and neglected, would not have done so in normal circumstances. That is to sav, Whilsan overestimated the power and significance of the homosexually tinged responses; they emerged in highly abnormal circumstances when in the course of normal life they would probably have remained deeply dormant. On the other hand the tendency of the contemporary heterosexual to deny the value of Khitman's ministrations to the neglected casualties of the Civil War seans to me very ugly and meanspirited. The fact remains that Whitman served the wounded to the best of his ability and resources-nobody else did. Dr. Bergler's meering disparagement of Whitman's services is the sort of distortion which the heterosexual's inability to understand human bisexuality results in only too often. But my main purpose in this paragraph was to point out that Dr. Bergler wants to deny the very existence of all facts which he cannot square with his theory. He has much to say about "counterfeit sex", "pseudo-homosexuality", "pseudo-aggression", "pseudo-love", etc. mallachine REVIEW

Whatever doesn't fit his theory is "pseudo". Very convenient!

According to Dr. Bergler all homosexuality is strictly from hunger. As I have said, I believe his theory is essentially a sound one but I doubt that it is the sole explanation. As I understand it, the substructure of the homosexual's personality is that of the infant utterly dependent upon the mother and who, through some grave mischance, hao, come to fear and hate her. He is caught between his hunger and his helpless need on the one hand, and his terror and resentment on the other. Underneath everything is the insatiable longing for the breast. Since he is still dependent upon the mother for survival he must in some way dispose of his fear and hatred of her. This he accomplishes by turning these negative feelings against himself, he hates and fears himself-in other words a powerful sense of guilt is born. By this means he is able to maintain a superficially submissive attachment to the mother. Yet, the unresolved hunger, terror and fury continue to dominate his life, subterraneously. In the penis he discovers a substitute for the breast which soms to give promise of rendering him Independent of the feared and hated mother. Throughout the rest of his life he seeks the penis as a starving child seeks the broast, but in every relationship he unconsciously repeats some version of the original mother-child dilemma. The quest for the penis is carried on in a tormenting emotional climate, the terror, rage and mistrust of a helpless infant whose mother has starved him, injured him, or neglected him in some way. He also transposes into the homosexual realm the original sense of guilt which came into being as an inner defence against his hostility towards his mother. The neurotic hunger for the penis/breast goes far beyond the individual', organic or biologic sexual need. In fact it may operate at the expense of the individual's own proper sexuality. And of course the penis/breast hunger bears no relation to the individual's actual nutritional needs.

The homosexual's deep-seated attitude of indignation against life is the result of an unfortuante experience in infancy. When he protests against injustices-real or imagined-in later life what hè is really trying to do is to articulate his grudge against his mother. He seeks out dangerous and humiliating situations in which he can discharge his accumulated tensions of hunger, fear and anger and at the same time receive punishment. Although he may maintain a masochistic attachment to the world, underneath he feels rejected by it, as he felt rejected by his mother, and he rejects, as he rejected his mother.

Now, from the therapist's point of view it may not matter whether the infant his patient once was actually starved, injured, mistreated or neglected by his mother, or whether the baby simply misunderstood some painful experience he underwent. Whether the infant was maltreated or not the therapeutic aim remains the same, to eliminate that corrosive sense of injustice, along with the infantile hungers and fears with which it is bound up. Whether the kid's original grudge against his mother was justified or not, that deep-seated grudge poisons his life.

I should think the ideal outcome would be for the patient finally to arrive at that philosophical attitude to life's mischances which the current crop of GIs have formulated: "That's the way the ball bounces," or "That's the way the cookie crumbles."

I once knew a man who, in his hte sixties, on his very death-bed, still expressed a bitter grudge against his mother because, he felt, she had never loved him. The mother had died some thirty years proviously! This life-long, stale old grudge was not incidental but It had all kinds central in the formation of my friend's character.