tion that my analyst suggested that I forget medicine and pursue a career in physiology, for which I was already qualified. I followed his advice.

Within this context, the developments of transvestism could be explained according to the reactive hypothesis as follows:-

1. I imagined, or construed, my mother as wanting me to replace her dead first husband by becoming first a doctor and then her lover. In this she was threatening my self-realization by first choosing my career for me and then forcing herself on me as a sexual partner in a partnership in which she would clearly be the demanding and domi- nant member.

2. My reaction, in order to maintain integrity and to avoid this sexual relationship, was to try to escape by disguising myself as a girl. This reaction would have been reinforced by the general family attitude of despising girls. (It was said, in fun, that any girls born in our family would have been drowned like unwanted puppies!) By becoming a girl I would effectively remove myself from the family and all danger.

Neither of these steps occurred at the time at the conscious level. My construct of the nature and designs of my mother was completely unconscious until it emerged during the Analysis. It was also untrue of my mother in “real life.”

Other things could have reinforced this escape reaction. From my 7th to 14th years I was sent to a succession of boys' private board- ing schools. At all times I was very much a misfit, because of the powerfully expressed and unconventional views of my parents and older brothers. For instance, I disliked and despised team sports. I read far more advanced Biology textbooks than was usual (as a preparation for my eventual entry to College and Medical School.) Finally I had never been circumsized, which was almost universal among boys of my social class and age. At times, therefore, I was desperately unhappy at one or another of these schools. Once again, becoming a girl would have removed me completely from this ini- mical environment and would have been a reaction that led to self- preservation and a reduction of tension.

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