the symptoms represent the equivalent for the strivings which received
their strength from the source of the sexual impulse. This fully concurs
with what we know of the character of hysterics, which we have taken as
models for all psycho-neurotics, before they have become diseased, and
with what we know concerning the causes of the disease. The hysterical
character evinces a part of sexual repression which reaches beyond the
normal limits, an exaggeration of the resistances against the sexual
impulse which we know as shame and loathing. It is an instinctive flight
from intellectual occupation with the sexual problem, the consequence of
which in pronounced cases is a complete sexual ignorance, which is
preserved till the age of sexual maturity is attained.[24]

This feature, so characteristic of hysteria, is not seldom concealed in
crude observation by the existence of the second constitutional factor
of hysteria, namely, the enormous development of the sexual craving. But
the psychological analysis will always reveal it and solves the very
contradictory enigma of hysteria by proving the existence of the
contrasting pair, an immense sexual desire and a very exaggerated sexual
rejection.

The provocation of the disease in hysterically predisposed persons is
brought about if in consequence of their progressive maturity or
external conditions of life they are earnestly confronted with the real
sexual demand. Between the pressure of the craving and the opposition of
the sexual rejection an outlet for the disease results, which does not
remove the conflict but seeks to elude it by transforming the libidinous
strivings into symptoms. It is an exception only in appearance if a
hysterical person, say a man, becomes subject to some banal emotional
disturbance, to a conflict in the center of which there is no sexual
interest. Psychoanalysis will regularly show that it is the sexual