a seminal emission with a slight
sense of voluptuous pleasure when in class he was in difficulties with a
passage of unseen translation, and he was afraid he would be unable to
finish the passage before the end of the lesson. Another reported to me
a precisely similar experience; he was overcome with anxiety during a
written examination, and had a seminal emission. A third had an
ejaculation when, being detected in some offence against school
discipline, he was sent for by the headmaster, and was afraid he would
be expelled. Quite a number of similar cases have been reported to me of
sexual excitement occurring in childhood as a sequel to anxiety. I have
recorded the facts, and do not propose to discuss exhaustively the
theoretical aspect of the matter. Perhaps the phenomenon is allied to
masochism, since anxiety is to a certain extent painful. We may also, in
this connexion, think of the seminal emissions sometimes observed in
cases of suicidal hanging. Freud's theory may also be mentioned, that
the anxiety-neurosis is referable to certain sexual processes; but we
must not forget that Freud makes a similar assumption in the case of
other neuroses as well. Stekel,[41] one of Freud's pupils, in an
elaborate monograph, also lays stress on the sexual factor of the
anxiety-neurosis. In my own view, however, Freud's generalisation is too
comprehensive; inasmuch as he symbolises all things in accordance with
his own peculiar preconceptions, the concept sexual receives, in his
hands, an undue extension. But I do not deny the occasional association
of sexual excitement with a sense of anxiety. Certain boys would appear
to have a peculiar predisposition to the occurrence of such processes;
at any rate, several persons have told me that during childhood they had
frequently had ejaculations as a result of feelings of anxiety. As a
rule, however, each of these persons has had such an experience either
once only, or but very few times. Two identical instances have been
reported to me as occurring in girls--ejaculation with an indefinite
voluptuous sensation as a sequel of anxiety. These girls were from
thirteen to fourteen years of age. In one of the two, the phenomenon
recurred several times; and even at the present day, when she is a
fully-grown woman, she occasionally experiences ejaculation in connexion
with a feeling of anxiety.

CASE 6.--A student, twenty years of age, described his experiences to me
in the following terms:--