MASTURBATION. The limited, restricted dictionary definition is self-abuse, that is, gen ital manipulation by the hands, clothing, bed clothes, by riding, by hard objects and by pres sure of things against the genitals, etc. Re garded in its broader aspect of an autoerotic reaction to external reality it covers a multi, rude of activities not ordinarily realized as masturbatory in nature and is one of the most important topics in the whole realm of psycho pathology. Thus broadly defined it is a erogenous satisfaction through any and z modes of gratification carried on for their own pleasure and includes both somatic and psychic masturbation. Not regarded in antiquity as of very vital importance it was brought into prominence and called deleterious principally by Tissot, who wrote early in the 19th cen tury, and is the sponsor of all the lurid liter ature which has spread over two continents since his time. He taught that masturbation was a very serious weakness and that it led to various forms of illness and insanity, state ments for which modern medical science can find no satisfactory proofs. The most modern attitude toward masturbation is that the dele terious effects so often observed in those who practise it come not from any injury to the body but from the guilty feelings of those who abuse themselves and from the tendency it has to remove them from the true relations with their fellows. That is, when the individual satisfies his fantasy sense of potency by any form of masturbation, the personality will re gress to more and more infantile levels and the discrepancy between the social value of the autoerotic behavior and the true adult behavior which is called for by the environment will result in some form of mental or bodily illness. The fate of Sodom and Gomorrah revealed its dangers, and the Greeks gave it a poetical con ception in the myth of Narcissus (see NARCIS SISM), the youth who fell in love with his image in a pool, a story which represents ex ternal reality reduced by autoerotism to a mere reflection of self. Thus the forms of physical activity which may be regarded as essentially masturbatory in character are very numerous.
Any act which satisfies the unconscious de sires through producing an effect upon the body instead of on the world of external reality is of this nature. And the body has various zones other than the genital in which this self-grati fication is practised unconsciously through mul tifarious forms of activity, the most prominent being the mouth, the intestines and different parts of the skin. The infant naturally puts
everything into its mouth, and this habit is con tinued into adult life by persons who put into their mouths for other reasons than masticating them and swallowing them as In fact all objects, not food, that are mouthed serve this purpose, including tobacco, chewing gum, toothpicks, etc., and therefore are sub ject to the same reproach as any other use of any part of the body through which no change, having a social value, is effected upon external reality. The skin as well as the muscles are used as sources of self-gratification, too, in massage; and such acts as stroking the skin, running fingers through the hair, scratching, tickling, etc., are other examples.
Constipation of the spastic type is the most common form of unconscious masturbation of the anal-erotic zone. Bodily masturbation, conscious as well as unconscious, is paralleled by a form of thinking that may be called men tal masturbation, in which the individual, male or female, has acquired the habit, whether or not from practising physical masturbation, of seeking pleasure from his own states of mind. Excessive day-dreaming, reading of light liter ature and attendance on light drama or moving picture shows, aimless driving about in automo biles and most other forms of solitary or un productive mental activity may be classed as types of mental masturbation, and when car ried beyond a certain degree generally result in a species of mental impotence, in which the individual is unable to carry out any activity to a productive conclusion. The treatment of both mental and physical masturbation is men tal. The patient is to be shown through analysis just what he is doing, both in its phys ical and psychical aspects, and that his action is essentially infantile, representing an arrest of development at a very early level, which thus never permits him to act the true adult part in lire. Various wholesbme and truly social activ ities should be encouraged, and the patient in structed how to enlist his entire libido (q.v.) in them, and the desire for solitary pleasure will gradually disappear.