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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"


The ancient allegation that inverts have written their own
histories on the model, or under the suggestion, of those
published in Krafft-Ebing's _Psychopathia Sexualis_ can scarcely
have much force now that the published histories are so extremely
varied and numerous that they cannot possibly produce any uniform
impression on the most sensitively receptive mind. As a matter of
fact, there is no doubt that inverts have frequently been
stimulated to set down the narrative of their own experiences
through reading those written by others. But the stimulation has,
as often as not, lain in the fact that their own experiences have
seemed different, not that they have seemed identical. The
histories that they read only serve as models in the sense that
they indicate the points on which information is desired. I have
often been able to verify this influence, which would in any case
seem to be fairly obvious.
Psycho-analysis is, in theory, an ideal method of exploring many
psychic conditions, such as hysteria and obsessions, which are
obscure and largely concealed beneath the psychic surface.


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