Death or Emasculation; a Schreberian Alternative

Abstract

Starting out from the original text of Schreber’s Memories, we suggest in this paper that Freud’s thesis about the relationship of paranoia and homosexuality be reconside­red.

Analyzing Schreber’s frangments we are able to demonstrate that this transforma­tion into a woman does no imply the loss of the penis, since although at different times Schreber hallucinates the transformation of different parts of his body into a woman’s body, emasculation, according to how he describes it, is something which would take place at. the end of ah times; it consists of a retraction rather than of an ablation; the Supreme God can reverse it; and thus the fantasy as stated is the androgyne one.

Therefore such emasculation is not a castration; on the contrary, the narcissist va­lue of the penis is kept.

According to our point of view, Schreber’s delirium has to do with a failure in pri­mary identification and consequently, in the building of the ego, and thus what is invol­ved is not the possession of the penis but rather its existence.

In Schreber’s delirium, aspects of primary identification (to be/no to be) are inter­mingled with aspects of secondary identification (to have/not to have a penis) which, in raving terms, is equivalent to changing into a woman.

In this sense Schreber’s delirium is the (delirious) creation of the possibility of his own existence, with the (delirious) restitution of an orderly pattern of the universe which has been infringed by God-Father. Schreber’s drama is fundamentally this despe­rate battle of his existence, that is, the wish to be recognized as a human being.