Id-Bits

Outstanding among the Freudian insights into human problems presented at last week's annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association:

P: Some people in all age groups like to set fires, but for different reasons, said the University of Southern California's Psychiatrist Stanley J. Geller. He concentrated on preadolescents (six to eleven), found that his 75 subjects were all boys. (The only female firebug he found was a girl of 14.) "Without fail," said Dr. Geller, "the marital relationship of the parents was unstable or really nonexistent. In 77% of the cases the real fathers were extremely hostile, aggressive men who frequently beat their children. In approximately half the children, enuresis [bedwetting] was an accompanying symptom." The Freudian explanation: "Fire-setting is greatly related to sexuality and sexual identification. In almost all of the children there was no adequate, wholesome ground for resolving the oedipal conflict . . . The fire is [the boys'] assertion of their manhood and is their means of protection."

P: A religious outlook is good protection against sudden death on the highways, according to a University of Colorado team headed by Psychologist John J. Conger. The team studied 264 men at Denver's Lowry Air Force Base, found that psychologists' scales of values were the best clue to accident proneness. Especially important: values in the religious, theoretical and esthetic fields. Subjects who seldom or never had driving accidents were those who attached more importance to religious values than to the theoretical or esthetic. The high-accident group tended to be less conventional, more complex and conflicted, less in harmony with the world around them.

P: "The skin of man is a remarkably telltale organ," noted Western Reserve University's Psychiatrist Brian Bird. "Age, sex, race, occupation, recreation, hobbies, economic status . . . can often be read directly from the skin. But it also reveals emotions. Many people use their skin as the principal organ of expression." Well-known examples are blanching and blushing, chills and sweats, but another emotional outlet can be eczema. "In my experience with eczema," said Dr. Bird, "the most prominent hidden impulse is anger, but eczema patients peculiarly are unable to become angry openly.''

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.