“The
desire for life, the desire for love, are too strong within us to be repressed for
long without serious hurt to the mental processes. Aichmophobia is simply
another version of the agonized protest of the life-force crying out against
atrophy and disuse. The sublimation of sexual impulses into so-called higher
activities is all very well in theory, but frustration sometimes wreaks a
horrible punishment on its voluntary or involuntary victims. The maladjusted
man who, either out of personal conviction or the restraining hand of social
forces, has disregarded and suppressed the natural urge to sex-expression, may
end up by wishing for death or castration to release him from the fury of impulses
he is unable to gratify. The aichmophobiac fears the cutting edge and the sharp
point for an obvious reason: he does not trust his own power to resist their
insidious appeal. He is fascinated and terrified by sharp and pointed
instruments that may release the surging flow of blood – a symbol for an orgasm
in which the entire body makes a last, convulsive sacrifice.
“Prisoners
in jails, inmates of asylums, driven to frenzy by their enforced sexual
inactivity, have been known to mutilate their genitals with pieces of glass or
wire torn from the springs of their beds. This same tendency exists to an
advanced degree in the aichmophobiac, and the slow erosion of mad suggestions
ends finally by breaking down the mind. Razors, knives, scissors, needles,
fence-palings, iron gates, hundreds of the commonplace objects of his daily
life, are all means to an end he desires and fears. He is constantly haunted by
visions in which he sees himself stabbing his friend, or opening his veins, or
mutilating his organs: by any of these acts his purpose is accomplished – the destruction
of life itself or the emasculation of the life-giving principal (sic.).”
John Vassos
New York City
May 25th, 1931
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