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Dear Cecil:
What exactly is meant by "anal retentive"? I think I am that. I saw
a T-shirt that said, "You are anal retentive if you wonder if there
should be a hyphen." I wondered if there should be a hyphen in anal
retentive. I have looked some of this stuff up at the library but
got tired. I would appreciate your help. --Collyer, Honolulu,
Hawaii
Dear Collyer:
Yeah, turning those pages definitely takes it out of you. Anal
retentiveness is an elaboration of Freud's ideas on anality, first
published in 1908. Freud wrote that people with "anal character"
were meticulous, parsimonious, and obstinate. Though it's not clear
who first used the term "anal retentive," in 1924 a student of
Freud's named Karl Abraham distinguished A-Rness from anal
expulsiveness. The latter is pretty much what it sounds like, the
predisposition to make a mess, while parsimony and obstinacy are
thought to be A-R traits. Meticulousness, the third of Freud's
three anal characteristics, is thought to be a reaction against
anal expulsiveness.
Freud talked about anality in part because he thought toilet
training was a major factor in personality development. However,
while "anal retentive" survives in common usage (undoubtedly
because it seems like such an upscale way of calling someone an
A-hole), the concept is not taken very seriously by psychoanalysts
today. I quote from Chicago psychoanalyst Robert Galatzer-Levy:
"Although experiences with feces and toilet training may serve as
a model for psychological functioning in later life, toilet
training per se is usually not so important as why such a model was
chosen and how it functions currently. There may be less emphasis
on `anality' due to the fact indoor plumbing has become more
available.
"The invention of indoor plumbing at the end of the last century
was a major source of misery in that it demanded much more control
of defecation than was necessary in a world of chamber pots and
outhouses. Large families such as Freud's (eight to ten people) had
to share a single toilet, and Anna and Sigmund were evidently
plagued by constipation. Attempts at early toilet training may have
made things worse. As the number of toilets per person has grown
and ideas about toilet training became more liberal (promoted not
only by Dr. Spock but also the washing machine and Pampers), anal
retention came to seem less central to psychological life."
It may seem a little comical to you that Freud erected an
impressive theoretical edifice on the fact that he couldn't get
into the bathroom in the morning. Fact is, there has been a bitter
debate over the last couple decades about the extent to which
Freudian theory and psychoanalysis generally are (or were) based on
similar bits of half-baked speculation. Some argue that
psychoanalysis lacks any scientific basis, and Cecil must say he
does not see much effort on the part of the great psychoanalytic
theorists to come up with testable hypotheses, the hallmark of the
scientific method. No need to get into that now, but all parties to
the debate apparently agree that "anal retentive" is slung about
strictly for its comic value today, not because it has any
intellectual heft.
--CECIL ADAMS
The Straight Dope / Questions or
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