Psychosomatic Medicine 27:53-70 (1965)
© 1965 American Psychosomatic Society

Self-Castration by a Man with Cyclic Changes in Sexuality

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, Mich; National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md
² Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, Mich

A case is presented of a man who castrated himself and who reported he had experienced cyclic changes in sexuality for 6 years. Developmental history, including physical factors of cryptorchidism and bilateral inguinal hernias in infancy, suggests a setting in which comfortable masculine identification would have been most difficult. The feminine components of personality appear to have received considerable reinforcement from the family and other social groups. While psychiatric and psychological studies pointed to a nonpsychotic but basically schizophrenic individual with paranoid features, endocrine findings suggested that most probably the patient was a normal male who had suffered castration. Discussion includes a comparison of the present case with those of other self-castrates and with the only other reported case of cyclic sexual alternation. Consideration is given to the following theoretical issues; (1), the psychopathology of self-castration; (2) the development of an identity in the patient; (3) self-castration and the resolution of the castration complex; and (4) the role of reality factors and fantasy in bisexuality and paranoid reactions.