s, it may be possible to exert a healing influence
on the homosexual. Thus a man who is attracted to boys may be brought to
love a boyish woman.[251] Indications of this kind have long been observed
and utilized, though not developed into a systematic method of treatment.
In the case of bisexual individuals, or of youthful subjects whose
homosexuality is not fully developed, it is probable that this method is
beneficial. It is difficult to believe, however, that it possesses any
marked influence on pronounced and developed cases of inversion.[252]

Somewhat the same aim as Moll's association-therapy, though on the basis
of a more elaborate theory, is sought by Freud's psychoanalytic method of
treating homosexuality. For the psychoanalytic theory (to which reference
was made in the previous chapter) the congenital element of inversion is a
rare and usually unimportant factor; the chief part is played by perverse
psychic mechanisms. It is the business of psychoanalysis to straighten
these out, and from the bisexual constitution, which is regarded as common
to every one, to bring into the foreground the heterosexual elements, and
so to reconstruct a normal personality, developing new sexual ideals from
the patient's own latent and subconscious nature. Sadger has especially
occupied himself with the psychoanalytic treatment of homosexuality and
claims many successes.[253] Sadger admits that there are many limits to
the success of this treatment, and that it cannot affect the inborn
factors of homosexuality when present. Other psychoanalysts are less
sanguine as to the cure of inversion. Stekel appears to have stated that
he has never seen a complete cure by psychoanalysis, and Ferenezi is not
able to give a good account of the results; especially as regards what he
terms obsessional homosexuality, he states that he has never succeeded in
effecting a complete cure, although obsessions in general are especially
amenable to psychoanalysis.[254]

I have met with at least two homosexual persons who had undergone
psychoanalytic treatment and found it beneficial. One, however, was
bisexual, so that the difficulties in the way of the success--granting it
to be real--were not serious. In the other case, the inversion persisted
after treatment, exactly the same as before. The benefit he received was
due to the fact that he was enabled to understand himself better and to
overcome some of his mental difficulties. The treatment, therefor