Noun

The typical cases of hysteria cited by Freud thus involved a
moral conflict—a conflict about what the young women in
question wanted to do with themselves. Did they want to
prove that they were good daughters by taking care of their
sick fathers? Or did they want to become independent of their
parents, by having a family of their own, or in some other
way? I believe it was the tension between these conflicting
aspirations that was the crucial issue in these cases. The sexual
problem—say, of the daughter's incestuous cravings for her
father—was secondary (if that important); it was stimulated,
perhaps, by the interpersonal situation in which the one had to
attend to the other's body. Moreover, it was probably easier to
admit the sexual problem to consciousness and to worry about
it than to raise the ethical problem indicated.³ In the final
analysis, the latter is a vastly difficult problem in living. It
cannot be "solved" by any particular maneuver but requires
rather decision making about basic goals, and, having made
the decisions, dedicated efforts to attain them.

Noun