Those of us who have read Dianetics: Modern Science of Mental Health and Hubbard's obsession with pregnant women, knitting needles and attempted abortions will recognize some oddly similar sentiments in the excerpt below. Commander Joseph Thompson was a Freudian analyst, and Hubbard's alleged tutor. U.S. Naval Medical Bulletin, Vol XXI, December 1924 No. 6. (Copyright unknown) The Psychoanalyst And His Work by J. C. Thompson, Commander, Medical Corps, United States Navy <start quote>

[...] Every person without exception who has a neurotic symptom has two other things: he has a feeling of, inferiority and some unpleasant problem or conflict that he is finding difficult to solve in a satisfactory and efficient manner. These neurotic symptoms are one and all developed by the unconscious mind to compensate for this feeling of inferiority, and to afford an escape from the unpleasant problem with which he is confronted. Take the hysterical vomiting of pregnancy, for example. The analyst can be certain that the expected addition to the family is unwelcome to the mother. It may be from lack of love for the husband; it may be from fear of his fidelity during the period when she will be prevented from going about with him; it may be that she has been in some mischief of sorts and is afraid that the paternity of the illegitimate father may be evidenced in hair, eyes, or coloring of the infant; it may be that, she does not want the disfigurement and the interruption of certain social activities. All these and many other factors must be borne in mind by the discerning analyst. The unconscious mind of the neurotic patient then reasons on this subject about as follows: "I have done a very stupid thing in having allowed conception to take place, when so many of my friends are so much smarter and have prevented it." Now, all we have to do is to think we have been stupid or less smart than those about us, when we will promptly develop a feeling of inferiority, which makes us wretched, unhappy, and inefficient; this is a neurosis. Now, the pregnant patient, facing a problem which is disagreeable, employs the neurotic device of continuous vomiting in the endeavor to escape from the impending confinement and additional child. The unconscious mind again reasons about as follows: "Now, if you will only vomit your food, you will become poorly nourished and with any kind of luck the straining and pressure upon the abdominal contents will cause you to abort naturally; but if this does not happen, all you have to do is to stay with it, keep on vomiting, and your friends will become deeply concerned, your family physician will call a consultation, and surgical interference with the pregnancy will be described. Now, this is exactly what the unconscious mind of the patient desired; the abortion will be performed amid the sympathy of attentive friends, and this will convert the patient's feeling of inferiority, of having been stupid and in bad luck, into a feeling of being of some importance in her little world; for are not doctors and nurses and friends vieing <sic> with each other in their endeavor to bring about a realization of her most profound wishes-that is, the avoiding of having a child? The symptom of the hysterical vomiting of pregnancy is therefore the disguised expression of an unconscious wish. This is the mechanism of a large group of hysterical symptoms. [...] <end quote>

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