Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

I once had a patient with a disabling symptom, a fetish which is an obsessive need to touch or photograph or otherwise involve themselves with an object or body part, which can be a woman's shoe or foot, just about anything. Being almost always a male symptom, women tending not to develop them, it reflects early life trauma during which the object involves what has been termed "castration anxiety," the boy's fear of losing his penis. The boy, having seen a naked female and fearing they may lose their penis as he incorrectly believes the female did hers, uses the fetish to symbolize this fear and underlying anxiety. Which tends to persist since early childhood has immaturely developed thinking capacities and is the bedrock of the adult personality.

After explaining the nature of fetish to this man, I advised him to talk to himself: to tell himself that while the fetish helped him when he was a child it was no longer needed. Still, both he and the fetish would remain friends throughout life but the fetish could relax. Using this technique, which contains elements of play therapy with children, his obsession with the fetish disappeared within several months.

Similarly, when one has experienced a traumatic experience, during wartime or after rape or assault, if one tells oneself that the later symptoms were created to help them and not the problem, they are better able to cope. Understanding that the associated symptom such as nightmares are friendly warnings to resolve an unconscious conflict and not an enemy.

So while talking to oneself has a bad reputation, it often being associated with psychosis, it can be healing. But it should be done when alone and need not be spoken aloud.

There may be few behaviors as puzzling to the non-clinician as a fetish, which is an overwhelming interest by a man in an ordinary object like shoes, feet, an odor, or an article of clothing for it rarely afflicts women. Though apparently "crazy" there is a logic to the interest since it derives from the ealiest years of childhood when the mind is most immature and the child is easily frightened. The creation of the fetish was motivated by a sight which so terrified them that a "screen memory" had to be created to hide it in a symbol, the fetish. This protected them from remembering the overly exciting event, perhaps the sight of a naked female or of adults having sex. While virtually all adults have some irrational fear or interest only those interfering with normal functioning require treatment.