Foreword
In the list of sexual crimes, one of the most "hush-hush" items is incest. Yet, surveys beginning with those of Dr. Ralph E. Kinsey reveal that this is one of the most prevalent of all sex acts, during the early years of life. The range of incest is broad, according to the laws of this country (and of many others), and includes sexual intercourse between all close relatives up to and including, first cousins.
Many states refuse to grant marriage licenses to first cousins on the premise that this is too close inbreeding. Even second cousins have trouble in many other states.
But, regardless of laws and statutes, and widespread prohibition against the act, the records of marriage counselors, psychiatrists, doctors, psychologists, sexologists, and hypno-therapists, reveal that incest, in its many forms, is one of the most common sexual "crimes" with which we have to deal. Because of the natural reticence of participants in incest to talk of it, the most reliable source of information on the subject is the case histories of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and police records, as well as the records of hypno-therapists. It is from these sources that the following case histories are taken.
One of the most valuable sources of motivational and emotional reasons and actual feelings of the parties involved in incest, is that of the hypno-therapy cases, because here, while under hypnosis, the patient is revealing the subconscious. The subconscious cannot lie; thus, the patient "tells it like it is" and furthermore, by regressing into the actual time period in which incest took place, the average person has total recall. This makes for realism and fine detail in all instances-much more than the average patient in psycho-therapy is able to give, even over long periods of treatment. The language is often blunt, but-remember, the subconscious does not learn guile or politeness. It records what it feels and is fed by the conscious mind, plus all the emotional and nervous system messages. The subconscious has no morals; it knows only pleasure or pain, thus, it does not censor.
We have chosen carefully in order to cover the widest range of incest. We have not added to, nor subtracted from the actual cases; except for the sake of clarity and condensation. These case histories are the actual efforts of the persons involved, as they sought to understand their emotions, prejudices, guilt feelings, in order to alter their sexual "hang-ups" via professional help.