of the ego to libido that is so frequently claimed. We know that the
development of fear is the ego's reaction to danger, the signal for
preparation for flight, and from this we are led to believe that in
neurotic fear the ego attempts to escape the claims of its libido, and
treats this inner danger as though it came from without. Accordingly our
expectation that where there is fear there must be something to be
afraid of, is fulfilled. But the analogy admits of further application.
Just as the attempt to flee external danger is relieved by standing
one's ground, and by appropriate steps toward defense, so the
development of neurotic fear is arrested as fast as the symptom
develops, for by means of it the fear is held in check.
Our difficulties in understanding now lie elsewhere. The fear, which
represents flight of the ego before the libido, is supposed to have
sprung from the libido itself. That is obscure and warns us not to
forget that the libido of a person belongs fundamentally to him and
cannot confront him as an external force. The localized dynamics of fear
development are still unintelligible; we do not know what psychic
energies are released or from what psychic systems they are derived. I
cannot promise to solve this problem, but we still have two trails to
follow which lead us to direct observations and analytic investigation
which can aid our speculations. We turn to the origin of fear in the
child, and to the source of neurotic fear which attaches itself to
phobias.
Fear in children is quite common and it is very hard to tell whether it
is neurotic or real fear. Indeed, the value of this distinction is
rendered questionable by the behavior of children. On the one hand we
are not surprised that the child fears all strange persons, new
situations and objects, and we explain this reaction very easily by his
weakness and ignorance. We ascribe to the child a strong disposition to
real fear and would consider it purposeful if this fear were in fact a
heritage. Herein the child would only repeat the behavior of prehistoric
man and of the primitive man of today who, on account of his ignorance
and helplessness, fears everything that is new, and much that is
familiar, all of which can no longer inspire us with fear. If the
phobias of the child were at least partially such as might be attributed
to that primeval period of human development, this would tally entirely
with our expectations.
On the other hand, we cannot overlook the fact that not all children are
equally afraid, and that those very children who express particular
timidity toward all possible objects and situations subsequently prove
to be nervous. Thus the neurotic disposition reveals itself by a decided
tendency to real fear; anxiety rather than nervousness appears to be
primary. We therefore arrive at the conclusion that the child (and later
the adult) fears the power of his libido because he is anxious in the
face of everything. The derivation of anxiety from the libido is hence
put aside. Any investigation of the conditions of real fear consistently
leads to the conclusion that consciousness of one's own weakness and
helplessness--inferiority, in the terminology of A. Adler--when it is
able to persist from childhood to maturity, is the cause underlying the
neuroses.
This sounds so simple and convincing that it has a claim upon our
attention. To be sure, it would result in our shifting the basis of
nervousness. The persistence of the feeling of inferiority, and its
prerequisite condition of anxiety and its subsequent development of
symptoms, is so firmly established that it is rather the exceptional
case, when health is the outcome, which requires an explanation. What
can be learned from careful observation of the fear of children? The
little child is primarily afraid of strange people; situations wax
important only because they involve people, and objects become
influential much later. But the child does not fear these strange
persons because he attributes evil intentions to them, because he
compares his weakness with their strength or recognizes them as
dangerous to his existence, his safety and freedom from pain. Such a
child, suspicious, afraid of the aggressive impulse which dominates the
world, would prove a sad theoretic construction. The child is afraid of
a stranger because he is adjusted to a dear, beloved person, his
mother. His disappointment and longing are transformed into fear, his
unemployed libido, which cannot yet be held suspended, is diverted by
fear. It cannot be termed a coincidence that this situation, which is a
typical example of all childish fear, is a repetition of the first
condition of fear during birth, viz., separation from the mother.
The first situation phobias of children are darkness and solitude; the
former often persists throughout life; common to both is the absence of
the dear nurse, the mother. I once heard a child, who was afraid of the
dark, call into an adjoining room, "Auntie, talk to me, I am afraid."
"But what good will that do you? You cannot see me!" Whereupon the child
answered, "If someone speaks, it is brighter." The yearning felt in
darkness is converted into the fear of darkness. Far from saying that
neurotic fear is only a secondary, a special case of real fear, we
observe in little children something that resembles the behavior of real
fear and has in common with neurotic fear, this characteristic feature:
origin from unemployed libido. The child seems to bring very little real
fear into the world. In all situations which may later become the
conditions of phobias, on elevations, narrow bridges across water, on
railroad and boat trips, the child exhibits no fear. And the more
ignorant he is, the less fear he feels. It would be most desirable to
have a greater heritage of such life-preservative instincts; the task of
supervision, which is to hinder him from exposing himself to one danger
after another, would be lessened. In reality the child at first
overestimates his powers and behaves fearlessly because he does not
recognize dangers. He will run to the water's edge, mount the window
sill, play with fire or with sharp utensils, in short, he will do
everything that would harm him and alarm his guardians. The awakening of
real fear is the result of education, since we may not permit him to
pass through the instructive experience himself.
If there are children who meet this education to fear half way, and who
discover dangers of which they have not been warned, the explanation
suffices that their constitution contains a greater measure of
libidinous need or that they have been spoiled early through libidinous
gratification. No wonder that those persons who are nervous in later
life are recruited from the ranks of these children. We know that the
creation of neurosis is made easy by the inability to endure a
considerable amount of pent-up libido for any length of time. You see
that here too we must do justice to the constitutional factor, whose
rights we never wish to question. We fight shy of it only when others
neglect all other claims for this, and introduce the constitutional
factor where it does not belong according to the combined results of
observation and analysis, or where it must be the last consideration.
Let us extract the sum of our observations on the anxiety of children:
Infantile fear has very little to do with real fear, but is closely
related to the neurotic fear of adults. It originates in unemployed
libido and replaces the object of love that is lacking by an external
object or situation.
Now you will be glad to hear that the analysis of phobias cannot teach
much more that is new. The same thing occurs in them as in the fear of
children; unemployed libido is constantly being converted into real fear
and so a tiny external danger takes the place of the demands of the
libido. This coincidence is not strange, for infantile phobias are not
only the prototypes but the direct prerequisite and prelude to later
phobias, which are grouped with the anxiety hysterias. Every hysteria
phobia can be traced to childish fear of which it is a continuation,
even if it has another content and must therefore receive a different
name. The difference between the two conditions lies in their mechanism.
In the adult the fact that the libido has momentarily become useless in
the form of longing, is not sufficient to effect the transformation of
fear into libido. He has long since learned to maintain such libido in a
suspended state or to use it differently. But when the libido is part of
a psychic impulse which has experienced suppression, similar conditions
to those of the child, who cannot distinguish the conscious from the
unconscious, are reestablished. The regression to infantile phobia is
the bridge where the transformation of libido into fear is conveniently
effected. We have, as you know, spoken a great deal about suppression,
but we have always followed the fate of the conception that was to be
suppressed, because this was easier to recognize and to present. We have
always omitted from our consideration what happened to the emotion that
clung to the suppressed idea; and only now we learn that whatever
quality this emotion might have manifested under normal conditions, its
fate is a transformation into fear. This transformation of emotion is by
far the more important part of the suppression process. It is not so
easy to discuss, because we cannot assert the existence of unconscious
emotions in the same sense as unconscious ideas. With one difference, an
idea remains the same whether it is conscious or unconscious; we can
give an account of what corresponds to an unconscious idea. But an
emotion is a release and must be judged differently from an idea.
Without a deeper reflection and clarification of our hypotheses of
psychic processes, we cannot tell what corresponds to its unconscious
stage. We cannot undertake this here. But we want to retain the
impression we have gained, that the development of anxiety is closely
connected with the unconscious system.
I said that the transformation into fear, rather a discharge in the form
of fear, is the immediate fate of suppressed libido. Not the only or
final fate, I must add. These neuroses are accompanied by processes that
strive to restrain the development of fear, and succeed in various ways.
In phobias, for instance, two phases of the neurotic process can be
clearly distinguished. The first effects the suppression of libido and
its transition to fear, which is joined to an external danger. The
second consists in building up all those precautions and safety devices
which are to prevent contact with this danger which is dealt with as an
external fact. Suppression corresponds to the ego's flight from the
libido, which it regards dangerous. The phobia is comparable to a
fortification against outer danger, which is represented by the much
feared libido. The weakness of the phobias' system of defense lies in
the fact that the fort has been strengthened from without and has
remained vulnerable within. The projection of peril from the libido into
the environment is never very successful. In other neuroses, therefore,
other systems of defense are used against the possibility of fear
development. That is an interesting aspect of the psychology of
neurosis. Unfortunately its study would lead us to digress too far, and
presupposes a more thorough and special knowledge of the subject. I
shall add only one thing more. I have already spoken to you of the
counter siege by which the ego imprisons the suppression and which it
must maintain permanently for the suppression to subsist. The task of
this counter siege is to carry out diverse forms of defense against the
fear development which follows the suppression.
To return to the phobias, I may now say that you realize how
insufficient it would be to explain only their content, to be interested
only in knowing that this or that object or situation is made the
subject of a phobia. The content of the phobia has about the same
importance for it as the manifest dream facade has for the dream. With
some necessary restrictions, we admit that among the contents of the
phobias are some that are especially qualified to be objects of fear
through phylogenetic inheritance, as Stanley Hall has emphasized. In
harmony with this is the fact that many of these objects of fear can
establish connections with danger only by symbolic relations.
And so we are convinced of the central position that the problem of fear
assumes in the questions of the neurotic psychology. We are deeply
impressed with how closely the development of fear is interwoven with
the fate of the libido and the unconscious system. There is only one
disconnected point, one inconsistency in our hypothesis: the
indisputable fact that real fear must be considered an expression of the
ego's instincts of self-preservation.
TWENTY-SIXTH LECTURE
GENERAL THEORY OF THE NEUROSES
_The Libido Theory and Narcism_
Repeatedly in the past and more recently we have dealt with the
distinction between the ego instincts and the sexual instincts. At
first, suppression taught us that the two may be flatly opposed to each
other, that in the struggle the sexual instincts suffer apparent defeat
and are forced to obtain satisfaction by other regressive methods, and
so find the compensation for defeat in their invulnerability. After that
we learned that at the outset both have a different relation to the
educator, Necessity, so that they do not develop in the same manner and
do not enter into the same relationship with the principle of reality.
We come to realize that the sexual instincts are much more closely
allied to the emotional condition of fear than the ego instincts. This
result appears incomplete only in one respect, which, however, is most
important. For further evidence we shall mention the significant fact
that non-satisfaction of hunger and thirst, the two most elementary
instincts of self-preservation, never result in their reversal into
anxiety, while the transformation of unsatisfied libido into fear is, as
we have heard, one of the best known and most frequently observed
phenomena.
No one can contest our perfect justification in separating the ego from
sexual instincts. It is affirmed by the existence of sexual desire,
which is a very special activity of the individual. The only question
is, what significance shall we give to this distinction, how decisive is
it? The answer will depend upon the results of our observations; on how
far the sexual instincts, in their psychological and somatic
manifestations, behave differently from the others that are opposed to
them; on how important are the consequences which result from these
differences. We have, of course, no motive whatever for insisting upon
a certain intangible difference in the character of the two groups of
instincts. Both are only designations of the sources of energy of the
individual. The discussion as to whether they are fundamentally of the
same or of a different character, and if the same, when it was that they
separated from one another, cannot profit by the conceptions, but must
deal rather with the underlying biological facts. At present we know
very little about this, and even if we knew more it would not be
relevant to our analytic task.
Obviously, we should gain slight profit if, following the example of
Jung, we were to emphasize the original unity of all instincts, and were
to call the energy expressed in all of them "libido." Since the sexual
function cannot be eliminated from psychic life by any device, we are
forced to speak of sexual and asexual libido. As in the past, we rightly
retain the name libido for the instincts of sexual life.
I believe, therefore, that the question, how far the justifiable
distinction of the instincts of sex and of self-preservation may be
carried, is of little importance for psychoanalysis; and psychoanalysis
is moreover not competent to deal with it. From a biological standpoint
there are, to be sure, various reasons for believing that this
distinction is significant. Sexuality is the only function of the living
organism which extends beyond the individual and sees to his kinship
with the species. It is undeniable that its practice does not always
benefit the individual as do his other performances. For the price of
ecstatic pleasures it involves him in dangers which threaten his life
and frequently cause death. Probably peculiar metabolic processes,
different from all others, are required to maintain a part of the
individual life for its progeny. The individual who places himself in
the foreground and regards his sexuality as a means to his gratification
is, from a biological point of view, only an episode in a series of
generations, a transient appendage to a germ-plasm which is virtually
endowed with immortality, just as though he were the temporary partner
in a corporation which continues to persist after his death.
For psychoanalytic explanation of neuroses, however, there is no need to
enter upon these far-reaching implications. By separate observation of
the sexual and the ego instincts, we have gained the key to the
understanding of transference-neuroses. We were able to trace them back
to the fundamental situation where the sexual instinct and the instinct
of self-preservation had come in conflict with one another, or
biologically although not so accurately, expressed where the part played
by the ego, that of independent individuality, was opposed to the other,
that of a link in a series of generations. Only human beings are capable
of such conflict, and therefore, taken all in all, neurosis is the
prerogative of man, and not of animals. The excessive development of his
libido and the elaboration of a varied and complicated psychic life thus
made possible, appear to have created the conditions prerequisite for
conflict. It is clear that these conditions are also responsible for the
great progress that man has made beyond his kinship with animals. The
capacity for neurosis is really only the reverse side of his talents and
gifts. But these are only speculations, which divert us from our task.
Until now we worked with the impulse that we can distinguish the ego and
the sexual instincts from one another by their manifestations. We could
do this without difficulty in the transference neuroses. We called the
accumulation of energy which the ego directed towards the object of its
sexual striving libido and all others, which proceeded from the
instincts of self-preservation, interest. We were able to achieve our
first insight into the workings of psychic forces by observing the
accumulation of the libido, its transformations and its final destiny.
The transference neuroses furnished the best material for this. But the
ego, composed from various organizations, their construction and
functioning, remained hidden and we were led to believe that only the
analysis of other neurotic disturbances would raise the veil.
Very soon we began to extend these psychoanalytic conceptions to other
conditions. As early as 1908, K. Abraham asserted, after a discussion
with me, that the principal characteristic of dementia praecox (which
may be considered one of the psychoses) is _that there is no libidinous
occupation of objects_ (_The Psycho-sexual Differences between Hysteria
and Dementia Praecox_). But then the question arose, what happens to the
libido of the demented, which is diverted from its objects? Abraham did
not hesitate to give the answer, "It is turned back upon the ego, and
_this reflected turning back is the source of the megalomania_ in
dementia praecox." This hallucination of greatness is exactly comparable
to the well-known over-estimation of the objects habitual to lovers. So,
for the first time, we gained an understanding of psychotic condition by
comparing it with the normal course of love.
These first interpretations of Abraham's have been maintained in
psychoanalysis, and have become the basis of our attitude towards the
psychoses. Slowly we familiarized ourselves with the idea that the
libido, which we find attached to certain objects, which expresses a
striving to attain gratification from these objects, may also forsake
them and put in their place the person's own ego. Gradually these ideas
were developed more and more consistently. The name for this placing of
the libido--narcism--was borrowed from one of the perversions described
by P. Naecke. In it the grown individual lavishes upon his own body all
the affection usually devoted to some foreign sex object.
We reflected that if such a fixation of libido on one's own body and
person instead of on some external object exists, this cannot be an
exceptional or trivial occurrence. It is much more probable that this
narcism is the general and original condition, out of which the love for
an object later develops, without however necessarily causing narcism to
disappear. From the evolutionary history of object-libido we remembered
that in the beginning many sex instincts seek auto-erotic gratification,
and that this capacity for auto-eroticism forms the basis for the
retardation of sexuality in its education to conformity with fact. And
so, auto-eroticism was the sexual activity of the narcistic stage in the
placing of the libido.
To be brief: We represented the relation of the ego-libido to the
object-libido in a way which I can explain by an analogy from zoology.
Think of the simplest forms of life, which consist of a little lump of
protoplasmic substance which is only slightly differentiated. They
stretch out protrusions, known as pseudopia, into which the protoplasm
flows. But they can withdraw these protrusions and assume their original
shape. Now we compare the stretching out of these processes with the
radiation of libido to the objects, while the central mass of libido can
remain in the ego, and we assume that under normal conditions ego-libido
can be changed into object-libido, and this can again be taken up into
the ego, without any trouble.
With the help of this representation we can now explain a great number
of psychic conditions, or to express it more modestly, describe them, in
the language of the libido theory; conditions that we must accredit to
normal life, such as the psychic attitude during love, during organic
sickness, during sleep. We assumed that the conditions of sleep rest
upon withdrawal from the outer world and concentration upon the wish to
sleep. The nocturnal psychic activity expressed in the dream we found in
the service of a wish to sleep and, moreover, governed by wholly
egoistic motives. Continuing in the sense of libido theory: sleep is a
condition in which all occupations of objects, the libidinous as well as
the egoistic, are given up, and are withdrawn into the ego. Does this
not throw a new light upon recovery during sleep, and upon the nature of
exhaustion in general? The picture of blissful isolation in the
intra-uterine life, which the sleeper conjures up night after night,
thus also completes the picture from the psychic side. In the sleeper
the original condition of libido division is again restored, a condition
of complete narcism in which libido and ego-interest are still united
and live indistinguishably in the self-sufficient ego.