enough to decide whether it is real or neurotic anxiety. Indeed the very
value of this distinction is called in question by the attitude of
children themselves. For on the one hand we are not surprised that
children are afraid of strangers, of strange objects and situations, and
we account for this reaction to ourselves very easily by reflecting on
their weakness and ignorance. Thus we ascribe to the child a strong
tendency to real anxiety and should regard it as only practical if this
apprehensiveness had been transmitted by inheritance. The child would
only be repeating the behaviour of prehistoric man and of primitive man
to-day who, in consequence of his ignorance and helplessness,
experiences a dread of anything new and strange, and of much that is
familiar to him, none of which any longer inspires fear in us. It would
also correspond to our expectations if the phobias of children were at
least in part such as might be attributed to those primeval periods of
human development.
On the other hand, it cannot be overlooked that children are not all
equally apprehensive, and that the very children who are more than
usually timid in the face of all kinds of objects and situations are
just those who later on become neurotic. The neurotic disposition is
therefore betrayed, amongst other signs, by a marked tendency to real
anxiety; apprehensiveness rather than nervousness appears to be primary;
and we arrive at the conclusion that the child, and later the adult,
experiences a dread of the strength of his Libido, simply because he is
afraid of everything. The derivation of anxiety from the Libido itself
would then be discarded; and investigation of the conditions of real
anxiety would logically lead to the view that the consciousness of
personal weakness and helplessness—inferiority, as A. Adler calls
it—when it is able to maintain itself into later life is the final cause
of neurosis.
This sounds so simple and plausible that it has a claim on our
attention. It is true that it would involve shifting the point of view
from which we regard the problem of nervousness. That such feelings of
inferiority do persist into later life—together with a disposition to
anxiety and symptom-formation—seems so well established that much more
explanation is required when, in an exceptional case, what we call
‘health’ is the outcome. But what can be learnt from the close
observation of apprehensiveness in children? The small child is first of
all afraid of strange people; situations become important only on
account of the people concerned in them, and objects always much later.
But the child is not afraid of these strange people because he
attributes evil intentions to them, comparing their strength with his
weakness, and thus recognizing in them a danger to his existence, his
safety, and his freedom from pain. Such a conception of a child, so
suspicious and terrified of an overpowering aggressivity in the world,
is a very poor sort of theoretical construction. On the contrary, the
child starts back in fright from a strange figure because he is used
to—and therefore expects—a beloved and familiar figure, primarily his
mother. It is his disappointment and longing which are transformed into
dread—his Libido, unable to be expended, and at that time not to be held
suspended, is discharged through being converted into dread. It can
hardly be a coincidence too that in this situation, which is the
prototype of childish anxiety, the condition of the primary anxiety
state during birth, a separation from the mother, is again reproduced.
The first phobias of situations in children concern darkness and
loneliness; the former is often retained throughout life; common to both
is the desire for the absent attendant, for the mother, therefore. I
once heard a child who was afraid of the darkness call out: “Auntie,
talk to me, I’m frightened.” “But what good will that do? You can’t see
me;” to which the child replied: “If someone talks, it gets lighter.”
The longing felt _in_ the darkness is thus transformed into fear _of_
the darkness. Far from finding that neurotic anxiety is only secondary
and a special case of real anxiety, we see on the contrary that there is
something in the small child which behaves like real anxiety and has an
essential feature in common with neurotic anxiety—namely, origin in
undischarged Libido. Of genuine ‘real anxiety’ the child seems to bring
very little into the world. In all those situations which can become the
conditions of phobias later, on heights, on narrow bridges over water,
in trains and boats, the small child shows no fear—the less it knows the
less it fears. It is much to be wished that it had inherited more of
these life-preserving instincts; the task of looking after it and
preventing it from exposing itself to one danger after another would
have been very much lightened. Actually, you see, a child overestimates
his powers, to begin with, and behaves without fear because he does not
recognize dangers. He will run along the edge of the water, climb upon
the window-sill, play with sharp things and with fire, in short, do
anything that injures him and alarms his attendants. Since he cannot be
allowed to learn it himself through bitter experience, it is entirely
due to training that real anxiety does eventually awake in him.
Now if some children embrace this training in apprehensiveness very
readily, and then find for themselves dangers which they have not been
warned against, it is explicable on the ground that these children have
inherently a greater amount of libidinal need in their constitution than
others, or else that they have been spoiled early with libidinal
gratifications. It is no wonder if those who later become nervous also
belong to this type as children; we know that the most favourable
circumstance for the development of a neurosis lies in the inability to
tolerate a considerable degree of pent-up Libido for any length of time.
You will observe now that here the constitutional factor, which we have
never denied, comes into its own. We protest only when others emphasize
it to the exclusion of all other claims, and when they introduce the
constitutional factor even where according to the unanimous findings
both of observation and of analysis, it does not belong, or only plays a
minor part.
Let us sum up the conclusions drawn from the observation of
apprehensiveness in children: Infantile dread has very little to do with
real anxiety (dread of real danger), but is, on the other hand, closely
allied to the neurotic anxiety of adults. It is derived like the latter
from undischarged Libido, and it substitutes some other external object
or some situation for the love-object which it misses.
Now you will be glad to hear that the analysis of phobias has little
more to teach us than we have learnt already. The same thing happens in
them as in the anxiety of children; Libido that cannot be discharged is
continuously being converted into an apparently ‘real’ anxiety, and so
an insignificant external danger is taken as a representative of what
the Libido desires. The agreement between the two forms of anxiety is
not surprising; for infantile phobias are not merely prototypes of those
which appear later in anxiety-hysteria, but they are a direct
preliminary condition and prelude of them. Every hysterical phobia can
be traced back to a childish dread, of which it is a continuation, even
if it has a different content and must be called by a different name.
The difference between the two conditions lies in their mechanism. In
order that the Libido should be converted into anxiety in the adult it
is no longer sufficient that the Libido should be momentarily unable to
be utilized. The adult has long since learned to maintain such Libido
suspended, or to apply it in different ways. But, when the Libido is
attached to a mental excitation which has undergone repression,
conditions similar to those in the child, in whom there is not yet any
distinction between conscious and unconscious, are re-established; and
by a regression to the infantile phobia a bridge, so to speak, is
provided by which the conversion of Libido into anxiety can be
conveniently effected. As you will remember, we have treated repression
at some length, but in so doing we have been concerned exclusively with
the fate of the _idea_ to be repressed; naturally, because this was
easier to recognize and to present. But we have so far ignored the
question of what happened to the _affect_ attached to this idea, and now
we learn for the first time that it is the immediate fate of the affect
to be converted into anxiety, no matter what quality of affect it would
otherwise have been had it run a normal course. This transformation of
affect is, moreover, by far the more important effect of the process of
repression. It is not so easy to present to you; for we cannot maintain
the existence of unconscious affects in the same sense as that of
unconscious ideas. An idea remains up to a point the same, whether it is
conscious or unconscious; we can indicate something that corresponds to
an unconscious idea. But an affect is a process involving a discharge of
energy, and it is to be regarded quite differently from an idea; without
searching examination and clarification of our hypotheses concerning
mental processes, we cannot tell what corresponds with it in the
Unconscious—and that cannot be undertaken here. However, we will
preserve the impression we have gained, that the development of anxiety
is closely connected with the unconscious system.
I said that conversion into anxiety, or better, discharge in the form of
anxiety, was the immediate fate of Libido which encounters repression; I
must add that it is not the only or the final fate of it. In the
neuroses, processes take place which are intended to prevent the
development of anxiety, and which succeed in so doing by various means.
In the phobias, for instance, two stages in the neurotic process are
clearly discernible. The first effects the repressions and conversion of
the Libido into anxiety, which is then attached to some external danger.
The second consists in building up all those precautions and safeguards
by which all contact with this externalized danger shall be avoided.
Repression is an attempt at flight on the part of the Ego from the
Libido which it feels to be dangerous; the phobia may be compared to a
fortification against the outer danger which now stands for the dreaded
Libido. The weakness of this defensive system in the phobias is of
course that the fortress which is so well guarded from without remains
exposed to danger from within; projection externally of danger from
Libido can never be a very successful measure. In the other neuroses,
therefore, other defensive systems are employed against the possibility
of the development of anxiety; this is a very interesting part of the
psychology of the neuroses. Unfortunately it would take us too far
afield and also it would require a thorough grounding in special
knowledge of the subject. I will merely add this. I have already spoken
of the ‘counter-charges’ that are instituted by the Ego upon repression,
which must be maintained so that the repression can persist. It is the
task of this counter-charge to carry out the various forms of defence
against the development of anxiety after repression.
To return to the phobias: I may now hope that you realize how inadequate
it is to attempt merely to explain their content, and to take no
interest in them apart from their derivation—this or that object or
situation which has been made into a phobia. The content of the phobia
has an importance comparable to that of the manifest dream—it is a
façade. With all due modifications, it is to be admitted that among the
contents of the various phobias many are found which, as Stanley Hall
points out, are specially suited by phylogenetic inheritance to become
objects of dread. It is even in agreement with this that many of these
dreaded things have no connection with danger, except through a
_symbolic_ relation to it.
Thus we are convinced of the quite central position which the problem of
anxiety fills in the psychology of the neuroses. We have received a
strong impression of how the development of anxiety is bound up with the
fate of the Libido and with the unconscious system. There is only one
unconnected thread, only one gap in our structure, the fact, which after
all can hardly be disputed, that ‘real anxiety’ must be regarded as an
expression of the Ego’s instinct for self-preservation.
TWENTY-SIXTH LECTURE
THE THEORY OF THE LIBIDO: NARCISSISM
We have repeatedly, and again quite recently, referred to the
distinction between the sexual and the Ego-instincts. First of all,
repression showed how they can oppose each other, how the sexual
instincts are then apparently brought to submission, and required to
procure their satisfaction by circuitous regressive paths, where in
their impregnability they obtain compensation for their defeat. Then it
appeared that from the outset they each have a different relation to the
task-mistress Necessity, so that their developments are different and
they acquire different attitudes to the reality-principle. Finally we
believe we can observe that the sexual instincts are connected by much
closer ties with the affective state of anxiety than are the
Ego-instincts—a conclusion which in one important point only still seems
incomplete. In support of it we may bring forward the further remarkable
fact that want of satisfaction of hunger or thirst, the two most
elemental of the self-preservative instincts, never results in
conversion of them into anxiety, whereas the conversion of unsatisfied
Libido into anxiety is, as we have heard, a very well-known and
frequently-observed phenomenon.
Our justification for distinguishing between sexual and Ego-instincts
can surely not be contested; it is indeed assumed by the existence of
the sexual instinct as a special activity in the individual. The only
question is what significance is to be attached to this distinction, how
radical and decisive we intend to consider it. The answer to this
depends upon what we can ascertain about the extent to which the sexual
instincts, both in their bodily and their mental manifestations, conduct
themselves differently from the other instincts which we set against
them; and how important the results arising from these differences are
found to be. We have of course no motive for maintaining any difference
in the fundamental nature of the two groups of instincts, and, by the
way, it would be difficult to apprehend any. They both present
themselves to us merely as descriptions of the sources of energy in the
individual, and the discussion whether fundamentally they are one, or
essentially different, and if one, when they became separated from each
other, cannot be carried through on the basis of these concepts alone,
but must be grounded on the biological facts underlying them. At present
we know too little about this, and even if we knew more it would not be
relevant to the task of psycho-analysis.
We should clearly also profit very little by emphasizing the primordial
unity of all the instincts, as Jung has done, and describing all the
energies which flow from them as ‘Libido.’ We should then be compelled
to speak of sexual and asexual Libido, since the sexual function is not
to be eliminated from the field of mental life by any such device. The
name Libido, however, remains properly reserved for the instinctive
forces of the sexual life, as we have hitherto employed it.
In my opinion, therefore, the question how far the quite justifiable
distinction between sexual and self-preservative instincts is to be
carried has not much importance for psycho-analysis, nor is
psycho-analysis competent to deal with it. From the biological point of
view there are certainly various indications that the distinction is
important. For the sexual function is the only function of a living
organism which extends beyond the individual and secures its connection
with its species. It is undeniable that the exercise of this function
does not always bring advantage to the individual, as do his other
activities, but that for the sake of an exceptionally high degree of
pleasure he is involved by this function in dangers which jeopardize his
life and often enough exact it. Quite peculiar metabolic processes,
different from all others, are probably required in order to preserve a
portion of the individual’s life as a disposition for posterity. And
finally, the individual organism that regards itself as first in
importance and its sexuality as a means like any other to its own
satisfaction is from a biological point of view only an episode in a
series of generations, a short-lived appendage to a germplasm which is
endowed with virtual immortality, comparable to the temporary holder of
an entail that will survive his death.
We are not concerned with such far-reaching considerations, however, in
the psycho-analytic elucidation of the neuroses. By means of following
up the distinction between the sexual and the Ego-instincts we have
gained the key to comprehension of the group of transference neuroses.
We were able to trace back their origin to a fundamental situation in
which the sexual instincts had come into conflict with the
self-preservative instincts, or—to express it biologically, though at
the same time less exactly—in which the Ego in its capacity of
independent individual organism had entered into opposition with itself
in its other capacity as a member of a series of generations. Such a
dissociation perhaps only exists in man, so that, taken all in all, his
superiority over the other animals may come down to his capacity for
neurosis. The excessive development of his Libido and the rich
elaboration of his mental life (perhaps directly made possible by it)
seem to constitute the conditions which give rise to a conflict of this
kind. It is at any rate clear that these are the conditions under which
man has progressed so greatly beyond what he has in common with the
animals, so that his capacity for neurosis would merely be the obverse
of his capacity for cultural development. However, these again are but
speculations which distract us from the task in hand.
Our work so far has been conducted on the assumption that the
manifestations of the sexual and the Ego-instincts can be distinguished
from one another. In the transference neuroses this is possible without
any difficulty. We called the investments of energy directed by the Ego
towards the object of its sexual desires ‘Libido,’ and all the other
investments proceeding from the self-preservative instincts its
‘interest’; and by following up the investments with Libido, their
transformations, and their final fates, we were able to acquire our
first insight into the workings of the forces in mental life. The
transference neuroses offered the best material for this exploration.
The Ego, however,—its composition out of various organizations with
their structure and mode of functioning—remained undiscovered; we were
led to believe that analysis of other neurotic disturbances would be
required before light could be gained on these matters.
The extension of psycho-analytic conceptions on to these other
affections was begun in early days. Already in 1908 K. Abraham expressed
the view after a discussion with me that the main characteristic of
dementia præcox (reckoned as one of the psychoses) is that in this
disease _the investment of objects with Libido is lacking_. (_The
Psycho-Sexual Differences between Hysteria and Dementia Præcox_). But
then the question arose: what happens to the Libido of dementia patients
when it is diverted from its objects? Abraham did not hesitate to answer
that it is turned back upon the Ego, and that _this reflex reversion of
it is the origin of the delusions of grandeur in dementia præcox_. The
delusion of grandeur is in every way comparable to the well-known
overestimation of the object in a love-relationship. Thus we came for
the first time to understand a feature of a psychotic affection by
bringing it into relation to the normal mode of loving in life.
I will tell you at once that these early views of Abraham’s have been
retained in psycho-analysis and have become the basis of our position
regarding the psychoses. We became slowly accustomed to the conception
that the Libido, which we find attached to certain objects and which is
the expression of a desire to gain some satisfaction in these objects,
can also abandon these objects and set the Ego itself in their place;
and gradually this view developed itself more and more consistently. The
name for this utilization of the Libido—NARCISSISM—we borrowed from a
perversion described by P. Näcke, in which an adult individual lavishes
upon his own body all the caresses usually expended only upon a sexual
object other than himself.
Reflection then at once disclosed that if a fixation of this kind to the
subject’s own body and his own person can occur it cannot be an entirely
exceptional or meaningless phenomenon. On the contrary, it is probable
that this _narcissism_ is the universal original condition, out of which
_object-love_ develops later without thereby necessarily effecting a
disappearance of the narcissism. One also had to remember the evolution
of object-Libido, in which to begin with many of the sexual impulses are
gratified on the child’s own body—as we say, auto-erotically—and that
this capacity for auto-erotism accounts for the backwardness of
sexuality in learning to conform to the reality-principle. Thus it
appeared that auto-erotism was the sexual activity of the narcissistic
phase of direction of the Libido.
To put it briefly, we formed an idea of the relation between the
Ego-Libido and the object-Libido which I can illustrate to you by a
comparison taken from zoology. Think of the simplest forms of life
consisting of a little mass of only slightly differentiated protoplasmic
substances. They extend protrusions which are called pseudopodia into
which the protoplasm overflows. They can, however, again withdraw these
extensions of themselves and reform themselves into a mass. We compare
this extending of protrusions to the radiation of Libido on to the
objects, while the greatest volume of Libido may yet remain within the
Ego; we infer that under normal conditions Ego-Libido can transform
itself into object-Libido without difficulty and that this can again
subsequently be absorbed into the Ego.
With the help of these conceptions it is now possible to explain a whole
series of mental states, or, to express it more modestly, to describe in
terms of the Libido-theory conditions that belong to normal life; for
instance, the mental attitude pertaining to the conditions of “being in
love,” of organic illness, and of sleep. Of the condition of sleep we
assumed that it is founded upon a withdrawal from the outer world and a
concentration upon the wish to sleep. We found that the nocturnal mental
activity which is expressed in dreams served the purpose of the wish to
sleep, and, moreover, that it was governed exclusively by egoistic
motives. In the light of the Libido-theory we may carry this further and
say that sleep is a condition in which all investments of objects, the
libidinal as well as the egoistic, are abandoned and withdrawn again
into the Ego. Does not this shed a new light upon the recuperation
afforded by sleep and upon the nature of fatigue in general? The
likeness we see in the condition which the sleeper conjures up again
every night to the blissful isolation of the intra-uterine existence is
thus confirmed and amplified in its mental aspects. In the sleeper the
primal state of the Libido-distribution is again reproduced, that of
absolute narcissism, in which Libido and Ego-interests dwell together
still, united and indistinguishable in the self-sufficient Self.