neurotic symptom from its rather complicated connections. Supposing that
a little girl (and we will keep to her for the present) develops the
same painful symptom as her mother--for instance, the same tormenting
cough. Now this may come about in various ways. The identification may
come from the Oedipus complex; in that case it signifies a hostile
desire on the girl's part to take her mother's place, and the symptom
expresses her object love towards her father, and brings about a
realisation, under the influence of a sense of guilt, of her desire to
take her mother's place: 'You wanted to be your mother, and now you
_are_--anyhow as far as the pain goes'. This is the complete mechanism
of the structure of a hysterical symptom. Or, on the other hand, the
symptom may be the same as that of the person who is loved--(so, for
instance, Dora in the 'Bruchstück einer Hysterieanalyse'[40] imitated
her father's cough); in that case we can only describe the state of
things by saying that _identification has appeared instead of
object-choice, and that object-choice has regressed to identification_.
We have heard that identification is the earliest and original form of
emotional tie; it often happens that under the conditions in which
symptoms are constructed, that is, where there is repression and where
the mechanisms of the unconscious are dominant, object-choice is turned
back into identification--the ego, that is, assumes the characteristics
of the object. It is noticeable that in these identifications the ego
sometimes copies the person who is not loved and sometimes the one who
is loved. It must also strike us that in both cases the identification
is a partial and extremely limited one and only borrows a single trait
from the person who is its object.
There is a third particularly frequent and important case of symptom
formation, in which the identification leaves any object relation to the
person who is being copied entirely out of account. Supposing, for
instance, that one of the girls in a boarding school has had a letter
from someone with whom she is secretly in love which arouses her
jealousy, and that she reacts to it with a fit of hysterics; then some
of her friends who know about it will contract the fit, as we say, by
means of mental infection. The mechanism is that of identification based
upon the possibility or desire of putting oneself in the same
situation. The other girls would like to have a secret love affair too,
and under the influence of a sense of guilt they also accept the pain
involved in it. It would be wrong to suppose that they take on the
symptom out of sympathy. On the contrary, the sympathy only arises out
of the identification, and this is proved by the fact that infection or
imitation of this kind takes place in circumstances where even less
pre-existing sympathy is to be assumed than usually exists between
friends in a girls' school. One ego has perceived a significant analogy
with another upon one point--in our example upon a similar readiness for
emotion; an identification is thereupon constructed on this point, and,
under the influence of the pathogenic situation, is displaced on to the
symptom which the one ego has produced. The identification by means of
the symptom has thus become the mark of a point of coincidence between
the two egos which has to be kept repressed.
What we have learned from these three sources may be summarised as
follows. First, identification is the original form of emotional tie
with an object; secondly, in a regressive way it becomes a substitute
for a libidinal object tie, as it were by means of the introjection of
the object into the ego; and thirdly, it may arise with every new
perception of a common quality shared with some other person who is not
an object of the sexual instinct. The more important this common
quality is, the more successful may this partial identification become,
and it may thus represent the beginning of a new tie.
We already begin to divine that the mutual tie between members of a
group is in the nature of an identification of this kind, based upon an
important emotional common quality; and we may suspect that this common
quality lies in the nature of the tie with the leader. Another suspicion
may tell us that we are far from having exhausted the problem of
identification, and that we are faced by the process which psychology
calls 'empathy [_Einfühlung_]' and which plays the largest part in our
understanding of what is inherently foreign to our ego in other people.
But we shall here limit ourselves to the immediate emotional effects of
identification, and shall leave on one side its significance for our
intellectual life.
Psycho-analytic research, which has already occasionally attacked the
more difficult problems of the psychoses, has also been able to exhibit
identification to us in some other cases which are not immediately
comprehensible. I shall treat two of these cases in detail as material
for our further consideration.
The genesis of male homosexuality in a large class of cases is as
follows. A young man has been unusually long and intensely fixated upon
his mother in the sense of the Oedipus complex. But at last, after the
end of his puberty, the time comes for exchanging his mother for some
other sexual object. Things take a sudden turn: the young man does not
abandon his mother, but identifies himself with her; he transforms
himself into her, and now looks about for objects which can replace his
ego for him, and on which he can bestow such love and care as he has
experienced from his mother. This is a frequent process, which can be
confirmed as often as one likes, and which is naturally quite
independent of any hypothesis that may be made as to the organic driving
force and the motives of the sudden transformation. A striking thing
about this identification is its ample scale; it remoulds the ego in one
of its important features--in its sexual character--upon the model of
what has hitherto been the object. In this process the object itself is
renounced--whether entirely or in the sense of being preserved only in
the unconscious is a question outside the present discussion.
Identification with an object that is renounced or lost as a substitute
for it, introjection of this object into the ego, is indeed no longer a
novelty to us. A process of the kind may sometimes be directly observed
in small children. A short time ago an observation of this sort was
published in the _Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse_. A child
who was unhappy over the loss of a kitten declared straight out that now
he himself was the kitten, and accordingly crawled about on all fours,
would not eat at table, etc.[41]
Another such instance of introjection of the object has been provided by
the analysis of melancholia, an affection which counts among the most
remarkable of its exciting causes the real or emotional loss of a loved
object. A leading characteristic of these cases is a cruel
self-depreciation of the ego combined with relentless self-criticism and
bitter self-reproaches. Analyses have shown that this disparagement and
these reproaches apply at bottom to the object and represent the ego's
revenge upon it. The shadow of the object has fallen upon the ego, as I
have said elsewhere.[42] The introjection of the object is here
unmistakably clear.
But these melancholias also show us something else, which may be of
importance for our later discussions. They show us the ego divided,
fallen into two pieces, one of which rages against the second. This
second piece is the one which has been altered by introjection and which
contains the lost object. But the piece which behaves so cruelly is not
unknown to us either. It comprises the conscience, a critical faculty
[_Instanz_][43] within the ego, which even in normal times takes up a
critical attitude towards the ego, though never so relentlessly and so
unjustifiably. On previous occasions we have been driven to the
hypothesis[44] that some such faculty develops in our ego which may cut
itself off from the rest of the ego and come into conflict with it. We
have called it the 'ego ideal', and by way of functions we have ascribed
to it self-observation, the moral conscience, the censorship of dreams,
and the chief influence in repression. We have said that it is the heir
to the original narcissism in which the childish ego found its
self-sufficiency; it gradually gathers up from the influences of the
environment the demands which that environment makes upon the ego and
which the ego cannot always rise to; so that a man, when he cannot be
satisfied with his ego itself, may nevertheless be able to find
satisfaction in the ego ideal which has been differentiated out of the
ego. In delusions of observation, as we have further shown, the
disintegration of this faculty has become patent, and has thus revealed
its origin in the influence of superior powers, and above all of
parents.[45] But we have not forgotten to add that the amount of
distance between this ego ideal and the real ego is very variable from
one individual to another, and that with many people this
differentiation within the ego does not go further than with children.
But before we can employ this material for understanding the libidinal
organisation of groups, we must take into account some other examples of
the mutual relations between the object and the ego.[46]
VIII
BEING IN LOVE AND HYPNOSIS
Even in its caprices the usage of language remains true to some kind of
reality. Thus it gives the name of 'love' to a great many kinds of
emotional relationship which we too group together theoretically as
love; but then again it feels a doubt whether this love is real, true,
actual love, and so hints at a whole scale of possibilities within the
range of the phenomena of love. We shall have no difficulty in making
the same discovery empirically.
In one class of cases being in love is nothing more than object-cathexis
on the part of the sexual instincts with a view to directly sexual
satisfaction, a cathexis which expires, moreover, when this aim has been
reached; this is what is called common, sensual love. But, as we know,
the libidinal situation rarely remains so simple. It was possible to
calculate with certainty upon the revival of the need which had just
expired; and this must no doubt have been the first motive for
directing a lasting cathexis upon the sexual object and for 'loving' it
in the passionless intervals as well.
To this must be added another factor derived from the astonishing course
of development which is pursued by the erotic life of man. In his first
phase, which has usually come to an end by the time he is five years
old, a child has found the first object for his love in one or other of
his parents, and all of his sexual instincts with their demand for
satisfaction have been united upon this object. The repression which
then sets in compels him to renounce the greater number of these
infantile sexual aims, and leaves behind a profound modification in his
relation to his parents. The child still remains tied to his parents,
but by instincts which must be described as being 'inhibited in their
aim [_zielgehemmte_]'. The emotions which he feels henceforward towards
these objects of his love are characterized as 'tender'. It is well
known that the earlier 'sensual' tendencies remain more or less strongly
preserved in the unconscious, so that in a certain sense the whole of
the original current continues to exist.[47]
At puberty, as we know, there set in new and very strong tendencies with
directly sexual aims. In unfavourable cases they remain separate, in the
form of a sensual current, from the 'tender' emotional trends which
persist. We are then faced by a picture the two aspects of which certain
movements in literature take such delight in idealising. A man of this
kind will show a sentimental enthusiasm for women whom he deeply
respects but who do not excite him to sexual activities, and he will
only be potent with other women whom he does not 'love' but thinks
little of or even despises.[48] More often, however, the adolescent
succeeds in bringing about a certain degree of synthesis between the
unsensual, heavenly love and the sensual, earthly love, and his relation
to his sexual object is characterised by the interaction of uninhibited
instincts and of instincts inhibited in their aim. The depth to which
anyone is in love, as contrasted with his purely sensual desire, may be
measured by the size of the share taken by the inhibited instincts of
tenderness.
In connection with this question of being in love we have always been
struck by the phenomenon of sexual over-estimation--the fact that the
loved object enjoys a certain amount of freedom from criticism, and that
all its characteristics are valued more highly than those of people who
are not loved, or than its own were at a time when it itself was not
loved. If the sensual tendencies are somewhat more effectively
repressed or set aside, the illusion is produced that the object has
come to be sensually loved on account of its spiritual merits, whereas
on the contrary these merits may really only have been lent to it by its
sensual charm.
The tendency which falsifies judgement in this respect is that of
_idealisation_. But this makes it easier for us to find our way about.
We see that the object is being treated in the same way as our own ego,
so that when we are in love a considerable amount of narcissistic libido
overflows on to the object. It is even obvious, in many forms of love
choice, that the object serves as a substitute for some unattained ego
ideal of our own. We love it on account of the perfections which we have
striven to reach for our own ego, and which we should now like to
procure in this roundabout way as a means of satisfying our narcissism.
If the sexual over-estimation and the being in love increase even
further, then the interpretation of the picture becomes still more
unmistakable. The tendencies whose trend is towards directly sexual
satisfaction may now be pushed back entirely, as regularly happens, for
instance, with the young man's sentimental passion; the ego becomes more
and more unassuming and modest, and the object more and more sublime and
precious, until at last it gets possession of the entire self-love of
the ego, whose self-sacrifice thus follows as a natural consequence. The
object has, so to speak, consumed the ego. Traits of humility, of the
limitation of narcissism, and of self-injury occur in every case of
being in love; in the extreme case they are only intensified, and as a
result of the withdrawal of the sensual claims they remain in solitary
supremacy.
This happens especially easily with love that is unhappy and cannot be
satisfied; for in spite of everything each sexual satisfaction always
involves a reduction in sexual over-estimation. Contemporaneously with
this 'devotion' of the ego to the object, which is no longer to be
distinguished from a sublimated devotion to an abstract idea, the
functions allotted to the ego ideal entirely cease to operate. The
criticism exercised by that faculty is silent; everything that the
object does and asks for is right and blameless. Conscience has no
application to anything that is done for the sake of the object; in the
blindness of love remorselessness is carried to the pitch of crime. The
whole situation can be completely summarised in a formula: _The object
has taken the place of the ego ideal._
It is now easy to define the distinction between identification and such
extreme developments of being in love as may be described as fascination
or infatuation. In the former case the ego has enriched itself with the
properties of the object, it has 'introjected' the object into itself,
as Ferenczi expresses it. In the second case it is impoverished, it has
surrendered itself to the object, it has substituted the object for its
most important constituent. Closer consideration soon makes it plain,
however, that this kind of account creates an illusion of
contradistinctions that have no real existence. Economically there is no
question of impoverishment or enrichment; it is even possible to
describe an extreme case of being in love as a state in which the ego
has introjected the object into itself. Another distinction is perhaps
better calculated to meet the essence of the matter. In the case of
identification the object has been lost or given up; it is then set up
again inside the ego, and the ego makes a partial alteration in itself
after the model of the lost object. In the other case the object is
retained, and there is a hyper-cathexis of it by the ego and at the
ego's expense. But here again a difficulty presents itself. Is it quite
certain that identification presupposes that object-cathexis has been
given up? Can there be no identification with the object retained? And
before we embark upon a discussion of this delicate question, the
perception may already be beginning to dawn on us that yet another
alternative embraces the real essence of the matter, namely, _whether
the object is put in the place of the ego or of the ego ideal_.
From being in love to hypnosis is evidently only a short step. The
respects in which the two agree are obvious. There is the same humble
subjection, the same compliance, the same absence of criticism, towards
the hypnotist just as towards the loved object. There is the same
absorption of one's own initiative; no one can doubt that the hypnotist
has stepped into the place of the ego ideal. It is only that everything
is even clearer and more intense in hypnosis, so that it would be more
to the point to explain being in love by means of hypnosis than the
other way round. The hypnotist is the sole object, and no attention is
paid to any but him. The fact that the ego experiences in a dream-like
way whatever he may request or assert reminds us that we omitted to
mention among the functions of the ego ideal the business of testing the
reality of things.[49] No wonder that the ego takes a perception for
real if its reality is vouched for by the mental faculty which
ordinarily discharges the duty of testing the reality of things. The
complete absence of tendencies which are uninhibited in their sexual
aims contributes further towards the extreme purity of the phenomena.
The hypnotic relation is the devotion of someone in love to an unlimited
degree but with sexual satisfaction excluded; whereas in the case of
being in love this kind of satisfaction is only temporarily kept back,
and remains in the background as a possible aim at some later time.
But on the other hand we may also say that the hypnotic relation is (if
the expression is permissible) a group formation with two members.
Hypnosis is not a good object for comparison with a group formation,
because it is truer to say that it is identical with it. Out of the
complicated fabric of the group it isolates one element for us--the
behaviour of the individual to the leader. Hypnosis is distinguished
from a group formation by this limitation of number, just as it is
distinguished from being in love by the absence of directly sexual
tendencies. In this respect it occupies a middle position between the
two.
It is interesting to see that it is precisely those sexual tendencies
that are inhibited in their aims which achieve such lasting ties between
men. But this can easily be understood from the fact that they are not
capable of complete satisfaction, while sexual tendencies which are
uninhibited in their aims suffer an extraordinary reduction through the
discharge of energy every time the sexual aim is attained. It is the
fate of sensual love to become extinguished when it is satisfied; for it
to be able to last, it must from the first be mixed with purely tender
components--with such, that is, as are inhibited in their aims--or it
must itself undergo a transformation of this kind.
Hypnosis would solve the riddle of the libidinal constitution of groups
for us straight away, if it were not that it itself exhibits some
features which are not met by the rational explanation we have hitherto
given of it as a state of being in love with the directly sexual
tendencies excluded. There is still a great deal in it which we must
recognise as unexplained and mystical. It contains an additional element
of paralysis derived from the relation between someone with superior
power and someone who is without power and helpless--which may afford a
transition to the hypnosis of terror which occurs in animals. The manner
in which it is produced and its relationship to sleep are not clear; and
the puzzling way in which some people are subject to it, while others
resist it completely, points to some factor still unknown which is
realised in it and which perhaps alone makes possible the purity of the
attitudes of the libido which it exhibits. It is noticeable that, even
when there is complete suggestive compliance in other respects, the
moral conscience of the person hypnotized may show resistance. But this
may be due to the fact that in hypnosis as it is usually practised some
knowledge may be retained that what is happening is only a game, an
untrue reproduction of another situation of far more importance to life.
But after the preceding discussions we are quite in a position to give
the formula for the libidinal constitution of groups: or at least of
such groups as we have hitherto considered, namely, those that have a
leader and have not been able by means of too much 'organisation' to
acquire secondarily the characteristics of an individual. _A primary
group of this kind is a number of individuals who have substituted one
and the same object for their ego ideal and have consequently identified
themselves with one another in their ego._ This condition admits of
graphic representation:
[Illustration]
IX
THE HERD INSTINCT
We cannot for long enjoy the illusion that we have solved the riddle of
the group with this formula. It is impossible to escape the immediate
and disturbing recollection that all we have really done has been to
shift the question on to the riddle of hypnosis, about which so many
points have yet to be cleared up. And now another objection shows us our
further path.
It might be said that the intense emotional ties which we observe in
groups are quite sufficient to explain one of their characteristics--the
lack of independence and initiative in their members, the similarity in
the reactions of all of them, their reduction, so to speak, to the level
of group individuals. But if we look at it as a whole, a group shows us
more than this. Some of its features--the weakness of intellectual
ability, the lack of emotional restraint, the incapacity for moderation
and delay, the inclination to exceed every limit in the expression of
emotion and to work it off completely in the form of action--these and
similar features, which we find so impressively described in Le Bon,
show an unmistakable picture of a regression of mental activity to an
earlier stage such as we are not surprised to find among savages or
children. A regression of this sort is in particular an essential
characteristic of common groups, while, as we have heard, in organized
and artificial groups it can to a large extent be checked.
We thus have an impression of a state in which an individual's separate
emotion and personal intellectual act are too weak to come to anything
by themselves and are absolutely obliged to wait till they are
reinforced through being repeated in a similar way in the other members
of the group. We are reminded of how many of these phenomena of
dependence are part of the normal constitution of human society, of how
little originality and personal courage are to be found in it, of how
much every individual is ruled by those attitudes of the group mind
which exhibit themselves in such forms as racial characteristics, class
prejudices, public opinion, etc. The influence of suggestion becomes a
greater riddle for us when we admit that it is not exercised only by the
leader, but by every individual upon every other individual; and we must
reproach ourselves with having unfairly emphasized the relation to the
leader and with having kept the other factor of mutual suggestion too
much in the background.
After this encouragement to modesty, we shall be inclined to listen to
another voice, which promises us an explanation based upon simpler
grounds. Such a one is to be found in Trotter's thoughtful book upon the
herd instinct, concerning which my only regret is that it does not
entirely escape the antipathies that were set loose by the recent great
war.[50]