Beyond the Pleasure Principle (28 page)

To return to the problem of the ego: our sense of a contradiction arises from the fact that we are too rigid in our approach to abstractions, and in the face of complex arguments have eyes now for this side, now for that, but never for both. Distinguishing the ego from the id appears entirely justified, indeed various circumstances compel us so to do; on the other hand, however, the ego is part and parcel of the id, being simply a specially differentiated portion thereof. Supposing that in our mind we envisage this part in contradistinction to the whole, or supposing that the two have split apart in actual reality, then the weakness of the ego is instantly evident to us. But if the ego remains at one with the id, and indistinguishable from it, then its strength is immediately apparent. Much the same is true of the ego's relationship to the super-ego. In many contexts we see the two as blending into each other; generally speaking we can only distinguish one from another when a tension or conflict has arisen between them. So far as repression is concerned, the decisive factor is that the ego is an organization,
¹⁵
whereas the id is not; in fact the ego is the organized part of the id. It would be quite wrong to imagine the ego and the id as being like two opposing armies, as if a repression entailed the ego setting out to squash a section of the id, whereupon the remainder of the id comes rushing to the rescue and pits its strength against the ego. Things may often end up this way, but it is certainly not the situation when the repression first begins; as a rule the drive-impulse that is due to be repressed remains completely isolated. While the act of repression shows us the strength of the ego, it bears witness at the same time to its impotence, and its inability to influence or control any of the id's
individual drive-impulses; for once the process has been turned into a symptom by the repression, it henceforth carries on its existence
outside
the ego-organization, and independently of it. And this same privilege of what we might term ‘exterritoriality’ is enjoyed not only by the process itself, but also by any offshoots that it subsequently produces; and it seems altogether conceivable that if these latter happen through association to come into contact with elements of the ego-organization, they will win them over to their own side and, thus fortified, expand at the ego's expense. To use an analogy familiar to us from the past: we can think of a symptom as resembling a foreign body that constantly generates stimuli and reactions in the tissue in which it has become embedded. It is true that the attempt to fight off the disagreeable drive-impulse is sometimes brought to a successful conclusion by symptom-formation (so far as we can see, this occurs most readily in conversion hysteria). As a rule, however, things take a very different course: after the initial act of repression a protracted or indeed never-ending sequel ensues in which a battle against the symptom carries on where the battle against the drive-impulse left off.

This secondary defensive battle shows us two distinct faces – bearing contradictory expressions. On the one hand, the very nature of the ego obliges it to undertake what we can only regard as an attempt at restoration or reconciliation. The ego is an organization; its very essence lies in the fact that all its component elements enjoy freedom of movement and scope to influence each other; its desexualized energy declares its origins not least in its constant striving to bind and to unify – and the stronger the development of the ego, the stronger this synthesizing compulsion becomes. Thus we can readily understand the fact that the ego
also
attempts to put an end to the alien and isolated status of the symptom, by exploiting every possible opportunity to bind it to itself in some way, and by means of such bonds incorporate it into its own organization. We know that this kind of aspiration is already at work in the very act of symptom-formation. A classic instance of this is afforded by those symptoms of hysteria that we have come to realize constitute a compromise between the need for gratification and the need for
punishment. In as much as they fulfil a demand made by the super-ego, such symptoms are part and parcel of the ego from the outset – while at the same time they also signify the positions taken up by whatever has been repressed, and the breaches through which it has made incursions into the ego-organization; they are, so to speak, border-posts occupied by troops from both sides. Whether all primary symptoms of hysteria are formed in this way is a question that merits careful examination.

As regards the subsequent course of events, the ego behaves as if guided by the reflection that ‘Like it or not, the symptom is there and can't be got rid of; the best thing now is to learn to like the situation, and extract the maximum possible advantage from it.’ The ego does something that it normally only achieves in respect of the objective world without: it adjusts to the alien element
within
that is represented by the symptom. There is never any shortage of opportunities for so doing. The existence of the symptom may result in a certain reduction in performance, which can prove useful in mitigating any requirement imposed by the super-ego or rejecting any demand asserted by the external world. Thus the symptom is gradually entrusted with the task of representing important interests; it comes to play a considerable role in the assertion of the self, merges ever more intimately with the ego, and becomes ever more indispensable to it. Only in very rare instances does the process of assimilating a foreign body meet with this kind of success. It is also quite easy to exaggerate the significance of this secondary process of adjustment to the symptom by asserting that the ego only procured the symptom in the first place in order to enjoy the advantages it brings. That is just as right or just as wrong as arguing that the wounded soldier only had his leg shot off in the war so that he could live off his disability pension and avoid having to work.

Other symptom types, namely those of obsessional neurosis and paranoia, prove themselves particularly valuable to the ego not because they bring advantages, but because they bring narcissistic gratification that otherwise it has to go without. The systems that typically form in obsessional neurotics flatter their self-love by giving them the illusory belief that they are better than other people by
virtue of being especially clean or especially conscientious; the delusions of paranoia give the wit and imagination of the patient a whole new realm of activity for which no substitute can easily be found. The outcome of all these various factors is the phenomenon known to us as the (secondary)
illness-gain
¹⁶
of neurosis. This gain helps the ego in its efforts to incorporate the symptom, and reinforces the latter's fixation. If we then attempt in the course of psychoanalysis to assist the ego in its battle against the symptom, we find that these reconciliatory bonds between the ego and the symptom operate to the advantage of the resistances – and that it is by no means easy for us to undo them. It is indeed the case that the ego's two methods of dealing with the symptom directly contradict one another.

The second method is less cordial in nature, for it consists in continuing along the very same course as the repression. It seems clear, however, that it would not be right for us to accuse the ego of behaving inconsistently. The ego is peaceable, and seeks to incorporate the symptom, to absorb it into its own system. It is the
symptom
that causes the problem: as the fully fledged surrogate and offshoot of the repressed impulse it carries on playing the latter's role, again and again renewing its bid for gratification, and thus forcing the ego to give out a signal of unpleasure and to adopt an aggressively defensive stance.

The secondary battle against the symptom takes many forms, takes place on many different levels, and uses a multiplicity of means. We will not be able to say very much about it unless we focus our investigation on individual instances of symptom-formation. In the process we shall have occasion to discuss the problem of fear, which we have long felt to be lurking in the background. We do best to begin with the symptoms brought about by hysterical neurosis – for we are not yet in a position to appreciate the prior conditions that are necessary for symptom-formation to take place in the case of obsessional neurosis, paranoia and other neuroses.

Let us look first of all at infantile hysterical animal phobia – a good example of which is the horse phobia of ‘Little Hans’,
¹⁷
a case that is surely typical in all essential respects. Even the briefest of glances at it is sufficient to make us realize that the circumstances in a real-life case of neurotic illness are far more complex than we might expect or imagine when we operate merely on the basis of theoretical abstractions. It takes quite a lot of work to determine which is the repressed impulse, what constitutes its surrogate, and where the motive force behind the repression is to be found.

Little Hans declines to go out into the street because he is afraid of horses. That is our raw material. What, then, constitutes the symptom here: the process of fear-generation,
¹⁸
the choice of fear-object, the surrendering of the freedom to move, or some combination of these? Where is the gratification he refuses to allow himself? Why is he driven to this refusal?
¹⁹

It would be easy to reply that there is nothing very puzzling about this case. The child's unaccountable fear of horses is the symptom; the inability to go out into the street is a manifestation of inhibition, a restriction that the ego imposes on itself in order not to arouse the fear symptom. The correctness of this latter point is immediately clear to us, so we shall simply ignore the inhibition element as we proceed with our discussion. As for the supposed symptom, however, our first brief acquaintance with the case does not even enable us to recognize the real manner in which it expresses itself. As we discover once we probe more deeply, it is a matter not of a generalized fear of horses on Little Hans's part, but of a specific fearful expectation – namely that a horse will bite him. This underlying notion is keen
to stay out of the realm of consciousness, however, and seeks a surrogate in the form of a generalized phobia reflecting the fear and its object, but nothing else. Is it perhaps this underlying notion, then, that constitutes the real nub of the symptom?

We will not get a single step further unless we look at the entire psychic situation of the child as revealed to us in the course of our psychoanalytical work with him. He is possessed of a jealous and hostile Oedipus attitude to his father, whom he none the less dearly loves – at any rate so long as his mother, as the cause of the rift, remains out of the picture. What we have, then, is a conflict caused by ambivalence: well-founded love and equally justified hate, both directed at the same person. His phobia must be an attempt to resolve this conflict. Ambivalence conflicts of this kind are very common – and we are familiar with another typical outcome that they can have, whereby one of the two competing impulses, generally the affectionate one, becomes enormously intensified, while the other disappears. It is only the inordinate extent and compulsive nature of the love that tells us that this is not the sole psychic attitude involved and that it is always ready to leap into action to keep its rival thoroughly suppressed, and which also allows us to postulate the operation of a process that we might describe as repression through
reaction-formation
(within the ego). Cases such as that of Little Hans show no sign of any such reaction-formation; there are clearly various different ways of coping with ambivalence conflicts.

There is one thing, however, that we established beyond doubt: the drive-impulse that was being subjected to repression was a hostile impulse directed against the father. Proof of this came in the course of analysis, when we were trying to track down the origins of the idea of the biting horse. Hans had seen a horse fall down, and he had also seen a playmate with whom he was playing horses fall over and hurt himself. Analysis gave us good grounds for postulating a wish-impulse in Hans to the effect that he wanted his father to fall over and injure himself like the horse and his playmate. Links with a particular episode that he had witnessed, involving the departure of someone from his street, lead us to think that his wish to be rid of his father had also found more forthright expression. Such a wish,
however, amounts to an
intention
to get rid of him himself; it amounts to the murderous impulse of the Oedipus complex.

We have not so far discovered any direct connection between the repressed drive-impulse and its putative surrogate in the shape of the horse phobia. Let us therefore now simplify the psychic situation presented by Little Hans, by taking away the elements of infancy and ambivalence; let us imagine him for instance as a young servant who is in love with the mistress of the house and enjoys certain favours bestowed by her. The element we
don't
take away is that he hates the – far stronger – master of the house, and would like to be rid of him. Given this scenario, it is the most natural thing in the world for him to dread his master's vengeance, and to be seized by an abiding state of fear with regard to him – altogether similar to Little Hans's phobia with regard to horses. This means that we cannot describe the fear element in this phobia as a ‘symptom’. If Little Hans, being in love with his mother, were to exhibit plain, straightforward fear of his father, we would have no right to impute a neurosis, a phobia, to him; we would be looking at a thoroughly comprehensible emotional reaction. It is a quite different feature that alone turns this reaction into a neurosis: the substitution of the horse for the father. It is accordingly this displacement that produces what might properly be called a symptom. Displacement thus constitutes that alternative mechanism referred to earlier, which allows ambivalence conflicts to be dealt with
without
the help of reaction-formation. It is made possible, or at any rate easier, by the fact that at this tender age the traces of totemistic thinking innate in all of us are still easily rekindled. The divide between man and beast is still not acknowledged at this age, and certainly not as over-emphasized as it is later on. The full-grown man, admired yet feared, is still seen in the same perspective as the large animal, whom the child envies in so many respects, but against whom he has also been warned because it can turn dangerous. The ambivalence conflict is thus not resolved in relation to the actual person concerned, but is so to speak circumvented, in that the subject foists a
different
person on one of his impulses by way of a surrogate.