Freud - Complete Works (440 page)

   The view may be taken that all
the difficulties and complications involved in this can be avoided
by denying that there is any pregenital organization of sexual life
and by holding that sexual life coincides with the genital and
reproductive function and begins with it. It would then be
asserted, having regard to the ummistakable findings of analytic
research, that the neuroses are compelled by the process of sexual
repression to give expression to sexual trends through other,
non-sexual instincts, and thus to sexualize the latter by way of
compensation. But this line of argument would place us outside
psycho-analysis. It would place us where we were before
psycho-analysis and would mean abandoning the understanding which
psycho-analysis has given us of the relations between health,
perversion and neurosis. Psycho-analysis stands or falls with the
recognition of the sexual component instincts, of the erotogenic
zones and of the extension thus made possible of the concept of a
‘sexual function’ in contrast to the narrower
‘genital function’. Moreover the observation of the
normal development of children is in itself enough to make us
reject any such temptation.

The Disposition To Obsessional Neurosis

2629

   (
c
) In the field of the
development of
character
we are bound to meet with the same
instinctual forces which we have found at work in the neuroses. But
a sharp theoretical distinction between the two is necessitated by
the single fact that the failure of repression and the return of
the repressed - which are peculiar to the mechanism of neurosis -
are absent in the formation of character. In the latter, repression
either does not come into action or smoothly achieves its aim of
replacing the repressed by reaction-formations and sublimations.
Hence the processes of the formation of character are more obscure
and less accessible to analysis than neurotic ones.

   But it is precisely in the field
of character-development that we come across a good analogy with
the case we have been describing - a confirmation, that is, of the
occurrence of the pregenital sadistic anal-erotic sexual
organization. It is a well-known fact, and one that has given much
ground for complaint, that after women have lost their genital
function their character often undergoes a peculiar alteration.
They become quarrelsome, vexatious and overbearing, petty and
stingy; that is to say, they exhibit typically sadistic and
anal-erotic traits which they did not possess earlier, during their
period of womanliness. Writers of comedy and satirists have in all
ages directed their invectives against the ‘old dragon’
into which the charming girl, the loving wife and the tender mother
have been transformed. We can see that this alteration of character
corresponds to a regression of sexual life to the pregenital
sadistic and anal-erotic stage, in which we have discovered the
disposition to obsessional neurosis. It seems, then, to be not only
the precursor of the genital phase but often enough its successor
as well, its termination after the genitals have fulfilled their
function.

   A comparison between such a
change of character and obsessional neurosis is very impressive. In
both cases the work of regression is apparent. But whereas in the
former we find complete regression following repression (or
suppression) that has occurred smoothly, in the neurosis there are
conflict, an effort to prevent regression from occurring,
reaction-formations against it and symptom-formations produced by
compromises between the two opposing sides, and a splitting of the
psychical activities into some that are admissible to consciousness
and others that are unconscious.

The Disposition To Obsessional Neurosis

2630

   (
d
) Our hypothesis of a
pregenital sexual organization is incomplete in two respects. In
the first place, it takes no account of the behaviour of other
component instincts, in regard to which there is plenty that would
repay examination and discussion, and it is content with stressing
the striking primacy of sadism and anal erotism. In particular we
often gain an impression that the instinct for knowledge can
actually take the place of sadism in the mechanism of obsessional
neurosis. Indeed it is at bottom a sublimated off-shoot of the
instinct of mastery exalted into something intellectual, and its
repudiation in the form of doubt plays a large part in the picture
of obsessional neurosis.

   The second gap in our hypothesis
is far more important. As we know, the developmental disposition to
a neurosis is only complete if the phase of the development of the
ego at which fixation occurs is taken into account as well as that
of the libido. But our hypothesis has only related to the latter,
and therefore does not include all the knowledge that we should
demand. The stages of development of the ego-instincts are at
present very little known to us; I know of only one attempt - the
highly promising one made by Ferenczi (1913) - to approach these
questions. I cannot tell if it may seem too rash if, on the basis
of such indications as we possess, I suggest the possibility that a
chronological outstripping of libidinal development by ego
development should be included in the disposition to obsessional
neurosis. A precocity of this kind would necessitate the choice of
an object under the influence of the ego-instincts, at a time at
which the sexual instincts had not yet assumed their final shape,
and a fixation at the stage of the pregenital sexual organization
would thus be left. If we consider that obsessional neurotics have
to develop a super-morality in order to protect their object-love
from the hostility lurking behind it, we shall be inclined to
regard some degree of this precocity of ego development as typical
of human nature and to derive the capacity for the origin of
morality from the fact that in the order of development hate is the
precursor of love. This is perhaps the meaning of an assertion by
Stekel (1911
a
, 536), which at the time I found
incomprehensible, to the effect that hate and not love is the
primary emotional relation between men.

The Disposition To Obsessional Neurosis

2631

   (
e
) It follows from what
has been said that there remains for hysteria an intimate relation
to the final phase of libidinal development, which is characterized
by the primacy of the genitals and the introduction of the
reproductive function. In hysterical neurosis this acquisition is
subjected to repression, which does not involve regression to the
pregenital stage. The gap in determining the disposition owing to
our ignorance of ego development is even more obvious here than
with obsessional neurosis.

   On the other hand, it is not hard
to show that another regression to an earlier level occurs in
hysteria too. The sexuality of female children, is, as we know,
dominated and directed by a masculine organ (the clitoris) and
often behaves like the sexuality of boys. This masculine sexuality
has to be got rid of by a last wave of development at puberty, and
the vagina, an organ derived from the cloaca, has to be raised into
the dominant erotogenic zone. Now, it is very common in hysterical
neurosis for this repressed masculine sexuality to be re-activated
and then for the defensive struggle on the part of the ego-syntonic
instincts to be directed against it. But it seems to me too early
to enter here into a discussion of the problems of the disposition
to hysteria.

2632

INTRODUCTION TO PFISTER’S
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC METHOD

(1913)

2633

Intentionally left blank

2634

INTRODUCTION TO PFISTER’S
THE PSYCHO-ANALYTIC METHOD

Psycho-analysis had its origin on medical
soil, as a therapeutic procedure for the treatment of certain
nervous illnesses which were termed ‘functional’ and
which were considered with increasing certainty to be consequences
of disturbances in emotional life. It attains its end - of removing
the manifestations of these disturbances, the symptoms - by
assuming that they are not the only possible and final outcome of
particular psychical processes. It therefore uncovers the history
of the development of these symptoms in the patient’s memory,
it revivifies the processes underlying them, and then conducts
them, under the doctor’s guidance, to a more favourable
outlet. Psycho-analysis has set itself the same therapeutic aims as
treatment by hypnotism, which was introduced by Liébeault
and Bernheim and after lengthy and severe struggles achieved a
place in the technique of nerve specialists. But it goes far deeper
into the structure of the mechanism of the mind, and seeks to bring
about permanent results and viable changes in its subjects.

   In its time, hypnotic treatment
by suggestion very soon passed beyond the sphere of medical
application and entered the service of the education¹ of young
people. If we are to believe the reports, it proved to be an
effective means forgetting rid of childish faults, of inconvenient
physical habits and of character traits that were otherwise
irreducible. No one at that time objected to, or was surprised at,
this extension of its uses, which, incidentally, has only been made
fully understandable by the researches of psycho-analysis. For we
know to-day that pathological symptoms are often nothing but
substitutes for bad (that is, unserviceable) inclinations, and that
the determinants of these symptoms are laid down in the years of
childhood and youth - during the same period in which human beings
are the subject of education - whether the illnesses themselves
already emerge in youth or only at a later time of life.

  
¹
[The German words
‘
Erziehung
’ and ‘
Erzieher
’,
which are here translated throughout by ‘education’ and
‘educator’, have in fact a wider application and
include the general notion of the ‘up-bringing’ of
children.]

Introduction To Pfister's The Psycho-Analytic Method

2635

   Education and therapeutics stand
in an assignable relation to each other. Education seeks to ensure
that certain of a child’s dispositions and inclinations shall
not cause any damage either to the individual or to society.
Therapeutics come into action if these same dispositions have
already led to the unwished-for result of pathological symptoms.
The alternative outcome - of the child’s unserviceable
dispositions leading, not to substitutes in the form of symptoms,
but to direct perversions of character - is almost inaccessible to
therapeutics and as a rule beyond the influence of an educator.
Education is a prophylaxis, which is intended to obviate both
outcomes - neurosis and perversion alike; psychotherapy seeks, to
undo the less stable of the two outcomes and to institute a kind of
after-education.

   In view of this position of
affairs, the question automatically arises whether psycho-analysis
should not be used for educative purposes just as hypnotic
suggestion was in the past. The advantages would be obvious. The
educator would, on the one hand, be prepared by his knowledge of
the general human dispositions of childhood to judge which of those
dispositions are threatening to lead to an undesirable outcome;
and, if psycho-analysis can influence the course taken by such
developments, he could bring it into use
before
the signs of
an unfavourable development set in. Thus, with the help of
analysis, he could have a prophylactic influence on the child while
it was still healthy. On the other hand, he could detect the
first
indications of a development in the direction of
neurosis and could guard the child against its further development
at a time at which, for various reasons, a child is never taken to
see a doctor. One cannot but think that a psycho-analytic activity
such as this on the part of the educator - and of the similarly
placed pastoral worker in protestant countries - would inevitably
be of inestimable value and might often make the intervention of a
doctor unnecessary.

   The only question is whether the
practice of psycho-analysis may not have as its prerequisite a
medical training, from which the educator and the pastoral worker
must remain debarred, or whether there may be other considerations
which are opposed to the suggestion that the technique of
psycho-analysis should be confided to any but a doctor’s
hands. I confess that I can see no ground for any such
reservations. The practice of psycho-analysis calls much less for
medical training than for psychological instruction and a free
human outlook. The majority of doctors are not equipped to practise
psycho-analysis and have completely failed to grasp the value of
that therapeutic procedure. The educator and the pastoral worker
are bound by the standards of their profession to exercise the same
consideration, care and restraint as are usually practised by the
doctor, and apart from this their association with young people
perhaps makes them better fitted to understand these young
people’s mental life. But in both cases the only guarantee of
the harmless application of the analytic procedure must depend on
the personality of the analyst.

Introduction To Pfister's The Psycho-Analytic Method

2636

   Where a case borders upon mental
abnormality, the analytic educator will be bound to make himself
familiar with the most necessary psychiatric knowledge, and
furthermore to call a doctor into consultation when the diagnosis
and prognosis of the disturbance appear doubtful. In a number of
cases it will only be possible to achieve success if there is
collaboration between the educator and the doctor.

   In one single respect an
educator’s responsibility may perhaps exceed that of a
doctor. The doctor has as a rule to deal with psychical structures
which have already become rigid and he will find in the
patient’s established individuality a limit to his own
achievement but at the same time a guarantee of the patient’s
capacity to stand alone. The educator, however, works upon material
which is plastic and open to every impression, and he must keep
before himself an obligation not to mould the young mind in
accordance with his own personal ideals but rather according to his
subject’s dispositions and possibilities.

   Let us hope that the application
of psycho-analysis to the service of education will quickly fulfil
the hopes which educators and doctors may rightly attach to it. A
book such as this of Pfister’s, which seeks to acquaint
educators with analysis, will then be able to count on the
gratitude of later generations.

VIENNA
,
February
1913