Freud - Complete Works (497 page)

Repression

2983

   In our discussion so far we have
dealt with the repression of an instinctual representative, and by
the latter we have understood an idea or group of ideas which is
cathected with a definite quota of psychical energy (libido or
interest) coming from an instinct. Clinical observation now obliges
us to divide up what we have hitherto regarded as a single entity;
for it shows us that besides the idea, some other element
representing the instinct has to be taken into account, and that
this other element undergoes vicissitudes of repression which may
be quite different from those undergone by the idea. For this other
element of the psychical representative the term
quota of
affect
has been generally adopted. It corresponds to the
instinct in so far as the latter has become detached from the idea
and finds expression, proportionate to its quantity, in processes
which are sensed as affects. From this point on, in describing a
case of repression, we shall have to follow up separately what, as
the result of repression, becomes of the
idea
, and what
becomes of the instinctual energy linked to it.

   We should be glad to be able to
say something general about the vicissitudes of both; and having
taken our bearings a little we shall in fact be able to do so. The
general vicissitude which overtakes the
idea
that represents
the instinct can hardly be anything else than that it should vanish
from the conscious if it was previously conscious, or that it
should be held back from consciousness if it was about to become
conscious. The difference is not important; it amounts to much the
same thing as the difference between my ordering an undesirable
guest out of my drawing-room (or out of my front hall), and my
refusing, after recognizing him, to let him cross my threshhold at
all.¹ The
quantitative
factor of the instinctual
representative has three possible vicissitudes, as we can see from
a cursory survey of the observations made by psycho-analysis:
either the instinct is altogether suppressed, so that no trace of
it is found, or it appears as an affect which is in some way or
other qualitatively coloured, or it is changed into anxiety. The
two latter possibilities set us the task of taking into account, as
a further instinctual vicissitude, the
transformation
into
affects
, and especially into
anxiety
, of the
psychical energies of
instincts
.

   We recall the fact that the
motive and purpose of repression has nothing else than the
avoidance of unpleasure. It follows that the vicissitude of the
quota of affect belonging to the representative is far more
important than the vicissitude of the idea, and this fact is
decisive for our assessment of the process of repression. If a
repression does not succeed in preventing feelings of unpleasure or
anxiety from arising, we may say that it has failed, even though it
may have achieved its purpose as far as the ideational portion is
concerned. Repressions that have failed will of course have more
claim on our interest than any that may have been successful; for
the latter will for the most part escape our examination.

  
¹
This simile, which is thus applicable to
the process of repression, may also be extended to a characteristic
of it which has been mentioned earlier: I have merely to add that
I must set a permanent guard over the door which I have forbidden
this guest to enter, since he would otherwise burst it open. (See
above.)

Repression

2984

   We must now try to obtain some
insight into the
mechanism
of the process of repression. In
particular we want to know whether there is a single mechanism
only, or more than one, and whether perhaps each of the
psychoneuroses is distinguished by a mechanism of repression
peculiar to it. At the outset of this enquiry, however, we are met
by complications. The mechanism of a repression becomes accessible
to us only by our deducing that mechanism from the
outcome
of the repression. Confining our observations to the effect of
repression on the ideational portion of the representative, we
discover that as a rule it creates a
substitutive formation
.
What is the mechanism by which such a substitute is formed? 
Or should we distinguish several mechanisms here as well? 
Further, we know that repression leaves
symptoms
behind it.
May we then suppose that the forming of substitutes and the forming
of symptoms coincide, and, if this is so on the whole, is the
mechanism of forming symptoms the same as that of repression? The
general probability would seem to be that the two are widely
different, and that it is not the repression itself which produces
substitutive formations and symptoms, but that these latter are
indications of a
return of the repressed
and owe their
existence to quite other processes. It would also seem advisable to
examine the mechanisms by which substitutes and symptoms are formed
before considering the mechanisms of repression.

   Obviously this is no subject for
further speculation. The place of speculation must be taken by a
careful analysis of the results of repression observable in the
different neuroses. I must, however, suggest that we should
postpone this task, too, until we have formed reliable conceptions
of the relation of the conscious to the unconscious. But, in order
that the present discussion may not be entirely unfruitful, I will
say in advance that (1) the mechanism of repression does not in
fact coincide with the mechanism or mechanisms of forming
substitutes, (2) there are a great many different mechanisms of
forming substitutes and (3) the mechanisms of repression have at
least this one thing in common: a
withdrawal of the cathexis of
energy
(or of
libido
, where we are dealing with sexual
instincts).

Repression

2985

   Further, restricting myself to
the three best-known forms of psychoneurosis, I will show by means
of some examples how the concepts here introduced find application
to the study of repression.

   From the field of
anxiety
hysteria
I will choose a well-analysed example of an animal
phobia. The instinctual impulse subjected to repression here is a
libidinal attitude towards the father, coupled with fear of him.
After repression, this impulse vanishes out of consciousness: the
father does not appear in it as an object of libido. As a
substitute for him we find in a corresponding place some animal
which is more or less fitted to be an object of anxiety. The
formation of the substitute for the ideational portion has come
about by
displacement
along a chain of connections which is
determined in a particular way. The quantitative portion has not
vanished, but has been transformed into anxiety. The result is fear
of a wolf, instead of a demand for love from the father. The
categories here employed are of course not enough to supply an
adequate explanation of even the simplest case of psychoneurosis:
there are always other considerations to be taken into account. A
repression such as occurs in an animal phobia must be described as
radically unsuccessful. All that it has done is to remove and
replace the idea; it has failed altogether in sparing unpleasure.
And for this reason, too, the work of the neurosis does not cease.
It proceeds to a second phase, in order to attain its immediate and
more important purpose. What follows is an attempt at flight - the
formation of the
phobia proper
, of a number of avoidances
which are intended to prevent a release of the anxiety. More
specialized investigation enables us to understand the mechanism by
which the phobia achieves its aim.

Repression

2986

   We are obliged to take quite
another view of the process of repression when we consider the
picture of a true
conversion hysteria
. Here the salient
point is that it is possible to bring about a total disappearance
of the quota of affect. When this is so, the patient displays
towards his symptoms what Charcot called ‘
la belle
indifférence hystériques
’. In other cases
this suppression is not so completely successful: some distressing
sensations may attach to the symptoms themselves, or it may prove
impossible to prevent some release of anxiety, which in turn sets
to work the mechanism of forming a phobia. The ideational content
of the instinctual representative is completely withdrawn from
consciousness; as a substitute - and at the same time as a symptom
- we have an over-strong innervation (in typical cases, a somatic
one), sometimes of a sensory, sometimes of a motor character,
either as an excitation or an inhibition. The over-innervated area
proves on a closer view to be a part of the repressed instinctual
representative itself - a part which, as though by a process of
condensation
, has drawn the whole cathexis on to itself.
These remarks do not of course bring to light the whole mechanism
of a conversion hysteria; in especial the factor of
regression
, which will be considered in another connection,
has also to be taken into account. In so far as repression in
hysteria is made possible only by the extensive formation of
substitutes, it may be judged to be entirely unsuccessful; as
regards dealing with the quota of affect, however, which is the
true task of repression, it generally signifies a total success. In
conversion hysteria the process of repression is completed with the
formation of the symptom and does not, as in anxiety hysteria, need
to continue to a second phase - or rather, strictly speaking, to
continue endlessly.

Repression

2987

   A totally different picture of
repression is shown, once more, in the third disorder which we
shall consider for the purposes of our illustration - in
obsessional neurosis
. Here we are at first in doubt what it
is that we have to regard as the instinctual representative that is
subjected to repression - whether it is a libidinal or a hostile
trend. This uncertainty arises because obsessional neurosis has as
its basis a regression owing to which a sadistic trend has been
substituted for an affectionate one. It is this hostile impulsion
against someone who is loved which is subjected to repression. The
effect at an early stage of the work of repression is quite
different from what it is at a later one. At first the repression
is completely successful; the ideational content is rejected and
the affect made to disappear. As a substitutive formation there
arises an alteration in the ego in the shape of an increased
conscientiousness, and this can hardly be called a symptom. Here,
substitute and symptom do not coincide. From this we learn
something, too, about the mechanism of repression. In this
instance, as in all others, repression has brought about a
withdrawal of libido; but here it has made use of
reaction-formation
for this purpose, by intensifying an
opposite. Thus in this case the formation of a substitute has the
same mechanism as repression and at bottom coincides with it, while
chronologically, as well as conceptually, it is distinct from the
formation of a symptom. It is very probable that the whole process
is made possible by the ambivalent relationship into which the
sadistic impulsion that has to be repressed has been introduced.
But the repression, which was at first successful, does not hold
firm; in the further course of things its failure becomes
increasingly marked. The ambivalence which has enabled repression
through reaction-formation to take place is also the point at which
the repressed succeeds in returning. The vanished affect comes back
in its transformed shape as social anxiety, moral anxiety and
unlimited self-reproaches; the rejected idea is replaced by a
substitute by displacement
, often a displacement on to
something very small or indifferent. A tendency to a complete
re-establishment of the repressed idea is as a rule unmistakably
present. The failure in the repression of the quantitative,
affective factor brings into play the same mechanism of flight, by
means of avoidance and prohibitions, as we have seen at work in the
formation of hysterical phobias. The rejection of the
idea
from the conscious is, however, obstinately maintained, because it
entails abstention from action, a motor fettering of the impulsion.
Thus in obsessional neurosis the work of repression is prolonged in
a sterile and interminable struggle.

Repression

2988

   The short series of comparisons
presented here may easily convince us that more comprehensive
investigations are necessary before we can hope thoroughly to
understand the processes connected with repression and the
formation of neurotic symptoms. The extraordinary intricacy of all
the factors to be taken into consideration leaves only one way of
presenting them open to us. We must select first one and then
another point of view, and follow it up through the material as
long as the application of it seems to yield results. Each separate
treatment of the subject will be incomplete in itself, and there
cannot fail to be obscurities where it touches upon material that
has not yet been treated; but we may hope that a final synthesis
will lead to a proper understanding.

2989

THE UNCONSCIOUS

(1915)

2990

Intentionally left blank

2991

THE UNCONSCIOUS

We have learnt from psycho-analysis that the
essence of the process of repression lies, not in putting an end
to, in annihilating, the idea which represents an instinct, but in
preventing it from becoming conscious. When this happens we say of
the idea that it is in a state of being ‘unconscious’,
and we can produce good evidence to show that even when it is
unconscious it can produce effects, even including some which
finally reach consciousness. Everything that is repressed must
remain unconscious; but let us state at the very outset that the
repressed does not cover everything that is unconscious. The
unconscious has the wider compass: the repressed is a part of the
unconscious.

   How are we to arrive at a
knowledge of the unconscious? It is of course only as something
conscious that we know it, after it has undergone transformation or
translation into something conscious. Psycho-analytic work shows us
every day that translation of this kind is possible. In order that
this should come about, the person under analysis must overcome
certain resistances - the same resistances as those which, earlier,
made the material concerned into something repressed by rejecting
it from the conscious.

I.  JUSTIFICATION FOR THE CONCEPT OF
THE UNCONSCIOUS

   Our right to assume the existence
of something mental that is unconscious and to employ that
assumption for the purposes of scientific work is disputed in many
quarters. To this we can reply that our assumption of the
unconscious is
necessary
and
legitimate
, and that we
possess numerous proofs of its existence.

   It is
necessary
because
the data of consciousness have a very large number of gaps in them;
both in healthy and in sick people psychical acts often occur which
can be explained only by presupposing other acts, of which,
nevertheless, consciousness affords no evidence. These not only
include parapraxes and dreams in healthy people, and everything
described as a psychical symptom or an obsession in the sick; our
most personal daily experience acquaints us with ideas that come
into our head we do not know from where, and with intellectual
conclusions arrived at we do not know how. All these conscious acts
remain disconnected and unintelligible if we insist upon claiming
that every mental act that occurs in us must also necessarily be
experienced by us through consciousness; on the other hand, they
fall into a demonstrable connection if we interpolate between them
the unconscious acts which we have inferred. A gain in meaning is a
perfectly justifiable ground for going beyond the limits of direct
experience. When, in addition, it turns out that the assumption of
there being an unconscious enables us to construct a successful
procedure by which we can exert an effective influence upon the
course of conscious processes, this success will have given us an
incontrovertible proof of the existence of what we have assumed.
This being so, we must adopt the position that to require that
whatever goes on in the mind must also be known to consciousness is
to make an untenable claim.

The Unconscious

2992

   We can go further and argue, in
support of there being an unconscious psychical state, that at any
given moment consciousness includes only a small content, so that
the greater part of what we call conscious knowledge must in any
case be for very considerable periods of time in a state of
latency, that is to say, of being psychically unconscious. When all
our latent memories are taken into consideration it becomes totally
incomprehensible how the existence of the unconscious can be
denied. But here we encounter the objection that these latent
recollections can no longer be described as psychical, but that
they correspond to residues of somatic processes from which what is
psychical can once more arise. The obvious answer to this is that a
latent memory is, on the contrary, an unquestionable residuum of a
psychical
process. But it is more important to realize
clearly that this objection is based on the equation - not, it is
true, explicitly stated but taken as axiomatic - of what is
conscious with what is mental. This equation is either a
petitio
principii
which begs the question whether everything that in
psychical is also necessarily conscious; or else it is a matter of
convention, of nomenclature. In this latter case it is, of course,
like any other convention, not open to refutation. The question
remains, however, whether the convention is so expedient that we
are bound to adopt it. To this we may reply that the conventional
equation of the psychical with the conscious is totally
inexpedient. It disrupts psychical continuities, plunges us into
the insoluble difficulties of psycho-physical parallelism, is open
to the reproach that for no obvious reason it over-estimates the
part played by consciousness, and that it forces us prematurely to
abandon the field of psychological research without being able to
offer us any compensation from other fields.

   It is clear in any case that this
question - whether the latent states of mental life, whose
existence is undeniable, are to be conceived of as conscious mental
states or as physical ones - threatens to resolve itself into a
verbal dispute. We shall therefore be better advised to focus our
attention on what we know with certainty of the nature of these
debatable states. As far as their physical characteristics are
concerned, they are totally inaccessible to us: no physiological
concept or chemical process can give us any notion of their nature.
On the other hand, we know for certain that they have abundant
points of contact with conscious mental processes; with the help of
a certain amount of work they can be transformed into, or replaced
by, conscious mental processes, and all the categories which we
employ to describe conscious mental acts, such as ideas, purposes,
resolutions and so on, can be applied to them. Indeed, we are
obliged to say of some of these latent states that the only respect
in which they differ from conscious ones is precisely in the
absence of consciousness. Thus we shall not hesitate to treat them
as objects of psychological research, and to deal with them in the
most intimate connection with conscious mental acts.

   The stubborn denial of a
psychical character to latent mental acts is accounted for by the
circumstance that most of the phenomena concerned have not been the
subject of study outside psycho-analysis. Anyone who is ignorant of
pathological facts, who regards the parapraxes of normal people as
accidental, and who is content with the old saw that dreams are
froth [‘
Träume sind Schäume
’] has only
to ignore a few more problems of the psychology of consciousness in
order to spare himself any need to assume an unconscious mental
activity. Incidentally, even before the time of psycho-analysis,
hypnotic experiments, and especially post-hypnotic suggestion, had
tangibly demonstrated the existence and mode of operation of the
mental unconscious.

The Unconscious

2993

   The assumption of an unconscious
is, moreover, a perfectly
legitimate
one, inasmuch as in
postulating it we are not departing a single step from our
customary and generally accepted mode of thinking. Consciousness
makes each of us aware only of his own states of mind; that other
people, too, possess a consciousness is an inference which we draw
by analogy from their observable utterances and actions, in order
to make this behaviour of theirs intelligible to us. (It would no
doubt be psychologically more correct to put it in this way: that
without any special reflection we attribute to everyone else our
own constitution and therefore our consciousness as well, and that
this identification is a
sine qua non
of our understanding.)
This inference (or this identification) was formerly extended by
the ego to other human beings, to animals, plants, inanimate
objects and to the world at large, and proved serviceable so long
as their similarity to the individual ego was overwhelmingly great;
but it became more untrustworthy in proportion as the difference
between the ego and these ‘others’ widened. To-day, our
critical judgement is already in doubt on the question of
consciousness in animals; we refuse to admit it in plants and we
regard the assumption of its existence in inanimate matter as
mysticism. But even where the original inclination to
identification has withstood criticism - that is, when the
‘others’ are our fellow-men - the assumption of a
consciousness in them rests upon an inference and cannot share the
immediate certainty which we have of our own consciousness.

   Psycho-analysis demands nothing
more than that we should apply this process of inference to
ourselves also - a proceeding to which, it is true, we are not
constitutionally inclined. If we do this, we must say: all the acts
and manifestations which I notice in myself and do not know how to
link up with the rest of my mental life must be judged as if they
belonged to someone else: they are to be explained by a mental life
ascribed to this other person. Furthermore, experience shows that
we understand very well how to interpret in other people (that is,
how to fit into their chain of mental events) the same acts which
we refuse to acknowledge as being mental in ourselves. Here some
special hindrance evidently deflects our investigations from our
own self and prevents our obtaining a true knowledge of it.

The Unconscious

2994

   This process of inference, when
applied to oneself in spite of internal opposition, does not,
however, lead to the disclosure of an unconscious; it leads
logically to the assumption of another, second consciousness which
is united in one’s self with the consciousness one knows. But
at this point, certain criticisms may fairly be made. In the first
place, a consciousness of which its own possessor knows nothing is
something very different from a consciousness belonging to another
person, and it is questionable whether such a consciousness,
lacking, as it does, its most important characteristic, deserves
any discussion at all. Those who have resisted the assumption of an
unconscious
psychical
are not likely to be ready to exchange
it for an unconscious
consciousness
. the second place,
analysis shows that the different latent mental processes inferred
by us enjoy a high degree of mutual independence, as though they
had no connection with one another, and knew nothing of one
another. We must be prepared, if so, to assume the existence in us
not only of a second consciousness, but of a third, fourth, perhaps
of an unlimited number of states of consciousness, all unknown to
us and to one another. In the third place - and this is the most
weighty argument of all - we have to take into account the fact
that analytic investigation reveals some of these latent processes
as having characteristics and peculiarities which seem alien to us,
or even incredible, and which run directly counter to the
attributes of consciousness with which we are familiar. Thus we
have grounds for modifying our inference about ourselves and saying
that what is proved is not the existence of a second consciousness
in us, but the existence of psychical acts which lack
consciousness. We shall also be right in rejecting the term
‘subconsciousness’ as incorrect and misleading. The
well-known cases of ‘
double conscience
’¹
(splitting of consciousness) prove nothing against our view. We may
most aptly describe them as cases of a splitting of the mental
activities into two groups, and say that the same consciousness
turns to one or the other of these groups alternately.

  
¹
[The French term for ‘dual
consciousness’.]

The Unconscious

2995

   In psycho-analysis there is no
choice for us but to assert that mental processes are in themselves
unconscious, and to liken the perception of them by means of
consciousness to the perception of the external world by means of
the sense-organs. We can even hope to gain fresh knowledge from the
comparison. The psycho-analytic assumption of unconscious mental
activity appears to us, on the one hand, as a further expansion of
the primitive animism which caused us to see copies of our own
consciousness all around us, and, on the other hand, as an
extension of the corrections undertaken by Kant of our views on
external perception. Just as Kant warned us not to overlook the
fact that our perceptions are subjectively conditioned and must not
be regarded as identical with what is perceived though unknowable,
so psycho-analysis warns us not to equate perceptions by means of
consciousness with the unconscious mental processes which are their
object. Like the physical, the psychical is not necessarily in
reality what it appears to us to be. We shall be glad to learn,
however, that the correction of internal perception will turn out
not to offer such great difficulties as the correction of external
perception - that internal objects are less unknowable than the
external world.

The Unconscious

2996

II.  VARIOUS MEANINGS OF ‘THE
UNCONSCIOUS’ -

THE TOPOGRAPHICAL POINT OF VIEW

   Before going any further, let us
state the important, though inconvenient, fact that the attribute
of being unconscious is only one feature that is found in the
psychical and is by no means sufficient fully to characterize it.
There are psychical acts of very varying value which yet agree in
possessing the characteristic of being unconscious. The unconscious
comprises, on the one hand, acts which are merely latent,
temporarily unconscious, but which differ in no other respect from
conscious ones and, on the other hand, processes such as repressed
ones, which if they were to become conscious would be bound to
stand out in the crudest contrast to the rest of the conscious
processes. It would put an end to all misunderstandings if, from
now on, in describing the various kinds of psychical acts we were
to disregard the question of whether they were conscious or
unconscious, and were to classify and correlate them only according
to their relation to instincts and aims, according to their
composition and according to which of the hierarchy of psychical
systems they belong to. This, however, is for various reasons
impracticable, so that we cannot escape the ambiguity of using the
words ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’
sometimes in a descriptive and sometimes in a systematic sense, in
which latter they signify inclusion in particular systems and
possession of certain characteristics. We might attempt to avoid
confusion by giving the psychical systems which we have
distinguished certain arbitrarily chosen names which have no
reference to the attribute of being conscious. Only we should first
have to specify what the grounds are on which we distinguish the
systems, and in doing this we should not be able to evade the
attribute of being conscious, seeing that it forms the point of
departure for all our investigations. Perhaps we may look for some
assistance from the proposal to employ, at any rate in writing, the
abbreviation
Cs.
for consciousness and
Ucs.
for what
is unconscious, when we are using the two words in the systematic
sense.