Freud - Complete Works (501 page)

The Unconscious

3015

   So long as we still cling to this
belief we see our generalizations regularly broken through by
exceptions. On the one hand we find that derivatives of the
Ucs.
become conscious as substitutive formations and
symptoms - generally, it is true, after having undergone great
distortion as compared with the unconscious, though often retaining
many characteristics which call for repression. On the other hand,
we find that many preconscious formations remain unconscious,
though we should have expected that, from their nature, they might
very well have become conscious. Probably in the latter case the
stronger attraction of the
Ucs.
is asserting itself. We are
led to look for the more important distinction as lying, not
between the conscious and the preconscious, but between the
preconscious and the unconscious. The
Ucs.
is turned back on
the frontier of the
Pcs.
by the censorship, but derivatives
of the
Ucs.
can circumvent this censorship, achieve a high
degree of organization and reach a certain intensity of cathexis in
the
Pcs.
When, however, this intensity is exceeded and they
try to force themselves into consciousness, they are recognized as
derivatives of the
Ucs.
and are repressed afresh at the new
frontier of censorship, between the
Pcs.
and the
Cs.
Thus the first of these censorships is exercised against the
Ucs.
itself, and the second against its
Pcs.
derivatives. One might suppose that in the course of individual
development the censorship had taken a step forward.

   In psycho-analytic treatment the
existence of the second censorship, located between the systems
Pcs.
and
Cs.
, is proved beyond question. We require
the patient to form numerous derivatives of the
Ucs.
, we
make him pledge himself to overcome the objections of the
censorship to these preconscious formations becoming conscious, and
by overthrowing
this
censorship, we open up the way to
abrogating the repression accomplished by the
earlier
one.
To this let us add that the existence of the censorship between the
Pcs.
and the
Cs.
teaches us that becoming conscious
is no mere act of perception, but is probably also a
hypercathexis
, a further advance in the psychical
organization.

The Unconscious

3016

   Let us turn to the communications
between the
Ucs.
and the other systems, less in order to
establish anything new than in order to avoid omitting what is most
prominent. At the roots of instinctual activity the systems
communicate with one another most extensively. One portion of the
processes which are there excited passes through the
Ucs.
,
as through a preparatory stage, and reaches the highest psychical
development in the
Cs.
; another portion is retained as
Ucs.
But the
Ucs.
is also affected by experiences
originating from external perception. Normally all the paths from
perception to the
Ucs.
remain open, and only those leading
on from the
Ucs.
are subject to blocking by repression.

   It is a very remarkable thing
that the
Ucs.
of one human being can react upon that of
another, without passing through the
Cs.
This deserves
closer investigation, especially with a view to finding out whether
preconscious activity can be excluded as playing a part in it; but,
descriptively speaking, the fact is incontestable.

   The content of the system
Pcs.
(or
Cs.
) is derived partly from instinctual life
(through the medium of the
Ucs.
), and partly from
perception. It is doubtful how far the processes of this system can
exert a direct influence on the
Ucs.
; examination of
pathological cases often reveals an almost incredible independence
and lack of susceptibility to influence on the part of the
Ucs.
A complete divergence of their trends, a total
severance of the two systems, is what above all characterizes a
condition of illness. Nevertheless, psycho-analytic treatment is
based upon an influencing of the
Ucs.
from the direction of
the
Cs.
, and at any rate shows that this, though a laborious
task, is not impossible. The derivatives of the
Ucs.
which
act as intermediaries between the two systems open the way, as we
have already said, towards accomplishing this. But we may safely
assume that a spontaneously effected alteration in the
Ucs.
from the direction of the
Cs.
is a difficult and slow
process.

The Unconscious

3017

   Co-operation between a
preconscious and an unconscious impulse, even when the latter is
intensely repressed, may come about if there is a situation in
which the unconscious impulse can act in the same sense as one of
the dominant trends. The repression is removed in this instance,
and the repressed activity is admitted as a reinforcement of the
one intended by the ego. The unconscious becomes ego-syntonic in
respect of this single conjunction without any change taking place
in its repression apart from this. In this co-operation the
influence of the
Ucs.
is unmistakable: the reinforced
tendencies reveal themselves as being nevertheless different from
the normal; they make specially perfect functioning possible, and
they manifest a resistance in the face of opposition which is
similar to that offered, for instance, by obsessional symptoms.

   The content of the
Ucs.
may be compared with an aboriginal population in the mind. If
inherited mental formations exist in the human being - something
analogous to instinct¹ in animals - these constitute the
nucleus of the
Ucs.
Later there is added to them what is
discarded during childhood development as unserviceable; and this
need not differ in its nature from what is inherited. A sharp and
final division between the content of the two systems does not, as
a rule, take place till puberty.

  
¹
[The German word here is
‘
Instinkt
’, not the usual
‘
Trieb
’.]

The Unconscious

3018

VII.  ASSESSMENT OF THE
UNCONSCIOUS

   What we have put together in the
preceding discussions is probably as much as we can say about the
Ucs.
so long as we only draw upon our knowledge of
dream-life and the transference neuroses. It is certainly not much,
and at some points it gives an impression of obscurity and
confusion; and above all it offers us no possibility of
co-ordinating or subsuming the
Ucs.
into any context with
which we are already familiar. It is only the analysis of one of
the affections which we call narcissistic psychoneuroses that
promises to furnish us with conceptions through which the enigmatic
Ucs.
will be brought more within our reach and, as it were,
made tangible.

   Since the publication of a work
by Abraham (1908) - which that conscientious author has attributed
to my instigation - we have tried to base our characterization of
Kraepelin’s ‘dementia praecox’ (Bleuler’s
‘schizophrenia’) on its position with reference to the
antithesis between ego and object. In the transference neuroses
(anxiety hysteria, conversion hysteria and obsessional neurosis)
there was nothing to give special prominence to this antithesis. We
knew, indeed, that frustration in regard to the object brings on
the outbreak of the neurosis and that the neurosis involves a
renunciation of the real object; we knew too that the libido that
is withdrawn from the real object reverts first to a phantasied
object and then to one that had been repressed (introversion). But
in these disorders object-cathexis in general is retained with
great energy, and more detailed examination of the process of
repression has obliged us to assume that object-cathexis persists
in the system
Ucs.
in spite of - or rather in consequence of
- repression. Indeed, the capacity for transference, of which we
make use for therapeutic purposes in these affections, presupposes
an unimpaired object-cathexis.

The Unconscious

3019

   In the case of schizophrenia, on
the other hand, we have been driven to the assumption that after
the process of repression the libido that has been withdrawn does
not seek a new object, but retreats into the ego; that is to say,
that here the object-cathexes are given up and a primitive
objectless condition of narcissism is re-established. The
incapacity of these patients for transference (so far as the
pathological process extends), their consequent inaccessibility to
therapeutic efforts, their characteristic repudiation of the
external world, the appearance of signs of a hypercathexis of their
own ego, the final outcome in complete apathy - all these clinical
features seem to agree excellently with the assumption that their
object-cathexes have been given up. As regards the relation of the
two psychical systems to each other, all observers have been struck
by the fact that in schizophrenia a great deal is expressed as
being conscious which in the transference neuroses can only be
shown to be present in the
Ucs.
by psycho-analysis. But to
begin with we were not able to establish any intelligible
connection between the ego-object relation and the relationships of
consciousness.

   What we are seeking seems to
present itself in the following unexpected way. In schizophrenics
we observe - especially in the initial stages, which are so
instructive - a number of changes in
speech
, some of which
deserve to be regarded from a particular point of view. The patient
often devotes peculiar care to his way of expressing himself, which
becomes ‘stilted’ and ‘precious’. The
construction of his sentences undergoes a peculiar disorganization,
making them so incomprehensible to us that his remarks seem
nonsensical. Some reference to bodily organs or innervations is
often given prominence in the content of these remarks. To this may
be added the fact that in such symptoms of schizophrenia as are
comparable with the substitutive formations of hysteria or
obsessional neurosis, the relation between the substitute and the
repressed material nevertheless displays peculiarities which would
surprise us in these two forms of neurosis.

   Dr. Victor Tausk of Vienna has
placed at my disposal some observations that he has made in the
initial stages of schizophrenia in a female patient, which are
particularly valuable in that the patient was ready to explain her
utterances herself. I will take two of his examples to illustrate
the view I wish to put forward, and I have no doubt that every
observer could easily produce plenty of such material.

The Unconscious

3020

   A patient of Tausk’s, a
girl who was brought to the clinic after a quarrel with her lover,
complained that
her eyes were not right, they were twisted
.
This she herself explained by bringing forward a series of
reproaches against her lover in coherent language. ‘She could
not understand him at all, he looked different every time; he was a
hypocrite, an eye-twister,¹ he had twisted her eyes; now she
had twisted eyes; they were not her eyes any more; now she saw the
world with different eyes.’

   The patient’s comments on
her unintelligible remark have the value of an analysis, for they
contain the equivalent of the remark expressed in a generally
comprehensible form. They throw light at the same time on the
meaning and the genesis of schizophrenic word-formation. I agree
with Tausk in stressing in this example the point that the
patient’s relation to a bodily organ (the eye) has arrogated
to itself the representation of the whole content. Here the
schizophrenic utterance exhibits a hypochondriac trait: it has
become ‘
organ-speech
’.

   A second communication by the
same patient was as follows: ‘She was standing in church.
Suddenly she felt a jerk; she had to
change her position, as
though somebody was putting her into a position, as though she was
being put in a certain position
.’

   Now came the analysis of this
through a fresh series of reproaches against her lover. ‘He
was common, he had made her common, too, though she was naturally
refined. He had made her like himself by making her think that he
was superior to her; now she had become like him, because she
thought she would be better if she were like him. He had
given a
false impression of his position
; now she was just like
him’ (by identification), ‘he had
put her in a false
position
’.

   The physical movement of
‘changing her position’, Tausk remarks, depicted the
words ‘putting her in a false position’ and her
identification with her lover. I would call attention once more to
the fact that the whole train of thought is dominated by the
element which has for its content a bodily innervation (or, rather,
the sensation of it). Furthermore, a hysterical woman would, in the
first example, have
in fact
convulsively twisted her eyes,
and, in the second, have given actual jerks, instead of having the
impulse
to do so or the
sensation
of doing so: and in
neither example would she have any accompanying conscious thoughts,
nor would she have been able to express any such thoughts
afterwards.