Freud - Complete Works (598 page)

   Thus the sadistic-anal
organization continued to exist during the phase of the animal
phobia which now set in, only it suffered an admixture of
anxiety-phenomena. The child persisted in his sadistic as well as
in his masochistic activities, but he reacted with anxiety to a
portion of them; the conversion of his sadism into its opposite
probably made further progress.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3586

   The analysis of the anxiety-dream
shows us that the repression was connected with his recognition of
the existence of castration. The new element was rejected because
its acceptance would have cost him his penis. Closer consideration
leads us to some such conclusion as the following. What was
repressed was the homosexual attitude understood in the genital
sense, an attitude which had been formed under the influence of
this recognition of castration. But that attitude was retained as
regards the unconscious and set up as a dissociated and deeper
stratum. The motive force of the repression seems to have been the
narcissistic masculinity which attached to the boy’s
genitals, and which had come into a long-prepared conflict with the
passivity of his homosexual sexual aim. The repression was thus a
result of his masculinity.

   One might be tempted at this
point to introduce a slight alteration into psycho-analytic theory.
It would seem palpably obvious that the repression and the
formation of the neurosis must have originated out of the conflict
between masculine and feminine tendencies, that is out of
bisexuality. This view of the situation, however is incomplete. Of
the two conflicting sexual impulses one was ego-syntonic, while the
other offended the boy’s narcissistic interest; it was on
that
account that the latter underwent repression. So that
in this case, too, it was the ego that put the repression into
operation, for the benefit of one of the sexual tendencies. In
other cases there is no such conflict between masculinity and
femininity; there is only a single sexual tendency present, which
seeks for acceptance, but offends against certain forces of the ego
and is consequently repelled. Indeed, conflicts between sexuality
and the
moral
ego trends are far more common than such as
take place within the sphere of sexuality; but a moral conflict of
this kind is lacking in our present case. To insist that
bisexuality is the motive force leading to repression is to take
too narrow a view; whereas if we assert the same of the conflict
between the ego and the sexual tendencies (that is, the libido) we
shall have covered all possible cases.

   The theory of the
‘masculine protest’, as it has been developed by Adler,
is faced by the difficulty that repression by no means always takes
the side of masculinity against femininity; there are quite large
classes of cases in which it is masculinity that has to submit to
repression by the ego.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3587

   Moreover, a juster appreciation
of the process of repression in our present case would lead us to
deny that narcissistic masculinity was the sole motive force. The
homosexual attitude which came into being during the dream was of
such overwhelming intensity that the little boy’s ego found
itself unable to cope with it and so defended itself against it by
the process of repression. The narcissistic masculinity which
attached to his genitals, being opposed to the homosexual attitude,
was drawn in, in order to assist the ego in carrying out the task.
Merely to avoid misunderstandings, I will add that all narcissistic
impulses operate from the ego and have their permanent seat in the
ego, and that repressions are directed against libidinal object
cathexes.

   Let us now leave the process of
repression, though we have perhaps not succeeded in dealing with it
exhaustively, and let us turn to the boy’s state when he
awoke from the dream. If it had really been his masculinity that
had triumphed over his homosexuality (or femininity) during the
dream-process, then we should necessarily find that the dominant
trend was an active sexual trend of a character already explicitly
masculine. But there is no question of this having happened. The
essentials of the sexual organization had not been changed; the
sadistic-anal phase persisted, and remained the dominant one. The
triumph of his masculinity was shown only in this: that
thenceforward he reacted with anxiety to the passive sexual aims of
the dominant organization - aims which were masochistic but not
feminine. We are not confronted by a triumphant masculine sexual
trend, but only by a passive one and a struggle against it.

   I can well imagine the
difficulties that the reader must find in the sharp distinction
(unfamiliar but essential) which I have drawn between
‘active’ and ‘masculine’ and between
‘passive’ and ‘feminine’. I shall therefore
not hesitate to repeat myself. The state of affairs, then, after
the dream, may be described as follows. The sexual trends had been
split up; in the unconscious the stage of the genital organization
had been reached, and a very intense homosexuality set up; on the
top of this (virtually in the conscious) there persisted the
earlier sadistic and predominantly masochistic sexual current; the
ego had on the whole changed its attitude towards sexuality, for it
now repudiated sexuality and rejected the dominant masochistic aims
with anxiety, just as it had reacted to the deeper homosexual aims
with the formation of a phobia. Thus the result of the dream was
not so much the triumph of a masculine current, as a reaction
against a feminine and passive one. It would be very forced to
ascribe the quality of masculinity to this reaction. The truth is
that the ego has no sexual currents, but only an interest in its
own self-protection and in the preservation of its narcissism.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3588

   Let us now consider the phobia.
It came into existence on the level of the genital organization,
and shows us the relatively simple mechanism of an
anxiety-hysteria. The ego, by developing anxiety, was protecting
itself against what it regarded as an overwhelming danger, namely,
homosexual satisfaction. But the process of repression left behind
it a trace which cannot be overlooked. The object to which the
dangerous sexual aim had been attached had to have its place taken
in consciousness by another one. What became conscious was fear not
of the
father
but of the
wolf
. Nor did the process
stop at the formation of a phobia with a single content. A
considerable time afterwards the wolf was replaced by the lion.
Simultaneously with sadistic impulses against small animals there
was a phobia directed towards them, in their capacity of
representatives of the boy’s rivals, the possible small
children. The origin of the butterfly phobia is of especial
interest. It was like a repetition of the mechanism that produced
the wolf phobia in the dream. Owing to a chance stimulus an old
experience, the scene with Grusha, was activated; her threat of
castration thus produced deferred effects, though at the time it
was uttered it had made no impression.¹

  
¹
The Grusha scene was, as I have said, a
spontaneous product of the patient’s memory, and no
construction or stimulation by the physician played any part in
evoking it. The gaps in it were filled up by the analysis in a
fashion which must be regarded as unexceptionable, if any value at
all is attached to the analytic method of work. The only possible
rationalistic explanation of the phobia would be the following.
There is nothing extraordinary, it might be said, in a child that
was inclined to be nervous having had an anxiety attack in
connection with a yellow-striped butterfly, probably as a result of
some inherited tendency to anxiety.(See Stanley Hall, ‘A
Synthetic Genetic Study of Fear’, 1914.) In ignorance of the
true causation of his fear, this explanation would proceed, the
patient looked about for something in his childhood to which he
could connect it; he made use of the chance similarity of names and
the recurrence of the stripes as a ground for the construction of
an imaginary adventure with the nursery-maid whom he still
remembered. When, however, we observe that the trivial details of
this went (which, according to this view, was in itself an innocent
one) - the scrubbing, the pail and the broom - had enough power
over the patient’s later life to determine his object-choice
permanently and compulsively, then the butterfly phobia seems to
have acquired an inexplicable importance. The state of things on
this hypothesis is thus seen to be at least as remarkable as on
mine, and any advantage that might be claimed for a rationalistic
reading of the scene has melted away. The Grusha scene is of
particular value to us, since in relation to it we can prepare our
judgement upon the less certain primal scene.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3589

   It may truly be said that the
anxiety that was concerned in the formation of these phobias was a
fear of castration. This statement involves no contradiction of the
view that the anxiety originated from the repression of homosexual
libido. Both modes of expression refer to the same process: namely,
the withdrawal of libido by the ego from the homosexual wishful
impulse, the libido having then become converted into free anxiety
and subsequently bound in phobias. The first method of statement
merely mentions in addition the motive by which the ego was
actuated.

   If we look into the matter more
closely we shall see that our patient’s first illness
(leaving the disturbance of appetite out of account) is not
exhausted when we have extracted the phobia from it. It must be
regarded as a true hysteria showing not merely anxiety-symptoms but
also phenomena of conversion. A portion of the homosexual impulse
was retained by the organ concerned in it; from that time forward,
and equally during his adult life, his bowel behaved like a
hysterically affected organ. The unconscious repressed
homosexuality withdrew into his bowel. It was precisely this trait
of hysteria which was of such great service in helping to clear up
his later illness.

   We must now summon up our courage
to attack the still more complicated structure of the obsessional
neurosis. Let up once more bear the situation in mind: a dominant
masochistic sexual current and a repressed homosexual one, and an
ego deep in hysterical repudiation of them. What processes
transformed this condition into one of obsessional neurosis?

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3590

  The transformation did not occur
spontaneously, through internal development, but through an outside
influence. Its visible effect was that the patient’s relation
to his father, which stood in the foreground, and which had so far
found expression in the wolf phobia, was now manifested in
obsessional piety. I cannot refrain from pointing out that the
course of events in this part of the

patient’s history affords an
unmistakable confirmation of an assertion which I made in
Totem
and Taboo
upon the relation of the totem animal to the
deity.¹ I there decided in favour of the view that the idea of
God was not a development from the totem, but replaced it after
arising independently from a root common to both ideas. The totem,
I maintained, was the first father-surrogate, and the god was a
later one, in which the father had regained his human shape. And we
find the same thing with our patient. In his wolf phobia he had
gone through the stage of the totemic father-surrogate; but that
stage was now broken off, and, as a result of new relations between
him and his father, was replaced by a phase of religious piety.

  The influence that provoked this
transformation was the acquaintance which he obtained through his
mother’s agency with the doctrines of religion and with the
Bible story. This educational measure had the desired effect. The
sadistic-masochistic sexual organization came slowly to an end, the
wolf phobia quickly vanished, and, instead of sexuality being
repudiated with anxiety, a higher method of suppressing it made its
appearance. Piety became the dominant

force in the child’s life. These
victories, however, were not won without struggles, of which his
blasphemous thoughts were an indication, and of which the
establishment of an obsessive exaggeration of religious ceremonial
was the result.

  Apart from these pathological
phenomena, it may be said that in the present case religion
achieved all the aims for the sake of which it is included in the
education of the individual. It put a restraint on his sexual
impulsions by affording them a sublimation and a safe mooring; it
lowered the importance of his family relationships, and thus
protected him from the threat of isolation by giving him access to
the great community of mankind. The untamed and fear-ridden

child became social, well-behaved, and
amenable to education.

 
¹
Totem and Taboo
(1912-13),
p. 2788
.

From The History Of An Infantile Neurosis

3591

   The chief motive force of the
influence which religion had on him was his identification with the
figure of Christ, which came particularly easily to him owing to
the accident of the date of his birth. Along this path his
extravagant love of his father, which had made the repression
necessary, found its way at length to an ideal sublimation. As
Christ, he could love his father, who was now called God, with a
fervour which had sought in vain to discharge itself so long as his
father had been a mortal. The means by which he could bear witness
to this love were laid down by religion, and they were not haunted
by that sense of guilt from which his individual feelings of love
could not set themselves free. In this way it was still possible
for him to drain off his deepest sexual current, which had already
been precipitated in the form of unconscious homosexuality; and at
the same time his more superficial masochistic impulsion found an
incomparable sublimation, without much renunciation, in the story
of the Passion of Christ, who, at the behest of his divine Father
and in his honour, had let himself be ill-treated and sacrificed.
So it was that religion did its work for the hard pressed child -
by the combination which it afforded the believer of satisfaction,
of sublimation, of diversion from sensual processes to purely
spiritual ones, and of access to social relationships.