Freud - Complete Works (654 page)

3940

PREFACE TO J. J. PUTNAM’S
ADDRESSES ON PSYCHO-ANALYSIS

(1921)

The editor of this series must feel a special
satisfaction in being able to issue as its opening volume this
collection of the psycho-analytical writings of Professor James J.
Putnam, the distinguished neurologist of Harvard University.
Professor Putnam, who died in 1918 at the age of seventy-two, was
not only the first American to interest himself in psycho-analysis,
but soon became its most decided supporter and its most influential
representative in America. In consequence of the established
reputation which he had gained through his activities as a teacher,
as well as through his important work in the domain of organic
nervous disease, and thanks to the universal respect which his
personality enjoyed, he was able to do perhaps more than anyone for
the spread of psycho-analysis in his own country, and was able to
protect it from aspersions which, on the other side of the Atlantic
no less than this, would inevitably have been cast upon it. But all
such reproaches were bound to be silenced when a man of
Putnam’s lofty ethical standards and moral rectitude had
ranged himself among the supporters of the new science and of the
therapeutics based upon it.

   The papers here collected into a
single volume, which were written by Putnam between 1909 and the
end of his life, give a good picture of his relations to
psycho-analysis. They show how he was at first occupied in
correcting a provisional judgement which was based on insufficient
knowledge; how he then accepted the essence of analysis, recognized
its capacity for throwing a clear light upon the origin of human
imperfections and failings, and how he was struck by the prospect
of contributing towards the improvement of humanity along
analytical lines; how he then became convinced by his own
activities as a physician as to the truth of most of the
psycho-analytical conclusions and postulates, and then in his turn
bore witness to the fact that the physician who makes use of
analysis understands far more about the sufferings of his patients
and can do far more for them than was possible with the earlier
methods of treatment; and finally how he began to extend beyond the
limits of analysis, demanding that as a science it should be linked
on to a particular philosophical system, and that its practice
should be openly associated with a particular set of ethical
doctrines.

Preface To J. J. Putnam's Addresses On Psycho-Analysis

3941

   So it is not to be wondered at
that a mind with such pre-eminently ethical and philosophical
tendencies as Putnam’s should have desired, after he had
plunged deep into psycho-analysis, to establish the closest
relation between it and the aims which lay nearest his heart. But
his enthusiasm, so admirable in a man of his advanced age, did not
succeed in carrying others along with him. Younger people remained
cooler. It was especially Ferenczi who expressed the opposite view.
The decisive reason for the rejection of Putnam’s proposals
was the doubt as to which of the countless philosophical systems
should be accepted, since they all seemed to rest on an equally
insecure basis, and since everything had up till then been
sacrificed for the sake of the relative certainty of the results of
psycho-analysis. It seemed more prudent to wait, and to discover
whether a particular attitude towards life might be forced upon us
with all the weight of necessity by analytical investigation
itself.

   It is our duty to express our
thanks to the author’s widow, Mrs. Putnam, for her assistance
with the manuscripts, with the copyrights, and with financial
support, without all of which the publication of this volume would
have been impossible. No English manuscripts were forthcoming in
the case of the papers numbered VI, VII, and X. They have been
translated into English by Dr. Katherine Jones from the German text
which originated from Putnam himself.

   This volume will keep fresh in
analytical circles the memory of the friend whose loss we so
profoundly deplore. May it be the first of a series of publications
which shall serve the end of furthering the understanding and
application of psycho-analysis among those who speak the English
tongue - an end to which James J. Putnam dedicated the last ten
years of his fruitful life.

January
1921

 
3942

INTRODUCTION TO J.
VARENDONCK’S
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DAY-DREAMS

(1921)

This present volume of Dr. Varendonck’s
contains a significant novelty, and will justly arouse the interest
of all philosophers, psychologists and psycho-analysts. After an
effort lasting for some years the author has succeeded in getting
hold of the mode of thought-activity to which one abandons oneself
during the state of distraction into which we readily pass before
sleep or upon incomplete awakening. He has brought to the
consciousness the chains of thought originating in these conditions
without the interference of the will; he has written them down,
studied their peculiarities and differences with directed conscious
thinking, and has made thereby a series of important discoveries
which lead to still vaster problems and give rise to the
formulation of still more far-reaching questions. Many a point in
the psychology of the dream and the defective act finds, thanks to
the observations of Dr. Varendonck, a trustworthy settlement.

   It is not my intention to give a
review of the author’s results. I will content myself with
pointing to the significance of his work and will permit myself
only a remark concerning the terminology which he has adopted. He
includes the sort of thought-activity which he has observed in
Bleuler’s autistic thinking, but calls it, as a rule,
fore-conscious thinking
, according to the custom prevailing
in psycho-analysis. However, the autistic thinking of Bleuler does
not by any means correspond with the extension and the contents of
the fore-conscious, neither can I admit that the name used by
Bleuler has been happily chosen. The designation
‘fore-conscious’ thinking itself as a characteristic
appears to me misleading and unsatisfactory. The point in question
is that the sort of thought-activity of which the well-known
day-dream is an example - complete by itself, developing a
situation or an act that is being brought to a close - constitutes
the best and until now the only studied example. This day-dreaming
does not owe its peculiarities to the circumstances that it
proceeds mostly fore-consciously, nor are the forms changed when it
is accomplished consciously. From another point of view we know
also that even strictly directed reflection may be achieved without
the co-operation of consciousness, that is to say,
fore-consciously. For that reason I think it is advisable, when
establishing a distinction between the different modes of
thought-activity, not to utilize the relation to consciousness in
the first instance, and to designate the day-dream, as well as the
chains of thought studied by Varendonck, as freely wandering or
phantastic thinking, in opposition to intentionally directed
reflection. At the same time it should be taken into consideration
that even phantastic thinking is not invariably in want of an aim
and end-representations.

3943

MEDUSA’S HEAD

(1940 [1922])

We have not often attempted to interpret
individual mythological themes, but an interpretation suggests
itself easily in the case of the horrifying decapitated head of
Medusa.

   To decapitate = to castrate. The
terror of Medusa is thus a terror of castration that is linked to
the sight of something. Numerous analyses have made us familiar
with the occasion for this: it occurs when a boy, who has hitherto
been unwilling to believe the threat of castration, catches sight
of the female genitals, probably those of an adult, surrounded by
hair, and essentially those of his mother.

   The hair upon Medusa’s head
is frequently represented in works of art in the form of snakes,
and these once again are derived from the castration complex. It is
a remarkable fact that, however frightening they may be in
themselves, they nevertheless serve actually as a mitigation of the
horror, for they replace the penis, the absence of which is the
cause of the horror. This is a confirmation of the technical rule
according to which a multiplication of penis symbols signifies
castration.

   The sight of Medusa’s head
makes the spectator stiff with terror, turns him to stone. Observe
that we have here once again the same origin from the castration
complex and the same transformation of affect! For becoming stiff
means an erection. Thus in the original situation it offers
consolation to the spectator: he is still in possession of a penis,
and the stiffening reassures him of the fact.

   This symbol of horror is worn
upon her dress by the virgin goddess Athene. And rightly so, for
thus she becomes a woman who is unapproachable and repels all
sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the
Mother. Since the Greeks were in the main strongly homosexual, it
was inevitable that we should find among them a representation of
woman as a being who frightens and repels because she is
castrated.

   If Medusa’s head takes the
place of a representation of the female genitals, or rather if it
isolates their horrifying effects from their pleasure-giving ones,
it may be recalled that displaying the genitals is familiar in
other connections as an apotropaic act. What arouses horror in
oneself will produce the same effect upon the enemy against whom
one is seeking to defend oneself. We read in Rabelais of how the
Devil took to flight when the woman showed him her vulva.

   The erect male organ also has an
apotropaic effect, but thanks to another mechanism. To display the
penis (or any of its surrogates) is to say: ‘I am not afraid
of you. I defy you. I have a penis.’ Here, then, is another
way of intimidating the Evil Spirit.

   In order seriously to
substantiate this interpretation it would be necessary to
investigate the origin of this isolated symbol of horror in Greek
mythology as well as parallels to it in other mythologies.

3944

THE EGO AND THE ID

(1923)

3945

Intentionally left blank

3946

THE EGO AND THE ID

The present discussions are a further
development of some trains of thought which I opened up in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
(1920
g
), and to which,
as I remarked there, my attitude was one of a kind of benevolent
curiosity. In the following pages these thoughts are linked to
various facts of analytic observation and an attempt is made to
arrive at new conclusions from this conjunction; in the present
work, however, there are no fresh borrowings from biology, and on
that account it stands closer to psycho-analysis than does
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
. It is more in the nature of a
synthesis than of a speculation and seems to have had an ambitious
aim in view. I am conscious, however, that it does not go beyond
the roughest outline and with that limitation I am perfectly
content.

   In these pages things are touched
on which have not yet been the subject of psycho-analytic
consideration, and it has not been possible to avoid trenching upon
some theories which have been put forward by non-analysts or by
former analysts on their retreat from analysis. I have elsewhere
always been ready to acknowledge what I owe to other workers; but
in this instance I feel burdened by no such debt of gratitude. If
psycho-analysis has not hitherto shown its appreciation of certain
things, this has never been because it overlooked their achievement
or sought to deny their importance, but because it followed a
particular path, which had not yet led so far. And finally, when it
has reached them, things have a different look to it from what they
have to others.

The Ego And The Id

3947

I

CONSCIOUSNESS AND WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS

In this introductory chapter there is nothing
new to be said and it will not be possible to avoid repeating what
has often been said before.

   The division of the psychical
into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental
premiss of psycho-analysis; and it alone makes it possible for
psycho-analysis to understand the pathological processes in mental
life, which are as common as they are important, and to find a
place for them in the framework of science. To put it once more, in
a different way: psycho-analysis cannot situate the essence of the
psychical in consciousness, but is obliged to regard consciousness
as a quality of the psychical, which may be present in addition to
other qualities or may be absent.

   If I could suppose that everyone
interested in psychology would read this book, I should also be
prepared to find that at this point some of my readers would
already stop short and would go no further; for here we have the
first shibboleth of psycho-analysis. To most people who have been
educated in philosophy the idea of anything psychical which is not
also conscious is so inconceivable that it seems to them absurd and
refutable simply by logic. I believe this is only because they have
never studied the relevant phenomena of hypnosis and dreams, which
- quite apart from pathological manifestations -necessitate this
view. Their psychology of consciousness is incapable of solving the
problems of dreams and hypnosis.

The Ego And The Id

3948

   ‘Being conscious’ is
in the first place a purely descriptive term, resting on perception
of the most immediate and certain character. Experience goes on to
show that a psychical element (for instance, an idea) is not as a
rule conscious for a protracted length of time. On the contrary, a
state of consciousness is characteristically very transitory; an
idea that is conscious now is no longer so a moment later, although
it can become so again under certain conditions that are easily
brought about. In the interval the idea was - we do not know what.
We can say that it was
latent
, and by this we mean that it
was
capable of becoming conscious
at any time. Or, if we say
that is was
unconscious
, we shall also be giving a correct
description of it. Here ‘unconscious’ coincides with
‘latent and capable of becoming conscious’. The
philosophers would no doubt object: ‘No, the term
"unconscious" is not applicable here; so long as the idea
was in a state of latency it was not anything psychical at
all.’ To contradict them at this point would lead to nothing
more profitable than a verbal dispute. 

   But we have arrived at the term
or concept of the unconscious along another path, by considering
certain experiences in which mental
dynamics
play a part. We
have found - that is, we have been obliged to assume - that very
powerful mental processes or ideas exist (and here a quantitative
or
economic
factor comes into question for the first time)
which can produce all the effects in mental life that ordinary
ideas do (including effects that can in their turn become conscious
as ideas), though they themselves do not become conscious. It is
unnecessary to repeat in detail here what has been explained so
often before. It is enough to say that at this point
psycho-analytic theory steps in and asserts that the reason why
such ideas cannot become conscious is that a certain force opposes
them, that otherwise they could become conscious, and that it would
then be apparent how little they differ from other elements which
are admittedly psychical. The fact that in the technique of
psycho-analysis a means has been found by which the opposing force
can be removed and the ideas in question made conscious renders
this theory irrefutable. The state in which the ideas existed
before being made conscious is called by us
repression
, and
we assert that the force which instituted the repression and
maintains it is perceived as
resistance
during the work of
analysis

The Ego And The Id

3949

   Thus we obtain our concept of the
unconscious from the theory of repression. The repressed is the
prototype of the unconscious for us. We see, however, that we have
two kinds of unconscious - the one which is latent but capable of
becoming conscious, and the one which is repressed and which is
not, in itself and without more ado, capable of becoming conscious.
This piece of insight into psychical dynamics cannot fail to affect
terminology and description. The latent, which is unconscious only
descriptively, not in the dynamic sense, we call
preconscious
; we restrict the term
unconscious
to the
dynamically unconscious repressed; so that now we have three terms,
conscious (
Cs
.), preconscious (
Pcs
.), and unconscious
(
Ucs
.), whose sense is no longer purely descriptive. The
Pcs
. is presumably a great deal closer to the
Cs
.
than is the
Ucs
., and since we have called the
Ucs
.
psychical we shall with even less hesitation call the latent
Pcs
. psychical. But why do we not rather, instead of this,
remain in agreement with the philosophers and, in a consistent way,
distinguish the
Pcs
. as well as the
Ucs
. from the
conscious psychical? The philosophers would then propose that the
Pcs
. and the
Ucs
. should be described as two species
or stages of the ‘psychoid’, and harmony would be
established. But end less difficulties in exposition would follow;
and the one important fact, that these two kinds of
‘psychoid’ coincide in almost every other respect with
what is admittedly psychical, would be forced into the background
in the interests of a prejudice dating from a period in which these
psychoids, or the most important part of them, were still
unknown.

The Ego And The Id

3950

   We can now play about comfortably
with our three terms,
Cs
.,
Pcs
., and
Ucs
., so
long as we do not forget that in the descriptive sense there are
two kinds of unconscious, but in the dynamic sense only one. For
purposes of exposition this distinction can in some cases be
ignored, but in others it is of course indispensable. At the same
time, we have become more or less accustomed to this ambiguity of
the unconscious and have managed pretty well with it. As far as I
can see, it is impossible to avoid this ambiguity; the distinction
between conscious and unconscious is in the last resort a question
of perception, which must be answered ‘yes’ or
‘no’, and the act of perception itself tells us nothing
of the reason why a thing is or is not perceived. No one has a
right to complain because the actual phenomenon expresses the
dynamic factor ambiguously.¹

  
¹
This may be compared so far with my
‘Note on the Unconscious in Psycho-Analysis’
(1912
g
). A new turn taken by criticisms of the unconscious
deserves consideration at this point. Some investigators, who do
not refuse to recognize the facts of psycho-analysis but who are
unwilling to accept the unconscious, find a way out of the
difficulty in the fact, which no one contests, that in
consciousness (regarded as a phenomenon) it is possible to
distinguish a great variety of gradations in intensity or clarity.
Just as there are processes which are very vividly, glaringly, and
tangibly conscious, so we also experience others which are only
faintly, hardly even noticeably conscious; those that are most
faintly conscious are, it is argued, the ones to which
psycho-analysis wishes to apply the unsuitable name
‘unconscious’. These too, however (the argument
proceeds), are conscious or ‘in consciousness’, and can
be made fully and intensely conscious if sufficient attention is
paid to them.

   In
so far as it is possible to influence by arguments the decision of
a question of this kind which depends either on convention or on
emotional factors, we may make the following comments. The
reference to gradations of clarity in consciousness is in no way
conclusive and has no more evidential value than such analogous
statements as: ‘There are so very many gradations in
illumination - from the most glaring and dazzling light to the
dimmest glimmer - therefore there is no such thing as darkness at
all’; or, ‘There are varying degrees of vitality,
therefore there is no such thing as death.’ Such statements
may in a certain way have a meaning, but for practical purposes
they are worthless. This will be seen if one tries to draw
particular conclusions from them, such as, ‘there is
therefore no need to strike a light’, or, ‘therefore
all organisms are immortal’. Further, to include ‘what
is unnoticeable’ under the concept of ‘what is
conscious’ is simply to play havoc with the one and only
piece of direct and certain knowledge that we have about the mind.
And after all, a consciousness of which one knows nothing seems to
me a good deal more absurd than something mental that is
unconscious. Finally, this attempt to equate what is unnoticed with
what is unconscious is obviously made without taking into account
the dynamic conditions involved, which were the decisive factors in
forming the psycho-analytic view. For it ignores two facts: first,
that it is exceedingly difficult and requires very great effort to
concentrate enough attention on something unnoticed of this kind;
and secondly, that when this has been achieved the thought which
was previously unnoticed is not recognized by consciousness, but
often seems entirely alien and opposed to it and is promptly
disavowed by it. Thus, seeking refuge from the unconscious in what
is scarcely noticed or unnoticed is after all only a derivative of
the preconceived belief which regards the identity of the psychical
and the conscious as settled once and for all.

The Ego And The Id

3951

   In the further course of
psycho-analytic work, however, even these distinctions have proved
to be inadequate and, for practical purposes, insufficient. This
has become clear in more ways than one; but the decisive instance
is as follows. We have formed the idea that in each individual
there is a coherent organization of mental processes; and we call
this his
ego
. It is to this ego that consciousness is
attached; the ego controls the approaches to motility - that is, to
the discharge of excitations into the external world; it is the
mental agency which supervises all its own constituent processes,
and which goes to sleep at night, though even then it exercises the
censorship on dreams. From this ego proceed the repressions, too,
by means of which it is sought to exclude certain trends in the
mind not merely from consciousness but also from other forms of
effectiveness and activity. In analysis these trends which have
been shut out stand in opposition to the ego, and the analysis is
faced with the task of removing the resistances which the ego
displays against concerning itself with the repressed. Now we find
during analysis that, when we put certain tasks before the patient,
he gets into difficulties; his associations fail when they should
be coming near the repressed. We then tell him that he is dominated
by a resistance; but he is quite unaware of the fact, and, even if
he guesses from his unpleasurable feelings that a resistance is now
at work in him, he does not know what it is or how to describe it.
Since, however, there can be no question but that this resistance
emanates from his ego and belongs to it, we find ourselves in an
unforeseen situation. We have come upon something in the ego itself
which is also unconscious, which behaves exactly like the repressed
- that is, which produces powerful effects without itself being
conscious and which requires special work before it can be made
conscious. From the point of view of analytic practice, the
consequence of this discovery is that we land in endless
obscurities and difficulties if we keep to our habitual forms of
expression and try, for instance, to derive neuroses from a
conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. We shall have
to substitute for this antithesis another, taken from our insight
into the structural conditions of the mind - the antithesis between
the coherent ego and the repressed which is split off from
it.¹