Freud - Complete Works (659 page)

   There is another possible
mechanism, however, which we have come to know of by analytic
investigation of the processes concerned in the change in paranoia.
An ambivalent attitude is present from the outset and the
transformation is effected by means of a reactive displacement of
cathexis, energy being withdrawn from the erotic impulse and added
to the hostile one.

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   Not quite the same thing but
something like it happens when the hostile rivalry leading to
homosexuality is overcome. The hostile attitude has no prospect of
satisfaction; consequently - for economic reasons, that is - it is
replaced by a loving attitude for which there is more prospect of
satisfaction - that is, possibility of discharge. So we see that we
are not obliged in any of these cases to assume a direct
transformation of hate into love, which would be incompatible with
the qualitative distinction between the two classes of
instincts.

   It will be noticed, however, that
by introducing this other mechanism of changing love into hate, we
have tacitly made another assumption which deserves to be stated
explicitly. We have reckoned as though there existed in the mind -
whether in the ego or in the id - a displaceable energy, which,
neutral in itself, can be added to a qualitatively differentiated
erotic or destructive impulse, and augment its total cathexis.
Without assuming the existence of a displaceable energy of this
kind we can make no headway. The only question is where it comes
from, what it belongs to, and what it signifies.

   The problem of the quality of
instinctual impulses and of its persistence throughout their
various vicissitudes is still very obscure and has hardly been
attacked up to the present. In the sexual component instincts,
which are especially accessible to observation, it is possible to
perceive a few processes which are in the same category as what we
are discussing. We see, for instance, that some degree of
communication exists between the component instincts, that an
instinct deriving from one particular erotogenic source can make
over its intensity to reinforce another component instinct
originating from another source, that the satisfaction of one
instinct can take the place of the satisfaction of another, and
more facts of the same nature - which must encourage us to venture
upon certain hypotheses.

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   In the present discussion,
moreover, I am only putting forward a hypothesis; I have no proof
to offer. It seems a plausible view that this displaceable and
neutral energy, which is no doubt active in both in the ego and in
the id, proceeds from the narcissistic store of libido - that it is
desexualized Eros. (The erotic instincts appear to be altogether
more plastic, more readily diverted and displaced than the
destructive instincts.) From this we can easily go on to assume
that this displaceable libido is employed in the service of the
pleasure principle to obviate blockages and to facilitate
discharge. In this connection it is easy to observe a certain
indifference as to the path along which the discharge takes place,
so long as it takes place somehow. We know this trait; it is
characteristic of the cathectic processes in the id. It is found in
erotic cathexes, where a peculiar indifference in regard to the
object displays itself; and it is especially evident in the
transferences arising in analysis, which develop inevitably,
irrespective of the persons who are their object. Not long ago Rank
published some good examples of the way in which neurotic acts of
revenge can be directed against the wrong people. Such behaviour on
the part of the unconscious reminds one of the comic story of the
three village tailors, one of whom had to be hanged because the
only village blacksmith had committed a capital offence. Punishment
must be exacted even if it does not fall upon the guilty. It was in
studying the dream-work that we first came upon this kind of
looseness in the displacements brought about by the primary
process. In that case it was the objects that were thus relegated
to a position of no more than secondary importance, just as in the
case we are now discussing it is the paths of discharge. It would
be characteristic of the ego to be more particular about the choice
both of an object and of a path of discharge.

   If this displaceable energy is
desexualized libido, it may also be described as
sublimated
energy; for it would still retain the main purpose of Eros - that
of uniting and binding - in so far as it helps towards establishing
the unity, or tendency to unity, which is particularly
characteristic of the ego. If thought processes in the wider sense
are to be included among these displacements, then the activity of
thinking is also supplied from the sublimation of erotic motive
forces.

   Here we arrive again at the
possibility which has already been discussed that sublimation may
take place regularly, through the mediation of the ego. The other
case will be recollected, in which the ego deals with the first
object-cathexes of the id (and certainly with later ones too) by
taking over the libido from them into itself and binding it to the
alteration of the ego produced by means of identification. The
transformation into ego-libido of course involves an abandonment of
sexual aims, a desexualization. In any case this throws light upon
an important function of the ego in its relation to Eros. By thus
getting hold of the libido from the object-cathexes, setting itself
up as sole love-object, and desexualizing or sublimating the libido
of the id, the ego is working in opposition to the purposes of Eros
and placing itself at the service of the opposing instinctual
impulses. It has to acquiesce in some of the other object-cathexes
of the id; it has, so to speak, to participate in them. We shall
come back later to another possible consequence of this activity of
the ego.

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   This would seem to imply an
important amplification of the theory of narcissism. At the very
beginning, all the libido is accumulated in the id, while the ego
is still in process of formation or is still feeble. The id sends
part of this libido out into erotic object-cathexes, whereupon the
ego, now grown stronger, tries to get hold of this object-libido
and to force itself on the id as a love-object. The narcissism of
the ego is thus a secondary one, which has been withdrawn from
objects.

   Over and over again we find, when
we are able to trace instinctual impulses back, that they reveal
themselves as derivatives of Eros. If it were not for the
considerations put forward in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
,
and ultimately for the sadistic constituents which have attached
themselves to Eros, we should have difficulty in holding to our
fundamental dualistic point of view. But since we cannot escape
that view, we are driven to conclude that the death instincts are
by their nature mute and that the clamour of life proceeds for the
most part from Eros.¹

  
¹
In fact, on our view it is through the
agency of Eros that the destructive instincts that are directed
towards the external world have been diverted from the
self.

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   And from the struggle against
Eros! It can hardly be doubted that the pleasure principle serves
the id as a compass in its struggle against the libido - the force
that introduces disturbances into the process of life. If it is
true that Fechner’s principle of constancy governs life,
which thus consists of a continuous descent towards death, it is
the claims of Eros, of the sexual instincts, which, in the form of
instinctual needs, hold up the falling level and introduce fresh
tensions. The id, guided by the pleasure principle - that is, by
the perception of unpleasure - fends off these tensions in various
ways. It does so in the first place by complying as swiftly as
possible with the demands of the non-desexualized libido - by
striving for the satisfaction of the directly sexual trends. But it
does so in a far more comprehensive fashion in relation to one
particular form of satisfaction in which all component demands
converge - by discharge of the sexual substances, which are
saturated vehicles, so to speak, of the erotic tensions. The
ejection of the sexual substances in the sexual act corresponds in
a sense to the separation of soma and germ-plasm. This accounts for
the likeness of the condition that follows complete sexual
satisfaction to dying, and for the fact that death coincides with
the act of copulation in some of the lower animals. These creatures
die in the act of reproduction because, after Eros has been
eliminated through the process of satisfaction, the death instinct
has a free hand for accomplishing its purposes. Finally, as we have
seen, the ego, by sublimating some of the libido for itself and its
purposes, assists the id in its work of mastering the tensions.

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V

THE
DEPENDENT RELATIONSHIPS OF THE EGO

The complexity of our subject-matter must be
an excuse for the fact that none of the chapter-headings of this
book quite correspond to their contents, and that in turning to new
aspects of the topic we are constantly harking back to matters that
have already been dealt with.

   Thus we have said repeatedly that
the ego is formed to a great extent out of identifications which
take the place of abandoned cathexes by the id; that the first of
these identifications always behave as a special agency in the ego
and stand apart from the ego in the form of a super-ego, while
later on, as it grows stronger, the ego may become more resistant
to the influences of such identifications. The super-ego owes its
special position in the ego, or in relation to the ego, to a factor
which must be considered from two sides: on the one hand it was the
first identification and one which took place while the ego was
still feeble, and on the other hand it is the heir to the Oedipus
complex and has thus introduced the most momentous objects into the
ego. The super-ego’s relation to the later alterations of the
ego is roughly similar to that of the primary sexual phase of
childhood to later sexual life after puberty. Although it is
accessible to all later influences, it nevertheless preserves
throughout life the character given to it by its derivation from
the father-complex - namely, the capacity to stand apart from the
ego and to master it. It is a memorial of the former weakness and
dependence of the ego, and the mature ego remains subject to its
domination. As the child was once under a compulsion to obey its
parents, so the ego submits to the categorical imperative of its
super-ego.

   But the derivation of the
super-ego from the first object-cathexes of the id, from the
Oedipus complex, signifies even more for it. This derivation, as we
have already shown, brings it into relation with the phylogenetic
acquisitions of the id and makes it a reincarnation of former
ego-structures which have left their precipitates behind in the id.
Thus the super-ego is always close to the id and can act as its
representative
vis-à-vis
the ego. It reaches deep
down into the id and for that reason is farther from consciousness
than the ego is.¹

  
¹
It may be said that the psycho-analytic or
metapsychological ego stands on its head no less than the
anatomical ego - the ‘cortical homunculus’.

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   We shall best appreciate these
relations by turning to certain clinical facts, which have long
since lost their novelty but which still await theoretical
discussion.

   There are certain people who
behave in a quite peculiar fashion during the work of analysis.
When one speaks hopefully to them or expresses satisfaction with
the progress of the treatment, they show signs of discontent and
their condition invariably becomes worse. One begins by regarding
this as defiance and as an attempt to prove their superiority to
the physician, but later one comes to take a deeper and juster
view. One becomes convinced, not only that such people cannot
endure any praise or appreciation, but that they react inversely to
the progress of the treatment. Every partial solution that ought to
result, and in other people does result, in an improvement or a
temporary suspension of symptoms produces in them for the time
being an exacerbation of their illness; they get worse during the
treatment instead of getting better. They exhibit what is known as
a ‘negative therapeutic reaction’.

   There is no doubt that there is
something in these people that sets itself against their recovery,
and its approach is dreaded as though it were a danger. We are
accustomed to say that the need for illness has got the upper hand
in them over the desire for recovery. If we analyse this resistance
in the usual way then, even after allowance has been made for an
attitude of defiance towards the physician and for fixation to the
various forms of gain from illness, the greater part of it is still
left over; and this reveals itself as the most powerful of all
obstacles to recovery, more powerful than the familiar ones of
narcissistic inaccessibility, a negative attitude towards the
physician and clinging to the gain from illness.

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   In the end we come to see that we
are dealing with what may be called a ‘moral’ factor, a
sense of guilt, which is finding its satisfaction in the illness
and refuses to give up the punishment of suffering. We shall be
right in regarding this disheartening explanation as final. But as
far as the patient is concerned this sense of guilt is dumb; it
does not tell him he is guilty; he does not feel guilty, he feels
ill. This sense of guilt expresses itself only as a resistance to
recovery which it is extremely difficult to overcome. It is also
particularly difficult to convince the patient that this motive
lies behind his continuing to be ill; he holds fast to the more
obvious explanation that treatment by analysis is not the right
remedy for his case.¹