Freud - Complete Works (677 page)
4138
NEGATION
(1925)
4139
Intentionally left blank
4140
NEGATION
The manner in which our patients bring forward
their associations during the work of analysis gives us an
opportunity for making some interesting observations. ‘Now
you’ll think I mean to say something insulting, but really
I’ve no such intention.’ we realize that this is a
rejection, by projection, of an idea that has just come up. Or:
‘You ask who this person in the dream can be. It’s
not
my mother.’ We emend this to: ‘So it
is
his mother.’ In our interpretation, we take the
liberty of disregarding the negation and of picking out the
subject-matter alone of the association. It is as though the
patient had said: ‘It’s true that my mother came into
my mind as I thought of this person, but I don’t feel
inclined to let the association count.’
There is a very convenient method
by which we can sometimes obtain a piece of information we want
about unconscious repressed material. ‘What’, we ask,
‘would you consider the most unlikely imaginable thing in
that situation? What do you think was furthest from your mind at
that time?’ If the patient falls into the trap and says what
he thinks is most incredible, he almost always makes the right
admission. A neat counterpart to this experiment is often met with
in an obsessional neurotic who has already been initiated into the
meaning of his symptoms. ‘I’ve got a new obsessive
idea,’ he says, ‘and it occurred to me at once that it
might mean so and so. But no; that can’t be true, or it
couldn’t have occurred to me.’ What he is repudiating,
on grounds picked up from his treatment, is, of course, the correct
meaning of the obsessive idea.
Negation
4141
Thus the content of a repressed
image or idea can make its way into consciousness, on condition
that it is
negated
. Negation is a way of taking cognizance
of what is repressed; indeed it is already a lifting of the
repression, though not, of course, an acceptance of what is
repressed. We can see how in this the intellectual function is
separated from the affective process. With the help of negation
only one consequence of the process of repression is undone - the
fact, namely, of the ideational content of what is repressed not
reaching consciousness. The outcome of this is a kind of
intellectual acceptance of the repressed, while at the same time
what is essential to the repression persists.¹ In the course
of analytic work we often produce a further, very important and
somewhat strange variant of this situation. We succeed in
conquering the negation as well, and in bringing about a full
intellectual acceptance of the repressed; but the repressive
process itself is not yet removed by this.
Since to affirm or negate the
content of thoughts is the task of the function of intellectual
judgement, what we have just been saying has led us to the
psychological origin of that function. To negate something in a
judgement is, at bottom, to say: ‘This is something which I
should prefer to repress.’ A negative judgement is the
intellectual substitute for repression; its ‘no’ is the
hall-mark of repression, a certificate of origin like, let us say,
‘Made in Germany’. With the help of the symbol of
negation, thinking frees itself from the restrictions of repression
and enriches itself with material that is indispensable for its
proper functioning.
The function of judgement is
concerned in the main with two sorts of decisions. It affirms or
disaffirms the possession by a thing of a particular attribute; and
it asserts or disputes that a presentation has an existence in
reality. The attribute to be decided about may originally have been
good or bad, useful or harmful. Expressed in the language of the
oldest - the oral - instinctual impulses, the judgement is:
‘I should like to eat this’, or ‘I should like to
spit it out’; and, put more generally: ‘I should like
to take this into myself and to keep that out.’ That is to
say: ‘It shall be inside me’ or ‘it shall be
outside me’. As I have shown elsewhere, the original
pleasure-ego wants to introject into itself everything that is good
and to eject from itself everything that is bad. What is bad, what
is alien to the ego and what is external are, to begin with,
identical.²
¹
The same process is at the root of the
familiar superstition that boasting is dangerous. ‘How nice
not to have had one of my headaches for so long.’ But this is
in fact the first announcement of an attack, of whose approach the
subject is already sensible, although he is as yet unwilling to
believe it.
²
See the discussion in ‘Instincts and
their Vicissitudes’ (1915
c
).
Negation
4142
The other sort of decision made
by the function of judgement - as to the real existence of
something of which there is a presentation (reality-testing) - is a
concern of the definitive reality-ego, which develops out of the
initial pleasure-ego. It is now no longer a question of whether
what has been perceived (a thing) shall be taken into the ego or
not, but of whether something which is in the ego as a presentation
can be rediscovered in perception (reality) as well. It is, we see,
once more a question of
external
and
internal
. What
is unreal, merely a presentation and subjective, is only internal;
what is real is also there
outside
. In this stage of
development regard for the pleasure principle has been set aside.
Experience has shown the subject that it is not only important
whether a thing (an object of satisfaction for him) possesses the
‘good’ attribute and so deserves to be taken into his
ego, but also whether it is there in the external world, so that he
can get hold of it whenever he needs it. In order to understand
this step forward we must recollect that all presentations
originate from perceptions and are repetitions of them. Thus
originally the mere existence of a presentation was a guarantee of
the reality of what was presented. The antithesis between
subjective and objective does not exist from the first. It only
comes into being from the fact that thinking possesses the capacity
to bring before the mind once more something that has once been
perceived, by reproducing it as a presentation without the external
object having still to be there. The first and immediate aim,
therefore, of reality-testing is, not to
find
an object in
real perception which corresponds to the one presented, but to
refind
such an object, to convince oneself that it is still
there. Another capacity of the power of thinking offers a further
contribution to the differentiation between what is subjective and
what is objective. The reproduction of a perception as a
presentation is not always a faithful one; it may be modified by
omissions, or changed by the merging of various elements. In that
case, reality-testing has to ascertain how far such distortions go.
But it is evident that a precondition for the setting up of
reality-testing is that objects shall have been lost which once
brought real satisfaction.
Negation
4143
Judging is the intellectual
action which decides the choice of motor action, which puts an end
to the postponement due to thought and which leads over from
thinking to acting. This postponement due to thought has also been
discussed by me elsewhere. It is to be regarded as an experimental
action, a motor palpating, with small expenditure of discharge. Let
us consider where the ego has used a similar kind of palpating
before, at what place it learnt the technique which it now applies
in its processes of thought. It happened at the sensory end of the
mental apparatus, in connection with sense perceptions. For, on our
hypothesis, perception is not a purely passive process. The ego
periodically sends out small amounts of cathexis into the
perceptual system, by means of which it samples the external
stimuli, and then after every such tentative advance it draws back
again.
The study of judgement affords
us, perhaps for the first time, an insight into the origin of an
intellectual function from the interplay of the primary instinctual
impulses. Judging is a continuation, along lines of expediency, of
the original process by which the ego took things into itself or
expelled them from itself, according to the pleasure principle. The
polarity of judgement appears to correspond to the opposition of
the two groups of instincts which we have supposed to exist.
Affirmation - as a substitute for uniting - belongs to Eros;
negation - the successor to expulsion - belongs to the instinct of
destruction. The general wish to negate, the negativism which is
displayed by some psychotics, is probably to be regarded as a sign
of a defusion of instincts that has taken place through a
withdrawal of the libidinal components. But the performance of the
function of judgement is not made possible until the creation of
the symbol of negation has endowed thinking with a first measure of
freedom from the consequences of repression and, with it, from the
compulsion of the pleasure principle.
This view of negation fits in
very well with the fact that in analysis we never discover a
‘no’ in the unconscious and that recognition of the
unconscious on the part of the ego is expressed in a negative
formula. There is no stronger evidence that we have been successful
in our effort to uncover the unconscious than when the patient
reacts to it with the words ‘I didn’t think
that’, or ‘I didn’t (ever) think of
that’.
4144
SOME
PSYCHICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE ANATOMICAL DISTINCTION
BETWEEN THE SEXES
(1925)
4145
Intentionally left blank
4146
SOME PSYCHICAL CONSEQUENCES OF
THE ANATOMICAL DISTINCTION
BETWEEN THE SEXES
In my own writings and in those of my
followers more and more stress is laid on the necessity that the
analyses of neurotics shall deal thoroughly with the remotest
period of their childhood, the time of the early efflorescence of
sexual life. It is only by examining the first manifestations of
the patient’s innate instinctual constitution and the effects
of his earliest experiences that we can accurately gauge the motive
forces that have led to his neurosis and can be secure against the
errors into which we might be tempted by the degree to which things
have become remodelled and overlaid in adult life. This requirement
is not only of theoretical but also of practical importance, for it
distinguishes our efforts from the work of those physicians whose
interests are focused exclusively on therapeutic results and who
employ analytic methods, but only up to a certain point. An
analysis of early childhood such as we are considering is tedious
and laborious and makes demands both upon the physician and upon
the patient which cannot always be met. Moreover, it leads us into
dark regions where there are as yet no sign posts. Indeed, analysts
may feel reassured, I think, that there is no risk of their work
becoming mechanical, and so of losing its interest, during the next
few decades.
In the following pages I bring
forward some findings of analytic research which would be of great
importance if they could be proved to apply universally. Why do I
not postpone publication of them until further experience has given
me the necessary proof, if such proof is obtainable? Because the
conditions under which I work have undergone a change, with
implications which I cannot disguise. Formerly, I was not one of
those who are unable to hold back what seems to be a new discovery
until it has been either confirmed or corrected. My
Interpretation of Dreams
(1900
a
) and my
‘Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria’
(1905
e
) (the case of Dora) were suppressed by me - if not
for the nine years enjoined by Horace - at all events for four or
five years before I allowed them to be published. But in those days
I had unlimited time before me - ‘oceans of time’ as an
amiable author puts it - and material poured in upon me in such
quantities that fresh experiences were hardly to be escaped.
Moreover, I was the only worker in a new field, so that my
reticence involved no danger to myself and no loss to others.
Some Psychical Consequences Of The Anatomical Distinction Between The Sexes
4147
But now everything has changed.
The time before me is limited. The whole of it is no longer spent
in working, so that my opportunities for making fresh observations
are not so numerous. If I think I see something new, I am uncertain
whether I can wait for it to be confirmed. And further, everything
that is to be seen upon the surface has already been exhausted;
what remains has to be slowly and laboriously dragged up from the
depths. Finally, I am no longer alone. An eager crowd of
fellow-workers is ready to make use of what is unfinished or
doubtful, and I can leave to them that part of the work which I
should otherwise have done myself. On this occasion, therefore, I
feel justified in publishing something which stands in urgent need
of confirmation before its value or lack of value can be
decided.
In examining the earliest mental
shapes assumed by the sexual life of children we have been in the
habit of taking as the subject of our investigations the male
child, the little boy. With little girls, so we have supposed,
things must be similar, though in some way or other they must
nevertheless be different. The point in development at which this
difference lay could not be clearly determined.
In boys the situation of the
Oedipus complex is the first stage that can be recognized with
certainty. It is easy to understand, because at that stage a child
retains the same object which he previously cathected with his
libido - not as yet a genital one - during the preceding period
while he was being suckled and nursed. The fact, too, that in this
situation he regards his father as a disturbing rival and would
like to get rid of him and take his place is a straightforward
consequence of the actual state of affairs. I have shown
elsewhere¹ how the Oedipus attitude in little boys belongs to
the phallic phase, and how its destruction is brought about by the
fear of castration - that is, by narcissistic interest in their
genitals. The matter is made more difficult to grasp by the
complicating circumstance that even in boys the Oedipus complex has
a double orientation, active and passive, in accordance with their
bisexual constitution; a boy also wants to take his
mother’s
place as the love-object of his
father
- a fact which we describe as the feminine attitude.
¹
‘The Dissolution of the Oedipus
Complex’ (1924
d
).
Some Psychical Consequences Of The Anatomical Distinction Between The Sexes
4148
As regards the prehistory of the
Oedipus complex in boys we are far from complete clarity. We know
that that period includes an identification of an affectionate sort
with the boy’s father, an identification which is still free
from any sense of rivalry in regard to his mother. Another element
of that stage is invariably, I believe, a masturbatory activity in
connection with the genitals, the masturbation of early childhood,
the more or less violent suppression of which by those in charge of
the child sets the castration complex in action. It is to be
assumed that this masturbation is attached to the Oedipus complex
and serves as a discharge for the sexual excitation belonging to
it. It is, however, uncertain whether the masturbation has this
character from the first, or whether on the contrary it makes its
first appearance spontaneously as an activity of a bodily organ and
is only brought into relation with the Oedipus complex at some
later date; this second possibility is by far the more probable.
Another doubtful question is the part played by bed-wetting and by
the breaking of that habit through the intervention of training
measures. We are inclined to make the simple connection that
continued bed-wetting is a result of masturbation and that its
suppression is regarded by boys as an inhibition of their genital
activity - that is, as having the meaning of a threat of
castration; but whether we are always right in supposing this
remains to be seen. Finally, analysis shows us in a shadowy way how
the fact of a child at a very early age listening to his parents
copulating may set up his first sexual excitation, and how that
event may, owing to its after-effects, act as a starting-point for
the child’s whole sexual development. Masturbation, as well
as the two attitudes in the Oedipus complex, later on become
attached to this early experience, the child having subsequently
interpreted its meaning. It is impossible, however, to suppose that
these observations of coitus are of universal occurrence, so that
at this point we are faced with the problem of ‘primal
phantasies’. Thus the prehistory of the Oedipus complex, even
in boys, raises all of these questions for sifting and explanation;
and there is the further problem of whether we are to suppose that
the process invariably follows the same course, or whether a great
variety of different preliminary stages may not converge upon the
same terminal situation.
Some Psychical Consequences Of The Anatomical Distinction Between The Sexes
4149
In little girls the Oedipus
complex raises one problem more than in boys. In both cases the
mother is the original object; and there is no cause for surprise
that boys retain that object in the Oedipus complex. But how does
it happen that girls abandon it and instead take their father as an
object? In pursuing this question I have been able to reach some
conclusions which may throw light precisely on the prehistory of
the Oedipus relation in girls.
Every analyst has come across
certain women who cling with especial intensity and tenacity to the
bond with their father and to the wish in which it culminates of
having a child by him. We have good reason to suppose that the same
wishful phantasy was also the motive force of their infantile
masturbation, and it is easy to form an impression that at this
point we have been brought up against an elementary and
unanalysable fact of infantile sexual life. But a thorough analysis
of these very cases brings something different to light - namely,
that here the Oedipus complex has a long prehistory and is in some
respects a secondary formation.
The old paediatrician Lindner
once remarked that a child discovers the genital zones (the penis
or the clitoris) as a source of pleasure while indulging in sensual
sucking (thumb sucking).¹ I shall leave it an open question
whether it is really true that the child takes the newly found
source of pleasure in exchange for the recent loss of the
mother’s nipple - a possibility to which later phantasies
(fellatio) seem to point. Be that as it may, the genital zone is
discovered at some time or other, and there seems no justification
for attributing any psychical content to the first activities in
connection with it. But the first step in the phallic phase which
begins in this way is not the linking-up of the masturbation with
the object-cathexes of the Oedipus complex, but a momentous
discovery which little girls are destined to make. They notice the
penis of a brother or playmate, strikingly visible and of large
proportions, at once recognize it as the superior counterpart of
their own small and inconspicuous organ, and from that time forward
fall a victim to envy for the penis.
¹
Cf.
Three Essays on the Theory of
Sexuality
(1905
d
).
Some Psychical Consequences Of The Anatomical Distinction Between The Sexes
4150
There is an interesting contrast
between the behaviour of the two sexes. In the analogous situation,
when a little boy first catches sight of a girl’s genital
region, he begins by showing irresolution and lack of interest; he
sees nothing or disavows what he has seen, he softens it down or
looks about for expedients for bringing it into line with his
expectations. It is not until later, when some threat of castration
has obtained a hold upon him, that the observation becomes
important to him: if he then recollects or repeats it, it arouses a
terrible storm of emotion in him and forces him to believe in the
reality of the threat which he has hitherto laughed at. This
combination of circumstances leads to two reactions, which may
become fixed and will in that case, whether separately or together
or in conjunction with other factors, permanently determine the
boy’s relations to women: horror of the mutilated creature or
triumph and contempt for her. These developments, however, belong
to the future, though not to a very remote one.
A little girl behaves
differently. She makes her judgement and her decision in a flash.
She has seen it and knows that she is without it and wants to have
it.¹
¹
This is an opportunity for correcting a
statement which I made many years ago. I believed that the sexual
interest of children, unlike that of pubescents, was aroused, not
by the difference between the sexes, but by the problem of where
babies come from. We now see that, at all events with girls, this
is certainly not the case. With boys it may no doubt happen
sometimes one way and sometimes the other; or with both sexes
chance experiences may determine the event.
Some Psychical Consequences Of The Anatomical Distinction Between The Sexes
4151
Here what has been named the
masculinity complex of women branches off. It may put great
difficulties in the way of their regular development towards
femininity, if it cannot be got over soon enough. The hope of some
day obtaining a penis in spite of everything and so of becoming
like a man may persist to an incredibly late age and may become a
motive for strange and otherwise unaccountable actions. Or again, a
process may set in which I should like to call a
‘disavowal’, a process which in the mental life of
children seems neither uncommon nor very dangerous but which in an
adult would mean the beginning of a psychosis. Thus a girl may
refuse to accept the fact of being castrated, may harden herself in
the conviction that she
does
possess a penis, and may
subsequently be compelled to behave as though she were a man.
The psychical consequences of
envy for the penis, in so far as it does not become absorbed in the
reaction-formation of the masculinity complex, are various and
far-reaching. After a woman has become aware of the wound to her
narcissism, she develops, like a scar, a sense of inferiority. When
she has passed beyond her first attempt at explaining her lack of a
penis as being a punishment personal to herself and has realized
that that sexual character is a universal one, she begins to share
the contempt felt by men for a sex which is the lesser in so
important a respect, and, at least in holding that opinion, insists
on being like a man.¹