Freud - Complete Works (694 page)

   Two impressions at once emerge
from this brief survey of obsessional symptoms. The first is that a
ceaseless struggle is being waged against the repressed, in which
the repressing forces steadily lose ground; the second is that the
ego and the super-ego have a specially large share in the formation
of the symptoms.

   Obsessional neurosis is
unquestionably the most interesting and repaying subject of
analytic research. But as a problem it has not yet been mastered.
It must be confessed that, if we endeavour to penetrate more deeply
into its nature, we still have to rely upon doubtful assumptions
and unconfirmed suppositions. Obsessional neurosis originates, no
doubt, in the same situation as hysteria, namely, the necessity of
fending off the libidinal demands of the Oedipus complex. Indeed,
every obsessional neurosis seems to have a substratum of hysterical
symptoms that have been formed at a very early stage. But it is
subsequently shaped along quite different lines owing to a
constitutional factor. The genital organization of the libido turns
out to be feeble and insufficiently resistant, so that when the ego
begins its defensive efforts the first thing it succeeds in doing
is to throw back the genital organization (of the phallic phase),
in whole or in part, to the earlier sadistic-anal level. This fact
of regression is decisive for all that follows.

   Another possibility has to be
considered. Perhaps regression is the result no t of a
constitutional factor but of a time-factor. It may be that
regression is rendered possible not because the genital
organization of the libido is too feeble but because the opposition
of the ego begins too early, while the sadistic phase is at its
height. I am not prepared to express a definite opinion on this
point, but I may say that analytic observation does not speak in
favour of such an assumption. It shows rather that, by the time an
obsessional neurosis is entered upon, the phallic stage has already
been reached. Moreover, the onset of this neurosis belongs to a
later time of life than that of hysteria - to the second period of
childhood, after the latency period has set in. In a woman patient
whose case I was able to study and who was overtaken by this
disorder at a very late date, it became clear that the determining
cause of her regression and of the emergence of her obsessional
neurosis was a real occurrence through which her genital life,
which had up till then been intact, lost all its value.¹

  
¹
See my paper on ‘The Disposition to
Obsessional Neurosis’ (1913
I
).

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   As regards the metapsychological
explanation of regression, I am inclined to find it in a
‘defusion of instinct’, in a detachment of the erotic
components which, with the onset of the genital stage, had joined
the destructive cathexes belonging to the sadistic phase.

   In enforcing regression, the ego
scores its first success in its defensive struggle against the
demands of the libido. (In this connection it is of advantage to
distinguish the more general notion of ‘defence’ from
‘repression’. Repression is only one of the mechanisms
which defence makes use of.) It is perhaps in obsessional cases
more than in normal or hysterical ones that we can most clearly
recognize that the motive force of defence is the castration
complex and that what is being fended off are the trends of the
Oedipus complex. We are at present dealing with the beginning of
the latency period, a period which is characterized by the
dissolution of the Oedipus complex, the creation or consolidation
of the super-ego and the erection of ethical and aesthetic barriers
in the ego. In obsessional neuroses these processes are carried
further than is normal. In addition to the destruction of the
Oedipus complex a regressive degradation of the libido takes place,
the super-ego becomes exceptionally severe and unkind, and the ego,
in obedience to the super-ego, produces strong reaction-formations
in the shape of conscientiousness, pity and cleanliness.
Implacable, though not always on that account successful, severity
is shown in condemning the temptation to continue early infantile
masturbation, which now attaches itself to regressive
(sadistic-anal) ideas but which nevertheless represents the
unsubjugated part of the phallic organization. There is an inherent
contradiction about this state of affairs, in which, precisely in
the interests of masculinity (that is to say, from fear of
castration), every activity belonging to masculinity is stopped.
But here, too, obsessional neurosis is only overdoing the normal
method of getting rid of the Oedipus complex. We once more find
here an illustration of the truth that every exaggeration contains
the seed of its own undoing. For, under the guise of obsessional
acts, the masturbation that has been suppressed approaches ever
more closely to satisfaction.

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   The reaction-formations in the
ego of the obsessional neurotic, which we recognize as
exaggerations of normal character-formation, should be regarded, I
think, as yet another mechanism of defence and placed alongside of
regression and repression. They seem to be absent or very much
weaker in hysteria. Looking back, we can now get an idea of what is
peculiar to the defensive process in hysteria. It seems that in it
the process is limited to repression alone. The ego turns away from
the disagreeable instinctual impulse, leaves it to pursue its
course in the unconscious, and takes no further part in its
fortunes. This view cannot be absolutely correct, for we are
acquainted with the case in which a hysterical symptom is at the
same time a fulfilment of a penalty imposed by the super-ego; but
it may describe a general characteristic of the behaviour of the
ego in hysteria.

   We can either simply accept it as
a fact that in obsessional neurosis a super-ego of this severe kind
emerges, or we can take the regression of the libido as the
fundamental characteristic of the affection and attempt to relate
the severity of the super-ego to it. And indeed the super-ego,
originating as it does from the id, cannot dissociate itself from
the regression and defusion of instinct which have taken place
there. We cannot be surprised if it becomes harsher, unkinder and
more tormenting than where development has been normal.

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   The chief task during the latency
period seems to be the fending-off of the temptation to masturbate.
This struggle produces a series of symptoms which appear in a
typical fashion in the most different individuals and which in
general have the character of a ceremonial. It is a great pity that
no one has as yet collected them and systematically analysed them.
Being the earliest products of the neurosis they should best be
able to shed light on the mechanisms employed in its
symptom-formation. They already exhibit the features which will
emerge so disastrously if a serious illness follows. They tend to
become attached to activities (which would later be carried out
almost automatically) such as going to sleep, washing, dressing and
walking about; and they tend also to repetition and waste of time.
Why this should be so is at present not at all clear; but the
sublimation of anal-erotic components plays an unmistakable part in
it.

   The advent of puberty opens a
decisive chapter in the history of an obsessional neurosis. The
genital organization which has been broken off in childhood starts
again with great vigour. But, as we know, the sexual development in
childhood determines what direction this new start at puberty will
take. Not only will the early aggressive impulses be re-awakened;
but a greater or lesser proportion of the new libidinal impulses -
in bad cases the whole of them - will have to follow the course
prescribed for them by regression and will emerge as aggressive and
destructive tendencies. In consequence of the erotic trends being
disguised in this way and owing to the powerful reaction-formations
in the ego, the struggle against sexuality will henceforward be
carried on under the banner of ethical principles. The ego will
recoil with astonishment from promptings to cruelty and violence
which enter consciousness from the id, and it has no notion that in
them it is combating erotic wishes, including some to which it
would not otherwise have taken exception. The overstrict super-ego
insists all the more strongly on the suppression of sexuality,
since this has assumed such repellent forms. Thus in obsessional
neurosis the conflict is aggravated in two directions: the
defensive forces become more intolerant and the forces that are to
be fended off become more intolerable. Both effects are due to a
single factor, namely, regression of the libido.

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   A good deal of what has been said
may be objected to on the ground that the unpleasant obsessive
ideas are themselves quite conscious. But there is no doubt that
before becoming conscious they have been though the process of
repression. In most of them the actual wording of the aggressive
instinctual impulse is altogether unknown to the ego, and it
requires a good deal of analytic work to make it conscious. What
does penetrate into consciousness is usually only a distorted
substitute which is either of a vague, dream-like and indeterminate
nature or so travestied as to be unrecognizable. Even where
repression has not encroached upon the content of the aggressive
impulse it has certainly got rid of its accompanying affective
character. As a result, the aggressiveness appears to the ego not
to be an impulsion but, as the patients themselves say, merely a
‘thought’ which awakens no feeling. But the remarkable
thing is that this is not the case. What happens is that the affect
left out when the obsessional idea is perceived appears in a
different place. The super-ego behaves as though repression had not
occurred and as though it knew the real wording and full affective
character of the aggressive impulse, and it treats the ego
accordingly. The ego which, on the one hand, knows that it is
innocent is obliged, on the other hand, to be aware of a sense of
guilt and to carry a responsibility which it cannot account for.
This state of affairs is, however, not so puzzling as it would seem
at first sight. The behaviour of the super-ego is perfectly
intelligible, and the contradiction in the ego merely shows that it
has shut out the id by means of repression while remaining fully
accessible to the influence of the super-ego. 1 If it is asked why
the ego does not also attempt to withdraw from the tormenting
criticism of the super-ego, the answer is that it
does
manage to do so in a great number of instances. There are
obsessional neuroses in which no sense of guilt whatever is
present. In them, as far as can be seen, the ego has avoided
becoming aware of it by instituting a fresh set of symptoms,
penances or restrictions of a self-punishing kind. These symptoms,
however, represent at the same time a satisfaction of masochistic
impulses which, in their turn, have been reinforced by
regression.

   ¹
Cf. Theodor Reik, 1925, 51.

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   Obsessional neurosis presents
such a vast multiplicity of phenomena that no efforts have yet
succeeded in making a coherent synthesis of all its variations. All
we can do is to pick out certain typical correlations; but there is
always the risk that we may have overlooked other uniformities of a
no less important kind.

   I have already described the
general tendency of symptom-formation in obsessional neurosis. It
is to give ever greater room to substitutive satisfaction at the
expense of frustration. Symptoms which once stood for a restriction
of the ego come later on to represent satisfactions as well, thanks
to the ego’s inclination to synthesis, and it is quite clear
that this second meaning gradually becomes the more important of
the two. The result of this process, which approximates more and
more to a complete failure of the original purpose of defence, is
an extremely restricted ego which is reduced to seeking
satisfaction in the symptoms. The displacement of the distribution
of forces in favour of satisfaction may have the dreaded final
outcome of paralysing the will of the ego, which in every decision
it has to make is almost as strongly impelled from the one side as
from the other. The over-acute conflict between id and super-ego
which has dominated the illness from the very beginning may assume
such extensive proportions that the ego, unable to carry out its
office of mediator, can undertake nothing which is not drawn into
the sphere of that conflict.

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VI

   In the course of these struggles
we come across two activities of the ego which form symptoms and
which deserve special attention because they are obviously
surrogates of repression and therefore well calculated to
illustrate its purpose and technique. The fact that such auxiliary
and substitutive techniques emerge may argue that true repression
has met with difficulties in its functioning. If one considers how
much more the ego is the scene of action of symptom-formation in
obsessional neurosis than it is in hysteria and with what tenacity
the ego clings to its relations to reality and to consciousness,
employing all its intellectual faculties to that end - and indeed
how the very process of thinking becomes hypercathected and
erotized - then one may perhaps come to a better understanding of
these variations of repression.