Freud - Complete Works (705 page)

The Question Of Lay Analysis

4339

   ‘I will not ask any
questions yet as to how all this can be known. But tell me first
what you gain from this distinction between an ego and an id? What
leads you to make it?’

   Your question shows me the right
way to proceed. For the important and valuable thing is to know
that the ego and the id differ greatly from each other in several
respects. The rules governing the course of mental acts are
different in the ego and the id; the ego pursues different purposes
and by other methods. A great deal could be said about this; but
perhaps you will be content with a fresh analogy and an example.
Think of the difference between ‘the front’ and
‘behind the lines’, as things were during the war. We
were not surprised then that some things were different at the
front from what they were behind the lines, and that many things
were permitted behind the lines which had to be forbidden at the
front. The determining influence was, of course, the proximity of
the enemy; in the case of mental life it is the proximity of the
external world. There was a time when ‘outside’,
‘strange’ and ‘hostile’ were identical
concepts. And now we come to the example. In the id there are no
conflicts; contradictions and antitheses persist side by side in it
unconcernedly, and are often adjusted by the formation of
compromises. In similar circumstances the ego feels a conflict
which must be decided; and the decision lies in one urge being
abandoned in favour of the other. The ego is an organization
characterized by a very remarkable trend towards unification,
towards synthesis. This characteristic is lacking in the id; it is,
as we might say, ‘all to pieces’; its different urges
pursue their own purposes independently and regardless of one
another.

   ‘And if such an important
mental region "behind the lines" exists, how can you
explain its having been overlooked till the time of
analysis?’

The Question Of Lay Analysis

4340

   That brings us back to one of
your earlier questions. Psychology had barred its own access to the
region of the id by insisting on a postulate which is plausible
enough but untenable: namely, that all mental acts are conscious to
us - that being conscious is the criterion of what is mental, and
that, if there are processes in our brain which are not conscious,
they do not deserve to be called mental acts and are no concern of
psychology.

   ‘But I should have thought
that was obvious.’

   Yes, and that is what
psychologists think. Nevertheless it can easily be shown to be
false - that is, to be a quite inexpedient distinction. The idlest
self-observation shows that ideas may occur to us which cannot have
come about without preparation. But you experience nothing of these
preliminaries of your thought, though they too must certainly have
been of a mental nature; all that enters your consciousness is the
ready-made result. Occasionally you can make these preparatory
thought-structures conscious
in retrospect
, as though in a
reconstruction.

   ‘Probably one’s
attention was distracted, so that one failed to notice the
preparations.’

   Evasions! You cannot in that way
get around the fact that acts of a mental nature, and often very
complicated ones, can take place in you, of which your
consciousness learns nothing and of which you know nothing. Or are
you prepared to suppose that a greater or smaller amount of your
‘attention’ is enough to transform a non-mental act
into a mental one? But what is the use of disputing? There are
hypnotic experiments in which the existence of such non-conscious
thoughts are irrefutably demonstrated to anyone who cares to
learn.

   ‘I shall not retract; but I
believe I understand you at last. What you call "ego" is
consciousness; and your "id" is the so-called
subconscious that people talk about so much nowadays. But why the
masquerading with the new names?’

The Question Of Lay Analysis

4341

   It is not masquerading. The other
names are of no use. And do not try to give me literature instead
of science. If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell
whether he means the term topographically - to indicate something
lying in the mind beneath consciousness - or qualitatively - to
indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He
is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy
antithesis is between conscious and unconscious. But it would be a
serious mistake to think that this antithesis coincides with the
distinction between ego and id. Of course it would be delightful if
it were as simple as that: our theory would have a smooth passage.
But things are not so simple. All that is true is that everything
that happens in the id is and remains unconscious, and that
processes in the ego, and they alone,
can
become conscious.
But not all of them are, nor always, nor necessarily; and large
portions of the ego can remain permanently unconscious.

   The becoming conscious of a
mental process is a complicated affair. I cannot resist telling you
- once again, dogmatically - our hypotheses about it. The ego, as
you will remember, is the external, peripheral layer of the id.
Now, we believe that on the outermost surface of this ego there is
a special agency directed immediately to the external world, a
system, an organ, through the excitation of which alone the
phenomenon that we call consciousness comes about. This organ can
be equally well excited from outside - thus receiving (with the
help of the sense-organs) the stimuli from the external world - and
from inside - thus becoming aware, first, of the sensations in the
id, and then also of the processes in the ego.

   ‘This is getting worse and
worse and I can understand it less and less. After all, what you
invited me to was a discussion of the question whether laymen (=
non-doctors) ought to undertake analytic treatments. What is the
point, then, of all these disquisitions on daring and obscure
theories which you cannot convince me are justified?’

The Question Of Lay Analysis

4342

   I know I cannot convince you.
That is beyond any possibility and for that reason beyond my
purpose. When we give our pupils theoretical instruction in
psycho-analysis, we can see how little impression we are making on
them to begin with. They take in the theories of analysis as coolly
as other abstractions with which they are nourished. A few of them
may perhaps
wish
to be convinced, but there is not a trace
of their being so. But we also require that everyone who wants to
practise analysis on other people shall first himself submit to an
analysis. It is only in the course of this
‘self-analysis’ (as it is misleadingly termed), when
they actually experience as affecting their own person - or rather,
their own mind - the processes asserted by analysis, that they
acquire the convictions by which they are later guided as analysts.
How then could I expect to convince you, the Impartial Person, of
the correctness of our theories, when I can only put before you an
abbreviated and therefore unintelligible account of them, without
confirming them from your own experiences?

   I am acting with a different
purpose. The question at issue between us is not in the least
whether analysis is sensible or nonsensical, whether it is right in
its hypotheses or has fallen into gross errors. I am unrolling our
theories before you since that is the best way of making clear to
you what the range of ideas is that analysis embraces, on the basis
of what hypotheses it approaches a patient and what it does with
him. In this way a quite definite light will be thrown on the
question of lay analysis. And do not be alarmed. If you have
followed me so far you have got over the worst. Everything that
follows will be easier for you. - But now, with your leave, I will
pause to take breath.

The Question Of Lay Analysis

4343

III

   ‘I expect you will want to
tell me how, on the basis of the theories of psycho-analysis, the
origin of a neurotic illness can be pictured.’

   I will try to. But for that
purpose we must study our ego and our id from a fresh angle, from
the
dynamic
one - that is to say, having regard to the
forces at work in them and between them. Hitherto we have been
content with a
description
of the mental apparatus.

   ‘My only fear is that it
may become unintelligible again!’

   I hope not. You will soon find
your way about in it. Well then, we assume that the forces which
drive the mental apparatus into activity are produced in the bodily
organs as an expression of the major somatic needs. You will
recollect the words of our poet-philosopher: ‘Hunger and
love.’ Incidentally, quite a formidable pair of forces! We
give these bodily needs, in so far as they represent an instigation
to mental activity, the name of ‘
Triebe
’, a word
for which we are envied by many modern languages. Well, these
instincts fill the id: all the energy in the id, as we may put it
briefly, originates from them. Nor have the forces in the ego any
other origin; they are derived from those in the id. What, then, do
these instincts want? Satisfaction - that is, the establishment of
situations in which the bodily needs can be extinguished. A
lowering of the tension of need is felt by our organ of
consciousness as pleasurable; an increase of it is soon felt as
unpleasure. From these oscillations arises the series of feelings
of pleasure-unpleasure, in accordance with which the whole mental
apparatus regulates its activity. In this connection we speak of a
‘dominance of the pleasure principle’.

The Question Of Lay Analysis

4344

   If the id’s instinctual
demands meet with no satisfaction, intolerable conditions arise.
Experience soon shows that these situations of satisfaction can
only be established with the help of the external world. At that
point the portion of the id which is directed towards the external
world - the ego - begins to function. If all the driving force that
sets the vehicle in motion is derived from the id, the ego, as it
were, undertakes the steering, without which no goal can be
reached. The instincts in the id press for immediate satisfaction
at all costs, and in that way they achieve nothing or even bring
about appreciable damage. It is the task of the ego to guard
against such mishaps, to mediate between the claims of the id and
the objections of the external world. It carries on its activity in
two directions. On the one hand, it observes the external world
with the help of its sense-organ, the system of consciousness, so
as to catch the favourable moment for harmless satisfaction; and on
the other hand it influences the id, bridles its
‘passions’, induces its instincts to postpone their
satisfaction, and indeed, if the necessity is recognized, to modify
its aims, or, in return for some compensation, to give them up. In
so far as it tames the id’s impulses in this way, it replaces
the pleasure principle, which was formerly alone decisive, by what
is known as the ‘reality principle’, which, though it
pursues the same ultimate aims, takes into account the conditions
imposed by the real external world. Later, the ego learns that
there is yet another way of securing satisfaction besides the
adaption
to the external world which I have described. It is
also possible to intervene in the external world by
changing
it, and to establish in it intentionally the conditions which make
satisfaction possible. This activity then becomes the ego’s
highest function; decisions as to when it is more expedient to
control one’s passions and bow before reality, and when it is
more expedient to side with them and to take arms against the
external world - such decisions make up the whole essence of
worldly wisdom.

   ‘And does the id put up
with being dominated like this by the ego, in spite of being, if I
understand you aright, the stronger party?’

   Yes, all will be well if the ego
is in possession of its whole organization and efficiency, if it
has access to all parts of the id and can exercise its influence on
them. For there is no natural opposition between ego and id; they
belong together, and under healthy conditions cannot in practice be
distinguished from each other.

The Question Of Lay Analysis

4345

   ‘That sounds very pretty;
but I cannot see how in such an ideal relation there can be the
smallest room for a pathological disturbance.’

   You are right. So long as the ego
and its relations to the id fulfil these ideal conditions, there
will be no neurotic disturbance. The point at which the illness
makes its breach is an unexpected one, though no one acquainted
with general pathology will be surprised to find a confirmation of
the principle that it is precisely the most important developments
and differentiations that carry in them the seeds of illness, of
failure of function.

   ‘You are becoming too
learned. I cannot follow you.’

   I must go back a little bit
further. A small living organism is a truly miserable, powerless
thing, is it not? compared with the immensely powerful external
world, full as it is of destructive influences. A primitive
organism, which has not developed any adequate ego-organization, is
at the mercy of all these ‘traumas’. It lives by the
‘blind’ satisfaction of its instinctual wishes and
often perishes in consequence. The differentiation of an ego is
above all a step towards self-preservation. Nothing, it is true,
can be learnt from being destroyed; but if one has luckily survived
a trauma one takes notice of the approach of similar situations and
signalizes the danger by an abbreviated repetition of the
impressions one has experienced in connection with the trauma - by
an
affect of anxiety
. This reaction to the perception of the
danger now introduces an attempt at flight, which can have a
life-saving effect till one has grown strong enough to meet the
dangers of the external world in a more active fashion - even
aggressively, perhaps.