Freud - Complete Works (799 page)

   It is hard to say anything of the
behaviour of the libido in the id and in the super-ego. All that we
know about it relates to the ego, in which at first the whole
available quota of libido is stored up. We call this state
absolute, primary
narcissism
. It lasts till the ego begins
to cathect the ideas of objects with libido, to transform
narcissistic libido into object-libido. Throughout the whole of
life the ego remains the great reservoir from which libidinal
cathexes are sent out to objects and into which they are also once
more withdrawn, just as an amoeba behaves with its pseudopodia. It
is only when a person is completely in love that the main quota of
libido is transferred on to the object and the object to some
extent takes the place of the ego. A characteristic of the libido
which is important in life is its
mobility
, the facility
with which it passes from one object to another. This must be
contrasted with the
fixation
of the libido to particular
objects, which often persists throughout life.

An Outline Of Psycho-Analysis

4962

   There can be no question but that
the libido has somatic sources, that it streams to the ego from
various organs and parts of the body. This is most clearly seen in
the case of that portion of the libido which, from its instinctual
aim, is described as sexual excitation. The most prominent of the
parts of the body from which this libido arises are known by the
name of ‘
erotogenic zones
’, though in fact the
whole body is an erotogenic zone of this kind. The greater part of
what we know about Eros - that is to say, about its exponent, the
libido - has been gained from a study of the sexual function,
which, indeed, on the prevailing view, even if not according to our
theory, coincides with Eros. We have been able to form a picture of
the way in which the sexual urge, which is destined to exercise a
decisive influence on our life, gradually develops out of
successive contributions from a number of component instincts,
which represent particular erotogenic zones.

An Outline Of Psycho-Analysis

4963

CHAPTER III

THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEXUAL FUNCTION

According to the prevailing view human sexual
life consists essentially in an endeavour to bring one’s own
genitals into contact with those of someone of the opposite sex.
With this are associated, as accessory phenomena and introductory
acts, kissing this extraneous body, looking at it and touching it.
This endeavour is supposed to make its appearance at puberty - that
is, at the age of sexual maturity - and to serve the purposes of
reproduction. Nevertheless, certain facts have always been known
which do not fit into the narrow framework of this view. (1) It is
a remarkable fact that there are people who are only attracted by
individuals of their own sex and by their genitals. (2) It is
equally remarkable that there are people whose desires behave
exactly like sexual ones but who at the same time entirely
disregard the sexual organs or their normal use; people of this
kind are known as ‘perverts’. (3) And lastly it is a
striking thing that some children (who are on that account regarded
as degenerate) take a very early interest in their genitals and
show signs of excitation in them.

   It may well be believed that
psycho-analysis provoked astonishment and denials when, partly on
the basis of these three neglected facts, it contradicted all the
popular opinions on sexuality. Its principal findings are as
follows:

   (
a
) Sexual life does not
begin only at puberty, but starts with plain manifestations soon
after birth.

   (
b
) It is necessary to
distinguish sharply between the concepts of ‘sexual’
and ‘genital’. The former is the wider concept and
includes many activities that have nothing to do with the
genitals.

   (
c
) Sexual life includes
the function of obtaining pleasure from zones of the body - a
function which is subsequently brought into the service of
reproduction. The two functions often fail to coincide
completely.

An Outline Of Psycho-Analysis

4964

   The chief interest is naturally
focused on the first of these assertions, the most unexpected of
all. It has been found that in early childhood there are signs of
bodily activity to which only an ancient prejudice could deny the
name of sexual and which are linked to psychical phenomena that we
come across later in adult erotic life - such as fixation to
particular objects, jealousy, and so on. It is further found,
however, that these phenomena which emerge in early childhood form
part of an ordered course of development, that they pass through a
regular process of increase, reaching a climax towards the end of
the fifth year, after which there follows a lull. During this lull
progress is at a standstill and much is unlearnt and there is much
recession. After the end of this period of latency, as it is
called, sexual life advances once more with puberty; we might say
that it has a second efflorescence. And here we come upon the fact
that the onset of sexual life is
diphasic
, that it occurs in
two waves - something that is unknown except in man and evidently
has an important bearing on hominization.¹ It is not a matter
of indifference that the events of this early period, except for a
few residues, fall a victim to
infantile amnesia
. Our views
on the aetiology of the neuroses and our technique of analytic
therapy are derived from these conceptions; and our tracing of the
developmental processes in this early period has also provided
evidence for yet other conclusions.

  
¹
Cf. the suggestion that man is descended
from a mammal which reached sexual maturity at the age of five, but
that some major external influence was brought to bear on the
species and at that point interrupted the straight course of
development of sexuality. Other transformations in the sexual life
of man as compared with that of animals might be connected with
this - such as the abolition of the periodicity of the libido and
the exploitation of the part played by menstruation in the relation
between the sexes.

An Outline Of Psycho-Analysis

4965

   The first organ to emerge as an
erotogenic zone and to make libidinal demands on the mind is, from
the time of birth onwards, the mouth. To begin with, all psychical
activity is concentrated on providing satisfaction for the needs of
that zone. Primarily, of course, this satisfaction serves the
purpose of self-preservation by means of nourishment; but
physiology should not be confused with psychology. The baby’s
obstinate persistence in sucking gives evidence at an early stage
of a need for satisfaction which, though it originates from and is
instigated by the taking of nourishment, nevertheless strives to
obtain pleasure independently of nourishment and for that reason
may and should be termed
sexual

   During this oral phase sadistic
impulses already occur sporadically along with the appearance of
the teeth. Their extent is far greater in the second phase, which
we describe as the sadistic-anal one, because satisfaction is then
sought in aggression and in the excretory function. Our
justification for including aggressive urges under the libido is
based on the view that sadism is an instinctual fusion of purely
libidinal and purely destructive urges, a fusion which
thenceforward persists uninterruptedly.¹

   The third phase is that known as
the phallic one, which is, as it were, a forerunner of the final
form taken by sexual life and already much resembles it. It is to
be noted that it is not the genitals of both sexes that play a part
at this stage, but only the male ones (the phallus). The female
genitals long remain unknown: in children’s attempts to
understand the sexual processes they pay homage to the venerable
cloacal theory - a theory which has a genetic
justification.²

   With the phallic phase and in the
course of it the sexuality of early childhood reaches its height
and approaches its dissolution. Thereafter boys and girls have
different histories. Both have begun to put their intellectual
activity at the service of sexual researches; both start off from
the premiss of the universal presence of the penis. But now the
paths of the sexes diverge. The boy enters the Oedipus phase; he
begins to manipulate his penis and simultaneously has phantasies of
carrying out some sort of activity with it in relation to his
mother, till, owing to the combined effect of a threat of
castration and the sight of the absence of a penis in females, he
experiences the greatest trauma of his life and this introduces the
period of latency with all its consequences. The girl, after vainly
attempting to do the same as the boy, comes to recognize her lack
of a penis or rather the inferiority of her clitoris, with
permanent effects on the development of her character; as a result
of this first disappointment in rivalry, she often begins by
turning away altogether from sexual life.

  
¹
The question arises whether the
satisfaction of purely destructive instinctual impulses can be felt
as pleasure, whether pure destructiveness without any libidinal
admixture occurs. Satisfaction of the death instinct remaining in
the ego seems not to produce feelings of pleasure, though masochism
represents a fusion which is entirely analogous to
sadism.

  
²
The occurrence of early vaginal excitations
is often asserted. But it is most probable that what is in question
are excitations in the clitoris - that is, in an organ analogous to
the penis. This does not invalidate our right to describe the phase
as phallic.

An Outline Of Psycho-Analysis

4966

   It would be a mistake to suppose
that these three phases succeed one another in a clear-cut fashion.
One may appear in addition to another; they may overlap one
another, may be present alongside of one another. In the early
phases the different component instincts set about their pursuit of
pleasure independently of one another; in the phallic phase there
are the beginnings of an organization which subordinates the other
urges to the primacy of the genitals and signifies the start of a
co-ordination of the general urge towards pleasure into the sexual
function. The complete organization is only achieved at puberty, in
a fourth, genital phase. A state of things is then established in
which (1) some earlier libidinal cathexes are retained, (2) others
are taken into the sexual function as preparatory, auxiliary acts,
the satisfaction of which produces what is known as fore-pleasure,
and (3) other urges are excluded from the organization, and are
either suppressed altogether (repressed) or are employed in the ego
in another way, forming character-traits or undergoing sublimation
with a displacement of their aims.

   This process is not always
performed faultlessly. Inhibitions in its development manifest
themselves as the many sorts of disturbance in sexual life. When
this is so, we find fixations of the libido to conditions in
earlier phases, whose urge, which is independent of the normal
sexual aim, is described as
perversion
. One such
developmental inhibition, for instance, is homosexuality when it is
manifest. Analysis shows that in every case a homosexual object-tie
was present and in most cases persisted in a
latent
condition. The situation is complicated by the fact that as a rule
the processes necessary for bringing about a normal outcome are not
completely present or absent, but
partially
present, so that
the final result remains dependent on these
quantitative
relations. In these circumstances the genital organization is, it
is true, attained, but it lacks those portions of the libido which
have not advanced with the rest and have remained fixated to
pregenital objects and aims. This weakening shows itself in a
tendency, if there is an absence of genital satisfaction or if
there are difficulties in the real external world, for the libido
to hark back to its earlier pregenital cathexes
(
regression
).

   During the study of the sexual
functions we have been able to gain a first, preliminary
conviction, or rather a suspicion, of two discoveries which will
later be found to be important over the whole of our field.
Firstly, the normal and abnormal manifestations observed by us
(that is, the phenomenology of the subject) need to be described
from the point of view of their dynamics and economics (in our
case, from the point of view of the quantitative distribution of
the libido). And secondly, the aetiology of the disorders which we
study is to be looked for in the individual’s developmental
history - that is to say, in his early life.

An Outline Of Psycho-Analysis

4967

CHAPTER IV

PSYCHICAL QUALITIES

I have described the structure of the
psychical apparatus and the energies or forces which are active in
it, and I have traced in a prominent example the way in which those
energies (in the main, the libido) organize themselves into a
physiological function which serves the purpose of the preservation
of the species. There was nothing in all this to demonstrate the
quite peculiar characteristic of what is psychical, apart, of
course, from the empirical fact that this apparatus and these
energies are the basis of the functions which we describe as our
mental life. I will now turn to something which is uniquely
characteristic of what is psychical, and which, indeed, according
to a very widely held opinion, coincides with it to the exclusion
of all else.