Read Beyond the Pleasure Principle Online
Authors: Sigmund Freud
Beyond the Pleasure Principle (41 page)
35
. [The search terms ‘cerebral homunculus’ and ‘Penfield's homunculus’ yield numerous helpful sites on the internet.]
36
. Precisely such a case was reported to me only recently – as a counter to my description of ‘dream-work’.
37
. [
ein Körper-Ich
. This must surely qualify as one of the very weirdest of all Freud's compound-noun concoctions.]
38
. [
modifiziert
; see above,
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
,
note 6
.]
39
. ‘Zur Einführung des Narzissmus’ [‘On the Introduction of Narcissism’
(1914)];
Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse [Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
(1921)].
40
. The only thing that seems erroneous and in need of correction is my contention that this super-ego is responsible for ‘reality-checking’. It would entirely fit in with the ego's relationship to the world of perception if it turned out that reality-checking had remained one of its own particular tasks. – I should also like to take this opportunity to correct various rather vague statements that I have made in the past concerning the ‘nucleus of the ego’: only the
Pcpt-Cs
system can properly be regarded as the nucleus of the ego.
41
. ‘Trauer und Melancholie’ [‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1917)].
42
. The substitution of identification for object-choice has an interesting parallel in the belief of primitive peoples – and the taboos associated therewith – that when an animal is eaten, its qualities accrue to the eater and become part of his own character. As is well known, this belief also contributed to the emergence of cannibalism, and continues to play a part in the whole gamut of successive totem-meal customs, right through to Holy Communion. The results that are supposed – according to this belief – to flow from orally asserting control over the object really
do
apply when it comes later on to sexual object-choice.
43
. [
Ichveranderung
. Needless to say, this is another of Freud's special compounds, and does not exist in any parlance other than his own.]
44
. [
Charakterveränderung
.]
45
. Having now drawn a distinction between the ego and the id, we must acknowledge the
id
as the great reservoir of the libido that we spoke of in our ‘Narcissism’ essay [see above,
On the Introduction of Narcissism
,
note 10
; see also
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
,
note 58
]. The libido that flows into the ego as a result of the identifications described above occasions its
secondary narcissism
.
46
. [
Triebentmischung
. In inventing this important term, Freud borrowed from chemistry:
entmischen
is the standard German word for ‘dissociate’, i.e. ‘To separate the elements of (a compound)’ (
OED
). However, since he frequently (as here) uses
Entmischung
in tandem with
Mischung
, it seems wise to adopt a similar word-pair in English – hence ‘merge’/‘de-merge’ throughout this present volume (in preference to ‘fuse’/‘defuse’, the word-pair adopted in the
Standard Edition
).]
47
. It would perhaps be wiser to say ‘with the parents’, for a child does not esteem its father and its mother any differently until it has become fully aware of the difference between the sexes, namely lack of a penis. Listening to the story of a young woman recently, I discovered that once she had
noticed her own lack of a penis, she didn't assume that
all
women were devoid of this organ, but only those she considered inferior. She continued to believe that her mother possessed one. As it will make it easier to present my argument, I shall deal solely with identification with the father. [The
Standard Edition
curiously converts the young woman’ (
eine junge Frau
) into a ‘young
married
woman’!]
48
. [See
On the Introduction of Narcissism
, above,
pp. 16
ff]
49
. Cf.
Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse
[
Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
(1921)].
51
. [The woolliness of expression is Freud's own: it makes little apparent sense to say that a ‘simple Oedipus complex’ represents ‘a simplification’.]
52
. [This may seem confusing, but it faithfully reflects Freud's German. His terms ‘mother-object’ and ‘father-object’ (
Mutterobjekt/Vaterobjekt
) appear to be shorthand for ‘object-cathexis in respect of the mother’ and ‘object-cathexis in respect of the father’.]
53
. [The
Standard Edition
incorporates two notable alterations in this sentence – alterations that were already included in the original 1927 English version, allegedly at the specific behest of Freud (although no authograph revisions have ever materialized, and the relevant sentence remained unchanged in subsequent German editions): (i) in place of ‘two… biological factors’, the
Standard Edition
prints: ‘two… factors, one of a biological and the other of a historical nature’; (ii) in place of ‘which we have of course attributed to’, the
Standard Edition
prints: ‘the repression of which we have shown to be connected with’.]
54
. [The hypothesis was Ferenczi's. See also
Inhibition, Symptom, and Fear
, below,
p. 223
and the relevant note (63).]
55
. [Freud's word here is
Seelenleben
, literally ‘life of the soul’. Normally in this volume the word is translated as ‘psychic life’, ‘life of the psyche’ or simply ‘psyche’ – but its essentially
religious
origins are highly pertinent in this particular context.]
56
. [See below, Inhibition, Symptom, and Fear,
note 10
.]
57
. We are leaving science and art aside at this point.
58
. [Freud's word here (as also in the second sentence of the closing paragraph of this chapter) is
Bewältigung
, from the verb
bewältigen
, which derives from
Gewalt
(power, force, violence), and means ‘to deal with [a challenge etc.] by deploying sufficient energy/force/staying power’; thus one can
bewältigen
a difficult task, an arduous journey, an enormous meal. A frequent and important word in Freud's vocabulary, it is normally rendered in this volume as ‘control’, ‘assert control over’ – but in this particular case
‘overcome’ is more apt, given Freud's oft-repeated emphasis on the ultimate ‘dissolution’, ‘destruction’ etc. of the Oedipus complex. In the
Standard Edition
the term is routinely and somewhat misleadingly rendered as ‘master’.]
59
. [The
Standard Edition
speaks of ‘a superstructure built upon impulses of jealous rivalry’ – but this is a serious misreading of Freud's German (
Überbau über die
…
Rivalitätsregungen
). The strikingly unusual grammar (
über
+ accusative, not dative) means that the phrase unquestionably does
not
describe some static edifice ‘built upon’ a foundation of jealous feelings, but a construct actively, purposely built out over and above them in order to disguise or – in effect – to sublimate them.]
60
. Cf.
Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse [Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
(1921)], and ‘Über einige neurotische Mechanismen bei Eifersucht, Paranoia und Homosexualität’ [‘Some Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia and Homosexuality’, (1921)].
61
. [See the opening paragraphs of
Chapter III
.]
62
. [Freud's word for ‘its’ is ambiguous: grammatically it can refer to ‘the ego’
or
to ‘the Oedipus complex’. The
Standard Edition
questionably resolves the ambiguity by altering the formulation to ‘cathexis of the latter’, that is, of the Oedipus complex.]
63
. [According to legend, warriors slain in the course of the Romans' defeat of Attila the Hun in the mighty Battle of Châlons continued the fight even in death, and Kaulbach's painting duly depicts not only the battle on the ground, but also the battle in the heavens.]
64
. [See
Beyond the Pleasure Principle,
above,
p. 92
.]
65
. [See
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
, above, p. 89.]
66
. [See also
Inhibition, Symptom, and Fear
, below,
p. 181
.]
67
. [The triple use in this sentence of the word ‘object’, though unavoidable, masks the fact that in the first two instances Freud uses the technical term
Objekt
, whereas in the third he uses
Gegenstand
– the everyday word for e.g. ‘the
subject
of his novel’ or ‘the
object
of our interest’. Regarding the general topic of identification in homosexuality, see above,
p. 127
, and Freud's references to his own publications in the relevant note (60).]
68
. [Freud's grammar is such that in purely linguistic terms the following interpretation is equally possible: ‘… in the process of overcoming the hostile feelings of rivalry that lead to homosexuality’. In the context of Freud's actual
argument
here, this reading is far less plausible – but the
Standard
Edition opts for it none the less.]
69
. [Freud's relative pronoun is unambiguously ‘who’, not ‘what’; he presumably meant it as a personification implying ‘which bit of the psyche?’]
70
. [The notion of an unpleasurable build-up of libido is also mentioned in the
Narcissism
essay; see above,
pp. 13–14
.]
71
. [This tale clearly tickled Freud's fancy: he cites it not only here, but also in the final chapter of
The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious
(1905) and in the eleventh of his
Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis: New Series
(1916–17).]
72
. [See
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
, Chapter V, second paragraph.]
74
. [Freud would appear to be pointing here to the hypothesis he advances in the last paragraph on p.
144
.]
75
. [Freud is clumsily elliptical here: it is of course not the narcissism itself that has been ‘withdrawn from objects’, but rather its libido; see
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
, above,
pp. 89
f. It might also be noted that this remark of Freud's bears on a crucial and problematic ambivalence in his position concerning the true source of the libido; see
On the Introduction of Narcissism
,
note 10
.]
76
. On our understanding of things, the destruction drives directed towards the external world have of course been diverted from the individual's own self through the intervention of Eros. [See above,
p. 132
.]
77
. [See
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
, above, pp. 46f.]
78
. [See
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
, above,
p. 85
.]
79
. [The
Standard Edition
has a particularly damaging error here, rendering Freud's unambiguous phrase
sich… dem Ich entgegenstellen
as
‘stand[ing] apart from
the ego’.]
81
. One might say that the psychoanalytical or metapsychological ego stands on its head just as the anatomical ego, the ‘cerebral homunculus’, does [see above,
p. 117
].
82
. [See below,
Inhibition, Symptom, and Fear
,
note 16
.]
83
. The fight against the obstacle presented by this unconscious guilt-feeling is not made easy for the analyst. Attempts to tackle it directly are doomed to failure; as for indirect means, the only available option is to slowly lay bare the unconsciously repressed reasons for its existence, in the process of which it gradually turns into a
conscious
guilt-feeling. One stands a particularly good chance of influencing it if this
Ucs
guilt-feeling is a ‘borrowed’ one, i.e. the result of identification with some other person who was once the object of an erotic cathexis. A guilt-feeling that has been adopted in this way is often the sole remaining vestige of the abandoned love-relationship, and barely recognizable as such. (The similarity between this and the process
that occurs in melancholia is unmistakable.) If one manages to uncover the erstwhile object-cathexis that lies behind the
Ucs
guilt-feeling, this often brings spectacular therapeutic success; failing that, the outcome of one's therapeutic endeavours is decidedly uncertain. The key factor determining the outcome is the
intensity
of the guilt-feeling, in as much as the therapy is often unable to counter it with anything of equal force. The outcome may also depend on whether the personality of the analyst is such as to enable the patient to substitute him for his ego-ideal, although there is a temptation here for the analyst to present himself to the patient in the role of a prophet, a redeemer, a saviour of souls. As any such deployment of the physician's personality would run directly counter to the ground-rules of psychoanalysis, we must honestly admit that this constitutes a new barrier to the effectiveness of psychoanalysis, the purpose of which is of course not to render pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego the
freedom
to decide one way or the other.
84
. [Freud's Kafka-like vision of the psyche's subjection to an implacably punitive regime is vividly reflected in the language here ( see above,
On the Introduction of Narcissism
, note
32
).]
