Beyond the Pleasure Principle (43 page)
Read Beyond the Pleasure Principle Online
Authors: Sigmund Freud
54
. [See ‘Einige psychische Folgen des anatomischen Geschlechtsunter-schieds’ (‘Some Psychical Consequences of the Anatomical Distinction Between the Sexes’, 1925).]
55
. [The
Standard Edition
has a footnote by the editor asserting that Freud means a close connection between fear and
neurosis
– but the whole thrust of the passage makes it clear that he means fear and
symptom
; see especially the third sentence of the fourth paragraph of this chapter!]
56
. [Freud considerably helps us to understand his otherwise problematic concept of ‘consciential fear’ (
Gewissensangst
) by defining it here as ‘endopsychic’, and differentiating it from ‘social fear’ (
soziale Angst
). The
Standard Edition
seriously distorts this important notion by variously rendering it as ‘moral fear’ and (even more dubiously) ‘fear of conscience’:
Gewissensangst
is not derived from society's
mores
, nor is it fear of conscience, but an endogenous form of fear arising directly
out of
that indwelling (and mysterious) form of knowingness that we term ‘conscience’,
Gewissen
.]
57
. [This context demonstrates Freud's use of the word
Motiv
with particular clarity (‘woher kommt die Neurose, was ist ihr letztes, das ihr besondere Motiv?’). See above,
Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through
,
note 11
.]
58
. [This strikingly allusive epithet is Freud's own (
unangetastet
).]
59
. [‘Simplicity is the seal of truth.’]
60
. [‘Catharsis’ in its psychotherapeutic sense is defined in the
OED
as follows: ‘The process of relieving an abnormal excitement by re-establishing the association of the emotion with the memory or idea of the event which
was the first cause of it, and of eliminating it by abreaction.’ See also the opening sentences of
Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through,
and the relevant note.]
61
. [
Angstlichkeit
– this being the standard German word for ‘anxiety’ (see above,
note 3
).]
62
. [See the explanatory passage in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
, above,
p. 65
.]
63
. [The ‘momentous event’ that Freud is alluding to is the ice age. The idea derived originally from Ferenczi. See also
The Ego and the Id
, above,
p. 125
.]
64
. [See
On the Introduction of Narcissism
, above,
p. 28
.]
65
. [
Gegenbesetzung
. The
Standard Edition
misleadingly renders this as ‘
anti
cathexis’.]
66
. [See the
OED
quotation from a 1927 English translation of Laforgue: ‘In an earlier work I have defined scotomization (or the forming of mental “blind spots”) as a process of psychic depreciation, by means of which the individual attempts to deny everything which conflicts with his ego.’]
67
. [See
The Ego and the Id
, above,
pp. 108
f.
68
. [See
The Ego and Id
, Chapter V, opening pages.]
69
. [See ‘Die Abwehr-Neuropsychosen’ (‘The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence’, 1894).]
70
. [See above,
Beyond the Pleasure Principle,
note 9
.]
71
. [See
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
,
Chapter II
, closing paragraphs.]
74
. It may well quite often happen that in a danger situation that is quite correctly perceived as such by the subject, his objective fear is compounded by an element of fear relating to his drives. In such an event the drive whose demands the ego so fearfully shrinks from gratifying is probably a masochistic one, namely the destruction drive directed against the subject's own person. Perhaps it is this additional element that accounts for those cases where the fear reaction ends up being excessive, counter-purposive and paralysing. Phobias with regard to height (windows, towers, precipices etc.) may well have the same origin. Their covert feminine significance is closely related to masochism.
75
. See ‘Trauer und Melancholie’ [‘Mourning and Melancholia’, 1917; see especially the opening paragraphs of the essay].
76
. [Freud discusses this in rather more detail in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
,
Chapter IV
.]
77
. [This, too, is more amply discussed in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
,
Chapter IV
.]
78
. [See the opening pages of ‘Trauer und Melancholie’ (‘Mourning and Melancholia’, 1917).]
