Freud - Complete Works (690 page)

An Autobiographical Study

4245

   These studies, which, though they
originate in psycho-analysis, stretch far beyond it, have perhaps
awakened more public sympathy than psycho-analysis itself. They may
have played a part in creating the short-lived illusion that I was
among the writers to whom a great nation like Germany was ready to
listen. It was in 1929 that, with words no less pregnant than
friendly, Thomas Mann, one of the acknowledged spokesmen of the
German people, found a place for me in the history of modern
thought. A little later my daughter Anna, acting as my proxy, was
given a civic reception in the Rathaus at Frankfort-on-Main on the
occasion of my being awarded the Goethe Prize for 1930. This was
the climax of my life as a citizen. Soon afterwards the boundaries
of our country narrowed and the nation would know no more of
us.

   And here I may be allowed to
break off these autobiographical notes. The public has no claim to
learn any more of my personal affairs - of my struggles, my
disappointments, and my successes. I have in any case been more
open and frank in some of my writings (such as
The
Interpretation of Dreams
and
The Psychopathology of Everyday
Life
) than people usually are who describe their lives for
their contemporaries or for posterity. I have had small thanks for
it, and from my experience I cannot recommend anyone to follow my
example.

   I must add a few more words on
the history of psycho-analysis during the last decade. There can no
longer be any doubt that it will continue; it has proved its
capacity to survive and to develop both as a branch of knowledge
and as a therapeutic method. The number of its supporters
(organized into the International Psycho-Analytical Association)
has considerably increased. In addition to the older local groups
(in Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, London, Holland, Switzerland, and
Russia), societies have since been formed in Paris and Calcutta,
two in Japan, several in the United States, and quite recently one
each in Jerusalem and South Africa and two in Scandinavia. Out of
their own funds these local societies support (or are in process of
forming) training institutes, in which instruction in the practice
of psycho-analysis is given according to a uniform plan, and
out-patient clinics in which experienced analysts as well as
students give free treatment to patients of limited means. Every
other year the members of the International Psycho-Analytical
Association hold a Congress at which scientific papers are read and
questions of organization decided. The thirteenth of these
congresses (which I myself can no longer attend) took place at
Lucerne in 1934. From a core of interests that are common to all
members of the Association, their work radiates in many different
directions. Some lay most stress upon clarifying and deepening our
knowledge of psychology, while others are concerned with keeping in
contact with medicine and psychiatry. From the practical point of
view, some analysts have set themselves the task of bringing about
the recognition of psycho-analysis at the universities and its
inclusion in the medical curriculum, whereas others are content to
remain outside these institutions and will not allow that
psycho-analysis is less important in the field of education than in
that of medicine. It happens from time to time that an analytic
worker may find himself isolated in an attempt to emphasize some
single one of the findings or views of psycho-analysis at the
expense of all the rest. Nevertheless, the whole impression is a
satisfactory one - of serious scientific work carried on at a high
level.

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INHIBITIONS, SYMPTOMS AND ANXIETY

(1926)

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4248

INHIBITIONS, SYMPTOMS AND ANXIETY

I

In the description of pathological phenomena,
linguistic usage enables us to distinguish symptoms from
inhibitions, without, however, attaching much importance to the
distinction. Indeed, we might hardly think it worth while to
differentiate exactly between the two, were it not for the fact
that we meet with illnesses in which we observe the presence of
inhibitions but not of symptoms and are curious to know the reason
for this.

   The two concepts are not upon the
same plane. Inhibition has a special relation to function. It does
not necessarily have a pathological implication. One can quite well
call a normal restriction of a function an inhibition of it. A
symptom, on the other hand, actually denotes the presence of some
pathological process. Thus, an inhibition may be a symptom as well.
Linguistic usage, then, employs the word
inhibition
when
there is a simple lowering of function, and
symptom
when a
function has undergone some unusual change or when a new phenomenon
has arisen out of it. Very often it seems to be quite an arbitrary
matter whether we emphasize the positive side of a pathological
process and call its outcome a symptom, or its negative side and
call its outcome an inhibition. But all this is really of little
interest; and the problem as we have stated it does not carry us
very far.

   Since the concept of inhibition
is so intimately associated with that of function, it might be
helpful to examine the various functions of the ego with a view to
discovering the forms which any disturbance of those functions
assumes in each of the different neurotic affections. Let us pick
out for a comparative study of this kind the sexual function and
those of eating, of locomotion and of professional work.

Inhibitions, Symptoms And Anxiety

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   (
a
) The sexual function is
liable to a great number of disturbances, most of which exhibit the
characteristics of simple inhibitions. These are classed together
as psychical impotence. The normal performance of the sexual
function can only come about as the result of a very complicated
process, and disturbances may appear at any point in it. In men the
chief stages at which inhibition occurs are shown by: a turning
away of the libido at the very beginning of the process (psychical
unpleasure); an absence of the physical preparation for it (lack of
erection); an abridgement of the sexual act (
ejaculatio
praecox
), an occurrence which might equally well be regarded as
a symptom; an arrest of the act before it has reached its natural
conclusion (absence of ejaculation); or a non-appearance of the
psychical outcome (lack of the feeling of pleasure in orgasm).
Other disturbances arise from the sexual function becoming
dependent on special conditions of a perverse or fetishist
nature.

   That there is a relationship
between inhibition and anxiety is pretty evident. Some inhibitions
obviously represent a relinquishment of a function because its
exercise would produce anxiety. Many women are openly afraid of the
sexual function. We class this anxiety under hysteria, just as we
do the defensive symptom of disgust which, arising originally as a
deferred reaction to the experiencing of a passive sexual act,
appears later whenever the
idea
of such an act is presented.
Furthermore, many obsessional acts turn out to be measures of
precaution and security against sexual experiences and are thus of
a phobic character.

   This is not very illuminating. We
can only note that disturbances of the sexual function are brought
about by a great variety of means. (1) The libido may simply be
turned away (this seems most readily to produce what we regard as
an inhibition pure and simple); (2) the function may be less well
carried out; (3) it may be hampered by having conditions attached
to it, or modified by being diverted to other aims; (4) it may be
prevented by security measures; (5) if it cannot be prevented from
starting, it may be immediately interrupted by the appearance of
anxiety; and (6), if it is nevertheless carried out, there may be a
subsequent reaction of protest against it and an attempt to undo
what has been done.

   (
b
) The function of
nutrition is most frequently disturbed by a disinclination to eat,
brought about by a withdrawal of libido. An increase in the desire
to eat is also a not uncommon thing. The compulsion to eat is
attributed to a fear of starving; but this is a subject which has
been but little studied. The symptom of vomiting is known to us as
a hysterical defence against eating. Refusal to eat owing to
anxiety is a concomitant of psychotic states (delusions of being
poisoned).

Inhibitions, Symptoms And Anxiety

4250

   (
c
) In some neurotic
conditions locomotion is inhibited by a disinclination to walk or a
weakness in walking. In hysteria there will be a paralysis of the
motor apparatus, or this one special function of the apparatus will
be abolished (abasia). Especially characteristic are the increased
difficulties that appear in locomotion owing to the introduction of
certain stipulations whose non-observance results in anxiety
(phobia).

   (
d
) In inhibition in work
- a thing which we so often have to deal with as an isolated
symptom in our therapeutic work - the subject feels a decrease in
his pleasure in it or becomes less able to do it well; or he has
certain reactions to it, like fatigue, giddiness or sickness, if he
is obliged to go on with it. If he is a hysteric he will have to
give up his work owing to the appearance of organic and functional
paralyses which make it impossible for him to carry it on. If he is
an obsessional neurotic he will be perpetually being distracted
from his work or losing time over it through the introduction of
delays and repetitions.

   Our survey might be extended to
other functions as well; but there would be nothing more to be
learnt by doing so. For we should not penetrate below the surface
of the phenomena presented to us. Let us then proceed to describe
inhibition in such a way as to leave very little doubt about what
is meant by it, and say that inhibition is the expression of a
restriction of an ego-function
. A restriction of this kind
can itself have very different causes. Some of the mechanisms
involved in this renunciation of function are well known to us, as
is a certain general purpose which governs it.

   This purpose is more easily
recognizable in the
specific
inhibitions. Analysis shows
that when activities like playing the piano, writing or even
walking are subjected to neurotic inhibitions it is because the
physical organs brought into play - the fingers or the legs - have
become too strongly erotized. It has been discovered as a general
fact that the ego-function of an organ is impaired if its
erotogenicity - its sexual significance - is increased. It behaves,
if I may be allowed a rather absurd analogy, like a maid-servant
who refuses to go on cooking because her master has started a
love-affair with her. As soon as writing, which entails making a
liquid flow out of a tube on to a piece of white paper, assumes the
significance of copulation, or as soon as walking becomes a
symbolic substitute for treading upon the body of mother earth,
both writing and walking are stopped because they represent the
performance of a forbidden sexual act. The ego renounces these
functions, which are within its sphere, in order not to have to
undertake fresh measures of repression -
in order to avoid a
conflict with the id
.

Inhibitions, Symptoms And Anxiety

4251

   There are clearly also
inhibitions which serve the purpose of self-punishment. This is
often the case in inhibitions of professional activities. The ego
is not allowed to carry on those activities, because they would
bring success and gain, and these are things which the severe
super-ego has forbidden. So the ego gives them up too,
in order
to avoid coming into conflict with the super-ego
.

   The more
generalized
inhibitions of the ego obey a different mechanism of a simple kind.
When the ego is involved in a particularly difficult psychical
task, as occurs in mourning, or when there is some tremendous
suppression of affect or when a continual flood of sexual
phantasies has to be kept down, it loses so much of the energy at
its disposal that it has to cut down the expenditure of it at many
points at once. It is in the position of a speculator whose money
has become tied up in his various enterprises. I came across an
instructive example of this kind of intense, though short-lived,
general inhibition. The patient, an obsessional neurotic, used to
be overcome by a paralysing fatigue which lasted for one or more
days whenever something occurred which should obviously have thrown
him into a rage. We have here a point from which it should be
possible to reach an understanding of the condition of general
inhibition which characterizes states of depression, including the
gravest form of them, melancholia.

   As regards inhibitions, then, we
may say in conclusion that they are restrictions of the functions
of the ego which have been either imposed as a measure of
precaution or brought about as a result of an impoverishment of
energy; and we can see without difficulty in what respect an
inhibition differs from a symptom: for a symptom cannot any longer
be described as a process that takes place within, or acts upon,
the ego.

Inhibitions, Symptoms And Anxiety

4252

II

   The main characteristics of the
formation of symptoms have long since been studied and, I hope,
established beyond dispute. A symptom is a sign of, and a
substitute for, an instinctual satisfaction which has remained in
abeyance; it is a consequence of the process of repression.
Repression proceeds from the ego when the latter - it may be at the
behest of the super-ego - refuses to associate itself with an
instinctual cathexis which has been aroused in the id. The ego is
able by means of repression to keep the idea which is the vehicle
of the reprehensible impulse from becoming conscious. Analysis
shows that the idea often persists as an unconscious formation.

   So far everything seems clear;
but we soon come upon difficulties which have not as yet been
solved. Up till now our account of what occurs in repression has
laid great stress on this point of exclusion from consciousness.
But it has left other points open to uncertainty. One question that
arose was, what happened to the instinctual impulse which had been
activated in the id and which sought satisfaction? The answer was
an indirect one. It was that owing to the process of repression the
pleasure that would have been expected from satisfaction had been
transformed into unpleasure. But we were then faced with the
problem of how the satisfaction of an instinct could produce
unpleasure. The whole matter can be clarified, I think, if we
commit ourselves to the definite statement that as a result of
repression the intended course of the excitatory process in the id
does not occur at all; the ego succeeds in inhibiting or deflecting
it. If this is so the problem of ‘transformation of
affect’ under repression disappears. At the same time this
view implies a concession to the ego that it can exert a very
extensive influence over processes in the id, and we shall have to
find out in what way it is able to develop such surprising
powers.

Inhibitions, Symptoms And Anxiety

4253

   It seems to me that the ego
obtains this influence in virtue of its intimate connections with
the perceptual system - connections which, as we know, constitute
its essence and provide the basis of its differentiation from the
id. The function of this system, which we have called
Pcpt.-Cs.
, is bound up with the phenomenon of consciousness.
It receives excitations not only from outside but from within, and
endeavours, by means of the sensations of pleasure and unpleasure
which reach it from these quarters, to direct the course of mental
events in accordance with the pleasure principle. We are very apt
to think of the ego as powerless against the id; but when it is
opposed to an instinctual process in the id it has only to give a
‘
signal of unpleasure
’ in order to attain its
object with the aid of that almost omnipotent institution, the
pleasure principle. To take this situation by itself for a moment,
we can illustrate it by an example from another field. Let us
imagine a country in which a certain small faction objects to a
proposed measure the passage of which would have the support of the
masses. This minority obtains command of the press and by its help
manipulates the supreme arbiter, ‘public opinion’, and
so succeeds in preventing the measure from being passed.

   But this explanation opens up
fresh problems. Where does the energy come from which is employed
for giving the signal of unpleasure? Here we may be assisted by the
idea that a defence against an unwelcome
internal
process
will be modelled upon the defence adopted against an
external
stimulus, that the ego wards off internal and
external dangers alike along identical lines. In the case of
external danger the organism has recourse to attempts at flight.
The first thing it does is to withdraw cathexis from the perception
of the dangerous object; later on it discovers that it is a better
plan to perform muscular movements of such a sort as will render
perception of the dangerous object impossible even in the absence
of any refusal to perceive it - that it is a better plan, that is,
to remove itself from the sphere of danger. Repression is an
equivalent of this attempt at flight. The ego withdraws its
(preconscious) cathexis from the instinctual representative that is
to be repressed and uses that cathexis for the purpose of releasing
unpleasure (anxiety). The problem of how anxiety arises in
connection with repression may be no simple one; but we may
legitimately hold firmly to the idea that the ego is the actual
seat of anxiety and give up our earlier view that the cathectic
energy of the repressed impulse is automatically turned into
anxiety. If I expressed myself earlier in the latter sense, I was
giving a phenomenological description and not a metapsychological
account of what was occurring.