= D.: –Es.: ello.–Fr.: ça.–I.: es.–P.: id.
One of the three agencies* distinguished by Freud in his second theory of the psychical apparatus. The id constitutes the instinctual pole of the personality; its contents, as an expression of the instincts, are unconscious, a portion of them being hereditary and innate, a portion repressed and acquired.
From the economic* point of view, the id for Freud is the prime reservoir of psychical energy; from the dynamic* point of view, it conflicts with the ego and the super-ego-which, genetically speaking, are diversifications of the id.
The term ‘das Es’ is first used in The Ego and the Id (1923b). Freud borrows it from Georg Groddeck (α), citing the precedent set by Nietzsche, who apparently used the expression ‘for whatever in our nature is impersonal and, so to speak, subject to natural law’ (1a).
The word attracted Freud’s attention because it evokes the idea, developed by Groddeck, that ‘what we call our ego behaves essentially passively in life, and that […] we are “lived” by unknown and uncontrollable forces’ (1b, β); this notion is consistent, moreover, with the language used spontaneously by patients: ‘“It shot through me,” people say; “there was something in me at that moment that was stronger than me.” “C’était plus fort que moi”‘ (2).
The term ‘id’ first appears during Freud’s revision of his topography* between 1920 and 1923. The position occupied by the id in the second topography may be looked upon as roughly equivalent to that held by the unconscious* system (Ucs.) in the first one–provided always that a number of differences are borne in mind. These differences may be described as follows:
a. Aside from certain phylogenetically acquired patterns or contents, the unconscious of the first topography is indistinguishable from the repressed.
In The Ego and the Id (Chapter I), by contrast, Freud stresses the fact that the repressing agency–the ego–and its defensive operations are also for the most part unconscious. Consequently, the id, though it includes the same contents as the system Ucs. has done hitherto, no longer covers the whole area of the unconscious psyche.
b. The revision of the instinct theory and the development of the notion of the ego* bring about a further change. The neurotic conflict had at first been defined by the antagonism between the sexual instincts* and the ego-instincts*, he latter having a fundamental part to play in the motivation of defence (see ‘Psychical Conflict’). From 1920–23 onwards, the group of ego instincts loses its autonomy by being dissolved into the great opposition between the life instincts* and the death instincts*. Thus the ego is no longer characterised by a specific form of instinctual energy, since the new agency of the id includes the two types of instincts from the outset.
In short, the agency against which defence operates is no longer defined as the unconscious pole but rather as the instinctual pole of the personality.
It is in this sense that the id is depicted as the ‘great reservoir’ of libido (γ) and, more generally, of instinctual energy (1c, 1d). The energy utilised by the ego is drawn from this common fund, especially in the form of ‘desexualieds and sublimated’ energy.
c. The limits of the new agency relative to the other agencies and to the biological domain are drawn differently and, broadly speaking, less distinctly than they were in the first topography:
i. The boundary with the ego is less rigorous than the former frontier, constituted by the censorhip*, between Ucs. and Pcs.-Cs.: ‘The ego is not sharply separated from the id; its lower portion merges into it. But the repressed merges into the id as well, and is merely a part of it. The repressed is only cut off sharply from the ego by the resistances of repression; it can communicate with the ego through the id’ (1e).
This blending of the id with the repressing agency is a consequence above all of the genetic definition of this agency that Freud proposes, and according to which the ego is ‘that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world through the medium of the Pcpt.-Cs. [perception-consciousness] system’ (1f).
ii. By the same token, the super-ego* is not a completely autonomous agency: it ‘merges into the id’ (3a).
iii. Lastly, the distinction between the id and a biological substratum of the instinct is not so hard and fast as that between the unconscious and the source* of the instinct: the id is ‘open at its end to somatic influences’ (3b). The idea of an ‘inscription’ of the instinct, previously lent support by the notion of ‘representatives’*, though not rejected outright here, is not reasserted.
d. Does the id have a mode of organisation–a specific internal structure? Freud himself asserted that the id was ‘a chaos’: ‘It is filled with energy reaching it from the instincts, but it has no organisation, produces no collective will’ (3c). The characteristics of the id are supposedly only definable in negative terms–through contrast with the ego’s organisational mode.
The fact is, however–and it should be emphasised–that Freud transfers to the id most of the properties which in the first topography had defined the system Ucs., and which constitute a positive and unique form of organisation: operation according to the primary process*, structure based on complexes*, genetic layering of the instincts, etc. Similarly, the freshly introduced dualism of life and death instincts implies that these properties are organised into a dialectical opposition. Thus the id’s lack of organisation is only relative, implying merely the absence of the type of relations that characterise the ego’s organisation. This absence is epitomised by the fact that ‘contrary [instinctual] impulses exist side by side, without cancelling each other out or diminishing each other’ (3d). As Daniel Lagache has stressed, it is the absence of a coherent subject that best typifies the organisation of the id–an absence which accounts for Freud’s choice of a neuter pronoun to designate this organisation (4).
e. In the last analysis, we are best able to grasp the transition from the unconscious in the first topography to the id in the second by considering the difference in the genetic perspectives to which they belong.
The unconscious owed its formation to that repression which in its dual historical and mythical role introduced into the psyche the radical split between the systems Ucs. and Pcs.-Cs.
With the advent of the second topography this instant of schism between the agencies of the psyche loses its fundamental character. The genesis of the different agencies is now viewed rather as a gradual process of differentiation as the various systems emerge. Hence Freud’s concern to lay stress on continuity in the evolution from biological need to the id, and from the id to the ego as well as to the super-ego. It is for this reason that Freud’s new conception of the psychical apparatus lends itself more readily than did the first one to a ‘biolo-gistic’ or ‘naturalistic’ reading.
(α) Groddeck was a German psychiatrist close to psycho-analytical circles; he was the author of several works inspired by Freud’s ideas, notably Das Buck vom Es: psychoanalytische Briefs an eine Freundin (1923); translation: The Book of the It (London: Vision Press, 1949; New York: Vintage Books, n.d.).
(β) Groddeck describes what he means by ‘das Es’ as follows: ‘I hold the view that man is animated by the Unknown, that there is within him an “Es”, an “It”, some wondrous force which directs both what he himself does, and what happens to him. The affirmation “I live’ is only conditionally correct, it expresses only a small and superficial part of the fundamental principle, “Man is lived by the It”’ (5).
(γ) On this point, the reader may profitably consult the comments of the Editors of the Standard Edition (XIX, 63–66).
(1) FREUD, S.: a) G.W., XIII, 251, n. 2; S.E., XIX, 23, n. 3. b) G.W., XIII, 251; S.E., XIX, 23. c) Cf. G.W., XIII, 258n.; S.E., XIX, 30, n. 1. d) Cf. G.W., XIII, 275; S.E., XIX, 46. e) G.W., XIII, 251–52; S.E., XIX, 24. f) G.W., XIII, 252; S.E., XIX, 25.
(2) FREUD, S. The Question of Lay Analysis (1926e), G.W., XIV, 222; S.E., XX, 195.
(3) FREUD, S. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933a [1932]): a) G.W., XV, 85;S.E., XXII, 79. b) G.W., XV, 80; S.E, XXII, 73. c) G.W., XV, 80; S.E., XXII, 73. d) G.W., XV, 80; S.E., XXII, 73–74.
(4) Cf. LAGACHE, D. ‘La psychanalyse et la structure de la personnalité’, in La psych-analyse, VI (Paris: P.U.F., 1961), 21.
(5) GRODDECK, G. Das Buck vom Es, 10–11; Vintage edn., 11.
= D.: Vorstellung.–Es.: representación.–Fr.: représentation.–I.: rappresentazione.–P.: representação.
Classical term in philosophy and psychology for ‘that which one represents to oneself, that which forms the concrete content of an act of thought’, and ‘in particular the reproduction of an earlier perception’ (1). Freud contrasts the idea with the affect*: these two elements suffer distinct fates in psychical processes.
The word ‘Vorstellung’ is part of the traditional vocabulary of German philosophy. Freud does not set out immediately to change its meaning, but he does use it in an original way (α). The following brief remarks are intended to show in what respect this is so.
a. Freud’s earliest theoretical models designed to account for the psycho-neuroses* are centred on the distinction between the ‘quota of affect’* and the idea. In obsessional neurosis, the quota of affect is displaced from the pathogenic idea–which is bound to the traumatic event–on to another idea regarded by the subject as insignificant. In hysteria, the quota of affect is converted into somatic energy, while the repressed idea is symbolised by a bodily zone or activity. This thesis, according to which the separation of affect and idea is a defining principle of repression, leads to the description of distinct fates for each of these elements and the postulation of different processes for dealing with them: the idea is ‘repressed’*, the affect ‘suppressed’*, etc.
b. Freud excuses himself for speaking of ‘unconscious ideas’: he was of course fully aware of the paradoxical effect of juxtaposing the two words. The fact that he persisted nevertheless in doing so is a sure sign that in his use of ‘Vorstellung’ one aspect of its meaning predominant in classical philosophy has faded into the background–namely, the connotation of the act of subjective presentation of an object to consciousness. For Freud, an idea or presentation is to be understood rather as what comes from the object and is registered in the ‘mnemic systems’.
c. Now we know that Freud does not picture memory as a pure and simple receptacle of images, after the fashion of a strict empiricist model; instead he speaks of mnemic systems and breaks the memory up into different series of associations, while what he calls a memory-trace* is less a ‘weak impression’, preserving its relation to the object through its resemblance to it, than a sign invariably co-ordinated with other signs and not bound to any particular sensory quality. From this point of view, some authors have felt justified in comparing Freud’s ‘Vorstellung’ to the linguistic notion of the signifier (le signifiant).
d. We ought, however, to remember the distinction Freud draws here between two levels of operation of ’ideas’: the distinction between ‘thing-presentations’* and ‘word-presentations’. The purpose of this distinction is to point up a difference which is in Freud’s view of fundamental topographical* import; thing-presentations, which are characteristic of the unconscious sytem, have a more immediate relationship with things: in the case of the ‘primal hallucination’, the child is held to take the thing-presentation as equivalent to the perceived object and to cathect it in the absence of that object (see ‘Experience of Satisfaction’).
Similarly, when Freud seeks the ‘unconscious pathogenic idea’ at the end of associative .pathways (as he does, notably, in his first descriptions of psychoanalytic treatment in 1894–96 (2)), the aim of his investigation is the ultimate point where the object cannot be dissociated from its traces–where, in other words, what is signified is indistinguishable from its signifier.
e. Although the distinction between the memory-trace and the idea as a cathexis of the memory-trace is always implicit in Freud’s approach (3), it is not always clearly drawn (4). The reason for this, no doubt, is that Freud found it hard to conceive of a pure memory-trace–i.e. an idea from which all cathexis has been withdrawn, not only by the conscious system but also by the unconscious one.
(α) The possible influence on Freud of the idea of an actual ‘mechanics of ideas’ (Vorstel-lungsmechanik), as developed by Herbart, has often been remarked upon. As Ola Andersson points out, ‘Herbartianism was the dominant psychology in the scientific world in which Freud lived during the formative years of his scientific development’ (5).
(1) LALANDE, A. Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie (Paris: P.U.F., 1951).
(2) Cf. FREUD, S. Studies on Hysteria (1895d), passim.
(3) Cf. FREUD, S. ‘The Unconscious’ (1915e), G.W., X, 300; S.E., XIV, 201–2.
(4) Cf. FREUD, S. The Ego and the Id (1923b), G.W., XIII, 247; S.E., XIX, 20.
(5) ANDERSSON, O. Studies in the Prehistory of Psycho-Analysis (Norstedts: Svenska Bokförlaget, 1962), 224. (Also New York: Humanities Press, 1962.)
= D.: Idealich.–Es.: yo ideal.–Fr.: moi idéal.–I.: io ideale.–P.: ego ideal.
Intrapsychic formation which some authors distinguish from the ego-ideal and define as an ideal of narcissistic omnipotence constructed on the model of infantile narcissism.
Freud coined the term ‘Idealich’ which is to be found in ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’ (1914c) and in The Ego and the Id (1923b). On the other hand, he makes no distinction, conceptually speaking, between ‘Idealich’ (ideal ego) and ‘Ichideal’ (ego-ideal*).
A number of post-Freudian authors have used the pair constituted by these two terms to designate two distinct intrapsychic formations.
Nunberg, in particular, looks upon the ideal ego as a formation with genetic priority over the super-ego: ‘The as-yet unorganised ego which feels at one with the id corresponds to an ideal condition …’ (1). In the course of his development, the subject is said to leave this narcissistic ideal behind but to aspire to return to it–a return which occurs mainly, though not exclusively, in the psychoses.
Daniel Lagache has stressed the advantage that is to be obtained by contrasting the pole of identifications represented by the ideal ego with that constituted by the ‘ego-ideal/super-ego system’. Lagache also sees the ideal ego as an unconscious narcissistic formation, but his approach differs from Nunberg’s: ‘The Ideal Ego, understood as a narcissistic ideal of omnipotence, does not amount merely to the union of the Ego with the Id, but also involves a primary identification with another being invested with omnipotence–namely, the mother’ (2a). The ideal ego serves as the basis of what Lagache has called heroic identification, i.e. identification with outstanding and admirable personalities: ‘The Ideal Ego is further revealed by cases of passionate admiration for great historical or contemporary figures who are remarkable for their independence, nobility or superiority. As the treatment progresses, we see the Ideal Ego taking shape and emerging as a formation which cannot be confused with the Ego-Ideal’ (2b). Lagache holds that the formation of the ideal ego has sado-masochistic implications, particularly the negation of the other as a corollary of self-affirmation (see ‘Identification with the Aggressor’).
For Jacques Lacan too the ideal ego is an essentially narcissistic formation, originating in the mirror phase* and belonging to the order of the Imaginary* (3).
Despite their divergent standpoints, these authors are agreed, first, in asserting that it is worth while in psycho-analytic theory to specify the ideal ego as an unconscious formation in its own right and, secondly, in bringing the narcissistic nature of this formation to the fore. Moreover, note that in the same text which contains Freud’s first reference to the ideal ego, the process of idealisation whereby the subject sets out to recover the supposedly omnipotent state of infantile narcissism is placed at the start of the development of the personality’s ideal agencies.
(1) NUNBERG, H. Allgemeine Neurosenlehre auf psychoanalytischer Grundlage (1932). English trans.: Principles of Psycho-Analysis (New York: I.U.P., 1955), 126.
(2) LAGACHE, D. ‘La psychanalyse et la structure de la personnalité’, La Psychanalyse, 1958, VI: a) 43. b) 41–42.
(3) LACAN, J. ‘Remarques sur le rapport de Daniel Lagache’, La Psychanalyse, 1958, VI, 133–46. Reprinted in Écrits (Paris: Seuil, 1966), 647ff.
= D.: Idealisierung.–Es.: idealización,–Fr.: idéalisation.–I.: idealizzazione.–P.: idealização.
Mental process by means of which the object’s qualities and value are elevated to the point of perfection. Identification with the idealised object contributes to the formation and elaboration of the individual subject’s so-called ideal agencies (ideal ego, ego-ideal).
Freud observed the operation of this process before having occasion to define it–notably in the sphere of love (sexual overvaluation). When he does define it, it is in the context of his introduction of the concept of narcissism*. He draws a distinction between idealisation and sublimation*: ‘Sublimation is a process that concerns object-libido and consists in the instinct’s directing itself towards an aim other than, and remote from, sexual satisfaction […]. Idealisation is a process that concerns the object; by it that object, without any alteration in its nature, is aggrandised and exalted in the subject’s mind. Idealisation is possible in the sphere of ego-libido as well as in that of object-libido’ (1).
Idealisation–especially idealisation of the parents–has a vital part in the setting up of the ideal agencies within the subject (see ‘Ideal Ego’, ‘Ego-Ideal’). Yet it is not synonymous with the formation of a person’s ideals. Indeed, it may apply to an independent object–e.g. idealisation of a loved object. Even in this event, however, the process is always heavily marked by narcissism: ‘We see that the object is being treated in the same way as our own ego, so that when we are in love a considerable amount of narcissistic libido overflows on to the object’ (2).
* * *
Many authors have underscored the defensive function fulfilled by idealisation–notably Melanie Klein. For Klein, idealisation of the object is essentially a defence against the destructive instincts; in this sense it is looked upon as a corollary of an extreme split between, on the one hand, an idealised ‘good’ object*, endowed with all possible virtues (e.g. an ever-ready, inexhaustible maternal breast), and, on the other hand, a bad object whose persecutory traits are by the same token of the most extreme kind (3).
(1) FREUD. S. ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’ (1914c), G.W., X, 161; S.E., XIV, 94.
(2) FREUD, S. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921c), G.W., XIII, 124; S.E., XVIII, 112.
(3) Cf. for example KLEIN, M. ‘Some Theoretical Conclusions regarding the Emotional Life of the Infant’ (1952), in Developments, 202.
= D.: Vorstellungsrepräsentanz (or Vorstellungsrepräsentant).–Es.: representanteideativo.––Fr.: représentant–représentation.–I.: rappresentanza data da una rappresentazione.–P.: representante ideativo.
Idea or group of ideas to which the instinct becomes fixated in the course of the subject’s history; it is through the mediation of the ideational representative that the instinct leaves its mark in the psyche.
‘Representative’ renders ‘Repräsentanz– (β), a German term of Latin origin which should be understood as implying delegation (γ). ‘Vorstellung’ is a philosophical term whose traditional English equivalent is ‘idea’*. ‘Vorstellungsrepräsentanz’ means a delegate (in this instance, a delegate of the instinct) in the sphere of ideas; it should be stressed that according to Freud’s conception it is the idea that represents the instinct, not the idea itself that is represented by something else–Freud is quite explicit about this (1a, 2).
* * *
The notion of ideational representatives is met with in those texts where Freud defines the relationship between soma and psyche as that of the instinct to its representatives. It is defined and used above all in the metapsychological works of 1915–‘Repression’ (1915d), ‘The Unconscious’ (1915e)–while it appears in its clearest form in Freud’s most thorough presentation of the theory of repression.
It will be recalled that the instinct, in so far as it is somatic, is not directly involved in the psychical operation of repression into the unconscious. This operation can only affect the instinct’s psychical representatives–or, more properly, the ideational representatives.
In fact Freud makes a clear distinction between two components of the instinct’s psychical representative–namely, the idea and the affect–and he points out that each of them meets a different fate: only the first–the ideational representative–passes unchanged into the unconscious system. (For this distinction, see ‘Psychical Representative’, ‘Affect’, ‘Repression’.)
What picture are we to form of the ideational representative? Freud never really clarified this concept. As regards ‘representative’ and the relationship of delegation that it implies between the instinct and itself, see our article on the ‘Psychical Representative’. And for ‘ideational’ (as opposed to affective), the following entries should be consulted; ‘Idea’ (Vorstellung) and ‘Thing-Presentation/Word-Presentation’ (Sachvorstellung or Dingsvorstellung, and Wortvor-stellung).
In the theory of the unconscious system presented in his 1915 article on repression, Freud looks upon ideational representatives not only as ‘contents’ of the Ucs. but also as what actually constitutes it. In fact it is through a single and unitary process–primal repression*-that the instinct becomes fixated to a representative and that the unconscious is constituted: ‘We have reason to assume that there is a primal repression, a first phase of repression, which consists in the psychical (ideational) representative of the instinct being denied entrance into the conscious. With this a.fixation is established; the representative in question persists unaltered from then onwards and the instinct remains attached to it’ (16).
In a passage such as this, the term ‘fixation’* brings together two different ideas: first, the idea, which is central to the genetic conception, of a fixation of the instinct at a stage or to an object; and secondly, the notion of an inscription of the instinct in the unconscious. This second idea–or, perhaps better, this image–is undoubtedly a very old one in Freud’s work: it is advanced as early as the correspondence with Fliess in one of the very first models of the psychical apparatus, here said to comprise several layers of registrations of signs (Nieder-schriften) (3); and it is taken up again in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a), notably in a passage dealing with the hypothesis of the transcription of ideas as they pass out of one system into another (4).
This analogy between the instinct’s relationship to its representative and the inscription of a sign (or, to borrow a term from linguistics, of a ‘signifier’) might perhaps serve to shed light on the nature of the ideational representative.
(α) See note (α) to the article ‘Instinctual Representative’.
(β) The usual term in German is ‘der Repräsentant’, but this is rarely employed by Freud, who prefers the form ‘die Repräsentanz’, closer to the Latin and no doubt more abstract.
(γ) ‘X is my representative’.
(1) FREUD, S. ‘Repression’ (1915d): a) Cf. G.W., X, 255; S.E., XIV, 152–53. b) G.W., X, 250; S.E., XIV, 148.
(2) Cf. FREUD, S. ‘The Unconscious’ (1915e), G.W., X, 275–76; S.E., XIV, 177.
(3) Cf. FREUD, S., letter dated December 6, 1896, Anf., 185–86; S.E.; I, 233.
(4) Cf. FREUD, S., G.W., II–III, 615; S.E., V, 610.
= D.: Identifizierung.–Es.: identificación.–Fr.: identification.–I.: identificazione.–P.: identificação.
Psychological process whereby the subject assimilates an aspect, property or attribute of the other and is transformed, wholly or partially, after the model the other provides. It is by means of a series of identifications that the personality is constituted and specified.
a. Since the term ‘identification’ also has a place in both common and philosophical usage, it may be helpful from the semantic point of view if we begin by delimiting its application in psycho-analytic language.
The substantive ‘identification’ can be understood in two ways: transitively, in a sense corresponding to the verbal ‘to identify’, and reflexively, in a sense corresponding to ‘to identify (oneself) with’. This is true for both the meanings of the term distinguished by Lalande as follows:
(i) ‘Action of identifying, that is, of recognising as identical; either numerically, e.g. “identification of a criminal”, or by kind, as for example when an object is recognised as belonging to a certain class […] or again, when one class of facts is seen to be assimilable to another.’
(ii) ‘Act whereby an individual becomes identical with another or two beings become identical with each other (whether in thought or in fact, completely or secundum quid)’ (1).
Freud uses the word in both these senses. Identification in the sense of the procedure whereby the relationship of similitude–the ‘just-as-if’ relationship–is expressed through a substitution of one image for another, is described by him as characteristic of the dream-work* (2a). This is undoubtedly an instance of Lalande’s meaning (i), although identification does not here entail cognition: it is an active procedure which replaces a partial identity or a latent resemblance by a total identity.
Psycho-analysis uses the term above all, however, in the sense of identification of oneself with.
b. In everyday usage, identification in this last sense overlaps a whole group of psychological concepts–e.g. imitation, Einfühlung (empathy), sympathy, mental contagion, projection*, etc.
It has been suggested for the sake of clarity that a distinction be drawn within this field, according to the direction in which the identification operates, between an identification that is heteropathic (Scheler) and centripetal (Wallon), where the subject identifies his own self with the other, and an idiopathic and centrifugal variety in which the subject identifies the other with himself. Finally, in cases where both these tendencies are present at once, we are said to be dealing with a more complex form of identification, one which is sometimes invoked to account for the constitution of a ‘we’.
* * *
In Freud’s work the concept of identification comes little by little to have the central importance which makes it, not simply one psychical mechanism among others, but the operation itself whereby the human subject is constituted. This evolution is correlated chiefly, in the first place, with the coming to the fore of the Oedipus complex viewed in the light of its structural consequences, and secondly, with the revision effected by the second theory of the psychical apparatus, according to which those agencies that become differentiated from the id are given their specific characters by the identifications of which they are the outcome.
Identification was nevertheless evoked by Freud in very early days, principally apropos of hysterical symptoms. The phenomenon known as imitation or mental contagion had, of course, long been recognised, but Freud went further when he explained such phenomena by positing the existence of an unconscious factor common to the individuals involved: ‘ . . identification is not simple imitation but assimilation on the basis of a similar aetiological pretension; it expresses a resemblance and is derived from a common element which remains in the unconscious’ (2b). This common element is a phantasy*: the agoraphobic identifies unconsciously with a ‘streetwalker’, and her symptom is a defence against this identification and against the sexual wish that it presupposes (3a). Lastly, Freud notes at a very early date that several different identifications can exist side by side: ‘Multiplicity of Psychical Personalities. The fact of identification perhaps allows us to take the phrase literally’ (3b).
The notion of identification is subsequently refined thanks to a number of theoretical innovations:
a. The idea of oral incorporation emerges in the years 1912–15 (Totem and Taboo [1912–13]; ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ [1917e]). In particular, Freud brings out the role of incorporation in melancholia, where the subject identifies in the oral mode with the lost object by regressing to the type of object-relationship characteristic of the oral stage* (see ‘Incorporation’, ‘Cannibalistic’).
b. The idea of narcissism* is evolved. In ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’ (1914c), Freud introduces the dialectic which links the narcissistic object- choice’ (where the object is chosen on the model of the subject’s own self) with identification (where the subject, or one or other of his psychical agencies, is constituted on the model of earlier objects, such as his parents or people around him).
c. The effects of the Oedipus complex* on the structuring of the subject are described in terms of identification: cathexes* of the parents are abandoned and identifications take their place (4).
Once the Oedipus complex has been expressed as a general formula, Freud shows that these identifications form a complicated structure inasmuch as father and mother are each both love-object and object of rivalry. It is probable, moreover, that an ambivalence of this kind with respect to the object is a precondition of the institution of any identification.
d. The development of the second theory of the psychical apparatus testifies to the new depth and growing significance of the idea of identification. The individual’s mental agencies are no longer described in terms of systems in which images, memories and psychical ‘contents’ are inscribed, but rather as the relics (in different modes) of object-relationships.
This elaboration of the notion is not carried so far, either in Freud or in psycho-analytic theory as a whole, as a systematisation of the various modes of identification. In fact Freud admits to dissatisfaction with his own formulations on the subject (5a). The most thorough exposition of the matter that he did attempt will be found in Chapter VII of Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego (1921c). In this text Freud eventually distinguishes between three modes of identification:
(i) The primal form of the emotional tie with the object.
(ii) The regressive replacement for an abandoned object-choice.
(iii) In the absence of any sexual cathexis of the other person the subject may still identify with him to the extent that they have some trait in common (e.g. the wish to be loved): owing to displacement, identification in such a case will occur in regard to some other trait (hysterical identification).
Freud also indicates here that in certain cases identification does not affect the object as a whole but merely a ‘single trait’ from it (6).
Finally, the study of hypnosis, of being in love and of the psychology of groups leads Freud to contrast that identification which constitutes or enriches an agency of the personality with the opposite trend, where it is the object which is ‘put in the place’ of a psychical agency–as for example in the case of the leader who replaces the ego-ideal* of the members of his group. It is noteworthy that in such instances there is also a mutual identification between the individuals in the group, but this requires as a precondition that a ‘replacement’ of the kind just described has occurred. The distinctions we took note of above (centripetal, centrifugal and reciprocal identifications) can thus be recognised in this context, which views them from a structural standpoint.
* * *
The term ‘identification’ should be distinguished from other, kindred terms like ‘incorporation’, ‘introjection’ and ‘internalisation’*.
Incorporation and introjection are prototypes of identification–or at any rate of certain modes of identification where the mental process is experienced and symbolised as a bodily one (ingesting, devouring, keeping something inside oneself, etc.).
The distinction between identification and internalisation is a more complex one, since it brings into play theoretical assumptions concerning the nature of what it is that the subject assimilates himself to. From a purely conceptual point of view we may say that he identifies with objects–i.e. with a person (‘the assimilation of one ego to another one’ (5b)), with a characteristic of a person, or with a part-object*–whereas he internalises intersubjective relations. The question which of these two processes is the primary one, however, remains unanswered. We may note that the identification of a subject A with a subject B is not generally total but secundum quid–a fact which sends us back to some particular aspect of A’s relationship to B: I do not identify with my boss but with some trait of his which has to do with my sado-masochistic relationship to him. But at the same time the identification always preserves the stamp of its earliest prototypes: incorporation affects things, with the relationship in question being indistinguishable from the object which embodies it; the object with which the child entertains an aggressive relationship becomes in effect the ‘bad object’ which is then introjected. A further point–and an essential one–is that a subject’s identifications viewed as a whole are in no way a coherent relational system. Demands coexist within an agency like the super-ego*, for instance, which are diverse, conflicting and disorderly. Similarly, the ego-ideal* is composed of identifications with cultural ideals that are not necessarily harmonious.
(1) LALANDE, A. Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie (Paris: P.U.F., 1951).
(2) FREUD, S. The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a): a) Cf. G.W., II–I1I, 324–25; S.E., IV, 319–20. b) G.W., II–III, 155–56; S.E., IV, 150.
(3) FREUD, S.: a) Anf., 193–94; Origins, 181–82. b) Anf., 211; S.E., I, 249.
(4) Cf. notably FREUD, S. ‘The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex’ (1924d), G.W., XIII, 395–402; S.E., XIX, 171–79.
(5) FREUD, S. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933a [1932]): a) Cf. G.W., XV, 70; S.E., XXII, 63. b) Cf. G.W., XV, 69; S.E., XXII, 63.
(6) Cf. FREUD, S., G.W., XIII, 117; S.E., XVIII, 107.
= D.: Identifizierung mit dem Angreifer.–Es.: identificatión con cl agresor.–Fr.: identification à I'agresseur.–I.: identificazione con l’aggressore.–P.: identificação ao agressor.
Defence mechanism identified and described by Anna Freud (1936): faced with an external threat (typically represented by a criticism emanating from an authority), the subject identifies himself with his aggressor. He may do so either by appropriating the aggression itself, or else by physical or moral emulation of the aggressor, or again by adopting particular symbols of power by which the aggressor is designated. According to Anna Freud, this mechanism predominates in the constitution of the preliminary stage of the super-ego: aggression at this time is still directed outwards and has not as yet been turned round against the subject in the shape of self-criticism.
This expression does not occur in Freud’s writings, but it has been pointed out that he does describe the mechanism to which it refers–notably in Chapter III of Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g), in connection with certain children’s games.
Ferenczi speaks of identification with the aggressor in a very specific sense: the aggression he has in mind is the sexual attack made by an adult who lives in a world of passion and guilt upon a supposedly innocent child (see ‘Scene of Seduction’). The behaviour concerned, described as the consequence of fear, is a total submission to the will of the aggressor; the change brought about in the personality is ‘the introjection of the guilt feelings of the adult’ (1).
Anna Freud sees identification with the aggressor at work in a variety of contexts–in physical aggression, criticism, etc.; the phenomenon may occur either after or before the feared aggression. The behaviour we observe is the outcome of a reversal of roles: the aggressed turns aggressor.
Those authors who assign to this mechanism an important part in the individual’s development differ in their assessment of its scope, especially with regard to the setting up of the super-ego. In Anna Freud’s opinion, the subject passes through a first stage in which the whole aggressive relationship is reversed: the aggressor is introjected while the person attacked, criticised or guilty is projected outwards. Only at a second stage is the aggressiveness turned inwards, and the entire relationship internalised*.
Daniel Lagache, for his part, holds that identification with the aggressor occurs rather at the beginning of the formation of the ideal ego*: within the framework of the conflict of demands between child and adult, the subject identifies with the adult, whom he endows with omnipotence; this implies that the other person is misperceived, subjugated, even abolished altogether (2).
René Spitz makes great use of this idea in his No and Yes (1957). In his view the turning round of aggressiveness against the aggressor is the predominant mechanism in the acquisition of the capacity to say no, whether in word or gesture–an attainment which Spitz places at about the fifteenth month of life.
Where should identification with the aggressor be placed within psycho-analytic theory as a whole ? Is it a highly specific mechanism or, alternatively, simply an important part of what is usually called identification* ? And in particular, what are its links with what is classically referred to as identification with the rival in the Oedipal situation? Those authors who have given a prominent role to this mechanism do not appear to have formulated the problem in such terms. Nonetheless, it is striking that the observations reported have as a rule situated . identification with the aggressor in the context not of a triangular but of a dual relationship–a relationship whose basis, as Lagache has so often stressed, is sado-masochistic in character.
(1)FERENCZI, S. ‘Sprachverwirrung zwischen den Erwachsenen und dem Kind’ (1932–33). English trans.: ‘Confusion of Tongues between Adults and the Child*, in Final Contributions, 162.
(2) LAGACHE, D. ‘Pouvoir et personne’ ‘L’évolution psychiatrique, 1962, I, 111–19.
= D.: das Imaginäre.–Es.: imaginario.–Fr.: imaginaire.–I.: immaginario.–P.: imaginário.
In the sense given to this term by Jacques Lacan (and generally used substantively): one of the three essential orders of the psycho-analytic field, namely the Real, the Symbolic* and the Imaginary (α). The imaginary order is characterised by the prevalence of the relation to the image of the counterpart (le semblable).
The concept of the ‘Imaginary’ can be grasped initially by reference to one of Lacan’s earliest theoretical developments of the theme of the mirror stage*. In his work on this topic, Lacan brought forward the idea that the ego of the human infant–as a result, in particular, of its biological prematurity–is constituted on the basis of the image of the counterpart (specular ego).
Bearing in mind this primordial experience: we may categorise the following as falling into the Imaginary:
a. from the intrasubjective point of view, the basically narcissistic relation of the subject to his ego (1);
b. from the intersubjective point of view, a so-called dual relationship based on–and captured by–the image of a counterpart (erotic attraction, aggressive tension). For Lacan, a counterpart (i.e. another who is me) can only exist by virtue of the fact that the ego is originally another (2);
c. As regards the environment (Umwelt) a relation of a type that animal ethologists (Lorenz, Tinbergen) have described and which bears out the importance that a particular Gestalt may have in the triggering-off of behaviour;
d. lastly, as regards meaning, the Imaginary implies a type of apprehension in which factors such as resemblance and homoeomorphism play a decisive role, as is borne out by a sort of coalescence of the signifier with the signified.
Lacan’s use of the term ‘Imaginary’ is highly idiosyncratic, yet it is not entirely unrelated to the usual meaning, for he holds that all imaginary behaviour and relationships are irremediably deceptive.
Lacan insists on the difference, and the opposition, between the Imaginary and the Symbolic, showing that intersubjectivity cannot be reduced to the group of relations that he classes as imaginary; it is particularly important, in his view, that the two ‘orders’ should not be confused in the course of analytic treatment.
(α) Translator's note: in capitalising these terms, I have followed the proposal of Lacan’s translator, Anthony Wilden; cf. The Language of the Self (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968), xv.
(β) Cf. the use of the simulacrum in ethology as a means of proving this empirically (employment of artificial stimuli/signals to trigger off instinctual patterns of response).
(1) Cf. LACAN, J. ‘Le stade du miroir comme formateur de la fonctton du Je’, R.F.P. 1949, XIII, 449–53. Also in Écrits (Paris: Seuil, 1966), 93–100.
(2) Cf, for example, LACAN, J. ‘L'agressivité en psychanalyse’, R.F.P., 1948, XII, 367–88. Also in Écrits (Paris: Seuil, 1966), 101–24.
(3) Cf. LACAN, J. ‘La direction de la cure et les principes de son pouvoir’, La Psychanalyse, 1958, VI; and in Écrits (Paris: Seuil, 1966), 585–645.
(The Latin word has been adopted in the different languages.)
Unconscious prototypical figure which orientates the subject’s way of apprehending others; it is built up on the basis of the first real and phantasied relationships within the family environment.
The concept of the imago is attributable to Jung who, in his ‘Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido* of 1911 (translation: Psychology of the Unconscious [New York: 1916; London: 1919]), describes maternal, paternal and fraternal imagos.
Imago and complex* are related concepts: they both deal with the same area–namely, the relations between the child and its social and family environment. The notion of the complex refers, however, to the effect upon the subject of the interpersonal situation as a whole, whereas that of the imago evokes an imaginary residue of one or other of the participants in that situation.
The imago is often defined as an ‘unconscious representation’. It should be looked upon, however, as an acquired imaginary set rather than as an image: as a stereotype through which, as it were, the subject views the other person. Feelings and behaviour, for example, are just as likely to be the concrete expressions of the imago as are mental images. Nor, it may be added, should the imago be understood as a reflection of the real world, even in a more or less distorted form: the imago of a terrifying father, for instance, may perfectly well be met with in a subject whose real father is unassertive.
= D.: Einverleibung.–Es.: incorporación.–Fr.: incorporation.–I.: incorporazione.–P. incorporação.
Process whereby the subject, more or less on the level of phantasy, has an object penetrate his body and keeps it ‘inside’ his body. Incorporation constitutes an instinctual aim* and a mode of object-relationship* which are characteristic of the oral stage*; although it has a special relationship with the mouth and with the ingestion of food, it may also be lived out in relation with other erotogenic zones and other functions. Incorporation provides the corporal model for intro-jection* and identification*.
Freud introduces the term ‘incorporation’ while developing the notion of the oral stage (1915); its use puts the emphasis on the relationship to the object, where formerly–notably in the first edition of the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d)–Freud had described oral activity from the relatively limited viewpoint of pleasure derived from sucking.
Several instinctual aims are involved in the process of incorporation. In 1915, in the context of what was then his theory of the instincts (the opposition between sexual instincts on the one hand and the ego-instincts or instincts of self-preservation on the other), Freud stresses that the two functions of sexuality and nourishment are closely bound up with one another.
Within the framework of his final instinct theory (opposing life to death instincts), it is above all the fusion of libido and aggressiveness that Freud brings to the fore: ‘During the oral stage of organisation of the libido, the act of obtaining erotic mastery over an object coincides with that object’s destruction’ (2). This approach was to be developed by Abraham and, later, by Melanie Klein (see ‘Oral-Sadistic Stage’).
Actually incorporation contains three meanings: it means to obtain pleasure by making an object penetrate oneself; it means to destroy this object; and it means, by keeping it within oneself, to appropriate the object’s qualities. It is this last aspect that makes incorporation into the matrix of introjection and identification.
Incorporation is confined neither to oral activity proper nor to the oral stage, though orality does furnish the prototype of incorporation. Other erotogenic zones and other functions may in fact serve as its basis (incorporation via the skin, respiration, sight, hearing). Similarly, there is an anal incorporation in so far as the rectal cavity is identified with a mouth, and a genital incorporation that is most strikingly manifested in the phantasy of the retention of the penis within the body.
Abraham and subsequently Klein have pointed out that the incorporation process and cannibalism* can also be partial-that is to say, they can operate on part-objects*.
(1) Cf. FREUD, S.: section 6, inserted in 1915, G.W., V, 98; S.E., VII, 197.
(2) FREUD, S. Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g), G.W., XIII, 58; S.E., XVIII, 54.
= D.: infantile Amnesic.–Es.: amnesia infantil.–Fr.: amnésie infantile.–I.: amnesia infantile.–P.: amnésia infantil.
That amnesia which generally affects the facts of the first years of life. Freud does not consider this amnesia to be the result of any functional inability of the young child to record his impressions; instead, he attributes it the repression which falls unpon infantile sexuality and extends to nearly all the events of early childhood. The temporal limit of the field covered by infantile amnesia is constituted by the decline of the Oedipus complex* and the entry into the latency period*.
Infantile amnesia is not one of the discoveries of psycho-analysis. Faced with the clear evidence of this phenomenon, however, Freud was not satisfied by an explanation of it founded on functional immaturity, and he proposed a specific interpretation of his own. Just like hysterical amnesia, infantile amnesia can in principle be dispelled; it does not imply any destruction or absence of registrations of memories, but is the outcome of a repression (1). Freud further sees such amnesia as the prerequisite of subsequent repressions*–and especially of hysterical amnesia. (On this question, see especially the passage of the Three Essays just referred to.)
(1) Cf. FREUD, S. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d), G. W., V, 175–77; S.E., VII, 174–76.
= D.: Minderwertigkeitskomplex.–Es.: complejo de inferioridad.–Fr.: complexe d’inferiorité.–I.: complesso d’inferiorita–P.: complexo de inferioridade.
Term deriving from Adler’s psychology: a very general designation for the whole of the attitudes, ideas and types of behaviour that are more or less masked expressions or reactions of a feeling of inferiority*
See ‘Sense of Inferiority’.
= D.: Innervation.–Es.: inervación.–Fr.: innervation.–I.: innervazione.–P.: inervação.
Term used by Freud in his earliest works to denote the fact that a certain energy is transported to a particular part of the body where it brings about motor or sensory phenomena.
Innervation, which is a physiological phenomenon, is possibly produced by the conversion* of psychical into nervous energy.
The term ‘innervation’ may pose a problem for the reader of Freud. The fact is that it is generally used nowadays to mean a detail of anatomy: the route of a nerve on its way to a given organ. For Freud, however, innervation was a physiological process: the transmission, generally in an efferent direction, of energy along a nerve-pathway. Witness this statement apropos of hysteria: ‘… the affect that is torn from [the idea is] used for a somatic innervation. (That is, the excitation is “converted”.)’ (1)
(1) FREUD, S. and BREUER, J. Studies on Hysteria (1895d), G.W., I, 228; S.E., II, 285.
= I. D.: Instinkt.–Es.: instinto.–Fr.: instinct.–I.: istinto.–P.: instinto. II. D.: Trieb.–Es.: instinto.–Fr.: pulsion (or instinct).–I.: instinto or puisione.–P.: impulso or pulsão.
I. Traditionally, a hereditary behaviour pattern peculiar to an animal species, varying little from one member of this species to another and unfolding in accordance with a temporal scheme which is generally resistant to change and apparently geared to a purpose.
II. Term generally accepted by English-speaking psycho-analytic authors as a rendering of the German ‘Trieb’ dynamic process consisting in a pressure (charge of energy, motricity factor) which directs the organism towards an aim. According to Freud, an instinct has its source in a bodily stimulus; its aim is to eliminate the state of tension obtaining at the instinctual source; and it is in the object, or thanks to it, that the instinct may achieve its aim.
I. The word ‘instinct’ is used to translate two different German words, ‘Instinkt’ and ‘Trieb’. The latter is of Germanic origin, has long been in use and retains overtones suggestive of pressure (Treiben = to push); the use of ‘Trieb’ accentuates not so much a precise goal as general orientation, and draws attention to the irresistible nature of the pressure rather than to the stability of its aim and object.
Some writers seem to use ‘Instinkt’ and ‘Trieb’ interchangeably (α); others apparently draw an implicit distinction by keeping ‘Instinkt’ as a designation (in zoology, for example) for behaviour predetermined by heredity and appearing in virtually identical form in all individual members of a single species (1).
In Freud’s work the two terms are used in quite distinct senses. The Freudian conception of Trieb–z, pressure that is relatively indeterminate both as regards the behaviour it induces and as regards the satisfying object–differs quite clearly from theories of instinct, whether in their traditional form or in the revised version proposed by modern researchers (the concepts of behaviour patterns, innate trigger-mechanisms, specific stimuli-signals, etc.). When Freud does use the word ‘Instinkt’ it is in the classical sense: he speaks of Instinkt in animals confronted by danger and of the ‘instinctive recognition of dangers’ (2), etc. Moreover, when Freud asks whether ‘inherited mental formations exist in the human being–something analogous to instinct (Instinkt) in animals’ (3); he does not look for such a counterpart in what he calls Triebe, but instead in that ‘hereditary, genetically acquired factor in mental life’ (4) constituted by primal phantasies* (primal scene*, castration*).
Thus Freud makes use of two terms that it is quite possible to contrast with each other, though no such contrast has an explicit place in his theory. The distinction has hardly ever been drawn in the psycho-analytic literature, however, especially since ‘instinct’ is used to translate both words (β). There is consequently a risk that the Freudian theory of the instincts may be confused with psychological conceptions of animal instinct, and the unique aspects of Freud’s approach may be blurred, particularly the thesis of the relatively undetermined nature of the motive force in question, and the notions of contingence of object’ and variability of aim’.
II. Although the term ‘Trieb’ makes its first appearance in Freud’s writings only in 1905, the idea originates as an energetic notion in a distinction that Freud made in very early days between two types of excitation (Reiz) to which the organism is subjected, and which it must discharge in accordance with the principle of constancy*. Alongside external excitations, from which the subject may take flight, there exist internal sources of a constant inflow of excitation which the organism cannot evade and which is the basis of the functioning of the psychical apparatus*.
Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d) was the work which introduced the term ‘Trieb’, and along with it the distinction (which Freud never ceased using thenceforward) between source*, object and aim. The Freudian conception of instinct emerges in the course of the description of human sexuality. Basing himself notably upon the study of the perversions* and of the modes of infantile sexuality, Freud contests the so-called popular view that assigns to the sexual instinct a specific aim and object and localises it in the excitation and operation of the genital apparatus. He shows how, on the contrary, the object is variable, contingent and only chosen in its definitive form in consequence of the vicissitudes of the subject’s history. He shows too how aims are many and fragmented (see ‘Component Instinct’), and closely dependent on somatic sources which are themselves manifold, and capable of acquiring and retaining a predominant role for the subject (erotogenic zones*): the component instincts only become subordinate to the genital zone and integrated into the achievement of coitus at the end of a complex evolution which biological maturation alone does not guarantee.
The final element that Freud introduced in connection with the idea of the instinct was that of pressure*, conceived as a quantitative economic factor–a ‘demand made upon the mind for work’ (5a). It is in ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915c) that Freud brings together these four aspects–pressure, source, object, aim–and proposes an overall definition of the instinct (5b).
III. What is the location of this force that attacks the organism from within, exerting pressure on it to carry out particular actions liable to precipitate a discharge of excitation? Are we concerned here with a somatic force or with a psychical energy? This question, which Freud raises himself, receives a variety of answers–precisely because the instinct is defined as ‘lying on the frontier between the mental and the physical’ (6). The matter is bound up for Freud with the concept of ‘representative’, by which he means a sort of delegate sent into the psyche by the soma. For a more thorough discussion of this question the reader is referred to our commentary at ‘Psychical Representative’.
IV. The idea of the instinct, then, is analysed on the model of sexuality, yet from the start the Freudian theory opposes other instincts to the sexual one. It is well known that Freud’s instinct theory was always dualistic; the first dualism he evokes is that between sexual instincts* and ego-instincts* or instincts of self-preservation*; by these last Freud means the great needs or functions that are indispensable for the preservation of the individual, the prototype here being hunger and the function of nutrition.
This polarity obtains, according to Freud, right from the beginnings of sexuality, when the sexual instinct detaches itself from its anaclitic dependence on the self-preservative functions (see ‘Anaclisis’). It is postulated in order to account for the psychical conflict*, with the ego deriving the essential part of the energy it needs for defence against sexuality from the instinct of self-preservation.
The new instinctual dualism introduced in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g) contrasts life instincts* and death instincts*, modifying the function and location of the instincts in the conflict.
a. The topographical conflict (between the defensive agency and the repressed agency) no longer coincides with the instinctual conflict: the id* is pictured as an instinctual reservoir containing both types of instinct. The energy used by the ego* is drawn from this common fund, particularly in the form of’desexualised and sublimated’ energy.
b. The two great classes of instincts are postulated in this last theory less as the concrete motive forces of the actual functioning of the organism than as fundamental principles which ultimately regulate its activity: ‘The forces which we assume to exist behind the tensions caused by the needs of the id are called instincts* (7). This shift of emphasis is especially clear in a familiar statement of Freud’s: ‘The theory of the instincts is so to say our mythology. Instincts are mythical entities, magnificent in their indefiniteness’ (8).
* * *
The Freudian approach, as even this brief survey shows, tends to overturn the traditional conception of instinct. It does so in two contrasting ways. In the first place, the concept of ‘component instinct’ underscores the idea that the sexual instinct exists to begin with in a ‘polymorphous’ state and aims chiefly at the elimination of tension at the level of the somatic source, and that it attaches itself in the course of the subject’s history to representatives which determine the object and the mode of satisfaction: initially indeterminate, the internal pressure faces vicissitudes that will stamp it with highly individualised traits. But at the same time, far from postulating–as the instinct theorists so readily do–that behind each type of activity there lies a corresponding biological force, Freud places all instinctual manifestations under the head of a single great basic antagonism. What is more, this antagonism is derived from the mythical tradition: first, between Hunger and Love, and later, between Love and Discord.
(α) Cf., for example, Der Begriffdes Instinktes einst undjetzt (The notion of instinct formerly and today), third edition (Jena, 1920), where Ziegler speaks now of Geschlechtstrieb, now of Geschlechtsinstinkt.
(β) Translator’s note: The authors of the present work argue for the use of the term ‘pulsion’ as the French equivalent of ‘Trieb’ rather than the common rendering ‘instinct’. Mutatis mutandis, their arguments would support the replacement of the English ‘instinct’, wherever it stands for ‘Trieb’, by one or other of the much less popular alternatives ‘drive’ (9) or ‘urge’. Given the almost general adoption of ‘instinct’, however, it has been retained throughout this book. The question is discussed in the General Introduction to the Standard Edition, where the editors give their reasons for choosing ‘instinct’.
(1) Cf. HEMPELMANN, F. Tierpsychologie (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1926), passim.
(2) FREUD, S. Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926d), G.W., XIV, 201; S.E., XX, 168.
(3) FREUD, S. ‘The Unconscious’ (1915e), G.W., X, 294; S.E., XIV, 195.
(4) FREUD, S. ‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’ (1918b [1914]), G.W., XII, 156; S.E., XVII, 120–21.
(5) FREUD, S. ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915c): a) G.W., X, 214; S.E., XIV, 122. b) Cf. G.W., X, 214–15; S.E., XIV, 122.
(6) FREUD, S. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d), G.W., V, 67; S.E., VII, 168.
(7) FREUD, S. An Outline of Psycho-Analysis (1940a [1938]), G.W., XVII, 70; S.E., XXIII, 148.
(8) FREUD, S. New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933a [1932]), G.W., XV, 101; S.E.,XXII, 95.
(9) Cf. for example KRIS, E., HARTMANN, H. and LOEWENSTEIN, R. ‘Notes on the Theory of Aggression’, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 1946, III–IV, 12–13.
= D.: Bemächtigungstrieb.–Es.: instinto de dominio.–Fr.: pulsion d’emprise–I.: istinto or pulsione d’impossessamento.–P.: impulso or pulsão de apossar-se.
Although Freud uses this term on a number of occasions, its sense cannot be tied down with any degree of accuracy. What Freud understands by it is a non-sexual instinct which only fuses with sexuality secondarily and the aim of which is to dominate the object by force.
The term ‘Bemächtigungstrieb’ is not easy to translate. The usual rendering ‘instinct to master* is not thoroughly satisfactory: mastery suggests a controlled domination whereas sich bemdchtigen means to seize or dominate by force.
What is Freud’s conception of this instinct? An examination of the texts reveals that, schematically speaking, he viewed it in two ways:
a. In writings antedating Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g), the Bemächtigungstrieb is described as a non-sexual instinct which only fuses with sexuality secondarily; it is directed from the outset towards outside objects and constitutes the sole factor present in the primal cruelty of the child.
Freud speaks of such an instinct for the first time in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d): the origin of infantile cruelty is sought in an instinct to master whose original aim is not to make the other person suffer–rather, it simply fails to take the other person into account (this phase precedes pity as well as sadism*) (1a). The instinct to master is said to be independent of sexuality, even though it ‘may become united with it at an early stage owing to an anastomosis near their points of origin’ (1b).
In The Disposition to Obsessional Neurosis’ (1913i), the instinct to master is brought up in connection with the relationship between the pair of opposites activity/passivity*, which is predominant at the anal-sadistic stage*: while passivity is based on anal erotism, ‘Activity is supplied by the common instinct of mastery, which we call sadism when we find it in the service of the sexual function’ (2).
Returning to the question of activity and passivity during the anal-sadistic stage in the 1915 edition of the Three Essays, Freud posits the muscular apparatus as the basis of the instinct to master.
Finally, in ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915c), where the first of Freud’s theses regarding sado-masochism* is clearly worked out, the primary aim of ‘sadism’ is defined as the degradation of the object and its subjugation by violence (Überwältigung). Causing suffering is not part of the original aim; the aim of producing pain and the fusion with sexuality occur only with the turning round* into masochism: sadism in the erotogenic sense is the upshot of a second turning round-the turning round of masochism on to the object.
b. With Beyond the Pleasure Principle and the introduction of the death instinct*, the question of a specific instinct to master is posed in a different way.
The genesis of sadism is now described as a diversion of the death instinct, which is originally aimed at the destruction of the subject himself, on to the object: ‘Is it not plausible to suppose that this sadism is in fact a death instinct which, under the influence of the narcissistic libido, has been forced away from the ego and has consequently only emerged in relation to the object? It now enters the service of the sexual function’ (3a).
As to the aim of masochism and sadism–treated henceforward as incarnations of the death instinct–the accent falls no longer on mastery but on destruction.
What becomes then of the mastery that has to be attained over the object? It is no longer assigned to a special instinct, and appears instead as a form that the death instinct is able to take on when it ‘enters the service’ of the sexual instinct: ‘During the oral stage of organization of the libido, the act of obtaining erotic mastery (Liebesbemächtigung) over an object coincides with that object’s destruction; later, the sadistic instinct separates off, and finally, at the stage of genital primacy, it takes on, for the purposes of reproduction, the function of overpowering the sexual object to the extent necessary for carrying out the sexual act’ (3b).
* * *
It should be noted further that apart from ‘Bemächtigung* Freud also fairly often uses the term ‘Bewältigung’, which has a rather similar meaning. As a rule he employs the latter term to denote mastery achieved over an excitation–be it instinctual or external in origin–and the ‘binding’ (q.v.) of this excitation (α). No strict distinction is drawn between the two terms, however–particularly since there is more than one point of overlap, so far as analytic theory is concerned, between mastery attained over the object and mastery of excitations. Thus in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, explaining the role of repetition in children’s play as in traumatic neurosis, Freud can postulate–among other hypotheses–that this ‘might be put down to an instinct for mastery’ (3c). Here the mastery of the object (which, in symbolic shape, is at the subject’s entire command) goes hand in hand with the binding together of the traumatic memory and the energy which cathects it.
* * *
One of the only authors to have attempted an elaboration of Freud’s sparse hints concerning the Bemächtigungstrieb is Ives Hendrick, who devoted a series of articles to reopening the question in the context of a developmental ego-psychology inspired by research on learning. His theses may be schematically summarised as follows:
a. There exists an instinct to master, a need to control the environment, which has been neglected by psycho-analysts in favour of the mechanisms of the search for pleasure. This is ‘an inborn drive to do and to learn how to do’ (4).
b. This instinct is originally asexual; it may be libidinalised secondarily by virtue of a fusion with sadism.
c. It involves a specific kind of pleasure–the pleasure derived from the successful carrying out of a function: ‘…primary pleasure is sought by efficient use of the central nervous system for the performance of well-integrated ego functions which enable the individual to control or alter his environment’ (5a).
d. Why should we speak of an instinct to master in preference to treating the ego as an organisation which procures types of pleasure that are not instinctual gratifications ? In the first place, Hendrick states his aim as the establishment of ‘a concept explaining what forces make the ego function’ (6)–a ‘definition of the ego in terms of instinct’. Secondly, what we are confronted with here, in Hendrick’s view, is definitely an instinct ‘psychoanalytically defined as the biological source of tensions impelling to specific patterns of action’ (5b).
Such a conception has something in common with the view of the instinct to master that we have tried to extract from Freud’s writings; what Hendrick is concerned with, however, is a second-level mastery–a progressively adapted control of action itself.
As a matter of fact Freud did not entirely overlook this idea of a mastery established over one’s own body, and he saw its basis as lying in ‘the child’s efforts to gain control (Herr werderi) over his own limbs’ (7).
(α) For such uses of ‘Bewältigurg’, see, for example, a number of Freud’s texts (8). Elsewhere he also uses such terms as ‘bändigen’ (to tame) and ‘Triebbeherrschung’ (domination of the instinct) (9).
(1) FREUD, S.: a) Cf. G.W., V, 93–94; S.E., VII, 192–93. b) G.W., V, 94; S.E., VII, 193, n. 1.
(2) FREUD, S., G.W., VIII, 448; S.E., XII, 322.
(3) FREUD, S.: a) G.W., XIII, 58, S.E., XVIII, 54. b) G.W., XIII, 58; S.E., XVIII, 54. c) G.W., XIII, 14; S.E., XVIII, 16.
(4) HENDRICK, I. ‘Instinct and the Ego during Infancy’, P.Q., 1942, XI, 40.
(5) HENDRICK, I. ‘Work and the Pleasure Principle’, P.Q., 1943, XII: a) 311. b) 314.
(6) HENDRICK, I. ‘The Discussion of the “Instinct to Master” ‘P.Q., 1943, XII, 563.
(7) FREUD, S. ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915c), G.W.,X, 223; S.E., XIV, 130.
(8) FREUD, S. ‘On the Grounds for Detaching a Particular Syndrome from Neurasthenia under the Description “Anxiety Neurosis”’ (1895b), G.W., I, 336 and 338; S.E., III, 110 and 112. ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’ (1914c), G.W., X, 152; S.E., XIV, 85–86. ‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’ (1918b [1914]), G.W., XII, 83–84; S.E. XVII, 54–55.
(9) Cf. FREUD, S. ‘Analysis Terminable and Interminable’ (1937c), G.W., XVI, 69 and 74; S.E., XXIII, 225 and 229–30.
= D.: Selbsterhaltungstriebe.–Es.: instintos de autoconservacion.–Fr.: pulsions d’auto-conservation.–I.: instinti or pulsioni d’auto-conservazione.–P.: impulsos or pulsões de autoconservação.
Term by which Freud designates all needs associated with bodily functions necessary for the preservation of the individual; hunger provides the model of such instincts.
Within the framework of his first theory of the instincts Freud opposes the instincts of self-preservation to the sexual instincts.
Although this term makes its first appearance in Freud’s work only in 1910, the notion of opposing another type of instinct to the sexual one dates back further. It is in fact implicit in what Freud has to say, beginning with Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905d), about the anaclitic relationship of sexuality to other somatic functions (see ‘Anaclisis’). At the oral level, for instance, sexual pleasure rests upon the activity of taking nourishment: ‘The satisfaction of the erotogenic zone is associated, in the first instance, with the satisfaction of the need for nourishment’ (1a). In the same context Freud also speaks of a ‘nutritional instinct’ (1b).
In 1910 Freud proposed the distinction that was to remain central to his first instinct theory: ‘…a quite specially important part is played by the undeniable opposition between the instincts which subserve sexuality, the attainment of sexual pleasure, and those other instincts, which have as their aim the self-preservation of the individual–the ego-instincts. As the poet has said, all the organic instincts that operate in our mind may be classified as “hunger” or “love” ‘ (2). This antithesis has two aspects, which Freud brings out together in the writings of this period: the anaclitic relationship of the sexual instincts to the self-preservative ones, and the decisive role of the antagonism between them in the psychical conflict*. This double aspect is evident, for example, in hysterical disturbances of vision: a sole organ, the eye, is the basis of two distinct types of instinctual activity; should conflict develop between them, it also becomes the locus of the symptom.
As regards the question of anaclisis, the reader is referred to our commentary on this term. As to the way in which the two great classes of instincts come to confront one another in the defensive conflict, one of Freud’s most explicit passages appears in ‘Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning’ (1911b). The ego-instincts, since they can only be satisfied by a real object, very quickly make the transition from the pleasure principle to the reality principle, until a point is reached where they become the agents of reality and so stand opposed to the sexual instincts which, being able to achieve satisfaction in a phantasy mode, have remained longer under the exclusive sway of the pleasure principle: ‘An essential part of the psychical predisposition to neurosis […] lies in the delay in educating the sexual instincts to pay regard to reality’ (3).
This view of the matter is summed up in the idea, occasionally voiced by Freud, that the conflict between sexual and self-preservative instincts can provide a key to the understanding of the transference neuroses* (on this point see our commentary on ‘Ego-Instincts’).
* * *
Freud never made any great effort to present an overall exposition of the different varieties of self-preservative instincts; he generally speaks of them generically or else extrapolates from the special case of hunger. He nonetheless appears to admit the existence of numerous such instincts-as many, in fact, as there are great organic functions (nutrition, defecation, micturition, muscular activity, vision, etc.).
The Freudian antithesis between sexual and self-preservative instincts may raise doubts about the legitimacy of using the one term ‘Trieb’ for both categories. It should be noted first of all that when Freud deals with instinct in general he is actually referring, more or less explicitly, to the sexual instinct alone: for instance, he attributes to instinct in general such characteristics as variability of aim and contingency of object. For the self-preservative instincts, however, the paths of access to reality are ready-formed, while the satisfying object is determined from the start; to use a phrase of Max Scheler's, the hunger of the infant at the breast implies an ‘intuition of the value food’ (4). As is shown by Freud's conception of the anaclitic type of object-choice*, it is the self-preservative instincts which lead sexuality to the object. No doubt it was this distinction that prompted Freud on several occasions to use the term ‘need’ (Bedürfnis) as a designation for self-preservative instincts (5a). In this connection one cannot but stress the artificiality of attempts to establish a strict parallelism, genetically speaking, between the self-preservative functions and the sexual instincts, on the grounds that both are equally subject to begin with to the pleasure principle, before gradually coming under the dominion of the reality principle. In fact the self-preservative functions ought instead to be assigned to the side of the reality principle from the start, and the sexual instincts to the side of the pleasure principle.
Freud's successive revisions of the theory of the instincts caused him to shift the location of the self-preservative functions. In the first place, it is noteworthy that in these attempts at reclassification the hitherto interchangeable concepts of ego-instincts and self-preservative instincts undergo transformations that are not altogether identical. As regards the question of the ego-instincts–the question, in other words, of the nature of the instinctual energy that is placed at the service of the agency of the ego–the reader is referred to our commentaries on ‘Ego-Instincts’, ‘Ego-Libido/Object-Libido’ and ‘Ego’. Confining ourselves to the self-preservative instincts, we may say–schematically–that:
a. With the introduction of narcissism* (1915), these instincts remain opposed to the sexual ones, despite the fact that the latter are now subdivided according to whether they are directed towards outside objects (object-libido) or on to the ego (ego-libido).
b. Between 1915 and 1920, when Freud makes an ‘apparent approach to Jung's views’ (5b) and is tempted to adopt an instinctual monism, the self- preservative instincts tend to be looked upon as a particular case of self-love or ego-libido.
c. After 1920 a new dualism is brought forward-that between death instincts* and life instincts*. At first Freud hesitates (6a) as to the position of the self-preservative instincts in this scheme: he begins by classing them among the death instincts, asserting that they merely institute detours which express the fact that ‘the organism wishes to die only in its own fashion’ (6b); but he reverses this position immediately and treats the preservation of the individual as a particular instance of the work of the life instincts.
The subsequent writings uphold this second view of the matter: ‘The contrast between the instincts of self-preservation and the preservation of the species, as well as the contrast between ego-love and object-love, fall within Eros’ (7).
(1) FREUD, S.: G.W., V, 82; S.E., VII, 181-82. b) G.W., V, 83; S.E., VII, 182.
(2) FREUD, S. ‘The Psycho-Analytic View of Psychogenic Disturbances of Vision’ (1910i), G.W., VIII, 97-98; S.E., XI, 214.
(3) FREUD, S., G.W., VIII, 235; S.E., XII, 223.
(4) SCHELER, M. Wesen undFormen der Sympathie (1913).
(5) Cf. FREUD, S. ‘TWO Encyclopaedia Articles’ (1923a [1922]): a) G.W., XIII, 221; S.E. XVIII, 245. b) G.W., XIII, 231–32; S.E., XVIII, 257.
(6) FREUD, S. Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920g): a) passim, b) G.W., XIII, 41; S.E., XVIII, 39.
(7) FREUD, S. An Outline of Psycho-Analysis (1940a [1938]), G.W., XVII, 71; S.E., XXIII, 148.
= D.: Triebkomponente.–Es.: componente instinctive.–Fr.: composante pulsionnelle.–I.: componente di puIsione.–P.: componente impulsor(a) or pulsional.
See ‘Component Instinct’.
= D.: Triebregung.–Es.: impulso instintual.–Fr.: motion pulsionelle.–I.: moto pulsionale or istintivo.–P.: moção impulsora or pulsional.
Term used by Freud to designate the instinct seen under its dynamic aspect, i.e. in so far as it takes on concrete and specific form in a determinate internal stimulus.
This term appears for the first time in ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915c), but the idea connoted is a very old one in Freud's work. Thus he means exactly the same thing when he speaks in the ‘Project for a Scientific Psychology’ (1950a [1895]) of endogenous stimuli (endogene Reize).
There is very little difference between ‘Triebregung’ and ‘Trieb’ (instinct*)–in fact Freud often uses the two interchangeably. A reading of all the relevant texts, however, does make a real distinction feasible here: the instinctual impulse is the instinct in action, the instinct considered at the moment when it is set in motion by an organic change.
Thus Freud places the instinctual impulse on the same level as the instinct. When the instinct is conceived of as a biological modification–and consequently as deeper, strictly speaking, than the distinction between conscious and unconscious–then the same goes for the instinctual impulse: ‘When we […] speak of an unconscious instinctual impulse or of a repressed instinctual impulse, the looseness of phraseology is a harmless one. We can only mean an instinctual impulse the ideational representative of which is unconscious, for nothing else comes into consideration’ (1).
It is worth noting that Freud uses ‘Regung’ in compound terms other than ‘Triebregung’, always with the same connotation of internal movement: for example, ‘Wunschregung’ (wishful impulse), ‘Affektregung’(affective impulse).
(1) FREUD, S. ‘The Unconscious’ (1915e), G.W., X, 276; S.E., XIV, 177.
= D.: Triebrepräsentanz (or Triebrepräsentant).–Es.: representación or representante del instinto.–Fr.: représentant de la pulsion.–I.: rappresentanza or rappresentante della pulsione.–P.: representante do impulso or pulsional (da pulsão).
Term used by Freud to designate the elements or the process by means of which the instinct finds psychical expression. At times it is synonymous with ‘ideational representative’*, while at others its meaning is broadened so as to embrace the affect as well.
As a general rule Freud makes no distinction between the instinctual representative and the ideational one. In his description of the phases of repression*, the fate of the ideational representative is envisaged alone until another ‘element of the psychical representative’ has to be taken into account–namely, the quota of affect* (Affektbetrag), which ‘corresponds to the instinct in so far as the latter has become detached from the idea and finds expression, proportionate to its quantity, in processes which are sensed as affects’ (la).
Alongside the ideational element in the instinctual representative, therefore, we also find a quantitative or affective factor. Freud does not, however, use a term ‘affective representative’, although one might well do so by analogy with ‘ideational representative’.
The fate of the affective factor is nevertheless of cardinal importance for repression, whose ‘motive and purpose’, in fact, is ‘nothing else than the avoidance of unpleasure. It follows that the vicissitude of the quota of affect belonging to the representative is far more important than the vicissitude of the idea’ (lb).
It will be recalled that this ‘vicissitude’ may take a variety of forms: if the affect is preserved, it may be displaced on to another idea; alternatively, it may be transformed into another affect–especially anxiety; or again, it may be suppressed (1c, 2a). But a suppression* of this kind, be it noted, is not a repression into the unconscious in the same sense as the one which affects the idea; in fact it is impossible, properly, to speak of an unconscious affect. What is loosely referred to in this way consists solely, in the system Ucs., of a ‘potential beginning which is prevented from developing’ (2b).
Strictly speaking, then, the instinct may be said to be represented by the affect only at the level of the system Pcs.-Cy.–or, in other words, at the level of the ego.
(α) In the interests of clarity we are devoting separate articles to three terms whose meaning is so nearly identical that in most Freudian texts they are used interchangeably: ‘Instinctual Representative’, ‘Psychical Representative’ and ‘Ideational Representative’. The three articles are all concerned with a single concept, but we have chosen to give over each of our commentaries to the discussion of a particular point.
The present article recalls the respective functions assigned by Freud to the idea and the affect in so far as they represent the instinct. At the entry ‘Psychical Representative’ we have concentrated on defining what Freud means when he speaks of a ‘representative’ (of the somatic domain in the psychical one). Lastly, the article ‘Ideational Representative’ shows that the job of representing the instinct falls principally to the lot of the idea (Vorstellung).
Further, the articles ‘Idea’ and ‘Thing-Presentation/Word-Presentation’ deal with aspects of the same conceptual framework.
(1) FREUD, S. ‘Repression’ (1915d): a) G.W., X, 255; S.E., XIV, 152. b) G.W., X, 256; S.E., XIV, 153. c) Cf. G.W., X, 255–56; S.E.,XIV, 153.
(2) FREUD, S. ‘The Unconscious’(1915e): a) Cf. G.W.,X, 276-77; S.E., XIV, 178. b) G.W. X, 277;S.E.,XIV, 178.
= D.: Intellektualisierung.–Es.: intelectualización.–Fr.: intellectualisation.–I.: intellettualizzazione.–P.: intelectualização.
Process whereby the subject, in order to master his conflicts and emotions, attempts to couch them in a discursive form.
The term usually has a pejorative ring to it: it denotes the preponderance, particularly during treatment, of abstract thought over the emergence and acknowledgement of affects and phantasies.
The term ‘intellectualisation’ is not met with in Freud's writings, and psychoanalytic literature as a whole contains few theoretical accounts of the process. Among the most explicit texts is Anna Freud's, which describes intellectualisation in the adolescent as a defence mechanism but looks upon it as the exacerbation of a normal process whereby the ‘ego’ attempts ‘to lay hold on the instinctual processes by connecting them with ideas which can be dealt with in consciousness’; intellectualisation, according to this writer, constitutes ‘one of the most general, earliest and most necessary acquirements of the human ego’ (1).
The term is used above all as a designation for a mode of resistance met with in treatment. This is more or less patent but invariably constitutes a means of evading the implications of the fundamental rule*.
Thus a given patient will only present his problems in rational and general terms: faced with a choice in his love life, for example, he will hold forth on the relative merits of marriage and free love. Another subject, though describing his own history, character and conflicts accurately, will couch this description in a language of coherent reconstruction (a language he may even borrow from psycho-analysis): instead of talking of his relations with his father, he will mention his ‘opposition to authority’. A subtler form of intellectualisation may be compared to what Karl Abraham described as early as 1919 in ‘A Particular Form of Neurotic Resistance Against the Psycho-Analytic Method’: certain patients seem, so far as the analysis is concerned, to be doing ‘good work’ and applying the rule; they offer memories, dreams, and even emotional experiences, yet everything suggests that what they say is preplanned and that they are attempting to behave like model subjects; by imposing their own interpretation they avoid possible intrusions of the unconscious or interventions by the analyst, both of which they look upon as dangerous threats.
A number of reservations should be made regarding the use of this term:
a. As our last example shows, it is not always easy to distinguish this mode of resistance from that necessary and fruitful time during which the subject formulates and assimilates discoveries that have been made and interpretations that have been put forward (see ‘Working-Through’).
b. The idea of intellectualisation harks back to a distinction inherited from the psychology of ‘faculties’–namely the distinction between intellectual and affective. There is a danger of the criticism of intellectualisation leading to an overestimation of ‘lived emotional experience’ in the psycho-analytic cure, with the result that this cure may become indistinguishable from the cathartic method*. Fenichel puts these two diametrically opposed modes of resistance on a par with each other: in the first type of case, the resistance ‘consists in the patient's always being reasonable and refusing to have any understanding for the logic of emotions’, while in the second ‘the patient floats continuously in unclear emotional experiences without getting the necessary distance and freedom’ (2).
* * *
Intellectualisation is comparable to other mechanisms described by psychoanalysis, and particularly to rationalisation*. One of the main aims of intellectualisation is to keep the affects at arm's length and to neutralise them. In this respect, rationalisation has a different role: instead of implying a systematic avoidance of affects, it merely assigns them motives that are more plausible than true, justifying them in terms of what is rational or ideal (sadistic behaviour, for example, may be justified in wartime by an appeal to the necessity of fighting, to love for one's country, etc.).
(1) FREUD, A. The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (London: Hogarth Press, 1937; New York: I.U.P. 1946), 178.
(2) FENICHEL, C. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neurosis (New York: Norton, 1945), 28.
= D.: Interesse, Ichinteresse.–Es.: interés (del yo).–Fr.: intérêt, intérêt du moi.–I.: interesse (dell' id).–P.: interesse (do ego).
Term used by Freud in the context of his first instinctual dualism: the energy of the instincts of self-preservation as opposed to that of the sexual instincts (libido).
The specific meaning of ‘interest’ as indicated in the above definition was developed in Freud's writings between 1911 and 1914. As we know, libido* is the name for the cathectic energy of the sexual instincts*; parallel with this, according to Freud, there is also a cathectic energy that belongs to the instincts of self-preservation*.
In certain contexts ‘interest’ is taken in a broader sense to denote both these types of cathexis, as is the case, for example, in the following passage, where Freud is using the term for the first time: the paranoic withdraws perhaps ‘not only his libidinal cathexis, but also his interest in general–that is, the cathexes that proceed from his ego as well’ (1). As a reaction to Jung's thesis (α) which rejects any distinction between libido and ‘psychical energy in general’, Freud is led to emphasise the opposition by keeping the term ‘interest’ exclusively for those cathexes which emanate from the instincts of self-preservation or ego-instincts* (see ‘Egoism’).
For an example of this more specific sense, the reader is referred to the Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1916–17) (3).
(α) Jung maintains that Claparède suggested the term ‘interest’, and that it was in fact as a synonym for ‘libido’ that he did so (4).
(1) FREUD, S. ‘Psycho-Analytic Notes on an Autobiographical Account of a Case of Paranoia (Dementia Paranoides)’ (1911c), G.W., XVIII, 307, n. 3; S.E., XII, 70, n. 2.
(2) Cf. FREUD, S. ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction’ (1914c), G.W., X, 145–47; S.E., XIV, 79–81.
(3) Cf. FREUD, S., G. W., XI, 430; S.E., XVI, 414.
(4) Cf. JUNG, C. G., ‘VersucheinerDarstellungder psychoanalytischenTheorie’,Jahrbuch psa. Forsch., 1913, V, 337 ff.
= D.: Verinnerlichung.–Es. interiorización.–Fr.: intériorisation.–I.: interiorizzazione.–P.: interiorização.
a. Term often used as a synonym for ‘introjection’*.
b. More specifically, process whereby intersubjective relations are transformed into intrasubjective ones (internalisation of a conflict, of a prohibition, etc.).
This term is in common use in psycho-analysis. It is often taken, particularly by the kleinians, to mean the same thing as introjection, namely the transposition in phantasy of an external ‘good’ or ‘bad’ object, or of a whole or part-object, to the ‘inside’ of the subject.
In a narrower sense, we only speak of internalisation when it is a relationship that is transposed in this way–for example, the relation of authority between father and child is said to be internalised in the relation between super-ego and ego. This process presupposes a structural differentiation within the psyche such that relations and conflicts may be lived out on the intrapsychic level. Such internalisation is correlated with Freud's topographical* notions and particularly with his second theory of the psychical apparatus.
Although, for reasons of terminological accuracy, we have distinguished two meanings of ‘internalisation’ (a and b above), the two senses are in fact closely linked together: we may say, for instance, that with the decline of the Oedipus complex the subject introjects the paternal imago while internalising the conflict of authority with the father.
= D.: Deutung.–Es.: interpretación.–Fr.: interprétation.–I.: interpretazione.–P.: interpretação.
a. Procedure which, by means of analytic investigation, brings out the latent meaning in what the subject says and does. Interpretation reveals the modes of the defensive conflict and its ultimate aim is to identify the wish that is expressed by every product of the unconscious.
b. In the context of the treatment, the interpretation is what is conveyed to the subject in order to make him reach this latent meaning, according to rules dictated by the way the treatment is being run and the way it is evolving.
Interpretation is at the heart of the Freudian doctrine and technique. Psychoanalysis itself might be defined in terms of it, as the bringing out of the latent meaning of given material.
The first example and paradigm of interpretation was furnished by Freud's approach to dreams. ‘Scientific’ theories of dreams had attempted to account for them as a phenomenon of mental life by invoking a drop in psychical activity, a loosening of associations; certain such theories did define the dream as a specific activity, but all of them failed to take into consideration its content and, a fortiori, the relation existing between this content and the dreamer's personal history. On the other hand, ‘dream-book' types of interpretation (Classical and Oriental) do not overlook the dream's content and acknowledge that it has a meaning. To this extent, therefore, Freud claims allegiance to this tradition; but he places all the stress on the sole application of the dream's symbolism to the individual in question, and in this respect his approach parts company with the ‘decoding’ method of dream-books (la).
Starting from the account given by the dreamer (the manifest content*), the interpretation, according to Freud, uncovers the meaning of the dream as it is formulated in the latent content* to which the free associations lead us. The ultimate goal of the interpretation is the unconscious wish, and the phantasy in which this wish is embodied.
Naturally the term ‘interpretation’ is not reserved for the dream–that major product of the unconscious: it is also applied to its other products (parapraxes, symptoms, etc.) and, more generally, to whatever part of the speech and behaviour of the subject bears the stamp of the defensive conflict.
* * *
Since conveying his interpretation is the analyst's form of action par excellence, an absolute use of the term ‘interpretation’ has the additional, technical sense of an interpretation made known to the patient.
Interpretation understood in this technical sense has a role dating back to the beginnings of psycho-analysis. It may be noted, however, that at the stage represented by the Studies on Hysteria (1895d), in so far as the main objective was the recovering of the unconscious pathogenic memories, interpretation had not as yet emerged as the chief mode of therapeutic action (the term itself is not in fact to be found in this work).
It was to be assigned this central role as soon as psycho-analytic technique began to take on definite shape; interpretation now became an integral part of the dynamics of the treatment, as is shown by the article on ’The Handling of Dream-Interpretation in Psycho-Analysis’ (191le): ‘I submit, therefore, that dream-interpretation should not be pursued in analytic treatment as an art for its own sake, but that its handling should be subject to those technical rules that govern the conduct of the treatment as a whole’ (2). It is respect for these ‘technical rules’ which must dictate the level (relative ‘depth’), type, (interpretation of the resistances, of the transference, etc.) and ultimate order of the interpretations.
But we do not intend to deal here with the problems surrounding interpretation–problems which have been the subject of many technical debates: criteria, form and formulation, timing, ‘depth’, order, etc. (α). We would merely point out that interpretation does not cover the entirety of the analyst's contributions to the treatment: for example, it does not cover encouraging the patient to speak, reassuring him, explaining mechanisms or symbols, injunctions, constructions*, etc.–though all these can take on an interpretative sense within the analytic situation.
* * *
A terminological point: ‘interpretation’ does not correspond exactly to the German word ‘Deutung’. The English term tends to bring to mind the subjective–perhaps even the forced or arbitrary–aspects of the attribution of a meaning to an event of statement ‘Deutung’ would seem to be closer to ‘explanation’ or ‘clarification’ and, in common usage, has fewer of the pejorative overtones that are at times carried by the English word (β ).Freud writes that the Deutung of a dream consists in ascertaining its Bedeutung or meaning (lb).
Nonetheless, Freud does not omit to point out the kinship which exists between interpretation in the analytic sense of the word and other mental processes where an interpretative activity is evident.
Thus the secondary revision* constitutes a ‘first interpretation’ aiming to lend a certain degree of consistency to the elements which are the outcome of the dream-work*: certain dreams ‘have been subjected to a far-reaching revision by this psychical function that is akin to waking thought; they appear to have a meaning, but that meaning is as far removed as possible from their true significance [Bedeutung ]. […] They are dreams which might be said to have been already interpreted once, before being submitted to waking interpretation’ (lc). In secondary revision the subject deals with the dream-content exactly as he deals with any unfamiliar perceptual content: he tends to reduce it to what is familiar by means of certain ‘anticipatory ideas’ (Erwartungsvorstellungen) (3). Freud further draws attention to the connections which exist between paranoic interpretation (and also the interpretation of signs in superstitions) and the analytic kind (4a). For paranoics, indeed, everything is interpretable: ‘…they attach the greatest significance to the minor details of other people's behaviour which we ordinarily neglect, interpret (ausdeuten) them and make them the basis of far-reaching conclusions’ (4b). In their interpretations of the behaviour of others, paranoics often display a greater perspicacity than the normal subject. But the reverse side of the paranoic's lucidity towards other people is a fundamental inability to understand his own unconscious.
(α) The reader wishing guidance on these problems is referred to Edward Glover's The Technique of Psycho-Analysis (New York: I.U.P., 1955).
(β) In German psychiatry, it may be noted, paranoid delusions are scarcely ever described as delusions of interpretation.
(1) FREUD, S. The Interpretation of Dreams (1900a): a) Cf. Chapter I and beginning of Chapter II. b) Cf. G.W.,II–III, 100–1; S.E., IV, 96. c) G.W., II–III, 494; S.E., V, 490.
(2) FREUD, S., G.W., VIII, 354; S.E., XII, 94.
(3) Cf. FREUD, S. ‘On Dreams’ (1901a), G.W., II–III, 679–80; S.E., V, 666.
(4) Cf. particularly FREUD, S. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901b): a) G.W. 1V., 283–89; S.E., VI, 254–60. b) G.W., IV, 284; S.E., VI, 255.
= D.: Introjektion.–Es.: introyección.–Fr.: introjection.–I.: introiezione.–P.: introjeção.
Process revealed by analytic investigation: in phantasy, the subject transposes objects and their inherent qualities from the ‘outside’ to the ‘inside’ of himself.
Introjection is close in meaning to incorporation*, which indeed provides it with its bodily model, but it does not necessarily imply any reference to the body's real boundaries (introjection into the ego, into the ego-ideal, etc.).
It is closely akin to identification*.
It was Sandor Ferenczi who introduced the term ‘introjection’, which he coined as the opposite of ‘projection’. In ‘Introjection and Transference’ (1909) he writes: ‘Whereas the paranoiac expels from his ego the impulses that have become unpleasant, the neurotic helps himself by taking into the ego as large as possible a part of the outside world, making it the object of unconscious phantasies. […] One might give to this process, in contrast to projection, the name of Introjection’ (la). In this article as a whole, however, it is hard to discern a precise meaning of the concept of introjection, for Ferenczi seems to use the word in a broad sense to indicate a ‘passion for the transference’ which leads the neurotic ‘to mollify the free-floating affects by extension of his circle of interest’ (1b). He ends up by using the word to designate a type of behaviour (chiefly in hysterics) that might equally well be described as projection.
In adopting the term, Freud distinguishes it clearly from projection. His most explicit text on this point is ‘Instincts and their Vicissitudes’ (1915c), which envisages the genesis of the opposition between subject (ego) and object (outside world) in so far as it can be correlated with that between pleasure and unpleasure: the ‘purified pleasure-ego’ is constituted by an introjection of everything that is a source of pleasure and by the projection outwards of whatever brings about unpleasure (see ‘Pleasure-Ego/Reality-Ego’). We find the same contrast in ‘Negation’ (1925A): ‘…the original pleasure-ego wants to introject into itself everything that is good and to eject from itself everything that is bad’ (2a).
Introjection is further characterised by its link with oral incorporation; indeed the two expressions are often used synonymously by Freud and many other authors. Freud shows how the antagonism between introjection and projection, before it becomes general, is first expressed concretely in an oral mode: ‘Expressed in the language of the oldest–the oral–instinctual impulses, the judgement is: “I should like to eat this.”, or .“I should like to spit it out.”; and, put more generally: .“I should like to take this into myself and to keep that out.” ’ (2b).
We thus have grounds–as this last-quoted passage in fact suggests–for preserving a distinction between incorporation and projection. In psychoanalysis the bounds of the body provide the model of all separations between an inside and an outside. Incorporation involves this bodily frontier literally. Introjection has a broader meaning in that it is no longer a matter only of the interior of the body but also that of the psychical apparatus, of a psychical agency, etc. Thus we speak of introjection into the ego, into the ego-ideal, etc.
Introjection was initially brought out by Freud in his analysis of melancholia (3), but then it was acknowledged to be a more general process (4). This realisation constituted a renewal of the Freudian theory of identification*.
Inasmuch as introjection continues to bear the stamp of its bodily prototype it finds expression in phantasies applying to objects–whether part-objects or whole ones. Consequently the notion plays an important part for such writers as Abraham and–particularly–Melanie Klein, who sought to describe the phantasied comings and goings of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ objects* (introjection, projection, reintrojection). These authors speak essentially of introjected objects, and there are indeed good reasons for restricting the use of the term to cases where objects, or their intrinsic qualities, are under examination. This would make it strictly incorrect to speak-as Freud was capable of doing–of an ‘introjection of aggressiveness’ (5); it would be preferable here to say ‘turning round upon the subject's own self’*.
(1) Cf. FERENCZI, S. First Contr.: a) 40. b) 43.
(2) FREUD, S.: a) G.W., XIV, 13; S.E., XIX, 237. b) G.W., XIV, 13; S.E., XIX, 237.
(3) Cf. FREUD, S. ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1917e),G.W., X, 42–46, S.E.,XIV, 243–58
(4) Cf. ABRAHAM, K. ‘Versuch einer Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido auf Grand der Psychoanalyse seelischer Störungen’ (1924). English trans.: ‘A Short Study of the Development of the Libido, Viewed in the Light of Mental Disorders’, in Selected Papers (London, Hogarth Press, 1927; New York: Basic Books, 1953), 438 ff.
(5) Cf. FREUD, S. Civilization and its Discontents (1930a), G.W., XIV, 482; S.E., XXI, 123.
= D.: Introversion.–Es.: introversión.–Fr: introversion.–I.: introversione.–P.: introversão.
Term introduced by Jung as a general designation for the detachment of libido from external objects and its withdrawal on to the subject's internal world.
Freud adopted the word but confined its application to a withdrawal of libido which results in the cathexis of imaginary intrapsychic formations, as distinct from a withdrawal of libido on to the ego (secondary narcissism).
The term ‘introversion’ makes its first appearance in Jung's work in ‘Über Konflikte der kindlichen Seele’ (1910) (1). It recurs in many subsequent writings, notably in Psychology of the Unconscious (1913) (2). The notion has since enjoyed a wide vogue in post-Jungian typologies (cf. the contrast between introverted and extraverted types).
Although he accepted the term Freud expressed immediate reservations concerning its extension.
For Freud introversion means the withdrawal of libido on to imaginary objects or phantasies. In this sense it constitutes a stage in the formation of neurotic symptoms, a period which follows upon frustration and which may lead up to regression. The libido ‘turns away from reality, which, owing to the obstinate frustration, has lost its value for the subject, and turns towards the life of phantasy, in which it creates new wishful structures and revives the traces of earlier, forgotten ones’ (3).
In ‘On Narcissism: An Introduction– (1914c), Freud criticises Jung's use of ‘introversion’ as too broad. This use had led Jung to categorise psychosis as introversion neurosis. Freud, on the other hand, contrasts the concept of (secondary) narcissism with introversion understood as withdrawal of libido on to phantasies, while he places psychosis under the head of narcissistic neurosis*.
(1) Jb.psychoan.psychopath. Forsch.,II.
(2) Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (Leipzig and Vienna, 1912). Translation: Psychology of the Unconscious (New York, 1916; London, 1919).
(3) FREUD, S. ‘Types of Onset of Neurosis’ (1912c), G.W., VIII, 323–24; S.E., XII, 232.
= D.: Isolieren or IsoIierung.–Es.: aislamiento.–Fr.: isolation.–I.: isolamento.–P.: isolamento.
Mechanism of defence, particularly characteristic of obsessional neurosis, which consists in isolating thoughts or behaviour so that their links with other thoughts or with the remainder of the subject's life are broken. Among the procedures used for isolation are: pauses in the train of thought, formulas, rituals and, in a general way, all those measures which facilitate the insertion of a hiatus into the temporal sequence of thoughts or actions.
The most explicit passage concerning isolation in Freud's work is to be found in Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety (1926d) (1a), where it is described as a technique peculiar to obsessional neurosis*.
Some patients defend themselves against an idea, an impression or an action by isolating it from its context by means of a pause ‘during which nothing further must happen-during which [they] must perceive nothing and do nothing– (lb). This active, ‘motor’ technique is qualified by Freud as magical; he likens it to the normal operation of concentration in the subject who is trying not to let his attention be diverted from the object upon which it is presently focused.
Isolation is displayed in various obsessional symptoms; it is particularly evident in psycho-analytic treatment, where the rule of free association*, by working against it, serves to make it clearly visible (subjects who make a radical separation between their analysis and their life, between a specific train of thought and the session as a whole, or between a particular idea and the ideas and emotions surrounding it).
In the last analysis Freud brings the tendency to isolate down to an archaic mode of defence against the instinct–namely, the prohibition of touching, since ‘touching and physical contact are the immediate aim of the aggressive as well as the loving object-cathexes’ (lc).
Seen in this light, isolation appears as the removal of ‘the possibility of contact; it is a method of withdrawing a thing from being touched in any way. And when a neurotic isolates an impression or an activity by interpolating an interval, he is letting it be understood symbolically that he will not allow his thoughts about that impression or activity to come into associative contact with other thoughts’ (1d).
It should be pointed out that this passage of Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety does not reduce isolation to a specific type of symptom but gives it a broader extension. A parallel is evoked between isolation and hysterical repression*: if the traumatic experience is not repressed into the unconscious, ‘it is deprived of its affect, and its associative connections are suppressed (unterdruckt) or interrupted so that it remains as though isolated and is not reproduced in the ordinary processes of thought’ (le). The isolating techniques observable in the symptoms of obsessional neurosis are merely a reversion to and a reinforcement of this earlier form of splitting.
In this broader sense the idea of isolation is one that is evident in Freud's thinking from his earliest reflections on defensive activity in general. Thus in ‘The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence’ (1894a) defence is conceived of as isolation as much in hysteria as in the group of phobias and obsessions :‘…defence against the incompatible idea [is] effected by separating it from its affect; the idea itself [remains] in consciousness, even though weakened and isolated’ (2).
* * *
The term ‘isolation’ is occasionally used in psycho-analytical parlance in a rather loose way which calls for reservations.
Isolation is thus often confused with processes which can be combined with it or from which it may result, such as displacement*, neutralisation of the affect or even psychotic dissociation.
Sometimes too people speak of isolation of the symptom in the case of subjects who experience and represent their symptoms as unconnected with anything else and alien to them. What is actually involved here is a mode of being where the underlying process need not necessarily be the obsessional mechanism of isolation. Notice also that the localisation of the conflict is a very general property of symptoms, so any symptom may appear isolated relative to the subject's existence as a whole.
In our view, in fact, there is a good case for using the term ‘isolation’ solely to denote a specific defensive process which ranges from compulsion to a systematic and concerted attitude, and which consists in the severing of the associative connections of a thought or act–especially its connections with what precedes and succeeds it in time.
(1) FREUD, S.: a) Cf. G.W., XIV, 150–52; S.E., XX, 120–22. b) G.W., XIV, 150; S.E,XX, 120. c) G.W., XIV, 152; S.E., XX, 122. d) G.W., XIV, 152; S.E., XX, 122. e) G.W., XIV, 150;S.E.,XX, 120.
(2) FREUD, S., G.W.,I, 72; S.E.,III, 58.