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Yet the war proved a boon to Freud in one respect: it gave him a good
deal of unexpected, unwelcome, free time. Hence he began to draft a major
book on metapsychology that would summarize, and establish, the essential
elements of psychoanalytic theory. During the spring and summer of 1915,
he wrote the twelve essays he intended to include in the book, rapidly and
with little difficulty. Then something happened. Between 1915 and 1917,
he did publish the first five of these papers, but after that he resisted persistent
pressure by his friends for the whole work. At some point, indeed, he
destroyed the other seven. (In 1983, the German psychoanalyst and editor
lise Grubrich-Simitis discovered in the Ferenczi papers a draft of Freud's
twelfth paper, a bold "historical" study of the transference neuroses. It proved
a fascinating glimpse into Freud, the speculative thinker. The draft has been
beautifully edited by Grubrich-Simitis and is available in an English translation by Alex and Peter T. Hoifer, as A Phylogenetic Fantasy: Overview of
the Transference Neuroses [1987].) Freud's unwillingness to let the book
appear remains mysterious, though it seems most likely that he was increasingly dissatisfied with his old "topographic" scheme and not yet ready to
publish the new "structural" theory. The paper of 1914 on narcissism (see
above, pp. 545-62) had signalized the need for some rethinking of psychoanalytic theory; Freud's refusal to publish his book on metapsychology
strongly hints that he was now fully aware of that need. (See Gay, Freud,
pp. 373-74.)
The present paper, on the drives, published in late 1915, with its orderly
classification of fundamentals and its opening remarks on the nature of
psychoanalysis as a science, retains more than historical interest. Yet it,
more than the others, would have had to be rewritten if Freud had conceived
it in the 1920s.
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internal source of stimulation. Above all, they oblige the nervous system
to renounce its ideal intention of keeping off stimuli, for they maintain
an incessant and unavoidable afflux of stimulation. We may therefore
well conclude that instincts and not external stimuli are the true motive
forces behind the advances that have led the nervous system, with its
unlimited capacities, to its present high level of development. There is
naturally nothing to prevent our supposing that the instincts themselves
are, at least in part, precipitates of the effects of external stimulation,
which in the course of phylogenesis have brought about modifications
in the living substance.
When we further find that the activity of even the most highly developed mental apparatus is subject to the pleasure principle, i.e. is
automatically regulated by feelings belonging to the pleasure-unpleasure
series, we can hardly reject the further hypothesis that these feelings
reflect the manner in which the process of mastering stimuli takes
place-certainly in the sense that un pleasurable feelings are connected
with an increase and pleasurable feelings with a decrease of stimulus.
We will, however, carefully preserve this assumption in its present highly
indefinite form, until we succeed, if that is possible, in discovering what
sort of relation exists between pleasure and unpleasure, on the one hand,
and fluctuations in the amounts of stimulus affecting mental life, on
the other. It is certain that many very various relations of this kind, and
not very simple ones, are possible.
If now we apply ourselves to considering mental life from a biological
point of view, an 'instinct' appears to us as a concept on the frontier
between the mental and the somatic, as the psychical representative of
the stimuli originating from within the organism and reaching the mind,
as a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work in consequence of its connection with the body.
We are now in a position to discuss certain terms which are used in
reference to the concept of an instinct-for example, its 'pressure', its
'aim', its 'object' and its 'source'.
By the pressure [Drang] of an instinct we understand its motor factor,
the amount of force or the measure of the demand for work which it
represents. The characteristic of exercising pressure is common to all
instincts; it is in fact their very essence. Every instinct is a piece of
activity; if we speak loosely of passive instincts, we can only mean instincts whose aim is passive.
The aim [Ziel] of an instinct is in every instance satisfaction, which
can only be obtained by removing the state of stimulation at the source
of the instinct. But although the ultimate aim of each instinct remains
unchangeable, there may yet be different paths leading to the same
ultimate aim; so that an instinct may be found to have various nearer
or intermediate aims, which are combined or interchanged with one
another. Experience permits us also to speak of instincts which are
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Repression
Freud was very proud of his discovery of repression. We will recall that in
his "Autobiographical Study," he linked it to his analysands' resistance: "The
expenditure of force on the part of the physician was evidently the measure
of a resistance on the part of the patient. It was only necessary to translate
into words what I myself had observed, and I was in possession of the theory
of repression . ... It was a novelty, and nothing like it had ever before been
recognized in mental life" (see above, p. 18). He found the concept so
2. fIbis is precisely what Freud did find it necessary to revise.}
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significant that for some years he used it very broadly, to include defensive
stratagems of all sorts. Later, he would return to the term "defense" and
recognize repression as its archetypal, probably most significant, but not
exclusive expression. He published this paper in the issue of the Zeitschrift
following the one in which its introductory predecessor, "Instincts and Their
Vicissitudes," had appeared.
* *
Let us * * * confine ourselves to clinical experience, as we meet
with it in psycho-analytic practice. We then learn that the satisfaction
of an instinct which is under repression would be quite possible, and
further, that in every instance such a satisfaction would be pleasurable
in itself; but it would be irreconcilable with other claims and intentions.
It would, therefore, cause pleasure in one place and unpleasure in
another. It has consequently become a condition for repression that the
motive force of unpleasure shall have acquired more strength than the
pleasure obtained from satisfaction. Psycho-analytic observation of the
transference neuroses, moreover, leads us to conclude that repression is
not a defensive mechanism which is present from the very beginning,
and that it cannot arise until a sharp cleavage has occurred between
conscious and unconscious mental activity-that the essence of repression
lies simply in turning something away, and keeping it at a distance,
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from the conscious. This view of repression would be made more complete by assuming that, before the mental organization reaches this stage,
the task of fending off instinctual impulses is dealt with by the other
vicissitudes which instincts may undergo-e. g. reversal into the opposite
or turning round upon the subject's own self.
*
*
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 {zxation is established; the representative in question persists unaltered from then onwards and the instinct remains attached to it. This
is due to the properties of unconscious processes of which we shall speak
later.
The second stage of repression, repression proper, affects mental derivatives of the repressed representative, or such trains of thought as,
originating elsewhere, have come into associative connection with it.
On account of this association, these ideas experience the same fate as
what was primally repressed. Repression proper, therefore, is actually
an after-pressure. Moreover, it is a mistake to emphasize only the repulsion which operates from the direction of the conscious upon what
is to be repressed; quite as important is the attraction exercised by what
was primally repressed upon everything with which it can establish a
connection. Probably the trend towards repression would fail in its purpose if these two forces did not co-operate, if there were not something
previously repressed ready to receive what is repelled by the conscious.
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