Freud - Complete Works (434 page)
If in the end I am convicted of
being in error over the theoretical problem of the ‘actual
neuroses’, I shall be able to console myself with the advance
in our knowledge, which must disregard the opinions of an
individual. You may then ask why, since I have such a laudable
appreciation of the limitations of my own infallibility, I do not
at once give in to these new suggestions but prefer to re-enact the
familiar comedy of an old man obstinately clinging to his opinions.
My reply is that I do not yet see any evidence to induce me to give
in. In early days I made a number of alterations in my views and
did not conceal them from the public. I was reproached on account
of these changes, just as to-day I am reproached for my
conservativeness. Not that I should be intimidated by the one
reproach or the other. But I know that I have a destiny to fulfil.
I cannot escape it and I need not move towards it. I shall await
it, and in the meantime I shall behave towards our science as
earlier experience has taught me.
I am loth to take up a position
on the question that has been dealt with by you so extensively of
the injuriousness of masturbation, for it offers no proper approach
to the problems which concern us. But we must all do so, no doubt:
the world seems to feel no other interest in masturbation. You will
recall that at our former series of discussions on the subject we
had among us as a visitor a distinguished Viennese paediatrician.
What was it that he repeatedly asked us to tell him? Simply, how
far masturbation is injurious and why it injures some people but
not others. So we must force our researches to make a pronouncement
to meet this practical demand.
Contributions To A Discussion On Masturbation
2572
I must confess that here again I
am unable to share Stekel’s point of view, in spite of the
many courageous and correct comments that he has made to us on the
question. As he sees it, the injuriousness of masturbation amounts
to no more than a senseless prejudice which, purely as a result of
personal limitations, we are unwilling to cast off with sufficient
thoroughness. I believe, however, that if we fix our eyes on the
problem
sine ira et studio
¹ - so far, of course, as we
are able to, - we shall be obliged to declare, rather, that to take
up such a position contradicts our fundamental views on the
aetiology of the neuroses. Masturbation corresponds essentially to
infantile sexual activity and to its subsequent retention at a more
mature age. We derive the neuroses from a conflict between a
person’s sexual urges and his other (ego) trends. Now someone
might say: ‘In my view the pathogenic factor in this
aetiological relation lies solely in the ego’s reaction to
its sexuality.’ By this he would be asserting that anyone
could keep free of neurosis if only he were willing to allow
unrestricted satisfaction to his sexual urges. But it is clearly
arbitrary, and evidently pointless as well, to come to such a
decision, and not to allow the sexual urges themselves to have any
share in the pathogenic process. But if you admit that the sexual
urges can have a pathogenic effect, you should no longer deny a
similar significance to masturbation, which after all only consists
in carrying out such sexual instinctual impulses. In every case
which seems to show that masturbation is pathogenic, you will, no
doubt, be able to trace the operation further back - to the
instincts which manifest themselves in the masturbation and to the
resistances which are directed against those instincts.
Masturbation is not anything ultimate - whether somatically or
psychologically - it is not a real ‘agent’, but merely
the name for certain activities. Yet, however much we may trace
things further back, our judgement on the causation of the illness
will nevertheless rightly remain attached to this activity. And do
not forget that masturbation is not to be equated with sexual
activity in general: it is sexual activity subjected to certain
limiting conditions. Thus it also remains possible that it is
precisely these peculiarities of masturbatory activity which are
the vehicles of its pathogenic effects.
¹
[’Without bitterness or
partiality.’]
Contributions To A Discussion On Masturbation
2573
We are therefore brought back
once more from arguments to clinical observation, and we are warned
by it not to strike out the heading ‘Injurious Effects of
Masturbation’. We are at all events confronted in the
neuroses with cases in which masturbation has done damage.
This damage seems to occur in
three different ways:
(
a
)
Organic
injury
may occur by some unknown mechanism. Here we must take into account
the considerations of excess and of inadequate satisfaction, which
have often been mentioned by you.
(
b
) The injury may occur
through the laying down of a
psychical pattern
according to
which there is no necessity for trying to alter the external world
in order to satisfy a great need. Where, however, a far-reaching
reaction against this pattern develops, the most valuable
character-traits may be initiated.
(
c
) A
fixation of
infantile sexual aims
may be made possible, and a persistence
of psychical infantilism. Here we have the disposition for the
occurrence of a neurosis. As psycho-analysts we cannot fail to be
greatly interested in this result of masturbation - which in this
case means, of course, masturbation occurring at puberty and
continued afterwards. We must keep in mind the significance which
masturbation acquires as a carrying into effect of phantasy - that
half-way region interpolated between life in accordance with the
pleasure principle and life in accordance with the reality
principle; and we must remember how masturbation makes it possible
to bring about sexual developments and sublimations in phantasy,
which are nevertheless not advances but injurious compromises -
though it is true, as an important remark of Stekel’s has
pointed out, that this same compromise renders severe perverse
inclinations harmless and averts the worst consequences of
abstinence.
On the basis of my medical
experience, I cannot rule out a permanent reduction in potency as
one among the results of masturbation, though I will grant to
Stekel that in a number of cases it may turn out to be only
apparent. This particular result of masturbation, however, cannot
be classed unhesitatingly among the injurious ones. Some diminution
of male potency and of the brutal aggressiveness involved in it is
much to the purpose from the point of view of civilization. It
facilitates the practice by civilized men of the virtues of sexual
moderation and trustworthiness that are incumbent on them. Virtue
accompanied by full potency is usually felt as a hard task.
This may strike you as cynical,
but you may rest assured that it is not cynically meant. It sets
out to be no more than a piece of dry description, without regard
to whether it may cause satisfaction or annoyance. For
masturbation, like so many other things, has
les défauts
de ses vertus
and on the other hand
les vertus de ses
défauts
. If one is disentangling an involved and complex
subject with a one-sided practical interest in its harmfulness and
uses, one must put up with unwelcome discoveries.
Furthermore, I think we may with
advantage distinguish what we may describe as the
direct
injuries caused by masturbation from those which arise
indirectly
from the ego’s resistance and indignation
against that sexual activity. I have not entered into these latter
consequences.
Contributions To A Discussion On Masturbation
2574
And now I am obliged to add a few
words on the second of the two painful questions we have been
asked. Assuming that masturbation can be injurious, under what
conditions and in what people does it prove to be so?
Like the majority of you, I am
inclined to refuse to give a general answer to the question. It
partly coincides with another, more comprehensive question: when
does sexual activity in general become pathogenic for particular
people? If we put this consideration on one side, we are left with
a question of detail relating to the characteristics of
masturbation in so far as it represents a special manner and form
of sexual satisfaction. Here it would be to the point to repeat
what is already known to us and has been discussed in other
connections - to assess the influence of the
quantitative
factor and of the combined operation of several pathogenic factors.
Above all, however, we should have to leave a wide field for what
are known as an individual’s constitutional dispositions. But
it must be confessed that dealing with these is an awkward
business. For we are in the habit of forming our opinion of
individual dispositions
ex post facto
: we attribute this or
that disposition to people after the event, when they have already
fallen ill. We have no method of discovering it beforehand. We
behave, in fact, like the Scottish King in one of Victor
Hugo’s novels, who boasted of an infallible method of
recognizing witchcraft. He had the accused woman stewed in boiling
water and then tasted the broth. He then judged according to the
taste: ‘Yes, that was a witch’, or ‘No, that was
not one.’
There is another question that I
might draw your attention to, which has been dealt with too little
in our discussions: that of ‘unconscious’ masturbation.
I mean masturbation during sleep, during abnormal states, or fits.
You will recall the many hysterical fits in which masturbatory acts
recur in a disguised or unrecognizable way, after the subject has
renounced that form of satisfaction, and the many symptoms in
obsessional neurosis which seek to replace and repeat this kind of
sexual activity, which has formerly been forbidden. We may also
speak of a therapeutic return of masturbation. A number of you will
have found on occasion, as I have, that it represents a great
advance if during the treatment the patient ventures to take up
masturbation once more, though he may have no intention of making a
permanent stop at that infantile halting-place. In this connection
I may remind you that a considerable number of precisely the most
severe sufferers from neurosis have avoided all recollection of
masturbation during historic times, while psycho-analysis is able
to prove that that species of sexual activity had by no means been
strange to them during the forgotten earliest period of their
lives.
But I think the time has come to
break off. For we are all agreed on one thing - that the subject of
masturbation is quite inexhaustible.
2575
A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS IN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
(1912)
2576
Intentionally left blank
2577
A NOTE ON THE UNCONSCIOUS IN PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
I wish to expound in a few words and as
plainly as possible what the term ‘unconscious’ has
come to mean in Psycho-analysis and in Psycho-analysis alone.
A conception - or any other
psychical element - which is now
present
to my consciousness
may become
absent
the next moment, and may become
present
again
, after an interval, unchanged, and, as we say, from
memory, not as a result of a fresh perception by our senses. It is
this fact which we are accustomed to account for by the supposition
that during the interval the conception has been present in our
mind, although
latent
in consciousness. In what shape it may
have existed while present in the mind and latent in consciousness
we have no means of guessing.
At this very point we may be
prepared to meet with the philosophical objection that the latent
conception did not exist as an object of psychology, but as a
physical disposition for the recurrence of the same psychical
phenomenon, i.e. of the said conception. But we may reply that this
is a theory far overstepping the domain of psychology proper; that
it simply begs the question by asserting ‘conscious’ to
be an identical term with ‘psychical’, and that it is
clearly at fault in denying psychology the right to account for its
most common facts, such as memory, by its own means.
Now let us call
‘conscious’ the conception which is present to our
consciousness and of which we are aware, and let this be the only
meaning of the term ‘conscious’. As for latent
conceptions, if we have any reason to suppose that they exist in
the mind - as we had in the case of memory - let them be denoted by
the term ‘unconscious’.
Thus an unconscious conception is
one of which we are not aware, but the existence of which we are
nevertheless ready to admit on account of other proofs or
signs.
This might be considered an
uninteresting piece of descriptive or classificatory work if no
experience appealed to our judgement other than the facts of
memory, or the cases of association by unconscious links. The
well-known experiment, however, of the ‘post-hypnotic
suggestion’ teaches us to insist upon the importance of the
distinction between
conscious
and
unconscious
and
seems to increase its value.
A Note On The Unconscious In Psycho-Analysis
2578
In this experiment, as performed
by Bernheim, a person is put into a hypnotic state and is
subsequently aroused. While he was in the hypnotic state, under the
influence of the physician, he was ordered to execute a certain
action at a certain fixed moment after his awakening, say half an
hour later. He awakes, and seems fully conscious and in his
ordinary condition; he has no recollection of his hypnotic state,
and yet at the prearranged moment there rushes into his mind the
impulse to do such and such a thing, and he does it consciously,
though not knowing why. It seems impossible to give any other
description of the phenomenon than to say that the order had been
present in the mind of the person in a condition of latency, or had
been present unconsciously, until the given moment came, and then
had become conscious. But not the whole of it emerged into
consciousness: only the conception of the act to be executed. All
the other ideas associated with this conception - the order, the
influence of the physician, the recollection of the hypnotic state,
remained unconscious even then.
But we have more to learn from
such an experiment. We are led from the purely descriptive to a
dynamic
view of the phenomenon. The idea of the action
ordered in hypnosis not only became an object of consciousness at a
certain moment, but the more striking aspect of the fact is that
this idea grew
active
: it was translated into action as soon
as consciousness became aware of its presence. The real stimulus to
the action being the order of the physician, it is hard not to
concede that the idea of the physician’s order became active
too. Yet this last idea did not reveal itself to consciousness, as
did its outcome, the idea of the action; it remained unconscious,
and so it was
active and unconscious
at the same time.
A post-hypnotic suggestion is a
laboratory production, an artificial fact. But if we adopt the
theory of hysterical phenomena first put forward by P. Janet and
elaborated by Breuer and myself, we shall not be at a loss for
plenty of natural facts showing the psychological character of the
post-hypnotic suggestion even more clearly and distinctly.
A Note On The Unconscious In Psycho-Analysis
2579
The mind of the hysterical
patient is full of active yet unconscious ideas; all her symptoms
proceed from such ideas. It is in fact the most striking character
of the hysterical mind to be ruled by them. If the hysterical woman
vomits, she may do so from the idea of being pregnant. She has,
however, no knowledge of this idea, although it can easily be
detected in her mind, and made conscious to her, by one of the
technical procedures of psycho-analysis. If she is executing the
jerks and movements constituting her ‘fit’, she does
not even consciously represent to herself the intended actions, and
she may perceive those actions with the detached feelings of an
onlooker. Nevertheless analysis will show that she was acting her
part in the dramatic reproduction of some incident in her life, the
memory of which was unconsciously active during the attack. The
same preponderance of active unconscious ideas is revealed by
analysis as the essential fact in the psychology of all other forms
of neurosis.
We learn therefore by the
analysis of neurotic phenomena that a latent or unconscious idea is
not necessarily a weak one, and that the presence of such an idea
in the mind admits of indirect proofs of the most cogent kind,
which are equivalent to the direct proof furnished by
consciousness. We feel justified in making our classification agree
with this addition to our knowledge by introducing a fundamental
distinction between different kinds of latent or unconscious ideas.
We were accustomed to think that every latent idea was so because
it was weak and that it grew conscious as soon as it became strong.
We have not gained the conviction that there are some latent ideas
which do not penetrate into consciousness, however strong they may
have become. Therefore we may call the latent ideas of the first
type
foreconscious
,¹ while we reserve the term
unconscious
(proper) for the latter type which we came to
study in the neuroses. The term
unconscious
, which was used
in the purely descriptive sense before, now comes to imply
something more. It designates not only latent ideas in general, but
especially ideas with a certain dynamic character, ideas keeping
apart from consciousness in spite of their intensity and
activity.
¹
[In the 1925 English version, throughout
the paper, ‘foreconscious’ was altered to
‘preconscious’, which has, of course, become the
regular translation of the German
‘
vorbewusst
’.]
A Note On The Unconscious In Psycho-Analysis
2580
Before continuing my exposition I
will refer to two objection which are likely to be raised at this
point. The first of these may be stated thus: instead of
subscribing to the hypothesis of unconscious ideas of which we know
nothing, we had better assume that consciousness can be split up,
so that certain ideas or other psychical acts may constitute a
consciousness apart; which has become detached and estranged from
the bulk of conscious psychical activity. Well-known pathological
cases like that of Dr. Azam seem to go far to show that the
splitting up of consciousness is no fanciful imagination.
I venture to urge against this
theory that it is a gratuitous assumption, based on the abuse of
the word ‘conscious’. We have no right to extend the
meaning of this word so for as to make it include a consciousness
of which its owner himself is not aware. If philosophers find
difficulty in accepting the existence of unconscious ideas, the
existence of an unconscious consciousness seems to me even more
objectionable. The cases described as splitting of consciousness,
like Dr. Azam’s, might better be denoted as shifting of
consciousness, - that function - or whatever it be - oscillating
between two different psychical complexes which become conscious
and unconscious in alternation.
The other objection that may
probably be raised would be that we apply to normal psychology
conclusions which are drawn chiefly from the study of pathological
conditions. We are enabled to answer it by another fact, the
knowledge of which we owe to psycho-analysis. Certain deficiencies
of function of most frequent occurrence among healthy people, e.g.
lapsus linguae
, errors in memory and speech, forgetting of
names, etc., may easily be shown to depend on the action of strong
unconscious ideas in the same way as neurotic symptoms. We shall
meet with another still more convincing argument at a later stage
of this discussion.
By the differentiation of
foreconscious and unconscious ideas, we are led on to leave the
field of classification and to form an opinion about functional and
dynamical relations in psychical action. We have found a
foreconscious activity
passing into consciousness with no
difficulty, and an
unconscious activity
which remains so and
seems to be cut off from consciousness.
A Note On The Unconscious In Psycho-Analysis
2581
Now we do not know whether these
two modes of psychical activity are identical or essentially
divergent from their beginning, but we may ask why they should
become different in the course of psychical action. To this last
question psycho-analysis gives a clear and unhesitating answer. It
is by no means impossible for the product of unconscious activity
to pierce into consciousness, but a certain amount of exertion is
needed for this task. When we try to do it in ourselves, we become
aware of a distinct feeling of
repulsion
¹ which must be
overcome, and when we produce it in a patient we get the most
unquestionable signs of what we call his
resistance
to it.
So we learn that the unconscious idea is excluded from
consciousness by living forces which oppose themselves to its
reception, while they do not object to other ideas, the
foreconscious ones. Psycho-analysis leaves no room for doubt that
the repulsion from unconscious ideas is only provoked by the
tendencies embodied in their contents. The next and most probable
theory which can be formulated at this stage of our knowledge is
the following. Unconsciousness is a regular and inevitable phase in
the processes constituting our psychical activity; every psychical
act begins as an unconscious one, and it may either remain so or go
on developing into consciousness, according as it meets with
resistance or not. The distinction between foreconscious and
unconscious activity is not a primary one, but comes to be
established after repulsion has sprung up. Only then the difference
between foreconscious ideas, which can appear in consciousness and
reappear at any moment, and unconscious ideas which cannot do so
gains a theoretical as well as a practical value. A rough but not
inadequate analogy to this supposed relation of conscious to
unconscious activity might be drawn from the field of ordinary
photography. The first stage of the photograph is the
‘negative’; every photographic picture has to pass
through the ‘negative process’, and some of these
negatives which have held good in examination are admitted to the
‘positive process’ ending in the picture.
¹
[In the German translation the word
‘repulsion’, here and lower down, is rendered by
‘
Abwehr
’, of which the usual English version is
‘defence’ or ‘fending off ‘.]
A Note On The Unconscious In Psycho-Analysis
2582
But the distinction between
foreconscious and unconscious activity, and the recognition of the
barrier which keeps them asunder, is not the last or the most
important result of the psycho-analytic investigation of psychical
life. There is one psychical product to be met with in the most
normal persons, which yet presents a very striking analogy to the
wildest productions of insanity, and was no more intelligible to
philosophers than insanity itself. I refer to dreams.
Psycho-analysis is founded upon the analysis of dreams; the
interpretation of dreams is the most complete piece of work the
young science has done up to the present. One of the most common
types of dream-formation may be described as follows: a train of
thoughts has been aroused by the working of the mind in the
daytime, and retained some of its activity, escaping from the
general inhibition of interests which introduces sleep and
constitutes the psychical preparation for sleeping. During the
night this train of thoughts succeeds in finding connections with
one of the unconscious tendencies present ever since his childhood
in the mind of the dreamer, but ordinarily
repressed
and
excluded from his conscious life. By the borrowed force of this
unconscious help, the thoughts, the residue of the day’s
work,¹ now become active again, and emerge into consciousness
in the shape of the dream. Now three things have happened: