Freud - Complete Works (500 page)
The Unconscious
3008
As regards obsessional neurosis,
we need only add to the observations brought forward in the
preceding paper that it is here that the anticathexis from the
system
Cs.
comes most noticeably into the foreground. It is
this which, organized as a reaction-formation, brings about the
first repression, and which is later the point at which the
repressed idea breaks through. We may venture the supposition that
it is because of the predominance of the anticathexis and the
absence of discharge that the work of repression seems far less
successful in anxiety hysteria and in obsessional neurosis than in
conversion hysteria.
The Unconscious
3009
V. THE SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
SYSTEM
Ucs.
The distinction we have made
between the two psychical systems receives fresh significance when
we observe that processes in the one system, the
Ucs.
, show
characteristics which are not met with again in the system
immediately above it.
The nucleus of the
Ucs.
consists of instinctual representatives which seek to discharge
their cathexis; that is to say, it consists of wishful impulses.
These instinctual impulses are co-ordinate with one another, exist
side by side without being influenced by one another, and are
exempt from mutual contradiction. When two wishful impulses whose
aims must appear to us incompatible become simultaneously active,
the two impulses do not diminish each other or cancel each other
out, but combine to form an intermediate aim, a compromise.
There are in this system no
negation, no doubt, no degrees of certainty: all this is only
introduced by the work of the censorship between the
Ucs.
and the
Pcs.
Negation is a substitute, at a higher level,
for repression. In the
Ucs.
there are only contents,
cathected with greater or lesser strength.
The cathectic intensities are
much more mobile. By the process of
displacement
one idea
may surrender to another its whole quota of cathexis; by the
process of
condensation
it may appropriate the whole
cathexis of several other ideas. I have proposed to regard these
two processes as distinguishing marks of the so-called
primary
psychical process
. In the system
Pcs.
the
secondary
process
¹ is dominant. When a primary process is allowed to
take its course in connection with elements belonging to the system
Pcs.
, it appears ‘comic’ and excites
laughter.
¹
Cf. the discussion in Chapter VII of
The
Interpretation of Dreams
(1900
a
), based on ideas
developed by Breuer in
Studies on Hysteria
(Breuer and
Freud, 1895).
The Unconscious
3010
The processes of the system
Ucs.
are
timeless
; i.e. they are not ordered
temporally, are not altered by the passage of time; they have no
reference to time at all. Reference to time is bound up, once
again, with the work of the system
Cs.
The
Ucs.
processes pay
just as little regard to
reality
. They are subject to the
pleasure principle; their fate depends only on how strong they are
and on whether they fulfil the demands of the pleasure-unpleasure
regulation.
To sum up:
exemption from
mutual contradiction, primary process
(mobility of cathexes),
timelessness
, and
replacement of external by psychical
reality
- these are the characteristics which we may expect to
find in processes belonging to the system
Ucs.
¹
Unconscious processes only become
cognizable by us under the conditions of dreaming and of neurosis -
that is to say, when processes of the higher,
Pcs.
, system
are set back to an earlier stage by being lowered (by regression).
In themselves they cannot be cognized, indeed are even incapable of
carrying on their existence; for the system
Ucs.
is at a
very early moment overlaid by the
Pcs.
which has taken over
access to consciousness and to motility. Discharge from the system
Ucs.
passes into somatic innervation that leads to
development of affect; but even this path of discharge is, as we
have seen, contested by the
Pcs.
By itself, the system
Ucs.
would not in normal conditions be able to bring about
any expedient muscular acts, with the exception of those already
organized as reflexes.
¹
We are reserving for a different context
the mention of another notable privilege of the
Ucs.
The Unconscious
3011
The full significance of the
characteristics of the system
Ucs.
described above could
only be appreciated by us if we were to contrast and compare them
with those of the system
Pcs.
But this would take us so far
afield that I propose that we should once more call a halt and not
undertake the comparison of the two till we can do so in connection
with our discussion of the higher system. Only the most pressing
points of all will be mentioned at this stage.
The processes of the system
Pcs.
display - no matter whether they are already conscious
or only capable of becoming conscious - an inhibition of the
tendency of cathected ideas towards discharge. When a process
passes from one idea to another, the first idea retains a part of
its cathexis and only a small portion undergoes displacement.
Displacements and condensations such as happen in the primary
process are excluded or very much restricted. This circumstance
caused Breuer to assume the existence of two different states of
cathectic energy in mental life: one in which the energy is
tonically ‘bound’ and the other in which it is freely
mobile and presses towards discharge. In my opinion this
distinction represents the deepest insight we have gained up to the
present into the nature of nervous energy, and I do not see how we
can avoid making it. A metapsychological presentation would most
urgently call for further discussion at this point, though perhaps
that would be too daring an undertaking as yet.
Further, it devolves upon the
system
Pcs.
to make communication possible between the
different ideational contents so that they can influence one
another, to give them an order in time, and to set up a censorship
or several censorships; ‘reality testing’ too, and the
reality-principle, are in its province. Conscious memory, moreover,
seems to depend wholly on the
Pcs.
This should be clearly
distinguished from the memory-traces in which the experiences of
the
Ucs.
are fixed, and probably corresponds to a special
registration such as we proposed (but later rejected) to account
for the relation of conscious to unconscious ideas. In this
connection, also, we shall find means for putting an end to our
oscillations in regard to the naming of the higher system - which
we have hitherto spoken of indifferently, sometimes as the
Pcs.
and sometimes as the
Cs.
The Unconscious
3012
Nor will it be out of place here
to utter a warning against any over-hasty generalization of what we
have brought to light concerning the distribution of the various
mental functions between the two systems. We are describing the
state of affairs as it appears in the adult human being, in whom
the system
Ucs.
operates, strictly speaking, only as a
preliminary stage of the higher organization. The question of what
the content and connections of that system are during the
development of the individual, and of what significance it
possesses in animals - these are points on which no conclusion can
be deduced from our description: they must be investigated
independently. Moreover, in human beings we must be prepared to
find possible pathological conditions under which the two systems
alter, or even exchange, both their content and their
characteristics.
The Unconscious
3013
VI. COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE TWO
SYSTEMS
It would nevertheless be wrong to
imagine that the
Ucs.
remains at rest while the whole work
of the mind is performed by the
Pcs.
- that the
Ucs.
is something finished with, a vestigial organ, a residuum from the
process of development. It is wrong also to suppose that
communication between the two systems is confined to the act of
repression, with the
Pcs.
casting everything that seems
disturbing to it into the abyss of the
Ucs.
On the contrary,
the
Ucs.
is alive and capable of development and maintains a
number of other relations with the
Pcs.
, amongst them that
of co-operation. In brief, it must be said that the
Ucs.
is
continued into what are known as derivatives, that it is accessible
to the impressions of life, that it constantly influences the
Pcs.
, and is even, for its part, subjected to influences
from the
Pcs.
Study of the derivatives of the
Ucs.
will completely disappoint our expectations of a
schematically clear-cut distinction between the two psychical
systems. This will no doubt give rise to dissatisfaction with our
results and will probably be used to cast doubts on the value of
the way in which we have divided up the psychical processes. Our
answer is, however, that we have no other aim but that of
translating into theory the results of observation, and we deny
that there is any obligation on us to achieve at our first attempt
a well-rounded theory which will commend itself by its simplicity.
We shall defend the complications of our theory so long as we find
that they meet the results of observation, and we shall not abandon
our expectations of being led in the end by those very
complications to the discovery of a state of affairs which, while
simple in itself, can account for all the complications of
reality.
Among the derivatives of the
Ucs.
instinctual impulses, of the sort we have described,
there are some which unite in themselves characters of an opposite
kind. On the one hand, they are highly organized, free from
self-contradiction, have made use of every acquisition of the
system
Cs.
and would hardly be distinguished in our
judgement from the formations of that system. On the other hand
they are unconscious and are incapable of becoming conscious. Thus
qualitatively
they belong to the system
Pcs.
, but
factually
to the
Ucs.
Their origin is what decides
their fate. We may compare them with individuals of mixed race who,
taken all round, resemble white men, but who betray their coloured
descent by some striking feature or other, and on that account are
excluded from society and enjoy none of the privileges of white
people. Of such a nature are those phantasies of normal people as
well as of neurotics which we have recognized as preliminary stages
in the formation both of dreams and of symptoms and which, in spite
of their high degree of organization, remain repressed and
therefore cannot become conscious. They draw near to consciousness
and remain undisturbed so long as they do not have an intense
cathexis, but as soon as they exceed a certain height of cathexis
they are thrust back. Substitutive formations, too, are highly
organized derivatives of the
Ucs.
of this kind; but these
succeed in breaking through into consciousness, when circumstances
are favourable - for example, if they happen to join forces with an
anticathexis from the
Pcs.
The Unconscious
3014
When, elsewhere, we come to
examine more closely the preconditions for becoming conscious, we
shall be able to find a solution of some of the difficulties that
arise at this juncture. Here it seems a good plan to look at things
from the angle of consciousness, in contrast to our previous
approach, which was upwards from the
Ucs.
To consciousness
the whole sum of psychical processes presents itself as the realm
of the preconscious. A very great part of this preconscious
originates in the unconscious, has the character of its derivatives
and is subjected to a censorship before it can become conscious.
Another part of the
Pcs.
is capable of becoming conscious
without any censorship. Here we come upon a contradiction of an
earlier assumption. In discussing the subject of repression we were
obliged to place the censorship which is decisive for becoming
conscious between the systems
Ucs.
and
Pcs.
. Now it
becomes probable that there is a censorship between the
Pcs.
and the
Cs.
Nevertheless we shall do well not to regard this
complication as a difficulty, but to assume that to every
transition from one system to that immediately above it (that is,
every advance to a higher stage of psychical organization) there
corresponds a new censorship. This, it may be remarked, does away
with the assumption of a continuous laying down of new
registrations.
The reason for all these
difficulties is to be found in the circumstance that the attribute
of being conscious, which is the only characteristic of psychical
processes that is directly presented to us, is in no way suited to
serve as a criterion for the differentiation of systems. Apart from
the fact that the conscious is not always conscious but also at
times latent, observation has shown that much that shares the
characteristics of the system
Pcs.
does not become
conscious; and we learn in addition that the act of becoming
conscious is dependent on the attention of the
Pcs.
being
turned in certain directions. Hence consciousness stands in no
simple relation either to the different systems or to repression.
The truth is that it is not only the psychically repressed that
remains alien to consciousness, but also some of the impulses which
dominate our ego - something, therefore, that forms the strongest
functional antithesis to the repressed. The more we seek to win our
way to a metapsychological view of mental life, the more we must
learn to emancipate ourselves from the importance of the symptom of
‘being conscious’.