Part 2

Five-and-twenty years of intensive work have brought about a complete change in the more immediate aims of psycho-analytic technique. At first the endeavours of the analytic physician were confined to divining the unconscious of which his patient was unaware, effecting a synthesis of its various components and communicating it at the right time. Psychoanalysis was above all an art of interpretation. Since the therapeutic task was not thereby accomplished, the next aim was to compel the patient to confirm the reconstruction through his own memory. In this endeavour the chief emphasis was on the resistances of the patient; the art now lay in unveiling these as soon as possible, in calling the patient’s attention to them, and by human influence—here came in suggestion acting as ‘transference’—teaching him to abandon the resistances.

It then became increasingly clear, however, that the aim in view, the bringing into consciousness of the unconscious, was not fully attainable by this method either. The patient cannot recall all of what lies repressed, perhaps not even the essential part of it, and so gains no conviction that the conclusion presented to him is correct. He is obliged rather to _repeat_ as a current experience what is repressed, instead of, as the physician would prefer to see him do, _recollecting_ it as a fragment of the past.[7] This reproduction appearing with unwelcome fidelity always contains a fragment of the infantile sex-life, therefore of the Oedipus complex and its off-shoots, and is played regularly in the sphere of transference, i. e. the relationship to the physician. When this point in the treatment is reached, it may be said that the earlier neurosis is now replaced by a fresh one, viz. the transference-neurosis. The physician makes it his concern to limit the scope of this transference-neurosis as much as he can, to force into memory as much as possible, and to leave as little as possible to repetition. The relation established between memory and reproduction is different for every case. As a rule the physician cannot spare the patient this phase of the cure; he must let him live through a certain fragment of his forgotten life, and has to see to it that some measure of ascendency remains, in the light of which the apparent reality is always recognised as a reflection of a forgotten past. If this is successfully accomplished then conviction on the part of the patient is attained, and with it the therapeutic result that depends on it.

In order to render more comprehensible this ‘repetition-compulsion’ which appears in the psycho-analytic treatment of neurotics, we must above all get entirely rid of the erroneous idea that in this struggle with resistances we are concerned with any resistance on the part of the unconscious. The unconscious, i. e. the ‘repressed’ material, offers no resistance whatever to the curative efforts; indeed it has no other aim than to force its way through the pressure weighing on it, either to consciousness or to discharge by means of some real action. The resistance in the treatment proceeds from the same higher levels and systems in the psychic life that in their time brought about the repression. But since the motives of the resistances, and indeed the resistances themselves, are found in the process of the treatment to be unconscious, we are well advised to amend an inadequacy in our mode of expression. We escape ambiguity if we contrast not the conscious and the unconscious, but the coherent ego and the repressed. Much in the ego is certainly unconscious itself, just what may be called the kernel of the ego; only a part of it comes under the category of preconscious. After thus replacing a purely descriptive method of expression by a systematic or dynamic one, we may say that the resistance on the part of the analysed person proceeds from his ego, and then we at once see that the ‘repetition-compulsion’ must be ascribed to the repressed element in the unconscious. It probably could not find expression till the work of the treatment coming to meet it had loosened the repression.

There is no doubt that the resistance of the conscious and preconscious ego subserves the pleasure-principle; it is trying to avoid the ‘pain’ that would be aroused by the release of the repressed material, and our efforts are directed to effecting an entry for such painful feeling by an appeal to the reality-principle. In what relation to the pleasure-principle then does the repetition-compulsion stand, that which expresses the force of what is repressed? It is plain that most of what is revived by the repetition-compulsion cannot but bring discomfort to the ego, for it promotes the bringing to light of the activities of repressed impulses; but that is a discomfort we have already taken into account and without subversion of the pleasure-principle, since it is ‘pain’ in respect of one system and at the same time satisfaction for the other. The new and remarkable fact, however, that we have now to describe is that the repetition-compulsion also revives experiences of the past that contain no potentiality of pleasure, and which could at no time have been satisfactions, even of impulses since repressed.

The efflorescence of infantile sex-life was, by reason of the irreconcilability of its wishes with reality and the inadequacy of the childhood stage of development reached, destined to pass away. It perished in most painful circumstances and with feelings of a deeply distressing nature. Loss and failure in the sphere of the affections left behind on the ego-feeling marks of injury comparable to a narcissistic scar, which, according to my experience and the exposition given by Marcinowski,[8] yields the most important contribution to the ‘inferiority complex’ common among neurotics. The sex-quest to which the physical development of the child set limits could be brought to no satisfying conclusion; hence the plaint in later life: ‘I can’t do anything, I am never successful.’ The bonds of tenderness linking the child more especially to the parent of the opposite sex succumbed to disappointment, to the vain expectation of satisfaction, and to the jealousy aroused by the birth of a new child, unmistakable proof as it is of the faithlessness of the loved parent; the child’s attempt, undertaken with tragic seriousness, to produce another such child himself met with humiliating failure; while the partial withdrawal of the tenderness lavished on the little one, the more exacting demands of discipline and education, severe words and an occasional punishment finally revealed to him the whole extent of the disdain which is his portion. Some few regularly recurring types are to be found, according to the way in which the typical love of this period was brought to an end.

All these undesired happenings and painful affective situations are repeated by neurotics in the ‘transference’ stage and re-animated with much ingenuity. They struggle to break off the unfinished treatment, they know how to re-create the feeling of being disdained, how to force the physician to adopt brusque speech and a chilling manner towards them, they find suitable objects for their jealousy, they substitute for the ardently desired child of early days the promise of some great gift which becomes as little real as that was. Nothing of all this could ever have afforded any pleasure; one would suppose it ought to bring somewhat less ‘pain’ if revealed as memory rather than if lived through as a new experience. It is a question naturally of the action of impulses that should lead to satisfaction, but the experience that instead of this they even then brought ‘pain’ has borne no result. The act is repeated in spite of everything; a powerful compulsion insists on it.

That which psycho-analysis reveals in the transference phenomena with neurotics can also be observed in the life of normal persons. It here gives the impression of a pursuing fate, a daemonic trait in their destiny, and psycho-analysis has from the outset regarded such a life history as in a large measure self-imposed and determined by infantile influences. The compulsion which thereby finds expression is in no way different from the repetition-compulsion of neurotics, even though such persons have never shown signs of a neurotic conflict resulting in symptoms. Thus one knows people with whom every human relationship ends in the same way: benefactors whose protégés, however different they may otherwise have been, invariably after a time desert them in ill-will, so that they are apparently condemned to drain to the dregs all the bitterness of ingratitude; men with whom every friendship ends in the friend’s treachery; others who indefinitely often in their lives invest some other person with authority either in their own eyes or generally, and themselves overthrow such authority after a given time, only to replace it by a new one; lovers whose tender relationships with women each and all run through the same phases and come to the same end, and so on. We are less astonished at this ‘endless repetition of the same’ if there is involved a question of active behaviour on the part of the person concerned, and if we detect in his character an unalterable trait which must always manifest itself in the repetition of identical experiences. Far more striking are those cases where the person seems to be experiencing something passively, without exerting any influence of his own, and yet always meets with the same fate over and over again. One may recall, for example, the story of the woman who married three men in succession, each of whom fell ill after a short time and whom she had to nurse till their death.[9] Tasso gives a singularly affecting poetical portrayal of such a trend of fate in the romantic epic: ‘Gerusalemme liberata.’ The hero, Tancred, has unwittingly slain Clorinda, the maiden he loved, who fought with him disguised in the armour of an enemy knight. After her burial he penetrates into the mysterious enchanted wood, the bane of the army of the crusaders. Here he hews down a tall tree with his sword, but from the gash in the trunk blood streams forth and the voice of Clorinda whose soul is imprisoned in the tree cries out to him in reproach that he has once more wrought a baleful deed on his beloved.

In the light of such observations as these, drawn from the behaviour during transference and from the fate of human beings, we may venture to make the assumption that there really exists in psychic life a repetition-compulsion, which goes beyond the pleasure-principle. We shall now also feel disposed to relate to this compelling force the dreams of shock-patients and the play-impulse in children. We must of course remind ourselves that only in rare cases can we recognise the workings of this repetition-compulsion in a pure form, without the co-operation of other motives. As regards children’s play we have already pointed out what other interpretations its origin permits. The repetition-compulsion and direct pleasurable satisfaction of impulse seem there to be inextricably intertwined. The transference phenomena obviously subserve the purpose of the resistance made by the ego persisting in its repression: the repetition-compulsion is, as it were, called to the aid of the ego, which is resolved to hold fast to the pleasure-principle. In what one might call the destiny compulsion much appears capable of rational explanation, so that no need is felt to establish a new and mysterious impulse. The least suspicious case is perhaps that of the shock-dream, but on closer examination it must be admitted that in the other examples too the state of affairs is not completely explained by the operation of the motives known to us. There remains enough over to justify the assumption of a repetition-compulsion, and this seems to us more primitive, more elementary, more instinctive than the pleasure-principle which is displaced by it. But if there is such a repetition-compulsion in psychic life, we should naturally like to know with what function it corresponds, under what conditions it may appear, and in what relation it stands to the pleasure-principle, to which we have heretofore ascribed the domination over the course of the processes of excitation in the psychic life.

IV

What follows now is speculation, speculation often far-fetched, which each will according to his particular attitude acknowledge or neglect. Or one may call it the exploitation of an idea out of curiosity to see whither it will lead.

Psycho-analytic speculation starts from the impression gained on investigating unconscious processes that consciousness cannot be the most general characteristic of psychic processes, but merely a special function of them. Metapsychologically expressed, it asserts that consciousness is the functioning of a particular system which may be called Bw. Since consciousness essentially yields perceptions of excitations coming from without and feelings (_Empfindungen_) of pleasure and ‘pain’ which can only be derived from within the psychic apparatus, we may allot the system W-Bw.[10] (= perceptual consciousness) a position in space. It must lie on the boundary between outer and inner, must face towards the outer world, and must envelop the other psychic systems. We then note that in this assumption we have ventured nothing new, but are in agreement with the localising tendencies of cerebral anatomy, which places the ‘seat’ of consciousness in the cortical layer, the outermost enveloping layer of the central organ. Cerebral anatomy does not need to wonder why—anatomically speaking—consciousness should be accomodated on the surface of the brain, instead of being safely lodged somewhere in the deepest recesses of it. Perhaps we may carry matters a little further than this in our deduction of such a position for our system W-Bw.

Consciousness is not the only peculiar feature that we ascribe to the processes in this system. Our impressions gained by psycho-analytic experience lead us to the supposition that all excitation processes in the other systems leave in them permanent traces forming the foundations of memory-records which have nothing to do with the question of becoming conscious. They are often strongest and most enduring when the process that left them behind never reached consciousness at all. But we find it difficult to believe that such lasting traces of excitation are formed also in the system W-Bw. itself. If they remained permanently in consciousness they would very soon limit the fitness of the system for registration of new excitations;[11] on the other hand, if they became unconscious we should be confronted with the task of explaining the existence of unconscious processes in a system whose functioning is otherwise accompanied by the phenomenon of consciousness. We should, so to speak, have gained nothing and altered nothing by our supposition which relegates to a special system the process of becoming conscious. Though this may not be an absolutely binding consideration, it may at any rate lead us to conjecture that becoming conscious and leaving behind a memory-trace are processes incompatible with each other in the same system. We should thus be able to say: in the system Bw. the process of excitation becomes conscious but it leaves behind no lasting trace; all the traces of it on which memory relies would come about in the next systems inwards from the propagation of the excitation on to them. It is on these lines that the scheme is sketched which I inserted into the speculative section of my ‘Traumdeutung’ in 1900. If one reflects how little we know from other sources about the origin of consciousness the pronouncement that _consciousness arises in the place of the memory-trace_ must be conceded at least the importance of a statement which is to some extent definite.

The system Bw. would thus be characterised by the peculiarity that the excitation process does not leave in it, as it does in all other psychic systems, a permanent alteration of its elements, but is as it were discharged in the phenomenon of becoming conscious and vanishes. Such a departure from the general rule requires an explanation on the ground of a factor which comes into account in this one system only: this factor which is absent from all other systems might well be the exposed situation of the Bw. system—its immediate contact with the outer world.

Let us imagine the living organism in the simplest possible form as an undifferentiated vesicle of sensitive substance: then its surface, exposed as it is to the outer world, is by its very position differentiated and serves as an organ for receiving stimuli. Embryology, repeating as it does the history of evolution, does in fact show that the central nervous system arises from the ectoderm; the grey cortex of the brain remains a derivative of the primitive superficial layer and may have inherited essential properties from this. It would then be easily conceivable that, owing to the constant impact of external stimuli on the superficies of the vesicle, its substance would undergo lasting alteration to a certain depth, so that its excitation process takes a different course from that taken in the deeper layers. Thus a rind would be formed which would finally have been so burned through by the effects of stimulation that it presents the most favourable conditions for the reception of stimuli and is incapable of any further modification. Applying this idea to the system Bw., this would mean that its elements are not susceptible of any further lasting alteration from the passage of the excitation, because they are already modified to the uttermost in that respect. But they are then capable of giving rise to consciousness. In what exactly these modifications of the substance and of the excitation process in it consist many views may be held which as yet cannot be tested. It may be assumed that the excitation has, in its transmission from one element to another, to overcome a resistance, and that this diminution of the resistance itself lays down the permanent trace of the excitation (a path): in system Bw. there would no longer exist any such resistance to transmission from one element to another. We may associate with this conception Breuer’s distinction between quiescent (bound) and free-moving ‘investment-energy’ in the elements of the psychic systems;[12] the elements of the system Bw. would then convey no ‘bound’ energy, only free energy capable of discharge. In my opinion, however, it is better for the present to express oneself as to these conditions in the least committal way. At any rate by these speculations we should have brought the origin of consciousness into a certain connection with the position of the system Bw. and with the peculiarities of the excitation process to be ascribed to this.

We have more to say about the living vesicle with its receptive outer layer. This morsel of living substance floats about in an outer world which is charged with the most potent energies, and it would be destroyed by the operation of the stimuli proceeding from this world if it were not furnished with a protection against stimulation (_Reizschutz_). It acquires this through its outermost layer—which gives the structure that belongs to living matter—becoming in a measure inorganic, and this now operates as a special integument or membrane that keeps off the stimuli, i. e. makes it impossible for the energies of the outer world to act with more than a fragment of their intensity on the layers immediately below which have preserved their vitality. These are now able under cover of the protecting layer to devote themselves to the reception of those stimulus masses that have been let through. But the outer layer has by its own death secured all the deeper layers from a like fate—at least so long as no stimuli present themselves of such a strength as to break through the protective barrier. For the living organism protection against stimuli is almost a more important task than reception of stimuli; the protective barrier is equipped with its own store of energy and must above all endeavour to protect the special forms of energy-transformations going on within itself from the equalising and therefore destructive influence of the enormous energies at work in the outer world. The reception of stimuli serves above all the purpose of collecting information about the direction and nature of the external stimuli, and for that it must suffice to take little samples of the outer world, to taste it, so to speak, in small quantities. In highly developed organisms the receptive external layer of what was once a vesicle has long been withdrawn into the depths of the body, but portions of it have been left on the surface immediately beneath the common protective barrier. These portions form the sense organs, which essentially comprise arrangements for the reception of specific stimuli, but also possess special arrangements adapted for a fresh protection against an overwhelming amount of stimulus, and for warding off unsuitable kinds of stimuli. It is characteristic of them that they assimilate only very small quantities of the outer stimulus, and take in only samples of the outer world; one might compare them to antennae which touch at the outer world and then constantly withdraw from it again.

At this point I shall permit myself to touch cursorily upon a theme which would deserve the most thorough treatment. The Kantian proposition that time and space are necessary modes of thought may be submitted to discussion to-day in the light of certain knowledge reached through psycho-analysis. We have found by experience that unconscious mental processes are in themselves ‘timeless’. That is to say to begin with: they are not arranged chronologically, time alters nothing in them, nor can the idea of time be applied to them. These are negative characteristics, which can be made plain only by instituting a comparison with conscious psychic processes. Our abstract conception of time seems rather to be derived wholly from the mode of functioning of the system W-Bw., and to correspond with a self-perception of it. In this mode of functioning of the system another form of protection against stimulation probably comes into play. I know that these statements sound very obscure, but I must confine myself to these few hints.

So far we have got to the point that the living vesicle is equipped with a protection against stimuli from the outer world. Before that, we had decided that the cortical layer next to it must be differentiated as the organ for reception of external stimuli. But this sensitive layer (what is later the system Bw.) also receives excitations from within: the position of the system between outer and inner and the difference in the conditions under which this receptivity operates on the two sides become deciding factors for the functioning of the system and of the whole psychic apparatus. Towards the outer world there is a barrier against stimuli, and the mass of excitations coming up against it will take effect only on a reduced scale; towards what is within no protection against stimuli is possible, the excitations of the deeper layers pursue their way direct and in undiminished mass into the system, while certain characteristics of their course produce the series of pleasure-pain feelings. Naturally the excitations coming from within will, in conformity with their intensity and other qualitative characteristics (or possibly their amplitude), be more proportionate to the mode of operation of the system than the stimuli streaming in from the outer world. Two things are, however, decisively determined by these conditions: first the preponderance over all outer stimuli of the pleasure and ‘pain’ feelings, which are an index for processes within the mechanism; and secondly a shaping of behaviour towards such inner excitations as bring with them an overplus of ‘pain’. There will be a tendency to treat them as though they were acting not from within but from without, in order for it to be possible to apply against them the defensive measures of the barrier against stimuli (_Reizschutz_). This is the origin of projection, for which so important a part is reserved in the production of pathological states.